Eurobites: Telecom Italia records net loss of €8.7B for 2021

A1 Telekom Austria has followed the lead of Deutsche Telekom, KPN and others and signed up to the European cloud infrastructure initiative, Structura-X. The initiative seeks to provide common infrastructure services that meet Gaia-X requirements for the decentralized management of data. The ultimate aim of the project is to shape the participating companies' existing infrastructure services into an "ecosystem" for European "data sovereignty," whereby the storage of EU citizens' data is not subject to exploitation by (primarily American) tech behemoths.

Orange Mali has chosen Intelsat to help bring 3G and 4G connectivity to hard-to-reach areas of the African nation. According to Intelsat, the agreement is the first of its kind in Francophone West Africa.

Spotify, the Sweden-based audio streaming company, has closed its Moscow office in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As Reuters reports, Spotify had earlier this week removed all content from Russia's state-controlled news mouthpiece, RT (apart from in its Russian market).

Telefónica Tech has teamed up with blockchain specialist Polygon to develop so-called "Web3" offerings, Web3 being the term for a new variant of the World Wide Web based on blockchain technology. According Telefónica, the collaboration will allow TrustOS, Telefónica Tech's managed blockchain platform, to improve its traceability, tokenization and certification capabilities.

Vodafone UK is retrofitting barely used public telephone kiosks with miniature 4G technology units to boost coverage in a number of cities, London, Reading and Winchester among them. To date, just nine phone boxes have been given the treatment, providing a Vodafone 4G signal over a radius of 200 meters from the box. Figure 1: 'If I had a ten pence piece I could use that phone box instead...'
(Source: Vodafone UK)

Nokia has upgraded some of its 1830 PSS-x range of packet optical transport network offerings. Upgrades include a doubling of switching capacity to 48 Tbit/s and new WDM uplinks based on Nokia's fifth-generation Photonic Service Engines (PSE-V).

DNA, Telenor's Finnish subsidiary, has appointed Bjørn Taale Sandberg as its new chief strategy officer, succeeding Christoffer von Schantz, who assumed the role of vice president of DNA's broadband and TV business in late 2021.

UK altnet Hyperoptic has launched a new mesh Wi-Fi service that it says is aimed at those with larger properties who are heavy Wi-Fi users. Mesh network technology extends the distance and coverage of Wi-Fi across a property, via access points that connect to a router. Hyperoptic Total Wi-Fi will initially be available for new and existing customers for £5 ($6.68) a month, until 31 March 2022, when it goes up to £7 ($9.36) a month.

Hyperoptic's rival, CityFibre, has announced Luton and Dunstable as the next UK towns in line for the full-fiber treatment. The £45 million ($60.2 million) investment should, says CityFibre, bring fiber connectivity within reach of every home and business in the two towns.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading