Eurobites: KPN acquires Primevest's fiber network

UK altnet Hyperoptic – one of a number of relatively small challengers snapping at the heels of BT's fiber dominance – is to lay off around 110 employees, reducing its network build teams in Scotland and northwest England where it says its rollout is nearly complete and removing a layer of management in its infrastructure division. Industry observers have claimed that there are far too many fiber altnets jostling for position in the UK now, with BT boss Philip Jansen last year predicting that "a lot of people won't make it." (See The UK has become a fiber swamp and BT accused of 'choking off' altnets as fiber splurge sparks worry.)

Nokia is extending its RAN deal with UK operator Virgin Media O2 for another three years. The deal covers O2's 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks across southern England. Nokia will supply O2 with its Habrok massive MIMO radios and AirScale Baseband and Interleaved Passive Active Antennas (IPAA), both powered by its ReefShark system-on-chip (SoC) technology.

Israel is planning a new 158-mile fiber link between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, with state-owned energy firm EAPC constructing the cable along the route of one of its oil pipelines. As Reuters reports, EAPC views the proposed link as a communications land bridge connecting the Gulf countries and Asia to Europe.

The European Commission is proposing new rules that it hopes will help the bloc's consumers make "informed and sustainable choices" when it comes to smartphones and tablets. Under the proposed regulation, smartphones and tablets offered for sale within the EU will have to display information on their energy efficiency and battery longevity as well as their resistance to dust, water and being dropped on the floor. There will also be minimum requirements laid down for such devices, such as, for example, batteries being able to withstand at least 800 cycles of charge and discharge while retaining at least 80% of their initial capacity.

The European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO) has taken time out from calling for Big Tech to make a "fair contribution" to cost of the carriage of the network traffic they generate and shifted its gaze to remote or "hybrid" working. In a joint statement issued with UNI Europa ICTS, ETNO said that remote workers should, among other things, enjoy the same rights as their office-based counterparts, including rest breaks, hours of work and ability to disconnect from work-related, after-hours digital pestering. It also said those sinister surveillance tools that can be used to track the work and movements of remote employees should be restricted, unless "firmly regulated through national legislation or a trade union collective agreement."