The sovereign debt crisis that continues to roll around Europe will have little impact on Europe's five major operators: Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Vodafone, according to a new report from Infonetics Research. The market research firm said in its latest third-quarter study that these five operators are cash rich, with each having more than €10 billion in reserve. While accepting there are challenges, such as generating new revenue streams, Stephane Teral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure at Infonetics Research, said the fundamentals of the market are intact. "Service providers must continue upgrading their networks to manage relentlessly growing traffic, and, as a result, we maintain our view that this crisis continues to have minimal impact on telecoms overall." Of particular note, Teral said that the infrastructure market is up nearly 9 per cent from the year-ago quarter, with the LTE equipment segment up 330 per cent from a year ago. Release