The new UK joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica officially became operational on 1 June, merging the two household names to form Virgin Media O2 (VMO2). This joint venture has committed to providing a unique choice to consumers and has also promised to boost the UK economy. While, at the moment, the company is not changing any of its current services, later this year it plans to offer seamless broadband, entertainment and mobile services all in one place. The Liberty Global-Telefónica merger is devoted to investing at least £10bn in the UK over the next five years. This investment will help businesses further contribute to the UK Government’s goals of connectivity, upgrading infrastructure all around the country, creating stiffer competition and providing a wider variety of choices for customers. The merger instantly makes the new business one of the largest in the UK, with 47 million…
OneWeb, a global communications company that provides broadband satellite Internet services around the world, has announced another successful launch of 36 Arianespace satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. With this launch, the company gets closer to reaching their “Five to 50” goal and the lift off of commercial services by the end of this year. The launch took place on May 28th at 18:38 BST. The OneWeb satellites detached from their host rocket and were distributed in nine clusters over 3 hours and 52 minutes. Signals were received from all 36 satellites, indicating their operational status. This launch is the fourth in a series of five total launches needed to complete the “Five to 50” program. The program will allow OneWeb to offer connectivity in all parts of the UK, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas and Canada. The service is predicted to be available by the end…
Five of Europe’s leading mobile operators – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Telia and Vodafone – have teamed up to update and launch a new industry-wide Eco Rating system and motivate vendors to minimize the impact that their devices have on the environment. The Eco Rating labelling scheme is designed to supply detailed and accurate information to retailers on the effects that manufacturing, usage, transportation and disposal of smartphones have on the environment. This Eco Rating will encourage operators and customers to rate phones more extensively and underline the need for more sustainable electronic devices. From June 2021, mobile operators will start introducing Eco Rating at points of sale in 24 European countries, including the UK. The labeling system will label phones with scores to show how ecological and environment friendly the appliances are in their lifecycle. The score will be from 0 to 100, the higher the score,…
Telecommunications company Liberty Global and Digital Colony, a global digital infrastructure investment firm, have announced plans to launch a European Edge data center joint venture, called AtlasEdge Data Center. The Joint Venture (JV) will manage more than 100 edge data centers in Europe, combining the edge assets in the Digital Colony and Liberty Global real estate portfolios. AtlasEdge Data Centers will be directed by Josh Joshi, the former CFO of Interxion. In the new business, Liberty Global will devote its digital infrastructure assets, including technical real estate portfolios, as well as strategic and operational business support. The Digital Colony will contribute operational expertise, strategic direction and capital to provide a foundation for the growth and merger of edge co-location service capabilities across Europe. AtlasEdge will provide services through a wide network of devices close to the consumers and enterprise end users. The company’s goal is to meet the…
Two Japanese companies, Rakuten Mobile and NEC Corporation, have announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote Open RAN in mobile telecommunications markets worldwide. The MoU is based on Rakuten’s current partnership with NEC, where NEC supplies 5G radio equipment to the operator. The pair is also jointly working on developing a Rakuten standalone 5G core. Under the Memorandum of Understanding, Rakuten Mobile and NEC will continue to expand their local collaboration to provide 5G and 4G radios and engineering services for Open RAN systems that are compliant with O-RAN specifications. These services will be applicable to markets worldwide and will boost the global development of the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP). RCP is Rakuten Mobile’s fully virtualized and containerized cloud-based mobile network platform, enabling telecom businesses to station virtual networks rapidly and inexpensively. Tareq Amin, executive vice president and CTO at Rakuten Mobile, said: “Rakuten…
The US giant AT&T and Discovery have announced a deal to merge WarnerMedia’s entertainment, sports and news assets with Discovery’s international entertainment and sports companies to create a unique, high-end global entertainment company. In accordance with the agreement, AT&T will receive a total of $43 billion of cash, debt and the retention of certain debts of WarnerMedia. If approved by regulators, AT&T shareholders will receive 71% of the shares in the new company, while Discovery shareholders will own 29%. It is expected that the deal will deliver significant value to both AT&T and Discovery shareholders. This merger will bring together the strongest teams of media business leaders and content creators, and include industry-leading libraries of films and series. The merger will create a new business that could be valued $150 billion, including debt. This transaction gives AT&T and its shareholders the opportunity to leverage the value of…
Artificial intelligence is exerting its influence on almost every sector, including telecommunications. This technology has begun to add impressive new dimensions to many industries, accelerating the digital transformation. According to Tractica, annual investment in telecommunications AI software is expected to grow to more than $11.2 billion in 2025. The telecommunications industry is at the heart of technological growth and digital transformation. The industry is huge. 54 telecommunications companies are listed on the Forbes Global 2000 list. They account for more than $3.4 trillion in assets and almost $1.5 trillion in income in 2020. The potential of AI in the telecom industry is immense. By taking advantage of this technology, organizations can create supplementary revenue streams using business niches they had not even thought could be profitable. The demand for higher quality telecom services and a better customer experience grows. Therefore, service providers need to look for smarter, more powerful and…
Telefonica, a Spanish international telecommunications company, has sold its four Data Centers (DCs) to a leading independent investment management company Asterion Industrial Partners in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the Nabiax hosting business. With this deal, Telefonica is forming a strategic partnership with the company’s current shareholder, Asterion and its co-investors, who retain the remaining 80% of the share capital. Two of the properties sold are located in Chile and two are in Spain. The contract includes an agreement for housing services in the four DCs on identical terms and conditions as set out in the previous transaction. The deal does not include the sale of Telefónica’s owned servers, as well as the management and access to their customers hosted on those servers. As a result, Telefónica will continue providing and managing the services it has offered to its customers from these data centers and will support…
Telinta, a global leader in hosted switching and billing for VoIP service providers, and TransNexus, a leader in developing innovative software for telecommunications networks, jointly announced today a solution to help VoIP service providers comply with STIR/SHAKEN call authentication and robocall mitigation regulations. TransNexus has made groundbreaking innovations in robocall mitigation with its ClearIP software platform. Telinta has integrated ClearIP into its cloud-based softswitch. Together the two leaders can help VoIP service providers meet their STIR/SHAKEN and robocall mitigation requirements, helping customers to avoid having their traffic blocked. TransNexus offers services for Telinta customers based both inside and outside the U.S. When a U.S.-based Telinta customer signs up with TransNexus, Telinta will send a request to TransNexus to create a digital signature and Telinta will include that signature on subsequent calls as they are routed through Telinta’s platform. For Telinta customers based outside the U.S., TransNexus can…
Technology and platform provider plan.com has announced a new market-leading Hosted Voice solution that allows customers to connect, configure and manage their phone system on a single platform. This new initiative unites a scalable digital phone system with real-time insights, data analytics and simplified navigation on the my.plan platform. The new plan.com’s Hosted Voice solution refers to the evolution of its existing B2B communications solutions that were built from scratch according to partner and customer feedback and input. Moreover, this new offering merges into the company’s my.plan platform and, when combined with its mobile solutions, gives companies employees the ability to work and stay connected anywhere. This solution offers the latest hardware combined with a unique variety of features and embedded customization having a broad range of features, controls and instant alerts, allowing users to create a solution that meets their unique business needs. Some of the…


