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News

Reuters is reporting that Verizon’s new CEO plans to cut 15,000 jobs at the company, reducing non-union management ranks by a fifth

By Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

A report from Reuters last week said Verizon could cut 15,000 jobs as early as this week.

The report, published last Thursday, cited an unnamed source who was named as familiar with the matter.

The cuts would cut Verizon’s non-union management workforce by over 20%, the report stated.

Additionally, Reuters reported that Verizon plans to turn 180 of their retail stores into franchise operations.

While Verizon did not comment on the matter, Reuters reported, Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said last month that he plans to turn the provider into a leaner and scrappier business.

Schulman was named as CEO in October.

Currently, Verizon operates largely in the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

Last year, Verizon announced its intention to cut around 4,800 jobs as part of wider restructuring. The “voluntary separation program” impacted US-based management positions, reducing the company’s 105,400-strong workforce by around 4.5 percent.

In total, the company has had to reduce its headcount by around 34,000 since 2018.

Verizon – alongside its competitors AT&T and T-Mobile – has been attempting to slimline its workforce for a number of years now, citing a highly competitive marketplace and a struggle for organic growth.

In 2023, Verizon scrapped over 6,600 jobs, with a large number of these jobs reportedly being shifted oversees.

It should be noted, however, that Verizon is not tightening the purse strings across the board – in fact, quite the opposite.

In 2024, Verizon signed a deal to purchase fiber network operator Frontier Communications for $9.6 billion.

The deal is the largest in Verizon’s history, adding around 2.2 million broadband subscribers to its footprint in 25 states.

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Network access provider Openreach (BT) is to introduce an interesting new special offer for UK ISPs, which proposes to waive the cancellation charges for their high-capacity Ethernet Access Direct (EAD) and Dark Fibre (DFA/X) products, albeit only where related orders are now “over 100 days old” (excluding delays caused by customers themselves).

The connection charge for EAD products can typically be quite hefty, often costing several thousand pounds, although this can vary a lot depending upon the specific product chosen and the impact of certain special offers. This is relevant because those who need to cancel an EAD order often need to pay back a significant percentage of this charge.

However, situations can sometimes arise where EAD and DFA/X orders may take a lot longer to provision than normally expected, such as due to issues with engineering surveys, the need for unforeseen groundworks, the absence of key infrastructure or a requirement for third-party permissions that is not forthcoming in a timely fashion etc.

Interestingly, Openreach has now announced that they will launch an “aged order cancellation amnesty” for those that are now over 100 days old, such as where customers optionally decide they don’t want to wait any longer (i.e. the order is “unwanted“). This will run between 18th December 2025 and 30th January 2026, although “any ECC charges already incurred will still apply, ensuring fairness and preventing misuse“.

Openreach Briefing

Openreach will waive the cancellation charges (“Waived Cancellation Charges”) for any inflight Order for EAD, DFA, or DFX Service provision that are at least 100 Working Days old from the date on which the Order was Processed, excluding any customer delays (“Eligible Orders”) that are cancelled by the Communications Provider between 18 December 2025 and 30 January 2026 (“Special Offer period”).

Waived Cancellation Charges will:

b) be provided by way of a rebate made by Openreach in the next billing cycle following the cancellation of the Eligible Order;

c) not include any Excess Construction Charges (ECCs) associated with the Eligible Order that have already been incurred and which, for the avoidance of doubt, shall remain payable by the Communications Provider.

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A new report from the GSMA, which represents over 1,000 mobile operators and related businesses across the world, has warned that the next generation of 6G networks will require up to three times more mid-band radio spectrum to keep pace with surging data demands, AI-powered services and next-gen digital applications.

The notion of mobile operators demanding more spectrum frequency isn’t anything new, and it’s well known that mobile operators prize mid-band spectrum, which typically reflects the radio bands between 1GHz to 6GHz. Such bands offer a nice and economically friendly balance between network coverage and mobile broadband performance.

The problem for mobile operators, governments and regulators alike is that they’re not the only ones using it. Various services from fixed wireless links to satellite, WiFi and other systems also have a claim over quite a bit of the same spectrum. Some parts of this, such as the Upper 6GHz band (6425 to 7125MHz), remain a key battleground between WiFi vendors and mobile operators.

Naturally, there’s plenty of spectrum to be found at higher frequencies than 1-6GHz, but those tend to result in signals that can carry a lot of data but which are very weak and don’t travel far or penetrate their coverage into buildings. The only way to mitigate that is by building a much denser and more expensive network, which is often not economically viable.

Suffice to say, it’s no big surprise to see the GSMA’s new report – ‘Vision 2040: Spectrum for the Future of Mobile Connectivity‘ – calling for mobile operators to be handed more mid-band spectrum. Particularly given how the next 6th Generation of mobile technology will be capable of even faster speeds, potentially reaching theoretical peak data rates of up to 1Tbps (Terabits per second) – shared bandwidth.

Key Findings

➤ By 2040, the study forecasts: 

• More than 5 billion 6G connections, around half of all mobile connections globally
• 4G and 5G will remain essential, with around 2 billion 4G and 3 billion 5G connections still in use 

➤ Global mobile traffic to reach up to 3,900 ExaBytes per month by 2040 

Based on the study’s demand scenarios, global mobile traffic is forecast to reach: 

• 1,700 EB/month in the low-growth scenario 
• 3,900 EB/month in the high-growth scenario 

This equates to 140–360 GB (GigaBytes) per mobile connection per month by 2040. 

Traffic growth will be driven by continued 5G adoption, increasing numbers of “power users”, and new 6G-enabled applications including XR, integrated sensing and autonomous systems. The 10% of mobile users that generate 60–70% of total traffic today will increase over time, and the report notes this level of usage will become “normal behaviour” by 2040. 

➤ Urban areas produce 83% of traffic but only represent 5% of global land area 

The study finds that spectrum needs are determined by traffic in the densest urban zones: 

• 83% of mobile traffic occurs in urban areas 
• Those areas account for just ~5% of geographic territory 
• Traffic density is 9× higher in very dense urban areas than other urban zones 
• …and almost 700× higher than rural areas 

These concentrations are where mid-band capacity becomes critical. 

➤ 2–3 GHz of mid-band spectrum needed globally by 2035–2040 

Taking into account projected traffic, expected improvements in spectral efficiency and modelling of dense urban capacity, the study concludes: 

• Global average needs:2–3 GHz of mid-band spectrum 
• Higher-demand countries (the top 50%): 5–4 GHz 
• Most countries today have ~1 GHz identified for mobile use 
• Therefore, an additional 1–3 GHz may be required to meet 6G-era demand 

➤ 2 GHz needed by 2030 to avoid congestion 

The analysis warns that if only 1 GHz of mid-band spectrum is available: 

• Cities with over 50% of the world’s urban population will be capacity-constrained by 2030 (the beginning of the 6G deployment cycle) if mid-band spectrum remains at today’s levels. 

In order to thus “prevent a decline in user experience“, the report stresses that 2GHz of mid-band spectrum must be operational by 2030. It also identifies several key candidate mid-bands under for future mobile use, including 8–4.2GHz (200–400 MHz), 4–4.99GHz (400–600 MHz), Upper 6 GHz (+700 MHz) and 7.125–8.4GHz: (600–1,275 MHz).

“The GSMA notes that each band has existing incumbents, meaning long-lead-time planning is essential for analysing spectrum use and release, device ecosystem development and global harmonisation,” which does rather assume that regulators will acquiesce to such demands.

John Giusti, Chief Regulatory Officer at GSMA, said:

“This study shows that the 6G era will require three times more mid-band spectrum than is available today. Satisfying these spectrum requirements will support robust and sustainable connectivity, deliver digital ambitions and help economies grow. I hope this report provides useful insights to governments as they strive to meet the connectivity needs of their citizens in the coming decade.”

The reality is that mobile operators are starting to run up against the hard and unavoidable truth of finite spectrum resources, but we certainly can’t blame them for pressing the point, and ultimately such decisions will be up to governments and regulators.

Now is certainly a crucial time for everybody to begin planning as they negotiate future mobile bands ahead of the WRC-27 treaty conference in 2027. But at the same time, regulators are unlikely to give them everything they want, and we suspect that there may also be various compromises, such as Ofcom’s proposal for WiFi and Mobile operators to share the Upper 6GHz band (here).

However, even if mobile operators were to get everything they want, there will still come a point in the future where network densification becomes unavoidable to overcome the inherent limitations of low and mid-band spectrum resources. But that will be expensive.

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The Government’s Building Digital UK agency has today published their November 2025 update on the delivery progress of contracts that have been awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, which among other things reveals that some 167,770 contracted premises (up from 150.7k in Oct 2025) have been covered out of a planned total of 1,002,210.

Just to be clear. The figures in this update are not directly comparable to the figures published in BDUK’s general statistics releases. Today’s report tracks the number of contracted premises to which the supplier has delivered a subsidised gigabit-capable connection, whereas the official statistics report on the number of premises that have received a gigabit-capable connection as a result of any public BDUK subsidy (i.e. that covers other schemes too, like vouchers etc.).

At present over 88% of UK premises can already access a gigabit-capable network (here) and Ofcom separately forecasts that this could reach between 91-97% by January 2028 (here). Most of this has been delivered by commercial deployments (predominantly focused on urban and semi-urban areas), but there are some areas in the final 10-20% of premises that are simply too expensive for commercial providers to tackle.

Project Gigabit was originally established in 2021 to help extend broadband ISP networks capable of delivering download speeds of at least 1000Mbps (1Gbps) to achieve “nationwide” coverage (c.99%) by 2030 2032 (here) – focusing on the commercially unviable areas (usually rural and semi-rural locations). The project has already committed most of its budget up to 2030, but there are still some contracts yet to be awarded and others that have been scaled-back or switched suppliers (here, here, here and here).

At this point it’s worth remembering that all of the listed contracts below were awarded at different times. For example, Openreach’s cross-regional (Type C) deployments are some of the most recent ones – awarded between 2024 and 2025, while the contracts for North Dorset (Wessex Internet), Teesdale (GoFire) and a few others are the oldest and awarded all the way back in 2022. In short, they’re all at different stages of development.

Project Gigabit – Contracted Premises and Built Premises by Contract (Nov 2025)

We should point out that CityFibre’s progress under the £58.6m (public subsidy) contract for rural parts of Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire (Lot 10) needs to be taken in context, since Connexin originally held this until only a few months ago when they were acquired by CityFibre. Connexin only began the build phase at the end of last year (here), thus its delivery has been stuck in limbo due to that consolidation.

The above is an example of why it’s important to understand the context behind each contract before judging its delivery progress, since a face-value assessment will overlook various realities. Speaking of which, some of the contracted figures may differ from the original announcements, which reflects the usual contract modifications (i.e. the scope of delivery can increase or decrease, such as due to commercial networks going further than expected or builds costing more than expected etc.).

In addition, several of the contracts have now complete, such as the ones for North Dorset and Northumberland. For some extra context, you can check out the previous figures for October 2025 (here).

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A new study from broadband ISP BT Business has today claimed that businesses could gain “an extra nine days of productivity per employee” by 2030 through boosting investment in UK connectivity, which might potentially offset the 9.4 days of sick leave each employee is estimated to take annually (almost double pre-pandemic levels).

The ‘Future Unlocked‘ report suggests technology and strategic investment can help businesses tackle burnout, while also potentially unlocking £179bn in UK economic value between 2025 and 2030. A total of 243,000 jobs are currently said to be supported annually by connectivity investments.

The “report“, which seems to be more of a vague high-level survey, calls for the connected technology businesses use in the workplace to be upgraded, although it’s quite vague on the details. The results stem from an Opinion research survey, which was conducted with 2,000 employees in four sectors (retail, banking & finance, healthcare and the public sector) to assess employee expectations on the future of workplace technologies.

On top of that, they also surveyed 2,000 consumers to assess the future expectations of the digital experiences with the organisations they interact with. But there’s naturally an element of vested interest here, with BT Business being keep to entice customers toward their own solutions.

Key Findings

➤ Mental health accounted for 41% of long-term absences and a third of short-term leave.

➤ 79% of employees report moderate-to-high levels of stress at work.

➤ 1 in 4 employees say they have quit, or at least considered it, due to tech frustrations in the workplace.

➤ 71% of UK workers think innovations like AI will drive efficiency in the workplace, while 66% believe it will help them improve their work-life balance.

➤ 97% of C-Suite leaders in finance believe nearly half of tasks will be automated by 2030, two in five within retail describe their current workplace systems as “basic”.

➤ 7% of UK employees view their workplace technology as leading edge, while 77% believe their employers must radically step up training and upskilling to prepare for the AI revolution.

➤ 97% of senior finance leaders report positive experiences with workplace technology, yet 59% say they have not received enough training to make the most of tools like AI, and 44% of lower management fear it could take their job.

➤ C-Suite retail leaders expect AI and automation to help them claw back an average of 11 hours a week in efficiency savings by 2030. On the shop floor, however, 19% of retail workers have considered quitting due to tech frustrations, such as insufficient training on new systems, outdated devices, and unreliable connectivity.

➤ The shift from analogue to digital is a cornerstone of the NHS 10 Year Plan and 60% of healthcare workers back their organisation to be future-ready by 2030. However, staff report losing 5 hours a week on average to disconnected or unreliable tools and 23% of worker says they left or are considering leaving their organisation due to IT frustrations.

Chris Sims, Chief Commercial Officer at BT Business, said: “Unlocking productivity gains across the business community is one of the biggest challenges we face if we’re to deliver sustained economic growth nationwide. We live in an increasingly digital age; only by embracing modern technologies such as AI & the cloud, and enabling them with fast, secure and reliable connectivity, will we see a healthy productivity boost.”

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Rural broadband ISP and alternative network builder Wessex Internet, which have built a mix of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and fixed wireless (FWA) networks across Southern England, has today announced the completion of their £6m publicly funded Project Gigabit contract for North Dorset (Lot 14.01) – extending fibre to 6,490 hard-to-reach premises.

The 3-year deployment contract, which was first awarded back in 2022, originally indicated that it would complete in 2025, and it appears as if Wessex Internet have remained true to their word on that front. The deployment first connected rural communities like Bishops Caundle in the Blackmore Vale and later expanded across Cramborne, Hazelbury Bryan and East Stour etc.

The provider also ended up deploying a total of 1,770km worth of fibre optic cables under fields, minimising roadworks and disruption to the local communities. In addition, over 200 meetings, drop-ins and events were held across the 150 rural communities that were connected to help engage, educate and support the local residents and businesses with questions about the new network.

With the largest community being only 507 residents, the network build has provided an “essential, reliable and ultra-fast broadband service to many small communities who desperately needed it“. The provider also connected over 40 local community projects within the contract area, including village halls and churches, at just £1 per month.

Wessex Internet is currently continuing to build gigabit broadband to connect rural premises across South and West Dorset, and South Somerset under 3 additional government contracts totalling £72m and the £50m recently raised from the National Wealth Fund (NWF), which will allow the business to expand this existing network of over 40,000 to approximately 140,000 rural premises.

Hector Gibson Fleming, CEO Wessex Internet, said:

“We are immensely proud to have delivered in rural Dorset — on time and to budget. This is a strong example of how government subsidy can transform communities, bringing world-class connectivity to thousands of homes and businesses that have long been overlooked. For us, the true measure of success is seeing the impact on our customers’ daily lives, and we are excited to continue this journey as we expand our network across the region.”

Telecoms Minister, Liz Lloyd, said:

“Today’s milestone in North Dorset shows we’re delivering the critical infrastructure our country needs. We’re building a stronger Britain where everyone, no matter where they live, can benefit from world class connectivity. Whether you’re running a farm, working from home or helping the kids with homework, lightning-fast broadband removes barriers and creates opportunities.”

Prices for their full fibre packages start at £29 per month for a 100Mbps (15Mbps upload) tier on a 12-month term, but this only comes with a meagre 100GB data allowance (faster tiers include unlimited usage), and you’ll have to pay £49 (one-off) for activation. By comparison, their top unlimited usage plan will give you 900Mbps (450Mbps upload) for £79 per month. Not cheap, but then rural areas cost more to serve.

The announcement follows shortly after GoFibre became the first network operator to complete one of their subsidised roll-out contracts under the Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. This related to their £7.3m contract to deploy a full fibre (FTTP) network across 3,750 hard-to-reach premises in North Northumberland (here).

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Connectivity provider Neos Networks, which operates one of the biggest 34,000km long and 400Gbps capable business fibre optic networks in the UK – spanning 550 exchanges, 90+ data centres and 600+ Points of Presence (PoPs), has completed the first fibre installation under Project Reach to help improve 4G and 5G mobile (broadband) coverage along major rail lines.

Just to recap. The Government’s Project Reach reflects a public-private partnership that aims to deploy “ultra fast fibre optic cable” (via Neos Networks) across 1,000km of major rail lines to help “eliminate mobile signal blackspots” in tunnels on “key rail routes” up and down the country (possibly extending to 5,000km in the future).

In partnership with AmcoGiffen and Network Rail, Neos has already started to install new 432-count fibre cables along the Great Western Main Line (GWML), connecting London (England) to Cardiff (Wales). This first deployment marks the beginning of a nationwide rollout. This is said to be the “UK’s biggest core fibre network deployment in decades“, although Openreach, Virgin Media and others might well dispute that.

For this first phase of fibre deployment, more than 40 specialists worked through overnight windows under tight safety and operational controls to ensure zero disruption to passenger services. The fibre pull was thus completed on time and to the required high safety standards, setting a benchmark for the rollout programme to follow and demonstrating the efficiency of the delivery model.

Lee Myall, CEO of Neos Networks, said:

“The milestone is about more than a successful fibre pull, it’s about building the backbone for Britain’s digital future. AI, cloud and data centres may capture headlines, but they all rely on one thing: fibre. Without it, the UK’s digital ambitions simply can’t be realised. Project Reach is how we make sure the UK stays globally competitive for decades to come.”

Harriet Hepburn, Partnerships and Retail Director at Network Rail, said:

“This first milestone highlights how collaboration between the public and private sectors can deliver tangible national benefits. Project Reach is modernising Britain’s rail communications while laying the foundation for the next phase of digital growth in the UK.”

But it’s not just about boosting mobile coverage. The new infrastructure will support everything from rail operations and transport digitisation to the surging demand created by AI, cloud and data centre expansion. Network Rail’s Wales & Western region is the first in the UK to commence fibre pulls under Project Reach, although additional installations are already scheduled through to the end of the year.

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The UK government, which have long been looking at alternative ways of delivering accurate Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) solutions to complement GPS (Global Positioning System) – supporting everything from mobile (4G/5G) signals to in-car Sat Nav, has today invested £155m boost the country’s resilience in this critical field.

“Almost all of modern society relies on PNT. One example would be the satellite navigation services that help us get from A to B, but these all-important services go much further than that. Another important use is timing signals – without which mobile phones and even stock markets could not function properly,” said the announcement.

However, as vital as PNT is to society and the economy, recent years have revealed growing threats posed by the jamming or spoofing of such services by hostile states and organisations. Not to mention the impact from natural events, such as solar flares from the sun.

The new investment will thus support a programme of work to boost the resilience of UK PNT – including initial work that would provide a PNT solution that is independent of signals from satellites, making it harder to jam or spoof. The key projects being supported are as follows.

The £155m Funding Allocations

➤ £71 million to begin work on a UK National Enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLoran) programme, providing PNT across land, air and sea that is independent of signals from satellites, and hard to jam or spoof.  

➤ £68 million for further development of the National Timing Centre programme. The National Timing Centre is being delivered by the National Physical Laboratory, to develop the UK’s first nationally-distributed time infrastructure. As well as boosting resilience, it could help with innovative new uses of technologies like 5G, satellite communications, and self-driving vehicles.

➤ £13 million for work on a UK Global Navigation Satellite Systems interference monitoring programme. This will deliver a world-leading capability for the UK to monitor and react to threats to our PNT signals, like jamming and spoofing.

➤ £3 million for the Space Based Time Transfer R&D programme. This will develop the technology required to deliver global timing systems independent of GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems.

The news comes after the Government agreed to closer work with both the US and France around PNT resilience, as part of September’s UK-US Technology Prosperity Deal, and July’s UK-France Summit.

Science Minister, Lord Vallance, said:

“Having resilient and enduring access to Position, Navigation and Timing Services is a critical part of life in today’s world, and a major plank in the UK’s national security. So many of the things we take for granted every day, from using our phones to planning a journey, simply couldn’t happen without it.

The UK is a leader in this field, but in an uncertain world we cannot be complacent. The funding we are announcing today will ultimately help protect Britain from the risks posed to PNT, from both accidental outages and hostile acts, safeguarding everyone’s wealth and wellbeing.”

It’s worth pointing out that a number of satellite broadband networks in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), such as Starlink, OneWeb (Eutelsat) and Amazon Leo, have previously proposed that their own constellations could be used to help support GPS with PNT solutions. At one point the government even seemed to be backing OneWeb’s network to deliver this, although that will largely depend upon the design and ability to launch their future GEN2 spacecraft. But by the sounds of it we may see more than one GPS alternative in the future, and not all of those will be space-based.

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The Broadband Forum, which is an industry-driven global standards development organisation, has begun a new industry-led initiative that aims to equip internet providers with “high-level guidance and a holistic vision” of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be implemented into their networks.

The ‘AI in Broadband Networks‘ project, which initially and perhaps unusually seems to be entirely backed by Chinese companies (CAICT, China Mobile, China Unicom, Huawei, and ZTE Corporation), intends to outline a framework for internet providers to better develop their services-led broadband networks to align with AI trends, as well as to identify real use cases and gaps.

The work will detail how the likes of AI agents, such as metahuman for “intelligent user support“, can be deployed in broadband networks and enable natural human-computer interactions. It will also advise how the network can support the quality requirements of AI enabled intelligent applications, such as AI training/inferencing.

The report will also discuss how to leverage AI for autonomous networks, including identifying and addressing network faults, predictive maintenance, and energy consumption tuning. The goal is to help ISPs offer intelligent solutions for improved network performance, reliability, and efficiency. Equipment manufacturers will also be provided with guidance on how to incorporate AI into their products.

Hai Ding, Fixed Access Network and Home Networking Expert at China Unicom, said:

“In the long-term, by embracing AI-driven approaches, BSPs can enjoy savings, see a faster time to new revenue, and deliver new applications and services to their customers. The new project aims to offer a strategic insight and provide guidance on the additional value that AI for broadband networks can create for the service provider.”

We’re not sure how this will go down with western operators and governments, many of which seem to be increasingly sceptical of any Chinese involvement in fixed and mobile broadband networks, although hopefully we’ll see more input or leadership from western network operators in this field as the project progresses.

The first phase of the project is set to be finalised by Spring 2026.

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Telecoms giant Vodafone have today confirmed that the long-running 2Africa project, which has spent the past 6 years building a 45,000km long subsea (submarine) fibre optic cable between the United Kingdom and most of coastal Africa, has completed the core part of its cable system.

The new cable network has landings in 33 countries – including one in England at a site in Bude (Cornwall) – and should help to support faster broadband speeds, boosting mobile network capacity and better international internet connectivity. On the West segment – from the UK to South Africa – the cable supports 168Tbps (Terabits per second) of data capacity. In the Mediterranean, shorter distances allow speeds of over 180Tbps.

The new cable broadly doubles the internet capacity available to the African continent. Over 35 offshore vessels and extensive local operations were mobilised to lay the cable, with specialist equipment deployed to ensure safe and resilient installation. Cable burial depth was also increased by 50%, reducing the risk of accidental cuts. 2Africa was also carefully routed to avoid seabed hazards like hot brine pools and the fierce currents in the Congo Canyon.

“2Africa took nearly six years to build and required constant adaptation to dynamic regulatory landscapes. The project’s success depended on strong partnerships and close collaboration with regulators and policymakers across many countries. Their support was essential in navigating requirements, overcoming challenges, and keeping the project on track,” said Vodafone’s statement.

The leap in capacity is expected to contribute up to US$36.9 billion to Africa’s GDP within the first two to three years of operation, boosting job creation, entrepreneurship, and innovation hubs across the continent.