For much of the last two decades, the digital divide has been viewed primarily as an infrastructure problem. The assumption was if networks were built, people would connect.

Across the developing Asia Pacific (APAC) region, the assumption no longer holds. A new study by GSMA Intelligence and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reveals this stark reality.

Developing APAC is home to 4.3 billion people, more than half of the world’s population, and 71% of people use mobile internet, equivalent to 3.1 billion individuals.

However, 1.1 billion people live within reach of 4G networks but do not use them. By comparison, 100 million people remain outside mobile broadband coverage altogether.

The region’s connectivity gap is therefore no longer primarily about coverage. It is increasingly about enabling people to access and use mobile internet meaningfully, in a way which improves their lives.

The shift from coverage to usage is important because mobile connectivity has become far more than a communications service. As countries accelerate their digital transformation agendas, connectivity provides the foundation for digital public infrastructure, digital services, data-driven innovation and the adoption of AI across economies.

Countries seeking to become digital nations cannot do so if large segments of their populations remain disconnected from the internet economy.

What stops people from connecting?
The study shows the primary barriers to mobile internet adoption are device affordability, and digital skills and literacy.

For example, the average cost of an entry-level internet-enabled device in the region is more than 60% of the monthly income for the poorest 40% of the population, more than three-times higher than what is considered affordable.

Survey evidence also shows safety and security, particularly scams and fraud, are becoming increasingly significant concerns. This highlights the importance of trust as a broader enabler of digital adoption. As digital services become increasingly AI-enabled, it is also becoming more important to ensure these are accessible and relevant in local languages.

The barriers to adoption remain unevenly distributed. Women across developing APAC remain 12% less likely than men to use mobile internet, while rural populations are 25% less likely than urban populations to do so. These disparities are even wider in certain regions such as the Pacific Islands and South Asia.

These gaps are as much economic issues as they are social. Every individual left offline has limited access to services or opportunities for economic participation. Closing the mobile connectivity gap by 2030 is expected to add $230 billion to the developing APAC economy. And GDP is only part of the story. Universal connectivity would also accelerate progress on poverty reduction, education, healthcare access, financial inclusion, disaster response and environmental sustainability. For many people, particularly in remote regions, connectivity increasingly determines whether essential services and economic opportunities are within reach.

What needs to be done?
The study demonstrates there is a strong economic case for closing the digital divide, but doing so requires coordinated policy reform, investment and implementation.

Countries in developing APAC have made substantial progress to bring more than half a billion people online in the past five years. By 2030, it is expected more than three quarters of adults will be using 4G or 5G mobile internet. To connect the remaining offline populations will require a total investment of $316 billion. The private sector is expected to generate $132 billion of investment, which means there is an investment gap of $184 billion.

At first glance the figure appears daunting. However, the composition of the gap tells a more encouraging story.

More than half of the investment gap relates to improving device affordability and digital skills. In other words, the largest barriers are not engineering challenges but rather policy, financing and development challenges. This calls for holistic multi-stakeholder strategies which look beyond network rollout and address the conditions enabling people to adopt and meaningfully use digital services.

Historically, connectivity strategies and universal service funds have often focused on infrastructure expansion. While infrastructure remains important, particularly in underserved rural areas, a more balanced approach is needed to address affordability and adoption barriers directly. Supporting device financing schemes, reducing sector-specific taxes, reforming universal service funds and investing in digital literacy programmes will generate far greater returns than traditional approaches alone. Importantly, these policies also help crowd in private investment rather than replace it.

From connected to digital nations
Over the next decade, governments across developing Asia Pacific are increasingly expected to focus on AI, digital public infrastructure and national digital transformation strategies. These ambitions are well founded, but they all rest on a common foundation: affordable, safe, meaningful and inclusive connectivity.

Without universal access and adoption, the benefits of AI and digital transformation risk being concentrated among those already connected, further widening existing inequalities.

The good news is developing APAC has already solved much of the challenge. With 98% 4G network coverage, the region has built an extraordinary platform for digital inclusion. The task now is to ensure everyone can actually use it. The next phase of digital inclusion will, therefore, not be defined by network coverage alone. It will be shaped by affordability, skills, trust, accessibility and relevance. Closing these gaps may prove to be one of the most important development challenges and opportunities of the next decade.

The editorial views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and will not necessarily reflect the views of the GSMA, its Members or Associate Members.

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Chipmaker Qualcomm reportedly will cut an undetermined number of jobs following recent annual employee reviews, with impacted staff set to be alerted next month.

Reuters reported CEO ​Cristiano Amon (pictured) sent out a memo outlining the cuts were part of a plan to create “a stronger performance culture” and address areas where the company “has consistently fallen short of expectations”.

The news agency noted the memo did not disclose how many employees will lose their jobs but stated it had roughly 52,000 employees globally, most of them full time, as of September 2025.

While Amon has made a concerted effort to branch the company’s products beyond phone chips, Qualcomm has battled against the impact of a worldwide memory supply crunch.

For fiscal Q3, it posted revenue of $9.9 billion for the quarter ended 28 June, down 4% from $10.4 billion a year earlier while net income during the period was $2 billion, for a 25% year-on-year decrease.

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PHY Wireless and Ubiik teamed up to combine private LTE and 5G connectivity with device-based positioning, offering enterprise and industrial users a 3GPP standards-based alternative to proprietary location systems.

The collaboration combines Ubiik’s private LTE and 5G infrastructure with PHY Wireless’ hellaPHY technology, enabling enterprises, utilities, hospitals, and campuses to run communications and location services on a single network.

Potential applications include tracking assets, vehicles and equipment, improving worker safety and supporting physical AI deployments.

The companies explained GPS and Wi-Fi positioning can struggle in warehouses, containers and factories and may increase battery consumption. HellaPHY calculates location on the device rather than in the cloud, allowing devices to determine when an update is required.

This approach apparently reduces network traffic, data costs and power use, while enhancing privacy.

Because the system operates over standard LTE and 5G, customers could add positioning capabilities to existing private networks rather than deploy separate infrastructure, which the companies said would reduce deployment costs and simplify operations.

The pair also claimed the technology provides metre-level accuracy and can cut device power consumption by up to 10 times compared with alternative approaches. This aligns with emerging 5G-Advanced, eRedCap and 6G sensing standards.

PHY Wireless CEO Tom Horgan said organisations pursuing physical AI and automation require location technology that can scale across thousands of devices at a manageable cost. He stated location awareness is becoming a foundational capability for next-generation enterprise and industrial applications.

Ubiik CEO TH Peng added the collaboration demonstrated how the company could adapt its private LTE platform to incorporate new technology and support changing customer requirements.

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Globalstar secured US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for its next-generation C-3 satellite system as Amazon prepares to acquire the company.

The FCC granted nationwide authority to operate the system, which is designed to connect hundreds of millions of mobile devices in the US, including through direct-to-device (D2D) links to smartphones. The order also covers ground station antennas in Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

The approval strengthens the regulatory position of an asset central to Amazon’s effort to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink for D2D services.

C-3 will comprise 48 low Earth orbit birds at an altitude of 1,414 kilometres, along with six in-orbit spares and about 90 six-metre ground antennas worldwide. MDA Space is building the satellites in Canada, while control centres in Toulouse, France and at Globalstar’s Louisiana headquarters will oversee operations. France filed the system’s notification with the ITU.

CEO Paul Jacobs described the approval as a key step in improving the capacity, performance and flexibility of Globalstar’s services. Regulatory affairs chief Barbee Ponder said it concluded a multi-year licensing process with the FCC’s Space Bureau.

In April, Amazon agreed to acquire the satellite company for $11.6 billion as part of a push to add D2D services to its Amazon Leo constellation. The deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approval and Globalstar meeting specified satellite milestones.

In July, Amazon Leo applied to the FCC in July for permission to deploy up to 5,105 satellites for direct-to-device services.

As of October, Amazon communications manager Zack Brown said the company had 396 LEO satellites in orbit and had built more than 1,000 at its 172,000-square-foot production facility in Kirkland, Washington.

Apple is a long-term Globalstar partner and has invested more than $1 billion in the company. Globalstar’s existing fleet supports iPhone satellite features including emergency texting, messaging, roadside assistance and location sharing.

Amazon also signed a separate agreement to provide satellite connectivity for current and future iPhones and Apple Watches, and committed to maintaining those services.

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The National Basketball Association (NBA), Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and AT&T revealed the launch of the fourth generation of the High-Speed Arena Network (HSAN), the latest iteration of the leagues’ connectivity platform built to transport live game content, highlights, replays, in-arena programming and stats to fans and business partners.

With more than 68,000 miles of the operator’s fibre and network infrastructure, the HSAN will be built to transport more than 118 concurrent, high-quality, low-latency streams per game, supporting millions of hours of basketball consumption during the 2027-28 NBA season.

AT&T chief marketing and growth officer Kellyn Smith Kenny stated fans consume basketball across live broadcasts, replays, highlights, social media and NBA digital platforms. She added the companies were building the connectivity needed to distribute game content quickly and reliably, helping viewers stay connected to key moments wherever they watch.

AT&T, the NBA and the WNBA also extended their longstanding marketing partnership, continuing the operator role as the leagues’ Official Connectivity Partner, building on a relationship which began in 2018. The extension also continues AT&T’s partnership with the NBA G League, USA Basketball and NBA Take-Two Media.

As part of the marketing partnership, AT&T and the NBA will create new fan touchpoints across content and retail activations and give them more opportunities to engage with NBA stars and AT&T athletes. The operator will also continue to connect fans with their favourite teams and players through its partnerships with the Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat and LA Clippers.

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Interview: Seven months after its launch at MWC Barcelona 2026, the Linux Foundation’s OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation has added major technology companies and issued the second version of its open-source RAN software.

Dr Tom Rondeau (pictured below), principal director of the US Department of War’s FutureG programme, told Mobile World Live the initiative is working to a six month release cadence. The first release arrived in April, followed by the second version on 8 October.

OCUDU, short for Open Centralised Unit Distributed Unit, hosts open-source software for the RAN’s central and distributed units.

When the foundation launched, its members included AMD, AT&T, Ericsson, Nokia, Nvidia, SoftBank Corp and Verizon. FutureG and the US National Spectrum Consortium agreed to back it for three years with funds to be appropriated by Congress.

April release
Rondeau said the April release was mainly a rebuild. Software Radio Systems (SRS) re-architected its RAN code base, which dates back to the LTE-era, so a wider open-source community could work on it. He noted much of the cybersecurity benefit comes from making the code readable and clean.

“What that included though, aside from just good coding practices, was a basic 5G RAN that you could stand up,” he said. “A fundamental 5G with no bells and whistles necessarily but you could make a call across it, and you could have a data connection usually from standard 5G UEs”.

“That was important just as a proof of concept to get the basic bones of a 5G system out there and get people looking at the code and working with it,” he added.

It also included a significant number of interfaces based both on 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance specifications.

Rondeau said feedback on the first release has been positive, with developers describing the code as easy to use, fast and well documented. He added people have been “coming out of the woodwork” to say they have used OCUDU successfully.

October release
The latest version focuses on radio performance, led by beamforming and more advanced multi-antenna support. It also added work on non-public networks, resilience upgrades, bug fixes and support for more powerful phased-array radio units.

Rondeau said developers have repeatedly asked whether OCUDU can support non-terrestrial networks (NTN). The October release incorporated the 3GPP’s Release 17 NTN specification, drawing on SRS’ experience in the area and giving developers a platform for exploring space-based communications.

Membership growth
Samsung joined as a premier member in April, followed by Qualcomm in May and Intel in August, taking the group to 12 premier members and 34 general ones.

The premier members sit on the governing board and help drive the roadmap. Day-to-day, though, most of the companies still build their own features or are integrating OCUDU with their own products or stacks.

Genuine collaborative development, Rondeau said, is “a cultural thing that needs to be continuously worked on”. He stated the Linux Foundation had told his department OCUDU was its third-fastest-growing project.

Roadmap
Rondeau said the organisation is striving for at “least one real champion” to say it has integrated OCUDU into its products and can use it in commercial release.

“A year from now may be a little bit early,” he acknowledged. Integration in prototypes or test facilities would count, and he has heard “good rumours” about companies moving aggressively on their own.

A separate contract with Cohere Technologies, awarded by Rondeau’s office, offers another test. The goal is to use OCUDU to set up a call over the standard 5G NR waveform, then negotiate a switch to another waveform for the data plane.

In Cohere’s case that is Zac-Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space (OTFS), which lets the department test sensing and communications together. It will be built around an OCUDU-based RAN stack, which Rondeau called a major proof of concept for Cohere and for OCUDU as the core software of a working RAN.

That contract runs for two years, with completion expected around the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and intermediate deliverables along the way. It will not be public in the way OCUDU is but Cohere has committed to releasing the interfaces back into the project.

The work also feeds into integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) which Rondeau sees as one leg of 6G alongside connectivity and edge AI compute.

Rondeau said sensing is critical to the US Department of War because it could close capability gaps and reduce the number of specialised sensors it needs to carry or deploy.

He added the US must compete with authoritarian adversaries which may take different approaches to how ISAC standards and technologies govern data management, security, processing and access.

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Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone Group signed a letter of intent to explore a joint bid for a future allocation of spectrum for Mobile Satellite Services, as part of efforts to advance direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities in Europe.

The operators jointly stated their initiative backs a European Commission (EC) ambition to strengthen sovereignty, security and resilience in critical connectivity infrastructure.

News of a potential joint bid emerged last month when Bloomberg reported the four had entered discussions to bid on a third of the total spectrum due to be allocated by the EC in the 2GHz band, which has been reserved for European companies.

In a pitch heavy on the advantages of working together, the quartet explained a joint bid for spectrum would enable each provider with open and non-discriminatory access to offer D2D to customers in a model designed to “foster competition, reduce market fragmentation and expand consumer choice across Europe”.

They aim to use satellite to connect underserved areas, strengthen public networks, protect critical communications and support the development of a European constellation.

The operators plan to establish key ground infrastructure, critical coordination and monitoring functions without investing directly in a satellite constellation.

This opens the door to a partnership with a satellite partner, which is yet to be selected.

Execution
The letter of intent does not replace any existing satellite partnerships.

Vodafone’s satellite activity is particularly high-profile, with the company involved in a joint venture with US-based AST SpaceMobile.

Paolo Pescatore, analyst at PP Foresight, said the announcement is more an exploratory agreement rather than a confirmed launch.

“The opportunity is to make satellite coverage a seamless extension of mobile connectivity. Success will depend on execution, device compatibility and pricing that gives customers a compelling reason to pay, along with reassurance that they can stay connected in more places.”

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Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin outlined a plan to spend $330 million on extensive upgrades to its launch facilities in the US state of Florida to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade. 

Blue Origin revealed it will add two additional launch and landing pads for its New Glenn rockets while also boosting its second stage manufacturing capabilities. Ian Richardson, Blue Origin’s SVP of operations, stated in a blog the expansion will be completed by the middle of 2027.

“These investments are centred on one goal: building the capacity to support more missions, more reliably, and more efficiently,” he said. “As we look ahead, this infrastructure is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.”

The upgrades also include a new customer integration facility with the US Space Force at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida to give it “the ability to prepare multiple missions at once”.

Richardson noted the company has invested more than $3 billion in facilities and infrastructure across the state with more than 5,000 employees.

Blue Origin is seeking to ramp up the cadence of its rocket launches to better compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Currently, Blue Origin has 396 LEO birds in orbit while SpaceX has approximately 11,150 Starlink satellites.

While SpaceX and Blue Origin use their rockets to launch satellites from other companies, CNBC reported the former has stopped commercial rides on its Falcon 9 rocket to support its larger Starship model.

Blue Origin suffered a setback in May when one of its New Glenn rockets exploded on the Florida launch pad. In July, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp outlined a plan to rebuild its launch pad with a new configuration as it works toward returning its New Glenn rocket to flight before the end of 2026.

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Reliance Industries appeared to hit back at Elon Musk’s suggestions its owner Mukesh Ambani (pictured) was blocking Starlink’s entry into India, stating it welcomes competition and pointing out its own satellite venture has also not been cleared by regulators.

In a statement on Musk-owned X, Reliance said considering recent remarks about the company and the Indian market, it wished to put on record that like every Indian enterprise it had grown in a country that welcomes investment and innovation.

It continued to state the open nature of the Indian market rests on the rule of law, and the government has stated it applies the same process to every applicant, Indian or foreign.

“Jio’s own satellite service awaits clearances,” it said. “At Reliance we never feared competition… we welcome competition in satellite communications, including Starlink. Every player, Jio included, must serve the people of India and abide by the laws and policies of the land.”

Reliance’s statement followed a series of Musk’s own posts regarding Starlink’s entrance into India. The SpaceX chief claimed “certain oligarchs” were delaying its entry into the country to maintain a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people”.

While emphasising the benefits satellite connectivity will have on the Indian market, Musk sarcastically addressed Ambani as India’s real Prime Minister and asked if he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete”.

Musk also described suggestions Starlink would struggle to compete with Jio and its low-cost data plans as “absurd, hypocrisy and hyperbole”.

India’s government has also rejected Musk’s claims, stating its satellite communications framework is fair and non-discriminatory while emphasising that Starlink, Jio and Sunil Bharti Mittal-backed Eutelsat OneWeb are all awaiting security clearance and spectrum allocation.

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Japan will pump $20 billion in funding into two new semiconductor facilities in the US as part of a trade agreement between the two countries, with GlobalFoundries selected to operate the sites.

The move forms part of a wider trade deal between the countries for Japan to invest $550 billion in return for the US lowering tariffs of Japanese goods.

GlobalFoundries will build the new sites at its Malta, New York, campus with the initiative designed to accelerate trusted semiconductor manufacturing in the US, strengthen critical supply chains and support growing demand across automotive, industrial and connected infrastructure markets.

Japan will make an initial investment of approximately $10 billion, accelerating construction of a new 300mm semiconductor fab which is expected to come online in 2029. It will add approximately 900,000 wafers of annual manufacturing capacity when fully operational.

An additional $10 billion will fund a second fab, which will produce the same amount of wafers. The entire project is expected to create about 27,000 construction and ecosystem jobs and more than 1,000 highly skilled manufacturing jobs in New York’s Capital Region.

Bold
GlobalFoundries has also agreed a deal with the US Commerce Department to amend an existing award under the CHIPS and Science Act to reallocate $995 million towards investments in silicon photonics and other areas. This will expand manufacturing capacity for technologies “increasingly critical to communications infrastructure and data centres”.

As part of a separate arrangement, the US government will receive approximately 4% equity in GlobalFoundries, taking its total stake to 7%.

Tom Breen, CEO of GlobalFoundries said the initiative was a bold new step for semiconductor manufacturing, bringing together the US and Japan with differentiated technology and decades of manufacturing expertise.

Howard Lutnick, US secretary of commerce added President Donald Trump’s historic US, Japan trade deal “is delivering another massive manufacturing investment into America”.

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NTT Docomo and US-based network equipment manufacturer Abside Networks signed an agreement to explore next-generation, AI-driven networks using high-altitude platform stations (HAPS), as operators look to extend networks beyond terrestrial infrastructure.

Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), the pair will collaborate on HAPS system architecture, network control and data utilisation. They will also examine how AI can forecast demand and manage radio beams, capacity, spectrum and interference in stratospheric RAN.

In addition, the partners plan to study the collection and use of data on network quality, operations and stratospheric sensing, as well as potential integration with external applications and service platforms.

The agreement supports NTT Docomo’s broader vision for a “three-dimensional communications infrastructure that integrates AI with non-terrestrial network (NTN) initiatives, including HAPS”. Operating at altitudes of around 20km, HAPS use unmanned platforms to provide wide-area connectivity, including to underserved locations where conventional mobile coverage is difficult or uneconomical, such as mountainous regions and maritime areas.

The Japanese operator explained it aims to integrate terrestrial networks with systems in the stratosphere and space to enable wider-area, higher-capacity services that address mounting connectivity demand as AI usage balloons.

NTT Docomo has been conducting research and demonstrations aimed at delivering HAPS-based communications services, but noted the stratospheric environment requires specialised RAN technologies and equipment.

As a result, Abside is developing radio systems based on large antenna arrays for precise beam control, alongside an AI-driven software platform designed to provide “integrated control of networks across the ground, stratosphere and space”.

The equipment manufacturer also brings experience in stratospheric communications through its work on Google’s Project Loon balloon initiative, alongside development of HAPS equipment, NTN technologies and AI-based network control systems.

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Interview: AT&T Business selected Amazon Leo for an enterprise broadband service designed to complement its fibre and 5G offerings, describing the satellite provider as a business-grade alternative to Starlink.

Shawn Hakl, SVP and head of product at AT&T Business (pictured), told Mobile World Live the service adds a third connectivity option, including in areas beyond the reach of AT&T’s terrestrial networks.

“We’ve done a lot of integration with Amazon and we’re working with them at different levels,” he said. “We’ve tested the product out pretty extensively and we’ve seen sub-50 millisecond latency. We’re also extremely happy with the throughput.”

Amazon Leo selected AT&T Business as its sole US telecoms launch partner.

“They’ve been extremely willing to work with us to fine-tune the interaction between the two networks,” Hakl explained. “We’re working closely with them on how to harmonise the in-air component and the interaction between our network and the ground stations.”

AT&T Business is providing the last-mile connectivity and local customer equipment for the service, while working with Amazon on the interaction between AT&T’s terrestrial network and Amazon Leo’s ground stations.

He said the operator is striving to make the connection between its network and the cloud “a software consumable element” which could be combined with satellite, wireless and wireline connectivity in an end-to-end architecture rather than offered as a series of point-to-point products.

Hakl said some customers will want traditional active-passive setups, others active configurations and some multiple-box arrangements.

“I don’t think we can get down to a single box in the first iteration,” he noted.

Hakl stated combining fibre, 5G and satellite will enable AT&T Business to deliver different services, SLAs and business outcomes for each customer. This will give customers more granular control over how applications use network resources, including the ability to balance performance, cost and security across their connectivity options.

Customers could choose how much control they retain, Hakl said. Some may want to manage network decisions in detail, while others could leave them to AI models.

Hakl noted AT&T has sold satellite services for a decade, particularly in agriculture, manufacturing and retail, while public safety through FirstNet is another area of focus.

“If the price point comes down, obviously it becomes more of an option for different segments in the market,” he stated. “We’re just impressed with Amazon’s technology and feel like it’s the business-grade solution that’s out there.”

Hakl said AT&T Business expects to offer the service next year, although the timing remains tied to Amazon Leo’s satellite launch schedule.

Launch timing
In July, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp outlined a plan to rebuild its Florida launch pad with a new configuration after a failed attempt as it works toward returning its New Glenn rocket to flight before the end of the year.

Also in July, Amazon Leo applied to the US Federal Communications Commission to deploy up to 5,105 birds to deliver direct-to-device services to mobile devices.

And in October, Amazon company communications manager Zack Brown revealed the company currently has 396 LEO birds in orbit and said the company has built over 1,000 satellites at its 172,000-square-foot production facility in Kirkland, Washington.

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Elon Musk pledged to make Starlink affordable in India as he renewed his attack on billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s (pictured) telecoms dominance, days before Jio Platforms launches a record-breaking IPO.

In a series of posts on social media platform X, the SpaceX chief argued that competition from Starlink would benefit Indian consumers by expanding connectivity options. “The reality is that competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by giving them more choices, as it always does,” he explained, adding, “Ambani’s profits will be lower, but he is not going out of business”.

Musk also dismissed claims that Starlink would struggle to compete with Jio’s low-cost data plans while also posing a threat to the incumbent operator. “This is absurd hypocrisy and hyperbole,” he said.

His comments come as Jio Platforms targets a valuation of around $106 billion, according to Reuters, in a planned IPO that could become India’s largest-ever listing. The business includes telecoms operation Reliance Jio, which reported 524.4 million subscribers at the end of March, including 268.5 million 5G customers.

“Prime Minister Ambani“
Musk has escalated his criticism of India’s regulatory process in recent days, accusing authorities and “certain oligarchs” of delaying Starlink’s entry into the country to maintain a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people”.

In a separate post on Friday (9 October), he sarcastically addressed the Jio Platforms-owner as “Prime Minister Ambani” and asked whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete”.

He argued satellite connectivity could bring internet access to underserved communities, improve educational opportunities and enable small businesses to reach international markets.

“Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,” he wrote, adding “Starlink would change their lives for the better”.

India’s Ministry of Communications has rejected allegations of discriminatory treatment, stating that Starlink and incumbents Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio were at broadly the same stage of the regulatory process. All three have secured initial approvals but remain subject to outstanding security clearances before they can obtain spectrum access.

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MWL‘s Mike Robuck sits down with executives from Ericsson, AT&T, Verizon and the US Department of War (DoW) to discuss the progress Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has made this year and where it is headed next.

Ericsson Federal CEO Christopher Ling sees sensing as a potential killer app for 6G, arguing it could give the US military a reason to invest in commercial cellular infrastructure beyond connectivity.

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) turns communications networks into sensors by analysing radio signals reflected from objects. It can detect, track and identify objects in much the same way as radar.

