All Tech News

Could two new undersea internet cable routes planned for 2023 or early 2024 offer Vietnam relief from its international connectivity issues?

Starlink has received a licence to provide satellite broadband services in Rwanda.

The Philippines smartphone market declined by 8.6% year-on-year as manufacturers shipped 16.3 million units in 2022, as consumer and vendor confidence was hit by macroeconomic conditions.

Pakistan-based business communications company Multinet has announced that it will be upgrading its optical transport network that today spans the entire country covering more than 120 cities, across more than 14,000 kilometres.

ZTT International Submarine Cable & System has been hired as the cable supplier for three stretches of the Brazilian government-sponsored Amazon river fibre project Norte Conectado.

Operator Tigo Tanzania and vendor Ericsson have entered a partnership to launch 5G and to fully modernize and expand the existing Tigo 4G network across Tanzania.

Satellite operator Kacific and satcom technology and solutions provider ST Engineering iDirect say they have extended their technology partnership to expand satellite connectivity in Southeast Asia and other regions.

Intra-African cross-border remittances and digital wallet company EziPay has partnered with digital payments gateway MFS Africa to bring last-mile connectivity for remittances and collections to and from mobile money wallets and bank accounts in Africa.

Brazil’s CADE (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Economica / Administrative Council for Economic Defence) has cleared an amendment to the network sharing arrangement between Vivo and TIM Brasil.

NEC Corporation and ADVA will jointly deploy time synchronisation solutions for Telkom Indonesia, allowing the fixed network operator to prepare its transport network for delivering time-sensitive 5G services across the country.

ARSAT, Argentina’s national telecommunications company, has awarded MDA, a provider of technology and services to the global space industry, a contract to design, build and supply all of the Ka-band multibeam antennas for Argentina’s ARSAT-SG1 satellite.

In recent days AST SpaceMobile, which describes itself as the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, has announced collaborations with operators in Brazil and Saudi Arabia.

SC Ventures, Standard Chartered's innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm, has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Yabx, a firm aiming to enable the underserved with limited credit history to get fair access to financial services tailored to their needs.

Orange Madagascar has signed a ten-year Network-as-a-Service (NAAS) deal that will see infrastructure provider AMN Group deploy a minimum of 500 rural base stations across the country.

The initial phase of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)’s first open-access, carrier-neutral data centre - OADC Kinshasa; FIH1 - will go live in Q2 2023.

iColo, a Kenyan carrier-neutral data centre provider with campuses in Mombasa and Nairobi, says it has opened its first data centre in Mozambique.

The latest in what appears to be a long line of undersea cable problems affecting Vietnam in recent years has brought comment from the General Secretary of the Vietnam Internet Association, Vu The Binh, who says that Vietnam needs at least two to three more undersea cable routes in the next five years to meet growing demand.

As the developing world in particular copes with fast-expanding data demand, the arrival of a new prefabricated modular data centre solution aimed at customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) may be timely.

You might expect a major Indian 4G connectivity project to be awarded to one of India’s big mobile operators, However, RailTel, a PSU (Public Sector Undertaking or government-owned establishment) under the Ministry of Railways, was the recent winner of a State Bank of India (SBI) order to provide LTE connectivity for a large number of its ATMs.

Technology giant Oracle has announced plans to invest US$1.5 billion to meet cloud computing demand in Saudi Arabia.

Global analytics software provider FICO has partnered with FPG Technologies & Solutions to bring advanced decision management and analytics tools to companies across West Africa.

Most communications service providers (CSPs) have already started the journey towards becoming digital service providers (DSPs). But with the global economic downturn impacting budgets, how can operators keep digital transformation plans on track.

Kenyan broadband start-up Mawingu raised a total of US$9 million in a series B funding round to expand its operations to 25 counties in Kenya.

The CEO of Telecommunication Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTTP) has announced a major investment in fibre rollout across the island country.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies is deploying Nokia’s transport network technology in a new terrestrial fibre route connecting Mombasa, Kenya to Johannesburg, South Africa.

French Polynesian operator ONATi - a subsidiary of the OPT French Polynesia Group - has selected Intelia and Ciena to increase the capacity of the Honotua international submarine cable to 300Gb/s.

Operator Vodafone Oman and vendor Ericsson say they have carried out a successful test call that will pave the way for the commercial introduction of 5G standalone (SA) voice and data services for Vodafone subscribers in the Sultanate. 

India’s STL (Sterlite Technologies Limited) is divesting its support, monetisation, networking, and analytics solutions business to Skyvera.

Could the rollout of 5G services across India by operators be slowed without heavy investment in tower connectivity? That appears to be the question asked by ratings agency ICRA, which suggests that some three trillion rupees (about US$36.7 billion) will need to be spent over the next four to five years to fiberise towers.

State-owned Indian operator BSNL has apparently partnered Echelon Edge, a global information technology and system integration company. The aim? To set up private 5G networks.

Malaysian rural broadband service provider MEASAT has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Parcel365, an app-based platform that allows consumers and sellers to send and receive parcels 24/7.

YahClick, the data solutions subsidiary of UAE-headquartered satellite operator Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat), has signed a US$15 million six-year strategic partnership agreement with Canar Telecommunication Co of Sudan, further expanding YahClick’s satellite broadband presence in Africa.