• CMA orders investigation into Netomnia takeover
• CityFibre agrees to sell Entanet
• SK Group announces $642bn in AI investments

In today’s industry news roundup: Nexfibre’s £2bn buyout of altnet Netomnia is facing a probe by the UK’s competitions watchdog; CityFibre agrees to sell Entanet to entrepreneur Tom O’Hagan; SK Group is putting more money into AI datacentres ; and much more!

The UK’s competition watchdog has fast-tracked a review of the proposed £2bn takeover of UK fibre altnet Netomnia by a consortium made up of Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) parent companies Liberty Global and Telefónica, and Paris-based private equity outfit InfraVia Capital. The deal will now face an in-depth investigation by the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA), as requested by the buyers after they were notified by the CMA earlier this week of its plans to launch an enquiry. Initially, the deal – which would see Netomnia merge with VMO2 and InfraVia’s Nexfibre – was due to close later this year. The trio said at the time they were looking to combine Substantial (Netomnia’s parent company)’s fibre network (Netomnia) with Nexfibre to create a challenger to BT Openreach, covering a full fibre footprint of around 8 million premises by 2028. In a statement, Nexfibre CEO Rajiv Datta urged the CMA to “fast-track [the review] to Phase 2 to get to the right answer faster; ensuring due process, while recognising urgency”. Speaking to TelecomTV back in April, Datta outlined the logic behind the takeover – you can watch our exclusive interview with him here. The CMA probe seemed inevitable as the deal has faced opposition from within the UK’s fibre broadband market, most notably from rival CityFibre who warned that approval “would remove a successful challenger and reduce choice for consumers”. CityFibre CEO Simon Holden added: “The CMA is right to take an in-depth look at its impact on UK digital infrastructure and the competition that policymakers, regulators and the altnets are working so hard to establish.” The probe has a statutory deadline of December 2026.

While CityFibre might be opposed to the Netomnia deal, it is also the subject of its own bit of M&A news, after announcing that it has agreed to sell its non-core off-net business Entanet to Virtual1 founder Tom O’Hagan. UK wholesale fibre broadband altnet CityFibre says the sale will enable it to focus on scaling its full fibre infrastructure, while allowing Entanet to operate as a standalone wholesale aggregator. The deal will include partners served outside of CityFibre’s network footprint, along with associated managed services, network assets, systems and support functions. O’Hagan’s Entenet will continue to operate from Telford, and will become a new strategic wholesale customer of CityFibre. The major UK altnet acquired Entanet in 2017, but will now hand control over to O’Hagan (no fee was disclosed), who built and led Virtual1 before selling it to TalkTalk. Matthew Skipsey will join the company from Netomnia to become the new CTO, according to a LinkedIn post from O’Hagan. 

SK Telecom’s parent, SK Group, has announced a massive investment programme that includes 1,000tn won ($642bn) for 15 gigawatts of AI datacentre deployments to be run by SK Telecom, with the initial 5 gigawatts to be deployed as soon as 2029. The plans also include semiconductor plant investments totalling 1,100tn won ($706bn) by SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest producer of memory chips (with a 29% global market share). To help support these developments, SK Group is partnering with private equity giant KKR, to launch South Korea’s largest renewable energy company by consolidating and expanding multiple renewable energy businesses – the combined power capacity is expected to expand sixfold to 10 gigawatts by 2031, the partners announced.  

Those announcements came as part of a broader initiative by the South Korean government, which is aiming to position the country as a regional and global AI and semiconductor powerhouse. Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading memory chip producer (with a 38% global market share), is also playing a major role in the South Korean initiative, with plans for a 400tn won ($256bn) investment in new chip fabrication plants in Gwangju. In a regulatory filing, Samsung noted it plans to invest 2,100tn won ($1.34tn) in total in its semiconductor business between now and 2040. 

Rakuten Symphony has appointed Amit Bhardwaj as president of its Radio Access Network (RAN) Business Unit to “drive the continued evolution and deployment of cloud-native, Open RAN solutions for operators worldwide”. Bhardwaj succeeds Anil Sawkar, who has led the RAN Business Unit since its founding in 2021. Prior to joining Rakuten Symphony, Bhardwaj led the National RAN and Device Engineering unit at US mobile service provider Boost Mobile (formerly Dish Wireless). And before that, he spent 16 years at Ericsson in a series of senior technology and engineering leadership roles.

Digital BSS vendor Beyond Now said it’s helping Croatian telco Hrvatski Telekom, part of Deutsche Telekom empire, to “advance its AI-first strategy to simplify B2B customer journeys, accelerate service delivery and bring new AI-enabled capabilities to market.” The vendor added that it is working with the telco to integrate “agentic AI capabilities that streamline sales operations and enterprise bulk ordering, enable dynamic user interfaces, and support the autonomous resolution of customer requests across the lifecycle, including upgrades, discounts and enterprise service changes.” Ivana Beli Oštarčević, director of B2B portfolio development and management sector at Hrvatski Telekom, stated: “This next phase in our partnership with Beyond Now is about applying AI where it can make the greatest difference for our customers and our business. For our customers that means simpler journeys, faster service delivery and greater access to a broader set of digital and AI-enabled capabilities. For our own business, it means strengthening the way we support our teams, bringing new services to market and creating new opportunities for growth. Together with Beyond Now, we are showing how AI adoption in telecoms can be practical, strategic and commercially relevant.”

Zain Group has been granted a 25-year licence to launch a mobile operator in Syria, following the exit of MTN from the region earlier this year. The Kuwait-based telco, which operates in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa, bid $747m for the licence during a tender process, held by Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCOT), as reported here. Zain plans to establish a new operating entity in the country, in which Syria’s government will hold a 25% stake, with Zain Group controlling the rest. MTN’s network has around 6.3 million customers, and Zain said it will work alongside the incumbent telco and the government to support those customers, ahead of a targeted commercial launch in Q1 2027. Zain has also pledged to invest more than $800m to expand and modernise its network, using 5G and AI-powered technology, over the next decade. MTN reached a formal agreement with the Syrian authorities to exit the country at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year – this came after it had announced its decision to abandon the MTN operation, citing regulatory actions, way back in 2021.

– The staff, TelecomTV