IBM News | TelcoTitans

CCW 2025: Home Office’s John Black, EE’s David Salam, and IBM’s Andy Doggett share a progress report on the UK’s Emergency Services Network, with optimism the prevailing mood. Early milestones checked off, infrastructure in progress, and EE looking for partners and suppliers…

Weekly Briefings
BTwatch Weekly: BT’s branding u-turn; EE leads renewed ESN charge
Latest from BT and its ecosystem, including a reversal of BT’s consumer branding strategy; new timelines for the Emergency Services Network migration; and next phase of MAUD testing lined up…
Suppliers & SCM
EE, IBM assemble ecosystem to rescue UK’s emergency services network
BAPCO Annual Event: Emergency Services Network contract holders EE and IBM build out programme supply chain, with calibre of partners adding confidence in the Home Office that ESN will deliver.
Weekly Briefings
UK Infrawatch Weekly: Netomnia goes mobile; ESN mobilises; Freedom Fibre walks
Latest from the digital infra scene in the UK, including altnet strategies on uptake acceleration; Project Gigabit and SRN updates; altnet and data centre investment plans; people moves, and plenty more…
Network & Infrastructure
ESN: UK mission-critical comms network has a new (potential) launch date
BAPCO Annual Event: Home Office programme lead lays out new, heavily-caveated Emergency Services Network milestones, with early integration testing this year building towards a late-2029 Airwave closure. Ifs and buts remain, and ‘race still needs to be run’…
Suppliers & SCM
T-Mobile US grabs Red Hat for telco cloud journey
Operator adopts vendor’s OpenShift Platform Plus solution as foundation for core and edge infrastructure revamp.
Weekly Briefings
UK Infrawatch Briefing: data centre AI plans; Zzoomming up altnet tables; Freshwave deals
Latest from the digital infra scene in the UK, including the latest on sector mergers; power challenges accompanying the government’s AI power play; people moves, and plenty more…
Weekly Briefings
BTwatch Weekly: healthtech flatlines; real-world network slicing
Latest from BT and its ecosystem as Etc. shutters healthtech and resets EV charging; BT’s Division X marks network slicing milestone; 2G closure prep work begins; and EE learns its ESN vendor peers…
Enterprise (B2B)
BT set to miss out on £895m ESN services deal — report
IBM–Samsung bid expected to be preferred over BT–Leonardo for Emergency Services Network IT services contract. Public sector remains BT Business’s biggest earner, but management notes impact of new government…
Weekly Briefings
The Deutsche Telekomwatch Briefing: no macro alarms, yet
Reporting Q3 numbers, DT execs delight in strong performance of Europe-side businesses and calm concerns over any bumps from political and economic developments in Germany and the USA.
People
BT Peoplewatch: high-profile exits at Group, Openreach, amidst digital imports
20+ senior and strategic changes at BT, including a transformation guru brought in from KPN to lead Business recovery; policy and regulation in focus at Group level; IT architecture swaps at Digital; and convergence expertise imported to support EE ambitions…
Partnerships & Alliances
Telefónica Tech, IBM launch fresh B2B toolkit for AI acceleration
Operator works with longstanding partner to deploy new SHARK.X platform, uniting multiple analytics and data management tools to help enterprise customers accelerate AI rollout.
Products & Services
Vodafone’s TOBi chatbot gets a generative AI makeover from Microsoft
Vodafone reveals early progress with applying GenAI to advance customer experience transformation as part of strategic tie-up with Microsoft.
Suppliers & SCM
Telefónica to ‘drastically’ cut IT suppliers from 40 to four or five
Report says operator is close to finalising new IT contracts worth up to €500m.
Premium
Elsewhere in Telefónica Group: Operators continue to bang ‘fair share’ drum
Operators continue to bang ‘fair share’ drum.
Innovation (R&D)
DT beefs up quantum research to protect networks from qubit-computer attacks
“Quantum Lab” opened in Berlin, overseen by Deutsche Telekom’s research arm T-Labs; various partners from academia and business involved.
Suppliers & SCM
Deep dive: Telefónica engages suppliers to fight Scope 3 emissions
Keynoting at Achieving Net Zero in the Telecoms Industry, Daniel Santana lifted the lid on Telefónica’s initiatives to actively tackle emissions across its value chain. Learn more about how this impacts its supply chain, where hundreds have been tagged ‘high risk’, and its ‘circular criteria’, SME outreach, peer comparatives… ...
Partnerships & Alliances
Vodafone’s Economy of Things venture takes flight, onboards customers
Vodafone Digital Asset Broker CEO Jorge Bento lays out EoT future as Group carves out influential role in blockchain-based transactions.
Partnerships & Alliances
T-Systems extends foray into quantum realm
Deutsche Telekom’s enterprise arm signs MoU with IQM Quantum Computers to offer access to cloud quantum computing services and training, with a Europe-based focus. Deal builds upon similar tie-up with IBM earlier this year, expanding its quantum services to a “multi-cloud quantum landscape”.
Premium
Telefónica Tech bolsters security offers with F5 and IBM
Partnerships expand cybersecurity capabilities in Spain and UK.
Network & Infrastructure
The Backfill: Equitix bulks up Gigaclear with fibre funding
Infra investor Equitix boosts Gigaclear’s fibre rollout with new financing.
Premium
T-Sys ties with IBM on cloud-based quantum computing
T‑Systems to offer access to IBM quantum computing services through the cloud.