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Open RAN momentum continues to grow in Europe and North America
Monday 6 February, 2023 | 5G Digest | Latest News | Open RAN
Vodafone has reported progress with its urban open RAN trials, which began in the UK in late 2022. The operator added it is on track for its open RAN request for quotation (RFQ) process to begin in 2024. Bell Canada is also conducting open RAN trials. As part of this, it ...
Operators continue to prove the value of 5G across verticals
Monday 23 January, 2023 | 5G | 5G Digest | Latest News
There is growing momentum behind operators piloting network services across different industry verticals and building use cases that leverage the capabilities of 5G. In the area of defence, AT&T’s 5G network has been employed by US defence contractor Northrop ...
European Commission identifies four focus areas for AI and robotics projects
Monday 23 January, 2023 | 5G | 5G Digest | Future Networks Digest | Latest News
The European Commission (EC) has identified smart cities, agriculture, manufacturing and healthcare as focus areas for a series of AI and robotics projects earmarked for a total of €200 million in funding. The funding recognises these areas as important to building an AI ...
CES 2023: sustained interest in the metaverse as the ecosystem gears up
Monday 9 January, 2023 | 5G | 5G Digest | Latest News
Announcements from CES on mixed-reality hardware launches, innovative displays and enterprise metaverse application platforms point to sustained interest in the metaverse. For example, TCL unveiled various wearable displays, including AR glasses that show navigational ...
Verizon marks 3G sunset in the US
Monday 9 January, 2023 | 5G | 5G Digest | Latest News
Verizon is the last of the major operators in the US to shut down its 3G network, fully decommissioning it at the end of 2022. AT&T’s 3G network, T-Mobile’s 3G UMTS network and Sprint’s 3G CDMA network were all closed down in 2022. More than 99% of ...
The growing importance of tower companies
Monday 19 December, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest | Latest News
China’s three major mobile operators have approved five-year rental agreements with China Tower, which will allow the trio to continue the build-out of high-efficiency networks and accelerate the construction of low-carbon infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Philippines’ Globe ...
Open RAN momentum continues: playing the long game
Monday 12 December, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest | Latest News | Open RAN
Vodafone has announced a raft of urban trials in the UK for its open RAN network infrastructure – a sign of continued momentum in the technology and its expansion beyond rural use. Vodafone is one of the leading companies in this space; it has committed to eventual open RAN ...
Operators and vendors continue to drive digital transformation in Africa
Monday 21 November, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest | Digest | Latest News
Orange recently launched its first 5G network in Africa in Botswana, while the Samsung Wallet has gone live in South Africa. Recent industry events in Africa, including the GSMA’s MWC Africa event in Kigali and the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, have showcased the ...
Vodafone and IBM announce quantum tech partnership
Tuesday 15 November, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest | Digest | Latest News
IBM has announced a partnership with Vodafone on quantum-safe cybersecurity to help validate and progress potential quantum use cases in telecommunications. Vodafone will explore quantum computing for a variety of telco use cases, including how to apply IBM Quantum Safe ...
Operators keep pushing forward on 5G standalone networks
Monday 24 October, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest | Operator Platform
After user trials and initial testing in 2021, Verizon has started to move commercial traffic onto its 5G standalone (SA) core. AT&T has also reported employing regional 5G SA cores to commence its deployment of edge networks, with the aim to have 12 ‘edge zones’ by the ...
TIP sets its sights on advancing metaverse-ready networks
Monday 24 October, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) has formed the Metaverse-Ready Networks Project Group, a working group to deliver solutions and architectures that enhance network readiness to support metaverse experiences. Telefónica, T-Mobile, Sparkle (Telecom Italia), Meta and Microsoft ...
5G standalone plans amid economic headwinds
Monday 17 October, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest | Latest News
During Mobile World Live’s Unwrapped digital event, Orange CTO Laurent Leboucher dismissed the prospect that economic pressures could hamper 5G uptake among customers, highlighting efforts to ensure it was cost-effective together with the creation of new services based on ...
India launches 5G alongside push for ‘Make in India’ initiative
Monday 10 October, 2022 | 5G | 5G Digest | Latest News
Last week, the Indian telecoms market witnessed the launch of 5G from the two biggest operators in India. Bharti Airtel switched on its 5G network in eight cities on 1 October, followed by Reliance Jio going live in four cities. In tandem with the launch of 5G, the Indian ...
FWA and private networks relying on mmWave-based solutions
Tuesday 4 October, 2022 | Latest News | mmWave
At MWC Las Vegas last week, Verizon announced its new proposition for fixed wireless access (FWA) customers, which includes a new receiver that takes advantage of mmWave technology. Meanwhile, Fibocom, an IoT module provider, launched a new mmWave-based module; and pSemi ...
Open RAN ecosystem shows progress at MWC Las Vegas
Tuesday 4 October, 2022 | Latest News | Open RAN
Major ecosystem players made key open RAN announcements at MWC Las Vegas last week. Rakuten Symphony (Rakuten’s open RAN technology platform) announced a new partnership with AWS and a suite of innovative open RAN tools. Meanwhile, Qualcomm announced that its open RAN ...
China’s newest operator launches 5G services
Monday 4 July, 2022 | 5G Digest | Latest News
China Broadnet – the country’s recently licensed mobile operator – has joined its three big-name peers (China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom) in offering 5G services. The operator, which formally became the country’s fourth operator in 2020, already supplies cable ...
Completing the 5G offering with efficient voice services
Monday 13 June, 2022 | 5G Digest | Latest News
While Zain in Kuwait recently became the first telecoms operator to launch commercial voice services on 5G standalone networks, T-Mobile US has followed suit in a selection of cities including Portland, Oregon, and Salt Lake City. It plans further rollout of the service to ...
Private networks continue to come of age
Monday 13 June, 2022 | 5G Digest | Latest News
AT&T has trialled its 5G private network capabilities with the US Department of Defense to enable more efficient operations, beginning with the US Navy. The trial was held in San Diego and involved a local 5G private network underpinning use cases including AR and ...
Telia Norway, Ericsson team on 5G mmWave tests
Monday 16 May, 2022 | Latest News | mmWave
Telia Norway tapped network partner Ericsson to conduct 5G tests in mmWave spectrum, as it explores how best to exploit the speed and capacity offered by frequencies in the 26GHz band. The operator stated the tests are being carried out in Oslo, Trondheim and Lillestrom, ...
Google acquires edge computing company MobiledgeX
Monday 9 May, 2022 | 5G Digest | Latest News | Operator Platform
Google has announced its acquisition of MobiledgeX, with the intention of making the code open source and running it as part of Google Cloud. Founded in 2018, MobiledgeX was a Deutsche Telekom–backed company, which developed federated telco edge cloud solutions that complied ...