Tag: Telecoms

Europe’s space chief confirms rocket rival to Musk’s SpaceX won’t launch this year – POLITICO

admin

The maiden launch of the European Space Agency’s next generation Ariane 6 rocket system now definitely won’t happen until 2024 at the earliest, the agency’s Director General Josef Aschbacher said Tuesday.

Aschbacher said that the ESA, French space agency CNES and rocket developers Arianespace and Ariane Group “confirm that the inaugural launch is now targeted for 2024.”

As earlier reported by POLITICO, the ESA had wanted to get the heavy launcher system ready for use this year, with full commercial

… Read more

France’s Mr. Privacy turns cybersnooper – POLITICO

admin

Press play to listen to this article

Voiced by artificial intelligence.

This story is part of the series Leaked: The Altrnativ world of cybersurveillance. Read the rest.

PARIS — Eric Leandri was once the darling of France’s tech sector, lauded as a defender of digital privacy and a paragon of Europe’s ability to compete against Silicon Valley. 

Qwant — the search engine Leandri co-founded in 2011 — received more than €50 million in French and European public funding and

… Read more

The scramble to sell cyberweapons to dictators – POLITICO

admin

This story is part of the series Leaked: The Altrnativ world of cybersurveillance. Read the rest.

PARIS — As founder of the privacy-focused search engine Qwant, Eric Leandri was fond of citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The self-styled European tech champion has mentioned the landmark United Nations document in interviews at least a dozen times since 2017. 

“I love human rights,” Leandri said in September 2021, referring to the section in the declaration guaranteeing the right to

… Read more

How Washington chased Huawei out of Europe – POLITICO

admin

Press play to listen to this article

Voiced by artificial intelligence.

Huawei is giving up on Europe.

The Chinese telecoms giant is pushing out its pedigreed Western lobbyists, retrenching its European operations and putting its ambitions for global leadership on ice.

The reasons for doing this have little to do with the company’s commercial potential — Huawei is still able to offer cutting-edge technology at lower costs than its competitors — and everything to do with politics, according to interviews

… Read more

BROKEN Telecoms: BT ist eine Telefonfirma, die anscheinend nicht ans Telefon gehen kann

admin

BT-Kunden, die die Helpline anrufen, müssen routinemäßig eine Dreiviertelstunde – oder länger – in der Warteschleife warten.

Dutzende haben sich in den sozialen Medien gemeldet, um ihrer Frustration Ausdruck zu verleihen, und Leser haben Money Mail kontaktiert, um sich zu beschweren.

Als wir am Montag kurz nach 16:00 Uhr versuchten, den Kundendienst von BT zu erreichen, hieß es in einer automatischen Nachricht, dass die Wartezeiten über 45 Minuten lagen. Es dauerte 50 Minuten, bis unser Anruf endlich entgegengenommen wurde.

In

… Read more

What you need to know (and worry about) – POLITICO

admin

Welcome back! After a scorching summer, Brussels people are trickling back into the office or, for many of you, the home office setup.

A word of warning: It’s going to be an intense rentrée.

From the war in Ukraine to spiking energy prices, EU officials will have their hands full keeping their policy agendas on track amid escalating geopolitical crises. The most obvious field to be disrupted is energy, as leaders scramble to fill up gas reserves and keep

… Read more

Big Tech vs. Big Telecoms – POLITICO

admin

Zwei der mächtigsten Lobby-Maschinen Brüssels – Big Telecoms und Big Tech – bereiten sich darauf vor, gegeneinander anzutreten.

Auf der einen Seite stehen die Giganten der Telekom-Fachverbände: die European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) und die GSMA, die unter ihnen eine Reihe von Verbänden vertreten Anbieter wie Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica und Vodafone.

Sie argumentieren, dass Plattformdienste – insbesondere solche mit hoher Bandbreite wie YouTube, Netflix und Amazon Prime von Google – zu lange vom Ausbau der Fest- und Mobilfunknetze

… Read more

The murky world of undercover EU lobbying – POLITICO

admin


Press play to listen to this article

At first glance, EU Reporter looks like just another media outlet reporting from Brussels on the European Union.

The website publishes articles about the European Commission’s latest proposals. It offers analysis of global events, like last month’s United Nations report on climate change. It provides almost daily updates on the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the company’s promotional material tells a different story.

In a glitzy YouTube video with Queen’s “A Kind of Magic” as

… Read more

The Portuguese presidency’s policy efforts, marked – POLITICO

admin


Press play to listen to this article

Portugal’s presidency of the Council of the EU started with empty press centers, fresh Brexit headaches and a slew of problematic policy fights that had been prolonged by the pandemic.

As the six-month stint closes Wednesday, the country was celebrating a mega-deal on the bloc’s agricultural subsidies, a coronavirus vaccine travel passport coming July 1 and agreements on a host of other tricky issues. 

The easing of pandemic restrictions lent a helping hand,

… Read more