Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: ETNO welcomes 700MHz moves; Gilat lands Spanish trains gig; Ziggo rebrands.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

November 10, 2016

2 Min Read
Eurobites: Trump Won't Trash Privacy Shield, US Officials Predict

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: ETNO welcomes 700MHz moves; Gilat lands Spanish trains gig; Ziggo rebrands.

  • OK, he may try to build a you-can-see-it-from-space wall on the US-Mexico border, prepare the ground for civil war and instigate a new global economic depression through the imposition of trade tariffs, but the Privacy Shield, the framework which governs the transfer of data from Europe to the US, will be safe in the fun-sized hands of President-elect Donald Trump. As Bloomberg reports, that's the encouraging message coming from the US Department of Commerce, which is insisting that the framework was designed with political transition in mind. The Privacy Shield, which replaced the discredited Safe Harbor arrangements, is intended to place stronger obligations on US companies handing Europeans' personal data, limit US government access to such data and provide EU citizens affected by such issues with greater chance of redress. (See Eurobites: Privacy Shield Gets EU Go-Ahead.)

    • The European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO) has welcomed the European Parliament's decision to allocate 700MHz spectrum to mobile broadband by 2020, believing that this is necessary for Europe to maintain a leading role in the development of 5G. ETNO also thinks that EU member states should be allowed to retain the flexibility to allocate sub-700MHz spectrum to mobile broadband in a "technology-neutral manner."

    • Israel-based Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (Nasdaq: GILT) has landed a contract with Renfe, the Spanish railway company, which will see the vendor deploy its ER-7000 antenna and attendant technology on Renfe's high-speed trains to provide passengers with mobile broadband.

    • Sweden's Tele2 AB (Nasdaq: TLTO) has appointed Stina Andersson EVP for strategy and business development, effective December 5. Andersson was most recently investment director at Kinnevik, Tele2's largest shareholder. Her brief will include oversight of Tele2's IoT division.

    • In a move that demonstrates the power of local branding, Ziggo B.V. , the Dutch cable operator owned by Liberty Global Inc. (Nasdaq: LBTY), is dropping Liberty's Horizon brand in favor of Ziggo, Broadband TV News reports. Ziggo says that focus group research showed that users of its Ziggo-branded services were the most loyal customers. The initial rebranding will affect Horizon Go, an app that offers live streaming TV on mobile devices.

      — 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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