One of Huawei’s flagship projects in Australia has been called off because, as the state government put it, “trade restrictions imposed by the US government create a force majeure event that cannot be overcome.”

The Public Transport Authority of Western Australia, which wants to spend AU$136m (US$82m, £66.5m) to replace its analogue radio systems with a shiny new digital network, has therefore pulled out of the deal on the grounds of force majeure: something catastrophic and unforeseen has occurred.

Huawei and engineering firm UGL won the contract together in 2018, forming the HUGL Consortium to get the job done.

The

The long-awaited IPv6 train may finally be pulling into the station as Google reported a spike in usage.

The Chocolate Factory has long published statistics on the adoption of IPv6 by users accessing its services and, from the ad giant's perspective at least, a heck of a lot seem to be staying at home.

The percentage of users accessing Google over IPv6 has inched up over the last year, and now tips the 30 per cent mark at weekends before dropping back down to nearer 25 per cent during the working week.

Users accessing Google over IPv6 ... One of

Special report Internet " samurai " and IPv6 advocate Jun Murai announced today he will sell more than 14 million IPv4 addresses and put the proceeds – expected to top US$300m – into a new trust co-owned by Asia-Pacific regional internet registry (RIR) APNIC.

Writing on the website for the organization that Murai founded in 1985 and which owns the addresses, the WIDE Project in Japan, Murai explained : “I have taken a decision to release this address block, for the purpose toward healthy development of today’s internet services and toward supporting internet development in the AP [Asia-Pacific] region.”

For

Updated BT is to halt all home visits by its Openreach broadband engineers except for essential ones needed to keep critical businesses and vulnerable people connected to the outside world.

As a direct result of the coronavirus outbreak, BT Openreach is refusing to accept new connection requests until 1 June 2020, though it will try to complete in-progress installations if they can be done "outside of the premises".

A briefing note seen by The Register detailed the move, which is framed chiefly as a way of helping prevent engineers from coming into contact with lots of strangers.

Transfers and fibre-to-the-cabinet

Facebook is reportedly in talks to buy a multibillion-dollar stake in India's largest mobile network, Reliance Jio.

The negotiations, according to the FT's sources, have been stymied by the international travel lockdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, but will potentially see Facebook acquire a 10 per cent stake in the business, which boasts around 370 million mobile subscribers.

In addition to serving as a carrier, Reliance Jio is actively involved in the manufacture of handsets – both feature phones and smartphones. These tend to be cut-price affairs, white-labeled from OEMs, and aimed at price-conscious markets.

The flood of phones from