Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodafone offers fiber broadband in three more UK cities; GDPR fines, and who's getting them; ElevenPaths acquires Govertis.
Deutsche Telekom has commercially launched its own cloud gaming platform, called MagentaGaming. Customers who book the service by October 31 can use it free of charge for three months; after that, a monthly fee of €6.95 (US$8.22) kicks in. The service was launched in beta form a year ago at the Gamescon convention, and since then more than 20,000 users have given it a go. For the commercial launch, MagentaGaming appears in a new design, with some new functions, including the ability to set appropriate age group restrictions for their children. Deutsche Telekom clearly sees gaming as a major potential growth area: In July it invested €2 million (US$2.2 million) in RemoteMyApp, a Polish cloud gaming company, while last year it acquired a 25% stake in Cologne-based SK Gaming.
Vodafone has extended its Gigafast Broadband service to three new UK cities following a deal with Openreach, BT's semi-autonomous network access arm. Around 360,000 homes and businesses across Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool will now have access to speeds of up to 900 Mbit/s over full-fiber connections (so nearly Gigafast then, if we're going to be pedantic…). Vodafone hopes to increase this figure to 500,000 premises by mid-2021. Twelve other UK towns and cities are part of an existing full-fiber broadband agreement with CityFibre. Prices for a Gigafast 900 plan start at £55 ($72) a month.
The European Union introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) more than two years ago, since when Accepting Cookies has become virtually a full-time job for many laptop-based wage slaves. Research company Finbold has released a study looking at which countries are the worst offenders when it comes to GDPR violations, and it seems Spain is ahead of the game, accruing 76 fines in 2020 to date. However, in terms of actual fine values, Italy rules the roost, notching up an impressive €45.6 million ($53.9 million) worth of knuckle-raps. The most common GDPR violation? "Insufficient legal basis for data processing." (See Vodafone Spain falls foul of GDPR regs (again), Eurobites: Privacy Champion Slams Web Giants Over GDPR Tactics and Eurobites: Most EU States Still Not Ready for GDPR.)
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ElevenPaths, the cybersecurity arm of Telefónica, is to acquire Govertis, a company specializing in the dark arts of GRC (governance, risk and compliance) and IRM (integrated risk management) consulting. The acquisition is linked to Telefónica's startup incubation work through Wayra. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.
Sweden's Net Insight has landed a media transport deal with Arena Sport, a pay-TV sports network which is based in Serbia but broadcasts throughout the Balkans. The deal, which centers on Net Insight's Nimbra platform, is worth approximately €150,000 ($177,000).
Swisscom is getting deeper into the insurance market, teaming up with travel insurance specialist ERV to offer flexible travel insurance that customers can take out on a daily basis, and partnering with AXA-ARAG to offer "Easy Cyber Insurance" to provide legal protection in cases of identity theft credit card misuse, online bullying and fraudulent retailers when shopping online.
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
