BT now offers 5G stand-alone service to 66% of the U.K. population and is on track to cover 99% by the end of FY 2030, the carrier said Thursday. It also announced an agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink's high-speed satellite connectivity to BT and EE Limited consumer broadband customers. The agreement will help the provider serve “the hardest to reach parts of the UK,” with service expected to be available in the latter half of next year.
The FCC on Wednesday gave Hong Kong Telecom (International) until Dec. 1 to respond to the agency's request to show why its international and domestic telecom authorizations shouldn’t be revoked (see 2510150067). The Chinese company had asked for an extra 30 days, until Dec. 15 (see 2511040004).
Deutsche Telekom is working with Nvidia on an industrial AI cloud platform that will be hosted in Germany and powered by up to 10,000 Nvidia graphics processing units, the carrier said Tuesday. Based in Munich, the new Industrial AI Cloud “gives German companies the opportunity to further develop their AI models and applications with proprietary data.”
Hong Kong Telecom (International) asked for additional time to respond to an FCC request to show why its international and domestic telecom authorizations shouldn’t be revoked (see 2510150067). The Chinese company wants an extra 30 days, until Dec. 15. “The Order requires the HKT Entities to respond to 37 separate requests for information,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 25-308.
Orange reached a nonbinding agreement with Lorca to acquire full ownership of MasOrange by buying the remaining 50% stake in the Spanish joint venture for $4.84 billion. Orange said Friday that it expects to reach a binding agreement by the end of the year.
The U.K. watchdog agency ICO hit self-employed business executive Bharat Singh Chand with a 200,000 pound ($264,500) fine for sending almost 1 million spam texts about debt solutions and energy savings grants, it announced Wednesday. His actions violated the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.
The FCC is starting the process of revoking the authority of Hong Kong Telecom (International) to provide international and domestic telecom services to and within the U.S., the agency announced Wednesday. It “sent an Order to Show Cause to HKT and its wholly-owned subsidiaries directing them to explain why the FCC should not commence revocation proceedings against them,” said a news release. The agency noted that the company is affiliated with China Unicom (Americas), which is already on the FCC’s “covered list” of companies raising national security concerns. “The FCC will continue to safeguard America’s networks against penetration from foreign adversaries, like China,” said Chairman Brendan Carr.
The Irish data broker at the heart of a scandal over the sale of smartphone location data has suspended all services involving such data of Irish users for at least 28 days, the country's Data Protection Commission (DPC) said Monday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that a lower court must at least hear India’s arguments in a case against Deutsche Telekom over satellite spectrum, rather than dismiss it outright. DT won a nearly $100 million award against India in Switzerland after an arbitral panel rejected India’s contention that the governing arbitration clause didn't extend to the dispute between the companies. DT petitioned the district court to confirm the award, which it did, denying India's request for dismissal.
Carriers could see a growing revenue stream in Europe as NATO modernizes its weapons and communications systems, Strand Consult said in a report Thursday. Some providers will likely benefit, while others won’t, it said. Carriers in Norway, Sweden and Finland “already showed how it can be done,” the report argued, citing a transnational project of the Nordic defense forces that includes advanced 5G military applications and 5G slicing.