Eurobites: UK government finds £7M for rural connectivity trials

The UK government is to lavish £7 million (US$8.6 million) – roughly the equivalent of what Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has spent on short-hop helicopter flights in the last three months – on trials of new ways of bringing together satellite, wireless and fixed-line connectivity as part of a wider plan to "unleash rural opportunity." It is hoped that farmers and tourism businesses in remote areas will be able to access faster and more reliable broadband as a result of the trials, with agriculture in particular being able to benefit from new technologies such as the use of drones to monitor crops and livestock.

OneWeb, the satellite broadband operator co-owned by the UK government and India's Bharti Global, is launching a "Try Before You Buy" maritime broadband service, offering download speeds of more than 100 Mbit/s. To prepare for the launch of the service, OneWeb and its partners have also developed a range of terminals available from maritime communications providers Intellian and Kymeta. OneWeb completed its "constellation" in March, with the launch of 36 satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India.

Middle Eastern operator Zain is teaming up with Ericsson to explore sustainability initiatives aimed at building more energy-efficient networks in the future. The two companies will also look at Zain becoming a part of Ericsson's global product take-back program, whereby the Swedish vendor retrieves its obsolete products from its customers and disposes of them safely.

Another part of the Zain empire, ZainTech, has signed a deal with Mastercard to create new data analytics offerings intended to streamline clients' operations and save them money, though details appear sketchy at present.

Mobile operator Three UK has partnered with mobile data specialist Jola to launch a range of unlimited business SIMs intended for the reseller channel.

Employees of the BBC and British Airways were among those affected by a hack of data being transferred by payroll provider Zellis via MOVEit, a file transfer software program. As Reuters reports, the provincial government of Nova Scotia, in Canada, was also a victim of the attack.