Three UK boosts mobile backhaul and 4G/5G capacity
Hutchison-owned Three UK has added 10Gbps backhaul – a 20-fold capacity boost – to more than 3,200 sites to improve quality of experience for 4G and 5G. This is part of the company’s £2bn network investment which has seen its 5G sites reaching 1,250 in number in 193 towns and cities, up from 1,000 sites at the end of last year.
The operator has also added 20 MHz of 1.4 GHz spectrum to 1,500 sites to double 4G capacity and improve indoor and outdoor coverage. This will be added to more sites during the year. COO Susan Buttsworth said the operator’s average data usage, per customer per month, has surpassed 17GB, driven partly by lockdowns.
Also in the UK, eight vendors have joined the government-backed SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Centre (SONIC), which aims to carry out interoperability testing and integration for open networking solutions, starting with Open RAN. The participants are Accelleran, Phluido, Effnet, Benetel, Mavenir, Foxconn, NEC and Radisys. Sonic is being run by regulator Ofcom and the UK’s Digital Catapult.
LoRa Alliance and GS1 explore supply chain collaboration
The LoRa Alliance, which promotes the LoRaWAN standard for low power IoT networks, is collaborating in Europe with GS1, over use of the wireless protocol for communication within supply chains.
The primary objective is to improve efficiency and interoperability of supply chain maintenance operations, and simplify data exchanges between different systems and stakeholders, by adding LoRaWAN networks as carriers for GS1 standards.
The initial collaboration addresses the requirements of the railway industry, with other sectors to follow. GS1 is a Belgium-based not-for-profit organization that develops and maintains global standards for business communication, best known for the ubiquitous barcode printed for electronic scanning on over 100m products.
Global eSIM shipments almost double in 2020
Global eSIM shipments rose 83% year-on-year to reach 309m units in 2020, according to data reported by members of the Trusted Connectivity Alliance (TCA).
Increases were driven mostly by the continued launch of new eSIM-enabled handsets, IoT devices and smartwatches around the world. Regulation such as the European eCall initiative was also a factor by supporting increased eSIM deployment across automotive use-cases, according to TCA. In addition to the rise in eSIM shipments, TCA data shows growing consumer and industry uptake for eSIM functionality where available.
“The latest TCA market data reflects the ability of eSIM technology to deliver the flexible connectivity and dynamic security needed to meet the demands of our connected society, both now and in the future,” said Claus Dietze, chair of the TCA board.
Ericsson picks up Taiwan’s Far EasTone for 5G core deal
Taiwanese operator Far EasTone (FET) has chosen Ericsson as its vendor for a dual-mode 5G core supporting 5G NR Standalone and Non-standalone, as well as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services. The deal extends Ericsson’s existing 5G partnership with FET, following the latter’s launch of commercial 5G services in July 2020.
As part of the latest deal, Ericsson will support FET with expansion of its 5G NSA capabilities and SA evolution across low, mid and high band frequencies, including end-to-end network design, planning, orchestration and management.
Under the expanded agreement, the operator will also deploy Ericsson’s AI-powered Cognitive Optimization, for ongoing optimization of 5G network performance and user experience.
Boingo Wireless goes private for $854m
Boingo Wireless, US provider of WiFi equipment and distributed antenna systems (DAS), is being acquired by a Digital Colony Management affiliate for $854m. The deal takes Boingo back into private hands after being a public company for almost exactly a decade.
Digital Colony is a digital infrastructure investment firm with assets under management worth over $30bn, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Singapore.
“We believe Digital Colony’s expertise owning and operating digital infrastructure businesses, combined with its relationships, resources and access to long-term, private capital markets, will provide greater flexibility for Boingo to continue advancing its business strategy,” said Mike Finley, CEO of Boingo Wireless.
Wave emerges from Chapter XI under MIPS brand
Wave Computing has emerged from Chapter XI bankruptcy protection and adopted the name of its most famous subsidiary, MIPS. Wave acquired most of the assets of processor IP firm MIPS in 2018, after it was sold off by previous owner Imagination Technologies, as part of a divestment of assets prompted by the end of Imagination’s graphics chip supply deal to Apple.
Wave will now focus primarily on MIPS’ processor architectures, and said it was developing a new “standards-based eighth generation architecture” based on the open source RISC-V processor platform.
The new majority owner of MIPS is Tallwood Venture Capital, which emerged as the winner of the bankruptcy auction held in December 2020, with a restructuring bid valued at $61m. Sanjai Kohli will continue to lead MIPS as CEO.
Wave Computing filed for Chapter XI in April 2020 but MIPS continued to trade independently under its own name, and its MIPS I-Class family of processor cores remained profitable. MIPS was founded in 1984 and was sold to Silicon Graphics in 1993 and Imagination in 2013.