A week in telecoms: Ericsson to sell iconectiv, Turkcell trials 5G cloud RAN

Ericsson to raise $1bn from sale of iconectiv to Koch

Ericsson is set to add around $1 billion to its coffers after agreeing to sell iconectiv to Koch Equity Development. iconectiv is a US subsidiary that Ericsson bought in 2012 as part of the Telcordia acquisition.

iconectiv may not be a household name, but it provides an important function. It is the number portability administrator in ten countries, including the United States, and as technology partner to US wireless trade association CTIA it serves as the administrator of the nation’s Short Code Registry.

Furthermore, iconectiv serves as the Secure Telephone Identity Policy Administrator (STI-PA) for the United States on behalf of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), helping to mitigate illegal robocalling.

However, Ericsson has stated that its network number portability solutions and data exchange services now have “limited strategic synergies with the rest of Ericsson’s portfolio.”

Since 2017, iconectiv has been co-owned with private equity firm Francisco Partners. It currently serves over 5,000 customers across various sectors.

Koch Equity Development is the principal investment and acquisition arm of the privately held Koch group. According to the company, the agreement to acquire iconectiv underscores its “continued investment focus on telecommunications software and data services,” building on the 2021 acquisition of Transaction Network Services, or TNS.

Nokia and TIM Brasil partner on 5G

Brazil’s multi-band 5G spectrum auction drew to a close in November 2021, and the market’s mobile operators started offering 5G services in the following year.

Like its rivals, TIM Brasil launched its 5G network in July 2022 and has gone on to build an extensive 5G presence. According to TeleGeography, it had built 7,590 sites covering around 45% of the population by September 2023.

By July 2024, TIM operated more than 8,000 antennas and covered 57% of the population over 350 cities.

The operator has now partnered with Nokia to expand its 5G coverage. The Finnish vendor said it has been selected by TIM Brasil to expand its 5G radio access network (RAN) coverage across 15 Brazilian states from January 2025.

According to Nokia, the partnership will increase the number of municipalities with access to 5G. Under the deal, Nokia will supply a range of equipment from its 5G AirScale portfolio, including baseband, Massive MIMO radios, and Remote Radio Head products and including the ReefShark System-on-Chip technology.

TIM will also utilize Nokia’s intelligent MantaRay Networks Management system, which incorporates AI functionalities, for improved network monitoring and management. In addition, Nokia will provide services, including digital deployment, optimization, and technical support services.

Bridge Alliance ties with Singtel on GPU-as-a-Service

Bridge Alliance, a mobile alliance of 35 member operators worldwide, of which Deutsche Telekom is a recent addition, has announced a strategic partnership that will provide Singtel’s GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) offerings to enterprises across the region.

The latter tie-up follows Singtel’s announcement in February on the launch of its GPUaaS later this year, which will provide enterprises with access to NVIDIA’s AI computing power “so they can deploy AI at scale.”

As part of the agreement, Bridge Alliance member operators will get access to the GPUaaS offerings from Singtel. Asian telcos AIS, Maxis and Telkomsel signalled their interest in the service in order to cater to the growing demand for AI computing in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia respectively.

Singtel highlighted its experience with bringing AI to the 5G edge in the 5G@Sentosa trials for Singapore government agencies. The operator’s Paragon platform orchestrated a multi-edge compute and NVIDIA GPU environment while enabling customers to deploy 5G use cases at speed and at scale.

Bill Chang, CEO of Singtel’s Digital InfraCo unit, claimed that the collaboration with Bridge Alliance and telcos in the region “will help democratise and accelerate the use of AI by enterprises across all industries, giving them the tools to achieve greater productivity and business value with our next-generation digital infrastructure and solutions.”

He added: “With more telcos deploying 5G network services, we see this real-time AI offering powered by GPUaaS at 5G edge at low latencies as a key growth driver for their enterprise businesses.”

As for DT, its Deutsche Telekom IoT unit has joined Bridge Alliance as a member operator in order to help enterprises seeking to expand their IoT business in Asian and European markets.

Turkcell trials Ericsson’s 5G Cloud RAN

Turkcell has hailed recent trials of Ericsson’s 5G Cloud RAN technology, noting that this supports its aim to introduce new software features and incorporate an open RAN approach into its service management and orchestration (SMO) framework.

According to an Ericsson statement, the Turkish mobile operator will also be able to improve network management capabilities with rApps, for both cloud RAN and purpose-built deployments. The implementation of Cloud RAN is expected to boost flexibility and agility, as well as unlock new features through centralized deployments, the partners said.

Vehbi Çağrı Güngör, Chief Network Technologies Officer at Turkcell, said the trial will “contribute to strengthening Turkcell’s strategy for cloudifying network operations” and “support our transition to an Open RAN network strategy and enhance the advanced connectivity experience we offer in Türkiye.”

During the trial, Ericsson supplied hardware and software and conducted demonstrations, test cases and performance assessments.

The offering has already been trialled and deployed by other operators around the world, including Rogers in Canada, AT&T, and O2 Telefónica in Germany.

Europe gets a new chip plant

The European Commission has approved German state aid of €5 billion to support the construction and operation of a microchip manufacturing plant in Dresden.

The plan is being built by the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), a joint venture between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), and Bosch, Infineon, and NXP.

According to the Commission, the measure will strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and digital sovereignty in semiconductor technologies, in line with the objectives set out in the EU Chips Act that entered into force in September 2023.

It also said the facility is “first-of-a-kind in Europe, as there currently is no comparable mass-production facility for the specific technology features offered.”

According to Reuters, the project, which will cost €10 billion overall, is the biggest approved so far under the EU Chips Act, and the first in Germany.

“It is also the first project in Europe under TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, and is expected to improve Europe’s resiliency if a chip shortage of the type experienced during the COVID pandemic happens again,” the news agency added.

Reuters also noted that although the plant will be making generations of chips slightly behind the most advanced technology used in AI chips and smartphones, it will add capacity for automotive and other industrial applications.

ESMC is expected to have a monthly production capacity of 40,000 300mm (12-inch) wafers on TSMC’s 28/22 nanometer planar CMOS and 16/12 nanometer FinFET process technology. The new facility is also expected to generate around 2,000 jobs.

Also noted…

Bouygues Telecom gained approval to buy La Poste Telecom.

China Telecom reported profit growth in H1 2024.

China-based ZTE saw its core carrier equipment business shrink 8.6% in H1 2024.