The North Atlantic will be getting another cable along the ocean floor, this time on a southerly path. Google says its latest transatlantic project, which it calls Sol, will connect Florida directly with Spain, with stops in Bermuda and the Azores. The new infrastructure will complement the Nuvem cable system, which should come online next year. … [visit site to read more]
Telecom industry is using blockchain technology more and more to strengthen security and enhance identity management. Blockchain offers a strong framework for managing identities and safeguarding consumer data through the use of a decentralized ledger, making identity theft and data breaches practically unheard of.
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By ensuring secure transactions and communications, this improves customer confidence and complies with regulations. The use of blockchain technology to offer revenue assurance and stop fraud is another noteworthy trend. Fraudulent activities such as roaming and subscription fraud cause telecom carriers to suffer significant losses. Because of its transparent and unchangeable ledger, blockchain ensures correct billing and minimizes revenue leakage by assisting in the real-time detection and prevention of fraudulent transactions. For telecom businesses, this improves operational efficiency and profitability.
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Key Growth Drivers:
Fraud Prevention: Blockchain enables real-time, immutable data verification, minimizing SIM swap and call termination fraud.
Smart Contracts: Automating interconnect agreements and billing using blockchain smart contracts improves accuracy and reduces processing time.
Roaming and Identity Management: With blockchain, telecoms can streamline roaming services and securely authenticate users across borders.
5G & IoT Integration: As 5G and IoT adoption expands, blockchain helps manage billions of device identities and data exchange securely.
For media inquiries, interviews, or access to the full market report, please contact:
Divya Paidimalla
IndustryARC
www.industryarc.com
Leading network infrastructure provider Zayo Europe has deployed Ciena’s optical technology to launch a new German network covering 3,000km of fibre across 8 core domestic metros including Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Berlin. The network also extends to a 14th key hub across the border in Strasbourg, France.
With Ciena’s Reconfigurable Line System (RLS) and WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) solutions, Zayo Europe can now offer universal 400G wave services across key German markets, with the scope to scale to 800G and 1.6Tb/s in the future as required. This will enable Zayo Europe’s customers to meet the rising data demands driven by increased AI adoption and cloud usage.
“Germany is a key strategic market for Zayo Europe, and with the EU pushing to advance AI capabilities across the continent, there’s a pressing need for networks within Germany that can support these new workloads. Our approach to service delivery, utilising the latest generation optical networking technology powered by Ciena, enables us to provide our customers with ultra-low latency connectivity and unparalleled support for AI and cloud services.” said Colman Deegan, CEO, Zayo Europe.
“There’s a growing need for high-capacity networks across Germany to meet the demands of an increasingly digital economy. As a Carrier Managed Services partner leveraging Ciena optical technology, Zayo Europe can offer differentiated wavelength services across its entire European footprint, including key long haul routes across Germany.” said Virginie Hollebecque is Vice President and Leader of EMEA at Ciena.
Ciena’s WL6e is the industry’s first high-bandwidth coherent transceiver using state-of-the-art 3nm silicon to drive significant economic benefits for operators, including a 50% reduction in space and power per bit. Ciena’s 6500 RLS is a compact, simple-to-deploy, photonic layer solution that improves scalability, reduces footprint, and offers more flexibility and programmability.
How is the German connectivity market changing in 2025? Join the discussion at Connected Germany 2025 live in Munich
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Nokia launches digital twin platform Enscryb to digitalise energy sector
Today, media reports suggest that Australian telco Telstra is preparing to cut “hundreds” of jobs in the coming week.
The report, quoting anonymous sources, suggests that the cuts will be made across the business as part of ongoing cost cutting measures.
The news should come as little surprise. Telstra has been under increasing pressure from investors to cut costs in recent years, with inflation and energy costs cutting into the company’s bottom line. Last year the company cut 2,800 workers in an effort to save up to A$350 million, noting at the time that more job cuts
The financial pressures on Telstra come at a time when the company is increasingly leaning into AI to streamline its operations. Earlier this year, the company announced its ‘Connected Future 30’ strategy, aiming to greatly increase the company’s usage of AI by the end of the coming decade.
“We will embrace AI, as every business will need to, and we expect the pace of change over the next five years to be extraordinary,” said CEO Vicki Brady at the strategy announcement earlier this year.
As part of this transformation process, Brady said that more jobs would likely be at risk due to “AI efficiencies”.
“We don’t know precisely what our workforce will look like in 2030, but it will be smaller than it is today,” she said.
In contrast to these staffing cuts, Telstra’s willingness to bet on the long-term efficacy of AI is clear to see. Earlier this year, the company announced the creation of an AI joint venture (JV) with Accenture, into which it will invest A$100 million annually for the next seven years. The business will reportedly help the operator in modernising its data and AI platforms, as well as capitalising on emerging AI use cases, like AI agents.
Telstra says its ultimate goal is to “rationalise” its roster of AI vendor partners, reducing its data and AI suppliers from 18 companies to just the Accenture JV and a similar JV with Australian AI firm Quantium.
As of December 2024, Telstra had around 31,000 full time employees.
How is AI changing the telecoms landscape in 2025? Keep up to date with all the latest developments with the Total Telecom newsletter
Also in the news:
US judge rules Huawei must face charges of fraud and racketeering
Optus ditches football rights to focus on telecoms
Nokia launches digital twin platform Enscryb to digitalise energy sector
This week, a US judge has dismissed a request from Huawei to dismiss the majority of charges brought against it by the US government.
The indictment, which dates to January 2019, accuses Huawei and various subsidiaries of numerous crimes, including defrauding and misleading financial institutions, stealing intellectual properties from US companies, and money laundering.
Perhaps most notable among these charges are those related to illegally bypassing US sanctions on Iran and North Korea by trading via its partner company, Skycom. The issue notably came to a head in December 2018, when Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou – also the daughter of the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei – was detained in Canada after the United States Department of Justice requested her arrest for allegedly circumventing US sanctions. What followed was a protracted extradition battle that saw Meng remain under house arrest in Canada for three years.
Meng was finally released in 2021, having reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the US government. As part of the agreement, Meng admitted having misled HSBC about the company’s dealings with Iran, in violation of US sanctions.
In addition to these sanction-related counts, indictment alleges that, between 2000 and 2018, Huawei had practised the “deliberate and repeated misappropriation of intellectual property” from US companies.
Huawei has denied all wrongdoing and had sought to dismiss all but 3 of the 16-count indictment levied against it, arguing that the counts variously lacked evidence, violated due process, or simply did not state a legal offense.
In a 52-page document, however, US District Judge Ann Donnelly rejected the motion.
“Dismissal of charges is an extraordinary remedy reserved for extremely limited circumstances implicating fundamental rights,” read the document, with Donnelly noting that Huawei’s arguments were premature when “it is not yet clear what the defendant did”.
Based on a prearranged schedule, the trial is expected to take place May 6, 2026.
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Network operators have long aspired to build ‘zero touch’ networks: communication systems that are fully autonomous, adapting to users’ needs in real-time without the need for any manual human intervention. But while this final step remains out of reach – at least for now – major progress is being already made by the industry in automating their networks, unlocking major efficiencies and cost savings.
What exactly do we mean when we talk about the term ‘autonomous networks’? TM Forum provides a useful framework to answer this question, with their Autonomous Network Level (ANL) Model helping operators to assess their current level of network autonomy. These Levels range from 1 to 5; Level 1 represents no autonomy at all, while Level 5 denotes a fully autonomous, self-driving network, with no human intervention at all.
With the integration new technologies, particularly the use of AI agents and predictive AI, CSPs are rapidly climbing through the ANLs, with many on the brink of achieving ANL4. This means their networks are highly autonomous across various domains, with the system making automated decisions based on predictive analysis and AI modelling, with only minimal human oversight.
Achieving the crucial step to ANL4 was the focus on a masterclass on the final day of DTW called ‘ANL4 Solution Packages Blueprint: From Vison to Deployment’, explaining why ANL4 is so valuable and how to implement existing solution packages.
ANL4 and the core network
The first part of telco networks to benefit from the ANL4 transformation will be the core. It is here that we find several well-defined use-cases that are becoming increasingly viable with the increase integration of AI into telco networks.
Chief among these use cases is the integration of AI agents. These agents have enormous potential across the telecoms industry, from advanced customer-facing chatbots to virtual assistants for telecoms engineers. But perhaps the most impactful role of AI agents will take place within the network itself, helping to automate the fault demarcation process.
Traditionally, fault demarcation has required manual analysis across multiple network layers and domains to discover and correct the root cause of network issue. AI agents can automate a large part of this process, using machine learning models to correlate alarms, analyse logs, and isolate the source of a fault in real time. This allows operators to respond faster and reduce mean time to repair and service disruption.
However, letting AI agents loose in the core network must be done with great caution. The core is an environment where a single automation misstep could impact thousands or potentially millions of customers, hence reliability is paramount. Specialised, telecoms-specific AI models will be required to meet these demands, and strict guardrails will be needed before the highest levels of automation can be reached.
In addition to helping operators react to network faults more efficiently, AI is also helping them to anticipate and avoid them altogether. Predictive AI is increasingly being applied to day-to-day operations and maintenance (O&M) within the network, particularly for monitoring and managing risks like signalling storms. By combining this technology with a digital twin of the network, capable of simulating a myriad of scenarios, operators can quickly visualise and assess their network’s vulnerabilities.
In short, the core’s journey to ANL4 will see it become increasingly predictive and preventative when it comes to maintenance, and self-healing when faults do occur.
ANL4 in action in Asia
Many of the above use cases are already being seen in action in some of the most advanced markets in the world. At the masterclass at DTW, two operators – Telkomsel and China Mobile–were singled out by TM Forum as being ‘outstanding’ in this regard. Having undertaken a thorough evaluation of their autonomous core network high stability evaluation, the two companies received their formal certification at the event and were invited to share key success stories.
Telkomsel receives the company’s ANL CSP certificatate from TM Forum’s Autonomous Networks Program Director, Olta Vangieli
China Mobile receives the company’s ANL CSP certificatate from TM Forum’s Autonomous Networks Program Director, Olta Vangieli
China Mobile has notably already achieved operational ANL4 in eight key core use cases, including private network provisioning, complaint resolution, change monitoring. The company is also nearing ANL4 across multiple additional domains, including IP backhaul, RAN fault management, core complaint handling, and core fault management. Combined, this work has reportedly achieved an 80% reduction in major network faults and saved more than 7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.
Indonesia’s Telkomsel has also made great strides, sharpening its focus on core network stability and intelligent operations. Their progress includes a significant shift in their network design, using AI to help support network architecture design. This has made the network significantly more flexible, building in redundancy by design and allowing specific elements to be bypassed for quick service recovery. Combined with predictive AI that can anticipate and negate risks to the network, Telkomsel is well on its way to achieving zero outages in its core network.
Collaboration and building solution packages
Naturally, building more intelligent telecoms network is a hugely complicated task. The sharing of best practice across the industry will be a key factor in success and is something that the TM Forum and its partners have sought to facilitate over the past 6 years. To this end, various solution packages have been co-developed by industry to promote best practices for operators on this journey.
At the masterclass, for example, Huawei’s Michael Wang shared the ANL4 high-value scenario solution package, featuring end-to-end guidance on core network fault management. From designing intelligent O&M, to network optimisation strategies and best-practice case studies, the solution package provides a valuable blueprint for operators to take begin their own network transformation projects.
TM Forum and its industry partners are currently calling for volunteers throughout the industry to further optimise the released standards and collaboratively define more high-value solution packages, three of which are planned to be released by the end of the year.
ANL4 is achievable today
With numerous positive examples already on display in various markets worldwide, and with increasingly sophisticated standardisation materials broadly available, operators’ path to ANL4 is becoming clearer. As momentum continues to build, it will not be long before the most advanced operators fully achieve this goal and begin setting their sights on the lofty goal of ANL5.
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BT accelerates fibre rollout amid cost cuts
AT&T agrees $5.75 billion deal for Lumen’s consumer fibre asset
Three network expansion projects and a cloud services deal from four continents: … [visit site to read more]
Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, announces the expansion of its network in the United States with the opening of a Point of Presence (PoP) in San Diego, California. With this PoP, Sparkle adds a new strategic infrastructure alongside its existing nodes in McAllen, El Paso, Dallas (US) and Queretaro (Mexico), ensuring maximum diversification and redundancy for local customers.
Located at MDC’s carrier-neutral data center, the PoP is fully integrated with Sparkle’s Tier-1 global IP backbone Seabone which boasts extensive coverage in the Americas with 52 points of presence across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, United States and Venezuela. In addition, thanks to its terrestrial and submarine networks which includes four “digital highways” – Curie in the Pacific and Monet, Seabras-1 and soon Manta in the Atlantic – Sparkle offers five diversified routes for connectivity from South to North America ensuring complete redundancy and a top-quality data experience.
The new node allows network operators, ISPs, OTTs, content delivery networks, and content and application providers to benefit from reliable, low-latency IP transit services with throughput in the range of Terabits per second. Additionally, customers have access to a comprehensive suite of IP solutions, including DDoS Protection, which safeguards networks against cyberattacks, and Virtual NAP, providing virtual access to leading Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) without the need for proprietary infrastructure development.
How is the submarine cable industry evolving? Join the discussion at Submarine Networks EMEA 2026
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Reading, UK – 3rd July– Neos Networks, the UK’s leading provider of business connectivity, has today announced the launch of advanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Mitigation as an integrated feature of its Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) service.
This latest enhancement supports Neos’s growing secure networking proposition and responds directly to the demands of public sector and private businesses for resilient, high-capacity internet access with built-in security.
Powered by Corero’s industry-leading platform, the DDoS Mitigation service uses adaptive behavioural analytics to detect and neutralise attacks in real-time. By analysing traffic patterns and drawing on telemetry across multiple geographies, it proactively identifies malicious activity, stopping threats before they can disrupt customer operations. The service is hosted directly on Neos’s core infrastructure, able to be turned on for customers in close to real-time, with no need for customer-premises hardware.
The DDoS services are offered in a tiered model that allows customers to easily add or remove features as their requirements change:
David Bruce, Chief Revenue Officer at Neos Networks, said: “Businesses are demanding DDoS protection by default – they want reliable, secure internet access, without needing to invest in or manage additional on-site infrastructure. Our latest enhancements reflect this shift in how organisations can access secure and reliable connectivity. Whether it’s a direct customer looking for peace of mind, or a wholesale partner aiming to offer added value without the complexity, our tiered DDoS offering provides the flexibility and simplicity they need.”
This launch builds on Neos’s broader DIA connectivity portfolio, offering 10Gbps bandwidths with management options for fully managed and wires-only services. Neos provides a range of IP addressing options and offers robust Cloud Connect services, delivering private connectivity to many Cloud Service Providers, including AWS and Azure. All these services are quotable and orderable in minutes on LIVEQUOTE.
ENDS
About Neos Networks
Neos Networks has the UK’s largest business-dedicated network. With over 600 points of presence and 90 data centres nationwide, Neos provides high-capacity critical connectivity for businesses, from telecoms and energy to banking and emergency services.
Agile and customer-focused with almost limitless scale, Neos enables emerging technologies like AI, 5G and IoT, making connectivity work for Britain.
For more information please visit: https://neosnetworks.com
Optus has today announced it has accepted an offer from Nine Entertainment Co and Stan to assign the rights to the Premier League and Emirates FA Cup for the remainder of the rights term.
Under the agreement, Stan will provide Optus Sport customers (who remain Optus telecommunications customers) with discounted pricing so that they can continue to watch the Premier League and other transferred content and provide additional offers to Optus Sport customers who subscribe to Stan Entertainment and Stan Sport.
Optus will make contributions to the rights payments that Stan makes to the Premier League.
On completion, Stan will pay Optus an upfront payment of $20m and a significant contribution towards the first payment of the next rights cycle.
Stan will begin broadcasting the Premier League ahead of the season kick-off on August 16.
Stephen Rue, Optus CEO said a decision had been made to focus on Optus’ core operations in telecommunications, its commitment to customers, and unlocking further value for the business in the future.
“Optus Sport has delivered outstanding sports broadcasting to Australian football lovers for almost a decade,” Mr Rue said,
“One of our key priorities was to find a home for Optus Sport content which would take the game forward and enable all Optus Sport subscribers to continue to receive uninterrupted access to all their favourite football action.
“Optus Sport customers and the game of football will be in great hands at Stan, and we know the game will receive the broadcasting priority it deserves from an organisation whose speciality is delivering quality sports programming to its customers.”
The rights to the J. League and National Women’s Soccer League will also be transferred to Stan under the agreement.
Customers will receive detailed information and special offers in coming days to ensure the transition to Stan is as simple as possible.
Matt Stanton, Nine CEO said the agreement would further strengthen the Group’s premium sport portfolio across streaming, digital and free-to-air platforms.
“The Premier League is the most-watched football league on the planet, and alongside the FA Cup, this acquisition reinforces Nine’s position as the home of sport in Australia. We are proud to deliver these iconic competitions to Australian audiences through Stan Sport,” Mr Stanton said.
Following the transition of sports rights on 1 August, Optus Sport will be closing in its entirety.
Mr Rue said Optus had made a significant contribution to growing and developing the world game in Australia through Optus Sport since it was first launched in 2016.
“We are proud of the contribution of Optus Sport to the elevation of football broadcasting in this country and have watched audiences in both the men and women’s game continue to grow during this time, “ Mr Rue said.
“Among all the games streamed over the last decade, clear highlights include the broadcast of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted in Australia, which was a historic moment for Optus and women’s sport across the globe, and the Men’s UEFA EURO 2024 hosted in Germany.”
Fans will still be able to tune into the broadcast of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 championship commencing in July on Optus Sport.
Keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world with the Total Telecom newsletter
Also in the news:
SWR deploys Europe’s first ’Rail-5G’ Wi-Fi
BT accelerates fibre rollout amid cost cuts
AT&T agrees $5.75 billion deal for Lumen’s consumer fibre asset
