Press Release 

[Copenhagen, Denmark, June 24, 2026] At Digital Transformation World (DTW) 26, Huawei, in collaboration with TM Forum and GSMA Intelligence, hosted the 5th Green & Resilience Development Forum, bringing together industry leaders to explore the sustainable development of communications networks. The forum featured in-depth discussions on the Green Network Index (GNI), AI-powered energy efficiency, and resilient architecture practices, collectively charting the course toward green and resilient networks.

Executive Vision: Green + Resilience as Dual Engines for Future Networks

Tim Niu, President of Huawei’s Network Consulting and System Integration Department, delivered the opening remarks, warmly welcoming distinguished guests and partners from around the world. The forum’s theme—”AI-Driven Green & Resilience: New Blueprint for Zero-Carbon and Reliable Network Architecture”—underscored a critical paradigm shift: green networks are no longer optional but essential. Resilience serves as the baseline for sustainable networks, while AI acts as the accelerator toward the 2030 zero-carbon vision.

“Huawei is committed to collaborating with industry partners worldwide, leveraging ‘green + resilience’ as dual engines to advance the GNI standard and the Hedera architecture,” Tim stated. “Together, we will build networks that are low-carbon and measurable, resilient and verifiable, and evolvable and sustainable.”

Industry Consensus: Green Transformation of Communications Networks is Imperative

Peter Jarich, Head of GSMA Intelligence, presented the Green Network Index Round 2 findings. The second round introduced an enhanced measurement methodology and comprehensive indicator system covering entire networks, individual networks, and stations. Over 20 mobile and fixed network operators participated in this initiative. Additionally, the GNI digital platform has been launched, providing operators with case studies for sustainable development planning and benchmarking.

Marc Einstein, Director of Research at Counterpoint Research, explored how AI is reshaping the sustainability trajectory of telecom operators. Drawing on validated operator data, he highlighted that AI-driven optimization has achieved annual energy savings of 4 billion kWh. Over the past decade, Telefónica has seen data traffic surge by 1,200%, while total network energy consumption decreased by 12%, and energy density ratio declined by 92% compared to 2015. Green is no longer merely a compliance requirement—it has become a strategic foundation for the digital economy and computing power networks.

Lloyd Chan, Vice President of Strategic Transformation at HKT, outlined HKT’s approach to infrastructure development, emphasizing green practices, cyber resilience, and AI enablement. Network modernization, intelligent power supply systems, and resilient architecture design not only improve operational efficiency and mitigate operational risks, but also support AI-era service development and emerging application requirements.

Technological Innovation: AI Accelerates Green and Resilient Development

David Yu, General Manager of Huawei’s Green Resilience Target Network Solution, addressed key industry challenges: accelerating climate change, rising OPEX, and the prevalence of low-efficiency legacy equipment and network outages. Huawei has partnered with industry organizations to establish a green network index and Hedera Architecture, leveraging digital twin capabilities and AI for data governance. The solution is promoting the transformation of traditional wireless base stations into green smart sites and legacy equipment rooms into edge data centers capable of meeting future computing demands, supporting collaborative development across mobile, home, and business (CHB) scenarios—achieving results over 30% ahead of industry benchmarks.

“Green and resilient innovation provides the driving force for carriers to develop high-quality services and maintain a competitive edge.” David noted.

Looking Ahead: Infinite Value in Industry’s Green and Resilient Transformation

Facing dual pressures from global shifts and surging traffic, Huawei has invited GSMA Intelligence, Counterpoint, and HKT to explore this topic together, reaching a consensus: green and resilience are no longer a trade-off—they are shared imperatives. Looking ahead, the industry will move from passive energy saving to active energy intelligence, powered by the GNI standard and AI agent technology, building a digital foundation that is both low-carbon and resilient. Green and resilience are strategic imperatives, not competing options. Huawei looks forward to working with global partners to build a green target network that is zero-carbon, resilient, and built to deliver.

Company News

M&A

The acquisition stands to bridge SpaceX’s engineering ecosystem with next-generation developer intelligence.

Edited by Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

June 23, 2023 — SpaceX has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Anysphere, Inc., the creator of the popular AI-powered coding assistant Cursor.

According to a Form 8-K filed with the SEC, the all-stock transaction values Cursor at an implied equity value of $60.0 billion.

Under the terms of the agreement outlined in the Form 8-K, SpaceX will merge a wholly owned subsidiary into Cursor, which will continue operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of the aerospace giant. Cursor shareholders will also receive SpaceX Class A common stock, with the share exchange ratio determined by the stock’s 7-day volume-weighted average price prior to closing.

The acquisition bridges SpaceX’s engineering ecosystem with next-generation developer intelligence, potentially supercharging software automation for Starlink.

The transaction is subject to standard regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, SpaceX’s SEC filing stated.

Automating the future of network deployment

As massive tech mergers signal a broader shift toward deep AI integration, the broadband sector is already finding ways to leverage this intelligence at the network level.

To see how these computational breakthroughs translate into localized, real-world utility, don’t miss the session “AI in Action: Improving the Resident and Support Experience“ at the Broadband Communities Summit 2026.

Happening on August 26 at 3:35 PM in Room 310A-C, this panel features leaders from RealPage, Apartment SEO, and RUCKUS Networks discussing exactly how AI is shifting from experimental tech to an operational powerhouse.

Secure your pass today to learn how to harness the AI revolution for your networks.

Some AI tools also assisted in the crafting of this report.

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News

A broad coalition of telecom trade associations is warning that rapid AI expansion is causing a critical shortage of U.S. memory chips.

Edited by Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

June 23, 2026 — A coalition of major trade associations—including tech and telecom leaders like NCTA, ACA Connects, NTCA, and the Telecommunications Industry Association, alongside healthcare technology groups MDMA and AdvaMed, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, and retail giants via the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National Retail Federation—has raised alarms over an emerging memory chip shortage they say threatens to disrupt supply chains and drive-up costs across multiple sectors.

In a June 3 letter addressed to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the groups outlined the critical challenges posed by surging demand for memory chips driven by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

The letter emphasizes the “unprecedented surge in the price of memory chips and reduced supply of these chips for manufacturing and consumer-facing industries.”

Widespread industry disruptions

It also warns of immediate and near-term impacts, including rising prices for everyday electronics, increased costs for telecommunications infrastructure, and risks to sectors ranging from automobile production to medical device manufacturing. Federal contractors, particularly small businesses, also face potential delays and disruptions in fulfilling procurement commitments, the June 3 letter argues.

Market imbalances persist

Despite significant U.S. investments to boost chip manufacturing, the coalition asserts that market imbalances persist.

They urge the government to “work with memory chipmakers and chip buyers to assess steps that can be taken to address this imbalance” and protect consumers, workers, and businesses alike.

Proposed measures include accelerating capacity expansion domestically and in allied countries, leveraging trade and investment agreements to strengthen supply chains, and adjusting regulatory frameworks to support faster sourcing and innovation.

Additionally, the letter conveys a spirit of partnership, stating the signatories “stand ready” to discuss solutions.

The organizations also underscore their alignment with the administration’s broader economic goals, aiming to “bolster the strength of the U.S. economy, resilience of our supply chains, and prosperity of our citizens and businesses.” As AI continues transforming technology landscapes, ensuring balanced and reliable access to memory chips is now front and center on the policy agenda.

FMS 2026

With surging AI demands putting unprecedented strain on the global tech ecosystem, the industry is also racing to evolve.

Discover the solutions firsthand at The Future of Memory and Storage | FMS 2026, happening August 4–6 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Featuring an elite lineup of keynote speakers, deep-dive sessions into HBM, CXL, and advanced data center strategies, FMS 2026 is where the technology community maps out what comes next. Secure your pass now to connect with the global innovators redefining data scaling.

Some AI tools also assisted in the crafting of this report.

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Viewpoint, Comarch Communications

The European telecommunications market is expected to grow slowly, at just 2% to 3% by 2029. Because of this slow growth and the challenges of a complex global economy, operators are rethinking how they work. The industry is now looking beyond traditional consumer cellular services, which are only growing at 3% to 4%, and is moving toward broader communication ecosystems, including mission-critical networks, satellite infrastructure, and massive IoT deployments.

These challenges and emerging trends were extensively discussed at the recent Comarch User Group gathering, highlighting the critical paths operators must take to stay competitive. The event hosted over 700 partners from 53 countries across 8 streams, including 201 connectivity experts.

Economic pressures and productivity demands

The global economy now demands high levels of investment, especially in technology. Major countries are spending heavily. China, for example, is allocating 25% of its GDP to infrastructure and technology, creating far more value than Europe’s tech investments. In this competitive environment, traditional efficiency methods are not enough. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) need to boost productivity by quickly adopting new technologies.

“Global markets are pivoting towards AI adoption, where traditional efficiency methods simply won’t be enough to keep pace with the global economy. As we emphasized alongside our partners at the recent Comarch User Group, CSPs must fundamentally rethink their operational models. We can no longer rely solely on consumer cellular services, we must pivot aggressively toward broader, more complex ecosystems and services that encompass mission-critical networks, massive IoT deployments, and autonomous multi-orbit satellite infrastructure,” commented Marcin Kaleta, CEO at Comarch Communications.

Tackling complexity with Agentic AI

One of the main challenges for CSPs is handling the growing complexity of their networks. Right now, up to 40% of network outages are caused by human error, and 88% of digital transformations do not meet their goals. To address this, the industry is moving from basic automation, which depends on humans following rules, to Agentic AI, where systems take on more responsibility within set policies.

Client case studies presented at the Comarch User Group this year highlighted that changing systems to support intent-based actions allows for as much as 30% to 40% cut in Network Operations Center costs and a 10% to 20% faster Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). However, only 6% of CSPs have the data streaming abilities needed to fully use advanced AI models, meaning that technical readiness is still a big hurdle.

Massive IoT deployments and API Economy

Integrating Massive IoT into 5G networks brings new physical and technical challenges. The old way of constantly checking devices drains batteries and can overload the network. During the inaugural IoT Connectivity Forum at CUG 2026, experts detailed that switching to an event-driven setup and using the 5G RedCap standard makes it easier to manage connected devices. Standardizing CAMARA interfaces and Network Exposure Functions (NEF) also helps operators move toward an “API economy.” This change enables them to monetize network Quality of Service (QoS) through targeted microservices, making CSPs more than just simple data carriers.

Overcoming technology debt with modular systems

To take advantage of these new revenue opportunities, operators need to address their existing technology debt. Old, monolithic systems often slow down IT teams and pose significant risks when changes are made. Instead of replacing everything at once, the industry is moving to composable Business Support Systems (BSS) using the TMF Open Digital Architecture. This modular approach allows for targeted upgrades, such as adding cloud-native billing engines that can scale resources as needed.

Jacek Prokop, BSS Product Marketing Manager at Comarch Communications, highlighted this topic, referring to monolithic legacy systems as a “silent killer”. To mitigate the risks of migrating away from these monoliths, he introduced the concept of operational digital twins within a modular architecture present in Comarch Communications’ Composable BSS suite: “We are giving you a secure, isolated sandbox where you can clone and test your real production data, like orders and products, without ever touching the live system.”

Sovereign networks in the face of global instability

Geopolitical instability has made connectivity more than just a basic service – it is now seen as a key part of national sovereignty. There is a clear gap in space infrastructure: the US has many more satellites and launches them much more often than Europe. To reduce this dependency, programs like the European Union’s IRIS² are investing €10 billion in building a secure, multi-orbit satellite network. Running this kind of infrastructure requires ground software that can manage complex data and mission control autonomously, without relying on other countries.

Preparing core architecture for the next decade

As the industry faces economic pressures and the need to improve productivity quickly, it is important to focus on core architecture rather than individual use cases. Building modular systems and supporting operational independence will be key for operators who want to profit from new ecosystems.

Looking ahead, CSPs need to ask themselves an important question: Is our data architecture strong enough to support autonomous agents and sovereign networks so we can stay competitive in the next decade?

Hundreds of millions of people around the world maintain family, work, and community ties across borders. The United Nations estimated the number of international migrants at 304 million in 2024. This large, dynamic population relies heavily on cross-border communications. Consequently, international calling serves as an essential infrastructure for staying connected with families and households split across borders. 

Yet for decades, the pricing, reliability, and user experience of international calls from traditional operators lagged behind domestic mobile services.

Pricing was often difficult to interpret, rates varied widely by destination and plan, and call quality was inconsistent on certain routes. This gap created the conditions for a new category of providers to emerge — cross-border communication apps, including international calling apps for expats and diaspora communities.

The telecom operators’ diaspora market gap

In 2024, the World Bank estimated record remittances to low- and middle-income countries at $685 billion, larger than foreign direct investment and official development assistance combined. World Bank projections also put remittances to low- and middle-income countries at $690 billion in 2025, reinforcing the scale and persistence of the cross-border relationships behind the market.

Many traditional operators prioritized ARPU from domestic subscribers, while international calling was handled mainly as a source of margin. In practice, it was rarely developed as a service built around the needs of expat communities.

Apps built specifically for diaspora communities underserved by traditional communities took a different view. They competed on price transparency, destination breadth, and reliability to reach mobile numbers in countries where generic VoIP termination alone was not enough. The result was a better kind of international calling service, and it helped define the international calling app market around repeat cross-border communication needs.

What cross-border communication apps got right — three structural lessons

The rise of cross-border communication apps offers more than a competitive warning. It shows how specialist providers earned repeat usage by addressing practical problems that legacy international voice services had not fully resolved. Three decisions stand out.

1. Pricing transparency as a trust mechanism

Cross-border calling apps displayed per-minute rates, making the cost clear before a call was placed. That reduced friction in a category where users had often been exposed to unclear usage charges and bill shock. International calling rates transparency became a trust mechanism for diaspora users making repeat calls to the same destinations.

2. Ecosystem thinking beyond the call

The most durable platforms in this space combined international calling with complementary services, knowing that diaspora communities had multiple needs.

That same understanding helps explain why diaspora mobile top-up services and mobile recharge abroad became natural extensions of the calling relationship. One study published in the International Journal of Data Science and Analytics found that international airtime top-up transfers are heavily used by expats to support families in their home countries.

The call was only one part of the service. The stronger platforms added messaging, domestic calling plans, and mobile top-up around international calling. Mobile top-up lets users send credit or data to a family member’s prepaid SIM abroad.

3. Routing quality for emerging-market destinations

Dependably reaching a mobile subscriber in Guatemala, Nigeria, or the Philippines requires a different termination strategy than calling a landline in Western Europe.

This is because real-time voice is sensitive to delay, congestion, and the quality of the interconnection path. A 2025 IETF RFC document on congestion control notes that workloads such as Voice over IP can face performance issues from congestion, and that network evaluation should account for added latency or increased packet loss.

For cross-border communication apps, routing quality was not a back-end detail. It was part of the user experience. Platforms that invested in direct carrier relationships and redundant routing paths for high-demand corridors were better positioned to deliver reliable call quality than generic VoIP alone.

They treated termination as a corridor-specific problem rather than defaulting to the cheapest or most convenient available route.

With diaspora communication, quality is measured less by technical architecture than by whether a call connects, stays connected, and is clear enough for a conversation.

BOSS Revolution international calling as a case study

The BOSS Revolution international calling model is a useful case study in the cross-border communication app category. IDT launched the brand in 2008 as a low-cost, PIN-less international long-distance calling service. Since then, it has grown to 6M+ active subscribers and processes 36M+ mobile top-up transactions annually (across more than 280 carriers in 95 countries). It also has a 25K+ retail distribution network.

What largely fueled the BOSS Revolution calling app growth was a combination of app-based international calling access, strong features, and complementary services. It offers international diaspora communities services that support their wider needs. Users can make international calls, send mobile airtime to relatives abroad, and use related services such as money transfer from the same ecosystem.

BOSS Revolution illustrates the bundle logic and user-experience-first approach that made a defined product category rather than a legacy add-on.

The operator opportunity in migrant communication services

Traditional operators are not structurally excluded from the cross-border communication market. In many cases, they already have the assets that specialist apps had to build around. They have network relationships, billing infrastructure, distribution, customer trust, and experience operating regulated communications services.

The issue is not access to the market. It is whether operators treat migrant and diaspora communication as a product design challenge, not a pricing exercise. The tools to do that already exist, which makes this a practical telecom operators diaspora market opportunity rather than only a defensive response to specialist apps.

eSIM technology is lowering entry barriers for MVNOs by eliminating physical SIM distribution and enabling digital-first launches. This allows MVNOs to partner with major carriers to target specific diaspora communities without building a massive retail footprint from scratch. Consequently, an MVNO diaspora strategy provides carriers with a practical, precise route to serve niche markets. Finally, API-driven platforms seamlessly connect airtime, data, and payment flows across these international borders.

The strategic question is whether operators will use those tools to compete, partner, or continue leaving the segment to specialists. Cross-border communication apps have already shown that the demand exists. The operator opportunity is to treat migrant and diaspora communication as a designed proposition for a defined audience, not as prepaid international calling plans or a legacy international calling line managed at the edge of the core business.

The communities that international calling apps were built for were never hard to find. They were simply not treated as a priority.

Press Release

Major global sporting events have always attracted opportunistic fraud. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, played across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, is no exception. Every major cybersecurity vendor, and the FBI itself, has published warnings about the surge in FIFA-branded scam domains ahead of the tournament. That coverage has focused almost entirely on fan-facing fraud such as fake ticket sites, counterfeit merchandise stores, and phishing emails targeting supporters. But what CUJO AI’s Security Research Laboratory has unearthed is a separate, targeted campaign employing fake FIFA job portals designed to harvest corporate credentials from would-be job applicants. 

The targeting mechanism no one is talking about 

The researchers identified 21 domains posing as FIFA recruitment pages. These sites presented as professional-looking careers portals, carrying official FIFA branding, stolen recruiter profiles with photographs and job titles, and an invitation to schedule a 30-minute phone call via Google Calendar (Figure 1). Examples included fifa-careerhub[.]com, fifa-careerportal[.]com, and fifajobs[.]com. 

Figure 1: A fake FIFA recruitment portal presenting official branding, a stolen recruiter identity, and a Google Calendar booking prompt. 

When attempting to sign in with a personal email address, the form returned the message “Please use your work or business email” (Figure 2). Personal email providers that triggered this response included: gmail.com, googlemail.com, yahoo.com, msn.com, icloud.com, live.com, hotmail.com, outlook.com, protonmail.com, and aol.com. This mechanism was clearly designed to coerce victims into exposing their corporate login credentials and is inline with the campaign’s objective to access corporate Google Workspace accounts. 

Figure 2: The email validation error returned when a personal email address is submitted. The JavaScript filter accepts only work or business email domains. 

What happens after the email check passes 

Applicants who passed the email check were then sent to a page impersonating a Google Calendar booking interface, where they were prompted to sign in with their Google Workspace account. This page hosted a malicious sign-in service that then sent the victim’s login credentials to a backend server hosted on “fifa2026back”. The backend domain was accessed via an obfuscated string that replaced each letter “a” with the characters “eq”, a technique commonly used to avoid detection by automated keyword-matching systems. 

Victims were likely directed to these pages via social media posts and phishing messages framed as outreach from FIFA recruiting contacts. Research published by Group-IB covering the broader 2026 FIFA fraud landscape documents similar referral mechanisms across multiple campaigns targeting the tournament. 

WHOIS records for the 21 identified domains revealed that most were registered via name.com between April and May 2026. All registrant countries in the dataset were the United States. 

By the time of CUJO AI’s analysis, most of the domains had been replaced by parking pages serving generic search links through a commercial domain monetisation service (Figure 3). This pattern is common to short-lived phishing campaigns where infrastructure is stood down after the active window closes, with registered domains held for future use or left to generate residual ad revenue. 

Figure 3: A parked page returned by one of the identified domains, indicating the active campaign phase had concluded. 

A broader pattern: the same kit, different brands 

The phishing kit deployed in this operation was not specific to FIFA. The same infrastructure and approach have been used in campaigns impersonating Heineken, Hilton, Coca-Cola, Netflix, PepsiCo, Delta, and Spotify, each using a different stolen recruiter identity sourced from LinkedIn. Arctic Wolf identified at least ten FIFA-specific phishing domains active as of late May 2026. 

The timing of domain registrations is shown in Figure 4, based on WHOIS creation dates across the identified domain set. The concentration in April and May 2026 aligns with a measurable increase in FIFA-related threat traffic observed across CUJO AI-protected networks during the same period. 

Figure 4: FIFA-related scam domain registrations per month, based on WHOIS creation dates. 

The operator’s position: visibility before the credential is submitted 

DNS lookups to these fake job portals, and the subsequent traffic to credential-harvesting backends, passed through network operator infrastructure regardless of whether the operator was aware of the campaign. Every subscriber who searched for a FIFA job and clicked on one of these domains generated a DNS query on the operator’s network before any interaction with the malicious site had taken place. 

This is precisely where the benefits of network-layer intelligence shine. Operators who can see DNS resolution patterns in real time, and who have access to aggregated threat signals across large network footprints, are afforded the opportunity to identify and block these domains before a single credential is entered. Operators without that visibility are dependent on endpoint security, which in a BYOD or remote-work context may not be deployed on the device the employee is using when they fall for the scam. 

Regulatory pressure is moving in the same direction with NIS2 and the UK’s Online Safety Act both pushing operators toward more active roles in the detection and blocking of harmful traffic on their networks. 

What this campaign reveals 

For operators, the takeaway of our research is that phishing campaigns are becoming more selective, more targeted, and more focused on corporate access than ever before. 

Every interaction with these domains began on the operator’s network. Long before credentials were entered, DNS requests, domain lookups, and traffic patterns provided signals that a campaign was active. Operators with visibility into those signals have an opportunity to disrupt attacks before they reached enterprise accounts. 

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be remembered for the matches played on the field. But for network operators and security teams, it may also be remembered as a case study in how modern phishing campaigns identify, qualify, and target victims long before credential thefts occur. 

News

India’s largest mobile operator is targeting a landmark public listing as it ramps up investments in AI, cloud and next-generation digital infrastructure.

Reliance Jio’s MD and Chairman Mukesh Ambani has announced that the company will file the initial public offering (IPO) papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) later today.

The IPO could raise around $3.8 billion, according to analyst estimates, making it India’s largest IPO to date.

“The proposed listing of Jio will demonstrate to the world that India can build technology companies of global scale, global capability, and global value,” said Ambani at the company’s Annual General Meeting.

Backed by the billionaire Ambani, Reliance Jio Infocomm burst onto India’s mobile scene in 2016, with its discount prices triggering a major price war. Since then, the company has soared to become the country’s largest mobile operator with over 500 million customers.

The listing is expected to be closely watched by investors seeking exposure to India’s fast-growing digital economy. Jio has expanded well beyond mobile connectivity in recent years, building out a portfolio that includes fibre broadband, enterprise services, cloud offerings, digital payments and connected devices.

AI was also a significant focus of the meeting, with Ambani calling for India to continue its efforts to embrace AI and develop its own platforms, saying that the country should be a creator of AI as well as a consumer.

Jio is investing heavily in AI, with Ambani saying earlier this year that the company would invest around $110 billion over seven years to build India’s AI backbone infrastructure.

The company’s JioBrain platform, which it uses for network planning, predictive maintenance, resource optimisation and customer service automation, notably won the AI Innovation award at the World Communication Awards 2025.

Also in the news
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Press Release

Interview

At the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026, we caught up with UltramapGlobal’s marketing lead Mychael Owen and co-founder Martin Connelly to discuss the company’s role in securing submarine infrastructure

As geopolitical tensions and high-profile disruptions push submarine cables from the realm of invisible infrastructure into mainstream media headlines, subsea security has suddenly become a focal point of global anxiety.

At the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026 event in London, the conversation naturally turned toward shielding these critical data arteries from both intentional harm and accidental damage.

It was against this backdrop that UltramapGlobal’s Mychael Owen and Martin Connelly discussed the ongoing evolution of the company’s AssetMonitor platform. What began in 2022 as a focus on “selling surety” for cable operators quickly evolved into a data-driven virtuous cycle by 2023 as the company gained momentum, with more customers leading the company to adopt the ‘better informed, better protected’ mantra.

By 2024, the rapidly scaling business was forced to interpret data in entirely new ways to meet varied client reporting needs and, in 2025, AssetMonitor became the world’s most used subsea cable monitoring software.

Now the company is preparing for further growth thanks to its recent acquisition by Abingdon Software Group. Far from disrupting operations, the merger has provided stability and continuity for existing customers while supercharging the company’s capabilities.

“What they have given us is the ability to innovate and add to the software when we need to. We can do things better and bigger than we were able to before,” explained Connelly, noting that the partnership has also dramatically increased their international scope.

Integrating Lumetec’s sensing technology

The fruits of this newly expanded innovation capacity are already on display. Ultramap Global has recently integrated Lumetec’s Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and State of Polarisation (SOP) technology into the AssetMonitor platform, giving cable operators even more data about their infrastructure’s surrounding environment.

“DAS can tell you a whole host of things, including the health of the cable,” said Connelly. “But the more important thing for us is it’s a source of information about the cable’s environment in real-time. For example, if a fishing vessel is trawling nearby, it can detect that activity on the seabed.”

This live environmental insight serves multiple critical functions. It allows Ultramap to pre-emptively contact nearby vessels to warn them of cable proximity. Furthermore, it provides forensic evidence of overhead activity. Connelly pointed out that fishermen often claim they lift their gear when approaching a cable, and this technology verifies if they are actually doing so. It is equally valuable for tracking “dark” vessels that have turned off their Automatic Identification System (AIS).

With this upgrade, cable operators remain grounded in factual security based on real-time feedback.

“It’s all about dealing with what’s actually happening. A lot of the news recently has been fear around what could happen. We need to keep it real,” concluded Connelly.

How is connectivity for the UK’s critical infrastructure evolving? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026

Also in the news
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Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
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News

The operator has partnered with the tower giant to extend its mobile coverage across the busy train line

This week, O2 has sign a new agreement with tower operator Cellnex to join the Brighton Main Line (BML) connectivity project.

The partnership will see O2 deploy mobile network equipment on Cellnex’s infrastructure along the BML, improving connectivity for thousands of passengers.

The BML connectivity project began in 2021, when Cellnex won a contract with Network Rail to deploy neutral host infrastructure across the 108km BML.

Cellnex subsequently deployed a wide range of neutral host infrastructure including: 130 km of high-capacity fibre; four Base Station Hotels to host mobile network operator equipment; 39 Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) within tunnels and along trackside locations; a dedicated station DAS at London Bridge, London Victoria and Clapham Junction; and 16 macro sites along the railway route.

Mobile operators leveraging this infrastructure will be able to provide coverage across 99% of the 108km route, which serves over 300,000 rail passengers every weekday.

In addition to boosting mobile coverage, the infrastructure will also eventually support the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), an international wireless standard that will deliver connectivity services for the railway operators themselves, including the management and interoperation of signalling.

In partnering with Cellnex, O2 joins its rival Three (now VodafoneThree), which signed up to the project in 2023.

“Regular railway passengers will understand the frustration of losing signal mid-conversation or spending whole journeys with buffering videos. With O2 now on board, many more passengers are going to notice the difference on one of the UK’s most important commuter routes,” said Steve Cray, Managing Director of Cellnex UK.

The timeline for the improvements to O2’s network was not specified, but Professor Robert Joyce, Director of Mobile Access Engineering at O2, said that coverage and capacity will be improved “in the coming months”.

How is connectivity for the UK’s critical infrastructure evolving? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026

Also in the news
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Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy