EU invests €450m in cyber security initiative
The EU is to invest €450m in a cyber security project which it hopes will be matched by three times as much funding from the private sector. It is particularly interested in a pan-European certification for cyber security products.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: upping the uplink ante in Ireland; Milton Keynes gets the gigabit treatment; Iliad's Italian job.

The European Commission is to pump 450 million (US$502 million) into a cybersecurity initiative that it hopes will attract three times as much again in investment from the private sector. The initiative will aim to foster cooperation in the early stages of the R&D process to build cybersecurity products for a range of sectors, including energy, health, transport and finance. The Commission also plans to look into a possible pan-European certification framework for cybersecurity products.

Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) and Vodafone Ireland are claiming to have achieved Europe's fastest uplink speeds in a commercial network, using carrier aggregation technology and 64 QAM modulation to record speeds of 136 Mbit/s -- a 200% improvement on previous rates. (See Ericsson, Vodafone Claim Europes Fastest 4G Uplink.)

Milton Keynes, the UK city famous for its endless roundabouts and concrete cows, is to become the next location on CityFibre 's "Gigabit City" hitlist. The alternative infrastructure provider will make more than 160km of pure fiber network available to businesses, schools and colleges throughout the city in cahoots with its launch partner DBFB and education network specialist Exa Networks. Yesterday CityFibre announced that it had got one over BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA) by landing the contract to connect 220 public sector sites to its fiber network in Peterborough.

France's Iliad (Euronext: ILD) has emerged as the favored buyer of infrastructure and assets that would enable it to create a new operator in Italy, according to a Bloomberg report. Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. (Hong Kong: 0013; Pink Sheets: HUWHY) and VimpelCom Ltd. (NYSE: VIP), who are looking to merge their own Italian units, have put some non-core assets up for sale to help sway the competition authorities. (See Eurobites: Rivals Vie for Italian Opportunity.)

Dublin-based cloud telephony service provider Solgari has landed a deal with finance services specialist Aztec Exchange, which will consolidate its telephony (including mobile) and collaboration capabilities on the Solgari platform.

Liberty Global Ventures, the global investment fund owned by cable giant Liberty Global Inc. (Nasdaq: LBTY), is to pump £7.5 million ($9.8 million) into Technetix Group Ltd. , a UK-based company that supplies critical headend and access transmission systems for fiber and HFC networks. (See Liberty Global Invests in Technetix.)

Sweden's Telia Company has signed a cooperation agreement with Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) to smooth the path towards 5G for customers at its Finnish subsidiary, Sonera. Telia has already signed similar agreements with Ericsson and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) has admitted that it has found customer details for sale on the so-called "dark web," according to an SC Magazine report. It is thought that up to 120,000 customer records may have been compromised.

Swisscom AG (NYSE: SCM) claims that its migration to an all-IP network is going swimmingly, with more than half of its customers -- 1.3 million of them -- already benefiting from the technology switch. Full switchover is scheduled for the end of 2017. (See Swisscom Boasts All IP Progress.)