Sky has launched a 1.6 Gbit/s UK broadband product priced from £38 (US$50) a month, delivered over Openreach's fibre access network through a Gigafast+ hub that uses tri-band Wi-Fi 7.

The tier is open to new Sky broadband subscribers immediately, with existing customers eligible to upgrade at a later date. The Gigafast+ hub is the consumer end of a category that operators now market under the Wi-Fi 7 banner.

What does the Cellnex-Ericsson deal deliver for Plus?

Cellnex Poland has awarded Ericsson a multi-element tower upgrade that will equip sites used by Polkomtel's consumer brand Plus with new radios, RAN compute modules, microwave links, antennas and enclosures. Ericsson says the new build will improve energy performance, reduce tower load and shrink the physical footprint compared with the current setup.

Ericsson runs about 2,000 R&D engineers in Kraków and Łódź, a footprint it has built through successive mobile-network contract wins in Poland. The Cellnex arrangement extends a relationship that last year saw Cellnex outline its "Next Chapter" strategic plan, including the divestment of its Irish tower unit.

Where does Nokia's Deepfield sit inside Zain KSA?

Zain Saudi Arabia is deploying Nokia's Deepfield Cloud Intelligence analytics across more than 100 cities. Nokia says the software lets engineering teams identify congestion or latency issues before they affect customers, with the vendor positioning the tool for high-demand applications such as gaming and streaming.

The deployment adds the Saudi operator to a list of service providers that use Deepfield, marketed primarily as a DDoS-protection and traffic-intelligence platform.

Why has Orange Business taken on the EU TESTA backbone?

The European Commission has selected Orange Business to supply the Layer 2/Layer 3 backbone for TESTA-EIRIS, the trans-European network linking public administrations across EU member states. Orange Business will deliver connectivity through its Evolution Platform, replacing dedicated hardware with software-based virtual services to create what the company describes as a more resilient, sovereign pan-European network.

Orange will work closely with the Commission's Directorate-General for Digital Services on deployment.

Who is Kyivstar's first COO?

Kyivstar has appointed Volodymyr Lutchenko to the newly created role of chief operating officer. Lutchenko has served as Kyivstar's chief technology officer since 2021, a period during which the operator maintained service through repeated Russian military strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.

Kyivstar serves more than 21.8 million mobile customers and over 1.3 million fixed-line broadband subscribers.

What does the BT-UBS trader voice platform change?

BT International has won a contract to supply Swiss bank UBS with a cloud-native trader voice platform hosted in Microsoft Azure. BT says the system will consolidate UBS's existing trading-systems estate — roughly 20 separate platforms — into a single global offering featuring end-to-end encryption, integrated recording, monitoring and middleware for regulatory compliance.

Is a new South Atlantic cable corridor realistic?

DE-CIX and Cabo Verde Telecom (CVTelecom) have signed a joint plan to explore a South Atlantic interconnection route linking Lisbon and São Paulo via Cape Verde. Under the arrangement, CVTelecom would supply transport capacity between Lisbon and São Paulo while DE-CIX would provide access to its interconnection ecosystems in key European and American locations.

No cable construction or capacity purchase has yet been announced, and the plan establishes only a reciprocal service framework between the two operators.

The next milestones to watch are Sky's broader rollout of the 1.6 Gbit/s tier to its existing base, Ericsson's deployment schedule at Cellnex Poland's Plus sites, Zain KSA's Deepfield rollout across its cities, and EU procurement timelines for the TESTA-EIRIS refresh.