Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: CMA warms to Vodafone/Three merger; Point Topic charts UK fiber progress; translators – who needs 'em?!
Vodafone's business unit is to provide global IoT connectivity to users of Oracle's Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP), which underpins Oracle's range of industrial applications and is intended to offer industries the ability to manage IoT devices and cloud services. The operator's Global SIM will be integrated with the Oracle platform, allowing Oracle's customers to enjoy near real-time communications capabilities over a secure network in more than 180 countries worldwide. Industries such as healthcare, construction and hospitality stand to benefit from the collaboration, says Vodafone.
In what might be interpreted as a change in tone, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it has "provisionally found" that "remedies" proposed by Vodafone and Three, including the wider rollout of 5G, could overcome competition concerns surrounding the long-vaunted merger of the two mobile operators. The CMA has today set out a Remedies Working Paper, calling for views on the effectiveness or otherwise of the proposed package of commitments. In September the CMA had warned that the merger could lead to higher prices for customers and severely impact the business of mobile virtual network operators such as Sky Mobile, Lyca, Lebara and iD Mobile. (See Eurobites: CMA throws spanner into Vodafone-Three merger works, Vodafone, Three merger creates a network-sharing nightmare and Vodafone and Three merger not to be trusted on 5G, says watchdog.)
Overall fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) coverage in the UK had reached 23.2 million premises by the end of Q3 2024, equating to 70.5% of the UK total, according to new research from Point Topic. This was an increase of 2.8% on the equivalent figure in Q2 2024. Nearly 8.3 million premises now have access to two or more FTTP networks, says the study, with 1.1 million covered by three or more fiber networks.
Internet service providers Zen and Freedom Fibre have signed an agreement to deliver full-fiber Ethernet direct to thousands of businesses across the North West and West Midlands regions of the UK. The agreement will allow Zen to use Freedom Fibre's XGS-PON network to offer businesses high-speed Ethernet services and broadband.
The GSMA has joined forces with UK Finance, a banking industry lobby group, to fight phone-based fraud. The two organizations will jointly develop and launch Scam Signal, a new approach to tackling authorized push payment (APP) fraud in the UK. EE, Virgin Media O2, Three and Vodafone are all participating in the scheme.
A research computing center in Normandy, France, has tapped Adtran for optical transport tech. The Centre Régional Informatique et d’Applications Numériques de Normandie (CRIANN) will use Adtran's FSP 3000 optical transport technology and ALM fiber monitoring platform to boost the capacity and resilience of its research and education network, with financial support for the deal being provided by local government.
Telefónica CEO José María Álvarez-Pallete has praised staff for their efforts to restore services in the wake of the catastrophic flooding in Valencia, Spain. According to Álvarez-Pallete, more than 250 basestations, several fiber exchanges and part of the fiber network itself were destroyed in the floods. "Thank you for what you have done so far," he writes in a blog. "I dare to ask you to continue because there is much to do and we cannot remain indifferent."
Meanwhile, in "what could possibly go wrong?" corner, a Dutch publisher has revealed plans to use AI to translate some of its novels into English. As the Guardian reports, Veen Bosch & Keuning – a subsidiary of US behemoth Simon & Schuster – will use the too-sexy-for-its-shirt technology to translate/reimagine/mangle less than ten titles, all of which are described as commercial fiction.
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