What’s up with… Ericsson, LotusFlare, DT, Gigaclear

• Ericsson and Globe invest in LotusFlare
• Deutsche Telekom hooks up MCx with Tetra 
• UK altnet Gigaclear secures more funding

In today’s industry news roundup: LotusFlare secures investments from Ericsson and the venture arm of Globe Telecom; Deutsche Telekom develops a gateway to enable comms between 5G and Tetra; UK rural fibre access network operator says it’s now fully funded following an additional £80m+ from its banks; and much more!

Ericsson and Kickstart Ventures, the investment arm of Philippine telco Globe Telecom, have made unspecified strategic investments in LotusFlare, the Santa Clara, California-based developer of cloud-native digital commerce and monetisation systems. Ericsson’s investment and partnership with LotusFlare bolsters the vendor’s strategy to help network operators expose and monetise their application programming interfaces (APIs), as LotusFlare’s DNO Cloud platform “provides the consent management and digital commerce solutions that enable a network API exposure layer for the exposure and monetisation of advanced network capabilities via network APIs,” noted Ericsson in this announcement. Ericsson is heavily involved in the network API domain via its Vonage unit and through its 50% stake in global network API aggregator Aduna. Niklas Heuveldop, senior vice president and head of business area global communications platform at Ericsson, as well as CEO of Vonage, stated: “We are delighted to establish this strategic partnership with LotusFlare. The combination of Ericsson’s high-performance, programmable networks with LotusFlare’s Network Abstraction capabilities, Aduna’s global network API aggregation capabilities, and Vonage’s network-powered enterprise solutions will accelerate CSPs’ ability to unlock new network capabilities and take advantage of one of the most important value creation opportunities for the industry. By further strengthening the industry ecosystem, Ericsson is accelerating the potential for CSPs, enterprises, and developers to collaborate and innovate at hyperscale, leveraging the full potential of 5G and AI.” Sam Gadodia, CEO and co-founder of LotusFlare, stated: “We are delighted to welcome Ericsson as an investor in LotusFlare. Since our founding, our mission has been to simplify technology and customer experience. We have made significant progress towards this goal through both our DNO Cloud and Nomad eSIM businesses. Ericsson’s investment represents a powerful validation of our product innovation and market impact. We are confident this partnership will unlock new market opportunities and accelerate the development of critical network asset monetisation capabilities for CSPs globally.” Kickstart Ventures managing partner and co-founder Dan Siazon stated: “LotusFlare has consistently shown that it can build and deploy world-class products in ways that can move the needle for mobile operators like… Globe Telecom. Our investment reflects our conviction in their strong performance and continuous strategic relevance. We believe this latest round led by Ericsson makes the opportunity even more compelling for us and positions LotusFlare for a strong next chapter.”  

Deutsche Telekom has unveiled an interoperable gateway that allows seamless communication from MCx (mission critical services) to Tetra, the professional radio standard, used by public safety and enterprise organisations. The interworking function aims to allow emergency services to stay connected with each other, regardless of which technology they are using. During a demo at the PMRExpo trade show in Cologne, Germany, a smartphone was able to communicate successfully in a 5G network with a Tetra radio. Deutsche Telekom demonstrated that its T Mission solution, based on Motorola Solutions’ MCx technology, can interact with proven Tetra radio technology. The demo shows that the existing public safety radio infrastructure can continue to be used by the German public safety organisations and can be extended by MCx services. The telco also demonstrated an enhanced T Mission video function, which enables control centres to transmit up to 10 different streams to defined groups: Deutsche Telekom pointed to drone, security and body camera footage as examples.

UK rural fibre broadband altnet Gigaclear has secured “at least £80m in new funding from its consortium of existing banks,” the company announced on Wednesday. “This financing ensures Gigaclear is fully funded to deliver its plans, reinforcing the commercial resilience of Gigaclear’s rural strategy,” it added in an emailed statement. Gigaclear’s network currently reaches about 600,000 premises across 26 UK counties, with more than 160,000 connected customers. Nathan Rundle, Gigaclear’s CEO, stated: “For 15 years, Gigaclear has been committed to one clear mission: Ensuring rural communities are no longer left behind. From our earliest builds to our rapidly expanding customer base, every milestone has been driven by that goal. As we look ahead, this new funding gives us a robust platform to continue expanding our network and deliver unparalleled connectivity to even more rural homes and businesses as well as further supporting the evolution of the business to achieve becoming cash-flow positive.” He added: “There’s still more work to do to close the digital divide but combined with our achievement of EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] positivity earlier this year and strong customer growth, this funding reflects a business that is financially secure, operationally robust and focused on sustainable long-term delivery.”

Totogi has signed a strategic BSS deal with what it claims is “a major” Tier-1 service provider, its first customer in Europe. The Austin, Texas-based firm did not name the operator in its announcement – revealing only that it is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange – but said it will supply its cloud-native BSS platform as part of a modern architecture foundation. Totogi plans to deliver the solution on an eight-week timeline using its AI-accelerated approach, BSS Magic, that automates configuration and testing. BSS Magic leverages a three-layer architecture – vendor-agnostic data connectivity, a telco-specific ontology, and AI-assisted configuration and validation – to express billing and business rules in a machine-readable form: The solution was showcased at the recent AI-Native Telco Forum. “Enterprises are rejecting multi-year BSS projects,” said Danielle Rios, CEO of Totogi. “With AI-native methods, we deliver production-ready systems in weeks, not years, with no transformation risk. BSS Magic gives our teams the semantic understanding and automation needed to build fast, iterate safely, and deliver at a level legacy vendors simply cannot match,” she added.

A record year for Apple is a key driver behind an expected 1.5% year-on-year growth in smartphone shipments, which will hit 1.25 billion units shipped in 2025, according to the latest forecast from IDC. The research firm had previously expected a 1% year-on-year increase. IDC’s latest Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker noted that Apple’s shipments this year are set to increase by 6.1%, compared with a 3.9% year-on-year increase in 2024. Apple’s shipments are set to top 247 million units, driven by the release of its iPhone 17 models. Other factors affecting overall market growth are improved performance in key emerging markets and stabilisation in China. While the near-term forecast for smartphones has strengthened, IDC has revised 2026 growth downward from 1.2% growth to a 0.9% decline, citing a combination of component shortages and product cycle adjustments. “As memory components become more limited and more expensive, manufacturers face increasing pressure to raise prices,” said Anthony Scarsella, research director for IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. “Vendors need to adopt different strategies to protect their market share. Next year will be a challenging time for the industry. However, IDC still believes the market could see record ASPs [average selling prices].”

Nokia and UAE operator du have trialled a new 5G-Advanced autonomous network slicing solution, the vendor has announced. The Finnish vendor claims its solution enables du to deliver “premium, intent-based services” for business-critical operations and applications, live events, broadcasting, gaming, XR and AI applications. According to Nokia, “autonomous network slicing… ensures guaranteed premium service levels for enterprise, industry and consumer applications, even in the most demanding scenarios”. The autonomous network slicing capabilities are enabled by Nokia’s 5G AirScale base stations, MantaRay SON (self-organising networks) solution, and the AI-powered MantaRay AutoPilot that orchestrates rApps (RAN applications). Du CTO Saleem Alblooshi said: “This partnership with Nokia represents a significant step forward in our mission to deliver exceptional connectivity experiences. By leveraging intent-based 5G advanced slicing, we are ensuring premium network performance and guaranteed capacity for our demanding customers while positioning our network for future advancements like 6G.”

– The staff, TelecomTV