What’s up with… TIP leadership, Arm & Intel, VNPT & Ericsson

• AT&T’s Soni, Intel’s Chan take top roles at TIP 
• Arm approaches Intel about potential unit acquisition
• Vietnam’s VNPT taps Ericsson for network API help

In today’s industry news roundup: The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) has a new chairman, AT&T’s Rob Soni, while Intel’s Caroline Chan is appointed as president ; Intel rebuffs an M&A offer from Arm; Vietnam’s national operator VNPT is working with Ericsson (Vonage) on developing its network APIs; and more!

AT&T’s VP of radio access network (RAN) technology, Rob Soni, is taking over from Yago Tenorio as the chairman of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) while Intel’s Caroline Chan has been appointed as president. Tenorio stepped down as chairman after leaving Vodafone, which he had been representing on the TIP board. Soni took a seat at the TIP top table when AT&T joined the industry group’s board of directors in May this year, and Chan, VP of the Network and Edge Group at Intel, is TIP’s longest-serving board member, having first taken her seat in 2017. Soni stated: “I am honoured to take on this role and continue the mission of driving openness and collaboration in telecom infrastructure. The next phase will be critical in accelerating deployment and ensuring the benefits of open networks reach every market.” Chan added: “I’m honoured to take on this leadership role at TIP during such a pivotal time for our industry. The telecom world is evolving rapidly, and TIP’s mission of fostering open, disaggregated networks will empower global connectivity like never before. I look forward to collaborating with our members to accelerate this transformation and unlock new possibilities for enterprises, service providers, and consumers alike.” Tenorio, who is on his way to Verizon from Vodafone, steps down from the chairman role after five years at the helm. “It has been a privilege to serve as chairman of TIP. Together, we have made incredible progress in transforming the telecom landscape through open innovation, and I am excited to see where Rob Soni will lead TIP next,” he said. It will be interesting to see what Soni has to say when the TIP community meets in Dublin for the next Fyuz event (11-13 November) – he has played an instrumental role in the development of  Open RAN fronthaul specifications and in striking the landmark Open RAN deal for AT&T with Ericsson, which was announced in December last year.  

The chip sector is smelling some potentially cut-price deals now that Intel’s share price has slumped as the company tries to restructure its way out of its current financial challenges. Following earlier rumours that Qualcomm approached Intel about a potential friendly acquisition, Bloomberg reported that British chip developer Arm made an enquiry about the potential acquisition of Intel’s products units, but that Intel rebuffed the approach saying the business is not for sale. Intel, which unveiled plans to cut 15,000 jobs to reduce its operating costs by $10bn when it reported its second-quarter results in early August, announced earlier this month that it is carving out its chip-making business into a separate subsidiary and putting some of its foundry expansion plans on ice as part of a strategic overhaul designed to reset the company and help keep costs under control. Intel’s share price currently stands at $23.98, down almost 50% this year.  

State-owned national telco Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ericsson to develop network APIs that can expose the capabilities of the telco’s core platform, the Vietnam Investment Review has reported. Rita Mokbel, head of Ericsson Vietnam, stated: “The emergence of programmable networks and the exposure of network capabilities to application developers presents an exciting opportunity for growth for VNPT, [which] will have an opportunity to transform the network into a platform for innovation by making advanced 5G network capabilities available to the global developer community through open network application programming interfaces (APIs).” While the agreement has been struck with Ericsson, it is the Swedish vendor’s subsidiary, Vonage, that will be primarily engaging with VNPT. Vonage is fast emerging as the network API aggregation platform of choice for telcos around the world and recently announced an agreement with 12 major telcos to form a new joint venture company that aims to help network operators more easily engage with developers and enterprises seeking to make use of their APIs. Telcos are currently facing a conundrum about how to best exploit the potential of their network APIs, as TelecomTV discovered during a recent survey of network operator executives – see Telcos split over network API developer channel strategy.

Lutz Schüler, CEO at UK operator Virgin Media O2 (VMO2), is taking a leave of absence following a prostate cancer diagnosis. “Thankfully, this has been caught in the early stages, his prognosis is very positive, and he’s expected to make a full recovery following surgery in the coming days,” noted VMO2 in this update. VMO2’s CFO, Patricia Cobian, will act as CEO in addition to her current role over the next four to eight weeks. Schüler recently took to the stage at the Connected Britain event in London to provide an update on VMO2’s plans to overlay its UK cable broadband network with fibre.  

Battle lines are being drawn once again over the future of telecom regulation in the European Union. Following the publication of the recent report from Mario Draghi that encouraged network operator consolidation, ‘fair share’ payments to telcos by big tech firms, harmonised spectrum licensing and more, the region’s policymakers and regulators have been sharing their thoughts. During discussions between European Commission representatives and BEREC (the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications) at the WIK conference in Brussels this week, conflicting opinions were shared. BEREC’s official account of the conference provides only a broad brush view of the body’s position on major themes, but this Euractiv account provides a much better picture of how the region’s influencers are setting out their stalls. Watch out for Carlota Reyners Fontana, director of IT and digital at the EC’s competition directorate and a digital advisor to EC President Ursula von der Layen, who recently announced her new senior team of commissioners for the current term: “Unfettered in-country consolidation within a given member state is not the answer [to create a single European market],” said Reyners Fontana, according to Euractiv. 

– The staff, TelecomTV