American Tower plans to sell its India operations to Brookfield Asset Management for up to $2.5 billion, said a late Thursday news release. The tower company said the announcement follows a completed strategic review of its Indian assets. A deal is expected to close in the second half of the year, American Tower said.

The new Belgian EU Presidency must focus on telecommunications and competition, mobile operators and competitive telcos said Tuesday. Belgium's presidency began Monday and goes through June 30. Its program includes making progress on the EU's green and digital transitions, supporting efforts toward achieving climate neutrality and digital leadership. The presidency will "prioritise a human-centred approach to the digital transformation, with particular attention to algorithmic transparency and virtual identity protection," especially in connection with AI. Other key focuses include: (1) Digital inclusivity, particularly negotiations on the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA); (2) a "joint approach to 'active cyber protection,'" such as by boosting proactive measures for preventing, detecting, monitoring and abating network security breaches across the EU; and (3) stronger international cooperation via cyber diplomacy. The GSMA urged the presidency to "work with the telecoms industry to ensure an investment culture in digital infrastructure to carry through the region's technological and economic ambitions, addressing market fragmentation and removing the regulatory barriers that hamper progress." Delivering the GIA will go a long way toward removing hurdles to buildout of very high capacity networks, it said. The GSMA said it expects the European Commission will publish a white paper on a planned digital networks act, which will explore the potential for measures to create a "true single market" for telecom. The European Competitive Telecommunications Association also wants the GIA to "come to a good end taking into account our concerns," Director General Luc Hindryckx said in an email. As for the planned digital networks act, he said, the telecom sector is the "linchpin" of social and economic dynamics in the 21st Century, enabling universal participation in digital society by ensuring affordable connectivity for all. Anchored in a pro-competitive legal framework for e-communications, the European model has consistently shown its effectiveness and "should be maintained."

Huawei Technologies had some $98.7 billion in revenue in 2023, said Rotating Chair Ken Hu in a Tuesday message to investors marking the start of 2024. That reflects growth of about 9% over 2022. Huawei’s information and communication technologies “infrastructure business has remained solid, and results from our device business surpassed expectations,” Hu said: “Both our digital power and cloud businesses are growing steadily, and our intelligent automotive solutions have become significantly more competitive.” Hu acknowledged that Huawei has faced challenges in recent years resulting from “geopolitical and economic uncertainties,” technology restrictions and trade barriers. "After years of hard work, we've managed to weather the storm” and “now we're pretty much back on track," he said.

France’s iliad Group Monday made a new offer to buy part of Vodafone Italia. The offer was $7 billion in cash, plus a 50% stake in a joint venture combining the two companies’ Italian operations. Last year, iliad sought to buy Vodafone’s Italian operations. New Vodafone Group CEO Margherita Della Valle will have a chance to consider this latest offer. “The market context in Italy calls for the creation of the most innovative telecom challenger, with [the] ability to compete and create value in a competitive environment,” said Thomas Reynaud, iliad Group CEO: “We believe that the profiles and complementary expertise of iliad and Vodafone in Italy would allow us to build a strong operator with the ability and financial strength to invest for the long term. NewCo would be fully committed to accelerating the country’s digital transformation and especially fiber adoption and 5G deployment.”

Germany’s 1&1 AG said Friday it initiated mobile 5G service on its open radio access network, becoming “the first network operator in Europe to rely entirely on the new Open RAN technology.” 1&1 said it became Germany’s fourth mobile operator. "We have been closely following the development of the new Open RAN technology from the very beginning,” said CEO Ralph Dommermuth: “When Rakuten launched the first fully virtualized mobile network in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, we knew for sure: This is the future! Since then, we have built internal specialist teams, established a strong partner network, and concluded tough national roaming negotiations.”

Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) selected four companies to develop direct-to-device (D2D) mobile services using high-altitude platform stations: NTT, NTT Docomo, Space Compass and SKY Perfect JSAT, said a Thursday news release from the companies. The initiative is part of NICT’s “Beyond 5G,” project, “which envisions a society where connectivity is assured over the air, sea, and space regardless of user location,” the companies said: “The four participating companies aim to solve various technical issues and demonstrate a communication service using HAPS positioned in the stratosphere over Japan, with the goal of accelerating the commercialization of HAPS D2D communication services.”

EU governments decided on a general approach to high-speed broadband rollout, the European Council announced Tuesday. The European Commission-proposed Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA) would replace the 2014 broadband cost-reducing directive. GIA is essential for Europe's connectivity objectives, it said. Among other goals, the EC proposal aims to speed network rollout and lower the cost of deploying e-communications infrastructure, which is partly caused by complex permit-granting procedures. Ministers made changes to the proposal, including creating an exception for a transitional period for smaller municipalities and carve-outs for critical national infrastructure. They also approved amendments clarifying what factors must be considered in calculating fair conditions for access as well as making clear that not only fiber can be used to reach very high capacity. The European Parliament's negotiating position was approved Oct. 4 and the Spanish Presidency will enter "trilogue" talks with the council and EC. The Spanish Presidency "intends to make as much progress as possible in these negotiations until the end of the year," the council said. Belgium will take over the EU Presidency Jan. 1. The council's position drew strong disapproval from the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association, European Competitive Telecommunications Association, GIGA Europe and the GSM Association. The industry groups slammed ministers for omitting several EC-proposed provisions they said "positively support" the rollout of very high capacity networks (VHCNs). These include: (1) The need to recognize the importance of shorter permit-granting processes. (2) Dilution of the process to define exemptions on permit-granting, which must happen in an "effective and harmonized way." (3) The need to safeguard technology neutrality and enable VHCNs by refraining from either discriminating against or unjustly preferring particular kinds of infrastructure.

ITU published a framework for the development of standards and radio interface technologies for 6G, it said Friday. Framework details were contained in “Recommendation ITU-R M.2160,” recently approved at a meeting of the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly in Dubai. ITU-R “will now focus on defining technical requirements, the submission process, and the evaluation criteria for potential 6G radio interface technologies,” a news release said: “For the next phase of 6G development, companies and industry associations will submit proposals for the IMT-2030 Radio Interface Technology for ITU-R consideration in early 2027. These submissions will then be evaluated against the agreed minimum requirements prepared by ITU's expert group on [international mobile telecommunication] systems.” The framework identifies 15 capabilities for 6G, nine of which were derived from 5G systems, ITU said. “IMT-2030 is also expected to help address the need for increased environmental, social and economic sustainability, and also support the goals of the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” The framework examines immersive communications providing “a rich and interactive video experience for users,” hyper-reliable and low-latency communications, “enhanced ubiquitous connectivity, especially in rural, remote and sparsely populated areas with the aim of bridging the digital divide,” massive IoT, the use of AI and “integrated multi-dimensional sensing to improve assisted navigation, and high-precision positioning including object and presence detection, localization, imaging​ and mapping.” By agreeing “on a way forward on 6G, ITU Member States have taken an important step toward ensuring that technical progress is synonymous with affordability, security, and resilience -- supporting sustainable development and digital transformation everywhere,” said ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin.

Fixed-broadband services accounted for more than 80% of global internet traffic in 2022, but the dominance of fixed networks “underscores the global connectivity disparity between high- and low-income countries,” ITU said Monday. There remains only one fixed-broadband subscription per 100 people in low-income countries because of high prices and lack of infrastructure, ITU said. It found “not only that fewer people are online, but that those who are connected use less data -- meaning they are not achieving the full potential of connectivity or realizing the benefits of digital transformation.” Worldwide, the monthly average was 257 GB per fixed-broadband subscription, compared with 11 GB per mobile-subscriber in 2022 -- monthly fixed traffic in just low-income countries averaged 161 GB compared with 1 GB for mobile during the period. “The further and faster technology advances, the more urgent our mission to connect everyone becomes," said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU secretary-general. “Fulfilling the promise of universal and meaningful connectivity is one of the most important causes of our time in our effort to realize the sustainable future we want and need."

Chile (57%), Indonesia (56.5%), Argentina (56%) and Hong Kong (56%) had the highest spam call rates among all the countries tracked by Hiya, the company said Thursday. In the U.S., 22.3% of unknown calls were found to be spam, Hiya said. The company identified 6.55 billion instances of phone spam across 39 countries in Q3, or 73 million incidents per day. Generative AI is behind some of the calls, Hiya said: “Voice-cloning technology is being used by scammers to convince victims that a child, grandchild or other loved one is in trouble and needs immediate financial assistance -- or worse, that a ransom needs to be paid for their release.