What’s up with… Sparkle, Netomnia, AI in Europe

• Sparkle puts a quantum-resilient shine on agentic AI
• UK altnet Netomnia edges into profitability in Q3
• Europe’s AI Act is set for some amendments

In today’s industry news roundup: Sparkle offers quantum-resilient comms between AI agents; Netomnia adds subs, sales and scale as it posts positive earnings in the third quarter; in response to pressure and criticism, the EC is set to make amendments to its important AI Act; and more!

Sparkle, the international service provider that is in the process of being divested by Telecom Italia (TIM) and one of the pioneers in the development of quantum-safe networking, has launched STLS-AI (Symmetric Transport Layer Security for Agentic Artificial Intelligence), “a patent-pending innovation that ensures quantum-resilient, verifiable and efficient communication between AI agents”, the operator announced.  “As AI evolves from predictive models into agentic AI, a new paradigm is emerging in which autonomous digital actors not only execute commands but also plan, negotiate, and interact with other agents, coordinating actions, processing data, and even delegating tasks without human supervision. Market studies indicate that the AI agent segment is expanding rapidly, with annual growth rates exceeding 40% and projections reaching tens of billions of dollars by the end of the decade,” noted Sparkle. “As these intelligent systems multiply and collaborate across digital ecosystems, it becomes critical to ensure mutual recognition, authentication and secure communication among them,” it added. Sparkle, then, is promoting its STLS-AI as a “new trust fabric that enables AI agents to identify and verify each other and exchange information securely, without relying on certificates or centralised authorities.” Read more. 

Major UK fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) altnet Netomnia, which is currently the subject of some M&A speculation, continues to grow. In the third quarter of this year the altnet reached a further 241,000 premises with its fibre network, which is now capable of providing services to 2.8 million UK premises. Netomnia added 54,000 customers during the quarter to take its total number of connected premises to 396,000: That gives it a take-up rate of 14.1%. Its revenues for the quarter reached £27.7m, up 125% year on year, while its adjusted EBITDA (excluding one-time items) reached £300,000, compared with a loss of £8.1m in the same period a year earlier. “For the second consecutive quarter, we’ve maintained the fastest network build and customer acquisition rate among the altnets,” stated CEO Jeremy Chelot. “With our continued momentum and by combining scale, speed and capital efficiency, we remain confident in our plan to reach 5 million premises by 2027. Our focus continues to be on building a fibre network ready for whatever comes next, well positioned and leading the industry’s consolidation,” he added. 

Sticking with the UK fibre access altnet sector… London-focused UK Community Fibre, which is hoping to be one of the survivors in a still over-crowded but only slowly consolidating UK fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) altnet market, has launched a service targeted specifically at the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) sector. The service provider’s Business Ready Broadband offer includes 100Mbit/s broadband (with no set-up fees), unlimited voice calls to UK numbers, public IP (a unique IP address for secure remote access and hosting services) and a router  for £45 per month. Community Fibre’s network passes 1.3 million homes in the UK capital and surrounding areas and runs within 200 metres of more than 185,000 London-based businesses: The company currently provides commercial services to more than 400,000 residential and business customers.  

The European Union (EU)’s AI Act, which has caused much angst amongst the hyperscaler and broader tech (including telecom) sector, is in line for “targeted amendments” to lessen the impact on AI companies, Henna Virkkunen, the European commissioner for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, told Euronews during this week’s Web Summit in Lisbon. One of the main criticisms of the EU’s AI Act, which is being introduced gradually, is that it will stifle innovation and leave Europe even further behind North America and Asia Pacific in terms of AI advances and digital development. Now Virkkunen is looking at how changes to the act might help the AI community, though she also stressed that the EC is still very committed to the main principles of the law. “The next important part [of the AI Act being brought into force] will be next August. And there we are really facing challenges because we don’t have the [technical] standards yet – and they need to be ready one year before the next phase,” Virkkunen stated. “Now, we have to look at how we can create legal certainty for our industries, and that’s something that we are now considering: How we can support our industries when we don’t have the standards in place.” The amendments will be revealed on 19 November. Telcos will need to pay close attention to any changes as the AI Act will have an impact on their operations and costs – see Telcos impacted by AI rules in South Korea, EU – Omdia.

Ericsson is establishing a new radio access network (RAN) software research and development (R&D) unit in Bengaluru, India, that will “initially focus on developing 5G and 5G-Advanced features for the Ericsson 5G baseband,” the vendor has announced.  

– The staff, TelecomTV