Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom helps digitalize air traffic control; Orange gets the IoT call from McConnell Dowell; Dundee in line for larger slice of BT cake.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

July 9, 2020

2 Min Read
Eurobites: KCOM calls on ADVA to help it reach 10 Gbit/s in Hull

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom helps digitalize air traffic control; Orange gets the IoT call from McConnell Dowell; Dundee in line for larger slice of BT cake.

  • KCOM, a UK operator focused mainly on the northern city of Hull and its environs, has chosen ADVA's packet edge technology to support the rollout of its Lightstream full-fiber broadband network. Specifically, KCOM will use the FSP 150 demarcation and aggregation device to help it move from 1Gbit/s to 10Gbit/s services in its access network. Hull is unique in that it is the only UK city where BT does not operate: KCOM started life as a network run by the city's local authority before being floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1999 and ultimately acquired by the Australia-based Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund in 2019.

    • Deutsche Telekom is embarking on a fiber-optic network upgrade project for DFS, the German air navigation provider, to bring its communications network of control centers, towers, radio and radar facilities up to date. The network will be expanded by around 870km by the middle of 2022, taking DFS toward its vision of the full digitalization of air traffic control. DT is being coy about the value of the seven-year deal, saying only that it is worth "a medium-sized double-digit million Euro figure."

    • Orange Business Services is to design an IoT offering for McConnell Dowell, an Australian construction heavyweight. Once complete, the platform will enable construction sites to collect and report – via a low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN) – on real-time information, such as heavy machinery utilization and asset tracking.

    • With what seems like strange timing, given the current (largely enforced) trend towards working from home, BT has announced that the Scottish city of Dundee has been officially tagged as one of its "key locations," meaning that it will likely increase its office footprint there. BT is already one of the largest private sector employers in cake-tastic Dundee, supporting around 1,200 jobs through direct employees and contractors in the city.

    • NTT Data UK has appointed former Amdcocs man Roei Haberman as its new SVP of sales transformation and head of telco, media and technology (TMT). In his new role, Haberman will be responsible for increasing NTT Data's engagement with the TMT sphere.

    • UK cable operator Virgin Media has added Pluto TV, an ad-supported streaming service owned by ViacomCBS, to its channel lineup. Homes Under the Hammer and The Jerry Springer Show are among the, er, goodies up for grabs.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

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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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