Press Release

Virgin Media O2 has today switched on O2 Satellite, a new satellite-to-mobile service powered by Starlink Direct to Cell, marking a major step forward in extending mobile connectivity across the UK.

This makes Virgin Media O2 the first operator in the UK and Europe to launch satellite powered data services, enabling customers to stay connected in areas with no traditional mobile coverage, known as ‘not-spots’.

The service boosts Virgin Media O2’s UK landmass coverage from 89% to 95%, delivering a coverage uplift equivalent to an area around two thirds the size of Wales.

O2 Satellite has been designed to complement O2’s existing mobile network and customers will connect automatically when traditional cellular coverage is unavailable. This will help people stay connected when travelling or taking part in activities such as hiking, climbing, water sports and sailing, offering greater peace of mind in rural, coastal and other remote locations.

As well as extending coverage into not-spots, O2 Satellite provides more resilience and acts as a back-up, helping customers retain connectivity in the rare event of a local cellular network outage where coverage is completely unavailable.

At launch, O2 Satellite supports text messaging and data across apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Google Maps and more, providing an additional layer of reassurance when customers move beyond terrestrial mobile networks. The service is initially available to customers with the latest Samsung smartphones*, with support for other devices, manufacturers and apps to be introduced soon.

The service is the result of a UK-first partnership with SpaceX, using Starlink’s low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver connectivity direct to mobile devices using O2’s licensed mobile spectrum transmitted from space.

The launch of O2 Satellite follows successful internal trials, with Virgin Media O2 employees already using the technology in real-world conditions across the country.

At launch, O2 Satellite is available as a £3-per-month bolt-on and will be included at no extra cost for all Ultimate Plan customers in the near future, benefiting tens of thousands of consumers.

Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media O2, said: “This is a defining moment for UK mobile connectivity and a statement of our intent to keep innovating and ensure our customers can stay connected no matter where they are. By launching O2 Satellite, we’ve become the first operator in Europe to launch a space-based mobile data service that, overnight, has brought new mobile coverage to an area around two thirds the size of Wales for the first time.

“We already have the UK’s largest 5G+ footprint and we’re not standing still, investing heavily this year in our mobile network to give O2 customers a brilliant, reliable service that they can depend on.”

Baroness Lloyd, Minister for the Digital Economy, said: “This is a major achievement for the UK and demonstrates leadership in next-generation connectivity.  Being the first in Europe to launch direct-to-device satellite data services puts the UK firmly at the forefront of mobile innovation.  O2 Satellite is a boost for growth and connectivity and a strong signal of the UK’s leadership in the global digital economy.”

Stephanie Bednarek, VP of Starlink Commercial Sales said: “Delivering Starlink Direct to Cell in partnership with Virgin Media O2 underscores the importance of keeping people connected no matter where they are. For the first time, millions of people across the UK will have access to data, voice and video through apps, and messaging in remote areas where terrestrial coverage isn’t available.”

The switch on of O2 Satellite follows Ofcom’s recent approval of the UK’s first licence for satellite-to-smartphone services.

O2 was recently recognised as the most improved mobile network across Europe in Umlaut Connect’s Mobile Network Test, an independent and comprehensive benchmarking report. It was also awarded Best Mobile Network Coverage at the Uswitch Telecoms Awards for the second year in a row, which recognised the scale, reach and reliability of O2’s mobile network. In its full year 2025 financial results, Virgin Media O2 reported that its 5G Standalone network now reaches 87% of the UK outdoor population – the largest 5G Standalone footprint in the country.

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Interview

We spoke to Octave’s Director of EMIA (Utilities and Communications), Jean-Francois Allard, to discuss taking digital modelling to the next level

Telcos are some of the most data-rich organisations on the planet but using that data effectively remains a major challenge. For Jean-Francois Allard, Director of EMIA (Utilities and Communications) at Octave, a spin-off from Hexagon, digital twins – digital replicas of physical assets enabling real-time interaction – are a vital platform for leveraging that data.

“It’s about creating a continuous loop, where changes in the physical world are reflected in the digital world and vice versa,” he explained. “To say it shortly, our main goal is to put data in action.”

Allard argues it is useful to consider digital twins not as a novel system, but rather as a maturation of earlier digital models.

Previously, digital models focussed primarily on digitising physical assets into a central inventory. These models were limited by their relatively static nature, requiring significant manual oversight to generate actionable insights. As such, these models have quickly evolved into what Allard terms ‘digital shadows’, where sensors and field data provide a one-way stream of real-time information into the model.

A digital twin takes this paradigm to its logical conclusion, making the system synchronised and bidirectional, allowing it to autonomously react to incoming data in real-time.

“You can have in real time both real world and digital world that are synchronized so that fully autonomously, this is the ultimate goal,” says Allard.

While industries like nuclear power are already approaching this level of sophistication for security reasons, Allard estimates that telecom is still “5 to 10 years” away from full autonomy.

Managing the complexity of telco networks

What makes a telecoms digital twin more complex than a water or power grid? According to Allard, it is the interplay between physical infrastructure and logical services. In what he terms a “relational digital twin,” the system must track everything from the trench in the ground to the specific IPTV service running through a single strand of fibre.

“In telecom, you manage the physical aspects… but also what’s inside,” Allard explains. “You need to know this hierarchy at all times[…] so that you can manage the services, the fibre links, and fibre channels in near real-time.”

This precision understanding of huge, distributed networks and their various technical elements not only allows for more efficient automation, it also improves customer experience. By using OTDR (Optical Time Domain Reflectometer) technology integrated with a digital twin, for example, Octave can locate a network failure within 10 metres on a 100-kilometre backbone network, resulting in faster repair and less downtime.

Infusing digital twins with AI 

As the industry looks toward the next decade, AI is the clear catalyst for scaling these digital twins. However, Allard warns that the “intelligence” of the system is strictly capped by the quality of the underlying data.

“AI today is only valid if the data you are using to feed your AI is valid. Good data will provide good AI analysis. Bad data can only bring you bad answers,” he cautions.

When the data is sound, the applications can be highly effective. Allard highlights two primary use cases:

1. Automated digitisation: Using machine learning and point cloud analysis to turn field photographs into “intelligent” data automatically.
2. Plain language interactivity: Combining available data with generative AI allows engineers to perform complex analysis “just by talking with your own words” to the system. This is faster than performing the analysis manually and often yields more effective results.

“What if you are in the green field and you want to find a route but you have no information but pictures?” Allard asks. “AI can help you. AI can identify a route just based on the pictures. So, this is where AI can go beyond just using existing data – it can create a new path that you didn’t even didn’t think about.”

Getting the foundation right

Building an effective digital twin is a major undertaking. For Allard, the key is to build with purpose rather than chasing a “rich” but unusable model. He suggests starting with the basics, like connection points, nodes, and cabinets, rather than trying to map every inch of the network at once.

“Anticipate […] Ask what you want to do with your data,” Allard concludes. “Very often we see customers having a very, very rich model, but it’s so complex that it’s very difficult to take a benefit from it.”

Octave Website; Youtube; LinkedIn

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Global fintech platform Pine Labs has announced that it has won multiple contracts from three of the leading oil and marketing companies (OMCs) in India: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL).

Pine Labs will be entrusted with deploying, managing, and maintaining the digital payments infrastructure at petrol pumps and merchant outlets across India.

These are described as multi-year contracts aimed at leveraging the expertise of Pine Labs in managing the payment rails for swifter, secure, seamless money movements at the point of sale.

This is not a small undertaking: it involves nearly 130,000 digital payments acceptance devices to be deployed and maintained across India.

Pine Labs will also be managing IOCL’s loyalty rewards platform called XTRAPOWER, in use by hundreds of thousands of fleet operators in India. The programme, built on robust API integrations, caters to fuel management, fleet analytics, trip management, and secure chip and PIN digital payment transactions including card, mobile and RFID payments.

B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs, explains: “By combining our tech prowess with the massive retail footprints of top OMCs in India, we are enabling a tech-first and robust payments infra and a world-class prepaid loyalty rewards ecosystem. The software-first approach of Pine Labs will ensure faster product feature rollouts, minimal on-site intervention, and a unified payments and rewards/loyalty platform for accelerated digitisation of fuel retail commerce in India.”

Pine Labs operates in India and a growing number of international markets including Malaysia, UAE, Singapore, Australia, USA, and Africa.

It’s certainly been busy in India of late. As we reported at the time, in December API-enabled technology platform Setu, owned by Pine Labs, announced the launch of what it calls India’s first agentic bill-payments experience.

In February meanwhile, Pine Labs announced a collaboration with OpenAI to engineer what it called the era of agentic commerce in India. And in late January one of Sri Lanka’s largest listed entities, the Pan Asia Banking Corporation (PABC), and Pine Labs announced a partnership that will see the Pine Labs implementing an end-to-end card management platform for the bank.

Malaysian operator Tune Talk has taken a major step in its evolution from mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) to fully fledged mobile network operator (MNO), partnering with Mavenir to run its own end-to-end network.

In a statement, Mavenir said the collaboration enables Tune Talk to operate its network independently using Mavenir’s cloud-native OSS and BSS platforms. The shift gives the operator greater control over network operations, improved reliability and the flexibility to roll out new digital services more quickly.

The upgraded architecture has already supported the launch of several new services, including digital ID integration, Mastercard ID Theft Protection, insurance products and in-app streaming offerings such as drama and gaming subscriptions.

The next phase of the partnership will see Tune Talk deploy advanced orchestration capabilities and next-generation, AI-powered BSS software to further enhance automation and service personalisation.

Tune Talk CEO Gurtaj Singh Padda said the move marks a strategic turning point for the company.

“Becoming a fully cloud-native MNO marks the start of a new chapter for Tune Talk and reinforces our ambition to build a smarter, more agile mobile network for Malaysia and beyond,” he said. “These foundations enable us to move faster, personalise services at scale and unlock new value through AI-driven innovation for our growing customer base.”

Mavenir President and CEO Pardeep Kohli added that the partnership reflects Tune Talk’s commitment to continuous innovation.

“Our fully cloud-native approach is essential to enabling the speed, flexibility and efficiency they rely on to keep delivering for their customers,” he said.

Since its launch in 2009, Tune Talk has operated as an MVNO, utilising a strategic wholesale agreement with CelcomDigi to deliver nationwide 4G and 5G connectivity.

The move positions Tune Talk among a growing number of operators embracing cloud-native infrastructure as they seek greater autonomy, cost efficiencies and faster service innovation in increasingly competitive mobile markets.

News

The operator says reintegrating the tower assets will strengthen its African operations and improve financial metrics

African telco giant MTN Group is set to take full control of IHS Towers, one of Africa’s largest independent tower companies, in a deal valued at $6.2 billion.

The deal will see MTN acquire the 75% stake in IHS that it doesn’t already own for $2.2 billion in cash.

“This proposed transaction is a pivotal step in further strengthening MTN Group’s strategic and financial position for a future where digital infrastructure will become ever more essential to Africa’s growth and development. This transaction gives us a unique opportunity to buy back our towers and strengthen our ability to be partners for progress to the nation states in which we operate,” said MTN CEO Ralph Mupita.

The deal is subject to the typical regulatory approvals, with watchdogs likely to look closely at the impact on competition, given IHS also rents their infrastructure to MTN’s rivals across Africa.

For MTN, the move represents something of a strategic U-turn. The operator group has pursued an asset-light approach for the past decade, selling many of its towers – largely to IHS – in multiple markets.

In recent years, however, MTN’s relationship with the tower company has grown more complicated. The operator has repeatedly complained about IHS’s corporate governance, particularly that IHS had capped its voting rights at 20%, despite MTN owning a stake of around 26% in the business.

At the same time, IHS saw major losses from the devaluation of the Nigerian naira in 2023, leading MTN to attempt to seek adjusted lease terms to reduce foreign‑currency exposure.

Given this increasingly difficult operating relationship, MTN’s stake acquisition represents an opportunity to simplify and de-risk the company’s balance sheet by removing long‑term lease liabilities.

Market watchers will be watching whether MTN’s reintegration of roughly 29,000 African sites delivers the financial and strategic gains management forecasts, and whether rivals respond with selective buybacks, new sharing deals, or continued reliance on independent towercos.

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Five interesting fiber infrastructure investment projects, three of which target Texas: … [visit site to read more]

Google has announced an investment of US$500 million in the construction of submarine cables and an international digital exchange port for the Dominican Republic. This will apparently be the company’s eighth digital exchange port in the world and the first in Latin America.

This is also said to be the first international submarine cable ring to the continental United States from the Dominican Republic.

The company will develop an open and neutral infrastructure with the capacity to host four new international submarine cables. A first phase will involve the installation of two new submarine cables between the Dominican Republic and the United States, which will be added to the existing one between the two countries. Construction will begin in March.

Dominican President Luis Abinader signed a decree late last week, declaring the construction of digital exchange ports and the installation, deployment, and operation of submarine cable systems a matter of high national priority. 

Local press reports say the decree seeks to strengthen digital infrastructure, expand international connectivity, and position the Dominican Republic as a regional hub for artificial intelligence.

Indeed, the thinking is that a digital exchange port will place the Dominican Republic at the centre of information exchange between North America, Central America and South America.

The new infrastructure will make it possible to multiply by ten the number of fibre optic pairs that currently connect the two territories, in addition to offering diversified connectivity and reduced latency to the South Carolina and Virginia Google Cloud regions in the US.

According to the BNamericas news service, the country has five other submarine cables in operation that connect it with Caribbean territories and, from there, with the continent, although some are approaching the end of their useful life.

According to the government, internet traffic in the Dominican Republic has increased 500% in the last five years; more than 35% comes from the United States.

Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly a strong government focus. Last year the Dominican Republic signed an agreement with AI and accelerated computing company Nvidia, to establish a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (CEIA).

Also last year, the regulator Indotel and the Centro de Inteligencia Pública (CIP) signed a cooperation agreement to create an AI academy in the country, to accelerate training in AI.