Interesting stuff in here about new US rural AI fiber access and trans-Europe AI express routes, as linked below, but these are not strictly ‘wireless’ stories, and so we will (henceforth) leave them to be discussed in more detail by our sister publication RCR Tech. Otherwise, Sean Kinney presents the latest ying-yang chapter in this Ericsson/Nokia forever-tale – which has morphed into one about how telco vendors see the future role of RAN systems in the AI infrastructure boom (AI for RAN vs RAN for AI), and will go a way to define how telcos play in it.
It’s a good story, of course, very well told; but Sean introduces the T-Mobile US as a new character, effectively. The firm is doing both, testing with both. Which goes against the idea this is a zero-sum calculation for either. T-Mobile wants the easy upside, and it does not want to be a hostage to fortune either – especially when so much is in play. Which is a sensible position. It doesn’t much care whether the AI runs on an Nvidia GPU, Ericsson silicon, or something else. It cares whether it produces capacity, experience, automation, and/or new services.
Ericsson’s proposition is probably easier to sell: more efficiency means more capacity and better economics from the same spectrum and sites. Nokia’s is bigger, but harder to value: shared infrastructure for distributed AI, and new use cases and revenue streams. Which reads like a CFO/CTO discussion, right there – although Nokia is making the case based on initial spectral gains, as well. Plus, Nokia’s talk about RAN improvements at “software speed” will appeal to telcos wanting faster upgrades and clearer headroom for whatever comes down the line.
James Blackman
Executive Editor
RCR Wireless News
RCR Top Stories
Gemini at Verizon: Verizon and Google Cloud are scaling their partnership into an enterprise-wide AI overhaul – from Gemini customer service to autonomous network agents with API access to live infrastructure.
AI-RAN paths diverge: Nokia and Ericsson have different AI-RAN paths, and T-Mobile US is testing both approaches – highlighting the split between incremental RAN intelligence and broader shared AI compute.
AI needs fabric: Compute orchestration and programmable connectivity are critical as AI inference workloads spread across AI factories, clouds, enterprises, telecom networks and the edge.
Regional AI fiber: Shentel has a hyperscaler deal for AI connectivity – a first for the regional carrier. The move is an early sign that AI demand is spilling out of the national networks into mid-tier regional fiber players.
Traffic management: Effective space traffic management is critical as debris and satellite constellations crowd low Earth orbit. But it will require tougher regulation, active debris removal, resilient satellite design, and robust cybersecurity.
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Beyond the Headlines
AI-RAN takes shape: Open RAN, cloud-native infrastructure, and AI are converging to create a more programmable RAN, with spectral efficiency, automation, and orchestration emerging as foundations for AI-native networks.
Nokia pushes AI-RAN: Nokia is using AI-RAN to improve spectral efficiency while moving toward shared accelerated compute, creating an evolutionary path from 5G and 5G-Advanced toward AI-native 6G.
Huawei Wi-Fi patents: Huawei and HP have signed a global patent cross-licensing agreement covering Huawei Wi-Fi patents, highlighting the commercialization of long-term research and expanding Huawei’s portfolio of industry licensing deals.
Computing drives ZTE: ZTE’s first-half revenue rose 9%, with computing up more than 55% and data center solutions above 90%, offsetting weaker domestic carrier investment and supporting stronger international growth.
AI reshapes testing: Keysight’s AI-driven wireline growth is increasing testing demand across R&D and manufacturing, while rising technology complexity, supply constraints, and emerging 6G applications expand its opportunity.
What We're Reading
EE intros slicing: EE has launched a commercial ‘Fast Lane’ slicing service in the UK, built on Ericsson’s 5G SA network. The latter said it moves mobile “beyond a one-size-fits-all, best-effort approach” to “differentiated connectivity”.
Barca fiber route: EXA Infrastructure has opened a long-haul route between Barcelona and Bilbao in Spain, also serving the Zaragoza region at the nexus of Lisbon and Madrid traffic flows to the rest of Europe.
Lumen cloud access: Lumen has expanded access to its multi-cloud gateway service, giving enterprises a way to connect more than 10m US business locations to private, high-performance cloud networking.
Urban FWA usage: FWA is gaining traction in urban markets. About 70% of Q2 2026 FWA test samples originated from urban users in the US, versus 30% from rural areas. Rural FWA users have lower speeds and higher latency
P5G for livestock: West Sussex County Council is connecting livestock monitoring to private 5G for farmers to better manage animal respiratory disease and stress. Boldyn is supplying the network and Pneumonitor is supplying the IoT.
