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The dispute relates to major planned job cuts following Vodafone Spain’s acquisition by Zegona last month 

Spanish trade unions have accepted the workforce reduction plans offered to them by Vodafone Spain’s new owner Zegona Communications, who acquired the company back in June. 

The Spanish trade union UGT had scheduled strikes for the 9th and 11th of July – with partial strikes being carried out on various days throughout the month – in protest against a redundancy plan announced by Zegona.  

The new owner had originally planned to cut 1,198 jobs as part of the takeover’s restructuring, with the company citing the “strong financial and commercial deterioration” of the business,, according to local reports. 

Now, following negotiations, it has instead been agreed that only 898 employees will be made redundant, 25% less than the original target.  

“By a very large majority (1,821 votes in favour of the agreement versus 468 votes against) the Vodafone Spain workforce has chosen to accept the latest offer presented and, consequently, tomorrow UGT will sign the agreement that sets the conditions for the collective dismissal process presented by the company,” said UGT sources speaking to Europa Press. 

Zegona spent €5 billion on the purchase of Vodafone Spain, €4.1 billion in cash and €0.9 billion in preference shares. The dismissals come just after Zegona announced its refinancing of the acquisition.  

“With Zegona’s long-term financing now secured, we have a capital structure that is fit-for-purpose and we can now focus on the continued execution of our strategic plans to improve Vodafone Spain, driving growth and creating value for all stakeholders,” said CEO Eamonn O’Hare in a press release. 

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South African fibre installation company Lightstruck has entered into an agreement with the Namibian City of Windhoek’s City Link initiative to advance the city’s fibre network commercialisation efforts.

City Link is a dedicated business unit established within the City of Windhoek entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing the commercialisation of the fibre network.

This partnership will reportedly enable a 1GB per second connection. The project has been awarded Class Comprehensive Electronic Communications Network Services/Electronic Communications Services (ECNS/ECS) Spectrum licences by the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN).

According to Namibian business publication The Brief, the move, announced late last week, comes as part of the city’s Strategic Plan (2022-2027), through which it intends to optimise the total capacity of approximately 120 kilometres of underutilised fibre network by commercialising it.

City of Windhoek’s Councillor and Chairperson of the Financial Sustainability, Performance Management, and Policy Advisory Committee Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma has been quoted as saying: “The commercialisation of the fibre network presents a significant business opportunity that can potentially create a much-needed revenue stream for the City. This strategic initiative not only enhances the Council’s operational efficiency, but also improves service offerings to residents, businesses, and investors. It also facilitates seamless online transactions and provides access to real-time, reliable data.”

Lightstruck Holdings is busy elsewhere in the country too; it is planning to roll out a N$500-million (about US$27.6 million) project to develop the country’s first-ever open-access fibre network. The network went live in Khomasdal, a suburb of Namibia’s capital, recently, with another suburb, Rocky Crest, up next, along with Rehoboth, 90 kilometres south of Windhoek, and Osona, 60 kilometres north of Windhoek.

Late last year, the Namibia Infrastructure Development and Investment Fund acquired a stake in Lightstruck Holdings which will support the expansion of last-mile fibre infrastructure into towns and communities that were previously underserved.

Lightstruck Namibia was established through a collaborative venture between Lightstruck South Africa and Africa Merchant Capital Holdings. Its mission is to develop, own, and operate open-access, high-quality last-mile fibre networks, utilising an investment approach that prioritises the deployment of long-term fibre optic networks for the economic and social upliftment of the Namibian communities served.

News 

The investment is the latest step in SK Telcom (SKT)’s path to becoming global leader in AI 

South Korean telco SKT has announced that it will invest $200 million in California-based Smart Global Holdings (SGH), an AI data centre solutions company.  

Under the terms of the agreement, SKT will invest $200 million in SGH by acquiring 200,000 preferred shares, worth $32.81 each. This will equate to a roughly 10% stake in the business. 

SGH will use the capital to “add to the Company’s financial flexibility as SGH further expands the scope and scale of its Penguin Solutions branded end-to-end AI factory offerings,” as stated in the announcement’s press release.  

The company’s Penguin Solutions designs, builds, deploys, and manages AI and accelerated computing infrastructures at scale using Nvidia Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). 

“SGH and Penguin Solutions have a proven methodology to deploy their AI infrastructure solutions at some of the most innovative and demanding large-scale enterprise customers in the world. We believe that this collaboration leveraging SKT’s vast technology portfolio with Penguin’s AI data center solutions would enhance the reach and capabilities of both companies and position them to continue innovating in their fields,” said Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SKT. 

Leveraging the strengths of both companies, the partnership will “enhance customer offerings in the development of differentiated global end-to-end AI factory and data center solutions and services, advanced memory market products and services, and NPU-based AI edge servers.”  

SKT has made significant investments in the last few years to “step up on all fronts to transform itself into an AI company,” said the company’s Chief Financial Officer Kim Jin Won.  Last month, for example, the company invested $10 million in a generative AI search engine called Perplexity, which is attempting to disrupt Google’s hegemony over the search engine industry. It has also invested $100 million in AI company Anthropic, to develop a multilingual large language model (LLM) customised for global telcos.   

Last year, the company also joined forces with e&, Deutsche Telekom, and Singtel to form the Global Telco AI  Alliance, aiming to explore the greater integration of AI technologies within the telecoms sector.  

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter  

Also in the news:
Australian Government and AWS Collaborate to Strengthen country’s Cybersecurity
Solving congestion challenges in FTTP deployment
Vodafone Invests £120m in AI Chatbot ‘SuperTOBi’

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If given the green light, the deal would be the largest acquisition in Alphabet’s history 

Google’s parent company Alphabet is in late-stage talks to acquire cybersecurity company Wiz for $23 billion, according to a report published on Sunday from The Wall Street Journal. 

If it is completed, the deal would be the group’s largest ever deal, surpassing its previous record purchase of Motorola Mobility in 2012 for $12.5 billion.  

Sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that the deal is still “weeks away from completion”, with some details still needing to be worked out.  

Only founded in 2020 by Assaf Rappaport, Wiz is a cloud security platform that provides a suite of solutions for securing cloud environments. It has quickly gained prominence in the cybersecurity landscape, with huge name customers such as Salesforce, BMW, and Mars. In May, the company had a valuation of $12 billion. 

If a deal is ultimately agreed, it would face immense scrutiny from antitrust regulators, who have been cracking down on large tech companies buying startups. 

This is not the first cyber security purchase that Google has made in recent years. In 2022, it acquired notably cyber defence company Mandiant for $5.4 billion.  

“Cyber security is a mission, and we believe it’s one of the most important of our generation,” said Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia in March 2022. Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said at the time that the deal would “make a profound impact in securing the cloud, accelerating the adoption of cloud computing, and ultimately make the world safer.” 

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Also in the news:
Australian Government and AWS Collaborate to Strengthen country’s Cybersecurity
Solving congestion challenges in FTTP deployment
Vodafone Invests £120m in AI Chatbot ‘SuperTOBi’

When it comes to data center development projects, question number one is usually about energy.  With AI now driving accelerating demand across the sector, that question is looming larger than ever.  Mission Critical Group (MCG) is a relatively young entrant into this space, focusing on design and implementation of the power infrastructure needed to run the sort of high density computing that the industry is now building out at a record pace.  With us today to talk about their approach is CEO Jeff Drees. … [visit site to read more]

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The breach, which occurred in 2022, could affect tens of millions of customers

Today, a regulatory filing from AT&T has revealed a major data breach that occurred in 2022, with hackers able to access call and text message records of “nearly all” of the operator’s wireless customers.

The data was reportedly compromised between April 14 and April 25, 2022, as well as a single day in January 2023.

The breach exposed call and text records, though AT&T says this does not include the content of those calls or texts.

Personal information, such as names or social security numbers, was not accessible by the hackers.

“At this time, we do not believe that the data is publicly available,” AT&T said in a statement. “We sincerely regret this incident occurred and remain committed to protecting the information in our care.”

According to AT&T, the breach impacted “nearly all” of the company’s roughly 100 million wireless customers, as well as those of mobile virtual network operators that provide services to customers using AT&T’s network. A number of AT&T’s landline customers who interacted with affected mobile numbers between May and October 2022 may also have been impacted.

Investigations into the breaches began on April 19, when AT&T says a “threat actor claimed to have unlawfully accessed and copied AT&T call logs.”

AT&T says its delay in informing customers of the data breach relates to instructions from the US Department of Justice, who told the operator in May and June that a delay in public disclosure was “warranted”. No further information was given about the delay.

Exactly how the breach occurred remains unclear, though AT&T reportedly told CNN that customer data was illegally downloaded from its workspace on Snowflake, a third-party cloud platform.

Snowflake rejects this claim, with the company’s chief information and security officer saying no evidence has been found that the breach was caused by a vulnerability, misconfiguration or breach of Snowflake’s platform”.

AT&T is working with police to find those responsible for the breach, with one person reportedly apprehended in connection to the investigation.

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Also in the news:
Australian Government and AWS Collaborate to Strengthen country’s Cybersecurity
Solving congestion challenges in FTTP deployment
Vodafone Invests £120m in AI Chatbot ‘SuperTOBi’