What’s up with… Deutsche Telekom, mobile data usage, NGMN

• Deutsche Telekom joins the drone detection club
• US mobile data usage soars
• NGMN shares key 6G views

In today’s industry news roundup: Deutsche Telekom is the latest telco to show how its network’s RF capabilities can be used to detect drones; the CTIA’s latest report shows US mobile data volumes continue to increase at a dramatic pace; the NGMN updates its views on key 6G specifications topics ahead of the upcoming 3GPP plenary meetings; and much more!

Deutsche Telekom has joined the growing list of telcos (including AT&T and Verizon) that are showing how their networks can be used for detecting drones. At the Digital X event held in Cologne on Tuesday 8 September, the operator showed off what it calls its “drone protection shield” for the first time by demonstrating live drone detection using radio frequency (RF). DT’s RF sensor partners include Israel’s Vorpal and Senhive from Belgium. The telco explained in this announcement: “Most drones can be detected because a pilot controls them with a radio remote control. RF sensors pinpoint their exact location in the airspace as well as the pilot’s location with precision. The sensors detect a remote control immediately when the pilot turns it on” and can ”electronically identify the drone and the remote control model”, information that can be passed on to customers, such as government agencies and organisations with security responsibilities. “In the future, 5G and 6G mobile networks will be able to detect drones,” the operator noted – indeed, integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is the most cited application expected to be offered in the 6G era, as we noted in our latest free-to-download editorial report, The AI-Native Path to 6G.

US citizens used 159.3 trillion megabytes of data in 2025, up by 20% from 2024 and up by almost 60% from 2023’s total mobile data usage, according to the latest annual report from industry body CTIA. The numbers “underscore the surging demand being placed on America’s wireless networks for everything from AI to wearables, digital streaming services, and more,” according to the organisation, which added that “data demand is expected to grow four times by 2032, with the growth of AI placing an even greater strain on America’s wireless networks. AI is growing three times faster than traditional wireless traffic and is projected to make up nearly a third of all broadband traffic by 2034,” it noted. Ajit Pai, CTIA president and CEO (and former chairman of the FCC), stated: “This continued surge in demand reflects the increasingly central role wireless plays in everyday life. America’s wireless providers are stepping up to the challenge, investing nearly $30bn last year alone to expand capacity and lay the foundation for future AI-native 6G networks.”

Ahead of the 3GPP technical specification group (TSG) plenary meetings – for the RAN (radio access network), SA (service and system aspects) and CT (Core Network and Terminals) TSGs – to be held in Madrid from 14-18 September, the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) has released an updated operator guidance based on its June report, ‘6G Architecture and Migration Options – An Operator View’. As our colleague Guy Daniels noted in this Substack post about the outcomes from the previous RAN plenary gathering held in June in Singapore, “The Scenarios and Requirements study is finished, but the political questions it deferred are not. The requirements now say what 6G must do. September begins the fight over what it will be.” Now, in an effort to highlight in which direction it hopes the 3GPP will go in terms of its specifications development work, the NGMN stressed that “Multi-RAT Spectrum Sharing (MRSS) should remain the baseline approach for 5G-6G migration, but more evidence around its efficiency, implementation feasibility, performance capabilities and hardware requirements is still required.” It also urged the industry to “consider whether 6G core (6GC) is an evolution of 5G core (5GC) or a more distinct architecture”. 

Spanish mobile payments specialist Bizum has launched a new intelligent virtual assistant, developed by Telefónica Tech, that has “achieved 90% accuracy in responses and reduced email enquiries for queries or requests for assistance by 30%,” according to Telefónica. The generative AI (GenAI) virtual assistant developed by the Spanish telco’s enterprise digital services division, which has been integrated with Bizum’s website and WhatsApp Business channel, “features a scalable architecture with multiple orchestrated assistants to provide faster and more specific responses to incidents, general enquiries and potential scams, and uses documentation provided by Bizum as a knowledge base to ensure consistent and accurate support,” noted Telefónica. Carlos Martínez, head of data and AI at Telefónica Tech, stated: “This project, which reinforces Telefónica’s commitment to becoming the best gateway for citizens, businesses and public administrations to digital technologies, was completed within three months and is a success story for our ‘Telefónica Tech GenAI Platform’, through which organisations can benefit from this technology quickly and easily”.

Questions abound about the future size and role of Nokia’s Bell Labs following the disclosure by Light Reading that planned cuts to the vendor’s R&D operation mean that, by the end of this year, it will have only 408 staff, down from a core R&D team of about 750 a decade ago, and will run Bell Labs operations at just six locations, down from 19. Nokia told Light Reading that this was part of its plan to focus its R&D team on certain priorities and to bring its research teams back together. The shrinking of the Bell Labs team was highlighted recently by its former president Marcus Weldon, who took to LinkedIn to share his dismay.  

Meta has launched Muse, which it calls “the world’s first personal AI agent built for everyone”. Muse is a “secure, private personal AI agent that proactively helps with people’s goals and suggests ideas. Because personal agents need a new kind of secure computer, Muse runs on Muse Secure VM, a dedicated, virtual machine (VM) that houses both the agent and a person’s data,” noted Meta, claiming that talking to Muse “works just like messaging another person, in the Muse app or directly in WhatsApp”. Muse may have been built for everyone but currently it can only be used by people in the US. 

– The staff, TelecomTV