Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: BT scans its own digital brain; United Internet shrinks capex guidance following antennas debacle; Italy keeps a closer eye on its cables.
Vodafone has confirmed that it is in discussions with CK Hutchison over a possible merger of Vodafone UK and Hutchison-owned mobile operator Three UK. The envisaged deal, the news of which confirms press speculation earlier this year in the Financial Times and elsewhere, would see Vodafone owning 51% of the combined business and CK Hutchison owning the remainder. The two companies hope that by joining forces they would, in the words of their statement, "gain the necessary scale to be able to accelerate the rollout of full 5G in the UK and expand broadband connectivity to rural communities and small businesses." Of course, the UK's regulators may have something to say about the plan… (See The dubious logic of UK resistance to mobile mergers.) Figure 1: (Photo by Paul Rainford)
In an announcement that is frankly a bit much for a Monday morning, BT's Digital unit is trumpeting the launch of a new internal machine-learning platform called AI Accelerator. The platform, says BT in its press release, "orchestrates, accelerates, and monitors AI model deployments developed by BT Group's data community, assessing their efficacy and behaviour to drive value from the business' 29 petabyte data estate." And, more scarily, the platform "will act as a scanner for the Group's Digital Brain." Boiled down into plainer English, it seems AI Accelerator is mainly about preventing BT's time and money being wasted on AI "use cases" that go nowhere.
United Internet, parent company of German communications provider 1&1, has changed its capex guidance for 2022, shrinking it down from €800 million-€1 billion (US$780 million-$975 million) to €700 million ($683 million). This is being attributed mainly to lower investments at 1&1 and 1&1 Versatel of around €200 million ($195 million) – these investments were originally planned for 2022 but now won't happen until 2023 due to "unexpected delays in the provision of antenna sites due to supply shortage at one of 1&1's roll-out partners," in the words of a United Internet statement. That partner was last week revealed to be Vantage Towers, whose parent Vodafone competes against 1&1 in Germany's mobile market.
The Italian government has stepped up surveillance on its various subsea links, including telecom cables, following the mysterious leaks from various gas pipelines in the last couple of weeks, according to a Reuters report.
Telecom Italia (TIM) rules the telco world when it comes to diversity and inclusion, at least according to the Refinitiv Diversity and Inclusion Index, which measures the performance of more than 12,000 companies on such matters. TIM came up trumps thanks to its various progressive staff policies, which include a longevity program aimed at overcoming age-related stereotypes.
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
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