News

The project includes the deployment thousands of kilometres of fibre cables as Syria looks to become a regional digital hub

This week, Saudi Arabian communication giant STC Group has announced it has won a roughly $800 million contract to lead Syria’s Silklink infrastructure project.

Silklink is a joint venture with the new Syrian government aimed at improving communication both regionally and internationally. It includes the deployment of around 4,500km of optical fibre, as well as the establishment of data centres and international submarine cable landing stations.

STC will hold a 75% stake in Silklink, with the remaining 25% stake held by the Syrian Sovereign Fund.

The new backbone network will be used to underpin Syria’s digital transformation, supporting digital applications, cloud services, the IoT, and advanced mobile services. It will also serve to make the county a key data transit route between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

While no specific deadlines for the network’s deployment have been announced, Syria’s minister of communications and information technology, Abdulsalam Haykal, said the development would take place in two phases over the next 18–24 months.

For STC, the investment represents its latest efforts to improve cross-border connectivity in the Middle East, helping position Saudi Arabia as the region’s digital centre. STC is currently building a similar international backbone network in Oman with Ooredoo, as well as working to connect both the 2Africa and Saudi Vision Cable subsea networks to countries across the region.

The Silklink project was also announced alongside roughly $2 billion-worth of economic agreements between the Saudi Arabian and Syrian governments, highlighting the warming of a once frosty relationship. These investments notably include the creation of new low-cost airline, aimed at helping reconnect Syria to international travel after years of flight restrictions.

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Press Release

Grid Telecom, a wholesale telecommunications provider and subsidiary of IPTO, has announced the construction of ARTEMIS, an ultra-high-capacity subsea optical fiber cable system that will link Crete with mainland Greece.

As a new strategic digital corridor in the Eastern Mediterranean, ARTEMIS is set to strengthen decisively regional connectivity, enhance Greece’s geopolitical footprint, and accelerate the country’s ongoing digital transformation.

The ARTEMIS system will be equipped with subsea repeaters and will span approximately 280 kilometres, including its terrestrial segments linking the cable landing stations. Ιt will interconnect all landing stations and data centers in Crete and Attica region, enabling data transmission rates of up to 30 Tbps per fiber-pair. With a minimum of 24 fiber-pairs, ARTEMIS will deliver an overall design capacity of at least 720 Tbps, more than meeting all medium‑ and long‑term digital infrastructure needs.

Engineered to support the next generation of cutting‑edge technologies, ARTEMIS will take full advantage of the relatively short transmission distance and the capability to expand the optical spectrum. As a result, the system is poised to become the first petabit-class subsea cable in Greece and the Mediterranean, with a potential total capacity exceeding 1 petabit per second, pushing well beyond the performance limits of today’s subsea optical fiber systems, setting a new benchmark for regional and international digital connectivity.

Grid Telecom continues to invest in state‑of‑the‑art infrastructure with the goal of transforming Crete into a strategic digital hub, delivering network reliability, flexibility and diversity. Grid Telecom will leverage the synergies between the new ARTEMIS system and its existing Minoas East‑West and Apollo East‑West systems, which already connect the island to mainland Greece through four independent routes and a total of 96 fiber-pairs. The Minoas East‑West system links Chania to the Peloponnese, providing a low‑latency alternative route, while the Apollo East‑West system provides a direct connection between Heraklion and Attica, with no intermediate cable landing stations, adding another critical alternative path.

In line with its commitment to advancing next‑generation telecommunications services, Grid Telecom is proceeding with the immediate construction of new cable landing stations in Chania and Attica. These facilities will serve both as landing points for the ARTEMIS cable system and as critical gateways for international subsea fiber cables traversing the Eastern Mediterranean, linking Greece with the Middle East and Western Europe. ARTEMIS will incorporate Open Cable Interface Equipment (OCIE), enabling seamless integration with all international cable systems, eliminating the need for additional transmission terminal equipment and providing direct, cost‑efficient backhaul access to all data centers.

With these infrastructures in place, Grid Telecom as the premier neutral provider of wholesale telecom services in Greece, will deliver secure, open‑access landings and highly resilient connectivity through diversified fiber routes to both existing and emerging data centers in Crete, mainland Greece, and neighbouring countries. By fully leveraging its integrated terrestrial and subsea network assets, the company will ensure robust, scalable, and carrier‑grade connectivity across the region and provide comprehensive technical support and maintenance services at both infrastructure and operational levels.

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The app provides GPS location tracking and an SOS button to quickly contact the police

Today, Openreach has announced the launch of a new worker safety app aimed at tackling the rampant abuse its engineers face while on the job.

The app, created in partnership with Peoplesafe, includes various safety features designed to support staff in the field. These include an SOS button and fall alarm connecting to a 24/7 control centre, GPS tracking for accurate emergency response, two-way audio and direct police dispatch, and commute monitoring and critical event alerts.

The app will be installed on all devices carried by Openreach engineers and will be optional for office staff.

“Fall alarms are activated by sensors in the person’s mobile phone, while the SOS alarms can be set off with a simple press of the handset. Emergency services can be on their way within minutes which is just incredible,” said Adam Elsworth, Safety Director at Openreach. “While Peoplesafe will only be mandatory for our field teams (due to the nature of their work) we hope all of our people will use the app to have peace of mind and support if and when they need it.”

Openreach recorded 700 incidents of either physical or verbal abuse since April last year. These include “being spat at, pushed down stairs, threatened with dogs and knives, punched and kicked and even barricaded into homes and vans”.

The company also says it has seen an increase in racially motivated incidents.

“The Peoplesafe app gives our people an added layer of safety while on the job and particularly for many of our colleagues that work alone for long periods of the day. It also helps us to address an area we have less control: attacks by members of the public,” said Elsworth.

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The move seeks to capitalise on Southeast Asia’s booming date centre market

This week, media reports suggest that a consortium led by KKR and Singtel is closing in on a deal to acquire ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC).

Negotiations, which are already at an “advanced stage”, would value the data centre business at around $10.22 billion.

“Singtel, as part of a consortium, continues to have discussions in relation to STT GDC. While these discussions are at an advanced stage, there is no certainty that such discussions will lead to any definitive or binding agreement,” said Singtel in a statement on Sunday.

STT GDC owns and operates around 100 data centres in over 20 markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, India, Germany, Italy, and the UK, according to the company website

Rumours that KKR and Singtel were in discussions to acquire STT GDC were first reported in July last year.

Both companies already hold stakes in the business, having jointly invested  $1.3 billion in 2024, with KKR owning 14.1% and Singtel 4.2%. The remaining majority stake in STT GDC is held by ST Telemedia, itself owned by Singapore’s state-owned holding company Temasek.

For Singtel, the deal would represent the operator’s latest step in its drive to become a regional AI data centre powerhouse.

The company’s Digital InfraCo unit was rebranded as Nxera in 2024, with the company aiming to expand its data centre capacity in Southeast Asia to 200MW by the end of 2027 in partnership with Nvidia.

By combining Nxera’s existing and planned data centre assets in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia with those of STT GDC, Singtel would immediately become one of the region’s largest digital infrastructure players.

KKR, on the other hand, already owns roughly 155 facilities with a pipeline of 12-gigawatts of capacity. The company has been on a spending spree in recent years to grow this capacity even further, most recently including a $1.5 billion investment in Global Technical Realty, a company specialising in building bespoke facilities for hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

How is the data centre landscape evolving in 2026? Join the industry in discussion at Total Telecom’s Hyperscale Live event!

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Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, is trying to change the government’s broadband playbook, a new leaked document reportedly reveals.

By Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

States are being sent riders from Starlink that list caveats to the service the company will eventually give to broadband serviceable locations (BSLs) under government’s massive broadband push, known as the BEAD program.

The revelation comes after several “concerned states” reached out to broadband.io, according to Doug Adams, an admin for the website.

Adams said the riders, which he posted a copy of online, were marked as confidential.

His post describes the brewing conflict the riders signal, which also demand that Starlink be paid 50% upfront.

“Even though the rider insists that Starlink is paid 50% upfront, Starlink isn’t required to increase capacity before it is requested by BSLs,” Adams wrote. “This flies in the face of the NTIA’s June 6 guidance”

In his post, Adams also said multiple contacts at state broadband offices told him NTIA was urging states not to sign the riders.

His analysis of the rider continued.

“Starlink is asking to be paid (in arrears) for BSLs already subscribed and if at any point in time, a BSL tried service but cancelled, Starlink still wants these locations to be considered ‘served’.”

SpaceX, which operates Starlink as a wholly owned subsidiary, has thus far been granted more than any satellite provider in the program, according to Connected Nation’s BEAD tracker.

As has been previously reported, revised guidance to BEAD last year ordered bureaucrats to find more cost-efficient means of delivering broadband. As a result, the attractiveness of low-Earth orbit satellite connectivity has boosted for states seeking cheaper alternatives to fiber.

Of proposals analyzed by Connected Nation so far, Starlink has thus far been awarded over $733 million.

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Rome/Valencia, 30 January 2026

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, and Valencia Digital Port Connect (VDPC), the Spanish telecommunications infrastructure company developing the Barracuda submarine cable project in collaboration with private equity firm Teset Capital, announce a strategic agreement to land the Barracuda submarine cable at Sparkle’s Genoa Landing Platform.

The Barracuda project will establish the first direct high-capacity, low-latency submarine route between Spain and Italy, creating a 1,070 km digital bridge between Valencia and Genoa. Designed with an “open cable system” architecture, Barracuda will feature 12 fibre pairs, each with a capacity of 32 Tbps (Terabits per second). The project has an estimated total investment of €100 million and is scheduled to be completed in three years, with operations expected to begin in 2028.

Under the agreement, Barracuda will land at Sparkle’s Genoa Landing Platform, a scalable infrastructure designed to offer a turnkey, highly resilient and secure submarine cable landing on the Western European coastline. Through this infrastructure, the cable will reach Sparkle’s Genoa Digital Hub in Lagaccio, an open and neutral colocation facility and interconnection point with other submarine cables and European terrestrial networks as well as Internet Exchange Points already present in the facility. By landing in Genoa, VDPC will gain immediate access to major European hubs, avoiding the cost, time and administrative complexity of deploying a proprietary landing infrastructure.

As part of the broader agreement, Sparkle will also acquire infrastructure assets on the Barracuda submarine cable system between Valencia and Genoa and colocation in Valencia Cable Landing Station, a fully neutral, scalable infrastructure designed for Barracuda and up to three additional submarine cable systems. This additional capability will strengthen Sparkle’s connectivity in the Iberian Peninsula, serving the local as well as the growing West African market, thus further reinforcing its strategic footprint in the Mediterranean region.

“This agreement represents an important step in our strategy to position Genoa as a key gateway to Europe,” said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle. “The landing of Barracuda will strengthen and expand the city’s digital ecosystem, while the additional capacity on the system allows us to further expand our resilient, high-performance Mediterranean network and better serve international connectivity demand”.

Enrique Martín, CEO at Valencia Digital Port Connect said “This agreement with Sparkle marks a key milestone in the Barracuda project and confirms that we are advancing in line with our strategic roadmap. Securing Genoa as our landing point and welcoming Sparkle as a long-term customer reinforces Barracuda and Valencia Cable Landing Station as strategic assets for international partners confirming the credibility of. our ambition to have the system fully operational by 2028”.

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

About Valencia Digital Port Connect, S.L.

VDPC is a Spanish telecommunications infrastructure company headquartered in Alicante. Its mission is to establish a next-generation, neutral, and sustainable international connectivity hub in the Valencian Community through the deployment of advanced colocation infrastructure, terrestrial interconnection networks, and submarine connectivity solutions. VDPC is leading the development of the Barracuda submarine cable connecting Valencia with Genoa, including a data center and neutral cable landing station on the Valencian coast. The team is composed of seasoned professionals with executive backgrounds in telecom multinationals, the industrial sector, and academia.

Find out more about VDPC following LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website valenciadigitalport.com 

Sparkle Media Contacts

sparkle.communication@tisparkle.com

X: @TISparkle

Valencia Digital Port Connect Media Contacts

Pablo de Santiago

34. +34.679.607.604
35. pablo@desantiago.com

News

The launch means all African nations on the Mediterranean have now launched 5G

This week, Libya’s second largest state-owned telco, Almadar Aljadid, has announced the launch of 5G in parts of the capital, Tripoli.

For now, the launch is limited to just central parts of the city, but citywide coverage – and, indeed, nationwide coverage – will take place in stages, according to the company.

The company said the launch represents a significant boost in service quality for customers, as well as noting the technology’s potential to support key industries like healthcare and education.

2025 was a remarkable year for North Africa’s mobile markets, with Tunisia launching 5G in February, Egypt in June, Morocco in November, and Algeria in December. Now, with Libya’s launch, the entire region has formally entered the 5G era.

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Despite efforts to expand capacity, semiconductor players are struggling to keep pace with demand

As the AI boom continues to gain momentum, two of the world’s leading chipmakers, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, are warning that their expansion plans will not move fast enough to ease supply chain bottlenecks.

The companies, both which reported their latest financial results this week, said that the memory chip supply crisis would be unlikely to alleviate for the next two years despite their best efforts.

“We are planning a substantial increase in our capital expenditure in 2026 as AI-driven demand is likely to continue,” said Kim Jae-june, executive vice-president of Samsung’s memory business, as reported by the Financial Times. “But supply shortages are likely to worsen as capacity expansion is expected to be limited this year and next.”

SK Hynix has plans to invest 19 trillion won ($12.9bn) in the construction of a semiconductor packaging facility in Cheongju, while Samsung is investing 60 trillion won ($41.5 billion) in its P5 factory in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, which broke ground in November last year.

Both investments are driven by the surge in demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a crucial part of AI accelerators and data centre GPUs, as well as other memory chip technology; SK Hynix says it expects the HBM market to continue to grow significantly between 2025 and 2030, with projections indicating a compound annual growth rate of 33% until 2030.

However, the additional capacity being generated from these new facilities will take time to realise.

“Demand is growing sharply, but it takes time to expand capacity, so the mismatch in demand and supply is worsening, pushing chip prices higher,” added Song Hyun-jong, president of SK Hynix, in the same FT report.

The extent of the memory bottleneck is already being felt acutely across the world. The cost of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), for example, has skyrocketed since 2024, and is set to double again this year.

At the same time, the industry is also in the midst of a significant shift, moving from the current HBM3E technology to the more advanced HBM4. These next generation memory chips will offer higher data transfer speeds (exceeding 1 TBps per stack) and more than double the bandwidth of HBM3E, making them ideal for AI data centres.

SK Hynix is currently the global leader in this latest memory design, accounting for roughly 60% of the overall market, according to Macquarie Equity Research. Samsung, however, is expected to soon challenge this position, beginning production of its own HBM4 chips next month.

Needless to say, this memory bottleneck is making both SK Hynix and Samsung very rich.

SK Hynix reported a net profit of 97.15 trillion won ($67.9 billion), up 46.8% year-on-year, while Samsung saw profits rise to 45.21 trillion won ($31.6 billion, up 31.2% year-on-year.

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Government tax relief could open the door for Idea to find fresh funding

Vodafone Idea could finally be primed for ‘revival’ following the government’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) relief, according to chairman of Aditya Birla Group, Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Aditya Birla Group currently owns a roughly 9.5% stake in Vodafone Idea.

“For the first time in years, the fog has cleared, allowing the business to look beyond survival and focus on sustainable growth,” wrote Birla in a recently published ‘Annual Reflections’ note.

“A healthy, competitive telecom industry is essential to India’s digital future. India deserves 3 private telecom players. India deserves a successful Vodafone Idea. And this is, once again, an idea whose time has come,” he added.

On December 31, 2025, the Indian government announced that it had frozen Vodafone Idea’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues at ₹87,695 crore (~$9.5 billion), following a ruling by the Supreme Court.

The decision means Idea must repay repay just ₹124 crore (~$135 million) per year for the next six years, with further repayments then staggered until 2042.

The government is also reviewing the total owed by Idea, suggesting it could yet be reduced.

The decision not only has huge implications for Idea’s long-term survival, but also for its immediate cash flow, removing a ₹16,400 crore (~$1.78 billion) payment previously due in March 2026.

Vodafone Idea has been struggling to compete under the weight of AGR repayments since they were first announced in 2019. At that time, revised taxes meant the players across the telecoms sector owed roughly a combined $11 billion combined, with Vodafone Idea’s debt the lion’s share.

India’s largest telco, Reliance Jio – then still a relative newcomer to the market – paid off its AGR dues quickly, leaving Idea and rival Bharti Airtel to begin a years-long saga to have the debt reassessed and deferred.

Airtel continued to grow in the years that followed, but Idea was essentially crippled, seeing revenue slide and a steady decline in subscribers as it struggled with cash flow. It also notably hindered the company’s 5G launch; Idea launched 5G in 2025, roughly three years after Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.

Finally, last year, after years of Idea failing to find additional funding to pay its debts, the Indian government converted a portion of its debt into equity, becoming Vodafone Idea’s largest stakeholder.

Now, with long-term tax relief secured and the immediate liquidity crisis over, Idea may finally be able to seek fresh external investment and plot a path to sustainable growth.

Naturally, this is great news for Idea – and arguably the competitiveness of the Indian telecoms sector at large. However, Idea’s rivals, Bharti Airtel and Tata Group, are frustrated, arguing that they too should receive equitable debt relief from the government. They have even threatened not to pay the latest tranche of repayments.

Their please appear to be falling on deaf ears, however, with Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia saying the companies must first receive a directive from the Supreme Court and should not approach the government directly.

Airtel and Tata owe around ₹48,103 crore ($5.24 billion) and ₹19,259 crore ($2.1 billion), respectively, with repayments due in March.

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Intracom Telecom, a global technology systems and solutions provider, and Greece’s largest network infrastructure manufacturer, announces the expansion of its collaboration with Nova, a member of United Group the leading telecommunications and media provider in Southeast Europe and a pioneering provider of mobile, internet, and video services. Nova will begin deploying Intracom Telecom’s WiBAS™ G5 Smart and WiBAS™ G5 GigaConnect FWA platforms to deliver reliable high-speed enterprise connectivity over Nova’s 5G mmWave spectrum at 26.5–27.5 GHz.

This deployment marks an important step in Nova’s ongoing investment in high-speed access infrastructure, aimed at supplying business customers with highly reliable broadband services. Operating in the 26.5–27.5 GHz band, the WiBAS™ G5 platform enables Nova to unlock substantial network capacity and deliver consistent performance, ensuring robust connectivity even in demanding enterprise environments.

Since 2021, Intracom Telecom and Nova have been engaged in a multi-year network modernization program utilizing Intracom Telecom’s field-proven WiBAS™ Point-to-Multipoint (PMP) technology. This nationwide initiative has focused on expanding coverage and capacity across Greece’s major metropolitan areas, connecting thousands of business customers with next-generation wireless access solutions. The ongoing expansion reinforces Nova’s strategy to deliver resilient, ultra-fast connectivity to enterprises of all sizes.

“Our collaboration with Nova continues to grow stronger as we jointly build the foundation for a high-capacity enterprise connectivity network in Greece,” commented Ioannis Tenidis, Director for Wireless Product Line Management at Intracom Telecom. “The deployment of our WiBAS™ G5 platform will enable Nova to deliver unmatched performance and reliability to its business subscribers on valuable 5G mmWave spectrum.”

Thanos Theodoropoulos, Access & Transmission Senior Manager at Nova, added: “Intracom Telecom has been a trusted technology partner in our multi-year effort to modernize and expand our enterprise wireless services. The new WiBAS™ G5 solutions enable us to offer even higher speeds and resilient connectivity to our customers, supporting Greece’s digital transformation.”