International operator says the successful proof of concept paves the way for the commercial launch by the end of the year
Sparkle, the international operator, says it has successfully run a proof of concept (PoC) for Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) for a quantum-safe internet use case.
It was carried out in collaboration with Adtran, Arqit Quantum and Intel, supported by Telsy, which specialises in cybersecurity and like Sparkle is part of the TIM Group.
The trial was carried out on Sparkle’s metropolitan fibre network in Athens and demonstrated a fully automated implementation of an on-demand MEF Internet Access Service secured by post-quantum cryptography. Sparkle says it is planning the commercial launch of its NaaS/Quantum-Safe Internet (NaaS/QSI) later this year.
Other use cases running on Sparkle’s Naas Suite will progressively follow.
Building on earlier work
This PoC follows an earlier trial carried out on an International VPN between Italy and Germany. Sparkle tested the instantiation of a NaaS solution composed by on-demand networking and security capabilities, leveraging Adtran’s Ensemble cloud-based orchestration and automation software solution.
Power of partnerships
The operator integrated connectivity functions with Arqit’s quantum-safe encryption embedded on an Intel-powered NetSec accelerator card which was used as Universal Customer Premises Equipment (uCPE),
Daniele Mancuso, Chief Marketing & Product Management at Sparkle, said, “Our NaaS vision is rooted in the belief that connectivity should be seamless, ubiquitous, secure and adaptable. We envision a world where businesses can effortlessly scale their Wide Area Networks, adapting to changing demands with agility and precision.
“NaaS enables this by offering flexible, on-demand network services that are easily customizable to meet the unique needs of each customer. Whether it’s expanding bandwidth during peak times, ensuring low latency for critical applications, or providing secure connections for sensitive data, Sparkle’s NaaS solutions are designed to deliver unparalleled performance and reliability”.
This is on a 2.7% rise in revenues of KRW4.42 trillion (€294 billion)
There’s a lot of rubbish talked about AI in telecoms, so some empirical evidence of it in action is most welcome. Eleven months after Korea’s SK Telecom laid out its AI Pyramid Strategy “to become a global AI company” it seems to be paying off.
Most interesting is that it has just announced a 16% increase in operating profits to KRW537.5 billion (€357.68 million) for Q2 on revenues (to the end of June) that increased by 2.7% to KRW 4.42 trillion. In a world where operators’ revenues seem stuck at low-single digit growth, the profit margin is critical.
According to SKT, the growth was due to “higher performance in the mobile and fixed telecommunications business of SKT and its major affiliates”. Also, revenues from enterprise customers grew by 11% year on year to KRW434.2 billion “fuelled by higher datacentre utilisation and increased cloud orders.”
At the end of Q2, SKT had 16.23 million 5G customers – about 70% of its mobile customers – plus slightly more than 7 million fixed broadband subscribers and 9.6 million for pay-TV.
B2B AI strategy and investment
It has also signed up what it calls “its first AI cloud order from domestic internet service providers” during the quarter and “plans to scale up its AI cloud business significantly.”
They said in a statement: “SKT and SGH also intend to leverage their complementary capabilities to enhance customer offerings in the development of differentiated global end-to-end AI factory and data center solutions and services, advanced memory market products and services, and NPU-based AI edge servers.”
SKT’s CFO, Kim Yang-seob promised at the Q2 earnings report that the company will “showcase our progress as an AI company in the second half of the year”.
Partner content: Operators help save many lives but they need to upgrade their disaster management as the frequency and severity of natural and human-made disasters escalates
Telecom operators are the backbone of our society. They connect the world, and we can’t live without the mobile and fixed connectivity we have today. Additionally, and often without anyone noticing, they play a crucial role in our security and health, with emergency communications literally saving lives.
However, we also live in an era where the frequency and severity of natural and human-made disasters are escalating. To give an order of magnitude for this problem, we present the following data:
“The number of disasters has increased by a factor of five over the 50-year period: whereas 711 disasters were recorded for 1970-1979, 3536 were recorded in 2000-2009” (ourworldindata.org).
“The data shows that countries with limited to moderate multi-hazard early warning systems coverage have nearly six times higher disaster-related mortality ratios compared to those in countries with substantial to comprehensive coverage” (undrr.org).
“More than half the global population – around 4.5 billion people – are at high risk of experiencing an extreme weather event, such as a flood, drought, cyclone, or heatwave” (worldbank.org).
The approach to disaster management needs a significant upgrade, and that’s why the introduction of Virtual Command Centers as a Service (VCCaaS) is set to revolutionise how telecom operators and public safety stakeholders manage and coordinate disaster responses. By using state-of-the-art technology such as AI and digital twins, VCCaaS will enhance operational efficiency, improve situational awareness for civilians and emergency workers, and ultimately save lives.
This idea was proposed by a group of operators and vendors who collaborated to transform it into reality. This ongoing journey has passed through various catalyst phases, and this year, in phase V, a demo was created and recognised at DTW24 with the prize of “Outstanding Catalyst, Tech for Good”. The project brought together Celfocus, Antel, Chunghwa Telecom, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Esri, Futurewei Technologies, Infosim, Intersec, MTN, NTT Group, Orange, Telecom Italia, UBique and Verizon Communications.
How is VCCaaS being implemented?
This solution must give networks “superpowers” of agility and resilience, delivering emergency services with a real-time 360° view of field operations. VCCaaS addresses this need by offering situational awareness and crisis management from a central, mutualised location with real-time predictability and mass alerting capabilities.
VCCaaS leverages several advanced technologies to enhance disaster management capabilities:
AI for Risk Prediction: Proactively forecasts potential disaster impacts, enabling preventive measures.
Digital Twins: Provides a comprehensive 360° view of situations, facilitating real-time assessment and decision-making. This virtual representation of the physical environment aids in effective monitoring and planning.
GIS & Location Intelligence: Enhances situational awareness by enabling live positioning of assets, ensuring optimal resource deployment.
These technologies collectively streamline disaster management, reduce response times, and improve coordination, leading to more efficient disaster recovery. For instance, the network can predict where a fire will propagate, advise populations, rearrange connectivity to guarantee communication for firefighters, and provide them with data-driven decisions.
While AI and state-of-the-art technology are crucial for this success, the key to this achievement has been the collaboration and the architecture defined between different operators and partners – each one was focused on their challenge but 100% aligned with the global vision, always sharing different perspectives that enriched the solution.
Use Cases and Advantages
For this catalyst, we focused on two use cases, demonstrating its versatility and effectiveness:
Operational Efficiency: Enhances emergency service operations by providing a predictive centralised platform for coordination and communication, ensuring all teams are synchronised for a quick and effective response while maintaining the network’s functionality.
Early Warning Systems: Provides timely public alerts, crucial for minimising disaster impact. By issuing early warnings, VCCaaS helps mitigate the effects of disasters and saves lives.
Implementing VCCaaS can reduce disaster-induced damage by up to 30% when early warnings are issued within 24 hours. Globally, this could result in avoiding losses of $3-16 billion annually, highlighting VCCaaS’s significant impact on disaster management and recovery efforts.
Collaborative Efforts for Success
Achieving the full potential of VCCaaS requires robust collaboration between the public and private sectors. Collective efforts towards standardisation, security, and skill development are essential for driving this transformation. The catalyst project exemplifies this collaborative spirit, bringing together a multinational team to effectively develop and deploy VCCaaS.
This collaboration extends beyond development. Continuous cooperation is necessary to ensure the system remains effective and up-to-date with the latest technological advancements. By working together, stakeholders can create a more resilient and responsive disaster management system that benefits everyone.
The Path Forward
Transitioning to VCCaaS marks a significant shift in disaster management, offering numerous benefits, including enhanced operational efficiency, improved coordination, and reduced disaster impact. By embracing these technologies, telecom operators and public safety stakeholders can better prepare for and respond to disasters, ultimately safeguarding lives and property.
As VCCaaS enters its fifth phase, its mission to develop a disaster-handling virtual command center continues to grow. The integration of AI with autonomous networks and digital twins into a single interface offers a comprehensive real-time view of operations, assets, and infrastructure. This development ensures that critical infrastructure and resources, such as power grids, transportation networks, and healthcare facilities, are monitored and managed efficiently from a central location.
Real-time situational awareness and mass alerting capabilities integrated into the VCC will play a crucial role in ensuring timely responses and minimising the impact of emergencies on communities. The VCC will enable emergency management teams to access critical data at any time, regardless of their location, providing a 360-degree view of unfolding situations and remaining assets. This real-time data will inform the allocation of emergency services in the field, improving the overall effectiveness of disaster response efforts.
The effectiveness of the VCC will be measured by key performance indicators related to the operational efficiency of emergency services, such as activation time, response time, communication effectiveness, resource allocation, predictive analysis, and consistency of response. As VCCs become established and AI systems support predictive analysis, emergency services won’t need to start from scratch for each incident, leading to standardisation of emergency response procedures, efficient execution, and lives saved.
We, Celfocus, as a key contributor, will continue this journey to help the VCCaaS project succeed. We will use our Analytics and Cognitive knowledge and experience to make a difference in the future of disaster management. We have a drive for all of this: to create a safer, more resilient world, where communities are better prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow.
For more information on VCCaaS and its implementation, visit TM Forum Catalyst Projects here.
About the author
André Vieira is the Operational Intelligence Offer Lead at Celfocus. He started his career providing consulting and engineering services in telecommunications, developing and leading several projects focused on Telcos across Europe, Africa, and Asia. In 2021, he joined Celfocus to manage the Celfocus Order Management Product. He refined product offerings and managed customer relationships and partnerships. He is now leading the offer of a Business Unit – Operational Intelligence – that combines technologies and professional services that speed up the delivery of the foundations of digital transformation while leveraging the Telecom Operator ecosystem. Since February 2023, he has also been the leader of the communication and adoption working group for Project Sylva, a Linux Foundation Europe project.
Like a similar deal between the US and Finland, the countries have agreed to explore possibilities to create a joint ecosystem for R&D in 6G technology and applications
The Swedish and US governments have signed a bilateral deal to work together on developing 6G technologies. The two stated that international cooperation, including partnerships with the private sector, is crucial for developing open and interoperable technologies like open radio access networks and sustainable 6G. They added that this approach aims to ensure that 6G is resilient, secure, safe, trustworthy, inclusive, and sustainable, as highlighted in the Joint Statement Endorsing Principles for 6G and the US-EU Trade and Technology Council’s 6G Vision.
The agreement will see the countries identifying synergies and exploring possibilities to create a joint ecosystem for research and development in 6G technology and applications by making use of new spectrum allocations by future wireless services/technologies and introducing new technologies in existing frequency bands. The two will also encourage global harmonization of frequency bands for 6G and next generations wireless services.
The two will explore possibilities for long-term research collaboration, including potential funding for relevant bilateral research collaboration, in many areas related to 6G and beyond, including: resiliency, security, trust and privacy; machine learning and AI-enabled technologies; efficient use of communication and computing resources, materials, cybersecurity, edge computing, algorithms, distributed intelligence, and data resources; attaining sustainability; addressing spectrum issues; and encouraging the joint use and establishment of test beds, open architectures, advanced micro-electronics, dynamic spectrum management, optical science and network and computer science.
In April, the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova signed a five-year declaration of intent with the US National Science Foundation (NSF), to facilitate research and innovation collaborations between Sweden and US and 6G was already identified as one of the key technology areas.
At the time, Swedish Government said it was also making a specific investment in research and innovation in 6G and was giving the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova SEK 390 million to distribute within the area during 2024–2026, of which the Swedish Research Council was awarded SEK 140 million.
Finns first
The agreement with Finland was made in June last year and both agreements demonstrate the importance of Nokia and Ericsson – and related ecosystems – in US thinking. As the technology world continues to diverge along geopolitical lines, 6G standardisation is the next battleground. In addition to signing the US agreement, Finland also leads the European 6G flagship initiative, Hexa-X-II funded by EU and plays a significant role in other 6G measures of the EU as well.
Supporting pathways
Sweden and the US will use the agreement to cooperate in scientific research, standardisation, technology development and innovation. This will include promoting avenues to encourage a broad and inclusive 6G ecosystem to facilitate multidisciplinary research for fundamental discoveries and diverse applications.
Harking back to the political agenda the agreement will also see the two promoting policies for facilitating the “open and robust exchange ideas to establish a resilient and skilled workforce for research and technology development”, within academia, government, or the private sector. This includes promoting policies and mechanisms for facilitating the use and joint experimentation with large-scale wireless 6G testbeds.
Unfortunately, there is no word in the agreement on whether the countries would standardise on moose or elk.
Last month the country’s competition authority barred Vodafone from acquiring Nowo after a protracted investigation into the effects on competition
Romania’s Digi Communications is looking to expand operations in Portugal with the acquisition of that country’s fourth largest operator, Nowo Communications for €150 million.
Digi will acquire Cabonitel, owner of Nowo. The latter has 270,000 mobile customers and 130,000 customers for its pay-TV and broadband services. Nowo has spectrum licences in the 1800MHz, 2.6GHz and 3.6GHz bands.
Digi must gain regulatory approvals to acquire Nowo but its chances seem better as it is already investing in its own fibre access network infrastructure in Portugal and it is strengthening the fourth operator which the competition authority saw as essential in the market.
Digi also has plans to launch in the moribund Belgian market which it is expected to confirm when it announces it half year earnings in a few days’ time. They will be very interesting, given the impressive results the Romanian group reported it had doubled its profits at the end of the last quarter.
Vodafone Portugal was recently denied the right to acquire Nowoafter the competition regulator, Autoridade da Concorrência (AdC), decided it would not further competition in the market. In other words, it viewed Nowo as key in keeping the prices of its three larger rivals down.
Had it been allowed to proceed, Vodafone would have become Portugal’s second largest provider. As that route is permanently closed, maybe Portugal will become the third European market that Vodafone bails out of, having already exited Spain (selling out to Zegona Communications) and Italy (to Swisscom’s Italian subsidiary Fastweb) this year on the grounds they lacked sufficient scale to make a return on investment.
Saudi Arabia’s stc is looking to strengthen its presence in the Iberian peninsula. It already holds almost a 10% stake in Spain’s incumbent, Telefonica and was interested in acquiring incumbent Altice Portugal, but the two parties could not agree terms and negotiations ended last month, when it was reported in local media that stc was potentially interested in acquiring Vodafone’s Portuguese opco.
Last month the Latin American group rejected his $4.1bn bid and since then has entered into potential deals in Colombia and Costa Rica
French telecoms billionaire, Xavier Niel, has increased his offer for Millicom to about $4.4 billion. His previous offer of $4.1 billion was rejected last month. It was made through his investment vehicle Atlas Investissement which already holds a 29% stake in Millicom which has operating companies in the Caribbean and Latin America.
In between Niel’s two bids, Millicom has been busy.
Acquisitions in Colombia?
At the end of July, Millicom entered into a non-binding agreement to acquire Telefónica Colombia’s 67.5% stakein the incumbent fixed and mobile operator Coltel for $400 million. Operating under the brand name TigoUNE in Colombia, it has also to bid for the government’s holding and those of other minor stakeholders at the same price. Millicom is also working towards gaining full control of its own Colombian operation.
Telefónica Colombia’s is the country’s second largest mobile operator with 25% market share, about half that of leader Claro, which is part of America Movil.
According to sources, this means that Millicom is looking to spend about $1 billion, funded by a combo of cash and debt, to strengthen its presence in the Colombian market. This also plays to Telefónica’s long-term strategy announced at the end of 2019. The group is looking to extricate itself from Latin America, apart from Brazil which is one of its key four markets, along with Spain, Germany and the UK.
All change in Costa Rica
Then, on the first day of August, Millicom announced it is to merge its opco in Costa Rica with that of Liberty Latin America’s. It will be all-stock transaction, after which Liberty and a minority stakeholding partner will retain 86% of the Costa Rican combined enterprise and Millicom the remaining of 14%. The exact details of ownership will be announced once the deal is complete, apparently.
Mauricio Ramos, Chair of Millicom, explained the rationale in a statement: “Our combined operations would significantly benefit the telecommunications sector by enhancing fibre network investment to help accelerate Costa Rica’s technological evolution in a highly competitive market.
“This merger is expected to generate new efficiencies and improve commercial offerings, providing customers with access to mobile services and premium content. It creates a stronger, more competitive entity with high investment capacity to meet the accelerated technological changes, network expansion, and service improvements, ensuring that long-term market conditions remain competitive while maintaining high-quality and valuable services for our customers in Costa Rica.”
The transaction is subject to the usual closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. The parties say they expect it to complete in the second half of 2025.
What now for Niel?
So where does this leave Niel? At the time of writing, Millicom’s share price stood at $25.93, up from $16.40 a year ago. On 2 August Millicom (Tigo) announced its Q2 figures which showed at 4.7% rise in revenues and net profit of $78 million.
Millicom’s new CEO, Marcelo Benitez, said about the earnings, “Millicom has an important transformation aimed at significantly increasing the company’s equity free cash flow. These efforts began to pay off in Q2, with EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation] up almost 20% organically, EFCF [equity free cash flow] of 268 million and leverage significantly down to 2.77x, putting the company on track to achieve its 2024 targets.
“Meanwhile, we are streamlining our product offerings and internal processes, which is enhancing productivity and generating cost beyond savings beyond the initial targets of the efficiency project Everest, we are prioritizing ARPU growth in Mobile, reducing churn in Home, and accelerating growth in B2B.
“We are also making return-focused investments to sustain our market leadership and drive driving growth in the second half of 2024. All these actions are designed to ensure continued EFCF growth in 2025 and beyond, in line with our long-term plan.”
Millicom has until 16 August to decide whether it will accept the offer. Right now it feels like he’s a couple of steps to slow to catch Millicom’s rising star.
That’s a growth rate of 150%, from 10,000 satellites this year to more than 24,000 by 2029, but multi-orbit solutions are the key to success
A new study from Juniper Research predicts that the number of satellites in orbit to support IoT connectivity will grow by 150% over the next five years. That would be a rise of 10,000 satellites in 2024 to more than 24,000 by 2029.
The new report, Global Satellite IoT Services Market 2024-2030, says growth will be driven by increased demand for connectivity from IoT network users “in nomadic locations”. It forecasts that 98% of the satellites launched over the next five years will be low-Earth orbit (LEOs) due to the low cost of launches.
Multi-orbit solutions
To meet the demand for satellite connectivity for IoT, the study urges substantial investment in multi-orbit satellite solutions. This model combines the low latency and high throughput from LEOs and the extensive geographical coverage of geostationary earth orbit (GEOs) to deliver a single service.
The research found that some IoT applications – such as nomadic operational areas and conditional monitoring – necessitate the use of LEOs and GEOs for complete service provision. Partnerships that combine the two will be essential to attract enterprises in these sectors.
Return on satellite investment
This approach will also enable satellite providers to cater for many IoT use cases, including data-intensive and low power, wide area (LPWA) connections.
The study further urges satellite network operators to form strategic partnerships to fill the coverage gaps between LEO and GEO capabilities. It identified construction and infrastructure and logistics, as two key growth opportunities.
Steady growth in Q2 for tablets, which now join smartphones in stemming declines
Worldwide tablet shipments recorded year-over-year growth of 22.1% in the second quarter of 2024, totalling 34.4 million units, according to preliminary data from analysts International Data Corporation (IDC). The results benefited from a favorable comparison to the prior year’s quarter and were driven by product refreshes from many top vendors and a replacement cycle combined with inventory replenishment.
However, volumes are comparable only to pre-pandemic shipment levels and not to the unprecedented sales witnessed during the pandemic. The Q2 24 results compare favorably with Q2 2019 when 32.5 million units were shipped, aided by a product refresh from Apple and the growing popularity of detachable tablets from Samsung and Huawei.
According to IDC, Apple shipped 12.3 million units and grew by 18.2% year over year in the quarter. With the launch of the 11″ and 13″ iPad Air and iPad Pro models, the company was finally able to record growth in the market. iPad volumes grew across the globe except for China, where competition from local players like Huawei and Xiaomi negatively impacted the company.
Samsung ranked second with shipments of 6.9 million units in 2Q24, which represents year-over-year growth of 18.6%. The vendor managed to grow despite not having any major product launches. Growth mainly came from several commercial deployments and a favorable 2Q23 comparable.
Lenovo captured the third position this quarter with year-over-year growth of 16.7% and shipments of 2.5 million units. The company’s detachable tablets recorded much higher annual growth (39.7%) than its slate tablets (11.7%).
Huawei held the fourth position this quarter with solid year-over-year growth of 40.3% and shipments of 2.3 million units. The vendor introduced a new tablet, MatePad 11.5S, which has shown great market performance and the June online promotions in China further aided growth.
Xiaomi finished the quarter in fifth position. The company’s shipments grew 94.7% year on year to 2 million units. Beyond China and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), the vendor has made significant gains in the European market with impressive growth in Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and many other countries.
“The [second quarter] results signal that the market has moved beyond the pandemic. We expect the refresh cycle and growth in emerging markets to continue aiding the recovery in the near term,” said Anuroopa Nataraj, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. “While new entrants to the market focus on their global expansion, long-term leaders continue to focus on improving technology (as in the case of OLED displays for iPad Pros), catering to the need for premium devices, and utilising the power of emerging technologies like AI.”
She added: “Long-term gains for the market depend on the vendors’ ability to build devices that can carve a niche for tablets – one that includes innovation and differentiation.”
Smartphones surge 12% in Q2
Adding to the positive news with tablets, the latest Canalys research reveals that the worldwide smartphone market continued to grow strongly in Q2 2024, with shipments reaching 288.9 million units. The market has now grown for three consecutive quarters.
Despite a modest 1% shipment increase, Samsung held onto pole position with 53.5 million units shipped. Its high-end product lines continued to boost value growth, while the revamped 5G A series maintained overall numbers. Apple held second place with 45.6 million units, bolstered by strong momentum in North America and APAC’s emerging markets.
Xiaomi, with its competitive product offerings, closely followed with shipments of 42.3 million units to achieve a market share of 15%. Making a return to fourth place, vivo shipped 25.9 million units for a market share of 9%. TRANSSION came fifth, shipping 25.5 million units and taking a market share of 9%.
“In the second half of 2024, Apple and Samsung will focus on solidifying their long-term strategies in mature markets, while other brands will hope to boost sales in emerging markets, having stocked channels in anticipation of higher operating costs,” said Canalys senior analyst Sanyam Chaurasia.
