What’s up with… Network spending, n8n, Bell Canada

• Telecom tech spending in unexpected uptick
• DT and Nvidia invest in automation specialist n8n 
• Bell Canada puts Cohere’s AI agents to work

In today’s industry news roundup: Spending on telecom network technology unexpectedly rises during the first six months of this year, according to Dell’Oro Group; the investment arms of Deutsche Telekom and Nvidia are among those to pump cash into German automation software specialist n8n; Bell Canada is letting its management loose on Cohere’s agentic AI platform; and much more!

Somewhat unexpectedly, following a downbeat forecast, spending on network equipment increased slightly during the first six months of this year, though not by much, according to Dell’Oro Group. Earlier this year, the research firm reported that the global revenues of vendors in the six telecom networking technology categories it tracks – broadband access, microwave transport, optical transport, mobile core network (MCN), radio access network (RAN), and service provider (SP) router and switch – had plummeted by 11% year on year in 2024 (to about $84bn, we reckon) and that there was no expectation of any growth during 2025. Now, though, the Dell’Oro team reckons spending on telecom networking tech has increased by 4% year on year during the first half of 2025 due to improved market conditions, especially outside China, and that a 2% to 3% increase for the full year is now expected (which, based on TelecomTV’s back-of-the-envelope calculations, would put the total spending at about $86bn). Even though investments have been scaled back in China this year, the two main vendors from that country, Huawei and ZTE, continue to be major players both in their domestic and international markets. During the first half of this year, Huawei commanded a 31% global market share of telecom tech spending, way ahead of European duo Nokia (13% share) and Ericsson (12%), while ZTE managed a 10% share. Huawei is still the market leader even if the Chinese market is excluded, noted Dell’Oro. 

Berlin, Germany-based n8n, which has developed a workflow automation platform that “uniquely combines AI capabilities with business process automation”, has raised $180m in a Series C round of funding that featured Deutsche Telekom’s investment arm, T Capital, and Nvidia’s venture capital arm NVentures among the investors. The company has now raised $240m in total and is valued at $2.5bn. According to n8n, the funding round “recognises something fundamental: The AI race isn’t only about smarter models – it’s about who can actually put that intelligence to work reliably, inside actual businesses.” It added: “The AI agent landscape has split into two camps. Some platforms put everything in the hands of AI, you write prompts and hope for the best, with the entire logic determined by the model’s interpretation. Others require strict, rule-based routing, which is powerful for engineers who code every pathway but impractical for business users who need to iterate quickly. We’ve learnt from our community that neither extreme serves businesses well. Pure autonomy creates magic when it works but proves too unpredictable for business-critical workflows. Pure rule-based routing offers predictability but demands more time and often developers for every change. n8n was built for the reality in between: Giving flexible control over where your agents sit on this spectrum.”

Bell Canada has started providing some staff with access to the Cohere’s secure agentic AI platform, North, ahead of a broader rollout to all of the telco’s management team in early 2026. Their access to North will enable them to “build AI agents and leverage automation to optimise day-to-day work and drive stronger operational outcomes across the business,” noted the Canadian operator in this announcement. The move comes only a few months after Bell Canada announced a strategic partnership, with its fellow Canadian company to “provide full-stack sovereign AI solutions for government and enterprise customers across Canada, and to deploy proprietary, secure AI solutions within Bell”. Cohere’s North is “already connected to some of Bell’s enterprise systems as part of this initial launch with plans to fully integrate across the business, supporting our AI transformation focus to improve customer experience, increase productivity, empower front-line employees and improve revenue,” noted the operator. “More than 100 specific use cases have already been identified to support customer communications, sales proposals, training, sales analysis and much more, with some agents now live,” it added. Cohere’s enterprise grade large language models (LLMs) and the North agentic AI platform are “an important layer of Bell AI Fabric, enabling Bell and Cohere to provide secure and sovereign AI solutions for Canadian companies,” noted the telco. In late May, Bell Canada unveiled its Bell AI Fabric strategy that will see the operator invest in a national network of AI infrastructure facilities “starting with a datacentre supercluster in British Columbia that will aim to provide upwards of 500 MW of hydro-electric-powered AI compute capacity across six facilities”. In August, the telco announced that Buzz High Performance Computing (HPC), a subsidiary of Vancouver-based Hive Digital Technologies, would be the supplier of the Nvidia-based tech stack that will underpin its Bell AI Fabric strategy – see Buzz weaves its way into Bell AI Fabric.

SoftAtHome, an independent French software company that specialises in broadband, video and analytics applications, has teamed up with wireless chip giant Qualcomm to “accelerate” the deployment of prpl –  open-source software for the management of customer premises equipment (CPE) – by major broadband network operators. The partners are already collaborating on Tier 1 network operator deployments on either side of the Atlantic that are scheduled to go live in the coming months, according to SoftAtHome. Ganesh Swaminathan, general manager of wireless, infrastructure and network at Qualcomm Technologies, stated: “By combining our leadership in Wi-Fi, 5G, fibre, edge AI and integrated networking platforms with extensive open-source support, and SoftAtHome’s deep expertise in delivering value-added services on prplWare, we’re enabling operators to deliver more flexible, scalable and standards-based solutions. Our efforts are already powering two upcoming customer deployments, and we look forward to continued success together”.

– The staff, TelecomTV