TELECOM – THIS WEEK (2505)
1.???? Huawei overtakes Apple to reclaim top spot in China smartphone market
According to Counterpoint Research, Huawei’s sales grew by 15.5%year-on-year during the quarter to account for 18.1% of the market. The company’s recovery followed years of challenges caused by U.S. export restrictions, which had limited its access to some critical technologies and components.
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2.???? The moon is next frontier for data center cowboys
Think of it as the ultimate air-gapped cloud environment for critical data. That’s how Lonestar Data holdings is pitching its new lunar data center offerings – and to hear CEO Chris Stott tell it, government and enterprise clients are eating it up. “The demand we’re seeing is extraordinary,” Stott said in an interview with Fierce.
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3.???? How AI is helping O2 Telefónica
Major German telco O2 Telefónica (aka Telefónica Deutschland) is using an AI tool developed with Google Cloud technology to predict mobile data usage patterns that will enable “more precise capacity planning, targeted investments and optimised network expansion for a better customer experience,” according to the operator.?
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4.???? Nokia Deepfield to provide London Internet Exchange members with advanced DDoS protection
Nokia?has been selected by global Internet Exchange Point, the London Internet Exchange (LINX), to deliver advanced network protection capabilities against the latest and future generations of DDoS threats and attacks. With Nokia Deepfield DDoS security, LINX becomes the first UK-based IXP to offer advanced DDoS protection with trusted performance, scale and mitigation granularity, ensuring minimal impact on member connectivity and services.
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5.???? DriveNets, Fujitsu Optical Components, and UfiSpace join forces to accelerate open network rollouts
Fujitsu Optical Components?– a global leading supplier of high-performance optical components,?UfiSpace, – a white box switch/router solution provider, and?DriveNets?– a leader in innovative networking solutions – announced the completion of testing and certification of multiple FOC ZR/ZR+ modules with DriveNets Network Cloud software on UfiSpace white boxes. The combined solution from the three market innovators delivers significant cost savings to network operators by collapsing three communications layers into a single platform and eliminating the need for standalone optical transponders. It reduces operators’ hardware footprint and lowers operational overhead, floorspace, and power usage.
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6.???? The EU tech industry joins forces to launch the first sovereign edge cloud for Europe
A group of eight European tech organisations (Arsys, BIT, Gdańsk University of Technology, Infobip, IONOS, Kontron, MONDRAGON Corporation, and Oktawave)—coordinated by OpenNebula Systems—has launched virt8ra, the first sovereign edge cloud in Europe. This innovative infrastructure, aimed at providing portability and interoperability across multiple cloud providers, offers computing and storage resources in six EU member states (Croatia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain).
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7.???? PLDT, Smart, USAID, UP collaborate for Philippines' first Open RAN Laboratory
Leading integrated telco network PLDT Inc (PLDT) and its wireless arm Smart Communications, Inc (Smart) are collaborating with international and local telco industry stakeholders and the academe in advancing the adoption of Open Radio Access Networks (RAN) in the Philippines.
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8.???? Ericsson CEO: 6G not your ‘normal’ new generation of wireless
Ericsson CEO B?rje Ekholm chose perhaps the road less traveled when he was asked about 6G during Ericsson’s Q4 earnings call today. He advised everyone “not to think of 6G as a normal new generation.”?He acknowledged that 6G is probably going to get introduced in 2030 as an evolution of 5G. Ericsson should know, since it’s a big contributor to the whole 3GPP standards-setting processes that develop new generations of wireless technology.?
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9.???? DeepSeek didn’t burst the AI bubble – it made it bigger
The global artificial intelligence (AI) community was rocked by a 9.5 earthquake this weekend when Chinese startup DeepSeek unveiled a new open source model capable of effectively competing with big name competitors at a fraction of the cost. But while the news prompted dire takes about U.S. AI dominance, Nvidia’s future and the bursting of the AI bubble, analysts told Fierce the model is actually?good?for AI proliferation.
