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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.

  • Firms cash in on big data benefits

    Firms cash in on big data benefits

    Firms that capitalize and analyze all relevant data and deliver actionable information could achieve an extra $430 billion worldwide in productivity benefits over their less analytically oriented peers by 2020, according to IDC.

    The research firm predicts big data analytics technology investments will increase across Asia Pacific at 34% year over year in the next few years. This rapid growth in investment is creating a divide between the organizations that “know” and the ones that do not.

    “The measure of information in our reality has been blasting, and investigating substantial information sets — supposed enormous information will turn into a key premise of competition, supporting new influxes of efficiency development, advancement, and customer surplus,” says Chwee Kan Chua, AVP for big data and analytics and cognitive computing at IDC Asia Pacific.

    The increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to fuel exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future.

    Another dimension that we are entering is a new period of computing history — the Cognitive Computing era. IDC predicts by 2020, 50% of all business analytics software will incorporate prescriptive analytics built into cognitive systems functionality.

    “Cognitive Systems offer fundamental differences in how systems are built and interact with humans,” says Alon Anthony Rejano, associate market analyst at IT services research in IDC Philippines. “Cognitive-based systems are able to build knowledge and learn, understand natural language, and interact more naturally with human beings than traditional systems

    Rejano said Cognitive Systems can quickly identify new patterns and insights and, over time, they will simulate even more closely how the brain actually works.

    “In doing so, they could help us solve the world’s most perplexing problems by penetrating the complexity of big data and exploiting the power of natural language processing and machine learning,” he added.

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  • HKT warns admin fee for consumers to increase by 67% in 2021

    HKT warns admin fee for consumers to increase by 67% in 2021

    HKT, the telecoms unit of the Richard Li-owned PCCW Group, warned that the administration fees charged by the telecoms industry to consumers are set to rise significantly by 2021, due to higher spectrum cost and “monopoly rents”.

    HKT group managing director Alex Arena said the government’s focus on raising billions of dollars from higher mobile spectrum fees only threatens to further diminish the competitiveness of Hong Kong.

    According to a consultation paper published in February, the government is expected to pocket at least HK$10.8 billion from its planned auction of part of the 900-MHz and 1800-MHz spectrum used by mobile network operators in 2021.

    Arena said should spectrum costs rise as a result of the government’s decision to auction off spectrum space currently used by the mobile operators, HKT would have no choice but to pass the higher costs on to customers,.

    “If the government is using higher spectrum costs as a way of taxing the telecommunications industry, then we will simply pass this tax on to the consumer,” the executive said.

    According to HKT, the administrative fee that is billed alongside a user’s service charge is expected to increase to more than HK$30 a month by 2021, up from the current HK$18.

    That could amount to nearly HK$400 in additional fees a year paid by each mobile subscriber in Hong Kong, on top of their regular service charges, the incumbent said.

    The administrative fee was first levied by mobile network service providers at HK$10 per customer each month in 2001. Since then, it has increased twice: to HK$12 in 2006 and HK$18 in 2014.

    Arena said the fee was implemented by the industry to deal with “certain costs that we cannot control, which are imposed by monopolies”.

    Those comprise the so-called spectrum utilization fee paid to the government; annual license fees collected by the Office of the Communications Authority (Ofca); fees to access, install and maintain networks throughout the MTR Corp’s rail network; and similar fees to operate networks in the various road tunnels in Hong Kong.

    While the administrative fees charged by the mobile operator have stayed flat since 2014 , fees collected by monopolies such as the MTR and tunnel operators have gone up, HKT said.

    “It is expected that the admin fee will increase significantly because the monopolists insist on extracting higher fees to subsidize their core businesses. On average, road tunnel costs and MTR costs have been increasing by 8% and 10% each year respectively,” the company said in a statement.

    “The current admin fee does not cover HKT’s full costs in paying the monopolists’ fees and charges, and HKT has been slow to pass the full costs onto its customers… but inevitably HKT cannot be expected to continue to absorb these cost increases.”

  • New Zealand’s Chorus appoints Kate McKenzie as CEO

    New Zealand’s Chorus appoints Kate McKenzie as CEO

    New Zealand telecoms operator Chorus has appointed Kate McKenzie as its new CEO, replacing Mark Ratcliffe from February 2017.

    A highly regarded and experienced telco executive, McKenzie will oversee the rollout of Chorus’ Ultra-Fast Broadband and will focus on customer experience moving forward.

    “I have admired Chorus’ roll out of very high quality broadband infrastructure and I look forward to playing my part in working with the rest of the telecommunications sector to make it as easy as possible for our customers to enjoy the benefits of this nation-wide upgrade and all of the social and economic benefits that will deliver,” McKenzie said

    Before joining Chorus, McKenzie was most recently chief operating officer of Telstra,  responsible for the Australian incumbent’s field services, IT and network architecture and operations. She joined Telstra in 2004 and held a range of senior executive roles in strategy, marketing, products and wholesale over the past 12 years.

    McKenzie stepped down from Telstra in July,  following a series of network outages facing the telco this year. Earlier this month Telstra appointed former Juniper Networks CFOO and COO Robyn Denholm as its new COO.

    Prior to joining Telstra, Kate was a CEO in the NSW Government of the Departments of Commerce, Industrial Relations and the Workcover Authority. She worked in the Cabinet Office on the development and implementation of competition policy, energy reform, privatization and a range of complex Commonwealth/State negotiations.

    Commenting on McKenzie’s appointment, Chorus chairman Patrick Strange said, “The board is very pleased that Kate has agreed to lead Chorus. She is one of the most highly rated telecommunications executives in the region.  We believe the combination of Kate’s clear leadership qualities and her broad range of relevant experience made her the standout choice in a field of high quality candidates.”

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  • SKT, Ericsson and Qualcomm collaborate on 5G NR trails

    SKT, Ericsson and Qualcomm collaborate on 5G NR trails

    SK Telecom, Ericsson and Qualcomm have announced plans to conduct interoperability testing and over-the-air field trials based on 5G New Radio (NR) standards currently under development by the 3GPP.

    In a statement, the companies said the trials will drive the mobile ecosystem toward rapid validation and commercialization of 5G NR technologies at scale.

    The interoperability testing and trials will launch in Korea starting in the second half of 2017.

    “As 5G rapidly gains momentum, a globally agreed and unified standard becomes imperative to achieve early commercialization of 5G and build an efficient ecosystem around it,” said Alex Jinsung Choi, EVP, chief technology officer at SK Telecom.

    “As 3GPP NR is a global 5G standard, we are delighted to announce early 3GPP NR trials with leading 5G players, Ericsson and Qualcomm, with which we have made remarkable world’s first footprints in the past with previous generations of groundbreaking mobile technologies.”

    During the trails, SK Telecom, Ericsson and Qualcomm will showcase new 5G NR technologies which utilize wide bandwidths available at higher frequencies to increase network capacity and achieve multi-gigabit per second data rates.

    The proliferation of 5G NR technology can make it more cost-effective and easier for multi-gigabit internet service to reach more homes and businesses.

    These technologies will be critical to meeting the increasing consumer connectivity requirements for emerging consumer mobile broadband experiences such as virtual reality, augmented reality and connected cloud services.

    The trials will employ 3GPP 5G NR Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna technology with adaptive beamforming and beam tracking techniques to deliver sustained mobile broadband communications at higher frequency bands, including non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments and device mobility.

    It will also make use of scalable OFDM-based waveforms and a new flexible framework design which are also part of the 5G NR specifications.

    The trials will also provide valuable insight into the unique challenges of integrating 5G NR technologies into mobile networks and devices. This will enable timely commercial network launches based on 3GPP Rel-15 standard compliant 5G NR infrastructure and devices.

    “The roadmap of 5G technologies is incredibly complex, and trials based on the global 3GPP 5G standard, such as this, are critical to continuing our long history of leadership integrating advanced wireless technologies in form-factor accurate devices to ensure timely deployment of 5G networks,” said Matt Grob, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Qualcomm Technologies.

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  • Aussie telco complaints on the decline: ACMA

    Aussie telco complaints on the decline: ACMA

    Australian operators are delivering better levels of customer service with the number of complaints moving lower and “bill shock” less prevalent, according to a major annual national study.

    The Australian Communication and Media Authority’s (ACMA) report “Reconnecting the Customer – Tracking Consumer Outcomes” reveals that the overall incidence of complaints has decreased from 36% in 2013 to 31% this year.

    A significantly lower number of complaints related to mobile phone services was a feature of the result.

    The study also showed that the incidence of consumers complaining about unexpectedly high bills was now at 19% for post-paid mobile services, down from 33% in 2013.

    Complaints for product bundles fell from 26% to 31% over the same period.

    The extra amount consumers are complaining about has fallen from an average AU$94 ($68) to AU$60 ($44).

    In more evidence that Australian consumers are more engaged with their telecom services, consumers are monitoring their expenditure with SMS alerts and apps.

    “In good news for consumers, fewer are experiencing unexpectedly high bills, and they are making better use of spend management tools to monitor and track their expenditure,’ said ACMA’s acting chairman, Richard Bean.

    “They have a clearer understanding about the cost of their communications services, and are better able to plan and budget accordingly.”

    A separate study looking at consumer migration to new technologies also had some positive results, showing that 82 percent of Australian consumers saying it was either easy or not difficult to connect to the new National Broadband Network (NBN).

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  • Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and Cisco join forces on NFV testing

    Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and Cisco join forces on NFV testing

    Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and Cisco have teamed up to launch a new initiative that aims to help telecoms operators address the challenges related to NFV deployment and cloud transformation within multi-vendor network environments.

    The four signed Tuesday a MoU to create the NFV Interoperability Testing Initiative (NFV-ITI), which will address NFV multi-vendor interoperability challenges for telcos, enabling them to optimize NFV deployment and integration costs, and reduce time-to-market for new services.

    While telecos are at different stages of implementing NFV into their networks, the deployment and integration of virtual network functions within today’s multi-vendor environments can introduce new interoperability challenges.

    To addresses these challenges, NFV-ITI members will cooperatively support the interoperability of NFV elements in specific customer situations to accelerate the commercial implementations, and to reduce the time-to-market for new applications and services.

    All existing NFV interoperability related testing activities are triggered by different industry needs, including the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) NFV Testing WG, OPNFV testing projects, Network Vendor Interoperability Testing (NVIOT) testing, and the New IP Agency (NIA) interoperability testing.

    NFV-ITI will complement all existing NFV interoperability testing activities in the industry and focus on testing interoperability configurations of commercial NFV solutions used in the telcos’ networks, the companies said.

    It will recommend generic principles, including interoperability test cases, test criteria, processes, methods, guidelines, templates and testing tools, and will also apply best practices from all existing interoperability testing activities in the industry, such as NVIOT forum efforts.

    In addition, NFV-ITI will be well-aligned with the ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group and the OPNFV project.

  • Singapore IMDA appoints new CEO

    Singapore IMDA appoints new CEO

    Singapore has appointed Tan Kiat How as chief executive of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) from January 1, 2017.

    Tan, currently deputy secretary (cyber and technology) at the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), succeeds Gabriel Lim, who will continue to serve as second permanent secretary (communications and information), said MCI in a media release.

    Prior to his stint at MCI,  Tan served at the former Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the Ministry of Finance and the Pioneer Generation Office (PGO).

    Tan’s previous contributions include helping to develop the Intelligent Nation 2015 plan and implement the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network at the then-IDA. He was also involved in refining the national cybersecurity strategy with the Cyber Security Agency (CSA) in his time at MCI.

    Lim was appointed co-managing director of IDA in May, in preparation for the formation of IMDA on October 1. He oversaw the establishment of the TechSkills Accelerator, a new hub for skills development and job placement, and preparations for Singapore’s fourth mobile network operator.

    Prior to that, Lim was appointed CEO of the former Media Development Authority of Singapore on December 8, 2014.

  • Bob Bakish takes helm at Viacom

    Bob Bakish takes helm at Viacom

    Viacom has discontinued the exploration of a potential combination with CBS and has appointed Bob Bakish as president and CEO, and as a member of the board.

    Bakish has held leadership positions throughout the company since joining in 1997, most recently serving as president and CEO of Viacom International Media Networks prior his acting CEO role.

    “We’ve been working very quickly to mobilize the organization, reenergize our culture and address our areas of greatest need,” said Bakish.

    Also, Fox Networks Group Asia has appointed Italo Zanzi as EVP and managing director for its Sports network. The veteran sports executive leads the management of the Fox Sports business and team across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

    Zanzi joins Fox from Italian Serie A football club A.S. Roma where he was CEO for three and a half years, overseeing all aspects of the club’s operations and business.

    At Eutelsat Communications, Sandrine Téran will assume office as group CFO and member of the executive committee on January 9.

    Téran was formerly managing director of Louis Dreyfus Holding (based in the Netherlands) and has occupied other key executive positions in the Louis Dreyfus Group during the past eight years, notably global head of tax and corporate secretary, and subsequently global CFO of Louis Dreyfus Company.

    Téran succeeds Antoine Castarède who will be an advisor to the CEO over the coming months before leaving Eutelsat to pursue other interests.

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  • Ooyala launches applications for collaborative asset management

    Ooyala launches applications for collaborative asset management

    Ooyala has launched new versions of its MAM (media asset management) application and Reviewer application for its media logistics platform, Ooyala Flex.

    The new solutions make it easier for broadcasters, publishers and media companies to manage, review and approve video assets while automating steps in the workflow and capturing the associated data in the management phase of video production.

    Both applications are highly configurable, taking advantage of the workflow capabilities of Ooyala Flex. With a modular approach, the applications can be used separately or together.

    When deployed together, customers benefit from enhanced collaboration and efficiencies not found in traditional offerings on the market, allowing creative teams to focus only on the tasks that add value and creativity to productions.

    The HTML-5 based MAM application can be tailored to match each customer’s unique production workflow. Non-technical users are able to easily upload and organize video and image assets, search for and update metadata, perform rough-cut edits and review assets with internal teammates.

    The Reviewer application for Ooyala Flex lets individuals that are either inside or outside of the organization securely review, approve and submit time-coded comments on selected content from anywhere in the world, anytime－including real-time collaboration and annotation for images.

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  • Vodafone Australia builds cyber security center for enterprise customers

    Vodafone Australia builds cyber security center for enterprise customers

    Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has contracted Dimension Data and FireEye to build its first Cyber Defence and Response Centre (CDRC) to offer services to enterprise customers.

    The CDRC will provide around-the-clock advanced event monitoring, threat protection and intelligence, and incident response to help protect Vodafone Enterprise and its customers against online security threats, as well as assist with the aftermath of an attack.

    Vodafone signed a five-year contract with FireEye and a three-year contract (with a two-year option for extension) with Dimension Data to help deliver a range of services through the CDRC, including proactive threat hunting, global threat intelligence correlation, vulnerability management, penetration testing, digital forensics and crisis management.

    “Cybercrime is a topic that we take very seriously at Vodafone. We have partnered with the industry’s best providers to help us protect our critical information and infrastructure, as well as intellectual property,” said Vodafone chief technology officer Kevin Millroy.

    “The capabilities, maturity, flexibility, and scalability of Dimension Data and FireEye enables us to be ready and open to exchange threat information and knowledge with the federal government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre, and ultimately contribute to protecting Australia’s national security and economic prosperity from online threats.”

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  • OneWeb secures $1.2b from Softbank-led investment

    OneWeb secures $1.2b from Softbank-led investment

    OneWeb has raised $1.2 billion in a new funding round led by Japan’s Softbank, bringing in fresh capital for the US satellite startup to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

    Softbank is investing $1 billion of the total $1.2 billion and has become a strategic partner, with one of its directors, Ronald Fisher, joining OneWeb’s board of directors.

    The remaining $200 million will be funded by its current investors, which include Airbus Group, Bharti Enterprises, Intelsat-owned Hughes Network Systems, Qualcomm, and Virgin Group. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017.

    OneWeb said the money will be used to build a high-volume satellite production plant in Florida, which is expected to create almost 3,000 new engineering, manufacturing and supporting jobs in US over the next four years.

    “With this new round of funding and based on our rapid technical progress over the past year, we also announce a much larger goal: to fully bridge the digital divide by 2027, making internet access available and affordable for everyone,” said OneWeb founder Greg Wyler.

    The new facility, which will begin production in 2018, aims to produce 15 satellites each week “at a fraction of the cost of what any satellite manufacturing facility in the world can produce today,” the company said.

    For Softbank, the $1 billion investment in OneWeb is the first tranche of a $50 billion US investment the Japanese conglomerate’s founder and CEO Masayoshi Son pledged to President-elect Donald Trump.

    “Earlier this month I met with President-Elect Trump and shared my commitment to investing and creating jobs in US,” Son said in a media release. “This is the first step in that commitment.”

    It is also Softbank’s latest attempts to strengthen the company’s foothold in the burgeoning IoT sector. In July, Softbank, which also owns US mobile carrier Sprint, acquired UK chipmaker Arm for a whopping $31 billion to pursue business opportunities in the emerging IoT sector.

    “SoftBank has a long history of investing in disruptive, foundational technologies that promise to help us realize the future sooner. OneWeb is a tremendously exciting company poised to transform internet access around the world from their manufacturing facility in Florida,” Son noted.

    Founded in 2012, OneWeb aims to build a communication network with a constellation starting with 720 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites to deliver affordable, high-speed, low latency internet access to rural areas across the United States and emerging markets.

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  • India to start screening of imported telecoms gear in April

    India to start screening of imported telecoms gear in April

    The Indian government is reportedly planning to start screening imported telecoms equipment used in mobile networks and handsets from April 1, 2017, following several implementation delays over the last three and a half years.

    The government has assigned labs under a state-owned quality control agency, Standardisation Testing & Quality Certification (STQC), to undertake the screening of imported mobile network gears, feature phones and smartphones in the interest of national security, the Economic Times reported.

    Initially, local screening will be conducted in phases by identifying network gear deemed most vulnerable, the Economic Times cited a senior official at Department of Telecom (DoT) as saying.

    The government’s immediate objective is to also ensure that local screening does not create supply-chain bottlenecks or disrupt mobile network rollouts or expansions, according to another source familiar with the matter.

    Accordingly, the DoT plans to invite companies from the private sector to set up more accredited labs to screen imported network gear, and develop a full-blown local testing ecosystem.

    However, the government has received a lukewarm response from the private sector due to the lack of a viable funding mechanism.

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  • Qualcomm to support Google’s Android Thing IoT platform

    Qualcomm to support Google’s Android Thing IoT platform

    Qualcomm announced that it plans to work with Google to add support for the search giant’s new IoT operating system, Android Things, in its Snapdragon processors.

    In a statement released Wednesday, Qualcomm said the collaboration with Google will focus on developing both “consumer and industrial applications” and the initiative would help a vast number of developers participate in the IoT opportunity.

    “We anticipate Android Things running on Snapdragon processors will offer developers familiar connectivity environments, including cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth; support for a wide array of sensors; camera, graphics, multimedia, and rich UI capabilities; hardware-based security; Google services and cloud integration; test and optimization tools, and more – allowing for rapid development of scalable, cost-effective and security-focused IoT solutions,” Qualcomm said.

    Although Android Things is currently in a developer preview stage, Qualcomm noted the platform is expected to be released more broadly on Snapdragon processors next year.

    Qualcomm’s announcement came a day after Google launched a preview of the new IoT platform which it said would enable developers to quickly build smart devices using Android APIs and Google services.

    In a blog post on the Android Developers’ Blog, Google said Android Things incorporates feedback received on its Project Brillo IoT OS and will include tools such as Android Studio, the Android Software Development Kit, Google Play Services, and Google Cloud Platform.

    Google will also offer Developer Preview updates in the coming months to provide the infrastructure necessary to securely push OS patches, security fixes, a developer’s own updates, built-in Weave connectivity and more, the search giant added.

    Google is also updating its IoT communication platform Weave to help facilitate cloud connectivity for all types of devices so they can interact with services like Google’s Assistant.

    “This is just the beginning of the IoT ecosystem we want to build with you,” Google developer advocate Wayne Piekarski wrote in the blog post.

  • Smart, Nokia conduct Philippines’ first 5G demo

    Smart, Nokia conduct Philippines’ first 5G demo

    The Philippines’ PLDT, through mobile subsidiary Smart, has completed the first showcase of 5G speeds in the nation.

    During the trial the companies achieved a peak speed of 2.5Gbps using 100 MHz of spectrum, as well as a latency of just 1ms.

    The demo was conducted at the Nokia Manila Technology Center in Quezon City, and demonstrated use cases for 5G including 3D 360-degree VR streaming and the Nokia AirFrame data center platform for distributed cloud architectures capable of supporting real-time IoT operation.

    “We are excited to work with Nokia in conducting cutting-edge research and development for 5G,” PLDT and Smart CEO Manuel Pangilinan said.

    “This is a key part of our efforts to transform the PLDT and Smart network into the country’s most future-ready data infrastructure delivering a wide range of gigabit digital solutions.”

    He said 5G will be critical to realizing Smart’s full vision for the IoT. The operator has a track record of investing in and helping drive the development of the IoT, including the founding the Philippines’ first Internet of Everything consortium in 2014.

    Nokia’s Bell Labs predicts that there will be up to 5 billion IoT devices connected through mobile networks by the year 2020.

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  • SoftBank launches cloud videoconferencing service

    SoftBank launches cloud videoconferencing service

    Japan’s SoftBank  has launched a new cloud-based videoconferencing service using PolyCom’s RealPresence Clariti infrastructure software.

    SoftBank’s new PrimeMeeting service will strengthen the company’s offerings to customers looking for a flexible video collaboration solution that is simple to purchase and implement.

    The service is built on RealPresence Clarity as well as SoftBank’s White Cloud ASPIRE Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform.

    As well as enabling collaboration from anywhere on any device, the service will support integration with Microsoft’s Skype for Business and traditional video conferencing systems.

    “We are happy to announce the launch of our cloud videoconferencing service, PrimeMeeting, provided in collaboration with Polycom. Customers who previously could not use a video conferencing service due to cost, location, or device issues will now be able to easily adopt this service,” SoftBank ICT innovation division director Sadahiro Sato said.

    “By combining Polycom’s strong market share and brand value in the video conferencing market together with our new cloud service, we can enable more flexible and richer communication options to more of our customers.”

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