30 years, 230 connected cities, 32,000 buildings with direct fiber connections and more than 1,100 data centers in more than 40 countries. With more than a hundred awards, Colt Technology Services is at the forefront of high-speed connectivity solutions worldwide, software-managed networks, automation and connectivity, a key sector in the digital industry. The data speaks for itself.
Digital infrastructures are changing at lightning speed, digital transformation is on everyone’s lips and artificial intelligence has crept into all areas, companies, conversations and homes. “It’s all we talk about,” says Sergio Alonso. An expert in technology and head of strategic projects at Colt Technology Services, this engineer, who says he is ‘happy’ with what he does, has 25 years of experience in telecommunications, leading digital transformation projects at an international level. This week he is participating as a speaker in the second edition of The Wave event – March 19 to 21 in Zaragoza – with technology as the main protagonist. Three days full of conferences, round tables and demonstrations with more than 100 speakers and 30 companies in six different spaces. A macro technological event with which Aragon wants to be a benchmark and become the epicenter of European innovation.
Tell us what or who Colt Technology Services is. What characterizes a connectivity company like Colt?
We are dedicated to all kinds of high-speed connectivity solutions, all over the world. What we do is work on the company’s strategic projects, at a very high level and on a global level. We focus on the most important projects of our most powerful clients, seeking to offer solutions that they really need. My role is a bit of a cross between providing a technical solution, in every sense, and defining the strategy to be able to provide the best solutions, with a focus on technology rather than purely on the commercial.
Nowadays, when we talk about connectivity, we are no longer referring only to telephony. The leap has been incredible.
Exactly. A few years ago, connectivity was just telephony, but now it has evolved enormously. Connectivity encompasses everything a company might need to connect: with cloud providers, for example, to provide cloud services, or with artificial intelligence providers to connect all the company’s offices with each other, to connect its employees, to connect with its suppliers… Everything. To connect with everything, with the internet, with voice services, which is also connecting. In the end, anything that involves connecting to something or someone, that’s where we are.
“Without connectivity there is no digital infrastructure, no services and no cloud. Colt Technology Services was created with the aim of exclusively serving companies. This allows us to specialize and act as consultants for our clients, advising them on the technical solutions they really need.”
What makes you different from other companies in the sector?
We are a little different from others. In companies that provide telecommunications services there are normally two types of company. On the one hand, there are what are known as “incumbent companies” (those companies that have been in a market for years and have a dominant position precisely because of this), such as Telefónica in Spain, France Telecom in France or BT Group in England, et. These are companies that have been around for a century and have an incomparable capacity in that country, with a very established infrastructure in their respective countries, nobody can compete with them. And on the other hand, the global providers, who aim to provide telecommunications services all over the world. These types of companies normally build a communications network based on renting bits of network here and there: a bit from Telefónica, another bit from BT Group in England, and so on, like a jigsaw puzzle.
“The Wave is going to be a good scenario for us, a good opportunity to talk about the innovations in connectivity that are changing the world. We are immersed in two projects in Zaragoza to improve the quality of connectivity for data centers and companies that want to grow and to expand our own network towards Barcelona”.
We are somewhere in between. We are a global provider, but we have built our own network, we have been digging trenches, deploying fiber optics throughout Europe and throughout Asia, and putting in our own fiber network. That is why we are somewhere in between the two types of companies. We have global capabilities but with the advantages of Telefónica in Spain, because the network is 100% ours. And what also sets us apart from the rest is that Colt was created to provide a service to companies (not residential customers). Our vocation is geared solely towards companies, we have a lot of experience in giving them what they need technically but also in becoming consultants, in guiding them in terms of directives and regulations. Being as we are, allows us to offer advantages similar to those of an “incumbent” operator, but with an international presence.
Talking about digital transformation is on everyone’s lips today. Do we really know what we are referring to?
Everyone is talking about digital transformation, and rightly so. To put it very briefly, the reason behind digital transformation is to simplify the way we connect with people, and the way we serve people, and to adapt to making things easier. Because we have reached a point where it was becoming quite complicated. The model has been set, for example, by Amazon. How complicated is it to buy from Amazon? It’s super easy. Well, something similar. In all companies, our goal is to simplify all processes as much as possible so that everything is simple, easy and very digital for end users. But what happens is that internally it has a fairly high level of complexity, simplifying things is very complicated.
Many companies have been around for many years, they have old systems and adapting and simplifying that is sometimes very complicated and sometimes impossible. That is where the complexity of digital transformation comes from.
“Digital transformation is about simplifying processes. Many companies have been operating with complex systems for years, and adapting to digitization is a challenge. Achieving that simplicity requires very complex internal work. For many companies, making things simple is the most difficult part.”
Aragon has become an important technological enclave since AWS announced the opening of its data centers in Zaragoza. The announced investments total 43 billion, most of them in Zaragoza or within a 70-kilometer radius: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Inditex, Stellantis-CATL…
We think it’s great because in Spain the whole technological part is very centralized between Madrid and Barcelona. The fact that technology hubs and communications nerve centres are being created in other places, such as Zaragoza or, a few years ago, Málaga, is fantastic because it means that everything is not centralized in just two places. And it also opens up the market and the options for providing new solutions and for those who are really interested in providing services in these new places to make investments so that they can provide services, for example, in Zaragoza for everything that is happening there.
What relationship do you have with these companies: are they competitors or rather allies?
Without a doubt, for Colt Technology Services they are an important part of our business. They are big buyers of connectivity, both through undersea cables and through data centers in logistics centers. They are an important part of our customer base, including Amazon.
“It’s great that Zaragoza is becoming a tech hub, decentralizing technology from Madrid and Barcelona, and generating new opportunities for digital business and cultural innovation.”
After all, all these companies, like AWS or Google, if they want to open a huge new data center in Zaragoza, with a huge computing capacity, what they need is space, power and connectivity. They need to connect with the rest of the world. We work with them in many places, we give them connectivity and we are connected to all the places where they have a presence. Without connectivity, everything they propose, whoever they are, would not be possible.
Colt Technology Services is one of the companies that will be very present at The Wave 2025. And as a technology expert, Sergio, you will be giving a presentation on “The Revolution of Intelligent Connectivity”. What can you tell us about it?
This event is a key meeting point for technology companies and start-ups, where the latest innovations and trends in the sector will be presented, so it’s a good setting for us, a good opportunity to talk about the innovations in connectivity that are changing the world. On-demand connections are revolutionizing digital infrastructure and we can now apply greater flexibility to connectivity.
We provide services in Zaragoza, we have them connected to our fiber network and we have two projects to improve our fiber capabilities in Zaragoza. Currently, the city is connected to our fiber network through Madrid, but we are developing a new project to also connect it to Barcelona, so that it will have two connection routes, which will improve redundancy and the quality of communication. Our second project is to create a fiber network in the city to connect buildings and companies directly. That in Zaragoza we can have not only a data center, which we can reach with our fiber, but that from there we can connect buildings and companies. In Madrid we have been doing it for many years and it is something that never ends because you start to deploy fiber and you continue and continue, as companies demand connectivity. The key is to just get started.
In addition to being a speaker for Colt, what do you expect from this event? Any specific expectations?
There are some very powerful companies – AWS and the big cloud providers (often called hyperscalers) – and they are sending high-level representatives to Zaragoza. I find the event very interesting, hearing what all these companies have to say, not only about what they are investing in Zaragoza but also how they see their future, what trends they see in the market, the famous digital transformation, what their point of view is, what they are doing…
“At Colt Technology Services we use artificial intelligence to improve the security and efficiency of our networks. For example, AI helps us detect anomalies and predict failures before they occur. This improves the quality of service for our customers and avoids interruptions. We also apply it in the automation of network deployments, reducing equipment configuration time from 35 to just five minutes. Productivity, efficiency, quality …”
I have a special curiosity: to hear what all these companies have to say about the problems involved in the digital transformation that are cybersecurity – security is one of them – and the issue of artificial intelligence, which is going to be mentioned a million times because it is the only thing people are talking about. How the two – cybersecurity and artificial intelligence – are going to be linked or how they should be linked is a subject that interests me a lot because so far they don’t get along very well. All the events I’ve been to lately are paying close attention to what is being said, what is being shared and how to solve the challenges of artificial intelligence in terms of cybersecurity.
What role does artificial intelligence play at Colt Technology Services?
We are not a provider of artificial intelligence solutions, like AWS or other cloud providers, but we do use artificial intelligence to improve the security and efficiency of our networks. For example, we have it deployed in our networks to try to identify problems, anomalies and faults before they occur. Based on traffic patterns, artificial intelligence is able to predict the problem before it arises. We already have that up and running in our network. And it’s something that benefits our customers because if we are able to avoid a problem, to prevent a breakdown, in the end the quality is improved for our customers. Another aspect, for example, is that we use AI to automate many processes. For example, to deploy SDN networks for a client’s offices, until now, we required the intervention of a deployment engineer and 35 minutes of device configuration time per site for it to work properly. We have automated this phase, using AI and other processes, and we have gone from 35 minutes to 5 minutes. This reduction in management time allows us to be able to deploy a network for a client in much less time than was possible just a few years ago. The application of AI in our case translates into greater productivity, efficiency and quality of the services we provide to our clients.
You claim that security and Artificial Intelligence don’t mix. Explain.
When China recently launched the DeepSeek artificial intelligence tool, it was the most downloaded app in a matter of a few hours all over the world. Experts analyzed what it was like, how it worked, and how secure it was. And they found that the protocols of the encryption security algorithms, the encryption mechanisms they were using – it’s a basic thing in any solution – were obsolete, old encryption mechanisms very easy to bypass or hack. And I’ll give you another example because artificial intelligence is something relatively new. Why can’t we use Apple’s AI in Europe? If you’ve bought an iPhone, you’ll see that the artificial intelligence features don’t work here, they only work in the United States because European regulation hasn’t happened yet. It will, supposedly. AI is advancing so fast that it’s lagging behind regulation. We are using things that are not yet clearly regulated, and that – by definition – means there are holes and gaps. The market is way, way ahead and this generates gaps, in terms of regulation and in terms of security.
Technology, young people, employment and the future are concepts that seem to fit together. What would you recommend to young people who are training now or who are wondering what to do?
The need for experts in security and artificial intelligence is huge, and employment opportunities in this sector will continue to grow. For young people looking for a career with a future, this is an area with a lot of potential. I often talk to the son of a good friend who is studying telecommunications engineering and I tell him: Miguel! Throw yourself into everything that comes your way that is security and artificial intelligence. All companies lack experts in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. All of them.
After all the years you’ve been in the sector, can you imagine a world without connectivity? Would it be possible that one day the technology would fail and the world would be left without connectivity?
No, no, I can’t imagine it happening other than in the movies. I’m watching one of these apocalyptic films right now, in which there is a global attack, all communications go down and everything collapses, in this case it’s the United States. There are a lot of deaths, the air navigation systems, the train traffic systems go down… everything suddenly stops working. Could it happen? Hmm. It’s a good question. At the moment I see it as complicated because there are many different platforms, many different systems and many operating systems. I think it’s impossible, but it could happen in the near future that a very high percentage of the world’s systems are in the same place, that is to say, that a large number of eggs are in the same basket. We currently have several providers: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. One could gain a monopoly of all the systems in the future and someone could hack it. It could happen, hypothetically. But I see it as very complicated, the sector is quite fragmented.
