Eurobites: BT puts Global unit on the slab – report

UK incumbent operator BT has put its Global division up for sale, according to a Mail on Sunday report. Earlier this year, BT hinted that the troublesome division might be destined for pastures new, saying that it would "explore all options to optimize [its] global business" as it looks to reinvent itself as a lean, mean moneymaking machine under (relatively new) CEO Allison Kirkby. The Global division had already been merged with the adjacent Enterprise division to become a single entity, BT Business, during the reign of previous CEO Philip Jansen. (See BT still stands for bloated telecom.)

Deutsche Telekom subsidiary MMS has launched a pilot project to operate a Bitcoin mining infrastructure using surplus energy from renewable sources. The idea is to use energy which would otherwise remain unused due to a lack of storage options and other factors. The mining containers are located on the premises of Riva Engineering, a manufacturer of metal and glass facades, in Backnang, Germany. The company produces its own electricity from a photovoltaic system.

Vodafone Greece has connected the island of Crete to the India-Europe-Xpress (IEX) subsea cable system via a landing station at Tympaki. The IEX system, which is nearly 10,000km long, connects Mumbai to Europe and extends east to Singapore through the India-Asia-Xpress (IAX) system.

Finland's Nokia has signed a one-year contract extension with Taiwan Mobile to boost the capacity and performance of the operator's 5G network and upgrade its 4G network. As part of the deal, Taiwan Mobile will implement Nokia's carrier aggregation software, which combines radio spectrum to increase throughput. Taiwan Mobile serves around 10 million customers.

South African EV company MellowVans has launched a new "mobile storefront" offering for telcos. According to MellowVans, the vehicles have been developed specifically for the African landscape and will act as a store-on-wheels that will allow agents to sign up new customers, sell airtime and complete SIM card registrations. MellowVans' vehicles are currently used by a number of South African brands for last-mile delivery, Spar, Woolworths and DHL among them.

UK converged operator Virgin Media O2 has called on the UK government to appoint a dedicated minister for fraud to address the epidemic of phone-based scams and the police forces' failure to deal with them properly. According to VMO2, only one in ten such cases reported to the UK's national fraud and cybercrime reporting center reached police forces for investigation in the 2023/2024 financial year.

VMO2 is also targeting small business customers through new partnerships with website builder GoDaddy, clean energy solutions provider Egg and Virgin StartUp, a not-for-profit organization that aims to help founders launch businesses. Virgin Media O2 will offer Virgin StartUp, GoDaddy, and Egg small business customers six months' half-price on all of its Voom broadband packages, while new and existing VMO2 small business customers will gain access to special offers from the three companies.