
DT execs in the news... left to right: Srini Gopalan, Tim Höttges and Rodrigo Diehl.
- DT’s Gopalan is parachuted into T-Mobile US
- AT&T builds on its fibre, 5G investments
- ETSI forms a new 6G specs group
In today’s industry news roundup: Deutsche Telekom’s head of Germany is crossing the Atlantic to take on a major role at T-Mobile US; AT&T’s focus on broadband access infrastructure is serving it well, it seems; ETSI’s new group is focused on the various access techniques for 6G connectivity; and much more!
Deutsche Telekom (DT) has appointed Srinivasan Gopalan, who is currently responsible for the telco’s operations in Germany, as the chief operating officer (COO) of T-Mobile US, in which DT holds a majority stake. Gopalan, who has been the managing director of Telekom Deutschland since 2020, has already been on the T-Mobile US board for four years: From 1 March he will “lead the company’s technology initiatives and go-to-market operations across both Consumer and Business groups”, reporting directly to T-Mobile US CEO Mike Sievert. The decision strongly suggests that Gopalan, who is 54, is being lined up as Sievert’s successor. In this T-Mobile US announcement, Sievert noted: “I am so pleased to welcome Srini to this world-leading management team after working with him for years on our board of directors. I know from personal experience that his deep understanding of technology, operations and our business makes him the ideal leader to take on the role of chief operating officer. As we execute on the multi-year business and technology transformation plan that we laid out at our Capital Markets Day, having Srini join our team couldn’t be better timed, as he will leverage his experience and track record of leading through significant transformations – as a further accelerant to a plan that already has a lot of momentum behind it.” In Germany, Gopalan will be replaced by Rodrigo Diehl who, at 49 is currently head of DT’s Magenta Telekom business in Austria. Deutsche Telekom also announced that its CEO, Tim Höttges, has had his contract extended by two years to the end of 2028. Commenting on the news, DT’s chairman, Frank Appel, noted that “Höttges has made Deutsche Telekom the leading telecommunications company in the world. We are pleased that he has complied with our request to continue his successful work beyond the previous end of his contract.” He added: “Srini Gopalan, one of our most experienced managers, is strengthening the management team of T-Mobile US. He… can bring all his experience, for example in digital transformation, to the day-to-day business. We hope that Srini Gopalan’s move will also further reinforce the successful relationship between T-Mobile US and Deutsche Telekom, bringing value for both companies. With Rodrigo Diehl, we are appointing an outstanding manager for the German business who stands for entrepreneurial success and customer focus.”
In an era currently dominated by relentless, and even hysterical, market and analyst fixation on AI and the datacentres required to power them, it makes a pleasant change to hear good news presented by one of the old guard telcos. In the US, AT&T has continued to invest in its 5G and fibre access infrastructure and that strategy appears to be paying off. The operator’s results for the fourth quarter of 2024 beat analyst expectations, as AT&T reported consolidated revenues of $32.3bn, up by 0.9% year on year, and an operating profit of $5.33bn, up by 1%. Full year revenues came in at $122.34bn, down just 0.1%, while full year operating profit was just over $19bn, though this was down by almost 19%. AT&T’s 2024 capital investment total – that’s capex plus vendor financing costs – totalled $22.1bn and the vendor community will be relieved to know that the telco expects 2025 capital investments to be at pretty much the same level as the operator continues to invest in its networks. CEO John Stankey commented: “The strong results this quarter are the result of a four-plus-year period of hard work and consistent execution by our teams, which has positioned us well for a new era of growth. We ended 2024 with strong momentum. Customers and shareholders can look forward to receiving even more value in 2025 as we expand the country’s largest fibre network, modernise our wireless network, grow our business and begin share repurchases in the second half of the year.” Stankey also revealed the telco will retire the great majority of its copper infrastructure by 2029, and that it is on course to request permission from the US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to discontinue legacy services delivered over copper access lines from 1,300 central offices. In due course, legacy customers will either be moved over to the ‘AT&T Phone-Advanced’ fibre connectivity product or onto its ‘Internet Air’ fixed wireless access (FWA) offering as part of “a deliberate and planned transition to a more capable and modern communications infrastructure.” The CEO was also pleased to reveal that, during the fourth quarter, AT&T added 482,000 new postpaid users to its subscriber rolls whilst churn rate stood at a mere 0.85%. On the fibre broadband front, 307,000 net new customers were added, as were 158,000 FWA subscribers. AT&T says its fibre network currently passes 28.9 million consumer and business locations and this figure will rise to 50 million by the end of 2026 as deployment continues apace. Where mid-band 5G is concerned, the telco intends, also by the end of 2026, to provide coverage to more than 300 million US citizens, up from the current 270 million. Overall, solid progress for AT&T – no wonder Stankey has a smile on his face. All he has to do now is keep the momentum going throughout this year, 2026, 2027... and beyond.
European specifications body ETSI has established a new Industry Specification Group (ISG) focused on Multiple Access Techniques (MAT) for 6G mobile systems. The group, which “aims to build industry consensus on innovative multiple access techniques, based on 3GPP specifications,” will “explore candidate techniques, such as orthogonal multiple access (OMA), spatial division multiple access (SDMA), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) that enhance the transmission efficiency across parameters, such as spectrum efficiency, power consumption, latency and user fairness.” Relevant deployment environments to be considered in the new group include indoor hotspot, urban macro (for example, high-demand density areas) and rural settings. The group’s chair is Dr David Vargas from the BBC, while Professor Bruno Clerckx from Imperial College London and Dr Stephen Wang from Viavi Solutions are the vice chairs. Read more.
Portuguese operator NOS, which offers mobile, broadband and TV services, has struck a deal to acquire enterprise services specialist Claranet Portugal for €152m. NOS, which has more than 11.1 million revenue-generating user agreements (RGUs) and an annual turnover of about €1.6bn, noted in this announcement that Claranet Portugal generated revenues of €205m in 2024 and that the acquisition will “enable NOS to strengthen its position as a relevant and trusted technology partner for business customers”. (Note: Each RGU relates to a single service provided to a single subscriber – a subscriber may sign up for more than one service and, therefore, account for multiple RGUs.)
Japan’s NTT Group claims to have made significant progress in developing a quantum-safe networking service using a combination of encryption and optical transport technologies. In a recent demonstration, NTT used innovative optical and wireless network (IOWN) privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), which incorporate quantum-safe secure transport key exchange functionality, with post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to conduct a quantum-safe web conference, it noted in this recent announcement (in Japanese). NTT says it aims to “commercialise next-generation encryption communication technology by combining quantum-computer-unbreakable encryption technologies, such as PQC and QKD [quantum key distribution], IOWN technology, and NTT Com’s services, such as cryptanalysis, and to create use cases for the quantum computing era together with industry partners who handle confidential data.”
– The staff, TelecomTV
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