Eurobites: UK tweaks mast planning rules to boost mobile coverage

In similar notspot-busting territory, BT is teaming up with a number of local authorities in the UK in an attempt to make better use of municipal "street furniture" (lampposts and so on) for the deployment of its small cells. And in a related move, it also plans to make more use of its own assets, such as phone booths and advertising units to boost capacity in high-demand areas. BT reckons the program, once complete, will allow EE's mobile customers (EE is owned by BT) to experience "uninterrupted" data speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s in Croydon, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Nottingham, among other places. EE is already working with Finland's Nokia, using analytics to identify areas where small cells will deliver a noticeable boost to network performance.

Belgium's Proximus has announced the imminent opening of Ada, which it describes as a "center of excellence" devoted to the twin pillars of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Based in Brussels, Ada – named after English mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace and set up as a wholly owned subsidiary of Proximus – will attempt to become a hub of expertise for all the companies in the Proximus Group, Telesign and BICS among them.

Türk Telekom has chosen Mavenir software for a "virtualized" open RAN pilot. Telecom Infra Project (TIP) will support the trial and ComPro Information Technologies will act as systems integrator. Mavenir's software will allow a single architecture to support the existing 4G network, as well as "densify" coverage for 5G.

Saudi Arabia's Zain KSA has drawn on the expertise of Huawei to launch what the vendor says is the first 5G LAN network in the MENA region. In practice, this means Zain will be capable of commercial deployment and large-scale replication of 5G private networks, says Huawei.

Vodafone has signed up British tennis star Emma Raducanu as its "grassroots tennis ambassador." The agreement includes the relaunch of the "Road to Wimbledon" mass participation program, which has been verbosely rebranded as "Play Your Way to Wimbledon, powered by Vodafone." Raducanu is already the ambassador for fashion house Dior, so she's now presumably good for smartphones and posh frocks.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading