Nokia and Ericsson are both trumpeting their selection by Telefónica as facilitators for the operator's 5G rollout in Spain, which is slated to reach 75% of the Spanish population by the end of the year. In the case of Nokia, this comes as no surprise, as the Finnish vendor has been working on Telefónica's 5G development strategy since 2018 as part of the "Technological Cities" project in the historic city of Segovia, and it says it already supplies 5G radio technology to all of Telefónica's operations across Europe. For its part, Ericsson says that its field professionals have been working flat out to ensure that 5G basestations will be fully operational in time for the big switch-on.

Telia is playing its part in a pilot that explores cross-border remote operation of an autonomous vehicle, Iseauto, that trundles along paths at the Tallin University of Technology (TalTech) campus in Estonia but is controlled, when necessary, by a human operative sitting in a room in Munich. Telia, which, to make things even more confusing, is based in Sweden, is providing the 5G network to make it happen, working in concert with Pylot, described as a German teleoperations company. Check out the video below for the full story.

EE, the mobile operator that is part of Britain's BT, has been chartings its customers' changing smartphone habits during the various phases of the pandemic. As you would expect, the easing of the initial lockdown led to a doubling of traffic to a range of vacation-related online activity, with a doubling of traffic to sites such as Airbnb, Booking.com and Skyscanner. Conversely, the use of food takeaway apps has declined in popularity as people dare to set foot in restaurants and bars once again. Figure 1: What's your takeaway from this graphic?
(Source: EE)

Orange has launched its first ever "Sustainability Bond," the proceeds of which will be used to finance projects relating to social inclusion and energy efficiency. The bond, worth €500 million (US$591 million), has a term of nine years and an annual coupon of 0.125%.

Greece's Intracom Telecom has donated five advanced portable telemedicine kits to the country's Ministry of Health to help support rural communities in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. The kit, which fits inside a small suitcase, supports a range of digital medical devices that are connected to Greece's National Telemedicine Network (EDIT) network, so that patients' health indicators can be transmitted to connected hospitals and appropriate medical instructions relating to them be received in real time.

Want to guarantee that your brand will look dated in ten years' time? Easy – just tell everyone that you're "future-proofing" it. At least, that's what Deutsche Telekom says it has done with the introduction of its "Liquid Brand Design" approach, which wheels in "variable shapes" and a new font, TeleNeo, specially designed for the operator. Figure 2: Deutsche Telekom's TeleNeo font: Comic Sans would have worked out cheaper

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading