Vodafone’s purchase of Cable & Wireless Worldwide for £1.04 billion has been approved by the European Commission.

The acquisition did not break competition guidelines despite the move creating the second largest domestic telecoms company in the UK. The purchase of Cable & Wireless will add a company specialised in fixed telecoms to Vodafone’s focus on mobile services.

Cable & Wireless also is the owner of the largest fiber-optic network in the UK for business uses as well as an extensive European network which will provide Vodafone with greater market flexibility.

Yiru Zhong, senior industry analyst for the ICT group at Frost & Sullivan, commented: “we believe Vodafone is signalling its ambitions to capture all related digitalisation services around enterprises”.