Euronews: T Italia Gets Busy in Brazil

Telecom Italia (TIM) , Orange France and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) start the week in today's roundup of EMEA headlines.

Latin America is where it's at right now for Telecom Italia, and the carrier is reinforcing its position in the region with the €700 million (US$988 million) acquisition of AES Atimus Group, a Brazilian fiber network operator that has a strong presence in the most densely populated and wealthiest parts of the country. (See T Italia Buys Brazilian Net for €700M , Mixed 2010 for Euro Giants and T Italia's Latino Lunge.)

Orange (NYSE: FTE)'s Orange brand has formed an agreement with consumer electronics firm Samsung Corp. The deal will bring a "portal" for Orange-sponsored content -- including sports information, cinema trailers and the like -- to Samsung's smart TVs, initially just in France but eventually throughout most of Europe. (See Orange, Samsung Strike TV Portal Deal.)

Alcatel-Lucent has concluded what it says has been a successful trial of 100Gbit/s transport in Saudi Arabia with Etihad Etisalat Co. (Mobily) , the kingdom's second-largest mobile operator. (See Mobily Trials 100G With AlcaLu and Saudi Operators Look to Convergence.)

Now it really has to be mañana for Spain's mobile firms: The Spanish goverment has decreed that the country's operators will now have just one day to implement a requested switch of provider, as opposed to the current four days, reports Reuters.

Swisscom AG (NYSE: SCM) has joined forces with Winterthur Public Utilities on a project to provide the Swiss town of, erm, Winterthur with high-speed broadband. The utility firm is laying four optical fibres to each household and business, two of which will be reserved for Swisscom. (See Swisscom Teams Up in Winterthur and Swisscom Reports Q1 .)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading