The European Commission announces what it describes as its most ambitious plan in 26 years of telelcoms market reform-- one involving the reduction of consumer charges, simplification of red tape and new rights for users and service providers. 

"Further substantial progress towards a European single market for telecoms is essential for Europe's strategic interests and economic progress," EC president Jose Manuel Barroso says. "For the telecoms sector itself and for citizens who are frustrated that they do not have full and fair access to Internet and mobile services."

The so called "Connected Europe" plan involves the scrapping of roaming fees, building on the roaming cap the EC introduced on 2012. If all goes to plan, from 1 July 2014 companies will have to either offer phone plans that apply everywhere within the 28 EU states ("roam like at home") or allow customers to opt for a separate roaming provider without need for a new SIM card. 

Vodafone's multiple European units are set to become one-- from October 2013 the company merges its N. & C. Europe and S. Europe regions into a single entity, with N. & C. Europe CEO Philipp Humm as Regional CEO Europe. 

S. Europe boss Paolo Bertoluzzo takes the functions of COO. The restructuring also involves the expansion of the group function to comprise Brand, Consumer, Unified Communications, Terminals, Customer Operations and Partner Markets. 

At the same time the Turkish Vodafone operating company will be united within the Africa, M. East and Asia-Pacific region. 

"These organizational changes will allow us to improve the customer experience and develop our commercial strategy more quickly and consistently," Chief Executive Vittorio Colao says. 

Go Vodafone Group Announces New Organisation Structure

Spanish telecommunications giant Telefónica agrees to pay €8.1 billion in cash and stock for German KPN subsidiary E-Plus, amidst rumblings of a European telco industry heading towards consolidation. 

E-Plus has 23.9 million customers and 2012 revenues worth €3.4bn. Telefónica plans to combine it with O2 Germany, a move reducing the amount of network players in Germany from 4 to 3 and creating a large rival to T-Mobile Germany and Vodafone. 

The acquisition still requires approval from EU antitrust officials-- making it a litmus test for the European willingness to okay deals reducing the number of players in a given country. 

Micron Technology starts sampling 128Gb multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory made using 16nm process technology, an industry first allowing for increasingly smaller memory devices.

The 16nm technology is also "the most advanced processing node for any sampling semiconductor device" the company claims.

"Our customers continually ask for higher capacities in smaller form factors, and this next-generation process node allows Micron to lead the market in meeting those demands," Micron says.