Dish Network Corp has rolled out an advertising campaign suggesting a deal by a Japanese company to acquire Sprint Nextel Corp could threaten U.S. national security, hoping to sway lawmakers and win support for its rival offer.

The campaign, which so far appears on the Internet and in Washington-area newspapers, is Dish's most public lobbying effort yet against Japan-based SoftBank Corp (Tokyo).

The European Commission plans to send a formal warning to China that it is ready to levy trade duties against telecoms equipment makers Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp over what it says are illegal subsidies, people close to the matter said.

EU trade chief Karel De Gucht is set to win support from the bloc's executive on Wednesday to send the warning letter and show China's new president, Xi Jinping, that Brussels is serious about countering what it says is state support.

Ensuring end-to-end security ranks as the number-one priority for M2M projects, according to a recent survey of M2M solution providers in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific conducted by Beecham Research.

In a survey carried out for US software giant Oracle, some 60% of respondents said that “ensuring end-to-end security” was one of their top three priorities for delivering M2M projects today.

“Integration with IT” came second on the list, ticked by 50% of respondents, followed by “coordinating partners in the value chain”, chosen by 45%.

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's No.2 telecoms equipment maker, toned down its long-term target for networking equipment sales to enterprises, saying a prior figure was too optimistic.

Eric Xu, Huawei (Shenzhen, China) executive vice president and one of its rotating CEOs, also voiced frustration with security issues that are thwarting the Chinese company in the key U.S. telecoms equipment market.

ZTE Corp, China's second-largest telecoms equipment maker, has essentially stopped doing business in Iran after a U.S. investigation into alleged sales of embargoed equipment, the company's chairman told Reuters on Thursday.

ZTE (Shenzhen, China) said in March 2012 that it would curtail business in Iran following a report by Reuters that it sold Iran's largest telecoms firm a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring telephone and Internet communications. The company is now facing a U.S. criminal investigation over the issue.

The European Union's trade chief will seek the backing of EU states to investigate Chinese telecoms equipment makers Huawei and ZTE, even without a complaint from European manufacturers, EU diplomats said on Tuesday.

The European Commission, the EU's executive body, has been collecting evidence to prepare a possible case against Huawei (Shenzhen, China) and ZTE (Shenzhen, China) over state subsidies it says allows the companies to undercut European firms.

Large telecommunications companies and Internet providers succeeded in convincing an advisory panel that the U.S. government should not pursue enforcement of security measures meant to bolster their defenses against the growing threat of cyber attacks, according to a report released late on Monday.

Security software maker Palo Alto Networks reported second-quarter revenue and earnings per share that beat expectations amid strong demand for products that offer protection from cyberattacks.

Revenue in its second quarter, that ended January 31, rose 70 percent to $96.5 million compared with a year earlier, the company said on Thursday.

Non-GAAP earnings were $3.9 million, or 5 cents a share.

Analysts had expected revenue of $93.3 million and earnings per share of 4 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.