Network builder and UK ISP Vorboss, which is currently investing £250m to rollout “London’s only full-coverage fibre network dedicated to business” (they’ve already built over 500km of fibre since 2020), has today officially launched their new 100Gbps product for businesses in the city – at a cost of £2,999 +vat per month. Just to recap. […]

Mobile network operator giffgaff has today announced that it will shortly introduce a range of new SIM-Only “goodybag” plans and, at the same time, it will also boost mobile data allowances across most of their existing plans too. The changes are due to be introduced from 7th December 2022. We should point out that all […]

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2) has confirmed that they’ve just expanded their gigabit-capable fixed line connectivity – via Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology – to cover an additional 4,250 homes in Cheshire East (England). Most of the expansion appears to have taken place in the town of Alsager, which is home to around 12,000 people. Virgin’s […]

Press Release

Nokia and TPG Telecom today announced they have hit a 5G uplink speed of 2 Gigabits per second (Gbps). Using TPG Telecom’s 5G mmWave spectrum, this milestone was achieved during a live demonstration at the Nokia 5G Futures Lab in Sydney, Australia

The new Australian 5G uplink record, which follows on from a number of Australian 5G speed records announced by Nokia earlier in the year, will enable Nokia and its customers such as TPG Telecom to offer ultra-high-performing, low-latency services for Industrial and IoT applications which are heavily reliant on high-speed uplink connectivity. The solution is expected to be fully deployed next year as devices that support this capability become available.

The live demonstration involved a commercially available Nokia AirScale 5G mmWave base station utilising TPG Telecom’s 26 GHz spectrum to connect, over the air, to a 5G device powered by a Snapdragon® X65 5G Modem-RF System featuring fourth-generation Qualcomm® QTM545 mmWave antenna modules. Additionally, Nokia deployed its industry-leading Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology to fully leverage the available spectrum assets. The CA setup included four component carriers of 100 MHz each in the 26 GHz band.

The demonstration also leveraged Nokia’s 5G Core to provide the speed, intelligence, and security for testing the delivery of new advanced 5G services.

Once deployed, 5G mmWave technology will create new service opportunities for both consumers and industries. For consumers it will allow real-time multi-user 8K ultra-high-definition bi-directional video streaming, and augmented reality content for smartphones or wearable devices for immersive experiences.

For industries it will enable streaming of massive amounts of data directly from embedded IoT sensors and industrial robots over 5G, allowing the real-time control of industrial processes using powerful 5G connected Edge Compute Nodes. This concept of processor offload across 5G was also demonstrated at the event using “Spot” – the 5G connected Robot Dog – developed in conjunction with academics at the University of Technology Sydney.

Dr Robert Joyce, Chief Technology Officer at Nokia Oceania, said: “Super-fast uplink speeds are critical to fully realise the huge benefits of 5G networks, particularly as we look to emerging technologies like augmented intelligence, machine learning, advanced sensors and robotics that are set to transform industries and economies with huge safety, productivity and efficiency outcomes as we move towards the metaverse era. For consumers and industries alike, the future is exciting. Pushing the boundaries of 5G with innovative customers like TPG Telecom in Australia is a big part of this journey forward.”

Giovanni Chiarelli, Chief Technology Officer at TPG Telecom, said: “We are very proud of this achievement and other mobile technology innovations we continue to develop with Nokia. This demonstration is important as it shows the huge potential of 5G mobile technology and gives a glimpse of the high-speed services that will one day be available to customers and businesses right across Australia.”

The post Nokia and TPG hit 5G uplink milestone first appeared on Total Telecom.

News

The underwhelming auction saw only 76% of available spectrum sold, with Telekom Romania notably absent from the bidding

This week, Romanian telecoms regular Ancom has announced the rather disappointing results of its latest 5G spectrum auction, which kicked off back in September.

Telekom Romania was conspicuously absent, further fuelling suspicions that the operator is looking to close shop in the country.

Rumours to this effect have been circulating since at least 2019, with numerous hints at mergers for the Telekom Romania’s mobile, fixed line, and cable TV business. In fact, last year one such rumour indeed materialised, with Telekom Romania’s owner OTE (itself owned by Deutsche Telekom) selling its majority stake in the company’s fixed line business to Orange.

Orange won the lion’s share of the spectrum sold, securing 2×5 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum, as all the available 1.5 GHz spectrum (8×5 MHz), and 16×10 MHz in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band. Overall, Orange paid €264.6 million for the spectrum and was quick to note that it gives them the largest spectrum holdings of any operator in Romania.

“Orange becomes the operator in Romania with the largest spectrum portfolio, which assumes the most obligations to cover the national territory with services,” said a company statement.

Vodafone Romania, meanwhile, was allocated 2×5 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum and 10×10 MHz blocks in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band, paying €264.6 million.

Digi (RCS & RDS) was the smallest winner, receiving four blocks of 2×5MHz of 2.6 GHz FDD spectrum and 5x10MHz blocks in the in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band for €45.5 million.

The winning operators will have various conditions attached to their licences, including covering at least 70% of the country’s population, including most urban areas, motorways, international airports, and railways. They will also need to cover 480 specific locations that Ancom has previously identified as having limited or no mobile coverage.

All of the licences are valid from the start of January 2023 and will last for 25 years, apart from those in the 2.6 GHz band which are valid until April 5th 2029. Payments for the licences will begin on December 8th this year, with the last payments due in November 2028.

Ultimately, only 76% of the spectrum available was sold, raising €432.6 million.

Despite describing this as a “good result” given the difficult economic environment, Ancom are surely disappointed with this result, having previously hoped to raise €700 million from the 5G auction.

Also in the news:
Vestager: Restricting “high-risk” vendors a “matter of urgency” for EU
UKRI selects BT consortium for intelligent drone project
IRIS cable set to link Iceland and Ireland

The post Telekom Romania declines to bid in Romania’s latest 5G spectrum auction first appeared on Total Telecom.

Contributed Article

Communications service providers (CSPs) are striving to transform their businesses to ensure success in the digital world and position themselves to be digital service providers (DSP). They understand the need to evolve their architectures to simplify the delivery of connectivity and to enable the launch of new market offers through a multidimensional open ecosystem. According to an MIT technology review, the global enterprise opportunity enabled by 5G is projected to be $700B by the end of 2030. In order to secure their place in this enterprise market landscape, DSPs need to develop vertical solutions in collaboration with ecosystem partners to serve the DSPs’ B2B2X and B2C markets. This will enable them to rise higher up the value chain and become digital ecosystem providers (DEP).

Cognizant and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have partnered to build an integrated digital services platform called Digital Services Marketplace that comprises a scalable cross-industry marketplace to configure, buy, order, activate, and monetize digital products and advanced connectivity offerings for any industry vertical.

Together, AWS and Cognizant have participated in TM Forum’s Catalyst program for over 3 years to develop a proof-of-concept of this solution. This is a 5G Marketplace innovation project, championed by Verizon and COLT the proof point is that the Digital Services Marketplace solution can enable DSPs to deliver CaaS across the edge and cloud, zero-touch partnering, and Industry 4.0 use cases, all within an Open Digital Architecture.  5G Digital Services Marketplace III won the award for Outstanding Catalyst Business Impact in 2022 and has since gathered a lot of customer interest.

Read more from Cognizant’s 5G innovation on Amazon Web Service (AWS).

The post Monetize Your 5G Investments Using Cognizant’s Digital Services Marketplace on Amazon Web Services (AWS) first appeared on Total Telecom.

Broadband ISP Virgin Media Business (Wholesale) UK are rolling out an upgrade to their core National High Capacity Services (NHCS) network, which among other things will make their more affordable 10Gbps optical point-to-point data connections available to more businesses across the country. At present, VMBW already operates a national layer-1 optical platform, which has historically […]

A new survey commissioned by full fibre ISP Hyperoptic, which was conducted by Attest during October 2022 and surveyed 1,000 UK broadband bill payers, has found that many consumers continue to be confused by the language that providers use when communicating mid-contract price hikes. The survey found that more than 80% don’t know what CPI […]

Internet provider TalkTalk has recently become the latest UK ISP to jump on the bandwagon of ‘Black Friday‘ offers, which among other things includes a sharp price reduction across their various Openreach based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) packages. For example, their top 900Mbps tier is now just £42 per month (or £36 on Cityfibre). As usual all […]

VIEWPOINT

[Bangkok, Thailand] Recently, Phila Dube, Chief Commercial Officer of Openserve, Telkom SA, delivered a keynote speech titled “Enabling a Connected Experience” at the 8th Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF 2022) and introduced Openserve’s practices in ensuring network connectivity and improving user experience.

As a subsidiary of Telkom SA, Openserve is the largest telecom infrastructure provider in South Africa. It owns the largest fixed broadband network in the nation and is committed to providing regional connectivity services. According to Phila Dube, Openserve aims to build a digital ecosystem through innovative connectivity solutions, create a pervasive and cost-effective network across South Africa, and provide a premium customer experience at every level.

Phila Dube, Chief Commercial Officer of Openserve, Telkom SA

Although there are more than 40 fiber network providers in South Africa, only people with high disposable incomes can enjoy premium connectivity services, due to infrastructure construction limits and a shortage of resources. Against this backdrop, Openserve intends to build a full-coverage and open network to bridge the digital divide, and provide customized products and services for South African people. For the majority of cases, network connection is not the only reason for a poor user experience, therefore, in order to improve the overall user experience, Openserve has made significant efforts that include:

Deploying fiber ready nodes and using fiber, satellite, microwave, and xDSL technologies to provide premium network services for home and enterprise users. At present, Openserve has deployed more than 170,000 km of optical fibers serving more than three million homes. In addition, Openserve has set up a network operation center (NOC), a major incident management center, and a 24/7 network surveillance center
Transforming into a wholesale Internet service provider (ISP) to flexibly provide network services and ensure a premium network experience using innovative connectivity solutions. Besides, highly skilled technicians of Openserve provide professional field services. In the first quarter of 2022, the interaction net promoter score (iNPS) of Openserve has increased from 48.9 in 2019 to 66.1, ranking No. 1 among that of all operators in South Africa. Furthermore, Openserve is strengthening its cooperation with industry-leading equipment vendors such as Huawei and further deepening its interactions with customers to help them understand product or service details
Developing the Openserve Connect app that enables users to place and track orders, check network status, find fault causes, and report faults. Moreover, Openserve calls on its partners to integrate their services into the app for users to access. Openserve Connect has been downloaded more than 400,000 times, helping Openserve win the “Customer Experience & Trust” Excellence Awards of TM Forum in 2022.

Phila Dube said that Openserve has achieved a fiber connectivity rate of 46% (No. 1 in South Africa) and served nearly one million homes with FTTH. In the future, Openserve will continue to help users across South Africa get connected, stay connected, and enjoy premium connectivity services.

The post Openserve — Enabling a Connected Experience first appeared on Total Telecom.