Eurobites: BICS tackles Ooredoo's voice services

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Sigfox reborn as UnaBiz; new boss for Open Access Data Centres; EU makes life easier for Amazon Prime refuseniks.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

July 4, 2022

2 Min Read
Eurobites: BICS tackles Ooredoo's voice services

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Sigfox reborn as UnaBiz; new boss for Open Access Data Centres; EU makes life easier for Amazon Prime refuseniks.

  • BICS, the international arm of Belgium's Proximus, has struck a multi-year deal with Middle Eastern group Ooredoo for the provision of managed voice services across its various operations. The hope is that BICS' "innovative voice business model" will give rise to new opportunities for Ooredoo in such areas as artificial intelligence, machine learning and fraud protection.

    • It's official: Sigfox, the defunct French IoT venture, has been reborn as a UnaBiz company. We know this thanks to a LinkedIn post from UnaBiz boss Henri Bong, in which he confirms that Sigfox SAS and Sigfox SA will cease to be used as company names and that all "assets, IPs, teams and contracts with customers and operators will be owned by UnaBiz SAS and UnaBiz Networks SAS which are both French Entities under French Laws." All former Sigfox employees will be folded into the UnaBiz team. In April, UnaBiz beat off other tenders to secure ownership of Sigfox with an offer – it is thought – of €25 million (US$26.8 million). (See Sigfox takeover saddles UnaBiz with heavy baggage.)

    • Pan-African data center operator Open Access Data Centres has appointed Dr Ayotunde Coker as its new CEO. For the last eight years Coker has been CEO and managing director of Rack Centre, a rival data center brand; prior to that he enjoyed stints at Ford, Cap Gemini and BP, among others.

    • The European Commission has persuaded Amazon to make it easier for those wanting to unsubscribe to its Prime priority delivery/streaming service to do so. Previously, would-be leavers would be forced to navigate a labyrinthine exit route, involving fuzzy language, numerous web pages and umpteen clicks. Now, as the Commission trumpets in a statement, the platform will "will enable consumers from the EU and EEA to unsubscribe from Amazon Prime with just two clicks, using a prominent and clear 'cancel button.'" It's a shame that it takes pressure from Brussels bureaucrats to make this happen.

    • Telecom Italia (TIM) is heading into the so-called metaverse, doing so on the tattooed and frankly scrawny shoulders of Jovanotti, an ageing Italian rapper. Drawing on its proprietary eXtended Reality platform, TIM has helped created the "Jovaverse." The operator says: "The Jovaverse is a virtual, immersive and interactive environment, where Jovanotti fans can enjoy a unique multimedia experience using an Oculus model viewer." Eurobites says: Bring back Joe Dolce.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Read more about:

Europe

About the Author

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.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like