France's Bouygues Telecom saw first-quarter EBITDAal (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, after leases) rise by €45 million ($49 million) year-over-year, to €399 million ($435 million), thanks to a combination of sales growth and a tighter control on costs. Sales were up 8%, to €1.93 billion ($2.10 billion). During the quarter, the operator added 27,000 new mobile customers (excluding M2M) and 148,000 new FTTH sign-ups. Bouygues now has 3.1 million FTTH customers, representing 67% of its fixed customer total. Full-year guidance was confirmed.

The latest twist in the saga of Telecom Italia's fixed infrastructure sell-off sees trouble brewing between state-backed lender CDP and Australian fund Macquarie, who were until recently the best of friends in a consortium bidding for TIM's landline grid. According to a Reuters report, Macquarie is now raising legal objections to a possible coming together of CDP and US private equity fund KKR for a fresh joint bid. (See Eurobites: CDP-Macquarie comes in with bid for TIM's fixed infrastructure.)

Away from the boardroom Beowulf, TIM has signed a framework agreement with the National Research Council of Italy to carry out research and joint projects in the area of smart cities and what the operator calls "urban intelligence." One specific area of collaboration will be the Digital Twin Cities project, which uses integrated digital systems, widespread sensors and predictive analytics to virtually replicate the a city and its systems, with the goal of developing a new model of urban planning and management.

In the same ballpark, the UK government has published what it describes as an "alpha Playbook" intended to help local authorities keep their nascent smart cities safe from cyberattacks. A number of local authorities contributed what they have learned from their respective smart-city projects to the Playbook. The next stage, apparently, involves "beta testing the alpha Playbook." Someone somewhere did Greek at private school…

Stockholm-based Sinch is expanding its cloud-based direct connect voice footprint into Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The company will offer its IP Connect connectivity between global service providers.

Beeline Kazakhstan, which forms part of the VEON empire, has developed what it says is the first Kazakh-language AI model to support digital services. BeeBert is described by Beeline as a generative AI technology that will improve the customer experience on Beeline's various digital applications.

The European Commission has decided to give the green light to Microsoft's planned acquisition of games developer Activision Blizzard on condition that Microsoft offers a number of licensing commitments over the next decade, commitments that are intended to – temporarily at least – prevent the technology giant from gaining a strangehold on the market for cloud-based gaming. The Commission's judgement is at odds with the decision by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority to say no to the deal, a decision that Microsoft's legal stormtroopers are currently preparing to challenge in the courts. (See A metaverse-loving Microsoft brings a dystopia for telcos.)

Satellite operator Inmarsat has appointed Collins Aerospace as the latest distributor for its SwiftJet inflight connectivity service. Powered by Inmarsat's ELERA satellite network, SwiftJet offers global coverage across flight routes and maximum speeds of 2.6 Mbit/s, up to six times faster than Inmarsat's existing L-band business aviation connectivity service, SwiftBroadband (SBB).

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading