A couple of things, today, about sovereignty and leadership change, and how everything is connected. India is intensifying scrutiny of foreign satellite operators just as domestic carrier Reliance Jio ramps up its own ambitions to build homegrown satellite infrastructure. India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has raised concerns, creating hurdles for the likes of Starlink. Juan Pedro has the report. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Starlink has hit out at the EU’s plans to reserve satellite spectrum for European firms on the grounds it would make the frequencies “virtually unusable”. Evidence then, based on the regulators’ concerns and the protagonist’s complaint, that the SpaceX family might not have it all its own way – and that even its most profitable space business has to play by terrestrial rules.

It’s a sovereignty and protection gambit on the part of India and Europe, of course. And given the climate, the news that Ericsson, welcoming an Ericsson lifer as its new chief exec, is working with Telia and others to open a new 5G/5G AI lab in its home market might be considered through the same lens. This is a company that flirted with moving its HQ to the US at one stage, which has watched its old rival Nokia appoint an American to its top job 14 months ago. The US remains a critical market, clearly; but corporate sentiment has changed, in line with global geopolitics, and Ericsson is a cornerstone company on the European techno-economic scene that is trying to right itself. The new Swedish lab, which will cost about $30 million, looks like fair proof of this, too.

James Blackman
Executive Editor
RCR Wireless News

RCR Top Stories

Sovereign NTN: India is tightening regs around foreign satellite operators as companies like Jio advance their sovereign satellite ambitions – in the context of spectrum allocation, security approvals, and competition with the likes of Starlink.

IoT stacking: With 125m IoT connections and growth of 25 percent, the LoRa Alliance says LoRaWAN has moved beyond LPWAN niche status. Chief exec Alper Yegin explains why it is staking a claim as the wireless industry’s fourth pillar.

Telco T&M: AI, cloud-native architectures, and complex networks are transforming telco test and measurement, with operators under pressure to modernize assurance tools and adopt more data-driven testing strategies for 5G and beyond.

AI networking: Taara’s new shoebox-sized Beam units fire lasers between rooftops to deliver fiber-class connectivity for AI in hours, no trenching required – though fog and rain keep it in a backup role.

France region: Chinese firm Alibaba Cloud has launched a France region with two availability zones, expanding its Euro footprint as businesses and policymakers place greater emphasis on digital sovereignty and local cloud infrastructure.

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Beyond the Headlines

Sovereignty muscle: Orange Business discusses its dual-mode AI platform strategy in the context of its own transformation, its sovereignty pitch to enterprises, and broader industry efforts to establish tech-co influence in the AI ecosystem.

Telco tokenomics: Mavenir and Red Hat have launched an AI platform aimed at helping telecom operators offer AI services, manage AI workloads, and create new revenue streams through token-based consumption models.

AMD buys MEXT: AMD has acquired MEXT, a startup whose software uses AI to make low-cost flash behave like DRAM – easing the memory bottlenecks that increasingly constrain AI workloads.

Quantum telecom: Quantum computing is moving from long-term promise to practical telco experimentation, writes quantum company Classiq. Early telco pilots are helping build the expertise and competitive advantage for the quantum era.

Agentic enterprise: The agentic enterprise gets a full stack, and a third answer to the one-platform question – all the latest from HPE Discover 2026, courtesy of Adlane Fellah at Maravedis Research.

What We’re Reading

6G + AI lab: Ericsson, Telia and other partners have opened a national 5G/6G and AI test center in Sweden, backed by more than SEK 300 million in investment. The initiative aims to accelerate commercialization of next-gen connectivity technologies.

FMCG agents: NTT Data has a global AI agent service for consumer goods companies to accelerate early-stage product planning. The platform generates product concepts, forecasts, branding ideas and visual assets in minutes, it says.

Critical 5G deal: Vodafone and Airbus have added RugGear’s phones, tablets and radios for emergency services and critical industries across Europe, available as a single package of critical 4G/5G, secure collab tools, and durable field devices.

DC chip sales: Revenue for data center IT chips and components surged 116% in the first quarter of 2026, says Dell’Oro. Growth was driven by AI infra expansion, rising memory prices, strong demand for DRAM, and more AI accelerators.

Network tracker: Polystar, part of Elisa Industriq, has delivered an AI analytics solution for MasOrange’s merged network, enabling unified performance monitoring, faster insights, and improved service quality.

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