Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Com Hem profits down in Q2; Virgin adds BT's 4K UHD sports channel; Sky sells online betting stake; UK fines Facebook a pittance for data breaches.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

July 11, 2018

2 Min Read
Eurobites: Vodafone Greece Extends Network With CYTA Acquisition

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Com Hem profits down in Q2; Virgin adds BT's 4K UHD sports channel; Sky sells online betting stake; UK fines Facebook a pittance for data breaches.

  • Vodafone Greece has completed its acquisition of CYTA Telecommunications Hellas S.A. for €118 million (US$138 million), thereby expanding its fixed network. CYTA Hellas has around 300,000 fixed broadband customers and 40,000 mobile subscribers, the latter through an MVNO arrangement with Vodafone.

    • Swedish cable operator Com Hem AB increased revenue 1.1% year-on-year to 1.81 billion Swedish kroner ($206 million) in the second quarter, though operating profit decreased by 3.6% to SEK222 million ($25.3 million) due, says the operator, to exceptional items skewing the year-on-year comparison. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, Com Hem says it will be continuing with its network upgrade in preparation for a "1+ Gbit/s" service launch.

    • In the UK, Virgin Media Inc. (Nasdaq: VMED) is adding the BT Sport 4K UHD channel to its premium bundles, at no extra cost to subscribers. This will bring Virgin 351 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League soccer games alongside 42 live Premier League matches, the FA Cup, European Rugby Champions Cup, boxing, MotoGP and more, all in pimple-revealing, higher-than-high-definition detail.

    • Elsewhere on the UK cable front, takeover target Sky has completed the sale of its 20% stake in Sky Betting & Gaming (SBG) to The Stars Group for £635 million ($840 million). Sky says it will use a proportion of the proceeds to fund a software innovation center at its Osterley campus, just west of London. (See Fox Trumps Comcast With $32.5B Bid for Sky.)

    • In a move akin to a massive bull elephant being pricked on its behind with a toothpick, Facebook is to be fined £500,000 ($662,000) by the UK's data protection watchdog for data breaches relating to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Why such a miniscule fine? It's the maximum allowed under current UK law. As the BBC reports, the Information Commissioner's Office has also sounded the alarm about political parties buying personal information from so-called "data brokers." (See Facebook: The Sick Man of Silicon Valley.)

    • 3 Denmark is planning to keep data-hungry music fans at the forthcoming Roskilde Festival happy by deploying Huawei's 4T6S SingleRAN offering. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd claims the deployment will shorten the average upload and download times by 82% and 79% respectively.

      — Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Paul Rainford

Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading

Paul is based on the Isle of Wight, a rocky outcrop off the English coast that is home only to a colony of technology journalists and several thousand puffins.

He has worked as a writer and copy editor since the age of William Caxton, covering the design industry, D-list celebs, tourism and much, much more.

During the noughties Paul took time out from his page proofs and marker pens to run a small hotel with his other half in the wilds of Exmoor. There he developed a range of skills including carrying cooked breakfasts, lying to unwanted guests and stopping leaks with old towels.

Now back, slightly befuddled, in the world of online journalism, Paul is thoroughly engaged with the modern world, regularly firing up his VHS video recorder and accidentally sending text messages to strangers using a chipped Nokia feature phone.

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