Telecoms

Orange has announced a new deal with Eutelsat that will enable it to add LEO connectivity into its portfolio of satellite-based communications services.

Another analyst firm has downgraded its growth forecast for the global smartphone market, but while US tariffs are a key reason for the shift, there are other issues at play, including weakness in China.

Vodafone has launched a new digital travel platform centred around its Travel eSIM, and has extended it to 206 destinations on 700 networks, which will be supported by GenAI customer service.

• Unprecedented £11bn investment is one of the largest privately funded infrastructure programmes in the UK, connecting all four nations and every community  
• VodafoneThree is the only mobile network operator with a fully funded, regulated and guaranteed

Spain's Telefonica said it was looking into a potential cyberattack after data allegedly belonging to one million customers in Peru was released on an internet forum.

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will have local European leadership, independent governance, and a dedicated Security Operations Center.

US public cloud giant AWS has unveiled a new company that will run its European sovereign cloud operations, with copious vows about security and autonomy.

Nokia has been selected to lead PROACTIF, an EU project involving 42 European tech firms from 13 countries with the aim of boosting drone and robotics autonomy on the continent.

BT has reorganised its multinational services operation into a dedicated division within the group, fuelling further speculation about its future.

Nokia, Colt, and Honeywell are researching how to protect encrypted data from quantum risks using Low Earth Orbit satellites.

Analyst IDC has decreased its predictions for worldwide smartphone shipments this year, forecasting them to grow 0.6% YoY to 1.24 billion units, citing uncertainty and tariff volatility.

ITRI Establishes a New Office in the UK

The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has recently inaugurated its new office in the UK. This establishment marks a noteworthy moment in enhancing collaboration between Taiwan and the UK in the fields of technology and innovation.

Following Three’s installation of 18 Open RAN small cell sites in Glasgow City Centre, the project will now expand that to 34, says Mavenir.

EE and Ontix have installed 80 small cells across the City of Westminster, which support both 4G and 5G traffic for EE customers in central London.

Hello, I’m Dan Kilper, an electronics and engineering professor at Trinity College Dublin. I am also the director of the CONNECT Centre, a large multi-university research centre funded by Research Ireland that studies future networks and communications. 

Numbers from Canalys claim that smartphone shipments into Europe (excluding Russia) declined by 2% in Q1 2025 to 32.4 million units, which the analyst says was largely caused by sluggish entry-level demand.

Vodafone Group Plc (“Vodafone”) and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited (“CKHGT”), a wholly owned subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings Limited (“CK Hutchison”), are pleased to announce that the merger of Vodafone UK and Three UK successfully completed on 31 May 2025.

According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, security, networks, and data center industries, the Optical Transport equipment market declined 1 percent year-over-year in 1Q 2025.

The future of telecoms doesn’t just depend on cutting-edge technology – it depends on people.  As the UK pushes forward with next generation connectivity, from AI powered networks to 6G infrastructure, one challenge looms large: a growing skills gap.

beem is the new cybersecurity solution from Swisscom, specially developed for business customers of all sizes. By directly integrating cybersecurity into its network, Swisscom is setting new global standards. Protection is no longer primarily provided on devices or at company sites, but via the network.

The FCC has voted to look at the possibility of opening up more than 20,000 MHz of underused spectrum for satellite, a move that could prove something of a boon for companies operating from space.

Three UK has successfully completed the first stage of a landmark trial – the UK’s first deployment of Open RAN technology in a dense urban environment. The trial was designed to test the viability of deploying Open RAN in a complex city setting.

Vodafone and chip firm MediaTek say they have reached a milestone by successfully testing 5G uplink speeds of up to 277 Mbps.

Microsoft has announced a new enterprise agentic platform called Microsoft Discovery, which purports to accelerate research times by giving scientists and engineers specialised AI agents to collaborate with.