Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: VodafoneZiggo tries on Red Hat; Google rivals search for answers from EU; Colt touts 400GE service.

Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe

October 7, 2021

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Virgin's gigabit reaches 12.8M mark in UK

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: VodafoneZiggo tries on Red Hat; Google rivals search for answers from EU; Colt touts 400GE service.

  • Virgin Media O2 has brought a further 2.5 million UK homes within reach of gigabit broadband service with its latest switch-on, taking its total coverage to 12.8 million homes or three-quarters of Virgin's overall network footprint. Virgin claims that its Gig1 service, with an average download speed of 1,130 Mbit/s, is the fastest available from any major broadband provider in the UK and 22 times faster than the national average. It has committed to delivering gigabit speeds across its entire network of 15.5 million homes by the end of this year. (See Eurobites: Virgin Media Raises Gigabit Stakes in UK.)

    • Netherlands operator VodafoneZiggo has chosen Red Hat's OpenShift as its hybrid cloud platform. The provider was looking for supplier-agnostic technology to grease the wheels of its multivendor infrastructure. With OpenShift, VodafoneZiggo hopes to be able to scale up more rapidly and efficiently across multiple clouds and to the edge as its needs change.

    • A clutch of Google's smaller search engine rivals have told European Union lawmakers to deploy new tech rules drafted by EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager in order to successfully challenge the US giant's stranglehold on the search market. As Reuters reports, US search engine DuckDuckGo, Germany's Ecosia and French rivals Qwant and Lilo used a joint letter to lawmakers to point out that a menu that allows users to choose their default search engine when setting up an Android device is not available on other operating systems, and urged EU officials to use Vestager's Digital Markets Act to ensure true and fair competition.

    • UK-based Colt Technology Services has announced the availability of what it claims is a telco industry first: a 400GE service across Europe and Asia-Pacific. The service is based on Ciena's WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optical technology.

    • Iliad-owned Free has launched fiber services on the Calvados and the Côte Fleurie Public Initiative Networks (PINs) in northern France, which between them cover more than 159,000 homes. Both PINs are operated by the Covage network.

    • Up next: squirrel news. Britain's red squirrels, to be precise. The Mammal Society has teamed up with the University of Bristol, Rainforest Connection and Chinese vendor Huawei to help secure the future of this endangered creature, which has lost 60% of its range in England and Wales over the last 13 years as it does battle with its big bad gray rival. Huawei's software will be used to analyze the natural noise of woodland environment and generate data which can be used to help the red squirrel numbers get back on an even keel. Figure 1: Deep dive: Huawei's AI software is being used to find out why the UK's red squirrels are dwindling. (Source: Jonny Gios on Unsplash) Deep dive: Huawei's AI software is being used to find out why the UK's red squirrels are dwindling.
      (Source: Jonny Gios on Unsplash)

    • CityFibre has appointed Dan Ramsay as its new chief marketing officer. Ramsay brings both insider government knowledge – he was previously CMO at the Cabinet Office – and expertise gained behind enemy lines in various roles at BT and EE. Sounds like a handy hire.

      — 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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