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Rakuten faces surge in 4G, 5G costs as KDDI cuts it off #
The termination of KDDI's roaming agreement is forcing Rakuten to plug holes in network coverage at some expense.
Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodafone Portugal goes 5G slicing; Octopus may buy TalkTalk wholesale arm; Openreach traffic trends.
Telefónica is integrating AI into all its business voice services to offer features like call transcription and summarization, as well as a virtual assistant. These services will be available for both fixed and mobile voice customers, with Telefónica saying they can help prevent companies from losing opportunities and missing out on valuable information. It is targeting large enterprises, public administrations, corporate mobile users and medium-sized business customers, highlighting appointment management, citizen services and bookings among the most promising use cases for the tool, which supports 100 languages. (See also: DT puts the chat into chatbot with AI for voice calls.)
Vodafone Portugal has deployed 5G network slicing to support payments at Paredes de Coura music festival in a proof of concept carried out with payments company SIBS. The technology should ensure that the 250 payment terminals on site can process payments smoothly in a high-traffic environment. Vodafone has deployed a customized connectivity infrastructure including fiber and advanced 5G traffic management at the event, which features M.I.A. and Bloc Party among the headliners.
With festival season in full swing, UK's VMO2 is warning anyone short on tickets about the abundance of fraudsters looking to take advantage. As part of its new campaign, named "Stop! Think Fraud," the converged operator cautions only official channels should be used to buy tickets. With 14% of festival-goers admitting they have been swindled into buying a fake ticket, fraudsters made away with £150 million (US$202.5 million) last year, the operator notes.
TalkTalk may be close to selling PlatformX Communications (PXC), its wholesale arm, to Octopus, according to a Sky News report. The talks are said to be scheduled to start shortly, with a period of exclusivity set to last several weeks. If a deal is struck it would "herald" the break-up of the TalkTalk empire, and would value PXC at "several hundred million pounds," Sky News reported, citing anonymous sources. Octopus owns Fern Trading, a broadband infrastructure group that comprises AllPoints Fibre and Vorboss, among other.
Gaming is one of the biggest drivers of fixed broadband traffic, according to Trevor Linney, director of network technology, the semi-autonomous network access arm of UK operator BT. In a blog post, he pointed out that traffic over the company's full-fiber network increased by 37% in the first half of 2026. Apart from spikes in traffic brought on by major game releases, Linney identified live sport as another big driver.
At the same time, Openreach said in a press release that 10,000 homes and businesses now have access to full fiber in Bedlington, a town in northeast England.
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