Vodafone UK , Telecom Italia (TIM) and Virgin Media Inc. (Nasdaq: VMED) make some waves in today's EMEA telecom news pool.

Guy Laurence, the CEO of Vodafone in the U.K., has hit back at last week's comment from the head of U.K. regulator Ofcom that the country's mobile operators' litigious ways were holding up progress on the LTE front. Laurence told the Daily Telegraph that he was "really annoyed that he's [Ed Richards] lumped us all in together," pointing out that Vodafone has supported Ofcom in ten appeals over the last decade. (See Euronews: Ofcom Slams Obstructive UK Operators.)

On the subject of regulators making themselves unpopular, Spain's Ofcom equivalent, CMT, has proposed a 73 percent reduction in mobile termination rates, reports Telecompaper. Movistar (Spain) , Vodafone, Orange Spain and Yoigo , which operate the networks in question, will not be happy -- particularly as Spain's economic troubles have already hit the country's telcos hard. (See Euronews: Vodafone Feels Pain in Spain and Telefonica Takes $3.8B Hit .)

Telecom Italia's EVP for Top Clients, Simone Battiferri, has bemoaned the level of IT "literacy" in his native country, reports Bloomberg. It could, he reckons, hold Italy back in the burgeoning cloud services market. Telecom Italia entered the market with its "Italian Cloud" in September 2010. (See T Italia Launches Cloud Services.)

Virgin Media has launched a new, simplified lineup of all-you-can-eat data packages for the enterprise market, according to a Reuters report. Virgin is looking to make ground on BT and Cable & Wireless Worldwide in the U.K. business services market. (See Virgin's Business Broadband Broadside.)

U.K. broadband provider TalkTalk is planning to get more into mobile, offering customers handsets and contracts in the near future, reports Marketing. TalkTalk currently offers a range of SIM-only options. (See TalkTalk Revenues Down in H1 and Ofcom Fines TalkTalk £3M.)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading