Eurobites: UK mass alerts test sounds bum note

Kenya's Safaricom has increased its 5G coverage to 28 towns across 21 counties. The operator has recently partnered with Huawei to set up three 5G experience centers in Nairobi to give the locals a taste of the new technology via virtual reality gaming zones and the like.

BT has landed a connectivity contract worth "up to" £350 million (US$435 million) with the Scottish government, which hopes to improved communications, data sharing and collaboration across more than 6,000 public sector sites, such as schools, hospitals and doctors' surgeries. The contract has been awarded within the framework of the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) program.

Telefónica is one of the founding partners of the Enable-6G project, which, as its name suggests, aims to address the challenges that will be faced by 6G networks if and when they eventually materialize. How to protect privacy will be one of the key focus areas of the project, as will the use of software-defined networks to bolster edge-to-cloud data processing. The other organizations involved in the EU-funded initiative are the IMDEA Networks Institute, NEC and BluSpecs.

Italy's antitrust watchdog has blocked the use of songs copyrighted by the SIAE, the Italian society of authors and publishers, on Meta's platforms after claiming the social media giant's conduct was detrimental to competition in the market. As Reuters reports, Meta disagreed with the watchdog's decision but said it would send the SIAE another request to extend its license agreement.

French media conglomerate Vivendi – which currently holds a 24% stake in Telecom Italia (TIM) and owns African broadband provider GVA – saw its first-quarter revenues rise 3.3% year-over-year, to €2.29 billion ($2.52 billion), thanks largely to strong growth across its Canal+ group of companies following successful movie releases such as John Wick 4.

Emma Raducanu, the British tennis player who exploded onto the world stage by winning the US Open in 2021, has been doing a spot of remote coaching via the wonders of 5G. Though physically present at her training camp in Dubai, she appeared as a 3D hologram 4,000 miles away in London, giving coaching tips to aspiring young Brits as part of the Vodafone 5G promo.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading