The Indian government has apparently released the first tranche of the recently announced Rs1.64 lakh crore (over US$20 billion) revival package it has agreed to give the state-owned operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
As data demand increases across the world, there’s more pressure to ensure that telecoms infrastructure is able to deal with it – as shown by recent announcements involving fibre and submarine cables in Bangladesh.
ZTE’s H1 results for 2022 painted a rosy picture, with the Chinese vendor’s operating revenue up 12.7% year-on-year alongside a 12% increase to its net profit.
The Asia-Pacific tower-selling trend may be about to continue with widely reported news that PT Indosat (aka Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison), one of Indonesia's largest telecommunication networks and services providers with around 63 million cellular subscribers, is planning to sell some of its passive infrastructure.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), the loss-making state-owned telecom firm that provides fixed line telephones, WLL services and mobile connectivity in the cities of New Delhi and Mumbai, has defaulted on an interest payment of Rs35.15 (about US$4.4 million crore) to Union Bank of India (UBI) – and has stated this fact in a regulatory filing.
It’s not just Indian operator Reliance Jio that has been making the news for parent company and multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd. Now RIL’s technology business Jio Platforms and US technology giant Meta have collaborated to launch JioMart on WhatsApp.
In a flurry of announcements underlining its plans for an aggressive 5G rollout in India, the giant operator Reliance Jio has revealed partnerships with Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Meta and Intel.
In another attempt to speed up mobile services rollout across a vast country, an effort made even more urgent given the imminent arrival of 5G, India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has again amended the rules concerning right of way (RoW).
State-owned Indian operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is apparently planning to sell 10,000 of its 68,000 towers with an estimated value of 4,000 crore (about US$501 million).
The Papua New Guinea Government said it will make a final decision on the partial privatisation of operator Telikom PNG soon.
Next-generation broadband satellite operator Kacific Broadband Satellites Group has partnered with recently launched mobile service provider Vodafone PNG to deploy the satellite operator’s mobile backhaul services in Papua New Guinea.
China loaned the Solomon Islands US$66 million to construct 161 towers which will be supplied by Huawei, a move to boost coverage in rural areas, reported The Guardian.
There are still a few caveats, but it looks as though giant operator Vodafone is getting closer to selling its stake in India's largest mobile tower installation company after Indian news reports suggested a Canadian pension fund is considering making an offer.
New rules on data storage have been introduced in Vietnam, further limiting the room for manoeuvre of social media companies that are already trying to deal with guidelines that were announced last year.
Philippines mobile operator Smart is collaborating with satellite operator Omnispace to explore and demonstrate the capabilities of space-based 5G communications using low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.
All six of Malaysia’s main mobile network operators have now reportedly agreed to take up equity in a state-controlled 5G wholesale provider, Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB).
The Indian government says it will restrict foreign telecom vendors from taking a role in the 4G and 5G modernisation projects planned by state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL. It has said that contracts must mainly go to Indian companies.
To meet what it describes as growing demand for cloud services in Asia-Pacific, Google has announced plans to bring new Google Cloud regions to Malaysia, Thailand and New Zealand. This is addition to similar plans for Berlin, Dammam, Doha, Mexico, Tel Aviv and Turin announced in July.
Dito Telecommunity has filed cases with the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) arguing that its rivals Globe Telecom and Smart Communications abused their market dominance.
In its continuing drive to boost local industry, it now seems that India is taking aim at low-priced smartphones from China of the sort sold in large quantities in the country by companies like Xiaomi.
Nokia has announced that it has successfully completed testing of voice and data calls over what it says is the world’s first 4.9G/LTE private wireless network to support European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 2 Signalling.
Philippines-based integrated telecommunications giant PLDT has been in the news recently after announcing plans to close down its 3G network. It has also announced the activation of a trans-Pacific cable system.
Further tower sales are afoot across Southeast Asia, with Indonesia’s Telkomsel and the Philippines’ PLDT each agreeing to shift more sites.
For the second time in as many days Indian tech giant Jio Platforms is in the dealmaking news, this time thanks to a partnership with Subex, a provider of telecom analytics solutions and AI-led digital trust products, involving the Subex AI orchestration platform, HyperSense.
Vodafone announced a US$55 million cashing injection to bolster its Fiji unit’s network infrastructure to support surging data demand in the archipelago nation.
Vietnamobile has selected Comviva to power AI-led intelligent customer engagement.
Indonesia’s new licensing law faced an unexpected issue on Saturday after the Indonesian communication ministry blocked PayPal due to its failure to meet a deadline under new licensing rules.
The Indian government has offered an upbeat initial assessment of the 5G spectrum auction that finally finished on 1 August, saying that the 71% of spectrum sold – 51.236GHz out of 72.098GHz – is good enough to cover the entire country with 5G within two or three years.
ZTE announced that its CEO Xu Ziyang was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to the Asia Mobile Industry Award at the GSMA’s Asia Mobile Awards (The AMOs) 2022 in Hong Kong on July 29th.
Day four of the Indian 5G spectrum auction is drawing to a close, and we hope to have a clearer idea of the winners and losers by early next week. But in the meantime 5G testing is continuing, with Vodafone Idea (aka Vi) now involved in a pilot project run by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Nokia is deploying its XGS Passive Optical Network (XGS-PON) solution for Cambodian internet service provider SINET as demand for high speed enterprise connectivity escalates in the market.
While we await the final results of the 5G auctions, Indian news outlets are reporting that the government has finally approved the merger of state-owned companies Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). The government will also pump more money into BSNL.
MEASAT-3d, described by Malaysian operator MEASAT as its latest and most advanced satellite, has now entered commercial service, after its handover by Airbus Defence and Space.
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