Eurobites: BICS, Thales combine on eSIMs for IoT devicesEurobites: BICS, Thales combine on eSIMs for IoT devices

Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft have come together to allow businesses to integrate their customers' mobile phone numbers into the ubiquitous Teams collaboration software. Under the new system, users can make calls directly in Teams regardless of their location and devices and make and receive national and international calls with their own mobile phone number.

Telecom Italia (TIM) has signed an agreement with FIAP, the Italian hauliers' federation, aimed at fostering digital innovation in the logistics industry. TIM will draw on the expertise of its specialist units – Noovle for cloud/edge computing, Olivetti for IoT and Telsy for cybersecurity. Areas of focus include monitoring and tracking of vehicle fleets as well as interactive communication between vehicles and goods manufacturers/distributors.

OneWeb, the satellite broadband company that is co-owned by the UK government and India's Bharti Global, has completed field trials of low-Earth (LEO) based broadband in rural areas of Kazakhstan. OneWeb says the trials demonstrated how the company can provide connectivity across remote areas of Northern Kazakhstan using electronically steered user terminals from Kymeta, a company specializing in flat-panel antennas.

GlobalPlatform, a company that allows device makers and others to certify their products, has published a white paper highlighting what it describes as the potentially confusing implementation of security levels in the EU Cybersecurity Certification Scheme (EUCC) proposed by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) as part of the Cyber Security Act (CSA). In a statement, Olivier Van Nieuwenhuyze, chair of the GlobalPlatform Security Task Force, said: "In differing from well-established security levels used in industry, the EUCC has introduced confusion and disturbed ecosystems founded on existing security schemes."

Sweden-based Sinch has launched AskFrank, an AI-enabled question-answering search engine. According to Sinch, AskFrank integrates with a business's existing customer engagement chatbots, contact center, website or knowledge base. If you're wondering, it's called AskFrank because the answers it gives are "frank, direct and honest": It's nothing to do with this Frank or this Frank.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading