Eurobites: Nationwide 5G Too Costly, Says German Regulator

Orange Business Services is staking its future (or at least a substantial part of it) on multicloud services, and has announced a number of moves to this end. It is now able to manage its clients' most critical applications on Amazon Web Services, and has a dedicated team of 100 experts handling AWS-related matters. It plans to hire 300 more cloud know-it-alls during 2018. It has also forged cloud-related alliances with a number of companies, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd among them. Related to this, it plans to open a new data center in Amsterdam in October. Orange is aiming to generate more than half of its cloud revenues overseas by 2022.

TE Connectivity (NYSE: TEL), the Swiss vendor that makes sensors and connectivity systems (cables, wires, antennas, power units and more), has agreed to sell its subsea communications unit (a.k.a. SubCom) to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management for US$325 million in cash. TE Connectivity, which noted that the subsea business didn't really fit with the rest of its portfolio, stated that the unit generates annual revenues of about $700 million, but added that its margins are weak, making it inevitable that the new owners will be looking to cut costs. (See TE SubCom, Ciena Team on Subsea Networks and Ixia & TE Connectivity Demo 400G OSFP.)

Telefónica 's wholesale business unit, Telefónica International Wholesale Services, has declared its first 200 Gigabit Ethernet redundant data roaming interconnection open for business. Roaming traffic has soared since the implementation of the EU's "roam like at home" regulation in 2017 as travelers seek to show the losers back home the fun they're missing out on. (See Roam Like at Home: The Impact After One Year.)

Home in on the opportunities and challenges facing European cable operators. Join Light Reading for the Cable Next-Gen Europe event in London on November 6. All cable operators and other communications service providers get in free!

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) has signed a global partnership agreement with United Smart Cities (USC), a UN-driven initiative, that will see the pair collaborate on developing approaches to familiar smart city issues such as lighting, air quality monitoring and car parking.

The local authority in the northern UK city of Leeds has done a deal with wireless broadband provider 6G Internet to trial free broadband for a couple of public housing blocks. As the UK Authority website reports, the trial will last for 14 months and will provide residents with 5Mbit/s connections, which may not be much use for downloading Ultra HD box sets but will allow cash-strapped residents to access essential online services.

EU antitrust regulators will come to a decision on Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s proposed acquisition of developer site GitHub by October 19, Reuters reports.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading