What’s up with… SK Telecom, Telefonica Deutschland, Nokia

• SK Telecom receives EU backing for quantum project
• Telefonica Germany partners with OQ Technology for D2D LEO satellite trial
• Nokia launches automated DDoS protection tool for telcos

In today’s industry news roundup: SK Telecom gets backing from the EU’s Horizon project to develop quantum key technology with European partners; Telefonica Deutschland to trial OQ Technology’s LEO satellites for direct-to-device services; Nokia launches a new cloud-based DDoS protection that automates the fight against threats originating from user devices

SK Telecom has become the first private Asian firm to secure a project under the European Union’s Horizon Europe funding programme, after the EU backed the South Korean telco’s plans to develop next-generation quantum cryptography technology. The three-year project will be conducted as a multinational collaboration involving institutions from three European countries: The National Center of Scientific Research "Demokritos" (NCSRD) in Greece; the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT); and the German semiconductor startup Synogate UG. Together, they will seek to develop AI to control a quantum key distribution system, seen as a key part of the widespread adoption of secure quantum technologies. SKT and its partners will build a QKD (quantum key distribution) system based on Quantum Photonic Integrated Circuit-Artificial Intelligence (QPIC-AI). The telco will develop the QKD system, apply AI functions and build and validate the QKD testbed, while South Korea’s state-backed Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) will develop photonic integrated circuit (PIC)-based optical components for QKD transmitter and receiver systems, and AIT will develop the key management system. Synogate will design the AI functional logic, while NCSRD will coordinate the overall project and build the AI for controlling QKD systems. South Korea was the first Asian country to join Horizon, which is backed by around €95bn of funding, when it became an associate member in July 2025.

Telefonica Deutschland has teamed up with European satellite operator OQ Technology to showcase sovereign European direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity from low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites directly to smartphones, the operator announced. The trial will take place in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania region of Germany, using the telco’s spectrum. The operator claims this region is “particularly well suited” to being a testbed due to its numerous nature reserves, coastal forests and lakes, and lengthy permitting processes. It has already demonstrated narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) use cases. The test will focus on the capabilities of OQ’s LEO satellites and aims to demonstrate that its satellite payloads are equipped with proven multi-band technology capable of supporting D2D across multiple spectrum bands. OQ currently has 12 LEO satellites deployed, but previously shared plans are for it to deploy and operate a cluster of 82.

Nokia has launched a new security automation system that offers always-on distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection for its telcos, internet exchanges, hosting companies and cloud firms. Nokia said it developed its Deepfield Genome Shield to address the shifting nature of DDoS attacks in the AI era, which has seen attacks shift to originate on real subscriber devices, delivering multi-terabit bursts that last seconds to minutes, and also frequently change IP addresses across thousands of nodes. Users are unaware that their connections are being used to generate attacks, thanks to residential proxy botnets, and this can have a major impact on national networks, the Finnish vendor claims. Genome Shield acts as a proactive, network-wide security automation that extends Nokia’s Deepfield Defender – the company’s existing AI-driven DDoS solution – to tackle previously unaddressable cases, Nokia claims.

That enterprises are facing an increasingly challenging cybersecurity landscape was reiterated by Telecom Italia (TIM), which has just released the second edition of the Cyber Security Report – Analysis of Threats and the Evolution of the Scenario, produced by the Cyber Security Foundation and Telecom Italia with the contribution of the TIM Study Centre. The report includes many stats and trends, including that in 2025 ransomware attacks totalled more than 7,400 claims worldwide, up 42% on 2024 figures, while in Italy there were 166 cases, an increase of 14%. But the report “also highlights a positive trend: Growing awareness and cooperation among institutions, businesses and the technical community now represent a key lever for turning threat analysis into concrete prevention, response and resilience capabilities,” noted the telco.

And still with security…. Research firm Dell’Oro Group reports that the value of the worldwide network security technology market increased by 14% year on year to be worth more than $7bn in the first quarter of 2026. A key trend in the quarter was the shift towards “policy-plane expansion, as enterprises increased investment in architectures that coordinate enforcement across users, applications, clouds, branches and customer-controlled environments. That shift is becoming more urgent in the agentic AI era, where security teams must govern human users, non-human actors, applications, APIs and distributed infrastructure through fewer policy planes,” noted the Dell’Oro team. Mauricio Sanchez, senior director of enterprise security and networking at Dell’Oro Group, noted: “Physical firewalls and select point products are not going away, but the agentic AI era is raising the value of software and cloud-based network security platforms that reduce policy sprawl across users, applications, clouds and branches. SSE [security service edge]’s 22% growth, WAF [web application firewall]’s 20% growth and firewalls’ 9% growth show that buyers are adding cloud-delivered access, application front-door controls and virtual enforcement alongside the physical appliance base to get enterprises ready for the agentic AI era.

Vertiv has signed a partnership framework with Edge-Serve, Integrated Roots Company (IRCL), and the Saudi Electricity Project Development Company (PDC) to develop converged AI-ready datacentre infrastructure across the Gulf region. The project aims to bring together key components of building critical digital infrastructure, including construction, energy and large-scale development, in order to meet growing demand for AI-ready and cloud-scale infrastructure in the region. It builds on an existing relationship between datacentre solutions provider Vertiv and datacentre developer Edge-Serve – both based in Dubai – by expanding into a broader, multi-party, multi-market programme. PDC is a subsidiary of Saudi Energy, which is Saudi Arabia’s primary electricity provider, and IRCL is a Saudi-based construction and industrial contractor.

– The staff, TelecomTV