VodafoneThree launches SuperMobile with 5G slicing speed guarantee
UK operator VodafoneThree has launched its SuperMobile brand, offering consumers and small businesses a guaranteed minimum 15Mb/s via 5G Standalone (SA) network slicing, with penalty-free exit if the floor is missed. London city-centre field tests hit 750Mb/s downloads, roughly 4x a standard 5G plan. Pricing adds GBP 3/month on top of an Xtra plan (GBP 12 as a standalone add-on), marking the first mass-market "speed guarantee" delivered through slicing. A National Critical Slice for emergency services is planned for 2027.
Orange Business buys Obvios Dome private 5G platform for "sovereign" networks
Orange Business has acquired Obvios's Dome private 5G platform, bolstering its sovereign private 5G offering for defence, public safety, energy, transport and emergency services. Dome is a cloud-native, deployable private 5G core delivering high-bandwidth, low-latency edge compute, with typical use cases spanning drones, autonomous systems, military bases, and surveillance networks at ports and airports. The deal fits Orange's previously announced Trust the Future strategy and the recent creation of its Defence & Security business unit.
Qualcomm's 6G Leadership Day: 6G and AI on a collision course
At its 6G Leadership Day in San Diego, Qualcomm framed 6G as a "connect + sense + AI" trinity and argued it must be AI-native. Executives noted that 5G can support only about 5 concurrent AI-agent users per cell, while 6G should scale to 20+, requiring 400MHz channels for uplink-heavy "see-what-I-see" use cases. Qualcomm is targeting 2029 for 6G commercial deployment, aligned with 3GPP Rel-21. CTIA CEO Ajit Pai urged auctions of 2.7GHz and 7GHz spectrum before 2028, calling the 4GHz band "the most decisive for America's 6G future."
MasOrange and Ericsson trial 6GHz spectrum in preparation for 6G
Spain's largest operator MasOrange and Ericsson have completed mobile network trials in the 6GHz band, calling it as significant for 6G as 3.5GHz was for 5G. The tests validated 256TR massive MIMO and beamforming, delivering four times the capacity of current 64TR sites, and confirmed ISAC (Integrated Sensing and Communication) capabilities for camera-free people and vehicle detection, asset tracking at ports and factories, and real-time digital twins. Spanish 6GHz licences have not yet been awarded, and the trial positions the pair for early-mover advantage.
Ericsson sketches the 5G-to-6G path via 5G SA and 5G-Advanced
At Ericsson Innovation Day 2026 in Seoul, Ericsson said 6G will not be a clean break from today's networks but will evolve from upgraded 5G infrastructure, requiring operators to first strengthen 5G SA and 5G-Advanced. The company introduced Multi-RAT Spectrum Sharing (MRSS), letting 5G and 6G dynamically share spectrum based on traffic demand and radio conditions to protect existing investment. Ericsson also named AI-RAN and ISAC as key technologies for the next generation, backing Korea's goal of 6G commercial deployment by 2030.
VMO2 brings 5G SA to Northern Ireland, covering 800,000 people
UK operator VMO2 has extended its 5G Standalone (5G+) service to Northern Ireland, covering five cities including Belfast and Derry, plus 22 larger towns and 382 smaller settlements, reaching about 800,000 people (roughly 2/5 of the local population). VMO2 also reported blocking 1.4 billion scam SMS messages to date, warning that "SMS blaster" grey-market activity remains hard to stamp out. VodafoneThree launched its TV and entertainment hub the same day, alongside SuperMobile slicing tariffs, sharpening UK competition on 5G SA commercial services.
Helium launches HeliumOS, upgrading Wi-Fi offload to carrier-grade
Helium has launched HeliumOS, a connectivity management platform that wraps its decentralised Wi-Fi hotspot network into a service operators, MVNOs and brands can call as one. Modules cover analytics, a Wi-Fi toolkit, offload experience management, and MVNO BSS/OSS, letting operators decide in real time whether a user "stays on cellular, shifts to Wi-Fi, or is kicked off Wi-Fi." The Helium network has 141,000 hotspots (40,000 active), with customers including AT&T and Mexico's Telefónica; parent Nova Labs bills by the gigabyte. Helium originally launched with LoRa in 2013 and added token incentives in 2019.
Rakuten Symphony and TAWAL launch Saudi Arabia's first Cloud RAN shared indoor network
Rakuten Symphony and Saudi towerco TAWAL have launched Saudi Arabia's first multi-operator shared indoor network based on Cloud RAN at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Jeddah. TAWAL operates as a neutral host: multiple operators share the same indoor infrastructure but each retains its own CU/DU software instances and network control, making the model more flexible than traditional active sharing. Integration with one operator's core is complete, with first 5G NR and VoLTE calls established; the architecture leaves room for 5G SA, edge compute, and AI workloads.
Semtech ramps fourth-gen LoRa chips; LoRaWAN deployments top 125 million
At the LoRa Global Ecosystem Forum in Shenzhen, Semtech announced mass production of its fourth-generation LoRa chips. The LR2022 is a ground-satellite converged transceiver unifying terrestrial LoRaWAN with satellite backhaul for unconnected settings such as mines, oceans and polar regions; the lower-cost LR2012 targets high-volume consumer uses like smart metering and environmental monitoring. The Forum disclosed that global LoRaWAN endpoint deployments had surpassed 125 million by end-2025, with the LoRa Alliance exceeding 350 members, and identified satellite-terrestrial convergence, edge AI, and global ecosystem as three strategic priorities.