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Category: Telecom

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest Telecom & Telco news throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

  • Spark taps Nokia to prepare network for 5G

    Spark taps Nokia to prepare network for 5G

    New Zealand’s Spark has contracted Nokia to upgrade the operator’s core infrastructure in preparation of 5G, ultra-fast broadband and the IoT.

    Spark will expand the capacity of its wireless network, which is primarily based on a Nokia IP/MPLS network, with a new router with terabit capacity.

    The three-year contract will see Nokia providing advanced IP and optical equipment and software for the Spark network. The agreement follows Spark’s recent launch of 200Gbps per wavelength fiber link using Nokia optical transport network technology.

    Spark general manager of partnering, procurement and vendor management Rajesh Singhh said the operator is committed to ensuring New Zealand is one of the first countries globally to be ready to adopt 5G. He said upgrading to 5G will help enable the government’s goal of improving broadband services in rural areas.

    “This strategic partnership is a key step for us to realize our vision of a data-driven future for New Zealand. Nokia is helping us to achieve worldwide leadership in preparing for 5G,” he said.

    “It will allow us to offer our customers the most advanced mobile and fixed broadband services anywhere, efficiently and securely.”

    “We are very pleased to continue our strategic partnership with Spark, which is committed to keeping New Zealanders at the cutting edge of technology,” added Kent Wong, head of Nokia’s Asia-Pacific IP business.

    “Spark’s investment will safely accommodate future growth as they benefit from Nokia’s global reach, expertise and agility. We are excited to help them be among the first customers to begin the move to 5G.”

  • SoftBank to trial 5G in Tokyo with ZTE

    SoftBank to trial 5G in Tokyo with ZTE

    Japan’s SoftBank and ZTE have teamed up to trial 5G over 4.5-GHz spectrum in metropolitan areas of Tokyo.

    SoftBank and ZTE will work to verify the performance of ZTE 5G end-to-end network equipment in sub 6-GHz spectrum under real-world conditions in a major, densely populated city.

    The two companies have been conducting joint R&D on foundational 5G technologies including massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output), and plan to further explore using the technology for 5G.

    “We have a long term partnership with SoftBank in key 5G technologies such as massive MIMO, and we are pleased to expand that work to accelerate 5G new radio readiness,” ZTE chief scientist Dr Xiang Jiying commented.

    “As a global leading provider of M-ICT mobile technologies, ZTE is making substantial investments in 5G and cooperating with industry partners to promote the maturity of the 5G ecosystem. We are confident that ZTE will be one of the first vendors to deliver end-to-end 5G solutions for our customers.”

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  • Telstra acquires UK’s Company85

    Telstra acquires UK’s Company85

    Telstra has acquired Company85, a UK-based technology services business and provider of data center, workspace, cloud, security and network services.

    Christopher Smith, executive director of Telstra’s business technology services, said the acquisition was aligned to Telstra’s strategy to grow its technology services business internationally and would significantly enhance Telstra’s service offering for UK and European based business and government customers.

    “Company85’s offering is strongly aligned to the existing suite of technology consulting services we offer our Australian customers, and is consistent with the strategic investments we have made in Australia. Importantly, it aligns with our strategy to grow our services business in regions that are key hubs for multinational corporations,” Smith said. “We see the UK as a key market for our growing technology services business and a strong platform to expand into Europe.”

    Smith also said Company85 was highly regarded in the UK for its consulting and technical expertise, including the market-leading approach it has developed for standardizing and automating data center migrations.

    “Company85’s broad set of consulting capabilities will help us to differentiate our offerings in Europe. We will be able to engage in IT transformation conversations with prospective customers early in the proposal stage, which we believe will help to strengthen our position and create demand for our network services in the region,” Smith said.

    Company85 CEO Adrian Spink said the combination of Telstra’s world class network and global reach, with Company85’s technical expertise and strong relationships with CIOS and Chief Information Security Officers at leading organizations, would create exciting growth opportunities.

    “Being part of Telstra we see a tremendous opportunity to reach new customers and accelerate our international expansion,” Spink said.

  • BT unleash newest cloud service

    BT unleash newest cloud service

    BT has announced the launch of “BT Connect Intelligence InfoVista-as-a-Service,” a new application performance management solution delivered from the cloud.

    The company said the new solution adds a scalable “as-a-service” flexible pricing model to BT’s applications performance management portfolio, BT Connect Intelligence.

    It delivers InfoVista’s Ipanema technology via BT’s cloud infrastructure, integrating all the capabilities organizations need to orchestrate the performance of business applications running across their network, BT said.

    BT Connect Intelligence InfoVista-as-a-Service gives enterprises greater flexibility and cost control as they manage the experience of users accessing business-critical applications across the corporate network, regardless of how they connect and how much bandwidth they use. It also gives enterprises a more predictable view of costs as its user-based pricing is not affected by the growth of network bandwidth.

    The new solution is available globally to both BT’s existing network customers and organizations using other network providers.

    The software underpinning the solution is delivered from BT’s cloud infrastructure and its management is now possible over the Internet.

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  • Maxis’ continuous plans to enhance network in Sarawak

    Maxis’ continuous plans to enhance network in Sarawak

    Maxis Bhd’s (Maxis) network expansion plans in Sarawak is an ongoing development, as it currently covers 89 per cent of the population with its 4G network.

    According to head of Sarawak region Alexius Bong, at this point in time, Maxis has no intentions to stop and will continue to expand “even to the smallest towns.”

    “Because you can’t hide the fact that people are consuming more data and you need that network to support (demand), it is definitely a focus in our plan to do that,” he revealed in an exclusive interview with The Borneo Post earlier this week.

    On plans to open more retail outlets in Sarawak, Bong stressed that Maxis is very focused on retail expansion and distribution footprint. It currently has nine Maxis centres and 15 dealer-operated retail stores in the state.

    “By this year end, we intend to add six more retail stores plus another 20 dealer-operated stores at the same time to increase our distribution footprint, it goes in tandem with our network,” he added.

    These plans will occur throughout Sarawak, with the focus now on secondary towns. Maxis also intends for customers to have the same experience whether they are visiting Maxis centres or dealer-operated outlets.

    Continuous network expansion will be one of the key areas Maxis focuses on in Sarawak this year.

    “We want to continue expanding our network, we have such a great product that syncs together with this,” Bong added.

    “At any one time, the focus of the network is not just the network itself – it ties back to the consumer.

    “With that, we want to ensure that whether it is prepaid, postpaid, or wireless broadband (WBB), we will continue to enhance our product proposition especially on internet offerings.

    “Of course, we will continue to expand our distribution and retail because market presence is significant in our business and is very important.”

    At the same time, Maxis would also like to relook at the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia and, how they can help SMEs digitalise the way they work.

    Head of prepaid, Navin Manian, highlighted that Maxis is also trying to give a much better experience by going purely digital for its customers.

    “It’s not just all product-centric, we also look into the customer experience,” Navin said.

    “So it’s a big drive now, for both postpaid and prepaid segments to move our customers from the old UMB usage behaviour to now the app and we have been doing very good in that space.”

    On the expected takeup rate for the prepaid segment in East Malaysia, Navin revealed that Maxis has been doing really well in the region over the past few years from a series of products that they have been launching.

    “We are very confident that this will continue a good growth trajectory for us here,” he added.

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  • Vietnam, Indonesia have much faster internet speed than India

    Vietnam, Indonesia have much faster internet speed than India

    Ranked 89 globally, India’s average internet connection speed of 6.5 Mbps is slower than Vietnam and Indonesia, which are much faster, a report said on Friday.

    While Vietnam, ranked 58, had an average internet speed of 9.5 Mbps, Indonesia at rank 77 provided a speed of 7.2 Mbps, Global leader in content delivery network services Akamai Technologies’ “The State of the Internet Q1 2017 Connectivity” found.

    The report also said that India witnessed a 4 Mbps broadband adoption of 42 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 with a year-over-year change of 81 per cent.

    “Increases in connection speeds and broadband penetration have helped enable the internet to support levels of traffic that even just a few years ago would have been unimaginable,” David Belson, editor of the report, said in a statement.

    “One need only look to January’s US Presidential Inauguration, which broke traffic records for live coverage of a single news event delivered by Akamai, largely thanks to the combination of more viewers watching at increasingly higher levels of video quality,” Belson added.

    On a global level, the average connection speed was 7.2 Mbps – an increase of 15 per cent year-over-year – and average peak connection speed increased 28 per cent year-over-year to 44.6 Mbps in the first quarter of 2017.

    “While South Korea had the highest average connection speed globally at 28.6 Mbps in the first quarter, Singapore had the highest peak connection speed at 184.5 Mbps in the first quarter,” the report noted.

    The average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 26 Mbps in Britain to a low of 2.8 Mbps in Venezuela. Germany had the highest peak mobile connection speed at 200 Mbps in the first quarter.

  • Digital Realty expands to Japan

    Digital Realty expands to Japan

    Digital Realty has inaugurated Digital Osaka 1, its first data center in Japan, a 93,000 square foot facility providing 7.6 megawatts of IT capacity.

    Digital Realty also announced the acquisition of an adjacent land parcel for the development of a Digital Osaka 2 data center. Upon completion, the Osaka connected campus will support up to 27 megawatts of additional IT capacity.

    “Digital Osaka 1 was fully leased prior to the official opening, a reflection of the strong demand in the Japanese market for Digital Realty’s comprehensive data center solutions,” Digital Realty managing director for Asia Pacific Edward Higase said.

    “The development of our Osaka connected campus will enable us to further expand our world-class data center platform and support our customers’ rapidly growing demand here and around the world.”

    Japan has become one of the most highly sought-after markets for cloud data center locations, according to a Canalys report.

    Strict data sovereignty laws and high customer demand are some of the factors pushing cloud service providers to seek data centers in Japan, where personal data is increasingly required to be stored in facilities that are physically located within the country.

    “With the addition of Osaka to our global connected campus network, customers will soon have new opportunities to connect, extend their reach and find new business opportunities across our global data center platform,” Digital Realty CEO A. William Stein added.

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  • China Telecom aims to make Shanghai a gigabit city

    China Telecom aims to make Shanghai a gigabit city

    China Telecom’s Shanghai branch Shanghai Telecom plans to deploy the first commercial FTTH network in China using 10G PON technologies, and aims to provide full 1Gbps fiber coverage across Shanghai over the next three years.

    Shanghai Telecom has contracted Huawei to help with the rollout, which marks an important step towards making Shanghai China’s first gigabit city, the vendor said.

    Shanghai Telecom was providing 1Gbps access for 269 communities in the city, and through the deployment aims to increase the average access rate for its network from 50Mbps to 280Mbps by the end of 2018.

    The operator is using its high-speed network to offer a range of home broadband services, such as multi-channel 4K video streaming, video calls and conferencing an video-based smart home services.

    Under the latest rollout, the company is adopting Huawei optical line terminals (OLT) and optical network terminals (ONT) capable of providing gigabit convergence, 4K video streaming to 16,000 concurrent households over a single subrack, 8K video streaming, VR applications and smart home services.

    Separately, Nokia has announced it has secured a contract to deploy millions of ONT home gateways in 29 provinces across China for China Mobile.

    China Mobile plans to deploy home gateway units based on Nokia’s solution to over 30 million users this year, and use established FTTH networks to extend internet coverage in the home and enable IoT communications between devices and sensors.

    “China Mobile is progressing fast as a converged telecommunications operator — with more than 31 million FTTH subscribers — and has proven it can successfully leverage its extensive fiber access network to deliver ultra-broadband applications such as 4K TV services and Gigabit access to customers across various provinces.,” IDATE principal analyst Roland Montagne commented.

    “With the addition of intelligent home gateway technology, China Mobile will be able to further differentiate its services, providing consumers with enhanced internet coverage in the home and a more seamless experience for connecting various devices and sensors.”

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  • NEC opens big data analytics center in India

    NEC opens big data analytics center in India

    Japanese technology major NEC Corporation plans to strengthen its big data analysis presence globally as well as in India.

    NEC Corporation and NEC Technologies India Private Limited (NTI) have announced the launch of a Center of Excellence for Analytics Platform and Solutions (COE-APS) for promoting solutions and services of NEC’s Big Data & Analytics Platform, Data Platform for Hadoop (DPH).

    The COE-APS will simplify digital transformation and act as a one stop shop for both customers and partners in the telecom, retail, banking, financial services, insurance and manufacturing sectors, as well as government organizations. The COE-APS will initially focus on markets that include Japan, India, Singapore, Philippines and Hong Kong, then gradually expand services throughout APAC and other regions.

    With the global big data and analytics market expected to reach $210 billion by 2020, NEC plans to organize a team of 100 professionals within the first few years, to support these operations.

    Hadoop alone is expected to reach US$50.2 billion by 2020. With the industry already facing a shortage in talent, specifically in Hadoop and analytics areas, the establishment of the COE-APS will help NEC to leverage India’s strong talent base.

    In recent years, the exponential growth in data processing is straining the capabilities of conventional databases and data warehouse solutions. With the advent of big data & analytics solutions, data is comprehensively and reliably analysed, thereby enabling customers to make well-informed decisions at the right time.

    In addition, the COE-APS will leverage the computational power and scalability of NEC’s specialized hardware for big data & analytics in order to flexibly handle the ever increasing demand for storage and computation by Hadoop.

    “The key to success for organizations today is to make fast and informed decisions by extracting insights out of the huge volumes of data that are available to them. The new Center of Excellence is an important step towards utilizing big data analytics and NEC’s Data Platform for Hadoop to provide benefits for government bodies and enterprises in India and across the world,” NEC SVP  Tomoyasu Nishimura said.

    “Going forward, we aim to continue driving digital transformation for industries of all sizes and markets.”

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  • NTT may sell African operations

    NTT may sell African operations

    Japan’s NTT Corporation, parent company of NTT Communications, is reportedly considering the sale of its African operations and could seek around $800 million for the assets.

    NTT is evaluating a sale of the African operations it acquired through the takeover of Dimension Data in 2010, three people familiar with the matter.

    According to the sources one potential outcome of the process is an acquisition of NTT’s Johannesburg-based internet solutions business, a Dimension Data subsidiary, by MTN. The African mobile group is planning to expand into the enterprise internet services segment for further growth, and could use the acquisition to facilitate this expansion.

    Dimension Data’s management are also considering an offer to buy back the company and re-list it publicly, the sources added. NTT acquired Johannesburg-based Dimension Data for around $2.7 billion seven years ago.

    But in 2015 NTT put Dimension Data on notice over its poor performance after years of failing to generate a profit, indicating it may seek to divest the acquisition.

    A sale at this stage is far from guaranteed. The report states that no decision has yet been made on a sale, cites NTT’s MEA CEO as denying that NTT is looking to sell the business and adds that representatives from the Tokyo headquarters refrained from commenting.

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  • A Chinese unicorn backed by Google ready to take on the Amazon Alexa

    A Chinese unicorn backed by Google ready to take on the Amazon Alexa

    China’s Google-backed artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, Mobvoi, could soon take on the world’s leading smart voice assistant technologies, according to the firm’s founder and CEO. Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Shanghai, Mobvoi’s Li Zhifei told that the firm could “absolutely” compete with the likes of Amazon in the digital voice assistant market space.

    “We are just like Amazon‘s Echo … We are making our own device and putting the technology into this device but gradually we are also going to open this AI service into third parties so that we can empower more devices,” Li Zhifei told on Thursday.

    In Western markets, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana are the dominant voice assistants. Amazon has continued to push Alexa across numerous products, while Google has rolled out Assistant across Android devices and its own Google Home device. Even Apple came out with its own smart speaker called HomePod this week.

    Though Mobvoi’s CEO acknowledged his signature chatbot device still has long way to go in order to improve its sophistication and compete on a global scale, he stressed the company was making a “huge amount of progress” in its development.

    The Beijing-based start-up was founded by a group of former Google research scientists five years ago and gained prominence after launching its flagship smartwatch, Ticwatch, in June 2015. The watch’s success led to a direct investment from Google and by May 2017, Mobvoi unveiled Tichome, its Chinese language chatbot designed to facilitate human-machine interaction.

    “In the last few years we have made a huge amount of progress in speaker recognition but we haven’t made much progress in natural language understanding, which makes the device not that smart (yet),” he added.

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  • Korea moves towards scrapping basic mobile fees

    Korea moves towards scrapping basic mobile fees

    The South Korean government is increasing pressure to scrap monthly basic mobile service charges to reduce phone bills for customers.

    A presidential advisory committee has called on the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) to draw up a plan for fulfilling these objectives.

    The monthly basic charge is currently 11,000 won ($10). These fees have historically been key drivers for telecoms industry profitability.

    A proposed abolition of basic monthly fees has been on the agenda for years, but the mobile sector has been opposed to the proposal, arguing that it could wipe out their profitability.

    The report states an unnamed industry official as stating that there is currently no appropriate alternative to the basic fees, and asserting that a better solution would be increasing the benefits offered to individual groups of customers.

    The hard-line stance marks an apparent reversal of the committee’s recent position that it is important that the interests of both the industry and customers are taken into account when evaluating reforms to regulations covering mobile price structures.

  • Alibaba to open data center in Indonesia amid tighter controls on local storage

    Alibaba to open data center in Indonesia amid tighter controls on local storage

    Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, announced today that it plans to establish a new data center in Jakarta, Indonesia. It’s scheduled to open before the end of Q1 next year.

    “Alibaba Cloud will significantly increase its computing resources in Asia, allowing greater support for small and medium enterprises,” the company said in a statement.

    It’s also opening a new center in India and recently announced similar plans for Malaysia.

    Alibaba Cloud operates globally. Other Asian countries like China, Japan, and Singapore already have similar facilities.

    Demand for local storage
    In Indonesia, international giants like Alibaba Cloud are answering the growing demand for reliable, scalable data storage.

    The entire industry is experiencing a boom. NTT Indonesia, a subsidiary of Japanese NTT Data Corporation, told trade publication Data Center Dynamics that it’s seeing “significant growth” since 2014 on the back of developments such as e-commerce and more frequent internet use.

    Amazon Web Services is popular with Indonesian companies, even though the firm does not operate data centers in the archipelago.

    But a 2012 government regulation (PDF) has recently been tightened – especially in the fintech sector. Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority at the end of last year introduced its own sub-regulation that says Indonesian’s financial data must not be stored outside the country without prior approval. This could encourage companies and startups to consider working with Indonesia-based servers.

    We’ve reached out to Alibaba Cloud to learn more about the location of the Indonesia-based center and when it will start operating.

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  • China launches consultation on 5G spectrum

    China launches consultation on 5G spectrum

    China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is launching a consultation regarding the planning and use of millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum for the development of 5G networks.

    The MIIT is seeking industry advise on the planning and use of the 24.75-27.5GHz, 37-42.5GHz and other millimeter-wave bands, which “will be key spectrum for 5G systems”, the regulator said in a notice posted on Thursday.

    The public consultation is intended to collect feedback from the industry on such aspects as suggestions regarding the deployment status of the proposed frequency bands, future planning on the use of these bands for 5G system; the key technical problems (including RF devices, chips, test and measurement, etc.) for the deployment of these frequency bands, as well as feasible solutions and a spectrum roadmap.

    It also aims to identify any compatibility and co-existence issues between 5G networks on these bands and other wireless systems in adjacent bands.

    The consultation will close on August 7.

    Earlier the MIIT also launched a public consultation on the use of the 3300-3600MHz and 4800-5000MHz bands for 5G. The consultation released on Tuesday and to be closed on July 7, hints that China will allocate 3300-3600MHz and 4800-5000MHz spectrum for the deployment of 5G.

    While the MIIT has not yet announced the exact timeline for the release of 5G spectrum, the country’s three mobile operators China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have announced plans for 5G trials, in preparation of a commercial launch in 2020.

    China Mobile, for instance, announced at Mobile World Congress in February that the operator will launch large-scale pre-commercial 5G trials in China in 2019.

  • 3 HK, GASH Point team on gaming services

    3 HK, GASH Point team on gaming services

    3 Hong Kong, the mobile division of Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong (HTHKH), has signed an agreement with GASH Point, an Asian digital entertainment payment platform, in its latest push to tap the growing gaming market.

    As part of the agreement, the pair will launch co-branded game points cards, ranging between HK$10 ($1.28) and HK$1,500. Users can use the cards to access 3,000 mobile and PC games, as well as digital content. Gamers could also be offered privileges such as special edition gaming equipment.

    The operator said customers can buy GASH game points and receive bonus game points amounting to not less than 5% of a purchase via 3 Hong Kong’s direct carrier billing service. Such transactions will be charged directly to a 3 Hong Kong customer’s mobile bill, thereby providing total peace of mind when making a purchase.

    Gamers holding a GASH Point account can access digital entertainment content via the Gash app. Such items include games such as Clash of Kings, MonsterStrike and the Xifeizuan Palace Game. The app also allows access to Japanese digital content via the DMM.com audio-visual gaming platform and the DLsite.com online shop dedicated to otaku, Japan’s anime and manga fandom scene.

    Kenny Koo, 3 Hong Kong’s director of roaming and service development, said the co-branded cards are expected to be introduced in July at the earliest.

    Koo said 3 Hong Kong is the first operator in the city to seal such a deal with Gash, and the company expects the collaboration with GASH Point will help boost mobile data usage and consumption of value added services.

    The collaboration with GASH Point is the company’s latest effort to build an integrated gaming platform for gamers. In May, 3 HK and Razer, a lifestyle brand for gamers, formed a strategic partnership to collaborate on a number of areas including co-branding, mobile devices and plans, and virtual currency distribution, as well as open RazerStore in Hong Kong.

    “We aim to become the telecoms operator of choice among gamers. The route to this goal involves collaboration with world-class partners, so we can offer the hottest gaming products and services, while delivering the latest eSports information,” the executive said.

    GASH COO Simon Lu said the collaboration with 3 Hong Kong provides local users with a convenient payment method and is “an important milestone” in its penetration of the Asian market.

    “This [partnership] will allow us to extend our operational scale, enhance the GASH application user experience, establish an online-to-offline (O2O) scenario and revamp GASH’s website in order to improve loyalty among members. What’s more, we will offer specially-tailored services, while developing more payment options and making an even greater diversity of digital entertainment content available to satisfy user demand and boost our membership numbers,” he said.

    Lu said there is a lot of potential in gaming market in Asia Pacific, which generated $46.6 billion of revenues in 2016, up 10.7% from the year before.

    GASH currently has presence in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, with over 10 million registered users across these markets and an annual transaction of $300 million.

    Lu said Hong Kong currently contributes about 15% of the company’s total revenue and gamers in Hong Kong spend two and three times more than those in Taiwan.

    In addition to gaming, Lu said GASH and 3 Hong Kong will also explore in other areas such as co-organizing e-sports tournaments and digital entertainment content.

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