What’s up with… Euro LEO plans, CityFibre, FWA growth

• UK’s Open Cosmos plots sovereign LEO constellation
• Neil McRae confirms he is CityFibre’s new CTIO
• The FWA infrastructure sector is now valued at $10bn

In today’s industry news roundup: UK satellite firm has been awarded a Ka-band licence that will underpin its sovereign broadband service plans; Neil McRae has his feet under CityFibre’s CTIO table; Dell’Oro values the fixed wireless access (FWA) tech sector at $10bn and believes it will be worth that much each year for the rest of the decade; and much more!

UK-based satellite communications provider Open Cosmos has set out plans to build a new low-earth orbit (LEO) constellation for the provision of sovereign broadband services after it was awarded Liechtenstein’s Ka-band radio spectrum licence. Open Cosmos – based in Harwell, Oxfordshire – beat a bid from US company Rivada, which is backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, to take the highly contested spectrum rights. Rivada had previously held the licence after it took a majority stake in Liechtenstein-based Trion, which had a spectrum frequency rights agreement with German firm Kleo Connect. Rivada had unveiled plans to build a 600-strong satellite network making use of the licenced spectrum but faced legal action from Kleo’s Chinese backers, including China Telecom and the Shanghai Alliance Investment, which held up Rivada’s plans. (You can read more about that fracas and the tangle of relationships in this Space News article.) In 2024, Liechtenstein revoked Rivada’s Ka-band licence, citing concerns over the financing of the project. Open Cosmos, which provides services to governments in the UK, Portugal, Greece and Spain, has now been granted the licences and received backing from the UK government. Space minister Baroness Liz Lloyd said: “Securing these valuable spectrum filings is a testament to British ingenuity and ambition, and I’m delighted to see a UK company leading the way in building reliable satellite communications systems for the future.” Open Cosmos founder and CEO Rafel Jordá Siquier added: “Securing these Ka-band Liechtenstein filings is a defining moment for Open Cosmos, as we gain an invaluable opportunity to realise and achieve Europe’s space ambitions and true potential. With our full-stack approach to satellite design, manufacturing, launch and continued operation, we will be quick to deploy and will see our first satellites go up in the coming weeks.” 

Renowned telecom industry executive Neil McRae has confirmed his appointment as the chief technology and information officer (CTIO) at major UK wholesale fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network operator CityFibre – first reported by TelecomTV last December – in a LinkedIn post. McRae, who began his career in broadband network operations, stated: “CityFibre has huge ambition and momentum, underpinned by a nationwide 10Gb XGS-PON network that is genuinely years ahead of the competition, and our customers feel the difference. For more than 30 years, my purpose has been to connect people – unlocking opportunity, innovation, and inclusion through the power of the network. I’m inspired by the scale of what we can achieve and the impact it can have on our customers, communities, businesses and the UK economy. I can’t wait to start working with the amazing team here!” Competing primarily with Openreach, the quasi-autonomous wholesale fixed access network division of BT Group (for which McRae worked for more than 12 years until early 2023), CityFibre’s network passes 4.6 million premises across the UK and has plans to eventually pass 8 million. It counts the likes of Sky, VodafoneThree and TalkTalk as wholesale customers and was on course to end 2025 with about 900,000 commercial connections to its infrastructure. In July 2025, CityFibre announced it had secured new financing worth almost £2.3bn and is seeking to grow through acquisitions as well as through further network rollout – see CityFibre girds its M&A loins as it secures £2.3bn in funding. 

The value of the market for fixed wireless access (FWA) infrastructure – including the radio access network (RAN) equipment, residential customer premises equipment (CPE), and enterprise router and gateway elements – has hit $10bn, having grown by about 10% during 2025, and is on course to be worth more than $10bn each year until 2029, according to a market forecast from research firm Dell’Oro Group. In the US, where the major telcos have been aggressively marketing their 5G-enabled FWA services in an effort to attract “disaffected” broadband service customers from the cable network operators (and from each other), “we continue to see the largest mobile operators expand their availability of FWA services in both existing and new markets, especially as FWA service revenue has boosted overall earnings,” noted Dell’Oro VP and analyst Jeff Heynen. T-Mobile US has been the most aggressive with its rollout and marketing, ending September 2025 with more than 8 million FWA customers, while Verizon’s total hit about 5.4 million and AT&T’s about 1.3 million. Heynen continued: “Mobile operators in India, South-east Asia, Europe, and the Middle East are taking a page from the US operators’ book and are quickly expanding their own FWA offerings, especially with the imminent threat of Starlink, Amazon, OneWeb, and other LEO satellite broadband providers.” Dell’Oro expects global FWA subscriber numbers (including small and large enterprise as well as residential users) to “grow steadily” in the next few years and top 191 million in 2029. 

