Swisscom has moved a step closer to finalising its €8 billion acquisition of Vodafone Italia after receiving approval from Italy’s communications regulator, AGCOM. The deal, announced in March, aims to merge Vodafone Italia with Swisscom’s Fastweb subsidiary, potentially granting Swisscom a 30% share of Italy’s fixed broadband market. However, the transaction still faces scrutiny from Italy‘s antitrust authority, AGCM, which is conducting a detailed review to assess its impact on competition.
AGCM has expressed concerns that the merger could reduce competition in Italy’s already concentrated broadband market, potentially disadvantaging residential customers. In response, Swisscom has proposed several concessions, including access to Fastweb’s fiber network for competitors and protections for existing wholesale contracts.
Competitors were invited to provide feedback on these concessions by early November, and the AGCM is expected to conclude its review by mid-December. If approved, Swisscom aims to complete the acquisition by early 2025.
Kuwait KEMS-Zajil Telecom and Emirates MBCOM Technologies have partnered to strengthen digital infrastructure and cybersecurity across the Middle East, aiming to help businesses remain secure and agile in a connected, fast-evolving world. This partnership formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 16 October 2024, focuses on providing enterprise solutions in critical areas like network optimisation, cloud services, and cybersecurity.
By merging their expertise, the companies intend to deliver advanced solutions that optimise network performance and bolster defences against cyber threats, essential capabilities for supporting business growth and resilience. Moreover, both companies see this partnership as a strategic move to drive digital transformation in the region, effectively meeting the rising demand for secure, efficient, and scalable digital services.
Furthermore, KEMS-Zajil Telecom emphasised that collaborating with MBCOM Technologies allows them to expand their digital services portfolio with cutting-edge solutions that enhance growth and security. Similarly, MBCOM Technologies highlighted how this partnership positions both companies to bring innovative technology to regional businesses. Ultimately, with its dual focus on advanced infrastructure and robust security, this collaboration reflects a shared vision to empower Middle Eastern enterprises through comprehensive digital solutions that drive long-term growth and resilience.
Elon Musk’s Starlink has received government approval to provide satellite internet in Chad, aiming to bridge the country’s significant connectivity gap. With only 12% of the population online as of 2022, the move is expected to bring internet access to remote regions lacking fiber-optic coverage. Communications Minister Boukar Michel confirmed the agreement, noting that better connectivity could spur public service digitalisation and tech start-up growth.
The satellite internet provider, a division of SpaceX, operates in several African nations, including Nigeria and Madagascar, though it has encountered regulatory hurdles elsewhere. In Chad, Starlink’s deployment is seen as a solution to the nation’s limited infrastructure. Elon Musk celebrated the expansion with an announcement on social media, declaring, ‘Starlink now available in Chad!’.
Despite its growing presence, Starlink has faced resistance from state-run telecom monopolies in some regions. In Cameroon, its equipment was seised earlier this year due to licensing issues. Meanwhile, local telecom operators in countries like Kenya are urging regulators to require partnerships between satellite services and national mobile providers.
Adobe has unveiled new AI tools that allow users to create modified images from its stock photo library while ensuring the original creators are compensated. The software giant, known for products like Photoshop, has been rapidly integrating AI into its platform as it faces competition from newer firms like OpenAI. Adobe‘s strategy focuses on making AI-generated content legally safe for commercial use and guaranteeing fair payments for artists.
The newly released tools enable customers to take stock images and modify them with AI to meet specific requirements. Adobe compensates the original image creators as if their unmodified work was used, ensuring fair earnings. Matthew Smith, Adobe’s vice president for strategy, design, and emerging products, emphasised that the goal is to enhance creative possibilities, not replace traditional stock imagery or artists.
Smith also highlighted the demand for flexible content creation. While some users prefer generating images from text prompts, many still need to adapt conventional stock images to fulfil their unique purposes. Generative AI, he said, provides an opportunity for creatives to increase their potential earnings by making their contributions more adaptable.
Ericsson and e& UAE have collaborated to advance the development of 6G technology through a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), marking an early initiative to shape the future of mobile networks. By engaging in technical discussions and exploring key 6G concepts, both companies aim to lay a strong foundation for next-generation connectivity.
That partnership aligns with a shared vision of digital transformation and reinforces their commitment to positioning the UAE as a leader in telecommunications innovation. Furthermore, e& UAE is advancing its 5G capabilities, recently achieving a record-breaking 5G speed of 62 Gbps by aggregating multiple frequency bands with advanced MU-MIMO algorithms.
Additionally, they showcased Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) technology at GITEX Global 2024, significantly enhancing the 5G Standalone network’s latency for critical applications in industrial automation, cloud gaming, and extended reality (XR). These efforts highlight their leadership in 5G and set a foundation for the shift to 6G, supporting the high demands of ultra-reliable, low-latency applications.
At the same time, that collaboration underscores e& UAE’s vision to lead the nation’s digital future and establishes a benchmark for regional advancement in telecommunications. By combining Ericsson’s global expertise with e& UAE’s commitment to innovation, the companies are strategically preparing to transition from 5G to 6G, ensuring that the region remains at the forefront of mobile network evolution.
China Mobile and ZTE have launched an AI-driven Green Telco Cloud solution designed to optimise energy consumption in telecom networks while maintaining business continuity and a high-quality user experience. The solution monitors and analyses key parameters such as server load and network traffic in real-time, dynamically adjusting computing resources like CPU frequency and sleep modes by utilising advanced deep neural networks.
The energy-saving approach has been successfully validated on both X86 and ARM cloud platforms, with notable results in China Mobile’s Hunan and Anhui branches, demonstrating up to a 25% reduction in energy consumption. As a result, the solution lowers operational costs through improved resource utilisation and reduced equipment maintenance and contributes to global sustainability efforts by reducing carbon emissions. Therefore, that technology represents a significant step toward transforming the telecom industry into a more energy-efficient, green sector as 4G and 5G networks expand.
Furthermore, China Mobile and ZTE are committed to further optimising and expanding their AI-driven Green Telco Cloud solution to promote long-term sustainability in the telecom sector. Through their collaboration, both companies emphasise the importance of technological innovation in achieving environmental goals while simultaneously enhancing telecom operators’ corporate image and competitiveness. Additionally, they plan to drive the widespread adoption of energy-saving technologies, ensuring that the telecom industry contributes to a greener, low-carbon future.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X is testing a free version of its AI chatbot, Grok, which was previously exclusive to premium subscribers. Over the weekend, reports surfaced from users and researchers indicating that some free accounts in regions like New Zealand now have access to the AI tool. While usage is capped to 10 queries every two hours for the Grok-2 model, this marks a significant expansion of the technology’s reach.
Grok, developed by Musk’s company xAI, launched earlier this year with advanced features like image generation and understanding, powered by Black Forest Labs’ FLUX.1 model. Previously available only to paying users, the decision to extend limited access to free users may reflect xAI’s strategy to grow its user base and improve feedback for refining its technology.
To use Grok for free, accounts must be at least seven days old and linked to a phone number. This move positions xAI to compete with AI giants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, while also potentially bolstering its valuation, which reportedly reached $40B in recent funding discussions. This test of free access could accelerate Grok’s development cycle and further establish xAI in the competitive AI market.
Universities across the EU and UK are set to introduce metaverse-based courses, where students can attend classes in digital replicas of their campuses. Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, announced the launch of Europe’s first ‘metaversities,’ immersive digital twins of real university campuses. With the help of Meta’s VR partner VictoryXR, students can explore campus grounds, work on projects, and participate in simulations from their VR headsets or PCs, offering a more interactive experience than traditional video calls.
Several institutions are embracing the metaverse: the UK’s University of Leeds started metaverse courses in theater this fall, while Spain’s University of the Basque Country will introduce virtual physiotherapy and anatomy classes by February 2025. In Germany, schools in Hannover will launch immersive classes by the start of the 2025 school year. VictoryXR, which has collaborated with over 130 campuses worldwide, sees these “digital twin” campuses as ideal for field trips, group experiments, and real-time assignments.
Meta has provided VR headsets to educators at numerous universities in the US and UK, including Imperial College London, to encourage innovative teaching in fields such as science and language arts. According to Meta, these metaversities mark a ‘significant leap forward’ in education, creating interactive and engaging learning environments.
AI companies, including OpenAI, are shifting away from the ‘bigger is better’ philosophy for training models. Instead, they are developing techniques that allow algorithms to ‘think’ in more human-like ways. These methods aim to address challenges such as massive energy consumption, hardware failures, and data scarcity that have hindered advancements in large language models.
OpenAI’s new model, o1, uses a technique called ‘test-time compute’, allowing it to consider multiple answers and choose the best option during use. This approach improves performance in complex tasks, like problem-solving and decision-making, without needing extensive pre-training. Noam Brown, an OpenAI researcher, revealed that even brief ‘thinking’ boosts the model’s capabilities significantly.
The industry-wide shift has broader implications for AI hardware, especially as Nvidia’s chips have been critical to AI training. Experts predict a move towards distributed cloud-based servers for inference tasks, potentially reshaping the demand landscape for chips. Prominent investors, such as Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, are monitoring these changes closely as they may impact investments in AI infrastructure.
Turkcell and ZTE have set a new European record by achieving the fastest 5G-Advanced speed of 32 Gbps during a trial in Istanbul on 5 November 2024. The groundbreaking milestone was made possible using ZTE’s advanced 1.6 GHz BW mmWave AAU, 64TR N78 AAU, and commercial CPE.
The significance of 5G-Advanced technology lies in its ability to offer faster data transmission, lower latency, and higher capacity, which will enable a wide range of applications, such as live broadcasting, extended reality (XR), ultra-HD video streaming, and ultra-low latency services. These advancements promise to provide users with an immersive audio-visual experience, setting a new standard for the digital landscape. The improved network capabilities will also open up new business opportunities, particularly in sectors like smart cities and autonomous vehicles, where high-speed connectivity is crucial.
Why does it matter?
That achievement underscores the strong collaboration between Turkcell and ZTE, which has been key to driving innovation in 5G technology. Both companies are committed to continuing their research and development efforts to expand the potential of 5G-Advanced. Their joint work aims to deliver smarter, more efficient, and more immersive user experiences, creating new opportunities for businesses and consumers in an increasingly digital world.
