Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Net Insight makes hay in the Middle East; Ericsson's China deals confirmed; bad 5G karma down Glastonbury way.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

May 18, 2020

2 Min Read
Eurobites: Deutsche Telekom in talks over SoftBank's T-Mobile US stake – report

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Net Insight makes hay in the Middle East; Ericsson's China deals confirmed; bad 5G karma down Glastonbury way.Deutsche Telekom is in talks to buy a "significant portion" of SoftBank's stake in DT subsidiary T-Mobile US, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. If it comes to fruition, the deal would boost DT's stake in T-Mobile to above 50%, from a near-44% stake today, say "people familiar with the matter" cited in the story.Sweden's Net Insight has landed a media network gig with an unnamed customer in the Middle East via its regional partner, Middle East Telecommunications Company (METCO). The new network, based on Net Insight's Nimbra technology, provides HD and UHD/4K uncompressed contribution capabilities covering multiple locations. The order is worth in excess of US$1 million, says the Stockholm-based vendor.Ericsson has confirmed that it has been chosen by China Telecom and China Unicom as a 5G radio access network (RAN) vendor, and by China Telecom as a 5G Core vendor too. Ericsson, which has gained this massive chunk of business at the expense of Finnish rival Nokia, will provide outdoor and indoor site offerings to build capacity and coverage in the 3.5GHz and 2.1GHz bands. (See As Ericsson advances, Nokia's 5G business may be finished in China and Ericsson plots China invasion as Viking raids bring booty.)Chakras have been misaligned down in Glastonbury, the UK town famous for its massive rock festival. The BBC reports that three members of a group that produced a report for the town council on the safety or otherwise of 5G have resigned in protest that the group had been take over by anti-5G activists and "spiritual healers." The report called for an inquiry into 5G, specifically into the areas of the "non-thermal effects of 5G" and "electromagnetic hypersensitivity." After considering the evidence, one board member declared that "5G is a danger to the health and wellbeing of all life" and recommended that the council "should ban 5G on the precautionary principle and because the populace would be harmfully irradiated without being consulted or allowed any choice in the matter." At least they didn't claim it was responsible for COVID-19.Figure 1:Glastonbury Tor: perfect for a 5G mastOperator Tele2 has topped the Swedish rankings on gender equality by having in place seven out of eight workplace policies recommended by Dutch research firm Equileap, which also noted the fact that Tele2 has a gender-balanced board and more than 30% women at both executive and senior management levels. The research looked at companies in the OMX Stockholm 30 stock market index.— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

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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