Vodafone UK and Three to Announce Merger Friday or Early Next Week

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Vodafone and CK Hutchison, owner of Three, are reportedly set to announce a merger of their UK operations “as soon as Friday or early next week,” according to sources cited by Reuters. Insiders say the long-expected transaction has entered its final stages. Under the previously outlined plan from October, Vodafone would hold 51 percent of … Read more

Russia Moves to Replace Wikipedia as It Accelerates Sovereign Internet Plan

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Russia is reportedly moving forward with plans to replace Wikipedia with a state-run online encyclopedia as part of a broader push to create a “sovereign internet.” According to media reports, the Russian government intends to invest roughly $30 million to establish this domestic encyclopedia and to create a dedicated department responsible for populating it with … Read more

Firefly LiFi: LED-Powered Affordable 5G Wireless Bridge for Smart Cities

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Firefly LiFi, a manufacturer of LiFi solutions, is leveraging LED technology to introduce low-cost 5G wireless bridges for smart city networks. These bridges deliver high data capacity and strong security for both indoor and Wireless To The Home (WTTH) outdoor backhaul use cases. Already supplying LiFi products for indoor environments, Firefly LiFi is now developing … Read more

Samsung Drops Stock Messages App to Accelerate RCS Adoption

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Samsung has begun replacing its preinstalled Messages app with Google Messages on some new devices to accelerate adoption of Rich Communication Services (RCS). The change was first observed on phones shipping with One UI 6.1.1 that arrived without Samsung Messages in certain countries. When asked about the transition, Samsung clarified its reasoning. In a statement … Read more

Orange Partners with Renault to Expand Connected Car App Ecosystem

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Research from Juniper indicates that revenues from in-car applications could increase tenfold by 2017, with connected services reaching around 20% of vehicles in Western Europe and North America. This emerging market looks set to be highly profitable and will be driven by advances in mobile networks. Mobile network operator Orange has partnered with French automaker … Read more

Vodafone Launches UK’s First Live 5G Open RAN Site

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Vodafone has activated the UK’s first live 5G Open RAN site, marking the start of a nationwide rollout that will include thousands of sites. The pioneering site was developed in collaboration with Samsung, Wind River, Dell, Intel, Keysight Technologies, and Capgemini Engineering, demonstrating the interoperability advantages offered by Open RAN technology. Each partner contributed the … Read more

Canada’s Largest Telecom Provider Hit by Major Cyberattack

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Bell, the largest telecommunications provider in Canada, has suffered a data breach affecting approximately 1.9 million customers. While global attention was focused on the WannaCry ransomware outbreak—which disrupted systems worldwide, including those critical to the UK’s health service—a separate incident targeted Bell’s servers. In this unrelated attack, an individual or group gained unauthorized access to … Read more

Nielsen Unveils New Measurement Metrics for Online TV Viewership

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Most television viewers have heard of Nielsen. For decades, Nielsen has been the industry standard for measuring TV audiences, but as viewing habits move online those traditional ratings have become less representative. In response, Nielsen announced today that it will launch Digital Program Ratings. At launch, the service will partner with many major broadcasters and … Read more

T-Mobile Drops ETF Fees, CEO Taunts AT&T: They’ll Pay You to Return

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If you checked in with us yesterday, you already know the gloves are off between T-Mobile and AT&T. The rivalry intensified overnight when T-Mobile CEO John Legere took the stage at CES to unveil the next phase of the company’s disruptive “Uncarrier” strategy — and to openly criticize an industry he called out for underperforming. … Read more

Vodafone and Huawei Complete Successful NB-IoT Field Trials

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(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/urbanbuzz) Vodafone has teamed up with Huawei to trial the emerging Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) standard, a technology designed to deliver greater coverage and much lower power consumption than current 2G, 3G and 4G systems. Trials took place in April at several live sites across central and suburban Melbourne to evaluate … Read more