Eurobites: Vodafone's UK franchisees launch £120M lawsuit over cuts to commissionEurobites: Vodafone's UK franchisees launch £120M lawsuit over cuts to commission

A 61-strong group of current and former Vodafone store franchisees in the UK are pursuing a legal claim worth more than £120 million (US$153 million) against the mobile operator, claiming that commission cuts imposed by the operator suddenly in July 2020 left them in severe debt, with several contemplating suicide. One claimant, Andrew Kerr, alleges that, with just 14 days' notice, almost a third of his revenue was wiped out by Vodafone's decision to cut his commission. A number of the franchisees claim their stores were taken away from them with little notice and no other explanation than that Vodafone had decided to take their stores in "a different direction." The case comes as something of a reality check to Vodafone as it celebrates the regulatory approval of its merger with Three to become the UK's largest mobile operator. (See Vodafone and Three merger is blessed, but much could go wrong.)

Away from this awkward domestic strife, Vodafone has signed a non-branded partnership agreement with Cellfie Mobile in Georgia. Under the terms of the deal, Cellfie Mobile will be able to tap into Vodafone's expertise and advisory services to help it broaden its digital offer to its customers. The agreement forms part of the Vodafone Partner Markets program, which now operates in 46 territories across the world.

Nokia is to supply data center operator Nscale with an IP network offering billed as being strong enough to support demanding AI workloads at Nscale's new sustainable facility in Stavanger, Norway. The data center, which is powered by renewable energy and uses energy-efficient cooling technology, will enable a range of AI-based services, including graphics-processing-unit-as-a-service (GPUaaS), which is very much Nscale's thing. The deployment is based on Nokia's 7220 IXR and 7750 SR platforms.

Nokia has also launched the 5G Banshee Flex Radio, which it describes as a mobile broadband edge network-in-a-box designed to meet the communication demands of modern warfare.

Saudi's Mobily is testing Ericsson's AI-powered 5G uplink Interference Optimizer software, which is part of the vendor's Cognitive Software suite and intended to boost 5G uplink performance. According to Ericsson, the trial demonstrated that the proportion of transmissions conducted under high-quality conditions increased by 80% through the use of the Optimizer software, resulting in spectral efficiency and better throughput.

Mobile network performance in Ireland took a tumble as the country was lashed by Storm Darragh last weekend, according to a new Ookla report. All three mobile operators – Eir, Three and Vodafone – suffered, with median download speeds on Saturday recorded at nearly 70% lower than the seven-day average leading up to the storm. Around 40% of all samples collected by Ookla's Speedtest system failed to meet the minimum thresholds across 4G (5 Mbit/s download, 1 Mbit/s upload) and 5G (25 Mbit/s download, 3 Mbit/s upload) on Saturday.

MLL Telecom has won a three-year contract from UK rail operator TransPennine Express for managed SD-WAN services. The contract covers 37 sites, including head office, data centers and stations across northern England and in Scotland.

Bulgaria's NetIX is trumpeting a new traffic record of 4 Tbit/s across its Internet exchange network in 2024. This, says NetIX, means it has made the global top ten of Internet exchange points.