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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.

  • APAC to have nearly 1b IoT connections by 2025

    APAC to have nearly 1b IoT connections by 2025

    Asia Pacific will remain the single largest region for IoT cellular connections through to 2025, with the market accounting for nearly 1 billion connections by this time, Strategy Analytics predicts.

    The automotive, utility and security vertical markets will drive growth in connections over the forecast period, the research firm said.

    Strategy Analytics expects IoT cellular connections to grow to more than 2.4 billion in 2025, with automotive, utilities and security together accounting for over 46% of global connections.

    Across the forecast period, the automotive vertical market will not only remain the single largest global consumer of IoT cellular connections, but increase its market share position by 2025.

    ”With the industry focusing on the path to 5G and low power 3GPP offerings, such as LTE Cat M1 and NB IoT, coupled with a variety of established connectivity platforms, there are lots of choices for cellular connectivity in IoT and the outlook has never been brighter,” Strategy Analytics executive director of enterprise and IoT research Andrew Brown said.

    “However, the bewildering array of choices also runs the risk of creating confusion for customers with regard to which technologies should be employed in which use cases.”

    Matt Wilkins, Senior Analyst IoT Research at Strategy Analytics added that “the growth in cellular connections underlines the importance of cellular networks in IoT, with networks not just being used to facilitate simple connections, but increasingly supporting rich data that will enable new and compelling use cases.”

  • Ericsson to book up to $1.7b in charges in Q1

    Ericsson to book up to $1.7b in charges in Q1

    Ericsson has announced plans for a major strategic refocus after allocating up to $1.7 billion in provisions, writedowns and restructuring charges for the first quarter.

    The company announced it will take provisions of around 7 billion to 9 billion krona ($792.8 million to $1.02 billion) during the first quarter, triggered by “recent negative developments related to certain large customer projects.”

    Ericsson did not provide further details of the reason for the provision, which has raised the eyebrows of investment analysts.

    In addition, the company will write down assets during the first quarter that will have an estimated impact on operating income of 3 billion to 4 billlion krona ($339.8 million to $453.1 million), and has allocated around 2 billion krona for restructuring charges for the period.

    As a result of the challenges it is facing, Ericsson said it will pursue a more focused business strategy to restore profitability and healthy operating margins, focused on leveraging the potential of 5G, IoT and cloud.

    Ericsson’s portfolio will be reduced to fewer areas, and the company will be more focused on developing solutions combining products and services. The company aims to simplify its organizations structure and accelerate its R&D investments in certain core areas.

    “For some time Ericsson has been challenged on both technology and market leadership and the group strategy has not yielded expected returns,” Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm said.

    “In our strategy review we have listened carefully to customers around the world and made an in-depth analysis of our portfolio and performance. To enable us to immediately take action and move with speed in execution we are today outlining our path to restoring profitability and to lead with innovation and best in class solutions in areas we have decided to focus on.”

    Focus areas will include networks and network rollouts, digital services, the IoT, managed services as well as ICT cloud infrastructure hardware.

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  • ITU to hold summit on AI for social good

    ITU to hold summit on AI for social good

    Can artificial intelligence (AI) help resolve global challenges such as poverty, hunger, health, education, equality and environmental protection?

    The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is hosting the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva this June.

    The summit, to be held in partnership with UN agencies, including OHCHR, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNICRI, UNIDO, UNITAR and UN Global Pulse, will evaluate opportunities presented by AI and how it can benefit humanity.

    It seeks to convene representatives of government, industry, UN agencies, civil society, and the AI research community to explore the latest developments in AI and their implications for regulation, ethics and security and privacy.

    Breakout sessions will invite participants to collaborate and propose strategies for the development of AI applications and systems to promote sustainable living, reduce poverty and deliver citizen-centric public services.

    “As the UN specialized agency for information and communication technologies, ITU aims to guide AI innovation towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “We are providing a neutral platform for international dialogue to build a common understanding of the capabilities of emerging AI technologies.”

    Some of the confirmed speakers include Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google; Peter Lee , Corporate Vice President of Microsoft AI and Research at Microsoft; Jing Wang, Senior VP and Head of Research at Baidu; Manuela Veloso, Professor in Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University; and Gary Marcus, Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University.

    Marcus Shingles, CEO of XPRIZE, said that with the acceleration and democratization of AI, the organizers recognize the tremendous opportunity for an emerging generation of problem solvers to tackle global challenges.

    “We are seeing teams use AI as an underlying tool across a variety of domains, from creating personalized learning experiences for children with no access to formal education in Tanzania, to empowering consumers to make healthcare decisions with a medical Tricorder device, to guiding advanced and autonomous robotic vehicles to explore the deep sea or to find their way to the lunar surface,” he said.

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  • Indian cellcos told to re-verify all customers

    Indian cellcos told to re-verify all customers

    The Indian government has instructed the nation’s mobile operators to re-verify all their mobile subscribers with a system that uses biometric authentication by next February.

    All existing subscribers will need to be re-verified using the Aadhaar-based system, which includes a unique identifying number and biometric data.

    Both prepaid and postpaid subscribers will need to be registered under the new system, and all licensees will need to inform existing subscribers about the requirement through advertisements in print and electronic media as well as SMS.

    The new requirement stems from a Supreme Court order in February that requires operators to complete the verification system for existing subscribers within one year.

    Operators plan to use and share a common device ecosystem for the verification process and will work on mechanisms to limit public inconvenience.

    But the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), the peak body for India’s GSM operators, has complained that the re-verification exercise will cost 10 billion rupees in infrastructure and training costs, and these expenses will need to be borne by operators.

    COAI also indicated it may need to seek an extension from regulator Trai if its members are not able to complete the process of re-verifying millions of subscribers within a year.

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  • Singtel, Telkomsel enter mobile money alliance

    Singtel, Telkomsel enter mobile money alliance

    Singapore’s Singtel and Indonesia’s Telkomsel have teamed up to launch a real-time mobile remittance service to Indonesia.

    The new service is being offered by SingCash under the Singtel Dash brand. It will allow customers in Singapore to send money to the state-owned PT Pos Indonesia’s 4,500 cash-out points across the nation.

    The initiative marks the first collaboration between Singtel and Telkomsel on a mobile money initiative.

    The agreement is expected to be expanded in the future to cover more cash pick-up points, and to support mobile remittance directly to Telkomsel’s TCash mobile wallet from Singtel mobile wallets.

    According to the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Singapore, there are 200,000 Indonesians living and working in Singapore, and outward remittance from Singapore to Indonesia totals more than $409 million per year.

    “Telkomsel’s partnership in Singtel’s remittance service is one effort to support our government in promoting financial inclusion for Indonesian people, especially the unbanked segment,” Telkomsel CEO Ririek Adriansyah said.

    “Foreign remittance enables them to improve their quality of life as well as provide an opportunity to begin saving for the future. We believe every little effort to promote financial inclusion will also accelerate the growth of Indonesia’s economy.”

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  • Singapore operators to switch off 2G from Sunday

    Singapore operators to switch off 2G from Sunday

    Singapore’s mobile operators will commence the process of switching off their 2G networks on Sunday as part of a scheduled sunsetting of the aging networking technology.

    Operators M1, Singtel and StarHub plan to conduct the switch-off in stages, and complete the process by April 18Singapore’s mobile operators will commence the process of switching off their 2G networks on Sunday as part of a scheduled sunsetting of the aging networking technology.

    Operators M1, Singtel and StarHub plan to conduct the switch-off in stages, and complete the process by April 18.

    As part of an agreement with regulator the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), operators are giving 2G users the ability to retain their numbers and subscription plans on 3G and 4G networks at no additional cost or requirement to re-contract.

    The IMDA has urged the nation’s remaining 2G-only users to switch to a 3G or 4G handset by this time.

    The regulator is holding information sessions for seniors wishing to learn how to use smartphones as part of the transition process, and has also worked with the operators to ensure that handset models costing below S$50 ($36) are available for the holdouts.

    The IMDA banned the sale of all 2G-only devices from January as part of the switch-off process, which is aimed at allowing 2G spectrum to be re-allocated for advanced mobile services.

    Singtel’s wholly-owned Australian subsidiary Optus is meanwhile following its parent in switching off 2G. Optus announced it will commence a staggered shutdown process from April 3, starting in the states of the Northern Territory and Western Australia..

    As part of an agreement with regulator the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), operators are giving 2G users the ability to retain their numbers and subscription plans on 3G and 4G networks at no additional cost or requirement to re-contract.

    The IMDA has urged the nation’s remaining 2G-only users to switch to a 3G or 4G handset by this time.

    The regulator is holding information sessions for seniors wishing to learn how to use smartphones as part of the transition process, and has also worked with the operators to ensure that handset models costing below S$50 ($36) are available for the holdouts.

    The IMDA banned the sale of all 2G-only devices from January as part of the switch-off process, which is aimed at allowing 2G spectrum to be re-allocated for advanced mobile services.

    Singtel’s wholly-owned Australian subsidiary Optus is meanwhile following its parent in switching off 2G. Optus announced it will commence a staggered shutdown process from April 3, starting in the states of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

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  • Huawei unveils All-Cloud Network architecture

    Huawei unveils All-Cloud Network architecture

    Huawei unveiled its All-Cloud Network architecture for enterprises at last week’s CeBIT 2017, in a bid to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation.

    The vendor’s new architecture is comprised of three parts – ubiquitous connections, an open cloud platform and a social technology industry application.

    The architecture consists of CloudFabric – designed to build a simple, efficient, and open cloud data center network as well as CloudDCI to build an on-demand and smart data center interconnection network based on cloud services.

    The portfolio also includes CloudCampus, which aims to enable cloud management of the network throughout the entire lifecycle, from network deployment to O&M, as well as all Wi-Fi access in the campus network. CloudEPN meanwhile includes on-demand value-added network services for enterprises.

    Finally, Edge-Computing-IoT (EC-IoT) is a security solution designed to meet predictive maintenance requirements and enable digital transformation for vertical industries.

    “Digital transformation not only means applying new technologies such as cloud computing, SDN, and NFV, but also involves reforming business models, operational modes, and thinking patterns,” said Kevin Hu, president of Huawei Switch & Enterprise Gateway product line.

    “The All-Cloud Network architecture will deliver ubiquitous connections, an open cloud platform, and social technology industry applications to enterprises. In addition, it will simplify network resource management and enhance the value of network data. All of these factors will create an open network for enterprises to reap business benefits with tremendous potential.”

  • Globe taps NuRAN for rural broadband trial

    Globe taps NuRAN for rural broadband trial

    The Philippines’ Globe Telecom has selected Canadian wireless broadband provider NuRAN Wireless to conduct the next phase of its trial rural connectivity program.

    Globe will use NuRAN’s equipment within 50 sites at various villages in across the Philippines. These sites will use NuRAN’s LiteCell 1.5 base stations, connected using a de-centralized GSM network topology.

    Globe will also be able to make use of the ecently-announced NuRAN Open Access (NOA) software suite, which includes the Community Cellular Manager (CCM) solution.

    Globe will be able to use this software to manage prepaid charging and forge business partnerships with local and regional organizations, NuRAN said.

    The agreement marks the next stage of a trial that commenced with the deployment of the same equipment at two sites in the Philippines in the fourth quarter of last year.

    During the same period, Globe also worked with NuRAN on a trial involving using TV white space spectrum with wireless backhaul. Both initiative form part of Globe’s goal of improving connectivity for remote or underserved regions of the Philippines.

    “We are proud to be partnering with Globe Telecom on this important initiative. The Philippines is an important market for NuRAN with a large rural and remote population desperate for connectivity,” NuRAN Wireless CEO Martin Bedard said.

    “This deployment further strengthens our relationship with Globe Telecom, the number one mobile brand in the Philippines.”

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  • SoftBank, Ericsson to trial 5G over 28-GHz

    SoftBank, Ericsson to trial 5G over 28-GHz

    Ericsson and Japan’s SoftBank have announced plans to demonstrate 5G over 28-GHz millimetre wave spectrum, as part of the next stage of their joint 5G trials.

    The companies said they are moving forward with more advanced 5G tests following the successful completion of basic 4.5-GHz and 15-GHz 5G trials in Tokyo last year.

    The upcoming trial will involve both indoor and outdoor testing environments and cover both device mobility and stationary tests. The trial will use Ericsson’s mmWave 28-GHz 5G Test Bed base station and device prototype solution.

    SoftBank and Ericsson will make use of advanced 5G technologies including Massive-MIMO, massive beamforming, Distributed MIMO, Multi-user MIMO and beam tracking.

    “SoftBank started to verify 4.5-GHz radio back in August 2016 and now 4.5GHz is becoming the leading candidate band for 5G services in Japan together with 28-GHz,” the operator’s SVP Hideyuki Tsukuda said.

    “We are leveraging Ericsson’s Test Bed with 28-GHz radio to validate a lot of advanced features at super low-latency and high throughput, which helps position us as a pioneer of 5G.”

    Ericsson Japan head Mikael Eriksson added that he is confident that the company “will be the first to deliver 5G services and that we will deliver the best performing end to end network in Japan.”

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  • Airtel to buy Tikona Digital’s 4G business

    Airtel to buy Tikona Digital’s 4G business

    India’s Bharti Airtel has arranged to acquire ISP Tikona Digital’s 4G business for around 16 billion rupees ($244.6 million), to help shore up its ability to compete against Reliance Jio and the combined Vodafone-Idea Cellular.

    The company will acquire 4G assets including 20 MHz of 2300-MHz 4G spectrum in five of India’s 22 telecoms circles, as well as 350 existing cell sites in these circles.

    The five circles are Uttar Pradesh East and Uttar Pradesh West, as well as Rajasthan, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

    The merger is expected to fill gaps in Airtel’s spectrum holdings, particularly in the former three circles, and allow the operator to secure a pan-India footprint in the 2300-MHz band.

    This could prove crucial to Airtel’s efforts to stay competitive against disruptive pan-India 4G operator Reliance Jio Infocomm, as well as the entity that will be created with the planned $23 billion merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular – which is expected to overtake Airtel to become the market’s largest operator by subscribers.

    But Airtel could have some hurdles to clear in order to close the deal. Tikona Digital co-founder Rajesh Tiwari is objecting to the deal on the grounds that the companies have not provided details of how the proceeds will be split among shareholders, the report states.

    Tiwari, which owns just over 1% of the ISP, has filed a legal notice seeking to block the deal until he is provided this information.

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  • StarHub opens Hubtricity innovation center

    StarHub opens Hubtricity innovation center

    Singapore’s StartHub has opened a new innovation center and converged operations cockpit named Hubtricity, aimed at accelerating Singapore’s transformation into a Smart Nation.

    The 58,000 square feet facility will act as a foundation to foster service innovation and co-creation with partners and customers.

    The centerpiece at Hubtricity is the converged command cockpit, where StarHub with real-time data can monitor how its fixed, mobile and pay TV networks and services are performing and understand how customers are using and responding to its service offerings through call center metrics and social media analytics.

    Tan Tong Hai, CEO of StarHub said Hubtricity is derived from three words Hubbing – the convergence of technology and services; Tri – the three core networks that power Hubbing; and City – where it is about the consumers.

    “Hubtricity not only showcases our extensive connectivity and deep competency in data analytics and cyber security, but is also a co-working space for partners and start-up companies to create solutions for a Smart Nation,” said Tan.

    “Currently, we are working with both local and global partners to build platforms, such as smart home, intelligent vehicles, connected buildings, virtual reality and smart retail, to meet the future needs of our customers,” added Tan.

    As a home-grown company, StarHub supports the nurturing of local talent and is keen to help drive the local tech startup ecosystem. Hubtricity aims to bring local technopreneurs together, who can create ideas and test out their solutions, catalyzing greater collaboration and innovation from Singapore.

    Kiren Kumar, assistant managing director at Singapore Economic Development Board, said that with Hubtricity, StarHub is investing in capabilities that will enable it to innovate and develop new digital products, services and solutions with partners across industries.

    “Hubtricity will add to Singapore’s position as the Digital Capital of Asia and will create exciting jobs in Singapore in areas such as cyber security and social media analytics,” said Kumar.

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  • BT completes first stage Michelin deployment

    BT completes first stage Michelin deployment

    BT has delivered the first milestones of its global enterprise networking contract with tyre manufacturer Michelin.

    The contract was signed late 2016 and is now in deployment phase. It is designed to transform Michelin’s global network infrastructure and provide all the advantages of the latest network, unified communications and security technologies.

    Under the terms of the five-year contract, BT is to provide Michelin with managed network services for 216 sites in 43 countries across all continents.

    Managed from France, the services covered by the contract are set to play an important role in delivering Michelin’s strategic IT transformation program.

    Agnès Mauffrey, Group CIO of Michelin, said they are driven to look for new ideas to improve the performance of our products and the efficiency of our business.

    “We see a great match between these requirements and BT’s global reach, local in-country capabilities and strong global portfolio,” said Mauffrey.

    “Our aim is to create a platform for digital innovation which will give our people around the world high performance access to cloud-based services, allowing them to collaborate more effectively, she said. “This is being done in a secure and reliable environment over which we have complete control.”

    Luis Alvarez, CEO of BT’s global services division, said BT will support Michelin globally through a dedicated network operations centre and provide centralised network management.

    The contract includes services from several areas of the BT portfolio: BT Connect (network services), BT Security (security services), BT One (unified communications and collaboration services) and BT Advise (professional services).

    “We understand how important digital is to our customers and how cloud services integration can contribute to their success,” said Alvarez. “In the midst of this digital revolution, we also make sure that organizations retain control of their IT, so that the performance, reliability and security of their cloud applications meet all their business requirements.”

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  • China Mobile service revenue up 6.7% in 2016

    China Mobile service revenue up 6.7% in 2016

    China Mobile has recorded a five-year high growth in service revenue growth for 2016, due to strong mobile data revenue growth.

    Operating revenue for the year grew 6% to 708.42 billion yuan ($102.7 billion), with service revenue up 6.7% to 623.42 billion yuan.

    During the year, wireless data traffic became China Mobile’s single largest revenue source for the first time, after growing by 43.5% to account for 46.2% of total service revenue.

    Net profit grew a slim 0.2% to 108.74 billion yuan ($15.78 billion), but excluding the gains from the disposal of tower assets to telecommunications infrastructure sharing joint venture China Tower in the prior year, profit would have grown 10.5%.

    China Mobile added 223 million 4G customers throughout the year, bringing its total 4G base to 535 million and representing a penetration rate of 63%. The company also added 400,000 4G base stations to its network, taking its total population coverage to more than 1.3 billion.

    The operator’s total mobile customer base grew 2.7% from 2015 to 848.9 million.

    On the fixed line front, China Mobile added 22.59 million broadband customers, taking the total to 77.62 million, with 76.9% of these subscribed to services with speeds of at least 20Mbps.

    China Mobile is the last of China’s big three operators to report its results for 2016. China Mobile’s performance compares to a 6.4% increase in operating revenue and 10.2% decline in net profit for China Telecom, as well as a 94.1% slump in net profit and 1% decrease in operating revenue for China Unicom.

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  • Mavenir unveils new cloud platform

    Mavenir unveils new cloud platform

    Mavenir has launched its cloud-based Rich Communication Services (RCS) Platform and Hub, further expanding its suite of flagship RCS solutions.

    The firm said the solution currently supports tens of millions of subscribers worldwide.

    It added that with its new RCS Platform and Hub, Mavenir provides communications service providers (CSPs) with an innovative approach to quickly and efficiently deploy secure and advanced communications, while capitalizing on new monetization services but without the high costs and complexity associated with large-scale network infrastructure projects.

    The Mavenir RCS Platform can be easily deployed either directly in the operator network, as a Mavenir-hosted model or managed across a hybrid model that results in a combination of both.

    This approach, allows CSPs to decide which functionalities they want to remain in their network, such as customer data – bringing back control to the operators and expanding their role in the digital economy.

    These new additions to Mavenir’s suite of RCS solutions, provides CSPs with greater control over their RCS deployment options, driving openness and interoperability, the company further said.

    Mavenir’s unique offering in RCS solutions is underpinned by its dedication to driving an industry-wide ecosystem, open to any business who plays a part in advanced communications. This will support the roll out of richer experiences to device users and provide CSPs with access to new monetization channels from enterprise application to person (A2P) flows to dynamic mobile marketing and chatbot frameworks.  Such a capability is critical, as CSPs move to NFV environments, and start to support Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G network traffic.

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  • Nokia, Facebook set transatlantic efficiency record

    Nokia, Facebook set transatlantic efficiency record

    Nokia and Facebook have announced they have set a new spectral efficiency record over a transatlantic subsea cable using Nokia Bell Labs’ new probabilistic constellation shaping technology (PCS).

    During the trial involving a 5,500km subsea cable between New York and Ireland, shaped 64 quadrature amplitude modulation (64-QAM) was used to achieve record spectral efficiency of 7.46 b/s/Hz.

    PCS uses shaped QAM formats to flexibly adjust transmission capacity to near the physical limits of a fiber link.

    The results showed an increase of nearly 2.5 times more capacity than the stated limit of the system, indicating the potential to upgrade the cable to 32 Tbps per fiber.

    Transmission tests validated the successful transmission of 8-QAM wavelengths running at 200 Gbps and 16-QAM wavelengths running at 250 Gbps, a first for a transatlantic transmission.

    “Facebook wants to increase the pace of innovation and adoption of next-generation optical technologies,” Facebook global optical network architect Dr Stephen Grubb said.

    “This field trial with Nokia demonstrates that the scalable optical technology of PCS together with narrow linewidth laser sources can achieve capacities extremely close to the Shannon limit. This ensures that we are both maximizing our investment in submarine cable systems, as well as continuing to drive the cost per bit of submarine transport lower.”

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