Last week, technology distributor Westcon-Comstor announced an “enhanced collaboration with Nokia aimed at accelerating growth and delivering greater value to channel partners across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region” that will see the two companies “collaborate closely on joint market engagement – shifting from fulfilment to a dedicated focus on proactively driving growth”. But there was little detail about what the partners are aiming to achieve and where (MEA is a big region), other than that the relationship is focused on Nokia’s fixed access, IP (routing) and optical infrastructure products (essentially, the portfolio of its Network Infrastructure division). Now we have a bit more insight. According to Rakesh Parbhoo, executive VP for MEA at Westcon-Comstor, the partners are initially focusing their efforts in five specific markets – Nigeria, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar – though this may “expand further over time”. In terms of target customers, Westcon’s aim is to “expand Nokia’s penetration into large enterprises,” particularly in the “hospitality, healthcare and natural resources verticals”. Westcon will also continue to support Nokia’s business engagements with datacentre operators and telcos – Westcon claims to have “relationships with many Tier 1 and Tier 2 telecom operators across all countries in MEA”. The company also notes it doesn’t have similar partnerships with other optical, routing and broadband infrastructure vendors, stating that this is a “unique partnership with Nokia”. 

Spacecoin, which is building what it claims is the first satellite-based decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN) to enable “permissionless global internet connectivity”, has struck a number of agreements with “government authorities, telecommunications providers and IoT innovators across Africa and Asia” as part of its mission to “democratise internet access through a blockchain-integrated satellite infrastructure”. (For background on the pros and cons of DePINs, see this article from 2025.) According to an announcement from the company shared via email, Spacecoin has been awarded a transmission licence by the Communications Authority of Kenya to “deliver satellite IoT monitoring solutions and expand connectivity in underconnected regions”. The company also has a licence from the Nigerian Communications Commission “for its initiative to bring high-speed, low-cost connectivity to rural communities”. In Cambodia, Spacecoin has forged a partnership with ISP MekongNet to offer internet access services in rural and underserved areas, while it is collaborating with unidentified “local partners and government agencies” with regards to enabling internet access across Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago of more than 17,000 islands. Spacecoin recently announced the successful launch of three additional satellites (taking its total to four). Spacecoin’s founder, Tae Oh, noted: “Regulatory bodies in key regions are recognising that decentralised satellite technology can deliver the scalability and affordability traditional infrastructure can’t. These agreements confirm that Spacecoin has moved beyond being just an idea, but a real movement with momentum that will unlock permissionless connectivity through open-sourced satellite technology, powered by people and built for people.

VoiceRun, which has developed a “full-stack enterprise platform for voice AI”, has banked $5.5m in seed funding from lead investor Flybridge Capital Partners, along with participation from RRE Ventures and Link Ventures. The funding will be used to expand the company’s voice AI solutions and marketing efforts as “enterprises move beyond demos and pilots to deploy voice agents that meet reliability, security and governance expectations at scale,” the company noted in this announcement. Nick Leonard, co-founder and CEO of VoiceRun, stated: “Voice AI is having a moment, yet many enterprise projects stall between an impressive demo and a dependable production rollout. This seed round accelerates our work on the infrastructure that makes enterprise voice systems scalable and durable. We give teams code ownership, deployment flexibility and deep observability, so they can move fast, clear security reviews and deliver production-ready solutions at scale.” For more on the topic of voice AI, check out the free-to-download report that highlights the key discussions and takeaways from a recent Unthinkable Lab session held in London.  

Connectivity in sports stadiums can be notoriously bad, but UK operator Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is looking to help partner Chelsea, a major football (soccer) club, overcome that by carrying out a targeted upgrade to its network around its home ground, Stamford Bridge, in south-west London. VMO2 is one of Chelsea’s sponsors, and the mobile operator is aiming to boost mobile capacity and performance across the stands, concourse and in hospitality areas of the west London stadium. The upgrade includes optimisation of VMO2’s rooftop site within the stadium itself, plus the introduction of small cells in the surrounding streets of Fulham and Hammersmith. VMO2 aims to reduce congestion during peak times, such as a match day when more than 40,000 people can be in attendance. “Stamford Bridge is an iconic stadium with extremely high demand on match days. By optimising our network inside the ground and in the surrounding areas, we are giving [VMO2] customers a more reliable mobile experience so they can enjoy every moment, from kick-off to the final whistle,” said Steven Verigotta, director of mobile delivery at the operator.

– The staff, TelecomTV