US telecoms will not charge late fees during COVID-19 pandemic Major US telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Comcast, Cox, and Verizon have expanded their policies to not charge late payments and cancel service for customers and small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic until June 30. Furthermore, Comcast said that apart from extending the commitment through June 30 and providing its Wi-Fi hotspots to everyone, it would also extend the pause in its data plans to give all customers unlimited data at no extra charge. With tens of millions of Americans working from home, internet providers and the FCC say the internet is performing well. Read more at https://tinyurl.com/yd8wbxuv Google is making Meet free for everyone The tech giant has announced that Google Meet, its premium video conferencing product, will be free for everyone and will be fully accessible over the coming weeks. Previously, the Meet service was available only…
DIDWW, an Irish-based telecom operator providing global telecommunication services, has enabled free outbound calling to COVID-19 hotlines to help collaboration amid widespread coronavirus lockdowns. The company said that all customers using DIDWW outbound trunks and virtual DID numbers as caller IDs can now access local COVID-19 hotlines at no additional charge in 17 countries. Lina Zaboras, CEO of DIDWW, said, “DIDWW leverages and opens up its global access to local telecommunications infrastructure to facilitate another essential service. While enabling local dialing to emergency and short numbers is quite challenging in the VoIP industry, we are successfully expanding these services with the latest addition of local dialing to COVID-19 hotlines over our global VoIP infrastructure. We encourage our wholesale customers to enable the access and route these calls for their end-users with the mission-critical DIDWW global network, free of charge.” In a statement, DIDWW noted that so far, they…
Verizon buys Zoom rival BlueJeans for less than $500 million Verizon Business has announced a deal to purchase enterprise-grade video conferencing platform BlueJeans, thereby expanding Verizon’s unified communications portfolio and improving its service for business customers. This acquisition shows that the company is also trying to capitalize on the current trend of remote employees making extensive use of online services such as Zoom, Slack and Microsoft during the pandemic. BlueJeans has more than 15,000 customers, including Facebook, IBM-owned Red Hat, ADP, Zillow and LinkedIn. The deal is worth USD 500 million and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2020. Read more at https://tinyurl.com/yd9qtfhg Apple’s new iPhone SE is surprisingly powerful for $399 Apple is launching iPhone SE 2020, the second generation of its cheapest smartphone in the iPhone lineup, priced at just USD 399. The iPhone SE runs on Apple’s latest A13 Bionic chip that enables great battery…
The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), the Irish national regulatory authority, and the current Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton TD have signed new regulations that will allow the release of additional radio spectrum to create extra capacity for mobile phone and broadband services. These are temporary measures taken in response to a sharp increase in the use of mobile networks, as people rely more heavily on their operators to communicate and stay connected during COVID-19 social distancing. According to ComReg, mobile operators have coped well with increased usage so far, but they have currently less headroom to accommodate further spikes in demand. ComReg Commissioner, Jeremy Godfrey, said, “The provision of this spectrum will help the mobile providers cater for the increased demand on their networks. ComReg will continue to work with industry and will support operators so that telecoms networks may continue to meet demand…
The South Korean tech giant, Samsung Electronics, has announced an effective demonstration of what it terms the world’s first video call on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform using Mission Critical Push-to-Talk, Data and Video (MCPTX, also known as Mission Critical Communications), the communications functionality designed specifically for first responders. Based on 3GPP Release 14 specifications, this implementation was enabled by the successful onboarding, integration and deployment on AWS cloud. Wonil Roh, Senior Vice President and Head of Product Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics, said, “This demonstration showcases how Samsung’s Mission Critical Communications solutions can manage public crises and be readily deployed on public cloud platforms. It also enables us to learn and adapt to the evolving needs of service providers and end-users alike. This brings a new level of broad coverage, scalability and reliability to mission critical service deployments, and we look forward to continuing our journey…
Telstra, an Australian telecommunications and technology company that offers a full range of communications services, has officially announced the launch of its My Telstra app. The new and improved application provides an easier way to manage Telstra accounts and services, find information, shop and redeem Telstra Plus points. With My Telstra, customers will gain convenient access to billing and technical support, as well as manage their services and payments, get help, check for outages and track orders from their home. In a statement, Telstra said that its app “has been designed with accessibility at the forefront” and is built to be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. The company plans to update the existing Telstra 24×7 app so users can expect to see it on their phone soon. Customers who have auto-update enabled do not need to take any action – their current Telstra 24×7 app will update to…
Work from home: Can the telecoms industry take the strain? Many businesses opt for remote working due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, and this has led to a dramatic increase in the use of online services. The additional pressure is proving problematic for the telecoms industry in Spain, which has reported a 40 percent increase in data consumption and a 50 percent increase in mobile phone usage. Movistar (Telefonica), Orange, Vodafone, Masmovil, and Euskaltel have issued a joint statement in anticipation of the national lockdown, urging customers to take “intelligent and responsible use of the network and the resources it provides us.” Meanwhile, BT, the UK’s largest telecom provider, said that its network can handle it. Read more at https://tinyurl.com/sm8bms7 Vodafone unveils five-point plan to combat COVID-19 Vodafone has put forward a five-point plan to maintain network services and assist governments across Europe in controlling the outbreak of coronavirus. The five…
Tel Q Global, a telecom hub for voice and SMS services, has selected Singapore operator Cataleya for its global voice network virtualization. With its superior technology, innovative commercial models and a world-wide footprint, Cataleya will completely virtualize Tel Q Global’s international voice network, resulting in significant cost savings and operational simplicity. According to a statement, Tel Q Global required a switching and BSS service in three global regions to be able to launch their new virtual number services in the shortest possible time. These new solutions include mobile and two-way SMS numbers, and are a highly anticipated addition to the company’s existing portfolio of DID and toll-free numbers. Moreover, the nodes also need to be used as geographic backup sites for each other, should a major disruption occur in any of the hosting centers. Ankit Agarwal, CEO of Tel Q Global, said, “Before we moved to Cataleya, we…
The next-generation wireless technology for digital cellular networks is steadily gaining traction, with significant implementations under way. All of the major carriers are rolling out their 5G networks, targeting large cities that crave super speeds, virtually lag-free connections, extended coverage and other great benefits that are made available by this advanced technology. 5G has already been launched in many different locations around the world, but it is still considered to be in its initial stages. All of the US carriers have now launched some form of 5G cellular network. But what exactly is 5G, how fast is it compared with 4G, what will it bring to VoIP applications, and what are the benefits and drawbacks of this innovative technology? Let’s take a look at 5G in more detail. What is 5G? 5G stands for fifth-generation cellular wireless and is the next generation of telecom networks that entered the…
The leading VoIP and unified communications (UC) services provider Vonage and a cloud-native UC integration management company Qunifi have joined forces to provide a fully integrated Microsoft Teams calling feature for Vonage Business Communications customers. Based in the UK, Qunifi operates the Call2Teams Microsoft Office 365 voice integration service that connects Microsoft Teams to any PBX or SIP trunk within minutes, enabling businesses to make and receive calls on any device using the Microsoft Teams application. Mark Herbert, Qunifi co-founder and CEO, said, “Customers are excited about using Microsoft Teams as a unified collaboration environment, but up to now, adding the Teams phone calling feature has been perceived as disruptive or costly. We have worked with Vonage to create a simple, per-user add-on to the Vonage Business Communications service, allowing customers to get all the benefits of Microsoft Teams while using the Vonage services they already have.” “Call2Teams is…


