Two things here for your mid-week blurb. One: the news that Deutsche Telekom is looking to acquire the rest of T-Mobile in the US, as reported everywhere. This is more about structure and valuation, than it is about control. The German outfit, with a market cap of €140 ($165) billion, already owns 53 percent of T-Mobile US, which is valued at over $200 billion. A full merger ($300-$400 billion, even without a big takeover premium) would rank as the largest public M&A deal ever – more than Vodafone’s acquisition of Mannesmann ($180 billion) in 2000, the AOL/Time Warner merger ($165 billion) in 2001, and Verizon’s buy-out of Vodafone’s stake ($130 billion) in 2013. T-Mobile has higher growth, so it has a higher valuation multiple. Deutsche Telekom is valued based on its slower European businesses – hence its less-generous stock market valuation. A merger might simplify things, and close the gap. Of course, Deutsche Telekom will need to convince minority investors on price, while also clearing political and regulatory hurdles in both the US and Germany. It’s logical – but hardly straightforward. RCR will have more.
Two: AT&T’s latest quarterly results. Here’s a summary from Patrick Kelly at Appledore Research, which is the best round-up RCR has seen. Kelly says: “Fiber is the top priority – scaling from 32 million to 40-plus million locations by [2027], and 60-plus million by 2030, accelerated by the $5.75 billion Lumen acquisition. Fiber revenues grew 17% in 2025 with no sign of slowing. 5G and spectrum is the second major pillar, anchored by the $23 billion EchoStar spectrum acquisition, plus UScellular spectrum and continued open RAN rollout. The AST SpaceMobile service is set for beta in 2026. Copper shutdown is being accelerated – over 30 percent of wire centers by the end of 2026, with the large majority gone by 2029. Business Wireline is losing $816 million per year and the legacy drag is a key financial risk. AT&T sees AI as a demand driver for its networks, and as an internal efficiency tool targeting $4 billion in additional annual savings by 2028 – in network operations, software development, customer service, back-office functions. It’s a pragmatic, cost-reduction AI play rather than a consumer AI product strategy.”
James Blackman
Executive Editor
RCR Wireless News
RCR Top Stories
Leo versus Starlink: The satellite arms race between Amazon Leo and Starlink is heating up every day, but their addressable markets and business trajectories tell a different story. Sulagna provides an overview.
Scaling O-RAN: Rakuten Symphony will deploy open RAN and RIC across seven Global South markets, using METI-backed trials to prove performance, cut costs and energy use, and attract infrastructure investment.
Network strain: Ciena says that AI infrastructure growth is driving capacity pressure across transport networks, from metro to subsea, as operators balance rapid GPU deployment with the need for scalable, high-performance connectivity.
6G experience: As 6G takes shape and AI permeates both the network and the devices consumers use every day, it’s less about a single killer app and more about a new class of multi-device and always-on AI experiences.
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Beyond the Headlines
FutureNet takes: Quick takes from FutureNet World, where telcos are still taking incremental steps with AI, rather than giant leaps. But it felt like an industry getting to grips with the tech in a practical fashion, and buzzing about its potential.
French shakeup: A proposed €20.35 billion deal for SFR could reshape France’s telecom market, easing pricing pressure while raising integration risks, as consolidation trends and Altice’s debt strategy converge.
Custom chips: Google is to deepen its custom silicon portfolio through a deal with Marvell. The arrangement focuses on specialized memory processing units and dedicated inference hardware to support the Gemini and Google Search.
P5G versus DCI: Ericsson is sticking to what it knows: 5G, public and private, and APIs, to expose 5G to developers and enterprises – which offers more coherent longer-term diversification than a Nokia-style switch to DCI fiber, it suggests.
What We’re Reading
T-Mo takeover? Deutsche Telekom is exploring a full merger with T-Mobile US via a new holding company, potentially creating a $400bn telecom giant and largest-ever M&A deal, though talks remain early and face regulatory hurdles.
AT&T out-performs: AT&T beat expectations by adding 294,000 wireless subscribers in teh first quarter, driven by bundling mobile and fiber; revenue and earnings also topped forecasts, but heavy investment weighed on cash flow.
Sci-fi business: SpaceX has warned investors in a company filing that its ambitions to build space-based AI data centers, as well as human settlements on the moon and Mars, rely on unproven technologies and may not be commercially viable.
IIoT connectivity: The OPC Foundation has a new joint working group with the LoRa Alliance to map LoRaWAN to OPC UA, and combine complementary technologies for industrial IoT connectivity.
Unitly network: Anterix has licensed 10 MHz of 900 MHz spectrum to Public Utility District in Benton County in Washington to build the first private 4G/5G network for a power utility in the Pacific Northwest.
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Test & Measurement Forum, May 19
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