Vodafone

A new joint plan from Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile aims to deliver satellite broadband directly to standard smartphones across Europe under a sovereign operational model. AST SpaceMobile has submitted plans through Germany for a space-based network designed to provide broadband directly to devices across Europe. Operations would run through SatCo, a Luxembourg-based joint venture with Vodafone announced earlier this year. The timing aligns with looming European spectrum decisions and intensifying competition in direct-to-device (D2D). S-band at 2 GHz is up for renewal across the region in 2027, and 700 MHz public protection and disaster relief (PPDR) frequencies are central to resilient communications strategy.
2025 has seen major telecom and tech M&A activity, including billion-dollar deals in fiber, AI, cloud, and cybersecurity. This monthly tracker details key acquisitions, like AT&T buying Lumen’s fiber assets and Google’s $32B move for Wiz, highlighting how consolidation is shaping the competitive landscape.
Orange has reached a non-binding agreement to acquire Lorca’s 50% stake in MasOrange for €4.25 billion in cash, aiming for sole control of Spain’s leading operator by customer base. The transaction would shift MasOrange from joint control (Orange and Lorca JVCO, owner of MásMóvil) to full ownership by Orange. Full control simplifies governance, accelerates synergy capture, and gives Orange greater flexibility in network investment, pricing, and product roadmap execution in Spain. Orange expects to sign a binding agreement before end-2025, subject to agreement on final terms. Completion is targeted for the first half of 2026, assuming standard merger-control review.
A coordinated launch in the Netherlands brings standardized, network-powered security APIs to market at national scale. KPN, Odido, and Vodafone Netherlands have jointly introduced a set of security services based on CAMARA, the open-source API framework hosted by the Linux Foundation and aligned with the GSMA Open Gateway program. Working with the Dutch COIN association, the operators are exposing harmonized, privacy-aware network signals that enterprises can use to strengthen authentication and reduce online fraud. The Dutch launch prioritizes identity-centric use cases. Number Verification allows apps to confirm that a user’s device and mobile number match the current session—often silently in the background—reducing one-time password SMS dependency.
Vodafone named Dell Technologies a strategic infrastructure provider for a five-year Open RAN buildout across Europe, signaling a move from trials to scaled, automated 5G networks. Vodafone will expand one of Europe’s largest Open RAN footprints using Dell infrastructure as part of a multi-year radio access modernization program. Dell will supply its PowerEdge XR8000 series servers, including the XR8620t and the latest XR8720t with Intel Xeon 6 SoC. Vodafone also plans to adopt the Dell Telecom Infrastructure Automation Suite (DTIAS) to provide the Infrastructure Management Service within its Open RAN architecture, designed to automate Day 0/1/2 lifecycle operations for O-Cloud infrastructure.
Virgin Media O2 has struck a multi‑year agreement with Starlink Direct to Cell to deliver satellite‑to‑mobile service across rural UK not‑spots, positioning O2 as the first British operator to integrate Starlink’s constellation with licensed mobile spectrum. Branded as O2 Satellite, the service will initially support messaging and basic data on existing smartphones when users move beyond terrestrial signal. O2 is targeting landmass coverage beyond 95% within a year of launch, using Starlink’s 650+ low‑Earth orbit satellites to act as “cell sites in space.” Customer rollout is planned for early 2026, with pricing to follow and an extra monthly fee anticipated.
India has ceded the lowest-tariff crown to Bangladesh and Egypt, yet it still leads on value through generous allowances and low data unit costs. Indian base plans commonly include unlimited voice, whereas Bangladesh and Egypt restrict voice to roughly 100 and 70 minutes respectively at entry level. On data, incremental purchase economics are unusually attractive: an extra Rs 100 typically buys around 26 GB, or about Rs 4 per GB, keeping India among the most affordable data markets globally. Even after adjusting for purchasing power parity, India remains at the affordable end of global tariff rankings.
Vodafone is partnering with Irish firm Zinkworks on Rapid RIC, a central platform that blends secure data analytics, a visual low-code interface, and code-generating AI to create and operate RAN applications, or rApps. The goal is ambitious but specific: cut time-to-market from months to weeks, scale deployments across markets, and improve service quality, capacity, and energy use. The platform is slated for early 2026 availability and will run primarily on Vodafone’s private Google Cloud Platform environment. Rapid RIC uses GenAI to generate production-grade code from visual designs, enabling radio engineers to turn domain knowledge directly into software without deep AI or ML skills.
Germany’s migration from copper to fibre is entering a price-led phase, and Vodafone is sharpening fibre offers to pull DSL users across the line. Germany has the fibre footprint but not the take-up: many households still cling to DSL and VDSL even where FTTH is available, leaving operators running two networks and straining economics. The emphasis is on choice, transparency and avoiding dual-running costs—nudging, not forcing, customers to move. Price becomes the immediate lever to move hesitant households and SMEs off copper, especially in multi-dwelling units where permissions, in-building wiring and installation coordination add friction.
Germany’s largest operator is turning e-waste into engagement currency with a take-back drive that mixes material recovery with headline incentives. Deutsche Telekom estimates 195 million unused phones are sitting idle in Germany, locking up valuable materials and ESG progress. The company is reframing those devices as an urban mine—rich in gold, copper, and critical minerals—and as a lever to scale circularity ahead of its 2030 ambition to make all IT and network technology, and most end-user devices, recyclable or reusable. By the end of 2024, the operator had already taken back more than 11 million phones across the group.
AWS experienced a major outage centered on its US-EAST-1 region in Northern Virginia, triggering cascading failures across dozens of cloud services and dependent applications worldwide. The incident began in the early hours of Monday and was initially mitigated within a few hours, though residual errors and recovery backlogs persisted through the morning in US-EAST-1. Engineering updates point to a DNS resolution problem affecting a key database endpoint (DynamoDB) alongside internal network and gateway errors in EC2, which then propagated across dependent services such as SQS and Amazon Connect. When a foundational component like DNS or an internal networking fabric falters, service discovery and API calls fail in bulk.
Ericsson has secured a three-year, $3 billion partnership with Export Development Canada (EDC) to expand R&D, fortify supply chains, and accelerate next‑gen network technologies with Canadian roots and global reach. The agreement arms Ericsson with EDC’s financing and insurance support to scale Canada-based projects in 5G, Cloud RAN, AI-driven network operations, and early quantum communications research while integrating Canadian suppliers into its international ecosystem. Over the term, Ericsson aims to deepen R&D executed across Ottawa, Montréal, and Toronto—where more than 3,100 employees work on 5G Advanced, 6G, quantum networking, and automation—expanding the country’s contribution to the vendor’s global product and standards roadmap.

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