
- Verizon unveils AI pitch, capex increase
- STC seeks Telefónica board seat
- The RAN equipment market looks flat
In today’s industry news roundup: Verizon has reported its full year financials and is aiming to make itself a key AI workload partner for enterprise users; the power battle at Telefónica continues; there’s little hope for overall growth in the global RAN equipment market, reckons research firm Dell’Oro Group; and much more!
In an effort to position itself as an invaluable partner to enterprise users as they embrace generative AI (GenAI) applications, Verizon has unveiled what it calls Verizon AI Connect, “an integrated suite of solutions and products designed to enable businesses to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) workloads at scale.” Essentially, Verizon is claiming it has the combination of high-speed access networks and edge compute assets that can help enterprise users with their near real-time AI inferencing requirements. “To meet current and future demand from hyperscalers, cloud providers and global enterprises, Verizon is building on its strategy to power the AI ecosystem with… assets integrated in Verizon’s intelligent and programmable network. From the macro 5G network and high-speed fibre connectivity to edge compute environments and space, power and cooling infrastructure, Verizon AI Connect is designed to deliver AI workloads as needed,” noted the telco, which highlighted the existing partnership it has with AI chip giant Nvidia for private networks (announced last December) and a new partnership with GPU-as-a-service specialist Vultr. JJ Kardwell, CEO of Vultr, noted: “GPUs play a crucial role in powering AI workloads, and rapidly growing demand for real-time inference is driving the need for AI infrastructure at the edge. With demand for datacentres and GPU processing power outpacing supply, Verizon’s connectivity infrastructure is uniquely positioned to support our growth. Through Verizon AI Connect, we can extend our global cloud footprint and bring cutting-edge AI solutions to Verizon Business’ global customers.” The telco also noted that it is expanding its current partnership with Meta “into network infrastructure, a differentiator for both companies in helping to build the AI ecosystem.” Verizon Business CEO Kyle Malady noted: “We are seeing significant demand for reliable network infrastructure that can support existing AI workloads. As the technology evolves, our industry leadership, best-in-class edge-to-cloud connectivity, programmable network and assets will enable us to meet these needs and accelerate innovation.”
News of Verizon’s AI Connect pitch came as the operator reported its fourth-quarter and full year financials. The US telco giant’s full year revenues were up by just 0.6% to $134.8bn, but its operating profit was up by 25.4% to $28.7bn. It ended the year with 115.26 million consumer mobile customers, up 0.2% compared with the end of 2023; just over 7.1 million consumer fibre broadband (Fios) customers, up by 2.3%; and 2.7 million consumer fixed wireless access (FWA) customers, up 45.4%. Verizon Business ended 2024 with 30.8 million wireless connections, up 3.5%, 401,000 fibre broadband (Fios) connections, up by 4.2%, and 1.85 million FWA connections, up by 54.4%. In total, Verizon now has almost 4.57 million FWA customers (consumer and enterprise combined) and believes it is on course to have a total of between 8 million and 9 million by 2028. In good news for the vendor community, Verizon’s full year capital expenditure (capex) in 2024 totalled $17.1bn, but it expects its 2025 capex to be between $17.5bn and $18.5bn. The operator is still hoping to complete the $20bn acquisition of Frontier Communications this year.
Saudi telco STC is to request a seat on the board of Telefónica, in which it holds a 9.97% stake via an investment vehicle dubbed Luxco (as it is registered in Luxembourg), the company noted in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The move comes only days after the Spanish government’s investment company, Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI), which holds a 10% stake in the Spanish telco and has a seat on its board, engineered a change of CEO at Telefónica, with long-time boss José María Álvarez-Pallete overthrown and replaced by Marc Murtra, who had been chairman of Spanish defence and tech firm Indra. Since that change, Telefónica’s share price has slipped by almost 5% on the Madrid exchange and currently stands at €3.78, with Reuters noting that investors are concerned about political interference in the telco’s strategy.
After two years of steady decline, the global radio access network (RAN) equipment market is not showing any signs of growth, though it looks like it at least isn’t going to shrink any further from the sub-$35bn value of 2024, according to research firm Dell’Oro Group. “Market conditions are improving but remain underwhelming… conditions are expected to improve slightly over the short term, but the long-term outlook remains subdued,” noted the company in this press release. Worldwide RAN equipment revenues are not expected to grow by much, if at all, during the next five years, “as rapidly declining LTE [4G] revenues will offset continued 5G investments,” the research firm noted. Stefan Pongratz, VP for RAN market research at Dell’Oro Group, stated: “The underlying message we have communicated for some time has not changed. Regional imbalances will impact the market dynamics over the short term while the long-term trajectory remains flat. This is predicated on the assumption that new RAN revenue streams from private wireless and FWA, taken together with MBB [mobile broadband]-based capacity growth, are not enough to offset slower MBB coverage-based capex.”
Philippine telco PLDT and its wireless business Smart Communications have teamed up with multiple partners, including the Better Access and Connectivity (BEACON) Activity of USAID (United States Agency for International Development), the University of the Philippines (UP), the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), and Asia Open RAN Academy (AORA) to open the country’s first Open RAN laboratory in UP Diliman, Quezon City. “We are proud to participate and contribute in the planning and design of this facility and to provide technical advice during the building process of this innovation lab, which we believe will contribute significantly to advance open, interoperable, and disaggregated network technologies in the Philippines,” said PLDT’s head of smart wireless network, Debbie Hu, adding that the lab’s systems will be made available for PLDT and Smart to support the companies’ technical capability development, testing, research and collaborative studies essential in paving the way for future innovations. Read more.
– The staff, TelecomTV
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