Fiber

BT is pressing ahead with cost-cutting as it confronts sharper broadband competition, softer device demand, and structural declines in legacy services. BT reduced its total workforce by about 6% in the first half of its financial year, down to roughly 111,000 employees from 116,000 at the start of the period. The group reported around ยฃ250 million in additional annualized cost savings, bringing cumulative savings to about ยฃ1.2 billion across the first 18 months of the program and reaffirming a target of ยฃ3 billion in annual savings. Group revenue for the six months to September 30 declined about 3% year over year to ยฃ9.8 billion. Openreachโ€™s broadband base contracted, with approximately 242,000 fewer broadband customers in Q2 FY25.
Telefรณnica delivered modest organic growth and wider 5G and fiber reach in Q3, while resetting free cash flow expectations amid operational and macro headwinds. Group revenue reached โ‚ฌ8,958 million in Q3, with organic growth of 0.4%, and EBITDA rose organically by 1.2% to โ‚ฌ3,071 million. 5G coverage reached 78% across core markets, while FTTH passings rose 9% to 82.6 million premises. Telefรณnica now expects 2025 free cash flow of โ‚ฌ1.5โ€“โ‚ฌ1.9 billion. The company reaffirmed 2025 guidance for growth in revenue, EBITDA, and EBITDA minus CapEx.
A fresh technical report from Broadband Forum details how a single outdoor 5G Fixed Wireless Access connection can deliver gigabit broadband to multiple apartments by reusing a buildingโ€™s existing wiring. The document defines an architecture where one high-capacity 5G FWA modemโ€”preferably operating on mmWave (3GPP FR2, roughly 24โ€“40 GHz)โ€”is installed on the roof or exterior of a multiโ€‘dwelling unit (MDU) and then shared across many tenants. Instead of running new fiber to every unit, the approach leverages inโ€‘place infrastructure such as coaxial cabling, twisted pair, or legacy telephone wiring to distribute service from a centralized point (attic, basement, or telecom closet) to apartments.
Telefรณnica has launched a 2026โ€“2030 plan to accelerate growth, simplify operations, and unlock up to โ‚ฌ3 billion in savings while doubling down on its core markets and technology investments. Revenue is guided to a 1.5%โ€“2.5% CAGR from 2025โ€“2028, accelerating to 2.5%โ€“3.5% in 2028โ€“2030; adjusted EBITDA is guided to the same ranges across the two periods. Telefรณnica targets a gross impact of up to โ‚ฌ2.3 billion in 2028 and โ‚ฌ3 billion by 2030, driven by technology and operational excellence, process simplification, digital transformation, and monetization of legacy network assets as shutdowns progress.
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 Lumenโ€™s fiber assets and Googleโ€™s $32B move for Wiz, highlighting how consolidation is shaping the competitive landscape.
Orange has reached a non-binding agreement to acquire Lorcaโ€™s 50% stake in MasOrange for โ‚ฌ4.25 billion in cash, aiming for sole control of Spainโ€™s leading operator by customer base. The transaction would shift MasOrange from joint control (Orange and Lorca JVCO, owner of MรกsMรณvil) 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.
At SK AI Summit 2025, CEO Jung Jaihun outlined plans to expand the Ulsan artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) to 1GW-class capacity, stand up a nationwide trio of hubs (Gasan in the Seoul metro, Ulsan in the south, and a new southwest site), and take the model into Southeast Asia starting with Vietnam. The operator is also deepening technology collaborations with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Edge AI and with NVIDIA on AI-RAN and a Manufacturing AI Cloud; it intends to buy more than 2,000 NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs and scale Koreaโ€™s largest GPU cluster, Haein, as core compute for industrial AI workloads.
AI buildouts have flipped a decade of flat U.S. electricity growth into a structural uptrend, with consumer price concerns rising in parallel. After years of steady demand, U.S. load is climbing as commercial and industrial users tap more power, and hyperscale data centers are now a central driver of the shift. Data centers are estimated to consume roughly 4% of U.S. electricity todayโ€”more than twice their share in 2018โ€”and some credible scenarios place that figure in the high single digits to low teens by 2028, depending on the trajectory of AI training and inference footprints.
Virgin Media O2 has struck a multiโ€‘year agreement with Starlink Direct to Cell to deliver satelliteโ€‘toโ€‘mobile service across rural UK notโ€‘spots, positioning O2 as the first British operator to integrate Starlinkโ€™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 Starlinkโ€™s 650+ lowโ€‘Earth orbit satellites to act as โ€œcell sites in space.โ€ Customer rollout is planned for early 2026, with pricing to follow and an extra monthly fee anticipated.
The FCC is circulating a proposal to reconfigure and auction a significant slice of upper C-Band spectrum, with a vote slated for November and a public comment period to shape the details. The draft notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) seeks input on auctioning up to 180 MHz of upper C-Band in the contiguous United States for licensed mobile broadband, with a floor of at least 100 MHz mandated by Congress for auction by July 2027. Commissioner Brendan Carr frames the objective as maximizing mid-band capacity for 5G and setting the stage for 6G, while maintaining aviation safety.
Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft signaled that AI infrastructure is now a multi-year capital priority measured in tens of billions per year. In their latest results, Meta guided capital expenditures into the $70โ€“72 billion range with an even larger step-up expected the following year. Alphabet raised its 2025 capex outlook to $91โ€“93 billion, up sharply from prior estimates. Microsoft reported $34.9 billion of capex in the most recent quarter, materially above expectations and up strongly year over year. These figures point to the largest synchronized build-out of compute, storage, and networking capacity in the history of cloud.
According to the latest Speedtest Intelligence findings from Ookla, the share of states where at least 60% of tested fixed-broadband users achieve the FCCโ€™s 100 Mbps down/20 Mbps up benchmark rose sharply between late 2024 and the first half of 2025. That count climbed from 22 states (plus Washington, D.C.) to 38 states (plus D.C.), signaling faster lastโ€‘mile networks and better in-home performance for a sizable portion of U.S. households. Progress on equity also accelerated. In the first half of 2025, 33 states reduced the performance gap between urban and rural usersโ€”while 17 saw the gap widen versus the second half of 2024.

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