• Iliad’s Scaleway advances its sovereign AI strategy with DataOps acquisition
• Altice France files for bankruptcy protection in the US
• Ericsson claims intent-driven autonomous networking first

In today’s industry news roundup: Iliad’s cloud unit snaps up a DataOps specialist that can help with its sovereign AI plans; Patrick Drahi’s Altice France is trying to keep disgruntled investors at bay; Ericsson has stuck a feather in its autonomous networking hat; and much more!

Another day, another sovereign/cloud/data/AI development in the telecom sector… Scaleway, the cloud services subsidiary of France-based pan-European service provider Iliad, has acquired French DataOps platform Saagie for an undisclosed sum (though it will likely have been inexpensive as Saagie has been in receivership and seeking a buyer for some time, according to this report). The acquisition of Rouen, Normandy-based Saagie, which “provides key technologies to accelerate data and AI projects… supports Scaleway’s vision to build a fully sovereign European platform that brings together cloud infrastructure, data and AI under one roof,” noted Iliad in this announcement. According to Iliad, Saagie “enables companies to design and deploy data workflows more efficiently. Its technology provides a robust orchestration layer that connects key components across the data lifecycle, including data ingestion, storage, processing, machine learning and visualisation.” Damien Lucas, CEO of Scaleway, stated: “Everyone says there’s no AI without data, but what’s often overlooked is that there’s no reliable AI without trusted and governed data. To fast track AI adoption, Scaleway must provide a state-of-the-art data PaaS [platform-as-a-service] ecosystem. Saagie helps us build this unique expertise,” he added.  

In an effort to complete the debt restructuring process unveiled in February, Altice France (better known by its go-to-market brand SFR), the major French telco controlled by billionaire Patrick Drahi, has filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The company has taken the step to protect itself from any efforts by shareholders to halt the restructuring process using US law. According to Altice France, the debt-for-equity restructuring process, which will wipe out €8.6bn of debts, has the support of lenders that represent about 95% of the telco’s €24bn debt pile. If Drahi can get the restructuring process completed, he will stand a much better chance of selling Altice France, something that he has been exploring for some months already.   

There’s been a lot of talk and coverage of autonomous network strategies and supporting technologies in recent days as it was one of the main topics at the DTW Ignite 2025 event in Copenhagen. During that event, its organiser, industry body the TM Forum, unveiled three initiatives that allow network operators to validate and prove their progress in relation to the various levels of the forum’s autonomous network (AN) project: Those three initiatives are the Autonomous Network Level Assessment Validation (ANLAV) service, the AN Levels Skills Path, and the 2025 AN Implementation Guide. You can read more about them here and find out more from one of the forum’s senior executives and all-round good egg, Andy Tiller, who we talked to during the show (see the video interview here). And Ericsson has been quick off the mark to get one of its deployments assessed using the new ANLAV service: The giant Swedish vendor, in collaboration with Danish operator TDC Net, says it has achieved “Level 4 Autonomy in a telecom scenario, the first such verification globally”. TM Forum defines Level 4 as a cross-domain environment driven by intent, where the system enables decision-making based on predictive analysis or active closed-loop management of service-driven and customer experience-driven networks via AI modelling and continuous learning. The vendor’s Predictive Cell Energy Management solution achieved the validation for a scenario to automate RAN energy-efficiency optimisation at TDC Net. This press release provides the full details, including the energy-efficiency gains made by the operator as a result of the deployment. You can keep up to speed with key autonomous network developments in our dedicated Network Automation content channel.

Texas Instruments (TI) is the latest chip vendor to announce a bumper investment in new semiconductor production facilities in the US with a plan to invest more than $60bn across seven fabrication plants (fabs), “making this the largest investment in foundational semiconductor manufacturing in US history,” the company noted. “Working with the Trump administration and building on the company’s nearly 100-year legacy, TI is expanding its US manufacturing capacity to supply the growing need for semiconductors that will advance critical innovations from vehicles to smartphones to datacentres. Combined, TI’s new manufacturing mega-sites in Texas and Utah will support more than 60,000 US jobs,” it added. The move follows other recent new chip facility investment announcements in the US, reports Reuters.

Investment banks have been contacted about the potential split and sale of the two lines of business at UK operator TalkTalk, which has been experiencing financial difficulties for some time. The operator has been in the news recently for late payments to its wholesale access network suppliers and now, according to Sky News, TalkTalk is preparing to separate the two arms of the company – the TalkTalk retail broadband services business, which has been losing customers rapidly and is now down to about 3.2 million users, and the wholesale network services division, Platform X Communications (PXC) – and seek buyers for those businesses.  

NTT Group is on course to successfully acquire the shares it doesn’t currently own in global IT, digital and communications services company NTT Data in a series of deals valued at $16.3bn. The move is part of a broader strategic overhaul at NTT Group that was announced in May – see NTT to take full control of NTT Data and rejigs Docomo.

US telecom regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is preparing to fine and to impose other sanctions on China Mobile for “failure to co-operate” with the agency’s ongoing national security investigation into the Chinese telco’s operations in the US. That seems ironic given that the company has, for several years past, been banned from offering any telecom services in America, but the FCC has strong reasons to believe China Mobile Inc is exploiting legal loopholes and obfuscating in all its dealings with the US authorities and is still lurking around in various shadowy nooks and crannies across the nation. In 2022, the FCC began investigating several Chinese telcos and equipment manufacturers including China Mobile, Huawei, ZTE, Hangzhou Hikvision and China Telecom to determine when, where and how they have evaded US restrictions and prohibitions. Co-operation by most has been as patchy and partial as might be expected but China Mobile has been the most obstructive and dilatory in terms both of co-operation with the regulator and producing required documents. This week the FCC finally lost its patience and issued the company with a Citation and Order that reveals it has been investigating China Mobile’s US operations for two years and seven months to date and to little effect, despite a “last-warning” letter (including yet more questions) that was sent to the telco this February. The citation reads: “China Mobile’s conduct throughout this matter exhibits a disregard for the commission’s authority and threatens to compromise the commission’s ability to adequately investigate.” China Mobile has a deadline of 30 days to provide the necessary information or face financial and other sanctions. The citation continues: “Despite the commission’s denial of China Mobile’s application for international 214 authorisation and despite the commission’s placement of China Mobile’s international telecommunications services on the Covered List, China Mobile may still be operating in the United States, because it claims that its status on the Covered List does not prohibit certain types of operations or otherwise.” Section 214 is a specific section of the ancient 1934 US Communications Act as amended in 2023. It gives the FCC the authority to regulate the international telecoms market to ensure fair competition, protect consumers and, last but by no means least, to promote and ensure national security. Telcos and service providers seeking 214 authorisation have to reveal full details of their ownership structure, financial stability and technical capabilities. The FCC also “reviews applications to assess potential impacts on national security, law enforcement and foreign policy.” Since 2019, the FCC has ruled that China Mobile is ultimately owned by the Chinese government and, as such, presents a clear and present security threat to the US. We’ll see what happens next when the 30-day ultimatum expires.

UK altnet body INCA (Independent Networks Cooperative Association) finds itself in a sticky relationship with the UK regulator’s tar baby.... Ofcom has published its proposals for the new Telecoms Access Review 2026-2031 (TAR), which is designed to improve competition and investment in “gigabit-capable” networks whilst “maintaining the competitive landscape created by the preceding Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review 2021”. The period set aside for consultation with all relevant industry players expired last week. The TAR will articulate Ofcom’s preferred approach to the regulation of fixed-line telecoms infrastructure to support competition, investment and the transition to full-fibre broadband in the UK. INCA has taken considerable umbrage at Ofcom’s preference that Openreach, the quasi-autonomous wholesale fixed access networks arm of incumbent UK BT Group, shall officially be designated as the de facto default provider of broadband access where competition is deemed to be “unviable”, even though Openreach is already ranked as being an entity of significant market power (SMP). In a detailed and cogent (and lengthy) riposte to Ofcom’s assumptions and apparent intent, INCA says the proposals are “unfair”, “unjustified” and “short-sighted”. It is pressing Ofcom to ensure the TAR will ensure regulatory consistency, that infrastructure investment will continue and that the landscape across the whole UK fixed telecom market will, hitherto, be properly competitive. Ofcom’s target is that full-fibre broadband will be available to 96% of UK businesses and domestic premises by mid-2027 at the latest. In a statement, the CEO of INCA, Paddy Madison, said, “The TAR will set the direction of travel for UK digital infrastructure. Altnets have proven they can deliver gigabit networks at scale and what is now needed is a regulatory environment which supports sustainable competition and investment in every part of the market, from urban businesses to rural homes.” He added, “There is no justification for limiting delivery in less competitive areas to a single provider. Such a decision massively underestimates the scale and success of full-fibre deployment by altnets and contradicts government initiatives like Project Gigabit, which funds altnets specifically to build in these communities.” INCA’s submission also complains that the data Ofcom has used as a basis for its decision is “flawed”, partial and subject to “damaging assumptions”, particularly where business connectivity is concerned. It claims that actions predicated on bad data will have an adverse effect on the ability of altnets to compete with BT. The UK altnet sector is an increasingly febrile environment with amalgamation, acquisitions and company collapses likely to be the order of the day in coming months and years, but INCA rightly points out that altnets have already fulfilled much of their promise to deliver full-fibre services to remote and rural areas where the likes of BT failed for years to turn their worthy pledges into practical reality, and they deserve to be given the best possible chance to reach their potential and make returns on their massive investments. Seems fair enough.

Shine on you crazy Dimon… Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), the increasingly successful spin-out from the UK’s Oxford University whose mission statement is “to take quantum out of the lab and into the hands of humanity”, has taken another step towards making commercial quantum computing a reality with a breakthrough in error correction. The most immediate practical impact of the new technology is expected to be in financial services and security. The company introduced Britain’s first commercially available quantum computer and is the first quantum compute-as-a-service provider in Europe. It also pioneered the world’s first deployment of a quantum computer to a commercial datacentre integrated with ‘classical’ high-performance computing. As reported by National Technology News, OQC has demonstrated that it is possible to detect errors in an entirely new and massively more hardware-efficient manner via the company’s own “Dimon” approach. Current quantum computers are notoriously prone to the propagation of errors and detecting those that occur at the qubit level is key to unlocking the commercial potential of quantum. The company’s latest development centres on its patented dual-rail Dimon qubit technology, a hardware-based error detection method for superconducting qubits, specifically designed for improving the efficiency of quantum error correction. It works on a ‘dual-rail’ design with three superconducting islands and two Josephson junctions (a component that sandwiches a thin layer of a non-superconducting material between two layers of superconducting material) creating an additional ‘normal mode’ and a V-shaped energy-level structure. This allows for the detection of errors without requiring extra hardware or wiring and maintains the compact footprint and control density of the qubit. By detecting errors at the qubit level, the Dimon approach significantly reduces the number of physical qubits needed for error correction, thus potentially leading to smaller, more scalable quantum computers. OQC claims that its Dimon technology provides a crucial step towards achieving fault-tolerant quantum computation, where errors are corrected continuously to enable complex quantum algorithms. It is hoped that in the not-too-distant future, quantum computers may no longer require massive quantum processors with millions of qubits, and that will make for much smaller and more affordable quantum systems.

– The staff, TelecomTV