What’s up with… Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile US, NGMN

• Deutsche Telekom shies away from major merger
• T-Mobile US reports growth and AI progress 
• NGMN seeks vendor input on preferred 6G migration option

In today’s industry news roundup: Deutsche Telekom has reportedly shelved its plan to create a giant telco holding group by merging with T-Mobile US; meanwhile, T-Mobile US continues to report impressive growth and share the progress it is making on enabling the AI economy; the NGMN is seeking input from network vendors as to whether Multi-RAT Spectrum Sharing (MRSS) is a viable option for 6G; and much more!

Deutsche Telekom has put any plans it had to merge with T-Mobile US, in which it holds a majority stake, on hold due to resistance from investors, according to Bloomberg (subscription required): In September, the Financial Times (subscription required) reported that renowned activist investor Elliott Management had built a sizeable but undetermined stake in Deutsche Telekom and made it known that it opposed a merger with T-Mobile US, urging DT’s team to focus on other ways to generate growth. The news gave DT’s share price a boost as it jumped by 2.6% to €25.79 in Thursday trading. Reports emerged in April that DT was considering a merger with its North American operation, but that there would be many hurdles to overcome for such a deal to be concluded.

The news came only hours after T-Mobile US reported a 6% year-on-year increase in service revenues to $19.36bn for the third quarter, while its core adjusted EBITDA grew by 11% to $9.62bn. The operator’s CEO Srini Gopalan stated in the operator’s earnings release: “Q3 marked another strong quarter and is further proof that our winning formula of the best network, best value, and best experiences drives durable and profitable growth. More families and businesses are choosing T‑Mobile, fueling our industry-leading financial growth. Our value proposition is clearly resonating for all customers, with our network as a significant driver of differentiation. We’re continuing to push the envelope on customer experience and innovation, with our best-in-class NPS underscoring our customer-first orientation. We have a tremendous growth runway ahead across core wireless, broadband, and smart adjacencies, and we’re just getting started.” And in the company’s third quarter webcast, Gopalan called out T-Mobile US’s ongoing AI service developments, especially with regards to supporting physical AI deployments. He noted that the operator continues to “see more proof points in the physical AI opportunity where we've progressed beyond connecting humanoid robots with eSIMs and are now testing how the network helps deliver the intelligence itself. To enable all of these use cases, we're partnering with Amazon Web Services, AWS, to build the first instances of our Kinetic Edge… a distributed intelligence infrastructure for physical AI. It combines our nationwide 5G Advanced network and distributed edge with AWS's cloud orchestration and AI services. This puts together deterministic connectivity, compute, and intelligence closer to the machines and gives enterprises exactly what they need to take physical AI from isolated demos to production at scale.” For more on the Kinetic Edge, see this blog from John Saw, CTO at T-Mobile US.  

As part of its ongoing efforts to help enable a smooth migration path from the 5G era into 6G, industry body the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) has asked network infrastructure vendors to “consult on whether Multi-RAT Spectrum Sharing (MRSS) can operate on existing hardware deployments and in existing frequency bands without adversely affecting performance. Building on NGMN’s updated operator guidance issued in conjunction with the 3GPP plenary meeting in September, NGMN’s Board of Directors has asked vendors to confirm whether MRSS can operate on existing RAN hardware/product deployments and in existing frequency bands,” it continued in this announcement. “Vendors are expected to provide evidence or confirmation of any adverse performance impact across the current RAN hardware/product portfolio, including any impact on supported product configurations and frequency bands,” it added. NGMN noted that its mobile operator members are keen to “keep the number of 6G migration options to an absolute minimum,” and that “MRSS is the preferred approach and should be the sole migration option if it meets the required performance and total cost of ownership (TCO) criteria. The aim is to avoid standardising additional options where MRSS already meets operators’ requirements.” For more on NGMN’s take on 6G, see Operators urge pragmatic approach to 6G.

Japan’s KDDI and its datacentre subsidiary Telehouse have acquired land worth more than £220m in London’s Docklands as part of its plans to build a new, high-density, AI-ready datacentre. The land, which was bought from LaSalle Investment Management and Trilogy Real Estate, will be used to expand Telehouse’s existing London Docklands campus, which the company first opened on the site in 1990 as one of the first purpose-built carrier-neutral datacentres in Europe. In its announcement, Telehouse said it has already secured 65 MVA (Megavolt-Ampere) of power capacity for the site, which will also enable future expansion plans. It is located close to Telehouse’s existing Docklands campus and currently features two office buildings totaling 483,000 sq ft (44,862 sqm). Planning consent is in place for a 376,000 sq ft (35,000 sqm) facility on the land. The company has already broken ground on a nine-story datacentre building on the Docklands site, which it is calling Telehouse West Two, due for completion in 2028. Takayo Takamuro, who is Europe CEO at KDDI, and who sits on the Telehouse Board, said: “This acquisition supports the next phase of our growth and our commitment to supporting customers’ AI ambitions. The new datacentre will be one of the largest facilities in the Telehouse London Docklands campus, reinforcing its role as the leading connectivity hub in Europe.”

With the demands from enterprise users growing for greater security and AI capabilities, Lumen Technologies has announced “three new initiatives using intelligent networking to address AI energy challenges, future quantum connectivity, and emerging security threats”. The operator, which says it is “turning its network into an active platform for innovation [by] combining fibre connectivity scale, programmable control, software intelligence, and a connected ecosystem of partners to help enable the next generation of computing”, has: launched Emerald AI, which “enables AI workloads to automatically shift to alternate locations based on power availability, cost, and other factors”; invested in research at The Ohio State University to “explore how its fibre infrastructure could support quantum connectivity over distances”; and is “preparing to introduce quantum-resistant security capabilities through its Fortinet -based Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution to help enterprises protect sensitive information against future quantum threats”. Lumen’s CEO Kate Johnson noted: “The network must do more than just connect. It must help solve the defining challenges of our time. We’re innovating our network to help AI computing adapt to available energy, lay the foundation for a connected quantum future, and prepare enterprises for continuous and emerging security threats. These are distinct challenges that demand a network built for what’s next.”

– The staff, TelecomTV