The 2025 WBBA Broadband Development Congress Successfully Held in Paris

On October 14, the World Broadband Association (WBBA) Broadband Development Congress was successfully held in Paris. Under the theme Telco-Powered Sovereign Infrastructure: Enabling National Prosperity Through Broadband, Cloud, and AI, the conference brought together global partners across the industrial chain as well as experts and scholars to discuss in depth the vital role of broadband, cloud, and artificial intelligence in driving national digital transformation and digital economy development, jointly opening a new chapter in the industry’s progress. The conference also presented the 2025 WBBA Global Broadband Excellence Awards to honor organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the development, technological innovation, and application advancement of the global broadband and cloud network industry.

WBBA Chairman LI Zhengmao and WBBA Advisory Committee member Boris Koprivnikar, former Deputy Prime Minister of Slovenia, delivered opening remarks. HUANG Zhiyong, Deputy General Manager of China Telecom; Lisa Di Feliciantonio, Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer of Fastweb + Vodafone; and CHEN Banghua, President of Huawei Optical Product Line, delivered keynote speeches.

In his address, LI Zhengmao summarized the association’s achievements in 2025—

l Further improvement of its governance structure through board expansion and the establishment of the advisory committee;

l Successful hosting of broadband development conferences and joint declarations in Barcelona, Shanghai, and São Paulo;

l Leading industry development through technological innovation by advancing research in seven technical working groups and publishing the Global Broadband Industry Development Index Report and related white papers.

 He emphasized that with the emergence of new application scenarios and the acceleration of industrial digitalization, greater demands are being placed on the intelligence of broadband networks. He welcomed more members to join WBBA in promoting the construction and development of intelligent digital information infrastructure.

HUANG Zhiyong noted that the information and communications industry is transitioning from the era of “Internet+” to “AI+.” China Telecom has upgraded its corporate strategy to “Cloudification, Digitalization, Intelligence, and Inclusiveness” to fully embrace artificial intelligence. He presented four key insights from China Telecom’s practices—

l AI development requires powerful new digital infrastructure;

l Application is key to AI development;

l Security assurance must be strengthened;

l Openness and cooperation must be upheld.

He also shared China Telecom’s related achievements, expressing hope that WBBA would continue to play its role as a bridge and link for industrial collaboration and technological innovation, connect demand and supply through multilateral cooperation, promote the construction of cloud-network infrastructure and AI co-governance, and build an open and inclusive AI ecosystem to bridge the digital divide.

Lisa Di Feliciantonio analyzed that in 2024, Italy’s fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) coverage reached 64.3%, while its penetration rate was only 17.7%, below the EU average. The main reasons included high deployment costs in suburban areas, labor shortages, consumer dependence on ADSL/VDSL, and the high cost-effectiveness of mobile data services. She suggested decommissioning copper networks in certain areas and subsidizing migration costs to fiber networks to accelerate the development of optical broadband.

CHEN Banghua emphasized that strategic infrastructure has always been the backbone of social and economic development. In the AI era, strategic infrastructure is endowed with new meaning, encompassing three key aspects—computing power centers, information transmission arteries, and AI access points. He noted that optical networks are an essential component of infrastructure construction and must be upgraded to AI-ON (Optical Network), including AI-OTN and AI-FAN, to enhance network capabilities and better serve AI-to-Human (AItoH) scenarios and computing power scheduling. He also proposed using AI technology to reconstruct optical networks, driving them toward higher levels of autonomous intelligence.

During the conference, Maimouna Gueye, CEO of ALM Telecoms; Davide Labio, Partner of Telecommunications, Media, and Technology at KPMG Italy; Ronan de Renesse, Vice President at Omdia; Terje Jensen, Vice President at Telenor; and Eric Delannoy, Deputy Director of Optical Infrastructure at Arcep, participated in a roundtable forum. They engaged in in-depth discussions on topics such as AI infrastructure construction and the integration of AI with broadband and cloud technologies. The speakers suggested that telecom operators should actively embrace AI, proactively pursue innovation in AI technologies and applications, and thereby promote the prosperity of national digital economies.

The 2025 WBBA Global Broadband Excellence Awards Ceremony was also held during the conference. More than 100 projects from around the world were submitted across categories such as network infrastructure innovation, AI and network integration, broadband-enabled application innovation, smart gigabit cities, contributions to bridging the digital divide, and smart home innovation. After rigorous evaluation by a panel of 33 internationally renowned experts, winners were selected in six award categories. WBBA Chairman LI Zhengmao and Secretary-General Martin Creaner jointly presented the awards to the winning projects.

The conference also released five white papers, including the 2025 Global Broadband Industry Development Index Report, the 2025 Global Fiber Development Index Report, the WBBA-GSMA Joint VoWiFi Test and Verification Report, and the European Broadband Investment Guide. These reports explore the significant role of technologies such as artificial intelligence, Wi-Fi, and satellite networks in promoting broadband development, continuously providing key insights for the industry’s investment, construction, and innovation.

Representatives from China Unicom, Safaricom, ZTE, DataCanvas, and Ookla attended the conference in person. The WBBA is a global, industry-led, multilateral, non-governmental, and non-profit organization dedicated to leading the development of future broadband and cloud networks. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it currently has more than 180 members, including China Telecom, China Unicom, Swisscom, and Cisco.