Telefónica Tech Ventures has participated in a seed funding round in Monogoto, an Israeli company specializing in the management of secure private LTE/5G networks. Founded in 2018, Monogoto has developed an IoT cloud platform with a presence in more than 180 countries.

Telecom Italia (TIM) has signed an agreement with trade organization Unimpresa for the "digital transformation" of Italian small and midsized businesses. It seems the idea is to combine TIM's connectivity with complementary services from the likes of Noovle, Olivetti, Sparkle and Telsy to bring those businesses up to speed, digitalization-wise.

Sky Italy's €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) bid to host DAZN's streaming sports content has proved unsuccessful. As Reuters reports (paywall applies), the content included Serie A soccer matches, the rights to which the London-based DAZN secured earlier this year for the next three seasons. DAZN already has a deal in place with TIM, allowing the Italian incumbent operator to show DAZN's full catalogue of sports fare on its TIMvision TV platform.

UK communications regulator Ofcom has a new chief technology officer in the shape of Sachin Jogia, who was most recently general manager for Alexa Smart Home International at Amazon. Jogia's brief will include shaping Ofcom's policy on helping to ensure children and vulnerable adults are adequately protected from potential harms when online.

New research from broadband provider TalkTalk underlines how work patterns – and life patterns in general – have changed during the coronavirus pandemic. With people largely working from home rather than commuting into the big cities, data usage in the UK's "market towns" (generally speaking, smallish towns that were historically the focal point of agricultural areas) has soared, with the likes of Guildford in the south-east seeing an increase of 50%, and Harrogate in the north up 44%. The big question remains: What will happen when workers are told it's safe to don their lanyards and head back to their offices?

UK-based Colt Technology Services is hoping to beef up its Strategy and Transformation team with a number of changes: Avi Singh becomes VP, Strategy, Planning & Insights (SPI); Mirko Voltolini becomes VP Innovation; and Mark Hollman is made VP Partner Development & Success.

A joint study from UK altnet CityFibre and something called the Quality of Life Foundation (I loved their early stuff) has found that homeowners are more likely to be satisfied with their broadband connection than are renters. In fact, renters were nearly twice as likely to describe their connection as only average or unreliable compared to those who own their own home.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading