In a significant move, Australia has auctioned off 3.4 GHz and 3.7 GHz spectrum bands, amassing a considerable A$722 million. Telstra emerged victorious, with plans to enhance its 5G offerings, notably in rural Australia. However, Telstra’s rivals also secured frequencies, with speculation around their strategic plans. ACMA chair affirmed the benefits of this allocation for digital connectivity and competition, reflecting the shared optimism of telecom regulators and companies.
In a strategic move to bolster its mobile network, Australia’s premier telecom firm, Telstra, acquires local operations of small cell provider Dense Air. Both financial details and timelines of the transaction remain veiled. This comes after the Australia Competition Tribunal blocked Telstra’s partnership with TPG, favoring competition and avoiding regional coverage setback. While rivals speculate, Dense Air’s retreat from Trans-Tasman markets coincides with Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners’ takeover. This deal provides Telstra’s network expansion plans with crucial additional spectrum capacity.
Intriguingly, SpaceX’s Starlink offers an innovative Direct to Cell feature allowing existing LTE phones to function even in remote locations – a potential boon for those often out of terrestrial coverage. With a rollout plan targeting texts by 2024, and full voice, data, and IoT compatibility by 2025, Starlink seems poised for a breakthrough. While the proposition seems formidable, concerns around possible limitations of Starlink’s proprietary technology remind us advantages of relying on industry best practices. Without disclosed pricing details, we can only anticipate how this venture will fare against other satellite connectivity contenders.
Huawei plans a comeback in the smartphone market with new 5G devices using domestic chip supplies. Concerns persist about the quality of these chips and Huawei’s absence from the Android Play Store. CityFibre challenges Openreach with a faster wholesale FTTH service, while Optus collaborates with SpaceX’s Starlink to expand mobile coverage in Australia’s remote areas. Ofcom investigates O2 Virgin Media over customer complaints, and the European Court of Justice rejects a ruling on the Three-O2 merger, adding to the uncertainty in the telecommunications regulatory landscape.
More than 130,000 Telstra customers’ personal information has been made public online. According to the company, there was no cyberattack involved; rather, the issue was caused by a “misalignment of databases” as stated by Telstra. The incident is the most recent in a string of massive, unauthorized exposures of personal information in Australia. The telecom giant confessed that the information, which included the names, addresses and phone numbers of customers who had requested that their information be kept confidential, had been published on the White Pages and Directory Assistance Services websites. Telstra’s routine auditing procedures revealed the data leak. Following the finding, Telstra began contacting affected consumers and is providing free identity theft protection services. The corporation claims to have since deleted the consumer information from public view. “Protecting our customers’ privacy is absolutely paramount, and for the customers impacted we understand this is an unacceptable breach…
T-Mobile gives an AI wildfire detection system access to 5G T-Mobile US, the disaster-focused tech startup Pano AI, and Portland General Electric have collaborated to install a network of 5G-connected cameras near Portland, Oregon. The cameras are linked to an AI detection system that watches for the earliest indications of wildfires so that the emergency services can respond to these possible emergencies more quickly than they would otherwise. Given the horrific wildfires that have ravaged the United States in recent years, systems such as these have the potential to be extremely valuable. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/yr7xr3ac European telecoms testing holographic calls Together with Matsuko, Telefónica, Orange, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone are creating a platform that will connect the physical and digital worlds via a mobile connection. The experimental platform takes advantage of 5G connectivity, which has a fast speed, high bandwidth and low latency. The system produces a 2D video…
Telstra to decommission over 160 5G sites More than 160 5G mobile infrastructure facilities will be shut down by Telstra. The local competition authority expressed worries that the installations were set up to obstruct and stop Optus, a competitor carrier, from deploying 5G services. Months after The Australian Financial Review revealed that Optus had complained to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) about the sites, Telstra has accepted an enforceable promise to deregister them. Using the mostly untapped 900 MHz range, Telstra is said to have registered 315 new sites in January, mainly in major cities and rural regions. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/2pnvk38t KDDI to compensate consumers for network outages A month ago, KDDI had its worst network outage ever, rendering voice and internet services unavailable to millions of Japanese consumers for nearly the entire weekend. KDDI statistics show that the outage prevented more than 7.65 million users from…
NTT DOCOMO and NEC Corporation have launched a proof-of-concept (PoC) testing to run NEC’s 5G core network service in a hybrid cloud environment that leverages the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud using end-to-end cloud-native network architecture. Through the PoC, DOCOMO, NEC, and AWS expect to prove the viability of cloud-native mobile networks leveraging a public cloud for network function virtualization (NFV). The PoC will validate the energy efficiency and high performance that AWS Graviton2 processors can bring to NEC’s 5GC in the AWS cloud to achieve an energy-performance advantage over comparable solutions. As the first step, 5GC network functions will run in the cloud on AWS infrastructure and corresponding 5GC network functions will reside on DOCOMO’s on-premises infrastructure to verify availability and operational feasibility. The second step will deploy the 5GC network function on AWS Outposts (on Amazon EC2 compute instances powered by Graviton2 processors) on DOCOMO’s premises. AWS…
VCC Live partners with DIDWW VCC Live, a provider of innovative cloud-based contact center software for inbound, outbound and cross-channel contact centers, has announced a strategic partnership with global telecommunications operator DIDWW, which provides high quality VoIP and SIP trunking services to businesses and telecommunications operators around the world. As part of the partnership, VCC Live will take advantage of DIDWW’s extensive virtual telephone number coverage, which will allow VCC Lives’s contact center business to grow effectively in all geographic areas. DIDWW’s vast inventory of virtual phone numbers allows VCC Live to continue the rapid growth of their global business. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/xhu9xheb Microsoft collaborates with O2 UK Microsoft and O2 are developing a proof-of-concept investigation to determine the benefits of on-premises Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) inside a private 5G network, focusing on security and low latency. The possible benefits of this proposed architecture are noteworthy, combining secure, high-bandwidth…
Softbank invests $700m in Sinch The Japanese operator Softbank has invested heavily in the Swedish software company Sinch. According to Sinch, it will use the profit to finance further mergers and acquisitions. The Japanese company acquired a portion of the newly issued shares in Sinch, as well as some existing ones, from various major shareholders. The total share expenditure amounted to approximately $698.5 million. Sinch said that it will use the proceeds from the shares primarily for beef up its financial flexibility for undertaking new acquisitions. Sinch announced two takeovers, one of Brazil’s CRM Wavy for $119 million, as well as the SAP Digital Interconnect deal, which was a cash and debt-free transaction valued at approximately $270 million. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/y5wgysrb Telefónica recently deployed nodes in Seville, Spain Telefónica has for the third time deployed edge nodes in its home country of Spain, recently launching this infrastructure in Seville.…
