What’s up with… SIM farms, Optus, AI in Europe

• US Secret Service digs up major SIM farm 
• Optus under fire over outages and sales tactics
• Major Euro telcos use AI pledge to pressure the EC

In today’s industry news roundup: A cloud is hanging over Australian telco Optus following a service outage that led to multiple deaths and the unveiling of dodgy sales tactics; the US Secret Service has uncovered a massive SIM farm that had the potential to disrupt the UN general assembly; eight major European telcos join forces to lobby the region’s lawmakers for lighter regulation; and much more!

Headlines have been dominated by US President Donald Trump’s antics at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly this week as the world body celebrated its 80th anniversary. Amid the reporting on his speech lambasting the UN and European leaders, the US Secret Service announced it had uncovered a network of devices with the potential to cripple cell towers and even eavesdrop on world leaders as they gathered in Manhattan, a revelation that resulted in multiple US media reports. According to the Secret Service, it dismantled a “network of electronic devices located throughout the New York tristate area that were used to conduct multiple telecommunications-related threats directed towards senior US government officials, which represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations”. More than 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards were discovered across multiple sites. Notably, the devices were concentrated within a 35-mile radius of the UN General Assembly. In the release, US Secret Service director Sean Curran indicated that the network of devices had strong potential to disrupt telecom networks. “The US Secret Service’s protective mission is all about prevention, and this investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that imminent threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down and dismantled,” Curran noted. The hidden network was found as part of a wider probe that was launched in the spring following telecom-related threats targeting senior US government officials, according to investigators. The inquiry by the Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit is ongoing. For an entertaining report on the tech that the US authorities discovered, check out this report from Tedium, which delves into the details of the processes that must have been undertaken to set up the banks of SIM cards. 

Embattled Australian operator Optus is contending with the fallout of a network outage that is linked to four deaths. The operator announced last week that a technical failure during a firewall upgrade impacted triple-zero calls on 18 September 2025 and prevented a number of customers from getting through to emergency services. It has subsequently emerged that four people lost their lives because they could not reach emergency services in time. Optus CEO Stephen Rue said Optus has launched an immediate investigation into the incident and early findings indicate that established processes were not followed. This week, the Optus board commissioned Dr Kerry Schott to lead an independent review into the technical failure, which is expected to be completed before the end of the year. Yuen Kuan Moon, CEO of Singtel Group, the parent company of Optus, stated: “We are deeply sorry to learn about the network incident at our Optus subsidiary that has impacted triple-zero calls, and to hear that customers could not connect to emergency services when they most needed them. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who have passed away and we know that Optus will get to the bottom of this matter. We are working with the Optus board and management to ensure a thorough investigation of this incident to prevent any future recurrence. Optus has been co-operating fully and transparently with all relevant government agencies and regulatory bodies while the matter is being investigated and will share the findings in due course. Optus is in the midst of an ongoing transformation led by Stephen Rue who was appointed 11 months ago to lead the charge. We will continue to fully support the Optus board and management team as they work through this incident and accelerate the changes needed. We are committed to the continued transformation of Optus to improve the processes and resiliency of the company and improve the reliability of critical services. The Singtel Group has supported Optus by investing over AUS$9.3bn [US$6.13bn] in the past five years with a large proportion of that put to building network infrastructure across Australia, and will continue to invest as needed for Optus to provide reliable communication services to all Australians.” Notably, Rue, the former chief of Australia’s national wholesale operator, National Broadband Network (NBN), only took on the CEO role at Optus in November 2024. He succeeded Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who quit less than two weeks after a network outage left 40% of the country’s population without mobile services.

That’s not the only challenge facing the Optus management right now. CEO Rue has also been forced to address the repercussions of what sounds like highly questionable sales tactics employed by Optus staff spanning a four-year period. Speaking on Wednesday, he said the Federal Court “is due to come back this afternoon with a ruling regarding the penalty proposed by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Optus arising from unconscionable conduct and inappropriate sales practices between August 2019 and July 2023”. The court did indeed approve the orders, and Optus now has to pay a penalty of AUS$100m (US$65.9m) as well as $1m (US$659,000) to support digital literacy initiatives for First Nations Australians. In other measures, the operator has agreed to implement changes to improve its sales practices and better support customers, particularly those who are vulnerable. It has also appointed Betty Ivanoff to the newly created role of chief legal officer. Ivanoff, who has held executive legal roles at Crown Resorts, Coca-Cola Amatil, and GrainCorp, will head a newly formed legal and compliance business unit with effect from 29 September. In June, Optus also announced the appointment of Pieter van der Merwe, currently Woolworths Group’s chief security officer, as chief security and risk officer to lead the security and risk function. He will join the operator later this year. 

Senior executives representing eight major European telcos have pledged to support the region’s AI ambitions in a joint letter published by industry body Connect Europe (formerly known as ETNO). “We are committed to contributing to Europe’s ambition to develop leadership in AI, to be in control of strategic infrastructures, and to nurture innovative ecosystems,” stated a letter signed by the CEOs, or in some cases other senior executives, of A1 Telekom Austria Group, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, MEO (Portugal), Orange, Telecom Italia (TIM), Telenor and Telefónica. “Connectivity networks and services are an integral part of Europe’s AI infrastructure and, for this reason, we support the commission’s efforts to kickstart AI gigafactories under the AI Continent Action Plan,” they added. But, as ever, such statements were merely the warm-up acts before the main show – putting pressure on the region’s lawmakers. The signatories added: “Economic growth and modern defence both rely on connectivity. We need more investment in resilient and innovative gigabit networks as essential levers for a competitive economy that generates new socio-economic opportunities, as well as for advanced military capabilities that keep Europeans safe. The new geopolitical and international trade realities are harsh, especially in the tech sector, and they add further urgency to the existing need for reform. Europe’s telecom operators are well equipped to help build the digital infrastructure that this continent needs. By urgently implementing the recommendations on tech and telecoms outlined in Draghi’s Competitiveness Report, we can help build a more resilient and competitive union. The announced Digital Networks Act should be ambitious and indicate a clear-cut shift towards boosting telecom investment. Similarly, the upcoming reform of the EU Merger Guidelines should change the course of the past decades and allow us to achieve European scale, starting with in-market consolidation, to meet today’s challenges in the technology world. With stronger and ever more innovative connectivity networks, we will advance the agenda of a more modern, forward-looking and competitive Europe, together.” So, essentially, the message is: Allow national telcos to swallow their smaller competitors and Europe might just be able to compete on the global AI stage. 

Pan-Africa technology and network services company Cassava Technologies has formed a “strategic collaboration” with Accenture to scale its “sovereign AI” capability across Africa. The collaboration will harness Accenture’s AI Refinery platform and Nvidia AI infrastructure to “design and deliver sovereign AI solutions utilising Cassava’s GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS), housed in Cassava’s secure datacentre facilities”. The AI-based services are designed to help Cassava’s customers process AI workloads and data within national borders in alignment with local requirements and regulations. The new offerings will initially be available in South Africa, before expanding into Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. A particular challenge will be to “integrate the context, languages and cultural nuances of the region into these AI solutions”, ensuring that the services are relevant for African enterprises across sectors such as financial services, mining, telecom, agriculture and healthcare. Headquartered in the UK, Cassava has a presence across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the US. It recently secured $310m in funding and revamped its management team. In March, it announced it is building “Africa’s first AI factory – a powerful and super-secure datacentre facility powered with Nvidia AI computing technology”. In August 2024, Cassava said its AI activities would operate as a separate business unit, Cassava AI.

Vodafone Group, Meta and Google have used a joint whitepaper to detail “the benefits of advanced video compression technology in mid- and low-tier smartphones to enhance the viewing experience for more people. The technology will also free up network capacity for all users while optimising computing power and storage,” the collaborators note. The trio has conducted tests which, they say, show that an “increased use of the AV1 video codec, an advanced video compression technique, in low- to mid-tier smartphones would provide users with video download quality comparable to premium handsets. Despite the improvement in user experience, smartphone chipset support for such codecs today remains limited to higher tier products,” they added. You can find a link to the whitepaper in this press release. 

– The staff, TelecomTV