Eurobites: Nokia, Vodafone test L4S for lower-latency broadband

Nokia and Vodafone have described as "encouraging" the results of a joint trial of L4S technology to reduce latency in home broadband services. Using a fiber-to-the-home link serving a standard laptop over a busy Wi-Fi broadband connection, the two companies say they were able to reduce the response times when accessing an Internet site from 550 milliseconds to just 12 milliseconds whilst maintaining fast speeds. L4S stands for "low latency, low loss, and scalable" and is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard technology that its backers hope could improve the online experience for gamers, videoconferencing users and anyone else putting a strain on the average home broadband connection. The trial was carried out at Vodafone's research laboratory in Newbury, UK. Previously, Nokia has worked with German extended reality (XR) specialist Hololight to explore how L4S can boost the performance of cloud-rendered XR services that rely on very low levels of latency to generate immersive experiences.

Nordic operator Telia has closed the sale of its Danish unit to Norlys. The deal is worth 6.25 billion Danish kroner (US$903 million). Norlys, a Danish company, currently offers Internet and pay-TV services, as well as gas and electricity. Telia says that the deal forms part of its strategy to "focus on markets in which there is a clear path to securing and defending leading market positions."

Another Nordic player, Tele2, has announced a rejig of its board which sees Iliad CEO Thomas Reynaud being proposed as chairman. In February of this year, Freya, an investment vehicle jointly controlled by Iliad and its founder, Xavier Niel, agreed to acquire investment company Kinnevik's entire 19.8% stake in Tele2 for 13 billion Swedish kronor ($1.26 billion).

Swiss operator Sunrise is targeting small businesses with Managed Workplace, a collaboration services bundle based around Microsoft's Teams/Exchange/MS 365 combo. Other options, such as hardware leasing and device management, can be added to the core package if required.