What’s up with… Mallik Rao, Nokia, SK Telecom

• O2 Telefónica adds B2B to CTIO’s role
• Nokia loses exec to Red Hat, hits 100G FTTH with Elisa  
• SK Telecom attributes profit rise to AI efficiencies 

In today’s industry news roundup: O2 Telefónica’s tech chief, Mallik Rao, has been handed responsibility for the German telco’s enterprise services division and AI strategy to add to his existing responsibilities; Nokia exec Fran Heeran joins Red Hat; Elisa deploys Nokia gear for 100G PON broadband services; SK Telecom says AI-enabled automation is helping to drive up operating profits; and much more!

Mallik Rao has been handed additional responsibilities at O2 Telefónica (aka Telefónica Deutschland) where, until the start of this week, he was CTIO. Now, as of 5 November, Rao is chief technology and enterprise officer, which makes him CTEO, we think… The operator’s board has given Rao “additional responsibility for the business customer division (B2B) as well as the data platforms and central artificial intelligence activities of O2 Telefónica with immediate effect.” As a result, he was reappointed to the management board and had his contract extended until 4 November 2028. “I look forward to continuing the successful development of the business customer segment of O2 Telefónica together with our dedicated team and to further expanding its range of digital solutions for companies,” noted Rao, who is a member of TelecomTV’s DSP Leaders Council. “With our combined expertise in technology, business customer services and sales, as well as data and AI, we want to be the best point of contact for small, medium and large companies when it comes to digital communication and state-of-the-art connectivity solutions,” he added. The German telco’s CEO, Markus Haas, noted that “the demands on digital products and services are constantly growing and digital projects, especially for business customers, are becoming more complex. It is, therefore, a logical conclusion to bring our technology division closer to the business customer division and to our expertise in data and artificial intelligence. I am very pleased that Mallik Rao will take over responsibility for all three areas as chief technology & enterprise officer. He has shown how he and his team have made a significant contribution to the growth of our company with their performance in the technology division. I am very confident that Mallik Rao will also unlock the full potential of the business customer division as well as the data platforms and central AI activities for our company,” added the CEO. Among the tasks handed to Rao and his expanded team will be the creation of data platforms and centralised AI tools that can be used across the whole company, which currently “uses more than 50 AI applications that enable added value in the triple-digit millions per year, for example, in terms of more efficient and accelerated processes,” the operator noted. O2 Telefónica, which has more than 45 million mobile and almost 2.5 million fixed broadband customers, generates annual revenues of around €8.2bn. 

And news of another significant appointment… Industry veteran Fran Heeran has left Nokia, where he was senior VP of products and engineering for the vendor’s Cloud & Network Services division, to join Red Hat as VP of the open-source giant’s Global Telecommunications Business. In a LinkedIn post about the appointment, Heeran, who was group head of cloud and automation at Vodafone Group towards the end of the last decade, noted that he is responsible for “driving open-source innovation for telecom. I’m excited to work closely with our teams, customers and partners on their network transformations, advancing flexibility, efficiency and automation, along with implementing practical and impactful generative AI to enable smarter, more intelligent networks.” For more on his role, see this Red Hat blog. Heeran will be very familiar with Red Hat as he was instrumental in the deal struck by Nokia to transfer its cloud platform (CloudBand), container services and core network application development resources and staff to Red Hat in June 2023.    

Still with Nokia… Finnish network operator Elisa is deploying the vendor’s Lightspan MF fixed broadband access system to become the “first service provider in Europe to demonstrate 25G, 50G, and 100G PON [passive optical network] services.” The deployment “demonstrates how different PON technologies can be combined on the same fibre to evolve its broadband offerings,” noted Nokia in this announcement. “Nokia’s fibre solution will help us significantly enhance our fibre network to deliver some of the fastest internet speeds in the world,” stated Elisa’s VP of network services, Sami Rajamäki. “We’re excited to be the first in Europe to show up to 100G PON speeds in a live fibre network trial and demonstrate the world-class capabilities we can deliver to support the next generation of broadband services. By partnering with Nokia, we can showcase our commitment to guaranteeing the best, high-quality services for our customers. History has shown that it is impossible to forecast all the new use cases for greater speeds, i.e. what new 25 to 100G connections will enable in the future, but we know that for example online gaming and industrial users are among the first to benefit from ever faster broadband connections.”

SK Telecom (SKT) reported a 2.3% year-on-year increase in third-quarter revenue to KRW4.53tn ($3.24bn) and a 7.1% increase in operating profit to KRW533.3bn ($381m). The South Korean operator, which is positioning itself as an AI company, attributed the increase in operating profit to “enhanced efficiency through the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the company” and other operational improvements. As reported earlier this week, SKT is very focused on developing its digital infrastructure (datacentres and network edge nodes) to enable it to offer a broad range of AI and cloud services, and its initial focus on developing these services is already paying off as, according to the company, its enterprise services revenues grew by 8% year on year in the third quarter, with cloud services revenues growing by 30%. SKT ended September with 16.58 million 5G subscribers, accounting for more than 73% of its total mobile user base. SKT also has 9.62 million pay-TV subscribers and 7.11 million fixed broadband subscribers. “Our focus is on driving growth in three profitable AI areas, including AI datacentre, AI B2B and AI B2C businesses,” said Kim Yang-seob, CFO of SKT. “We will continue to enhance corporate value by advancing our two core businesses – telecommunications and AI – while maximising returns for shareholders,” added the CFO. SKT also this week unveiled Aster(A*), an “AI-driven personal assistant tailored for global users” – it is due to be launched as a restricted beta service in North America later this year, with a full market launch planned for the following year

Singtel has sent TelecomTV clarification following a report from Bloomberg that the Singapore telco’s systems were breached in June by Chinese hackers, as noted earlier this week. A Singtel spokesperson said: “Like any other large organisation and key infrastructure provider around the world, we are constantly probed. Singtel wishes to clarify that there was malware detected in June, which was subsequently dealt with and reported to relevant authorities. There was no data exfiltrated and no impact to services. However, we cannot confirm or ascertain if this is the exact same event listed in the Bloomberg article with the cited threat actors and intended targets. We do not comment on speculation. Singtel conducts regular malware sweeps as part of its cyber posture. Network resilience remains critical to our business, and we adopt industry best practices and work with leading security partners to continuously monitor and address the threats that we face on a daily basis. We also regularly review and enhance our cybersecurity capabilities and defences to protect our critical assets from evolving threats.”

Network APIs in action! The UK’s mobile operators (BT’s EE, Three, Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone), industry body the GSMA and the members of UK Finance, a trade association that represents financial institutions including the high street banks, have jointly developed and launched Scam Signal, a new API-enabled solution designed to combat authorised push payment (APP) fraud. Scam Signal enables banks to “better identify and stop fraudulent bank transfers by analysing real-time network data and identifying correlations between phone calls and fraudulent bank transfers.” According to UK Finance, £213.7m was lost to APP fraud in the first half of 2024 and 35% of APP losses “originated from scams which started through telecommunication. This is where criminals contact victims through SMS and telephone, often purporting to be from legitimate organisations, such as a bank,” noted the GSMA in this announcement. It added that early development of Scam Signal was spearheaded by Vodafone UK, “with the mobile operator completing a successful three-month pilot project, which resulted in scam detection improving by 30% at a major UK bank,” noted the GSMA. In comments emailed to TelecomTV, Owen Dunkley, head of AI and data product at Virgin Media O2 Business, noted: “We’re committed to helping protect customers from fraud and scams working across industries. Scam Signal is the result of close collaboration and data sharing, including with key partners in the financial services sector and our colleagues at Telefónica Tech, to help tackle the UK’s fraud epidemic and make it harder for criminals to target our customers. By helping to detect fraudulent calls, Scam Signal is another useful tool for financial institutions to shield their customers from scammers.”

The announcement came as VMO2 called on the UK government to appoint a dedicated minister for fraud and “overhaul how the police tackle it by creating a single centralised, specialised national body that handles all instances of fraud”. Rob Orr, COO at VMO2, stated: “Fraud is at epidemic levels, with organised gangs of fraudsters operating professional call centres, which relentlessly target Brits every second of every day. We’re constantly building our defences higher and sharing compelling evidence of what these gangs are up to but with no real deterrent in place – these criminals can repeatedly steal free from the threat of prosecution… we urgently need [the] government to appoint a minister responsible for fraud and address the structural problems by creating a centralised, specialised and properly resourced national body to handle all instances of fraud to tackle this complex, cross-border crime.” According to VMO2, 69% of UK citizens have been targeted by scammers or fraudsters, with a quarter saying they’ve been targeted at least weekly in the past year. For further details, see this press release. 

Nokia will have been checking out the earnings reports on Tuesday to see how Infinera, the optical networking equipment vendor it is acquiring for $2.3bn, is performing in the currently capex-constrained market. And like many of its peers, including Nokia, Infinera’s third-quarter numbers show how tough current trading is for telecom vendors: While sales were up slightly compared with the second quarter, its revenues for the three months that ended 28 September, at $354.4m, were down almost 10% year on year, and it recorded an operating loss of $11m compared with an operating profit of $7.7m in the equivalent period a year ago. But CEO David Heard is still chipper and talked up the recent award of state funding. “Our team delivered another quarter with continued sequential improvements in our financial metrics and critical service provider and webscaler design wins across our ICE-X coherent pluggables, next-generation line systems, software, and ICE7 solutions. In addition, in October we signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms with the US Department of Commerce for an award under the Chips and Science Act that, together with other federal and state incentives, could result in more than $200m in funds for Infinera. Looking ahead, our customers remain excited about our pending acquisition by Nokia as they look forward to the combined company accelerating the pace of innovation in the industry. We are making good progress on the steps required to close the transaction, including receiving stockholder approval and attaining US antitrust and CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] approval. There are still other regulatory approvals pending, but we believe we remain on track to close the deal in the first half of 2025,” noted the CEO. 

Telecom Italia (TIM)’s CEO has dismissed reports that he will quit the national operator now that much of the telco’s M&A-fuelled restructuring process is either completed or at least in motion, reports Bloomberg. “My team and I are 100% focused on delivering a plan that will let Telecom Italia return to growth in the next years,” Labriola told Bloomberg in an interview on Tuesday. In July, the operator completed the sale of its fixed access network assets to a consortium led by private equity firm KKR in a deal valued at up to €22bn. It is also currently in discussions regarding an exploratory €700m takeover offer for its Sparkle international networks and services business from Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and Retelit, a provider of communications and IT services to the Italian enterprise sector in the hope that a binding offer can be agreed by the end of November. 

– The staff, TelecomTV