The European Court of Justice has ruled that the UK's Investigatory Powers bill, also known as the Snoopers' Charter, falls foul of European Union legislation. The bill, which is now passed as law in the UK, forces telcos and web services firms to collect and store 12 months' worth of information about customer/user communications, including visits to websites, that can then be inspected by security services upon issue of a warrant. But "EU law precludes national legislation that prescribes general and indiscriminate retention of data," notes the court in this ruling. As our sister site Telecoms.com notes in its article, Europe shoots down Snoopers Charter and indiscriminate collection of data, this could lead to amendments to, or even the repeal of, the bill.

TIM, perhaps better known as Telecom Italia (TIM) , has teamed up with Cisco-backed startup Altiostar to undertake what it believes is one of the first live network trials of virtual RAN technology. TIM had previously tested Altiostar's virtual network function in its Turin labs but has now also implemented it for a trial in Saluzzo. According to the operator, "a virtual server has been installed in Turin, more than 60 kilometres away from the Saluzzo antennas, which has demonstrated its ability to coordinate radio base station even at considerable distances, without affecting connection and performance, thanks to efficient transmission techniques based on Ethernet fronthauling." TIM, which has been playing with Altiostar's tech for more than a year, regards this trial as the latest step in its evolution path towards 5G. For more on this (and some gratuitous Godfather references), see TIM claims another Euro 5G first – live vRAN. (See Ciao Bella Radio! Telecom Italia Tests Altiostar for details of TIM's initial lab tests.)

In other European developments:

— Ray Le Maistre, , Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading