African connectivity company WIOCC says the arrival in South Africa of Google's 144Tbit/s Equiano cable will boost its wholesale offering there. WIOCC's Equiano capacity will be extended into a new Open Access Data Centres facility currently undergoing fit-out in Rondebosch, Cape Town, where its customers can interconnect with terrestrial infrastructure providers, cloud networks and partners.

Accounting giant PwC has been fined nearly £1.8 million ($2.17 million) for its less-than-forensic audit of BT's accounts in 2017 following the discovery of a £500 million ($605 million) accounting fraud at BT's Italian unit. As the Guardian reports, the UK's Financial Reporting Council criticized PwC as failing to act with the "requisite professional scepticism" on the accounts, which had to be adjusted by £513 million ($621 million) because of the Italian shenanigans. (See Eurobites: BT Dumps PwC in Wake of Italian Scandal and Dodgy Italian Job Savages BT Earnings, Share Price Tanks.)

The residents of Rochdale, a town near Manchester in northwest England, can expect to have their peace disturbed by the sound of trench-digging as CityFibre begins its £30 million ($36 million) full-fiber rollout there. The actual work has been contracted out to Network Plus, with town-wide completion scheduled for 2024. Internet service providers Zen, Vodafone and TalkTalk will initially be riding on the network, with others expected to join in due course.

More than half of British parents reckon they wouldn't be able to survive in the online world if they were a child today, according to new research commissioned by BT-owned EE. And, more worryingly, 55% of those oldies surveyed admit that if their child saw something unsuitable online they wouldn't know how to stop them seeing it again. The research has been carried out to support the launch of PhoneSmart Licence, an online course from EE that aims to teach children how to stay safe and be kind online.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading