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AT&T struggles to defend open cloudiness of Ericsson deal
More than a year into the Ericsson-led rollout, there is very little evidence AT&T's radio access network is as multivendor and virtualized as the telco makes out.
Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Arcep sets its ambitions; new president for Nokia Technologies; VMO2 extends fiber reach in Northallerton.
The British government is responding to the preferences of the smartphone era with the introduction of the GOV.UK digital wallet, in which citizens can store digital versions of important government-issued documents, such as driving licenses. Indeed, a mobile driver's license will be one of the first such documents to appear in the GOV.UK wallet later this year. Significantly, this license will ultimately allow people to prove their age from their smartphone, whether face to face or online – so it could be seen by twitchy small-government types as the introduction of identity cards by the back door. The wallet will be backed by technology that makes use of security features that are embedded in today's smartphones, including facial recognition. By the end of 2027 it is envisaged that every credential issued by the government will be available in the digital wallet – though traditional physical documents will remain available to those who prefer them. The GOV.UK wallet plan forms part of a wider blueprint for digital government.
French communications regulator Arcep has set out its Ambition 2030 program, complete with its nine "strategic objectives" it would like to see nailed before the decade's out. These include the general availability of high-speed broadband, improvement in the resilience of the communications infrastructure and the development of true choice in cloud services. There is a sustainability strand too – Arcep says that it will "also contribute to setting the trajectory for digital sustainability, ensuring that digital development continues to align with the critical objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement."
Nokia has appointed Patrik Hammarén as president of its Technologies unit, which is responsible for managing and monetizing Nokia's intellectual property, including its patent portfolio. Hammarén joined Nokia in 2007 and has been acting president of Nokia Technologies since October 2024. He will be based in Finland and report to Pekka Lundmark, Nokia's president and CEO.
Virgin Media O2's gigabit network has extended its reach in the northern England market town of Northallerton, represented in the UK parliament by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with 8,000 more residential and business premises now able to sign up to its full-fiber offering, should they so choose. The network has been built on behalf of Nexfibre, the joint venture partner of VMO2, which is investing £4.5 billion (US$5.5 billion) to deliver fiber-to-the-home connections to 5 million homes across the UK by 2026. (See Virgin Media O2 fuels UK fiber M&A chatter with NetCo plan.)
Greece's Intracom Telecom has upgraded its network lifecycle automation and management platform, uni|MS, with a new release that boosts its capacity to provision and manage up to 1 million fixed wireless access (FWA) devices. The improved performance, says the company, stems from a redesign of the way consumer premises equipment (CPE) entries are handled by the uni|MS database.
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