Despite the most ambitious 5G infrastructure targets among 'advanced liberal' economies, Europe has the 'poorest outcomes' for 5G standalone (5G SA) performance and availability, says an Ookla report.

The report titled ‘A Global Evaluation of Europe’s Competitiveness in 5G SA’, and co-published with research house Omdia, digs deep into 5G SA rollouts and performance metrics globally. It also focuses on Europe’s competitiveness in three key 5G areas: technology, monetisation progress (both for consumers and enterprises), and government policies.

Swedish police investigate suspected sabotage of undersea telecom cables operated by Finnish cable operator Cinia at the Baltic Sea.

Swedish news has reported of a confirmed “preliminary investigation” by the police after an undersea cable off the coast of Gotland is suspected of sabotage following damage to Cinia C-Lion1 undersea fibre-optic link connecting Finland and Germany.

Only 19% of communications service providers worldwide have fully implemented an integrated set of processes, platforms and governance policies required to support effective data modernization for AI.

Vodafone, AST SpaceMobile and University of Málaga are teaming up to launch a new space and land mobile broadband research and validation hub for Europe.

The hub is set to open by Summer 2025 at Vodafone’s Innovation Centre in Málaga, supported by the Spanish Space Agency. Vodafone says it will be Europe’s first research hub dedicated to developing integrated low earth orbit (LEO) space-based and land mobile broadband services, which allow users to switch between satellite and 4G/5G networks using normal smartphones.

UK operator group VMO2 has released its latest set of financials which show total revenue for 2024 decreased 2.1% YoY to £10,680.5 million, while Q4 total revenue fell 4% YoY to £2,716.2 million.

The latest numbers from analyst firm Omdia reveal what a tough year 2024 was for the radio access networks kit market but look forward to a momentum shift this year.

Omdia has calculated that the total global RAN market (which includes hardware and software but not services) was just over $35 billion last year, which represented a 12 percent decline on the previous year. The good news for RAN vendors is Omdia reckons that decline will end this year and we might even see a tiny bit of growth.

UK firm AccelerComm has launched a new 5G Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) physical layer solution for LEO satellites, which promises to deliver up to 6Gbps and support128 beams and 4,096 users per chipset.

Each LEO satellite can contain multiple chipsets, allowing performance in excess of 20Gbps and 500 beams, we’re told, and the new solution can also be deployed on MEO or GEO constellations. It represents a 30x increase in performance compared to the previous generation, with a roadmap to increase this by more than 400x, apparently.

Spanish operator group Telefónica has set up a secure comms link between two hospitals in Madrid, encrypting it using a quantum key distribution (QKD) system.

The operator, working with hospital group Vithas and technology providers LuxQuanta and QoolNet, plugged the two hospitals together with a quantum fibre optic link, which it says demonstrates the viability of “Quantum-Safe securitisation” of communications, and that it will be possible in the future to guarantee the immunity of sensitive healthcare data from possible attacks from quantum computers.

• Meta is to invest billions in a new submarine network that will span the globe
• It has been dubbed Project Waterworth 
• It will connect the Americas, Africa and Asia – but not Europe

In a bid to guarantee access to vital international data networking capacity to support its AI and cloud traffic, big tech giant Meta is to invest billions of dollars in a subsea cable network, called Project Waterworth

Ofcom has published proposals for upper 6 GHz spectrum to be made available and shared between mobile and Wi-Fi services. The UK is spearheading efforts to explore the sharing of upper 6 GHz by these two different technologies, which should bring benefits to the economy, and has also been promoting this approach internationally.