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Tag: telecom

  • Nepal Telecom to launch prepaid 4G on Feb 4

    Nepal Telecom to launch prepaid 4G on Feb 4

    Nepal Telecom signed up around 40,000 LTE customers in the first 15 days since launching Nepal’s first commercial 4G network.

    The state-owned operator launched LTE services in the Kathmandu and Pokhara areas on January 1, and has seen a growing trickle of 4G subscribers, MyRepublica reported, citing comments from managing director Kamini Rajbhandari to Nepal’s parliament.

    According to the report, 4G services will be enabled for iPhones shortly, and for prepaid customers from February 4. The operator is also targeting nationwide 4G services within a year.

    But the parliamentary committee pressured the operator to address commonly-cited problems including weak network quality and credit recharge problems within a month.

    The committee also instructed Nepal Telecom to provide internet services in rural areas through the Rural Telecommunication Development Fund.

    Nepal Telecom, the Ministry of Information and Communications and regulator the Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) have also been instructed to amend the nation’s 20 year old Telecommunications Act, as well as the 2003 Telecommunications Policy.

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  • China Mobile taps Brocade software for SDN cloud rollout

    China Mobile taps Brocade software for SDN cloud rollout

    China Mobile will deploy NFV software from Brocade at several of its key data centers as part of its first SDN-based commercial public cloud rollout.

    The operator is deploying virtual traffic management technology from the networking vendor, initially at its Southern Base and Northern Base data centers.

    The deployment will be conducted in conjunction with China Mobile’s strategic SDN and NFV supplier Nokia. Brocade’s software will run within the Nuage Networks virtual service platform, which is being implemented by Nokia as part of a project announced last week.

    China Mobile is playing a major role in the Chinese government’s Internet Plus initiative to support the development of new business models enabled by ICT, such as fixed and mobile internet connectivity, cloud, big data and the IoT.

    As part of this effort, China Mobile has taken on the role of a large-scale cloud service provider for major enterprise and government customers, and is deploying SDN-based cloud services to support these operations.

    “The promise of network functions virtualization is the ability to scale services on demand. When it comes to service providers, they don’t come much bigger than China Mobile in terms of potential scale,” Brocade China country manager Henry Zhu said.

    “We’re naturally delighted that Brocade’s advanced NFV appliance technology has been selected by China Mobile. This is a groundbreaking project within China’s service provider landscape and we are fully committed to ensuring it results in complete success.”

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  • Myanmar’s fourth cellco to use the brand name Mytel

    Myanmar’s fourth cellco to use the brand name Mytel

    Myanmar’s newly-licensed fourth mobile operator will use the brand name Mytel, and will aim to differentiate by targeting rural areas and competing on price.

    The joint venture between Vietnam’s Viettel, the consortium of local ICT companies that make up Myanmar National Telecom Holding Public and Star High Public Company was awarded a telecoms license last week.

    The new company’s external relations officer as stating that Mytel will make use of the telecoms assets used by Star High Public Company’s state-owned parent company Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). MEC owns MECtel, a state operator with access to extensive tower and fiber assets.

    Mytel also plans to utilize capacity on the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) subsea cable, which lands in Myanmar. According to the report, state operator MPT acts as a co-landing party for the connection but does not participate directly in the project.

    The operator plans to offer 2G, 3G and 4G services with a focus on extending coverage in rural areas, and offering services at a lower price than rivals Telenor Myanmar, Uninor Myanmar and the joint venture between MPT and KDDI.

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  • 5G value chain to generate up to $3.5tr in 2035

    5G value chain to generate up to $3.5tr in 2035

    A new study commissioned by Qualcomm projects that 5G technology has the potential to create 22 million jobs worldwide and produce up to $12.3 trillion worth of goods and services by 2035.

    The landmark study into the potential economic and social impact of 5G worldwide projects that by this time, 5G’s full economic benefit should be realized across the globe.

    The 5G Economy study was jointly conducted by research firms IHS Markit, PSB and UC California economist Professor Dr David Teece.

    According to the study, the 5G value chain itself is anticipated to generate up to $3.5 trillion in revenue in 2035.

    Over time, 5G will boost real global GDP growth by $3 trillion dollars cumulatively from 2020 to 2035, which would be the quivalent in today’s dollars of adding a new economy the size of India to the world.

    “I’ve spent many years studying the impact of general purposes technologies, and it’s clear that 5G will propel mobile into that category, assuring the technology’s long-term impact on society and continued growth for decades,” Teece said.

    Polling research conducted in tandem with the economic study also suggests that  business decision makers and opinion leaders around the globe overwhelmingly agree than 5G will enable new products, services and use cases that have not been conceived yet.

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  • China Mobile to cooperate with Ericsson on IoT

    China Mobile to cooperate with Ericsson on IoT

    China Mobile and Ericsson have signed an agreement to cooperate on the Internet of Things as part of China Mobile’s Big Connectivity strategy.

    The companies signed a strategic collaboration agreement at the China Mobile Global Partner Conference in Guangzhou, China last month, and announced the development last week.

    As part of the agreement, China Mobile will use the Ericsson Device Connectivity Platform to streamline the provisioning process for IoT services and deploy services to capitalize on potential new business opportunities.

    The operator plans to use the platform to integrate resources from roaming partners and offer enterprise customers worldwide reliable connectivity based on service level agreements.

    “China Mobile expects to have 200 million IoT connections by 2017. We stick to the strategy of open cooperation with our partners for win-win results,” China Mobile EVP Yuejia Sha commented.

    “China Mobile strengthens the collaboration with global leading enterprises of advanced platform, application and intelligent hardware to drive the rapid development of our industry, and provides superior applications and services to our customers.”

    Ericsson said the Device Connectivity Platform has been adopted by more than two dozen operators since it launched in 2008, supporting 1,700 industry customers.

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  • Indian telcos square off over interconnection rates

    Indian telcos square off over interconnection rates

    Indian operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are squaring off with Reliance Jio Infocomm and Tata Teleservices in court over regulator Trai’s recent decision to fix interconnection rates.

    Trai recently set interconnection rates at zero for landline to wireless calls and 14 paise ($0.002) per minute for wireless to wireless calls. Airtel and Vodafone subsequently filed a court challenge to this decision.

    Now Reliance Jio and Tata Teleservices have filed court briefs opposing this legal challenge, The Telegraph India reported.

    Incumbent operators Airtel and Vodafone are opposing the order on the grounds that it unfairly penalises larger players. In Vodafone’s court filing in November, the operator said the regulations are illegal, arbitrary and beyond the functions of Trai to implement.

    The operators have also argued that the order is unfair because they should be compensated for rival operators using their infrastructure. Airtel is meanwhile calling on Trai to fix termination rates on a cost-based and work-done basis.

    Reliance Jio is a disruptive newcomer to the market, currently offering services for free as a promotional offer to lure customers from rival networks, while Tata Teleservices is one of the market’s smaller operators.

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  • Nepal Telecom launches 4G services

    Nepal Telecom launches 4G services

    State-owned operator Nepal Telecom has launched 4G services over the 1800-MHz band in the Kathmandu and Pokhara areas. The operator has upgraded 308 base stations in the Kathmandu area and 25 in Pokhara to support 4G services.

    Currently Nepal Telecom is only able to provide 4G using 5 MHz of 1800-MHz spectrum, limiting peak data speeds to 32.4Mbps. But the operator has asked regulator NTA for another 5 MHz, which will allow a speed increase to 100 Mbps.

    According to the report, the company is currently providing 4G data services at 3G rates – a base rate of 1 rupee ($0.0091) per megabyte – but plans to reduce the tariff shortly.

    The network is at present only available for Nepal Telecom’s GSM postpaid customers. The operator is also yet to make a deal with Apple to allow the use of iOS devices on its 4G network

    Nepal Telecom secured a 4G operating license in October, after the NTA approved the operator’s 4G application the previous month. The operator plans to progressively roll out 4G nationwide.

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  • Viettel pioneers free roaming in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam

    Viettel pioneers free roaming in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam

    Vietnam’s state-owned telecom Viettel will eliminate overseas roaming charges between its operators in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from January 2017.

    “Users of Metfone in Cambodia, Unitel in Laos and Viettel in Vietnam will be charged at the local mobile fee when they make cross-border calls to each other,” said Nguyen Manh Hung, Viettel’s managing director, who regards the three countries as an economic and cultural bloc.

    Discussions about free roaming services started years ago in Australia, Europe, and New Zealand, but without bearing fruit. Free roaming within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has also been discussed by regional ministers since 2013.

    Viettel has well-established infrastructure in the three countries, and is the first telecom to launch such a service within a regional economic bloc, promising cheaper cross-border rates for calls and data.

    In a statement released on Thursday, Viettel said it expected its individual operators to lose some revenue initially with the reduced charges, but provided no figures. The figure could be 2% according to one Europe model in 2013. Viettel expects users to become more active when they travel if they can continue paying domestic rates.

    Military-run Viettel posted revenue of $9.7 billion in 2015 with 13% year-on-year growth, and profits up 8% to $2 billion.

    As of September 2016, Viettel had 90 million customers, of which 26 million were in nine overseas markets: Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Haiti, Laos, Mozambique, Peru, Tanzania, and Timor Leste. Viettel has targeted 25 countries by 2020.

    Cambodia and Laos were Viettel’s first foreign ventures, and remain its most profitable. By August, Unitel in Laos had $1 billion in accumulated revenue over seven years and aggregate profit of $300 million. Unitel has a brand value of $132 million, making it one of the 30 most valuable in the region and top in Laos, according to a report by UK-based Brand Finance in April. The company currently has more than 2.5 million customers. It accounts for 47% of Laos’s mobile market and 35% of the broadband market.

    Metfone in Cambodia has a brand value of $94 million and is the leading mobile service provider in the country with 5.5 million customers and 37% market share. It recorded $256 million in revenue last year.

    Viettel already operates in East Timor, and is about to launch in Myanmar with a $1.5 billion commitment and two local partnerships. It is also believed to be negotiating its entry into Indonesia.

  • Firms cash in on big data benefits

    Firms cash in on big data benefits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • New Zealand’s Chorus appoints Kate McKenzie as CEO

    New Zealand’s Chorus appoints Kate McKenzie as CEO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Bob Bakish takes helm at Viacom

    Bob Bakish takes helm at Viacom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • India to start screening of imported telecoms gear in April

    India to start screening of imported telecoms gear in April

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • DoCoMo joins CAICT’s 5G Promotion Group

    DoCoMo joins CAICT’s 5G Promotion Group

    Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has teamed up with the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT) on research and development into potential 5G standards.

    As part of the collaboration, DoCoMo will join the CAICT-initiated IMT-2020 Promotion Group 5G trial. DoCoMo and CAICT will also evaluate possible frequency bands for future 5G networks.

    DoCoMo joined the IMT-2020 promotion group in August to co-operate with major mobile operators and vendors on 5G R&D and standardization.

    The operator has also been conducting joint 5G R&D with vendors including Ericsson, Huawei and others.

    The IMT-2020 Promotion Group was jointly established by three Chinese ministries in early 2013, based on the original IMT-Advanced Promotion Group. It is the major platform to promote research into 5G in China.

    The group is divided into dedicated units covering areas including technology, spectrum, intellectual property and network asrchitectures.

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  • APT nearing 100% 4G take-up

    APT nearing 100% 4G take-up

    Taiwan’s Asia Pacific Telecom (APT) is nearing 100% take-up of 4G services among existing customers, and expects nearly all its subscribers to have migrated to 4G by the end of Q1.

    APT only has around 100,000 3G users left to migrate to 4G, around 6% of the operator’s total subscriber base. The remaining users are expected to upgrade in the next few months.

    In order to encourage migration and boost interest in the operator’s 4G services among new customers, APT has introduced a new line of plans that offer unlimited broadband and free domestic voice calls even to subscribers of Taiwan’s other mobile operators. The plan starts at TW$999 ($31.39).

    APT chairman Lu Fang-ming told the Taipei Times that the operator has reached the subscriber migration target set when the operator launched 4G two years ago.

    As the operator moves to the next phase, it plans to focus on expanding its customer base to improve ARPU.

    APT also recently announced a new home OTT video service to be delivered to Taiwanese customers in collaboration with Netflix, China’s iQiyi, movie distributor Catchplay and Taiwan Mobile’s myVideo, the report adds.

  • Australia plans controversial rural NBN levy

    Australia plans controversial rural NBN levy

    The Australian government is planning to impose a monthly levy on rival networks to the state-funded National Broadband Network (NBN) to help fund the roll out of the NBN to rural areas.

    Communications minister Mitch Fifield said the government will seek to pass legislation that would establish an A$40 million ($30 million) Regional Broadband Scheme.

    This scheme would be funded by a levy of A$7.30 per month for each fixed line connection provided by rival superfast broadband providers, increasing every year into 2022 when it reaches A$8 per month.

    The levy would not apply for small companies with under 2,000 customers. Australia’s largest operator Telstra and main rival Optus will also be exempt because they are transitioning their fixed line operations onto the NBN as part of separate deals with the government.

    But the government’s own advice indicates that such a levy will be passed on to consumers resulting in higher prices.

    High-speed providers have complained that the proposed levy could “cripple” their operations, destroying 30% of their revenue, the report adds. The proposal has also been slammed as extremely anti-competitive.

    The presence of competing fiber networks to the NBN has been a contentious issue since the project was first announced in 2007, with successive governments fearing that the rival services could “cherry pick” the network’s most lucrative customers in dense population centers without needing to invest large sums to reach sparse regional areas.