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Subco’s APX Cable: A Strategic Asset for Australia’s Digital Future

23 January 2026 at 14:43
B. Swan

Summary Bullets:

• SubCo will establish a trans-pacific submarine cable project dubbed ‘APX East’ that will directly connect Australia with mainland US.

• While Australia already has sovereign owned cables, it’s crucial that this type of infrastructure remains in domestic ownership to ensure data sovereignty is met.

Over the last few years, international connectivity strategies have largely been driven by scale – favoring bigger pipes, alternative routes, and the assumption that capacity would keep pace with demand. However, with the rise in data traffic contributed by AI, data-intensive workloads, and diminishing tolerance for outages, this is forcing carriers to rethink how international networks are designed and evaluated.

In that context, submarine network developer and operator SubCo, based in Australia, announced that it would build the APX East cable, directly linking Australia to the US by 2028. This can be viewed as a significant step forward in strengthening Australia’s national telecommunications resilience. As data continues to become a core and strategic national asset, a sovereign-owned international cable offers Australia greater control over how its critical information is transmitted, secured, and governed – reducing reliance on foreign-controlled infrastructure at a time of rising geopolitical and cyber risk. While this project is a commercial infrastructure, it will also be a nation-building digital backbone. Given cables are tied to national security and strategic importance, the Australian government should take steps to encourage local investments and ensure ownership for securing Australia’s digital future.

SubCo plans to establish a direct trans-pacific optical link connecting Sydney (Australia) to San Diego, California (US) using a 16 fiber-pair design with no intermediate landings. The system is expected to cost $500 million (AUD747 million). At an estimated length of 12,000 to 13,000 km (7,500 to 8,075 miles), the cable is expected to be the longest continuous subsea optical route in the world. The project is intended to support the rapid growth of AI infrastructure in Australia, where hyperscalers and emerging neocloud providers are expected to deploy up to 3GW of AI ”factories” in the coming years. This cable will complement the company’s existing Oman Australia Cable (OAC) connecting Perth (Australia) to Muscat (Oman), which was launched in late-2022. It is worth noting that both Vocus and Telstra (including Endeavour to Hawaii) have already built their own cables, which demonstrates that private businesses are ready to invest in the country’s digital backbone. As the importance of this infrastructure grows, ensuring continued domestic ownership of future investments is critical.

As highlighted in GlobalData’s recent subsea cable report (AI Growth Collides with Infrastructure Limits, December 19, 2025), governments are increasingly intervening in the development and operation of cable systems due to digital sovereignty concerns. These concerns directly affect government services, defense, healthcare, and other critical industries. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly important that Australia exercises greater control over how sensitive data is routed and protected, reducing exposure to foreign jurisdictions, commercial priorities, and strategic interests of foreign-owned hyperscalers. In an era of heightened cyber risk and geopolitical uncertainty, ownership and control of digital pathways are as important as capacity.

Governments already co-invest in critical infrastructure such as roads, power, ports, and defense assets. Subsea cables should now be recognized with the same category. The government could show support in various ways from co-investment, underwriting – it could even have long-term capacity commitments. The goal is not to remove private capital; rather, targeted public participation can help ensure that national security, resilience, and data sovereignty are met. As the window narrows for Australia to shape its digital future, projects like APX East will determine who controls the arteries of the nation’s digital economy.

DXC Helps Enterprises Scale AI with AdvisoryX

By: siowmeng
16 December 2025 at 17:48
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

  • DXC has created AdvisoryX, a global advisory and consulting group to help enterprises scale their AI deployment and create business values.
  • Besides leveraging AI to drive innovation with customers, DXC is also adopting AI internally to gain productivity and embedding AI into its services.

DXC has made significant progress expanding its AI capability throughout 2025. The company recently launched AdvisoryX, a global advisory and consulting group designed to help enterprises address their most complex strategic, operational, and technology challenges. This is a positive move that can help enterprises accelerate their AI journey and achieve better outcomes. While enterprises are eager to implement AI, most of them do not have a well-thought-out strategy and operating model, or the necessary expertise to deploy AI successfully. What happens typically is departments working on siloed projects, without organization-wide collaboration, resulting in inefficiencies and governance issues. DXC’s AdvisoryX helps to overcome key challenges from getting started to the full lifecycle management.

DXC’s AdvisoryX offers five integrated solutions, which include DXC’s AI Core (i.e., the foundation including data, modeling, governance, and platform architecture); AI Reinvent (i.e., proven industry use cases across human-assisted, semi-autonomous, and autonomous operating models); AI Interact (i.e., redesigned workflows for collaboration between people and AI); AI Validate (i.e., continuous testing, observability, and governance); and AI Manage (i.e., production operations and lifecycle management).

With AdvisoryX, DXC has strengthened its position as a partner for AI innovation and allows the company to counter efforts by competitors to drive mindshare in the AI space. This is also a buildup of efforts the company has undertaken to develop its AI capabilities. In October 2025, DXC announced Xponential, which is an AI orchestration blueprint that has already been used by global enterprises to scale AI adoption. Xponential provides a structured approach to integrating people, processes, and technology. There are five independent pillars within the blueprint, including: ‘Insight’ (i.e., embedded governance, compliance, and observability); ‘Accelerators’ (i.e., tools to speed up deployment); ‘Automation’ (i.e., agentic frameworks and protocols); ‘Approach’ (i.e., collaboration of skilled professionals and AI to amplify outcomes); and ‘Process’ (i.e., delivery methodology). The company has indicated Singapore General Hospital as a client who has leveraged DXC’s expertise to develop the Augmented Intelligence in Infectious Diseases (AI2D) solution. This solution helps to guide antibiotic choices for lower respiratory tract infections with 90% accuracy and improve patient care while combating antimicrobial resistance.

In April 2025, the company introduced DXC AI Workbench, a generative AI (GenAI) offering that combines consulting, engineering, and secure enterprise services to help businesses worldwide integrate and scale responsible AI into their operations. The company has named Ferrovial, a global infrastructure company, as a customer reference that has leveraged DXC AI Workbench. The customer developed more than 30 AI agents making real-time decisions to optimize field operations, elevate safety measures, manage business knowledge, analyze competition, and assess regulatory impacts.

The company has identified AI as a key driver for business growth. Equally, it sees opportunities to apply AI internally for productivity and to gain experience from the technology. For example, DXC’s finance teams have used AI to transform back-office activities and eliminate repetitive processes; its legal department uses AI for legal research, drafting, and document preparation; and its sales and marketing teams deploy AI to automate workflows, generate proposals, etc. The company is also leveraging AI to enhance its service offerings. For example, it has partnered with 7AI to launch DXC’s agentic security operations center. These examples underscore DXC’s experience and capability in creating business values with AI.

That said, DXC is not the only systems integrator using AI to drive a with an AI advisory and consulting practice. While the company is showing traction and building customer case studies, competitors are also moving rapidly to engage clients in AI innovation and implementation. Accenture, for example, has nearly doubled its GenAI bookings in FY2025 to $5.9 billion from FY2024 and tripled its revenues to $2.7 billion. Tata Consultancy Services has also created a dedicated Tata Consultancy Services AI business unit, and it is driving transformation through a ‘responsible AI’ framework.

While DXC has introduced AdvisoryX, there is a lack of details in terms of the size of the group, areas of focus (e.g., geographical regions and industry sectors), and the assets underpinning its five integrated solutions. This makes it harder to see the differentiation against other providers that are also scaling their AI consulting practice. The company should also consider following up with announcements to highlight how AdvisoryX has made a difference in helping clients achieve their AI goals. This can be across the five integrated solutions, especially AdvisoryX’s AI Reinvent and AI Interact, which address many challenges related to human collaboration and business processes.

It is still early days in the adoption of AI, and competition in the AI space will become more intense. To stay competitive, service providers need to continue to strengthen their ability to help clients align business goals, industry-specific processes and challenges; enhance their AI platforms and tools; and expand their AI partner ecosystem. They also need to build more customer case studies to highlight success and gain credibility.

Mitel CX 2.0 Serves Double Duty in Mitel’s Transformation

16 December 2025 at 17:32
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Mitel CX 2.0 raises Mitel’s stature in the contact center space and its competitive standing in general.

• Mitel has continued to blossom since completing the acquisition of Unify just over two years ago.

Mitel has launched Mitel CX 2.0, an upgrade to its Mitel CX customer experience (CX)/contact center platform introduced in March 2025. Mitel CX 2.0 is significant for the impact it has on Mitel’s position in the contact center space and the role it plays in Mitel’s evolution as a company.

GenAI virtual agents reside at the core of Mitel CX 2.0. They complement human contact center agents, handling basic requests while funneling off more complex ones to the employee best-equipped to handle them whether they reside within the contact center or back-office. The virtual agents also tackle workflows on behalf of human agents such as ordering items, issuing trouble tickets, sending customer notifications, or initiating approvals. Mitel CX 2.0 can be deployed in private cloud, hybrid, or on-premises environments.

The arrival of Mitel CX 2.0 serves as a contemporary signal of the market momentum Mitel has been steadily generating since completing its Unify acquisition in October 2023.

That acquisition more than doubled Mitel’s customer base to over 75 million, broadened its geographic footprint to north of 100 countries, and married its strength serving mid-market customers with Unify’s expertise in the large enterprise space. Since that time, Mitel has reoriented its go-to-market stance from ‘all things to all people’ to a solutions-led approach. Mitel has also restructured its finances by successfully emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Most significantly, the company has reinforced its governance and leadership by installing a fresh board of directors and onboarding a new CEO, Mike Robinson, who succeeds Tarun Loomba after roughly four years at the helm. Robinson is charged with tapping his experience guiding companies through post-restructuring phases to sustain Mitel’s corporate progression.

In addition to being a notable step in Mitel’s metamorphosis, more importantly it marks a meaningful leap forward for the company in the contact center space. In the last few years, contact centers have profoundly transformed, steadily yielding to the broader concept of ‘customer experience’. Contact centers are converting from featuring live agents to also including AI agents, from reactive to proactive, from transaction-oriented to relationship-oriented, and from generic to deeply personalized. Mitel and its rivals continue to implement capabilities to help their customers make the transition.

With respect to rivals, Mitel CX 2.0 meets but does not exceed what is offered by the likes of Cisco, Zoom, and RingCentral. However, that does not erase the fact that Mitel is a markedly different company than just two years ago, one that continues to mature and blossom. With a new CEO installed, Mitel has officially launched the next chapter in its transformation. To be continued…

Boomi Enables Agentic Transformation by Connecting Applications, Data, and AI Agents Through a Single Platform

By: siowmeng
11 December 2025 at 09:34
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

  • Boomi has developed a platform to help connect systems, manage data, and deploy AI agents more effectively.
  • Boomi is expanding its customer base and partner base in Asia-Pacific; adding global systems integrators will help to drive penetration in the large enterprise segment.

Boomi highlighted at its Boomi World Tour event in Sydney (Australia) that without connectivity, context, and control, there will be no business impact. This epitomizes the challenge for businesses as they continue to pursue agentic transformation, especially with the recent focus on various AI technologies to drive new operating and business models. As enterprises shift their focus toward agentic AI, they often look at the tasks they can automate with AI agents.

However, the bigger picture is about business impact: Businesses should focus on reimagining their workflows and business operations. This requires communication between systems and application programming interfaces (APIs), which is the backbone for communications between enterprise systems connecting applications, data, and AI agents. The ability to extract data across an organization is key as it adds context for decision-making. Moreover, it is essential for businesses to have the right control over their integration, use of data, and the access rights of AI agents.

It is against this backdrop that Boomi has developed its platform to enable effective management of integration, APIs, data, and AI agents. While Boomi’s business has been anchored on integration and automation, it has made significant investments and efforts to enhance data management, API management, and AI agent management. For example, the acquisitions of Rivery and Thru have added data integration and managed file transfer capabilities respectively. While Boomi now has a compelling API management solution, it has added an AI gateway that sits between applications and AI model to check AI requests, manage costs, apply security rules, and route requests to the right model. These are crucial functions to manage the costs of using AI models that use token-based pricing, provide a layer of security to prevent prompt injection, and process streaming responses.

Boomi’s Agentstudio provides AI agent lifecycle management, allowing users to create, govern, and orchestrate agents. Its customers have deployed over 50,000 agents and nearly 350 AI-powered solutions on Boomi Marketplace. The company continues to enhance Agentstudio to meet customer demand. In particular, Boomi is supporting context engineering (e.g., GraphRAG), open-source (e.g., MCP client/server), agent governance (e.g., multi-provider support, FinOps), management of AI agent access (e.g., delegated authorization), and more. All these capabilities – from AI agent management to integration & automation, data management, and API management – are now available through a single Boomi Enterprise Platform.

Boomi’s platform and its AI approach are well-received by enterprise customers. For example, Greencross Pet Wellness Company, Australia’s largest pet wellness organization, leverages Boomi Enterprise Platform to support data integration and business transformation across its inventory systems, HR platforms, warehousing, and digital services. Boomi’s platform also enabled the company to develop its digital pet profile platform, which allows customers to build personalized profiles, receive timely reminders for treatments, view tailored product recommendations, and access relevant services based on their pet’s needs.

Serco Asia-Pacific is another customer in the Asia-Pacific region that has deployed Boomi’s platform and achieved productivity with Boomi’s AI capability. In particular, the company has reduced dramatically the time for a developer to build and document an integration, using Boomi’s DesignGen (creating integration with prompts) and Scribe (generating summaries, descriptions, and documentation) AI agents. Serco now sees Boomi as a crucial partner for its digital transformation, leveraging Boomi Enterprise Platform for integration as well as data management and API management.

Partners play a part in promoting Boomi’s solutions while helping enterprises transform their business. Example of partners in Asia-Pacific include Adaptiv, Atturra, and United Techno, who have been leveraging Boomi for their data and integration business. Atturra is a business advisory and IT solutions provider in Asia-Pacific with a strong industry focus (e.g., logistics, education, financial services, and more). Adaptiv is an ANZ provider of data integration, analytics and AI services. United Techno has a stronger focus on data management and AI solutions especially within the retail, e-commerce, and logistics sectors.

Boomi also engages global systems integrators to promote its solutions to large enterprises for their digital transformation. The company formed a strategic partnership with DXC in August 2025, focusing on application modernization and agentic AI. Particularly for AI projects, consulting services can make a difference in helping enterprises drive more successful outcomes. Systems integrators have been strengthening their consulting capabilities aligned to industry verticals, which can be pivotal in helping companies reimagine their business workflows, implement the right solutions, and measure the business outcomes effectively. They also have existing relationships with many large enterprise customers. Ultimately, the enterprise technology environment is becoming more complex with the need to manage an ecosystem of different technology vendors. Boomi wants to be the glue connecting different technologies, but it also needs partners to bring it all together. Continuing to expand its go-to-market partners and adding more global/regional systems integrators is crucial to penetrate the large enterprise segment across Asia-Pacific.

Microsoft Ignite 2025: Much Rests Beneath the Surface

10 December 2025 at 12:16
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Microsoft Teams is front and center at Microsoft despite a very limited number of related announcements made at the event.

• Pairing team collaboration and productivity tools provides Microsoft a distinct competitive position.

Microsoft has officially closed the doors on its annual ‘Ignite’ event, a showcase of enhancements across the entire Microsoft portfolio. Only a handful of Microsoft Teams-related announcements were made, giving the impression that Microsoft Teams has taken a back seat to other Microsoft initiatives. In reality, much the opposite is true. The features unveiled were merely the tip of the iceberg, a small subset of a lengthy and diverse list of improvements that appeared in a Microsoft Teams blog.

While the actual depth of Microsoft Teams introductions might have come as a surprise, what shouldn’t be a surprise is that the introductions were infused with AI. Some examples bear this out.

The user interface for Microsoft Copilot in Teams AI-powered assistant is being unified across chats, channels, and meetings. Deploying a unified front across different functions is reminiscent of the familiar menu structure that cuts across Microsoft’s productivity apps such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The power of this approach allows users to quickly learn a new app based upon their experience with an app they are already familiar with. It’s interesting to note that Microsoft is taking knowledge gained during its ‘Microsoft Office’ era and applying it to ‘modern’ times in the form of the AI-infused Microsoft Copilot. On top of the updated interface, Microsoft Copilot in Teams can now also analyze chat history, meeting transcripts, and calendar content and generate recaps, rewrite messages, and surface insights; this experience is generally available for chat and channels and is rolling out to public preview for meetings.

Providing the ability to collaborate with external users is a growing trend. Microsoft has launched a public preview of several features that enhance interaction between Microsoft Teams users and vendors, clients, partners, and the like. Among other features, Microsoft Teams users can launch a chat, share a file in a chat, and view and respond to Microsoft Teams activity in other accounts and organizations.

A persistent collaborative space is now available from within Microsoft Teams chat and channels, helping organize information and co-create content. The space comes in the form of two features, ‘Pages’ in channels and ‘Notes’ in chat. Taken together, the features mimic the Zoom Docs capability from Zoom. So, although Microsoft is not scoring points for originality, it is introducing some very valuable functionality.

One especially intriguing aspect of Microsoft Ignite 2025 lies beyond the inventory of enhancements revealed, exposing something fundamental to Microsoft. Microsoft is taking a holistic approach to providing team collaboration capabilities. That approach spans Microsoft Teams software, device hardware such as video bars, and security, for instance, blocking files that pose a security risk such as executables before they reach a chat or channel. Normally such an ‘all points covered’ approach would provide Microsoft a unique competitive position, however it does not. Cisco mirrors Microsoft in employing deep lineups of software capabilities, devices, and security. Both companies are setting a tone that others will need to follow to compete in the space; rivals certainly have their work cut out for them.

Collectively, all the new features further cement Microsoft’s position as a leading vendor in the team collaboration/hybrid work arena. With AI touching multiple points of its portfolio including the latest Microsoft Ignite announcements, Microsoft has taken the ‘permeate the platform’ approach to AI adopted by competitors such as Cisco, Google, Zoom, and RingCentral. Coupled with its portfolio of ‘Office’ productivity tools, Microsoft has achieved a degree of differentiation that is largely unmatched.

Amdocs Up Close APAC 2025: Driving Telco-Techco Transformation in the Enterprise Space

9 December 2025 at 16:16
A. Amir

Summary Bullets:

• Amdocs has broad capabilities for B2B operators.

• The solutions can accelerate their telco-techco transformation journeys across different markets.

At the recent Amdocs Analyst Conference in APAC, the company shared its latest capabilities and directions covering not only its core areas (i.e., OSS, BSS, MVNO platform, and 5G), but also emerging technologies such as AI, autonomous networks, and its integration across the portfolio. This report focuses on Amdocs’s offerings for telco B2B that can accelerate operators’ enterprise telco to techo transformation journeys.

Amdocs Portfolio for Enterprise Telecom
Enabling telcos to transform in the enterprise segment remains a key focus area for Amdocs. Amdocs CES is a leading solution for telcos digital transformation (for more, please see Digital Transformation Platforms: Competitive Landscape Assessment, July 11, 2025). It provides extensive B2B capabilities for telcos, ranging from catalog management to IoT, commerce and care, monetization, service and network automation, data, and AI. The solution can be deployed on-premises or on major hyperscale cloud environments, providing wider options for operators in managing their complex network and IT architecture. Key components of Amdocs CES include:

  • Catalog: Enables operators to bundle solutions, including connectivity, products, and digital services from in-house as well as third-party providers and partners. While this is essential for SMBs, solution bundles can be positioned for larger enterprises, for example, as SD-WAN or NaaS underlay.
  • Customer Engagement Platform: Provides a full customer lifecycle from marketing and sales to ordering, fulfillment, and customer support. This enhances the configure, price, quote (CPQ) process through automation and cuts down the order-to-activation time from months to days or hours. This benefits low-touch segments (SMBs) while also improving platform and self-serve portal capabilities (e.g., provisioning and change requests) for larger enterprises.
  • Monetization Suite: Focuses on diverse monetization options, which includes connectivity as well as 5G services, QoS, APIs, satellites, AI, and more. This is critical for operators to capture market opportunities by driving monetization of their 5G network assets.
  • Intelligent Networking Suite: An intent-based orchestration platform spanning across the network, edge, and cloud as well as inventory and assurance. This is vital for operators to accelerate their journey toward an autonomous network and strengthen their enterprise network and cloud offerings such as cloud-connect, SD-WAN, and NaaS. This enables operators to enhance network design and planning for enterprise customers especially for complex requirements, to address the growing enterprise need for agile networking and seamless integration across hybrid cloud and multi-location deployments, and to gain a competitive edge.
  • MarketONE: A marketplace featuring hundreds of pre-integrated partners’ offerings, including content, applications, digital services, IoT, and industrial applications. This component is crucial for operators’ platform strategy, enabling adjacent services and providing wide vendor options to meet diverse market needs. For example, SASE, firewall, private 5G, IoT, and cloud services are integrated with NaaS services.
  • amAIz Suite: Amdocs’s AI/GenAI and data platform that touches all other components. AI and analytics have been embedded across Amdocs’s entire portfolio, including Catalgo, Customer Engagement Platform, Monetization, and OSS. It enables workflow automation, zero-touch processes, an AI assistant, and analytics. This enables operators to address market demand more efficiently (e.g., personalizations) as well as gain a competitive advantage through AI-driven use cases.

Besides, Amdocs also offers a comprehensive services portfolio – Amdocs Studios, designed to bridge the experience, outcomes, and technology gaps. Amdocs Studios provides a range of service capabilities spanning consulting, experience design, data and AI, cloud services, and quality engineering. The service layer is essential for B2B operators to address not only their legacy infrastructure and systems, but also drive change management to overcome operators’ legacy cultures (e.g., siloed organization) that can slow down innovations. Amdocs Studios is shifting its services layer to agentic services to enable key oeprational enterprise workflows such as application modernization, cloud migration, and quality engineering.

Accelerating Enterprise Telco-Techco Transformation
Operators have been expanding their portfolio beyond connectivity for years to meet enterprise demand and to offset declining legacy service revenue. GlobalData forecasts ICT markets (e.g., cloud, data center, security, AI, and IoT) to grow at strong double-digit CAGRs Further, telcos are also well-positioned in the market. GlobalData research indicates that over half of enterprises prefer telcos as their ICT providers due to brand reputation and existing relationships. While leading operators like SK Telecom, Singtel, NTT, have advanced their transformation, many telcos in emerging markets (e.g., ASEAN) are still in the early stages.

Nevertheless, Amdocs’s capabilities can address telcos across the entire telco-techno transformation journey. Most advanced operators have already developed platform and marketplace capabilities and have integrated enterprise ICT offerings (e.g., network, cloud, security). They can also leverage Amdocs Monetization Suite to fully capitalize on their 5G-Advanced networks such as with network slicing and APIs. Besides, these operators can alsoe leverage Amdocs amAIz Suite to boost operational efficiency through workflow automation. This can accelerate operators’ solution development and time-to-market. Meanwhile, for emerging telcos, capabilities like Amdocs Catalog and Amdocs MarketONE offer higher impact. Many operators in ASEAN are aggressively expanding their ecosystem, but most services remain silo for enterprise customers. Amdocs MarketONE enables operators to address integration challenges across multiple services. This can drive operators’ operational efficiency and customer experience. Besides, given that connectivity is still a key growth driver, Amdocs Catalog is key to developing an innovative bundling strategy.

Conclusion
Amdocs’s comprehensive Amdocs CES and Amdocs Studios portfolios provides the necessary technological and service foundation to empower operators across the entire telco-to-techco transformation stages. By addressing critical areas like ecosystem integration (via Amdocs MarketONE), 5G monetization, and AI-driven automation, Amdocs is well-positioned as a key strategic partner for operators to accelerate their transformations and to capture high-growth enterprise ICT opportunities.

Amdocs Helps Telcos Succeed in Transformation by Combining AI, Telco-Centric Platforms, and Services Focused on Experience

By: siowmeng
5 December 2025 at 14:10
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

  • Telecom companies are facing many challenges moving beyond their legacy business and adopting digital solutions including AI to drive business transformation.
  • Amdocs is helping telcos to drive transformation with AI and its consulting-led services play a key role to accelerate the process from customer engagement to backend operations.

Telecommunications companies (telcos) are in various stages of transforming their businesses. The industry as a whole faces several challenges that have hindered progress.

These include regulations (e.g., to meet quality of service, data privacy, consumer protection, etc.); the need to constantly invest in their networks (e.g., upgrading mobile networks to 5G and 5G-A), legacy systems, and processes (including IT, network, and operations support system); and growing competitive pressures from traditional competitors to new telco start-ups and disruptive players (e.g., over-the-top providers, cloud providers, LEO satellite companies, etc.). They also have a huge workforce that may not be ready to transition into new technology areas such as AI, data science, cybersecurity, and cloud computing. While telcos’ leadership teams are well aware of the opportunities of emerging technologies, they have to take a more holistic approach in transforming the business, not just adding new digital capabilities. They need to reimagine their business (i.e., define the core business and operating model), right-size the organization with the right talent, adjust the company culture, and ensure effective change management.

This means opportunities for technology services providers including consulting firms, systems integrators, and other telco vendor partners to help telcos modernize their technology and transform their business. Amdocs is a key player within the telco partner ecosystem. It already serves 350 communications and media providers across more than 85 countries, including many tier-1 telcos (e.g., AT&T, BT, Telefonica, and Globe) with long-standing relationships. The company offers a range of products for catalog management, commerce and customer care, billing/monetization, network deployment and optimization, service & network automation, and more. Amdocs has also embedded AI (including GenAI and agentic AI) into its solutions. For example, its customer engagement platform is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution to deliver AI-driven customer journeys and personalized services serving both consumer and B2B customers. This is developed in partnership with Microsoft, leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Azure, verticalized for telecoms by Amdocs. Amdocs amAIz suite lays the foundation for telco data management, AI control and governance, and AI application and AI agent deployment. More importantly, since Amdocs is already embedded in telcos’ operations, the company has a deep understanding of the telco business and operational requirements. This places the company in a better position to help telcos adopt AI, particularly agentic AI, to automate workflows (from IT operations to business operations and network operations) to deliver the desired business outcomes.

However, due to the aforementioned challenges, many telcos are facing in transforming their business: They are not merely looking for more technologies but partners that can help them drive business outcomes. Many technology vendors choose to partner with service providers to help telcos close their capability gaps, recognizing the need to work across technologies from different vendors, which may require systems integration. Amdocs has taken a different approach by building a more comprehensive set of services to support telco customers, which it can also extend to customers in more verticals over time. Besides services to support network management and operations, the company is also helping telcos to transform various aspects of their business from CX to the modernization of backend systems. This is through Amdocs Studios, which has broad expertise across cloud services (e.g., strategy, migration, and operations), data and AI (e.g., data strategy, AI & analytics, and GenAI), and consulting services (e.g., experience design, product development, cybersecurity, and risk management). Amdocs is developing agentic services to support operational aspects of the Amdocs Studios’ main practices, including application modernization, data modernization, quality engineering, and more. The company has an extensive partner ecosystem to deliver the right outcomes for customers. For example, it has strategic partnerships with AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, and Red Hat to offer cloud services.

Consulting services in particular are crucial in aligning technologies with business outcomes and helping drive change especially in using cloud, data, and AI to improve customer experience, employee experience, and operations experience (the processes involved to facilitate the interaction between a customer and a brand). Successful implementation will require enterprises to focus on the experiences they want to deliver and the brand image they want to establish. In particular, a human-centered design is crucial especially in AI initiatives to promote trust and focus on the benefits to enhance human capabilities (not to replace them).

Amdocs has invested significantly to develop experience design capabilities, which will be pivotal to compete with other service providers. Some global systems integrators also have strong creative design consulting capabilities (e.g., Accenture Song, Deloitte Digital, and TCS Interactive). As businesses are adopting digital solutions to drive business and operational changes, it is imperative for service providers to have an industry-focused approach for their go-to-market. This is already the case for most global systems integrators. While Amdocs does not have the scale of some of the largest global systems integrators, it has deep expertise in the telco sector. However, the company will continue to face stiff competition from systems integrators, especially Accenture, Infosys, and HCLTech, which have made acquisitions, high-profile customer examples, and extensive partnerships with vendors important to telcos.

Twilio Drives CX with Trust, Simple, and Smart

By: siowmeng
5 December 2025 at 09:55
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

  • The combination of omni-channel capability, effective data management, and AI will drive better customer experience.
  • As Twilio’s business evolves from CPaaS to customer experience, the company focuses its product development on themes around trust, simple, and smart.

The ability to provide superior customer experience (CX) helps a business gain customer loyalty and a strong competitive advantage. Many enterprises are looking to AI including generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI to further boost CX by enabling faster resolution and personalized experiences.

Communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) vendors offer a platform that focuses on meeting omni-channel channel communications requirements. These players have now integrated a broader set of capabilities to solve CX challenges, involving different touch points including sales, marketing, and customer service. Twilio is one of the major CPaaS vendors that has moved beyond just communications applications programming interfaces (APIs), including contact center (Twilio Flex), customer data management (Segment), and conversational AI. Twilio’s product development has been focusing on three key themes: Trusted, Simple, and Smart. The company has demonstrated these themes through product announcements throughout 2025 and showcased at its SIGNAL events around the world.

Firstly, Twilio is winning customer trust through its scalable and reliable platform (e.g., 99.99% API reliability), working with all major telecom operators in each market (e.g., Optus, Telstra, and Vodafone in Australia). More importantly, it is helping clients win the trust of their customers. With the rising fraud impacting consumers, Twilio has introduced various capabilities including Silent Network Authentication and FIDO-certified passkey as part of its Verify, a user verification product. The company is also promoting the use of branded communications, which has shown to achieve consumer trust and greater willingness to engage with brands. Twilio has introduced branded calling, RCS for branded messaging, Whatsapp Business Calling, and WebRTC for browser.

The second theme is about simplifying developer experience when using the Twilio platform to achieve better CX outcomes. Twilio has long been in the business of giving businesses the ability to reach their customers through a range of communications channels. With Segment (customer data platform), Twilio enables businesses to leverage their data more effectively for gaining customer insights and taking actions. An example is the recent introduction of Event Triggered Journey (general availability in July 2025), which allows the creation of automated marketing workflows to support personalized customer journeys. This can be used to enable a responsive approach for real-time use cases, such as cart abandonment, onboarding flows, and trial-to-paid account journeys. By taking actions to promptly address issues a customer is facing can improve the chance of having a successful transaction, and a happy customer.

The third theme on ‘smart’ is about leveraging AI to make better decisions, enable differentiated experiences, and build stronger customer relationships. Twilio announced two conversational AI updates in May 2025. The first is ‘Conversational Intelligence’ (generally available for voice and private beta for messaging), which analyzes voice calls and text-based conversations and converting them into structured data and insights. This is useful for understanding sentiments, spotting compliance risks, and identifying churn risks. The other AI capability is ‘ConversationRelay’, which enables developers to create voice AI agents using their preferred LLM and integrate with customer data. Twilio is leveraging speech recognition technology and interrupt handling to enable human-like voice agents. Cedar, a financial experience platform for healthcare providers is leveraging ConversationRelay to automate inbound patient billing calls. Healthcare providers receive large volume of calls from patients seeking clarity on their financial obligations. And the use of ConversationRelay enables AI-powered voice agents to provide quick answers and reduce wait times. This provides a better patient experience and quantifiable outcome compared to traditional chatbots. It is also said to reduce costs. The real test is whether such capabilities impact customer experience metrics, such as net promoter score (NPS).

Today, many businesses use Twilio to enhance customer engagement. At the Twilio SIGNAL Sydney event for example, Twilio customers spoke about their success with Twilio solutions. Crypto.com reduced onboarding times from hours to minutes, Lendi Group (a mortgage FinTech company) highlighted the use of AI agents to engage customers after hours, and Philippines Airlines was exploring Twilio Segment and Twilio Flex to enable personalized customer experiences. There was a general excitement with the use of AI to further enhance CX. However, while businesses are aware of the benefits of using AI to improve customer experience, the challenge has been the ability to do it effectively.

Twilio is simplifying the process with Segment and conversational AI solutions. The company is tackling another major challenge around AI security, through the acquisition of Stytch (completed on November 14, 2025), an identity platform for AI agents. AI agent authentication becomes crucial as more agents are deployed and given access to data and systems. AI agents will also collaborate autonomously through protocols such as Model Context Protocol, which can create security risks without an effective identity framework.

It has come a long way from legacy chatbots to GenAI-powered voice agents, and Twilio is not alone in pursuing AI-powered CX solutions. The market is a long way off from providing quantifiable feedback from customers. Technology vendors enabling customer engagement (e.g., Genesys, Salesforce, and Zendesk) have developed AI capabilities including voice AI agents. The collective efforts and competition within the industry will help to drive awareness and adoption. But it is crucial to get the basics right around data management, security, and cost of deploying AI.

T-Mobile Adds Data Support to T-Satellite, Broadening its Relevance Beyond Emergency Messaging

2 October 2025 at 14:29
John Marcus – Senior Principal Analyst, Enterprise Mobility and IoT Services.

Summary Bullets:
• T-Mobile added data connectivity to T-Satellite in an announcement pivoting from “emergency messaging” focus of the service’s launch towards app-based data services and higher enterprise relevance

• Early business app integrations, coupled with an expanded set of consumer apps, position T-Satellite as a broader competitive play in satellite-to-mobile, though IoT support and performance limitations remain concerns

When T-Mobile launched T-Satellite commercially in July, the focus was firmly on safety and resilience. SMS, MMS, and text-to-911 formed the core offering, with compelling stories of hikers rescued and emergency alerts broadcast in disaster zones. At the time, the service’s competitive strengths were clear: broad device support, seamless integration with existing smartphones, and unique value in public safety. But there were also several limitations: no data or voice, little to offer enterprises beyond the “resilience” messaging, and no clarity on IoT support.

The company did promise to add support for data in October, and it kept that promise by announcing its availability on the first day of the month. With data now switched on, T-Satellite can support popular apps like WhatsApp, AllTrails, AccuWeather, Google Maps, and T-Mobile’s own T-Life customer portal. The key feature is WhatsApp voice and video chat over satellite, demonstrating that T-Satellite is no longer limited to one-way messaging and can now support real-time communications, albeit with constrained performance compared to terrestrial 5G.

For consumers, it’s a tangible leap in functionality, making T-Satellite relevant not only in emergency scenarios but to outdoor enthusiasts, travelers, or anyone in a rural dead zone (who can now stay connected with their smartphone apps despite the lack of mobile signal). Apple’s Emergency SOS and satellite iMessage have so far offered narrower sets of features, whereas T-Satellite is making mainstream apps usable in off-grid conditions, targeting a wider appeal and one not limited to a single device ecosystem.

On the enterprise side, T-Mobile noted support for several apps relevant to business and public sector users. Dialpad (unified communications), FLORIAN (real-time location monitoring), MultiLine (secure, compliant business communications), and T-Mobile Direct Connect (push-to-talk) are all now supported by T-Satellite. This is a notable step toward the enterprise relevance that was absent at the initial launch. For field services, first responders, and regulated industries like finance or healthcare, the assurance of “always-on” communications, even beyond terrestrial networks, addresses real gaps in continuity and safety.

Still, the new announcement does not address all potential use cases. IoT support remains unaddressed by T-Mobile, and organizations in industries such as logistics, utilities, and agriculture will continue to look to rivals who are further ahead in satellite IoT integration. In addition, while T-Satellite now supports data-based apps, performance (throughput) is limited, and the experience will not replicate terrestrial mobile broadband. T-Mobile acknowledges this openly, describing the connectivity as designed for critical functions rather than data-heavy use.

In terms of competitive positioning, the service is now more than a safety/emergency add-on. It strengthens T-Mobile’s differentiation versus AT&T’s FirstNet and Verizon’s Frontline, demonstrating both consumer value and initial enterprise relevance. The fact that it is included in top-tier T-Mobile plans at no extra cost (and even available to AT&T and Verizon customers for $10 per month) is an aggressive marketing move. By broadening access, T-Mobile appears confident that the real differentiator will be the user experience and partner ecosystem, not exclusivity.

Looking ahead, T-Satellite’s trajectory in the enterprise space will hinge on two factors: how quickly T-Mobile can move from early enterprise applications to full vertical solutions, and whether it can articulate a credible IoT roadmap. Without those, the service risks being viewed primarily as a consumer perk with limited depth for business users. With them, it could become a crucial feature in industries that depend on connectivity anywhere.

For now, the new announcement is a genuine milestone, achieving a goal that T-Mobile set for itself. T-Satellite has moved from a narrow emergency communications tool to a platform supporting both everyday consumer apps and the first enterprise-oriented solutions, strengthening T-Mobile’s relevance in direct-to-device and satellite-to-mobile conversations.

Challenger Rises: Vocus Targets Enterprise Mobile in Australia

11 September 2025 at 08:42
B. Swan

Summary Bullets:

  • Vocus has launched its business-focused MVNO brand, Vocus Mobile, aiming to disrupt the market and inject fresh competition into an already hypercompetitive landscape.
  • Backed by an expanded customer base from the TPG Enterprise acquisition, Vocus is well-positioned to accelerate growth with its existing client base.

Australian telecoms infrastructure provider Vocus has finally launched its own business-focused MVNO brand, Vocus Mobile. Leveraging Optus’s 4G and 5G networks the company aims to position itself as a one-stop provider for enterprise communications, offering connectivity solutions across networking, collaboration, and now mobility as it looks to stand out with a range of self-serve features to create a better user experience for its clients. Will the entrance of another MVNO challenger selling basic mobile connectivity in an already crowded market make a difference?

At launch, Vocus will offer three traditional types of mobile connectivity services, including mobile voice and data for Smartphone use, 5G data plan for broadband, and 4G backup to support business continuity when primary networks are down. Customers will be supported by its self-service mobile fleet management platform, Mobile Fleet 360, giving businesses the ability to manage their mobile fleets with near real-time dashboards, bulk activation of services, and the able to configure roaming settings, reducing the reliance on traditional support channels. Vocus’s foray into the enterprise mobile services market is not surprising following on from its acquisition of TPG Telecom’s fiber network assets and its enterprise, government, and wholesale fixed infrastructure business. It has been anticipated for many years, with the company having a long-standing wholesale agreement with Optus through its consumer and SMB brands Dodo, iPrimus, and Commander. While back in 2019, the company extended its agreement to include its various other brands to provide 5G access to support its growth strategy by expanding and growing market share in large enterprise and SMB segments.

The Australian mobile market has three mobile network operators with Telstra maintaining its superior network leadership for many years. Telstra covers 95% of the country’s population with 5G coverage and 99.7% with 4G coverage, equating to land coverage of approximately three million square kilometers, almost three times the land coverage than any of its nearest rivals. To compete against Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom (owner of Vodafone in Australia) recently formed a network sharing agreement earlier in 2025, which extends their 5G coverage to 80.5% of the population and 4G reach to 98.4% of the Australian population with over one million square kilometers.

While the Australian enterprise telecommunications market remains in flux, with many providers struggling to achieve growth and facing revenue declines across their connectivity portfolios. The enterprise market is positioned for growth, with GlobalData expecting the business mobile market to grow 5.5% by 2029. Though service providers continue to battle it out to grow their mobile market share, with the country having three enterprise challenger brands including Aussie Broadband, Macquarie Telecom, and now Vocus all leveraging Optus’s mobile network by trying to break the incumbent’s stronghold of approximately 65% of the business mobile market. While all challengers have struggled to make a meaningful impact in the market, to date, all only offer basic mobile connectivity instead of delivering outcome-driven solutions that enterprise customers increasingly expect, such as IoT, asset tracking, and other advanced 5G innovations like network slicing.

BT Sells Radianz in Ongoing International Strategy Refocus

5 September 2025 at 11:13
R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Sale of BT Radianz to Transaction Network Services (TNS) is the latest phase of BT ‘tidying up’ its international business as it looks to focus mainly on the UK market.

• Underlines how service providers are having to refocus their strategies from general goals to specific, achievable ambitions.

BT has announced that it is to sell its BT Radianz business, which connects financial information exchange networks and a base of brokers, institutions, exchanges, and clearing houses across capital markets worldwide, to TNS, a global provider of ultra-low-latency trading infrastructure, connectivity, and market data services.

This marks the latest step in BT’s retreat from its historic global retail ambitions as it looks to transition to focus on the UK market for business, consumer, and wholesale customers, and to evolve its international business base around its Global Fabric Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform.

Radianz, originally formed in 2000 as a joint venture between Reuters and Equant (the then-brand of France Telecom/Orange global business services), was sold to BT in 2005 for $175 million as part of the UK incumbent’s then ambitious global growth strategy. The company is reported to have current annual revenues of GBP142 million.

The move makes perfect sense both parties. For TNS it complements its existing core business of IaaS-based financial transactions for point-of-sale (POS) terminals, ATMs, and various other payment systems, and for BT as it continues to refocus its business towards being UK only. BT has not released details on Radianz’s revenues or profitability, but it is clear that Radianz is no longer a core proposition and does not obviously fit inside the new BT International’s stated go-to-market strategy. The deal also releases further valuable capital for BT Group to invest in UK infrastructure and deal with other corporate challenges facing the provider.

Outside the UK, BT now only has its BT International division which essentially operates as an arm’s-length business unit. BT is in the process of figuring out how best to use its BT Fabric proposition to realize some return on its investment in what is largely regarded as a cutting-edge international NaaS platform. To date, the asset shedding has been more decisive and clearer than the future of BT International – but that must surely come soon.

The move also underlines the changing nature of telecoms service provider global strategies. Many are withdrawing in part or in whole, or focusing on niche markets where they have a clear advantage (e.g., T-Systems). Others continue to look to serve multinational and enterprise clients across borders with both connectivity and value-added services like cybersecurity (e.g., Orange Business and Telefónica). Then you have the likes of NTT DATA, looking to offer the full stack from telecoms and data center infrastructure to systems integration. The main point is that service providers are choosing their strategic focus and looking deliver on it.

New RingCentral AI Receptionist Enhancements Equal Expanded Opportunity  

21 August 2025 at 14:44
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

  • RingCentral continues to aggressively grow its portfolio of AI-infused features both for team collaboration and communication as well as for contact center.
  • The most significant enhancement to RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR) is the introduction of a standalone version called AI Receptionist Everywhere (AIR Everywhere).

RingCentral has maintained a very aggressive cadence of compiling AI-infused features in its portfolio. That is true with respect to both its team collaboration and communication platform called RingCentral RingEX (RingEX) as well as its contact center platform known as RingCentral RingCX (RingCX). Mirroring a growing trend, it has also implemented features that link team collaboration/communication and contact center, allowing for employees throughout an organization to influence the customer experience. RingCentral’s latest portfolio fortification has arrived in the form of new features for RingCentral AIR.

RingCentral AIR is an AI phone agent that can answer or route customer calls using natural language capability. RingCentral AIR now includes appointment booking with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook, and it now supports British and Australian English, Spanish, and French, including Canadian French. In addition, RingCentral AIR will be available in the UK and Australia by the end of September 2025.

The most significant enhancement to RingCentral AIR is the introduction of a standalone version called RingCentral AIR Everywhere. RingCentral AIR Everywhere is especially intriguing because it brings the capabilities found in RingCentral AIR to third-party telephony systems – and thus to users who are not RingCentral customers. RingCentral AIR Everywhere is currently in controlled availability.

The addition of new languages to RingCentral AIR coupled with the compatibility of RingCentral AIR Everywhere with third-party telephony systems will allow RingCentral to expand the RingCentral AIR customer base. That is saying a lot because RingCentral AIR has already seen rapid adoption and growth since its release only six months ago. RingCentral AIR boasts more than 3,000 customers at the end of Q2 2025, triple the number compared to Q1 2025.

RingCentral AIR is also noteworthy because it marks RingCentral’s entry into the latest phase of AI, agentic AI. Agentic AI is an advanced form of the technology that stretches beyond merely generating content, featuring agents that perform tasks independently on behalf of users ranging from the mundane to the complex. Agentic AI can act autonomously, make decisions, and take actions without human intervention. It can adjust its approach based upon new information or changing circumstances.

RingCentral is tipping its toe into the agentic AI waters on the early portion of the adoption curve, reversing a tendency to play the role of follower and unspooling a long lag time versus competitors. RingCentral AIR joins the ranks of rival offers such as Agentforce from Salesforce, Copilot Agents from Microsoft, and Webex AI Agent from Cisco.

Although positive on balance, the launch of RingCentral AIR enhancements suffers a blemish, with no expiration date indicated for the controlled availability period for RingCentral AIR Everywhere. RingCentral is losing an opportunity to generate a dash of market momentum. Even a vague launch date such as ‘Q4 2025’ would be preferable over staying mute. Still, once RingCentral AIR Everywhere does become generally available, RingCentral will officially have yet another impactful offer in its portfolio.

Carriers Grow Traffic Significantly While Also Delivering Energy Efficiency

10 July 2025 at 12:25
R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

  • Comcast has nearly doubled the energy efficiency of its network ahead of its 2030 target while also carrying 76% more data.
  • Other examples of greater energy efficiency through new technology include BT Global Fabric, where the replacement of legacy platforms will see a 79% energy consumption reduction.

Comcast announced that it is near to reaching its goal of doubling its network energy efficiency ahead of its 2030 target, stating that it is “delivering dramatically more data at faster speeds and greater reliability at the highest quality for our customers, all while conserving the amount of energy needed to power our network.”

Comcast reported that it has achieved an 11% reduction in energy usage between 2019 and 2024, while at the same time carrying 76% more traffic over the same period as all customer segments use their connections for applications and services needing higher bandwidths – ranging from streaming videos to unified communications. As a result, the energy savings combined with network growth have delivered a 49% reduction in electricity per consumer byte since 2019 (from 18.4 kWh [kilowatt hour] per Terabyte to 9.3 kWh in 2024). Like many others, Comcast has noted both the increase in data as a result of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution as well as its potential to optimize network performance, including enhanced monitoring/network diagnostics, and optimization.

The other trend driving improved sustainability and efficiency in networks is the latest generation of equipment, with decommissioned legacy technology having been far less efficient. GlobalData analysis has found that replacing copper lines with fiber can be up to 85% more efficient, and power-saving measures using AI can lead to energy savings of up to 40%.

Another notable example is BT’s move to the BT Global Fabric Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform, which replaces multiple previous technology platforms and will result in a 79% energy consumption reduction. These technology developments and evolutions are all helping to keep telecoms service providers – national and international – in the vanguard of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Given recent flash floods in Texas (US) and wildfires across Europe and Canada, alongside further destructive climate change impacts on society and nature, these examples of progress should be celebrated and encouraged.

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