Telecom Italia has signed a ten-year energy supply deal with ERG, which specializes in producing electricity from renewable sources. ERG will supply the operator with 3.4 Terawatt-hours of energy for the period 2022-2031, allowing it to cover around 20% of its energy consumption through renewable sources.

Healthy growth in its retail segment helped Russia's Rostelecom increase its first-quarter revenues by 9% year-on-year, to 131 billion Russian rubles ($1.77 billion), while OIBDA (operating income before depreciation and amortization) rose 18% to RUB55 billion ($743 million). In Rostelecom's results statement, the company's president, Mikhail Oseevskiy, said the operator would be "looking closely at implementing radical cost reductions in traditional businesses" in order to meet strategic targets set out in its 2025 development strategy.

Finland's Nokia is supplying routers, its SR Linux network operating system and a NetOps development toolkit to OpenColo, an international colocation provider based in Santa Clara, California.

A survey carried out on behalf of UK altnet Hyperoptic has found that homeworkers contemplating a return to the office as the pandemic restrictions ease are concerned that their company broadband will fail to match the connectivity speeds they have enjoyed while working in their pyjamas. According to the survey, only 12% of office workers believe that the broadband in their office is better than the connection they have at home.

Another UK altnet, CityFibre, has changed its construction partner on its full-fiber rollout in the Suffolk town of Lowestoft, replacing Lite Access Technologies with Pod-Trak. The £14 million ($19.7 million) rollout is due to reach "substantial completion" in 2022.

Amazon is hiring 10,000 more workers in the UK, the bulk of them destined for warehouses, throwing parcels around for £9.70 ($13.65) per hour, which is a full 79 pence an hour above the national minimum wage. (In London they will get a bit more.) However, as the BBC reports, the online giant will also be recruiting presumably better paid workers for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing business.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading