Six operators, including Telefónica, have formed a new alliance called Alaian, which has the rather broad remit of “stimulating innovation” in telecoms. The founders have issued a “global call for start-ups” with interesting 5G use cases. The six founders of Alaian are Bouygues Telecom of France; European towerco Cellnex; The Netherlands’ KPN; South Africa-based group MTN; Spain-based Telefónica Group; and Wind Tre of Italy. Together they operate in 50 countries and collectively have 700m customers, so they certainly have the scale to make a difference, though that does automatically endorse their claim to be “disruptive telcos”. They said they aim to “share best practices on innovation and generate different use cases on the latest market developments and technologies they are implementing”.…