Eurobites: Telco CEOs plead their case in Brussels

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Breton highlights investment gap; Liberty Global's Telenet bid makes progress; Du deploys Nokia's fixed wireless tech.

A gaggle of European telco CEOs traveled to Brussels yesterday (Tuesday) to meet up with two of the European Commission's most powerful bigwigs to discuss, among other topics, the state of the continent's telecom sector and the potential for creating what they call a "European telecoms single market." Orange's Christel Heydemann, Deutsche Telekom's Tim Hoettges and Vodafone's Margherita Della Valle were among those making the telco case, while, on the Commission side, Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and Commissioner Thierry Breton lent their ears. The whole shebang was coordinated by the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO), whose chairman, Steven Tas, was also in attendance.

Thierry Breton has also found time this week to tell a conference that Europe is falling behind other parts of the world – not least the US – when it comes to network investment. As Reuters reports, Breton said: "In terms of 5G deployment, the EU lags behind other regions of the world. Just for some figures, 5G population coverage is 95% in the US versus 72% in the EU. Adjusted for GDP, 5G investment in the EU is lower than in other regions of the world." He also sought to allay concerns that the plan to make Big Tech shoulder more of the network investment burden would breach the EU's net neutrality rules, asking those present to "please stop saying this."

Liberty Global's bid for the shares in Belgian operator Telenet that it doesn't already own has been approved by Belgium's Financial Services and Markets Authority. The US-based cable giant, which currently owns 59.18% of Telenet's outstanding issued share capital, is offering €22 per share, equating to a total bid of roughly $1 billion.

Dubai-based Du is deploying Nokia's Multi-Access Gateway to provide broadband services to residential and business users over 4G/5G fixed wireless access technology, in addition to mobile services. Du says it's the first operator in the region to implement Nokia's FWA technology in this way.

Meanwhile, Nokia's latest Threat Intelligence Report has found that malicious IoT botnet activity has increased fivefold over the past year, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It seems botnet-driven DDoS attacks are being used to disrupt telecom networks as well as other critical infrastructure and services. On a brighter note, the report found that malware infections in home networks declined from a pandemic high of 3% to 1.5%, close to the pre-pandemic level of 1%, as malware campaigns targeting the wave of stuck-at-home workers tapered off, and more people returned to the office.

Starlink, the satellite broadband service owned by Elon Musk, has launched its service in Mozambique, charging 3,000 Mozambique Metical (US$47) per month for service and MZN40,492 ($633) for the necessary startup hardware. Mozambique is the fifth African location to receive Starlink service – Nigeria, Rwanda and the islands of Reunion and Mayotte are already covered.

The UK government has named Simon Fell, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Barrow & Furness, as the country's first Rural Connectivity Champion. Fell has a background in telecom and cybersecurity, having worked at Hutchison H3g and Cifas prior to chancing his arm at a career in politics.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading