Eurobites: EU says it trusts the US with its citizens' personal data

The CEO of Vodafone UK, Ahmed Essam, is trying to put pressure on the UK's competition regulator to approve the proposed merger of his company with rival mobile operator Three. As City A.M. reports, citing a Times story, Essam said that if the deal doesn't get the green light then Vodafone "won't be able to invest as much and … won't be able to deliver the 5G ambition that's coming in the wireless infrastructure strategy from the government." In other words: Come on guys, it's for the good of the nation! But the Competition and Markets Authority is by no means certain to wave the deal through: The merger would reduce the number of UK mobile networks from four to three, with the proposed new entity (VodaThrone, anyone?), becoming market leader. (See Vodafone, Three promise to invest £11B in UK after merger.)

The agreement between European operators to facilitate cheaper mobile calls for displaced Ukrainian refugees has been extended for another year as the war with Russia rumbles on. The gist of the agreement is to lower inter-operator wholesale charges for cross-border calls which use different mobile networks, otherwise known as "roaming." The agreement was made between 29 European operators, seven of them Ukrainian. The European Commission has also been preparing to integrate Ukraine into the EU Roaming Area, which, says the Commission, would provide "a more stable and longer-term solution."

Nokia and Ooredoo Qatar say they have successfully demonstrated Qatar's first data call in 5G standalone mode in a development that Ooredoo hopes will allow it team up with businesses and developers for innovative applications in areas such as virtual reality and Industry 4.0.

Sky, the UK-based purveyor of pay-TV and more, is trumpeting what it describes as its "most powerful Wi-Fi package yet." Based on Wi-Fi 6 technology and making use of something Sky calls "intelligent cloud optimization," the package promises Wi-Fi speeds of up to 25 Mbit/s in every room of the household (or your money back).

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading