Eurobites: Ofcom fines Sepura £1.5M for competition law breach

BT is trialing C-RAN – a centralized, cloud computing-based architecture for radio access networks – in the northern English city of Leeds. The hope is that the technology, which BT says could be embedded in existing street furniture, will improve 5G coverage for those living, working or just visiting Leeds city center. The infrastructure is currently being used by the EE and Three networks for the trial.

Nokia and A1 Austria say they have reached data speeds of 2 Gbit/s in trials of three-component carrier aggregation (3CC CA) on a 5G standalone network in Austria. The trial used Nokia's AirScale 5G baseband, a 5G smartphone and an unspecified commercial 5G CPE over A1 Austria's 5G network. Carrier aggregation allows mobile operators to reach higher throughputs and better coverage by combining different spectrum frequencies.

Dutch incumbent operator KPN reckons that from 2027 it will derive more than half of the electricity it consumes in its operations from the massive Hollandse Kust (west) VI windfarm that is about to be built in the North Sea. KPN will buy more than 200 GWh of electricity every year from the windfarm, which will be located more than 50km off the Dutch coast. Eneco is the company that will be supplying the power to KPN.

Truphone co-founder Alexander Straub has come up with a $250 million offer to buy the company off Roman Abramovich and friends, gazumping an earlier £1 offer for the eSIMs specialist from Hakan Koç, a German businessman, and his associate Pyrros Koussios. As the Financial Times reports (paywall applies), the £1 bid was put forward after Ukraine-related sanctions were imposed on Abramovich by the UK government. (See UK extends security inquiry into Truphone sale and Eurobites: Truphone gets help with Abramovich problem.)

Telefónica has signed a deal to become the exclusive distributor for Axon's connected bodycam products in Spain and Andorra. The product range includes devices that are capable of transmitting live images in high quality and offer real-time geolocation through 4G. They are mainly used by the emergency services but also have applications in the private sector, such as remote maintenance.

Upstream, a Greece-based mobile marketing technology company, has secured a loan agreement of €14 million ($14.8 million) with the National Bank of Greece to support its planned expansion.

CityFibre has completed the first phase of its fiber rollout in Luton, covering thousands of homes in the eastern part of the English town. Exploratory work in the town center will begin in early January.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading