We knew things were bad in southern Europe but just how bad they are has been underlined by Vodafone's full-year results, which show net profits down by more than 90 percent to £673 million (US1.02 billion) following write-downs of the value of its businesses in Italy and Spain. The mobile giant also reported a 4.2 percent decline in fiscal year revenues to £44.4 billion ($67.3 billion). (See Euronews: Europe Puts Brakes on Vodafone.)

Separately, Vodafone has decided to withdraw from the list of candidates planning to offer a supporting mobile service to BT, reports Reuters. BT signaled its intention to get back into mobile when it acquired a sizeable chunk of spectrum in the U.K.'s 4G auction earlier this year. (See Euronews: BT Seeks 4G Partner.)

Ericsson claims to be bringing carrier-grade Wi-Fi to mobile broadband with the launch of a range of Wi-Fi 3GPP integration products. One of the new features is "real-time traffic steering," a software upgrade which, says the vendor, assesses key performance indicators in both the mobile 3GPP network and the Wi-Fi network before dynamically shifting the consumer's smartphone connection between networks.

Sticking with the carrier Wi-Fi topic, NSN has enhanced its Smart Wi-Fi solution with Service Manager and Activation Manager tools. The vendor has also announced a new 3G femtocell product, known to its friends as the FAPr-hsp 5120 Femtocell Access Point (FAP).

Orange Business Services is expanding the reach of its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offer. Flexible Computing, which is Orange's name for the service, will now be available from data centers in North American and Asia/Pacific. Around 500 customers use its European platform.

Industrial action could be on the cards for contact center staff at mobile operator Telefónica UK Ltd. (O2), as around 2,000 of them are about to be transferred to Capita as part of an outsourcing deal that runs counter to the wishes of their labor union, reports the Daily Telegraph.

On a less disruptive note for O2 UK, the operator is to deploy a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) system from Tekelec as part of its ongoing efforts to develop new mobile data services and improve customer satisfaction. — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading