Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: EU revises rules for broadband state aid; EXA adds a northern transport route in Spain; MTN lands 2Africa cable in Western Cape.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

December 13, 2022

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Nokia teams up with Rohde & Schwarz for drone-based network monitoring

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: EU revises rules for broadband state aid; EXA adds a northern transport route in Spain; MTN lands 2Africa cable in Western Cape.

  • Nokia has teamed up with test and measurement company Rohde & Schwarz to explore the potential of a drone-based network measurement offering, integrating Rohde & Schwarz's QualiPoc software into Nokia's Drone Networks platform. Currently measuring and monitoring networks in this way requires a smartphone to be attached to a drone as a payload, but the new approach embeds the QualiPoc software actually within the drone, making it lighter and reducing power consumption. Nokia anticipates trials being carried out by the likes of port authorities and mining companies. Figure 1: (Source: David Tadevosian/Alamy Stock Photo) (Source: David Tadevosian/Alamy Stock Photo)

    • Fixed broadband networks providing speeds of at least 1 Gbit/s download and 150 Mbit/s upload will be eligible for state aid under new rules being drawn up by the EU, Reuters reports. Similar aid for mobile networks will also be permitted, adds the report, but only to improve the quality of existing or planned mobile networks.

    • EXA Infrastructure is adding a second terrestrial transport route between Spain and Portugal connecting to EXA's Spanish backbone. The new northern route will serve increasing customer demand across the Iberian peninsula connecting to data center hubs across Europe, says EXA.

    • MTN, in partnership with the 2Africa consortium, has landed the 45,000km 2Africa cable in South Africa's Western Cape to strengthen connectivity in the region. Due to go live in 2023, it's the first of six planning cable landings across five African countries. MTN's aim is to roll out 135,000km of proprietary fiber by 2025.

    • Equinix announced plans to enter the South African market with a $160 million data center investment in Johannesburg, adding to its existing footprint in Africa that covers Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. The facility is expected to open in mid-2024.

    • BT hopes that its collaboration with satellite connectivity provider OneWeb will see it conduct field trials next year with a couple of its business customers, one of them a multinational with operations in some of the most difficult to reach places in the world. In a blog, Professor Tim Whitley, BT's managing director of applied research, said that the capacity offered by OneWeb's satellite constellation "isn't yet ready for mass market adoption" so his company was taking a "business customers first, households to follow" approach. Last week OneWeb sent another 40 satellites into space courtesy of one of Elon Musk's SpaceX rockets. (See BT and OneWeb ink a shiny satellite broadband deal.)

    • Cellnex, Ericsson, Proximus, Telefónica, SSE, Tele2, Telekom Austria and Vodafone are among the 283 companies who made it onto 2022's climate change "A List" compiled by CDP, which claims to hold the largest environmental database in the world and issues its list every year.

    • UK altnet Giganet has committed to paying the Real Living Wage to its lowest-paid employees, raising salaries across its customer service teams and junior roles.

      — 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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