The European Commission is threatening to go ahead with plans to formally investigate allegations of illegal state subsidies of Chinese telecom companies, reports the BBC. But before any firm action is taken, negotiations will take place with the aim of finding an "amicable solution," said EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht. (See Euronews: EC Pushes for Huawei/ZTE Probe and Euronews: Chinese Bristle at EU Proposal.)

Mobily, Saudi Arabia's second-biggest mobile operator, is denying claims by a software engineer that he was asked by the company to build surveillance tools to monitor customers' messages on Twitter and the like. Arabian Business reports that the engineer, Matthew Rosenfield, declined to help, deciding to instead to leak allegedly incriminating emails from the operator.

Vodafone Germany has struck a deal with Deutsche Telekom which will allow the former to offer high-speed fixed-line broadband and IPTV using the latter's VDSL network. Vodafone will initially be able to offer speeds of up to 50 Mbit/s, rising to 100 Mbit/s once Deutsche Telekom has deployed vectoring technology. (See Vodafone Strikes VDSL Deal With DT.)

AT&T Inc. CEO Randall Stephenson has expressed doubt as to whether M&A opportunities abound in Europe, calling the region "a difficult place for that sort of thing," reports Reuters.

U.K. broadband provider TalkTalk saw its full-year EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) fall 11 percent year-on-year to £290 million (US$441.5 million), though this was largely attributable to the hefty investment made in its YouView-driven TV offering.

Russian mobile operator MegaFon is upgrading its network with metro WDM equipment from Transmode Systems AB and NEC Corp. (See Megafon Upgrades With NEC & Transmode.)— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading