Eurobites: Nokia, A1 Austria claim 800G breakthrough

Nokia and A1 Austria say they have successfully delivered an 800Gbit/s service over a single wavelength, covering a distance of 1,276km in a live network from Frankfurt to Budapest in what is the operator's first such demonstration over its long-haul network. The trial was completed using Nokia's FP5 network processor silicon and its sixth-generation super-coherent photonic service engine optics (PSE-6s). A1 operates an IP and optical network across Europe, offering wholesale services to enterprises, webscale players and communications service providers' end-users.

Vodafone Carrier Services has launched Scam Signal, an API (application programmable interface) providing a framework of rules that app developers and businesses can use to tackle online fraud and protect the digital identities of their customers. The service is particularly aimed at authorised pushed payment (APP) fraud, which involves a criminal tricking someone into sending them money, often through impersonating representatives from banks, government departments, or even a family member. Vodafone claims that scam detection using this service improved by 30% after only three months of a pilot with an unnamed UK bank.

Dutch incumbent operator KPN has renewed its working partnership with Poland's Comarch with a five-year agreement focused on using Comarch's software-as-a-service (SaaS) to address billing issues. KPN and Comarch first began working together in 2008, when Comarch was contracted to support KPN's subsidiary, Sympac.

Vivendi, the French conglomerate that owns a 24% stake in Telecom Italia (TIM), is to abstain from today's shareholder vote on the reappointment of current TIM CEO Pietro Labriola, the Financial Times reports (paywall applies). In a statement, Vivendi said: "Vivendi does not wish to be associated with decisions concerning Board appointments, as it considers that it is incumbent on the ongoing management and its supporters to sort out the delicate situation in which TIM finds itself." Last year Vivendi CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine resigned his seat on TIM's board as his company's dissatisfaction with the prospective sale of TIM's fixed-line network began to grow.

In the latest bout of what is the ongoing slugfest between Brussels and Big Tech, the European Commission has opened a second formal proceedings against TikTok in relation to the Digital Services Act, this time focusing on the launch of TikTok Lite in France and Spain. TikTok Lite allows users to earn points (which translate into a very small amount of money each day) while doing TikTokky things such as watching videos, liking content and following following "creators." The Commission is concerned that TikTok Lite has been launched without "prior diligent assessment of the risks it entails, in particular those related to the addictive effect of the platforms, and without taking effective risk mitigating measures." If TikTok is deemed to have failed to come up with the information the Commission wants in time, it may impose fines up to 1% of TikTok's total annual income or worldwide turnover and periodic penalties of up to 5% of its average daily income or worldwide annual turnover.

Ireland's Software Radio Systems (SRS) has announced what it says is the successful integration, test and validation of the srsRAN Enterprise 5G stack with the Picocom L1 for small cells.

New research from BT has found that girls aged 11-17 still feel frozen out of careers in tech, with 26% of them saying they were "not very well suited" to the industry, compared with 14% of boys in the same age category. Girls were also much less likely to believe that there is nothing holding them back from a tech career (36% of boys versus 23% of girls). The most popular career choice for girls was nursing; for boys it was designing video games.