US telecom giant Sprint Corporation has announced that it is working with Arizona State University (ASU) to promote economic, educational, technological and social growth in the entire Arizona region, leveraging the power of Sprint’s True Mobile 5G and Curiosity™ IoT’s advanced dedicated network and operating system. This groundbreaking collaboration will combine the innovations of 5G and Curiosity™ IoT, create a new IoT curriculum and reach millions of residents. Sprint’s Curiosity™ IoT is the first dedicated, virtualized and distributed core IoT network that is purpose-built for software. Hosted on a solid foundation from technology leaders including ARM, Ericsson and AWS, this service leverages bare-metal design, and enables the delivery of low latency, high availability connectivity. The fourth-largest mobile network operator in the US stated that they designed Curiosity™ IoT “to solve the challenges of today and be ready for the needs of the future.” In a press release, Sprint said it will work alongside ASU…
Ontario, Canada-based Sangoma Technologies, a provider of Unified Communications solutions, has announced the strategic acquisition of VoIP Innovations, LLC (VI), a privately-held technology company in Pittsburgh, PA that specializes in wholesale SIP trunking. This acquisition, Sangoma’s eighth in the last eight years, is expected to provide the combined company with several strategic advantages, including increased scale, a recurring revenue contribution that continues to grow, an entirely new product category in Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), robust EBITDA margins, and a new sales channel. Bill Wignall, President and CEO of Sangoma, said, “We continue to look for prudent ways to grow our product portfolio, customer base, distribution network, overall sales, recurring revenue and EBITDA. This acquisition is strategic to Sangoma for all of those reasons, and with about 90% of VI revenue being recurring, it should increase Sangoma’s proforma recurring / services revenue to approximately 45% of total sales.”…
Vodafone has made a move that could put an end to the global dominance of the three main telecom equipment providers – Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia – by starting trials on open access radio technology in the UK. The company is the first wireless carrier to run European tests of Open Radio Access Networks (OpenRAN), a cellular infrastructure technology that may increase the number of companies supplying telecom network equipment and assist in connecting more of the world’s most remote communities using lower cost systems. In a statement, Vodafone said that “the global supply of telecom network equipment has become concentrated in a small handful of companies over the past few years” and added that a wider choice of suppliers will increase flexibility and innovation, thus helping to address some of the cost challenges of internet services in rural communities. Telecom operators use RAN infrastructure, masts and antennae…
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…
The Wi-Fi Alliance, a non-profit organization that promotes and certifies Wi-Fi technology, has officially announced the launch of the Wi-Fi 6 certification program. Wi-Fi 6, also known as “AX Wi-Fi” or “802.11ax Wi-Fi”, is the next-generation standard in Wi-Fi technology and is an improvement on the current 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard. This initiative promises a range of new features and capabilities designed to create more efficient overall Wi-Fi network performance in challenging environments supporting multiple connected devices. Edgar Figueroa, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Wi-Fi Alliance, said, “Wi-Fi Certified 6 is ushering in a new era of Wi-Fi, building on Wi-Fi’s core characteristics to provide better performance in every environment for users, greater network capacity for service providers to improve coverage for their customers, and new opportunities for advanced applications. Wi-Fi Certified 6 will deliver improvements in connectivity, including in high density locations and IoT environments.” According to…
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…
Theatro, a Dallas based SaaS company, has announced that it has secured a strategic investment from Cisco Investments and Honeywell Ventures for its voice-controlled mobile platform that connects hourly employees to each other and to essential enterprise information. The world’s first voice-driven Intelligent Assistant platform is being offered as a ”hardware-enabled” software as a service solution, and is designed to provide deskless employees a “heads up and hands-free” connection to their corporate systems and management teams. Chris Todd, President and CEO of Theatro, said, “We are proud to have Cisco Investments and Honeywell Ventures join us in our journey as investors. Companies across a wide variety of industries are recognizing the significant customer experience and productivity benefits of a connected and engaged workforce. Our collaborations with Cisco and Honeywell ensure that Theatro will remain at the cutting edge of both networking and mobile standards and help us bring these…
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced the adoption of new rules banning malicious caller ID spoofing of text messages and foreign robocalls. The new regulations will allow the US federal government to carry out enforcement action against foreign businesses involved in deliberate spoofing, thus closing “a loophole in the law that prevented the agency from pursuing scammers sending spoofed text messages and international fraudsters making spoofed calls to Americans.” According to the announcement, this resolution is the further implementation of amendments to the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 that “prohibits anyone from causing a caller ID service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information (“spoofing”) with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongly obtain anything of value.” These rules have been put in place to counteract scammers operating in overseas call centers who often pretend to be calling from reliable companies. They use…
The second Payment Services Directive, or so-called PSD2 requirements will come into force on September 14th, 2019. With this deadline approaching, we have decided to examine this matter from the merchandiser’s perspective. In brief, PSD2 is an initiative from the EU aimed at regulating the e-payment environment where banks and fintechs (Third Party Service Providers – TPSPs) currently operate in a largely disorganized manner. There is no consistent, standardized or regulated framework that defines the cooperation between banks and TPSPs. The bank may refuse access by a TPSP to its client’s bank account, preventing the same client or merchandiser from using the TPSP’s services, which may be more convenient or less costly than banking services. To regulate the e-payment market, PSD2 will force banks to grant third-party access to their clients’ bank accounts. Equally important, TPSPs will be regulated – they will have to obtain a license and…
FIX Network, an innovative technology company from Vilnius, Lithuania, has developed a new two-factor authentication (2FA) SIM card and app for protecting mobile data and digital identities. The ultimate goal of the company is to provide comprehensive blockchain-based solutions for mobile devices, enabling subscribers to secure their digital assets and identities by safekeeping private keys on their SIM cards. However, due to the urgent and immediate requirement of securing phone numbers – which may be considered to be the most valuable digital identities – FIX Network will provide a free-to-use 2FA application, together with newly issued and truly subscriber-owned phone numbers that will serve as secure and global digital identities. These numbers will be fully controlled by the subscriber, preventing unauthorized porting or malicious hijacking of the phone number. This 2FA solution will also include the practical ability to recover access to digital identities through user-defined policies that include…


