What’s up with… Orange Business, Cisco, Telefónica

• Orange Business delivers PQC with Cisco
• Cisco flexes its AI muscles in Amsterdam
• Telefónica offloads its Colombian business

In today’s industry news roundup: Cisco’s technology is helping Orange Business to offer post-quantum cryptography (PQC)-secured global network services; Cisco also unveils a new AI factory chip; Telefónica sells its Colombia operation to Millicom; and more!

Orange Business has launched post-quantum cryptography (PQC)-secured global network services using Cisco’s quantum-safe ready 8000 series secure routers, the enterprise services division of the Orange Group has announced. The move “provides customers, from enterprises to public sector [organisations], with long-term protection against future quantum attacks for their network traffic,” noted the operator, adding that PQC-secured wide area network (WAN) services are available now, while PQC-secured Orange Business managed Cisco SD-WAN services should be available in the third quarter of this year. According to Orange Business, PQC integrated into Cisco SD-WAN infrastructures will be easy for customers to implement as a software feature and “will help customers protect their data and operations against both current and future threats”.  

That news came as Cisco was unveiling a broad range of new capabilities at its Cisco Live EMEA event in Amsterdam where, most notably, the vendor unveiled a new chip designed to help hyperscalers, neoclouds, telcos and others to add significant scale to their AI factories. The Silicon One G300 “offers intelligent collective networking, delivering a 33% increase in network utilisation and a 28% improvement in job completion time versus non-optimised traffic,” claimed the vendor. Find out what else Cisco unveiled, including new AgenticOps features, in this announcement. 

Telefónica has completed the sale of its Colombian business to Millicom for $214m – significantly less than the original deal was valued at back in July 2024. Millicom initially agreed to buy Coltel from Telefónica for $400m, but the transaction was delayed due to regulatory approvals. It plans to merge the unit, which operates as Movistar, with its existing operation TigoUne. Telefónica has been offloading multiple Latin American businesses in order to reduce its debt exposure, with Millicom also buying Telefónica Ecuador (known as Otecel) and its Uruguayan business in separate deals last year: Ultimately, Telefónica plans to have LatAm operations in Brazil only.  

A German court has ruled that Meta-owned Edge Network Services must pay Deutsche Telekom about €30m ($35.71m) for network services used by its platform, according to Reuters. The dispute originated over whether Edge and DT had a binding contract in force for use of the telco’s peering points between March 2021 and August 2024, with the German firm claiming Edge had used its services after an initial contract expired – something Edge disputed. The Berlin court ruled in Deutsche Telekom’s favour, ordering Edge Network Services to cough up €30m with no right to appeal, although the Meta-owned firm can file a complaint with the federal court against this decision one month after receiving the judgment.

– The staff, TelecomTV