International

The US government has awarded just over US$117 million in funding for the development of commercially viable Open RAN hardware.

Spotlight on 5G is back! From 3-6 March, we’ll bring you comprehensive, multimedia coverage of the hottest industry news, game-changing announcements, cutting-edge solutions, and groundbreaking product launches that take place at MWC25.

T-Mobile US has agreed to buy out-of-home advertising specialist Vistar Media in a US$600 million deal in a bid to tap into non-telco revenue opportunities.

Essentially, this is a major telecoms operator having another crack at the advertising space despite the fact that many of its peers have failed before.

Vodafone Spain and MasOrange have officially signed a binding agreement to launch a new fibre network company in Spain.

Italy is in advanced talks with Elon Musk’s SpaceX for a deal to provide secure telecommunications for the nation’s government — the largest such project in Europe, people with knowledge of the matter said Sunday.

• China ended last year with almost 4.2 million 5G base stations, according to the country’s tech minstry
• That number is set to increase by more than 7% this year
• China’s three main operators already boast almost 1.2 billion 5G connections between them

A US appeals court has struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) latest attempt to enforce network neutrality rules, ruling that broadband internet service providers (ISPs) are classified as offering “information services” rather than “telecommunications services”.

The UK’s competition watchdog has launched a probe into IBM’s prospective acquisition of software firm HashiCorp.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a merger inquiry in late December to determine whether the deal would result in a “substantial lessening of competition”.

ABI Research’s 5th annual Trend Report identifies the 3 Space Technologies trends that will come to fruition —and the 3 that won’t—in 2025

ABI Research’s 5th annual Trend Report the 7 key AI & Machine Learning technology trends that will deliver—and the 4 that won’t—in 2025

The EU has signed off on IRIS², a multi-orbital constellation of 290 satellites aimed at taking on Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Japan's NTT claims to have made a breakthrough that could herald a new era in high-capacity backbone networking.

One of SpaceMobile's bigger financial backers Vodafone has agreed a 10-year deal to use its low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

SpaceX notched a big milestone with a launch of its Starlink internet satellites on Wednesday night (Dec. 4).

Nordic operator Telia and the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority have launched a pilot which involves using hydrogen to help keep mobile sites operating in power outages.

US connectivity cloud provider Cloudflare has published its annual review of Internet trends and it shows a small decline in the proportion of total internet traffic accounted for by mobile devices.

• Sateliot is a Spanish startup building a network of over 100 small satellites with global reach that will connect devices in remote, previously unserved areas.
• This is the EIB’s first venture debt operation with a Spanish space company and in the segment of satellite communications.

The Commission has signed 21 grant agreements for €142 million with backbone cable projects, bringing total funding to €420 million under the first CEF Digital Work Programme, reinforcing the EU's commitment to a connected and secure digital future.

After weeks of drip-feeding information, the US has finally offered a more comprehensive account of the China-led hack of its telecoms networks, as well as measures aimed to prevent its repeat.

Ericsson has inked a multi-billion-dollar deal to roll out 4G and 5G RAN equipment for Bharti Airtel, mirroring a similar announcement from arch-rival Nokia a fortnight ago.

• Telcos around the world are looking to exploit the potential of network APIs and encourage new application development
• The GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative is helping to coordinate efforts