Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: UK government plans to carry on (data-)snooping; Telefónica must cough up; operators bend EU's ear.
Google Ventures has launched a European branch in London, backed by an initial investment of $100 million, reports Bloomberg. In the US, Google Ventures has put money into Nest Labs and Uber Technologies, among others. (See Google to Buy Nest for $3.2B.)
The UK government plans to rush through emergency legislation that will allow the police and security services to continue to have access to personal mobile and other data records, reports the BBC. The move is a response to the recent European Court of Justice ruling that an earlier EU directive -- which formed the basis of UK's Data Retention (EC Direction) Act of 2009 -- was no longer valid. Not surprisingly, civil liberties groups are not happy about the news, calling it a "stitch-up" that is being railroaded through on a cross-party basis without proper scrutiny. See this report in The Guardian for more on their gripes.
The €152 million ($206 million) fine slapped on Telefónica SA (NYSE: TEF) by the European Commission for effectively imposing unfair prices on its competitors in the Spanish market has been upheld in the European Court of Justice. See this CoJ press release for the Court's explanation of its decision to completely dismiss Telefonica's appeal against the fine.
Russian operator MegaFon has completed its acquisition of a 50% share in Euroset, Russia's largest mobile phone retailer, for $657.3 million.
Some of Europe's heaviest telecom industry hitters have combined with the GSM Association (GSMA) to present a statement to Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy and President of the Council of the European Union, requesting, among other things: a "pro-investment regulatory framework"; support for the re-allocation of spectrum; a new interpretation of merger guidelines to support increased consolidation; and a "level playing field of regulation" between the communications industry on the one hand and the "Internet industry" on the other. (See Euro Operators Appeal to EU President.)
A study commissioned by BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA) has concluded that the "social value" of being online is worth more than ₤1,000 ($1,710) a year, when factors such as improved employment opportunities and reduced feelings of isolation are taken into consideration. And there's always a chance that one of those badly spelt emails from Nigeria will help boost your bank account, of course.
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
Susan Fourtané, User Rank: Blogger 7/11/2014 | 1:32:19 AM
Google ventures crosses the pond Having London been declared the technology capital of the world launching a European branch in London sounds like a smart idea.
London's tech sector is going to be boosted further and even more startups are going to set their eyes in the English capital. This will give Google Ventures a variety of European tech companies from which to choose and help grow.
It's a great chance to access new investment, encourage job creation, and economic growth not only in London but in Europe as a whole.
Earlier this month, Santander UK was also reported to set up a $100m venture capital fund that will be based in London as plan of its investment in financial technology start-ups around the globe.
NFV's promises of automation and virtualization are intriguing, but what really excites service providers is the massive amount of money they could save.
Six different communications service providers join to debate their visions of the future CSP, following a landmark presentation from AT&T on its massive virtualization efforts and a look back on where the telecom industry has been and where it's going from two industry veterans.
It's an art and a science to make mentorship, inclusive leadership, diversity and promotion of high-potential women work, says Honore' LaBourdette, vice president of Global Market Development at VMWare.
A recap of the week's talking points on Light Reading's sister site, telecoms.com. Facebook AI programmers had a bit of a brain-fade as they allowed one of its AI applications to invent its ...
Supporting women both inside and outside of Fujitsu is a top priority of the telecom vendor. Yanbing Li, Fujitsu Network Communication's director of System Software Development & Delivery, shares why it's important, but why there's still a long road ahead.
In case you missed it, Amazon's 1% stock increase helped Jeff Bezos dethrone Bill Gates as the richest man in the world. Also, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer
AT&T is focused on the software-defined network of the future and is reskilling its workforce to get ready too, according to AT&T's President of Technology Development Melissa Arnoldi.
Liz Centoni, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Computing System Product Group, shares why mentoring in all its forms is important for women and what Cisco is doing that's made a difference for women in tech.
At an event in Wembley stadium, EE used its live network to demonstrate gigabit LTE using a Sony Xperia XZ Premium smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip.
Guavus unites big data and machine intelligence, enabling many of the the largest service providers in the world to save money and drive measureable revenue. Learn how applying Machine Intelligence substantially reduces operational costs and in many cases can eliminate subscriber impact, meaning a better subscriber experience and higher NPS.
When used to analyze operational data and to drive operational decisions, machine intelligence reduces the number of tasks which require human intervention. Guavus invested in Machine Intelligence early. Learn about the difference between Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence.
Ray Watson, vice president of global technology at Masergy, discusses the advantages and challenges in entering the still-maturing NFV market for the past three years.
A recap of the week's talking points on Light Reading's sister site, telecoms.com. Facebook AI programmers had a bit of a brain-fade as they allowed one of its AI applications to invent its ...
In case you missed it, Amazon's 1% stock increase helped Jeff Bezos dethrone Bill Gates as the richest man in the world. Also, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer
At an event in Wembley stadium, EE used its live network to demonstrate gigabit LTE using a Sony Xperia XZ Premium smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip.
Guavus unites big data and machine intelligence, enabling many of the the largest service providers in the world to save money and drive measureable revenue. Learn how applying Machine Intelligence substantially reduces operational costs and in many cases can eliminate subscriber impact, meaning a better subscriber experience and higher NPS.
When used to analyze operational data and to drive operational decisions, machine intelligence reduces the number of tasks which require human intervention. Guavus invested in Machine Intelligence early. Learn about the difference between Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence.
Hossam Salib, VP of Cable and Wireless Strategy at ADTRAN, outlines key trends as MSOs begin to deploy next-generation Gigabit and 10-Gigabit cable networks. In the interview, Hossam outlines the advantages of a Fiber Deep architecture, FTTH options including EPON and RFoG, and the importance of SDN and NFV in building next-generation high-bandwidth cable networks.
Dave Smargon of AIRSYS explains how doing smart things with air handling and air conditioning can enable cable to take big steps in the right direction with respect to efficiency gains.
Viavi's Koji Okamoto discusses CATV technology and trends with Alan Breznick of Light Reading. From DOCSIS 3.1 deployment to the impact of Distributed Access Architectures (DAA), bringing fiber closer to the home, and leveraging DWDM technology for business services.
At ANGA COM 2017, Cyrille Morelle, president and CEO of VeEX, updates Alan Breznick with VeEX's new products and technology. This includes VeSion cloud-based platform for network monitoring, AT2500-3G advanced spectrum analyzer and MTTplus-900 WiFi Air Expert module. He also comments on DOCSIS 3.1 deployment and Remote PHY technology.
SCTE•ISBE's Chris Bastian discusses Energy 2020's success to date and the importance of a flexible approach that allows for changes in specific strategies in order to reach significant milestones.
Versa CEO Kelly Ahuja discusses with Carol Wilson the current status and trends in the SD-WAN market, Versa's innovation around building a software platform with broad contextualization, and the advantages that startups can bring to the SD-WAN market.
ARRIS's John Ulm says a major accomplishment of SCTE•ISBE's Energy 2020 program is increased focus on power cost and consumption, including inclusion of energy requirements in operators' RFPs and RFIs.
With the mobile ecosystem becoming increasingly vulnerable to security threats, AdaptiveMobile has laid out some of the key considerations for the wireless community.
Understanding the full experience of women in technology requires starting at the collegiate level (or sooner) and studying the technologies women are involved with, company cultures they're part of and personal experiences of individuals.
During this WiC radio show, we will talk with Nicole Engelbert, the director of Research & Analysis for Ovum Technology and a 23-year telecom industry veteran, about her experiences and perspectives on women in tech. Engelbert covers infrastructure, applications and industries for Ovum, but she is also involved in the research firm's higher education team and has helped colleges and universities globally leverage technology as a strategy for improving recruitment, retention and graduation performance.
She will share her unique insight into the collegiate level, where women pursuing engineering and STEM-related degrees is dwindling. Engelbert will also reveal new, original Ovum research on the topics of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, security and augmented reality, as well as discuss what each of those technologies might mean for women in our field. As always, we'll also leave plenty of time to answer all your questions live on the air and chat board.
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NFV's promises of automation and virtualization are intriguing, but what really excites service providers is the massive amount of money they could save.
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