Euronews: Huawei Buys Optical R&D Lab

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) and KPN Telecom NV (NYSE: KPN) are the big fish in today's tank of EMEA telecom news headlines.

Huawei continues to bolster its European presence with the acquisition of CIP Technologies , an optical R&D lab in Ipswich, U.K. The lab had previously been bought off its American owners by the East of England Development Agency, a publicly funded body. In 2011 Huawei announced plans to double its U.K. workforce to 1,000 as well as opening a European design center for its mobile device business in London. (See Huawei Completes CIP Acquisition and Huawei to Open Euro Device Design Center.)

Fourth-quarter net income at Ericsson slumped 66 percent year-on-year to 1.5 billion Swedish kronor ($222 million) as margins were squeezed for the vendor. Problems at its handset and wireless chip joint ventures didn't help matters. (See Ericsson Suffers Margin Crunch, ST-Ericsson Loses $231M in Q4 and Sony Ericsson Reports Q4 Loss.)

As flagged up at a conference in Munich on Tuesday, European Commission Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has outlined a series of reforms to the 1995 Data Direction Directive, which are intended to increase Internet users' control of their personal data and cut data protection-related costs for businesses. Under the new rules, organisations must notify the relevant national authority of serious data breaches as soon as possible (ideally within 24 hours), and consumers will be able to delete their data if there are no "legitimate grounds" for retaining it online -- the so-called "right to be forgotten." (See EC Proposes Reform of Data Privacy Laws and Reding Replaced as Europe's Telecom Watchdog.)

Eelco Blok, CEO of Dutch incumbent KPN, is looking to send out some confident signals by buying an additional 50,000 shares in his beleaguered company. (See KPN CEO Buys More Shares in His Company, KPN Lowers 2012 Profit Outlook and KPN CFO Resigns.)

Employees of T-Hrvatski Telekom , the Croatian operator that is 51 percent owned by Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), took to Zagreb's main square Tuesday to protest against planned lay-offs, reports Expatica.com. Around 450 workers face the jobs axe. (See T-Hrvatski Telekom to Lay Off 450.)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading