GSMA is looking for a new chair to replace former Telefonica Chairman and CEO Jose Maria Alvares-Pallete, who resigned from the Spanish operator two weeks ago. Gopal Vittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel Group and GSMA’s deputy chair, will serve as acting chair until the board makes a selection next month, GSMA said this week. Marc Murtra, who replaced Alvares-Pallete, took a seat on the board.
The U.K.'s Office of Communications has granted a non-geostationary orbit network license to Amazon's Kuiper, letting it deliver satellite-provided broadband there, the agency said Monday.
U.S.-based Keysight Technologies has partnered with Spain's University of Malaga on a 6G research and innovation lab located on the school's campus, Keysight said Thursday. “The facility is dedicated to advancing 6G technology through comprehensive solutions that address key use cases and technological challenges,” the company said. Among the areas of research are spectrum, AI and machine learning in networks, sensing and the use of digital twins.
Europe is in danger of falling behind North America, East Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council nations in deploying 5G, GSMA warned in a report Wednesday. 5G is poised to become the “dominant mobile technology on the continent by 2026 and already accounts for the majority of connections in Germany and Switzerland,” while adoption rates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and the U.K. are in excess of 40%, the report said. However, GSMA warned that European providers could struggle to deploy 5G standalone (SA) service, which doesn’t rely on an LTE backbone to operate. As of September, 18 European operators had launched 5G SA, and 5G-advanced is “set to deliver new solutions for enterprises, enabling uplink and multicast services at better latency, increasing accuracy for extended reality applications and improving the reliability of AI,” GSMA said. “Unless key regulatory challenges that restrict investment capacity in the European sector are resolved, the increased adoption of these technologies in Europe will progress more slowly” than in other regions. “Europe is at a crossroads in its development of the digital infrastructure that its businesses and citizens will need to succeed,” said GSMA Chief Regulatory Officer John Giusti: “It is concerning to see it falling further and further behind other large markets around the world.”
Europe is falling behind on 5G as the U.S. and other nations move forward, Borje Ekholm, Ericsson CEO, warned this week. “The companies, countries, and regions that lead with 5G today will reap the lion’s share of innovation and become the economic and political powerhouses of tomorrow,” Ekholm wrote: “Just as railroads catalyzed industrialization, next-level mobile networks will reshape the economic and political landscape, driving sustainable growth.” The U.S. and China were the first to build nationwide 4G networks and “India, the US, and China, along with parts of the Middle East, are already racing ahead in the 5G era,” he said. China has deployed more than 10,000 private networks “while India has doubled down on its 5G efforts to deploy more than 1 million 5G cells within a year.” The choice in Europe is clear: “Either continue leading the world in regulation, or start competing in innovation and technologies such as 5G.”
Deutsche Telekom announced on Tuesday it’s combining national and international wholesale businesses into a single entity -- T Wholesale. “This move is intended to provide clients with streamlined solutions that address needs both within Germany as well as globally, reflecting the growing demand for integrated telecommunications services,” the company said. The wholesale parts of Deutsche Telekom serve more than 250 telecom providers and resellers in Germany with 900 international customers and partners, the company said.
Ukrainian mobile operators will begin shuttering their 3G networks this year, freeing space for 4G and improved services, regulator NCEC announced on Facebook, according to an unofficial translation. To ensure that customers are treated fairly during the transition, NCEC ordered that operators provide "maximum information and attractive offers" and notify subscribers before 3G ceases in their areas. It recommended that people with 4G/LTE-enabled phones switch now to 4G and that those without them consider upgrading. The shutdown won't affect calling, SMS texting or other basic services, the regulator said. In November, NCEC auctioned (in Ukrainian) 2.1 GHz, 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum to pave the way for 4G and, ultimately, 5G services.
Swisscom completed its acquisition of Vodafone’s Italian operations in an $8.71 billion deal, announced last year (see 2403150022). Swisscom will combine Vodafone Italia with Fastweb, its Italian network provider (see 2402280045). “Fastweb and Vodafone Italia bring together complementary high-quality mobile and fixed infrastructures, competencies, and capabilities to create a leading converged challenger in Italy,” Swisscom said last week: The deal “is a key step for Swisscom to achieve its strategic objective of profitable growth in Italy.”
Nokia announced Friday that it has finalized the sale of its Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) to the French government for approximately $360 million. Nokia will retain a 20% interest “to ensure a smooth transition until targeted exit, at which point it is planned for the French State to acquire Nokia’s remaining interest,” said a news release. ASN is “a successful, non-core standalone business,” Nokia said. The sale “allows Nokia to focus the portfolio of its Network Infrastructure business group while positioning ASN strongly to build on the transformation achieved while part of Nokia,” the company said.
The FCC Office of International Affairs in a public notice Monday released circuit capacity data for U.S.-international submarine cables as of Dec. 31, 2023. The data includes capacity information from submarine cable landing licensees and common carriers that owned or leased capacity on a cable in the covered period.