What’s up with… NTT Docomo, AI voice, VMO2

• NTT Docomo and Nokia deploy O-RAN-compliant radios
• Alianza buys Skribby as AI voice gains volume
• VMO2 reportedly poised for £600m cost cutting

In today’s industry news roundup: NTT Docomo claims to be the first operator to deploy Nokia’s O-RAN Alliance-compliant RAN technology; Alianza buys AI voice firm Skribby while Radisys launches a voice AI ecosystem; reports claim VMO2 is under pressure to cut costs as investors baulk at the operator’s debt levels; and much more!

NTT Docomo claims to be the first operator to have have commercially deployed Nokia radio access network (RAN) technology that complies with O-RAN Alliance specifications and which enables radio units from third-party vendors to be connected to and work with the Finnish vendor’s latest base station technology that supports 4G and 5G services. According to NTT Docomo, this is another step on the journey it is taking with Nokia towards the evolution to 5G-Advanced and AI-native 6G networks, noting that it is working with the vendor on a broad range of R&D efforts that cover virtualised and cloud RAN, autonomous networking, AI-native operations and more. For further details, see this announcement (in Japanese). 

Noise levels are rising in the emerging AI voice sector. Following on from the launch of its Crux cognitive communications platform, cloud communications platform specialist Alianza has announced the acquisition of Skribby, a Belgian company which has developed an “API-first developer platform that manages and deploys automated meeting bots using a single integration,” for an undisclosed sum. Alianza notes that Skribby’s technology will be “incorporated into Alianza Crux, extending the platform’s reach into established meeting environments, including Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom. The acquisition also gives developers a growing library of over 30 transcription models to choose from, including models from OpenAI, xAI, Mistral and ElevenLabs.” ALianza’s CEO, Brian Beutler, noted: “Conversations are becoming the most valuable data layer in the AI economy. Trillions of conversations flow through service provider networks and meeting platforms every year, and almost none of them have been easily accessible to developers. Acquiring Skribby is a decisive move: It broadens the conversations Alianza Crux can capture and will empower developers to build the experiences powering the fastest-growing categories in software – AI agents, copilots and conversational intelligence.” Earlier this year, Alianza acquired cloud collaboration application developer BroadSource. 

That’s not the end of the AI voice action, as Radisys, the telco software developer that is part of the Jio Platforms empire, has launched its V.AI ecosystem, which brings together “applications, development tools and leading voice and speech AI technologies to help telecom operators create, deploy and monetise AI-powered communication services for consumers and business subscribers.” Partners engaged in the ecosystem include ElevenLabs, Hiya, ReadSpeaker, Sensory and Speechmatics: Radisys has combined the technologies developed by its ecosystem partners with its “telecom network, device (mobile and landline handsets, cameras, sensors and more), and media processing capabilities to deliver end-to-end AI-enhanced applications across pre-call, in-call, and post-call experiences,” the vendor noted. Building on the capabilities of its Engage Digital Platform (EDP) “the ecosystem gives operators multiple paths to market. Operators can deploy turnkey applications, customise services for specific markets and customer segments, or create new device-independent, network-delivered experiences through V.AI Studio, Radisys’s development environment for voice and video AI services,” noted Radisys. 

UK telco Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is reportedly set for a major cost-cutting drive as part of an effort to save up to £600m in annual costs to assuage its owners’ concerns about the UK telco’s debt pile. According to a report in the Financial Times, the telco’s joint owners, Liberty Global and Telefónica, are pressing VMO2 execs to find savings through a mix of job cuts and spending reductions. The report cites two people familiar with the matter who claimed the investors had been spooked by a sell-off of bonds over the summer. The company – which was formed through the combination of O2 UK and Virgin Media – ended 2025 with debts of £22.5bn, according to its financial reports. Earlier this year, Telefónica opened an office in London so it could be “closer” to UK market developments and ensure the VMO2 team is “aligned” with Telefónica’s new industrial strategy: It’s hard to imagine that scrutiny is not linked to the current pressure to reduce costs at VMO2.

Apple is set to quickly gain a decent share of the foldable smartphone market following the launch this week of its iPhone Duo, according to TrendForce. The research firm estimates that iPhone Duo shipments will reach approximately 5 million units in 2026, giving Apple a 24.8% share of the foldable smartphone market and making it the second-largest brand behind Samsung. TrendForce forecasts global foldable smartphone shipments of approximately 20.2 million units in 2026, up just 0.5% year on year. Excluding Apple, combined shipments from Android brands are expected to reach only around 15.2 million units, down more than 20% compared with 2025. But other device vendors are doing their best to light a fire under the foldable sector: Only days before Apple’s launch, Xiaomi unveiled its first-ever mid-size foldable smartphone, the Xiaomi 18 Fold, and Huawei unveiled a tri-fold smartphone, the Mate X2 Ultimate Design device.

Deutsche Telekom has integrated software from German virtual cloud specialist Cloudsphere into its T Cloud ecosystem to make it easier for enterprises to manage multiple cloud platform relationships. “Not every workload needs the same cloud. With Codesphere, we connect sovereign T Cloud, international hyperscalers, and existing IT environments on a shared platform,” stated Lars Neumann, senior VP at T Cloud, in this announcement. “This gives our customers the freedom to run each application where sovereignty, scalability and technology requirements align best – and to switch flexibly as requirements change,” he added. 

The UK has unveiled a new space strategy that, according to the government, is backed by £7.8bn of funding up until 2030, a move that “puts the UK’s space sector to work in reindustrialising the country over the coming years”. The investment plan includes £880m for the UK’s space control and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, “funding technologies that can track military activity on the ground and potential attacks on satellites” and £2.8bn on connectivity initiatives, including the Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit and SKYNET defence communications programmes, “which play a pivotal role in keeping our armed forces connected wherever they are in the world”. The UK government says the strategy “recognises space as an increasingly important domain for keeping our country safe. Work to strengthen Space Domain Awareness – the study and monitoring of objects like satellites, rockets and debris orbiting our planet – is being backed by projects including £149m for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Vigil mission and £85m for the National Space Operations Centre. UK funding will see British tech offer earlier warnings of potential satellite collisions, hostile activity and solar storms, helping protect the power, communications and navigation services people rely on every day.” 

Sticking with space, French satellite operator Eutelsat has struck a partnership with ground station services firm Skynopy to launch a new software-defined infrastructure that can provide telecom services, Earth observation and orbital datacentres to multiple satellite constellations. The partnership, named Global AKAR, will leverage France-based Eutelsat’s global footprint and Skynopy’s software to build a resilient, scalable network that can deliver a near-real time backbone to low-earth orbit (LEO) constellations operating in the S, X and Ka bands. This will help to reduce latency, especially for LEO constellation operators, according to the partners, reducing lag from more than one hour to less than three minutes, while boosting throughput from 1-2 Gbit/s to up to 10 Gbit/s. Eutelsat brings scale to the partnership, with a portfolio of more than 70 teleports worldwide, while Skynopy – which is also based in France – has developed a virtualised modem that allows satellite operators to access existing ground antennas through a single interface. The solution is already live across 17 sites and serves several dozen satellites, but the aim of the partners is to deploy more than 100 operational antennas by the end of 2029.

Azerbaijani wholesale operator AzerTelecom and DE-CIX have partnered to launch the country’s first carrier neutral internet exchange. AZE-IX will offer a neutral platform for local and international networks, cloud service providers and enterprises, offering lower latencies and better resilience for those operating within Azerbaijan. It will be developed leveraging DE-CIX’s interconnection model, which the German firm has deployed in internet exchanges across more than 60 markets globally. The exchange will also serve as part of the Digital Silk Way, a project launched by AzerTelecom’s parent company NEQSOL Holding, which aims to establish a digital corridor between Europe and Asia. NEQSOL, which owns the wholesale operator through subsidiary the AzerConnect Group, aims to position Azerbaijan as a digital bridge connecting the regions and the Middle East.

Wilmington, Massachusetts-based data conversion and signal processing chip developer Analog Devices is acquiring Pleasanton, California-based Alif Semiconductor for $1.35bn in cash to help with its plans to deliver “physical intelligence, enabling systems to sense, reason and act locally in real time within the constraints of the physical world”. Analog Devices noted in this announcement that AI is “entering a new phase as models move beyond interpreting words and images to understanding context and interacting with the physical world. This transition requires systems that can reason from signals such as motion, sound, vibration, radio waves and thermodynamics, and operate locally within demanding power, latency, security and reliability constraints,” which the company refers to as ‘physical intelligence’. Analog Devices added that “Alif is redefining edge intelligence with a sophisticated platform of high-efficiency AI-native microcontrollers and fusion processors. Its heterogeneous architecture enables real-time sensor fusion, low-latency inference and on-device AI, bringing advanced intelligence to demanding physical systems.” Vincent Roche, CEO and chair of Analog Devices, noted: “AI is moving out of the datacentre and into the physical world, where latency, power and trust cannot be compromised. That is the domain ADI has mastered for decades, at the delicate electro-physical interface where real-world signals become actionable intelligence. By combining Alif’s digital processing capabilities with our leadership in multi-modal sensing, signal processing, power, connectivity and software, we can empower customers to create entirely new classes of secure, intelligent systems that sense, reason and act locally in real time. This is the next frontier of AI: Embodied and deterministic. This is physical intelligence in action,” stated the CEO.

– The staff, TelecomTV