Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Contributed Article

by Marc Tachelet, Director of the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA)

Since 2021, CEF-Digital has invested €615 million in 75 projects, spanning 18 EU countries and 10 overseas territories. These cables are strategic and critical assets, designed to:

• leverage private investment in European digital infrastructure;
• provide resilient high-speed coLnectivity to all EU citizens, including in the Outermost Regions and Overseas Countries and Territories; and
• ensure sovereignty of our backbone network, as well as the connections with key partner countries.

This year again, the CEF-Digital programme continues striving for these objectives, with two new calls for proposals open until 30 June 2026:

• A call (CEF-DIG-2026-GATEWAYS) with a substantial budget of €180 million has been launched to support the deployment or replacement of backbone networks – in particular submarine cables but also terrestrial backbone fibre networks and ground stations for satellite communications – that address security risks, vulnerabilities, and resilience in the EU core digital infrastructure.
• Additionally, a €20 million call (CEF-DIG-2026-SMART-CABLES) is open, aiming to enhance existing submarine telecommunications infrastructure with SMART (Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecommunications) capabilities. This initiative seeks to integrate sensors and other monitoring components measuring temperatures, detecting acoustic or other signals, and more, thereby collecting real-time ocean and seismic data as well as improving the monitoring functionalities of these critical communication networks.

Europe has a vision for the future which was exposed last year in the form of an EU Action Plan on Cable Security. One of its measures called on the European Commission to set up a group of experts from EU countries and the cybersecurity agency ENISA to identify the priority areas where the EU should focus to enhance our resilience, and where private investment alone may not be commercially viable. Last February, this work resulted in the publication of a list of Cable Projects of European Interest (CPEIs), together with the Cable Security Toolbox, which recommends a set of mitigation measures to address the identified risk scenarios based on threats, vulnerabilities, and dependencies. This is where we will focus our investment over the coming years.

Europe, like all other continents, needs to be agile and respond to the changing geopolitical situations. Some submarine cables connecting Europe have suffered multiple incidents in recent years, which has raised awareness regarding the criticality and vulnerability of submarine data cables.

With the mobilisation of all operators involved in this section, I am confident that, together, we can better coordinate our actions, address those threats, and ultimately enhance the resilience of all submarine cable infrastructures.

Marc Tachelet, the newly appointed Director of the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) is leading the EU’s ambitious investments in digital infrastructure through the CEF-Digital programme. Attending Submarine Networks EMEA for the first time, he will in his keynote address how Europe is determined to continue owning, securing, expanding and fixing its digital gateways.

You can find HaDEA at Stand 2 on the show floor at #SubNetsEMEA

The post Connecting Europe Facility Digital: For more resilience and security appeared first on Total Telecom.

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Press Release

The two operators join forces to launch a novel low-latency terrestrial route linking Peru and Brazil via Bolivia

Sparkle, one of the world’s leading global operators, and Entel Bolivia, Bolivia’s largest telecommunications company, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly commercialize the terrestrial route connecting the Pacific and Atlantic coasts through Bolivia. The agreement, signed today on the sidelines of the ITW 26 global telecommunications event, focuses on bringing to market a high-performance alternative to existing submarine routes, meeting growing demand for scalable and resilient connectivity across regional digital ecosystems.

Latin America’s digital entertainment sector continues to expand rapidly, with Brazil acting as a central hub for game development, content distribution, and hosting services. However, several areas in western South America still rely on long-distance submarine or indirect international routes to reach the Atlantic, resulting in suboptimal performance for cloud gaming, real-time streaming, financial services, IoT and AI-driven applications.

The Bio-Oceanic Digital Corridor leverages Bolivia’s geographic position to establish a direct terrestrial pathway spanning approximately 4,370 kilometers across Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. The route enables connectivity between Lima and São Paulo with latency reduced to below 60 milliseconds, compared to more than 120 ms on traditional submarine routes exceeding 12,000 kms. Rather than relying on fragmented routing architectures, the initiative introduces a unified terrestrial backbone designed to improve performance, route diversity and service resilience for regional and international traffic flows.

Under the MoU, Sparkle and Entel Bolivia will jointly commercialize the corridor, offering high-performance connectivity to gaming companies, ISPs, OTT platforms, digital service providers, and data centers across the region. A flexible commercial model will allow customers to access capacity through either partner, with revenue-sharing mechanisms to be defined in a subsequent agreement.

Entel Bolivia will contribute its terrestrial backbone infrastructure spanning national and cross-border segments, underpinned by a high-availability network comprising over 44,000 kilometers of fiber, advanced transmission technology, and a redundant architecture, connecting Lurín (Peru) with Puerto Quijarro (Bolivia) and multiple international interconnection points. Sparkle will manage the Brazilian segment from Puerto Quijarro to São Paulo. Together, the partners establish a high-capacity digital corridor designed to scale up to 60 Tbps, enabling diversified traffic flows between the continent’s two oceanic gateways.

The two companies will coordinate sales, operations, and maintenance activities, to ensure high levels of availability, security, quality of service, and route diversity at continental scale, thereby strengthening network resilience across South America.

“We are proud to collaborate with Entel Bolivia on this ambitious project, which reflects our shared vision to accelerate the region’s digital integration and support the growth of gaming, OTT services and cloud-based solution across Latin America” said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle.

“This initiative consolidates Bolivia’s position as a digital corridor in South America, enabling the efficient interconnection of the Pacific and Atlantic digital ecosystems, and unlocking new opportunities for the development of high-capacity digital services across the region,” added Jorge del Solar, General Manager of Entel Bolivia.

How is the international carrier industry changing in 2026? Join the discussion at Submarine Networks EMEA

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Press Release

LONDON, UK – The subsea cable industry’s most influential regional gathering, Submarine Networks EMEA, returns to the Business Design Centre in London from 27–28 May 2026. With over 1,250 senior leaders and 150 speakers, the 2026 edition comes at a pivotal moment as the industry navigates the increasing demands of AI and a complex global security landscape. 

AI and the subsea backbone  

Headlining this year’s event is the keynote panel exploring “How is AI shaping the subsea industry’s future?” This session will explore how the global surge in AI is fundamental altering subsea cable route planning and investment strategies. Featured on the panel is Thomas Hardy, Deputy Director of the US Trade and Development Agency, who will provide a crucial public sector perspective on how the drive to remain competitive in the AI era is shaping national digital infrastructure strategies. Deputy Director Hardy will be joined by speakers from Zayo Europe, Assured Communications, EXA Infrastructure, Equinix and Pioneer Consulting. 

Deep Dive: Subsea Security Summit & Expo  

New for 2026, the Subsea Security Summit, co-located with the main event, offers a dedicated theme of content focused on strategies for protecting the world’s most critical infrastructure. Key sessions for 2026 include: 

• Choosing the right technology to secure, protect and monitor subsea infrastructure: An evaluation of the latest in fibre sensing, AIS tracking, and satellite monitoring to prevent cable strikes and sabotage. 

• Assessing the risks to subsea cables and understanding the consequences: A strategic panel focused on identifying cable vulnerabilities, differentiating between the risks, and understanding the impact of faults and damage. 

The latest news on global subsea activity 

Back by popular demand are the News in Brief sessions, a series of quick-fire updates offering attendees a comprehensive snapshot of global cable projects, new connectivity hubs, and regional market shifts in a condensed, “need-to-know” format. 

Shaping the industry’s future 

This year, we are introducing Subsea Foundations content, with sessions specifically designed to support those who are new to the industry. These sessions will provide a high-level overview of any key aspects of the subsea sector, including legal and commercial, engineering, maintenance and regulation.  

Additionally, we are partnering with the SubOptic Association and the ESCA NextGen Subgroup to bridge the talent gap and will be featuring a dedicated networking event for early careers professionals, uniquely designed to match those starting out in their subsea careers with senior executives for mentorship and career guidance. 

Finally, we’re delighted to announce the SubOptic Foundation as our 2026 Charity Partner and will be supporting them with raising funds to continue their work to advance education, inclusion, and collaboration across the industry.  

“From the impact of AI to the evolving geopolitical landscape and its impact on cable protection and resilience, the 2026 programme reflects the shifting priorities of the submarine cable industry,” said Kerry Merritt, Head of Content at Total Telecom. “We’re really looking forward to the event next week which will bring the global subsea industry together in London for these essential conversations.” 

Registration is now open at https://www.terrapinn.com/conference/submarine-networks-world-europe/index.stm. 

About Submarine Networks EMEA Produced by Total Telecom, Submarine Networks EMEA is the region’s leading subsea connectivity event. It provides a platform for operators, investors, and technology partners to collaborate on the infrastructure that powers the global internet. 

Media Contacts: 

Kerry Merritt. Email: Kerry.Merritt@totaltele.com 

Halle Dockerill. Email: Halle.Dockerill@totaltele.com 

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News

The approval will provide EchoStar with a much needed windfall

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Space Bureau have granted approval to EchoStar to sell its spectrum to SpaceX and AT&T.

EchoStar agreed to sell 50MHz of spectrum in the 3.45GHz and 600MHz bands to AT&T for around $23 billion in August last year. This was followed in a month later by a $17 billion sale of 65MHz of AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licences to SpaceX.

AT&T, which is already using the spectrum in question to improve its network performance for mobile and fixed wireless access (FWA) customers under a licencing deal with EchoStar, will be required to accelerate its 600MHz network deployment.

SpaceX, on the other hand, has received FCC waivers that would allow it to use the spectrum for terrestrial, space-based, or hybrid services.

EchoStar’s spectrum saga, perhaps confusingly, has its origins in the 2020 merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.

As part of the deal’s regulatory conditions, EchoStar’s sister company Dish Mobile agreed to buy Sprint’s mobile virtual network operator Boost Mobile, pledging to become the fourth national mobile operator (MVNO). It soon became clear, however, that this was merely a pipe dream, with Dish failing to build the required network infrastructure and struggling under substantial debt.

Ultimately, this led to EchoStar merging with Dish in 2023, with the move largely seen as an attempt to balance the books for both companies. EchoStar was thus left with a large tranche of spectrum that it would struggle to use.

The spectrum sale, therefore, represents a significant financial lifeline for EchoStar. In September, EchoStar said it expects to hold around $24.1 billion in total cash after the deal, which it will use to repay debt.

Following the deal, EchoStar will still offer mobile services to customers via a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement with AT&T.

Keep up to date with all the latest news with the Total Telecom newsletter

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Podcasts

Robin Olds of Cisco Systems says ISPs need to think about different ways they can monetize networks. Here are some of his ideas

By Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Service providers should begin offering tiered levels of service to customers based on quality of service, according to Robin Olds, a senior business development manager at ⁠Cisco Systems⁠.

Speaking on our ⁠Beyond the Cable⁠ podcast at ⁠Connected America⁠, Olds said service providers could be doing a lot more, like offering network slicing and also lanes of performance traffic across their network that they can monetize.

He elaborated on that, pointing to current ISP pricing structures that are largely based on bandwidth speeds.

“Latency, jitter, packet loss, these are all things that they need to consider,” he said. “Additionally, they need to consider offering AI edge services to their enterprise accounts.”

At this moment, as federal dollars are pushing forward network development, Olds said it’s also a critical time for ISPs to think about what’s next.

Hear our interview with Robin Olds of Cisco Systems on Apple Podcasts

“Today the networks are all about connecting people,” he said, noting that networks of tomorrow will really be about connecting intelligence.

Moreover, he said he firmly believes AI has a serious role to play in the future of connectivity.

“Service providers are the first to really be able to roll that out to a lot of their consumers, and subscribers, and enterprise accounts,” he said.

Get this news in your inbox. Subscribe to the Broadband Communities newsletter!

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The post Beyond the Cable: How ISPs can better monetize networks appeared first on Total Telecom.

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News

The updated ESG strategy involves building greener networks and tackling digital exclusion

This week, Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has revealed its ‘Responsible Business Plan’, its ESG blueprint for the next half of the decade.

Much of this strategy is a continuation or amplification of existing initiatives that were central to the 2022–2025 ESG strategy, the Better Connections Plan, which focussed on progressing towards a zero-carbon future, a circular economy, connected communities, and ‘a better way to do business’.

The updated Responsible Business Plan has distilled this into a snappier quartet: climate, connection, control, and circularity.

For ‘climate’, VMO2 is reiterating its goal of Scope 3 net zero carbon emissions goal for 2040, which will largely be achieved by using clean energy and building more efficient networks.

For ‘connection’, the company says it will support 500,000 low-income households to stay connected by 2030 via its low-cost social tariffs and data and device partnerships with the charities Good Things Foundation and Hubbub. It ill

For ‘control’, VMO2 says it will provide a range of tools to help keep families safe online, as well as “doubling down” on fraud prevention and security measures. A dedicated digital wellbeing strategy is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Finally, for ‘circularity’, VMO2 is aiming to double both the number of people recycling unwanted devices and those buying refurbished devices by 2030. The operator also says it is preparing to “champion a device reuse culture in 30 cities by 2030”, including supporting partner programmes.

“Our Responsible Business Plan is more than a strategy – it’s how we do business. It’s built into every decision we make, how we treat our customers and employees, and the products and services we provide to people across the country,” said Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media O2. “Whether it’s cutting carbon and working towards net zero, helping even more low-income households stay connected, or giving technology a second life – Virgin Media O2 is committed to being a trusted business and a force for good in people’s lives.”

In short, the new strategy largely appears to be more of the same from VMO2, but that is no bad thing.

The previous Better Connections Plan delivered significant results, including cutting Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 63% against its 2020 baseline, recycling more than four million devices, and helping connect more than one million people experiencing digital exclusion.

Let’s hope the Responsible Business Plan achieves even more.

Keep up to date with all the latest news with the Total Telecom newsletter

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The post VMO2’s outlines new ‘Responsible Business Plan’ appeared first on Total Telecom.

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Press Release

Investors including Canalink, GUILAB, International Mauritania Telecom, Orange Group, Orange Côte d’Ivoire, Sonatel, Silverlinks, announce the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to initiate the Via Africa submarine cable project, confirming a shared ambition to develop international connectivity, to support traffic growth and to strengthen the resilience of networks across the African continent.

This brand-new system aims to connect Europe to South Africa — including landing points in the United Kingdom, France and Portugal — with destinations along the Atlantic coastline such as the Canary Islands, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, with extensions further south supporting increased connectivity diversity and improved resilience for countries along the route.

A consortium-based subsea infrastructure

The Via Africa system is managed as a consortium, enabling participating partners seeking autonomy and sovereignty to co-invest in the infrastructure and take part in its governance. This robust and proven model allows investors to participate directly in the decisions regarding the design, deployment and exploitation of the system and contribute to decisions that best meet their needs. The initial telco and digital player partners are open to additional partners potentially joining the project in the future.

Enhancing resilience and connectivity diversity across Africa

The new open cable project is designed to contribute to greater diversity and resilience of international connectivity serving Africa, by providing a different subsea route than existing infrastructure and strengthening the robustness of regional connectivity.

Next steps for the project

As part of the initial phase of the project, consortium members will jointly finance a cable route study to identify the optimal cable route that balances resilience, technical feasibility and overall economic efficiency.

In parallel, the consortium is preparing the procurement process for selecting a cable supplier, marking the next step in the development of the system.

The post Via Africa: Consortium announces new subsea cable project appeared first on Total Telecom.

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Press Release

New single voice communication layer reduces complexity and costs for multinational organisations as they evolve their AI-powered workplace collaboration strategies.

The post BT launches enterprise voice control service UC Edge appeared first on Total Telecom.

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News

The FCC is moving closer to banning the recognition of device testing labs and certification bodies in foreign nations without reciprocity agreements.

By Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

New rules being considered by the Federal Communications Commission could have big impacts on the future of electronic devices in the United States.

Under one of the rules, the FCC is considering banning the recognition of device testing labs in nations without a reciprocal trade agreement, an announcement from the agency said last month.

Labs not in compliance with the proposed rules would be phased out within two years if the rules are eventually adopted, the FCC said.

Conversely, the FCC also adopted rules that streamline the approval process for devices testing in U.S. labs or in nations with signed mutual trade agreements.

“The order would also adopt a range of other measures to promote the integrity of the equipment authorization system: require the disclosure of the location and number of employees engaged in FCC-recognized testing, improve the FCC’s post-market surveillance procedures, strengthen enforcement mechanisms, and establish confidential reporting channels for industry participants to raise concerns about violations or national security threats,” the FCC said.

The moves build upon the FCC’s efforts in March, when the agency placed foreign made routers on the FCC’s list of products deemed to pose unacceptable security risks.

Since adopting that rule, the FCC has since taken action to withdraw or deny recognition to, twenty-three facilities deemed “bad labs” by the agency, according to the FCC’s April 30 release.

At the time, the move was billed as in line with President Donald Trump’s strategy for national security, announced in 2025.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is due to visit China this week, with published reports saying he is set to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday.

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News

Niel has reduced his holding in the company to less than 0.1%

French billionaire Xavier Niel, owner of Iliad Group, has sold his roughly 6% stake in Belgian telco Proximus, according to a recent filing.

Assuming Proximus’s recent share price of €6.56, the deal would have netted Niel around €135 million.

Niel acquired his roughly 6% stake in the business in late 2023 via his Irish holding company Carraun, praising the operator’s networks and competitive positioning.

By 2025, reports suggested that Niel had proposed a shared ownership model with the Belgian government – Proximus’s largest stakeholder with around 53% ownership. According to those reports, this deal would have seen the government retain the chairmanship of the board, with Niel appointed CEO and given the possibility of increasing his stake in future.

The deal was ultimately rejected by the state, which was likely viewed the deal as something of a soft takeover.

For years, Niel had previously made no secrets of his ambitions to launch his challenger brand Free in the Belgium market, one of the most expensive telecoms markets in Europe. Responding to a 2024 post on X bemoaning the country’s high prices, Niel said he was all for it, saying “it’s your government that doesn’t want it” (translated).

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”fr” dir=”ltr”>Moi je suis chaud, c’est votre gouvernement qui veut pas <a href=”https://t.co/iwJ2QbXuhR”>https://t.co/iwJ2QbXuhR</a></p>&mdash; Xavier Niel (@Xavier75) <a href=”https://twitter.com/Xavier75/status/1979549525816594492?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>October 18, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js&#8221; charset=”utf-8″></script>

Now, with the Belgian government’s attitude seemingly unchanged, Niel has decided to turn his attention elsewhere. One such location is surely Chile, where Niel’s NJJ Holding teamed up with Millicom to purchase Telefónica’s local unit earlier in the year.

With Brussels unwilling to loosen its grip on the former incumbent, Niel appears to have concluded that Belgium’s telecom market remains easier to complain about than to crack.

Keep up to date with all the latest news with the Total Telecom newsletter

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The post Billionaire Xavier Niel offloads Proximus stake appeared first on Total Telecom.