Retail News CRM

Category: Telecom

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest Telecom & Telco news throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

  • Colt expands financial extranet in APAC

    Colt expands financial extranet in APAC

    Network and communications service provider Colt has expanded its Colt PrizmNet financial extranet by connecting to Equinix‘s IBX data centers in Hong Kong and Singapore.

    Colt said the deal with Equinix has allowed the company to double the size of its footprint in Hong Kong, by making it available to financial companies located close to local exchanges as well as those co-located at the HKEx data center.

    The agreement will also allow Colt to interconnect with key foreign exchange (FX) trading centers in APAC and globally, including direct connectivity to the largest FX trading facility in Asia, Equinix’s TY3 data center in Tokyo.

    “It is often challenging for traders in Asia to connect to the region’s scattered liquidity centres, particularly its FX markets,” Colt head of solution sales for capital markets Richard Man said.

    “By expanding the availability of Colt PrizmNet in Hong Kong and Singapore to customers hosted in Equinix IBX data centres in each city, we are able to provide an even more flexible and cost-effective solution.”

    Colt also connects to key Equinix data centers across Europe and the US, including London, New York, Frankfurt and Zurich. The company operates its own network of 34 data centers across Europe and Asia.

  • Thailand’s big three cellcos oppose tariff caps

    Thailand’s big three cellcos oppose tariff caps

    Thailand’s three largest mobile operators – AIS, Dtac and True Move – have united to oppose current regulations capping tariffs for 3G and 4G services.

    The operators brought up their opposition a group discussion with regulator NBTC on Monday.

    Revising the regulations would encourage greater competition and stimulate the further development of mobile networks and services, the operators claimed.

    They have argued that existing caps have diminished the development of service packages, distorted price mechanisms and impeded the operation of an open and competitive market.

    Currently the NBTC caps the maximum 3G tariff at 0.82 baht ($0.02) per minute for voice service, 1.33 baht per SMS, 3.32 baht for MMS and 0.28 baht for data services. The equivalent 4G limits are 0.69 baht, 1.15 baht, 3.11 baht and 0.26 baht respectively.

    A representative for Dtac stated that other mobile markets with the same level of development as Thailand do not impose tariff caps, and noted that tariffs in Thailand are among the lowest in the ASEAN region.

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  • Chunghwa Telecom aims to add 2m 4G users in 2016

    Chunghwa Telecom aims to add 2m 4G users in 2016

    Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom has set a target of attracting at least 2 million new 4G users this year to help maintain its market share.

    The operator aims to boost its 4G subscriber base to up to 7 million in 2016. This would represent an annual growth rate of around 59% – which is lower than last year.

    With this rate of growth the company would meet its target of having a 40% share of Taiwan’s 4G market, compared to 38% last year. IDC forecasts Taiwan’s total 4G user base could grow to reach 18 million this year.

    To help improve 4G migration rates the company has established a marketing campaign involving popular Singaporean singer JJ Lin.

    Chunghwa Telecom meanwhile has a capex budget for the year of around TW$30.6 billion ($944.5 million), which includes the recent purchase of 4.4 billion worth of equipment to enhance 4G coverage and capacity.

    The operator aims to gradually phase out flate-rate packages for 4G services, having recently raised the minimum threshold to TW$1,100 per month.

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  • Vodafone India may buy out Telenor India

    Vodafone India may buy out Telenor India

    Vodafone India is reportedly the frontrunner for acquiring Telenor’s Indian spectrum holdings and operations in a deal that could be worth over $1 billion.

    Two people close to the negotiations said that Vodafone India is pursuing the deal to help it better compete in the battle over mobile data customers.

    The sources differed over whether the deal would involve only acquiring Telenor’s Indian spectrum holdings or the company as well. But they both told the publication that Telenor India’s 1800-MHz spectrum is valued at around $1 billion.

    Spectrum is the main draw of the acquisition, but if Vodafone does buy Telenor India’s operations as well it may involve taking on Telenor India’s significant debt and try to remain the operator’s customers in key service areas.

    Vodafone currently only possess 4G spectrum in five of India’s 22 telecoms circles, whereas rival Bharti Airtel and the soon-to-launch Reliance Jio have pan-India holdings and Idea Cellular has 4G spectrum in 10 circles. Acquiring Telenor’s Indian spectrum would help even the playing field.

    Telenor India operates in seven telecoms circles, but its customer base remains relatively low after eight years of operation.

    Vodafone India has declined to comment specifically on the matter, but a spokesperson confirmed that the company is open to options including spectrum trading and M&As.

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  • Globe expands operations in Japan, refocuses Europe retail operations

    Globe expands operations in Japan, refocuses Europe retail operations

    Globe Telecom announced that it has expanded its operations in Asia with the establishment of GlobeTel Japan, Inc.  With this office in Tokyo, the company is in a better position to serve the communications needs of customers in the Philippines as well as the 180,000 overseas Filipinos in Japan.

    globe logo

    “We will continue to provide affordable and high-quality telecom services to our kababayans in Japan. We will also be adopting new business models to deliver meaningful products to overseas Filipinos,” said Nikko Acosta, Globe SVP for International Business.

    With the changing competitive landscape in Europe, Globe also announced it will close its offices in the UK, Italy, and Spain.  However, to continue serving its customers in the said countries, Globe maintained its popular telebabad service, DUO International, in the said markets through existing partnerships with telecom providers.

    The three offices are UK Globetel Limited and Globe Mobile Italy s.r.l., both opened in 2013, and Globete Internacional European Espana S.L. which started operations in 2014.  They are all members of the Globe Group of Companies.

    In accordance with its international business alignment, Globe will retain its offices in the USA, Singapore, and Hong Kong, as well as retail presence across key markets such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. For more information on the international services of Globe, visit www.globe.com.ph/international.

     

  • Lenovo announces ambitious telecoms push

    Lenovo announces ambitious telecoms push

    Lenovo has launched an ambitious plan to develop integrated solutions for the telecommunications industry that provide the backbone for rich mobile content, 5G networks and IoT workloads.

    The company aims to help operators build out next-generation data centers using open source technologies to address the growing demand for agile, cost-effective and flexible architectures.

    As part of this initiative, announced at the Red Hat Summit, the company unveiled plans for Open Platform@Lenovo (OP@L), which will be powered by Red Hat’s software stack for network function virtualization (NFV) and run on hardened, OCP-compliant infrastructure.

    Leveraging OP@L, Lenovo plans to advance open NFV architectures that can be customized and are highly secure to address the demanding needs of service providers.

    To advance its plans for the telecommunications industry, Lenovo is joining the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) project as a Platinum member. OPNFV is a carrier-grade, integrated Open Source platform that is spawning advanced solutions and services using NFV. As a Platinum member, Lenovo will hold seats on the project’s Board and Technical Steering Committee.

    Lenovo’s offerings leverage Red Hat, Linux, OpenStack and OPNFV technologies, among others. The company already is a member of Open Compute Platform (OCP), and its work within OPNFV will build upon this foundation.

    As part of its efforts, Lenovo also plans to work with Red Hat to develop a certified solution stack based on Red Hat’s NFV Platform, built on Red Hat OpenStack Platform.

    The integration of Red Hat NFV platform with Lenovo’s OP@L is the latest development in an expanding strategic collaboration between the companies, which was announced late last year.

    The two companies are collaborating to develop and deliver open and flexible solutions for service provider clients, as well as those in other industries. Lenovo already offers Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and CloudForms software within its portfolio.

  • True Corp deploys world’s largest 4T4R 4.5G network

    True Corp deploys world’s largest 4T4R 4.5G network

    Thailand’s True Corporation has deployed what it says is the world’s largest commercial 4-transmit-4-receiver (4T4R) 4.5G network using Huawei RAN technology.

    Huawei provided its SingleRAN 4T4R technology for the rollout. To date True Corporation’s wireless division True Move has deployed over 6,300 4T4R sites

    Announcing the deployment, Huawei said compared to conventional 2T2R networks, the deployment has improved downlink throughput at cell edge by over 38% and uplink throughput by 50%.

    True Corp is conducting the deployment to support Thailand’s booming demand for mobile data. Currently Thailand’s most common data charge model involves unlimited monthly packages and data usage per subscriber exceeds 1GB.

    “Spectrum is extremely precious resource for all operators. Any technology which improves the spectrum efficiency attracts operators.” True Corporation executive advisor Steven Christopher Hopcraft said.

    “[The] 4T4R solution improves the spectrum efficiency, and that’s the reason why True chose 4T4R. Along with the mature ecosystem, we think that the deployment of 4T4R is a wise choice.”

    In January, True Move revealed that it will spend 56 billion baht ($1.59 billion) this year to roll out an LTE-Advanced network covering 97% of the population.

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  • AWS opens first Indian region

    AWS opens first Indian region

    AWS has launched two data centers in Mumbai, taking the total number of Availability Zones to 35 across 13 technology infrastructure regions globally. With these data centers, Mumbai becomes AWS’ sixth region in Asia Pacific.

    The new AWS Mumbai Region consists of two separate Availability Zones at launch. Availability Zones refer to data centers in separate, distinct locations within a single region that are engineered to be operationally independent of other Availability Zones, with independent power, cooling, and physical security.

    AWS customers focused on high availability can architect their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even higher fault-tolerance.

    According to Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS CEO Andy Jassy said more than 75,000 customers in India are using other AWS Regions.

    “These same 75,000 Indian customers, along with others interested in starting use of AWS, have asked for an AWS India Region so they can move their applications that require low latency and data sovereignty,” he said.

    “We’re excited to make this available today, with the same pay-as-you-go pricing, ability to get started immediately without having to negotiate enterprise agreements or wait days for access, and unmatched functionality that customers enjoy in AWS Regions worldwide.”

    AWS is also partnering with India’s National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology to train 25,000 people on cloud technologies.

  • Vocus Acquires Netgen

    Vocus Acquires Netgen

    A substantial chunk of fiber is changing hands down under. Vocus Communications has announced plans to acquire Netgen Networks in a deal worth about $500 million.

    Nextgen had built a 17,000km fiber backbone across Australia with fiber into 1,100 buildings including 70 data centers.

    They were also a 50% owner with Vocus on the ACS project building a subsea cable between Perth, Singapore, and Indonesia, which Vocus will take 100% possession of. And they were building the North West Cable system between Darwin and Port Hedland to the oil, gas, and mining industries as well, which will also be bought by Vocus.

    The deal, which follows their recent purchase of M2, will see Vocus add substantial infrastructure muscle in an effort to better compete with Telstra, Optus, and TPG.

    Vocus already has some 700km of fiber hooking up 1,300 buildings in Australia, as well as a more extensive 4,200km of fiber over in New Zealand.

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  • Australian NBN launches first HFC services

    Australian NBN launches first HFC services

    Australia’s nbn has announced the launch of the National Broadband Network’s first HFC services under the multi-technology mix model.

    The company in charge of overseeing the rollout and wholesale operation of the national network revealed that around 18,800 premises in Redcliffe in Queensland are now ready for service.

    Service providers in the area will be given access to peak wholesale speeds of up to 100Mbps uplink and 40Mbps downlink.

    The current NBN rollout plan calls for 875,000 HFC premises to be ready for service nationwide by June 2017, with 200,000 of these end-user premises activated on the network.

    The NBN was originally intended to use FTTP for more than 90% of Australia’s population, but on taking power three years ago the current government abandoned this model  in favor of a rollout using a mix of using a mix of FTTH, HFC and FTTN.

    At the time it was claimed this would allow the rollout to be completed faster and more cheaply than using FTTH, but the projected cost and timeframe of the multi-technology rollout has ballooned to be potentially nearly as expensive as the initial rollout plan.

    The in-opposition Labor party has pledged to use FTTP for an additional 2 million premises if it wins power. An election was held over the weekend and while it’s a close race and the votes are still being counted, experts expect the current government to win by a slim margin and form a minority government.

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  • Vocus to buy Australia’s Nextgen Networks

    Vocus to buy Australia’s Nextgen Networks

    A substantial chunk of fiber is changing hands down under. Vocus Communications has announced plans to acquire Netgen Networks in a deal worth about $500 million.

    Nextgen had built a 17,000km fiber backbone across Australia with fiber into 1,100 buildings including 70 data centers.

    They were also a 50% owner with Vocus on the ACS project building a subsea cable between Perth, Singapore, and Indonesia, which Vocus will take 100% possession of. And they were building the North West Cable system between Darwin and Port Hedland to the oil, gas, and mining industries as well, which will also be bought by Vocus.

    The deal, which follows their recent purchase of M2, will see Vocus add substantial infrastructure muscle in an effort to better compete with Telstra, Optus, and TPG.

    Vocus already has some 700km of fiber hooking up 1,300 buildings in Australia, as well as a more extensive 4,200km of fiber over in New Zealand.

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  • Hong Kong’s mobile penetration grows to 95%

    Hong Kong’s mobile penetration grows to 95%

    Hong Kong’s mobile subscriber base has reached saturation point, with a population penetration of 95%, according to mobile industry body the GSM Association (GSMA).

    The company’s new report into APAC’s mobile economy, published at Mobile World Congress Shanghai this week, shows that there are around 6.9 million mobile subscribers in Hong Kong.

    While the penetration rate has grown from 90% as calculated in last year’s study, the report notes that there is little room for growth.

    But in terms of the percentage of subscribers to 4G services it is another story, with only around 40% of Hong Kong subscribers having made the switch to the faster technology as of 2015. The GSMA expects this to increase to 71% by 2020.

    The report finds that as of 2015 62% of the APAC population was subscribed to a mobile service. The GSMA predicts that the region will add another 600 million new subscribers by 2020, increasing the penetration rate to nearly 75%.

    Mobile accounted for an estimated 5.4% of APAC’s GDP last year, equivalent to $1.3 trillion in economic value.

    “More than half the world’s mobile subscribers are based in Asia Pacific and the region will be the main engine of global subscriber growth for the remainder of the decade,” said Mats Granryd, GSMA Director General.

    “Rising subscriber penetration, alongside accelerating migration to faster networks and more advanced services, continues to fuel innovation and digitisation across both advanced and emerging markets in this highly diverse region. Mobile is helping Asia build digital societies that allow its citizens to access services, anytime and anywhere – and these mobile-powered digital societies are becoming major drivers of social and economic development.”

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  • Globe picks NetApp SolidFire for cloud storage

    Globe picks NetApp SolidFire for cloud storage

    The Philippines’ Globe Telecom, via its Globe Business group, has deployed NetApp SolidFire’s all-flash scale-out storage platform to support its virtual private cloud and dedicated private cloud services.

    Globe Business provides a suite of products and services for mobile, fixed, broadband, data connections, internet and managed services.

    In order to accelerate its cloud offerings and give it a better competitive edge, Globe Business turned to NetApp SolidFire to modernize its data center infrastructure.

    With NetApp SolidFire’s scale-out design, customers can scale and control performance and capacity independently, without downtime or disruption. Data can be protected using NetApp SolidFire’s always-on data-at-rest encryption and real-time replication.

    “With its flexibility and cost efficiency, more and more companies in the Philippines are taking advantage of cloud computing,” said Mike Frausing, Globe senior advisor for enterprise and IT enabled services group. “As they demand higher performance versus just capacity, we realized that adding more disks to the rack was too expensive and inefficient.”

    Frausing said that with NetApp SolidFire, Globe customers have confidence that their needs for guaranteed levels of performance can be met. “We can offer reliable cloud services at a better price, providing a competitive — and a domestic — alternative to foreign cloud providers.”

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  • Telstra sells most of its stake in China’s Autohome

    Telstra sells most of its stake in China’s Autohome

    Australian operator Telstra has sold the most of its majority stake in Chinese online car sales business Autohome to Ping An Insurance Group for $1.6 billion.

    Andrew Penn, Telstra CEO, said proceeds from the sale of a 47.4% stake in Autohome will be used to fund a capital management program that will start in the first half of the 2017 financial year.

    After the sale is completed, Telstra will retain a 6.5% interest in the company and will have one nominee director on the board.

    “Ping An will be an important strategic partner for Autohome. Its nationwide footprint in China and experience and expertise in auto financing, insurance and e-commerce mean Ping An is well placed to help Autohome develop outside of its traditional focus on online advertising,” Penn said in a statement.

    Autohome is an online destination for automobile consumers in China. It has a comprehensive automobile library and automobile listing information, as well as an advertising platform for automakers and dealers.

    In the first quarter 2016, the company reported a significant expansion of its transaction platform with a total of 4,957 new vehicles sold through its B2C transaction platform.

    Average daily unique visitors who accessed its mobile websites and mobile applications has also grown to 8.8 million and 7.2 million, respectively.

    Leng Peidong, President of Ping An Trust, said that with Ping An’s nearly 300 million online users, 150 million financial customers, longstanding relationships with car manufacturers and distributors, and a nationwide offline service network, it will be in a better position to transform Autohome into a full auto transaction service platform.

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  • DoCoMo to provide 375Mbps LTE-A at Mt Fuji summit

    DoCoMo to provide 375Mbps LTE-A at Mt Fuji summit

    Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has announced plans to deploy LTE-Advanced at the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest and most famous mountain.

    The company will provide mobile services with maximum downlink speeds of 375Mbps as well as 3G service during the climbing season from July 10.

    The company will also offer a maximum downlink of 337.5Mbps on the four most heavily used routes on the 3,776 meter summit, the Subashiri, Gotemba, Fujinomiya and Yoshida trails.

    DoCoMo will also deploy Wi-Fi hotspots at some cabins on the slopes, and make shared tablets available in some cabins that support video streaming, translation app Hanashite Hon’yaku and other value-added mobile services.

    “Going forward, DoCoMo will continue to ensure that Mount Fuji climbers enjoy high-quality mobile services as part of its initiative to enhance the quality of mobile communications in expanded coverage areas around Japan,” the operator said in a statement.

    Mount Fuji is the 35th most prominent – or highest – mountain in the world and a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site.

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