What’s up with… Broadband investments, SoftBank, UK altnets

• Global broadband equipment investments set to rise in 2026
• SoftBank puts AI to work in its core
• UK altnet APFN taps CityFibre for a broader portfolio

In today’s industry news roundup: There was an uptick in the level of investments in broadband network technology in the final quarter of 2025 and that augurs well for 2026, according to Dell’Oro; SoftBank offers a great example of how AI can be put to effective use in mobile network operations; UK wholesale network services specialist AllPoints Fibre Networks (APFN) has integrated high-speed CityFibre services into its Aquila platform; and much more!

Total global spending on broadband access equipment increased by 7% quarter on quarter and by 2% year on year in the final three months of 2025 to $4.8bn, according to analyst firm Dell’Oro Group, and that trend augurs well for the broadband tech vendor community in 2026. “2025 ended up being the final year of a three-year cycle of reduced spending on broadband access equipment,” noted Dell’Oro analyst and VP Jeff Heynen. “Over the last three years, broadband service providers have been carefully managing their equipment spending, focusing on subscriber acquisition and more measured footprint expansions. As a result, there was a clear shift in spend away from infrastructure and towards CPE [customer premises equipment]” such as fixed wireless access (FWA) customer units and fibre broadband CPE products, explained Heynen, who is expecting a “strong 2026” in terms of broadband access equipment investments.

SoftBank Corp. has unveiled a new technology that optimises core network routing by leveraging AI to analyse real-time traffic patterns. Autonomous Thinking Distributed Core Routing (fortunately not being marketed as ATDCR) uses an AI agent alongside the Camara-developed quality-on-demand API to reduce network latency by autonomously switching to the shortest network route. Developed in-house, the technology, according to the Japanese telco, allows for the use of a conventional centralised mobile core for applications where efficiency and low latency is vital, such as augmented reality, virtual reality and autonomous driving. It tested the network tool in a cloud-gaming trial running on its 4G network, in which verified average latency dropped from 41.9 milliseconds (ms) to 27.4 ms. For the full technical details – and there are plenty of them – see this SoftBank press release. 

UK wholesale broadband network operator AllPoints Fibre Networks (APFN) has launched multi-gigabit fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) services on its Aquila platform through a partnership with CityFibre, the major UK altnet that now passes 4.7 million premises with its own XGS-PON high-speed network. The partnership gives APFN channel partners access to broadband services with speeds of up to 2.3 Gbit/s without the need for any further integration processes, as the CityFibre-enabled services are provisioned by AFPN through its Aquila unified fibre and Ethernet wholesale services platform. The announcement comes in the wake of APFN’s agreement to offer Ethernet services from Sky Business Wholesale to its channel partners via its Aquila platform. 

To help AI infrastructure developers and builders keep up to speed with the latest innovations, test and measurement vendor Keysight Technologies has unveiled the AresONE 1600GE, which it describes as a “scalable 1.6 Tbit/s Ethernet AI workload emulation platform designed to validate next-generation AI fabrics operating over emerging 224G SerDes (electrical lanes).” In essence, the new box enables network equipment vendors, chip developers and AI datacentre operators to “emulate large-scale AI compute nodes and validate AI fabrics before and after deployment,” according to the vendor. Alan Weckel, founder and analyst at tech research firm 650 Group, believes the move to 1.6 Tbit/s interconnect “will be the largest and fastest cycle ever” in the AI infrastructure sector, which means “Keysight’s additional AI validation software features, along with AresONE 1600GE hardware, will help customers scale in this new market opportunity.” 

Keysight is one of the many tech firms heading to the annual OFC optical technology show, which this year runs from 15-19 March at the Los Angeles Convention Centre. Another vendor pitching up at OFC is Ciena, which has laid out the product advances it plans to show off at the event in this wide-ranging press release.  

Paris-based Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), a startup founded by French AI scientist Yann LeCun, has raised $1bn from a broad range of investors (including Nvidia and Samsung) to develop “a new breed of AI systems that understand the world, have persistent memory, can reason and plan, and are controllable and safe.” The company doesn’t provide a great amount of detail about what and how it is developing its technology but the fundraising is particularly worth noting because of the range and calibre of those investing in the company’s plans. In addition to a number of private equity and venture capital firms, AMI’s investors include Bezos Expeditions (which invests on behalf of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos), Eric Schmidt (former Google chairman and CEO), Xavier Niel (tech entrepreneur and founder of Iliad Group) and Tim Berners-Lee, best known for inventing the world wide web. That’s quite a line-up. 

Still in France… UltraEdge, the datacentre operator founded by Patrick Drahi’s Altice France but now majority owned (70%) by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, is to invest €400m by 2028 to upgrade its 248 datacentre facilities across France, reports Les Echos. The investment is needed to replace some equipment that is up to 20 years old and also to meet current demands, stated UltraEdge CEO Patrice Cousin. France, as we have previously reported, is one of the main European markets where sovereign cloud and AI services are expected to be in high demand, and according to this UltraEdge blog, France ranks third in Europe and fifth in the world in terms of the number of datacentre facilities deployed.  

– The staff, TelecomTV