What’s up with… SoftBank, Proximus, Nokia

• SoftBank to launch US neocloud called SB Neo 
• Belgium’s Proximus turns to Ekinops for optical build
• Nokia lands optical deal with Orange Belgium

In today’s industry news roundup: SoftBank is launching its first neocloud in the US; Proximus is teaming with Ekinops to deploy a nationwide optical network in Belgium; Orange Belgium selects Nokia to overhaul its transport network; and much more!

Japanese technology giant SoftBank Group has announced that, along with its telco subsidiary SoftBank Corp, it is to establish a US neocloud (an AI-first datacentre operator) called SB Neo. “Leveraging the SoftBank Group’s 10-gigawatt-scale energy and AI infrastructure currently under development, in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2028 SB Neo will launch neocloud services that provide major US enterprises, including hyperscalers, with the computing resources needed for large-scale AI model training and inference. To meet the strong demand for AI computing resources in the US, SB Neo will expand its service capacity in phases, with plans to later deploy AI infrastructure on a 10-gigawatt scale,” noted SoftBank Group in this announcement. It added: “In Japan, SoftBank Corp. has been providing a beta version of its GPU cloud service powered by ‘Infrinia AI Cloud OS’, a software stack for AI datacentres, since May 2026. SoftBank Corp. will leverage the expertise and insights gained through this initiative to drive its business in the US.” SoftBank Group, which is heavily involved in Project Stargate with OpenAI and Oracle, notes it is “already advancing large-scale AI infrastructure projects in the US, and will support SB Neo’s business by leveraging its infrastructure, personnel and other resources.” SB Neo will be 51% owned by SoftBank Corp. and 49% owned by SoftBank Group: For more on the various ways in which telcos are getting involved in AI infrastructure developments, check out TelecomTV’s latest free-to-download 33-page report, Trends In Telco AI Infrastructure. 

Belgium’s incumbent telco Proximus has signed a 10-year supplier framework deal with Paris-based optical networking vendor Ekinops that will see the operator deploy a nationwide high-speed optical network using the French vendor’s technology. Ekinops will supply Proximus with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)-based optical network equipment and services to deploy the network – which will be named Neuron – across 600 sites in the European country. Under the terms of the deal, Ekinops will provide infrastructure supporting 800 Gbit/s of capacity and the tech for future upgrades, including a range of reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) for Proximus’s backbone and metro networks. The operator will also have access to Ekinops’s network management solution, Celestis NMS. Ekinops won the agreement after a process in which the operator’s network lead and CTO, Geert Standaert, was “impressed by the Ekinops labs” and the “quality of [the vendor’s] answers to our RFP [request for proposal], as well as the technical expertise demonstrated throughout the selection process.” The two firms struck a memorandum of understanding in March and deployment of the Neuron project is expected to begin in the second half of 2026. The deal is a big feather in the cap of Ekinops but is also notable because Proximus has an incredibly close and long-time relationship with one of the world’s leading providers of optical networking equipment, Nokia, which might normally be expected to pick up a deal like this. 

But every cloud, as they say… Nokia has been selected as the sole supplier for a “major transformation” of Orange Belgium’s transport infrastructure, “unifying fixed and mobile networks into a single, converged optical transport network” across the country. The vendor noted in this announcement that “by consolidating fixed and mobile transport infrastructure into a single network, Orange Belgium will also simplify operations and improve service delivery across its network. Nokia’s AI-powered WaveSuite automation platform will help Orange Belgium to streamline network management, improve operational efficiency and accelerate the time-to-market for new services” as well as “help Orange Belgium deliver a more seamless connectivity experience as demand continues to increase from machine learning applications, as well as remote working, video streaming, gaming and cloud services.” The upgraded optical network will “transport Orange Belgium’s fixed and mobile traffic from customer-provided equipment through metro access and backbone infrastructure, supporting services from 1G to 400G and beyond. It also marks the first deployment of Nokia’s high-capacity 1830 PSS platform within an Orange affiliate for core optical transport,” the vendor added. 

Virgin Media O2 has announced plans to combine its commercial, data and operations functions into a new consumer division, which will be led by former Sky chief consumer officer Lyssa McGowan. The UK-based telco, which was formed by the merger of Liberty Global’s Virgin Media and Telefónica’s O2 UK, will combine its commercial and operations teams into a single consumer function, which it claims will help it better understand and enhance customer experiences. McGowan, who was most recently CEO of retailer Pets at Home, will join VMO2 next week and will report directly to CEO Lutz Schüler. The restructure will see chief operations officer Rob Orr and chief commercial officer Christian Hindennach leave the business. Orr has been with Virgin Media since 2015 and became COO when the companies merged, while former Sky Deutschland CCO Hindennach joined in 2023. Schüler said: “It has always been our ambition to bring these teams together and these changes align squarely with our long-term strategy, ensuring that we are better set up to serve our customers and build even stronger foundations for the future. I would like to extend thanks from all of Virgin Media O2 to Rob and Christian who have both shown true dedication to the business over many years and have been instrumental in shaping the vision for the new consumer organisation.”

Dish DBS is looking to sell “substantially all” of its wireless assets, according to a recent voluntary Chapter 11 filing, after parent Echostar’s recent spectrum agreements with AT&T and SpaceX. The US pay-TV company announced on Tuesday that it has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 protection with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas under a prepackaged restructure with which it aims to offload debt and wind down its Dish Wireless unit. Dish DBS is made up of that wireless business alongside its satellite pay-TV service and streaming service Sling TV. In a statement, Dish said it made the filing due to delays in closing Echostar’s $23bn sale of spectrum to AT&T, which it had planned to use to pay off $2bn of senior secured notes due on 1 July. It hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 before the end of Q3. The filing does not include EchoStar itself, Boost Mobile or Gen Mobile, but EchoStar could still end up picking up the tab for some of the wireless assets after it was named the “stalking horse bidder” in the filing, a role which aims to set a minimum price threshold for any assets and stave off unreasonably low offers.

OpenAI has reportedly held talks over the possibility of handing the US government a 5% share in the AI company in order to secure buy-in and support from the Trump Administration. According to the Financial Times (subscription required), the proposal would also involve other US-based AI companies following suit in order to give the public a financial stake in the company and share in the upside of AI. The FT cites two people familiar with the matter who said the move could help the ChatGPT-maker address political blowback over the development of AI by sharing the wealth generated by the technology with the US public. The move comes after rival Anthropic saw its latest AI models blocked for users outside of the US, with US officials citing security concerns. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are reportedly considering public listings this year or next, but the provision could include a sovereign fund, such as Alaska’s Permanent Fund that invests the state’s oil wealth into stocks and pays dividends to the state government and residents. The Trump Administration has history here, having taken a 10% stake in chipmaker Intel, but the talks about OpenAI are “conceptual” at the moment, according to the FT.

– The staff, TelecomTV