In the news 2015: the year's telecoms highlights

BYE BYE C&W Liberty Global announced a $8.2 billion deal for Cable & Wireless Communications in November, potentially signalling the end of the road for one the oldest companies in the industry. DIRECT DEAL DONE AT&T closed its $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV. It plans to launch new integrated products and pricing packages in January. VERIZON BUYS AOL Verizon spent $4.4 billion on the acquisition of AOL, indicating its interest in both its content and advertising assets. SUBCONTINENTAL MERGERS Consolidation came to the Indian subcontinent in November. India’s Reliance Communications agreed to take control of Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), while in Pakistan Mobilink moved for Warid Telecom. LAP OF THE GODS BT has returned to the mobile sector, signing up more than 200,000 customers since launching an MVNO service on EE's network in March. The launch came less than a month after BT finalised a £12.5 billion takeover of the aforementioned operator. Presuming the deal passes all the requisite regulatory tests–the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) gave its preliminary blessing in October&ndash…