What’s up with… AT&T & Nokia, BT & Vodafone, Intel

• AT&T hands Nokia a major FTTX deal
• Big name investors up stakes in BT, Vodafone
• Intel preps further cuts, teams with Japan on R&D

In today’s industry news roundup: AT&T shows it is still partial to at least some Nokia’s portfolio by awarding the Finnish vendor a major FTTP technology deal; Carlos Slim clearly likes the look of the slimmed-down BT, while e& invests in more Vodafone stock; Intel is reportedly prepping further cost-cutting measures, while also being linked to a new R&D agreement in Japan and more!

Nokia has landed a five-year deal to supply AT&T with broadband access technology for a major upgrade of the US telco’s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network, which passes almost 28 million premises, as well as for future expansions. The vendor, which is still suffering from its relatively recent radio access network (RAN) rejection by AT&T, will supply the US telco with its Lightspan MF optical line terminal (OLT) equipment, which supports passive optical network (PON) services of up to 100 Gbit/s, and its Altiplano FTTP management software that includes multiple network automation features. The value of the deal was not shared. “Fibre plays a crucial role in providing the foundation for the services we offer to our customers. This expansion will not only enhance broadband access for millions of customers but also sets the stage for the next wave of digital innovation, including Industry 4.0, smart cities, IoT applications, and ultra-high-definition streaming,” noted AT&T’s head of network, Chris Sambar. Nokia’s president of fixed networks, Sandra Motley, highlighted the flexibility of the vendor’s FTTP platform: “Our fibre solution opens the door to a full range of PON technologies available on the same platform and fibre. This includes 10/25G PON today and eventually 50/100G PON in the future. Ultimately this can help operators like AT&T make the most of their existing fibre broadband networks today and in the future.” The deal is a significant one, but not a shock, as Nokia has long been a major provider of fixed broadband access equipment to AT&T. However, nothing should be taken for granted: It should be noted that Nokia was also a long-time supplier of RAN technology to AT&T until late last year, when the operator announced a major shift in its mobile network strategy to focus on the development of an Open RAN architecture and the award of a long-term deal with Nokia’s major international rival, Ericsson – see AT&T goes big on Open RAN with Ericsson.

Investment firms controlled by telecom sector entrepreneur and billionaire Carlos Slim, who founded and still controls Latin American telecom giant América Móvil, have increased their stake in BT Group to 4.3%, according to a London Stock Exchange filing. Slim first invested in BT in June, when he snapped up a 3.16% stake in the UK’s national telco. BT is now under the stewardship of Allison Kirkby, after she took over the CEO chair in early February and then in May unveiled plans to retrench operations and cut operating costs, a move that has improved the telco’s standing in the financial community and attracted investors such as Slim. BT’s share price currently stands at 140 pence, 28% higher than when Kirkby took the reins. It’s worth remembering too that Slim is not the only significant telecom sector shareholder in BT, as Altice owner Patrick Drahi holds a 24.5% stake and Deutsche Telekom holds about 12.5%.    

BT isn’t the only major UK-based telco that is cutting costs and, as a result, gaining the support of its major international investors… Middle East digital services and networks giant e& has increased its stake in Vodafone Group to just over 15%, Vodafone noted in a London Stock Exchange filing on Tuesday morning. Vodafone’s share price currently stands at 76 pence, giving it a market valuation of almost £20bn. Last year, the operator’s CEO, Margherita Della Valle, announced a restructuring plan that included 11,000 job cuts. 

Intel is getting ready to announce further cost-cutting and restructuring measures that could include the sale of some business lines and a halt to investments in new chip-making facilities, such as those underway in Germany, according to Reuters. The chip giant reported plans to cut 15,000 jobs to reduce its operating costs when it announced its second-quarter results in early August but it seems the company, which has been left in the wake of Nvidia during the current AI boom, plans to go further with its restructuring measures. According to Reuters, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is set to present a new plan to the Intel board in the coming weeks that could include the proposed sale of non-core assets, such as its programmable chip business Altera, which Intel acquired in 2015 for $16.7bn. Another report identified AMD and Marvell as rivals that might be interested in acquiring the Altera business if it were put up for sale. Intel’s share price has slumped by almost 54% to $22.04 this year, giving the company a market valuation of $94bn, compared with Nvidia’s $2.93tn. 

Despite having a tough time currently, Intel is still looking to the future: Nikkei Asia has reported that the US chip giant is set to establish a next-generation semiconductor R&D facility with a national research organisation in Japan. 

A consortium led by US investment firm Blackstone has won the tussle to acquire Asia Pacific datacentre operator AirTrunk with a bid of at least AUS$20bn (US$13.5bn), according to Reuters, though at least one other report puts the price tag at nearer AUS$23.5bn (US$15.9bn). AirTrunk has been building and running hyperscale datacentres in Australia for almost a decade and now has facilities in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore as well as its home market. As we have recently reported, the datacentre market in Asia Pacific is hot with investments and new builds in multiple markets, including Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and elsewhere.  

América Móvil and Telefónica are set to team up to acquire the assets of Chilean network operator WOM, which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, according to this announcement to investors by América Móvil. The operator is to be put up for sale by the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. América Móvil noted that the “interest of both companies in jointly exploring their potential participation in the sale process of the assets of WOM S.A. and its affiliates in Chile is based on the potential benefits that the transaction could generate for its clients and Chilean consumers in general, given that it would strengthen the telecommunications sector sustainability, increasing the ability to continue investing and competing in high-speed networks and coverage, which is key to the country’s digitalisation.”

So what’s the state of play (telecom wise) currently in Chile, a country that is home to about 20 million people? A new report on the market reveals some interesting stats. For example, 5G connections in the long, thin South American country with more than 6,000km of coastline, grew by an impressive 72.5% in the 12 months that ended 30 June 2024 to 4.83 million. During the same period, the number of 4G subscribers fell by 8.3% to 16.9 million, but it remains Chile’s most pervasive and popular mobile service technology. Overall, the Chilean market had 26.9 million mobile lines and a penetration rate of 133.8%. Post-paid subscriber numbers fell by just 0.23% to about 18.7 million, while the number of prepaid users grew 3.45% to about 8 million. As revealed by the BNamericas business intelligence website, with statistics drawn, in part, from the latest report from Chile’s telecom regulator Subtel, mobile internet connections (comprising 3G, 4G and 5G) totalled 22.6 million. Chile retains the vestiges of a 2G network, but the country’s operators are preparing to shut down the service. Unsurprisingly, the number of 2G connections fell by 21.8% and now stands at just 155,519 users and continues to decline. The county’s former monopoly national operator, Empress Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (aka Entel), which was privatised in 1992, remains Chile’s biggest service provider, with a market share of 30.8%, followed by Telefónica’s Movistar with 28.1%, WOM with 20.5% and América Móvil’s Claro with 18.6%. Next came VTR with 1.28%, while Mundo and Virgin Mobile have sub-1% shares. Entel leads the way in 5G with 2.2 million connections, followed by Movistar with 1.3 million and WOM just behind with 1.29 million. Entel is also the 4G king, with 4.3 million users, followed by WOM with 4.1 million, Claro with 3.8 million and Movistar with 3 million. In the fixed line market, the number of fibre broadband connections in Chile grew by 6% to 3.2 million, accounting for 70.3% of all the country’s fixed internet access lines. The number of cable broadband connections grew by 1% to 1.2 million while the number of connections served by legacy technologies, such as Wimax (a fixed wireless broadband technology) and ADSL, fell by 5.4% and 52.2% respectively. Movistar tops the league in fibre broadband with 1.3 million lines, followed by Mundo with 898,741 and Entel with just over 331,232 (mostly courtesy of its subsidiary Entelphone). Telsur has 181,467 connections, followed by VTR with 122,156. The number of users hooking up to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service grew 49.4% to 57,655, while the Hughes satellite service hit 7,450 connections. In terms of broadband connections in general, 95.3% of Chilean subscribers get download speeds of between 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s.

Are you sick and tired of being required to “prove that you are not a robot” when online? Are you equally fed up with finding it harder and harder to differentiate between AI-generated deep-fake content and real human users? You are not alone. But help is at hand, as now there’s a possibility that we might be able to inform and protect ourselves against these growing and insidious threats. In the US, scientists at OpenAI, Microsoft, the highly prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston and Harvard University (just up the road in Cambridge, Massachusetts) are working to devise an AI system based on the notion of personhood credentials that, online, will prove that the holder of the credentials is a human being. The credentials will reveal nothing further about an individual's identity. Personhood credentials are effective because they work by doing two things AI cannot do – taking a detour around even the most sophisticated cryptographic systems in the virtual world and proving that a credential holder is a bona fide real person in the real, physical world. The idea is that, eventually, personhood credentials would be issued by organisations trusted to deal with biometric data – something along the lines of a passport office. Once issued with personhood credentials, individuals would store them on their mobile devices (and on other devices, such as laptops as backups). When using the credentials online, individuals would present them to an authorised third-party digital service provider for verification. This would be based on a cryptographic protocol called ‘zero-knowledge proofs’. It would confirm the holder owns a personhood credential but would release no further information about the individual. With this method, non-verified entities would be exposed and that would permit users to filter them out and ignore them. According to an article published in the latest edition of MIT Technology Review and written by Rhiannon Williams, the researchers are striving to encourage governments, organisations, agencies, companies and standards bodies to adopt personhood credentials to help stem the deluge of AI-enabled deception that is engulfing the virtual world. Commenting on the development, Emilio Ferrara,  professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, said, “We’re not far from a future where, if things remain unchecked, we’re going to be essentially unable to tell apart interactions that we have online with other humans or some kind of bots. Something has to be done. We can’t be as naive as previous generations were with technologies.” 

– The staff, TelecomTV