Norwegian renews its partnership with Anuvu making it the first airline outside of North America that will launch Anuvu’s cutting-edge high-speed WiFi technology. The partnership will pave the way for stable, fast and reliable WiFi onboard that will improve Norwegian’s customer experience in the years to come.

Norwegian has chosen Anuvu to provide new, award-winning WiFi technology onboard its fleet of aircraft. Norwegian will be the first airline in Europe to implement this cutting-edge technology which will allow customers to browse, stream, upload and download from the internet at speeds up to twenty times faster than what is currently available. In addition, the technology has extra bandwidth, allowing ten times as many customers to access the internet simultaneously without impacting performance.

“We are very excited about this renewed partnership with Anuvu. We expect to be able to start rolling out the new solution within the next year, significantly improving the WiFi solutions we offer our customers. We are constantly working on developing and improving our services on board and having a seamless, stable WiFi experience in the air is critical to many of our customers – making it one of our most important priorities,” said Christoffer Sundby, Chief Marketing and Customer Officer at Norwegian.

In 2011, Norwegian was the first airline to offer WiFi on single-aisle aircraft in Europe.

Anuvu’s technology will be installed on Norwegian’s new aircraft deliveries in the years to come and will gradually be rolled out across the fleet. In addition to enhancing the customer’s Internet experience onboard, the new technology will allow the crew to deliver more onboard services by improving the information flow between the aircraft and airport operations.

Norway’s ComplAI, a compliance platform for business processes, has raised $1.7 million to further build out its cloud-based tool. 

The round was led by RunwayFBU, and includes Vestland Invest, DNV Venture, Kevin Bespolka, Göran Lindö, Gunnar Evensen and Magnus Valmot.

“The capital will help build the organisation, establish an online marketplace and marketing presence to scale up our footprint in the cosmetics industry, but also to get established in other industry verticals,” says ComplAI CEO Jørgen Kadal. 

ComplAI’s software provides collaboration across actors (auditors, asset owners, standard owners, consultants & stakeholders) giving access to compliance documentation, standards, reporting schemes and customisable requirement lists – reducing issues in supply chains and making simplifying the auditing process. 

“We help clients reduce the cost of interacting with their suppliers, external auditors and customers by moving them onto a common platform where they can engage with them in compliance and reporting processes across standards and reporting regimes,” says Kadal.

“The company solves real problems by digitalising highly manual business processes and within a short timeframe they have launched and onboarded global brands. We invest in teams with proven track records. Their deep industry knowledge combined with a large growing market the investment fits nicely to our investment strategy focusing on industrial software solutions with a global market potential,” says Tor Bækkelund, Managing Partner at RunwayFBU, an investment fund within the Aker Group.

Norwegian research team discovered on the continental shelf of the country’s significant reserves of metals and minerals, Reuters reported, citing a statement of the country’s authorities.

In areas of the Norwegian and Greenland seas, according to preliminary estimates, found deposits with 38 million tons of copper and 45 million tons of zinc. There are also found about 24 million tons of magnesium, 3.1 million tons of cobalt and 1.7 million tons of rare-earth metal cerium, which is used in alloys. In addition, deposits of rare-earth metals: neodymium, yttrium and dysprosium were found on the shelf.

Further research will be conducted on the shelf. They will have to show what amount of minerals can be extracted with minimal impact on the environment.

Norway’s Telenor Norge has confirmed the shutdown of its copper network.

The Norwegian telco revealed that it switched off the network at the end of last year, as planned.

The company confirmed the shutdown via a press release, also noting that the last voice call was made over the network on December 19, 2022.

Telenor first announced its ambitions to switch off its copper network in 2019, which at the time had just shy of 900,000 connections, according to Comms Update.

By the point of the shutdown, Telenor still had 37,000 customers using copper-based services, although these connections belong to alternative providers that have wholesale access to Telenor’s infrastructure.

Telenor is in the process of dismantling its copper network where it is no longer in use, with equipment in almost 4,500 locations.

Spanish telco Telefónica is on track to achieve its copper switch-off by 2024, while last year Isle of Wight fiber broadband provider WightFibre claimed to be the UK’s first provider to switch off its copper network. UK provider BT/OpenReach is planning a copper PSTN switch-off in 2025 and a full network switch-off by around 2030. Orange is planning to start switching off copper in 2023 and finish in 2030.

Norwegian energy company Equinor said Wednesday it made its first commercial natural gas discovery in its territorial waters for the year, a discovery that will extend the life of a current field by several years.

Equinor, along with state-owned Norwegian company Petoro and Germany’s Wintershall Dea, announced a natural gas discovery that’s estimated to holdbetween 2 billion and 11 cubic meters of recoverable reserves.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the nation’s energy regulator, confirmed the discovery in the northern waters of the Norwegian Sea near the existing Irpa field. Companies there were drilling a wildcat well in an effort to find reserves in unproven areas.

Grete Haaland, a senior vice president for exploration and production at Equinor, said the find supports broader, regional gas production efforts. The new find could be connected with the infrastructure at the Irpa field, which will be tied into the larger Aasta Hansteen complex and extend its life by seven years.

“Discoveries near existing infrastructure require less volume in order to be commercially developed, and can be quickly put on stream with low CO2 emissions,” Haaland said.

Norway is a main supplier of crude oil and natural gas to the European economy, a role that’s become even more important as Europe looks to secure resources from nations other than Russia. It also powers much of its own economy on renewable resources.

Torgeir Stordal, the general director at the NPD, said in early January that Norway has fortified itself as a long-term, predictable supplier to the European economy and productivity in 2023 should not disappoint.

The NPD has 13 new development plans to clear out and is expecting some $30 billion in investments in the sector. That could bring in even more oil and gas this year.

Much of what’s left offshore Norway is in the frigid waters of the Barents Sea, where the government sees a huge upside potential.

In December, Equinor said the first phase of operations at the Askeladd field was sending more natural gas to the Hammerfest liquefied natural gas plant on the island of Melkoya, just south of the Arctic Circle.

Hammerfest under normal conditions represents about 5% of total Norwegian natural gas exports, which is enough to satisfy the demand from about 6.5 million average European households.

ASX-listed explorer Kingsrose Mining has struck a deal with Scandinavian Resource Holdings and Global Energy Metals Corporation for the staged investment into the Råna nickel/copper/cobalt project, in Norway.

Under the terms of the agreement, Kingsrose could earn up to a 75% interest in the project by spending a total of A$15-million over an eight-year period on the brownfield project. The earn-in will happen over four stages.

“Råna is a very exciting nickel/copper/cobalt sulphide exploration project which complements Kingsrose’s growing critical metals portfolio in the Nordics,” said MD Fabian Baker.

“Exploration outside of the mine site is very immature, in that modern models of magmatic sulphide deposit formation and exploration techniques have not been applied. Kingsrose sees excellent potential for the discovery of additional high-grade massive sulphide bodies through exploration of the whole intrusive system, with a particular focus on basal and ‘offset’ styles of mineralisation which are common in these settings but have not been explored for historically.

“We have a focussed exploration programme planned to rapidly advance our understanding of the geology and generate targets for drilling later in 2023.”

Baker said that this transaction was testament to Kingsrose’s merger and acquisition strategy in a market where high-quality nickel sulphide projects are difficult to come by.

“Nickel is essential in the electrification required to achieve a low carbon future and Europe needs to secure a sustainable domestic supply. With additional funds from the sale of Way Linggo, Kingsrose looks forward to advancing Råna alongside Penikat and Porsanger while continuing the search for additional assets to support Europe’s green energy transition.”

Kingsrose was recently selected to participate in mining major BHP’s Xplor programme, and will receive up to $500 000 in cash payments from BHP, as well as access to a network of internal and external experts, to assist in exploration work in Finland and Norway.

A Bermudian-based network service provider has formed a strategic partnership with a Norwegian high-speed network operator to support the increased network demands stemming from the burgeoning data centre market in the Nordics.

Global Cloud Xchange, which powers global connectivity for new media providers, telecom carriers and enterprises, has partnered with Tampnet Carrier, an operator in the Nordic sector responsible for more than 30 per cent of the traffic between Norway, the UK and Europe

Through strategically located network interconnections, GCX and Tampnet provide ample seamless connectivity solutions to support the growing community of data centre customers throughout the Nordics and beyond.

The GCX and Tampnet partnership offers a simplified way to expand reach across each company’s network footprint.

Through the partnership, GCX customers now have access to enhanced route diversity and new network routes throughout the Nordics utilising Tampnet’s unique and diverse footprint which traverses eight countries, connecting over 40 core data centres across 12 markets throughout Europe and the United States.

In addition, Tampnet’s customers gain access to GCX’s global network which consists of 66,000 kilometres of cables spanning 46 countries from North America to Asia, with sub-sea and terrestrial route diversity and redundancy throughout Europe-Asia and Intra-Asia routes.

“The Nordics region is experiencing rapid data centre growth due to various shifts in the market, including the need for more energy efficient and sustainable facilities. We are excited to partner with Global Cloud Xchange to collaboratively support this growth and offer expanded route options to our customers through GCX’s robust global network,” says Cato Lammenes, vice president of Tampnet Carrier.

“All of Tampnet’s routes are based on our own dark fibre and allow us to offer the scalability our customers demand and satisfy their bandwidth and infrastructure needs in our region. Through this partnership, we will further boost our efforts in contributing to a carbon neutral future by offering greater route diversity to access key data centres and interconnection points in the Nordics.”

The companies said sub-sea networks are the backbone of connectivity and provide international interconnectivity solutions, further fuelling data centre growth around the world.

Both GCX and Tampnet are fostering a globally accessible ecosystem that further leverages each company’s sub-sea network assets, allowing customers to design, manage and connect their networks — seamlessly — throughout the world.

David Bruce, head of EU/US/APAC at Global Cloud Xchange, said: “We are seeing a shift in the market where mission critical businesses are looking to diversify their network and data centres away from the traditional FLAP-D [Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin] markets due to rising power costs and instabilities across the power grid.

“The Nordics is the logical choice due to carbon zero energy generation and many other benefits. This is an opportune partnership, allowing Tampnet to utilise the global reach of GCX’s network whilst at the same time opening up a new and timely region for GCX customers.”