Vendors Huawei and Rohill have demonstrated an integrated LTE/TETRA solution as they look to strengthen their positions in the mission critical communications market.

The two companies said they decided to work together to meet growing customer demand for mobile broadand networks that integrate with existing TETRA networks in order to provide TETRA functionalities on top of LTE.

Nokia Siemens Networks and Intel have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a set of common objectives around the development of the former’s Liquid Applications solution.

Liquid Apps are “smart” base stations where intelligence can be collected about the type of content and data subscribers are using by in each cell.

The carrier-grade Wi-Fi market is growing rapidly, according to new research, with global spending on Wi-Fi equipment forecast to hit €3 billion by 2017 as operators ramp up Wi-Fi deployments to offload data traffic.

Infonetics Research is reporting that carrier-grade Wi-Fi equipment revenue, which includes Wi-Fi access points and Wi-Fi hotspot controllers, increased by 53 percent between 2011 to 2012.

Samsung Electronics claims that it has developed the world’s first adaptive array transceiver technology using the millimetre wave Ka bands, which will enable 5G data transmission speeds several hundred times faster than 4G LTE networks.

5G is the next generation of 4G LTE and will require a broad band of frequencies to enable mobile broadband data speeds of up to several tens of Gbps per base station.

Distributed antenna systems (DAS) provider Axell Wireless has been acquired by UK-based RF and antenna vendor Cobham for a fee that could rise to €100 million.

Ian Brown, CEO of Axell Wireless, said the deal gave his company “a great opportunity to extend our leadership in the DAS and coverage market.”

Our sister title European Communications is holding an exclusive webinar next Tuesday, 11 June on improving data quality to prevent inaccurate bills. You can register to attend the webinar here.

Join Marc Smith from European Communications, Rogier Wouters from KPN Netherlands and John Joseph from Lavastorm Analytics as they deliver an exclusive webinar on improving the accuracy of financial KPIs and customer bills.

Ericsson has announced a 3GPP-compliant Wi-Fi network access, control and management solution, designed to help mobile operators incorporate Wi-Fi into their HetNets and improve indoor coverage.

Apart from Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF), IP session mobility and Wi-Fi Passpoint, the solution includes a real-time traffic steering function, which Ericsson claims is an industry first.

Vodafone Germany has announced a network access agreement with Deutsche Telekom, which will enable Vodafone to offer high-speed fixed line broadband and IPTV services to German subscribers using DT’s new vectoring technology.

While Vodafone has had wholesale network agreements with the German operator before and currently has 20,000 DSL customers, the new agreement enables Vodafone to piggyback onto DT’s VDSL broadband network under a bespoke “Layer 3” IP-based bitstream agreement.

Cloud-based software provider Metaswitch Networks has contributed the initial codebase to Project Clearwater  – a new open source cloud-based IMS initiative that aims to simplify uptake of the network.

The new solution could solve a problem for those operators that want to offer voice and multimedia services over IP, but feel restricted by having to rent IMS services or invest in an IMS core network.

Mobile Europe held its annual Small Cells Roundtable disussion on "The role of small cells in a 4G LTE world" with Alcatel-Lucent on Tuesday, 8 May 2013.

The panel consisted of specially invited guests from the operator and analyst arena, discussing the impact of current and future developments in the small cells market on the operator business model.

You can read the comments from the live news blog here.