Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: TIM seals soccer deal with DAZN; London's mayor promises 4G for the Tube; is this the next chairman of BT?

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

March 29, 2021

2 Min Read
Eurobites: Telecom Italia trials XGS-PON

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: TIM seals soccer deal with DAZN; London's mayor promises 4G for the Tube; is this the next chairman of BT?

  • Telecom Italia (TIM) has begun trials of "superfast" XGS-PON technology for fiber-to-the-home connections of up to 10 Gbit/s. Over the weekend, the TV studio that produces Italy's Amici talent show was the first to try out the technology, with viewers in the cities of Rome, Turin and Genoa able to sample the FTTH service. The technology was developed in collaboration with Nokia.

    • In related matters, TIM has sealed a deal with streaming service DAZN, allowing it to show DAZN's full catalogue of live and on-demand sports content for the next three years, most notably Serie A soccer matches, on its TIMvision TV platform. DAZN acquired the rights to ten Serie A matches per day for the 2021-2024 seasons, seven of them exclusive.

    • The Mayor of London, Sadiq Kan, is promising to furnish commuters (remember those?) on the city's underground train network with 4G as a major plank of his re-election campaign, the Financial Times reports (paywall applies). The issue of mobile phone coverage on the London Underground has been much discussed over the years, but debates over funding and technical considerations have largely stymied progress, the report adds.

    • Is retail industry veteran Ian Cheshire in pole position for the job of BT chairman following the resignation of Jan du Plessis? That's the possibility being explored by an interview in the Telegraph (paywall applies), in which Cheshire, already on the BT board, confirms that he is very much up for the chairman's role. In his eyes, BT is at an "extraordinary inflection point," with a lot of the "headwinds" that had buffeted the company having, he believes, blown themselves out. (See Eurobites: Jan du Plessis to step down as BT chairman and Boardroom bust-up brewing over Jansen's BT plans.)

    • UK Research and Innovation, a publicly funded body that seeks to encourage innovative solutions to technological challenges, is offering two or three projects a share of up to £6 million (US$8.3 million) if they can come up with ways of enhancing the central hardware and software of a computer so they can help block the issues responsible for up to 70% of today's cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The Digital Security by Design (DSbD) program is open to UK businesses and academics, and details can be found here.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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