Eurobites: AlcaLu Upgrades TIM Network With SDNEurobites: AlcaLu Upgrades TIM Network With SDN

In related matters, TIM Ventures, Telecom Italia's investment arm, has plowed €600,000 (US$657,000) into ClouDesire, a Pisa-based startup that aids the distribution and management of hosted applications across any public or private cloud.

Orange (NYSE: FTE) plans to use the Christmas break to continue discussions with French rival Bouygues Telecom about a possible takeover, reports Reuters, citing Les Echos, whose unnamed source said that the talks were "progressing well" and that "Bouygues is very motivated." Bouygues, part of a conglomerate whose main interests are in the construction sector, has already rejected a takeover bid from Altice earlier this year. (See Eurobites: Orange in M&A Talks With Bouygues – Report and Bouygues Says 'Non' to Altice.)

It may have been spurned by Bouygues, but Altice has completed its $9.1 billion takeover of US cable company Suddenlink, reports Reuters. (See Altice to Buy Suddenlink in $9.1B Deal and Is Altice the Great US Cable Consolidator?.)

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), which has already trumpeted the fact that it has migrated to all-IP in Croatia, Macedonia and Slovakia, has now achieved the same feat in Montenegro, at its Crnogorski Telekom subsidiary. The German giant now claims to have migrated 12 million lines to IP across Europe. It has committed to shutting down all of its European PSTN lines by the end of 2018. (See DT Completes All-IP Move in Croatia and DT's Journey to a New IP World.)

Investment firm Granahan McCourt says it has completed the integration of Ireland's enet and AirSpeed Telecom networks, both of which it acquired in the last couple of years. Following the integration, enet is to offer products and services to wholesale customers of both networks while AirSpeed will focus on growing the retail business, which serves a number of large enterprises and public sector bodies in Ireland and Northern Ireland. AirSpeed has also appointed Timothy Wyllie -- formerly a senior executive at Granahan McCourt -- as its new CEO following the departure of Liam O'Kelly, who left the company after the Granahan McCourt takeover last year. (See How to 'Get Rich Slowly' the enet Way.)

London-based CloudCredo, a specialist in SLA-driven cloud services, has been acquired by Pivotal, the US company whose Cloud Native platform is used by developers worldwide. Financial details were not disclosed. (See Pivotal Acquires CloudCredo.)

Ireland's eir (formerly eir ) is offering what it says is the country's first 24/7 broadband and technical support service, allowing customers to speak to a customer care agent at any time of day or night. Hands up who wants the 3am slot?

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading