AvidThink 2026 April Recap

April saw Roy at Wi-Fi Now in Mountain View, then FutureNet World in London, and just last week, he popped up in Seattle/Bellevue at T-Mobile’s SuperBroadband event, featuring a concert by Natasha Bedingfield (“Unwritten,” “Pocketful of Sunshine”) .

For us and our media partner, James Carroll of Converge Digest, we were busy launching our Next-Gen Data Center Networking Report, 2026 Edition, which covers the latest in Scale-Up, Scale-Out, and Scale-Across.

You’ll find the report ready for download, along with a collection of executive insights on the topics on our NextGenInfra.io site, joining video showcases from Upperside World Congress 2026, as well as our earlier showcase from OFC 2026.

Here's what's in store for this month's newsletter:

Visit NextGenInfra.io to check out the latest video showcases and download your copy of our Data Center Networking Report. Thank you again to our sponsors for making this available as a free download!

—The AvidThink Team

From the Computer History Museum to the O2 Arena to the T-Mobile Innovation Hub

April was slightly quieter on the conference front. I enjoyed walking to the Wi‑Fi World Congress USA 2026 at the Computer History Museum in my hometown of Mountain View, California. Key takeaways included: HaLow technology is now moving into deployment and poised for growth in long-range, low-power IoT; UWB continues to complement Wi-Fi, especially for precise location and asset tracking, with enterprise vendors integrating UWB into WLANs and new low-energy UWB variants addressing real-time applications; and open-source enterprise Wi-Fi is gaining momentum, as OpenLAN/OpenWiFi accelerates deployments and challenges proprietary campus networking models. We will watch as OpenLAN/OpenWiFi/Open Gateway reshapes the stack and enables new service and monetization models.

FutureNet World 2026 (London) - 900+ attendees

FutureNet World 2026 concluded at its new London venue, the Intercontinental O2, on 22 April. More than 900 senior telecom executives, including 150 speakers, gathered over two days with operators, vendors, and analysts to focus on network automation, AI-driven operations, and autonomous networks. Key takeaways included the critical role of AI in telco transformation, growing interest in L4 autonomous network operations, the emergence of agentic AI in OSS/BSS, strategies to monetize beyond connectivity, and advancements in network APIs, NaaS, cloud-native telco, and AI-driven RAN automation. The event highlighted two central challenges: shifting AI from driving efficiency to generating new revenue, and accelerating the transition from pilot projects to full production enabled by agentic AI.

I had the privilege of moderating the Day 2 CxO keynote, "Can Telcos Monetize the AI Gold Rush?" — with Hesham Fahmy (CIO, TELUS), Sef Tuma (CTIO, BT International), Miguel Alvarez (Chief Data & AI Officer, Orange Business), and Faiq Khan (Head of Sales EMEA, Rakuten Symphony). Every operator on stage said unprompted that they believe they can monetize AI — a stronger conviction than I've heard at any telco event recently. However, they need to be disciplined: clean their own houses first, avoid the "smart fridge" trap, and find small-bets-quick-returns plays, like smaller AI factories (5–10 MW in existing facilities, ~18-month payback) rather than hyperscaler imitations.

Closing the event together with Amy Cameron (STL Partners) and Robert Curran (Appledore Research) on the analyst wrap-up was fun! Three things felt different from a year ago. The pace has visibly accelerated as agentic AI empowers operators to manage their transformation. Operators’ intent is serious: one operator saved $14M/month from data cleanup; Vodafone UK handles 60M chat conversations per month; AI factories are already seeing 50-70% capacity sold in early rollouts. Some operators now believe they can self-build large portions of OSS/BSS stacks using AI coding tools. This trend could force the industry to rethink the usual vendor-customer relationships.

T-Mobile SuperBroadband Launch Event (and Concert)

The week after FutureNet World, I found myself in Seattle. At T-Mobile’s Innovation Hub in Bellevue, the company publicly launched SuperBroadband, its managed business broadband offering combining T-Mobile 5G FWA with SpaceX Starlink satellite backup, Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions (or Inseego) equipment, with installation, monitoring, and management on a single bill. We see this less as a radical new access offering and more as a pragmatic packaging move: enterprises have been stitching together fiber, wireless WAN, satellite, and SD-WAN-style failover for years, but many SMBs and distributed operators would rather buy the outcome than integrate the pieces themselves. The value proposition is best for remote, underserved, or resilience-sensitive sites in retail, hospitality, healthcare, energy, and similar verticals where broadband downtime is painful. T-Mobile’s four-nines SLA, reasonable pricing, and operational simplicity are the key proof points to watch, especially as customers begin to use satellite for more than occasional backup. And yes, in a nicely on-theme closing note, Natasha Bedingfield took the stage, reminding us that while the service roadmap is still partly “unwritten,” T-Mobile is trying to make resilient business connectivity a lot less complicated. Kudos to T-Mobile for a simple message with a streamlined, easy-to-understand offering.

Up next, I hope to see you at one of the upcoming events before the summer: AI Networking Summit/ONUG (Dallas), OCP Canada Tech Day (Montreal), and TM Forum (Copenhagen).

– Roy for the AvidThink Team

Check out our most recent articles on the AvidThink website:

Yes, it’s here! The long-awaited 2026 Edition of our Data Center Networking Report. Grab your copy today and check out the latest in scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across networking. Our comprehensive report covers AI workloads (training and inference frameworks), communication libraries, networking topologies, the state of optics and copper, merchant and custom silicon, and highlights and lessons from major conferences such as IEEE Hot Interconnects, OCP Global Summit, GTC 2026, OFC 2026, and more. From 400G to 800G to 1.6Tbps and beyond, from pluggables to LPO to CPO, from OSFP to XPO form factors; it’s all in there. Plus exclusive interviews with the leaders in the space from Arrcus, DriveNets, Marvell, Nokia, Upscale AI, Aria Networks, Broadcom, Ayar, Ciena, Credo, Lightmatter, and Clockwork about how they view the evolution of this red-hot market. You don’t want to miss reading this report or watching the videos in our showcase. A huge thank you to the sponsors who made this year’s report possible!

Ericsson Faces Enterprise Growth Scrutiny as RAN Market Flattens
Ericsson is under renewed investor pressure after removing revenue breakouts for Vonage and Cradlepoint from its Q1 2026 reporting. Enterprise revenue fell 30% year-over-year to roughly SEK 4.2 billion, or about $460 million, while the global RAN market has declined from $45 billion in 2022 to $35 billion last year, leaving Ericsson without a clear growth engine beyond core mobile networks.

DeepSig Joins Pentagon-Backed Effort to Build AI-Driven Open RAN Software
DeepSig is playing a central role in OCUDU, a Linux Foundation and U.S. Department of Defense initiative to bring open-source software into the RAN. Alongside Software Radio Systems, DeepSig is helping build and harden an initial carrier-grade software stack designed to support modular RAN innovation across commercial and military environments.

Huawei Revenue Growth Slows to 2.2% Despite Continued R&D Investment
Huawei reported 2025 revenue of roughly 881 billion yuan, or $128 billion, up only 2.2% year-over-year after much stronger growth in 2024. The company added 5,000 employees and increased R&D spending by 7% to a record 192.3 billion yuan, or $28 billion, signaling continued investment despite slower top-line expansion.

T-Mobile Highlights 5G-Advanced Gains from L4S, RedCap and Carrier Aggregation
T-Mobile EVP and Chief Network Officer Ankur Kapoor said the company’s 5G-Advanced deployment is already improving latency, device power efficiency and application performance. The upgrades include L4S for lower-latency gaming and video, RedCap for wearables and industrial sensors, six-way carrier aggregation for faster speeds, and network slicing services such as T-Priority for first responders.

Deutsche Telekom Weighs Full Ownership of T-Mobile US
Deutsche Telekom is reportedly considering a full merger with T-Mobile US, where it already holds a 53% stake. Analysts see the move as a way to simplify corporate structure, unlock shareholder value and enable deeper procurement and technical coordination, though full foreign ownership of a major U.S. telecom operator could face regulatory resistance.

WIA Sees Wireless Infrastructure Growth as Industry Prepares for AI and 6G
The Wireless Infrastructure Association reports that the U.S. now has 158,500 purpose-built towers, 254,840 macro cell sites, 198,100 outdoor small cells and 830,350 indoor small cell nodes. WIA says AI applications currently account for about 4% of mobile network traffic and could reach 10% by year-end, while fixed wireless access remains active across rural, suburban and urban markets.

Qualcomm Frames 6G Around AI Inference and Integrated Sensing
Qualcomm sees 6G as a platform for distributed intelligence and environmental awareness, with Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) enabling base stations to transmit data while acting as radar-like sensors. The company has demonstrated monostatic sensing and background clutter cancellation to identify drone dimensions and track aerial activity, positioning sensing data as an input for digital twins and industrial applications.

Samsung and Orange Executives Question Whether 6G Is Truly Generational
Samsung Networks CEO Woojune Kim and Orange CTO Bruno Zerbib expressed skepticism that 6G will represent a major generational break from 5G. Both pointed to incremental spectrum-driven upgrades, continued use of OFDM and the failure of earlier 5G promises such as remote surgery and connected cars to materialize at scale.

Rakuten Symphony Receives $56.5M METI Grant for Multi-Country Open RAN Trials
Japan’s METI awarded Rakuten Symphony a $56.5 million grant to test Open RAN and RAN Intelligent Controller technologies across India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Kuwait, Bolivia and Paraguay. The project will deploy virtualized networks with about 100 base stations per country to evaluate AI-driven systems and support early commercialization in emerging markets.

Omdia Survey Positions Open RAN as a Core 6G Building Block
Omdia’s 2026 Open RAN Operator Survey found that more than 80% of respondents view O-RAN as critical to 6G development. Roughly 40% of operators say they have meaningfully adopted the framework, including 13% deploying O-RAN in production and 27% using it to guide long-term network roadmaps.

Signals Research Group Validates AT&T Open RAN Performance in Dallas
Signals Research Group tested AT&T’s Dallas Open RAN network and found that 1Finity and Ericsson small cell radios delivered nearly identical performance. The study evaluated 1Finity 5G radios integrated with Ericsson DUs and macro sites in a 5G non-standalone architecture, measuring throughput, signal power and handover behavior ahead of AT&T’s larger Open RAN rollout.

AT&T CTO Questions the Economics of AI Compute at the Far Edge
AT&T CTO Yigal Elbaz said he remains skeptical that heavy AI compute needs to move to far-edge sites such as cell towers or local aggregation hubs. He argued that massive U.S. data center investment is already creating a distributed metro compute layer, making it hard to justify expensive far-edge deployments just to shave one or two milliseconds from latency.

ODC Pitches AI-Native Private 5G with RF Sensing and Inference
ORAN Development Company says its AI-native RANIQ software layer can turn 5G base stations into programmable RF sensors and real-time AI inference engines. The startup, backed by a $45 million Series A from investors including Nvidia, AT&T, Cisco Investments, Nokia and T-Mobile, is targeting private 5G-Advanced use cases such as drone detection, perimeter security and anti-jamming.

WIA Highlights Indoor and Small Cell Growth for Private Networks
WIA reports continued growth in U.S. wireless infrastructure, including more than 158,500 towers, nearly 255,000 macro sites and over one million indoor and outdoor small cell nodes. The organization also points to fixed wireless access momentum, with 14 million U.S. households using wireless broadband today and potential growth to 30 million over time.

T-Mobile Positions 5G-Advanced and Fallow Compute for Physical AI
T-Mobile used its Q1 2026 earnings call to argue that its 5G-Advanced network, spectral efficiency and unused compute capacity can support “physical AI” workloads such as robotics and autonomous systems. President of Technology John Saw positioned the network for low-latency edge inference, while dismissing SpaceX as an MVNO threat and framing satellite as a bundled connectivity feature.

Verizon CEO Warns AI Could Drive Severe Labor Disruption
Verizon CEO Dan Schulman warned that AI could push unemployment to 30% within five years, including impacts on blue-collar roles as humanoid robotics advances. Critics argue the forecast is unsupported by current labor data and would also undermine Verizon’s own consumer business if unemployment reached levels above Great Depression-era peaks.

AT&T Expands Internal Generative AI Tool to 100,000 Employees
AT&T’s Ask AT&T platform has grown from a June 2023 pilot to about 100,000 internal users. Built on a ChatGPT-based framework in a secure Microsoft Azure environment, the tool uses privacy agreements with Microsoft and OpenAI to prevent internal prompts and responses from being used to train public models.

Nokia Bets on Machine-to-Machine Traffic as AI Reshapes Network Demand
Nokia CEO Justin Hotard said AI-driven data already accounts for about 20% of network traffic, or roughly 80 exabytes per month, and expects agentic and physical AI to drive a long-term shift toward machine-to-machine traffic. Nokia reported Q1 sales up 4% to $5.26 billion, with AI and cloud customers up 49% and more than $1 billion in new orders, while optical networks grew 20%.

C Spire Uses AWS-Based Agentic AI to Improve Network Operations
C Spire deployed a custom AWS-powered agentic AI system with four agents focused on internal knowledge, weather, alarm telemetry and natural language queries. The system reduced issue diagnosis time by 83% and detection time by 80%, while using isolated containers and excluding customer data to maintain security.

Regional Carriers Urged to Focus on Data Quality Before Agentic AI
At the CCA show, industry experts cautioned small and regional operators against chasing agentic AI before addressing foundational data and operational issues. Xius suggested a second wireless core as a test environment, while Rakuten Symphony argued that practical use cases such as inventory management may deliver more value than complex AI agents for rural operators.

SoftBank Explores U.S. IPO for AI and Robotics Venture at Up to $100B Valuation
SoftBank is reportedly preparing a U.S. listing for a new AI and robotics subsidiary, tentatively named Roze, with internal valuation targets as high as $100 billion. The venture would combine AI infrastructure with ABB Robotics capabilities, while SoftBank continues to concentrate capital around AI through investments such as its expanded OpenAI stake.

OpenAI Reportedly Partners with Qualcomm and MediaTek on AI Smartphone Processors
OpenAI is reportedly working with Qualcomm, MediaTek and Luxshare on bespoke smartphone processors designed for AI agent experiences. The effort aims to move mobile devices beyond app-centric interaction toward agents that can use real-time user context, with supplier decisions expected by late 2026 or early 2027 and mass production potentially starting in 2028.

Alphabet Reports Strong Cloud and Search Growth as AI Capex Rises
Alphabet reported strong Q1 2026 results, with cloud revenue up 63% to $20 billion and backlog nearly doubling quarter-over-quarter to more than $460 billion. Search revenue reached $60 billion, Gemini Enterprise paid monthly active users grew 40%, and Alphabet projected $185 billion in 2026 capital expenditures while preparing to offer TPUs to select enterprise data center customers.

Meta Revenue Climbs 33% as AI Infrastructure Spending Accelerates
Meta reported Q1 2026 revenue of $56.3 billion, up 33% year-over-year, while raising its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $125 billion to $145 billion. The company is reallocating resources toward AI and superintelligence initiatives, including continued workforce streamlining that could affect roughly 8,000 employees.

Cisco Adds Security and AI-Readiness Features to SD-WAN 26.1.1
Cisco released SD-WAN software version 26.1.1 with features aimed at improving security posture and optimizing AI workload traffic. The update flags insecure configurations, blocks risky IOS XE CLI commands by default, improves TLS decryption and lets Meraki SD-WAN customers define firewall policies centrally for global deployment.

If you would like to meet with AvidThink at one of the following upcoming events, please click on the event below to request a meeting.

if this newsletter was forwarded to you, why not sign up for your own subscription?