Chapter 253 Christmas is coming

When Barron returned to The Holme after running around the Regent River, he saw Tamaran still in bed, immersed in sleep.

When he walked out of the bedroom, Alya had already put hot water on for him.

"Your Highness, Mr. Inkster has arrived. He is waiting for you downstairs."

After Barron finished taking a shower, Aliya came in personally to help him get dressed and said to him - through this period of working as Barron's life assistant, Aliya had fully entered the role at this time and faced Barron. Lun has an impressive figure, and although his face is still rosy, he is no longer as shy as before, and his hands even tremble.

"Your Highness the Duke..."

When Barron walked downstairs, he saw Nigel Inkster, who was wearing a suit and sitting on the sofa in the hall, waiting for him.

"Mr. Inkster, have you had breakfast? Let's have some together."

It happened that he was a little hungry at this time, so Barron invited Nigel to enjoy breakfast with him.

"The current situation in Kolo is that the government troops have been driven out of the central area. However, their resistance in the plateau area is very tenacious. With the help of terrain advantages, the anti-government armed forces have stopped their attack..."

After breakfast, Nigel introduced Barron to the situation of the Kolo Civil War:

"Currently in the Central Region, the capital Sokode is occupied by the Free Colo Alliance. They and the Colo Resistance Army have carved up the Central Region west of the Mono River. The Colo Liberation Front led by Sheikh Hassan has occupied The area east of the Mono River in the Central District is also the smallest territory among the three anti-government forces, and its resources are much scarcer than those on the west bank of Mono. Therefore, the government forces in the plateau area are currently the most aggressive in attacking them. It was the Kolo Liberation Front that was the last to join the war.”

"What are their casualties like?"

After hearing Barron's question, Nigel said:

"The losses on the anti-government armed forces' side are not large. According to a rough estimate, among the more than 3,000 armed elements on their front lines, the total reduction in numbers is less than a quarter. On the contrary, it is the government forces whose morale is currently low. High, the losses were greater, and it also allowed the anti-government forces to obtain some captured weapons and equipment, and began to expand the number of personnel locally. However, so far, the most elite of the Colo government forces have been stationed in the capital Loti, with a scale of more than 1,000 The human Nassin Brigade has not yet been transferred to the front line. This is an elite force named after Nassin Dema, the leader of Colo. It was originally led by Nassin himself, and their equipment is all French ordnance. "

Barron also knows that in African armies, morale is often the most important. When the momentum is overwhelming, the offensive can be maintained. Once there is a setback, those dark buddies will often start to scatter, making it difficult to maintain the overall team. shape.

Therefore, although the anti-government forces currently appear to be on a fierce offensive, once this offensive is blocked and the opponent's elite troops enter the scene, they are likely to be defeated.

It is now late December, and the 200 newly recruited local armed personnel added to the Munger base by the Protector Military Company have arrived there. In addition to the 200 new recruits who have just been recruited and trained in Kolo, the Munger base and In the barracks near the newly acquired diamond mine, the Protector Military Company already has more than 400 British soldiers and 300 Colo soldiers, with a total armed force of 700.

In addition, they have standard equipment that is comparable to that of the British army at this time - these were previously transported from Iraq to the Munger base through various methods for preservation. Apart from anything else, the two mines guarding them are still No problem.

Markel Paulson even assured him that with these forces, any independent armed force, including government forces, would be defeated in Colo.

After all, in addition to the light weapons and equipment of individual soldiers, the Munger base also has armed helicopters and artillery. They even considered transporting back two of the tanks that the coalition forces "lost" on the battlefield in Iraq...

Well, with so many rebel groups in Iraq, it makes sense to destroy a few tanks, right?

It was also reported last month that more than half of the Challenger 2 tanks used by the British Army in the Iraq War had been "slumped", and many of them were completely damaged beyond repair...

…

Before Christmas, when the exchange rate of the euro against the US dollar was close to 2.5, DS Capital's operation had already begun to close the position.

But because their positions are relatively high, they are expected to complete this liquidation operation before January next year.

Now that Christmas is coming, the whole of England is getting into a festive mood.

At both residences in Barron, Christmas trees have been delivered and decorated in the halls.

At the same time, O2 Telecom also started another promotion.

At this time, in the French market, the 2G network built by Huawei has been able to cover their major cities. It is expected that 2G coverage of the entire France will be completed by February next year.

At the same time, 3G network coverage and broadband network coverage will be enabled in major cities.

In fact, the current 3G networks in these markets of O2 Telecom will only be opened in the two or three most developed cities in each country. When Apple is about to launch the iPhone in 2007, it will start full coverage of the 3G network. That's it.

And in these European markets, the 3G network will be enough for more than ten years...

Well, you read that right.

Because until 2020 and beyond, in countries like Germany and France, the people will still use 3G networks the most. The so-called 4G and 5G networks may only have signals in some big cities...

So you know why many people brag about the fact that European trams have WIFI, and WIFI in public places covers many topics like this.

Without it, there is no WIFI, and you can only use the extremely slow 3G network to stream videos. What a terrible experience it is.

For example, in China at that time, many people had dozens or hundreds of gigabytes of 4G and 5G traffic that they could never use up. Who would have the need to connect to the so-called public WIFI? With so many people connected to WIFI, how fast can the internet speed be?

Also due to the increase in mobile network deployment in France and O2 Telecom's low tariff policy, the number of users in the French market has increased very quickly during this period, and it has become the main source of new O2 users.

Up to now, the total number of O2 Telecom users has approached 20 million. In the British mobile communication market, it has surpassed Vodafone and become the mobile communication company with the largest number of users. In the global market, it is also second only to Vodafone. company.

Of course, if you include fixed-line and broadband services, O2 Telecom is still lower than BT, but the gap between the two has been reduced a lot due to O2 Telecom's development in broadband business.

After all, because it cooperates with Digital UK to provide it with preferential home broadband packages, the number of users brought by the Freeview platform alone has exceeded 7 million.

This time O2 Telecom's activity is to increase the pre-recharge fee by half. For example, a recharge of 1,000 pounds can add a total of 1,500 pounds to you.

Of course, the intensity of this activity is definitely not as strong as the last time you recharge and get as much as you charge, but that’s the way it is. In the past, it was to compete for users and obtain liquidity, but now the situation is different.

And because many users who participated in the previous event have not used up their recharge fees, most of the people participating in this event are new users.

Even so, the promotion, which lasted for half a month starting from December 20 and lasting until after New Year's Day, still brought up to 500 million pounds of pre-recharge funds to O2 Telecom.

Under such circumstances, and the quality of Huawei's equipment rollout in the French market was recognized by O2 Telecom, we signed a follow-up agreement with them in advance without waiting for the French market to be completed, starting the 2G network rollout in the German market.

Of course, we will start from the big cities first.