• Qvantel, PTCL and Exa close M&A deals
• TelecomTV has a new Editor
• AR glasses in focus at CES

In today’s industry news roundup: Multiple telecom sector M&A deals have been completed or announced over the past few days; James Pearce is the newly appointed Editor at TelecomTV; two of China’s main telcos have invested in an augmented reality (AR) glasses developer; and much more!

The TelecomTV team may have downed tools for the Christmas and New Year season, but some M&A teams and corporate lawyers have had less of a break. Not only did SoftBank Group announce its $4bn deal to acquire infrastructure asset manager DigitalBridge but a number of other previously announced takeovers have been completed in the past few days. Helsinki-based BSS vendor Qvantel completed its acquisition of Toronto-based Optiva, a deal that was initially announced in September last year. “The combined company now serves more than 70 operators in over 40 countries and is supported by a global workforce of more than 1,000 professionals across 30 locations,” noted Qvantel in this announcement. “Early market response has been positive, with four new customer contracts signed in the last three months, including a multi-country group deployment across APAC, the Americas and Europe powered by Qvantel Flex BSS and the Optiva Charging Engine,” the company stated. Qvantel president Tero Kivisaari stated: “Telecom has been slow to evolve, but the opportunity ahead is enormous. Today’s customers expect more, AI is opening new possibilities and enhanced digital services are where the next wave of value will come from. The combination of Qvantel and Optiva creates a future-ready end-to-end monetisation foundation to support that growth. Together, we can help operators close that gap faster and turn that promise into results.”

Other deals that have finally closed include the $54m acquisition of subsea network operator Aqua Comms by London-based Exa Infrastructure, a deal first announced almost a year ago. The acquisition “brings greater route diversity and more critical links between the US, Ireland and mainland Europe,” noted Exa in this announcement.  “Its deep operational expertise alongside a materially expanded infrastructure footprint means EXA Infrastructure is equipped to fully serve the AI, cloud, and content demands of customers,” it added. 

And in Asia, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) completed its acquisition of Telenor Pakistan, a deal valued at $536m by Telenor, which first announced the planned transaction in late 2023. The acquisition process took much longer than expected and only received approval from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) last month. PTCL, which is majority owned (with a 62% stake) by the Pakistan state but managed by Middle East powerhouse e& (which holds a 26% stake), hailed the completion of the deal as a “defining moment in the evolution of Pakistan’s telecom sector”. PTCL is now Pakistan’s second-largest mobile operator with almost 70 million customers and a market share of about 35.5%, second only to Jazz (with about 72.6 million customers, 37% market share) and ahead of Zong (52 million, 26.5% market share). 

TelecomTV has started 2026 with the appointment of James Pearce as Editor, with immediate effect. James has ‘form’ (as they say in certain circles), having previously worked at enterprise technology publication TechInformed, IBC (running the IBC365 site), Capacity Media (Global Telecoms Business) and Mobile News. He is now responsible for TelecomTV’s day-to-day editorial coverage of the industry and, of course, will play a key role in the development and delivery of our video content and events (digital and in-person) as well as anything else we think of doing in 2026 and beyond. James, who will report to Editorial Director Ray Le Maistre, can be reached at [email protected]. “I am delighted to join Ray and the excellent team at TelecomTV,” he stated. “I am looking forward to returning to telecom and catching up with contacts old and new, and covering key industry trends such as the development of AI-native telco strategies and the evolution of 5G.” The feeling is mutual. “I’m thrilled to have James on board,” bellowed Le Maistre. “It’s always a bonus to start any new year with an expanded team and James will be bringing new insights, especially from enterprise verticals, to TelecomTV.” 

Will 2026 be the year of augmented reality (AR) glasses? Shenzhen, China-based RayNeo hopes so. It has set up camp at this week’s CES show in Las Vegas to show off its X3 Pro – Project eSIM product, a “groundbreaking prototype” that is the “world’s first consumer AR glasses concept with integrated eSIM and 4G connectivity”. Such developments will be of interest to mobile operators, which will be wanting to figure out just what kind of impact such devices, if they become popular, might have on radio access network (RAN) data traffic volumes and patterns, especially when AI is added into the mix (for more on that topic, see this article from last year that features insight from Verizon CTO Yago Tenorio). Two telcos hoping that next-gen wearable devices such as AR glasses do become popular are China Mobile and China Unicom, which have both participated in RayNeo’s latest funding round: While RayNeo did not disclose details of the investments, the South China Morning Post reports it is believed to be in the region of $143m.  

Indra Group, the Madrid-based technology and consulting giant, has completed the acquisition of an 89.68% stake in Spanish satellite operator Hispasat for €725m (the remaining stake is owned by the Spanish government via its investment arm SEPI). The deal was approved by Indra’s shareholders in late November. Hispasat is part of the SpaceRISE consortium (which also includes Deutsche Telekom and Orange) that is developing the European Commission’s €10.6bn IRIS2 project. 

As the TelecomTV team logged off and checked out for its annual seasonal hibernation, Deutsche Telekom announced what sounded like a quantum computing investment but turned out to be something quite different. The giant German telco pumped an unspecified sum of cash (via its T.Capital Tech Fund) into, and formed a strategic partnership with, Munich-based Quantum Systems, a developer of autonomous surveillance drones, with the aim of developing solutions for the “protection of critical infrastructure”. According to DT, “Quantum Systems’ proven technology complements Deutsche Telekom’s strengths in intelligent platforms, connectivity and system integration,” and satisfies the growing demand for sovereign solutions, with DT labelling the partnership as “Security made in Germany”. Ferri Abolhassan, member of the Deutsche Telekom board of management for T-Systems, the company’s enterprise division, stated: “With Quantum Systems, we have a strong partner at our side – with the common goal of making Germany safer. We respond to threats from abroad and at home and provide our government agencies and corporate customers with state-of-the-art technology, especially for the protection of critical infrastructure.” Sven Kruck, co-CEO of Quantum Systems, added: “We already have a strong presence in the military sector. Deutsche Telekom is the ideal partner for increasing the use of our proven technologies in the non-military sector. Together we are tapping into new customers and use cases.”

Japanese mobile operator SoftBank Corp, part of SoftBank Group, recently teamed up with Ericsson and wireless chip giant Qualcomm Technologies for a “successful” field trial of low-latency communications using several 5G and 5G-Advanced technologies, including low-latency, low-loss, scalable throughput (L4S), on SoftBank's 5G standalone (5G SA) commercial network in Tokyo. “The results showed a reduction in wireless link latency of approximately 90% compared to scenarios that did not utilise 5G and 5G-Advanced technologies, such as L4S, successfully achieving continuous low-latency and stable communications,” noted SoftBank.

– The staff, TelecomTV