Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Brian Protiva steps down at ADVA; Enea starts its 5G engine; Isle of Wight is half-done.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

July 7, 2022

2 Min Read
Eurobites: Nokia helps Orange kick out the copper

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Brian Protiva steps down at ADVA; Enea starts its 5G engine; Isle of Wight is half-done.

  • Nokia is deploying a passive optical local area network (LAN) for Orange over 20 sites in France including the new Orange headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. The new LAN replaces the existing copper-based one, connecting more than 5,000 endpoints including Wi-Fi and hard-wired terminals. Orange believes the switch will help it reduce energy costs and emissions as well as boosting speeds and capacity.

    • After 25 years in the hotseat, Brian Protiva is to step down as CEO of ADVA, the German optical networking company. He will be succeeded by Christoph Glingener, who will also continue as the company's CTO. Protiva will assume the role of vice chairman of Acorn HoldCo, the holding company of Adtran and ADVA. Last August Adtran announced its plan to merge with ADVA in a transaction worth around $930 million. (See Adtran, ADVA to pursue merger amid fiber upswing.)

    • Sweden's ENEA has launched something called the 5G Service Engine (5G-SE), which it describes as a 4G and 5G dual-mode convergent platform to enable communications service providers to launch new 5G services and "seamlessly transition" existing 4G services.

    • Wi-Fi company Airties has appointed Tony Ball, former chairman of Kabel Deutschland and CEO of BSkyB, as the new chairman of the Airties board. Philippe Alcaras will continue to serve as CEO. The company has also announced that its corporate headquarters is moving from Istanbul to Paris.

    • BT's semi-autonomous network access arm, Openreach, seems to be getting increasingly concerned about the level of fiber take-up from potential high-speed broadband customers. In its latest update, it trumpets the fact that more "100,000 homes and businesses across the North of Tyne can now order some of the fastest, most reliable broadband in Europe," while bemoaning the fact that "thousands of residents and businesses have yet to upgrade." You can lead a horse to water...

    • WightFibre, a fiber provider on the southern England outpost that is the Isle of Wight, says it has passed the halfway mark of its Gigabit Island project, potentially providing coverage to more than 40,000 premises. According to local website Island Echo, the company expects service to be available to 60,000 premises by the end of the year and to 75,000 homes by the end of 2023, with an ultimate target of around 80,000 premises, which equates to 96% of all premises.

      — 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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