• SK Telecom’s ‘Techfin’ and 2G developments
• Broadcom adds bite to Nokia’s ReefShark
• India’s Jio Platforms attracts two more external investors
• Deutsche Telekom and Orange team on blockchain R&D

South Korea’s SK Telecom is at the front of today’s news queue, followed closely (but not too closely, of course) by Nokia, which is working closely with Broadcom on its 5G system-on-chip efforts.

• As part of their ‘Techfin’ efforts, South Korea’s mobile operators – SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus – are expanding their financial services offerings in cooperation with local banks, so becoming the latest telcos to take a step closer to combining connectivity and banking services, a trend exemplified by Orange (which actually owns a bank). 
• In other news for SK Telecom, its request to end 2G services has been approved by the Ministry of Science and ICT, reports Business Korea. The operator plans to start terminating services in July and complete the process by June 2021.
• And there’s more from South Korea… Bloomberg news reporters have been testing 5G services in the country – regarded as the world’s leading 5G market – as well as in China, and found those services to be “patchy.”
• Nokia is collaborating with Broadcom to expand and enhance ReefShark, its chipset portfolio that is being used in its 5G systems. “The two companies will work to develop new custom system-on-chip (SoC) solutions, which utilize Nokia’s wireless technology and Broadcom’s expertise in application-specific integrated circuit [ASIC] technologies,” noted the vendor giant.
• Nokia has also announced a 5G core deal with China Unicom.
• Soon we’ll be listing the companies that HAVEN’T invested in India’s Jio Platforms, which counts the country’s largest mobile operator, Reliance Jio, among its assets. The latest companies to take stakes are TPG, which is splashing INR45.47 billion ($598 million) on a 0.93% stake in Jio Platforms, while private equity firm L Catterton has invested INR18.95 billion ($249 million) for a 0.39% stake. See this article for the identities of the other recent investors in Jio Platforms.
• The wholesale network operations of Deutsche Telekom and Orange are collaborating on proofs of concept (PoCs) to enhance IPX (IP exchange) services. One of the PoCs “aims to establish and validate end-to-end performance indicators using blockchain technology.”
• Ericsson is shipping Baseband 6648, the latest addition to its radio access network (RAN) compute portfolio. The new baseband unit, which the vendor says offers up to three times more capacity than its existing baseband processing units.
• Western Europe smartphone revenues shrank by 10% year-on-year to $10 billion during the first quarter of this year, according to Strategy Analytics. Apple commanded 49% of the market, followed by Samsung with 32%.
• Only a few decades late, the UK government is exploring ways to make it easier for fiber access broadband builders to run their cables along the passive infrastructure of utility companies (electricity, gas, water, sewage). “These measures could significantly reduce the time and cost it takes to roll out gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business in the UK,” according to a statement attributed to Digital Infrastructure Minister Matt Warman, who appears to be working in the Department for the Bleeding Obvious. 
• Alibaba Cloud says it will hire 5,000 engineers this financial year to fuel its efforts. One of its next steps will be to integrate Dingtalk – an operating system built on Alibaba Cloud – so it can fulfill a similar role to that played by Microsoft 365 for Azure. You can read all about that here.

- The staff, TelecomTV