Blue Origin New Glenn Targets April Launch of AST Space Mobile Satellite
AST SpaceMobile is set to launch its Block 2 “BlueBird” satellite on Blue Origin’s New Glenn NG‑3 mission between April 10‑14, 2026. The next‑generation satellite promises up to 120 Mbps peak data rates and 24/7 nationwide cellular broadband coverage across more than 5,600 cells. Block 2 satellites deliver ten‑fold bandwidth over the first‑generation models, with 40 MHz beams supporting voice, data, and video services. AST plans to have 40 satellites built by early 2026, scaling toward 45‑60 in orbit by the end of 2026.
VIAVI, Ground Control Partner to Enable Assured Maritime Vessel Tracking and Navigation
VIAVI Solutions has teamed with satellite‑communications specialist Ground Control to embed its Secure µPNT STL‑1000 receiver into the RockFLEET Assured maritime tracking platform. The compact, software‑defined device works with VIAVI’s SecureTime altGNSS LEO service to deliver precise timing and positioning even when...
The RAN Semiconductor War: Ericsson vs Intel vs NVIDIA vs The Rest
The radio access network (RAN) market, worth roughly $35 billion, underpins a $1.3 trillion telecom ecosystem. A shift from traditional silicon to AI‑enabled chips is turning base stations into micro‑AI factories, influencing power consumption and national network strategy. NVIDIA, Intel, and incumbent...
BH Telecom Expands Internet Allowance in TeenZ Package
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s BH Telecom has boosted its TeenZ mobile plan, offering 30 GB of data per month – four times the previous allowance – for customers who sign a 24‑month contract under the “Giga for everyone” campaign. The promotion runs...
Realtek RTL8159 10GbE to USB 3.2 Adapters Sell for About $55 and Up
Realtek's RTL8159 10 GbE‑to‑USB 3.2 adapters have entered the market at prices ranging from roughly $45 to $80, making multi‑gigabit Ethernet accessible for laptops and small‑form‑factor PCs. The WisdPi WP‑UT9 retails for $79 (about $87 shipped to the US), while the XikeStor...
MTS Plans to Deploy 2,600 More Irteya Base Stations by Beginning of 2027
MTS, Russia’s leading mobile operator, will add 2,600 LTE base stations built by Irteya by early 2027, raising the total to 3,800 across 76 regions. The expansion supports both GSM and LTE technologies, enhancing network density in urban and remote...
Senegal's Regulator Issues Formal Warning on Illegal Wi-Fi Services
Senegal’s telecom regulator, the Autorité de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes (ARTP), issued a formal warning to operators of illegal “community Wi‑Fi” services. The warning targets networks that frequently rely on Starlink satellite antennas to provide unauthorised broadband. ARTP...
Telenet Delivers 5G Network Slice for Colruyt Trial of Unmanned Delivery Vehicle
Telenet Business is providing a dedicated 5G network slice to support Colruyt’s trial of an unmanned delivery vehicle in Leuven, Belgium. The pilot runs from mid‑May through August, with the vehicle transporting groceries from the supermarket chain to customers. Connectivity...
Lab: Summarizing IS-IS Level-1 Routes
IS‑IS was originally built for NSAP addressing, separating node and area prefixes, but its IP implementation mirrors OSPF by defaulting to no automatic prefix summarization. Network operators must manually configure summarization to aggregate Level‑1 routes into the Level‑2 backbone. The...
TCCA White Paper Gives Direction on Building Cybersecurity Into Critical Communications
The Telecoms Critical Communications Association (TCCA) has published its first white paper on cybersecurity for mission‑critical broadband networks, marking a key step toward securing 4G and 5G‑enabled communications. The document outlines international standards, frameworks and deployment models, and stresses the...
Why in 2026 Business Broadband Is Needed in Construction Enterprise
Construction firms are increasingly dependent on digital tools such as BIM, cloud project management, and IoT sensors, making reliable business broadband essential. High‑speed connectivity across sprawling job sites enables real‑time blueprint access, instant communication, and rapid data exchange, reducing delays...
Using AI, DeepSig Advances Open, Intelligent Baseband RAN Architectures
DeepSig has leveraged deep‑learning models to eliminate the pilot signal in mobile networks, cutting signaling overhead without hurting performance. The startup is now a principal contributor to OCUDU, an open‑source carrier‑grade baseband stack launched by the Linux Foundation and the...
Beyond the Network View: DNS-Driven Application Visibility
Network operators often lack visibility into which applications generate traffic. Researchers present an open‑source DNS‑based correlation system that enriches NetFlow and BGP data with application and CDN information, shifting analysis from a purely network‑centric to an application‑oriented view. The method...
Nokia on the Evolving Priorities of Emerging Market Operators
At Mobile World Congress Nokia’s SVP for the Middle East and Africa, Mikko Lavanti, highlighted the dual reality facing emerging‑market operators: conflict‑driven network disruptions and a surge of infrastructure investment. He emphasized AI’s immediate impact, citing a 30% performance boost...
Life Belarus Lauches 5G Network in Major Cities
Life Belarus announced the commercial launch of 5G services across five major Belarusian cities—Minsk, Brest, Vitebsk, Mogilyov and Gomel. The rollout leverages the state‑owned beCloud’s 5G infrastructure and is already active on more than 1,000 base stations. The deployment follows...
T2 Grows Online Sales Thanks to Integration with 2GIS Mapping Service
Russian mobile operator T2, a Rostelecom subsidiary, integrated its online storefront with the 2GIS mapping service. The move drove a 218% surge in sales generated through the platform. T2’s presence on 2GIS now reaches over one million users, highlighting rapid...
Kenyan Parliamentary Committee Evaluates USF-Supported Connectivity in Garissa County
Kenya’s National Assembly ICT committee conducted on‑site visits in Garissa County to evaluate connectivity projects funded by the Universal Service Fund (USF). MPs met directly with residents to gauge how the initiatives are being rolled out. The USF‑backed deployments are...
Yettel Hungary Extends Portable Internet Option for Easter Holiday
Yettel Hungary is extending its OtthonNet Anywhere Mode, allowing home‑internet subscribers to take their router on the road. The carrier will automatically add ten free days of the portable service for OtthonNet and OtthonNet Basic users, with the promotion running...
Plus Cuts Unlimited Package to PLN 60 on 2-Year Contract
Polkomtel, operating under the Plus brand, announced a 24‑month promotion that slashes its unlimited L post‑paid plan to PLN 60 per month (≈ $14.4), down from the regular PLN 100 (≈ $24). The same deal reduces the 60 GB M plan to PLN 50 (≈ $12) and...
AT&T One Step Closer to Ambient Connectivity
AT&T introduced a new consumer plan that bundles 5G mobile, fixed‑wireless access, Wi‑Fi, and satellite services into a single subscription, branding it as “ambient connectivity.” The offering automatically switches devices between networks to keep laptops, phones, TVs and emerging IoT...
(PR) NVIDIA Invests $2 Billion in Marvell and Expanded NVLink Fusion Partnership
NVIDIA announced a $2 billion investment in Marvell Technology and an expanded NVLink Fusion partnership. The deal links Marvell’s silicon to NVIDIA’s AI factory and AI‑RAN ecosystem, giving customers broader options for next‑generation infrastructure. Both companies will also co‑develop silicon‑photonic solutions....
A Rural Cellular Story
A review of FCC cellular maps for a fringe neighborhood in Buncombe County, North Carolina, reveals only marginal 4G coverage from AT&T and Verizon, with no viable 5G service. EchoStar’s Project Genesis was the sole provider promising usable 5G speeds,...
PolicyTracker Spectrum Database Updated with Latest Auction Results and Awards
PolicyTracker’s Spectrum Database has been refreshed with new assignments across Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, North Macedonia and Canada, and now reflects Telefonica’s exit from six South American markets. Millicom’s Tigo brand has taken over many of Movistar’s licences, reshaping the region’s...
Virgin Media O2 Switches on 5G+ in Brighton and East Sussex
Virgin Media O2 has activated its 5G+ standalone mobile service across Brighton and the wider East Sussex region. The rollout covers 14 major towns, 16 smaller towns and 252 villages, expanding O2’s high‑speed network footprint. The expansion is part of...
NIE Networks Selects BT to Drive Enhanced Connectivity and Security
BT announced a contract worth up to £200 million (approximately $250 million) with Northern Ireland Electricity Networks (NIE Networks) to provide enhanced connectivity, cybersecurity and IT services. The five‑year agreement, with an option to extend another ten years, will modernise the 2,300 km transmission...
Nokia Bags New 5G RAN Deal with Virgin Media O2
Virgin Media O2 has selected Nokia to provide a multi‑year 5G Radio Access Network deployment across the UK, extending a partnership that spans over two decades. Nokia will deliver its AirScale portfolio, featuring modular baseband, energy‑efficient Massive MIMO radios, and...
Vodafone Idea Taps Ciena to Deliver High-Capacity Connectivity
Vodafone Idea (Vi) has partnered with Ciena to upgrade its transport network using Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optical technology on the 6500 platform. The deployment achieved a 1.6 Tb/s capacity on Vi’s meshed Data Center Interconnect, enabling the carrier to offer...
The Startup Rebuilding How the World Communicates
Airbase, a stealth‑mode startup founded by former Planet Labs and True Anomaly engineers, is building software to dynamically allocate radio‑frequency spectrum, a finite resource strained by the explosion of satellites, drones, and autonomous vehicles. The founders convinced U.S. regulators that...
T2 Offers Connected Car Service for Russian Electric Car Atom
Russian mobile operator T2, a Rostelecom subsidiary, has rolled out an eSIM profile for every version of Kama’s Atom electric car. The eSIM creates a secure mobile‑network link that feeds the vehicle’s multimedia platform, enabling on‑board navigation, music streaming, video...
O2 Slovakia Offers Data Sharing for Extra Devices
O2 Slovakia launched O2 Connect, a data‑sharing add‑on that lets post‑paid customers extend their mobile plan to tablets, laptops or smartwatches. The service costs €4 per extra SIM, roughly $4.40, and can be ordered and activated through the O2 app....
Anyway, What Does AI-RAN Even Mean?
AI‑RAN is currently a marketing‑driven label rather than a defined technical standard, despite telecom’s decades‑long use of AI in radio networks. Vendors offer divergent interpretations, making it hard for operators to model total cost of ownership or plan capital expenditures....
Telefonica Germany Improves Mobile Coverage with 2,000 Expansion Measures in Q1
Telefonica Germany deployed 2,000 network expansion measures in Q1, a 25 percent year‑on‑year rise, targeting under‑served regions, rail lines and roads. The carrier also launched over 600 new 5G sites, extending 5G coverage to roughly 99 percent of the German population. These...
Delta Skips Starlink, Signs with Amazon Leo for Satellite In-Flight Wi-Fi Starting in 2028
Delta Air Lines announced a partnership with Amazon’s Leo satellite network to provide in‑flight Wi‑Fi beginning in 2028. The rollout will initially equip 500 domestic aircraft with Leo Ultra antennas delivering up to 1 Gbps download and 400 Mbps upload speeds, offered...
Mtel Germany Introduces New 'Worry-Free' Tariffs for Roaming in Balkans
German MVNO Mtel Germany has launched its new ‘Worry‑Free’ mobile tariffs aimed at eliminating roaming anxiety for travelers. The core offering provides unlimited data across the Balkans and the broader EU, covering Bosnia‑Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia. A complementary...
Rwandan Banks Deliver Debt Financing for Paradigm Tower Takeover
Rwandan banks have closed a landmark debt financing deal, dubbed Project Zorro, to fund the acquisition of IHS Rwanda, now Ishara Towers Rwanda, by Paradigm Tower. The consortium, led by Bank of Kigali and joined by Development Bank of Rwanda,...
Thousands of Pico-Satellites May Transform How Phones Connect to Space
Researchers in Japan demonstrated that tens of thousands of pico‑satellites can operate as a single, distributed phased‑array antenna for direct‑to‑smartphone communication. By wirelessly synchronizing each tiny satellite to a reference signal, the system eliminates bulky cabling and costly large‑satellite platforms....
Welsh Government Selects Extending High-Speed Broadband Suppliers
The Welsh Government has appointed three suppliers—Airband, Fibrus and Openreach—for Lot 1 and Airband, Fibrus and Wifinity for Lot 2 of its Extending High‑Speed Broadband (EHSB) scheme. The program, funded with a reclaimed £70 m budget (approximately $90 m), targets roughly 29,000 hard‑to‑reach premises...
MediaTek MT7927 "Filogic 380" WiFi Support Coming Together For Linux
MediaTek’s MT7927 (Filogic 380) chipset is gaining upstream Linux support for Wi‑Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 through the mt76 driver, thanks to developer Javier Tia. The driver has been reverse‑engineered and tested on ASUS, Lenovo, Foxconn and AMD RZ738 devices. It is now in...
CityFibre Launches Nationwide 8.5Gbps Wholesale Product
CityFibre has launched an 8.5 Gbps wholesale broadband product across its UK‑wide full‑fibre network, making symmetric ultra‑fast speeds available to all ISP partners from 21 April. The rollout leverages the company’s XGS‑PON infrastructure, which already serves 4.36 million premises and aims for an...
India’s 5G Traffic Surges over 70% YoY | Nokia MBiT Index 2026
Nokia’s 13th Mobile Broadband Index shows India’s 5G data traffic jumped 70% year‑on‑year to 12.9 exabytes in 2025, now accounting for roughly 47% of all mobile broadband traffic. Average monthly data use per subscriber rose above 31 GB, reflecting an 18% five‑year...
When iBGP Full Mesh Is Actually Unnecessary
The article debunks the long‑standing belief that iBGP must operate as a full mesh, showing that the requirement is a design choice rather than a protocol mandate. Early RFCs phrased iBGP as a complete graph, but modern RFC 4271 removed that...
Taiwan’s KBRO Taps Harmonic to Drive Network Upgrade
Taiwan’s leading multiple‑system operator KBRO is upgrading its broadband access network using Harmonic’s fiber‑on‑demand solution built on the cOS™ virtualized platform. The new architecture complements KBRO’s DOCSIS high‑split strategy, allowing demand‑driven fiber expansion and a transition to XGS‑PON for multi‑gigabit...
SM Line Ships Get Satellite Systems From SpaceX Subsidiary Starlink Korea
South Korean liner operator SM Line has equipped all 13 vessels in its fleet with satellite communications from Starlink Korea, the local arm of SpaceX. The service leverages more than 8,000 low‑earth‑orbit satellites positioned around 550 km, delivering faster and more...
RPKI vs Social Engineering: A Case Study in Route Hijacking
At APRICOT 2026, APNIC and LACNIC disclosed a BGP hijack in July 2025 that combined technical spoofing with social engineering. The attacker forged identity documents to convince a multinational upstream provider to activate transit for a stolen ASN, enabling short‑lived, unauthorized route...
Fiber Broadband Association Middle Mile WG: How to Use “Digital Infrastructure Networks” For Coordinated Fiber Backbone Investments
The Fiber Broadband Association’s Middle Mile Working Group released guidance urging states to coordinate fiber backbone projects and adopt "dig once" policies to accelerate deployment. It emphasizes that the United States must increase fiber mileage 2.3‑fold by 2029 to meet...
The Financial Trap of Autonomous Networks: Scaling Agentic AI in the Telecom Core
Telecom operators are racing to deploy autonomous, self‑healing networks powered by agentic AI, but the hidden expense of continuously running GPU‑intensive models threatens to overwhelm IT budgets and ESG goals. Traditional Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaling reacts too slowly for sub‑millisecond...
SoftBank’s Physical AI Push Gives AI-RAN a Sharper Purpose
SoftBank is rebranding from a traditional carrier to an AI‑native infrastructure provider, centering its strategy on Physical AI that couples vision‑language models with robot actions. It proposes an AI‑RAN architecture where edge MEC handles perception and task planning, while the...
Podcast: The Future of Spectrum Auctions
In a PolicyTracker podcast, NERA’s Richard Marsden discusses how spectrum auctions will evolve as 6G and satellite services expand. He predicts a shift toward more clock auctions and the disappearance of combinatorial formats, while auctions will remain the primary allocation...
Orange Subsidiary W-HA Enables M-Payments with 5G Slicing at Local Carnival
Orange’s fully owned subsidiary W‑HA partnered with the Orange 5G Lab in Rennes to pilot mobile payments at Granville’s five‑day carnival. The trial leveraged Orange’s 5G+ network slicing to create a dedicated “Tap to Pay Contodeo” channel that turned smartphones...
T2 Adds Free Calls to Russia From Abroad to Top Plans
Russian mobile operator T2, a Rostelecom subsidiary, announced it will eliminate roaming surcharges for calls to Russian networks made from abroad. The policy applies to a broad set of tariffs across more than 50 countries. Subscribers of Everywhere Online, My...
