Verizon gets approval for TracFone purchase Verizon stated in September 2020 that it will attempt to acquire TracFone Wireless, a pre-paid mobile phone operator, for $6.25 billion. The FCC approved the transaction last week, attaching restrictions that would safeguard TracFone customers in a variety of ways, including ensuring inexpensive 5G handsets and avoiding price rises, all of which will be evaluated on a regular basis by an independent agency. Verizon is also required to participate in the Lifeline program, which provides subsidies to low-income subscribers. TracFone is now one of the major carriers supporting the Lifeline program, with 1.7 million low-income subscribers participating across the country. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/jxrh6p5v Tata Communications launches GlobalRapide Tata Communications, a worldwide digital ecosystem facilitator, has announced Tata Communications GlobalRapide, an end-to-end managed UCaaS that enables organizations to provide workers with technologically enhanced, sophisticated and intelligent collaboration experiences. With this new solution, Tata Communications…
NEC Corporation, along with its subsidiary OCC Corporation and Sumitomo Electric Industries, has stated that they have conducted the first testing of an uncoupled 4-core underwater fiber cable and confirmed its transmission performance to fulfill the stringent requirements of global telecommunications networks. International data usage is anticipated to increase by 30-40% by 2026, owing to reasons such as the expansion of 5G mobile data and the necessity to exchange ever more content between data centers located around the world. Submarine networks are using space division multiplexing (SDM) technology to fulfill this need, which increases the number of separate spatial channels to maximize the overall capacity of the system, decrease energy usage and minimize the cost per bit transferred. Multicore fiber is projected to increase the number of parallel optical fiber cores without changing the size and structure of underwater cables, allowing the introduction of second generation of submarine SDM…
Telefonica partners with Oracle Telefonica Spain has signed a multi-year agreement with Oracle to accelerate the transfer of its business processes to the cloud in order to improve agility and expand its capacity to create new digital services. Oracle will deploy and operate an on-premises version of its Exadata Cloud Service in Telefonica’s data centers as part of the arrangement. The operator will be able to combine its mission-critical systems while still fulfilling data residency and latency requirements. Telefonica intends to migrate its Oracle database systems, as well as its OSS and BSS applications, business intelligence systems, CRM, billing, and revenue management systems, to the new platform. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/3darh7jd NTT Docomo targets net zero emissions by 2030 NTT Docomo said that by 2030, it intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero. As part of that effort, Docomo has announced the launch of a new ecosystem called…
Google Cloud and Ericsson team up to deliver 5G and Edge cloud solutions for telcos The two tech giants – Google Cloud and Ericsson – have come together to jointly develop 5G and edge cloud solutions to help communications service providers (CSPs) digitally transform and unlock new enterprise and consumer use cases. Google Cloud and Ericsson are developing new solutions at Ericsson’s Silicon Valley D15 Labs, a state-of-the-art innovation center where advanced solutions and technologies can be developed and tested on a live, multi-layer 5G platform. Thomas Kurian, CEO at Google Cloud, said that organizations have a tremendous opportunity to digitally transform their businesses with 5G, using cloud capabilities like artificial intelligence and machine learning at the edge. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/2c5sez86 DIDWW implements the STIR/SHAKEN technology The global telecommunication services provider, DIDWW, has implemented caller ID authentication through the STIR/SHAKEN set of standards. These standards act as the framework…
Spain approves entry for MWC participants The organizers of the Mobile World Congress 2021, which will take place in Barcelona this summer, have received much-needed good news from the Spanish government. Spain currently bans “non-essential” travel to and from non-EU/Schengen countries. But the GCMA, which manages the MWC, has announced that people who have registered for the event will be classified as “highly skilled workers” and therefore will be excused from this restriction. The GSMA intends to provide the Spanish authorities with details of all registrants and registrants will also be provided with a confirmation of participation. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/35z7nub5 Lumen signs a deal with T-Mobile US Lumen Technologies has taken a major step in expanding its latest edge computing service with a new deal with T-Mobile US. This agreement will allow Lumen to receive access to the operator’s 5G network to reach more of the company’s customers. The…
The multinational telecommunications company, Vodafone, has committed to reduce its global carbon footprint that is generated as a result of its business operations to net zero by 2040. The company has already outlined a number of actions to reduce the environmental impact of its activities. It has set a new goal of stricter targets for the wider business and related third parties. As stated by the company, by 2030 all carbon emissions from its activities and the energy purchased and consumed will be eliminated. Vodafone has also committed itself to halving the use of its carbon footprint from Scope 3 sources, including joint ventures, all supply chain purchases, products it has sold and business travel by 2030. The group plans to completely eliminate emissions from Scope 3 by 2040. This plan will shorten the original projections by ten years, as the operator initially set a net zero target…
DIDWW, a telecommunication service provider headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, has recently added two-way SMS services in the USA and Canada to their peer-to-peer (P2P) messaging coverage. The company has made this highly-requested service available through SMS-enabled local virtual numbers covering over 3000 area codes in the United States and over 1000 area codes in Canada. In a statement, this leading global supplier of innovative, high-tech IP-based communications and SIP trunking services said that this significant addition of two-way SMS coverage to a wide range of DIDWW services opens up great opportunities, such as personal customer and support agent communications, private communications between users, service provider and customer notifications, and the general provision of SMS services in one of the largest economies in the world. Furthermore, the two-way SMS service can be combined with simultaneous voice calls, thus making these SMS-enabled virtual numbers a highly efficient communication tool. DIDWW sets itself apart from…
The San Francisco-based cloud giant Salesforce has reached an agreement to buy Tableau Software Inc. in an all-stock deal valued at $15.7 billion. By acquiring Tableau, which provides easy-to-use tools for data visualization and management, Salesforce has positioned itself as the latest major technology company to play an important role in helping enterprises analyze data, make smarter decisions, drive intelligent, connected customer experiences, and facilitate innovation. “We are bringing together the world’s #1 CRM with the #1 analytics platform. Tableau helps people see and understand data, and Salesforce helps people engage and understand customers,” stated Marc Benioff, chairman and co-CEO, Salesforce. “It’s truly the best of both worlds for our customers – bringing together two critical platforms that every customer needs to understand their world. I’m thrilled to welcome Adam and his team to Salesforce.” Currently, Tableau has more than 86,000 business customers around the world, including Charles Schwab,…
Samsung Electronics is striving to remain at the forefront of technological innovations and is challenging the boundaries by making more powerful smartphone cameras – the company has introduced two new 0.8-micrometer (μm) pixel image sensors, the 64-megapixel (MP) Samsung Isocell Bright GW1 and 48 MP Isocell Bright GM2. These image sensors will expand Samsung’s 0.8μm image sensor lineup from the existing 20 MP to ultra-high 64 MP resolutions, thus bringing new standards of photography to smartphones. Yongin Park, executive vice president of the sensor business at Samsung Electronics, said: “Over the past few years, mobile phone cameras have become the main instrument for recording and sharing our everyday moments. With more pixels and advanced pixel technologies, Samsung Isocell Bright GW1 and GM2 will bring a new level of photography to today’s sleekest mobile devices that will enhance and help change the way we record our daily lives.” The…
Singapore has long been known as the south-east Asian center for network expansion, due to its booming data center industry. The technology giant Google has revealed plans to expand their network in the region by building a 3rd data center in Jurong West, thereby increasing their long-term investment in Singapore’s data centers to $850 million. Google’s first data center was built in Singapore in 2011, followed by the second in 2015, while the 3rd building is expected to be ready by 2020. “In the three years since our last update, more than 70 million people in Southeast Asia have gotten online for the first time, bringing the region’s total to more than 330 million–that’s more than the population of the United States,” commented the vice president of Data Centers at Google, Joe Kava. The newest facility will be built nearby the previous two, and will continue Google’s environmentally friendly approach…


