• Telia and Sunrise line up job cuts
• Big tech set for EU regulatory reprieve 
• UK regulator sticks with upper 6GHz band plan

In today’s industry news roundup: Two of Europe’s telcos have new-year job cut plans; the upcoming Digital Networks Act in Europe could spell good news for US tech giants; UK regulator Ofcom still plans to have mobile operators and Wi-Fi players sharing upper 6GHz band spectrum; and much more!

New year, new telco efficiency measures. Nordic operator Telia is planning to cut up to 200 of its 3,000 staff in Finland, with 2,000 posts under review as part of plans to “cut costs and streamline operations”, according to Finnish broadcaster YLE. In Switzerland, Sunrise has initiated a consultation process that could result in the reduction of 190 jobs at the operator, which has about 2,850 employees. The telco noted in this announcement that “as part of its ongoing organisational development, Sunrise is planning action to simplify and streamline its structures further. The aims are to shorten decision-making paths, thanks to broader spans of control and fewer hierarchical levels, and to increase efficiency through the use of new technologies,” though it didn’t specify AI. The job cuts will impact “numerous leadership positions,” but “Sunrise shop and customer-service employees with direct customer contact are largely not affected by the redundancies and apprentices are not affected at all,” the operator noted. 

Are Europe’s lawmakers caving under pressure from Donald Trump? Reuters has reported that so-called ‘big tech’ firms, such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Netflix (all US companies), are due to evade enforced regulation under the terms of the upcoming European Union Digital Networks Act and will, according to sources, only be required to conform to a “voluntary framework” rather than the binding rules that govern communications service providers in the EU’s 27 member states. One source with knowledge of the details told Reuters that the big tech firms will be “asked to cooperate and discuss voluntarily [and be] moderated by EU telecoms regulators’ group BEREC [Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications]. There will be no new obligations. It will be a best practices regime.” That suggests that the prospect of ‘fair share’ payments by big tech firms to the region’s telcos, as proposed in a September 2024 report authored by Mario Draghi, might be buried once and for all. If the Reuters report is accurate, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s executive vice president for tech-sovereignty, security and democracy, a role that includes responsibility for “the portfolio on digital and frontier technologies”, is likely to have a queue of major telcos lined up at her door asking for changes, though they should be pleased with the reported plans for a more streamlined process for spectrum auctions across the EU, one of the major demands the region’s telcos have been making of EC commissioners. Virkkunen is due to unveil the details of the proposed Digital Networks Act on 20 January, after which she will work with EU member states and the European Parliament on the final details and any amendments before the act becomes law. 

UK regulator Ofcom is sticking with its previously announced plan to enable mobile operators and Wi-Fi service providers to share spectrum in the upper 6 GHz band. “Ofcom’s pioneering proposals would make the UK the first country in Europe to commit to sharing radio spectrum frequencies – specifically the ‘upper 6 GHz band’ – between these two different technologies,” noted the regulator in its announcement. Under Ofcom’s plan, it would divide the upper 6 GHz band, with Wi-Fi prioritised in one part – the bottom 160 MHz of the band (6425–6585 MHz) – and mobile in the other – the upper 540 MHz (6585–7125 MHz) – “with clear technical conditions and controls attached”, stated the watchdog. The European Union’s Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) recently decided on a different approach, as it favoured future mobile networks such as 6G, as opposed to unlicensed Wi-Fi services, for the upper 6 GHz band – see Mobile fends off Wi-Fi challenge for upper 6 GHz band in Europe.

Hot on the heels of the launch of T-Mobile US’s latest tariffs, Verizon has unveiled its own new-year cut-price offers for customers. The US telco has revealed several new packages as it hones in on reducing churn and cutting costs for its customers, as set out by new CEO Dan Schulman at the end of 2025. Verizon has launched a new bundle for family switchers, which includes four phone lines for $25 each, and an additional incentive in the form of iPhone 17 handsets. Solo switchers who bring their own device can get a line from $45 per month, while customers signing up for home internet services could be entitled to a new Samsung TV or tablet. Like T-Mobile US, Verizon is also promising a price lock for new and existing mobile and home subscribers. Schulman, who replaced Hans Vestberg as CEO in October last year, has said Verizon’s future focus is “about serving and delivering customers by building the industry’s best overall value proposition and the best customer experience”. You can read all about T-Mobile US’s new offering here.

Anthropic, the generative AI giant that has teamed up with multiple telcos (including SK Telecom and Swisscom) and many big tech firms, is raising $10bn in a new funding round that would value the Claude developer at $350bn, reports CNBC (which cites The Wall Street Journal as the initial source).    

– The staff, TelecomTV