Nokia is claiming the world's first deployments of 5G edge slicing software on a live commercial network, with, respectively, Israel's Cellcom and Telia. The Cellcom trial is taking place in Netanya, Israel, and is focused on business applications and the "customer experience," while the Telia one is happening in Tampere, Finland, and involves mining company Sandvik. Telia is using the technology to deploy a 4G and 5G virtual private network at Sandvik's test mine. Figure 1: Dig the new breed: Sandvik is trialing 5G edge slicing at its test mine in Finland.
(Source: Sandvik/Telia)

Chinese vendor Huawei is using this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to promote, amongst other things, its "Giga Green Site" in the city, which, the company says, uses Huawei's ultra-wideband RRU and BladeAAU Pro technology to cut the eight basestation modules usually required at cell sites down to just three, while also supporting more frequency bands and boosting coverage and capacity with less power consumed. Huawei reckons its third-generation Massive MIMO products improve energy efficiency by 30% compared to rival offerings.

While the telecom industry may be enjoying its new-found freedoms in Barcelona, in other parts of Europe freedom is in very short supply. A number of companies have responded to the crisis in Ukraine, with Deutsche Telekom offering free calls to the country, Telecom Italia (TIM) gifting unlimited data and minutes to customers of Ukrainian nationality, and Google temporarily disabling Google Maps tools in Ukraine for the safety of the local communities.

Can't make it to Mobile World Congress? Want to know that Telefónica is up to? Fear not, because the Spanish giant has created a "metaverse" version of its stand at the show, which can be accessed via this link. Users will be able to choose from ten "predefined avatars" before entering the booth (no sniggering at the back) and arrange meetings with various Telefónica "experts."

Back in the real world, Telefónica has announced the expansion of its "strategic relationship" (aren't they always?) with Microsoft to cover joint initiatives in the consumer market. Smart-home gizmos and gaming are among the products being considered.

Greece's Intracom Telecom has release a new version of its Unified IoT Orchestration platform. Release 3.0 has, says Intracom, been enhanced with new features such as simplified system and user management and a more interactive interface.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading