What’s up with… AT&T, net neutrality, Huawei

• AT&T paid ransom to data hacker – report
• Net neutrality back on hold in the US
• Huawei and China respond to Germany’s 5G ruling

In today’s industry news roundup: AT&T reportedly paid a hacker $370k to destroy subscriber data that was stolen earlier this year; US appeals court decides that more time is needed to consider legal challenges against the reintroduction of net neutrality rules; Huawei and the Chinese authorities express their dismay and disappointment in Germany’s decision to bar Chinese vendors from the country’s 5G networks; and much more!

AT&T reportedly paid a member of the ShinyHunter hacking group the equivalent of $370,000 in bitcoins to delete stolen subscriber data, according to a report from Wired that cites the hacker and a security researcher who acted as a ransom negotiation go-between as sources. As previously reported, AT&T admitted late last week that a significant volume of subscriber data was “illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform” (believed to be Snowflake) and that it is working with “law enforcement” on the incident. The US operator filed a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to report that on 19 April this year “a threat actor claimed to have unlawfully accessed and copied AT&T call logs”. It added: “AT&T immediately activated its incident response process to investigate and retained external cybersecurity experts to assist. Based on its investigation, AT&T believes that threat actors unlawfully accessed an AT&T workspace on a third-party cloud platform and, between 14 April and 25 April 2024, exfiltrated files containing AT&T records of customer call and text interactions that occurred between approximately 1 May and 31 October 2022, as well as on 2 January 2023.” It also stated that the company believes the stolen data is not publicly available and added that “at least one person has been apprehended”. Whether that person is the recipient of the payment is not known. The hacker initially demanded $1m from AT&T but eventually settled for little more than a third of that amount.   

A US appeals court has put net neutrality rules reinstatement on hold, according to Reuters, which reported that the Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals has ordered that a delay to the adoption of the rules was needed to “provide sufficient opportunity to consider the merits” of legal challenges from the broadband industry. Net neutrality reintroduction was adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the end of April, and rules were set to take effect on 22 July. Now, the appeals court has until 5 August to consider challenges raised by the broadband industry following FCC’s decision. Restoration of net neutrality brought about regulatory control over the internet, meaning that all traffic is treated equally and, therefore, internet service providers (ISPs) cannot slow down certain traffic and prioritise others through premium services.

Huawei has issued a response to last week’s news that Germany’s mobile operators will need to remove and/or replace key 5G technology supplied by Chinese vendors by the end of this decade. “Over the past 20 years, Huawei has developed into a continuously innovative, secure, and reliable telecom equipment supplier in the German market. There is no specific evidence or scenario that Huawei’s technology has cybersecurity risks,” the company noted in a prepared statement emailed to TelecomTV. “We will continue to cooperate with customers and partners in a constructive and open manner, promote the improvement and progress of cybersecurity, and promote the construction of mobile networks and digitalisation in Germany. We are assessing the relevant implications of the agreement in detail and reserve the right to comment.” And interestingly, just as the German authorities decide on a timetable for the removal of Chinese technology from the country’s 5G networks, Ericsson’s CEO Börje Ekholm noted during his company’s second-quarter earnings conference call that “in contrast to what many on the outside think, we’re actually seeing a sharply increased competition from Chinese vendors… in Europe but particularly in Latin America.” Huawei may be subject to many trade restrictions and outright bans, but it isn’t going away. 

The Chinese authorities have also hit back at Germany’s decision, with the country’s embassy in Germany issuing a statement to state that the ruling is based on groundless accusations and claiming that the “so-called ‘network security risks’ are just an excuse by certain countries to maintain technological hegemony and suppress competitors,” reported Xinhua (via CGTN). 

The network sharing deal between Optus and TPG Telecom is being scrutinised by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Reuters has reported. As part of an informal review, the competition watchdog is seeking views on the potential impact of the agreement on pricing and non-pricings aspects of the mobile service infrastructure in Australia. The deal between the two telcos was sealed in April and allows TPG Telecom to use 2,444 network sites run by Optus in order to expand its 4G and 5G network in regional Australia for 11 years. TPG Telecom has agreed to pay total service fees to Optus of some AUS $1.59bn (US$1bn). The ACCC is gathering opinions until 26 July and plans to publish its findings on 13 September.

Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) is building a generative AI (GenAI) supercomputer with help from Nvidia and HPE. The AIST is to integrate thousands of Nvidia H200 Tensor Core GPUs (graphics processing units) into its AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure (ABCI) 3.0 supercomputer, a HPE Cray XD system that will also integrate Nvidia Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking technology. “In August 2018, we launched ABCI, the world’s first large-scale open AI computing infrastructure,” stated AIST executive officer Yoshio Tanaka. “Building on our experience over the past several years managing ABCI, we’re now upgrading to ABCI 3.0. In collaboration with Nvidia and HPE, we aim to develop ABCI 3.0 into a computing infrastructure that will advance further research and development capabilities for generative AI in Japan.” Read more.

The unidentified patent licensing deal that helped to boost Ericsson’s second-quarter margins was with Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo, it seems. The Swedish vendor did not identify the licensee during its earnings report last week but has now announced that it has “signed a multi-year global patent cross-licence agreement… covering patents essential to standards for cellular technologies, including 5G.”

China is claiming a 6G first with news that a team from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications has “established the world’s first field test network for 6G communication and intelligent integration” and says it has achieved a “tenfold improvement in key communication metrics, including capacity, coverage and efficiency,” the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency has reported. 

After a steady 2023, French optical and data transport equipment vendor Ekinops has succumbed to the same market trends that have forced network operator spending to drop and have impacted many of its much larger rivals. Ekinops has reported a 19% year-on-year decline in revenues for the first six months of 2024 to €57.5m and has some interesting insights into why network operators are currently investing less in their transport network infrastructure. It says sales of its optical networking gear have been “excessively penalised since H2 2023 by (i) cautious investment policies by operators carrying high levels of inventory and seeking to reduce their capex (capital expenditure) in an environment of high interest rates, (ii) less buoyant internet traffic growth since 2023 (absence of new use cases since the Covid crisis, data optimisation thanks to compression technologies, low pace of 5G roll-out, etc) in a context of overcapacity. The emergence of generative artificial intelligence and the development of virtual reality equipment (virtual reality headsets) now constitute new use cases, which should enable a new phase of growth in internet traffic over the coming years.” Less buoyant internet traffic growth? That’s not an observation you hear about every day.

Google’s parent company Alphabet is in “advanced talks” to acquire cybersecurity expert Wiz for $23bn, according to The Wall Street Journal (as reported by CNBC). If completed, the deal would be Google’s biggest ever acquisition. The tech giant has previously splashed out on security specialists, most notably buying Mandiant for $5.4bn in 2022. Wiz, which was only founded in 2020, has developed AI-enabled, cloud-based cybersecurity solutions with real-time threat detection and responses for enterprise users. In May, it announced it had raised $1bn in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive Capital that gave it a valuation of $12bn.   

- The staff, TelecomTV