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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.

  • Samsung supplying 5G NR solutions for Sprint

    Samsung supplying 5G NR solutions for Sprint

    Samsung has announced at Mobile World Congress this week that it is supplying its 5G new radio solutions for US operator Sprint‘s 5G new radio solutions.

    Sprint is deploying Samsung’s 5G NR solution, which combines Samsung’s existing Massive MIMO technology with new software and a new channel card, in one of its first 5G cities, Chicago.

    The operator plans to launch its 5G network in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Kansas City in May as part of a nationwide launch, and plans to go live in five more cities in the first half of 2019.

    Sprint has been using Samsung’s Massive MIMO technology in its 2.5-GHz TD-LTE network since 2018. The modular nature of the upgrade will allow Sprint to offer both LTE and 5G services on the same radio using the split-mode capabilities of the MIMO solution.

    “Our collaboration on massive MIMO has delivered significant LTE capacity and speed enhancements,” Sprint SVP of network deployment and operations Scott Santi said.

    “With 5G, we look forward to giving Sprint customers even greater experiences from gaming and entertainment services, to IoT and business applications.”

    Samsung is showcasing its 2.5-GHz 64-transmit 64-receive Massive MIMO unit at its Mobile World Congress booth in Barcelona.

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  • China Mobile, partners launch first 5G devices

    China Mobile, partners launch first 5G devices

    Members of the China Mobile-led 5G Device Forerunner Initiative have used Mobile World Congress to announce the launch of their first batch of devices, including China Mobile’s own in-house developed Forerunner One.

    Forerunner One is a 5G mobile smart hub device powered by Qualcomm’s inaugural Snapdragon X50 5G modem.

    The device supports connections in sub-6GHz 5G frequencies including the 2.6-GHz band, and is designed to convert high-speed 5G data into Wi-Fi and WiGig signals.

    It comes installed with Android 9.0 and an AI voice assistant, and is expected to reach the market in the first half of 2019.

    Meanwhile the members of the initiative have also used the event to launch four 5G chipsets – from Qualcomm, Huawei, MediaTek and Unisoc respectively – as well as 5G devices from Huawei, vivo, OPPO, ZTE, Xiaomi and Samsung.

    Some of the launched devices support both nonstandalone and standalone 5G, and others support peak throughputs of up to 4.67Gbps in sub-6GHz frequencies.

    The 5G Device Forerunner Initiative was established a year ago during the GTI Summit in Barcelona. So far 36 members comprising all aspects of the device industry have participated in the initiative.

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  • Cisco announces $5b financing for operators’ 5G transition

    Cisco announces $5b financing for operators’ 5G transition

    Cisco announced that it is planning to fork out $5 billion funding over the next three years to help its customers for network transitions to 5G. Cisco said “the 5G movement is in steep ascent and service providers face significant financing pressures as they prepare for this 5G revolution.”

    Cisco’s recent Mobile VNI Forecast shows that by 2022, the average 5G connection (22 GB/month) will generate nearly three times more traffic on the networks than the average 4G connection (8 GB/month).

    Service providers must expand their networks to support this growth. At the same time, they must invest in new 5G services to stay competitive, the vendor said in a statement. Cisco said it is planning to commit $5 billion in 5G funding via Cisco financing over the next three years to help its customers succeed with their network transitions to 5G.

    Meanwhile, Cisco has also announced a raft of announcements with Asian mobile carriers including Bharti Airtel, KT, Softbank and Rakuten

    Cisco is helping Bharti Airtel to build India’s largest 5G-ready, IP-based automated network. Airtel aims to deliver enhanced subscriber experiences and offer high-speed mobile access for its mobile customers in the country.

    Airtel’s IP-based network architecture will enable new functionality, including segment routing, traffic engineering and Ethernet VPN that helps ensure seamless interoperability and the ability to leverage existing investments in its MPLS-TP network. The automated IP network architecture will also give Airtel the ability to enhance its services to SMBs and enterprises.

    The deal with KT will see Cisco transitioning KT’s network architecture to better manage 5G traffic with advanced routing and automation software, intelligent analytics and machine learning.

    The network includes a 5G routing backbone with Cisco Network Convergence System Router 6000 and ACI on Nexus 9000 switching platform at KT’s distributed data centers in the country.

    In Japan, Cisco is helping SoftBank to deploy Segment Routing IPv6 (SRv6) in its 5G mobile network to help the Japanese telco reduce capex and opex. It is also helping Rakuten Mobile Network to launch the world’s first virtualized, cloud native mobile network by October 2019.

    Cisco is also using the MWC2019 to unveil a host of products and services covering 5G, WiFi 6, smart city and connected cars.

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  • Maxis to launch full 5G trials with Huawei

    Maxis to launch full 5G trials with Huawei

    Malaysia’s Maxis has signed an agreement with Huawei during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to accelerate 5G development in Malaysia.

    Under the agreement, the companies plan to collaborate on full-fledged 5G trials involving end-to-end systems and services.

    The memorandum of understanding was signed by Maxis CEO-designate Gokhan Ogut and CTO Morten Bangsgaard, as well as Huawei rotating chairman Guo Ping, president of Southern Pacific Jeffery Liu and CEO of Malaysia Michael Yuan.

    “Maxis has long started its 5G journey, and we are already focusing on live trials, investments and evolving our network infrastructure to be ready for a future where smart solutions will be part of everyday life,” Ogut commented.

    “We are pleased to be working with world class technology leader and long term partner Huawei on our 5G trials, and to be a pioneer in bringing the latest technologies to Malaysia once again.”

    Huawei said that to date it has signed over 30 commercial 5G contracts and shipped more than 40,000 5G base stations across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

  • Rakuten using Red Hat technologies in mobile rollout

    Rakuten using Red Hat technologies in mobile rollout

    Japan’s Rakuten announced it has arranged to use open source technologies provided by Red Hat in its upcoming end-to-end cloud native mobile network.

    The network, which is scheduled to launch in October, will use Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud technologies, Rakuten announced at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

    Rakuten Mobile Network has built an NFV based network supported by Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat Ceph Storage software-defined storage solution.

    The deployment will support the planned launch of 4G mobile services, and leave Rakuten Mobile Network well placed to roll out 5G services subject to government licensing approval.

    “Our vision is to build a network that innovates at the speed of software and scales at the speed of cloud, and with a culture founded in technical and operational innovation, we are uniquely positioned to achieve that. We are excited to work with leading partners from around the world such as Red Hat as we work to create the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud-native network,” Rakuten Mobile Network CTO Tareq Amin said.

    “End-to-end automation for both network and services is a pillar of our systems building strategy, and by using Red Hat’s open source technology we can achieve automation and auto-scaling, enabling more productive operations and allowing us to provide cost-effective services to our customers.”

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  • Telcos fear surging energy costs due to 5G

    Telcos fear surging energy costs due to 5G

    More than 90% of mobile operators fear that the arrival of the 5G era will result in significantly higher energy costs, according to research from data center equipment provider Vertiv and 451 Research.

    A survey of mobile operators, released at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, found high interest in technologies and services that can improve energy efficiency of 5G networks.

    More than 90% of respondents expressed an interest in the emerging energy savings as a service (ESaaS) model of reducing energy costs.

    This model involves working with energy partners to use technologies including IoT sensors, artificial intelligence and other connected technology to gain real-time insight into energy consumption patterns and where improvements can be made.

    Vertiv has predicted that the move to 5G will increase total network energy consumption by up to 170% by 2026, with the largest increases expected in macro, node and network data center areas.

    Despite this and other challenges ahead, the survey also indicates that operators are optimistic about the potential of 5G, and believe the 5G era will start in earnest in 2021. Nearly nine in 10 (88%) respondents to the survey are planning to deploy 5G in 2021-2022.

    To support the transition to 5G, 37% of operators have deployed multi-access edge computing technology, with a further 47% planning to do so.

    451 Research research vice president Brian Partridge said the survey sought to deliver clarity around operators’ hopes and fears around 5G and edge deployments,

    “The two toughest connectivity challenges for supporting 5G topologies were revealed to be upgrading access and aggregation layer networks and adding new backhaul links,” he said.

    “Survey respondents indicated that the availability of high quality connectivity to distributed POPs and ease of site acquisition were viewed as the most critical enablers to 5G success. We were frankly surprised by some of these results and believe it brings clarity to the level of transformation the industry now faces.”

  • Airtel taps Ciena for high-speed backbone network

    Airtel taps Ciena for high-speed backbone network

    India’s Bharti Airtel has contracted Ciena to deploy a large-scale photonic control plane backbone network that will connect more than 4,000 towns across the nation.

    Under the agreement, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the companies will collaborate to deploy a network spanning 130,000km.

    The network deployment, which the companies said will be one of the world’s largest photonic control plane deployments, forms part of Airtel’s Project Leap network transformation program.

    Airtel plans to use the network to serve exploding demand for high-speed data services, and to enable the delivery of high-speed broadband to end users over 4G/5G/FTTH architectures.

    For retail and enterprise customers, the network will also support bandwidth on demand, optical VPNs, latency based routing and dynamic data center interconnection.

    Airtel CTO Randeep Sekhon said the backbone architecture will be capable of working with data rates of 400Gbps and higher, and delivering low-latency software-controlled connectivity for cloud infrastructure.

    “Airtel has always pioneered the introduction of cutting-edge network technologies to serve its customers. We are pleased to work with Ciena to build one of world’s largest optical spine and leaf networks, which is also a big step towards 5G readiness by leveraging our huge fiber assets,” he said.

    “This will not only scale our network for massive capacity but also protect traffic and enhance service delivery to all our customers. It will also help Airtel further strengthen its position as a key enabler of digital experiences in an increasingly connected world.”

  • VMware announces 5G-ready Telco Cloud platform

    VMware announces 5G-ready Telco Cloud platform

    VMware has announced the launch of its 5G-ready Telco Cloud platform, as well as new solutions aimed at helping ease operators’ migration to 5G.

    Announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the new Telco Cloud platform is optimized for both 4G and 5G using a single architecture that supports both networks.

    “5G is at a massive inflection point, and planning decisions made today will have far reaching financial and operational ramifications for CSPs going forward,” VMware EVP for strategy and corporate development and GM for Telco NFV Group Shekar Ayyar said.

    “By moving away from the inflexible, hardware-defined architectures of the past, and rolling out 5G as a fully-virtualized architecture right out of the gate, telcos will be able to beat competitors to market with new value-added services and improve the performance and operational efficiencies of their networks. VMware today provides the best foundation for the 5G-ready telco cloud.”

    The company also announced new and upgraded solutions in its telco portfolio aimed at helping operators prepare their networks for 5G.

    These include VMware Smart Assurance 10, that will provide full integration with VMware vCloud NFV, the new VMware NSX-T 2.4 Data Center release, and an expanded VMware Ready for NFV Certification Program.

    The upgraded portfolio also includes Vmware HCX – which is designed to help operators build hybrid highways interconnecting heritage infrastructure and 5G environments on which commercial OpenStack ecosystem workloads can be migrated to a distributed, multi-cloud architecture.

  • China Unicom hosts 5G in smart education conference

    China Unicom hosts 5G in smart education conference

    China Unicom is collaborating with Chinese gaming and mobile application developer NetDragon WebSoft to develop 5G-enabled future classroom applications.

    The operator jointly held a 5G + Smart Education Industry Education conference in Wuhan to demonstrate the potential of 5G to transform the education process.

    The conference, which was also organized by the National Engineering Research Center for E-Learning of Central China Normal University and National Engineering Laboratory for Educational Big Data, ad co-organized by NetDragon, Huawei and the China Information Communication Technologies Group Corporation.

    At the conference, China Unicom demonstrated the use of 5G and holographic technology to provide a new-experience open physics lecture to students across different regions simultaneously.

    NetDragon WebSoft also  demonstrated a wide range of education products, including Holographic Interactive Learning, VR Immersion Classroom, One-Stop Learning, and other educational products.

    “5G will become a crucial foundation for our country’s information and communication construction, as well as the key to the development of industrial internet and artificial intelligence,” China Unicom deputy general manager Liang Baojun said.

    “In this context, China Unicom, as one of the leaders in the telecommunication industry, will jointly conduct 5G business research with multiple industrial enterprise partners to lay the foundation for promoting full commercial use of 5G. At the same time, we will leverage on resources from our existing network, incubation of 5G application and support from our industrial chain to fully support the development of education in China.”

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  • Broadband Forum releases home Wi-Fi test standard

    Broadband Forum releases home Wi-Fi test standard

    With the rapid development of 4K TV, online gaming and smart homes, statistics from Broadband Forum show that more than 1 billion users now have access to fixed broadband, and Wi-Fi has become an essential part of broadband services provided by operators.

    Operators are increasingly providing service packages featuring Wi-Fi to enhance the home broadband experience of end users. This has created a compelling need to optimize Wi-Fi performance to support end-to-end performance of broadband services, including development of 4K video and VR services, and to minimize operators’ operating and maintenance costs.

    This need is highlighted by Ovum reports, which show that Wi-Fi problems account for 30% to 60% of operators’ broadband complaints.

    Clearly, home Wi-Fi quality is vital to both delivering a high-quality broadband experience and to operators’ operational efficiencies, yet there were no existing unified performance testing standards – until now.

    To address this issue, Broadband Forum announced the release of the first Wi-Fi performance test standard – Technical Report 398 Indoor Wi-Fi Performance Test Standard (TR-398) – during Mobile World Congress 2019.

    TR-398 is the first standard that systematically and quantitatively evaluates home Wi-Fi device performance across six dimensions: receiver sensitivity, throughput, coverage, multi-user support, anti-interference, and stability.

    By defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as the Wi-Fi equivalent bandwidth (throughput), rate at different distances, and throughput for multiple online users, the standard helps telecom operators and end users select optimal Wi-Fi solutions.

    The TR-398 standard describes the purpose, test scope, conditions, test cases, and standard thresholds for indoor home gateway Wi-Fi performance testing, helping telecom operators efficiently test indoor Wi-Fi performance, develop home networks and video services, and improve home broadband experience.

    From its inception as a project within Broadband Forum, TR-398 has received extensive industry attention. More than 16 operators and equipment vendors have actively participated in and supported the drafting of the standard.

    Many operators around the world are known to be planning to use TR-398 as the Wi-Fi performance admission specification for home broadband customer-premises equipment (CPE).

    According to Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh, Wi-Fi is the key infrastructure for broadband Internet access in the connected home and for a high-quality ultra HD video experience.

    “Wi-Fi performance of single gateways must meet service requirements and comply with standards to accelerate industry development,” said Mersh. “The goal of TR-398 is to define carrier-class home Wi-Fi performance. We are delighted that a critical mass of key industry players has participated in crafting this standard and are excited for the role that this standard will play in enabling a superior broadband experience in the connected home of the future.”

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  • Axiata Digital joins Singtel’s cross-border m-payment alliance

    Axiata Digital joins Singtel’s cross-border m-payment alliance

    Singtel Group and Malaysia’s Axiata Digital have signed an agreement to collaborate in the areas of mobile financial and digital services to promote the growth of the ASEAN digital economy. Under the agreement, Axiata Digital will join Singtel’s cross-border mobile payment alliance VIA, expanding the alliance’s footprint beyond Singapore and Thailand to Malaysia.

    Axiata Digital operates the Boost Malaysia mobile wallet, which as 3.7 million customers and 66,000 merchant points across the nation.

    In addition, the Singtel Group’s Open Platform payment gateway will partner with Axiata Digital’s API platform to enable cross-sharing of product portfolios.

    Both parties have also agreed to jointly promote and drive cross-border payments and to explore collaboration around rewards and loyalty programs.

    VIA was launched in October with Thai partners AIS and Kasikornbank. AIS is one of Singtel’s regional mobile associates. Singtel group plans to expand the VIA initiative to cover other associates Bharti Airtel in India, Globe in the Philippines, and Telkomsel in Indonesia.

    “We are delighted to welcome Boost Malaysia on board the VIA alliance, which gives us presence in an important new market. This shows the tremendous potential for us to grow cross-border mobile payments even beyond the countries where Singtel’s regional associates operate,” Singtel CEO Arthur Lang commented.

    “VIA’s continued expansion will provide consumers with the ease and convenience of using one mobile wallet to pay across multiple regional markets as they travel. We look forward to more partners joining VIA.”

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  • SoftBank deploying Cisco SRv6 network

    SoftBank deploying Cisco SRv6 network

    Cisco is collaborating with SoftBank on the world’s first Segment Routing IPv6 (SRv6) deployment. With the anticipation of the coming 5G era, Cisco has been assisting SoftBank to deploy an SRv6 network nationwide to build a future network architecture that is extremely scalable, with improved reliability, flexibility and agility, all while helping to reduce capex and opex.

    Current mobile networks are deployed as divided networks, with several layers and complicated control plane processing, which makes it difficult to respond to strict quality requirements like in the case of 5G. Deploying SRv6 in a 5G mobile network aims to simplify network layers and integrate user plane functions from end-to-end with only IPv6 protocol.

    “Converging 5G features into the end-to-end IPv6 layer with Segment Routing capabilities, is the key to embodying 5G in a simple, scalable architecture,” SoftBank CTO Junichi Miyakawa said.

    “With the depth of portfolio and strong network knowledge that Cisco brings to the table, we knew together we could bring our vision to life.”

    “SoftBank has kept an intense focus on improving service quality for its customers, which can be challenging when trying to reduce costs,” said Sumeet Arora, Senior Vice President of Service Provider Networks, Cisco. “With the launch of SRv6 network programming, it is pioneering the next phase of IP networking through automation, and championing the needs of its customers.”

    Cisco is leading the disruption in the industry with its technology innovations in routing, 5G, subscriber experience (mobile, cable, fixed), automation, optical and optics. Together with its Customer Experience team of experts, Cisco enables service providers, media and web companies to reduce cost and complexity, helps scale and secure their networks, and grow their revenue.

  • Indian telcos call for fiber deployment fund

    Indian telcos call for fiber deployment fund

    Indian operators are calling for the establishment of a fund to help incentivize deployments of fiber across the country ahead of the introduction of 5G.

    The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has urged the government to offer incentives including tax relief, rationalization and reduced red tape on investments in order to encourage the deployment of more fiber.

    The industry body believes a national policy should be established that would include the introduction of uniform and reasonable approval processes and right of way policies.

    As part of the government’s National Digital Communications Policy, the government is considering introducing incentives, and establishing a special purpose vehicle to grant low-interest loans to operators to fund network expansion.

    The policy also calls for the introduction of a new National Fibre Authority to help meet operators’ needs for fiber backhaul. The government aims to increase India’s fiber footprint fivefold by 2022 to around 7.5 million route kilometers. According to the policy, less than a quarter of current telecom towers are connected to a fiber backbone.

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  • Juniper Networks to buy Mist Systems for $405m

    Juniper Networks to buy Mist Systems for $405m

    Juniper Networks has arranged to acquire Mist Systems, a provider of cloud-managed wireless network solutions powered by artificial intelligence, for $405 million. Juniper Networks plans to use the acquisition to fill wireless gaps in its enterprise networking portfolio through the addition of Mist’s WLAN platform.

    Mist’s AI-driven wireless platform is designed to enhance the reliability of Wi-Fi networks. The company has also developed an AI-driven virtual assistant to simplify wireless troubleshooting.

    The company also uses virtual Bluetooth low energy technology, combined with Wi-Fi and IoT connectivity, to provide location-based wireless services to customers, including indoor wayfinding, proximity notifications, traffic analytics and asset tracking.

    Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim said he expects the acquisition to enhance the company’s presence in the cloud-managed segment of the wireless networking market, and to allow it to expand AI-driven network management capabilities across the end-to-end enterprise network.

    “Mist Systems is a great fit for Juniper and for our enterprise customers,” explained Rami Rahim, CEO of Juniper Networks,” he said.

    “Juniper and Mist share a common strategic goal. We believe in the Software-Defined Enterprise and Mist’s focus on bringing AI to IT is consistent with our core belief that we need to simplify operations and improve customer experience while lowering costs.”

    The acquisition still requires regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of the second quarter.

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  • M1 to be delisted after crossing buyout threshold

    M1 to be delisted after crossing buyout threshold

    Konnectivity Corp has succeeded in its takeover attempt for Singapore’s third largest operator M1 and will now take the company private. Konnectivity, the joint venture established by major M1 shareholders Keppel Corp and Singapore Press Holdings, has announced in a stock exchange filing that its share in M1 has now crossed the 90% threshold.

    With fewer than 10% of shares now owned by the public, M1 now no longer meets the threshold of listing on the Singapore stock exchange and will be delisted.

    Remaining shareholders will have until March 18 to accept the S$2.06 ($1.52) per share buyout offer if they do not want to own shares in a delisted company.

    Keppel and SPH first mounted their buyout offer for M1 in January, after announcing an intention to do so in December. Their joint venture Konnectivity gained majority control of M1 in mid-February.

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