Cabo Verde Telecom and EllaLink have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to deliver subsea fibre connectivity to Cabo Verde.

Verizon Communications has named Hans E. Vestberg, executive vice president and president of global networks and chief technology officer. Vestberg will succeed Lowell C. McAdam as CEO, effective 1 August 2018. McAdam – who was named CEO on August 1, 2011, and chairman on January 1, 2012 – will serve as executive chairman of the board through his retirement from the company at the end of the year, after which he will become non-executive chairman.

Having now completed its acquisition of General Cable, Prysmian Group is launching a new organisation to begin the company’s integration.

Prysmian described the newly created group as a ‘world leader in the energy and telecom cable systems industry.’ It has global headquarters in Milan and reported sales of more than €11 billion (pro-forma as of 31 December 2017). There are approximately 30,000 employees across 112 plants and 25 research and development centres in more than 50 countries.

Gavin Patterson, chief executive at BT Group is to step down from his role later this year. The board has begun to the recruitment process for Patterson’s successor, whom the company says is expected to be in place during the second half of 2018. Until then Patterson will remain in the role.

In a statement, chairman, Jan du Plessis said: ‘Gavin has been with BT for just over 14 years and I want to thank him for his contribution to our business during that time, in particular during the almost five years that he has served as chief executive.

Virgin Media is taking legal action against Durham County Council, for what the provider calls a ‘blockade’ on its delivery of ultrafast broadband by asking for increased payments to access the land upon which it hoped to increase its network by laying new fibre optic cable.

The partnership with Durham, which was announced at the end of last year, had been put in place with the aim of extending the provider’s high-speed network to around 16,000 properties in Durham by the end of 2019. Virgin Media said that this would benefit the area by increasing speeds to 350Mb/s.

Prysmian Group has now completed its acquisition of General Cable, the company has announced. Prysmian Group signed the definitive agreement to acquire General Cable at the end of last year in a deal that valued the latter at $3 billion, including debt and certain liabilities.

GTT Communications has confirmed that its acquisition of Interoute – the operator of one of Europe’s largest independent fibre networks – is now complete.

Ciena Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held network performance management software provider, Packet Design.

Ciena says that the acquisition would help to accelerate its Blue Planet suite of products by allowing the extension of its intelligent automation capabilities beyond Layers 0-2 and into IP. The system itself was attained via the company’s 2015 acquisition of Cyan (see Ciena buys Cyan for its software smarts).

Acacia Communications and Oclaro have teamed up in order to offer customers multi-vendors of fully interoperable CFP2-DCO modules, based on Acacia's Meru DSP.

UPC Switzerland has acquired a cable network that serves some 15,000 homes in the Höfe region of Germany, from EW Höfe.

EW Höfe said that it decided to sell its existing cable network to long-standing partner and Liberty Global-owned company, UPC Switzerland, in order to focus on the expansion of its new fibre optic network. This is set for completion in 2019.