What’s up with… Glass antennas, Telecom Italia, AMD

• JTower teams with NTT Docomo for glass antenna deployment
• Telecom Italia to raise €250m from towers stake sale
• AMD completes Silo AI acquisition

In today’s industry news roundup: JTower, NTT Docomo and AGC team up to deploy a glass antenna to deliver 5G services in Tokyo; Telecom Italia cashes in on its remaining stake in towers firm Inwit; chip giant AMD completes its acquisition of “the largest private AI lab in Europe”; and much more!

Japanese shared communications infrastructure firm JTower has teamed up with glass manufacturer AGC and mobile operator NTT Docomo to deploy a “glass antenna that turns windows into base stations”. The partners have installed the next-generation wireless access product at the Shinjuku 3-chome East Building in Tokyo, where it is connected to JTower’s carrier-neutral 5G infrastructure (see the image above). The antenna can be used for 5G services in the ‘Sub6’ frequency range (410 MHz to 7125 MHz, also known as FR1). “The glass antenna is intended to be installed to improve the communication environment in outdoor event spaces and roads adjacent to buildings where consideration for the scenery is important, and the use of infrastructure sharing will realise more efficient expansion of 5G areas,” noted JTower in this announcement. 

Telecom Italia (TIM) has, as expected, struck a deal to sell its remaining indirect stake in Italian towers company Inwit (Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane). A consortium led by investment firm Ardian is acquiring the national telco’s remaining 10% interest in Daphne 3, a holding company that owns a 29.9% stake in Inwit. Telecom Italia says it will bank €250m from the deal during the fourth quarter of this year. The telco’s CEO Pietro Labriola signalled that such a deal was on the cards when commenting on Telecom Italia’s second quarter earnings report at the start of August: Labriola is also confident of brokering a deal to sell the telco's Sparkle international services and submarine network unit to raise further funds that can be used to chip away at the company’s debt pile, which, at €8.1bn, is now much reduced following the completion in early July of the sale of its NetCo fixed access network unit for up to €22bn.  

AMD has completed the $665m acquisition of Helsinki, Finland-based Silo AI, which the giant chip vendor describes as “the largest private AI lab in Europe.” According to AMD, the acquisition, which was initially announced only a month or so ago, “furthers the company’s commitment to deliver end-to-end AI solutions based on open standards and in strong partnership with the global AI ecosystem.” Vamsi Boppana, senior VP at AMD’s AIG (Artificial Intelligence Group), stated: “AI is our number one strategic priority, and we continue to invest in both the talent and software capabilities to support our growing customer deployments and roadmaps. The Silo AI team has developed state-of-the-art language models that have been trained at scale on AMD Instinct accelerators and they have broad experience developing and integrating AI models to solve critical problems for end customers. We expect their expertise and software capabilities will directly improve the experience for customers in delivering the best performing AI solutions on AMD platforms.” The news comes a few weeks after AMD reported a 9% year on year increase in second quarter revenues to just over $5.8bn and an operating profit of $269m compared with a small loss a year earlier. “We delivered strong revenue and earnings growth in the second quarter driven by record Data Center segment revenue,” stated AMD chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. “Our AI business continued accelerating and we are well positioned to deliver strong revenue growth in the second half of the year led by demand for Instinct, EPYC and Ryzen processors. The rapid advances in generative AI are driving demand for more compute in every market, creating significant growth opportunities as we deliver leadership AI solutions across our business,” added the CEO. 

Openreach, the quasi-autonomous wholesale fixed access network division of UK national telco BT Group, is on course to land rural broadband rollout contracts worth £800m from the UK government as part of the ongoing £5bn Project Gigabit initiative. The contracts, covering hard-to-reach areas in England, Scotland and Wales, “will provide access to lightning-fast gigabit-capable broadband to around 312,000 homes and businesses… It is the first time Wales, the region with the lowest percentage of gigabit coverage, will benefit from this programme,” noted the UK government in this announcement. “The landmark deal with telecoms provider Openreach represents one of the biggest milestones in the rollout of Project Gigabit, which targets places too expensive for providers to reach in their commercial build and which would otherwise be left behind with poor digital infrastructure. It will help meet the growing demand for reliable connectivity, stimulating local rural economies and reducing regional disparities, by enabling remote working and attracting new businesses. The announcement follows this Government’s vow to redouble its efforts to achieve full gigabit coverage by 2030 and harness the enormous potential of technology to grow the economy, accelerate innovation and improve people’s lives.”

Nokia has agreed to give the US Department of Justice (DoJ) a bit more time to review its planned $2.3bn acquisition of fellow optical equipment vendor Infinera.  “Following informal discussions” with the DoJ, Nokia withdrew its Premerger Notification and Report Form paperwork  “to give the DoJ additional time to review the merger”, noted Infinera in this filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Nokia plans to re-submit its paperwork by 14 August: Once submitted, the DoJ will have a month to complete its initial review, unless that time period is “extended by a request for additional information.” 

South Korean operator KT Corp. has teamed up with tech giant LG Electronics for 6G infrastructure technology and applications development. The partners will focus particularly on full-duplex communications (whereby uplink and downlink data is simultaneously transmitted and received in a single frequency band, rather than being divided in the time or frequency domain, to improve transmission efficiency): they plan to “develop wideband full-duplex communication technology that operates in the 6G candidate frequency band, design and manufacture full-duplex communication transceiver devices, and complete actual performance verification” noted KT in this announcement (in Korean). They also plan to jointly contribute towards 6G standards development. Jong-sik, executive director of the KT Network Research Institute, stated: “Through this 6G research and development collaboration with LG Electronics, KT expects to lead the development of 6G mobile communication technology and strengthen its global standardisation leadership. We will do our best to secure innovative network technology and capabilities for providing differentiated services.” Lee Je Young-ho, executive director of LG Electronics C&M Standard Research Institute, added: “LG ​​Electronics has been proactively leading research and development to discover core 6G technologies since 2019. Through our collaboration with KT, we expect to contribute greatly to not only leading 6G standardisation but also discovering core services.”

Here’s an interesting prediction… According to the crystal ball-gazers at ABI Research, by 2030 “the manufacturing industry will generate 4.4 zettabytes of [operational technology] data worldwide,” almost the same volume of data that is set to be generated by the telcos’ consumer mobile customers that year. "In the wake of Industry 4.0, data is becoming the lifeblood of industrial enterprises, driving innovation and efficiency, and the comparison to telco (consumer data) is compelling," stated Leo Gergs, principal analyst for Hybrid Cloud & 5G Markets at ABI Research. "The vast volume of data [that] enterprises generate only reveals part of the picture. OT data in enterprises often involves conditions in extremely hazardous environments, where any data malfunction could lead to severe consequences. On the other hand, a significant portion of data in telecommunications networks consists of cat videos and other entertaining memes. While there's nothing wrong with enjoying internet memes, OT data in enterprises is crucial for ensuring safety and maintaining business operations." Gergs will no doubt be hearing soon from cat-lovers across the industry… Read more.

- The staff, TelecomTV