T-Systems International GmbH , Lebanon and TalkTalk take us into the weekend on what is so far a quiet day for EMEA telecom.

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT)'s T-Systems unit has won a five-year (at least) extension to its (US$1.2 billion) data-center management contract with oil giant Shell, reports Bloomberg. Under the terms of the contract renewal, T-Systems will be shifting more of Shell's data into "the cloud," according to one of the unnamed insiders with knowledge of the matter.

Lebanon was continuing to suffer an Internet blackout Thursday following a break in the subsea IMEWE cable, reports the country's Daily Star. Other countries in the region were also affected by the outage. (See France Telecom-Orange Lights IMEWE .)

U.K. broadband provider TalkTalk saw its shares fall 2.6 percent following the public demonstration of the new, BBC-backed YouView IPTV service. Along with BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA), TalkTalk is planning to offer the service -- which requires a dedicated set-top box that costs £299 ($464) if bought separately -- as part of a broadband bundle. (See Euronews: Dec. 9.)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading