What’s up with… Telco edge, Nokia, e& and Vodafone

• Five major Euro telcos boast federated edge 
• Nokia snaps up ex-Juniper exec
• e&’s stake in Vodafone Group now tops 17%

In today’s industry news roundup: Five major European telcos are on the verge of offering pan-European edge services; Nokia hires a Juniper Networks veteran to play a key role in its datacentre tech team; e&’s stake in Vodafone is getting bigger; and more!

Five of Europe’s major telcos – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia (TIM), Telefónica and Vodafone Group – say they have “successfully federated their edge environments, enabling seamless deployment of applications across their combined European footprint” and will be showing off the results at the upcoming MWC26 event in Barcelona. The joint effort, dubbed the European Edge Continuum and currently in pre-production and lab trials, “enables customers and developers to deploy applications automatically and securely across nodes from different operators, with the potential to include other major technology players in the future,” the telco partners note in this announcement. “The federated European Edge Continuum initiative significantly extends the reach of each operator, offering customers simple access, tight integration with the network, interoperability, data sovereignty and flexibility, which are key requirements for Europe’s digital transformation,” they added. Claire Catherine Chauvin, director of strategy architecture and standardisation at Orange, stated: “Our European Edge federation demonstrates that Europe is concretely building sovereign digital solutions. Interconnecting our edge environments to create a seamless continuum allows [us] to propose a secure, open and scalable digital infrastructure that matches business customers’ expectations to thrive in a connected Europe.” 

Nokia has hired Pavan Kurapati as senior VP and CTO for datacentre networking: He will work closely with Pallavi Mahajan, the former Intel executive who was hired last year to head up Nokia’s Technology and AI Organization. Kurapati has spent the past 16 years at Juniper Networks – now part of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) empire – most recently as VP of technical solutions architecture, where he was focused on next-generation network design for telcos, hyperscalers and large enterprises. In this LinkedIn post, Kurapati noted: “I am delighted to share that I have joined Nokia as SVP and CTO for datacentre networking. We are officially in the AI Super Cycle, and I am incredibly excited to lead Nokia’s technology strategy and architecture for AI datacentre networking during this pivotal era.”

Having initially acquired a 10% stake in Vodafone Group in 2022, e& has announced that its shareholding has now reached just over 17%, but not because it has been buying more stock. “The updated shareholding is a result of Vodafone carrying out its share buyback programme, which reduces its total share capital. e&’s total number of shares remains the same at 3,944.7 million shares,” the Middle East digital networks and services giant noted in this announcement to investors. 

Ethio Telecom has launched a new internet-based video streaming service accessible via broadband or SIM-enabled set-top boxes. The Ethiopian operator, which has 87.1 million customers (of which 49 million are mobile data users), said its new teleStream service will feature more than 60 live TV channels and more than 350 video-on-demand titles, all hosted on its local cloud to offer lower latency through fibre, 4G and 5G. The offering is being pitched against traditional satellite TV services, with Ethio Telecom also targeting business customers, such as hotels, which can then offer entertainment to guests without the need for multiple aerials.

Two eastern European network operators, 4iG and e& PPF, have agreed to a partnership that could generate up to €1bn in synergies through the consolidation of infrastructure in Hungary. The proposed transactions would see e& PPF, in which Middle East digital services giant e& is the controlling shareholder, acquire a 38% stake in 4iG’s wholesale division, 2Connect, while 4iG would take up to a 49% stake in CETIN Hungary, which is part-owned by e&: A UAE-based investment fund is also in talks about taking an 11% stake in 2Connect. The aim of the deal, which would leave both entities under their current control, is to tighten integration between Hungary’s fixed and wireless markets, giving 4iG’s ONE Hungary and e& PPF’s Yettel the chance to share infrastructure resources, with Yettel also able to launch fixed broadband services in the second half of the year using the wholesale network run by 2Connect.

– The staff, TelecomTV