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Starlink satellite technology could get innocent Ukranians killed, warns security expert

Nick Booth
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Starlink satellite technology could get innocent Ukranians killed, warns security expert

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has warned that extending his Starlink satellite broadband service to Ukraine could have unintended consequences. Musk has issued a warning that there is a high risk that Starlink’s satellite’s could be taken out over Ukraine.

“Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution,” Musk tweeted. “Turn on Starlink only when needed and place antenna away as far away from people as possible,” Musk said.  He advised telco staff to: “place light camouflage over antenna to avoid visual detection.”

Internet security researcher John Scott-Railton has warned that the gesture could get innocent people killed because devices used for satellite communications are potential ‘beacons’ that Russia could target for airstrikes. Starlink was activated in Ukraine on Saturday, after a Ukraine government official asked Musk to provide the invaded country with Starlink stations in response to the Russian aggression. SpaceX has since sent more terminals to the country. On Monday, Ukraine said it had received the donated internet terminals.

In February John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab project warned that any satellite could become a Russian target. He warned that Musk’s good intentions may get people killed unless they are aware of the unintended risks the technology can create. In a series of tweets Scott-Railton outlined Russia’s satellite neutralising expertise. 

“If well-meaning people rush an untested-in-war new tech into an active conflict zone like Ukraine and promote it as safer, they may get people killed,” saidScott-Railton. “Russia has big electronic ears. Encryption doesn’t prevent geolocation based on radio emissions. A smartphone or satcom user can be on an encrypted call, using a virtual private network, correctly believing that nobody is listening to them, right up until the instant they are nabbed.”

“If #Putin controls the air above #Ukraine, users’ uplink transmissions become beacons for airstrikes,” Scott-Railton tweeted, “Russia has decades of experience hitting people by targeting their satellite communications.”

In 1996, though Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev was careful Russian aircraft reportedly found his satellite phone call and killed him with a missile strike, Scott-Railton revealed. In Syria, ISIS reportedly devised tactics to avoid being killed by strikes against their satellite internet terminals, such as distancing their dishes from their installations and covertly taking a connection from a civilian internet cafes’ very small aperture terminals (VSATs). 

War correspondents in Ukraine, who will probably have ‘the usual clutch’ of satellite phones and broadband global are network devices (BGANs) with them, could be a target for assassination, Scott-Railton mooted. Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times of London and French photographer Rémi Ochlik were killed, in Homs, Syria, at a location that reportedly say was pinpointed through their satellite phones. 

Scott-Railton has released a white paper in a bid to avert more tragedies. “I see a familiar mistake looming. Again,” said Scott-Railton.

If you want the 5G express it’s the TelcoDR way or the Huawei – MWC report

Nick Booth
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If you want the 5G express it’s the TelcoDR way or the Huawei – MWC report

Mobile World Congress 2022 had many themes but 5G dominated and the two most compelling presentations highlighted the bold choices facing mobile operators.

They suggest that if mobile operators want to get to the full 5G quickly, they must let someone else steer the vehicle. Chinese comms kit maker Huawei presented the case for mobile operators to get up to scale with hardware. By contrast, Texas-based TelcoDR presented the nightmare scenario of not selecting its option, the telco public cloud.

Huawei to disagree with the telco cloud?

Huawei unveiled a range of new 5G products and services focusing on industrial applications and sustainability. For Huawei’s rotating chair Guo Ping the world’s ‘hottest topics’ are digitisation and carbon neutrality. “We will continue our globalisation strategy, in standards, talent, supply chain and more,” said Ping.

Security challenged vendor

The security-challenged Chinese state vendor has signed more than 3,000 commercial contracts for 5G applications, which is a 100 per cent rise from 2020. Huawei also unveiled its latest wireless comms systems, introducing the latest inventions in the third generation of time division multiplexor technology which gets an even better performance out of massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) and FDD ultra-wideband multi-antenna products.

Huawei tech can triple the bandwidth of a 5G network

Huawei’s new massive MIMO products include the third-generation MetaAAU and BladeAAU series that double the antenna elements of its previous generation from 192 to 384. Huawei is the first in the industry to have achieved this, it claimed. New FDD products include the 4T4R RRU and the ultra-wideband 8T8R, which can triple the capacity of a 5G network.

IntelligentRAN nixed by the intelligence ban

Huawei’s new IntelligentRAN is designed to bring intelligence to almost all aspects of a wireless network. Sadly, none of this technology is relevant to European mobile operators, but they could be used in the Middle East and Africa, where Huawei is not considered a liability. In Europe most vendors have questions about what Huawei does with the intelligence it gathers.

Also seeking global dominance is TelcoDR, which advocates use of the public cloud to scale up. It is making converts among non-believers like Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase who is now convinced that the cloud goes ten times round the globe while hardware is still getting its bootstraps on, according to Royston.

DIY RANs come in for a Royston

“[Dimon] started out thinking the public cloud was just about outsourcing,” said Danielle Royston, CEO of TelcoDR, in the “Cloud is Now” presentation at MWC. Dimon had questioned the logic of moving to the cloud after he’d built his own data centre capacity, but on his latest earnings call, he made it clear that he was a cloud convert. “He said if he could spend two billion to get to the cloud tomorrow, he would do it in a heartbeat,” said Royston.

If telcos use the next 10 years to adopt the public cloud, change their culture and fix their net promoter score, they will be the future of the digital consumer, Royston said. Over 40 telco strategy officers are consulting with TelcoDR about moving to the public cloud, Royston claims.

Telco Cloudy with a chance of RAN

While operators ask themselves how to get more revenue they can’t start setting their services because every telco has a massive house clearance to perform. 

“Inside a telco, there are thousands of legacy applications, running on-premise, loaded with tons of technical debt. It’s a heavily customised, heavily integrated, rat’s nest of crap,“ said Royston, adding, “Yeah, I said it – it’s a mess!”

Telco are slowed by three major problems, Royston told the audience. “Your systems are outdated, built on a tech stack from the 90s. Your data is messy, with different databases and data models. And your employees don’t know how to use the public cloud,” said Royston.

Software vendors give telcos bad customer experience

The problem with building systems with Open RAN components is that telcos have “ridiculously bad experiences with telco software vendors”. By contrast, cloud service can model tariffs in hours, finish charging pilots in weeks and go live in 60 days, Royston told Mobile Europe: “It’s an unparalleled experience for telcos when they are used to running in molasses. With the cloud telcos don’t have pay millions up front and can just start experimenting with the software.”

However, Royston identified a new problem within telcos, a form of Stockholm Syndrome: “The software vendors are bad but telcos put up with a bad experience because they’ve never known it any other way,” Royston said later, on Twitter. In a tweet, Royston announced TelcoDR’s sales team had signed 10 new deals and set up three new pilot projects from 100 meetings.

UK Competition and Market Authority tells Cellnex to sell towers

Nick Booth
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UK Competition and Market Authority tells Cellnex to sell towers

The UK government has announced that infrastructure supplier Cellnex must sell over 1,000 telecoms tower sites to assuage competition concerns over its recent purchase of CK Hutchison’s UK towers. The decision was made by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after a Phase 2 investigation into the proposed deal.

Cellnex operates in several European countries and CK Hutchison is a multinational conglomerate that currently owns and operates the Three mobile network in the UK. The proposed deal, in which Cellnex has agreed to buy CK Hutchison’s UK passive infrastructure assets, forms part of a broader set of transactions – worth £8.6bn (€10bn) in total – involving assets in several European countries. 

CMA conducted in depth investigation

The CMA launched an inquiry into the proposed deal in May 2021 and it was referred for an in-depth investigation by an independent Inquiry Group in July. “Towers, masts and the sites they are built on, though passive infrastructure, are assets that mobile network operators and other wireless communication network providers attach electronic equipment to in order to operate their networks,” said the CMA statement.

Tower site sale will address concerns in telecoms mergers says CMA

In keeping with its provisional findings issued in December 2021, the CMA has found that the sale of the CK Hutchison business to Cellnex would prevent the emergence of an important alternative competitor in the supply of passive infrastructure, leaving mobile networks facing higher prices and more onerous contracts in future contract negotiations. This, in turn, could result in higher prices or lower quality services for users of mobile networks across the UK over a period of time.

Who wants to buy a thousand towers?

In order to address these concerns, Cellnex proposed the sale of all of its existing sites that geographically overlap with the CK Hutchison assets it has agreed to buy. This would result in a package of over 1,000 passive infrastructure sites being sold to a purchaser approved by the CMA.

Having assessed this remedy in detail, the Inquiry Group concluded that it would effectively address the competition concerns identified by the investigation, meaning the merger could proceed.

Will this stop the threat of higher prices?

Richard Feasey, Chair of the independent Inquiry Group said the decision will help to protect the competition in infrastructure that mobile phone operators rely on. “The sale of this significant package of assets will allow a major supplier to compete against Cellnex when mobile networks look to negotiate new contracts in future,” said Feasey, “This, in turn, stops the threat of higher prices or worse terms for the operators and their customers as a result of this deal.”

O2 Telefónica installs Open RAN small cells and Matrixx for big sales

Nick Booth
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O2 Telefónica installs Open RAN small cells and Matrixx for big sales

O2 Telefónica (AKA Telefonica Deutschland) and NEC Corporation have created Germany’s first Open and virtual RAN small cells in one of Munich’s most influential business districts. Meanwhile, the German mobile operator has also broken new ground with 5G monetising specialist Matrixx Software, which is using Google Cloud Confidential Computing to help it get a return on its infrastructure investments.

The new small cell installation means that Bavarians in Munich’s trendy Glockenbachviertel are getting customer experiences from a technology that’s even younger and hipper than them. By increasing the capacity of the network they have improved the user’s experience in this dense urban area by the river Ivar.

NEC integrated a diversity of vendors, with Airspan Networks’ Airspeed plug-and-play system talking to Rakuten Symphony’s Open vRAN software for O2 small cells to complement and the metropolitan macro cells created by a network of multiple manufacturers. 

The combination of Open RAN small cells and macro cells will help 5G to create a close-knit community of comms kit from manufacturers that hail from all parts of the world, according to Matthias Sauder, director of mobile access and transport at Telefonica Deutschland.

“Small cells built on Open RAN help to complete the delivery of granular, high-quality connectivity in dense urban areas,” said Sauder, ”NEC became our partner with its underlying technological background and experiences of Open RAN technologies.”

O2 Telefónica has also launched B2B services run by 5G monetising specialist Matrixx Software, which is using Google Cloud Confidential Computing in respect of the high standards for security and data privacy demanded in Germany. 

O2 Telefónica is the first to run Matrixx’s Converged Charging System on Google Cloud’s Confidential Computing. O2 Telefónica’s first attempts to commercialise 5G with this technology will be a new digital commerce platform for its digital B2B office systems, followed by an all-IP fixed network, a software defined wide area network and some unspecified 5G systems.

“We are on a mission to better serve Germany’s dynamic and fast-moving enterprise market,” said Mallik Rao, the CTIO at O2 Telefónica. “The flexibility of Matrixx and the scalability and privacy of Google Cloud [will provide] our B2B customers with unmatched confidentiality delivered by a highly configurable charging product running on a massively scalable public cloud platform.”

O2 Telefónica’s new B2B service aims to connect with value-chain partners and personalise the offering for customers. Matrixx on Google Cloud was the option for achieving that objective, according to Rao. By fully encrypting all data, O2 Telefónica’s partners can do a much better job of serving enterprise customers.

“O2 Telefónica has raised the bar on what’s possible for telco providers,” said Glo Gordon, CEO at Matrixx Software, “we’re honoured to support its technology transformation.”

“This new offering from O2 Telefónica will help German businesses more effectively,” said George Nazi, VP of telco, media, and entertainment industry solutions at Google Cloud. 

Mobile operator’s claims for 5G’s energy efficiency questionable says CREDS report

Nick Booth
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Mobile operator’s claims for 5G’s energy efficiency questionable says CREDS report

A new research paper from the UK-based Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) casts doubt on the energy efficiency of 5G.

It says the evidence behind vendor’s claims is tainted because they overlook inconvenient factors and fail to take everything into account in their skewed calculations.  

Mobile operators have used the message that 5G’s energy efficiency will help nations achieve net Zero emissions targets. An Ericsson sponsored McKinsey report in October claimed that the Internet of Things over 5G could save 170 megatons of CO2. Vodafone has made impressive claims about the healing power of its wind powered 5G base stations. The GSMA has issued reports that put full faith in the ability of artificial intelligence to cut emissions.

CREDS told Dan Robinson of The Register that the question over 5G’s ability lower energy consumption of mobile networks has been answered rather unscientifically, with few peer-reviewed assessments.  “There isn’t much disclosure of key assumptions that would enable scrutiny and comparison of claims regarding power usage,” reports Robinson.

“We have identified a number of potentially significant shortcomings of the evidence based on the energy use implications of 5G,” said Laurence Williams, a Research Fellow in Environmental Politics at the University of Sussex and one of the paper’s authors.

“The surprising lack of peer-reviewed, publicly available whole network-level assessments on the energy use implications of 5G, and patchy disclosure of the key data and assumptions of those studies that do exist, currently make it impossible to conclude with any confidence that 5G will reduce the energy consumption of mobile networks.”

While the energy efficiency of mobile networks has improved, each generation of mobile network data multiplies with extra-exponentially. Global monthly mobile data traffic will rise from 80 exabytes in 2021 to 370 exabytes by 20278, Ericsson has predicted. 

Williams has questioned the energy efficiency of networks to make data cheaper on a per-bit basis. If it’s economically viable for operators to extend mass unlimited data contracts over their uber-responsive low latency networks, that only encourages vendors to create more data-intensive services, and data consumption involves energy  consumption.

The study by CREDS also points out that many assessments of the energy usage of 5G have almost exclusively focused on the operational energy required to power the mobile networks and overlooked a massively significant variable, the  Embodied Energy – the power used in making semi-conductors, antennas and comms equipment, building masts, running fibre optic cables and then operating the infrastructure.

The embodied energy has been measured to account for 36 per cent of the total energy consumption of a base station over a 10-year lifetime, says the report. A more recent estimate puts a base station’s embodied emissions at up to 15 per cent of operational emission over a decade. A smartphone’s embodied energy score is even bigger, comprising 75 per cent of their average carbon footprint.

The CREDS report’s primary conclusion is that more research is needed. It calls for peer-reviewed assessments of the effects of 5G on the energy consumption of mobile networks with better disclosure of the key data and assumptions used.

It also recommends that embodied energy is included in assessments of overall energy use and that the potential for 5G to produce rebound effects must be noted.

Mobile network operators, phone makers and comms kit manufacturers should raise user awareness of their data/energy consumption choices. CREDS has also called on developers to factor energy saving considerations into the design of mobile applications.

Did Deutsche Telekom’s UK partner run a 5G network from the stratosphere on a Strategic Platform? Per HAPS

Nick Booth
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Did Deutsche Telekom’s UK partner run a 5G network from the stratosphere on a Strategic Platform? Per HAPS

UK company Stratospheric Platforms Limited (SPL), a partner of German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom (DT), ran a successful test 5G network from space on February 5th.

This was the world’s first demonstration of the High-Altitude Platform System (HAPS) using aircraft to extend a 5G service, covering a geographical area of 450 km2.

Saudi Arabia’s digital regulator CITC ran the trial and its governor Dr Mohammed Al-Tamimi praised this ‘great accomplishment for Saudi Arabia’s ICT sector’. “The deployment of HAPS in the Kingdom has been made possible by an enabling ICT ecosystem and strong government support. This puts us at the technological frontier globally and takes us closer to our Vision 2030 goal of extending high-quality ICT access to every part of the country,” said Al-Tamimi.

HAPS are radio stations strapped to a craft that flies or floats in the stratospheric layer. SPL used a German-made, long-endurance Grob aircraft for the Saudi trial.

While HAPS remains an emerging technology, it can potentially bring connectivity to areas that are not covered, or are only partially covered, by cellular networks.

The high altitude gives the broadcasting craft complete omniscience and the lack of obstructions to its view creates a clear and evenly distributed signal. This gives HAPS extra powers to deliver signals for the Internet of Things, emergency communications, disaster recovery, temporary coverage for events and tourist hotspots and terrestrial site backhaul.

“The success of the trial in Saudi Arabia’s western coast had many challenges,” said Richard Deakin, CEO of Stratospheric Platforms. “Now that the 5G HAPS technology has been proven, the question is one of further commercial development. This is why having a diverse consortium such as ours, which includes strong government support, is essential to the continued realization of the program.”

Telco progress in Saudi Arabia is driven by the country’s Vision 2030, a ‘whole-of-society’ programme designed for economic diversification.

Recent ICT initiatives include allocating more than 23 GHz of frequency spectrum for commercial and innovative uses, the launch of regulatory sandbox projects, open access for network operators. Saudi Arabia is the first country in EMEA to embrace the full-spectrum adoption of the WiFi-6e.Deutche Telekom partner

Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile launch T-IoT – a global IoT that doesn’t bill local

Nick Booth
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Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile launch T-IoT – a global IoT that doesn’t bill local

Deutsche Telekom (DT) and its subsidiary T-Mobile US have launched T-IoT, a springboard for global internet of things (IoT) connectivity. It solves the problem that global companies have with IOTs that are a jumble of management and billing systems, by integrating them into one manageable system.

The problem with global IoT is that the contracts and services attached to IoT jobs are inconsistent across the globe, explains the DT blog that announced the service. The new T-IOT management and support system gives enterprises one team and one systematic manager of every connection on the globe. The cross-borders service straddles 383 networks and reaches across 188 destinations worldwide.

“As America’s 5G leader, with the fastest, largest, and most reliable network, we’re writing the rules of the 5G era, and we’re doing it in favour of customers and businesses,” said Mike Katz, the president of the T-Mobile business group. “With T-IoT we’re poised to help businesses realise the true potential of IoT by completely disrupting the status quo of how it’s purchased and managed.”

Carriers make enterprises jump through hoops to manage IoT connectivity globally, says DT’s official blog. As a result, few enterprises have got value for money from the IoT or got the full performance. The valuable business insights the low operational costs and the magical customer experiences never materialised. 

The reason for the failure is that multinational IoT connections are created by enterprises cobbling together a patchwork of operator agreements, all with different contracts, service level agreements, management interfaces, and customer support, says DT.

Though 5G promises to take IoT to the next level, with cellular 5G IoT connections projected to make up 57 percent of all worldwide cellular IoT connections by 2025, a better computer can’t improve a bad business process – it just makes it more efficiently bad.

“If 5G creates low-latency, massive data use and connects a hundred times more devices than then enterprises have a huge opportunity to embrace new use cases and actionable data,” said DT. 

But the reality gap between the promise and delivery of 5G IoT will huge because managing all that connectivity and data is needlessly complex. 

The early pioneers global IoT might have millions of tracked assets moving across the globe. To stay connected to those assets, they have to negotiate numerous contracts with multiple network operators in different countries and regions, each with its own contract and service level agreements. Then, to view and manage those devices, they navigate a multitude of platforms from various operators. For every issue that arises, there are different customer care and support teams.  

Each carrier has its own payment model which makes it hard for businesses to effectively scale IoT across the globe. When 5G materialises as an IoT network, scaling will be even more difficult. But the problem must be cracked in order to deliver valuable use cases, analytics, data insights and a return-on-investment. 

DT and T-Mobile say they have solved the problem by tackling the way enterprises pay for IoT. An early pioneer was global health care provider Biotronik which monitors patient’s vital data using the I-IoT. If certain threshold values are exceeded, its medical team can react immediately. “This only works with an absolutely sound network that transmits the data reliably at all times” said Volker Lang, R&D VP at global healthcare brand Biotronik.  “We are active in 5,000 hospitals over 100 countries. The T-IoT infrastructure is indispensable for us.” 

There are four main elements of this T-IoT platform: omnipresent network connectivity, a single view, simple procurement and flexible pricing. One network, one view, one stop shop and one bill.

DT says can provide global connections that with technology to support nearly every possible IoT scenario there is, including NB-IoT, LTE-M, LTE and 5G. It has a single system that can manage global IoT connections across several platforms, including T-Mobile Control Center and the DT M2M Service Portal. 

A simple procurement process streamlines contract and billing, makes consistent global service level agreements and offers customer support. The Flexible pricing is a choice between a ‘pay-per-data’ model and three flat-rate unlimited connectivity packages (T-IoT Unlimited Base, T-IoT Unlimited Premium, and T-IoT Unlimited Pro) across the U.S. and Europe. There are also value added services to ensure connectivity for the lifetime of the device.

“One provider – one solution: that’s making it simple,” said Hagen Rickmann, Telekom Deutschland’s MD of business customers. “Industries like healthcare and automotive that depend on international supply chains can’t get a supply chain of service and assistance anywhere in the world. We’re able to do that now.”

Middle East mobile operators build region’s first Open RAN test lab in Abu Dhabi

Nick Booth
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Middle East mobile operators build region’s first Open RAN test lab in Abu Dhabi

Middle East operators have opened their first regional community lab for Open RAN development, reports Trade Arabia.

 The Abu Dhabi facility was created in collaboration with Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and Intel, following the signing of the Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) memorandum of understanding (MoU) last year. 

Two new operators Batelco and Omantel signed the memo, joining the e&, the telco formerly known as Etisalat Group, stc, Zain Group, Mobily and du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC). All are now committed to installing Open RAN.

The Middle East lab will provide a platform for the parties to jointly install open and disaggregated technologies into their networks to optimise the online experiences of businesses and consumers, said Bernhard Merwe, CTO at OmanTel, “It’s a clear opportunity to improve the way we work with vendors.” 

The lab will provide shared facilities and access to Intel technologies for members and vendors and it’s intended to act as a catalyst for Open RAN deployments. “Open network technologies like Open RAN provide a trusted avenue for new entrants in hardware and software to work with service providers,” said Hisham Alabdaly, stc’s gnereal manager for infrastructure design.

TIP helps mobile operators share industry knowledge to align and prioritise their technical requirements said Mohamed Al Marzooqi, VP of technology synergies at e&. “I’m delighted to see more operators from our region partnering with us in our efforts to position the Middle East as a global leader,” said Al Marzooqi.

Vish Mathur, the Telecom Infra Project’s head of engagement, said TIP and Intel play a key role in bringing together stakeholders from across the world.

Intel’s TIP board member Caroline Chan, who is also the VP of the network and edge group for her employer, said that collaboration at the new Abu Dhabi lab could speed the shift toward a software-defined infrastructure at the network edge. “A virtualised, Open RAN is an area of tremendous innovation, which can be further propelled by using Intel’s FlexRAN reference architecture with optimised software and hardware components,” said Chan, “The lab opens new possibilities to innovate 5G services that can accelerate the digital transformation in the Middle East.”

BICS CEO Matteo Gatta and Access Now call on telcos to back Ukraine against Russian aggression

Nick Booth
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BICS CEO Matteo Gatta and Access Now call on telcos to back Ukraine against Russian aggression

Europe’s government and its mobile operators are not doing enough to alleviate the suffering caused by their near neighbours and customers in Ukraine, according to a number of industry stakeholders.

Digital rights organisation Access Now and Brussels-based global comms bridging specialist BICS have both issued open letters calling on the EU and Europe’s mobile operators to use their leverage to help. 

Matteo Gatta, CEO of  BICS, says telcos can do more than just offer free phone calls. Gatta has appealed to telcos to be more pro-active in easing the suffering arising out of the war in Ukraine, through an open letter to European mobile operators.

“We must do everything we can to connect Ukrainian citizens with their loved ones, out of the country,” says Gatta’s letter. 

“I am urging EU mobile operators to remove all charges on voice calls coming out of Ukraine and terminating into their networks. BICS will play its role by carrying this traffic at no cost.

At the very least, European Mobile operators should bring their termination costs in line with MTR costs (mobile termination rates) for calls within the European Union, which will still allow Ukrainian operators to reduce the cost of these calls for their subscribers. Also in this case, BICS will play its role by carrying this traffic at no cost.”

The letter ends with a call for action from mobile operators: “Telecoms is critical infrastructure and being able to connect people with their loved ones has never been more important than it is now. I call for united action in this urgent time of need.” 

Meanwhile, digital citizen protector Access Now has appealed to the EU to do more, through an open letter to the EU.

In a statement, Access Now said the EU must do everything in its power to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people affected by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. It called on the EU to work with tech platforms and telecoms operators to uphold connectivity, access to accurate information, data protection and non-discrimination at the border.

“Russia has launched a full-scale war on Ukraine. The European Union must immediately use its full capacity to help keep people as safe, secure, and connected as possible,” said Natalia Krapiva, the Tech-Legal Counsel at Access Now. “We must empower people to access accurate information, protect the privacy of millions as they escape, keep those on the move connected to their loved ones and do everything possible to treat everyone fairly.”

Access Now has laid out four courses of actions it would like to see taken in support of people affected by the war on Ukraine. These involve connections, online platforms, data protection and non-discrimination.

The Connectivity act would involve asking telecom operators and internet providers to protect infrastructure, waive charges for all communications from and to Ukraine, lift SIM registration for anyone arriving in the EU territory from Ukraine and boosting network capacity.

The Online platform initiative involves keeping platforms and communications services available in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, continuing the demonetisation of ‘certain actors spreading disinformation’ and upholding the suspension of Russia Today, Sputnik and Russian state-sponsored propaganda actors from online platforms, including in Russia.

The data protection plan would ensure that the EU border agency welcomes people fleeing into the EU and abides by data protection rules. To this end it is calling on tech and telecoms companies to limit data collections of people leaving Ukraine. It also urges mobile operators not to comply with Russian data localisation requirements to avoid persecution of dissidents and journalists.

The four policy is non-discrimination at the border. This involves reversing actions that prevent people from accessing services, such as the freezing of assets, due to their nationality. It also calls for the borders to be open for all people leaving Ukraine, including third-country nationals and people of colour living and studying in Ukraine.

“In times of crises, people need to stay connected — to each other, and to life-saving information,” said Fanny Hidvegi, Europe Policy Director at Access Now. “Russia’s war on Ukraine is affecting millions of people, and the European Union has both the power and the responsibility to ensure the internet and all telecommunications are accessible for all. Decisions and interventions must come now.”

Samsung and Orange plan to save the planet by extending the life of the Galaxy 

Nick Booth
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Samsung and Orange plan to save the planet by extending the life of the Galaxy 

Samsung Electronics and Orange are working together to tackle the mounting e-waste crisis, tweak the user experiences of Galaxy phones and clear the way for industrial strength standalone 5G networks. 

Together, the companies are working to reduce the waste caused by the obsoletion of Samsung mobile devices distributed by Orange. The plan is based on extending the lifecycle of a typical product through an extension of Orange’s trade-in and collection programmes for Samsung devices. Orange will also add a Samsung Certified Refurbished device programme through its channels. 

They will then use the Eco-Rating method used by European mobile operators to evaluate the environmental impact of the Samsung Galaxy in its entire lifecycle from design to dumping. The Rating could shed light on how Samsung and Orange can make further improvements.

“This partnership will help us fulfil our circular economy ambitions,” said Philippe Lucas, Orange’s EVP of innovation devices and partnerships.

The Samsung-Orange agreement also covers the rollout of advanced 5G standalone (SA) services. There will be end-to-end testing of Samsung devices and key technologies like network slicing and voice over Orange’s 5G SA test networks. They will explore new use-cases made possible through 5G SA networks to provide services to industries and the entertainment sector.

Samsung and Orange are also working closer to bring a ‘connected experience powered by Samsung Galaxy devices to Orange customers. This multi-device approach will be deployed in Orange stores and online channels to support Orange’s multi-service strategy, delivering an immersive and seamless mobile experience to end users.

The Orange-Samsung pact say they will combine their product and technology assets to provide an upgraded digital activation. This means Samsung will run a SIM-based personalisation of its mobile devices for Orange customers on a single mobile software configuration. The ‘over-the-air personalisation service’ discovers key Orange applications on eligible Samsung Galaxy smartphones and painlessly installs them, regardless of where the customers bought their Galaxy phones.

Finally, Samsung and Orange will activate eSIMs on a wider range of Samsung devices connected to Orange networks. This will simplify their users’ experience and eliminate the use of plastic SIM cards across Oranges European customer base.

By simplifying the user experience, Samsung is improving the ‘customer journey, according to Bryan Choi, Samsung Electronic’s head of strategic marketing of mobile experience business. “We are pleased to strengthen our relationship with Orange,” said Choi.

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