What’s up with… Telecom Italia, Vodafone Idea, Camara

• Vivendi bows out as Telecom Italia’s largest shareholder
• Indian government to increase Vi stake to almost 49%
• Camara project unveils second official release 

In today’s industry news roundup: Vivendi is offloading a major chunk of its remaining stake in Telecom Italia; the Indian government is increasing its stake in the country’s third-largest telco; open-source network API project Camara announces the availability of its second major release; and much more!

French media giant Vivendi has sold most of its stake in Telecom Italia (TIM), ending its reign as the Italian national operator’s largest single shareholder. Vivendi has struck an agreement to sell a 15% stake in TIM to Poste Italiane, Italy’s state-owned postal service, for €684m, reducing its holding to just 2.51% of the telco’s ordinary shares and voting rights. Vivendi had already been reducing its stake through regular sales of shares on the open market – earlier this month it reduced its stake from almost 24% to 18.4% – and had long fought against the TIM board’s decision to sell the telco’s fixed line network (NetCo) in order to reduce its debt pile, with the French company arguing that the asset was worth much more than the €22bn price tag it finally attracted. Even once TIM closed the deal to sell the fixed network to a consortium led by private equity firm KKR, Vivendi challenged the deal but, in January this year, a Milan court rejected its complaint. 

The Indian government is to increase its stake in India’s third-largest mobile operator, Vodafone Idea (Vi), from 22.6% to almost 49% by converting unpaid spectrum auction fees worth 369.5bn rupees ($4.3bn) into newly issued Vi shares. The operator’s initial main shareholders, Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group, will still have operational control over the debt-laden telco. After years of under-investment, Vi is currently playing 5G catch up with the country’s two leading telcos, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, and has just launched its first 5G services in the city of Mumbai: Having awarded $3.6bn worth of deals to Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia to improve 4G coverage and roll out its 5G network (the Mumbai network is based on Nokia’s tech), Vi now plans to achieve 90% population coverage with its 4G services and the ongoing launch of 5G “in key geographies”. But the operator is still on perilous financial ground and will need a boost in terms of its subscriber numbers (which has been dropping for some time) and revenues if it is to remain viable for the medium and long term. Vi ended 2024 with 207.3 million mobile subscribers (down by 1.6 million during December alone) and a market share of 18%. Market leader Jio ended last year with a market share of 40.4%, while Airtel’s market share was 33.5%. 

Camara, the Linux Foundation’s open-source network API project, has announced the availability of its second official release, Camara Meta-release Spring25, which contains 13 new and 23 updated APIs “that have been vetted for quality, consistency, and stability through rigorous release management processes”, according to the Linux Foundation. The Camara project has grown significantly since it was first launched just over two years ago and now has more than 1,250 contributors from 427 organisations, 11 API sub-projects, 21 sandbox projects, 60 APIs in development, and five working groups. “This milestone is testament to Camara’s ongoing commitment to open network innovation,” stated Nathan Rader, Camara’s governing board chair and VP of service and capability exposure at Deutsche Telekom. “The availability of even more mature, stable telco APIs expands the possibilities for developers and organisations to harness this work more effectively, driving new opportunities across the ecosystem. We look forward to seeing how the industry leverages these enhancements to deliver next-generation services and experiences,” added Rader. Arpit Joshipura, general manager for networking, edge and IoT at the Linux Foundation, added:  “The Spring25 Meta-Release marks a significant milestone in Camara’s mission to drive open, standardised APIs for the global telecom industry. We’re continuing to see broad ecosystem support for Camara and its innovative APIs that empower developers, accelerate service innovation, and strengthen the ecosystem of open collaboration that is vital for the future of connectivity.”

The latest 6G action comes from Samsung and South Korean telco KT Corp, which have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly research and develop next-generation communication technologies aimed at improving 6G signal quality. “As part of this collaboration, the two companies will advance multi-antenna technologies to expand coverage across potential 6G frequency bands and explore AI integration in wireless communication to improve network stability and performance,” noted Samsung in this announcement. For more on 6G developments, check out TelecomTV’s free-to-download report, What do vendors want?, the first report in our new Defining 6G Networks series. 

– The staff, TelecomTV