Hey, did Sprint just become the first US carrier to offer true mobile 5G?

Nefeli is implementing a commercial version of the new, open 'Lean NFV' architecture to simplify network functions virtualization on carrier networks.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom extends cloud offer with Microsoft; Telia resists website-blocking order in Moldovia; what Google's cold-shouldering of Huawei means for Europe.

MEF creates a definition for SD-WAN and its attributes, so enterprises know what they're buying and service provides know what they should be selling.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia lands GPON gig in India; Ericsson supplies 5G to self-driving test track; Swisscom Beems up ad innovation.

As it approaches 1 billion subscribers, China Mobile plans to implement artificial intelligence throughout the network and its whole business.

Heavy Reading's optical guru Sterling Perrin highlights some key trends from the NGON & DCI World event in Nice, including 'Beyond Coherent,' what 400ZR really means for the market, the latest on 5G transport and the FUDfest that is Huawei.

CenturyLink broadens its Ethernet service portfolio as it tidies up loose ends from its Level 3 acquisition.

The opening sessions of this year's NGON & DCI World event in Nice focused on money matters and automation but there was little appetite to discuss the impact of global trade tensions and the US clampdown on Huawei's supply line.

The global optical networking market has been worth in the region of $15 billion for the past year, but while that number has varied only slightly year to year, what has changed is the nature of the investments and who's splashing the cash.

The Italian phone incumbent is now so ruthlessly focused on efficiency it has started referring to employees as units.

Mishka Dehghan is vice president of 5G development for Sprint Business, and she talked about the future that we can enable with 5G at the Big 5G Event in Denver on May 8, 2019.

NetNumber's Jee Alkebsi and Heavy Reading's Jim Hodges discuss the recent 5G Security Market Leadership Study (MLS) and what network operators are doing to offer managed security services.

Conrad Clemson named CEO as EditShare takes on a majority investment from ParkerGale and plots plan to scale up its business and migrate its media asset collaboration and management platform to the cloud.

Many initial 5G deployments will be private networks on enterprise premises, and service providers will need to accommodate those needs, says MetTel CTO Ed Fox in conversation with Light Reading's Mitch Wagner. Also, Fox talks about how MetTel is going big on network functions virtualization (NFV).

Ibrahim Gedeon from Telus, Jim Poole from Equinix and Tom Tofigh from QCT discuss edge computing as part of the telco cloud at the Big 5G Event in Denver on May 8, 2019.

As 5G networks begin to roll out, it is worth looking at how service providers can deliver high-value, high-margin security services in a way that no one else in the IoT ecosystem can match.

Oracle sells to Asian telco Circles.Life; Microsoft partners with Sony on gaming; VMware acquires Bitnami for multicloud, and more telco cloud news this week.

Under its new OTT-like, bring-your-own broadband model, the industrial IoT company aims to scale up more rapidly and set the stage for a global services strategy.

Failure to transform their businesses, highlighted at this week's Digital Transformation World event in Nice, is fast catching up with the telcos.

Bill Walker explains how edge computing has allowed operators to decompose applications and distribute them on the network.

Ericsson's Edge Gravity essentially represents a pivot by the company from selling CDN services to selling edge computing services. And though the process hasn't been completely smooth, Ericsson is boasting of progress.

Verizon finally gets on the nationwide NB-IoT trail.

Following CommScope merger, Dan Whalen has left the company and been succeeded by another industry vet, Kevin Keefe, who takes the reins of the unit during a critical time for the company.

Volta claims that moving routing intelligence to the cloud and running white boxes can slash costs compared with legacy equipment.

It's a tough job talking about telco transformation on the French Riviera in May, but someone's got to do it... so what are the big talking points from the TM Forum's Digital Transformation World event in Nice, France?

Japan's Rakuten is building what it says will be the first truly cloud-native mobile network, and its existing operators should be worried.

The messages emerging from this week's Digital Transformation World sound depressingly familiar.

Arista's second-generation 400G routers support built-in security, automation and telemetry for reduced capex and opex.

AT&T sees big promise in manufacturing, healthcare and retail, even before mobile 5G becomes available everywhere.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodafone cuts dividend following €7.6 billion loss; Openet lands US Tier 1 gig; KPN invests in IoT startup Wirepas.

Outdated telco IT procurement processes cost industry more than $1 billion per year, according to findings of a report from industry body TM Forum, which asks if it's time to kill the RFP.

Even as it carries out its phased retreat from the European continent, Liberty Global is trying to stem video sub losses and spur fresh revenue growth with a slate of new product and service offerings.

Boingo is best known as the guys who get travelers online at airports, but that's just a small part of the business nowadays. Network virtualization has helped drive the transition.

The Norwegian telco, whose operations span Europe and Asia, has taken a hefty axe to its workforce.

To build the edge computing capabilities that 5G applications need, carriers need to find out where more processing is needed – and that's not terribly clear at the moment.

The move to 5G will also disrupt carriers' timing systems as 5G's timing and clock synchronization requirements are much more strict.

F5 and NGINX are one. Looks like the same will happen soon for IBM and Red Hat. And Docker gets a new posterior in the captain's chair.

Ahead of its 5G launch, Sprint's Mishka Dehghan discussed the carrier's Curiosity IoT platform and highlights smart city applications that will take advantage of 5G's technical capabilities.

Edge computing, particularly in the 5G world, faces a series of serious obstacles, according to several in the mobile network and data center industries.

We invited our 2019 Leading Lights awards winners to share their thoughts with the Light Reading video crew. Here's what they had to say:

Red Hat aims to reduce friction deploying containerized applications, the important building blocks of virtualized networks.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: US consortium lands Ireland's National Broadband Plan gig; Telefónica sells 11 data centers; UK broadband speeds creep up.

Preparing and educating customers about the true capabilities about 5G can help mobile service providers avoid unrealistic expectations, execs at Light Reading's Big 5G Event insist.

Not every workload needs to go to the edge. Operators need to consider which workloads make the most sense to transition.

Updated tools for hands-free operations and modern applications are designed to help operators cloudify their networks.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Liberty Global revenue down in Q1; Deutsche Telekom rebrands in Austria; France Télécom suicides trial underway.

Find out which companies have taken home the 2019 Leading Lights Awards trophies.

The tie-up between the Indian operator and the US IT giant is designed to bolster customer experience and lower costs in the competitive Indian market.

In a NAB Show fireside chat, Philo CTO Ben Chambers discusses the evolution, business model, technical platform and future plans of the popular streaming video services.

MobiTV's president and COO says Amazon is 'really engaging' with plans to optimize and customize its streaming platform for the pay-TV operator market.

CenturyLink's Bill Walker explains how edge computing can help service providers efficiently manage traffic and meet increasing bandwidth demands in the 5G era.

Amdocs, CommScope, Parallel Wireless, Quantenna Communications, Sprint and Verizon and Ericsson are this year's finalists.

Also: VMware gets jiggy with Microsoft, Eric Schmidt and Diane Greene depart the Alphabet board, Mirantis gets 'Ultraviolent' and other recent telco cloud news you may have missed.

LotusFlare, MATRIXX Software, MYCOM OSI, Netcracker Technology, Openet and Synchronoss Technologies are the six shortlisted companies in this category.

There are 11 (yes, count them!) shortlisted entries in this year's category for Most Innovative Telecoms Product (Optical/IP/Carrier Ethernet/FTTH).

Vodafone Idea picked IBM to implement multi-cloud for customer engagement, in a five-year multi-million-dollar deal, and Ericsson for its cloud packet core.

Find out which vendors devised the most innovative SD-WAN product or platform during the past year.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: ONI Telecom does data center interconnect with Nokia; Síminn prepares for 5G with Ericsson; Swisscom Q1 revenue slips.

Big data is guiding your everyday decisions and the decisions that affect your life. It's no wonder that governments and corporations want in.

Accedian, Amdocs, ASSIA, Boingo, Cisco and Huawei make the shortlist for our Most Innovative AI/Analytics Strategy award.

Orange and Dell will collaborate on a distributed cloud architecture for 5G cloud networking.

Verizon, AT&T and other network operators provided updates on the state of their 5G rollouts at the sixth annual Brooklyn 5G Summit, hosted by NYU Wireless and Nokia.

Aryaka's war chest now totals $184 million for its SD-WAN service, which runs on its own private network.