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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.

  • Telkomsel chooses Infinet Wireless to provide connectivity in challenging terrain

    Telkomsel chooses Infinet Wireless to provide connectivity in challenging terrain

    Infinet Wireless, the global leader in fixed wireless broadband connectivity, provided its solutions to Telekomunikasi Selular, known by the trade name Telkomsel, one of the biggest cellular telecommunication operators in Indonesia and the sixth largest operator in the world.

    Having most of their Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) with IP microwave technology-enabled, as well as VSAT and optical cable, Telkomsel came to need large bandwidth using more cost-efficient technological solutions at the same time. The telecommunication operator selected Infinet Wireless solutions, such as Quanta 5, among others. It resulted in building up a radio link of 180 km to provide connectivity despite different obstacles, such as obstructive hills in the area, the ocean and the islands.

    Telkomsel selected Infinet Wireless’ orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) radio equipment, ticking the box for the most cost-efficient way for a wireless carrier that provides coverage in rural areas. The company’s technological partner, KISEL Group, a telecommunications services infrastructure provider, supplied the equipment, designed deployment of the links, and carried out support for the deployment of OFDM backhaul. KISEL Group planned to rely on a more cost-efficient solution by taking advantage of the unlicensed 5 GHz frequency band — a steady, carrier-class product, providing high-throughput performance and capable of working in nearLOS / NonLOS conditions.

    KISEL Group turned to Wirakom Sistem, the largest Indonesian Infinet Wireless solutions provider, who contributed to the successful design of a network that delivered the aggregated 108 Mbps service with the longest link ever, which at 180 km is a record-breaking length.

    When comparing vendors’ solutions, KISEL Group representatives spotted Infinet Wireless products’ top-notch technology and necessary resilience to work in extreme weather conditions. Added to this was a high level of user-friendliness when it came to engineers’ work, and the fact that Infinet Wireless solutions are highly cost-effective.

    “We were impressed with Infinet OFDM as one of our rural transmission solutions, especially the new Quanta range, which covers nLOS terrestrial transmission in hilly terrain with good quality and at an affordable price. Thanks also to the Kisel & Wirakom team, which has been supporting us as an intermediary company. It has delivered the service in several projects in Telkomsel, especially related to reducing satellite cost and special area development projects. Infinet has made the impossible propagation possible, delivering sufficient capacity and good quality,” said Teddy Indira Permana, General Manager Transport, Passive & Power Planning Division, PT Telkomsel.

    “The project was challenging due to the remote locations and long-distance of the area we wanted to cover – more than 180 kilometers; but we are more than happy with the Infinet solution deployed. We managed to provide regular and terrestrial areas with the required bandwidth capability needed for the telco systems to run smoothly with high availability performance. In addition, we have also future-proofed the whole wireless infrastructure network for further expansion,” Umar Syatri, Chief Operation Officer / Deputy Chairman of KISEL Group, concluded.

    “We are proud to introduce the best point-to-point solutions to our partner and customer, which have met the requirements. We have delivered a hundred links of Infinet Wireless products, and anticipate Quanta 5 will exceed expectations,” Wiwit Ratno Ongko, CEO of Wirakom Sistem, a distributor of Infinet Wireless solutions in Indonesia, summed up.

    In Indonesia’s diverse landscape, Infinet Wireless technology, especially that of OFDM radio, is proving to be a truly valuable solution, which is why Telkomsel, together with KISEL Group, is planning to expand the current framework. Considering the fact that Infinet Wireless solutions have already proven their productivity, the evolution promises to be even more exciting and profitable.

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  • Powering 5G and beyond with satellites

    Powering 5G and beyond with satellites

    The development of 5G and its applications in the Internet of Things, where 1.8 billion active 5G connections are estimated by 2025, is generating greater interest in satellite solutions to fulfill the criteria of reduced network latency, increased data volume, and connection density. In areas where terrestrial networks are absent or found lacking, satellites can fill the gap to provide ubiquitous connectivity in an increasingly connected world.

    In powering the next wave of technological innovations, satellites offer coverage that surpasses terrestrial networks, delivering high-powered reliable connectivity and secure global mobility. Satellite connectivity plays a particularly significant role in maritime and aeronautical industries, as well as use in critical disaster relief and emergency response missions.

    Without a doubt, satellites are emerging as integral components in 5G networks to address the unprecedented surge in connectivity demand to ensure that consumers and enterprises have access to data anytime, anywhere. Advances in this field have also been rapid to keep up with the global digital evolution. Satellite connectivity, once synonymous with high costs and high latency, is now viewed in a new light with recent advancements. For instance, low earth orbit (LEO) constellations have gained momentum as a more cost-effective alternative to improve coverage area, improve quality and deliver low-latency connections, particularly for remote populations. Next-generation LEOs are launched to significantly increase bandwidth to benefit all rungs of societies.

    With satellites playing an important role in the global connectivity ecosystem to connect the unconnected and provide backhaul connectivity for mobile network operators, both satellite communications startups and giants are pushing boundaries to deliver innovation and seamless solutions. For instance, UK satellite operator Immarsat recently announced the launch of Orchestra, a new and innovative multi-orbit global narrowband network that combines geostationary (GEO), low earth orbit, highly elliptical orbit (HEO), and terrestrial 5G. Building on existing connectivity capabilities, Immarsat also launched ELERA to accelerate IoT development and support humanitarian missions.

    SES also unveiled its O3b mPOWER constellation of 11 satellites to deliver multi-gigabit connectivity services to industries including telecommunications, aviation and maritime. This system is capable of providing intelligence-driven connectivity services with optimized global bandwidth availability and resiliency.

    To support intelligent 5G networks, satellite connectivity must be embraced to empower consumers, enterprises, and governments. For communications providers and mobile network operators, this means that satellite solutions are becoming important features to enhanced 5G networks to keep up with increased broadband demand. Satellites will complement terrestrial networks through traffic offloading, harnessing satellite’s multicasting or broadcasting functionality for new uses, enabling verticals such as smart mines, ports, and farms. It also opens up opportunities for the use of cloud in industries such as marine and offshore and fisheries, where activities are conducted predominantly in remote areas.

    However, mobile network operators tend to place emphasis on 5G upgrades in highly-populated cities. Because of this, satellite-based broadband is critical to increasing the reach to often neglected, underserved populations in rural areas, where connectivity can close a digital divide already aggravated by the pandemic to raise overall digital inclusion levels.

    In Asia Pacific, for instance, countries comprising tens of thousands of islands, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, are well-positioned to benefit from satellite as a viable and affordable alternative to connect the country and underserved geographies, as opposed to incurring high economic costs from building terrestrial network infrastructure.

    In the industry, some providers are primarily focused on providing 5G services to smartphone users – serving as mobile roaming partners to offer connections to hard-to-reach precincts. In view of this, 3GPP is currently looking into introducing non-terrestrial networks in 5G standards, to be published in the 3GPP Release 17 in 2022. This could signal new collaboration opportunities between mobile network operators and satellite operators in the near future.

    As countries accelerate digitalization ambitions, connectivity will become the new driver of economic growth and social cohesion. Citing Indonesia as an example, where its digital economy is predicted to triple to US$124 billion by 2025, the government is already looking into launching its largest telecommunications satellite in the near future. Clearly, the rise of satellites can be transformative. It is the vision of many for the region to witness faster digitalization and stronger economies.

  • Huawei’s chairman says that sourcing chips is its biggest problem

    Huawei’s chairman says that sourcing chips is its biggest problem

    Let’s use our imagination a little, shall we? Had the U.S. not placed Huawei on the Entity List for security reasons in 2019 and followed that up exactly a year to the day by changing Export rules banning Huawei from receiving chips from certain foundries using American technology, the smartphone market “league tables” would be different. Huawei would not have sold sub-brand Honor and would most likely be the top handset manufacturer on this planet.

    But the truth brings a harsher reality to Huawei as the manufacturer is predicted to finish the year as the seventh-largest smartphone shipper with Honor right behind it. Still, the company’s current rotating chairman (the position rotates, not the actual executive) Guo Ping is determined that Huawei will never drop out of the smartphone industry. Citing the U.S., Guo says that the policies of individual countries have no impact on Huawei’s place in the world and the firm will never limit its business to selling in China only.

    This morning, Guo told new Huawei employees that “The U.S. has created many difficulties for Huawei but they are solvable. It is in the supply chain where the US has a big impact on Huawei. We need more investment and innovation to deal with the US sanctions. Huawei has established and helped its industrial chain partners to solve the problems of supply continuity and competitiveness.”

    The Chairman said that Huawei employees should have the attitude that “what does not kill me makes me stronger,” and added that “if every employee works diligently and effectively and makes achievements, Huawei will become better and the U.S. will not be able to beat us.” For those who believe that the company should give us its mobile phone business, ponder this statistic.

    After real estate and automobiles, the mobile phone sector is the third-largest “industrial sector” in the world. This calls to mind the famous quote from bank robber Willie Sutton who was once asked why he robbed banks. “Because that’s where the money is,” was his reply. Why should Huawei give up on making phones when it still is where plenty of money lies.

    While being placed on the Entity List makes it hard for Huawei to access the U.S. supply chain, Guo says that the major issue affecting Huawei is its inability to buy chips. The chairman says, “At present, the biggest difficulty for us is the mobile phone business. As we all know, chips for mobile phone need advanced technology as they are small and have low power consumption. Huawei can design its own chip but no one can manufacture it for us. That’s where we (are) stuck.”

    As a country, China has been hoping to become self-sufficient when it comes to manufacturing chips. This would prevent tech companies in the country from having to worry about having their businesses held hostage. “Technology should be used to give full play to its value. It is imperative to combine 5G with artificial intelligence, cloud and enterprise application scenarios to unleash the potential of Internet of Everything and Intelligence of Everything,” said Guo.

    “Huawei phones have a lot of unique technologies of their own. We are looking forward to the day when the core problem of chip manufacture will be completely solved in China,” Huawei’s current chairman states. Huawei’s Chairman is also thinking ahead about 6G. He sees 5G becoming the universal global network that most people envision it becoming. But as for 6G Guo, sees the next generation of wireless connectivity being used as a regional network for industrial use.

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  • Inmarsat launches ELERA to power IoT and critical connectivity

    Inmarsat launches ELERA to power IoT and critical connectivity

    Inmarsat has unveiled Inmarsat ELERA; a global narrowband network that is ideally suited to the rapidly evolving world of the Internet of Things (IoT) and for global mobility customers, including aviation, maritime, governments and select enterprises.

    “ELERA is perfectly suited to the needs of the connected IoT world,” said Rajeev Suri, CEO, Inmarsat. “Global reach, extraordinary resilience, faster speeds, smaller and lower cost terminals are all part of ensuring that we remain ahead of others in meeting the needs of our customers.”

    “ELERA is a further sign of a company with true momentum and one that is delivering new innovations and strong performance,” continued Suri. “I expect that Inmarsat will grow strongly in 2021 compared to the previous year, and that growth will span most of our business units. Our progress was evident in the first half, where we saw strong growth in revenue and EBITDA and robust cash flow. We have sharpened our strategy to focus on driving growth, accelerate decision making, launch new innovations, and are creating a more commercially focused, customer-centric culture.”

    ELERA builds on Inmarsat’s #1 position in Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) and will be a springboard for innovation, unlocking, accelerating and scaling pioneering use cases on land, at sea and in the air. Its foundation is Inmarsat’s world-class L-band network and incorporates new innovations ranging from higher speeds to smaller, low-cost terminals and [the previously announced] Inmarsat-6 satellites, the first of which (I-6 F1) is scheduled to launch before the end of the year.

    Coming just 14 days after Inmarsat announced ORCHESTRA, the world’s first network to combine GEO, LEO and 5G into one harmonious global communications solution, ELERA underlines Inmarsat’s strategic focus on the global mobility segment of satellite communications. It is also a signal of a company with momentum, delivering major technological innovations and growth.

    The unique capabilities of ELERA, combined with Inmarsat’s superior spectrum and the ideally suited orbital position of its satellite networks, will make it the essential catalyst for new IoT use cases, across everything from autonomous transport and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to industrial and agricultural IoT applications.

    ELERA is built on Inmarsat’s market-leading L-band network, which already delivers the world’s most reliable and flexible global connectivity service with unique resilience in all conditions and full global redundancy. It supports everything from worldwide maritime and aviation safety services and humanitarian missions to IoT applications across agritech, transportation and utilities, among many others.

    The new innovations that the company is investing in to bring to market in the near future include spectrum management technology to deliver L-band speeds up to 1.7Mbps, the smallest footprint, low cost L-band terminal and two new L-band satellites, which are the largest and most sophisticated commercial communication satellites ever created.

    The new spectrum management capabilities (known as Carrier Aggregation) being incorporated into the ELERA network will deliver the fastest speeds globally available to L-band customers, far outstripping the capabilities of any other worldwide L-band network.

    Live customer trials in commercial aviation are scheduled to start during the course of 2022 and this technology will be rolled out across a range of sector specific applications for Inmarsat’s mobility, government and IoT customers over the coming few years.

    ELERA will also see the creation of the smallest footprint, low cost terminal for L-band users, delivering the ideal framework for satcom IoT at scale, with supporting cloud-based management, for vertical sectors such as infrastructure, rail, logistics, mining, agriculture, government, maritime and aviation.

    Inmarsat is launching two new satellites to enhance the ELERA network. The I-6 satellites, the first of which is scheduled to launch at the end of 2021, are the largest and most sophisticated commercial communications satellites ever built.

    The L-band capacity on each I-6 satellite will be substantially greater than Inmarsat’s 4th generation spacecraft and, among other enhancements, they will deliver 50% more capacity per beam; meaning that much more data can be carried over the same geographical area, in addition to unlimited beam routing flexibility.

    ELERA will also deliver a major extension to Inmarsat’s portfolio of voice-enabled devices, bringing new capabilities and innovations to hundreds of thousands of customers. This initiative represents our commitment to voice service innovation and underlines the company’s long-term commitment to the handheld voice services over satellite market.

    “ELERA is the exciting vision of how Inmarsat is planning to transform the capabilities offered to IoT and mobility customers for years to come and confirms our long-term commitment to L-band services. We will be sharing further detail on these innovations with our partner community in the coming months and continue our programme of announcements as we achieve major milestones.” said Rajeev Suri, CEO, Inmarsat.

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  • Nokia trials AI technology in Melbourne to keep streets clean and safe

    Nokia trials AI technology in Melbourne to keep streets clean and safe

    Nokia the City of Melbourne have conducted a trial using Nokia Scene Analytics artificial intelligence (AI) technology to develop a deeper understanding of waste disposal behaviour. This will allow the city to tackle the issue of waste dumping more efficiently keep laneways – the busy and narrow city streets and pedestrian areas – even more clean, safe and free of garbage.

    To decrease the frequency of waste contractor visits to busy areas, the City of Melbourne has offered local residents and businesses subscription-based access to the large-capacity compactor facilities. With the compactor in place, Council then wanted to understand how the service was being utilised and how to mitigate illegal waste dumping, which can quickly create safety and hygiene issues in the area.

    Under its ‘emerging technology testbed’ initiative, the City of Melbourne worked with Nokia to leverage an existing network of installed cameras as internet of things (IoT) sensors to monitor one of the compactors. The Nokia Scene Analytics solution employed an AI-powered algorithm to filter and collate data from the cameras, while also combining other data sources, such as operational data on the compactor itself, to create real-time alerts and produce reports. Initial trial results demonstrate that Scene Analytics can support the City’s objectives for better, safer citizen experiences while simultaneously lowering maintenance and down time costs for waste management services.

    This innovative use of Scene Analytics has been recognized on a national stage as the partnership between Nokia and the City of Melbourne was shortlisted for the Communications Alliance’s ACOMMS awards in the Artificial Intelligence category.

    Lord Mayor Sally Capp, City of Melbourne, said:“This is a great example of using new technology to help remove illegal waste more quickly, make our city cleaner and protect the environment. Our partnership with Nokia is another way we are gathering data to make Melbourne a safer, smarter and more sustainable city. This innovative project will help to avoid hazards and make our streets even cleaner by allowing our waste services to better understand behavior trends related to the illegal and dangerous dumping of waste.”

    Rob Mccabe, Head of Enterprise of Australia and New Zealand,Nokia,said: “The City of Melbourne is using robust AI technology to offer its citizens, visitors and businesses a greener and more liveable community. In helping the City of Melbourne monitor and enhance services with real-time driven actions, Nokia Scene Analytics is supporting the safety, security and operational continuity of this city in a proactive and automated way.”

  • Tata Communications posts 14.9% YoY PAT

    Tata Communications posts 14.9% YoY PAT

    Tata Communications has announced its financial results for the quarter ended 30 June 2021. Consolidated revenue came in at INR 4,103 Crore (USD 556 Mn), growing 0.7% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), and decreasing 6.8% year-on-year (YoY). This YoY contraction is primarily due to reduction in Voice business and moderation of Collaboration traffic in the Data segment.

    Consolidated EBITDA stood at INR 986 Crore (USD 134 Mn); a reduction of 5.3% YoY. This quarter, EBITDA has been impacted by a provision of INR 33 Crore on account of license fee on revenue from pure internet services which was allowed as deduction in the definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) earlier. Despite this impact EBITDA margin has expanded by 40 BPs YoY. CAPEX for this quarter grew to INR 381 Crore as compared to INR 372 Crore in Q1 FY21.

    Data business revenue came in at INR 3,104 Crore witnessing a growth of 0.6% QoQ and a 2.2% YoY reduction. Data business continues to be affected by COVID related slowdown. Enterprise decisions have been slow due to macroeconomic headwinds leading to longer lead time for deal wins. Service delivery was affected by lockdowns during the 2nd Wave of COVID-19 pandemic. EBITDA for the segment stood at INR 932 Crore; up 0.4% QoQ and decline of 2.4% YoY. EBITDA was affected by provision of license fee made during the quarter and despite this impact EBITDA margin is maintained at 30%.

    In Core Connectivity, there is healthy growth in revenue by 1.7% YoY, and EBITDA increased by 0.3% YoY with margins at 42.6%. Digital Platforms and Services were affected by the moderation of Collaboration traffic which was at its peak in Q1 FY21. Revenue strengthened by 2.9% QoQ but reduced by 12.8% YoY. There are early signs of recovery and an uptake of usage-based services in geographies where economies have opened.

    “In a challenging quarter impacted by the second wave of COVID-19, we have delivered a robust performance,” said A S Lakshminarayanan, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Communications. “The global markets are slowly opening up and we are witnessing greenshoots of demand recovery.”

    He added, “Our focus is to continue investing in developing innovative digital ecosystem solutions driven by customers’ needs. Early demand for our recent launches for live sports on our Media Edge Cloud and IZO™ Financial Cloud is testament that we are moving in the right direction.”

    Commenting on the results, Kabir Ahmed Shakir, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Communications, said, “Our focus on growth and profitability continues to deliver results. A healthy profit and free cash flow is empowering us to innovate and accelerate growth while streamlining processes and bringing in further efficiencies. We are well-poised to enable enterprises make the shift with digitalization playing a pivotal role enabling businesses derive positive growth.”

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  • ZTE receives 2021 Global Server Product Innovation Award by Frost & Sullivan

    ZTE receives 2021 Global Server Product Innovation Award by Frost & Sullivan

    ZTE Corporation has been presented with 2021 Global Server Product Innovation Award by Frost & Sullivan, based on the investigation and analysis of 2021 global server product market, as well as the research and evaluation on mainstream server competitors within the industry.

    This award is to honor ZTE Corporation’s continuous innovation and progress in the global server product market, its technology leadership position in the industry, and its contribution to the overall development of the server industry.The reform of IT infrastructure is the engine of the digital transformation of enterprises. Regarding the rapid increase in data traffic in the era of the digital economy, enterprises’ IT infrastructure requires stronger computing power to deal with the massive data. Meanwhile, due to differences in products and services and different application scenarios, each type of industry has also formed diversified and customized needs.

    Under this background, the opportunities and challenges coexist for the server vendors. In terms of computing power, simply expanding data centers might help in dealing with data, but it also makes the data centers’ structure more complicated and harder to conduct operations and maintenance. Regarding this difficulty, companies and organizations require not only powerful data processing capabilities, but they also want more intelligent operations and maintenance, and simpler deployment methods of IT equipment.

    In terms of differentiated demands, servers, the infrastructure platform for enterprises’ IT systems, are required to respond to a large number of service requests and process services. In addition, companies and organizations in related industries have also proposed more differentiated requirements on performance, reliability, adaptability, and flexibility of servers.

    For instance, the financial enterprises rely on servers, storage and cloud operating systems to build a stable and reliable financial cloud platform; the telecom enterprises need to effectively assist customers in the reform of “network moving with the cloud” and “cloud and network integration”. The power enterprises require to ensure the power market safety and under control, and provide a stable and smooth operation environment for the national grid information system, etc. Products or services that can better meet the differentiated needs of various industries will stand out under the change.

    In the new era of servers becoming high performance, high reliability and diverse computing power, coupled with companies in related industries put forward higher requirements on the server performance, reliability, adaptability and flexibility. ZTE keeps up with the trends, constantly innovating technology and launching new products to meet new requirements:

    In the aspect of data processing, The G4X server newly introduced by ZTE uses 2 Intel Xeon third-generation extensible processors (Ice Lake) with a single processor up to 40 cores. Its performance is at the top level of the industry, providing an efficient engine for enterprises in the process of digital transformation.

    In the aspect of meeting the needs of multiple industries, ZTE G4X server boasts four to eight built-in heterogeneous and intelligent computing acceleration engines, which can satisfy the requirements of various scenarios of artificial intelligence, image processing and industrial control, etc.

    In the aspect of server reliability, ZTE G4X server can effectively meet the server reliability requirements of government, finance, railway, power grid and other enterprises. For instance, all ZTE servers are designed and produced based on telecom equipment standards. The reliability of the products is also verified by telecom product requirements, and can be efficiently adapted to the business environment of enterprises.

    In the aspect of environmental adaptation, ZTE adopts stringent standards for verification from R&D and design to producing and manufacturing. For example, to verify and improve ZTE G4X server’s reliability under high-stress environmental conditions, the server is tested at high and low temperatures ranging from 0 to 50 degrees. Moreover, to improve the protection capability of ZTE’s products in complex environments, ZTE uses a higher level of 6-8kV test standards. Furthermore, to identify extreme working conditions of products and continuously improve the product design, ZTE also conducts a HALT (High Accelerated Life Test) test.

    In the aspect of flexibility, ZTE G4X server realizes a flexible combination of “1 product, 2 chassis and 7 models” through modular design, effectively reducing O&M costs and deployment time for enterprise customers. It even refreshes world records of SPEC CPU performance tests, setting new world records in floating-point calculation and integer calculation performance tests.

    Overall, ZTE G4X server features ultimate performance, flexible expansion, high reliability and efficient O&M, providing new momentum for the digital transformation of various industries.

    Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as product revenue, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

    Frost & Sullivan’s analysts and consultants continuously research a wide range of markets across multiple sectors and geographies. As part of this ongoing research, it identifies companies that have successfully introduced new and innovative products into their markets, with emphasis on product innovation and customer value. This involves extensive primary and secondary research across the entire value chain of specific products. Against the backdrop of this research, Frost & Sullivan is pleased to recognize ZTE Corporation for 2021 Global Server Product Innovation Award.

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  • Viettel shrugs off Covid, remains profitable

    Viettel shrugs off Covid, remains profitable

    Telecom giant Viettel reported pre-tax profits of VND 19.9 trillion ($867.2 million) for the first half of 2021, a year-on-year increase of 3.1 percent.

    The growth came despite the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, which has forced 95 percent of its HCMC-based points of sale and 80 percent in Hanoi to suspend operations, and the number of mobile subscribers and telecom use declined.

    The military-owned firm continued to work on digital transformation and sought to maximize online channels, and as a result achieved revenues of VND128.6 trillion in the first half, a 6.8 percent rise.

    In all its foreign markets, Viettel increased market share, with the biggest increases seen in Haiti and Peru with 1.5 and 1.4 percentage points.

    Its four leading foreign markets remain Cambodia, Laos, East Timor, and Burundi, while in Myanmar, it closes to the top with a 30.8 percent share.

    Viettel has used technology for combating the Covid-19 pandemic by launching a vaccination management platform and installing 7,500 cameras in quarantine facilities.

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  • Nokia secures first 5G contract in China

    Nokia secures first 5G contract in China

    Nokia secured a 5G RAN contract for China Mobile on Monday, making this the company’s first 5G contract in the country.

    Nokia was awarded a 10% share in one of three contracts tendered by China Mobile, while Ericsson obtained 9.6% of another contract. The total tender for all three contracts reached about $6 billion, with Nokia being awarded 4% of the overall tender. Comparatively, Ericsson was awarded 2%, dropping from about 11% last year.

    Together, Huawei and ZTE won the majority share in all three contracts to build 5G 700 MHz base stations for China Mobile and China Broadcasting Network. This is followed by a smaller local company Datang Corporation.

    China Telecom and China Unicom will also be disclosing awards of their respective 5G contracts.

    Currently, China is ahead of other countries in 5G deployments. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China had deployed 820,000 5G base stations by the end of March.

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  • Nokia secures first 5G contract in China

    Nokia secures first 5G contract in China

    Nokia secured a 5G RAN contract for China Mobile on Monday, making this the company’s first 5G contract in the country.

    Nokia was awarded a 10% share in one of three contracts tendered by China Mobile, while Ericsson obtained 9.6% of another contract. The total tender for all three contracts reached about $6 billion, with Nokia being awarded 4% of the overall tender. Comparatively, Ericsson was awarded 2%, dropping from about 11% last year.

    Together, Huawei and ZTE won the majority share in all three contracts to build 5G 700 MHz base stations for China Mobile and China Broadcasting Network. This is followed by a smaller local company Datang Corporation.

    China Telecom and China Unicom will also be disclosing awards of their respective 5G contracts.

    Currently, China is ahead of other countries in 5G deployments. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China had deployed 820,000 5G base stations by the end of March.

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  • Comviva’s customer value management platform drives breakthrough growth for Indosat Ooredoo

    Comviva’s customer value management platform drives breakthrough growth for Indosat Ooredoo

    Fueled by an intensely competitive operating environment in Indonesia’s mobile sector, Indosat Ooredoo partnered with Comviva in delivering a front-to-end real-time marketing management platform, as well as subscribers’ loyalty and rewards program to yield increased customer retention and revenue within months from implementation.

    In a country where 98% of mobile phone users fall back on prepaid subscriptions, telecommunications operators in Indonesia’s competitive mobile market face the gargantuan challenge of retaining customers. In a heterogeneous market already characterized by low loyalty and high churn rates, matters are made worst when high costs deter telecommunications operators from reaching out to and acquiring new subscribers in under-served populations in far-flung areas.Indosat Ooredoo taps on Comviva’s expertise in innovation-driven growth marketing

    It is costlier to replace churned customers than retaining them. Amid intense competition and dismal financials, Indosat Ooredoo recognized that the path to profitable growth is an improved customer value management (CVM) platform that manages customer lifecycle holistically to uncover customer insights and drive meaningful engagements.

    Having collaborated on other deployments with much success, Indosat appointed Comviva, a global leader in mobile solutions for telecommunication operators, as a strategic partner to spearhead its Big Data CVM 2.0 program in April 2019.

    Aimed at improving customer lifetime value to achieve incremental revenue, Comviva developed a three year digital roadmap with front-to-end digital strategies. The suite of solutions spans different stages from implementing, operating, optimizing and providing timely, in-depth post-implementation analysis to transforming customer experiences critical to the success of the program.

    Overcoming key challenges with technology

    Before partnering with Comviva, Indosat Ooredoo was missing out on opportunities to influence customers’ micro-moments at critical junctures in the customer journey. To maximize the value of individual customers and micro-moments of interactions, Comviva’s first step was adding real-time capabilities to the operator’s CVM platform.

    A machine learning (ML), real-time interaction management platform, Comviva’s MobiLytixTM Real Time Marketing capitalizes on actionable analytics to steer CVM excellence. It integrates data across multiple sources to build intelligence and act on real-time events to orchestrate engagements with customers.

    Adding complexity to critical decision-making was the lack of federated data across Indosat Ooredoo’s various departments. To get to the root of this problem, Comviva developed a big data Hadoop-based centralized management system that effectively captures over 800 attributes about Indosat Ooredoo’s prepaid and post-paid subscribers to create a single view of its subscribers. This system brings focus to descriptive, predictive and prescriptive attributes of subscribers to serve as a unified customer data system accessible to the operator’s campaign management, business and applications teams.

    Comviva also identified the absence of a pervasive artificial intelligence (AI) technology to measure campaign effectiveness as another shortfall. To this end, Comviva developed models founded on AI and ML to accurately predict customers’ behaviors.

    Finally, Indosat introduced imPoin, a loyalty and rewards program to extend instant gratification to loyal customers and reward loyal customers preferentially. Powered by Comiva’s MobiLytixTM Loyalty and Rewards Platform, this program allows Indosat Ooredoo to predict customer engagement activities and positively influence customer behavior through reward-based engagements. To yield the best outcomes, a framework was developed to measure, monitor, and optimize the program.

    Comprising a 4-tier membership model – namely Red, Silver, Gold and Platinum, with Platinum being the highest tier – better benefits are rolled out for higher tiers. Members are motivated to earn benefits for all their engagements, which can be accumulated and redeemed via the myIM3 mobile app. Members can look forward to receiving a mix of lifestyle and experiential rewards such as fuel, shopping, dining as well as gaming vouchers.  

  • India’s software market revenue projected to reach US$7.6 billion by year end

    India’s software market revenue projected to reach US$7.6 billion by year end

    According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker 2H20 (July–December), the India software market is estimated to reach US$7.6 billion by the end of 2021. The India software market was pegged at US$7.0 billion in 2020, registering a growth of 13.4% year-over-year (YoY) compared with that in 2019. India accounted for 17.5% share of the overall Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and China) (APEJC) region software market in 2020. Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP maintained their leadership positions in the India market during the same year. 

    Shweta Baidya, Senior Research Manager for Software and IT Services at IDC India says, “Although the pandemic had a minor impact on the overall growth of the India software market, it acted as a catalyst for strong growth across some of the software segments as enterprises reevaluated their IT strategies and took concrete steps to move toward digital business models. Digitally matured enterprises were able to smoothly navigate through the crisis and maintain business continuity and operational resilience. However, enterprises with traditional business models charted out new strategies to leverage cloud and digital to stay relevant and consistent. Investment in collaborative platforms, network transformation, and security re-architecture witnessed a spike during the last few quarters.”

    IDC classifies the software market into three primary categories: applications, application development and deployment (AD&D), and systems infrastructure (SI) software. Applications contributed 60.4% to the overall market revenue, followed by AD&D and SI software with shares of 21.6% and 18.0%, respectively, in 2020.

    As per IDC’s current estimates, engineering applications, collaborative applications, customer relationship management (CRM) applications, enterprise resource management (ERM) applications, and content workflow and management applications are the leading software segments in terms of revenue. The collaborative applications market witnessed the highest growth of 36.7% in 2020, followed by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms and system and service management software at 30.9% and 24.8%, respectively.

    India Market Forecast

    IDC estimates India’s overall software market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.6% from 2020 to 2025. India enterprises will continue to invest in technologies that will help them spur innovation to improve operational efficiency and employee productivity, and in turn, maintain business momentum. IDC expects acceleration in demand for technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA) software, conferencing and collaborative applications, AI platforms, digital commerce applications, and IT service management (ITSM) software, among others. Additionally, cloud is also becoming one of the critical elements of enterprises’ digital strategy. IDC expects the contribution of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) markets to the overall software market to increase from 36.8% in 2020 to 57.1% in 2025.

    “In spite of the adverse impact of the pandemic, India continued to be one of the most resilient markets across the APEJC region. India software market registered a growth of 13.4%, which was the highest in the region. Enterprise sentiments improved during the second half of the year and investments were ramped up quickly on digital work models to enable smooth transition to a remote work environment. IT budgets were re-apportioned and allocated in accordance with the increased spending on emerging technologies. Software vendors have been aggressively acquiring customers by supporting them in the digital journey with flexible and scalable options,” adds Baidya.

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  • ZTE’s BIERin6 multicast approved by IEFT

    ZTE’s BIERin6 multicast approved by IEFT

    ZTE Corporation announced that the BIERin6 (BIER in IPv6 Networks) multicast solution led by ZTE has been approved as Proposed Standard by the IETF(Internet Engineering Task Force).

    The approval indicates that the telecommunications industry has reached an agreement on the technical principles of BIERin6, which is a key step towards commercial applications.

    In the 5G era, large-bandwidth services, such as network live streaming, multi-party conference, and IPTV live broadcasting, are booming rapidly. A growing number of users bring enormous bandwidth pressure and challenges to the networks. However, most services adopt the unicast. Therefore, with the aim of networks optimization, the multicast has become an inevitable trend.

    Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER), as a new type of multicast technology, provides simple deployment, stable network status and high service scalability, and allows operators’ IP networks to provide users with flexible and controllable multicast services. Currently, BIERin6 is the best option for BIER deployment in the IPv6 networks, and also paves the way for the operators’ future IP network architecture.

    ZTE has been taking the leading position in the field of BIER multicast. In October 2017, ZTE worked out the BIERin6 solution together with its partners. After extensive and in-depth discussions, by July 2019, more vendors had become supporters. In November 2020, ZTE released the white paper on BIER Multicast solution.

    In December 2020, ZTE and the Nanjing Purple Mountain Laboratories jointly completed the first BIER multicast field trial in China, and first deployed and tested BIER multicast services in the existing network.

    Moving forward, with the end-to-end service capability of BIER and BIERin6 multicast, ZTE will be committed to the network construction of its partners in the 5G era, and accelerating the commercialization of BIER and BIERin6 multicast.

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  • Nokia suing Oppo over patent infringement in several countries

    Nokia suing Oppo over patent infringement in several countries

    Nokia, just like other big companies in the telecom industry, is very protective when it comes to its own patents. The Finnish company signed licensing agreements with many companies that use its patents and sued those that used them without permission.

    The most recent on the list of companies that have just got sued by Nokia is Oppo. Nokia has decided to file lawsuits against Oppo for patent infringement in four countries: England, France, Germany, and India.

    The reason behind Nokia’s action is that Oppo refused to renew the licensing agreement that allows the use of certain patents, which the Chinese company signed back in 2018. FOSS Patents reports that Nokia is using the same legal teams that won the previous company’s patent enforcement campaign against Lenovo and Daimler, so this might be a quick battle.

    According to a statement offered by Nokia, there have been negotiations between the two companies, but Oppo decided to go on its own and rejected all offers.

    We have been negotiating the renewal of our patent licensing agreement with Oppo but unfortunately, they have rejected our fair and reasonable offers. Litigation is always our last resort and we have offered to enter into independent and neutral arbitration to amicably resolve the matter. We still believe this would be the most constructive way forward.

    This can probably end only two ways: either Nokia wins and Oppo pays, or Oppo agrees to sign another multi-year licensing agreement. Without dismissing Oppo’s chances to win the case, Nokia’s expertise in defending its patent portfolio recommends it as the sure winner, but surprises can happen.

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  • Telenor sells Myanmar operations to Lebanon’s M1 Group for $105 million

    Telenor sells Myanmar operations to Lebanon’s M1 Group for $105 million

    Telenor Group has entered into an agreement to sell 100 percent of its mobile operations in Myanmar to M1 Group for a total consideration of US$105 million USD, of which US$55 million is a deferred payment over five years. The transaction corresponds to an implied enterprise value of approximately US$600 million USD. M1 Group will acquire all the shares in Telenor Myanmar and continue the current operation.

    On 4 May, Telenor Group announced an impairment of Telenor Myanmar. Telenor underlined at the time that the operations in Myanmar continued and that the future presence would depend on the developments in the country and the ability to contribute positively to the people of Myanmar. Further deterioration of the situation and recent developments in Myanmar form the basis for the decision to divest the company. In the present situation, it has not been possible for Telenor to conduct an ordinary sales process.

    “The situation in Myanmar has over the past months become increasingly challenging for Telenor for people security, regulatory and compliance reasons. We have evaluated all options and believe a sale of the company is the best possible solution in this situation. The agreement to sell to M1 Group will ensure continued operations. Telenor entered Myanmar because we believed that access to affordable mobile services would support the country’s development and growth. I wish to thank all employees and partners who have taken significant efforts to build a company that has impacted the people of Myanmar and has provided state of the art telco services during Telenor’s years in the country,” says Sigve Brekke President and CEO of Telenor Group.

    Since operations started in 2014, Telenor’s funding to Myanmar has been around 5.3 billion NOK. After turning cash flow positive in 2017, Telenor Myanmar has distributed approximately 3.2 billion NOK in dividends. With effect from the second quarter of 2021, Telenor Myanmar will be treated as an asset held for sale and discontinued operations. The gain/loss calculation arising from the transaction will be impacted, inter alia, by the accumulated translation differences related to the Myanmar operation and will be finally determined at closing. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals in Myanmar.