O2 Slovakia has given Ericsson the nod for its 5G RAN needs, though the Swedish vendor will upgrade the operator's 2G, 3G and 4G RAN infrastructures while it has its tools out. Ericsson reckons its bits and bobs will also enable O2 Slovakia to decrease power consumption across its network. In late 2020 O2 Slovakia successfully acquired spectrum in the key 5G 700MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency ranges.

Germany's ADVA has posted what it describes as the strongest Q1 results in its history, with revenues up 8.9% year-on-year to €144.5 million (US$174 million). The company attributes this growth to high order volumes from network operators, private companies and governments. Looking ahead, ADVA expects revenues for fiscal year 2021 to be in the range of €580 million ($698 million) to €610 million ($734 million) and a pro forma operating income of between 6% and 10% of revenues.

Proximus, Belgium's incumbent operator, has turned to UK-based Velocix for content delivery. It will use Velocix CDN software to scale up its Android-based Pickx IP video streaming service. Proximus holds nearly 38% of the digital TV market in Belgium, serving more than 1.7 million TV customers.

Cinos, a UK provider of integrated audio-visual and unified communications products to enterprises and the public sector, has launched its own MVNO, Cinos Mobile. The service will run on EE's network.

Sparkle, the international services arm of Telecom Italia, has boosted the coverage of its Virtual Network Access Point (NAP) service by offering access to DE-CIX locations in the US. Virtual NAP allows operators to access the main Internet Exchange Providers (IXPs) worldwide without having to implement and manage a proprietary infrastructure nor bear the costs of colocation.

Eighty percent of UK households still have a landline, but a quarter (26%) of them don't have a handset attached. And 35% of people say they only have a landline because they need it for their broadband connection. These are just some of the not wholly unexpected findings in a new survey carried out on behalf of uSwitch, a utility price-comparison service. On average, the survey found, households that still have a landline spend just five minutes a day talking on it, down more than a quarter from two years ago.

Talk Straight, a communications services provider for businesses and schools, has chosen Adtran's MetNet 60G mmWave fixed wireless access (FWA) offering to help it deliver gigabit broadband in rural areas of the UK.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading