Also in today's EMEA roundup: Orange considers African retreat; Samsung tops 2013 Euro patents list; NSN tests HSUPA in Turin.

• Colt Technology Services Group Ltd (London: COLT), the pan-European service provider, has deployed ADVA Optical Networking (Frankfurt: ADV) 's 100G Core technology to deal with increasing bandwith demand from its UK enterprise customers. Colt, which has been a customer of ADVA's for more than 15 years, counts some of the world's largest financial institutions among its clients. Separately, ADVA is buying Oscilloquartz, a network synchronization specialist, from Swatch Group to further boost its mobile backhaul portfolio. No financial details were disclosed. (See Colt Deploys ADVA 100G Core and ADVA Buys Oscilloquartz SA .)

   

   

• Orange (NYSE: FTE), one of the largest operators in Africa, is considering cutting back its investments in Kenya and Uganda, according to a Bloomberg report. Orange currently owns 95% of Orange Uganda and 70% of Telkom Kenya , but is considering cutting its holdings and finding new partners to help finance the development of those units.

   

   

• Procera Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: PKT) has landed a deal with Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co. (du) , the UAE-based operator, to supply its PacketLogic 10000 series of packet inspection, network optimization and analytics offerings. (See Procera Wins du Deal and Procera Virtualizes Policy Management.)

   

   

• The annual report of the European Patent Office showed that Samsung Corp. applied for more patents than any other company in 2013, racking up 2,833 applications. Others in the telecom sector making an appearance in the list include LG Electronics Inc. (London: LGLD; Korea: 6657.KS) (fourth place, with 1,648 applications), Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM) (ninth, with 1,204), Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) (10th, with 1,184), and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (11th, with 1,077).

   

   

• Nokia Solutions and Networks has been testing HSUPA 16QAM (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) technology with Telecom Italia SpA (NYSE: TI) in Turin, achieving uplink speeds of up to 11 Mbit/s. Further details of the test can be found on this press release. Let's get those cute cat videos uploaded right now! Or, on second thoughts…

   

   

• Telecom Italia Sparkle , the international services arm of Telecom Italia, is one of the investors in the catchily named SEA-ME-WE 5, a new 100G subsea system connecting Europe to Singapore. The new cable system will eventually reach 17 countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and UAE.