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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.

  • Avaya taps COL as Hong Kong distribution partner

    Avaya taps COL as Hong Kong distribution partner

    Business communications and ICT solutions provider Avaya has appointed COL Limited as its distribution partner for the Hong Kong market.

    Under the agreement, the two companies will collaborate to drive adoption of Avaya solutions in the market and helping Hong Kong organizations achieve their digital transformation ambitions.

    COL, a subsidiary of fixed line operator Wharf T&T, will provide the full range of Avaya products – including unified communications and collaboration, contact center, cloud-based communication applications and networking solutions – to resellers in Hong Kong, and later to the wider region. Resellers will be able to offer products to enterprises of all sizes.

    COL has a more than 40 year history in Hong Kong. Its flagship product is its data center and business continuity solution, which has an 80% market share in the financial and multi-national corporation market segments.

    “This distribution agreement signals the start of an exciting time for the industry and for us. Avaya has the reputation, the reach and the commitment to deliver quality communication applications,” COL VP for the business market Kam Poon said.

    “Together and through our resellers, we will make a highly positive impact in delivering future-proof communications solutions to business customers with proven competence to design, build, implement and operate.”

  • Consortium contracts ASN for INDIGO cable system

    Consortium contracts ASN for INDIGO cable system

    A consortium consisting of Asian operators, Google and telecommunications infrastructure company Superloop have commissioned a new subsea able system linking Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.

    Singtel, Indonesia’s Indosat Ooredoo as well as Australia’s Telstra and education sector network provider AARNet have joined Google and Superloop’s SubPartners to join the INDIGO cable system.

    The cable system, formerly known as APX West and Central, will be deployed by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.

    It will span around 9,000km between Singapore and Perth on the west coast of Australia, and onwards to Sydney on the east coast. A ranching unit with two additional fiber pairs will connect Singapore and Jakarta.

    Construction of the cable is expected to be complete by mid-2019. The system will use an open cable two fiber pair desgin, providing consortium members with spectrum ownership and giving them the ability to independently adopt technology advancements and upgrades as required.

    “With internet data consumption growing by 70% in Asia last year alone these sorts of investments in international networks are critical for meeting the needs of connected consumers and businesses,” Telstra group MD for global services and international David Burns said.

    “The construction of INDIGO is timely to meet the rising demand for high-speed broadband between Asia and Australia. This cable system complements our global connectivity that links Asia, the US, Europe, Australia and the Middle East,” Singtel Enterprise VP for carrier services Ooi Seng Keat added.

    Superloop has inherited its membership in the INDIGO consortium via the recent acquisition of subsea cable operator SubPartners for $2.5 million. As part of the acquisition Superloop has provided a guarantee involving the meeting of SubPartners’ construction capex costs for the project.

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  • Global telecoms service revenues due to rebound

    Global telecoms service revenues due to rebound

    The global telecommunications services market is on track to rebound after a long period in decline, reaching $1.3 trillion by 2021, MarketLine has projected.

    The market has declined at a negative CAGR of 3.4% between 2012 and 2016 due to downward price pressure motivated by intensifying competition, MarketLine analyst Nicholas Wyatt said.

    “4G mobile internet is now standard in many markets, particularly developed ones, so the only way lots of mobile operators can differentiate themselves from the competition is on price,” he said.

    “This has forced prices down and negatively impacted a market that has reached saturation point in many countries.”

    MarketLine estimates that the wireless segment contributed around $775 billion in sector revenues during 2016, or 64.9% of the $1.2 trillion total market value.

    Growing demand for mobile data is expected to help stimulate a 2.2% CAGR in the market between 2016 and 2021, driving the total market to a value of $1.3 trillion.

    Growth is expected across all regions, with APAC growing slightly higher than the US and Europe due to the region’s relatively lower saturation level.

    “Subscription volumes have plateaued in recent years, but a slight uptick is expected as populations expand and businesses require increasingly mobile staff,” Wyatt said.

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  • Singapore to raise $815m from spectrum auction

    Singapore to raise $815m from spectrum auction

    Singtel has emerged as the biggest spender in Singapore’s latest mobile spectrum auction, bidding nearly half of the total S$1.14 billion ($815.2 million) set to be raised.

    Singtel will pay S$563.7 million for 75MHz of spectrum, consisting of 40 MHz of 700-MHz spectrum, 10 MHz of 900-MHz spectrum, a right of first refusal for a further 10 MHz of 900-MHz spectrum and 15MHz in the 2.5-GHz band.

    The auction of spectrum in the four bands had four winning bidders. StarHub was the next highest bidder, committing to pay S$349.6 million for 30 MHz of 700-MHz spectrum, 20 MHz in the 2.5-GHz band and a right of first refusal to 10 MHz of 900-MHz spectrum.

    M1 bid S$208 million for 20 MHz of 700-MHz spectrum and a right of first refusal to 10 MHz in the 900-MHz frequency band.

    New market entrant TPG Telecom will meanwhile pay S$23.8 million for 10 MHz of 2500-MHz spectrum. TPG last year won the auction to become Singapore’s fourth mobile operator after bidding S$105 million for a provisional allotment of 60 MHz of 900-MHz and 2.3-GHz spectrum.

    A total of 175-MHz of spectrum was allocated during the auction, and this includes the 900-MHz spectrum due to be re-farmed following the retirement of 2G services. But the total allotment was 50 MHz lower than the 225 MHz requested by the industry, because no other spectrum was available for allocation.

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  • Massive shift towards hybrid infrastructure underway

    Massive shift towards hybrid infrastructure underway

    By 2020, enterprise spending on cloud, hosted and traditional infrastructure services will be more or less on par, Gartner has predicted.

    The research firm said the growth of cloud and industrialized services and the decline of traditional data center outsourcing (DCO) indicate a massive shift toward hybrid infrastructure services.

    “As the demand for agility and flexibility grows, organizations will shift toward more industrialized, less-tailored options,” said DD Mishra, research director at Gartner.

    “Organizations that adopt hybrid infrastructure will optimize costs and increase efficiency. However, it increases the complexity of selecting the right toolset to deliver end-to-end services in a multi-sourced environment.”

    Gartner predicts that by 2020, 90% of organizations will adopt hybrid infrastructure management capabilities.

    The traditional DCO market is shrinking, according to Gartner’s forecast data. Worldwide traditional DCO spending is expected to decline from $55.1 billion in 2016 to $45.2 billion in 2020. Cloud compute services, on the other hand, are expected to grow from $23.3 billion in 2016 to reach $68.4 billion in 2020.

    Spending on colocation and hosting is also expected to increase, from $53.9 billion in 2016 to $74.5 billion in 2020. In addition, infrastructure utility services (IUS) will grow from $21.3 billion in 2016 to $37 billion in 2020 and storage as a service will increase from $1.7 billion in 2016 to 2.7 billion in 2020.

    In 2016, traditional worldwide DCO and IUS together represented 49% of the $154 billion total data center services market worldwide, consisting of DCO/IUS, hosting and cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS). This is expected to tilt further toward cloud IaaS and hosting, and by 2020, DCO/IUS will be approximately 35% of the expected $228 billion worldwide data center services market.

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  • New Zealand cellcos propose joint rural expansion program

    New Zealand cellcos propose joint rural expansion program

    New Zealand’s mobile operators Spark, Vodafone New Zealand and 2degrees have submitted a joint proposal to improve rural broadband and mobile infrastructure under two government programs.

    The operators have applied to be selected for the Rural Broadband Initiative Extension and Mobile Black Spot Fund programs.

    If selected, the companies have committed to investing “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the project, including NZ$75 million to deploy the infrastructure, as well as opex costs, spectrum and other resources.

    The operators said their proposed expenditure would more than match the government’s own planned NZ$150 million ($104.6 million) contribution to the program, which would come from the Telecommunications Development Levy.

    Under the proposal, the partners would roll out around 500 new cell sites providing a 25% increase in land coverage across New Zealand, providing access to fast broadband for thousands of rural households and businesses and extending mobile coverage to more than 1,200km of state highways.

    “Rural New Zealand is a key driver of our country’s economic growth and productivity and for these sectors to remain competitive they need fast broadband and mobile coverage – not just in offices, but on farms, in schools, and on the roads,” Vodafone NZ CEO Russell Stanners said.

    “The combination of the Government’s RBI funding and this investment by the three mobile network operators presents a once in a generation opportunity to deliver both competitive ultra-fast broadband and world class 4G mobile infrastructure to areas of New Zealand that today have neither.”

  • Nepal telcos told to adopt 10-second billing next week

    Nepal telcos told to adopt 10-second billing next week

    Nepal’s mobile operators will need to implement 10-second billing from next week and per-second billing from October under a new regulatory directive.

    The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has instructed operators to reduce billing durations for domestic calls from the current 20 seconds to 10 seconds from April 14.

    The reduction to per-second billing will subsequently need to be implemented from October 18 to coincide with the Nepali new year.

    The minimum billing unit for landline calls has meanwhile been fixed at 60 seconds. International calls will be reduced to 30 second billing from the April date and to 10 seconds from October.

    According to the report, the NTA implemented the reductions following consultations with the industry, but the regulator still plans to conduct checks to make sure the nation’s six operators follow the directive.

    The directive will need to be implemented by Nepal Telecom, Ncell, UTL, Smart Telecom, Nepal Satellite Telecom and STM Telecom.

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  • Telstra launches five new SaaS solutions

    Telstra launches five new SaaS solutions

    Australian operator Telstra is drawing on the investments made through its venture capital arm Telstra Ventures to add five new SaaS solutions for its international enterprise customers.

    The suite of new applications is designed to better help companies as they go through digital transformation by offering solutions that reduce the cost and complexity of utilizing digital applications.

    The new range of applications are designed to improve the way organisations manage interactions with their customers and employees.

    New solutions include Near, a location intelligence platform that provides near real-time information on places, people and products, as well as all-in-one application delivery platform Nginx Plus.

    The new additions to the portfolio also include Panviva, a cloud-based platform that provides real-time process guidance to facilitate staff productivity and reduce human process errors, vArmour, a distributed security system delivering application-aware micro-segmentation, and mobile threat defense platform Zimperium.

    These applications are in addition to DocuSign, Guest Services, Kony, TeleSign and Whispir, which are currently available in the Telstra Applications Portfolio.

    This suite of new applications will be available in select locations in Asia, Europe and North America. Near, Panviva and Zimperium will be available from 30 March, while, Nginx Plus and vArmour will be available in June.

    “Organizations know they need to transform digitally to compete in today’s market, but there are challenges to overcome,” Teltra director of global applications Gianpaolo Carraro said.

    “Recent research commissioned by Telstra found 76% of organisations believed they would be more effective if their technology and network platforms were more flexible and agile, while 67% said their ability to work more collaboratively and effectively is hindered by rigid technology and network platforms.”

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  • Extreme Networks to buy Brocade’s data center assets

    Extreme Networks to buy Brocade’s data center assets

    Software-driven networking vendor Extreme Networks has arranged to buy the data center networking business of Brocade for $55 million.

    Extreme Networks has entered an agreement with Broadcom – which itself arranged to purchase Brocade in November last year for around $5.9 billion – to purchase Brocade’s data center switching, routing and analytics business.

    The acquisition is expected to close within 60 days after the closing of Broadcom’s acquisition of Brocade, which is due during the quarter ending in July.

    Extreme Networks said it expects the purchase to be earnings accretive by fiscal 2018 and to generate over $230 million in new annualized revenue.

    “The addition of Brocade’s data center networking business significantly strengthens our position in the expanding high-end data center market and reinforces our strategy of delivering software-driven networking solutions focused on enterprise customers,” Extreme Networks president and CEO Ed Meyercord said.

    “Today’s announcement, coupled with our recent announcements regarding our position as the stalking horse bidder of Avaya’s networking business and the successful completion of the integration of Zebra’s wireless LAN business, along with Extreme’s organic investments in R&D, will result in a state of the art, newly-refreshed portfolio of enterprise solutions for our customers.”

    Broadcom announced an intention to divest Brocade’s IP networking business as part of its planned acquisition of the vendor, focusing on the company’s remaining fiber channel storage area network business.

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  • Ericsson, IIT Delhi team to launch ‘5G for India’

    Ericsson, IIT Delhi team to launch ‘5G for India’

    Ericsson and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) have signed a MoU to jointly roll out a ‘5G for India’ program, conceptualized to fast-track realization of Digital India initiatives and aid application development for Indian start-ups and industries.

    Under the partnership, Ericsson will set up a Center of Excellence with a 5G test bed and incubation center at IIT Delhi and use this facility to drive the development of the country’s 5G ecosystem.

    In addition to hosting the Center of Excellence, IIT Delhi will conduct research and development to explore how some of the country’s challenges can be addressed with mobile technologies.

    The first series of tests under this program are due to begin in the second half of 2017 and will place India on par with other developed countries in terms of 5G network and application deployment.

    “The 5G for India program is a major step towards understanding the power of 5G technology and how it can help aid Digital India initiatives, including the development of smart cities,” said Paolo Colella, head of region India at Ericsson.

    “The program will focus on delivering research, innovation and industrial pilots that use next-generation 5G networks as an enabler. It will help initiate cross-industry research collaborations focused on the integration of ICT in industry processes, as well as products and services,” said Colella.

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  • LTE revenues seen to have reached $600B in 2016

    LTE revenues seen to have reached $600B in 2016

    LTE service revenues will account for over $600 billion in 2016 and expected to grow further at a CAGR of more than 5% over the next four years, according to a new report by SNS Research.

    By 2020, LTE and 5G infrastructure investments are expected to account for a market worth $32 billion. This includes spending on distributed macrocells, small cells, C-RAN architecture equipment and mobile core solutions.

    SNS Research finds that more than 150 LTE operators have already deployed carrier aggregation technology. By 2020, over 50% of all LTE subscribers will be supported by LTE-Advanced networks.

    Also, mobile operators are pursuing a range of technologies including unlicensed LTE (LTE-U, LAA, LWA, MulteFire), VoLTE and eMBMS, as they seek to maximize the value of their LTE investments while addressing mobile data traffic growth.

    Further, though 5G is yet to be standardized, vendors are aggressively investing in 5G development efforts with a principal focus on new air interface transmission schemes, higher frequency bands and advanced antenna technologies such as Massive MIMO and beamforming.

    SNS Research said that, as a natural upgrade path for mobile operators from the previously detached GSM, CDMA and TD-SCDMA ecosystems, LTE has emerged as the first truly global mobile communications standard.

    While LTE and LTE-Advanced deployments are still underway, mobile operators and vendors have already embarked on R&D initiatives to develop so-called “5G” networks, with a vision of commercialization by 2020.

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  • Ericsson names head for SEA, Oceania and India

    Ericsson names head for SEA, Oceania and India

    Ericsson has announced the appointment of a new head for Southeast Asia, Oceania and India as part of its restructuring strategy.

    Nunzio Mirtillo will take responsibility for Ericsson’s business across markets such as India, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines and Bangladesh.

    Nunzio has had a 29 career with Ericsson, serving in roles in areas including solutions development, sales, marketing and delivery. He was most recently head of the Mediterranean region, managing Ericsson’s operations across 25 countries.

    “I’m looking forward to bringing my experience of working in different roles across a diverse range of markets to the newly-combined Market Area South East Asia, Oceania and India,” Nunzio said.

    “Ericsson’s strengthened portfolio focus and simplified organizational structure will enable us to better partner with our customers, to help them succeed in tough market situations and capitalize on new growth opportunities within ICT.”

    The appointment forms part of Ericsson’s reorganization strategy, which includes transitioning from 10 regions to five market areas and from four business units to three business areas.

    The restructuring, announced last month, comes as Ericsson seeks to slim down and focus more on mobile networks to restore profitability and competitiveness.

    As part of the appointment Nunzio has also been named a member of Ericsson’s executive team.

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  • M1 to deploy vEPC solution from Huawei

    M1 to deploy vEPC solution from Huawei

    Singapore’s M1 Limited has announced plans to launch the nation’s first cloud-based virtual enhanced packet core (vEPC) network solution with Huawei.

    The deployment is aimed at further enhancing M1’s core network resiliency, while also enabling dynamic and more efficient use of network resources to support wide-ranging Smart Nation use cases, and shortening the time to market in the deployment of new IoT services.

    By harnessing the latest cloud-computing and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies, M1’s fully distributed and agile packet core network will be able to dynamically deploy core resources wherever they are needed, and provide flexibility to swiftly scale up and down resources based on customer demands.

    Furthermore, with software functions separated from the underlying hardware platforms, the cloud-based virtualized core network allows faster “in-service” software upgrades, as well as significantly reducing downtime for maintenance and testing of new services. Through this, M1 expects to improve its operational efficiency and strengthen network resiliency.

    “The deployment of our agile cloud-based virtualised core network will strengthen our network resiliency and enable us to deploy our resources more efficiently, M1 CTO Denis Seek said.

    “The highly scalable nature of the network will also enable us to meet the dynamic resources demands of new products, shorten the time-to-market innovative products, and enable us to reduce implementation and maintenance costs.”

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  • Sonus, Palo Alto develop mobile security architecture

    Sonus, Palo Alto develop mobile security architecture

    Sonus Networks and Palo Alto Networks have jointly announced a new security architecture designed to mitigate the impacts of rogue LTE endpoint devices and erroneous IP traffic crossing 4G-LTE mobile networks.

    The Sonus security architecture includes existing Sonus Session Border Controller (SBC) elements, providing the Interconnection Border Control Function and Proxy-Call Session Control Function (IBCF and P-CSCF), as well as the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Platform to move security to the network edge, lowering mobile networks costs and customer churn.

    The joint architecture allows operators to implement new policies that block unauthorized traffic on EPC networks, increase security, reduce network congestion and associated costs and enhance the user experience of operators’ mobile subscribers by providing protection from mobile malware.

    Operators can now leverage their Sonus P-CSCF and IBCF deployments to detect and mitigate anomalous IP communications traffic from rogue endpoints, as well as obtain complete visibility and threat prevention capabilities provided by the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Platform.

    With this security architecture in place, operators can reduce capital costs by limiting the over-provisioning of networks while implementing a more effective overall security posture in conjunction with growing IP Communications services, such as VoLTE and VoWiFi.

    Additionally, operators can deter theft of service and ensure greater network availability and quality of experience for mobile subscribers by preventing targeted network attacks and blocking malware targeting mobile devices.

    “The Sonus and Palo Alto Networks architecture brings together the unique capabilities offered by each company to deliver a best-in-class security solution for mobile operators that unifies LTE data and VoLTE security policy and enforcement,” said Kevin Riley, Sonus CTO and senior vice president, Engineering.

    “Establishing a secure mobile network for the Internet of Things will be a key differentiator for mobile operators and their customers in the coming years  We are looking forward to working with Palo Alto Networks to continue this momentum as we get ahead of identity and security issues and redefine this evolving landscape together.”

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  • NBTC likely to postpone 5G auction

    NBTC likely to postpone 5G auction

    Thai regulator NBTC is likely to have to postpone the planned 2600-MHz 5G auction until 2018 due to regulatory and administrative hurdles.

    The regulator had planned to hold the 2600-MHz auction in September this year, but this process will probably need to be delayed, an NBTC commissioner told.

    Factors behind the delay include the fact that 190MHz of 2600-MHz spectrum has been allocated to state broadcaster MCOT and is currently unused.

    MCOT expects compensation for the return of 80MHz of spectrum for the auction, but the NBTC is currently not authorized to pay compensation to state agencies in return for spectrum.

    The new draft bill restructuring the NBTC is expected to give the regulator the power to do so, but the process of arranging compensation and drawing up the framework for these payments will take time. The new bill has yet to identify methodologies for calculating compensation.

    The NBTC restructuring is also likely to create its own issues that will impact the auction process due to the transition to new commissioners expected after the bill takes effect.

    Meanwhile Thailand still lacks a clear spectrum roadmap for the evolution to 5G will inevitably cause a delay in Thailand’s 5G ecosystem development.

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