Also in today's regional roundup: Gigabit broadband battle in Poland; Russians mull non-domestic Internet company tax; Dutch payment venfor on the tear; IBM's coffee drone.

August 24, 2018

3 Min Read
Eurobites: M&A Rumor Links ADVA With ECI

In today's regional roundup: Could ADVA be keen on ECI?; Gigabit broadband battle in Poland; Russians mull non-domestic Internet company tax; Dutch payment venfor on the tear; IBM's coffee drone.

  • Is ADVA considering a takeover bid for ECI Telecom Ltd. ? That's the speculation being reported by Roy Rubenstein on Gazettabyte. According to industry sources he has spoken to, ADVA Optical Networking had been looking at Coriant as a potential takeover target but lost out to Infinera. Now it appears to have turned its attention to ECI, which is having a good year. All of this activity is taking place as network operators consider their 5G-related optical and packet networking needs, which will be strategically important: 5G-related transport network investments are likely to give the optical vendor community a sales boost in the next few years. (See Infinera, Coriant Hear a $430M Siren Song of Synergy , ECI Reportedly Planning a London IPO, 5G Transport: Question Time and 5G Transport – Where Do We Start?.)

    Join Light Reading in investigating the transport and networking requirements of 5G as US operators move towards commercial launch. Register today for 5G Transport & Networking Strategies in New York on Oct. 9. Register now for this exclusive opportunity to learn from and network with industry experts – communications service providers get in free!

    • Gigabit battle in Poland? Orange Poland has announced the availability of Gigabit broadband in 76 cities just a day after cable operator rival UPC launched its 1Gbit/s offering in the Polish capital Warsaw based on DOCSIS 3.1 technology.

    • Russian telcos are lobbying the government to grant new powers which would allow them to tax non-domestic internet companies to ease the burden of new data storage laws, reports our sister publication Telecoms.com. See Russian telcos push for OTT tax on new data storage laws.

    • Adyen, a Dutch payments specialist that has developed a platform that manages both online and offline transactions, has reported excellent financials for the first half of the year, its first earnings report since its IPO in June. For more details, see Payments challenger Adyen post strong growth following June IPO.

    • This is not EMEA-specific but I couldn't let it pass… IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) has filed a patent for a smart drone that can detect when workers might need a cup of coffee and then deliver it to them, reports the BBC. The patent was filed on August 7 and is titled 'Drone delivery of coffee based on a cognitive state of an individual.' The application is here. It's hard to know where to start with this… suffice to say that this is a terrible idea, mainly because it belittles coffee as merely a productivity-enhancer, and suggests the coffee-making process is not an important part of the end-to-end 'desire-to-consumption' process. I am appalled. Seriously. Now get me a double espresso...

      Figure 1: An image from the patent application. Surely better to set up a barista station in the office... An image from the patent application. Surely better to set up a barista station in the office...

      — Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

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