Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Customers of Sky Broadband’s “superfast” (part-fibre) packages (FTTC or SOGEA), specifically those living in areas where Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines now exist from either Openreach or CityFibre’s networks, have started to receive Texts (SMS) and WhatsApp messages inviting them to upgrade to their Full Fibre 100Mbps (18Mbps upload) service “at no extra charge“.

So far as ISPreview can tell, the new programme appears to have started a few weeks ago, although it’s recently started to ramp-up with more invitations going out. We suspect it’s no coincidence that this is occurring shortly after Sky Broadband introduced support for CityFibre’s cheaper and faster network (here), which reaches around 4.5 million UK premises (Openreach’s FTTP covers 19 million). Sky also benefits from volume discounts when upgrading customers on to Openreach’s FTTP lines.

Suffice to say that it makes sense for Sky Broadband to upgrade customers to full fibre once it becomes available in an area (other providers, such as TalkTalk, have similar programmes). But doing so at scale often has to be carefully managed and phased over time to avoid over-stretching engineering resources.

The upgrades will naturally require an engineer’s visit to install the new line to your home, as well as an optical modem (ONT / ONU) and router (some customers will already have their latest router). But take note that vulnerable customers with incompatible telecare alarm systems won’t yet be able to take advantage of this programme.

Sky is home to somewhere around 5.5 to 5.7 million broadband customers and most of those will probably still be on part-fibre connections, which gives some indication as to the scale of such a programme and why it has to be carefully managed. But it’s also possible to request the upgrade directly, provided you’re in an area where FTTP is available from the aforementioned networks.

Customers who are successfully upgraded will usually not be able to move back to their old connection later (FTTC will eventually be retired), won’t pay more per month than they currently do, should retain their existing Sky Talk phone number (if you have one) and your existing contract term will NOT be changed (e.g. if you had 3 months left until end of term then that will stay the same).

Sky’s Full Fibre At No Extra Cost FAQ
https://www.sky.com/help/articles/full-fibre-broadband-at-no-extra-cost

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) and Neos Networks have today confirmed the completion of their £7.25m “GigaHubs” project, which has now connected 192 public sector sites (schools, hospitals etc.) to a new 1,500km long gigabit-capable full fibre broadband network.

Just to recap. Neos holds the contract for this, but they’re also partly acting as an aggregator, bringing together several connectivity suppliers — including Openreach, Virgin Media (Business) and alternative network ISP Gigaclear — to help build, manage and operate the new infrastructure (laying the foundations for a “smart county“).

The project, which is part of the GigaHubs (formerly Local Full Fibre Networks) scheme under the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme, first began in 2021 (here) and was previously due to be completed toward the end of 2024 (i.e. it took just a little longer than originally planned). Funding for the 20-year deal included a £5m investment from OCC, around £2m from Project Gigabit and, £250k from the Local Enterprise Partnership.

Some benefits of the new network have already been observed in communities where the new infrastructure is operational. For example, village halls and community centres are live-streaming events, meetings, clubs, and classes, to name a selection.

In addition to providing new full fibre broadband, the Digital Infrastructure Programme has also funded 3 years of paid internet access for the 55 community centres and village halls connected through the project. The OCC has ambitions to equip these community and village halls to become ‘community hubs’, offering enhanced services, health and social care support, and reducing the need for people to travel further afield to access vital public services.

Craig Bower, Digital Connectivity Programme Director, said:

“The completion of the GigaHubs project marks a significant milestone in our mission to enhance digital connectivity across Oxfordshire. By providing gigabit-capable broadband to 192 public service sites, we have not only improved the quality of services offered at these locations but also stimulated further commercial investment in rural areas. This project exemplifies our commitment to digital inclusion and community development.”

David Bruce, CRO at Neos Networks, said:

“We’re delighted to have played a pivotal role in Oxfordshire’s GigaHubs project, which has empowered schools, GP practices, libraries, and other community hubs with fast and reliable gigabit-capable broadband. The collaboration has allowed us to use our expertise and relationships to deliver real public good and support the council’s vision for a smarter, more connected Oxfordshire. This project should serve as a blueprint for other local authorities seeking to bridge the digital divide support community development”.

The project has also allowed the migration from expensive leased line services to direct fibre internet services for council buildings. This has both improved connectivity performance while achieving a saving of £69,619.08 a year on connectivity costs for the council.

The new fibre isn’t just about serving public sector sites, since the new footprint of rural infrastructure that it creates can also help to incentivise other broadband operators to connect surrounding premises to faster speeds (usually requires a separate private investment). This seems to have played a role in Gigaclear’s Project Gigabit contract win in the county during late 2023 (here).

Finally, the OCC has secured a £20,000 social value contribution under the deal, which has been used to purchase 30 public computers – these have been allocated to the Oxford Westgate Library, Cowley Library, and Abingdon Library.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Alternative UK network provider Wildanet has announced that they’ve now built their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband service to an additional 10,000 premises in rural Cornwall. The effort forms part of the three contracts they hold with the government’s wider £5bn Project Gigabit programme, which are worth £77m (state aid).

At present Wildanet holds the following Project Gigabit contracts: Cornwall Central (Lot 32.03), South West (Lot 32.02) – both awarded in January 2023 (here) – and the Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (Lot 32) contract – awarded in April 2024 (here). The three contracts combined are worth £77m and should help to extend gigabit-capable broadband to over 37,000 additional premises in the county.

A total of 10,000 premises have now been covered in the first two phases of this project across 33 separate build areas in South West and Mid-Cornwall. Wildanet is also marking the start of the third major phase of work, with the installation of new infrastructure now under way in East Cornwall.

The contracted build has thus so far delivered more than 2,500km of new fibre cable, some 159km of physical infrastructure installation and civil engineering work, and a total of 1,622 new chambers have also been constructed.

Telecoms Minister, Chris Bryant, said:

“This is a landmark moment for Cornwall as we celebrate connecting 10,000 homes and businesses to fast, reliable broadband through Project Gigabit, transforming lives across the county.

Cornwall’s beautiful but challenging landscape has meant that people in rural communities have had to put up with painfully slow internet for too long. This milestone marks a step-change in how we’re delivering our commitment to boost connectivity across Britain, ensuring that geography is no barrier to the greater opportunities and growth that this Government’s Plan for Change is all about.”

Justin Clark, Wildanet Chief Strategy & Technology Officer, said:

“Reaching 10,000 live connections is a fantastic milestone for Wildanet and for the communities we are connecting across Cornwall. Providing reliable, high-speed broadband to rural and underserved areas is at the heart of our mission and fundamental to future wellbeing, social inclusion and economic opportunities in Cornwall.

I want to thank those local communities for their understanding while we undertake this important infrastructure project for Cornwall and to recognise the dedication and commitment of the entire Wildanet team, the support of Project Gigabit and the expertise of our partners in all that we have achieved to date.

As we continue to expand our network across Cornwall, we are excited to deliver the digital infrastructure that will drive economic growth and improve quality of life for even more homes and businesses throughout the county, both now and for many years to come.”

The provider also recently launched a new 2Gbps broadband package for £85 per month on a 24-month minimum term, although it’s worth noting that this is not a symmetric service and thus upload speeds are limited to 400Mbps (hardly a major issue). The service also includes unlimited data usage and free installation. Cheaper and slower package options are also available.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Hull-based incumbent broadband provider KCOM, which has built a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across large parts of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, has named three more winners for their Digital Inclusion Grants – worth a combined £20k. A total of £100,000 has so far been paid out to related projects since the scheme started.

The grant scheme, which is currently still due to run until the end of 2026, is designed to help promote online inclusion, build stronger communities, connect generations and help boost digital skills and awareness across KCOM’s operating region.

The winners of this round of grants include ‘Run With It’, the ‘Humber Wellbeing Hub CIC’ and ‘Pickering & Ferens Homes’. The first organisation, ‘Run With It’, helps thousands of youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds learn valuable IT skills and will use its £5,000 grant to update IT equipment and improve digital literacy.

Meanwhile, the ‘Humber Wellbeing Hub CIC’ will spend its £5,000 grant on creating an interactive digital booklet, which aims to help individuals understand and manage the mental health impact of major life events such as bereavement, job loss and transitions to adulthood.

Finally, ‘Pickering & Ferens Homes’ plans to create a smart technology enabled flat with its £10,000 grant to help support those who would normally struggle to be independent, reducing the need for premature moves to residential care and reliance on health and social care services.

Louise Babych, KCOM Community Impact Partner, said:

“Our three latest Digital Grant winners all do brilliant work to improve digital inclusion; empowering local communities to make the most of everyday online opportunities.

From Run With It’s programmes to teach kids valuable IT skills through the power of sport, to Humber Wellbeing Hub CIC’s scheme offering online support for wellbeing and Pickering & Ferens’ plans to enable independent living for the elderly using smart technology, these are great schemes that will improve local lives for the better.”

The window for the next round of grant applications is now open until the end of August 2025 – see here.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Customers of broadband and phone provider Virgin Media (O2), specifically those who take their pay TV service and continue to use one of the provider’s legacy TiVo set-top-boxes, have recently been informed – via email – that the BBC’s popular iPlayer service “will no longer be supported” from 23rd July 2025. But it’s not all bad news.

The move (CordBusters) is hardly a surprise given the ever-advancing age of Virgin Media’s TiVo hardware (we suspect it may be the BBC that’s ending support, rather than Virgin), which first launched in 20211 and has already lost a number of features and content over the past few years. The box is now slowly grinding its way toward complete retirement, and new features tend to only launch on their more modern boxes like Stream.

The good news for the small number of TiVo TV customers affected by this is that Virgin Media are offering a free upgrade to their TV360 platform (pictured), which still supports iPlayer. Customers can of course choose to ignore this offer and the TiVo box will continue to work (even if iPlayer will probably cease to function), but the reality is that it’s only a matter of time until the TiVo box itself meets its end.

A Virgin Media spokesperson told ISPreview:

“We have written directly to the small proportion of customers with a TiVo box, who have used BBC iPlayer within the past six months, to inform them that their box will not support iPlayer from 23 July. As we have previously communicated directly to relevant customers, anyone with a TiVo box is able to upgrade to a new Virgin TV 360 box at no extra cost.”

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Press Release

Leading network infrastructure provider Zayo Europe has deployed Ciena’s optical technology to launch a new German network covering 3,000km of fibre across 8 core domestic metros including Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Berlin. The network also extends to a 14th key hub across the border in Strasbourg, France.

With Ciena’s Reconfigurable Line System (RLS) and WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) solutions, Zayo Europe can now offer universal 400G wave services across key German markets, with the scope to scale to 800G and 1.6Tb/s in the future as required. This will enable Zayo Europe’s customers to meet the rising data demands driven by increased AI adoption and cloud usage.

“Germany is a key strategic market for Zayo Europe, and with the EU pushing to advance AI capabilities across the continent, there’s a pressing need for networks within Germany that can support these new workloads. Our approach to service delivery, utilising the latest generation optical networking technology powered by Ciena, enables us to provide our customers with ultra-low latency connectivity and unparalleled support for AI and cloud services.” said Colman Deegan, CEO, Zayo Europe.

“There’s a growing need for high-capacity networks across Germany to meet the demands of an increasingly digital economy. As a Carrier Managed Services partner leveraging Ciena optical technology, Zayo Europe can offer differentiated wavelength services across its entire European footprint, including key long haul routes across Germany.” said Virginie Hollebecque is Vice President and Leader of EMEA at Ciena.

Ciena’s WL6e is the industry’s first high-bandwidth coherent transceiver using state-of-the-art 3nm silicon to drive significant economic benefits for operators, including a 50% reduction in space and power per bit. Ciena’s 6500 RLS is a compact, simple-to-deploy, photonic layer solution that improves scalability, reduces footprint, and offers more flexibility and programmability.

How is the German connectivity market changing in 2025? Join the discussion at Connected Germany 2025 live in Munich 

Also in the news:
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Nokia launches digital twin platform Enscryb to digitalise energy sector

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Interview

Netcracker’s Head of Strategy and Marketing, Sue White, discusses why telcos’ rapid adoption of Agentic AI must not risk compromising their operational integrity

As expected, the evolution of AI was one of the major themes at this year’s DTW conference in Copenhagen, with discussions moving swiftly from Generative AI to Agentic AI. This change – allowing AI agents to go beyond recommending solutions to taking action autonomously – potentially represents a major paradigm shift for how telcos operate, but only if they can embrace the technology at scale.

But while echoes of the ‘move fast and break things’ philosophy of Big Tech evangelists were certainly present in these AI discussions, so too were voices promoting a more measured approach – after all, an AI agent’s mistake within a telco network could potentially impact millions of customers.

Sue White, Netcracker’s Head of Strategy and Marketing, was one such voice.

“Ultimately, you have to be disciplined and balance autonomy with oversight,” said White, speaking at the event. “That doesn’t mean you can’t move with speed, but it means you don’t let AI Agents loose on areas of your business that are mission critical until you’re certain they will deliver the correct responses. And you have to ensure you’re protecting the rights and identity of your customers throughout the process.”

Step by step: Building a multi-agent framework

For White, the implementation of Agentic AI naturally begins with simpler tasks within the business, with the AI agent given access only to specific tools, data pools and with limited ability to action requests.

“What we’re deploying first are agents that have a fairly limited scope to ensure the tasks they do are correct and the agents are stable,” said White. “You can begin with a high level of human oversight and then reduce this oversight as you build up trust. If you make the use case too broad initially, there is more chance for the LLM to hallucinate.”

From here, the number of AI agents can be steadily increased across the business, each specialised around a specific part the business, from agents assisting call centre operators to those supporting engineers during network outages. The result is a broad tapestry of AI agents, each trusted to act within a limited remit.

“You might have a billing agent that is able to understand everything about a customer’s bill, another agent that can look into users’ tariff plans, another for troubleshooting, and then a master agent that coordinates between them,” explained White. “Initially it’s about having agents across the business – whether it’s customer-facing or internal – that solve a limited number of tasks and then allowing these agents to talk to each other for more complex use cases.”

“Eventually, these agents will start peering with each other, but we need good governance in place for that,” she added.

Checks and balances

Of course, orchestrating a myriad of bespoke agents comes with significant complexity. Each agent is potentially drawing data from different parts of the telco business and leveraging different AI models, potentially creating challenges around data privacy and security.

“It is absolutely crucial that we do not to give public models access to proprietary telco systems,” said White. “This is where new frameworks and technologies are coming in place, like the MCP (model context protocol).”

The MCP is an open standard, open-source framework introduced by Anthropic in November 2024 to standardize the way AI integrate and share data with external tools, systems, and data sources. It includes various specifications for data sharing across different platforms, allowing enterprises to deploy local MCP servers to act as a secure intermediary between AI models and secure data.

“This becomes incredibly important in the business because you’re basically grounding the model in the information it can access,” explained White. “You’re saying for this particular request, here’s the instructions and here’s a way get this data that will allow you to solve the problem, but you’re only allowed to use these selected systems.”

In addition to building frameworks for how these agents interact with data and with each other, White also stressed that telcos need to be careful with exactly how their customers’ data is exposed.

“You have to build in access controls. You have to obfuscate any information that’s sensitive to the customer, so if an agent gets billing data, for example, it can’t be tied to the customer,” she said.

Part of the challenge here is the sheer breadth of data available to telcos, with many struggling to successfully pull together data from many disparate sources. Perhaps ironically, AI itself could be the solution here too, cleaning up messy data, formatting it for easier access by agents, and anonymising sensitive customer information.

Enormous potential

While it is undeniably still early in the telecoms industry’s journey of Agentic AI adoption, real-world examples of its use are already emerging, generating major efficiencies as a result.

“We’re already seeing agents being used on both the front end and the back end of telco businesses. In the case one of our US customers, they have a digital assistant that can query really complex invoices with thousands and thousands of lines. These documents would have would have taken people days to sift through and compare, but with our AI agents it can be done very quickly,” White explained. “Equally, we have agents that can take a complex business requirement document and build a new offer for a B2B customer. It will ask you for any information its missing and then go and configure this new offer in the catalogue. You can do in an instant something that would have taken weeks to gain approval.”

As telcos accelerate their adoption of Agentic AI, the path forward demands a delicate balance between innovation and responsibility. By building trust through careful, stepwise implementation—starting with limited scopes and strong human oversight—telcos can harness AI’s transformative potential without compromising customer privacy or network integrity. Ultimately, the future belongs to those operators who embrace AI not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a strategic partner built on transparency and trust.

For more information about Netcracker’s Agentic AI capabilities, visit the website

Also in the news:
US judge rules Huawei must face charges of fraud and racketeering
Optus ditches football rights to focus on telecoms
Nokia launches digital twin platform Enscryb to digitalise energy sector

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network testing firm Ookla, which collects data from consumers via their popular broadband Speedtest.net service, has published their Q1-Q2 2025 (H1) study into the speed of 5G based mobile broadband networks across the United Kingdom. The results reveal that Three UK continues to hold the top spot, followed by merger partner Vodafone.

The catch here is that mobile broadband performance can be a very difficult thing to pin down because related users are always moving through different areas (indoor, outdoor, underground etc.), using different devices with different capabilities and the surrounding environment is ever changeable (weather, trees, buildings etc.). And that’s before we consider the other issues, such as network capacity and varying spectrum use at different cell sites.

Nevertheless, Ookla used data collected from 379,025 samples (users) and 2,188,229 speedtests, conducted across the UK, to identify the best performing 5G mobile operator. This saw Three UK come top with a “Speed Score” of 55.17, median average download speeds of 227.77Mbps and median upload speeds of 13.07Mbps.

Just to be clear, Ookla’s Speed Score is produced using data from various metrics, including the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles of download and upload throughput and loaded latency. Different aspects of these have different weightings in the final score, for example, download speed is most relevant (70%) to the end result, while upload speed counts for 20% of the weighting and latency just 10%.

Take note that if you’re a fan of fast-paced online multiplayer games, for example, then you might well put more emphasis on uploads and latency times than this study does.

Fastest UK Mobile Operators by Speed Score – H1 2025

1. Three UK 55.17

2. Vodafone 45.04

3. EE (BT) 38.46

4. O2 (Virgin Media) 31.13

The results will naturally change as Three UK and Vodafone slowly bring their respective networks together following the recent merger, which is now in the process of creating a single network under the VodafoneThree brand. But this will require the new company to strike a careful balance between the desire for cost efficiency and performance, which may well result in some positive and possibly also a few negative changes to network performance, depending upon where you live.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Internet provider Sky Broadband has today gone fully live via CityFibre’s growing Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based home broadband network. The change is being launched alongside a new Wi-Fi 7 router (“Gigafast+ Hub“) and two new packages – Full Fibre 2.5 Gigafast+ (2.5Gbps) and Full Fibre 5 Gigafast+ (5Gbps).

The agreement with CityFibre was first officially revealed in August 2024 (here) and this finally progressed to the customer pilot phase in May 2025 (here). But it’s taken the ISP this long to introduce the new network and packages because they’ve had to get all of their systems, support and services ready to cater for the added complexity of working with two different networks (Previously, Sky only sold packages via Openreach’s network).

As previously reported, ISPreview has long expected Sky Broadband to benefit from the new partnership with CityFibre by virtue of the fact that they would be able to launch faster (symmetric speed) and more competitively priced full fibre broadband packages into areas currently covered by the operator. Today’s announcement confirms this.

The 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps speed packages will be delivered by Sky’s new cylindrical Gigafast+ Hub, which leverages tri-band WiFi 7 technology (Sky says it is “capable of delivering speeds twice as fast as WiFi 6“) and has been developed in collaboration with parent Comcast. The router also features 2 x 10Gbps Ethernet ports (1 x WAN and 1 x LAN) and “optimises internet traffic to avoid congestion between connected devices in the home“, although we’ve yet to be sent a detailed spec sheet (a request has been made).

Prices start at £70 a month for Full Fibre 2.5 Gigafast+ and £80 a month for Full Fibre 5 Gigafast+ with the WiFi Max add-on available “at no extra cost” (worth from £4 a month). The latter guarantees WiFi coverage in every room or money back (you also get better security, parental controls, device priority, convenient engineer visits and back-up Sky Mobile data for unplanned outages).

The new packages can be purchased today in Sky stores and via Sky’s call centres, as well as online by all eligible customers via Sky.com from the 15th July 2025 (you’ll also be able to get it in Curry’s stores “soon“).

Sophia Ahmad, Chief Consumer Officer at Sky, said:

“We’re proud to be setting a new standard in UK broadband. With speeds up to 5 Gbps, our new Full Fibre Gigafast+ packages make Sky the UK’s fastest major broadband provider. Combined with our existing full fibre range, we’re offering more choice than ever before. Powered by cutting-edge WiFi 7 technology, these plans deliver smarter, faster, and more reliable connectivity to homes across the country.”

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“Sky is making the most of CityFibre’s full fibre network to offer its customers fast and reliable Multi-Gig speeds and an outstanding online experience. This partnership is bringing more choice and better broadband to millions of homes on CityFibre’s nationwide, growing network – vital for how people live today and helping to deliver a healthy, competitive market for the long-term.”

Just to be clear. CityFibre are also supporting Sky’s slower FTTP broadband packages and the prices of those remain roughly aligned with those on the Openreach side of Sky’s network, much as they have been through the pilot phase too. Cityfibre’s tiers are still a bit cheaper, as well as being faster, at wholesale than Openreach’s and so Sky’s revenues may benefit.

At present Openreach can’t match CityFibre’s speeds, although they do appear to have plans for symmetric speeds of up to 3.3Gbps via their new XGS-PON based FTTP network (here). But the operator has yet to begin customer pilots of the new tiers, and the service itself doesn’t currently seem likely to launch (commercially) for ISPs until later in 2026.

The announcement of Sky’s partnership with CityFibre going live also means that the latter should imminently be about to follow it with confirmation of a new £2bn+ funding deal (mix of debt and equity). CityFibre will use this to continue their operations and fuel another round of network consolidation, with several more altnets expected to be acquired in the next few months.

The launch may of Sky’s new products may of course worry Openreach, which has previously worked hard to keep Sky Broadband on their side (the earlier Equinox discounts on FTTP may have played a role in that effort). The operator now risks losing more market share to alternative networks and at an increasingly rapid pace.

However, the growing competition could also make it easier for the BT Group to argue with Ofcom that Openreach should be allowed to respond with greater FTTP discounts or softer regulation, which may become a factor in the current Telecoms Market Review (TAR) process.

UPDATE 10:13am

We’ve managed to get a few more specs for Sky’s new router, which we’re told is currently ONLY available to those taking out Sky’s new 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps packages via CityFibre.

Gigafast+ hub features

WiFi 7 Tri-band (802.11be)
2.4GHz (gigahertz)
5GHz
6GHz

Interfaces

Ethernet
1 x 10 GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) WAN (Wide Area Network) Port
4 x LAN Ports (Local Area Network)
1 x 10 GbE LAN
3 x 1 GbE LAN

Voice
Single RJ-11

Dimensions
125mm x 241mm (W x H)

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

A report from the Sydney Morning Herald says that the job cuts will be felt “across the board”

Today, media reports suggest that Australian telco Telstra is preparing to cut “hundreds” of jobs in the coming week.

The report, quoting anonymous sources, suggests that the cuts will be made across the business as part of ongoing cost cutting measures.

The news should come as little surprise. Telstra has been under increasing pressure from investors to cut costs in recent years, with inflation and energy costs cutting into the company’s bottom line. Last year the company cut 2,800 workers in an effort to save up to A$350 million, noting at the time that more job cuts

The financial pressures on Telstra come at a time when the company is increasingly leaning into AI to streamline its operations. Earlier this year, the company announced its ‘Connected Future 30’ strategy, aiming to greatly increase the company’s usage of AI by the end of the coming decade.

“We will embrace AI, as every business will need to, and we expect the pace of change over the next five years to be extraordinary,” said CEO Vicki Brady at the strategy announcement earlier this year.

As part of this transformation process, Brady said that more jobs would likely be at risk due to “AI efficiencies”.

“We don’t know precisely what our workforce will look like in 2030, but it will be smaller than it is today,” she said.

In contrast to these staffing cuts, Telstra’s willingness to bet on the long-term efficacy of AI is clear to see. Earlier this year, the company announced the creation of an AI joint venture (JV) with Accenture, into which it will invest A$100 million annually for the next seven years. The business will reportedly help the operator in modernising its data and AI platforms, as well as capitalising on emerging AI use cases, like AI agents.

Telstra says its ultimate goal is to “rationalise” its roster of AI vendor partners, reducing its data and AI suppliers from 18 companies to just the Accenture JV and a similar JV with Australian AI firm Quantium.

As of December 2024, Telstra had around 31,000 full time employees.

How is AI changing the telecoms landscape in 2025? Keep up to date with all the latest developments with the Total Telecom newsletter

Also in the news:
US judge rules Huawei must face charges of fraud and racketeering
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Nokia launches digital twin platform Enscryb to digitalise energy sector