The "global supply chain crunch" is hampering the mast rollout efforts of Vantage Towers, the company spun out of Vodafone a few years ago, according to Bloomberg report citing a Vantage earnings release. Group revenue at Vantage grew 3.1% in the first nine months of the 2022 financial year, to €746 million ($840 million).

The HBO Max streaming service is to launch in 15 more European markets in March, Reuters reports. The new territories include Poland, Portugal and Romania. The service, which is owned by WarnerMedia, has already launched in the Nordics and Spain, but the service will not be made available in the UK, Germany and Italy for the "next few years," adds the report, due to an existing deal with Sky.

Deutsche Telekom is extending its partnership with Google, offering business users "enhanced" mobile messaging services through Telekom RCS Business Messaging powered by Google's Jibe Cloud and running its premium TV service, MagentaTV One, on the Android TV OS for the German market (with additional European markets in the pipeline).

Truphone, a UK-based mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), has secured a five-year partnership agreement with BT Wholesale covering MVNO access services. Under the terms of the agreement, Truphone customers will get access to BT's EE network.

Neos Networks has landed an SD-WAN gig at UK food company Bakkavor, which supplies major supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury's with "own-brand" products. The network will connect Bakkavor's 22 UK sites and one international site in Spain.

Three UK says it has given "inflation busting" pay rises to its in-store retail staff, offering increases of up to 12.6%, with new hourly minimum rates of £10.13 (US$13.67) nationwide and £11.40 ($15.38) in London, excluding bonuses. These rates exceed the National Living Wage, which applies to workers outside London and will reach £9.50 ($12.82) per hour in April, and the London Living Wage, which is currently set at £11.05 ($14.91) per hour. So with a bit of luck they'll be able to live on it.

Telecom Italia (TIM) trumpets that it has cancelled out the carbon dioxide emissions generated in 2021 by its various websites, making them officially carbon-neutral. It has done this through a range of initiatives, such as supporting Maìsa REDD+, a project promoting conservation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.

You want pointless bits of research about streaming services? We got 'em! A new study cobbled together by TalkTalk shows that one in three couples spend more than 43 days a year streaming their favorite shows, and that just 4% of couples in the UK cuddle on the sofa when streaming TV. Makes you think.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading