As sanctions bite, Russia’s MTS begins to discount cell phones MTS, Russia’s largest operator, reported a 76.2 % year-on-year drop in Q1 net profit, blaming the results largely on rising interest rates caused by Western sanctions. Russia boosted local interest rates to 20% in the early days of the conflict before lowering them twice, leaving rates around 14% today. MTS has resorted to selling used and discounted smartphones, and is planning to sell its tower assets, in keeping with the current trend of monetizing passive assets located throughout Europe and beyond. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/c65t43kb Verizon warns of record rise in ransomware According to Verizon Business, the number of ransomware attacks on enterprises has increased by 13% year-on-year, resulting in a rise exceeding that of the previous five years combined. Ransomware was involved in some manner in one-quarter of the cases investigated, with desktop-sharing software and email being the two…
Orange expands its phone recycling program Orange, a French telecommunications company, is extending its “Re” program, which offers phone recycling, refurbishing, repairs and returns. Customers may drop off phones that are no longer in use at the store, and Orange says any income earned from recycling these old devices will be donated to the Emmaüs International network. The telecom company has stated that the initiative would be expanded to the rest of its European areas, which include Moldova, Slovakia, Romania and Spain. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/yckkrmss Exoprise launches new monitoring solution for collaboration apps Exoprise, a Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) service provider, has introduced the latest version of its Service Watch Desktop (SWD) platform. This product helps IT teams to successfully identify problems and forecast performance deterioration when using enterprise collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, WebEx and Google Meet. Businesses may drastically reduce MTTR and total troubleshooting time by…
RingPlan making phone automation possible With the addition of business automation to its range of services, RingPlan, a Southern California VoIP provider, is transforming the way people use their phones. VoIP phone services, video conferencing, business text messaging, and digital fax services are all part of the RingPlan platform. The newly-introduced RingPlan Sidecar is a user-configurable library of functions that may be used to construct unique automation sequences. Users may create up to 48 unique sequences that they can call up at any moment to execute a range of time-saving activities. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/2ztxhz9d DT partners SKT to bring metaverse to Germany SK Telecom (SKT) and Deutsche Telekom (DT) have formed a collaboration to provide Ifland, South Korea’s metaverse platform, to German users. The partnership will see the two conduct a live platform trial by the end of the year. According to reports, the test will feature the building…
BT announces a new deal with Amazon Web Services BT’s Digital division has announced a new partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which will see the cloud giant assist BT in migrating internal applications to the cloud. This initiative is part of BT’s larger strategy, which aims to modernize the company’s operations and save up to £2 billion each year by 2025. The operator claims that it will continue to make large investments and leverage AWS technology to improve its internal operations. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/2p9ykxaz Apple under pressure over NFC access Apple has been accused by the European Commission (EC) of misusing its position to prevent competitor mobile wallets from being used on iOS devices. The European Commission stated that in order to benefit Apple Pay, the vendor restricts third-party wallet software developers’ access to the NFC input on its devices. If this statement is confirmed, it would appear…
BT to make EE its flagship brand BT Group has announced intentions to make EE its main consumer-facing brand. This move is intended to streamline the mobile operator’s service while also propelling the company into new areas of convergence. The BT brand will be more focused on consumers who utilize standalone broadband and telephone services, while BT Sport will remain unchanged. BT will also continue to be the name for its Enterprise and Global divisions. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/bdk4ef3k NTT and Sky Perfect JSAT forma joint venture NTT and SKY Perfect JSAT have agreed to form a joint venture company to increase humanity’s use of space. The formation of the joint venture is a significant step toward the construction of the space-integrated computer network specified in the two companies’ partnership agreement of 2021. The collaboration will help to advance the global space industry and promote the achievement of a sustainable…
Nokia to deliver additional networking scale and capacity to Microsoft Nokia’s 7250 IXR chassis-based interconnect routers have been selected to serve high-density 400GE applications in Microsoft’s tier-2 network architecture. Nokia will also provide fixed-form-factor platforms for Microsoft’s alternative network applications. The agreement strengthens the two companies’’ long-standing partnership, which has focused on bringing massively scalable, flexible and highly robust networking to the data center. The firms previously collaborated as part of the open-source SONiC effort to develop chassis-based solutions tailored to the needs of high-capacity data centers. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/bdck5wuw NICE partners with Deutsche Telekom Global Business NICE has partnered with Deutsche Telekom Global Business, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom that provides telecommunications and connectivity solutions to organizations across all verticals, including the public sector. As part of this agreement, Deutsche Telekom Global Business will use the NICE CXone CCaaS platform and associated apps in various communications initiatives that…
T-Mobile US hacked and tried paying off the hackers Following a cyberattack last year in which the personal data of 30 million customers was stolen, US-based T-Mobile appears to have attempted to repurchase the stolen data. A third party contacted the hackers and paid them $200,000 to keep the information from leaking, but they sold it anyway. The data was allegedly sold on RaidForums, which appears to be an online pirate market. The US Department of Justice has issued an indictment against Diogo Santos Coelho, the site’s administrator. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/395n4z87 SK Telecom teams up with Morph Interactive on metaverse functions SK Telecom has launched a new collaboration with Morph Interactive, a Seoul-based company specializing in computer system design and three-dimensional motion graphics. The two businesses have signed a strategic partnership deal in which SK Telecom will purchase an undisclosed interest in Morph Interactive and collaborate to create additional…
Cellcom and Voipfuture expanding their cooperation In addition to the currently provided monitored business voice services, Voipfuture, a supplier of a unique carrier-grade, dual-visibility voice service quality monitoring and analytics solution, stated that it has completed the deployment of its Qrystal monitoring system in Cellcom’s IMS core. Since 2018, Cellcom has been using Qrystal to monitor enterprise customer voice services and the organization will now use Qrystal to ensure voice quality for both individual and business users. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/5b2zt6jf Curious Thing to scale its solution with Vonage Curious Thing, an Australian voice-based conversational AI provider, is adopting the Vonage Communication Platform to grow its products and improve customer experiences. This will be achieved through automated and AI-enabled proactive client interaction according to Vonage, a worldwide supplier of cloud communications. Curious Thing users may now connect at scale, across regions and channels, using a mix of Curious Thing and…
BT putting its digital voice service rollout on halt Last year, BT began rolling out Digital Voice, which is a VoIP solution that works over the company’s broadband network rather than the old analogue network, as the name implies. This service is an essential improvement, as BT points out, to replace analogue technology, which is rapidly becoming outmoded. The operator is, however, delaying the Digital Voice switchover for consumers who do not wish to switch right away. BT did not specify how long the halt will occur, nonetheless, it is confident that the switchover will take place soon. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/mt23py8u DigitalBridge enters into mobile infrastructure deal with Telenet Telenet has agreed to sell all of its mobile telecommunications towers in Belgium to DigitalBridge, a US-based real estate investment trust and a subsidiary of the DigitalBridge Group. The investment firm has agreed to pay $820 million for Telenet’s 3,322…
DT and Vodafone to tackle areas of Germany with no 4G coverage Deutsche Telekom (DT) and Vodafone Germany have announced further advancements in their efforts to close 4G coverage gaps in distant or rural parts of Germany where consumers are serviced by only one mobile network operator (MNO) or no operator at all. Over the last several years, the two operators have worked to increase coverage in 3,000 to 4,000 so-called 4G gray spots, which are commonly described as places where only one MNO can provide service. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/yndfwnvb Spectralink launches DECT devices with Microsoft Teams SIP Gateway Spectralink, a global workplace mobility solutions supplier, has announced the availability of DECT devices that are compatible with the Microsoft Teams SIP Gateway. Company-critical deskless workers, who must travel to a remote site in order to carry out their duties, are very much relied upon by enterprise companies such as…