What’s up with… Equatys, Telecom Italia, STC

• Viasat, Space42 commit $1bn to D2D venture Equatys
• Poste Italiane takes majority control of TIM
• STC partners with Astranis for Saudi satellite services

In today’s industry news roundup: Viasat and Space42 sign a binding deal to launch a new $1bn infrastructure joint-venture called Equatys; Poste Italiane has increased its stake in TIM to 66.6%, taking control of Italy’s national telco; Saudi Telecom Company has partnered with US satco Astranis to deploy a dedicated satellite service in Saudi Arabia; and much more!

Carlsbad, California-based Viasat and UAE-based Space42 have signed a binding agreement to form Equatys, the satellite and terrestrial infrastructure joint venture they first touted in September 2025, with a commitment to pump up to $1bn into the company. Equatys is being set up as a wholesale service provider, based on the cellular towers model, to provision direct-to-device (D2D) services to mobile operators – Indonesia’s PT Telkom and e& UAE have already shown interest in the service. “Together, Viasat and Space42 bring unmatched global reach through commercial relationships with more than 400 mobile operators worldwide and access to the largest amount (>100MHz) of globally coordinated MSS [mobile satellite services] spectrum available for D2D deployment, creating a uniquely scalable foundation for growth,” noted Viasat. The initial constellation, details of which will be unveiled when the company becomes a full entity, will be the “first phase of an architecture designed to scale to 2,800 satellites across 60 orbital planes and three altitude layers, enabling densification without redesign as demand grows,” added Viasat. Timeframes have yet to be shared for constellation builds and service availability, but Equatys will be coming to the market some time after Starlink Mobile, which is already well established with its D2D service and expansion plans, AST SpaceMobile, which is gearing up for a broad service launch in 2027, Elveo Mobile, the SES-backed joint venture of Lynk and Omnispace, and Iridium, while Amazon Leo is also set to offer D2D services following its acquisition of Globalstar.

Poste Italiane’s decision last week to increase the cash component of its takeover offer for Telecom Italia (TIM) appears to have paid off, as the postal, financial and communications service provider now holds a 66.62% stake in the national telco, it announced late on 11 September (in Italian). Poste Italiane already held a 20.1% stake in the national telecom operator and it has now had its takeover offer (which values the whole of Telecom Italia at €13bn) accepted by shareholders, representing a further 46.52% stake. The initial takeover offer period has now ended, but Poste Italiane is reopening its takeover offer for a further week – from 21 to 25 September.    

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has partnered with satellite firm Astranis to deploy a dedicated satellite service for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with a launch scheduled for 2027. The launch is part of Astranis’ Block 3, which is due to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than Q1 2027. STC Group will have full authority over the satellite’s payload configuration and coverage, with data remaining in the region and adding a layer of redundancy to KSA’s existing fibre network and telecom infrastructure. "As STC plays a key role in advancing Saudi Arabia’s digital infrastructure, space has become a critical layer of our ecosystem, with dedicated satellite capacity central to how we deliver resilient, reliable and secure connectivity across the country,” said Mohammad Alabbadi, group chief carrier & wholesale officer at STC Group. “Astranis’ speed and flexibility made them the right partner for this stage of that work. Together, we are setting a new benchmark for secure and reliable connectivity supporting the Kingdom’s digital vision.” California-based Astranis has already launched five satellites and claims to have a backlog of more than $1bn in commercial contracts for its satellite-as-a-service model, including the likes of Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom.

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has launched an online portal to help British customers switch broadband provider after publishing a new analysis that claims out-of-contract customers could save up to £100 a year by changing their service. The regulator’s research found that many customers who are on so-called triple play packages (broadband, fixed line and pay-TV) from the same provider would benefit from switching, as a third of Brits who are signed up to such deals are currently on contracts that expired last year. On the positive side, Ofcom found that communications services are affordable for most people, although 4% of telecom customers missed a payment in the last quarter. To make switching easier, Ofcom has launched its Consumer Hub online portal that offers money-saving tips and advice on switching mobile, landline or broadband providers. It also integrates an existing Ofcom service that enables customers to switch to a new service without having to contact their old providers, with more than 300 service providers signed up to the process, which more than 3.5 million people have used since it launched on 3 September 2026.

Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES has launched the final three satellites of its O3b mPower constellation on SpaceX’s 700th Falcon launch. The medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellites, which are set to go live by mid-2027, were carried skyward aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from a launchpad at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Sunday. The new satellites will expand SES’s high-performance connectivity capacity for enterprise, government and telecom customers in underserved and remote environments, the company noted, and will operate alongside its existing 10 O3b mPower satellites, which are already in operation. SES is one of SpaceX’s longest-standing customers, and this was Elon Musk firm’s 700th successful Falcon rocket launch, comprising 687 Falcon 9 rockets and 13 Falcon Heavy rockets.

AI inference chip developer Positron AI has raised $875m Series C funding (which values the company at $5bn) from a broad range of investors led by NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, Dylan Patel’s SemiAnalysis Capital and Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape. Positron is developing “memory-first inference systems” designed to counter the current constraints of memory capacity, memory bandwidth and power efficiency. It has already launched an AI inference server, dubbed Atlas, that is being deployed by the likes of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and is currently developing its own custom silicon, called Asimov, that will be at the heart of its next-generation inference server platform, Titan. Although not referenced in Positron AI’s funding announcement, Liberty Global announced that its tech investment arm, Liberty Global Tech Ventures, participated in the investment round, adding to previous AI-related strategic investments in the likes of ElevenLabs, XBOW, Legora and Higgsfield.  

UK altnet Toob has secured an unspecified amount of follow-on debt funding from infrastructure investor Ares that, the fibre broadband network operator noted in this announcement, will help it to “execute its growth strategy from a stronger financial position as it seeks to generate long-term, sustainable value creation while maintaining exceptional service for its customers.” According to Toob, which has been primarily building its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network in areas along the south coast of England and west of London, its infrastructure now reaches 300,000 premises and it has 140,000 customers (it also has a wholesale agreement with CityFibre to extend its marketing reach beyond its own network area). Toob announced the appointment of Kevin Dean (formerly of euNetworks, Colt and others) as executive chairman and Sarah Herriman (formerly of Vodafone, Neos Networks and Spring Fibre) as CFO. The new debt funding heralds a change in control at Toob, notes this in-depth analysis of the altnet’s ongoing financial and ownership evolution by Mark Jackson at the ever excellent ISPreview, with Ares now pulling the strings.  

PCCW Global, the international operation of HKT (Hong Kong Telecom), is teaming up with Harmony Tech Innovation to “explore and promote low‑altitude airspace traffic management solutions and related smart city solutions in Belt and Road markets”. The move, which aims to help Chinese companies as they expand overseas, will combine PCCW Global’s international networks and operations with Harmony Tech Innovation’s low-altitude airspace traffic management technology, the companies noted in this announcement. The collaboration “will also explore applications in areas such as transportation, logistics and emergency rescue, to support the development of smart cities and the low-altitude economy in local markets.”

AccelerComm has been picked for a new European Space Agency (ESA)-funded programme tasked with advancing regenerative 5G satellite architectures for low-earth orbit (LEO) constellations. The satellite radio access network specialist will work with Antwerp Space to develop a fully 5G base station solution that can be deployed directly on board satellites, as part of the ESA’s Artes (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems) programme. AccelerComm will provide its highly optimised physical layer technology, which will serve as the Layer 1 processing capability needed to enable power-efficient, standards aligned 5G connectivity in space. The aim is to move beyond architectures that relay signals between users and ground infrastructure to deliver regenerative 5G non-terrestrial networks (NTN) that can connect multiple simultaneous users under realistic satellite conditions. The new initiative is part of the Artes Space for 5G/6G & Sustainable Connectivity programme. AcclerComm said the demonstration will involve features such as dynamic user behaviour, beam hopping, and intelligent power allocation designed to optimise transmission performance across LEO satellite networks. “Regenerative NTN represents one of the most important architectural transitions currently underway in satellite communications,” said David Helfgott, CEO of AccelerComm

Test and measurement vendor Keysight Technologies has teamed up with the Centre for Assuring Autonomy (CfAA) at the UK’s University of York to “advance the safe deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in software-defined vehicles (SDVs). The collaboration will focus on developing practical methods for validating AI systems and generating the evidence needed to demonstrate their safety and reliability. The work is designed to enable automakers and suppliers to meet emerging industry requirements while reducing development risk and accelerating the deployment of AI-enabled automotive systems,” noted Keysight. 

– The staff, TelecomTV