Industry News

Not content with blacklisting Huawei, ZTE and a few other tech players, the US has decided the Chinese supercomputing sector is also in league with its military. ‘The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has added seven Chinese supercomputing entities to the Entity List for conducting activities that are contrary to the

Conferencing, cryptocurrency and greetings cards were among the biggest growing apps in the first quarter of this year in the UK as consumers grappled with another period of lockdown. AppAnnie this week shared new stats for Q1, looking at app downloads, usage and consumer spend in a number of key global markets. Its ranking of

Six new Nokia-branded smartphones have been unveiled by manufacturer HMD Global, which target the mid-to-low tiers. The whole premise of HMD licensing the Nokia brand was the assumption that it still has some residual affection, loyalty and value. The fact that it’s still plugging away implies this is the case, and HMD is sensible to

KPN has been the subject of a number of takeover bids over the past few years, so Thursday’s report that there is yet another offer on the table, and a sizeable one at that, can come as little surprise. Given that the Netherlands incumbent has to date fended off all of those offers – some

Telenor and Axiata have shared in-depth details of a plan to merge their Malaysian mobile operations, but it’s important to note that we have been here before. Following speculation on the matter, the operator groups on Thursday announced that they are “in advanced discussions” regarding the potential merger. They aim to bring together Telenor’s Digi

Lutz Schüler has been announced as the head of the combined VM and O2 UK, when it completes, with O2 boss apparently stepping aside. The news had been leaked to Sky News just ahead of publication. What it says about the balance of power between the two partners in the joint venture is unclear, but

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Alan Carlton, VP of Wireless and Internet Technologies at Interdigital, takes an early look at what we need from the next generation of wireless technology. With 5G deployments still in their early days, to many, it may

As anticipated Korean tech giant LG has decided to throw in the towel on smartphones, having failed to find a way to make a profit out of them. The decision was formally announced after board meeting but had presumably been on the cards for a while. The only company that makes decent profits out of

Indosat Ooredoo is raising money to fund network improvements in a way that has become very familiar to the telecoms space in recent years: it is selling off passive infrastructure. The Indonesian operator has brokered a deal to sell some 4,200 telecommunications towers to digital infrastructure investment group Digital Colony for US$750 million. The deal

Chinese telecoms vendor Huawei has released its audited 2020 annual report, which reveals it managed to grow but leaned heavily on the Chinese market to do so. Revenues of $136.7 billion were up 3.8% year-on-year, while net profit was $9.9 billion, up 3.2% year-on-year. Not bad for a company with the might of the US

With tower space at a premium and some of the infrastructure reaching full capacity, the need for enhanced wind load performance antennas is growing more critically important. CommScope’s redesigned base station antennas are engineered to be even more aerodynamically efficient in reducing the total wind load imparted on a cellular tower or comparable mounting structure.

Consumers subscribing to a bundle of telecoms services are significantly less likely to churn than those with a standalone broadband service, according to a new study from Ireland’s Comreg, But the results also contain note of caution for operators: customers switching from one bundle to another are looking for a deal on price. We have

Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC reckons semiconductor demand is only going to increase in the coming year and it’s determined to meet it. No sooner does Intel announce a move into the foundry game with a $20 billion investment than TSMC seems to say ‘I’ll see your 20 and raise it 80’. Reuters seems to have

Up-and-coming cloud messaging platform company MessageBird has announced the acquisitions of two companies that will boost its portfolio of customer engagement services. Netherlands-based MessageBird has often been tagged as a less high-profile version of Twilio, but came to prominence in its own right last year when it raised $200 million in a new funding round

Korean tech giant LG has been struggling in the smartphone game for years and now seems likely to finally call it a day. There’s nothing official yet, but the Korea Times is confident enough in its sources to run with the story. Having said that, a formal announcement is expected to be made after an

This year’s Mobile World Congress suffered a further blow with the news that Google, the owner of Android, would not be physically participating this year. The internet giant is joined by fellow US tech stalwarts Intel and, is seems, Microsoft, according to Light Reading, which is keeping track of the MWC pull-outs. They provided the

The advent of 6G wireless communications is still about a decade away. Nonetheless, initial discussion around emerging technologies and potential applications for this next generation has already begun. As with any new technologies, new threats will emerge that need to be addressed, in addition to any existing threats that will be carried over from past

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece James Gray, Managing Director, Graystone Strategy shares his thoughts on why dotmobile being awarded a full MVNO licence in Canada doesn’t mean the MVNO floodgates have opened. dotmobile has been awarded a full MVNO licence in

Residents of New York City had the fastest mobile data speeds in the US in the second half of last year, according to new statistics from RootMetrics. When it comes to mobile networks, the biggest cities do not always have the fastest speeds, as the cities towards the bottom of the research firm’s latest ranking

The Mi Mix Fold claims to have the largest smartphone foldable display so far, as well as four speakers and a ‘liquid lens’. While it’s still hard to see what the point of foldy phones is, Xiaomi deserves credit for putting its back into this one. Of course all flagship phone launches are littered with

Social media giant Facebook’s continuing interest in connectivity has led it to propose two new cables linking the US and Singapore via novel routes. As you can see from the map, cables Echo and Bifrost seem designed to connect North America to South East Asia via a route that goes nowhere near China. Facebook says

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Rohit Maheshwari, Head of Strategy and Products at Subex, looks at how Augmented Analytics provides the ability to democratise data analytics across the entire data value chain. Gaining considerable traction, augmented analytics is one of the latest

Europe needs an additional investment of €300 billion to complete the rollout of 5G networks and Gigabit-capable fixed infrastructure, according to new data. Advanced connectivity will help Europe create new jobs as part part of its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new analysis carried out by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and published by

Ahead of yet another US political grilling, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is proposing that Section 230 protections should be restricted to those sites with comment screening systems. Zuck submitted his testimony to the subcommittees on consumer protection & commerce and communications & technology in advance. A lot of it addresses the slippery topic of ‘misinformation’,

UK alternative broadband provider Voneus is finally connecting its first customers to full fibre thanks to financial backing from Australia’s Macquarie Capital, now its majority owner. It is more than 18 months since Voneus, then solely a fixed wireless access (FWA) provider named Macquarie as a new investor. Macquarie said it would invest up to

Telenor is bringing together its domestic and international Internet of Things (IoT) operations under a single brand, the aptly named Telenor IoT. Telenor IoT will encompass both the telco’s Nordic IoT portfolio and its global Telenor Connexion portfolio. The Norwegian operator said that as well as unifying its IoT ops under a single umbrella, it

Research published by mobile security specialist AdaptiveMobile claims all the extra complexity created by network slicing leads to new vulnerabilities. Network slicing involves the virtual partitioning of the RAN and core to create ‘slices’ of the network that can be tailored to specific use cases. It seems that virtual network functions spanning many slices have

The Next G Alliance has picked execs from AT&T and Ericsson to be its Chair and Vice Chair, respectively. ‘Setting the stage for the eventual commercialization of 6G, the work of the Next G Alliance will influence and encompass the full lifecycle of research and development, manufacturing, standardization and market readiness,’ says the press release,

Saudi Arabian operators Mobily and Zain have received the green light from the country’s telecom regulator for a plan to merge their towers assets and seek external investment. And it seems that that third party will be passive infrastructure specialist IHS, although the company will not be permitted to take more than a minority shareholding.

Electronics giant Samsung has teamed up with embedded chip specialist to make a new system-on-chip for 5G radios. Aside from the most generic hyperbole it’s hard to see precisely what is so special about this new chip. ‘The SoC is designed to help implement new technologies, which improve cellular radios by increasing their capacity and