This week saw infrastructure vendors Huawei and Nokia Siemens announce plans to wind down their operations in Iran, the European Commission propose radical changes to data laws, and the UK top the charts for mobile commerce.

 

Huawei sparked the rush on Iran, revealing it won’t be seeking any new customers in the country and will limit its involvement with those is already has in light of what it calls an “increasingly complex situation,” in the market.

 

The move comes a month after the firm denied supplying equipment to local operator MTN Irancell that allows authorities to censor online news.

 

Nokia Siemens quickly followed suit, announcing it will wind down its business in Iran in a letter sent to local staff. The decision comes roughly a year after NSN decided not to take on any new customers in the country following accusations its kit was used to track anti-government protestors.

 

Iran isn’t the only business NSN is backing away from, with the firm announcing the sale of a second business unit as part of a restructure to focus on mobile broadband infrastructure.

 

The vendor agreed to sell its fixed line broadband access division to ADTRAN in a deal covering intellectual property, technology, customers and around 400 R&D and sales staff.

 

Censorship, or rather a lack of it, was the talk of the town at the European Commission this week, with digital agenda vice president Neelie Kroes outlining a radical shake up of data protection laws.

 

The Open Data package aims to make it easier to access public and cultural information by removing the need for authorization before data is utilized, and cutting the cost of buying the information. Kroes hopes the scheme will increase the opportunities for groups that typically rely on such information, including entrepreneurs, journalists and academics.