“In Q2, Europe and North America saw significant volume increases as vendors proactively stockpiled inventory for upcoming holiday sales seasons. Samsung will inevitably focus on integrating its Galaxy ecosystem to create strong value propositions for consumers via its flagship offerings with exclusive GenAI features,” he said. “Apple will look to accelerate replacement demand in these markets via its AI strategy, with hybrid models, enhanced privacy and personalized Siri features.”
They have joined forces to demand equal terms access to Openreach’s physical infrastructure as Ofcom’s next review of access looms
Five of the UK’s largest fibre alnets have joined forces to push for fairer access to physical infrastructure operated by Openreach. nexfibre initiated the Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) Coalition which has AllPoints Fibre, Community Fibre, Gigaclear, and newly-merged Netomnia and Brsk as members. They jointly pass more than 5 million premises ready for service, making them among the largest users of Openreach’s wholesale infrastructure.
The Coalition conducted a detailed economic analysis of Openreach’s PIA regulation (carried out by SPC Network). It showed an imbalance between Openreach and altnet operators, particularly in pricing, where they operators pay “significantly more” to access ducts and poles than Openreach charges itself.
The Coalition is calling for Ofcom to act on this information and ensure all users of PIA have a level playing field for access to infrastructure in its upcoming Telecoms Access Review (TAR).
The group warns that failure to act will harm competition and investment in the long-term, threatening the progress of fibre roll-out to homes and businesses. This, the coalitions says, would damage the UK’s ability to compete internationally.
Holes and poles
The coalition acknowledges that sharing Openreach’s poles and ducts with other operators has been one of the successes of Ofcom’s 2021 market review and a major driver of faster fibre deployment in recent years. Ofcom regulates PIA products through a series of terms and conditions, and pricing. The regulator is responsible for looking after the interests of all PIA users.
Under Ofcom’s rules, PIA access must be offered by Openreach in a way that does not discriminate against third-parties, that is, anybody that is not BT. Openreach is a semi-detached subsidiary of the former monopoly. The PIA Coalition has identified evidence to suggest that pricing is discriminatory but hasn’t provided details.
Ofcom’s upcoming Telecoms Access Review will assess the fixed telecoms market, the challenges it faces and set-out regulatory frameworks for 2026-31. The decisions made will have far-reaching consequences for the future of the UK’s digital infrastructure, economy and society. The coalition claims that without decisive action, “policymakers risk losing the momentum the market has worked so hard to build”.
ATIS’ members are in North America and the parties hope this will encourage the take-up of Open RAN
ATIS and the O-RAN ALLIANCE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that “enables the transposition of O-RAN ALLIANCE specifications to ATIS standards”.
The MoU has put in place a process to identify O-RAN specifications for adoption by ATIS. They say this “transposition is a major step toward advancing the adoption of Open Radio Access Network (RAN) in North America, by giving O-RAN ALLIANCE specifications the benefit of recognition by ATIS, an accredited standards body with broad membership from North American industry”.
The intention is to “advance the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and global standards-compliant mobile networks”. Today’s agreement announced builds on an earlier MoU to cooperate on Open RAN issues, including security and stakeholders’ requirements for Open RAN.
Weight of two organisations
ATIS’ President and CEO, Susan Miller, commented in a statement, “ATIS members both from industry and government sectors are highly aligned on the importance of Open RAN in creating an ecosystem of trusted suppliers that can deliver capable and cost-effective mobile network platforms.
“The MoU with O-RAN ALLIANCE gives the combined weight of both organizations to a common technical basis for interoperability in the Open RAN market. It complements the ATIS work on the Open RAN Minimum Viable Profile to create comprehensive and recognized Open RAN standards and best practices for the North American market.”
Abdurazak Mudesir, Chair of the Board of O-RAN ALLIANCE and Group CTO of Deutsche Telekom, added, “O-RAN ALLIANCE specifications set the global foundation for open, intelligent, virtualized and interoperable Radio Access Networks, building on common RAN standards.
