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.”

ZTE has announced that it will be providing Telekom Austria with a circuit switched/IMS converged voice network, in order to aid the implementation of VoLTE.

Working in collaboration with vendor Kaspsch Carrier Com, ZTE will be replacing the existing mobile core network in Austria, Slovenia and Liechtenstein with a mobile CS softswitch network and building a new IMS network in these areas as well.

Boingo Wireless has announced a new partnership with public transport Wi-Fi specialist GOWEX that will expand its existing network across Europe.

Boingo’s small cells network currently covers over a million DAS and Wi-Fi locations that enables one billion consumers worldwide to access more than 200,000 hotspots across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The new deal sees an additional 1,400 GOWEX hotspots on public transport added to Boingo’s network in over 50 cities throughout Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium.

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.

Belgacom’s wholesale subsidiary BICS has teamed up with PostFinance, a division of Switzerland’s national postal service, to launch an international money transfer service.

The service allows instant money transfers between any type of organisation that processes payments – be it a bank, an online payment service or an operator’s mobile wallet.

UK regulator Ofcom has announced the first official pilot for white space frequencies in Europe, which it hopes will drive the technology towards a roll out for use by the telecoms industry next year.

While several big names including Microsoft, Google, Nokia, the BBC, BskyB and BT have performed private trials in Cambridge since 2011, this is the first time that the whole industry has been invited to test devices and services on the spectrum.