• UK port boasts private 5G success
• European 6G group boasts XR service breakthroughs
• Lit Fibre goes dark

In today’s industry news roundup: The UK’s Port of Tyne is very happy with the private 5G network dished up by BT and Ericsson; a quarter of 6G-XR consortium partners have made headway with some next-gen communications services; UK altnet Lit Fibre sells its retail customer base to Zen; and much more!

Howay the lads! The Port of Tyne, a 24/7 deep-sea gateway on England’s north-east coast, has reported that very significant operational benefits have accrued from a year of using Ericsson Private 5G. The port is big and busy and the private 5G network underpins real-time video analytics, sensor-driven processes and connected machinery. The port authorities say the network is very reliable and robust and has transformed a range of complex industrial operations and has boosted digital innovation whilst improving safety in what is always a potentially dangerous environment. The port covers both the northern and southern banks of the River Tyne and now depends on connected vehicles, machinery and video-driven processes. Traditional wireless technologies were simply not up to the job of providing the scale and reliability necessary, especially in situations so dynamic that operational layouts change several times a year. The private 5G network runs over BT Group spectrum and Ericsson’s on-site core and radio infrastructure. Over the course of 2025, it has supported many uses including live container scanning (once a tedious and labour-intensive process), the monitoring of personal protective equipment for staff safety, restricted-area incursion detection, road-condition analysis, emissions monitoring and high-security access control via video and sensors. Vehicle-mounted cameras, connected to an “AI engine”, help identify small road defects before they grow into big potholes. Meanwhile, drones are used for stock control and infrastructure inspection. Impressively, and probably quite scarily, when seen in action, the port is working with the heavy equipment corporation Caterpillar, to connect it to the CatCommand system that manages remote-controlled shovels in ships’ holds (which are extremely dangerous locations for humans). Tamsin Warren, the head of technology and transformation at Port of Tyne, in a glowing testimonial for private 5G, commented: “After a full year of operating on private 5G, we’ve seen firsthand how reliable wireless connectivity strengthens our day-to-day operations. From safety-critical activities to logistical environments, the network has given us consistent, real-time visibility across our whole site. It’s helping our teams to work more safely and make better decisions with the live data to move us forward to becoming one of the UK’s smartest and greenest ports.” (By the way, for those of you not familiar with the Geordie dialect, “Howay the lads” means “Come on chaps, let’s get going!”) Private 5G networks are increasingly popular, as we have reported elsewhere this week – see Private 4G/5G sector set for 22% growth – report.

Some of the consortium partners involved in the European project 6G-XR (6G eXperimental Research infrastructure to enable next-generation extended reality, XR, services) have shared some recent progress. “Researchers from four key partners – the i2CAT Research Centre, Ericsson, Vicomtech and Capgemini – have successfully validated two challenging use cases on the project’s infrastructure,” stated Capgemini in this announcement. The first use case, developed specifically by Ericsson and the i2CAT Research Centre, focused on ‘real-time holographic communications’, “a technology that promises to transform remote interaction,” noted the partners. “Ericsson and i2CAT delivered a live holographic communication session using i2CAT’s HoloMIT system [between] Barcelona and Madrid. The demo emphasised two key innovations designed to maintain holographic call quality, ensuring the conversation is never cut short, even under challenging network conditions”, namely “Proactive Congestion Detection” and “Intelligent Traffic Prioritisation”, which make use of the Camara Quality on Demand (QoD) network API. The second use case, developed by all four partners, focused on ‘optimising XR services: Automated edge selection for the best experience’, which “highlighted how XR services can automatically select the optimal edge node across the Barcelona–Madrid edge continuum.” The partners concluded: “Together, the two demonstrations show how network intelligence, edge discovery, and application-level adaptability will truly shape the future of XR and holography. Holographic calls remain stable even under congestion, thanks to proactive detection and QoD prioritsation. Furthermore, XR services will transparently select the best edge node, using standardised APIs and advanced rendering technology. These outcomes mark an important step toward making XR and holography deployable at scale in future 6G networks.” The 6G-XR project has received funding from the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.  

The latest consolidation move in the UK’s still over-crowded fibre broadband altnet sector once again involves Lit Fibre, which sold its network infrastructure (for an undisclosed sum) to the UK’s biggest alternative wholesale fibre access network operator, CityFibre, in March 2024. The Lit Fibre team had retained its retail broadband service operations and customer base after selling its underlying network, but now that customer base has been sold to one of the UK’s most established ISPs, Zen Internet (again for an undisclosed sum). Lit Fibre notes on its website FAQ section that its board took a “strategic decision” to “exit the UK broadband market” and that it opted to sell the customer relationships to Zen because the two companies “are highly aligned on values: Transparency, premium service and customer-first operations”. Lit Fibre customers will be transferred to Zen by early February next year. It has not been disclosed how many customers Lit Fibre is transferring to Zen. 

Liberty Networks, a unit of regional operator Liberty Latin America, has been selected by El Salvador’s telecom regulator SIGET (General Superintendence of Electricity and Telecommunications) to construct and deploy the country’s first submarine cable. The 1,800km subsea network will connect El Salvador to “major international hubs” via Panama and is expected to be operational by the second half of 2028. A technology partner for the deployment will be announced soon. “This landmark project will strengthen El Salvador’s digital infrastructure, expand bandwidth capacity, and enhance the country’s connectivity resiliency,” stated Liberty Networks in this announcement. “Today, the country relies exclusively on land-based links with neighbouring nations and has no direct international subsea connections. The new system represents a critical leap forward, delivering improved reliability, greater capacity and enhanced access for El Salvador’s 6.3 million citizens,” it added.  

Neobank Revolut has expanded its European mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) operations to Poland, integrating eSIM capabilities from Dutch firm 1Global into its multiservice app, the partners have announced. Revolut has also launched pilot MVNO services in the UK and Germany. Hadi Nasrallah, Revolut’s general manager for telco, stated: “Revolut Mobile is more than just another mobile service, it’s a truly differentiated alternative designed to change the industry. Our goal is simple: Offer the best service, at the best price, leveraging the best user experience. We’re bringing true innovation with features, such as multiple numbers and global messaging, while removing any hassle or hidden fees from the process.”  

A new cross-industry survey from Bloomberg Intelligence reveals that of 604 C-suite executives from the nine industrial sectors surveyed in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific (excluding China), 34% are very worried that pressure to introduce AI to their organisations might result in massive disruption, while 40% admit their concerns are ”high”. The Bloomberg Intelligence C-Suite AI Survey 2025 found that all nine sectors – software & IT services, financial services, consumer goods & retail, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, industrials, media & cable, automotive, and telecommunications – rate AI disruption as a significant risk to their industry, with 34% regarding it as “very high” and 40% as “high”. That said, most believe the threat is greater to their industry overall (80%) than it is to their own organisation (69%). Interestingly, protecting market position rather than relying on promised but elusive growth is the primary motivation behind current AI investments, with 36% of respondents to the survey citing AI as their top priority and another 47% listing it as one of their top-three priorities. Notably, software and media companies are in the vanguard of these, introducing and dealing with the realities of AI. The respondents also ranked the importance of various objectives of their AI strategy, including improving operational efficiency (47%), boosting revenue generation (21%) and reducing headcount (13%). Most executives also expect AI to boost sales growth by 7% over the next three years, as well as contributing to cutting costs. The survey also reports that “as AI infrastructure availability ranks among the top-three concerns across industries” it runs “contrary to narratives of datacentre overbuilding” and “challenges fears of an AI infrastructure bubble”. That one sounds like wishful thinking. We’ll all find out over the course of 2026 whether AI will pop or not.

– The staff, TelecomTV