RingCentral, a global provider of business cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration and contact center solutions, has announced an extension of its hardware ecosystem as well as new RingCentral Rooms feature updates. Organizations may use RingCentral Rooms to turn their meeting locations into dynamically enabled video conferencing destinations. Customers may now choose from a number of additional hardware partners to equip their conference rooms with high-quality, intelligent audio and video, as well as a whiteboard, allowing meeting attendees to better interact while also being seen and heard. RingCentral is collaborating with three more hardware suppliers to satisfy the ever-increasing market demands for conferencing services. New partnerships with Avocor, Jabra and EPOS provide the company users more options and new features that improve the meeting room experience for improved interaction and smoother collaboration. “Strong relationships with strategic hardware partners are important as we strive to address the complex challenges…
Spain’s Telefónica has announced that it will sell a portion of its rural fiber network to a group led by France’s Credit Agricole and Vauban for roughly 1 billion euros. According to a statement released by Telefónica, the financial group and the investment firm will buy a 45 percent stake in Bluevia, a provider of rural fiber, with a total valuation of 2.5 billion euros. Telefónica also stated that it anticipates the deal to be finalized by year’s end, subject to regulatory approvals. Bluevia is a platform for managing and deploying fiber networks in underserved rural parts of Spain in collaboration with networks administered by third-party operators. The transaction takes place less than a month after Telefónica established their dedicated neutral wholesale FTTH provider, which is primarily focused on connecting areas comprising Spain’s lowest population densities. As a neutral wholesaler, Bluevia will establish a fiber network in…
The metaverse, a product of today’s Internet, is being welcomed as the next phase of communications, promising superior online experiences in a shared virtual world. Some have dubbed it as the “Internet on steroids,” since instead of merely reading text and viewing videos, individuals would be able to participate in virtual realms thanks to technology like 3D and artificial intelligence. The metaverse, one of the trendiest tech buzzwords at the moment, promises a future in which the virtual and real worlds are intricately linked. So, what role will telecommunications companies play in this possible future? What is the metaverse? The Metaverse – a combination of “meta” (beyond) and “verse” (universe) – sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. And that is actually the case. The term “Metaverse” first appeared in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. However, the science fiction metaverse and the Metaverse envisioned by Facebook (now…
Google and Oracle experience data center outages due to UK heatwave Following a record-breaking heat wave that blasted Britain on Tuesday, data centers used by Google and Oracle Corp. have both failed. Both businesses attributed the disruptions to “cooling systems” issues. Both Google and Oracle have shut down equipment, causing interruptions to their cloud services, in order to prevent irreparable damage to physical components and thereby creating a lengthy outage. On Tuesday, when the outages started to spread through London, temperatures in the UK reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/3t2xm2a5 FBI and Verizon Network enter $400 million contract Verizon and the FBI have signed a new $400 million deal, with the telecoms giant assisting to increase the data bandwidth for the law enforcement organization. New features include a worldwide Virtual Private Network and faster data transmission rates using 4G and 5G wireless connectivity within the…
The cloud communications platform from Alianza has been chosen by Schurz Communications, a provider of cloud services and broadband media, to offer its Antietam Broadband and Orbitel customers brand-new, cutting-edge, high-margin unified communication (UC) services and increase its addressable market. Schurz will be able to unlock and produce additional income from its current broadband services client base with the help of Alianza’s Business Cloud Communications (BCC) and Business Text Messaging (BTM) solutions, all while streamlining its back-end processes. Schurz sought a simple-to-deploy and maintain solution that would allow the company to rapidly extend and modify its service offerings in response to its customers’ rising demand for voice-first UC services, and their need to get such services from a reliable broadband provider. Customers of Schurz will be able to communicate, meet, and share across all of their devices thanks to Alianzas powerful, adaptable, all-in-one Business Cloud Communications solution.…
A cloud-based business Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system called Hosted Voice will be added to the Smart City Networks portfolio of goods and services, the US-based provider of cutting-edge technology and communication services for trade exhibitions and events, has announced. The Smart City Hosted Voice solution, which was created with mobile users in mind, provides one-number calling from any device, and round-the-clock access to admin and user portals that let users individually manage their phone settings, greetings, out-of-office messages, phone mail, and other features. Smart City Hosted Voice provides a mobile app that allows any device to be used alternately for incoming and outgoing calling, and the system may be linked with Microsoft Teams deployments. Hosted Voice is a telecommunications platform that provides crystal clear call quality, flexibility and a variety of capabilities to tailor the product to the specific demands of any site, whether…
Ericsson has announced that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has approved its $6.2 billion acquisition of Vonage Holdings. The transaction is scheduled to close by Thursday, July 21. The Swedish vendor’s most significant purchase to date is that of Vonage. This acquisition is a crucial component of Ericsson’s strategy, which calls for creating a market-leading service for businesses. Both the company’s boards and shareholders have approved the $6.2 billion all-cash transaction, but the deal was briefly put on hold while the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) looked at it. Following the transaction’s announcement, Ericsson became involved in a controversy in February involving payments to the Islamic State militant organization in Iraq. This incident led to investigations by various U.S. authorities, raising concerns that the deal would be in jeopardy. In spite of Ericsson’s offer price of $21 per…
Startup Nothing debuts with its first smartphone Phone 1 Nothing’s first phone, the Nothing Phone 1, was finally launched this week. The Nothing Phone 1 is one of the most intriguing newcomers to the smartphone market in recent years. Carl Pei, a former OnePlus co-founder, established the startup less than two years ago. The company has showcased several of the Phone 1’s most important features in the weeks building up to the launch event, including the inclusion of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G Plus CPU and the Android-based Nothing OS software. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/yc2bmksu Nokia will lead German 6G project Nokia has announced that it will lead 6G-ANNA, a German government-funded 6G lighthouse project, that began on July 1, 2022. Nokia will lead and drive 6G research and standardization in collaboration with the 29 partners, including industry members, subject matter experts, start-ups, research organizations, and universities in Germany. The project…
A brand-new software called Open Doors for safe, secure and private audio voice connectivity has been released by Truecaller, a global platform for validating contacts and eliminating unsolicited communications. The goal of Open Doors is to facilitate amusing, spontaneous, private interactions on a worldwide scale. The Google Play Store and Apple App Store will offer Open Doors absolutely free to download and use. The software is the product of diligent development work by teams in India and Stockholm. Users may sign up for the app using their phone number and a one-time password (OTP), or they can sign in using their current Truecaller account. Users may start a chat at any time, and everyone in their contact list who also has the app installed, will receive an invitation to participate. When their friend joins, their contacts will be notified as well, and the cycle will continue indefinitely.…
Deutsche Telekom has selected Google Cloud for its first cloud-native trials in network and data analytics. The operator expanded its partnership with Google Cloud to develop a collaborative roadmap for the telecoms sector by bringing the power of the cloud closer to mobile and connected devices at the network’s edge. The initial phase of this extended Deutsche Telekom and Google Cloud relationship will focus on core network services, network analytics and customer experience analytics. Deutsche Telekom and Google Cloud will jointly test a range of network services in Austria, including 5G standalone and remote packet gateway operations, using Google Cloud and Google Distributed Cloud Edge. In order to leverage data-driven operations and automated workflows with open, Kubernetes-based solutions provided by Google Cloud, Deutsche Telekom will explore a number of use cases including anomaly detection, performance counters and trace data. The operator will be able to better manage…