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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.

  • Spark deploys 200G OTN technology

    Spark deploys 200G OTN technology

    New Zealand’s largest operator Spark has deployed the market’s first 200G per wavelength production fiber link using equipment from Nokia.

    The operator’s new 200Gbps network link connects its core network with the global gateway, and will co-exist with Spark’s existing 10G and 100G channels.

    Spark general manager of networks Colin Brown said the upgrade is aimed at meeting massive growth in demand for bandwidth in an increasingly digital world.

    “Nokia has helped Spark NZ reach a new milestone with our world-class optical transport network, achieving our vision of a data-driven future for New Zealand and underpinning an integrated network including fiber, 3G, 4G, 4.5G, wireless broadband and Wi-Fi,” he said.

    Spark is using Nokia’s optical transport network technology. The vendor said it has now shipped its 200G solution to more than 88 customers worldwide, and demand is growing rapidly as operators see the benefits of 200G 8x quadrature amplitude modulation (8QAM).

    “Like many operators, Spark has faced relentless growth in bandwidth demand, largely driven by an increase in video streaming by business and consumer users,” Nokia head of Oceania Ray Owen said.

    “By taking a flexible approach to this challenge with New Zealand’s first 200Gbps fiber link, together with Nokia, Spark is well placed to meet continued demand growth while meeting existing user expectations.”

  • Optus secures $30m Suretek contract

    Optus secures $30m Suretek contract

    Australia’s Optus announce it has secured an A$40 million ($29.7 million) contract extension to continue to provide networking services for specialist security provider Suretek.

    Under the agreement, Suretek’s 1345 Surecall services will be delivered via the Optus network through to the end of 2020.

    Optus, Singtel’s wholly-owned Australian subsidiary, will provide Suretek with inbound voice as well as fixed and wireless data services.

    Suretek provides security services including wireless alarm communications, remote video monitoring and redundancy assurance services.

    “We are delighted to extend our relationship with Suretek as they continue to deliver innovative services to the security industry,” Optus managing director John Paitaridis said. “We look forward to collaborating with Suretek on developing ways to deliver innovative security services.”

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  • BT partners with DCI on Indonesia cloud venture

    BT partners with DCI on Indonesia cloud venture

    BT, DCI Indonesia, and Equinix, a DCI partner, announced that they are working together to provide private cloud infrastructure in Indonesia.

    The companies said by using BT’s private cloud solutions as part of the BT Compute portfolio, enterprises active in Indonesia will now be able to reap the full benefits of the cloud to realise their digital transformation, launch new services more rapidly, mitigate risks, reduce costs and focus on business growth.

    The combination of BT and DCI data center capabilities also enables international businesses expanding into Indonesia to accelerate market entry, as they no longer need to invest time and resources to set up their own data center infrastructure and deploy business critical applications.

    Ron Totton, Southeast Asia managing director, BT, said, “Indonesia is a promising market for BT, where demand for private cloud and data center services is growing fast, especially in sectors such as finance, energy, and the telecom industry.”

    “This collaboration with DCI builds on our Cloud of Clouds portfolio strategy and is aligned to our ambition to be the world’s leading cloud services integrator. This will help give BT customers a competitive advantage in Indonesia and beyond,” Totton said.

    Through this collaboration, BT becomes the first global networked IT services provider to offer private cloud infrastructure in Indonesia. BT will be hosting its Point of Presence in DCI’s data center. By using the BT Private Compute platform, businesses can run a full range of applications, from network and storage to computing and security without having to invest into their own cloud infrastructure.

    DCI Indonesia is the only tier-IV data center service provider in Indonesia providing the most stringent service level agreement of 99.999% uptime through dual configuration infrastructure that ensures redundancy.

    Marina Budiman, president director of DCI, said “DCI is well-positioned to support the BT Private Compute platform.”

    “With DCI’s fault-tolerant infrastructure, strong financial ecosystem and global interconnection through Equinix’s Cloud Exchange, we believe our collaboration will provide BT’s customers with the best-in-class service in Indonesia,” Budiman said .

    Last year, BT was awarded the Siskomdat license, enabling it to offer its portfolio of networked IT services and applications directly to customers in Indonesia.

    DCI Indonesia has zero history of downtime since the first time it serves the market. This exceptional performance comes from solid experience from industry players with more than 20 years of experience in information technology, data center services and infrastructure management.

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  • Japan tech firms start Lao PDR data center project

    Japan tech firms start Lao PDR data center project

    Toyota Tsusho, Internet Initiative Japan, and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities announced the start of a joint demonstration project in the Lao PDR.

    The firms said the project is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of greenhouse gas emission reduction effect and energy efficiency using advanced container-type data center technology.

    Lao PDR’s first government-operated eco data center was completed in Vientiane on November.

    With integrated cloud infrastructure and security solutions, the new data center will serve as a cornerstone of Lao PDR’s IT foundation and contribute to the development of e-government applications for their people.

    Additionally, the data center will be utilized for training future generations of IT engineers, industrial development and for a broad range of other initiatives. By operating the data center, the Lao PDR government also aims to strengthen its IT governance.

    This data center is also expected to serve as a springboard for the maturation of the local IT industry, encouraging Japanese-related companies to expand their IT business in the country.

    The highly energy efficient data center leverages IIJ’s IT/cooling all-in-one packaged design “co-IZmo/I.”

    This design approach made it possible to complete the data center in just 7 months after construction began in May 2016 (about one-third the time typically required for conventional building-type data centers).

    This project is conducted on the basis of the commission by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), as part of its Global Warming Mitigation Technology Promotion Project selected in July 2015.

    The governments of Japan and Lao PDR have signed the bilateral document concerning the Joint Crediting Mechanism.

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  • Ericsson, 20th Century Fox ink feature film deal

    Ericsson, 20th Century Fox ink feature film deal

    Ericsson has entered int o an exclusive, multi-year feature film deal with leading international content distributor 20th Century Fox Television Distribution for its subscription video on demand (VOD) service, Nuvu.

    The output deal includes 20th Century Fox-produced titles along with an extensive selection of global film franchises for territories across sub-Saharan Africa in multiple language.

    Titles include The Maze Runner, The Devil Wears Prada, Rio 2, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Fault in Our Stars, The Monuments Men, and Kingsman: The Secret Service, as well as film franchises such as Die Hard and X-Men.

    “Through this partnership, Nuvu subscribers will have access to some of Hollywood’s hottest films as part of their package, localized on a market-by-market basis,” said Thorsten Sauer, head of broadcast and media services at Ericsson.

    The built-in ability to distribute content to consumers during off-peak periods is a core feature of the service. This minimizes data costs for both operator and consumer, addressing the key cost challenge that has so far been an obstacle for VOD uptake in Africa.

    Further, Ericsson has signed an exclusive media delivery services contract with Australian public service broadcaster, Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).

    The contract sees Ericsson aggregate, prepare and deliver content from multiple international content owners and distributors through its broadcast and media services hub in London and deliver media assets directly into SBS’s headquarters in Sydney in a format ready for transmission.

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  • Singapore Slingers seals three-year broadcast deal with StarHub

    Singapore Slingers seals three-year broadcast deal with StarHub

    Slingers and StarHub have entered into a partnership that will see the pay TV operator become the official broadcast partner of the Singapore Slingers for three years starting with the upcoming ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) season.

    All of the Slingers’ matches in the ABL will be shown “live” on StarHub’s free sports channel, Hub Sports Arena (StarHub TV Channel 112/205). Non-StarHub TV customers can also watch the channel by connecting their TV sets to a cable point and turning to 76.25MHz.

    In addition, the games will be accessible on smart devices through StarHub’s online streaming service, StarHub Go.

    “This broadcast agreement with StarHub is poised to give the team a massive boost as our games can now reach a wider audience,” said Michael Johnson, general manager of the Singapore Slingers. “After coming so close to winning the league last season, we believe we are poised to go on another championship run, and our fans will be able to follow us more closely with this partnership.”

    Lee Soo Hui, head of content and TV at StarHub, said that being a homegrown brand, they are proud to back the Slingers.

    “The team is fueled by the support of the fans which is why we are making it as convenient as possible for them to follow the Slingers,” said Lee. “With this partnership, Slingers fans can now catch the team’s ABL matches ‘live’ on multiple platforms across TV, tablets and smartphones, so they can cheer the team on wherever they are.”

    She said StarHub will also be looking to engage fans by running contests where viewers can stand to win premiums and tickets to Slingers matches.

    Now into its seventh season, the six-team ABL welcomes three new teams to the league – Alab Pilipinas (Philippines), Hong Kong Eastern Long Lions (Hong Kong) and Kaohsiung Truth (Taiwan). They will be joined by the defending champions Westports Malaysia Dragons (Malaysia), Singapore Slingers (Singapore) and Saigon Heat (Vietnam).

    Each of the six teams will face each other four times during the three-month elimination round. The top four squads with the best record will then enter the playoffs.

    Meanwhile, StarHub TV in partnership with Astro Malaysia, is launching Go Shop (StarHub TV Channel 110), a 24-hour, Mandarin shopping channel that will also be made available on StarHub Go, StarHub’s video streaming service, by early next year.

    To entice consumers, Go Shop will introduce special offers on TV through innovative bundling that cannot be found anywhere else. It aims to offer value by combining the main product with other product lines to complement the core offering.

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  • IMDA investigating Singtel broadband outage

    IMDA investigating Singtel broadband outage

    Singapore’s Infocomm and Media Development Authority (IMDA) is investigating Singtel over a recent nearly 24-hour broadband outage islandwide.

    Singtel announced the outage commenced at around 8:45am on Saturday and services were fully restored at 8:25am on Sunday, although some customers were still reporting connection problems.

    The operator said on social media that its engineers are still tracing the cause of the outage, which was associated with servers being unable to assign IP addresses to customers’ modems. TV, fixed phone and mobile services remained unaffected.

    Engineers have so far ruled out a DDoS attack, indicating that the company did not face a Mirai-linked attack of the kind that left a significant portion of customers of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom without services late last month.

    Singtel announced it will provide affected broadband customers with a 10% discount on their month’s bill, and the company will waive mobile data charges accrued over the weekend for its joint broadband and mobile subscribers.

    In a statement, the IMDA said the regulator takes service outages seriously and will be investigating both the cause of the incident and the service recovery measures taken by Singtel.

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  • CIBN picks Irdeto for China DRM

    CIBN picks Irdeto for China DRM

    China International Broadcasting Network (CIBN) has become the first Chinese customer for Irdeto Rights with China DRM Support.

    CIBN is one of the seven broadcasting networks that is licensed to distribute over-the-top (OTT) content in China by The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China.

    Irdeto will help establish CIBN as a frontrunner for premium content offerings, especially Hollywood content, through OTT distribution. This will also provide studios and content providers with greater confidence to enter the Chinese market.

    “We are delighted to partner with Irdeto to integrate its China DRM solution to our OTT applications and set-top boxes (STBs), which will safeguard premium content on our network and platforms,” said Fu Qiang, deputy general manager of CIBN.

    “We are confident that our collaboration with Irdeto will improve overall viewer experience for our customers and instill greater confidence for the studios and content providers to enter the Chinese market, which will in turn generate revenue growth for our paid OTT offerings,” said Fu.

    By implementing Irdeto Rights with China DRM support, CIBN will be able to get the content protection they need in order to securely stream content to their customers, including premium content such as 4K and UHD.

    The solution also allows CIBN to accelerate the release of content more efficiently, an essential component given the industry is evolving rapidly.

    Operators and content owners will need to continually adapt and evolve with changing times to improve their content offerings and ensure a seamless user experience.

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  • VMware, Taiwan’s III join Broadband Forum

    VMware, Taiwan’s III join Broadband Forum

    VMware, Taiwan’s Institute for Information Industry (III) and the USA’s Methode Electronics have become the latest members of the Broadband Forum.

    The latest additions highlight recent developments within the Broadband Forum to address the constantly changing technological landscape and increase the focus of its work.

    The industry body is also working to collaborate more with open source communities and increase the amount of work it does in the software space.

    VMware, III and Methode Electronics will complement this, with all three companies having backgrounds in virtualization, electronics and R&D.

    The new members are already playing an active part in the Forum, with representatives attending the Forum’s most recent Quarterly Meeting, held in Berlin. Moving forward, they will continue to play a full role in activities and Working Groups.

    III believes its membership will enhance the prosperous development of industries and incubate new industries, as well as promote links between local industries and the rest of the world.

    “Actively participating with an international organization like the Broadband Forum is just the beginning for III,” commented Dr Ko-Yang Wang, director general of the III’s Industry Development Augmentation Division (IDAD).

    “Looking into the future, III fully supports the Forum’s new Broadband 20/20 vision and we are fully confident that its realization will be the next big thing for broadband.”

    The developments in Berlin – including the publication of the landmark Network Enhanced Residential Gateway (NERG) Virtualization Technical Report (TR-317), the first finished project in the Forum’s NFV realm – followed on from the Forum’s Special Meeting in Atlanta, where Service Providers gave their views and visions on how the network needs to develop.

    “We’re delighted to welcome VMware, III and Methode Electronics into the Broadband Forum family,” Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh said.

    “Our recent meetings have illustrated our ability to keep up with the rapid pace of change within the industry and work together to create a faster and highly relevant Broadband Forum. Welcoming exciting, progressive new members such as these three companies means that we will continue to be the voice of broadband for the industry.”

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  • Jio extends free services offer to March 31

    Jio extends free services offer to March 31

    Disruptive Indian 4G operator Reliance Jio has extended its free services offer until March 31, and announced it has already achieved 52 million customers.

    The operator has announced a new “Happy New Year” offer involving the supply of free voice, data and Jio apps to both new and existing customers until March 31.

    Existing customers will automatically be signed up to the Happy New Year offer, without having to buy a new SIM.

    But the new offer comes with a daily fair-use limit of 1GB, with broadband speeds shaped if this is exceeded.

    According to the report, only 20% of users of the earlier Welcome Offer free services consumed over 1GB per day, and their heavy usage resulted in network congestion. The earlier offer had a fair-use limit of 4GB per day.

    The new offer has come under scrutiny from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), which is investigating the deal to determine whether it falls afoul of regulatory limits on promotions.

    India only allows telecoms promotional offers to run for three months, but Jio has asserted that it is an entirely new campaign. The company has also argued that it would be unfair to charge customers while the operator is still dealing with congestion issues.

    Jio also revealed it had reached over 52 million customers in 83 days, and has been signing up  600,000 customers per day over this time. Jio soft-launched 4G services for its employees and those of its partners months before the launch to the public, so the company already had a subscriber base.

    This rate of growth makes Jio the fastest growing technology company in the world, according to parent company Reliance Industries’ owner Mukesh Ambani.

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  • HGC launches ibizCloud in Vietnam

    HGC launches ibizCloud in Vietnam

    Hutchison Global Communications (HGC) has launched its ibizCloud cloud infrastructure-as-a-service offering to Vietnam, in collaboration with the market’s fourth biggest operator CMC Telecom.

    Under the partnership, HGC is providing the cloud design and international network connectivity, while CMC Telecom is providing local connectivity and branding.

    The service has been customized to suit the Vietnamese market and to satisfy growing bandwidth demands from local corporations.

    Besides infrastructure-as-a-service, ibizCloud also offers bandwidth-as-a-service and on-demand virtual leased line services, as well as virtualized infrastructure including virtual machines, CPU cores, RAM and storage.

    “We are happy to extend ibizCloud service to Vietnam in collaboration with CMC Telecom. This offers a remarkable business opportunity to provide local and international corporate customers with a highly-secure global cloud service,” HGC president Andrew Kwok said.

    “Creation of a cloud site in Hanoi has further strengthened our position in the Greater Mekong Subregion. It is also another successful example of HGC’s niche market strategy.”

    CMC Telecom CEO Ngo Trong Hieua added that the launch marks an extension of the existing collaboration between the company and HGC, which also involves co-operation on international data and voice services.

    “We look forward to prosperous co-operation with HGC over coming years, as we seek to satisfy rapidly growing demand in the cloud market and affirm our position as one of Vietnam’s leading telecoms service providers,” he said.

  • Telstra shuts down 2G network

    Telstra shuts down 2G network

    A customer of Australia’s Telstra was given the honor of switching off Telstra’s 2G GSM network last week.

    The customer, Oly Gordon, became a viral sensation after posting to Telstra’s Facebook page that he was still operating a Nokia 3315 2G phone after 13 years.

    In response, Telstra last week invited him to flick the switch on its 2G network, and presented him with a brand new Google Pixel smartphone.

    Telstra announced in 2014 that it planned to decommission its obsolete 2G network by the end of this year.

    The operator has since been busy migrating the last of its 2G customers on to 3G or 4G networks, and has spent the last few months mailing replacement phones to the final few holdouts.

    Gordon’s viral post came just in time to coincide with Nokia’s announcement that it has closed the transactions required for HMD Global to produce new Nokia-branded smartphones, tablets and feature phones under an exclusive 10-year licensing deal.

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  • New Zealand’s Spark warned off marketing Gigabit plans

    New Zealand’s Spark warned off marketing Gigabit plans

    New Zealand operator Spark has been cautioned against advertising its high-speed fiber services as “gigabit” plans by competition regulator the Commerce Commission.

    The ISP launched its fastest fiber service yesterday, labeling it “Ultra Fast Fibre MAX” instead of the planned Gigabit name.

    The Commerce Commission held that advertising the service as a Gigabit speed would mislead consumers into expecting speeds of 1,000Mbps, whereas the Spark service will deliver speeds of between 700Mbps and 900Mbps.

    As well as Spark, the Commission also plans to get into contact with other ISPs making similar claims, noting that it has received enough consumer complaints to deem the action necessary.

    The Commission hasn’t made a formal ruling, but said Spark had recognized the concerns the regulator had raised and decided to take action accordingly.

    But the Telecommunications Users Association has criticized the decision as being “pedantic”, noting that other markets advertise similar-speed plans as Gigabit services, and that technical constraints will mean services always fall below their full potential speeds.

  • Nokia closes handset brand licensing deal

    Nokia closes handset brand licensing deal

    Nokia has announced it has completed the transactions that will allow HMD Global to become the new brand licensee for Nokia feature phones, smartphones and tablets.

    HMD Global has secured an exclusive global brand license for a 10-year term. HMD was created by a group of former Nokia employees to revive the Nokia handset brand, and entered the exclusive licensing agreement with Nokia in May.

    The necessary transactions involved HMD, Hon Hai subsidiary FIH Mobile and Microsoft, following the latter’s ill-fated purchase of Nokia’s device business for $7.4 billion in 2013.

    HMD will continue to provide Nokia branded feature phones for emerging markets, and will also produce new Nokia smartphones and tablets for its device portfolio.

    Nokia will receive royalty payments on each sales covering both brand and intellectual property rights.

    “We’ve been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm shown around the world for the return of the Nokia brand to smartphones,” Nokia Technologies interim president Brad Rodrigues said.

    “The HMD Global team has the ambition, talent and resources to bring a new generation of Nokia branded phones to market, and we wish them every success. I’m sure our millions of Nokia fans will be excited to see their new products.”

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  • Huawei, LG U+ achieve 31Gbps peak in 5G tests

    Huawei, LG U+ achieve 31Gbps peak in 5G tests

    Huawei and South Korea’s LG U+ have completed a series of joint 5G tests based on three commercial scenarios – enhanced mobile broadband, ultra-reliable low latency communications (uRLLC) and massive machine-type communications (mMTC).

    The various tests achieved a cell peak rate of 31Gbps on high-frequency bandwidth and Massive MIMO, as well as latency under 0.5ms and mMTC single-cell massive connections.

    During the test procedures the two companies also verified key 5G New Radio technologies, including simultaneous use of short transmission time intervals and filtered orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (f-OFDM), as well as sparse-code multiple access (SCMA).

    Huawei and LG U+ signed an agreement in July 2015 to jointly develop 5G technologies. The companies had already opened a joint R&D lab in Seoul dedicated to research into LTE-A and 5G.

    “LG U+ is dedicated to creating new better life for our customers through maximized value and improved experience,” LG U+ VP Kang Jung Ho said.

    “We hope to provide the availability of 5G services for Korean users by 2018, and Huawei’s innovation insights and accumulated expertise will help us in achieving this goal.”

    Huawei VP for wireless networks Gan Bin added that the companies plan to strengthen their 5G collaboration in the future.