Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Huawei and Vodafone make 5G data connection in Italy; automation not that scary after all; welcome to Gigabit Island.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

November 8, 2017

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Swisscom Goes All Out for Gigabit LTE, 5G

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Huawei and Vodafone make 5G data connection in Italy; automation not that scary after all; welcome to Gigabit Island.

  • Just last week Swisscom AG (NYSE: SCM) announced that it would be teaming up with Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) to demonstrate the wonders of Gigabit LTE to customers at some of its retail stores: Now, the twosome have gone much further and have revealed plans to carry out a "complete digital transformation and evolution" of Swisscom's network, with the intention of deploying Gigabit LTE nationwide by 2018 and 5G from 2020. The program will include the development of enterprise use cases built on something Swisscom calls Massive Machine Type Communication (MTC) in fields such as factory automation and smart grids. Swisscom hopes to have Gigabit LTE services up and running in 11 Swiss cities by the end of this year.

    • Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd is claiming to have helped Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) achieve the first 5G data connection in Italy, in trials at Vodafone Village in Milan that used Massive MIMO technology over frequencies in the 3.7-3.8GHz range. Download speeds of more than 2.7 Gbit/s were clocked during the trials, according to the Chinese vendor.

    • Automation, schmautomation. Those, in summary, are the findings of a survey carried out by YouGov for TalkTalk Business. The survey found that only one in five British workers saw AI and automation as a threat to their jobs. Splitting things along gender lines, more than a third of male workers believed AI and automation would actually make them better at their jobs, whereas female workers weren't quite so sure -- just 24% of them felt the same way.

    • Belgium's BICS is to provide its range of voice and data roaming services to Swazi Mobile, Swaziland's recently launched second mobile network. According to BICS, there are around 250,000 inbound "roamers" in Swaziland, with the vast majority traveling from neighboring countries South Africa and Mozambique.

    • The Isle of Wight, a sun-kissed holiday mecca just off the south coast of England and the spiritual home of Eurobites, has been rechristened "Gigabit Island" by altnet WightFibre. As the Isle of Wight County Press reports, WightFibre has become the first company in the UK to receive investment from the government's Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund, and it plans to use the £35 million ($45.8 million) injection to roll out full-fiber gigabit broadband across the island over the next five years. Figure 1: A sea-change in connectivity? The Isle of Wight is being promised full-fiber gigabit broadband. A sea-change in connectivity? The Isle of Wight is being promised full-fiber gigabit broadband.

    • Israeli startup Corephotonics has filed a patent infringement case against Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Reuters reports. The company claims Apple incorporated its dual camera technology in the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus without its authorization.

    • Sky , the pay-TV giant, has told the UK's Competition and Markets Authority that it may shut down its Sky News operation if that stands in the way of the takeover bid from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox. As the BBC reports, Sky told the CMA that it could not assume the "continued provision" of Sky News. The regulator is currently examining the proposed takeover deal amid fears that it would make Murdoch too dominant in the UK media landscape.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Read more about:

Europe

About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like