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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.

  • Gigabit LTE set to make up 30% of LTE subs by 2026

    Gigabit LTE set to make up 30% of LTE subs by 2026

    Gigabit LTE – a configuration of the LTE Advanced Pro standard – is on track to grow to account for 30% of total LTE subscriptions by 2026, according to ABI Research.

    The research firm predicts that Gigabit LTE will grow to nearly 2 million subscriptions by the end of this year, which will be less than 5% of total LTE Advanced Pro subscriptions.

    But the configuration is expected to grow to account for 70% of LTE Advanced Pro subscriptions and 30% of overall LTE subscriptions by 2026.

    ABI Research senior analyst Prayerna Raina said Gigabit LTE demonstrates that 4G still has a lot to offer.

    “Gigabit LTE… is a critical network milestone for operators in an increasingly competitive environment in the evolution to 5G,” he said. “It is essential for operators to support the ever-rising bandwidth needs of consumers, while also upgrading the network to support 5G networks in future.”

    The first Gigabit LTE service for mobile devices was launched in the US by Sprint in March. Australia’s Telstra meanwhile launched a Gigabit LTE mobile hotspot service in Sydney in February and is expected to support Gigabit LTE mobile devices as they become available.

    Market trends indicate that LTE Advanced and Gigabit LTE will coexist with 5G for some time, Raina said.

    “Today, operators globally are in various stages of upgrading their LTE networks. Over the next four to six years, we expect mobile networks to evolve considerably with the proliferation of LTE Advanced, LTE Advanced Pro, and Gigabit LTE on one hand and the launch of 5G on the other hand,” Raina said.

    “The vendor ecosystem is essential to this network evolution with device availability being critical for the service launch. It is, therefore, imperative for vendors to align their competitive strategies with the operators’ network transition timeline as well as alliances in the ecosystem.”

    LTE overall is meanwhile forecast to grow to account to around 30% of total mobile subscriptions this year and 50% by 2024, ABI Research forecasts.

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  • Japan’s cellcos to invest over $45.5b in 5G

    Japan’s cellcos to invest over $45.5b in 5G

    Japan’s three major mobile operators plan to invest a combined 5 trillion yen ($45.5 billion) towards deploying 5G services nationwide, with NTT DoCoMo targeting nationwide coverage by as early as 2023.

    The Nikkei Asian Review reports that DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank all plan to spend heavily on the commercialization of 5G, and are expected to work together on deployment to expedite the process.

    The report states that DoCoMo parent NTT has proposed to share 5G base stations with Softbank and KDDI to reduce the costs of a rollout. The two rivals are expected to agree, and particularly favor infrastructure sharing in urban areas.

    Meanwhile the three operators have a long-standing target of commercializing 5G in parts of Tokyo in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. The operators also plan to start investing in 5G base station and related equipment as early as the 2019 financial year.

    The report notes that DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank together spent over 6 trillion yen deploying 4G networks, but that the cost of the 5G migration will be less because some existing 4G base stations can be converted to 5G.

    The aggressive approach to rolling out 5G is reportedly motivated by slowing subscriber growth and growing competition from low-cost carriers.

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  • Ericsson-led 5GCAR project to get EU funding

    Ericsson-led 5GCAR project to get EU funding

    A consortium of companies led by Ericsson known as the 5GCAR project will secure European Union funding as part of phase 2 of the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP).

    The consortium, which also includes Huawei, Nokia and French operator Orange, will work to develop a 5G system architecture to provide optimized end-to-end vehicle-to-everything network connectivity.

    The 5GCAR Project will run for two years and have a budget of around €8 million ($9 million). It will employ around 30 full-time researchers.

    The EU has allocated a total budget of €154 million for phase 2 of the 5G PPP.

    According to Ericsson’s France head Franck Bouetard, the EU funding “will allow our initiative to further develop in order to meet the market needs by 2020. Having such projects in Europe is key in this worldwide race, as it will secure additional business and employment in the continent in the future.”

    The remaining members of the 14-partner consortium are Bosch, Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya, Centro Tecnológico de Automoción de Galicia, Chalmers University of Technology, King’s College London, Marben, PSA group, Sequans, Viscoda and Volvo Cars.

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  • PT Datacomm debuts hybrid cloud suite

    PT Datacomm debuts hybrid cloud suite

    PT Datacomm Diangraha, through Datacomm Cloud Business (DCB), has launched what it is touting as simple and secure hybrid cloud solutions for Indonesian enterprises.

    The new offering – which utilizes hybrid IT solutions from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) – aims to help Indonesian enterprise customers migrate to the cloud with technology that addresses the security and compliance standards stipulated by the Indonesian government.

    DCB aims to capitalize on the growing rate of cloud computing adoption to help, to help Indonesian enterprises source, manage and consume IT services. This includes the deployment of services across a mix of traditional IT, private cloud and public cloud (hybrid infrastructure) to create the optimal IT mix—where workloads are deployed and applications are sourced from the most appropriate platform, based on a customer’s unique requirements (e.g., performance, cost, compliance, location).

    The deployment, which includes HPE servers and all-flash storage, will provide flexibility for enterprise customers to choose the cloud deployment option that best suits their needs.

    Solutions provided by Datacomm Cloud Business will include private managed cloud, cloud management platforms, public cloud, disaster recovery-as-a-service and backup as-a-service.

    The offerings will be fully hosted in Indonesia to meet with Indonesian Government Regulation (PP) No. 82 in 2012 on data sovereignty requirements.

    “Through our participation in the HPE Partner Ready Service Providers Program, we are now empowered with the knowledge, expertise and technology innovation that can help our customers move beyond their traditional infrastructure and reap the benefits of the hybrid IT world,” Datacomm Cloud Business managing director Sutedjo Tjahjadi said.

    “Through our offerings, customers will be able to ensure they move at the speed of business while enjoying international service standards, meeting the Indonesian government local compliance requirement and having access to 24×7 local support as required.”

    DCB is expanding its investment in the cloud computing local infrastructure. DCB will also add two additional cloud node infrastructure projects between now and the end of the year in Bandung and Medan.

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  • Airtel secures approvals for Telenor India merger

    Airtel secures approvals for Telenor India merger

    India’s Bharti Airtel is closer to completing its acquisition of Telenor’s Indian operations, after securing approval for the proposed merger from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

    In a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Airtel said CCI signed off on the proposed merger on Monday.

    The announcement comes hot on the heels of Airtel also receiving approval  from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited. Airtel and Telenor have also fild a joint application with the New Delhi Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal.

    Airtel arranged in February to acquire Telenor India’s existing operations in seven high-population telecoms circles. The acquisition will include Telenor’s all assets and 44 million customers in the circles, as well as an additional 4.3.4MHz of spectrum in the valuable 1800-MHz band.

    Airtel has also reportedly agreed to take on Telenor India’s outstanding spectrum payments, amounting to around 16.5 billion rupees ($256.1 million) , as well as other financial commitments by way of payment.

    India’s telecoms sector is going through a wave of consolidation triggered by the price war resulting from the entry into the market of Reliance Jio Infocomm.

    Reliance Communications recently announced it has been granted a seven month reprieve to its debt repayment obligations while it completes a planned merger with Aircel, and Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are pursuing a merger that will create India’s largest mobile operator by subscribers.

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  • Qatar Airways taps Inmarsat for in-flight broadband

    Qatar Airways taps Inmarsat for in-flight broadband

    Qatar Airways has become the first major Middle East airline to select Inmarsat’s new GX Aviation in-flight broadband solution for in-flight broadband.

    The Inmarsat solution will initially be available to Qatar Airways passengers on board more than 130 aircraft, consisting of Airbus A350s and Boeing 777s.

    GX Aviation technology has already been equipped on Qatar Airways’ latest Airbus A350s. Installations on the airline’s remaining Airbus A350s, together with the Boeing 777s, will start on a retrofit basis from this summer.

    GX Aviation is touted as the world’s first in-flight connectivity solution with reliable, seamless high-speed global coverage provided through a single operator. Inmarsat says the service allows airline passengers to browse the internet, stream videos, check social media and more during flights, with an on-board connectivity experience “on par with broadband services available on the ground.”

    “Broadband transformation on the ground is already well advanced and we are able to transfer that into the very challenging in-flight environment, working with Qatar Airways to make connectivity a success,” said Leo Mondale, president of Inmarsat Aviation.

    “Our networks are engineered with multiple layers for redundancy and global coverage. Our design philosophy is to scale up capacity over time to fit the route systems of our airline customers and reflect the industry’s real needs.”

    The service will integrate with Qatar Airways’ in-flight entertainment system and ensure that connectivity initiatives, such as its passenger app and aircraft technology, will be strengthened using dependable in-flight broadband. GX Aviation also complements the airline’s latest passenger experience innovations.

    Qatar Airways will connect to the GX network using exclusive JetWave terminals produced by Inmarsat partner Honeywell Aerospace. The terminals are designed for ease of installation and maintenance to assure the lowest downtime for any cabin connectivity solution in the market.

    The selection of GX Aviation follows a separate announcement that Qatar Airways has activated an advanced new space-based system, supplied by Inmarsat, to track all of its flights across the world.

    Inmarsat worked exclusively with Qatar Airways to develop this solution, which uses Inmarsat’s satellite technology to provide the exact real-time location of the airline’s aircraft in latitude and longitude.

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  • Singtel named a “master of digital experience”

    Singtel named a “master of digital experience”

    Singtel ranks among five operators named “masters of digital experience” in Analysys Mason’s latest Digital Experience Index (DXi).

    Singtel and subsidiary Optus, along with Telefonica, AT&T, Etisalat and Swisscom were the only operators to be classed as entering the “digitalized” stage of digital maturity, with only Swisscom considered to have fully entered this stage.

    The report ranked 50 operators worldwide on their ability to provide a digitalized user experience, graded by criteria including automation in customer support, the presence of unified omni-channel support and the option of new digital channels for customers such as in-app chat, web-to-chat or chat-to-voice.

    Operators’ capacity to provide personalized offers, basic or advanced customer self-service and social media support were also taken into consideration.

    The report also shows that nearly all operators believe that providing their customers with a modern digital experience is critical to their future.

    “Providing a modern digital experience is considered by all operators as critical to their competitive position in the future – especially among young and increasingly tech-savvy consumers whose expectations are being shaped by the newer players such as Alibaba, Amazon and Facebook,”  Analysys Mason partner and head of telecoms software and networks Larry Goldman said.

    He said the digital experience index model represents a way for operators to assess their potential new customer experience improvement projects in all aspects of the customer lifecycle, comprising investigation, buying, onboarding and support of goods and services.

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  • LG Uplus enters strategic partnership with Vodafone

    LG Uplus enters strategic partnership with Vodafone

    South Korea’s LG Uplus has announced a new strategic partnership with Vodafone Group for the South Korean market.

    The agreement, the first strategic partnership between LG Uplus and a global operator, will involve collaboration on both enterprise and consumer operations.

    Vodafone will provide best practices and draw on its global reach to support LG Uplus across all areas of its business, including network strategy and development, as well as customer experience management.

    The two operators will also cooperate to jointly offer unified communications and enterprise services to multinational companies with a presence in South Korea. LG Uplus will meanwhile join Vodafone’s global partner market network.

    “ Vodafone is one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies and close cooperation will enable us to streamline and improve our existing business performance and pioneer new areas.  “Vodafone is the ideal partner to help our drive to become world-class,” LG Uplus CEO Youngsoo Kwon said.

    “Our new partnership will enable LG Uplus to benefit from Vodafone expertise and experience, in addition to access to our global enterprise products and services,” Vodafone partner markets CEO Diego Massidda added.

    “I am delighted that LG Uplus has joined our Partner Market network and I look forward to building on our relationship in the coming years.”

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  • RCom gets seven-month debt reprieve

    RCom gets seven-month debt reprieve

    India’s Reliance Communications (RCom) has been granted a seven-month reprieve from its debt repayment obligations to give it time to complete its proposed merger with Aircel and a planned sale of a stake in its mobile tower operations.

    In a media release, RCom said its lenders have agreed to a standstill on debt servicing obligations until December 2017 in response to the advanced stages of negotiations over the two transactions.

    The merger with Aircel to create an entity which it has been recently revealed will be named Aircom, as well as a sale of a controlling stake in its tower business to Brookfield Group, are expected to reduce RCom’s debt burden by around 60% to around 200 billion rupees ($3.1 billion).

    RCom has also agreed to develop sustainable long term plans to pay off the remaining debt. If the transactions are not completed by this time, lenders will be able to convert their debt into shares, the company said.

    RCom’s proposed merger with Aircel is expected to create India’s third largest mobile operator with a subscriber base of around 186 million. RCom will hold a 50% stake of the combined company, with Aircel’s parent company – Malaysia’s Maxis Communications – owning the remainder.

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  • Singtel gets conditional nod for NetLink Trust IPO

    Singtel gets conditional nod for NetLink Trust IPO

    Singtel has secured conditional approval to list its wholly-owned subsidiary NetLink Trust on the SGX as part of its obligations to the government under the state-owned Next Generation National Broadband Network (NG-NBN) project.

    NetLink trust builds and operates the passive infrastructure for the NG-NBN. As a condition of Singtel winning the NG-NBN tender, Singtel agreed not to have effective control in NetLink Trust. In February, the company announced it has committed to regulator IMDA to divest its ownership to less than 25% by April next year.

    The structural separation arrangements formed part of the IMDA’s open access requirements for the NG-NBN project.

    Singtel said Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX-ST) has issued a conditional eligibility-to-list letter for NetLink Trust.

    The listing will be contingent on market conditions, obtaining the required regulatory and other approvals as well as other prerequisites, Singtel said.

    Once up and running, market watchers expect the IPO to raise at least S$2 billion, making it one of the largest offerings in Singapore in years. Singtel has appointed DBS Bank, Morgan Stanley and UBS to advise on the IPO, which could be complete as early as July, according to recent reports.

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  • IOX Cable to build new Indian Ocean cable

    IOX Cable to build new Indian Ocean cable

    IOX Cable Ltd and Nokia’s Alcatel Submarine Networks last week announced plans to build the IOX Cable System in the Indian Ocean.

    The new submarine cable will connect the eastern coast of South Africa with the eastern coast of India, hooking up the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues along the way.

    It will span 8,850km and offer a planned total design capacity of 13Tbps per fiber pair via ASN’s 1620 SOFTNODE and ROADM gear.

    IOX is based in Mauritius, and clearly local access for the island and its neighbor to the east is a key driver for the plans. Rodrigues is new to me, and is apparently a part of the Republic of Mauritius as well. Its 42 square miles are home to just 42,000 or so people.

    But they also clearly hope to cut latency between South Africa and India, and thus bring in some traffic that otherwise would have to hug the coastline past the Middle East and East Africa.

  • SKT launches five-band CA, 4X4 MIMO

    SKT launches five-band CA, 4X4 MIMO

    SK Telecom has announced the launch of five-band carrier aggregation (CA) and 4X4 multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technologies as part of its ongoing evolution to 5G.

    The operator has made five-band CA LTE-A Pro available in the main areas of 53 cities across South Korea, supporting data rates of up to 700Mbps.

    The five-band CA service utilizes SK Telecom’s 10MHz of 800-MHz spectrum, 20MHz in the 1.8-GHz band, 10MHz in 2.1-GHZ as well as a 10MHz and 20MHz carrier in the 2.6-GHz bands.

    SK Telecom has meanwhile launched 900Mbps LTE-A Pro in the CBDs of six cities by combining existing three or four band carrier aggregation with 4×4 MIMO. The six cities are  Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Daejeon and Ulsan.

    Among SK Telecom’s handset line-up, currently only the Samsung Galaxy S8 supports these new services, and will require an over-the-air firmware upgrade to do so. But the operator said it anticipates that more upcoming premium smartphones will support the services.

    SK Telecom has set a target of having the two services combined cover more than 50% of the Korean population by the end of the year.

    The operator also plans to launch 1Gbps LTE-A Pro services in the first half of next year by combining five- or four-band CA with other technologies such as 4X4 MIMO.

    “SK Telecom’s LTE-A Pro services represent an early application of 5G technologies that support Gbps-level data speeds and massive network capacity,” SK Telecom SVP and head of infrastructure strategy Choi Seung-won said.

    ““SK Telecom will continue to offer differentiated mobile communications quality through LTE-A Pro service, while utilizing the network to gain a valuable edge in the 5G era.”

  • Ncell launches 4G despite PAC directive

    Ncell launches 4G despite PAC directive

    Nepal’s Ncell has announced the launch of 4G services, despite reports that the company is to have its 4G license withheld due to a tax dispute.

    In a statement, Ncell said it has launched 4G in Kathmandu, Nagarkot, Banepa and Dhulikhel, and has set a target of rolling out 4G to 15% of the country by the end of the year.

    Ncell will allow customers to replace their existing SIMs with a 4G compatible USIM for free at Ncell stores, and will provide 1GB of bonus data with a three day validity to celebrate the launch of 4G.

    The company said customers can expect download speeds of between 10Mbps and 37Mbps and upload speeds of 3Mbps to 18Mbps.

    The statement made no mention of the recent directive from the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that Ncell be prohibited from launching 4G until the dispute is resolved over capital gains tax associated with the sale of TeliaSonera’s indirect controlling stake in Ncell to Malaysia’s Axiata in 2015 for $1.03 billion.

    The PAC has “serious reservations” over the launch, and will call a meeting this week to decide on a formal position over whether to oppose the issuance of Ncell’s 4G license under Nepal’s technology neutrality policy.

    According to the report, Ncell had launched 4G before regulator the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) had a chance to reach a decision over the validity of the 4G license.

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  • Huawei, Henan Unicom develop smart hotel solution

    Huawei, Henan Unicom develop smart hotel solution

    Huawei has teamed up with China Unicom’s Henan branch Henan Unicom to develop a smart hotel connectivity solution based on all-optical access.

    The solution involves the delivery of broadband capability based on a large-capacity converged optical line terminal, fibers routed inside buildings and converged smart gateways.

    Each hotel room will be provided exclusive Wi-Fi access, eliminating issues involving poor coverage or congestion. The converged smart gateways will deliver both wired broadband and Wi-Fi access, and hotel users will be provided dedicated IPTV access.

    The solution also supports centralized managed operation and maintenance (O&M) to eliminate the requirement for dedicated IT support personnel, and delivers an access rate of 10GE. It can support control of lights, home appliances, and curtains using external intelligent devices.

    “Huawei’s all-optical access smart hotel solution has obvious advantages in terms of deployment, service experience, and uniform O&M,” Henan Unicom Zhao Songhui said.

    “This solution enables Henan Unicom to accelerate hotel informatization effectively, and has earned high recognition from both hotels and their guests. In the future, we plan to spread this solution to more hotels and provide users with more intelligent services.”

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  • $14b Intelsat-OneWeb merger falls through

    $14b Intelsat-OneWeb merger falls through

    Satellite operator Intelsat has warned it expects its planned $14 billion merger with SoftBank-backed OneWeb to fall through.

    Debt-land Intelsat disclosed it has failed to get enough of its creditors to accept the deal, which would have required debt investors to accept less than the value of their holdings.

    The terms of the deal were worth approximately $2.85 billion less than the total face value of the debt investments.

    SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son had planned to combine the two satellite operators to create a global network of satellites capable of providing internet access worldwide. SoftBank had intended to take a 39.9% share in the combined company for around $1.7 billion.

    With the deal likely to fail, Intelsat has terminated a series of debt swap offers associated with the planned merger.

    According to the report, Softbank has had negotiations with other satellite operators on potential replacement deals.

    The company said in a statement that it remains enthusiastic about OneWeb’s prospects as a standalone entity and plans to continue to work with the OneWeb management teams on alternative paths to growth.

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