Also in today's EMEA roundup: Deutsche Telekom does 100GigE too; Orange cozies up to Akamai; BDUK is OK, says EC; Turk Telekom eyes Bulgaria

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

November 21, 2012

3 Min Read
Euronews: Colt Fires Up 100GE

Colt Technology Services Group Ltd , Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), Orange (NYSE: FTE) and lead the charge in today's assault on the EMEA headlines.

  • Colt is now offering 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GigE) services on its long-haul network across Europe using Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN)'s DTN platform, which it first deployed in 2009. Colt conducted its first trials of 100GigE services in 2010: Now, more than two years later, the service is commercially available. This year has seen the launch of a number of 100GigE services in Europe. (See Colt Deploys Infinera 100G, Colt Trials 100GigE, Colt Taps Infinera for Ultra-Low-Latency Service, Infinera Bolsters COLT's Backbone, Exponential-e Upgrades to 100GigE and Dutch Deliver on 100GigE .)

  • Sticking with 100GigE … Deutsche Telekom's International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS) division is to provide a 100GigE service to link the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) data center in Geneva with a data center operated by Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Budapest, Hungary. For more details, see this press release.

  • Orange has formed an alliance with Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM), which sees the French giant's Orange Business Services unit using Akamai's Aura Network Solutions in its content delivery network (CDN) services offer to enterprises, initially just in France. The pair have also formed an "innovation steering committee" to identify possible areas for development in the CDN sphere. (See Orange, Akamai Form CDN Alliance, Akamai to Snap Up Dolce's Verivue and CDN: Build or Buy?)

  • Policy wonks at the European Commission have given the official go-ahead to Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), a sort of umbrella support scheme for broadband projects in (mainly) rural areas of Britain. At one stage it looked as though the scheme would fall foul of European Union rules on state aid for commercial activities, but it seems as though Brussels has had a change of heart. (See EC Approves UK's Broadfund Funding Scheme, Euronews: UK's Broadband Plan Gets EU Nod, BT Builds FTTX With Govnt Funds and UK Govt Allocates Broadband Funding.)

  • Expansion-hungry Türk Telekomunikasyon A.S. has put in bids for two Bulgarian operators, Globul and Germanos Telecom, reports Reuters.

  • Irish cloud-based mobile applications platform specialist FeedHenry Ltd. is extolling the virtues of mobile operators as key players in the enterprise apps ecosystem. The mobile app platform company has been working closely with Telefónica SA (NYSE: TEF)'s Digital division during 2012 and has already built an apps development service with Telefónica Deutschland GmbH . For more on FeedHenry's progress, see this press release. (See Telefónica Picks FeedHenry Mobile App Platform.)

  • In what is described as the first large-scale test of EE 's new 4G network in the U.K., mobile research firm RootMetrics found that there are significant coverage gaps in in the center of Manchester, one of Britain's major cities. As the BBC reports, only 40.2 percent of test locations had access to the 4G network. Where they could get on the 4G network, users were averaging downlink speeds of 17 Mbit/s. And outside the city center the tests found no 4G coverage at all. (See How Not to Do 4G, EE-Style and Brits Braced for 4G .)

  • The CEO of Rostelecom , the Russian state-owned operator, has had his home searched by investigators as part of a fraud case, reports Reuters. Newspapers have suggested that the current CEO, Alexander Provotorov, could be replaced by Svyazinvest head Vadim Semyonov, who is an old pal of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, as luck would have it.

  • Also feeling the heat is the CEO of South Africa's Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) , who, along some other senior managers, faces tax fraud charges in the Ugandan courts, reports Reuters.

  • Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Mumbai: BHARTIARTL)'s African unit has teamed up with BICS to provide a mobile money transfer service throughout Africa, using the HomeSend remittance hub.

    — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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