What’s up with… Proximus Global, Verizon, Vantage Data Centers

• Proximus Global appoints Vonage exec as its new CEO
• Verizon tries to get Frontier acquisition over the line
• Vantage preps massive datacentre build in Spain

In today’s industry news roundup: Proximus Global has a new head honcho; Verizon offers to sell cut-price broadband in California to try to get the green light for its Frontier acquisition; Vantage Data Centers is to invest billions in a datacentre campus in Spain; and more!

Proximus Global, the subsidiary of Belgium’s national telco that comprises BICS (connectivity services), Telesign (digital identity) and Route Mobile, the communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) specialist in which Proximus acquired an 82.7% stake in May 2024, has appointed Seckin Arikan as its new CEO. Arikan, who joins from Ericsson CPaaS and network API unit Vonage, will start his new position on 1 November and will report to Stijn Bijnens, who took on the role of  Proximus Group CEO on 1 September. According to Proximus, Arikan is “a global ICT executive with over 25 years of experience leading transformation and growth in the global telecom and enterprise industry. As chief operating officer of Vonage, he oversees strategy, M&A, technology, AI and IT to drive operational efficiency and build value in UCaaS [unified communications-as-a-service], CCaaS [contact centre-as-a-service], CPaaS and network API offerings.” He will take over from Mark Reid, Proximus Group CFO, who has led Proximus Global as interim CEO since April.

Verizon has pledged to offer cheap broadband services in order to win approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for its acquisition of Frontier Communications, a deal valued at $20bn that was first announced in September 2024. Ars Technica reports that Verizon has committed to offering fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services of at least 300 Mbit/s symmetrical and fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband services of at least 100 Mbit/s downstream and 20 Mbit/s upstream for just $20 per month to people on low incomes in California if the CPUC will approve the takeover, which has already been cleared by US regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) following Verizon’s decision to amend its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies – see M&A megadeals reshape US comms sector.

Vantage Data Centers, in partnership with local power utility company Desarrollos Ecoindustriales La Cartuja, is to invest €3.2bn in the decade-long construction of a hyperscale datacentre campus near the town of Villanueva de Gállego in the Aragon region of Spain, reports real estate news site EjePrime (in Spanish). 

Finnish telco Elisa is often at the forefront of innovation, so it’s interesting to note it has hired one of the cybersecurity sector’s most respected individuals, Mikko Hyppönen, as its principal cybersecurity advisor on a part-time basis. He will also continue in his main role as research director at Sensofusion Oy, a developer of advanced anti-drone systems that specialises in radio frequency (RF) detection and countermeasure technologies. “Hyppönen’s expertise will be available to Elisa’s customers, management and experts in matters related to cybersecurity, digital services and security in telecommunications,” noted Elisa. Hyppönen stated: “Information security products and services are meaningless if people don’t actually use them. As one of Finland's largest IT companies, Elisa is in a unique position to improve the information security situation of our entire society. In my new role as an advisor to Elisa, I will strive to ensure that we can shift as much responsibility for information security issues as possible from end users to experts.”

Chinese tech and digital services giant Alibaba is raising $3.2bn in debt funding to strengthen its “cloud infrastructure capabilities and international commerce business operations,” it has announced to its investors. Look out for more datacentre infrastructure investment announcements, then! 

– The staff, TelecomTV