Ericsson to sell iConnective to Koch to raise $1 billion
Ericsson will add about $1 billion to its coffers after agreeing to sell Iconnective, a U.S. subsidiary Ericsson bought as part of its acquisition of Telcordia in 2012, to Koch Equity Development.
Iconectiv may not be well known to the public, but it serves an important function: The company serves as the administrator for number portability in 10 countries, including the United States, and serves as the technology partner for the U.S. wireless communications industry association CTIA, as the administrator of the U.S. short code registry.
Additionally, iconectiv serves as the U.S. Secure Telephone Identity Policy Administrator (STI-PA) on behalf of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), helping to mitigate illegal robocalls.
However, Ericsson says its network number portability solutions and data exchange services currently have “limited strategic synergies with the rest of the Ericsson portfolio.”
iconectiv has been co-owned with private equity firm Francisco Partners since 2017. It currently serves over 5,000 clients across a range of sectors.
Cork Equity Development is the principal investment and acquisition arm of privately held Cork Group, and the company said the agreement to acquire iConnective underscores its “continued focus on investment in communications software and data services,” building on its 2021 acquisition of Transaction Network Services (TNS).
Nokia and TIM Brazil partner on 5G
Brazil’s multi-band 5G spectrum auction ended in November 2021, with mobile operators in the market set to begin offering 5G services the following year.
Like its rivals, TIM Brazil has been working on a widespread 5G rollout, launching its 5G network in July 2022. By September 2023, the company had built 7,590 locations covering about 45% of the population, according to TeleGeography.
By July 2024, TIM operated more than 8,000 antennas, covering 57% of the population of more than 350 cities.
The company is currently partnering with Nokia for 5G coverage expansion. The Finnish vendor announced that it has been selected by TIM Brazil to expand 5G radio access network (RAN) coverage to 15 Brazilian states from January 2025.
Nokia said the partnership will help expand the number of municipalities that can access 5G. Under the agreement, Nokia will supply a range of equipment from its 5G AirScale portfolio, including basebands, Massive MIMO radios, remote radio head products and ReefShark System-on-Chip technology.
TIM will also leverage Nokia’s intelligent MantaRay network management system with embedded AI capabilities for improved network monitoring and management. Additionally, Nokia will provide services such as digital deployment, optimization and technical support services.
TIM Brazil CTO Marco Di Costanzo said the agreement was “an important milestone in our long-standing partnership with Nokia.”
“We are focused on spreading these advancements to more Brazilians, which will provide new services to industry and consumers and consolidate TIM’s position as the leading 5G provider in Brazil based on the number of locations,” he added.
Bridge Alliance Partners with Singtel for GPU-as-a-Service
Bridge Alliance, a mobile alliance with 35 member mobile operators around the world, has recently been on an expansion path of sorts, first welcoming Deutsche Telekom into the alliance and then announcing a strategic partnership to offer SingTel’s GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) services to businesses across the region.
The latter partnership follows Singtel’s announcement in February that it would launch GPUaaS later this year, giving businesses access to NVIDIA’s AI computing power “enabling the adoption of AI at scale.”
As part of the agreement, Bridge Alliance member operators will have access to SingTel’s GPUaaS services, with Asian operators AIS, Maxis and Telkomsel having expressed interest in the service to meet growing demand for AI computing in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia respectively.
Singtel highlighted its experience bringing AI to the 5G edge in its 5G@Sentosa trial for Singapore government agencies. The operator’s Paragon platform orchestrated a multi-edge computing and NVIDIA GPU environment to enable customers to deploy 5G use cases at speed and scale.
Singtel Digital Infrastructure CEO Bill Chan said the Bridge Alliance and its work with regional telcos will “democratise and accelerate the use of AI for enterprises across all industries, empowering them with the tools to increase productivity and business value through our next-generation digital infrastructure and solutions.”
He added: “As more carriers deploy 5G network services, we believe this real-time AI service, leveraging low-latency GPUaaS at the 5G edge, will become a key growth driver for enterprise businesses.”
As for DT, its Deutsche Telekom IoT division has joined the Bridge Alliance as a member operator to support companies looking to expand their IoT business in Asian and European markets.
Turkcell trials Ericsson’s 5G Cloud RAN
Turkcell welcomed Ericsson’s recent trials of its 5G Cloud RAN technology, noting that it introduces new software capabilities and supports the company’s goal of incorporating an open RAN approach into its service management and orchestration (SMO) framework.
Turkish mobile operators will also be able to use rApps to improve their network management capabilities in both Cloud RAN and dedicated deployments, according to an Ericsson statement. Cloud RAN implementations will enable greater flexibility and agility, enabling new capabilities through centralized deployment, the partners said.
Turkcell’s chief network technology officer, Vehbi Cagli Güngör, said the test “contributes to strengthening Turkcell’s cloudification strategy for network operations” and “supports the transition to an open RAN network strategy and enhances the advanced connectivity experience we provide in Turkey.”
During the trial, Ericsson supplied the hardware and software and ran the demonstrations, test cases and performance evaluations.
The Swedish vendor’s Cloud RAN offering is described as a cloud-native solution that virtualizes RAN functions and decouples hardware and software. It was first released in Q4 2021.
The service has already been piloted and deployed by other carriers around the world, including Rogers and AT&T in Canada and O2 Telefonica in Germany.
New semiconductor factory opens in Europe
The European Commission has approved a 5 billion euro subsidy for the German government to help build and operate a microchip manufacturing plant in Dresden.
The project is being developed by the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), a joint venture between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Bosch., Infineon, NXP, etc.
According to the European Commission, the measure will strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and digital sovereignty in semiconductor technology, in line with the objectives set out in the EU Chip Act, which came into force in September 2023.
The company also said the facility “currently has no comparable mass production facility in Europe for the specific technological capabilities offered and will be the first of its kind in Europe.”
According to Reuters, the project, with a total cost of 10 billion euros, is the largest project ever approved under EU chip law and the first in Germany.
“It is also the first project in Europe for TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, and is expected to improve Europe’s resilience if there is another semiconductor shortage like the one experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the news agency added.
Reuters also noted that the factory will make a generation of chips that is slightly behind the cutting-edge technology used in AI chips and smartphones, but will also increase production capacity for automotive and other industrial uses.
ESMC will be capable of producing 40,000 300mm (12-inch) wafers per month based on TSMC’s 28/22-nanometer planar CMOS and 16/12-nanometer FinFET process technologies. The new facility is expected to create approximately 2,000 jobs.
Also worth noting is that…
Bouygues Telecom has been approved to acquire La Poste Telecom.
China Telecom reported increased profits in the first half of 2024.
China-based ZTE saw its core telecom equipment business shrink by 8.6% in the first half of 2024.
