(Source: Joris Van Ostaeyen/Alamy Stock Photo)

BEREC, the body mainly made up of EU member states' communications regulatory authorities, has issued a report which concludes that consolidation amongst European telcos won't necessarily bring lower prices or better services for consumers. All the available evidence, says BEREC, "does not show that greater scale automatically leads to more investment, innovation or competitiveness." Indeed, adds the report, "evidence from mergers indicates that prices increase in the short to medium term following the mergers, even with remedies in place."

The BEREC report also found that EU consumers benefit from some of the lowest connectivity prices among developed countries, enjoying prices significantly lower than those charged in South Korea or the US, for example.

Some EU member states – such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain – are among the world's top performers in terms of fixed broadband connectivity, the report added. (See Eurobites: EU bigwig Draghi calls for telecom consolidation, Eurobites: GSMA shines spotlight on networks 'investment gap' and EU bigwigs gibber about M&A and fume about Huawei.)

CMA sets tight deadline for feedback on BT-TalkTalk deal

Those wanting to have their say on the BT's takeover of broadband provider TalkTalk deal only have until Friday to do so, says the UK's Competition and Markets Authority. The CMA itself has to submit a report on the deal to the UK government by October 19, which will include an assessment of whether the authority believes that the deal has created a "relevant merger situation" needing further investigation under the terms of the Enterprise Act 2002. BT rival Virgin Media O2 has already made its feelings clear, calling the deal a "stitch up masked as a rescue deal in the public interest." (See Eurobites: BT seeks 'continuity of service' with £400M TalkTalk purchase.)

Orange Business gets cloud security certification

Orange Business has been awarded the SecNumCloud cloud-security qualification by France's national cybersecurity agency. SecNumCloud is France's highest security qualification for cloud services, confirming that the certified services meet stringent requirements for cybersecurity, data protection and transparency, and are suitable for the processing of particularly sensitive information.

Openreach deploys Ciena's Waveserver

Openreach, the semi-autonomous network access arm of UK operator BT, has chosen Ciena's Waveserver coherent optical technology to expand its high-capacity connectivity services for wholesale customers. The technology allows for the deployment of 400G and 800G client traffic over dedicated 1.6Tbit/s wavelengths, with a 2RU chassis supporting up to 32 x 400G services.

Du boosts Dubai mall coverage with Huawei

UAE operator Du has achieved download speeds exceeding 3.5Gbit/s over its Huawei-built 5G Advanced indoor network at the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai. The deployment features more than 150 antennas across the mall. It also uses three-band carrier aggregation with a combined bandwidth of 300MHz on a single antenna. The operator claims that this combination offers more than 50% higher data throughput compared with 5G non-standalone network performance.

KCOM offers eSIM

KCOM, the company best known as a BT-supplanting fixed-line operator based in and around the northern English city of Hull, has launched an eSIM service for consumer and business customers. The package offers add-ons for customers traveling abroad to 200 listed countries, allowing them to add up to 20GB of extra data for up to 30 days.

Ooredoo does dark fiber

Ooredoo's OFN has signed a dark fiber agreement with iQ Networks to help develop an integrated subsea and terrestrial connectivity corridor through Iraq towards Turkey and Europe. The agreement complements a separate deal between OFN and the Iraqi Telecommunications and Post Company for the Fibre in Gulf (FIG) subsea cable system.

O2 renews London venue naming deal

UK mobile operator O2 has renewed until 2038 its naming deal with the owners of the London live entertainment venue that sits on the site of the ill-fated and much-mocked Millennium Dome, forking out £200 million (US$264 million) for the privilege, according to a Guardian report. The O2, as the venue is officially called, is claimed to be the world's most popular live entertainment venue, welcoming more than 100 million visitors and hosting over 6,800 events since opening in 2007.