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The MoU was signed during this year’s MWC Barcelona 

Sparkle and Turkcell have announced a new partnership to develop a subsea cable in the Mediterranean. This week, at MWC Barcelona, the two companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build a 4,000 km subsea cable linking Turkey and Europe. The cable will connect Izmir, Turkey, to Chania, Greece, with a design capable of handling more than 25 terabits per second (Tbps) per fibre pair.

It will also extend to Milan, Italy, through Sparkle’s BlueMed Cable System, improving connectivity between Turkey and key European hubs.

This project aims to strengthen the region’s internet infrastructure by providing a more diverse and resilient route for data to travel. It combines Sparkle’s expertise in global subsea systems with Turkcell’s established presence in Turkey, creating a high-quality network to meet the increasing demand for bandwidth and faster internet speeds. As data traffic continues to rise, the new subsea cable will help address these needs.

“Thanks to a unique low-latency path between Izmir and Chania, integrated with BlueMed, we create a new alternative digital corridor for communications between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. This collaboration is also part of the development of our GreenMed project which will further stimulate digital acceleration throughout the region and beyond,” said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle in a press release. 

“This subsea cable solution, with its impressive capacity between Izmir and Chania and a total distance of 4,000 km, offers a promising alternative route to the existing ones, enhancing geographical redundancy and ensuring that the international data connection remains uninterrupted even in the event of disruptions along traditional paths,” said Dr. Ali Taha Koç, CEO of Turkcell. 

“This project not only strengthens the resilience of global data infrastructure but also provides a robust option for hyperscalers and content providers seeking reliable and secure connectivity between the East and the West. In a world where the demand for seamless, high-capacity internet connectivity is ever-growing, this project plays a crucial role in reinforcing the stability of international communications,” he continued.  

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Also in the news:
Vodafone and AST spacemobile launch European satellite broadband compan
Discussing the fate of the BEAD Program with Dr. Nathan Smith
Verizon business partners with Singtel and Skylo on IoT 

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Contributed Article

The evolution of mobile networks will transform how people connect, work, and interact with technology. At this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona, Huawei’s Corporate Senior Vice President and President of lCT Sales & Service, Li Peng highlighted the role of 5G advancements in improving the user experiences and creating new business opportunities, in his keynote speech

“We’re rapidly entering a fully intelligent world. Intelligent applications are spreading everywhere, placing new demands on networks,” said Li. “By embracing and evolving 5G, we can unlock the infinite potential of mobile networks. Huawei is willing and ready to work with carriers and industry partners around the world to promote digital enablement, reinforce network foundations, and bring AI to all. Together, we can shape the D.N.A for an intelligent world.”

Improving mobile networks

Li emphasised how the way people interact with technology is changing. With the rise of voice assistants, cloud-based applications, and smart services, mobile networks must offer faster speeds and lower latency. As mobile experiences become more interactive (such as AI-powered voice and visual assistants) networks also must evolve to meet these increased demands.

To be able to do this, networks need to transition from 5G NSA (non-standalone) to 5G SA (standalone) and eventually to 5G-A. Key technologies like Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS), which separates control and user data traffic to improve network efficiency, and Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR), which ensures a minimum data rate for specific services, will be essential to improving network responsiveness and efficiency.

Managing increased network traffic

Li also discussed the rapid growth of digital content production and distribution. As high-quality videos and interactive media become more widely used, mobile data usage is expected to rise to an “unprecedented” level, again highlighting the need for more spectrum, more network capacity, and greater upload and download bandwidth.

Expanding coverage for smart devices and IoT

As smart devices and cloud services become more widespread, the demand for fast, reliable network coverage continues to grow. By 2030, over a billion people are expected to rely on cloud-based services, which will require seamless access to data and applications. Additionally, smart vehicles and other IoT devices will need continuous network coverage across cities, highways, and rural areas. Carriers will need to continue expanding 5G networks to provide the coverage necessary for these increased needs.

Improving network management with smarter operations

With networks becoming more complex, Li emphasised the importance of smarter operations and maintenance (O&M) systems. Many carriers are already using AI-powered tools to enhance efficiency, predict network issues, reduce downtime, and optimise network traffic in real time. By making these improvements, carriers can provide better service reliability and faster response times, ensuring a more seamless and consistent mobile experience. Some carriers who are already using AI agents, and those with self-learning capabilities can increase troubleshooting efficiency by 30%, by predicting and locating faults in just a few seconds.

New business opportunities

Li also highlighted how carriers can explore new ways to generate revenue. By offering premium services based on network speed, reliability, and custom features, telecom operators can cater to different customer groups. In China for example, telcos have partnered with industries like insurance and hospitality to offer new communication services through Open APIs, leading to increased revenue growth from business clients.

Li predicted that the combination of 5G-A and AI technologies could lead to double-digit growth in Data of Usage (DOU) and Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), creating big opportunities for carriers to monetise their networks.

“The opportunities are huge,” concluded Li. “And the time to act is now. Pioneers are already scaling up fast in over 200 cities around the world. They’re taking solid steps forward, unlocking incredible new value.”

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The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents many of the UK’s alternative gigabit broadband operators, has today called on the UK government to ensure that their future Industrial Strategy “prioritises digital infrastructure“. The group wants this to be supported by a national campaign to promote full fibre-adoption, among other things.

In case anybody has forgotten, toward the end of last year the government proposed to set out a “modern industrial strategy” – backed up by a “credible, 10-year plan to deliver the certainty and stability businesses need to invest in the high growth sectors that will drive our growth mission“. Sadly the word “broadband” was only mentioned once in their Green Paper, which merely reiterated their “targets to bring gigabit-capable broadband to all of the UK, and standalone 5G to all populated areas, by 2030“.

In response to this, INCA has today published fresh proposals, which forms part of the evidence they’ve just submitted to the Business and Trade Committee’s Industrial Strategy Inquiry. The submission highlights the important role that full fibre broadband is playing across the country and stresses the need for “government to not take connectivity for granted“, not least as “adoption rates remain too low“.

To address this, INCA is advocating for a national campaign to promote full-fibre adoption, including financial incentives for businesses transitioning from outdated copper networks. Additionally, INCA is calling for the establishment of a cross-departmental digital infrastructure working group to streamline government policies and reduce rollout barriers, although the Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency’s Barrier Busting Taskforce already does some of this.

Based on the fact that access to broadband impacts many essential services, the association has recommended the working group comprises: DSIT as the lead agency, along with the Department for Health and Social Care, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, His Majesty’s Treasury, Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Education and the Home Office.

Finally, INCA also stressed the importance of a new digital inclusion strategy to help address disparities in broadband access and skills training.

INCA’s CEO, Paddy Paddison, said:

“Full-fibre broadband is not just a technological upgrade—it is an economic necessity. The government, which has been extremely vocal about kickstarting the economy, must now deliver on it and taking decisive action to prioritise digital infrastructure and support widespread adoption will represent a major step forward in this regard.”

The move also appears to be intended to help ensure that INCA’s voice is heard as much as possible ahead of Ofcom’s forthcoming Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR), with the group “urging” the government to “reaffirm its commitment to infrastructure competition and ensure Ofcom actively promotes it.” We suspect the association will not want those it represents to be left vulnerable if the regulator ends up softening regulation on Openreach and allowing the incumbent to introduce further pricing discounts on FTTP etc.

Equally, INCA is mindful that Openreach’s withdrawal of older copper-based lines and services will present the incumbent with an opportunity to bulk migrated customers over to their own full fibre network, which could make life harder for altnets. But equally, it may be difficult to avoid this reality.

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Press Release 

[Barcelona, Spain, March 4, 2025] Huawei, together with global operators, partners, and industry organizations, discussed how operators can upgrade their operations models, reimagine new experiences, and enable new growth at the Intelligent Operations Summit held during MWC Barcelona 2025. Bruce Xun, President of Huawei Global Technical Service, said, “In the next decade, operators will advance towards all intelligent operations at an unprecedented pace. Through in-depth integration of ‘digital twins’ and ‘GenAI+ Predictive AI’, a new operations model that features collaboration between human and AI agents will be built to realize value in specific scenarios along the end-user journey and operators’ value stream.” 

Bruce Xun, President of Huawei Global Technical Service, delivering a keynote speech

Customer Journey: Rich Digital Intelligence Services with a Reimagined End-to-End NPS Journey  

Operators leverage Mobile Money and AI applications to create a digital intelligence life entry, offering users a wide range of digital and intelligent services and novel experiences. In Africa, Huawei Mobile Money helped an operator expand its business scope from mobile payment to mobile finance. In 2024, the operator’s revenue from mobile finance exceeded US$900 million. In addition, certain operators have re-energized their end-to-end NPS journey with digital twins and AI. In Asia Pacific, Huawei has helped a customer streamline the process and data breakpoints between AICC and SmartCare through multi-agent collaboration. This resulted in a 30% decrease in user complaints and an improvement in service NPS. In China, Huawei collaborated with an operator to build N-NPS leading network, reducing detractors by 20% and improving the network NPS by 8%. 

Value Stream Journey: Building a 3A Cognitive Network to Monetize Differentiated Experiences 

In addition to delivering a leading network experience, Huawei has created a 3A cognitive network that features real-time service awareness, achievable KPIs/KQIs, and differentiated experience assurance. Converged data and AI are used to accurately identify user profiles, allowing operators to promote the right offer to the right people through the right channel at the right time. This shifts the operations focus from traffic monetization to valuable traffic + experience monetization. Additionally, spatiotemporal digital twins enable transformation from best-effort to differentiated experience assurance for high-value scenarios and services. Huawei has helped an operator build the best driver experience network tailored for delivery drivers. With the network, the operator sold packages to 380,000 delivery drivers and achieved a 6% rise in revenue in only one quarter. Leveraging the SRCON spatiotemporal digital twin, Huawei assisted an operator in building the best live streamer experience network, elevating the uplink rate from 3 Mbit/s to over 5 Mbit/s. 

Value Stream Journey: Upgrading Operations Mode, Transforming from Cost-based to Value-oriented Operations 

The increasingly diverse service scenarios and complex network structures pose higher requirements on network stability and operations. The operations model, which depends on people and tools, needs to evolve to depend on people and AI agents. The ultimate goal is to improve both efficiency and effectiveness, and realize transformation from cost-based to value-orientated operations. Huawei collaborated with an operator to establish a Digital Intelligence Operation Center (DIOC). Through the synergy of Huawei NOC, SOC, NPM, traffic loss reduced by 8.4%, and the operator’s network ranked No. 1 in third-party-tested video and gaming experiences in a country of Asia. In addition, Huawei FME copilot has helped an operator reduce unnecessary site visits and shorten MTTR by 30%. 

At the end of his speech, Bruce Xun stated that, to seize the opportunities of all intelligence, operators need to build three major elements: collaboration between people and AI agents, real-time data awareness, and a high-quality chain of thought (CoT) corpus. In addition, the CoT capabilities of GenAI+ Predictive AI need to be combined with the real-time simulation capabilities of digital twins to truly solve scenario-specific problems and realize value, rather than just answering questions. The future is now. Huawei is ready to collaborate with global operators to expedite the transition towards all intelligent operations and enable new growth.  

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Alternative network operator and UK ISP LightSpeed Broadband, which has so far built their 2Gbps speed full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 250,000 premises across the East of England and West Midlands, have today celebrated their expansion into the Staffordshire market town of Tamworth with a “Drone Show“.

The announcement states that the operator, which claims to be the first altnet to enter the town, aims to reach “up to 36,000 homes and businesses” in the area. The development follows shortly after LightSpeed confirmed that they’d begun to go live across the Norfolk towns of Cromer and Sheringham (here), as well as Kidsgrove in Staffordshire and the village of Scholar Green in Cheshire (here).

The provider, which in 2023 was acquired by Kompass Kapital (here) after suffering some job cuts and a build slowdown in the East of England (here), is currently busy deploying across parts of over 30 market towns in South Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Cambridgeshire, and Rutland.

Residential customers of the service typically pay from £18.99 per month on a 24-month term for symmetric speeds of 75Mbps, which rises to £54.99 for their top 2,000Mbps tier. The package includes a wireless router and free activation, except on their 75Mbps plan, where there’s a £30 one-off activation charge. A number of packages are also throwing in Amazon shopping vouchers worth between £30 and £130.

Customers can optionally add a Home Phone plan for £4.80 a month, as well as a Static IP for £6 or a signal-extending Wi-Fi mesh from £8.99.

Brett Shepherd, CEO of LightSpeed, said:

“It is great that we are the first altnet company to bring full fibre broadband to homes and businesses in Tamworth. Hosting the drone show was a fitting tribute to mark this occasion and a quarter-century of progress in the digital world, all while paying homage to a landmark that has stood the test of time.”

When Broadband launched to consumers, it was life changing that we could now simultaneously use the internet and make phone calls through a single line. Looking at the last 25 years, it is incredible how far we’ve come. Broadband has transformed every aspect of our lives, forever changing how we live, work, connect, play and relax. This is just the beginning – broadband continues to evolve and shape the future in ways we never thought possible.

LightSpeed is excited about the future – with faster full fibre speeds and greater bandwidth requirements on the horizon, we’re opening up endless possibilities for smarter homes, increased productivity, and more immersive digital experiences.”

LightSpeed celebrated the deployment in Tamworth by hosting a Drone Show last night at Tamworth Castle & Gardens. However, LightSpeed’s claim of “being the first altnet company to bring full fibre broadband to Tamworth“, is not entirely correct as there are already several deployments from FibreNest, Hyperoptic and OFNL etc. In addition, both Openreach and Virgin Media also have strong gigabit broadband coverage in the town.

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This week, Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile have announced a new joint venture, SatCo, to bring space-based mobile broadband to Europe. The company said it will aim to provide “100% geographic coverage in every part of Europe”

SatCo will act as the exclusive distributor of AST SpaceMobile’s satellite services across Europe, using Vodafone’s network and AST’s low Earth orbit (LEO) technology. The collaboration is set to deliver mobile broadband directly to users without requiring additional hardware or software.  

“Vodafone’s space-based mobile broadband will mean our customers can stay connected, wherever they are. Our new satellite company will be able to offer this pioneering technology to other European mobile operators through a turnkey service that combines Vodafone’s leading network and engineering with AST SpaceMobile’s ‘antennas in the sky’,” said Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle in a press release. 

The company will be headquartered in Europe and will operate a network of ground stations to ensure secure and sovereign backhaul services. AST SpaceMobile’s satellites function as remote radio heads, maintaining core network control within MNOs.  

In January, Vodafone announced that it had successfully conducted the world’s first space-based mobile video call using AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird satellites. The demonstration showed that satellite broadband can integrate with Vodafone’s existing mobile networks. With commercial rollout planned for 2025 and 2026, the service will expand coverage to areas where traditional networks struggle, including mountains, rural locations, and open waters. 

Join us at Connected North, 23-24 April in Manchester. Get discounted tickets here! 

Also in the news:
EY launches suite of AI agents for telcos
Discussing the fate of the BEAD Program with Dr. Nathan Smith
Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Becomes First Mobile Operator in Southeast Asia to Deploy AI-RAN with Nokia and NVIDIA

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Press Release

[Barcelona Spain, March 5, 2025] At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025, Huawei and its carrier partner were honoured with two GSMA Global Mobile (GLOMO) Awards for their Intelligent Operations Solution, powered by the Telecom Foundation Model (TFM). The solution received the Best Network Software Breakthrough Award and the CTO Choice: Outstanding Mobile Technology Award. Recognised as one of the most prestigious accolades in the telecommunications industry, the GLOMO Awards are judged by a panel of global communications experts, underscoring the industry’s acknowledgment of Huawei’s groundbreaking innovations in intelligent operations. 

Huawei wins the Best Network Software Breakthrough Award at GSMA GLOMO 

 At MWC 2024, Huawei introduced the world’s first Telecom Foundation Model (TFM) for mobile communications. Over the past year, Huawei and its carrier partner have successfully integrated TFM into all network operation production processes. This integration has enabled the creation of role-based Copilots and scenario-specific Agents, driving a comprehensive intelligent upgrade across network operations. Key achievements include: 

• Operations Copilots: These intelligent assistants provide expert knowledge Q&A in the communications field, supporting multi-round interactions and real-time queries in both Chinese and English. Seamlessly integrating with Agents in operations production workflows, Copilots significantly reduce the skill requirements for operations personnel while significantly improving operational efficiency. 
• Fault handling and complaint handling AI Agents: These Agents understand user and network intents, leveraging intelligent hardware, foundation models, and advanced algorithms to achieve autonomous closed-loop processing for critical services. This enhances network performance and delivers superior business outcomes. 

Huawei also wins the CTO Choice: Outstanding Mobile Technology Award at GSMA GLOMO

In customer complaint handling, Copilots autonomously generate diagnostic results and record the results into the console. Operations experts can easily track tickets and invoke Agents to analyze signaling files, reducing complaint resolution time by over 60% and resolving 75% of complaints faster. 

During network troubleshooting, Agents act as portable experts, accelerating issue resolution through advanced knowledge acquisition and analysis. By employing chain-of-thought reasoning, content generation, and decision execution, Agents increase the fault diagnosis automation to 90% and reduce fault locating time to just minutes. 

Lu Yu, President of Huawei Assurance & Managed Services, emphasized Huawei’s commitment to integrating advanced technologies such as foundation models and digital twin networks (DTN) into operations scenarios, involving multiple workbenches designed for field maintenance engineers (FMEs), Front Office (FO) engineers, and Back Office (BO) engineers. 

“We are committed to embedding digital capabilities like Chatbots, Copilots, AI Agents, and DTN into carriers’ operations and production processes to transform the human-machine interaction ecosystem. By continuing our collaboration with carriers, we aim to drive intelligent operations forward and work together to bridge the digital and intelligent divide,” stated Lu Yu. 

Through innovations in AI-based foundation models and DTNs, Huawei is transforming the ICT industry’s approach to intelligent operations. By combining AI with human expertise, Huawei is enabling smarter, more collaborative operations processes. Together with global partners and customers, Huawei is dedicated to advancing intelligent operations technologies, delivering efficient and intelligent solutions that accelerate the digital transformation of carriers worldwide, and establishing standards and ecosystems to propel the ICT operations industry forward. 

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Podcasts

Dr. Nathan Smith, the Director of Economics and Policy for Connected Nation, joins Beyond the Cable to talk about the BEAD program’s future

By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Questions are swirling around the future of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program since the administration of President Donald Trump has taken the helm.

On this episode of Beyond the Cable, Dr. Nathan Smith, the Director of Economics and Policy for Connected Nation, joins us to talk about the future of the BEAD program, which has been the subject of some criticism from Republicans.

Despite previous criticisms, Smith said he still believes the BEAD Program is “fairly safe.”

“With BEAD, it’s mainly going to benefit areas with heavily Republican constituencies,” he said. “It’s infrastructure money, which is not as controversial.”

Smith additionally noted that Trump advocated for a large infrastructure spending package in his first term.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Smith on Spotify.

To listen on Apple Podcasts, click here.

“It seems unlikely that BEAD is going to be retracted,” he said.

Smith said he is optimistic on the BEAD Program, considering that the program is already far along in the bureaucratic process.

“There’s been a lot of frustration that it took so long to actually connect anybody to broadband,” he said. “But that was kind of by design. You needed quite a bit of planning because they were trying to get to universal coverage.”

He said questions also remain unanswered, however.

“The reality is that although BEAD is prioritizing fiber, you can’t get that everywhere,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just not economic to build a fiber network.”

As a result, he said it could leave states falling back on low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite.

“That’s an important space to watch,” he said.

Click here to learn more about Connected America 2025, happening March 11-12 in Dallas.

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Smarty, which is a virtual mobile operator (MVNO) on Three UK’s network, has recently introduced two plans that offer 32GB of mobile broadband data for £7 per month (normally 8GB) and 12GB for £6 (normally 5GB) – available until the end of March 2025 and lasting for 15 consecutive months. The move supports their new “Less Malarkey, More SMARTY” TV campaign.

As usual the new plans include all of Smarty’s usual features, such as unlimited UK calls & texts (landlines and mobiles), roaming within EU countries (up to 12GB), “superfast” 5G, no contracts (i.e. a monthly term) and a pledge of no annual price rises.

Sayed Hajamaideen, Head of Brand & Marketing at SMARTY Mobile, said: “Now more than ever, simplicity matters. In a world that’s full of complexity, especially when it comes to mobile plans, people are looking for one less thing to worry about. By removing confusing lengthy contracts and hidden fees, we give customers back control, so they can focus on what’s important.”

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Last month we reported that broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2) were gearing up to start making their new XGS-PON powered full fibre (FTTP) network upgrade available to homes in existing coax (cable) areas (here), which was expected to occur in March 2025. Since then we’ve observed a growing number of areas where the service and symmetric speeds of 2Gbps are now becoming available, albeit with a catch.

Just to recap. The change being referenced above is separate from nexfibre’s expansion of their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) network into new UK areas. This has already added over 2 million premises and aims for 5m by 2026, before possibly rising to 7m thereafter. Virgin Media’s customers can already access this, but its availability is obviously limited.

Instead, we’re specifically talking about Virgin Media’s own efforts to upgrade over 16 million of their legacy Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC / DOCSIS 3.1) and Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG FTTP) powered areas to add support for the same 10Gbps capable XGS-PON technology as nexfibre use. This is a programme they aim to complete by 2028 (aka – Project Mustang or Fibre Up).

At present we don’t know precisely how many HFC areas have completed their XGS-PON deployments (costing c.£100 per premises), but several million premises do now have both Virgin Media’s HFC + RFOG and XGS-PON networks existing side-by-side. But the fact that XGS-PON is just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing (i.e. not generating revenue), makes very little financial sense and this is now starting to change.

In our last update, we noted how several credible sources had informed ISPreview that Virgin Media was gearing up to launch new products in March 2025 (although delays are still possible), which we expected would reflect the provider’s move to start making their upgraded XGS-PON areas available to customers.

Since then we’ve received more feedback from customers, industry sources and fresh data from the Better Internet Dashboard, which when taken together appears to confirm that Virgin Media is now actively starting to make their newly upgraded XGS-PON full fibre areas available to customers in various locations (i.e. we’ve a good number of examples from previously HFC-only areas, where symmetric speed 2Gbps packages can now be taken).

The process, which appears to have started sometime around early February, is currently ramping up – it’s not yet available in all upgraded areas, although it has reached quite a few places already. But so far as we can tell from Virgin Media’s API, there may be a bit of an initial catch. At present, in the HFC locations where we’ve seen XGS-PON from Virgin Media going live, only new customers seem able to order it. So if you’ve already got or previously had HFC from Virgin Media, then it seems you can’t order it.. yet.

Naturally we did ask Virgin Media about all this and, once again, the response was one of “no comment“. At present, Virgin Media and nexfibre’s FTTP lines cover a combined total of 6.4 million UK premises, although this includes both RFOG and newer XGS-PON areas.

In addition, sources have informed us that Virgin Media may not be expecting to have migrated all of their HFC customers over to XGS-PON based FTTP lines until around 2040 (not to be confused with the 2028 date for the network upgrade itself to complete), which is perhaps to be expected given the need for an engineer visit (bulk migrations would be difficult).

Now back to waiting for Virgin Media to make an official announcement, which may or may not end up being aligned with the launch of their new NetCo wholesale solution.