Telecom Towers, Fiber & Colocation

Cable One, Inc. announced it is in advanced discussions with GTCR LLC, certain of its existing lenders and a consortium of leading private lending institutions regarding financing transactions to address certain of the Company's forthcoming capital needs. Cable One said it is working towards enhancing its capital structure to position the company to drive growth in shareholder value. Chief Executive Officer Jim Holanda said the contemplated financings are intended to strengthen Cable One's overall financial position, while GTCR Managing Director Stephen J. Jeschke said GTCR has been working closely with Cable One to facilitate a potential transaction that would bring new capital into the business. No definitive agreements have been entered into, and there can be no guarantee that any transaction will materialize. Separately, Cable One and GTCR agreed to extend the deadline for completion of Cable One's purchase of the 55% remaining stake it does not already own in Mega Broadband Investments Holdings LLC to October 9, 2026.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have entered into a joint venture agreement aimed at expanding satellite-enabled coverage in underserved areas across the U.S., following a May announcement that the three carriers would pool limited spectrum resources to help eliminate coverage dead zones. Paul Roth, a wireless industry veteran who previously held leadership roles at AT&T, Cingular Wireless and Ameritech, will serve as interim CEO while a search for a permanent chief executive is underway, and the venture will be managed by a board with representatives from each founding member. The JV is designed to complement terrestrial mobile networks rather than replace them, with the goal of nearly eliminating dead zones currently without mobile service, providing redundant connectivity during natural disasters, and improving direct-to-device access as a first step. The partners said the venture will support industry competition and innovation, work with rural mobile network operators, and pursue a standards-based approach to device compatibility, while existing carrier-satellite agreements remain in place and the three companies can continue connectivity efforts independently.

Verizon Communications has elected technology executive and private equity investor Charles Phillips to its Board of Directors, while the Federal Communications Commission has placed a hold on Verizon's plan for automatic shutdown of copper-based telephone service in parts of New Jersey. The board addition and the FCC pause on copper service retirement frame broader questions about Verizon's technology focus and legacy network strategy. The company's ongoing cost optimization is now framed by a US$9b 2026 program with structural reductions in operating and capital expenditure, supported by AI driven operations, lower cost of acquisition and retention, and network modernization. The headline risk is the FCC slowing Verizon's copper retirement, which leans against that cost program and keeps old infrastructure on the books for longer, while bringing Charles Phillips onto the board points the other way given his background in enterprise software and technology services. For investors comparing Verizon with AT&T or T-Mobile, the nuance is board composition and oversight, with the appointment appearing aligned with a deepening enterprise and AI infrastructure focus.

NTT East and NTT West announced on the 30th that they will raise fixed-line telephone call rates, effective next April. The move is due to rising component and labor costs, and marks the first increase in fixed-line call rates in about 50 years, since November 1976, and the first since privatization. Calls to fixed-line phones will rise from 9.35 yen to 10.45 yen per three minutes, while calls to mobile phones will go from 17.6 yen to 19.8 yen per minute. Usage fees will also increase for the fiber-optic "Hikari Denwa" service and the "Flets Hikari" internet connection service.

KDDI announced on the 30th the areas where it will provide its mobile phone network to Rakuten Mobile, known as roaming, from October onward, revealing that it will significantly reduce coverage in 18 designated cities including Yokohama, Kobe and Sendai. In the affected areas, Rakuten Mobile's service may become difficult to connect. In addition to the 18 designated cities, excluding Osaka and Nagoya where coverage had already been reduced, core cities such as Asahikawa in Hokkaido will also be subject to the reduction. For regional areas where Rakuten Mobile's base station rollout has lagged, KDDI says it will cooperate in maintaining infrastructure for a certain period, on the major premise that Rakuten Mobile will carry out the buildout itself.

Eaton Corporation plc has agreed to acquire Italy-based COL Group from Oaktree's Power Opportunities strategy for an enterprise value of €810 million. COL Group specializes in medium-voltage electrical power distribution solutions, including SF6-free switchgear, grid automation technologies, and modular power systems, and operates four Italian manufacturing facilities with roughly 400 employees. The company forecasts 2027 sales of €250 million, and the deal is expected to close in Q1 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. The transaction expands Eaton's European manufacturing footprint and accelerates its capacity to capture global demand across utility grid modernization and data center end markets.

Zhibao Technology Inc. has entered into a definitive Merger and Acquisition Agreement dated September 28, 2026, to acquire 100% of the issued shares of NEXSYS TECH SDN. BHD., a newly incorporated Malaysian entity through which the InsurTech company intends to develop an AI computing infrastructure business. The total consideration consists of $1 in cash payable at closing plus up to $7.5 million in contingent earn-out consideration payable solely through the issuance of Zhibao's Class A ordinary shares, earned only if NEXSYS achieves an aggregate cumulative audited net profit target of $3.015 million over a 27-month evaluation term running from October 1, 2026, through December 31, 2028, supported by a reference revenue objective of $201 million and a reference net profit margin of 1.5%. NEXSYS's planned operations focus on high-end GPU servers, high-performance computing hardware, cluster integration and deployment, and computing power hosting and leasing for applications including large model training, AI inference, scientific computing, and 3D rendering. NEXSYS management reports cooperation arrangements relating to internet data center facilities in East Malaysia and Indonesia covering an aggregate rack power capacity of approximately 26 megawatts, and has completed know-your-customer verification in Malaysia for proposed procurement of systems incorporating top-of-the-line GPUs, with estimated delivery lead times of 4 to 8 weeks per order. The acquisition is expected to close within 30 days after signing, subject to customary closing conditions including satisfactory due diligence, clear title, and required corporate and regulatory approvals, after which Zhibao will become NEXSYS's sole shareholder and consolidate its financial results.

Analysts believe the AI sector remains undeterred and is pressing ahead with fundraising, even as the yield on 10-year US Treasuries climbs close to 5.17%, the highest since 2007. JPMorgan Chase estimated in June that companies are likely to take on an additional 4.1 trillion dollars in debt tied to AI investment by 2030. Japan's SoftBank, one of the key financiers for AI projects, raised 11.1 billion dollars this week from the sale of low-rated bonds, with its 7-year notes carrying a yield of as much as 9.75%. CoreWeave, a heavily indebted Neocloud business, said in its latest quarterly earnings report that as of June, every 100 basis point rise in interest rates could add 30 million dollars to its interest expenses. Oracle shares fell 7% this week and are down about 30% since the start of the year, after Bloomberg reported that the company sent a force majeure notice concerning its data center project in New Mexico, known as Project Jupiter, in order to shield itself from rising costs. Despite higher financing costs, demand for AI services continues to grow rapidly. Meta's Muse personal assistant app topped 2.5 million global downloads in its first two weeks and overtook ChatGPT as the most popular app on Apple's App Store. Evercore analyst Mark Mahaney said Muse could reach 100 million users within 6 to 12 months.

Johnson Controls announced it has joined the Sustainable Tropical Data Centre Testbed 2.0, hosted at the College of Design and Engineering at the National University of Singapore, contributing thermal management, smart controls, engineering expertise and operational experience to the programme. The testbed, located on Jurong Island, will evaluate next-generation AI and data centre technologies in a live tropical environment, part of a broader initiative with JTC Corporation and industry partners to transform Jurong Island into a living testbed for low-carbon, AI-ready infrastructure. The announcement comes as Singapore expands its low-carbon digital infrastructure, including the recent allocation of an additional 200 MW of data centre capacity. Johnson Controls said its integrated thermal approach can reduce non-IT energy consumption by up to 50% compared with conventional cooling methods in a modeled design, and that in a 1-gigawatt data centre blueprint its absorption chiller reference design demonstrated the potential to convert the 57% of energy typically lost as waste heat from on-site power generation into productive cooling, enabling up to 97 MW of additional AI computing capacity from existing power infrastructure while reducing cooling-related electrical demand by up to 44%. Austin Domenici, president of Data Centre Solutions at Johnson Controls, said success with growing AI workloads will depend not only on computing power but on how efficiently the resources behind it are managed, and Ali Badreddine, vice president and general manager for Southeast Asia Business and Asia Pacific Data Centre Solutions, said STDCT 2.0 brings research, talent and industry collaboration together to help advance AI-ready infrastructure across Singapore and the broader Asia Pacific region. Professor Lee Poh Seng, programme director of the testbed and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at NUS CDE, said the programme is designed to move beyond individual technologies and evaluate how systems can be integrated and optimised as one infrastructure platform under real tropical operating conditions. The announcement comes ahead of Data Centre World Asia 2026, taking place 29–30 September at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Singapore, where Johnson Controls will be at Booth V20.

Telephone and Data Systems Inc. withdrew its all-stock acquisition proposal for the remaining minority shares of Array Digital Infrastructure on September 1, abandoning a deal that would have given outside Array shareholders 0.86 shares of TDS for each share held. TDS retains its controlling 82% equity stake in Array, leaving public shareholders with an 18% minority position, after a special committee formed by Array's board failed to reach consensus with TDS on exchange ratios and relative share valuation. Management said current market conditions favor immediate share repurchases over share-issuance transactions, allowing TDS to draw on $523.9 million in remaining board authorization as of June 30, which includes a $500 million expansion approved in November 2025. TDS and Array also plan to accelerate monetization of Array's residual wireless spectrum holdings, converting non-earning assets into non-dilutive capital to fund TDS Telecom's fiber footprint expansion. Hedge fund holders in TDS rose to 50 from 47 in the prior quarter, while short interest sits at an exceptionally low 0.06% of the float; management has not set fixed timelines or price targets for the spectrum sales or the buyback cadence.