Interview with Thomas Arnoldner, Deputy CEO, A1 Telekom Austria Group

Thomas Arnoldner warns that Europe’s telecom industry is at a critical turning point, describing it as the “last chance to get things right.” He highlights the sector’s stagnation and excessive fragmentation, calling for simplification and scale to foster the investment needed for cloud, AI, and next-generation connectivity. Arnoldner stresses that 270 regulators with differing rules prevent a true single market, and points to A1’s Exoscale — a native European cloud based on open source — as their key contribution to Europe’s digital sovereignty.