The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has lined up what it says is the first NFV interoperability Plugtests event, to run from January 23 to February 3. Back in November, 29 remote labs were connected to the ETSI Plugtests network in preparation for the event, which is supported by Telefónica and will focus on validating ETSI NFV Release 2 end-to-end capabilities. For a full list of participants see this press release. (See BCE 2016: Live NFV Interop Demo Takes Center Stage, Light Reading Publishes Unique NFV Interoperability Test Report, Why Independent NFV Interop Tests Need to Go a Step Further and NFV Interop Test: Key Takeaways.)

Telekom Austria Group has become a technical partner of Turner Broadcasting System Inc. 's Cartoon Network channel, an agreement that will see the migration of the channel to the Eutelsat 16A satellite, for teleport- and satellite contribution services in central and eastern Europe.

EE , the UK mobile operator that is now part of BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA), says that all its customer service calls are now being answered in either the UK or Ireland. This "onshoring" process has created more than 1,000 jobs in the two countries (and axed a few overseas, obviously).

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading