Spanish wireless infrastructure giant Cellnex Telecom has acquired the Portuguese telecommunications tower and site operator OMTEL, owned by Altice Europe and Belmont Infra Holding. This agreement is worth around EUR 800 million, and the acquisition includes the projected deployment of 400 new mobile cell sites in the next four years, adding to the 3,000 sites that OMTEL currently operates in Portugal. Cellnex said that to facilitate the upcoming 5G roll-out in Portugal, the company has been rapidly expanding, and its build-to-suit (BTS) program could involve constructing a further 350 sites for third parties by 2027. The estimated investment for this BTS plan is expected to be EUR 140 million. The Spanish towerco anticipates that this acquisition will increase the company’s sales backlog by EUR 2.5 billion to EUR 38.5 billion. Tobias Martinez, CEO of Cellnex, said, “With OMTEL, we are not only integrating one of the leading independent…
Audian, a Unified Communications (UC) solutions provider seeking to redefine the telecom industry, and Xarios Technologies, an independent software vendor and developer of advanced telephony applications, have entered into a strategic alliance agreement to bring the next generation of real-time call analytics and business insights to VoIP telecommunications systems. These leading companies in the telecom environment will help their end customers with new applications and provide integration between platforms that facilitate in-depth information and data-driven business solutions. Brandon Bazemore, CEO of Audian, said, “We pride ourselves on maximizing our customers’ Telecompetence by leveraging the latest in software and technology to simplify the complexities once associated with telecom, giving our customers back time and energy to focus on growing their business. Our partnership with Xarios only extends our dedication to these principles, and we look forward to learning from and utilizing their approach to call analytics and reporting to deliver performance…
FIX Network has announced a significant achievement towards their goal of securing transactions and private keys on SIM cards. As an innovative joint venture made of leading teams in telecoms, cybersecurity and blockchain, FIX Network will leverage the existing cellular infrastructure by defining and implementing a new blockchain-based security protocol. According to the announcement, the FIX Network Security Protocol will ensure the security and safety of private keys used by applications on mobile devices, and will provide a trusted environment for protecting a customer’s digital identities and digital assets. A significant innovation by the company is the storage of private keys on the subscriber’s SIM card, and the execution of cryptographic operations on that SIM card using applets. FIX Network emphasized that the private keys are never exposed to the mobile device or to a public network, thus enhancing security of the stored Digital Identities and other digital assets such…
Globe Telecom, a major provider of telecommunications services in the Philippines, is seeking to increase the number of cell sites nationwide and is expanding its network of partner tower providers. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Transcend Towers Infrastructure (Philippines), a wholly owned subsidiary of the global infrastructure firm American Tower Corporation (ATC), to build shared telecoms towers in the Philippines. Under the agreement, Transcend Towers will initially construct 150 new cell sites for Globe Telecom in North Luzon in support of the common tower initiative of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). The government’s common tower policy aims to free telecommunications providers from costly capital expenditures in setting up communication towers. According to DICT, it is targeting the building of at least 50000 new common towers across the country in the next seven to ten years. As stated by Rizza Maniego-Eala, Chief Finance Officer…
Commsworld, a telecoms and network company based in Edinburgh, Scotland is now connected to all major Internet Exchanges (IX) in the UK, following an investment of over GBP 1 million. The company has set up a new core presence at the AQL’s Salem Church data centre in Leeds and has joined the IXLeeds (Leeds Internet Exchange). As a result, Commsworld has become the only organization to connect to all of the country’s Internet Exchanges and provide local businesses with speeds of up to 10 Gbps. Charlie Boisseau, Chief Technology Officer at Commsworld, said: “Whenever we expand the network to new cities or regions, we always look for better ways to interconnect our network to existing infrastructure. When looking to build a presence in Leeds, we naturally set out to join IXLeeds. Most providers still only connect to a couple of exchanges, typically in London. Not many providers have a…
American telecoms giant Verizon said that it has made enterprise-specific upgrades and has “supercharged” its cloud-calling Virtual Communications Express (VCE) platform. The company has boosted its VCE solution by providing delivery over its global VoIP network, and reinforced the service with hosted or premises-based SD-WAN connectivity. The platform, which now provides an opportunity to enhance employee collaboration and productivity, is currently available across Asia, Europe and the United States. Alla Reznik, Executive Director of Customer Experience, Global Products and Services at Verizon, said, “By leveraging Verizon’s global network strength and market leading VoIP portfolio, we have developed an enhanced collaboration solution that delivers powerful hosted UC&C features underpinned by superior network connectivity and performance. This enterprise-grade solution will take global business collaboration to the next level.” In its press release, the company said that by combining the VCE platform with Verizon’s VoIP service, users will significantly reduce costs…
Telecommunications equipment supplier World Telecom Labs (WTL) and a mobile virtual network operator Edpnet, have announced that the first all-VoIP network in Belgium is now live, enabling businesses to benefit from high-quality and cost effective voice services. It is stated that Edpnet has become the first operator in Belgium to make the switch from traditional ISDN to a VoIP platform, thus gaining the ability to easily add more capacity, which will ensure the company’s future growth. For this move, Edpnet has deployed WTL’s VoIP switches for its VoIP links, ensuring high call quality and an always-on network, and optimizing bandwidth capacity. Joachim Slabbaert, COO at Edpnet, said, “WTL is a technologically innovative company whose team really understand what VoIP operators want and need. We buy from them because they do what they say – improve our network and reduce our costs. This migration is a huge milestone for our company and has…
We live in a world of increasingly complex telecom and VoIP services, with subscribers having access to an abundance of cutting-edge products. The fierce competition in the field of communications demands an excellent customer experience in order to attract and retain customers, and to reduce churn. With so many choices on offer, the power has shifted to customers – if faced with a problem, they have come to expect an immediate resolution. Unfortunately, the surveys of customer experience in the telecommunication world reveal that, in general, consumers have a very low opinion of the telecoms industry and are dissatisfied with the support that they receive from their providers. It seems that the reason for this deficiency may be found in the mindset of telecom operators, who devote most of their time and effort to building and managing their VoIP networks, rather than indulging their customers. Satisfactory customer experience in…
Juniper Network, a provider of high-performance networking and cybersecurity solutions, has been selected by the UK’s telecoms giant British Telecommunications (BT) to deliver its Network Cloud infrastructure initiative. This arrangement will help support the rollout of BT’s upcoming unified cloud networking platform, which will integrate the company’s networks, including 5G, Wi-Fi and fixed-line, into one virtualized service and enable more efficient infrastructure management and implementation. This new and more flexible network infrastructure will also generate a range of innovative applications that support services such as Internet access, TV and business network functions, improved voice and video delivery, and scalability. The Network Cloud platform will be built according to a common framework, and shared across BT’s offices throughout the UK and globally. “This move to a single cloud-driven network infrastructure will enable BT to offer a wider range of services, faster and more efficiently to customers in the UK…
China’s Huawei Technologies has launched new database and storage products with the aim of redefining its data infrastructure and strengthening the global presence of its cloud business. The world’s first AI-native database GaussDB supports differentiated scenarios such as private and public clouds and data services in the finance, internet, logistics and automotive sectors. Huawei’s FusionStorage 8.0 is claimed to be the industry’s best-performing distributed storage solution for supporting enterprise applications. “Humanity is entering the age of an intelligent world,” said David Wang, Huawei Executive Director of the Board and President of ICT Strategy and Marketing. “Data is the new factor of production, and intelligence the new productivity. Heterogeneous, intelligent, and converged databases will become the key data infrastructure of the financial, government, and telecoms industries.” With this new database management product, the Shenzhen-based company marks its official entry into the database field and places itself in direct competition with…