Industry News

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Alan Bentley, Head of Global Strategy at Blancco, looks at the potential knock-on effects of the latest iPhone launch. The launch of the iPhone 12 in October last year saw Apple announce its first flagship 5G

Vocus has confirmed that it has received another takeover offer, its fifth in less than four years, and its value has apparently increased in that time. The latest would-be owner of the Australian fibre network operator and service provider is Macquarie, whose Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) division and its managed funds, has tabled

Finnish kit vendor Nokia reported flat sales in Q4 2020 and a decline for the full year, and its outlook indicates that trend is set to continue. The numbers weren’t terrible but they weren’t great either. Considering the unique circumstances the world found itself in last year, a small drop in sales accompanied by increased

2020 has been a year of unprecedented challenges, but the telecoms industry led by example in keeping the world connected and continuing to push forward regardless. The 2020 Glotel Awards reflected that, once more receiving hundreds of entries of an impressively high standard. While we weren’t able to celebrate the winners in person this year,

Telecoms operators in the Netherlands may work together in various ways to speed up mobile network rollouts, according to new rules from the country’s competition body. The Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) has published the final version of new guidelines on the sharing of mobile networks, noting that telcos may collaborate under certain conditions

The UK’s communications regulator has decided to revoke the licence to broadcast by the TV channel China Global Television Network, an overseas branch of China’s propaganda network. In reaching its decision Ofcom has established that China Global Television Network (CGTN) has failed to meet two key requirements of the UK’s broadcasting laws in order to

The vast majority of EU member states have failed to enact new telecoms legislation so the European Commission is taking action… …via a strongly worded letter. The tension is palpable. The European Union hammered out its new Electronic Communications Code over a period of a couple of years, and it finally came into force in

The last of the major European economies is now represented in an operator cabal created to do something or other about OpenRAN technology. The group was presented to the world a couple of weeks ago, flush with debutante optimism, vowed to collaborate in order to make Europe a hot-bed of radio access network innovation. Vodafone,

Fresh from its stunning insights into the broadband market, UK Parliament has decided it’s time to fix the mobile sector. It was less than a month ago that the UK Public Accounts Committee dropped the bombshell that we might not cover the entire country in fibre by 2025 after all. Lesser legislative bodies would have

BT saw revenues and earnings decline in the nine months to the end of 2020, while spending on fixed and mobile network infrastructure increased. The UK telco group posted a 7% year-on-year revenue decline to £16.06 billion on the back of the Covid-19 impact at its consumer and enterprise businesses, as well due to ongoing

BT has launched the latest iteration of its home broadband and WiFi product, BT Halo 3+, as it focuses its efforts to get ahead of the game in convergence in the UK. The telco first mentioned Halo towards the back end of 2019 and has already moved to the third iteration of the product…with an

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom reckons it’s still too much of a hassle to switch broadband providers, which results in people paying more than they need to. So today Ofcom is proposing a ‘one touch’ process which means you don’t have to interact with your existing ISP at all if you want shot of them. This

The importance of broadband connectivity is indisputably greater now than ever. The immediate need to help mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing broader objectives of delivering on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are accelerating the requirement for broadband. Omdia has identified six key challenges that the broadband industry needs to

Nokia Bell Labs has only gone and found a way to deliver 100 Gbps on a single Passive Optical Network wavelength. The new tech has been put through its paces for the first time by Vodafone in Germany, where they presumably downloaded the 8K version of War and Peace in one nanosecond. The specifics involved

Autonomous vehicles are so 2020 and the cools kids are all about the Urban Air Mobility these days. South Korea has been at the leading edge of 5G development from the start and it seems determined to maintain that position. While everyone else is still wondering how to make driverless cars, operator SKT has signed

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Enrico Salvatori, Senior Vice President and President of Qualcomm Technologies EMEA takes a look at the 5G Pathway and what this means for operators and industry. 5G is, in essence, an exercise in unlocking greater network efficiencies; efficiencies

What started as a few amateur investors trying to undermine the efforts of hedge funds to make money from a declining stock is having wider repercussions. As you’re probably aware, shares in US computer games retailer GameStop have been going through the roof since the start of the year and are currently priced around 8x

Driven by volatile rates, billing complexities and the challenges of working with multiple suppliers, managing the international voice business is harder than ever before. To streamline operations, while ensuring customers high quality service, operators need to work with an experienced global telecom provider. With over twenty years of experience and over 700+ connections with mobile

NTT DoCoMo has announced its latest successful 5G test on a moving high-speed train. The Japanese operator said it had achieved a stable 5G connection, including handover between base stations and the transmission of high-definition video, on a train moving at, wait for it, 360 km per hour. For those of us more familiar with

Swedish kit vendor Ericsson has managed to improve its share price the old-fashioned way, by doing a bit better than investors thought it would. Sales were up 13% year-on-year, when adjusted for adjustments, in Q4 2020. Even more impressive was a 60% increase in net income. The full year was pretty healthy too, with sales

India is ready to start testing 5G, according to the country’s communications minister, who this week called upon the country’s telcos to opt for homegrown technology for the 5G core. His comments came as Bharti Airtel trumpeted a successful 5G demo in Hyderabad, but indications are that the telco is in no rush to launch

French MNOs Orange and Free Mobile have been chatting about forming a network sharing agreement, but it came to nothing. Having dropped a serious chunk of change on 5G spectrum late last year, the two MNOs thought it might be an idea to pool their resources on the 5G rollout. Such network sharing agreements are

US sanctions really started to bite for Huawei in Q4 2020, with the Chinese tech giant registering its lowest market share for five years. The latest numbers from market researcher Counterpoint reveal that the overall smartphone market declined by 1% in Q4 2020 and 10% for the whole year. While Samsung didn’t have a great

Laure de la Raudière is officially the new chair of French telecoms regulator Arcep. President Emmanuel Macron proposed de la Raudière for the job earlier this month, a move which surprised and dismayed some in the sector. Despite the objectors, among whom Iliad founder Xavier Niel, was the most vocal, de la Raudière was formally

As Deutsche Telekom’s reliance on Huawei kit increasingly looks like a precarious position, it has taken to playing the field. Its current squeeze is Korean tech giant Samsung, with the two of them having recently spent a romantic weekend in the city of Pilsen, Czech Republic. After a few lagers, one thing led to another

Network management has remained largely the same for decades despite substantial change in network technologies. Traditional approaches cannot keep up with rapidly-evolving developer needs and application requirements, so more organizations are implementing automation into network services management. Automating network management provides more control and visibility into network resources. This e-book covers the benefits of modernizing

Softbank has named company insider Junichi Miyakawa (pictured) as the new chief executive of its retail telecoms business. Miyakawa, who currently serves as CTO of Softbank Corp, will replace existing president and CEO Ken Miyauchi on 1 April. Miyauchi will move upstairs to take on the role of board chairman, while Masayoshi Son will adopt

Social media platform Twitter, famous for the measured and conciliatory attitude of its users, wants to let them annotate each other’s posts. The new moderation system is called Birdwatch. “People come to Twitter to stay informed,” wrote Twitter VP of Product Keith Coleman, choosing to overlook the state of perpetual conflict between many of its

Google and Amazon can add growing unionization to the list of challenges to their dominance of the digital economy. The former has Switzerland-based UNI Global Union to thank for this new front in their war, which has combined with a nascent US Google labour union (whose first act was to state its disapproval of fascism)

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Lars Larsson, CEO of Varnish Software, makes the case for virtual CDNs at the edge of 5G networks. 5G and the possibilities it can bring to businesses and consumers has been hyped for years. The general