What’s up with… Italian broadband, 5G core sales, Ericsson

• TIM faces broadband network D-day
• 5G core sales growing
• Ericsson and Qualcomm enable 5G carrier aggregation

The state of Italian broadband and trends in mobile core investments top our news pile today.

The Italian government has approved a plan to create a single national broadband network that would combine TIM (Telecom Italia)’s fixed access network with that of alternative wholesale operator Open Fiber, according to Reuters, which cites local Italian media sources. The plan is set to be presented to the TIM board next week. 

5G core systems accounted for almost 15% of mobile core investments in the second quarter of this year, according to estimates from research firm Dell’Oro. In addition, more than 50% of mobile core investments in the quarter were for virtual network functions (VNFs), the first time that NFV-related core investments have accounted for more than half of sales. The firm expects the global mobile core market for the full year to be worth almost $1 billion. 

Ericsson and Qualcomm have completed the “world’s first interoperability tests for 5G standalone (SA) carrier aggregation across both FDD/TDD and TDD/TDD bands,” according to Qualcomm.

Still with the Swedish vendor… Ericsson has joined the 450 MHz Alliance to help develop opportunities in the critical communications market, and has teamed up with UNICEF to help map school connectivity in 35 countries.

The Small Cell Forum has added six new members -- Celling5G, ETRI, Interdigital, Sercomm, Sterlite Technologies Ltd, and Zeetta Networks. “The new members will be able to take an active role in the ambitious 2021 work plan, which includes the development of Option 6 specifications, technical requirements for neutral hosts and blueprints for the profitable roll out of edge computing,” according to the Forum.

Plume and Technicolor have teamed up to combine their respective Consumer Experience Management (CEM) Platform and WiFi 6-enabled customer premises equipment (CPE) technologies to target the smart home market. Find out more in this announcement.

- The staff, TelecomTV