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December 23, 2025

End of year message: Thank You to our World Broadband Association Members around the world for making 2025 such a success!

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As 2025 ends, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on all that the WBBA and our members have achieved over the last 12 months.  To celebrate significant milestones and to look to 2026 with all the possibilities that it brings.

Our Membership:

As a membership organisation we’re delighted with the significant growth this year. We have become an organization that has a truly global representation with over 228 member companies around the world, including expansion into Europe, Latin America and Africa.

This growth allows us to truly demonstrate WBBA’s growing influence and recognition across the globe. Together, we continue to advance our mission of enabling universal connectivity and fostering inclusive digital development for all.

Our leadership:

We have expanded our leadership teams to include an Advisory Committee of four distinguished leaders that bring expertise across Europe, Africa, America and Asia.

Our Board, Oversight, Financial, Collaboration & Liaisons committees have grown and deliver true vision and strategic thinking across all sectors of the organisation.

In March 2025 we elected our new board of directors, expanding it from 12 to 15 member companies.  Our new board runs from 2025 to 2027 and at our first board meeting we appointed the leadership of our board committees.

  • Our Finance Committee, which oversees all the financial operations of the WBBA is chaired by Markus Reber from Swisscom, Switzerland.
  • Our Collaborations and Liaisons Committee, which sets the strategic direction for our collaboration working groups and identifies which other industry organisations WBBA partners with, is chaired by Sunil Piyarlall from Openserve, South Africa.
  • And our Oversight Committee which provides oversight on all other WBBA activities including events, membership growth and industry awards programs, rotates chair every 6 months. From March to September, it was chaired by Mr. LiuZhiyong from China Telecom, and from October to March 2026 it is being chaired by Kevin Hasley, Ookla, USA.

These committees have been heavily engaged in all aspects of the WBBA operations throughout the year and are a core element of WBBA excellent governance.

During 2025 the WBBA also formed an Advisory Committee made up of very senior individuals from the global communications and high-tech industries.  It is chaired by Dr. Zhou Houlin, former Secretary General of the ITU.  Its members include, Mr. Boris Koprivnikar, former deputy Prime Minister, Slovenia, EU; Mr. Brahima Sanou, former director of Intelsat, ITU and African Union; Mr. Artur Coimbra, former minister of Communications, Brazil.

Each of our Advisory Committee members have been invaluable throughout the year in helping WBBA expand our membership and develop relationships with key influencers in the communications industry across the globe.

If you would like to get more details, please go here: World Broadband Association: Broadband Industry | Global Telecom

Our Industry leading reports, white papers & collaboration Program:

We delivered 14 reports and white papers in 2025:

  1. 5G Best Practices and Deployment Guide
  2. Expanding Advanced Fixed Broadband Network for All.
  3. Gigacity Index 2025 - Restoring Whole Scenario’s and Technologies
  4. Africa: Broadband Investment Guidebook
  5. Circular Economies and the Evolution of Fixed Broadband
  6. Using Artificial Intelligence in the Predeployment Phases of Broadband Infrastructure
  7. Beyond Broadband: Revolutionizing CPN Connectivity
  8. Europe: Broadband Investment Guidebook
  9. AI for Net5.5G & Net 5.5g for AI
  10. Test Analysis of WBBA WG4 & GSMA Voice Over Wi-fi
  11. Enriched service over converged Wi-Fi and cellular with GSMA
  12. Fiber Development Index (FDI) Analysis 2025
  13. Broadband and Cloud Development Index Report 2025

With 2 launching early in 2026: Optical Network Architecture & State of AI report.

For the first time WBBA launched in Latin America with the LATAM task force – Beyond Connectivity: Transforming Latin America's Digital Landscape Through Investments in Broadband and the Cloud.   All reports can be found on the WBBA members hub.

Our Global events

2025 marked an exceptionally active and successful year for our global events programme.

We hosted the WBBA Broadband Development Congress (BDC) in Barcelona in March, followed by BDC Shanghai in May. Building on this strong momentum, we were delighted to host our inaugural BDC in São Paulo, Brazil, in October.  This was closely followed by our highly successful BDC events in Paris and Cape Town later in October.

Across the BDC series, we delivered a strong line-up of AI-centric themes and attracted more than 1,300 attendees globally.  Our first BDC in São Paulo achieved particularly strong engagement, with 287 participants attending in person and online. In addition to our flagship congresses, we delivered a highly successful webinar series, extending our global reach and enabling year-round engagement with our members and industry stakeholders.

In parallel, we strengthened our community-led approach, with members playing an increasingly active role in initiating and co-organising key activities, including the successful delivery of BDC Cape Town.

Our Award Program

The 2025 Broadband Excellence Awards were the most successful in the programme’s history. We received a record number of submissions, representing a fivefold increase year-on-year, and witnessed an exceptional standard of innovation and real-world impact from shortlisted finalists and winners.   The award categories are:

  • Network Infrastructure Innovation Excellence
  • AI in Network Excellence
  • Broadband Innovation Excellence for Future Applications
  • Smart Gigacity Excellence
  • Broadband for Digital Inclusion Excellence
  • Intelligent Home Innovation Excellence

We look forward to seeing all the great projects being celebrated and highlighted again in 2026.

Our WBBA Member Hub & Community

This year we fully enabled access to the WBBA Hub and all Member SharePoint resources for over 300 users, supporting collaboration for the various Working Group and Committee activities including the development of White Papers, WBBA Overarching Governance Framework and Membership Agreement, budgeting and forecasting tools and processes, IT Strategy, and the efforts of the EU and LATAM Task Forces.

There has been a significant increase in member engagement (and numbers!) this year, with more users engaging across multiple channels directly with the WBBA team, and with each other. Updated new member onboarding processes and initiatives like the ‘WBBA Members in the News’ articles (posted in the All Members Area Group Chat and emailed to all active Hub users) have been well received.  We strive to continue developing further collaboration and communication opportunities for all members.

Please continue to share your feedback and stories - and keep talking!

Your feedback is important and helps us to develop the services and resources for you to communicate and collaborate, so thank you to everyone who has answered a survey, provided verbal feedback, or got in touch via email or the Hub this year.

Next year we aim to continually increase and enhance the number of available resources for our ever-growing number of members, and it is only from your valuable input and unique insights that we can deliver them.

Community Management

This year we expanded our content strategy by launching several new initiatives including: The coffee welcome and onboarding sessions, Our leadership series as well as Our member success stories and new member announcements.  The WBBA Hub platform is a way for you to showcase your expertise and innovation to all our members, so please reach out to the community team to get your stories and content amplified.

Our marketing impact and brand awareness

2025 marked a transformative year for WBBA's marketing initiatives, delivering successful growth in community engagement and digital visibility. We made significant strides in expanding our reach through strategic partnerships with top-tier trade publications including Light Reading and Telecoms.com.

Our LinkedIn presence flourished with a remarkable 40% increase in followers, particularly among high-level industry personnel, demonstrating our growing influence within the broadband industry.

A key milestone was our inaugural BDC São Paulo, which generated exceptional engagement from the Latin American region compared to previous years. This expansion into new markets reflects our commitment to fostering global connectivity discussions and building meaningful relationships across diverse regions.

Our digital footprint experienced substantial growth, with organic traffic nearly doubling throughout the year. This impressive engagement pattern clearly demonstrates our success in achieving greater visibility and raising brand awareness across the industry.

By leveraging WBBA's strategic initiatives and key insights from our comprehensive whitepapers, we actively engaged with audiences across multiple channels, creating valuable touchpoints that resonated with industry stakeholders worldwide.

These accomplishments represent more than just numbers. They reflect our dedication to building a stronger, more connected global community. As we look toward 2026, we're excited to build upon this momentum and continue advancing our mission of enabling universal connectivity and fostering inclusive digital development.

We hope you are as excited as we are about the opportunities ahead in the Broadband, AI & Cloud Industry.  We look forward to working closely with you to make 2026 a success for all.

With best wishes,
The WBBA Team 

Connecting the World by Bringing the Benefit of Broadband to All

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