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10.? India advances its chip ambitions
For several years now, India has been pushing hard to realise its national ambition of becoming a world-leading semiconductor designer and manufacturer in its own right. Later this year, in August or September, the fruits of those efforts will start to be revealed as the first ‘Made in India’ chip will be produced, according to the country’s minister for railways, communications, electronics and information technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw.?
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11.? Grameenphone to partner with Ericsson on AI-driven service creation to drive customer experience
Ericsson and Bangladesh’s leading mobile telecommunications operator, Grameenphone, today announced a partnership on one of the largest catalog-driven charging and mediation deployments in the world, which will enhance Grameenphone’s service delivery and elevate customer service experience.
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12.? Liberty Global and Juniper Networks collaborate to demonstrate seamless cloud connections
Juniper Networks, a leader in secure, AI-Native Networks, and?Liberty Global, one of the world’s leading converged video, broadband and communications companies, today announced the successful completion of a joint proof-of-concept (POC) designed to deliver a high-quality seamless user experience for customers with data and applications spread across multiple cloud environments.
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13.? NTT Data launches smart AI agent to accelerate GenAI adoption
NTT DATA, a global digital business and IT services leader, today announced the international launch of its next-generation Smart AI Agent. This advanced AI tool is a cornerstone of the company's strategy to accelerate the adoption of Generative AI, with an estimated $2 billion in revenue that we aim to achieve from Smart AI Agent-related business by 2027.
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14.? Why is data center networking so broken?
Data center networks are plagued by human error, poor visibility and complexity. Outages aren’t just frustrating; they’re symptoms of a deeper issue. The way we manage networks is fundamentally broken. Human error is one of the biggest causes of network outages. According to IDC,?human errors continue to create major problems, regardless of whether they stem from vendor product quality issues or the mistakes of network operators.? Misconfigurations, incorrect policy changes, “fat fingering” and lack of pre-production testing by network operators are significant causes of network outages.
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15.? Rakuten Mobile launches "Rakuten AI for Business" generative AI service for corporate clients
Rakuten Mobile, Inc. today announced the launch of the "Rakuten AI for Business" generative AI service to support a wide range of business activities for corporate clients. Featuring superior language comprehension and task processing capabilities, the AI service quickly displays the most suitable responses to user requests and supports business tasks such as document creation, translation, brainstorming, analysis and research via a chat interface.
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16.? Ericsson creates Cognitive Labs to boost open-source AI research
Ericsson launches Cognitive Labs, an innovative initiative dedicated to research and development in artificial intelligence (AI). Cognitive Labs focuses on advanced technologies, such as Graph Neural Networks (GNN), Active Learning and Large-Scale Language Models, that the company uses to develop its solutions and that will be fundamental to the next generation of mobile communications. The initiative will not have a dedicated physical location but will operate virtually with teams and activities centered in a few key locations such as Madrid, Malaga and Cairo to start. With Cognitive Labs, Ericsson reaffirms its commitment to continuous improvement and efficiency in its technology solutions, while extending their application to other areas such as healthcare, from which society as a whole can benefit.
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17.? Nokia propped up by its portfolio play
Nokia is feeling pretty good about itself today after reporting a 9% like-for-like increase in fourth-quarter revenues to €5.98bn and a 38% year-on-year increase in operating profits to €1.14bn, thanks to growing demand for its IP routing, fixed broadband access and optical equipment (all part of its Network Infrastructure division) and a hike in sales by its Nokia Technologies division, which licenses the vendor’s patents to other companies.?
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18.? Orange launches Nuanua satellite project in Wallis and Futuna
Orange is pleased to announce the launch of the Nuanua project using SES’s second-generation medium Earth orbit (MEO) O3b mPOWER system. This ambitious initiative, meaning "rainbow" in Wallisian, aims to replace the existing satellite infrastructure of the Wallis and Futuna Islands with SES’s cutting-edge technology mPOWER that will enable Orange to deliver high-performance connectivity services.