Eurobites: Ericsson Adds Brain-Power to Its RAN TechnologyEurobites: Ericsson Adds Brain-Power to Its RAN Technology

VEON, the Amsterdam-headquartered but Central Asia-focused operator, has launched a large-scale 5G network trial in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, with operator Kar-Tel, which operates under the Beeline brand. Nokia is providing the technical wherewithal for the tests, the initial results of which show that a downlink speed of 1 Gbit/s has been achieved, according to the operator. Kar-Tel's network architecture is aligned with the latest "non-standalone" 5G release, NSA 3X, which allows 5G devices to aggregate LTE and 5G radio channels to achieve higher download speeds.

T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom's IT services arm, is launching a free trial for companies wanting to give the private cloud a go, using cloud VMware's technology. Those taking part will, says T-Systems, be able to use private cloud capacity from a T‑Systems data center with the same look and feel as public cloud services. The trial phase is set to begin on December 1 and last for a maximum of six weeks.

Ireland's Openet is to supply its real-time charging and policy systems to Evergent, itself a California-based purveyor of revenue and "customer lifecycle" management solutions to digital service providers.

UK-based Red Bee Media has teamed up with Spring Media, a Swedish sports rights agency, to launch the unpronounceable Wnited, which the pair say is the world's first global OTT service dedicated to women's soccer. Wnited will bring together multi-camera content from top leagues in Europe, Asia and the Americas as well as national team matches for global audiences, on both free and subscription-based models.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading