Eurobites: Satellite startup Sateliot bags €30M EIB loan for IoT rolloutEurobites: Satellite startup Sateliot bags €30M EIB loan for IoT rollout

Spanish satellite startup Sateliot has secured a €30 million (US$31.5 million) loan from the European Investment Bank to support its planned rollout of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, which is intended to provide IoT connectivity worldwide. The Barcelona-based company is building a network of more than 100 small satellites to connect devices in remote areas. The satellites, says Sateliot, will act like mobile telecom towers, providing a 5G narrowband connection to more than 8 million devices. Traditional mobile operators will be able to use this service to expand the coverage of their ground-based IoT networks to previously unserved areas.

France's Iliad has agreed to sell a 50% stake in its OpCore data center business to private equity firm InfraVia for €860 million ($903 million). OpCore has data centers in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Poland. Thomas Reynaud, CEO of the Iliad Group, said that the two companies plan to invest more than €2.5 billion ($2.6 billion) in OpCore, with the stated ambition of making it the leading data center platform in Europe.

Ericsson has launched Compact Packet Core, a new product that the Swedish vendor says makes it easier for communications service providers to modernize their existing packet core technology to cloud-native for both 4G and 5G. Compact Packet Core can also shrink a service provider's energy and hardware footprint by up to 30%, claims the company.

Nordic operator Telia is teaming up with Region Västerbotten to launch a new private 5G network at Skellefteå Hospital in northern Sweden. The network, says Telia, will enable staff at the hospital to access information faster, including data-heavy scan and mammography images, when deciding on patient-care interventions. There are also plans to test the use of drones to share real-time updates from accident scenes with ambulances and emergency departments. The project has received more than 50 million Swedish kroner ($4.5 million) in support from the EU.

Orange and Arubian operator Setar have begun construction of the (also EU-funded) CELIA-CETC cable connecting the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Martinique to Florida in the US. The project, which is expected to go live in the third quarter of 2027, will be powered by a new cable covering 1,900km, with an initial estimated capacity of more than 44 Tbit/s.

CityFibre is increasing the availability of its national Ethernet network in the UK by 50% through a deal with Neos Networks. CityFibre's services will appear on Neos' Livequote platform.

Virgin Media O2 is widening access to free data for those from low-income households in the UK ahead of the Christmas break. A further 70 O2 stores will be designated as National Databank Hubs, allowing those eligible to receive 25GB of free O2 data per month for 12 months, helping them stay connected over the festive period and beyond. According to new research cited by VMO2, around a quarter of Brits on low incomes – those with a household income of less than £15,000 ($19,000) –  are struggling to afford their mobile phone bill.