Ericsson Federal Technologies Group is the vendor’s US unit focused on adapting its commercial network technology for federal government and national-security customers.

ISAC has moved beyond laboratory testing over the past year. It has been demonstrated at a stadium, included in a US Department of War (DoW) contract and proposed for a Los Angeles, California trial ahead of the 2028 Olympics.

Dr Tom Rondeau, principal director of the DoW’s FutureG programme, said denser 5G and 6G networks, edge-based AI compute and greater access to commercial spectrum are making network-based sensing viable.

“We have a network that covers 70% of the landmass of the United States and about 98% of the population,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to use this for, to kick off the value proposition of ISAC.”

Rondeau highlighted drones, particularly swarms, as the immediate focus. The aim is to find, fix and track potentially thousands of devices, including in dense cities where traditional sensors struggle and radar cannot simply be pointed into open sky.

“It’s one thing to have a missile defence system or a drone defence system that gets to look up and out into open airspace,” he said, “but it’s another to track it in downtown New York [City] or downtown [Washington] DC.”

Network density could compensate for the limited sensing range of individual sites. At the power levels involved, a single base station might reach only a few kilometres, but sites spaced every half kilometre could extend coverage across much of the network.

Rondeau (pictured, left) pointed to Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, in which drones smuggled deep into Russian territory and controlled over Russia’s cellular network reportedly destroyed roughly a third of its strategic bomber fleet.

“That tells us that we can no longer think of border security as just looking out of our geographical borders,” he said. “We have to be able to look across our entire nation.”

Rondeau also sees civilian applications for ISAC. Drawing on his time at DARPA studying emergency planning, he cited Hurricane Katrina, when evacuation plans fell apart because people did not go where planners expected.

“It’s not like we’re going to redirect them to where we want to be,” he said, “so why don’t we redirect the resources to where they actually are.”

Trials
AT&T and Ericsson ran a drone-detection demonstration near AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, during the FIFA World Cup football tournament a few months ago.

In nearby Dallas, Verizon and Samsung tested a crowd-density heatmap at the World Cup FanFest area, designed to help fans find shorter queues and organisers manage foot traffic.

“That was a crowd sensing for the FanFest area, which is completely different to detecting drones,” said Verizon CTO Yago Tenorio. “It looks like a business-to-business opportunity that you can monetise.”

Tenorio explained ISAC presents fewer privacy concerns than cameras because it returns shape, movement and rough size rather than identity. It can distinguish “a pedestrian from a bicycle and a drone from a bird”, though not one person from another.

The DoW has also begun funding development. In July, Cohere Technologies won a $28 million contract from the FutureG Office to build a multi-waveform radio access network prototype which uses commercial cellular infrastructure to detect drones and other aerial threats.

Ericsson and Finnish state-owned ICT company Erillisverkot have also run live demonstrations in a Helsinki cargo harbour, using sensing data from several network points to detect small, low-altitude drones.

Verizon’s 6G forum
Verizon has made ISAC one of two anchor themes of its 6G Innovation Forum, which it expanded in September. The other theme is AI wearables. Tenorio stated the forum was created to “design 6G bottoms up”, starting with viable use cases and how they might be monetised.

At Qualcomm’s San Diego, California campus, Verizon tested 100MHz to 400MHz of millimetre-wave spectrum across four synchronised transmission and reception points. The system mapped the position and velocity of an airborne target and moving ground vehicles while keeping a phone user on the ground connected over standalone 5G. Verizon presented the trial as a test of drone and vehicle safety tracking.

Millimetre wave was the only spectrum which offered enough bandwidth, Tenorio said, and bandwidth, more than frequency, determines sensing accuracy.

“The precision of the positioning and the radar image… is proportional to the bandwidth of the signal,” he stated. “Not so much the frequency, but the bandwidth.”

Technology divide
Huawei appears to have an early lead in ISAC deployments. Ling said Ericsson had been told the Chinese vendor has more than 300 ISAC-capable systems operating, although he cautioned the figure might not be exact. He linked the reported lead to China’s early nationwide shift to standalone 5G.

Ling (pictured, left) explained there’s a difference in terms of network architecture. In a monostatic configuration, one tower transmits a signal and receives its reflection, indicating an object’s presence and general direction. Huawei developed a monostatic system and, in Ling’s view, may now be reconsidering that approach. As far as he knows, Ericsson is the only company using a multistatic configuration, in which one site transmits and other sites receive the reflected signal, enabling more precise location and tracking.

A monostatic system might show an object is off to the left, he said. A multistatic system could place it 1,500 metres away, measure its speed and track it to within eight to 10 metres, the resolution he said the Arlington demonstration achieved.

Ling stressed that Ericsson is focused on 5G sensing rather than a fully integrated sensing and communication system. Turning a 5G network into a radar remains a significant technical challenge, he noted, and the company wants to establish the capability before moving further.

It has committed $100 million to ISAC and expects a commercial product within two years, ahead of the standards debate expected at the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference.

Ling said micro-Doppler signatures from spinning propellers could allow the system to identify a drone type as well as locate it. “It’s not only detecting, tracking, you can get identification from it as well,” he said.

The resolution may eventually be good enough to support targeting without the more expensive radar systems the military uses today.

“You’ve got a drone that costs $30,000 and we’re shooting it down with a million-dollar missile,” he said. “This starts to bend the cost curve.”

Ericsson has held discussions with European countries bordering Russia, Ling added, and sees growing interest in the Middle East, where governments are concerned about protecting infrastructure.

From 5G to 6G
Tenorio described current ISAC work as a step towards 6G. Vendors are fitting sensing into 5G and 5G-Advanced systems while preserving as much connectivity capacity as possible; 6G would allow them to design the capability into the network from the outset.

“On 5G, you’re just squeezing it in as best as you possibly can,” he said. “But if you understand how it works, you have the opportunity to design it natively in 6G in a way that comes with no compromise.”

Verizon plans to extend its ISAC work to Los Angeles. The carrier has applied to the Federal Communications Commission for a one-year experimental licence to use 4.8GHz to 4.9GHz spectrum, part of the 4.4GHz band the NTIA is studying for 5G and 6G. It plans to test Ericsson hardware and software in and around its LA lab. The filing describes an outdoor private network within a five-kilometre radius, separate from commercial networks. The application is pending.

Tenorio called the band “a good compromise” between available bandwidth and a frequency low enough to propagate farther. Verizon has also applied to take part in the NTIA’s Mission 6G 28 programme, which will showcase 6G technology around the 2028 Olympics.

“LA will be an important opportunity for us to display not only what 6G is about… but where we are in terms of advancing the technology,” he said.

Beyond drones and crowds, Tenorio sees enterprise uses such as digital twins of factories and campuses. At shorter ranges, he said, ISAC could support vital-sign monitoring and fall detection in elderly care.

Shawn Hakl, SVP and head of product at AT&T Business, sees the value in places where cameras and sensors are impractical, or the assets belong to someone else. He cited public safety, analytics and flow control, and spotting changes such as an unplanned obstruction on a city street.

“ISAC gives us a way to get sort of topology information, environment information without having physically deployed stuff and basically getting signal data back,” he said.

Ling stated the military case may ultimately depend on sensing rather than connectivity: a customer which would not buy a 5G network solely for communications could still need the infrastructure to obtain 5G sensing.

The post Feature: Why ISAC is moving beyond labs to live trials appeared first on Mobile World Live.

In the second of our special podcast series focused on Digital Industries, MWL‘s Chris Donkin delves into the operational realities of deploying private networks alongside experts from Druid Software, Boldyn Networks and Vodafone Business.

0:00 Meet the Panel
3:00 What’s Taking Off
12:00 4G or 5G?
21:00 The Messy Reality
28:00 Beyond the POC
35:00 Q&A and the Future

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Indian authorities pushed back against Elon Musk’s claims that unnamed oligarchs were blocking Starlink from launching in the country, stating all three prospective operators remain broadly at the same stage of the regulatory process.

In a post on X, Musk accused “certain oligarchs” of trying to maintain a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people”, adding “you can guess who they are…” without naming the parties involved. “This is a crime against the people of India!” he wrote.

In a statement, India’s Ministry of Communications rejected the allegation, explaining its satellite communications framework is “fair and non-discriminatory”. It said assessments are currently underway for all licensed operators in India, with each required to meet security conditions before it can seek spectrum.

“At present, all the three entities are at broadly the same regulatory stage,” the ministry said, calling claims of discriminatory treatment “baseless and misconceived”.

The country’s telecoms sector is dominated by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio and Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel. Both operators, alongside Musk’s Starlink, have secured initial approvals for satellite services but are awaiting spectrum assignment and final clearances.

Starlink’s approval process has stretched over four years, with security requirements and spectrum access among the key issues under scrutiny. Musk has previously clashed with Ambani over India’s satellite spectrum allocation, although both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel later struck agreements with the tech mogul to distribute Starlink services in the country.

The US satellite venture’s regulatory wait has also been marred by security concerns. Local media reports stated authorities recovered illegal Starlink equipment in two separate operations in late 2024, including a drug seizure in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and an army search in the northeastern state of Manipur.

This week, Musk also disputed any suggestion the equipment was connected to an active Starlink service in India, posting on X that its satellite beams were “turned off over India” and “never on in the first place”.

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Samsung Electronics forecast consolidated operating profit of KRW107.4 trillion ($80.2 billion) in preliminary Q3 figures, the first time it would surpass the KRW100 trillion milestone.

With its chip business continuing to thrive, Samsung’s projected quarterly operating profit figure is a 782% increase year-on-year.

Revenue is expected to hit around KRW195 trillion, up almost 127%.

It would be the South Korean company’s fourth straight quarter of record operating profit, fuelled by an ongoing memory chip shortage driven by rising demand for AI services.

Josh Gilbert, lead analyst for APAC at investment platform eToro, told CNBC with “AI spending driving demand for memory and supply remaining tight, the larger story of the chip sector remains intact”, pointing to the fact emerging AI agents would require more memory than chatbots.

“Memory buyers are also committing to multi-year supply agreements, giving Samsung greater visibility over demand in a business where investors have always worried about the next downturn,” CNBC reported Gilbert as saying.

Samsung posted revenue of KRW171.5 trillion and operating profit of KRW89.5 trillion in Q2.

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Widespread availability of Wi-Fi makes the technology an ideal candidate for inclusion in future 6G standards, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) argued.

The specialist Wi-Fi industry body believes the next connectivity shift will fall short without the technology and called on the wider telecoms industry to look at ways it can work alongside mobile networks to deliver ubiquitous coverage.

WBA president and CEO Tiago Rodrigues branded Wi-Fi “fundamental” to ubiquitous coverage ambitions, highlighting indoor connectivity as a prime example.

The WBA recently released a report explaining why it believes Wi-Fi should be a core element of 6G and detailing various means of incorporating it, which Rodrigues said offers a “practical framework that can reduce cost and complexity”.

Convergence is a core element of the WBA’s strategy. It argued Wi-Fi could be central to providing the “consistent user experience and deep indoor coverage” detailed in the ITU’s IMT-2030 framework for 6G because it is “already a common technology” for internal connectivity.

As such, the industry body wants to see tweaks to access models to provide agnostic set-ups which can run on Wi-Fi or mobile as required.

The WBA also argues any convergence of Wi-Fi and 6G must tackle commercial considerations including network costs; customer experience; increased automation; and fresh service opportunities.

It stated the approach would benefit operators and device makers, alike.

Keeping costs in mind would also remove barriers the WBA stated hindered uptake of previous convergence plays involving Wi-Fi, 4G and 5G.

Getting it right could have big implications for autonomous networks, industrial and emergency service connectivity and various digital logistics plays, the WBA stated.

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Aerospace and defence groups are reportedly pushing back against a SpaceX-backed effort to overhaul wireless spectrum coordination for rocket launches.

Bloomberg reported the proposed changes would replace the third-party frequency-coordination system overseeing how government agencies and commercial entities share key telemetry bands.

The FCC sought public comment on modernising launch spectrum coordination following an August 2026 Presidential Memorandum and a petition filed by the Commercial Space Federation (CSF).

According to filings highlighted by outlet Vertical Aviation International, CSF asked the FCC to replace the existing flight-test frequency coordination process with direct coordination and an automated, near-real-time database across shared telemetry bands.

A coalition representing aerospace and defence organisations, commercial aircraft manufacturers including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and flight-test operators submitted formal comments urging the FCC to proceed cautiously.

In a joint submission, the Aerospace & Defense Industry Spectrum Coalition warned the proposed coordination changes could increase the risk of harmful electromagnetic interference.

The coalition stated these shared frequencies are vital for real-time safety telemetry during prototype aircraft evaluations, electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) certification flights, and defence readiness testing.

It also argued the FCC’s expedited comment schedule did not allow sufficient time for comprehensive technical studies to verify non-interference.

The clash leaves the FCC balancing faster rocket launch schedules against the need to protect aerospace and defence users of the same spectrum from harmful interference.

FCC bird approval
SpaceX notched a regulatory win after it secured Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval to launch 15,000 next-gen satellites for its direct-to-device (D2D) mobile service, creating a path to compete directly with AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon.

SpaceX filed its application with the FCC in September 2025 ahead of rebranding its D2D satellite offering as Starlink Mobile earlier this year.

Elon Musk-controlled SpaceX is targeting a download speed of 150Mb/s for its D2D service compared to about 4Mb/s on the downlink for the Starlink provisioned offering by T-Mobile.

Instead of relying on a terrestrial network with cell towers, SpaceX plans to pair its satellites with ground-based femtocells to provide 5G mobile coverage, a plan many executives in the industry consider far-fetched.

“With this action, SpaceX’s planned deployments will reshape spectrum-based connectivity by improving competition, allowing more consumers more choices in more places to further the Commission’s goal to connect everyone, everywhere to modern communications services,” the agency stated on 6 October

The FCC also issued SpaceX a waiver to offer its service through satellites without entering into a leasing agreement with a terrestrial mobile operator.

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Dell’Oro Group reported worldwide telecom capex rose 5% year-on-year in the first half of the year, exceeding expectations following several years of declining investments.

Despite the promising start to the year, Dell’Oro’s long-term outlook remained largely unchanged by forecasting telecom capex growth of up to 1% CAGR through 2030.

Telecom equipment performance continued to closely mirror capex trends. Combined vendor revenue from the six telecom equipment segments monitored by Dell’Oro, comprised of Broadband Access, Microwave Transmission, Optical Transport, Mobile Core Network (MCN), Radio Access Network (RAN), and High-End Router & Aggregation, also increased by about 5% over the same timeframe.

Dell’Oro VP Stefan Pongratz explained operators have greater capacity following the 5G and fibre investment cycles and are gradually redirecting spending from coverage to capacity, modernisation, automation and efficiency.

“At the same time, improving operator revenues are helping to reduce capital intensity ratios even as network investments remain flat,” he stated.

Capital intensity, which peaked at 18% in 2022, is forecast to decline to around 14% in 2028, ahead of increasing slightly as early 6G investment starts.

Overall, telecom equipment revenue is projected to grow at a 2% to 3% CAGR between 2025 and 2030, outpacing CSP capex, partly due to incremental demand from cloud providers.

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