Eurobites: Ericsson gets Odido billing gig

Odido, the Dutch operator formerly known as T-Mobile, has migrated the billing infrastructure of its Ben MVNO brand to Ericsson's AWS-hosted platform. The migration was led by system integrator Wipro. According to Ericsson, the migration was completed in 24 hours with "zero errors" and means Ben subscribers will benefit from 100% automation, which sounds ominous for someone. Later this year Odido plans to migrate its main-brand customers to the Ericsson platform as well.

BT has won the contract to create a new corporate network for BGC, Iraq's largest gas flare reduction company. The new network, says BT, will provide secure connectivity for BGC sites across multiple locations, such as gas fields, processing plants and offices. It will also provide improved connectivity to hyperscalers and delivery of cloud-based applications such as Microsoft 365 and SAP.

Telefónica has announced the death of its former chairman, César Alierta, at the age of 78. Alierta spent around 16 years in the leadership role at the Spanish giant and was widely credited with turning Telefónica into one of the world's biggest service providers, with operations that span Europe and Latin America. He stepped down from the top job in 2016, but latterly he led Fundación Telefónica, the operator's social development initiative. The current chairman of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete, said: "It is a sad day for the Telefónica family. We are all custodians of the immense legacy left to us by César Alierta, a passionate, intelligent and courageous man with a heart that was wide open. His vision of the future and his intuition always led him to try to change the world for the better."

NetIX has added a new 100G route between Marseille and Milan and doubled existing capacity between Madrid and Frankfurt to 200G. Later in Q1 the company plans to add a new 100G link between Madrid and Marseille.

UK-based TXO, which sells refurbished telecom hardware among other services, has acquired Teqport, a German company that does something very similar. Sebastien Neubeck, co-founder and CEO of Teqport, will continue to head up the combined German operation. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

CityFibre, the UK alternative network provider (altnet), has completed the primary build of its fiber network in the town of Slough, some 20 miles west of London. Around 80% of residential properties and "most businesses" in the town are covered by the new network, says the company.

Eurobites loves a pointless rebranding exercise, and here's one for the scrapbook. The marketing aces at Orange have come up with a new "brand signature": wait for it, wait for it, drum roll please… "Orange is here." Apparently it "sends a clear message regarding Orange's commitment to be a trusted operator, there for its customers, at each step of their journey and in any circumstances." I'm sure it sounds better in French.