Vodafone Idea will launch 5G services in Bengaluru tomorrow (11 June), marking the latest step in its phased rollout across India. The operator is aiming to reach 17 cities with commercial 5G services by August.

To attract new users, Vodafone Idea is offering unlimited data on 5G plans priced at INR299 and above. The service is already live in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Patna, and Chandigarh.

Samsung has supplied equipment for the operator’s 5G network. Vodafone Idea noted it is using “AI-powered Self-Organising Networks (SON)” to optimise performance and improve energy efficiency.

In tandem with the 5G launch, the company has upgraded its 4G infrastructure in Karnataka. It has deployed 900MHz spectrum on nearly 3,000 sites to boost indoor coverage, doubled 2,100MHz spectrum capacity at 1,800 sites, and added 2,100MHz spectrum to a further 1,000 locations.

Additionally, more than 4,100 sites were upgraded with increased 1,800MHz capacity, resulting in better coverage and improved data throughput. These upgrades have delivered a 46% increase in capacity since March 2024.

Anand Dani, Business Head for Karnataka at Vodafone Idea, said: “Encouraged by the strong response and robust performance in our launched markets, we are committed to expanding our 5G footprint in line with growing demand and 5G handset adoption.”

7.5’s focus was centered around making our easy-to-use apps even more intuitive through the addition of many quality-of-life features that aim to eliminate needless app navigation time and let you both access and use the app at the snap of your fingers.

PBXware

Single Sign-On (SSO) Authentication Implementation

The first addition coming to PBXware with 7.5 is the introduction of SSO to the platform, allowing users to use one set of credentials to log into any part of the Bicom Systems product suite that the account is eligible for, across any device.

On top of improved ease of access, the main benefit of SSO authentication is to enhance security levels, as well as making user management easier for service providers. 

Compliance With Alyssa’s Law

With the integration of the CyberData SIP Call Button with the PBX platform, PBXware has helped bring its emergency response capabilities up to snuff with those outlined in Alyssa’s Law.

This device will, when activated, trigger a pre-configured call and play a recorded message, ensuring immediate alert dissemination.

It acts as a reliable safety solution for many public facilities that require such a silent and quick-acting alert system that enables quicker response times from local law enforcement during potentially life-threatening situations.

Enabling Custom HTTP Requests Through The Event Manager

Next on our list of new additions coming with 7.5 is the Event Manager which allows PBXware admins to do the configurations needed and the system to trigger custom HTTP requests based on already defined system events.

This enables them to use parameters for dynamic data that makes it a great deal easier to monitor these events going forward.

Automatic Call Recording Transcriptions

AI technology still remains largely unexplored, but it has seen some great applications in helping improve everyday communication and business workflows.

To that end, we’ve added a new functionality that requires integration with third-party services,  with the added feature to either automatically transcribe customer call recordings in order, or to prioritize a more recent transcription, one can do so on-demand from the PBXware GUI.

They can be accessed from the GUI or by using the API.

Access to these transcriptions can greatly improve future customer and end user interactions, and should prove a great asset in further improving CX overall.

SMS Rating

7.5 also introduces SMS rating, allowing PBXware admins to rate SMS messages sent from extensions based on the Service Plan assigned to them and charged accordingly.

The feature allows them to define custom SMS and MMS rates for both national and international messages, ensuring flexible pricing that reflects real-world costs.

The system is equipped to distinguish between national and international messages automatically.

This feature also comes with the Inclusive SMS & MMS features, allowing admins to set up a number of free SMS and MMS messages that can be sent individually or through bulk messaging without charge depending on the Service Plan that the extension is assigned to, and to give users a flexible, real-world billing experience.

MOS (Mean Opinion Score)

An optional feature, but a relatively important one still is the MOS (Mean Opinion Score) one, coming with v7.5.

With the newest version, call reports will include the MOS metric by default, allowing users to more easily monitor call quality for individual calls, uncover potential issues and fix them before they escalate any further.

The gloCOM Suite

SSO

PBXware’s inclusion of the Single-Sign On Authentication feature extends to the gloCOM suite as well, enhancing security and enabling faster login processes.

Better Communication Organisation With Chat Threads

7.5 brings with itself an improvement in chat organization in the form of Chat Threads, little subsections of chat conversations that can be created for more topical discussion and accessed with ease without having to scroll through previous conversations to reach it, available to you at any time through a simple button press.

Editing Your Chat Messages

For those of you who tend to make a typo in chat every now and then and dislike having to write extra lines of text in order to remedy it, this feature is for you.

In order to help keep chats cleaner and more focused, 7.5 is introducing the ability to edit your existing chat messages, thus eliminating the need to send any extra lines of text.

 Microsoft Teams Presence

This addition helps expand gloCOM’s flexibility by streamlining its use to an even greater number of people, and allows those utilizing Teams and gloCOM in their daily workflow to sync their presence status from Teams to gloCOM.

The inclusion of MS Teams Presence will greatly increase the value of the upcoming gloCOM for Teams app.

Meeting Integration

With v7.5, gloCOM Web users can now enjoy a seamless Meeting experience directly within the app, thanks to the integration of gloCOM Meeting Web as a built-in module.

To support this, we’ve redesigned the interface for a more intuitive and streamlined experience.

All core meeting controls—like inviting participants, assigning co-organizers, and managing privacy settings—are now fully available within gloCOM Web.

From this version forward, there is no longer a separate gloCOM Meeting Web app; everything is unified under one roof.

Contact Center

Agent Auto Logout

In order to better workforce management and system efficiency, we have introduced the Agent Auto Logout feature with the release of 7.5.

As its name implies, the feature tracks a Scheduled Timer through subsequent system check intervals, ensuring that Agents are logged out at a set time with up to a 5 minute grace period if the Agent is on an active call.

This helps keep operating times punctual and makes sure that agents don’t accidentally log additional work hours because they forgot to log out, which would lead to inaccuracies in generated statistics.

Additionally, should agents forget to log off manually, the system will do the process for them during the next system check interval.

IMAP Mailbox Fields – Omnichannel

In order to facilitate better email filtering, we have implemented IMAP mailbox fields into Omnichannel which allow users to specify a custom email folder from which emails will be downloaded and, consequently, email requests will be created.

This ensures that only select emails are processed and turned into tickets, improving organisation and agent efficiency.

sipPROT

SIP INVITEs Rate Limiter

With the release of sipPROT 5.4 Standalone, sipPROT comes with a few new features of its own, with the SIP INVITEs rate limiter being one of them.

It provides administrators with the ability to better manage spam invites and offers them greater control over incoming SIP traffic.

Additionally, despite being rejected, these invites are still logged in the attack log to allow for further monitoring and action against them if needed.

IPv6 Address Detection

With v5.4, sipPROT gains the capability to detect IPv6 addresses used for malicious actions on the system.

This detection also extends to its dynamic blocking capabilities, improving your level of security against bad actors.

And More…

These are only some of the more notable changes that have been introduced with the release of 7.5.

As always, plenty of other bug fixes, quality of life changes and feature updates have also been implemented to ensure smoother workflows and less tedium during app interaction

These changes should further streamline your experience with the Bicom product suite as a whole, as well as make your work easier going forward.

We look forward to seeing your feedback on these new additions and hope that the changes in v7.5 have increased your overall enjoyment of our products. If you have any extra questions, feel free to Contact Us.

Indian operator Bharti Airtel has awarded technology giant Ericsson a multi-year network operations centre (NOC) managed services (MS) contract.

Under this agreement, Ericsson will enable intent-based operations, powered by its centralised NOC, to manage Airtel services across 4G, 5G NSA, 5G SA, fixed wireless access (FWA), private networks, and network slicing.

This partnership will see Ericsson manage Airtel’s pan-India network through its state-of-the-art NOC while scaling FWA and network slicing across the country.

Ericsson says its long-standing partnership with Bharti Airtel spans over 25 years and encompasses multiple generations of mobile communications technology.

This announcement follows hard on the heels of Bharti Airtel’s recently announced collaboration with Ericsson on 5G core to drive 5G evolution, and of course last year’s multi-billion-dollar deal, reported here, to supply 4G and 5G equipment and solutions to Bharti Airtel. That multi-year agreement includes the deployment of centralised RAN and open RAN-ready solutions.

Little further information has so far been made public. However, Randeep Sekhon, CTO Bharti Airtel, says: “We believe that these innovative technologies will empower us to meet the growing data demands of consumers in a digitally connected India.” 

Andres Vicente, Head of Market Area Southeast Asia, Oceania and India, Ericsson, explains: “By leveraging intent-based NOC operations, we will enable Airtel to unlock wider service diversification to meet customer needs, thereby enabling new revenue opportunities for Airtel.”

Rome, 9 June 2025

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, announces the availability of its “Quantum Safe over Internet” (QSI) to Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers. The service is already available through Sparkle’s commercial channels and will soon be accessible on AWS marketplace.

QSI is a cloud-native solution that offers secure VPN connectivity between customer sites or data centers and cloud providers, protecting sensitive data against quantum computing threats. It operates without requiring changes to existing infrastructure and leverages Sparkle’s network and advanced encryption technologies to ensure fast and secure data transmission with simple, automated management. With the NaaS approach, customers can use the service through a dedicated portal or via API, in an agile, flexible, and fully automated way.

The solution was validated through a dedicated Proof-of-Concept (PoC) conducted across two AWS regions – Frankfurt and Ireland – in collaboration with AWS and Sparkle’s technology partners. The PoC demonstrated the ability to establish secure, quantum-safe VPN tunnels between the two countries while ensuring continuous key rotation and encryption integrity without performance degradation.

“Quantum Safe over Internet” was launched in December 2024 to enable customers to access Sparkle’s network, establish secure connections between their offices, and utilize cloud resources with assurance against quantum attacks. It is the first service of Sparkle’s Multi-Quantum solutions suite which will soon include other use cases.

“This new offering confirms Sparkle’s strong commitment to delivering future-proof cybersecurity solutions to our customers while demonstrating our ability to bring quantum-safe protection into real-world hybrid architectures” said Antonella Sanguineti, Head of Marketing & Product Management Networking, Cloud, Security & Identity Solutions at Sparkle.

About Sparkle

Sparkle is TIM Group’s Global Operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice – to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. A major player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa and the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 32 countries.

Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com

Media Contacts:

sparkle.communication@tisparkle.com

X: @TISparkle

The landscape of communications safety sees constant change and Bicom Systems ensures that you can always stay on top of it.

One such change is coming on June 20th, 2025 regarding the STIR/SHAKEN protocols where the FCC wants to take a more proactive approach in combatting robocalls by making each VoIP provider fully responsible for signing outbound calls from their network.

The Bicom Product Suite will make that possible for all VSPs who utilize it, ensuring continued operations in the US market.

What Is STIR/SHAKEN?

STIR/SHAKEN is a set of protocols whose aim is to digitally sign and authenticate caller IDs in an effort to reduce the impact that spam and robocalls make on the everyday customer.

They do this by providing a digital signature to a call through the service provider, one that’s encrypted using a private key.

With Bicom Systems’ PBXware, the process of signing and verifying outgoing calls comes as a built-in implementation that allows VSPs to do both for outbound and inbound calls, enabling them to both authenticate certificates and verify called IDs.

It also facilitates compliance with the FCC’s updated regulations that are being put into effect on June 20th.

The Importance Of Implementing STIR/SHAKEN

As mentioned above, STIR/SHAKEN’s main goal is to reduce the effects of the ever-present nuisance of spam calls, phishing and robocalls by adding an additional layer of security in the form of call attestation.

This should make it easier for the end user to identify potentially fraudulent calls and ignore them, giving them peace of mind and keeping their personal details (and, summarily, their other belongings) safe from the hands of malicious actors.

However, there’s benefit for legitimate businesses here too as the overall level of customer trust will improve with their calls now showing up as verified, improving the rate of successful calls.

What Exactly Are The New Requirements For VoIP Providers?

The newest update in regards to STIR/SHAKEN by the FCC aims to eliminate the use of third-party certificates for call signing and to shift accountability back to the VoIP providers themselves.

To accomplish this, they’re demanding that VSPs must:

• Handle call signing for calls originating from their own networks directly
• Handle the call attestation for all outbound calls
• Obtain an SPC token and their own certificate based on that token

This is done to not only improve the effectiveness of robocall prevention methods, but also to assign full responsibility to the VoIP service providers themselves rather than third parties, ensuring a more accurate VSP legitimacy process.

The VSP must also be properly registered with the STIR/SHAKEN policy administrator.

All of this takes effect on June 20th, 2025, and those found not complying with new regulations in time are likely to be faced with penalties that can go as far as being removed from the Robocall Mitigation Database, and other carriers potentially blocking traffic from them.

Keeping The (Phone) Lines Safe

While STIR/SHAKEN isn’t the be-all and end-all of scam call security, it’s a necessary measure in combatting the threat that it poses, and a step toward the problem’s hopeful elimination in the future.

Bicom Systems firmly believes in the concept of call security and will make sure to do everything in its power to facilitate better call safety at every step.

Get in touch with us and let’s secure a safer telephony experience for your customers, together.

With the release of v7.5, Bicom Systems is becoming compliant with Alyssa’s Law, a U.S. legislation aimed at improving law enforcement response and subsequent threat resolution times in public schools during life-threatening situations.

Its goal is to save lives and minimize casualties, and our goal is to make implementing the systems required to support it quick, easy, and affordable.

What Exactly Is Alyssa’s Law?

Alyssa’s Law is a critical legislation that addresses the issue of law enforcement response time during life-threatening emergencies by striving to improve it. It was first adopted in the state of New Jersey in February, 2019 and has since been adopted by a number of states across the nation (currently 6) with more states working toward getting the law passed and put into effect.

In simpler terms, Alyssa’s Law states that all public elementary and secondary schools are required to have a silent panic alarm connected directly to law enforcement.

The law itself was proposed by Lori Alhadeff, mother of Alyssa Alhadeff who was one of the victims of the Parkland school shooting of 2018 in Florida.

This was done in an effort to try and minimize and, ideally, prevent, any further needless loss of life in places of public education, especially young life, an ongoing problem in the States.

While it was initially met with pushback with claims that such a reform would be too costly on existing budgets, it has proven, through practice, that the pros far outweighed the financial cons.

The Importance Of Alyssa’s Law

As stated earlier, the main goal of Alyssa’s Law is to either prevent, or at the very least, minimize casualties during life-threatening events in public schools, however, the goal is much broader than that:

Improving Law Enforcement Response Times

A second can be the difference between life and death in extreme situations, and Alyssa’s Law aims to allow them to skip the line of a standard 911 call, expediting law enforcement response times.

We at Bicom Systems recognized this and have enabled our PBX system, PBXware, with v7.5 onward, to utilize tools compliant with Alyssa’s Law in order to provide a cost effective solution for Public Schools that adheres to the requirements imposed by the Law in question, helping further combat any potential pushback on the financial front.

It does so by utilizing a device that, once activated, triggers a pre-configured call and plays a recorded message on the other end, ensuring that the alert is clear and to the point, allowing emergency services to act quickly and appropriately.

Maintaining Communication Clarity

During life-threatening situations, it’s not uncommon for people to act panicked and irrational, which can lead to needless delays in law enforcement reaction due to a delay in information.

Additionally, the people in danger may not have access to a communications device at all times which can also delay or entirely prevent law enforcement from being informed on time.

However, the devices installed that comply with Alyssa’s Law aim to eliminate these factors entirely by having them pre-installed at public schools and always connected to law enforcement, regardless of circumstance.

The tools that PBXware provide aim to do this as well, utilizing clear and concise messaging to adequately alert emergency services with the alert alone and by always providing access to the device, regardless of emergency.

This is done with the help of the CyberData SIP Call Button which is now integrated with PBXware, enhancing emergency response capabilities and ensuring compliance with Alyssa’s Law.

Enhancing Overall School Safety Infrastructure

Alyssa’s Law sets a precedent for a more modern level of safety infrastructure in schools, showcasing the flaws in existing safety protocols with the hopes that more legislations follow suit in order to provide a safer environment for children and educators alike to both learn and work in.

Building A Less Stressful Environment For Everyone

With all of these safety measures in place, parents, students and school staff alike can breathe easier knowing that the schools are well equipped to handle any life-threatening situations should it ever come to one.

Securing A Safer And Brighter Future For The Next Generation

Ultimately, the goal of Alyssa’s Law is to emphasize the sense of urgency during these life-threatening situations when they occur, to expedite law enforcement response time, to introduce clear accountability for every party involved, and to, hopefully, prevent these events in the future through its sheer presence.

Bicom Systems supports the safety of American youth and is ready to provide the tools necessary to make Alyssa’s Law take effect across the country as a whole in due time. Let’s work towards a brighter and safer future, together.

MobiFone Corporation, a leading mobile network operator in Vietnam, and open RAN pioneer Rakuten Symphony have announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on a pilot project to jointly deploy a 4G and 5G open RAN mobile network in Vietnam.

The MoU, say the partners, will position MobiFone as one of the first mobile operators in Southeast Asia to deploy open RAN, showcase the technology as a viable and efficient solution for mobile network expansion, and provide technical validation to support the commercial operations of open RAN technology in Vietnam.

A pilot programme will see Rakuten Symphony supplying open RAN solutions and engaging with its ecosystem partners to support the project and provide necessary expertise throughout the pilot phase. MobiFone will ensure required cell and core sites are allocated, that the sites are fully prepared to host open RAN technology, and that a mobile core is available to execute the pilot project.

Mr Vinh Tuan Bao, Deputy General Director, MobiFone, says: “MobiFone has identified open RAN as a strategic pathway to gradually establish technological autonomy in next-generation mobile networks. This collaboration will extend far beyond a mere proof of concept. It will pave the way for deeper, more comprehensive partnerships in the near future.

Rakuten Symphony says it is committed to be a global leader in advanced standardised open RAN innovation and technology, automated quality assurance systems and edge cloud capabilities for next-generation communications.

In what is said to be the first time Google has made a deal with an entire country, the Alphabet Inc-owned technology company has this week signed a major submarine cable agreement with the Chilean government.

The deal involves the deployment of a 14,800-kilometre submarine data cable across the Pacific Ocean to connect with Australia and Asia.

Claimed to be the first submarine cable in the South Pacific, scheduled for deployment next year and set to be operational by 2027, the cable will, the partners suggest, bolster Chile’s digital connectivity with Asian nations, including China, its largest trading partner.

Indeed, Reuters reports that the initiative coincides with intensifying competition between China and the US for influence in Latin America, with submarine cables emerging as crucial infrastructure in their technological rivalry.

However, links with Australia seem to be an equally important driver for the cable’s development. The cable will connect Valparaiso in Chile’s central region to Australia and could support mining operations in both Chile and Australia – for example, allowing mining companies that have operations in Chile and Australia, to have a shared command centre.

The cable could also play a part in advancing Chile’s ambitions to become a regional hub for Latin America. Cristian Ramos, head of telecommunications infrastructure for Alphabet’s Latin American unit, has apparently said that the cable would be open for use by other entities, including technology firms operating in Chile. In addition, Desarrollo Pais, a state-owned partner in the venture involved in developing infrastructure projects, is reportedly looking into linking the cable to Argentina via a border crossing.

Reuters adds that unofficial estimates of the cable’s costs range from US$300 million to US$550 million, with Chile potentially contributing US$25 million.

The Chile-Australia link has been on the drawing board for some time, though not always involving China. In fact Google is not the only partner to have been announced over the years; 2021 saw the involvement of aSingaporean cable company called H2.

In addition, this is not the only submarine cable venture planned between Chile and other countries. As we reported in 2023, Chile is planning a submarine cable to link the southern tip of South America with Antarctica, primarily for research purposes.

ZTE Corporation has released its Sustainability Report 2024, marking the 17th consecutive year the company has proactively disclosed its sustainable commitments and progress to the public.

The ZTE Corporation Sustainability Report 2024 highlights ZTE’s ESG strategies and achievements, showcasing how the company is leveraging digital innovation to drive sustainable transformation across the globe.

Amid the accelerating wave of global digitalization, ZTE remains committed to its role as a « Driver of the Digital Economy », advancing its sustainability agenda on two fronts: by making significant strides in green operations guided by science-based carbon targets, and by enabling digital and low-carbon transformation across industries through cutting-edge technologies.

Xu Ziyang, Executive Director and CEO of ZTE, states in the report, « The new wave of AI-driven technological revolution, particularly the boom of large models and generative AI, has propelled global digital and intelligent transformation. In this critical year filled with both challenges and opportunities, ZTE, as a ‘Driver of Digital Economy’, stayed true to its original aspiration and responded to the call of the times. »

The report reveals that ZTE continues to strengthen its underlying capabilities, scaling up R&D investment to build stronger core competence, with R&D expenses accounting for 19.81% of operating revenue. As of December 31 2024, ZTE had filed 93,000 global patent applications, with over 48,000 granted. Specifically, in the field of chips, ZTE had filed about 5,500 patent applications, with over 2,000 granted. In the field of AI, the company had filed more than 5,000 patent applications, with nearly half of them already granted, demonstrating strong innovation and technological capabilities.

Advancing Green Strategies to Tackle Climate Challenges

ZTE centers its core drive on technological innovation, continuously deepening its green development strategy to address climate change challenges and promote the coordinated advancement of digital intelligence and sustainability across industries. In 2024, ZTE received official approval from the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for its near-term 1.5°C target and long-term net-zero targets. In the same year, ZTE published the ZTE Net-Zero Strategy White Paper.

The company continues to advance its « Green Digital Path » initiative across four dimensions: green corporate operations, green supply chain, green digital infrastructure, and green empowerment. ZTE has been named to the prestigious CDP A list for leading climate action for two consecutive years, reinforcing its global climate leadership.

In terms of green corporate operations, ZTE has achieved the remarkable feat of increasing revenue while reducing energy consumption, thanks to years of continuous effort. In 2024, the company improved its energy efficiency by 20% compared with 2021, and recorded a 13.4% reduction in Scope 1&2 emissions compared to the previous year. Its telecom products saw an 8.39% reduction in physical emissions intensity during the use and maintenance phase, while its terminal products achieved a 5.02% year-on-year reduction in absolute emissions over the entire product lifecycle. ZTE reduced its Scope 1&2&3 carbon emissions by 14.317 million tons in 2024 compared to 2023 levels.

For green supply chain, in 2024, ZTE has integrated dual-carbon strategy requirements into supplier management IT systems, including agreement signing, on-site audits, and performance assessments. In this year, ZTE conducted onsite CSR audits for 261 production suppliers (representing 86.9% of the top 90% suppliers by procurement amount).

Regarding green digital infrastructure, ZTE boasts over 800 green innovation patents. As of 2024, the company has conducted carbon footprint assessments for 154 products, covering all its product categories. Through its end-to-end green solutions, ZTE continues to help global operators save over 10 billion kWh of electricity annually.

In green empowerment of industries, ZTE has actively integrated cloud and network infrastructure, IoT, big data, AI and other cutting-edge technologies with traditional industries to achieve a win-win outcome of development and emission reduction. The company has partnered with over 2,000 leading industry players to carry out 5G-powered innovative green practices across 18 sectors—including steel, metallurgy, electronics manufacturing, ports, rail transit, mining, and power—pioneering more than 100 innovative application scenarios.

Upholding a People-Centered Approach to Foster an Inclusive Society

ZTE has pursued sustainable development by advancing both technological leadership and CSR fulfillment. By leveraging its technological advantages, it provides tailored digital solutions to global customers, helping to bridge the digital divide and accelerate digital transformation worldwide. For example, ZTE and Orange have jointly launched the « Enhance Rural Area » project, delivering communications infrastructure to rural regions in Liberia and enabling digital access for more than 580,000 people in remote areas. In Anyang, Henan, the company supported the development of a drone-based blood delivery system, effectively addressing the « last mile » challenge in urban medical logistics. In Hainan, ZTE ensured uninterrupted emergency communications with satellite terminals during Typhoon Yagi.

ZTE upholds a people-oriented philosophy. In 2024, ZTE achieved 100% employee training coverage and its ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems certification now covers offices in 30 countries.

In 2024, ZTE carried out 310 regular public welfare activities across various fields, including rural revitalization, education support, and medical and disaster relief. With the joint efforts of 15,000 employee volunteers, the company has provided assistance to over one million people in need, continuously delivering warmth and creating social value.

Strengthening Governance to Enhance Corporate Resilience

Xie Junshi, EVP and COO of ZTE, states in the report, « Committed to innovation-driven and sustainable development, ZTE has embedded ESG into every aspect of its operations. By harnessing digital and intelligent technologies, we are developing a development model that coexists harmoniously with nature and society, while exploring a path for business continuity in the new era. »

Integrating sustainable development with its corporate strategies, ZTE aspires to strengthen its core competitiveness with a focus on its vision and three strategic cornerstones—internal control, compliance, and talent. In 2024, ZTE upgraded the corporate governance system and established the Strategy and Sustainability Committee to better incorporate the philosophy of sustainable development into its strategies and business activities.

In terms of corporate risk prevention and control, ZTE places particular emphasis on identifying and responding to emerging risks. As AI technology rapidly transforms the world, it brings immense business opportunities while also raising widespread concerns over ethical risks such as privacy infringement and algorithmic bias. To proactively address these challenges, ZTE established the Science and Technology Ethics Committee in 2024, demonstrating high-level organizational commitment to ethical governance. In addition, the company has put in place a technology ethics governance framework to review and assess AI-related R&D projects individually, ensuring the safe, reliable, and inclusive development of AI.

As a member of the UN Global Compact and the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative and a key participant and a pioneer in the Partner2Connect (P2C) Digital Coalition initiated by the International Telecommunication Union, ZTE has received widespread recognition from numerous global authoritative organizations and rating agencies for its exemplary sustainability practices.

In 2024, ZTE was recognized with EcoVadis Gold Medal for sustainability excellence. In addition, the company was selected for the S&P Global’s Sustainability Yearbook 2024 (China Edition) and honored with the title of « Industry Mover ». It was also listed among the 2024 Forbes China ESG 50 list and received the World Internet Conference Distinguished Contribution Award. Furthermore, ZTE won two BDO ESG awards, as well as the LinkedIn MostIn Awards – Global Talent Magnet Employer, among others.

Moving forward, ZTE will continue to promote sustainable development globally, leveraging technological innovation and international collaboration to inject digital vitality into efforts toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, working toward a greener, more inclusive, and resilient future.

For more details of ZTE Sustainability Report 2024, please download:

https://www.zte.com.cn/content/dam/zte-site/investorrelations/en_announcement/ZTE_Sustainability_Report_2024_EN.pdf

At a recent roundtable discussion, Veon’s Lasha Tabidze described how the group is positioning itself as a service delivery company with LLMs at the core of its AI strategy.

The group has just launched AI Tutor, a Kazakh-language AI-powered learning assistant built on the locally developed KazLLM large language model created by its local operating and software development units, Beeline Kazakhstan and Qazcode. AI Tutor is embedded into Beeline’s Janymda super-app and offers modules to support Kazakh language learning for children and adults, although its capabilities will be expanded in the future.

Tabidze noted that operators are playing a ‘different game’ from hyperscalers with their approach to AI, noting that operators offer the cheapest digital distribution channel, allowing them to push products at a mass level. This is essential for customer-facing AI, as it allows consumers to see the value immediately. Similarly, it allows easier access for businesses to use KazLLM ‘as a service’ and train it using their own data to tailor it for their specific industry.

This ‘LLM-as-a-service’ concept leans on Veon’s tech expertise, with proprietary AI built on top of foundational models, i.e. the more widely known generative AI models such as Meta’s Llama, Google’s Gemini, or DeepSeek, which are used as a baseline. The LLM can then be monetised on a subscription basis to educational institutions etc – Tabidze claims that the main component for creating value is “where AI touches the people”, i.e. augmented and agentic intelligence. By putting this value in people’s hands, they understand it and so are willing to pay for it. Veon intends for companies to use KazLLM to develop internal agents that will help improve the model’s efficiency and drive digital inclusion in this market, for example by helping small businesses upscale their operations. Tabidze notes that developing Kazakh-language educational services delivered a huge nationwide benefit, highlighting the importance of identifying the key focus areas for each market.

“On top [of foundational models] you create the layer where data is secured, created by local people, which is trusted by not only governments or the private sector, but also people like us. When…you trust the company, you start to use it more in your daily work and life. [Our] Kazakh language [LLM], now it’s very good – it’s 40% more precise than if you try to do the same thing through – for example – ChatGPT in the Kazakh language. We started small, and then we scaled – and on the way, we’re learning…it’s very important that several parties are involved. You cannot develop it yourself. You have to have good relationships with every academic institution.”

By forming both public and private partnerships, operators foster trust from all sides, allowing them to become service enablers. International partnerships provide access to databases across different languages, improving its offering and thereby underlining the value of the LLM to the user base. Telcos have spent years amassing data on customer behaviour in a single silo, which is a huge advantage as most siloed data is unstructured and in different formats. Tabidze stated that while the model is transferrable, the datasets are not; structuring the data to be fed into the model is challenging, as is data enrichment on locally developed LLMs where wider datasets are not available. “We’ll have [data] specifically tailored for farming… for healthcare. if some other companies, startups or regular companies, have different very good data sets, that’s where partnership with companies comes into [play]…so you cannot have the closed ecosystem.”

Veon aims to create versions of KazLLM for its other markets, using local insight to help train the model in linguistic nuances, on top of the foundational models. Tabidze named Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ukraine as potential target markets.