Ukrainian and European telcos extended a pact giving refugees connectivity while they live in EU countries. The voluntary agreement allows over 4 million people to access roaming without surcharges and affordable international calls, the European Commission said. Telcos agreed to extend the plan for six months, broaden it to cover calls to fixed line numbers in Ukraine and ensure sustainable inter-operator prices. Seven Ukrainian and 20 European operators signed the joint statement, which is open to all telcos "willing to sign in an expression of solidarity with the people of Ukraine." Separately, European Council President Charles Michel, EC President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted in a Feb. 3 statement that the EU "reconfirmed its solidarity with Ukraine in countering hybrid threats and cyberattacks" and "acknowledged the importance of strengthening cooperation in tackling Russian state-controlled information manipulation and interference, including disinformation, as well as building resilience in Ukraine's digital transformation."

The Biden administration shouldn’t block U.S. companies from providing supplies to China’s Huawei by tightening export controls, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said Tuesday. Various news outlets, citing unnamed sources, report the administration is considering that. The White House didn't comment. “The administration’s ongoing efforts to bolster U.S. technology competitiveness have been commendable, but fully cutting off Huawei from U.S. suppliers would likely have the opposite effect,” said Stephen Ezell, ITIF vice president-global innovation policy. “Huawei technologies are already banned from U.S. telecommunications networks, which undercuts the national security rationale for cutting it off” and “there is a strong economic rationale not to cut off Huawei,” he said. China is a critical market for U.S. technology vendors, accounting for 36% of U.S. semiconductor sales as recently as 2019, Ezell said: “Every dollar a U.S. technology company earns in the Chinese market is one that Chinese competitors don’t earn, so banning exports to Huawei helps Chinese technology suppliers and hurts their U.S. counterparts.”

Nokia expects its mobile business to drive growth this year, CEO Pekka Lundmark said Thursday as the company released Q4 results. Nokia’s mobile business unit had 3% growth over last year, though operating margins declined. “As we look into 2023, even as some developed markets, like North America, mature, other markets, like India, are just starting to ramp up,” Lundmark said during an investor presentation: “We see the addressable markets for mobile networks continuing to grow. With the recent deals won, we believe we are in a strong position to outperform the market.”

GSMA expects about 80,000 to attend the Mobile World Congress, which starts Feb. 27 in Barcelona, with more than 2,000 exhibitors and sponsors, officials said Thursday during a virtual news conference. That’s up from about 61,000 last year. Top officials with U.S. carriers aren't among the keynote speakers posted by GSMA.

UPM Telecom expects to file by mid-February at the FCC a Communications Act Section 208 complaint, summarizing its counterclaims against Digicel Haiti, said a joint status report Tuesday (docket 3:15-cv-00185) at the U.S. District Court for Oregon in Portland. The court stayed UPM's counterclaims for FCC review in October as Digicel’s fraud case against UPM progressed to a jury trial. Central to UPM’s counterclaims for the FCC to determine, say court papers, is whether Digicel, as a foreign telecommunications carrier, offered a common-carrier service to UPM that was subject to provisions of the Communications Act. If so, say the court papers, the FCC needs to determine whether Digicel’s termination of that service due to fraud constitutes an unjust and unreasonable practice and amounts to unreasonable discrimination under the statute. Digicel’s answer to UPM’s complaint will be due 30 days after filing, and UPM’s reply will be due 10 days after that, said the joint status report. An eight-member jury, deliberating for a day after a six-day trial, awarded Digicel $3.6 million in damages in November after finding UPM liable for running a “bypass” scheme that defrauded the Haitian mobile communications network provider and deprived it of the proper termination fees (see 2211220049).

China Telecom Americas urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit not to unseal parts of a decision last year by the court upholding the FCC's revocation of the company’s domestic and international authorities (see 2111150025). “Certain specific portions of the Opinion would harm China Telecom Americas if made public and should remain under seal,” said a filing Friday in docket 21-1233. “If now unsealed, the Opinion would reveal confidential and sensitive information that would cause China Telecom Americas significant harm to its business interests, and would not serve the public interest,” the company said. The U.S. government disagreed. “The Government sees no compelling reason why the Court’s opinion in this case should not be unsealed,” the U.S. said, also Friday. “While some of the statements at issue derive in part from information that China Telecom requested to keep confidential in its FCC filings, and that the FCC then treated as confidential at the company’s request, the Government at this time sees no compelling reason why any of the statements identified by China Telecom need to be redacted from the Court’s opinion,” the government said.

There's still little transparency on “the amount, type, location, and share of 4G and 5G Chinese equipment in European networks,” and only 11 of 31 European countries don’t rely on Chinese gear, Strand Consult said in a new report. Germany, Italy, Poland and Austria have 50% of European mobile customers and are “heavily dependent on Chinese equipment, creating risk for their own nations and others which use their networks,” Strand said: “In 2020, 57% of Germany’s 4G RAN came from Chinese vendors. In 2022, 59% of the 5G RAN in Germany comes from Chinese vendors. Huawei enjoys a higher market share in Berlin than in Beijing.”

A draft item circulated to FCC commissioners last week appears to be the anticipated order creating the FCC’s Space Bureau (see 2211030032). The draft order, titled “Establishment of the Space Bureau and the Office of International Affairs and Reorganization of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Office of the Managing Director" was circulated Dec. 6, but an FCC spokesperson declined to say whether it had received any votes. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said creating the bureau would involve reorganizing the International Bureau to create a Space Bureau to handle satellite issues and a separate Office of International Affairs for the other operations formerly handled by the IB. The order is expected to get bipartisan support (see 2211090061).

Artificial intelligence systems should be safe and respect human rights, EU telecom ministers said Tuesday, agreeing on a negotiating stance on the proposed EU Artificial Intelligence Act. Among other things, the European Council narrowed the original European Commission definition of an AI system to those developed through machine learning approaches and logic- and knowledge-based approaches to distinguish them from simpler software systems. It extended the prohibition against using AI for social scoring to private actors and broadened the bar against using AI to exploit vulnerable people to those who are vulnerable due to their social or economic situation. The council also clarified when law enforcement agencies should, in exceptional cases, be allowed to use real-time remote biometric identification systems in public spaces; and added protections to ensure high-risk AI systems aren't likely to cause serious fundamental rights breaches. A new provision addressed situations where AI can be used for many different purposes (general purpose AI) and where such AI technology is then integrated into another high-risk system. The council version explicitly excluded national security, defense and military purposes from the scope, as well as AI used solely for research and development. It also set more proportionate caps on fines for small and mid-sized businesses and start-ups. The legislation needs approval from the council and the European Parliament, whose negotiating stance hasn't been finalized. The negotiating document sparked criticism from a consumer group and a member of the European Parliament. The European Consumer Organisation said ministers "reached a disappointing position for consumers" by leaving too many key issues unaddressed, such as facial recognition by private companies in publicly accessible places, and by watering down provisions about which systems would be classified as high risk. It urged EU lawmakers to stand up for consumers. One legislator, Patrick Breyer of the Greens/European Free Alliance and Germany, agreed. The Council approach is "extremely weak" on the use of AI for mass surveillance purposes, he emailed: "With error rates (false positives) of up to 99%, ineffective facial surveillance technology [bears] no resemblance to the targeted search that governments are trying to present to us."

EU governments approved stronger cybersecurity rules Monday. Once the revised network and information security directive (NIS2) takes effect, EU members will have 21 months to enact it into national law, the European Council said. NIS2 will "set the baseline for cybersecurity risk management measures and reporting obligations across all sectors that are covered by the directive, such as energy, transport, health and digital infrastructure." It will apply to providers of public electronic communications services, digital services and domain name system services (see 2103220038). It will harmonize cybersecurity requirements and the way they're implemented in different countries. Under the original directive, it was up to governments to determine which entities met the criteria to qualify as essential services subject to the rules, but NIS2 introduces a size-cap rule. It also adds additional provisions "to ensure proportionality, a higher level of risk management and clear-cut criticality criteria" to allow national authorities to determine if other entities should be covered. NIS2 won backing from the European Parliament Nov. 10.