What’s up with… Kyivstar, Openreach, Rakuten Symphony

• Ukraine’s Kyvistar and Ukrtelecom agree infra share
• Openreach to boost fibre speeds with XGS-PON
• Rakuten Symphony agrees modernisation MoU with Viva Bolivia

In today’s industry news roundup: Two of Ukraine’s major telcos agree to share fibre infrastructure using an open access model; Openreach to use XGS-PON to boost fibre speeds to a third of its network in the next five years; Rakuten Bolivia signs an agreement with Viva to explore a major network modernisation in Bolivia; and much more!

Kyivstar and Ukrtelecom have announced a new agreement that will see the Ukrainian telecom operators share infrastructure under an open access model. Veon-owned Kyivstar revealed that both its subsidiary JSC Kyivstar and formerly state-owned JSC Ukrtelecom will reciprocally use parts of each other’s networks in an effort to boost the reach of fibre services in Ukraine. Kyivstar will leverage Ukrtelecom’s GPON (gigabit passive optical network) for its home internet services, while its extensive fibre network will support Ukrtelecom’s optical internet offering. Ukrtelecom has a fibre network spanning around 95,000km. The first phase of the project will begin in Odesa, Vinnytsia, and Kirovohrad, and will see the two companies validate the co-operation model. This is then expected to be rolled out to other parts of the country in subsequent phases, according to Kyivstar.

BT’s quasi-autonomous fixed access network unit Openreach has unveiled plans to boost top UK download speeds to more than 8.5Gbit/s as part of an upgrade of its full-fibre network with XGS-PON technology. The UK fixed-line wholesaler intends to make faster speeds available to more than a million premises over the next year when it rolls out XGS-PON on its network, following an ongoing trial of the technology at 40,000 Surrey residences that began in March. Currently, Openreach’s network supports top download speeds of around 1.6Gbit/s, but the company claims the upgrade will push this up to 28x times faster than its current GPON-powered full-fibre offering. Longer term, the BT-owned wholesaler said it plans to cover around a third of its network within five years through additional modernisation efforts. “Our Full Fibre network already offers gigabit-capable broadband to more than 23.4 million premises, and more than 9.4 million customers have upgraded so far,” said Openreach director of network technology Trevor Linney. “As demand for data continues to grow, our investment in XGS-PON technology will enable us to offer even higher speeds over the same network, and the additional capacity needed to support the UK’s digital future. “By continuing to invest in upgrades, we’re delivering a platform that will power the next generation of technology, from AI-enabled services, smart homes and future mobile networks to cloud-based business and public services.”

Viva Bolivia has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Rakuten Symphony for a phased modernisation of Viva’s network in the Latin American country. The agreement will see the Japanese vendor explore modernisation options and Viva’s long-term digital ecosystem transformation across Open RAN, OSS, cloud infrastructure, professional services and AI-enabled digital platforms. The companies will initially collaborate on cloud-native solutions that simplify network operations and look at further opportunities in digital services for the mobile operator’s Bolivian customers. The MoU was signed after Rakuten held executive and technical planning sessions with Viva Bolivia’s team, resulting in an initial implementation roadmap. Ryan Alvarez, CEO of Viva Bolivia, said: “Modernising our network in Bolivia is not a single project but the foundation of a larger journey. VIVA is evolving into a digital ecosystem where connectivity, commerce, payments and personalised services come together in one experience for our customers.”

Abu Dhabi-based operator e& UAE has become one of the first providers in the region to embed agentic AI into its core mobile and fixed connectivity plans for businesses. Small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers using a Business Pro fixed internet plan or one of e& UAE’s enterprise connectivity propositions, such as Digital Internet and Digital Premium Internet, will be able to access the agentic services directly rather than buying access to them as a bolt-on service, “making AI accessible from day one,” noted the operator. It is pairing this with its Sovereign AI Compute service, which combines UAE-based graphics processing unit capacity with secure, high-performance connectivity. Announced last month in partnership with Abu Dhabi-based Core42, the service operates as the infrastructure layer supporting the agentic AI proposition, keeping sensitive data within national borders. Esam Mahmoud, SVP of the SMB division at e& UAE, said: “This gives organisations a clearer and more practical route to adopting agentic AI, with the control, performance and local infrastructure they need to move from experimentation to everyday use. Our aim is to make intelligent capabilities as accessible and useful to businesses as connectivity itself.” e& UAE is also making these services available for larger enterprises and government entities by combining them with its fixed enterprise connectivity services.

UK-headquartered bandwidth infrastructure company euNetworks has announced two new environmental targets that it says will help it to become more sustainable when designing and delivering new network infrastructure. The pan-European firm’s revised framework introduces network development ‘Impact by Design’ plans that immediately embed sustainability considerations into the earliest stages of any network development projects. It is also introducing a target for continuous improvement in euNetworks’ GRESB infrastructure benchmark score – GRESB is a voluntary benchmarking company that helps financial markets evaluate the sustainability performance of asset portfolios worldwide. The company, which operates metro networks in 18 European cities, said it will not replace existing green goals, such as its commitment to hit net zero by 2040, but will instead add to them in areas where euNetworks has the most influence and can create the longest-term impact. It falls within the company’s Sustainability-Linked Loan it took to support the expansion of its fibre network infrastructure across Europe. Established in 2021 to incentivise measurable sustainability targets, the loan was initially valued at €760m but this was increased in 2024 to €1.26bn.

– The staff, TelecomTV