Tech

Apple, advertising giant GroupM, and others asked the judge hearing the US Justice Department’s lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google on Friday to allow them to designate certain data used by the government as “highly confidential,” to ensure that no-one from Google could see it. The US Justice Department, which sued the search and advertising giant in

As previously rumoured, the European Commission has decided to stay out of the Virgin Media merger with O2 UK on the grounds that it’s none of its business. It was always a straightforward matter. The proposed merger has no competition implications whatsoever for the European Union, therefore the European Commission has no jurisdiction to approve

Ofcom is pretty pleased with the progress Openreach has made in separating itself from parent company BT but is still receiving complaints from some altnets. The UK regulator has published its annual report that monitors Openreach’s independence from BT, something it has been doing since 2017, when the incumbent made a series of voluntary commitments

Lenovo has teased the launch of its new series that appears to take on the new Redmi Note 9 smartphones that Xiaomi is launching in China on November 26. The Chinese company has released a teaser image on Weibo that aims to take a dig at Redmi. Lenovo is speculated to bring its Lemon series

After a decade of false starts Rich Communications Service has hit the mainstream with Google making it available to all Android users. RCS is effectively SMS on steroids, which brings it closer to the kind of functionality we’ve come to expect from OTT messaging apps such as WhatsApp. In fact, one of the things it

Altice USA will not continue to pursue an acquisition of Canada’s Cogeco, having failed to win over its major shareholder before its  C$11.1 billion (US$8.4 billion) offer expired. The revelation will come as no surprise to anyone following the saga. The Audet family were clear and firm in their rejection of the unsolicited bid; they

Canada’s opposition on Wednesday called on Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to get tougher on China, including by officially banning Huawei’s 5G technology from being used in the country. Opposition parties passed a non-binding motion put forward by the Conservatives calling China a threat to Canadian interests and values, and urging the government to

Meandering US telco group Verizon has finally got rid of a media property it was always ill-suited to own. HuffPost was the flagship property in Verizon’s $4.4 billion acquisition of antiquated internet company AOL five years ago. It was a bit of a head-scratcher at the time, with Verizon having no proven competence in the

The Federal Communications Commission has set out new rules to repurpose a chunk of the 5.9 GHz spectrum band for wifi. Commissioner Michael O’Rielly declared himself “extremely pleased – bordering on ecstatic” that the regulator has taken action on a spectrum band that has been underused to date. “Many, many years ago, Commissioner Rosenworcel and

iPhone 12 Pro Max has been subjected to a teardown by YouTuber Zack Nelson aka JerryRigEverything, offering a peek at what the internals are like. He specifically showed what the new sensor shift image stabilisation on the iPhone 12 Pro Max looks like. Apple says that this new technique can stabilise an image at over

SFR FTTH is overcharging Bouygues Telecom for access to its fibre-to-the-home infrastructure, Arcep has ruled. The French regulator upheld complaints from Bouygues Telecom dating back to the start of the year. In a nutshell, SFR FTTH raised its prices for last-drop access in rural areas and Bouygues Telecom was deeply unhappy about it. It’s a

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Martin Morgan, VP Marketing of Openet, an Amdocs company, reflects on the findings of the 2020 Telecoms.com annual industry survey (AIS) and looks forward to lucrative new network-centric services for operators arriving in 2021. Most global

Citizen has launched CZ Smart as the Japanese firm’s first smartwatch. It has been launched in the US and features a round display with three physical buttons on the right side. The case is made from stainless steel and the wearable comes in a single size. You get three dial colour options, one of which

Gadget giant Apple takes 30% of everything spent on its app store, but it’s halving that rate for anyone who earns let than $1 million per year. Inevitably Apple is positioning this as a piece of philanthropy so generous it brings a tear to the eye. “Small businesses are the backbone of our global economy

Börje Ekholm, CEO of Swedish kit vendor Ericsson, has spoken out against Sweden’s decision to ban Chinese vendors from being used in the country’s 5G networks. Ekholm expressed his counter-intuitive position during an interview with the FT. His main problem seems to be with Sweden’s decision to deviate from the EU toolbox, which recommends member

Apple has brought the first developer release of macOS Big Sur 11.1 beta less than a week after launching the latest operating system to the public. The new beta update is expected to come with some bug fixes and performance enhancements. In addition to the new macOS Big Sur update, Apple has released the iOS

Somewhat surprisingly it looks like the European Union is going to do the right thing and stay out of a merger between two UK companies. Normally the European Commission, or one of the countless other state appendages that sprout from the EU blob, would be all over something like the proposed merger between O2 UK

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically reduced the premium consumers are willing to pay for 5G services, according to Ericsson. Consumers are now willing to pay a 10% premium for a 5G plan bundled with digital services, a new survey conducted by Ericsson this summer and designed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on 5G adoption,