Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Tele2 flashes its green credentials; Nokia teams up with OSIsoft; media bigwig supports Fox/Sky deal.
Nordic operator Telia is teaming up with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) to beef up its presence in the IoT market, with the operator basing its IoT platform on the Microsoft Azure cloud offering. Telia, which says that, together, the partners can "meet any type of IoT need, ranging from basic device connectivity, to tailored customer solutions with data analytics and storage," will be looking to sell IoT services to customers in the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Separately, Telia has announced its first-quarter results, which reveal that total net income fell from 7.05 billion Swedish kronor (US$835 million) last time around to a loss of SEK600 million ($71 million), largely due to disposals of Azercell and Geocell, as well as in impairment charge related to Ucell. Telia got its fingers badly burned in Eurasia in general and in Uzbekistan in particular, and has in recent times beaten a hasty retreat back onto more familiar European turf. (See Eurobites: Telia Coughs Up $965M to Exit Uzbek Nightmare, Eurobites: Uzbek Fine Takes Toll on Telia and TeliaSonera to Quit Eurasia, Focus on Europe.)
Telia's Nordic rival Tele2 AB (Nasdaq: TLTO) has declared itself the most energy-efficient operator in Sweden, after having implemented a number of energy-saving measures across its network, such as actively switching off its basestations' power amplifiers when they are not being used. This was a move made in combination with Telenor Group (Nasdaq: TELN), with whom it shares a 4G network.
Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) has signed an agreement with California-based OSisoft, committing to combine the Finnish giant's LTE-based digital automation cloud knowhow with OSIsoft's data infrastructure technologies to offer enterprises a "powerful infrastructure for predictive maintenance and improved communication." Nokia cites the energy sector as a possible application area for the twin offering, with companies using the technology combination to, for example, predict mechanical problems inside wind turbines.
Lord Grade, an eminent, cigar-puffing figure from the UK broadcasting world, has written to the Competition & Markets Authority offering his backing to 21st Century Fox 's proposed takeover of Sky . As the Daily Telegraph reports, Lord Grade said there were now "no credible grounds remaining on which this transaction could be prohibited," adding that "existing concerns raised about behavioural remedies per se are now answered and therefore irrelevant." (See Eurobites: EU Gives Blessing to Fox-Sky Deal.)
France's Transatel , which describes itself as a "mobile virtual network enabler and aggregator," has joined the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) as a full member. Transatel says it has launched more than 150 MVNOs, but is now focusing on the IoT arena. Last year Transatel CEO Jacques Bonifay was re-elected as chair of MVNO Europe.
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
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