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 Jan. 21.

T-Mobile Wins Big in Customer Network Perception

T-Mobile was the big winner in the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Wireless Network Quality study, grabbing the highest rating in five of six U.S. regions surveyed by J.D. Power. That signals a big shift in customer perception, as Verizon took top honors in the previous 30 studies. Read the Fierce Network story.

T-Mobile's SuperMobile Will Supercharge its Business Ambitions

Well over half of enterprise and midsize U.S. business respondents had a favorable outlook on switching to T-Mobile to take advantage of the SuperMobile offering unveiled last year, according to a Recon Analytics survey. Light Reading has the story.

Built for Action: Why AI-Native Telcos Will Define 2026

In recent years, telecom’s AI efforts have centered on strategy, including defining roadmaps, testing concepts, and validating initial AI use cases. GSMA Intelligence’s Telco AI: State of the Market 2025 research indicates that the telecom industry is reaching an inflection point. In 2025, operators started to shift from experimentation toward large-scale deployment of AI across live networks and operations. Looking ahead to 2026, this shift paves the way for a new operating model: the AI-native telco. Read the Fast Mode story.

Verizon Completes Frontier Buy After California OK

Verizon closed its $20 billion purchase of Frontier Communications Tuesday after clearing its final regulatory hurdle from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week. In its statement approving the deal, the CPUC outlined requirements which include Verizon expanding “affordable voice and broadband options”, and “protections for low-income customers”. Other conditions cover network investment and requirements for serving specific groups and areas. Read the Mobile World Live story.

Fiber Deployment Costs Expected to Rise in 2026

The cost of building out fiber networks in the U.S. increased last year and the industry expects further price hikes in 2026. The Fiber Broadband Association's latest annual report into the cost of deploying fiber in the U.S. shows that the median cost of underground fiber deployment rose by 3% year-on-year in 2025 to $18 per foot, while the same metric for aerial deployment was up by 14% to $8 per foot. Looking to 2026, 88% of respondents expect costs to increase again. Read about it on Telecoms.

Ericsson: AI Demands New Kind of Wireless Network

Ericsson is the only wireless RAN vendor in the Agentic AI Foundation, which was formed in December to provide an open source home for Model Context Protocol (MCP) and two other agentic AI projects. Ericsson said it is there to help ensure autonomous AI agents can work across vendors and network borders. Read the Fierce Network story.

AI Spikes Enterprise Bandwidth Demand

Channel partners and telcos are fielding demands for higher bandwidth connections to power proliferating cloud- and AI-based applications in the enterprise. Telco carriers have preached over the last two years that AI could lead to a renaissance in margins as enterprises demand faster, lower-latency connectivity. Gigabits per second is growing for the average business retail circuit, in some cases pushing toward 100 Gbit/s — a rate usually reserved for data center connections. Channel Dive has the story.

Accenture: C-Suite Doesn’t Fear AI Bubble

Accenture reports that 86% of C-suite leaders plan to increase AI investment in 2026. The firm surveyed 3,650 C-suite executives and 3,350 employees in November and December. Nearly half (46%) said they would increase their investment even if an AI bubble were to burst. More than two-thirds of respondents said they used AI tools daily in their work. Read the Channel Dive story.