Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia seeks 5G innovation in France; Orange helps Belgium fight digital exclusion; Google placates France's antitrust squad.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

June 22, 2022

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Sweden shuts the door on Huawei again

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia seeks 5G innovation in France; Orange helps Belgium fight digital exclusion; Google placates France's antitrust squad.

  • Europe continues to be an uphill struggle for Huawei, and now a Swedish court has upheld the country's ban on the sale of Huawei's 5G gear there. As Reuters reports, Sweden's communications regulator first banned Huawei from the 5G sphere in 2020 following concerns raised by the security services. Huawei said it was disappointed by the latest ruling and will consider its next steps. (See Huawei loses in Swedish courts over 5G, again and Huawei booted out of Sweden's last chance 5G saloon.)

    • In France, Nokia has launched something called the "5G Innov Lab platform," which it intends to use to test 5G industrial use cases with a range of partners including Airbus and Augmented Acoustics. The platform will rely on a 5G private network comprising different frequencies, including the 26GHz band, which will be put through its paces at, among other locations, the port of Le Havre.

    • Orange has opened its first Digital Center in Europe, in Brussels, the Belgian capital. The idea is that the facility will serve as a support and development center where anyone with the inclination can improve their digital and entrepreneurial skills. The Belgian government hopes that this will help tackle the growing problem of digital exclusion – as many as four in ten Belgians are at risk of being left behind, according to the government.

    • Google has managed to convince France's antitrust authority that it will mend its ways when it comes to the use of online news content that it tends to "borrow" without always asking from traditional publishers and news agencies. As Reuters reports, the search giant has agreed to talk to the companies concerned and has dropped its appeal against an existing €500 million ($528 million) fine.

    • BT's Digital unit has plumped for software from Dynatrace to meet its application monitoring needs. Dynatrace, says BT, will allow its teams to consolidate all data from across its multicloud environment, including fault detection. In initial tests, BT says Dynatrace was able to identify issues in real time, instead of half an hour after the event.

    • The Paramount+ video streaming service launches today in the UK and Ireland, with Sky offering the service for no additional cost in its Sky Cinema package.

    • Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, is proposing to "modernize" the BBC's operating license in a way that will help the beleaguered public service broadcaster "innovate and respond to changing audience needs." Among other things, the BBC will be required to make regional content "easily discoverable" online. Following the usual long-drawn-out consultation process, Ofcom expects to make its final decision on the proposed changes in early 2023.

    • Neos Networks has chosen Edinburgh-based Commsworld to provide it with dark-fiber connectivity to the Pulsant data center in the Scottish capital.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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