América Móvil S.A. de C.V. , KPN Telecom NV (NYSE: KPN) and Telefónica SA (NYSE: TEF) lead off today's foray into the EMEA telecom headlines.

América Móvil, the Latin American operator owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, has made a formal offer for 27.7 percent of KPN, at a price of €8 per share. In its regulatory announcement of the offer, the Dutch incumbent says that it believes the offer "substantially undervalues" the company and that it will "continue to explore all strategic options." (See KPN Notes América Móvil Offer, Slim's Dutch Drama and Euronews: Slim Picking at KPN.)

Telefónica is preparing a number of IPOs of regional business units, starting in Germany, to help focus its portfolio, cut its debts and improve its credit ratings. Financial analysts believe Telefónica Deutschland GmbH could be worth up to €9 billion (US$11.2 billion). (For the full story, see Telefónica Plans Regional IPOs and Telefónica Preps German IPO.)

Telefónica is certainly up against it on its home turf -- its mobile subsidiary, Movistar (Spain) , lost 337,700 customers in March, according to a report by Spanish regulator CMT, cited by Telecompaper (subscription required). (See Euronews: Telefónica's Profits Halved.)

The European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO) used a conference on Wednesday to urge European governments to invest more public funds into fiber rollouts, reports Reuters. However, a European Commission official at the same conference said, essentially, that telcos may need to get real and rethink their growth strategies. (See More Pain, No Gain for Europe's Telcos.)

Kabel Deutschland GmbH is claiming a world record with a 4.7Gbit/s downlink speed on a field trial over its cable network in the German city of Schwerin. The trial was carried out in collaboration with Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS).

NextiraOne has launched its "LinkerConnect" WAN, which it is also dubbing "The Only WAN" (not to be confused with this lot.) The vendor says LinkerConnect will allow French businesses and public sector organizations to build their own inter-site networks without having to rely on pesky traditional operators.

Orange (NYSE: FTE) is to cut the price of its main mobile offerings by around a fifth in response to low-cost rival Free Mobile, reports Reuters. Delphine Ernotte, executive vice president of Orange France , also predicted the ARPU at Orange France will fall by around 10 percent this year. (See Euronews: FT's Q1 Suffers Free Fall and Iliad Disrupts the French Mobile Scene .)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading