Orange Business Services has extended and expanded its contract with Octo Telematics, the Rome-headquartered company that supplies telematics and data analytics to the auto insurance industry. The three-year deal will provide Octo with SIM coverage across Europe, allowing it to manage and monitor a large fleet of IoT devices autonomously. Octo claims to have more than 5.6 million connected users across the world.

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Telia Company has struck up a partnership with metering company Landis+Gyr for smart meter data transfer in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Landis+Gyr's first NB-IoT smart devices will be introduced in early 2019 after field testing is completed.

The Irish Data Commission has launched an investigation into the massive data breach revealed by Facebook last week, to see whether the social media giant has contravened the European Union's recently introduced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As the BBC reports, in theory the watchdog could fine Facebook 4% of its global turnover if it finds it at fault. The significance of the move is heightened by the fact that Facebook has chosen the Irish Data Commission as a "one-stop shop" for data oversight under GDPR. (See Eurobites: Facebook Backs Out of Ireland as GDPR Jeopardy Looms.)

EcoDataCenter, a Swedish data center developer, is about to put what it says is the world's first "carbon-positive" data center into operation. Situated near the central Swedish city of Falun, the facility will use "green" electricity and repurpose the surplus heat in the district heating network to help keep things cool.

Figure 1: EcoDataCenter's new facility in Falun: It ain't pretty, but it is carbon-positive.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading