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Verizon exits 2025 with standout subscriber growth and a leaner 2026 investment plan that shifts dollars from network build to integration, efficiency and customer retention. Verizon posted more than 1 million net additions in the fourth quarter, including 616,000 postpaid phone net adds—the best showing since 2019—and 372,000 broadband net adds driven by 319,000 fixed wireless access (FWA) additions and the strongest Fios Internet quarter since 2020. After years of 5G coverage build, Verizon is pivoting to densification, fiber integration and operating efficiency, allowing capex to step down without undermining network competitiveness. Capital will concentrate on fiber-led convergence, FWA capacity, and experience-centric technologies that reduce churn and support revenue quality.
CEO Börje Ekholm indicated the company will keep trimming headcount after cutting roughly 5,000 positions over the last year. In Sweden, Ericsson has notified authorities and begun union talks that could affect about 1,600 roles, part of a multi‑year restructuring program. The move follows a 2023 plan to remove around 8,500 jobs worldwide—about 8% of its workforce—with further reductions last year in markets such as Spain and Canada. The rationale remains consistent: reset the cost base, protect profitability, and keep investment firepower for strategic bets amid a slower operator capex cycle.
New data from the Car Connectivity Consortium’s 2025 Future of Vehicle Connectivity Report signals how OEMs, suppliers, and mobile platforms will prioritize standards, security, and interoperability to scale the next phase of software-defined vehicles. The market is past pilots: executives are moving budget into customer experience and fleet productivity where ROI is visible within a year, but only if solutions are secure, easy to use, and proven to interoperate across brands, devices, and regions. The CCC’s data provides a directional roadmap for where to invest in the in-vehicle wireless stack and the edge-to-cloud controls that make those experiences trustworthy.
Apple is reportedly nearing a deal to license Google’s Gemini for Siri, a move that would reshape assistant architectures and near-term AI roadmaps across devices and networks. Multiple reports indicate Apple is close to licensing a custom version of Google’s Gemini model, reportedly at a scale of around 1.2 trillion parameters, for roughly $1 billion per year. The model would power a major Siri upgrade while Apple continues building its own foundation models. The objective is clear: boost Siri’s reasoning and task execution in the near term without ceding control over Apple’s system-level integrations or search defaults.
Samsung and NVIDIA are scaling a 25-year alliance into an AI-driven manufacturing platform that fuses memory, foundry, robotics and networks on a backbone of accelerated computing. Samsung plans to deploy more than 50,000 NVIDIA GPUs to infuse AI across the company’s manufacturing lifecycle—from chip design and lithography to equipment operations, logistics and quality control. The “AI factory” is designed as a unified, data-rich fabric where models continuously analyze and optimize processes in real time, shrinking development cycles and improving yield and uptime. The scope goes beyond semiconductors to include mobile devices and robotics, signaling a company-wide digital transformation anchored in accelerated computing.
Enterprises adopting private 5G, LTE, or CBRS networks need more than encryption to stay secure. This article explains the 4 pillars of private network security: core controls, device visibility, real-time threat detection, and orchestration. Learn how to protect SIM and device identities, isolate traffic, secure OT and IoT, and choose the right vendors for a robust private network security strategy.
Nokia delivered a stronger-than-expected third quarter, with comparable operating profit reaching €435 million against consensus of about €342 million. Group net sales rose 12% to €4.83 billion, above forecasts, driven by Optical Networks and cloud-related demand tied to AI data centers. The stock jumped double digits intraday and added billions in market value, reflecting newfound confidence after a challenging first half. The recovery now is concentrated in network infrastructure rather than mobile RAN, underscoring where customers are actually spending to handle AI-era traffic patterns. Nokia nudged its full-year operating profit outlook to €1.7–2.2 billion, with a reporting change related to scaling down passive venture investments partly in play.
Unlike metaverse-era headsets that leaned on entertainment and novelty, Galaxy XR makes Google’s Gemini the front door to the interface. In demos, Gemini orchestrated windows in a spatial workspace, answered context-aware questions, and invoked creative tools like Veo for AI-generated video. That tight AI integration is the strategic wedge: Samsung and Google position XR as a bridge to slim, everyday AI glasses developed with eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. The message to developers and enterprises is clear—design for multimodal AI agents first; the form factor will shrink later.
New usage data shows AT&T subscribers are tapping into T-Mobile’s Starlink-powered T-Satellite more than expected, signaling a rapid shift in how carriers and customers think about direct-to-device connectivity. Speedtest intelligence indicates T-Mobile users account for the majority of direct-to-device (D2D) connections to Starlink, roughly six in ten overall and more than seven in ten among devices reporting active service at connection time. The surprise is AT&T’s footprint: about a third of observed connections come from AT&T subscribers, while Verizon’s share is minimal.
Verizon has launched a 6G Innovation Forum to accelerate research, trials, and standards alignment for the next generation of wireless. The forum convenes major RAN suppliers, including Ericsson, Samsung Electronics, and Nokia - alongside platform and device ecosystem players such as Meta and Qualcomm Technologies. The stated goal is an open, diversified, and resilient 6G ecosystem with global alignment from the outset. Verizon will back the forum with hands-on environments, starting with a dedicated 6G Lab in Los Angeles. Early priorities include testing new spectrum bands and bandwidths, and validating interoperability with mainstream standards bodies.
Manufacturers and wireless providers are shifting 5G from promising pilots to scaled, revenue‑relevant deployments across American factories. A joint report from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and CTIA underscores a clear inflection point: commercial 5G, industrial AI and edge computing are maturing together. With 3GPP Release 16/17 capabilities such as URLLC, time‑sensitive networking integration, network slicing and non‑public networks, 5G is increasingly able to support time‑critical control, quality inspection and safety systems at scale. Production use cases are expanding and delivering measurable benefits. The message is consistent: companies that operationalize 5G alongside AI and automation will capture disproportionate productivity and resiliency advantages.
Gartner’s latest outlook points to global AI spend hitting roughly $1.5 trillion in 2025 and exceeding $2 trillion in 2026, signaling a multi-year investment cycle that will reshape infrastructure, devices, and networks. This is not a short-lived hype curve; it is a capital plan. Hyperscalers are pouring money into data centers built around AI-optimized servers and accelerators, while device makers push on-device AI into smartphones and PCs at scale. For telecom and enterprise IT leaders, the message is clear: capacity, latency, and data gravity will dictate where value lands. Spending is broad-based. AI services and software are growing fast, but the heavy lift is in hardware and cloud infrastructure.

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