Eurobites: BT admits 11,470 emergency calls were missed in systems failure

UK incumbent operator BT has revealed that 11,470 emergency calls failed to connect last Sunday due to its systems failure, acknowledging the level of disruption to the 999 service "has never been seen before" and admitting that the company "fell short of [its] own high standards." The problems started early on Sunday morning with one of its three primary network clusters malfunctioning, though it was unclear which one. A decision to move to a backup system then backfired as the transfer process to the backup system could not initially be completed. Things did not back to normal until 9.29 p.m. (UK time) on Sunday evening. BT added: "We are putting in place a comprehensive improvement plan to prevent this series of events reoccurring. We will also provide a detailed technical and procedural review of the events on Sunday to the relevant Government departments and the emergency services; and we will be cooperating fully with [regulator] Ofcom's investigation."

OneWeb and Eutelsat have teamed up with Momentum, a provider of enterprise connectivity in remote areas of North and South America, to offer communications services to oil and gas projects across Canada and the US. Integrating satellites services from Eutelsat and OneWeb, Momentum will, it says, provide high-speed, low-latency services with quick setup and development, support structures and services in place on the backend. OneWeb is co-owned by the UK government and Bharti Global, while Eutelsat has its headquarters in Paris.

New research from Omdia reveals that YouTube, TikTok and Twitch are the most popular online video platforms with the under-25 age group in Spain. The research also challenges the myth that Gen Z-ers don't watch traditional, linear (terrestrial or DTH) TV, with this category grabbing the second-largest share of Omdia's viewing figures for this age group.

Telekom Austria's board has approved the spinoff of the operator's tower business. The new company will be named EuroTeleSites AG and will be listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange before the end of 2023. Ivo Ivanovski has been named as CEO.

The UK's secondary legislatory chamber, the House of Lords, has made several amendments to the government's Online Safety Bill, bolstering proposed rules to prevent children from viewing harmful material online, including the holding of social media platforms and others to a new, higher standard of age verification. The amendments will also enable Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, to obtain information on a child's social media use if it is requested by a coroner in a case of suicide thought to have been prompted at least in part by online activity.

More than 150 executives from some of Europe's largest companies have written an open letter to the EU warning that that its draft AI legislation could jeopardize Europe's competitiveness and "technological sovereignty," the Financial Times reports (paywall applies). Responding to the letter, Dragoș Tudorache, an MEP who has been heavily involved with the drafting of the Artificial Intelligence Act, said that the signatories to the letter had failed to read the text of the draft regulation properly, adding that "it is a pity that the aggressive lobby of a few are capturing other serious companies."