What’s up with… Tele2, AI-RAN Alliance, SK Telecom

• Tele2 appoints Iliad Group executive as its new CEO
• AI-RAN Alliance has telcos lining up to join, says Alex Choi
• SK Telecom envisages Telco Edge AI

In today’s industry news roundup: Iliad Group executive to take over as Tele2’s chief; telcos are lining up to join the AI-RAN Alliance, according to the industry body’s recently-appointed chair; SK Telecom sees great potential in the integration of AI and telecom infrastructure; and much more!

We reported in early September that European network operator Tele2, which has operations in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, needed a new CEO following the resignation of Kjell Johnson and now it has one in the form of Jean Marc Harion, who will take up the post from 10 November. The fact that Harion is linked to the Iliad Group, which acquired a near 20% stake in Tele2 in February this year, will come as no surprise to anyone watching the European telco sector. In April Iliad Group’s CEO Thomas Raynaud was named as Tele2’s chairman and he was joined on the board by two other Iliad executives – the French telco group’s deputy CEO Aude Durand, and Harion, who is currently the CEO of Play and UPC Polska (Iliad’s operations in Poland). Now Harion, whose previous roles include CEO of Orange Egypt and Belgium’s Mobistar, is embedding himself deeper into Tele2. "I am honored and very excited to be appointed new CEO and President of Tele2,” noted Harion. “As a member of the board, I have had the chance to meet people and learn about the company in the past months. Tele2 is a worldwide reference for telcos and has a unique challenger culture. We will channel this energy in the right direction to build on the strong brands, continue improving customer experience and accelerate our growth," added the incoming CEO. Tele2 is due to publish its third quarter interim report on 22 October: In July it reported a slight improvement in its financials for the second quarter, with its total revenue rising by 1% year on year to 7.3bn Swedish krona (US$693.5m) in the period. 

The AI-RAN Alliance, which was founded in February this year by 11 companies and whose members have been increasingly active in the past few months – see this T-Mobile US development and this SoftBank initiative – is attracting membership applications from a number of additional telcos, according to Alex Jinsung Choi, the principal fellow of the Research Institute of Advanced Technology at SoftBank who was appointed as chair of the AI-RAN Alliance in August. Talking to TelecomTV for The AI-Native Telco Summit, Choi confirmed that only two of the 11 founding members are network operators, but told TelecomTV that a number of new telco memberships are in the works. “SoftBank and T-Mobile US are the two founding operator members, but the Alliance is very much designed to be inclusive and open to all players in the whole ecosystem. Since its launch with 11 founding members, the number of new members has steadily increased and we have now grown to 36,” with those new members coming from the vendor and academia sectors, “and we expect to grow to at least 100 members in the very near future… As of today, five additional operators, including my former company SK Telecom, have already submitted their membership applications, so I believe the number of operators will continue to grow as the alliance produces more visible outcomes. Our mission is definitely to build a diverse and collaborative community from operators to vendors to researchers and AI innovators,” added Choi. To see the full interview with Choi, click here. 

Still with SK Telecom… The South Korean operator has been sharing its views on how telecom network infrastructure will develop in the future, specifically in a 6G white paper focused on ‘Future AI Telco Infrastructure’ (you can see the connection here, right?). The paper lays out “the evolution direction of the next generation telco network infrastructure through the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and telecommunications.” SK Telecom, which presents itself these days as an AI company rather than a telco, believes future networks need to be cloud native, green native and AI native (amen to that!). The paper also proposes the concept of Telco Edge AI infrastructure, “which combines telecom network infrastructure and AI to simultaneously provide real-time data processing and AI services” – which is part of what the AI-RAN Alliance is proposing. SK Telecom also believes network operators “should move beyond simply generating revenue based on traffic demand and shift its paradigm toward enhancing the value of the infrastructure itself.” This, essentially, is what Ericsson’s CEO Börje Ekholm talked about during his company’s third quarter earnings webcast on Thursday morning – it will come as no surprise, then, that Ericsson is also one of the founding members of the AI-RAN Alliance. “Through this white paper, we aim to present the direction of the next-generation infrastructure evolution based on Telco Edge AI and explore the expansion of the relevant ecosystem,” stated Yu Takki, head of the Infra Technology Office at SK Telecom. “We are committed to leading the transition to 6G by developing AI-powered wireless and wired networks that create new value through the convergence of AI and telecommunications,” he added. To download SKT’s latest white paper, check out the link on this page.  

And yet more on the increasing link between telecom and AI… Wayra, Telefónica’s corporate venture capital arm, has invested an undisclosed sum in Perplexity, the San Francisco-based generative AI (GenAI)-enabled conversational search engine developer. Telefónica has also signed a global commercial agreement with Perplexity “to offer preferential benefits to the operator’s customers in Brazil, the UK and Spain, while exploring other countries to expand this partnership,” the telco added. It has also “launched the world’s first Perplexity experience through television,” allowing customers of the platform who have a UHD set to get AI-generated text answers in real time, displayed on the screen and also spoken. Chema Alonso, Telefónica’s Chief Digital Officer, stated: “The investment in Perplexity is part of one of the new keys of Wayra’s investment strategy in leading technology markets such as the US, in high-growth companies with global presence and reach, and leaders in technologies such as AI. With this commercial agreement, we are also reinforcing Telefónica’s commitment to integrating cutting-edge technologies into the company and offering transformative experiences like Perplexity’s ‘answer engine’ to our customers.” Telefónica isn’t the only telco to have invested in Perplexity – earlier this year, SK Telecom invested in the GenAI firm and is now developing a range of services with the company. Small world!

Middle East giant e& has struck a strategic partnership with hyperscaler Amazon Web Services (AWS) that includes a six-year $1bn agreement “to accelerate the impact of cloud-driven innovation and digital transformation across the region,” the companies announced on Tuesday. “The new alliance combines AWS’s cloud infrastructure and solutions, which are sovereign by design, with e&’s network capabilities to address the most stringent customer requirements across the public sector and regulated industries including healthcare, finance, and oil and gas in the Middle East,” noted e&.  

– The staff, TelecomTV