• VodafoneThree sets out its stall, taps into Community Fibre
• Telenor expands its sovereign AI factory
• Deutsche Telekom bolsters its sovereign AI portfolio

In today’s industry news roundup: VodafoneThree unveils its mobile and fixed network plans for the UK, which include a new partnership with FTTP altnet Community Fibre; Telenor is expanding its sovereign AI factory to meet increasing internal and external customer demands; Deutsche Telekom taps Nvidia’s H100 Tensor Core processors to offer sovereign AI services in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland; and much more!

Having held a launch party in London on Wednesday evening, VodafoneThree, the newly formed UK operator, has set out its stall and brokered an interesting fibre access partnership. The merger of Vodafone UK and Three UK was completed at the start of June to create a single operator with 27 million mobile customers. Now the amalgamated operations are getting down to work, combining spectrum assets, enabling roaming between the two previously unconnected networks, adding two UK-based customer care centres and reminding everyone for the umpteenth time that the operator, which is 51% owned by the Vodafone Group, plans to invest £11bn ($14.9bn) in its networks (though it’s more shy about noting that this is spread over 10 years). The big focus for its cellular networks team is the rollout of 5G standalone (5G SA): It claims to be the only UK operator “with a quarter-by-quarter, year-by-year, guaranteed plan,” as agreed with regulator Ofcom, “to reach 99.95% 5G SA population coverage by 2034. The network will be built at speed, with the 5G SA build plan being front-loaded so that, by the end of the third year, it will hit 90% population coverage from a current baseline of 47%. In fact, in just one year, up to 50 million people will have access to VodafoneThree’s fastest 5G speeds. Only a 5G standalone network will have the capacity and speed to manage the vast amounts of data that applications like AI will require, meaning VodafoneThree aims to build the first nationwide, AI-ready network.” As do BT and Virgin Media O2, we’re sure… But it’s not all about mobile, of course – fibre broadband is also a key part of the VodafoneThree services portfolio. Over the next 12 months, VodafoneThree will combine Three’s fixed wireless access (FWA) and Vodafone’s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) offerings into one home broadband portfolio under the Vodafone brand. Currently the operator has about 2 million fixed broadband customers combined and reaches 22.5 million premises – 20 million with fibre via Vodafone UK’s wholesale deals with CityFibre and BT’s Openreach and 2.5 million via Three’s FWA coverage. By rolling out 5G SA in the coming years, which supports FWA as well as mobile connectivity, it aims to ultimately be able to offer some kind of fixed broadband connection to all UK homes and businesses. To bolster its current fibre broadband reach, VodafoneThree has struck a new partnership with UK fibre broadband altnet Community Fibre, which has been building out its own access network infrastructure in London and the surrounding area. “With Community Fibre’s network providing symmetrical speeds of up to 2.5Gbit/s in London, the partnership will significantly enhance Vodafone’s current broadband proposition in the capital… The agreement represents another significant step forward in VodafoneThree’s mission to offer fibre, or fibre-like speeds, to 100% of UK homes and businesses, challenging the market and helping more customers get the speed and choice they deserve,” the operator noted in this announcement. Max Taylor, CEO of VodafoneThree, stated: “Through our strong network of partnerships, we’ve built the biggest full fibre footprint in the country – all part of our commitment to bring fast, reliable broadband to as many households and businesses as possible. We’re delighted to be partnering with Community Fibre, a company that shares our ambition to improve the customer experience, and are looking forward to launching in the market this summer.”

Norway’s Telenor has announced a “significant expansion” of its sovereign AI factory, which launched last year using Nvidia technology and with support from Capgemini.  “The facility is now scaling to meet increasing demand from both internal and external users, enabling new opportunities for secure, sovereign and sustainable AI development,” noted the operator. “Since its launch, the AI factory has supported a growing number of real-world applications – from voice-to-voice translation and public sector digitalisation to hosting Norway’s own language models and accelerating industrial automation,” stated Telenor, which noted in May, when it reported its first quarter financials, that its sovereign AI initiative “has been well received by customers. The recent geopolitical concern has led to further interest from customers and Telenor is now preparing to scale up with a fourfold increase in GPU capacity towards the end of the year.” To support that growth, the operator is integrating Nvidia AI Enterprise into its platform, enabling faster and more efficient deployment of generative and agentic AI applications. “These capabilities also support Telenor’s own innovation efforts, including private network automation and AI-driven optimisation in maritime use cases,” noted the operator. “One such use case is being developed in collaboration with Telenor Maritime, where agentic AI is being applied to optimise private 5G networks at sea. In a pioneering field trial, the company is implementing the Nvidia AI blueprint for telco network configuration, built with BubbleRAN, enabling natural language-based controls for improved network installation and configuration,” added the operator, referencing the AI blueprint announcement made earlier this week by Nvidia. Knut Fjellheim, CTIO at Telenor Maritime, noted: “The blueprint is helping us address configuration challenges and enhance quality of service during network installation. Implementing it is part of our push towards network automation and follows the successful deployment of agentic AI for real-time network slicing in a private 5G maritime use case.” According to Telenor, it is “helping [to] set a new benchmark for sovereign digital infrastructure in Europe… by localising AI capabilities, embedding strong security, and focusing on sustainable operations.” Cathal Kennedy, acting group CTO at Telenor, noted: “With the expansion of the AI factory, the successful launch of regulated use cases, and the integration of AI into our private networks, Telenor is setting a new standard for secure, sustainable and intelligent networks in Norway and beyond.”

Sticking with the sovereignty theme… Deutsche Telekom has added to the growing list of sovereign cloud/AI solutions from the telco sector by announcing that it is now offering Nvidia H100 Tensor Core processors for rent from its Open Telekom Cloud, which it describes as “the leading European alternative to international hyperscalers.” The H100 processors “accelerate the training and use of artificial intelligence (AI) as well as high-performance computing,” and have been deployed at datacentres in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. “This means that data always remains within the European legal jurisdiction and is subject exclusively to European data protection laws,” noted DT in this announcement, which coincides with Nvidia’s GTC Paris event that yielded multiple new AI-related developments of note earlier this week. “Artificial intelligence is the engine driving the digital transformation of the economy,” noted Ferri Abolhassan, CEO of T-Systems at DT’s enterprise services division. “However, we should not lose sight of sovereignty. It is the key to Europe’s future viability. Only control over our data guarantees our security, data protection and economic independence,” he added.  

Liberty Global has chosen CommScope to upgrade several of its European DOCSIS-based cable broadband access networks, including VodafoneZiggo in The Netherlands, Telenet (Wyre) in Belgium and Sunrise in Switzerland, for virtualised distributed access architecture (DAA) operation. The network upgrades include CommScope’s cloud-native virtualised Converged Cable Access Platform (vCCAP) Evo solution, “which will provide significant enhancements to Liberty Global’s service offerings and supplement currently deployed chassis-based CMTS/CCAP cores,” noted the vendor in this announcement. “The addition of the vCCAP Evo solution will enable Liberty Global to cost-effectively address evolving density, throughput and efficiency requirements. Furthermore, it allows them to rapidly adopt new headend technologies as such changes become available and nimbly pivot to support new enhanced multigigabit service tiers,” it added. Colin Buechner, managing director of fixed networks at Liberty Global, noted: “Network upgrades are always complex, but CommScope went the extra mile for us and worked closely with our architecture, engineering and operations teams to develop a DOCSIS 4.0 network platform that would meet or exceed our specifications. With the vCCAP Evo solution we can now introduce multigigabit network speeds of up to at least 8 Gbit/s to our subscribers while cost-effectively enhancing user experiences in a highly competitive market. Better yet, the network upgrades will require less power to run than our current deployments, so the new deployments will be more environmentally friendly than legacy technologies.”

The number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which aim to block access to sites and online services by overwhelming them with simultaneous requests, in Italy increased by 36% year on year in 2024, according to the Cyber Security Report, published by Telecom Italia (TIM) and the Cyber Security Foundation (the first non-profit foundation in Italy focused on cybersecurity). “However, it’s not just the number that’s striking,” noted the Italian telco. “Nearly four out of 10 attacks exceeded 20 Gbit/s in intensity, which makes them more difficult to detect and defend against,” it added in this announcement. The report “reveals an increase in sophisticated cyberattacks and ransomware targeting manufacturing and services… In 2024, cyber threats in Italy increased in number, sophistication and, above all, targeting,” noted Telecom Italia.

There’s a lot of focus right now on how satellite connectivity is helping to move data traffic around the world, but subsea and long-distance terrestrial networks are still receiving a lot of investment and the latest new network plan comes from a consortium of four operators – PCCW Global, Sparkle (currently being sold by Telecom Italia), Telecom Egypt and Zain Omantel International (ZOI). They have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on the construction of the Asia-Africa-Europe-2 (AAE-2) subsea cable system, which is being designed to establish a digital link connecting Hong Kong and Singapore to Italy “traversing secure and high-capacity terrestrial corridors across Thailand, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt,” the partners noted in this announcement. “AAE-2 will also feature strategic extensions to additional key destinations across its route, further enhancing intercontinental connectivity and supporting the growing demands of cloud services, content delivery, and digital transformation initiatives across the regions… delivering a geographical diverse, resilient and high-performance route for international traffic. By integrating both subsea and terrestrial infrastructure, AAE-2 will create a future-proof data highway between Asia, Africa and Europe,” added the operator partners. 

– The staff, TelecomTV