Eurobites: Vivendi Spooks Telecom Italia ShareholdersEurobites: Vivendi Spooks Telecom Italia Shareholders

Ireland's eir (formerly known as eir ) is in advanced talks to buy Setanta Sports, the Dublin-based pay-TV broadcaster, according to the Irish Times. Only last week Setanta signed a multi-year extension to its current deal with BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA), which allows its customers to receive BT's sports channels as part of the Setanta pack.

Qatari mobile operator Ooredoo has signed a five-year extension of its agreement with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , which will see the Chinese vendor supply a range of technologies and services. Earlier this week Ooredoo announced a similar deal with Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC).

The lawyers are beginning to encircle TalkTalk , the UK broadband provider that hit the headlines last month when it was the victim of a cyber attack that compromised the personal details of nearly 157,000 of its 4 million customers. The Guardian reports that a second law firm, based in Wales, is looking into mounting a class action against TalkTalk on behalf of aggrieved customers who have had their bank details and more taken. (See TalkTalk Plummets on Security Woes.)

Two rival bidders have emerged for Bulgaria's Vivacom , which is being put up for sale by owner VTB Capital. As Reuters reports, in the blue corner is Bulgarian businessman Spas Roussev, and in the red is the combination of Olympia Group and hedge fund Third Point.

Here's something you don't hear every day: a telecom operator asking its customers not to use the phone quite so much. Well, for one day anyway. It's all part of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) 's Christmas-related ad campaign, which sets out to show the joy to be had sitting, deviceless, around the turkey and trimmings and actually, you know, talking to each other on December 25. That's just weird.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading