Also in today's globally warmed EMEA regional roundup: M-Pesa arrives in Romania; Belgacom offloads Telindus; smokin' UC deal for OBS.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

March 31, 2014

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Telekom Austria Tests 400G

Also in today's globally warmed EMEA regional roundup: M-Pesa arrives in Romania; Belgacom offloads Telindus; smokin' UC deal for OBS.

  • Telekom Austria AG (NYSE: TKA; Vienna: TKA) says it has successfully completed a trial of 400G technology between Zagreb in Croatia and Ljubljana in Slovenia over existing fiber cables. The trial was carried out in collaboration with Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), using its 400G Photonic Service Engine. In the background, however, there's something bigger possibly going down at Telekom Austria: OIAG, the state holding company that currently holds 28% of Telekom Austria, has given the operator's management the go-ahead to negotiate a stake-pooling deal with América Móvil S.A. de C.V. 's Carlos Slim, which, if it goes ahead, could give Slim control of the Austrian incumbent. (See Euronews: Slim's Austrian Plan Hits Roadblock.)

    • M-Pesa, Vodafone's mobile money transfer/payment service that has proved a big hit in Africa, is coming to Europe for the first time. Today, Vodafone launches the service -- which is based on simple text messaging technology -- in Romania, where more than a third of the population has no access to conventional banking facilities. (See Pyramid: Mobile Money Is on the Move in Africa.)

    • Belgacom SA (Euronext: BELG) has sold Groupe Telindus France, its IT services arm, to Vivendi , for €95 million (US$130 million), subject to approval from the French competition authorities. Vivendi, for its part, is still in the throes of offloading its SFR unit, probably to Numericable-SFR . (See Euronews: Iliad Shares Soar in Wake of Bouygues Pact.)

    • Orange Business Services has landed a five-year unified communications deal with JTI (Japan Tobacco International), helping the company's 20,000 employees, who are spread across 40 countries, talk to each other via the stuttering magic of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s Lync. No financial details of the deal were disclosed. Weirdly, JTI, despite its name, is based in Geneva. (See Orange Business Services Wins JTI Deal.)

    • More unified communications fun: Telecom Italia (TIM) has gone with BroadSoft Inc. to power its UC service, which labors under the "Nuvola It Comunicazione Integrata" handle. (See BroadSoft Becomes Telecom Italia Partner.)

    • French fiber operator Neo Telecoms is using ADVA Optical Networking 's FSP 150 Carrier Ethernet solution to offer Internet Protocol to the Building (IPTB) services to its enterprise customers. (See Neo Deploys ADVA's FSP 150 in Paris.)

    • Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) may be cutting up to 2,500 non-German jobs at its T-Systems International GmbH IT services arm, on top of the 4,900 redundancies in Germany already announced, according to a Reuters report citing Focus magazine.

    • VimpelCom Ltd. (NYSE: VIP) subsidiary OJSC VimpelCom has launched a new service for its enterprise customers called -- and it does exactly what it says on the tin -- "Protection from DDoS attacks." The service is based on Radware Ltd. (Nasdaq: RDWR)'s Attack Mitigation System (AMS). (See Radware, VimpelCom Tackle DDoS Attacks.)

      — 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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