Power is the binding constraint on new GPU deployments. Operators who already hold energized space are looking to convert compute demand into revenue themselves. Colocation facilities and former bitcoin miners are moving up the stack into bare metal and GPU-as-a-Service. And colocation facilities can finance the climb on better terms than the new neoclouds they compete with. … [visit site to read more]
Communication & Renewable Energy Infrastructure (CREI), a telecom energy service and asset management company and part of global corporate group two33, has received a funding boost for the expansion of its renewable energy assets across Africa.
The Facility for Energy Inclusion (FEI), a debt fund conceived by the African Development Bank and managed by Cygnum Capital, which is an investment bank and asset manager, has, along with the Norwegian Investment Fund for developing countries (Norfund), closed a US$90 million long-term debt facility to CREI.
This financing refinances the US$55 million short-term bridge facilities provided by the lenders in 2024 and adds US$35 million of new capital to support CREI’s next phase of growth.
What this means in practice is that the facility will enable CREI to scale its energy-as-a-service model across Africa, providing mobile network operators with sustainable and energy-resilient infrastructure to improve service quality and expand network coverage. This facility is expected to increase over the next 12 months to further support CREI’s continued expansion.
In collaboration with ieng Group, the flagship engineering and network deployment arm of two33 – which specialises in telecom, renewable energy and critical infrastructure – the partners say that this investment is set to transform telecom energy infrastructure across CREI’s target countries. These include Mali, South Sudan and the Central African Republic where the deployment of modern renewable power assets is expected to increase the share of renewable energy in production to nearly 50%.
By bringing sustainable, reliable energy to some of Africa’s most underserved markets, the partners say this financing marks a defining step toward a greener telecom industry – one that reduces its environmental footprint while delivering more efficient and dependable power to operators.
Ghada Ghotmeh, Chief Investment Officer of CREI Limited, explains: “Building on strong execution across our markets, we have transitioned from bridge financing to a scalable long-term capital structure that supports sustainable growth. By refinancing and expanding the facilities initially provided by FEI and Norfund, we are building on a trusted partnership and positioning CREI to continue investing in energy solutions that power connectivity and economic development across Africa.”
Birgit Edlefsen, Senior Vice President at Norfund, adds: « This second financing to the company, a long-term facility, marks a significant milestone, extending our reach beyond Mali to now include South Sudan and the Central African Republic. It reflects Norfund’s commitment to bringing renewable energy and essential infrastructure to fragile states and challenging markets. By backing CREI, we aim to support economic growth, job creation and greater stability across the region.”
We reported in February that Finnfund, the Finnish development financier and impact investor, had made a follow-on investment in CREI to scale up sustainable telecom energy infrastructure in South Sudan.
More rural towns and villages in North East Scotland can now experience ultra-reliable, lightning-fast full-fibre as independent broadband builder and provider GoFibre continues its rollout in Angus, Perth & Kinross and Aberdeenshire.
Following on from the first homes and businesses being connected to GoFibre’s North East Scotland network in Edzell, Inverbervie and Longforgan, the next ready for service properties will be in Montrose, Dunkeld, Bankfoot, Newtonhill, Portlethen, Alyth and Coupar Angus. Residents and businesses in these areas will be able to benefit from speeds of up to 1Gbps on GoFibre’s network, enabling smooth remote working, streaming without buffering, and allowing local enterprises to provide a seamless service for their customers.
Alongside improved digital infrastructure, the rollout is delivering wider economic benefits, creating 30 direct construction roles and supporting up to 180 jobs across the lifetime of the rollout, including subcontracted work.
The build is being delivered as part of a major government contract to improve connectivity in underserved areas. In 2025, GoFibre was chosen as the supplier to deliver full-fibre broadband to around 63,000 hard-to-reach premises across North East Scotland as part of joint efforts by the UK and Scottish governments to supercharge internet access in mainly rural areas.
Project Gigabit is the UK Government’s programme to enable hard-to-reach communities to access lightning-fast, gigabit-capable broadband.
The Scottish Government is playing a key role in delivering Project Gigabit procurements in Scotland by administering and managing the delivery of the contracts.
GoFibre will be adding additional premises to the build on a commercial basis, with no public subsidy, meaning at least 100,000 premises across the North East will be added to its full fibre network.
Scotland’s fastest-growing broadband provider is extending its existing footprint of around 15,300 premises in Angus (including Montrose, Forfar and Kirriemuir) and 9,600 premises in Aberdeenshire (including Laurencekirk, Stonehaven and Newtonhill).
Andy Hepburn, Chief Operating Officer at GoFibre, said: “GoFibre’s on a mission to improve digital connectivity in rural and hard-to-reach areas. It’s fantastic to see that more homes and businesses in Perth & Kinross and Aberdeenshire Scotland will soon be ready to connect to our network and able to enjoy the same lightning-fast, ultra-reliable connectivity as the country’s cities.
“We are not only committed to helping to bridge the digital divide in rural Scotland; we are also delivering economic benefits to the communities we are connecting by creating jobs during the rollout.”
Residents and businesses can buy now or register for updates in their area by visiting www.gofibre.co.uk
Some new terrestrial fiber far away, a new FTTx market back home, a bit of M&A, and some cloud interconnection south of the border: … [visit site to read more]
Telegram is challenging an Indian government order blocking access to its messaging platform, arguing the move violates constitutional protections for free speech and access to information.
The app has been suspended until June 22 after authorities linked several Telegram channels to the alleged leak of questions from India’s national medical entrance examination. The exam was annulled last month amid allegations that papers had been circulated in advance, despite millions of students having already sat the test.
In a 200-page court filing seen by Reuters, Telegram argued that upholding the block would “enable indiscriminate suspension of digital platforms, severely undermining constitutional protections of free speech and access to information.”
The company also said the order was issued on the “impermissible premise that misuse by a subset of users justifies blocking of an entire platform.”
Telegram has long attracted scrutiny from governments and law enforcement agencies due to its emphasis on privacy and its historical reluctance to share user data. The platform has frequently been accused of enabling the spread of illegal content, misinformation and criminal activity through public channels and encrypted communications.
However, Telegram maintains that it cannot be held responsible for the actions of individual users and has argued that blanket restrictions on the platform are disproportionate. The company said targeted enforcement against offending accounts would be a more appropriate response than blocking access for millions of legitimate users.
The case is likely to become a closely watched test of the balance between online free speech and government efforts to combat fraud and criminal activity on digital platforms in one of the world’s largest internet markets.
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
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There was a key bit of consolidation announced in the fiber world yesterday, albeit an in-house project. Great Plains Communications and Ritter Communications will be merging into a single entity under the brand RightFiber. … [visit site to read more]
Nokia announced on Wednesday that it has been selected by Thai telecoms and digital infrastructure provider Symphony Communication to upgrade the optical equipment of the Malaysia-Cambodia-Thailand (MCT) subsea cable system.
The project will see MCT’s legacy optical gear replaced with Nokia’s Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE), powered by its sixth-generation Photonic Service Engines (PSE-6) coherent optics. The resulting upgrade will enable up to 30 Tbps of capacity per fiber pair, three times that of legacy systems, delivering low-latency connectivity between Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Nokia’s Thailand country manager Ajay Sharma said the upgrade enables MCT to support real-time use cases such as AI inference, cloud bursting and mission-critical enterprise applications, as well as reduce its carbon footprint by lowering network power consumption by 60%.
“This upgrade will help deliver advanced, trusted connectivity across Southeast Asia and support Thailand’s ambition to become a regional hub for AI and cloud-driven digital services,” Sharma said in a statement.
The 1,300-km MCT cable – which began operatons in 2017 with an initial capacity of 1.5 Tbps – lands in Sihanoukville in Cambodia, Cherating in Malaysia and Rayong in Thailand. Along with Symphony, MCT is co-owned by Telcotech (a subsidiary of Cambodia’s Ezecom) and Telekom Malaysia.
MCT is the only subsea system landing in Rayong, which sits in Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (ECC), the country’s main hub for AI-driven data centre investment. Symphony CEO Alex Loh said that Thailand’s emergence as a regional digital infrastructure hub is attracting several global hyperscalers seeking trusted, high-capacity connectivity routes in Southeast Asia.
“With Nokia’s submarine network solution, we will deliver unmatched capacity and reliability and become the connectivity partner of choice for hyperscalers and enterprises, building next-generation digital infrastructure hub in Southeast Asia,” he said.
Four bits of US network infrastructure new: a major wavelength deployment, some new backbone PoPs, and dueling FTTx rollouts in the southwest: … [visit site to read more]
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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