In Belgium, Proximus subsidiary BICS has closed its $230 million acquisition of Telesign, described by Proximus as a "communication-platform-as-a-service" (CPaaS) company. Telesign will continue using its existing brand name, and Aled Miles remains in place as CEO. Daniel Kurgan, the CEO of BICS, told Light Reading last month that he hopes the acquisition will enable him to offset a sales decline at his core wholesale business through the launch of new digital offerings. (See Why TeleSign takeover could be game-changer for BICS.)

Orange Business Services has joined forces with maritime specialist BlueTide Communications, with OBS providing BlueTide with managed global Ku band VSAT broadband satellite capacity. Thanks to the collaboration, BlueTide will be able to provide vessels with live video surveillance, cybersecurity and systems monitoring delivered over the Orange network. The collaboration also paves the way for a move towards IoT-connected "smart" ships, enabling the remote monitoring of the ship's mechanical components, for example.

Today marks the first day of Jan du Plessis's reign as chairman of BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA). As Bloomberg reports, the arrival of du Plessis, from mining giant Rio Tinto, comes at what is a crucial time for the UK incumbent, with BT shares down in the doldrums and work to do at its semi-autonomous Openreach network access division. Du Plessis replaces Sir Mike Rake, who is retiring after ten years as chairman.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading