Retail News CRM

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.

  • Viacom launches global product development group

    Viacom launches global product development group

    Viacom has launched the global product development group, a new, streamlined team dedicated to creating multiplatform products for audiences around the world, with a focus on video content.

    The group has been charged with establishing a unified strategy for developing digital applications and websites for Viacom’s teen- and adult-oriented brands, including BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Paramount Network, VH1, TV Land, CMT and Logo.

    The group will work closely with Viacom’s brands and technology, ad sales and content distribution functions to ensure these products both enhance how audiences engage with Viacom’s content and support the Pay TV ecosystem, such as through the use of authenticated video.

    Among the group’s initial priorities is expanding Play Plex, Viacom International Media Networks’ (VIMN) suite of mobile apps, to the US and other key markets to create a seamless video-on-demand solution for global audiences.

    It is currently in the process of transitioning Viacom’s worldwide websites to a single web framework, which will ultimately help to deliver tailored content to audiences based on their geographic location.

    Led by Dan Reich, who has been appointed SVP, the Global Product Development Group brings together product teams from across Viacom’s adult brand portfolio, VIMN and corporate.

    In this expanded role, Reich will oversee the integration of these teams, fostering greater collaboration and helping to prioritize and scale resources.

    Lees ook:

  • YTL uses 4G to “leapfrog” region

    YTL uses 4G to “leapfrog” region

    Malaysian mobile operator YTL plans to speed up the pace of digital innovation as it challenges incumbents in its home market, says the company’s CEO Wing K Lee.

    Lee is set to address the CommunicAsia2017 Summit today on the subject of “A Nationwide 4G Leapfrog.” He says YTL’s six-year journey from Wimax start-up to operator of Malaysia’s first 4G LTE service in June last year has “lifted the standard of competitiveness” on mobile internet.

    Although granted a Wimax license at the same time as other new competitors, YTL took longer to go to market with its product and spent more time building its geographical coverage.

    It followed up its original 2010 launch with its LTE network, built by network partner Samsung Electronics, which also offers VoLTE. The network covers around 85% of Malaysia with data speeds as high as 100 Mbps.

    YTL’s “digital roadmap” and experience serves as a regional case study on “leapfrogging”: using new technology in a greenfield environment to create better infrastructure than more advanced areas which developed their tech infrastructure earlier on legacy frameworks.

    “As a completely greenfield player, we had the good fortune to start from a clean slate, free of legacy processing and thinking,” says Lee. “So we created a digital-first experience-from automation to care-for both our customers and our dealers.”

    Skill-sets of the century

    Another game-changer came four years ago, when YTL won an open tender from Malaysia’s Ministry of Education to provide 4G broadband in all public schools.

    The operator has partnered with Google to deploy 4G Chromebooks to schools throughout Malaysia, integrating Google Apps for Education into its cloud-based learning platform which supports 10 million students, teachers, and parents.

    Cloud cover over Malaysia

    Given the national footprint, YTL uses a cloud-based approach to enable “anywhere, anytime learning” and instill a “21st century skill-set” in young Malaysians.

    Lee says the way forward for YTL was to continue to invest in the cloud to create a new platform to deliver value.

    The education project, he says, was a good example of how the company wants to use connectivity in a transformative way to create new services and products, often in collaborative partnerships.

    “We won’t play the same game as legacy players,” he says. “We’re just getting warmed up and will continue to speed up the pace and diversity of innovation.”

    Lees ook:

  • Nokia, Mitsubishi develop ultra-fast BTS amplifier

    Nokia, Mitsubishi develop ultra-fast BTS amplifier

    Nokia Bell Labs, Mitsubishi Electric and the Center for Wireless Communications at University of California San Diego in the US have jointly developed a new envelope-tracking power amplifier with the potential to significantly enhance the energy efficiency of next-generation base stations.

    The gallium-nitride power amplifier supports modulation bandwidth up to 80MHz, four times wider than the signals used in other envelope-tracking power amplifiers.

    This translates to a gain efficiency of 41.6% in wide-bandwidth operation, Nokia said, making it a promising candidate for 5G base stations.

    Next-generation wireless systems are using complex modulated signals with large peak-to-average power ratio and extra-wide modulation bandwidth, which will require power amplifiers to operate most of the time at backed-off power levels that are well below their saturation levels.

    But the efficiency of power amplifiers is generally significantly degraded at backed off levels. While envelope-tracking power amplifiers are considered a promising solution to this problem, so far the supply-modulator circuit has been the bottleneck limiting modulation bandwidth.

    The new prototype uses Mitsubishi Electric’s high-frequency GaN transistor technology and Nokia Bell Labs’ real-time digital pre-distortion system to help remove this bottleneck and achieve wider modulation bandwidth, the companies said.

    Technical details of the system will be presented during next month’s IEEE MTT International Microwave Symposium in Hawaii.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Hawaiki Cable manufacturing nearing completion

    Hawaiki Cable manufacturing nearing completion

    The first cable load for the Hawaiki Cable – the subsea cable that will link Australia and New Zealand to the continental US, Hawaii and America Samoa – will commence next month.

    Hawaiki Submarine Cable and TE SubCom announced that construction of the cable remains on schedule, with more than 13,000km of the 14,000km transpacific cable now manufactured. The initial cable load will include 7,000km of this cable.

    Installation permits for Australia, New Zealand and Oregon in the US have also been procured, and horizontal directional drilling for the cable landing of Pacific City in Oregon have commenced.

    In Sydney, more than half of the conduits for the land duct route have meanwhile been installed, and drilling operations will start early next month.

    Once complete in mid-2018, Hawaiki is expected to be the highest cross-sectional capacity link between the US and Australia and New Zealand. The carrier-neutral cable system will have options to expand to several South Pacific islands, including Tonga, Fiji and New Caledonia.

    “We’re very close to completing the manufacturing stage of Hawaiki and are preparing to launch installation in just a matter of months,” Hawaiki CEO Remi Galasso said.

    “Once live, this cable system will help eliminate the distance between all Pacific communities and provide an economic boost to a region consistently starved for broadband access.”

  • Telstra lays out plans for Programmable Network

    Telstra lays out plans for Programmable Network

    Australian operator Telstra has outlined its plans to offer SDN and NFV, cloud platform and data centers as well as global and Australian networks in one integrated and intelligent platform.

    At the ITW Conference in Chicago, Telstra outlined its planned network-as-a-service called the Telstra Programmable Network.

    This new network will be programmable at its core and enable the automation and provisioning of services. It will be designed to help businesses quickly add new capabilities to deliver better experiences without significant infrastructure upgrades. It will also allow simple and secure access to multiple cloud services via a simple user interface.

    “The Telstra Programmable Network is designed to help our customers meet the rapidly growing global demand for data and the proliferation of applications, as well as embrace cloud computing by offering flexible and dynamic access to our high bandwidth, low latency and secure networks,” said Jim Fagan, Director Global Platforms.

    “Our vision for the Telstra Programmable Network is to help businesses optimize their IT by offering automated, on-demand and near real-time provisioning, consumption-based pricing and new data insights on network usage,” said Fagan.

    “The Telstra Programmable Network brings together all of our SDN technologies such as PEN, Telstra’s first globally connected on-demand networking platform, and continues their development under one vision, architecture and investment program.”

    International IP-VPN customers will also be able to access the Telstra Programmable Network’s capabilities from any of Telstra’s 2,000 points of presence worldwide after launch. This includes extending their network via Telstra’s portal or API to access the internet and a range of public cloud services including Amazon Web Services and IBM SoftLayer.

    To complement the rollout, Telstra will implement a significant capability upgrade of its core international IP network in the coming months.

    This will introduce increased bandwidth and flexibility, which the new service will demand. In addition, these enhancements are expected to increase Telstra’s peering capacity by up to 70% and provide enhanced security with traffic segregation capability to mitigate DDoS traffic.

    “These initial investments will establish the groundwork for the Telstra Programmable Network with future enhancements, such as orchestrated real-time SD-WAN and security, to be announced in the coming months,” said Fagan.

    Lees ook:

  • Huawei signs MoU with Infosys to explore joint BSS solution

    Huawei signs MoU with Infosys to explore joint BSS solution

    Huawei has signed an Alliance Memorandum of Understanding with Infosys to explore joint solutions in the Business Support Systems (BSS) domain.

    The company has also announced to expand its Telco OS Partner Program to stimulate joint go-to-market approaches and solutions with Service (SI) partners.

    The Huawei Telco OS Partner Program is a communications industry-specific partner program designed to establish partner relationships which accelerate the digital transformation of communication service providers (CSPs) across their BSS, Operations Support System (OSS) and big data functional domains.

    The program was initially focused on Delivery Service Vendors (DSV) to augment project delivery, and Solution (ISV) partners to augment the productized solutions being delivered.

    To date over 1,000 engineers have been certified under the program, working across 57 different projects, in 39 countries around the world, leveraging over 30 ISV products.

    As part of the agreement, the parties will explore joint solution innovation and labs, and promote joint solutions to customers and business partners.

    Lees ook:

  • Big data spend on pace to $57b in 2017

    Big data spend on pace to $57b in 2017

    Global spending on big data technology is expected to surpass $57 billion by the end of 2017, according to a new report from SNS Research.

    Despite challenges relating to privacy concerns and organizational resistance, big data investments continue to gain momentum throughout the globe, the report said.

    SNS Research estimates that big data investments will account for over $57 billion in 2017 alone. These investments are further expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 10% over the next three years.

    Originally used as a term to describe datasets whose size is beyond the ability of traditional databases, the scope of big data has significantly expanded over the years.

    Big data not only refers to the data itself but also a set of technologies that capture, store, manage and analyze large and variable collections of data, to solve complex problems.

    Amid the proliferation of real-time data from sources such as mobile devices, web, social media, sensors, log files and transactional applications, big data has found a host of vertical market applications, ranging from fraud detection to scientific R&D.

    Lees ook:

  • Dialog Axiata consolidates billing with Netcracker platform

    Dialog Axiata consolidates billing with Netcracker platform

    Dialog Axiata has expanded its partnership with Netcracker by using Netcracker’s Customer Billing Management solution to consolidate billing across all lines of business into a single platform.

    This expansion will bring Dialog’s retail and enterprise fixed-line subscribers onto Netcracker’s BSS, which already bills for Dialog’s GSM, digital TV and Wi-Fi lines of business.

    The consolidation of all billing processes onto Netcracker’s solution will enable Dialog to open new revenue opportunities by offering converged services that span across several lines of business.

    The solution will also help Dialog deliver a better customer experience, bring new services to market faster and reduce opex due to the need to manage fewer systems.

    “Consistency across all lines of business and minimizing the number of systems required enables us to offer new digital services faster and provide innovative bundles that our customers expect,” said Anthony Rodrigo, group CIO at Dialog.

    Loh John Wu, SVP and GM of APAC at Netcracker, said the expanding market for digital services is encouraging service providers around the world to consolidate and streamline processes, systems and applications that may have been traditionally separated.

    “Our expansion with Dialog underscores this trend and validates our ability to enable the operational transformation required when becoming a digital service provider,” said Loh.

    Lees ook:

  • Jazz places sole bid in Pakistan 1800-MHz auction

    Jazz places sole bid in Pakistan 1800-MHz auction

    Pakistan’s Jazz has emerged as the sole bidder for a 10 MHz block of paired 1800-MHz spectrum conducted by regulator the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Jazz submitting the minimum bid of $295 million just before the deadline.

    The next generation mobile services auction drew limited interest from operators which mostly sat out of the auction, including Ufone – the only operator in the market without the capability to provide 4G services, which was expected to bid to rectify this.

    PTA now plans to evaluate Jazz’s bid, and if it is found to meet the required conditions the operator will be given two options for payment. Jazz will either be allowed to pay the whole price upfront, or pay a 50% first installment and five equal annual installment payments with interest.

    Jazz will also be required to pay a 10% tax on the auction. A PTA official stating that high reserve price – $85 million more than the equivalent asking price for the same spectrum in 2014 – and level of taxation may be to blame for the lack of interest in the auction.

    The report also cites an official at China Mobile’s Pakistani subsidiary Zong stating that the company has no need for additional bandwidth.

    Lees ook:

  • Smart city development now a global phenomenon

    Smart city development now a global phenomenon

    There are more than 250 smart city projects underway across 178 cities around the world, according to a new report from market research firm Navigant Research.

    The report, Smart City Tracker 1Q17, finds that of the 252 smart city projects tracked, the majority of projects are smart government-led (40%), with smart energy coming a relatively close second (27%), while smart transportation (18%), smart buildings (11%), and smart water (4%) projects made up the rest.

    Geographically, the majority of projects tracked were in Europe, with Asia Pacific in second and North America third.

    “The development of smart cities is now a truly global phenomenon, with considerable activity and notable projects across all regions,” Navigant Research says.

    “Working in partnership with technology and service suppliers, city leaders and central governments are realizing the benefits smart city projects can provide to increase and improve economic opportunity, sustainability, and quality of life.”

    Thanks to the widespread interest in smart city programs, the global market for smart city solutions and services is expected to grow from $40.1 billion in 2017 to $97.9 billion in 2026, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.4%.

    This includes investments in areas such as open data platforms, smart grids, networked LED street lights, urban mobility, energy-efficient buildings, water management, and government service applications.

    In addition, as sensor technology improves and costs decrease, smart city technologies are becoming more efficient, higher performing, and cheaper than ever before, the report adds.

    Lees ook:

  • Equinix acquires 29 data centers from Verizon

    Equinix acquires 29 data centers from Verizon

    Equinix has completed its acquisition of 29 data centers in North and Latin America from Verizon Communications.

    The US $3.6 billion all cash deal includes over 1,000 customers, of which over 600 are net new, and approximately three million gross square feet of data center space.

    Equinix said the deal will accelerate its ability to help companies extend their IT operations to the digital edge, strengthens interconnection density on the Equinix global platform, accelerates business relationships in the government and energy sectors and supports its enterprise offering.

    Additionally, it adds three new markets (Bogotá, Culpeper and Houston) and provides additional capacity and the opportunity for expansion in markets where Equinix currently has a presence, including Atlanta, Denver, Miami, New York, São Paulo, Seattle and Silicon Valley.

    Spread across 15 cities in North and Latin America, the new assets bring Equinix’s total global footprint to over 175 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers across 44 markets and approximately 17 million gross square feet.

    “As the technological shift to digital is transforming large sections of society and the global economy, companies are re-architecting their IT infrastructure to thrive in this new environment,”Equinix CEO Steve Smith said.

    “They are moving from traditional centralized infrastructure to a distributed model that keeps data closer to the customers, partners and employees using it. With this significant expansion of Equinix’s globally consistent footprint, our platform is even more valuable to companies that are leveraging this new model of interconnection at the digital edge.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Inmarsat launches fourth Global Xpress satellite

    Inmarsat launches fourth Global Xpress satellite

    Inmarsat has launched the fourth high speed broadband satellite in its Global Xpress constellation, the Inmarsat-5 F4 (I-5 F4).

    The new satellite was launched by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 Rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the US. It was manufactured by Boeing Network & Space Systems.

    Inmarsat’s Global Xpress worldwide broadband connectivity service has been operational since December 2015. The fourth satellite will allow the company to add further capacity to the network as well as in-orbit redundancy.

    “For Inmarsat, reliability and resilience are paramount. Delivering global commercial services over the GX network, which we achieved at the end of 2015, was only the start of our Global Xpress project,” Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce said.

    “I-5 F4 augments the capabilities of GX and, alongside our existing L-band constellations, enables Inmarsat to provide guaranteed global connectivity to industries and governments worldwide.”

    He said the Global Xpress service has established a strong footprint in established very small aperture terminal (VSAT) markets such as maritime and government, and is gaining ground in new market areas such as the in-flight broadband connectivity sector.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Vodafone Group swings to $6.7b loss on India

    Vodafone Group swings to $6.7b loss on India

    Vodafone Group has swung to a €6.1 billion ($6.76 billion) full-year loss as a result of a €3.7 billion writedown on its Indian operations.

    Vodafone India recorded an impairment of loss of €4.51 billion for the financial year as a result of the anticipated impact of the entry of Reliance Jio Infocomm into the market and the resulting intense price competition.

    The Indian unit reported an operating loss for the financial year of €4.17 billion, compared to a 423 million operating profit a year earlier. Service revenue also fell 4.9%, or 0.7% on an organic basis, to €5.85 billion.

    But after Vodafone India reached its agreement to merge with Idea Cellular to create India’s largest mobile operator, the impairment charge was reduced to €3.7 billion. Idea Cellular recently also posted a net loss for the financial year.

    Vodafone India’s total net debt meanwhile grew to €8.7 billion by the end of the financial year, up from €8.1 billion at end-2016. Some €7 billion of this was spectrum-related debt

    The impending merger has now led Vodafone to classify Vodafone India as part of its discontinued operations for reporting services.

    The Vodafone Group’s total revenue meanwhile fell 4.4% to €47.63 billion, but operating profit grew 182.2% to €3.72 billion.

    Lees ook:

  • Singtel, AXA launch safe driving smart car service

    Singtel, AXA launch safe driving smart car service

    Singtel has collaborated with AXA Insurance to launch a joint smart car solution aimed at promoting better and safer driving habits.

    The joint solution comprises a Modus smart car device synchronized with a cloud-based smart car application over Singtel’s mobile networks. It analyzes driving patterns through a vehicle’s On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) port.

    Features include driver analysis covering areas such as breaking, acceleration and speed, real-time location monitoring to make it easier for users to find their car and trip history, and provide driving scores based on analysis of this data.

    The solution can also monitor engine health information and provide scheduled maintenance reminders, and provide alerts for speed and mileage limits and geo-fence boundaries.

    To promote the new solution, Singtel and AXA are offering a year worth of free AXA car insurance to the safest driver in Singapore using the solution. Drivers will need to travel at least 3,000km during the contest period.

    “The smart car solution is yet another innovative service that we are bringing to our customers, following the successful launch of Singtel SmartHome,” Singtel CEO consumer Singapore Yuen Kuan Moon said.

    “Now, our customers can enjoy an integrated connected lifestyle both in and out of the home. The solution will allow car lovers to track their driving habits and empower them to have a smarter drive.”

    Lees ook:

  • Ericsson unveils Dynamic Orchestration solution

    Ericsson unveils Dynamic Orchestration solution

    Ericsson has launched its Dynamic Orchestration solution to facilitate the rapid introduction and closed-loop automation of services across physical and virtual networks.

    The company said this signifies a strategic move forward in the company’s ambition to lead IT transformation services for its customers.

    Ericsson Dynamic Orchestration provides a flexible and modular solution for the management of existing technologies while virtualization capabilities are integrated and controlled.

    With support for zero-touch automation, rapid provisioning and policy-driven service assurance, Ericson Dynamic Orchestration helps operators achieve faster time to market and superior delivery of new and differentiated services.

    “The opportunities offered by virtualization are significant, but due to the complexity, many operators are taking an incremental step-by-step approach to get there,” Ulf Ewaldsson, head of business area digital services at Ericsson.

    “Ericsson Dynamic Orchestration enables our customers to excel at traditional services delivery while simultaneously incorporating virtualization capabilities to embrace emerging market and business opportunities driven by 5G and IoT,” said Ewaldsson.

    Ericsson Dynamic Orchestration is an end-to-end, automated service orchestration solution that provides rapid validation of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), design and onboarding of new services, inventory, resource and capacity management, service configuration management and service assurance.

    The use of policy and real-time analytics across the lifecycle affords zero-touch operations and is the foundation for SLA compliance.

    Lees ook: