Eurobites: UK coastal safety network gets an upgrade

A new £175 million (US$231 million) fiber network connecting the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) emergency response stations is up and running, with Warwick-based Telent having helped to install the 1,220km of infrastructure which provides backhaul to the 163 remote radio sites. The private network stretches from the Shetland Islands in the far north of the UK down to the Isles of Scilly and, says Telent, will bring a number of improvements to what was there before, such as greater bandwidth and additional security.

UK mobile operator EE caused a bit of a stir over the weekend by recommending children of primary school age (11 and under) in the UK should be given feature phones rather than smartphones, offering them the wherewithal to send texts and make calls but not be besieged by wildly inappropriate content from the Wild West of social media and beyond. The move, says EE, comes in response to growing concerns about how being glued to a small screen that is often open to unfiltered content at all hours of the day is affecting young children. And as luck would have it, EE is the exclusive stockist of the Dash+ device, which it believes is perfect for this market. For older children, EE is highlighting the use of parental controls.

Nokia is wheeling out its AirScale product range once again, this time to enable Argentinian operator Claro to carry out a nationwide deployment of 5G infrastructure, the first phase of which will reach Argentina's largest cities. Through this project, Claro will become the first customer in Latin America to deploy Nokia's space-saving Interleaved Passive Active Antenna (IPAA+) across its entire footprint. The two companies are regular bedfellows, having worked together on 2G, 3G and 4G deployments before.

The board directors of Saudi Telecom (STC) have recommended increasing the annual cash dividends by 37.5%, from SAR 1.6 Saudi Arabian riyals to SAR2.2 per share annually, raising the total amount from SAR 8 billion ($2.13 billion) to SAR 11 billion ($2.93 billion) over the next three years. The recommendation, says STC, is based on the group's "solid financial position and exceptional operational performance."

The UK government says 16 Extended Area Service (EAS) mast upgrades have now been completed as part of the Shared Rural Network program, a £1 billion ($1.3 billion) funding project to improve 4G connectivity out in the sticks. Areas covered include mountainous national parks such as Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons, so it's good news for climbers and hikers.

TestDevLab claims its new report reveals gaps in the digital accessibility of leading telcos' websites in the Baltics. The study evaluated the websites of LMT, Tele2, Bite and Telia and concluded that for people with disabilities, accessing these operators' services independently can be "challenging." A new piece of EU legislation, the European Accessibility Act, is due to come into force in June 2025, part of which will put in place greater obligations for companies governing the way they interact with people with disabilities.