Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Interoute's container breakthrough; T-Systems peddles AI; ADVA's edge NFV device passes muster; consumer watchdogs bark at online giants.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

March 17, 2017

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Italy First Pasta the Post for 5G

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Interoute's container breakthrough; T-Systems peddles AI; ADVA's edge NFV device passes muster; consumer watchdogs bark at online giants.

  • Italy is to begin trials of 5G in five cities: Milan, Prato, L'Aquila, Bari and Matera. The move, announced by Italy's Ministry of Economic Development, is the country's response to the European Commission's Action Plan for 5G, which called on EU member states to identify by 2018 at least one city where 5G testing could begin. Initially, the government has launched a tender process, and the projects chosen for the trials as a result of that process will start by the end of the year. The cities were chosen on the basis of geographical factors and the availability of certain spectrum frequencies.

    • Interoute Communications Ltd. has integrated its Global Cloud Infrastructure platform with Rancher Labs' container management platform, the pan-European network operator has announced. According to Interoute, the move will enable enterprise developers to write applications and deploy the code into containers that can then be deployed across Interoute's cloud infrastructure, cutting the time it takes to develop and launch new services. (See Interoute, Rancher Team on Managed Container Platform.)

    • T-Systems International GmbH , the corporate IT arm of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), is to integrate IPsoft's artificial intelligence technology into its cloud-based service offering. According to T-Systems, IPsoft's Amelia platform can accelerate business processes and improve quality of service, thanks in part to its ability to "remember" previous interactions.

    • ADVA Optical Networking 's FSP 150 ProVMe edge NFV device has been validated by European Advanced Networking Test Center AG (EANTC) . The EANTC tests found that the device succeeded in minimizing additional latency and that its hardware-assisted support functions can be activated without requiring compute resources.

    • Sonera, the Finnish unit of Sweden-based Telia Company , is to provide SD-WAN services to its business customers, initially in Nordic and Baltic countries but ultimately on a global scale.

    • Belgium-based BICS has signed a partnership deal with Ring4, a provider of smartphone numbers on demand, to support Ring4's expansion into European markets. Ring4 says it has already distributed more than 200,000 numbers in the US, where it was previously known, rather more coquettishly, as RingMeMaybe.

    • European consumer protection authorities continue to do battle with Facebook , Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Twitter Inc. , according to a Reuters report. The authorities in question sent a letter to the online giants in December accusing them of infringing EU consumer protection law and urging them to do more to tackle fraud perpetrated through their respective platforms and requesting action on a number of other consumer-related matters. The authorities met with the offending companies yesterday for what was described by the unnamed source as a "constructive" meeting.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Read more about:

Europe

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.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like