Irish network access wholesaler Enet is collaborating with Barcelona-based Brodynt to supply dedicated Internet access (DIA) services to an unnamed corporate customer in Ireland. The move is Brodynt's first foray into the Irish market. Enet has its headquarters in Limerick and has recently unveiled a network operations center there.

CityFibre, the UK alternative network infrastructure provider, has appointed Bechtel to beef up its full-fiber rollout. Bechtel, a large engineering and construction firm, has experience of FTTP builds for the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Google Fiber in the US, while in the UK it has worked on the Channel Tunnel and the High Speed 1 rail project.

AccelerComm, a company spun out the UK's Southampton University, has secured £5.8 million ($7.4 million) in Series A funding to help build up its IP technology business. The funding will be used to expand the current workforce and drive expansion in the US and beyond. AccelerComm uses IP technology to increase spectrum efficiency and reduce latency to "supercharge" 5G communications.

Saudi Arabia expects more than a million jobs to be created over the next five years thanks to the process of "digital transformation" within the kingdom. At a conference exploring the issue, Saudi Telecom Company (STC)'s CEO, Nasser bin Suleiman Al-Nasser, noted the need to tackle gender disparity by empowering female entrepreneurs. Well, at least they're able to drive themselves to work these days, so that's a start.

Poor old Facebook: As Reuters reports, citing the Sunday Business Post, the social media giant has told Ireland's High Court in an affidavit that it won't be able to operate in the European Union if the Irish Data Protection Commission, Facebook's lead EU regulator, suspends its existing data transfer mechanism.

UK cable operator Virgin Media has taken its Project Lightning network rollout to 14,000 homes in Burgess Hill, a town about 40 miles south of London. Virgin is promising average top speeds of 516 Mbit/s – nearly 14 times faster, it claims, that the local average.

Could Finland start to make its name as a remote workers' paradise? That's the possibility being explored by Finnish website YLE, which reports that California's tech whizz-kids, who no longer actually need to be in California, are being attracted by the chilly charms of Finland. There's a catch, though – as things stand, they'll need a Finnish employer.

Nokia's Pekka Lundmark is one of more than 1,000 CEOs who have signed a joint UN Statement, "United in the Business of a Better World," which will be presented to the UN Secretary General as part of the UN's 75th anniversary celebrations. Lundmark and friends are commiting to "ethical leadership and good governance, to invest in addressing inequalities and injustice, and to partner with the UN, Government and civil society to promote equality and respect human rights."

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading