Germany’s United Internet has launched a restructuring program at subsidiaries 1&1 and Ionos, with hundreds of jobs facing the ax.
At 1&1 Versatel, the group’s business-to-business unit, the plan is to reduce the headcount to around 1,000 full-time employees, down from around 1,350 currently. The changes will be implemented in a “socially responsible manner,” promises the parent company.
At Ionos, the workforce is set to shrink to around 3,350 full-time workers, down from around 3,800, primarily through voluntary redundancies. Ionos expects the program to provide annual cost savings of up to €30 million (US34.7 million).
Taken overall, the various changes will result in one-off restructuring expenses of approximately €95 million ($110 million) for United Internet. Annual cost savings for the group are expected to reach €55 million ($63.7 million). (See 1&1’s Dommermuth: Why would we sell now? The party has yet to begin.)
Telefónica and Liberty Global look to cut costs at VMO2 – report
Telefónica and Liberty Global are also looking to cut costs – at their UK cable unit, Virgin Media O2, according to the Financial Times (paywall applies). The FT says the two companies are hoping to make savings of £600 million ($810 million) in costs at VMO2, apparently in an attempt to settle shareholder nerves about the company’s debt mountain. The cuts will come through the familiar mix of job losses and reductions in operating and capital expenditure, according to two unnamed people familiar with the matter. The operator lost 6,900 consumer fixed-line customers and 311,800 mobile connections in its first quarter this year. (See Eurobites: Turbulence continues for VMO2 as revenue slips 6.5%.)
Deutsche Telekom targets multicloud deployments
Deutsche Telekom has introduced a new platform for multicloud deployments within its T Cloud ecosystem. Called Codesphere, the platform allows customers to choose from among T Cloud, hyperscalers and their own infrastructure for each workload. The German operator says Codesphere will be particularly useful to those organizations laboring under stringent regulatory requirements, including those in the healthcare and energy sectors.
Eutelsat taps Arianespace for OneWeb launches
Eutelsat has chosen Arianespace for two upcoming OneWeb low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite launches. Scheduled for 2027 and 2028, the launches will send up OneWeb satellites aboard Ariane 64 rockets from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. The launches form part of Eutelsat’s plan to gradually renew the OneWeb constellation and ensure continuity of its LEO services. (See Eurobites: Eutelsat beams up €1B for more LEO satellites.)
Google’s Finnish splurge worries some
Finland’s opposition parties say Google’s massive investment in the country – announced this week – might not be an unalloyed godsend after all. According to a Reuters report (paywall may apply), the Centre Party and the Social Democrats warned that the country needs to make sure that there is enough electricity and transmission capacity to power the planned data centers to avoid the risk of power shortages and soaring energy prices. Google is planning to invest €13 billion ($15 billion) in AI-related digital infrastructure in Finland over the next two years, including data centers and associated investments in Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala. (See Eurobites: Google tips €13B into Finnish data center plan.)
Three years ago today…
Deutsche Telekom was claiming a “new world record in mobile radio” of 12 Gbit/s, using a combination of 3.6GHz and 6GHz spectrum, the latter not commercially available for mobile communications at the time. The rates were achieved during tests in the German town of Alzey, notched up over a distance of around 100 meters.
