The content team at Channel Partners Newsletter tracks stories of interest to the technology advisor and wider channel communities. Anyone selling communication and connectivity solutions will want to stay abreast of these developing stories or catch up on ones they have missed. All links are valid as of Feb. 11.

Is Channel Share Shrinking During IT Boom?

The tech market is booming at a rate not seen in more than a decade. However, most channel partners believe their companies won’t grow as quickly. Despite accelerating IT demand, 81% of partners believe they will underperform the overall market growth, according to Omdia polling of 25,000 partners globally. Infrastructure is the fastest-growing segment of the global IT market, expanding at nearly 30% in 2026, yet much of that growth is effectively off-limits to most partners. Server spending is forecast to grow more than 40%, but hyperscalers and neocloud providers — not channel ecosystems — capture the bulk of this expansion. Read the Channel Dive story.

T-Mobile Tries to Make Voice Calling Cool Again With AI Translation

T-Mobile unwrapped what it describes as a world first: a real-time agentic AI platform built directly into a wireless network. It’s presenting it to customers in the form of Live Translation, a service that enables real-time translation during phone calls in more than 50 languages. See the Fierce Network story.

Rakuten and Intel Team on ‘AI-First vRAN Future’

Rakuten Mobile and Intel are putting their heads together in the pursuit of pushing AI-RAN. The firms will work on developing and deploying RAN AI-native capabilities which they promise will deliver “unprecedented advancements” across critical network functions. Such advancements include optimizing spectrum to improve network performance and capacity, streamlining network management, more efficient network resource allocation, and reducing power consumption in the RAN. Read about it on Telecoms.com.

HPE’s Rahim Points to Olympic Network as Proof of ‘Seamless’ Juniper Integration

When HPE closed its $14 billion purchase of Juniper Networks six months ago, HPE said the combined networking division would account for more than half of the company's total operating income. The executive tasked with leading the combined division, however, anticipates that percentage will increase in the coming years. Speaking from the Olympics in Milan, Rami Rahim, Juniper’s former CEO and current president of HPE Networking, said he anticipates more interest in networking in the age of AI. Read the SDxCentral story.

Amazon Adds $200B to AI Spending Blitz

Amazon will invest $200 billion in capital expenditures throughout its fiscal year 2026, with a primary focus on AWS, CEO Andy Jassy said during the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call Thursday. AWS segment sales grew 24% year over year to $35.6 billion for the period ending Dec. 31, 2025. Amazon, Google and Microsoft combined expect to invest more than $500 billion in capital expenditures in 2026 as the tech giants race to build out AI infrastructure. Read about it on Channel Dive.

T-Mobile Says FWA is Here to Stay

T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan sought to end the debate once and for all about whether fixed wireless access was an interim solution that will eventually be replaced by fiber, and updated targets for broadband growth, during the carrier's Capital Markets Day presentation today. "The days of asking the question, is this here to stay? Those are gone," he said. T-Mobile said it now expects to have 15 million FWA customers by 2030, up from 8.5 million at the end of December 2025. See the Light Reading story.

Cisco Brings Agentic AI to IT Ops

Cisco expanded its AgenticOps portfolio, extending agent-driven automation across networking, security, and observability. The company positions AgenticOps as its operating model for modern IT, designed to automate execution while preserving governance and human oversight in increasingly distributed AI-era environments. The new capabilities integrate telemetry and cross-domain context from Cisco Networking, Security Cloud Control, Nexus One, and Splunk platforms. Read the Converge Digest story.

MetTel, TekSynap Aim at Aging Army National Guard Telecom

MetTel and TekSynap are working together to provide digital transformation and communication system modernization services for the Georgia Army National Guard and the Tennessee Army National Guard, the two companies announced. The three-year Georgia project includes upgrades to connectivity systems security, bandwidth and resilience across Army National Guard facilities statewide. MetTel and TekSynap will replace existing legacy systems with software-defined wide area network infrastructure. Read the Channel Dive story.

Verizon Confirms Consumer CEO Sampath Will Depart

Verizon has confirmed consumer unit CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath will leave the company at the end of the first quarter, days after it was reported that the carrier is looking for his replacement. In the company's official announcement, the telecom operator called Sampath's exit part of an executive leadership transition. Read the SDxCentral story.