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British officials recommend role for China’s Huawei in 5G network UK officials have proposed allowing Chinese tech giant Huawei to play a limited role in the UK’s future 5G network, resisting calls from the US for a complete ban over fears of Chinese spying. Huawei will be kept out of the sensitive, data-heavy “core” parts of 5G infrastructure, but will be allowed to deploy its equipment in other parts of the network, according to sources speaking to Reuters. This recommendation comes ahead of a meeting of Britain’s National Security Council next week to decide how to deploy Huawei equipment. In addition, this proposal would satisfy Britain’s two largest telecoms operators, BT and Vodafone, which already use Huawei equipment and are against a total ban. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/szmovzy CityFibre buys FibreNation from debt-laden TalkTalk for £200 million Britain’s TalkTalk Telecom Group has agreed to sell its FibreNation full-fibre network business…

Six global carriers form a group for MEC, 5G interoperability Verizon, Vodafone, America Movil, KT Corporation, Rogers Communications, and Telstra have joined forces to form the first-of-its-kind cooperation, the 5G Future Forum. The world’s leading telecoms and technology service providers will work together to develop interoperable 5G specifications and mobile edge computing across key geographic regions, including the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe. According to the statement from the carriers, they will “develop public and private marketplaces to enhance developer and customer access to 5G, and will share global best practices in technology deployment.” Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/u3vdooh Google acquires no-code app development platform AppSheet Google has announced the acquisition of AppSheet, a no-code enterprise app development platform that allows developers without extensive programming knowledge to collect rich data, fill up apps with AI, or automatically move data. This works by extracting data from a spreadsheet, database or form, and using the…

Telefonica piloting blockchain across 8,000 companies Telecoms multinational Telefonica has teamed up with the Association of Science and Technology Parks (APTE) to provide approximately 8,000 companies in Spain with access to a secure, decentralised blockchain network. Telefonica plans to launch a three-month pilot project that will encourage companies to develop their own decentralised applications on the blockchain at no extra cost, and will also allow them to experiment with their own digital tokens. Blockchain is being widely adopted in a variety of industries, especially in the field of IoT, where 75 percent of IoT technology users in the US already use blockchain or plan to do so by the end of 2020. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/t8z8p9d Samsung Galaxy Fold sales figures revealed, and they’re worse than earlier reports Samsung Electronics sold close to half a million of its Galaxy Fold smartphones last year. Speaking to the Yonhap News Agency at CES 2020,…

Spanish wireless infrastructure giant Cellnex Telecom has acquired the Portuguese telecommunications tower and site operator OMTEL, owned by Altice Europe and Belmont Infra Holding. This agreement is worth around EUR 800 million, and the acquisition includes the projected deployment of 400 new mobile cell sites in the next four years, adding to the 3,000 sites that OMTEL currently operates in Portugal. Cellnex said that to facilitate the upcoming 5G roll-out in Portugal, the company has been rapidly expanding, and its build-to-suit (BTS) program could involve constructing a further 350 sites for third parties by 2027. The estimated investment for this BTS plan is expected to be EUR 140 million. The Spanish towerco anticipates that this acquisition will increase the company’s sales backlog by EUR 2.5 billion to EUR 38.5 billion. Tobias Martinez, CEO of Cellnex, said, “With OMTEL, we are not only integrating one of the leading independent…

Google Cloud partners with Fortinet, McAfee, Palo Alto and other vendors to bolster its security Google has announced new strategic partnerships with security vendors Fortinet, McAfee and Palo Alto Networks. Together with Fortinet, Google Cloud will provide a new reference architecture to connect facilities to Google Cloud with secure SD-WAN solutions, which makes Fortinet’s FortiWeb Cloud WAF available as-a-service on the platform. MacAfee will integrate its MVISION container security software on Google Cloud. The jointly developed Palo Alto Networks and Google solutions will help secure customers’ multi-cloud environments and will enhance threat detection capabilities. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/rx68bt5 UK plans to ban sales of locked mobile phones Ofcom, the UK’s telecoms regulator, has announced plans to ban the sale of locked mobile handsets to make it easier for consumers to switch networks. Virgin Mobile, O2, Sky, Three and some smaller carriers already offer unlocked phones, but the regulator wants other companies, including…

Telefonica Deutschland picks Nokia and Huawei for 5G network Mobile network provider Telefonica Deutschland has chosen Nokia and Huawei to build its 5G network in Germany. The company, also known under the O2 brand, plans to start building its 5G network in early 2020 and will use equipment from both vendors to power its next generation mobile networks. In a press release, Telefonica Deutschland said it expects to have 5G up and running in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt by the end of 2021. A year later, 30 cities with a population of 16 million would be covered. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/wczpm54 Xiaomi Redmi K30 launched in China to become the cheapest 5G smartphone Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has unveiled its first 5G handset under its budget brand Redmi. The Redmi K30 5G is powered by the latest Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 756G processor and provides integrated SA/NSA dual-mode 5G with the latest 7nm EUV and an integrated low-power consumption solution. Xiaomi…

The non-profit industry group i3forum, which focuses on transformation in the network carrier business, has announced the addition of three new members – Clear, Digicel and Lanck Telecom. Clear specializes in blockchain-based settlement and clearing networks, Digicel provides total communications and home entertainment services in 33 markets across the Caribbean, Central America and the Asia Pacific regions, and Lanck Telecom offers voice and data transfer services to carriers and retail operators in more than 190 countries worldwide. “New members bring new perspectives and insight to our discussions, workgroups and initiatives. We are excited to have Clear, Digicel and Lanck Telecom join us and share their expertise across a variety of topics. Unique voices and opinions support our vision for open and inclusive collaboration,” said Philippe Millet, Chairman at i3forum. “It is a very exciting time for i3forum as we get new initiatives off the ground and take our organization to new places. I’d…

An independent news platform Telecoms.com has recently published its Annual Industry Survey 2019, with the main focus being on topics such as industry updates, 5G rollout, digital transformation, the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as the modernization of Operations Support Systems (OSS) and Business Support Systems (BSS). The survey, covering the industry landscape over the last 12 months and projecting into 2020, has revealed an optimistic forecast that is mainly supported by the launch of 5G commercial services, innovations and progress in other important areas of the industry. According to the report, the single biggest change in the industry landscape over the past year was the deployment of commercial 5G services in different parts of the world. Regardless of the fact that the best-selling service is high-speed Internet access (mobile and fixed), B2B services, including 5G serving other vertical industries, will undoubtedly play a much more significant role…

Apple now owns Intel’s mobile modem business Intel, a leader in the semiconductor industry, has completed the sale of the majority of its smartphone modem business to Apple. The company said this transaction enables it to focus on developing 5G network technology while maintaining the ability to create modems for non-smartphone applications, such as PCs, Internet of Things (IoT) devices and autonomous vehicles. Apple now uses Qualcomm for 4G LTE and 5G modems for iPhones. With this acquisition, Apple is planning to develop its own modems for smartphones in 2021. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/rqmu724 Orange unveils new five-year grand plan Orange, a French multinational telecommunications corporation, has introduced “Engage 2025”, its new strategy that follows on from the Essentials 2020 plan launched in 2015. The corporation has revealed its goals for the coming years, emphasizing that its business model will be guided by social and environmental responsibility. Considering the operator’s business…

Telefonica launches Tech and Infra units amid Latam spin-off Spain’s telecom giant Telefonica has announced a major organisational restructuring after a meeting of its board of directors. The company’s chairman and CEO Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete has introduced a new bold strategy to spin off company assets and prepare for industry 4.0. With its 5-point plan, Telefonica aims to generate more than EUR 2 billion a year in additional revenues from 2022, by prioritising its four key markets of Spain, Brazil, the UK and Germany and carrying out an “operational spin-off” of its Latin American business. The company will also set up a subsidiary for its cloud, cybersecurity and IoT businesses called Telefonica Tech and another for its infrastructure assets, Telefonica Infra. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/wjkobwc AT&T and Microsoft launch edge computing network Microsoft and AT&T have integrated 5G with Azure to launch their new Network Edge Compute (NEC) service for…