Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodafone gets in on the drones act; BT faces class action over landline charges; Deutsche Telekom eggheads investigate quantum-assisted artificial intelligence.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

January 18, 2021

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Three UK turns to Tata for 5G core configuration

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodafone gets in on the drones act; BT faces class action over landline charges; Deutsche Telekom eggheads investigate quantum-assisted artificial intelligence.

  • Three UK has gone all the way to India for help in configuring its 5G core, tapping Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to ensure it integrates correctly with the accompanying 5G radio access network. TCS' software will, say the two partners, speed up configuration checking and reduce manual errors. Three is in the process of pushing out a new 5G RAN, and has so far established live services in 175 towns and cites across the UK. (See Three UK hits reset on IT and 5G overhaul and Three UK to Go Big on 5G for Home Broadband.)

    • A consortium of 16 companies and organizations, one of which is Vodafone, has won a share of £30 million (US$40.6 million) of UK government money to develop and test a remotely operated drone system for industrial and urban environments. Vodafone's Radio Positioning Service will be integrated into the Sees.ai command-and-control system and will be used to complement existing satellite-based GPS location technology, providing a secondary feed of location-based information.

    • A class action against BT could, if successful, result in the UK incumbent operator having to pay £500 ($677) in compensation to 2.3 million of its customers, reports the BBC. The case centers on what was deemed by UK communications regulator Ofcom in 2017 to be BT's overcharging of (mainly elderly) landline-only customers for eight years. Following that review, BT cuts it landline price by £7 a month, but did not compensate those affected for previous overcharging. High-profile law firm Mishcon de Reya has now filed a claim with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). In a statement responding to the lawsuit, BT claims that Ofcom's final statement "made no finding of excessive pricing or breach of competition law more generally," adding that BT takes its "responsibilities to older and more vulnerable customers very seriously."

    • Deutsche Telekom's resident boffins are participating in the PlanQK projecect, which has been set up to develop a platform and ecosystem for quantum-assisted artificial intelligence. T-Labs – the research arm of Deutsche Telekom – will provide potential telecom use cases for the technology, such as Industry 4.0 applications.

    • UK altnet Hyperoptic is to offer a free broadband service to families in public housing covered by Hyperoptic's network who do not have a reliable broadband connection. Residents who meet the criteria can order a free 50Mbit/s service, which will remain free until the end of the current academic year. (The resident is under no obligation to continue or pay for a service after this date.) The move is another response to the issues faced by many families trying to "home school" without the necessary connectivity. Ofcom estimates that more than 880,000 British children live in a household with only a mobile Internet connection.

    • Sweden's Ericsson has landed a 5G core network gig in Taiwan, with Asia-Pacific Telecom Co Ltd (APT). The deal includes integration with Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) on the 3.5GHz frequency band – in September 2020, FET and APT announced a partnership to provide 5G services through the nation's first multi-operator core network.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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