'There's a term for what the FAA and the aviation industry is doing: blackmail. It is a criminal offense,' wrote research firm Strand Consult of the troubled launch of 5G in C-band spectrum.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: BT signs with Rackspace; UK government doubles down on cybersecurity; Red Cross hacked.

New service from Comcast Technology Solutions enables programmers and streaming services to analyze video, audio and captioning data to deliver targeted ads, support TV binge-viewing and auto-generate sports highlight reels.

Ziply Fiber, an operator that tangles with Comcast and Charter, has launched two multi-gigabit tiers in 60 urban areas, aiming for all markets by Q2 2022.

SPONSORED: Heavy Reading's Open RAN Operator Survey gauges industry interest in open RAN for smaller-scale private and venue networks.

AT&T, Dish Network and T-Mobile were among the big winners of the FCC's Andromeda midband spectrum auction for 5G. Here are the details of what they paid for and what they're getting.

Verizon Frontline tackles first responder challenges with a prototype response vehicle that operates on a 5G network.

Lumos Networks, North American Tower, Shentel and Ting Internet have reportedly been shortlisted to provide broadband service in the politically charged market.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Türk Telekom trials Wi-Fi 6E; World Mobile connectivity boost for Zanzibar; Orange hits the 6 million mark on fiber.

5G SA devices are also increasing, but reports indicate that slow take-up of 5G SA networks is hampering mobile core network growth.

A $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard by the software giant promises a future deluge of network traffic.

Pacific island state Tonga will be without Internet services for at least a month after a massive volcanic eruption cut the sole international cable link.

China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom are stepping up to support the national crusade to boost China's computing power.

The UK operator's launch of open RAN technology is a brave step as doubts linger about the path ahead.

Juniper has updated its Session Smart Router (SSR) SD-WAN platform with intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS), URL filtering capabilities and Juniper-branded hardware.

Elon Musk's nascent broadband will need to radically accelerate the rate of satellite launches – and navigate tricky supply chain logistics – if it's going to come close to fulfilling its global ambition.

Apple is facing new patent-infringement allegations from Ericsson, which ultimately wants Apple to license Ericsson's 5G patents. Specifically, Ericsson wants $5 for every iPhone that Apple sells.

AT&T agreed to temporarily defer turning on a limited number of towers' due to concerns from the US airlines industry. Verizon said it would do the same.

New data shows that 5G phone shipments in China reached over 266 million units in 2021.

Jeff Baumgartner explains what the rebranding of two cable companies means for the customers and markets they serve.

O2 Germany activates 4G open RAN small cells in Munich; 5G SA minicells to follow later this year.

If misery loves company, there's plenty to go around in pay-TV. Cable operators, satellite players and the telcos have all pivoted their businesses to adapt to a pay-TV market that's crumbling beneath their feet.

Symbotic's interest in 5G is noteworthy considering a wide range of companies in the global wireless industry are hoping that 5G becomes a necessity in the warehouse of the future.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: counting the cost of GDPR transgressions; shareholders back Vodacom's Egyptian deal; Proximus in poles position.

SPONSORED: The migration to cloud native brings large-scale shifts for the communications service providers.

The latest is between New Zealand's 2degrees and Orcon, who aim to combine into a new company worth around $2.3B.

The government scheme may look wasteful to critics when Italy already looks on track for nationwide fiber coverage.

Norwegian telco agrees to sell 51% stake in mobile money venture to local player Yoma.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Portugal's IP Telecom upgrades with Nokia; Orange turns to solar power in Côte d'Ivoire; Intracom Telecom expands mmWave range for FWA.

US worries about 5G having negative effects on aircraft safety systems don't seem to spread internationally, as other countries take a relaxed view.

Zayo's CTO says the team-up with QOS will provide customers with more options for managed and co-managed SD-WAN services.

The results of the FCC's auction of midband spectrum between 3.45GHz and 3.55GHz are in: AT&T spent $9 billion, Dish spent $7.3 billion, T-Mobile spent $2.9 billion. And Verizon spent nothing.

During a debate in front of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Friday, New Street Research analysts believe Dish Network lawyers faced difficult questioning.

Fraser Stirling upped to global chief product officer; Elad Nafshi rises to EVP and chief network officer; Rick Rioboli named chief technology and information officer; and Noam Raffaelli named SVP, wireless engineering, emerging technologies and business.

The specs, which define a set of wireless adapters for network nodes and cable modems, aim to reduce deployment costs and tap into various spectrum bands, including CBRS, ISM and even TV white spaces.

An intended comeback by the Swedish equipment vendor bodes well for the Barcelona-based trade show.

Telia activates commercial 5G services in Vilnius using its existing 2.1GHz frequencies and dynamic spectrum sharing technology.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: TIM rides the rails; BT chairman in line for regulator role; Ukraine suffers massive cyberattack.

Taiwanese semiconductor firm looks to capture future growth in 5G and high-performance computing with a planned capex splurge of between $40 billion and $44 billion during 2022.

The Chinese equipment vendor is investing in dozens of companies across various parts of the semiconductor supply chain.

Trump's State Department launched a 'Clean Networks' initiative that rallied US allies against Huawei. Biden's new 'Alliance for the Future of the Internet' likely will do the same.

Brian Cox, who plays the grumpy, foul-mouthed patriarch Logan Roy in the hit HBO series, sprinkles in some F-bombs to congratulate Rogers Chairman Edward Rogers for his role in ousting former CEO Joe Natale.

The FAA has so far issued a total of 1,462 Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) at 50 airports around the country. Each NOTAM is directed at a particular location or type of aircraft or pilot.

Kevin Hart, Cox's former CTO, said fiber-focused Segra will pursue growth by expanding into adjacent areas, broadening its product slate and seeking opportunities in unserved and underserved markets.

Led by Korea's SKT and KT, this is seen as a strategic move that will lift growth and innovation.

Telco resistance to all-in deals with public cloud vendors could suit the edge middleware startup, but it might need a different approach.

Stepping beyond recent network-side trials, Comcast's latest DOCSIS 4.0 trial featured a prototype modem powered by Broadcom silicon.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange Slovakia has a new boss; BT's new X-man; Vodafone thwarts the SMS scammers.

DAZN is now said to have edged ahead of Discovery as favorite to buy BT Sport.

Keysight told the FCC it will design, develop, test and demonstrate 6G electronic test and measurement technologies at its indoor facilities. Keysight's tests will focus on spectrum bands between 275GHz and 330GHz.

Rebrand, which will reach all parts of Astound's portfolio, including EnTouch, Harris Broadband and some recently acquired WOW systems, has been more than a year in the making, says CEO Jim Holanda.

But Dish's Charlie Ergen, who has repeatedly called a merger of the companies 'inevitable,' appears to be dragging his feet and 'demanding significant voting shares,' according to the New York Post.

A top Google executive this week publicly begged Apple to support the RCS standard in its iMessage service. Meanwhile, Verizon appears poised to launch RCS services this year with vendors Google and Synchronoss.

German MNOs are making rapid progress on the deployment of 5G, with Vodafone saying its network now covers 45 million people.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Zain Jordan picks Infovista; BT upgrades ABB's communications infrastructure; OVHcloud revenues rise in Q1.

Authorities are reportedly investigating whether companies such as Xiaomi and Oppo evaded duties and abused their market position.

MoffettNathanson questions whether mobile operators will have the network capacity and the right business metrics to back their aggressive stance and forecasts for fixed wireless home broadband.

Aptiv says it will finance the transaction through a combination of cash and debt, and the acquisition is expected to close by mid-year.

The industry will have to resolve itself to the idea that 2022 isn't the year of 5G for private networks, says Omdia Analyst Pablo Tomasi.

Christman, who joined The Cable Center in 2006, said her top priority in the new role is spearheading the next phase of the organization's five-year strategic transformation plan.

Last year, Mo Katibeh was put in charge of AT&T's massive fiber and 5G network expansion efforts. This week, he announced he would leave the company to become RingCentral's new chief operating officer.

Swisscom subsidiary embarks on 'accelerated' expansion of 5G, FTTH and FWA networks in Italy over next four years.

The Japanese operator is hobbled by its lack of 4G airwaves, costly roaming deal with KDDI and 5G lag, but its cost arguments stack up, according to the latest research.

The sale of 5G terminals alone accounted for €1B in 2020, according to a new report by Arthur D. Little.

Authorities in China have denounced a US 'clique' as battle lines form over the next generation of mobile technology.

'Verizon and T-Mobile will add 1.8 million wireless home broadband customers in 2022,' predicted LightShed Partners. They said that's close to the total wired broadband customers Comcast, Charter and Altice might gain in 2022.

The government is now the largest single shareholder in the ailing telco after it chose to convert outstanding regulatory charges into equity.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: watch out, adware's about; Telefónica boss on digital slavery; pay-TV predictions for Africa.

Finnish vendor is now expecting a comparable operating margin of 12.4% to 12.6% for 2021.

Returning guest Mike Frane discusses the top-of-mind trends for enterprises this year around securely connecting the distributed workforce.

'Although this decision ... will cost the organization a great deal of money, that was secondary to our primary concern, which is to put the welfare of our members first,' wrote NATPE CEO JP Bommel.

T-Mobile's journey into advertising technology began in 2019 when the company quietly acquired mobile marketing startup PushSpring. It expanded Monday with T-Mobile's purchase of Octopus Interactive.

Newly branded Breezeline emerges after the company expanded its footprint by acquiring WOW's Cleveland and Columbus systems. The new name will soon be paired with a soon-to-be-launched streaming service.

Prelim results show the sports-oriented OTT-TV service added 155,395 subs in Q4 2021, outpacing the 92,800 subs it added in the year-ago quarter, but well below the 262,884 it signed on in Q3 2021.

Cedar Hills and Santa Clara are the latest cities in Utah to join Utopia's municipal open access fiber network, despite pushback from incumbents.

The Chinese vendor's excursion into the car business is not going as planned, according to industry reports.

'For this patent pool to work, Alium would have to persuade large RAN equipment vendors that own most of the 3GPP SEPs [standard essential patents] to participate,' argued one open RAN executive.

Collaboration to support smart city initiative from Sunderland city council.

German incumbent names Abdu Mudesir as its chief technology officer, with Alex Choi taking charge of research.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson's Cloud RAN passes the audition; AccelerComm joins Small Cell Forum; TalkTalk rejigs wholesale team.

The MNO is the only one of the four mobile network operators in the UK to refrain from imposing post-Brexit roaming fees – so far.

Amazon's new Sidewalk Bridge Pro by Ring is a targeted at businesses, municipalities, universities and public services and can connect sunlight sensors, air quality indicators and moisture sensors.

After running several 5G smartphone promotions over the holidays, telcos are looking to cash-in on their 5G networks by offering advanced apps such as AR and cloud gaming.

In order to achieve its new speed record, Samsung said it used its own virtualized radio access network (RAN) and core products, its Massive MIMO radio and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X65 5G chips.

In a surprise move, Scott Rosenberg, an exec who handles a critical piece of Roku's advertising and content business, will be departing this spring.

Meta's loss-leader approach is rewarding it with a huge lead in headsets; in 2022, non-gaming apps will surpass gaming apps' revenue for the first time.

Reports suggest Stéphane Richard could remain at the helm of Orange beyond the end of January.

The South Korean firm is guiding for a surge in fourth-quarter profits as chip demand outweighs supply.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Openreach counts the petabytes; Kenyans get T-kash in pocket; The Posh find a fiber upgrade.

'I believe capex will likely be higher, year over year [in 2022], as we race to implement this network even faster than we planned,' T-Mobile CFO Peter Osvaldik told an investor event Thursday.

Additionally, Tablo has launched an over-the-air DVR that receives both ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 signals. Those product developments emerge as US broadcasters push ahead with the next-gen, IP-based signaling standard.

Microsoft is taking AT&T's core and cloud technology, 'building it into Microsoft's standard hybrid cloud product, and then delivering a carrier-grade hybrid cloud solution,' wrote the company's Shawn Hakl.

In the midst of an aggressive FTTP buildout plan, Frontier's fiber subscriber customer additions in the period were a 50% improvement over the prior record of 29,000 net adds in Q3 2021.

Mike Dano discusses the latest developments in Verizon and AT&T's efforts to deploy 5G networks on the C-band spectrum, and why those efforts have been mired in delays.

The region's telecom giants have been calling for investment in open RAN startups, but their own funding arms have done little to aid development.

China Mobile can claim its return to the Shanghai main board a success, achieving its initial 48.7 billion yuan ($7.6 billion) target.

Visible's offering, which provides two weeks of free service, represents an important step forward in the eSIM market because Verizon is Visible's parent company.

Between holding off business messaging apps and 5G, 2022 could finally be the year telcos embrace RCS, says Omdia's Charlotte Palfrey.

Chips, human rights, 6G: What's ahead for Asia this year?

The Consumer Technology Association's Sayon Deb said that 5G networks are a critical component of a set of new technologies that help blend our reality with virtual worlds.