When Voice Learns to Think: Why AI Voice Could Redefine Wholesale
MEF Programme Lead for Connectivity & Wholesale, Isabelle Paradis, discusses how AI is beginning to reshape long-established assumptions in international voice. As intelligence moves closer to the network layer, familiar models around value, trust, and control are quietly being questioned—signalling potential change for wholesalers watching voice evolve once again.
Mexico Activates Mandatory KYC for Mobile Line: Registration of 160 Million Lines in 120 Days
A significant shift is underway in how mobile services connect identity, access, and trust. What started as a regulatory requirement is now shaping broader conversations about scale, responsibility, and user impact across the ecosystem. Stefano Nicoletti, Head of MEF’s Sender ID Registry in the UK, discusses what this change means for security, privacy, and the future of mobile services.
What Will Shape the Internet in 2026: Power, Politics, and Infrastructure
As 2026 approaches, the forces shaping the internet are shifting beneath the surface. Infrastructure decisions are increasingly influenced by regulation, geopolitics, energy availability, and where digital capacity can legally and physically exist. These less visible factors are set to redefine competition and resilience online. Paulius Judickas, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at IPXO, explains what to watch as these pressures converge.
Satellite Direct-to-Device Promises Holy Grail of Communications – 100% Geographic Coverage
As telcos and satellite providers experiment with new models, MEF Programme Lead for Connectivity & Wholesale, Isabelle Paradis, and MEF Principal Analyst for Business Messaging, Pamela Clark-Dickson, explain how direct-to-device satellite connectivity is moving from technical promise to commercial reality.
Orange France’s recently-announced partnership with Skylo to launch its ‘Message Satellite’ service, a direct-to-device (D2D) satellite SMS
The Death of OTP: Can Wholesalers Power the Age of Intelligent Authentication?
MEF Programme Lead for Connectivity & Wholesale, Isabelle Paradis, takes a look at the shifting foundations of digital authentication, where long-standing methods face new pressures from evolving threats, emerging device-centric models and changing regulatory expectations. Digital identity is undergoing the most profound shift since the birth of the mobile internet.
MEF Data: The Rise in SMS Fraud
It’s Black Friday – one of the biggest online shopping days of the year! Infobip is tipping 2.7 billion interactions via SMS globally over Black Friday and Cyber Monday – 1.9 billion of which are expected in the US alone – as brands send out marketing and promotional messages, consumers receive alerts from their banks or OTPs, and logistics companies send delivery notifications. Unfortunately, however, the conditions are also right for bad actors to take advantage of the unwary consumer.
California’s Browser Law: The Next Quiet Hours Trap
Across North America and beyond, policymakers are taking new interest in how data, consent, and communication standards evolve. MEF Advisor Paul Ruppert explains how California’s latest privacy move signals a broader shift in digital governance and explores what’s driving that momentum. California’s latest “browser privacy” initiative may appear to be a noble act of consumer protection.
MEF Data: Smart Home Devices
More non-Europeans than Europeans use their smart home devices daily, with 52% of non-Europeans using them once a day or more often, compared to 39% of Europeans, according to MEF’s 11th Annual Consumer Survey. The higher usage of smart home devices by non-Europeans is likely due to the predominating use cases in the flagship smart home markets such as the US, China, and Japan, where consumers use smart security systems, smart appliances, smart entertainment systems, smart lighting, and remote monitoring – all of which invite daily interaction.
MEF Data: Mobile Number Intelligence
More non-Europeans than Europeans have a positive view of businesses using their mobile phone numbers to verify their identities. Over half of non-European respondents to MEF’s 11th Annual Consumer Survey, or 51%, said they viewed mobile number intelligence as a positive development, compared to 42% of Europeans. This is likely because consumers in non-European countries are more likely to be the target of fraud and are therefore more willing participants in authentication processes such as mobile number intelligence, which helps prevent them from being exploited. Mobile number intelligence typically happens in the background during customer onboarding to check whether the customer’s phone number is connected, valid, and active on a telco network.
Telefónica Cuts the Noise, Chases the Cash
MEF’s Riccardo Amati highlights Telefónica’s latest move marks a turning point for one of Europe’s telecom giants as it refocuses on fundamentals, tightens its structure and prioritises infrastructure strength. The company’s shift hints at a broader rethink across the mobile ecosystem about leadership, partnership and what real execution will mean in the next phase of growth.