It's a quiet, post-Mobile World Congress Friday in the EMEA region (though there's still plenty of new content being added to our special Mobile World Congress Show Site). But there's still end-of-week action at Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and the European Commission .
Neelie Kroes, the European Commission's vice president for the Digital Agenda, has told 21 out of the 27 European Union member states that, as far as mobile Internet is concerned, they need to frankly get a move on. According to a timetable set out by the EC, by now they should have legislative measures in place that allow Inmarsat plc (London: ISAT) and Solaris Mobile Ltd , the two operators selected in May 2009 to provide pan-European mobile satellite services, to offer said services from May 2011. But they haven't. (For the record, the countries who are deemed to have done the necessary on this one are Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Romania and Sweden.) (See EC Urges Action on Satellite Services.)
As unrest continues in North Africa and the Middle East, The New York Timesreports that data from Arbor Networks suggests that the authorities in Bahrain have been shutting down selected bits of the Internet, presumably in a bid to stop the protests from spreading. Arbor said that data traffic was 10 to 20 percent below expected levels. (See Egypt Unplugs From the Internet and Egypt Protests Throttle Up Web Video Traffic.)