VodafoneThree Claims World First With Ericsson 400MHz MIMO Radio

By Amara Osei

VodafoneThree says it has become the world's first operator to deploy Ericsson's AIR 3266 massive MIMO radio on a commercial 5G standalone network, switching on the kit in London. The radio pairs midband TDD massive MIMO with support for up to 400MHz of bandwidth, letting the operator squeeze more out of its midband spectrum holdings.

The claimed payoff is twofold: more 5G capacity and coverage as deployment scales, and energy savings of 30% or more over the radio's predecessors. Vendor claims, of course, travel further in press releases than in field conditions. But the deployment footprint behind them is concrete — Ericsson RAN gear now sits at more than 10,000 VodafoneThree sites across the UK.

The milestone matters commercially because VodafoneThree, the merged Vodafone UK and Three operation, has staked its pitch on network quality rather than price. A 400MHz-capable radio in the capital is the kind of asset that turns spectrum depth into throughput.

What is Nokia doing with Marvell at Virgin Media O2?

In the roundup's most quietly interesting item, Nokia has been running AI-RAN work with Marvell Technology at Virgin Media O2 — despite spending its marketing energy elsewhere. The vendor has been loudly faithful to Nvidia in public, yet its old silicon partner Marvell quietly supplies the silicon for this deployment.

The lesson is straightforward. AI-RAN does not require Nvidia, whatever the keynote slides imply. Silicon partnerships, like most marriages of convenience, survive on history as much as hype.

How big will traffic get by 2035?

Nokia's Global Network Traffic Report 2026 offers some suitably vertiginous numbers. Total network traffic will nearly quadruple from 2026 levels to almost 3,789 exabytes per month by 2035, the Finnish vendor projects.

Two trends drive the curve:

• Fixed wireless access will generate more than a third of consumer cellular traffic by 2035 as connections grow.
• Artificial intelligence will drive nearly half of all global traffic in 2035, with connected machines doing most of the lifting — as opposed to, say, machine-generated village fayre posters.

The report is, inevitably, heavily preoccupied with AI and the load the technology will place on the world's data networks. Vendors forecasting traffic growth that demands their equipment is a tradition older than the smartphone. The numbers are still worth noting.

What does the GSMA want from network resilience rules?

The GSMA has published new policy principles intended to strengthen mobile network resilience against severe weather. The recommendations include designing networks with "operational reality" in mind and avoiding prescriptive network regulation.

The principles respond to the association's own six-part report, Futureproofing Connectivity: Climate Risk and Resilience in Telecommunications, which maps weather-related risks facing networks and their financial impacts. In essence, the GSMA is telling regulators: help us prepare, but don't micromanage. Regulators have heard that tune before.

Who will chair Rome's smart-city build?

Brendan O'Reilly, European boss of neutral-host infrastructure firm Boldyn Networks, has been named chairman of Smart City Roma's board of directors. The project he now steers is no modest pilot:

• More than 2,200 5G small cells deployed
• Connectivity across Rome's metro network
• Public Wi-Fi in 100 squares
• IoT sensors and smart cameras

A neutral-host veteran chairbing one of Europe's larger municipal connectivity projects suggests Rome wants infrastructure built, not debated.

And the smaller print

UK-based AccelerComm, which provides IP solutions for 5G non-terrestrial networks, is working with an unnamed Tier 1 mobile operator on a project using AI to make 5G basestations more energy-efficient and less complex. The operator's identity remains undisclosed, which is either commercially sensitive or commercially convenient.

For VodafoneThree, the immediate question is how quickly the AIR 3268-class deployment scales beyond London. With Ericsson already across 10,000 sites and the merged operator's network integration still under way, expect the 400MHz claim to be tested — publicly — as rollout continues.