• Bell Canada preps major AI infrastructure expansion
• Work on subsea cable halted by Iran conflict
• Open RAN growing but vendor diversity has shrunk

In today’s industry news roundup: Bell Canada ups its infrastructure investment plans as it spies greater growth in sovereign AI opportunities; work on the extension of the 2Africa Pearls subsea cable has been halted; Open RAN investments are increasing but the number of vendors benefitting is decreasing, according to Dell’Oro; and more!

Bell Canada has unveiled plans to further expand its AI fabric-related infrastructure with the imminent construction, in partnership with the provincial government, of a CAN$1.7bn (US$1.24bn), 300MW (megawatts) AI datacentre outside Regina, Saskatchewan. According to the Canadian operator, which recently unveiled its plan to integrate the AI-Relevance Platform developed by Montréal-based Coveo into its full-stack Bell AI Fabric, “a significant portion of the facility’s power will be dedicated to sovereign AI compute, ensuring that government agencies, researchers and enterprises in Canada can access top-tier AI power while guaranteeing their data remains within Canada, meeting strict chain-of-custody and residency requirements.” The telco claims the facility will be Canada’s largest purpose-built AI facility, with AI chip developer Cerebras and AI infrastructure specialist CoreWeave identified as initial ‘tenants’ at the facility, which is due to start providing services in early 2027. The facility will be linked to Bell Canada’s national fibre backbone through a partnership with provincial government-owned network operator SaskTel, which has also signed up to be a sovereign AI services partner in the region.  

The news came as Bell Canada provided an update to its financial outlook, including how the planned AI infrastructure investment plans will impact its capital expenditure plans (going up, mostly this year) and its cashflow (going down this year as a result of the new spending plans). However, the telco also noted that as a result of its investments, it expects its revenues to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of between 2.5% and 4.5% for the 2025-28 period, up from its previous estimate of 2% to 4%, its adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of between 3% and 4%, up from the previous estimate of 2% to 3%, and its cashflow to grow at a CAGR of 8.5% compared with the previous estimate of 7%. 

Construction of a subsea cable system backed by the likes of Meta, China Mobile, Orange, STC, Telecom Egypt and Vodafone has been paused due to the war in Iran, according to Bloomberg (subscription required). Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that subsea cable builder Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) has halted work on the Middle Eastern segment of the 2Africa Pearls cable after the company sent force majeure notices to customers saying the region is too dangerous to continue deployment of the extension. ASN said its cable installation ship, which was laying the branch extension to connect Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia, has been stranded in the Port of Dammam in Saudi Arabia. The Pearls extension was announced in 2021 and, once completed, will expand the 2Africa cable – which loops the entire African continent and was finished earlier this year – into the Middle East.

As we reported during MWC26, Open RAN is still alive and kicking as an architectural option and business opportunity for mobile network operators and technology vendors respectively, albeit for fewer vendors than had been envisaged when Open RAN was first adopted by major telcos about six years ago. That lack of vendor diversity was highlighted by research firm Dell’Oro in a recent blog, which noted (without any supporting figures) that following a dramatic decline in 2024, the value of Open RAN investments grew at a double-digit rate in 2025. But here’s the most telling point in the blog, written by Dell’Oro’s Stefan Pongratz: “Open fronthaul (Open FH) is increasingly being specified as a baseline capability for next-generation RAN platforms. At the same time, supplier diversity has not improved. In fact, RAN market concentration is higher today than it was before the alliance was established.” And that’s why the likes of Mavenir, once regarded as an Open RAN frontrunner, have largely stepped back from the sector to focus on other developments. 

– The staff, TelecomTV