Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vivendi considers offer for Numericable stake; Huawei does in-car WiFi in Spain; Samsung and Microsoft devices under the cosh in Europe.
Nokia Networks has teamed up with Finland's Aalto University, Coriant and EXFO (Nasdaq: EXFO; Toronto: EXF) to develop an ETSI NFV proof of concept (PoC) that applies SDN and NFV capabilities to a virtualized backhaul, transport and core LTE network. In the PoC, the virtual network comprises standard switches managed by centralized SDN controllers from Coriant, while packet core functions such as mobility management and subscriber data management are run in a centralized data center, leaving only the LTE base stations as "mobile network specific hardware components." EXFO provides network probes for the PoC, which will be a focal point for the vendor partners during the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Vivendi has received a binding offer of around €3.9 billion (US$4.4 billion) from Altice for its remaining 20% stake in Numericable-SFR , reports Reuters. Vivendi closed the sale of its SFR mobile unit to Numericable, the cable operator owned by Altice, in November, for €13.37 billion ($16.7 billion). (See Eurobites: Numericable Wins SFR M&A Tussle.)
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has joined forces with Orange Spain to launch an in-car WiFi system, reports Yibada.com. The system, which costs €99 ($110) allows up to 10 mobile devices to access the Internet via WiFi while on the road.
Shares in French operator Bouygues Telecom jumped up to 5.2% on the Paris exchange today following reports that Altice had accelerated plans for a possible takeover, reports Bloomberg.
The soaraway success of Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s most recent devices and competition from low-cost Asian alternatives seriously dented European sales of handsets from Samsung Corp. and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) in 2014, reports the Financial Times (subscription required), citing a survey by IDC . According to IDC's numbers, sales of Samsung and Microsoft mobile devices fell by more than 20% in 2014. Overall, shipments of mobile phones fell 5.2% to 174.1 million units in 2014 in western Europe, adds the report.
Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) has poached itself a new chief product and innovation officer from HERE, Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK)'s navigation services unit. Christian von Reventlow succeeds Thomas Kiessling, who is leaving the company on March 15.
Germany's ADVA Optical Networking is to demonstrate virtualized mobile backhaul at Mobile World Congress, via the magic of NFV. The demo will be underpinned by a new Ethernet access device that ADVA is developing.
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
