NEWS

Alongside various banks, Vodafone and Ooredoo have been awarded licences by the Qatar Central Bank (QCB), opening the door for mobile payments head of the FIFA World Cup.

This weekend, a tweet from the QCB has revealed that two telcos are among the seven companies to be awarded mobile payment licences.

Earlier this week, the QCB allocated digital payment licences to five Qatari banks, thereby enabling customers to make payments with a variety of popular apps, including Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay.

Alongside this announcement, the QCB also revealed that it had granted a similar licence to the country’s two mobile operators Vodafone Qatar and Ooredoo, thereby allowing the telcos’ customers to make digital payments using the telcos’ respective platforms, namely Vodafone iPay and Ooredoo Money.

 

أصدر مصرف قطر المركزي أول ترخيص في الدولة لشركتين تمارسان نشاط تقديم خدمات الدفع الإلكتروني.#مصرف_قطر_المركزي pic.twitter.com/XSqoO1V3SO

— مصرف قطر المركزي (@QCBQATAR) August 30, 2022

Additional digital payment licences are expected to follow in the months to come, in anticipation of the huge influx of tourists arriving for the World Cup in November.

It should be noted, however, that the Qatari government remains staunchly against allowing digital assets (e.g., cryptocurrency), which have been banned for being too high risk since 2020.

Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, and Tunisia, have all issued similar bans.

Instead, the government is focussing on blockchain technology and its own central bank digital currency, though progress in this area appears to have stalled sine it was first announced in March this year.

 

How is mobile banking reshaping the telecoms industry? Learn more from the operators themselves at this year’s live Total Telecom Congress

Also in the news:
UK telcos to face stricter cybersecurity obligations under new govt rules
Jio prepares to plough $25bn into 5G
VMO2 activates first open RAN sites in live network

The post Telco duo snaps up digital payment licences in Qatar first appeared on Total Telecom.

Some of our readers may be interested to learn that Poynting has recently begun to make their latest external antenna – the XPOL-24 – available to retail, which is specifically designed to get the most out of 4G and 5G based mobile broadband routers that can support a 4×4 MIMO configuration. We don’t often talk […]

Broadband ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) is today claiming to have launched the “UK’s Fastest WiFi Guarantee” in “every room or money back,” which is to be included “at no extra cost” on their 1Gbps broadband packages and all Volt bundles. Customers on their 50Mbps to 500Mbps plans (without Volt) can add it for £8 extra […]

The Fibre for Ashton Hayes, Horton cum Peel, Mouldsworth & Manley (F4AMM) campaign group in rural West Cheshire (England) has revealed that UK ISP Gigaloch, which has been building a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the area since last year, has finally started to go live. We haven’t had any solid updates on Gigaloch’s builds […]

NEWS

The Commission says more data is needed before any landmark decision to force Big Tech to help subsidise teclo networks

The European Commission, according to a document seen by Bloomberg, wants telecom companies to provide evidence that streaming sites such as Netflix and YouTube should pay for additional traffic sent over their networks.

Telcos will reportedly be asked to provide details of how much traffic has increased in the past three years, where the increased traffic is coming from, and what the impact of the higher traffic is having in terms of costs, according to a draft questionnaire from April.

As part of the proposed questionnaire, tech companies will also be asked how their costs have increased, their relationships with the telcos, and whether there are any signs of ‘market failure’ in how content is delivered across networks.

While the Commission has declined to comment on the matter, there have been rumblings of a proposal for a “fair share” renumeration policy for many months now, potentially requiring companies that provide streaming services and other data-heavy applications to compensate telecoms operators for the amount of traffic they send over their networks. Operators would then be able to use the additional funds to invest in their network rollouts and upgrade infrastructure.

There has been fierce debate in response to this proposal, with parliamentarians, open internet campaigners, and the tech giants themselves raising concerns that such proposals would hurt net neutrality and potentially create a two-tiered internet across the bloc.

Responses have also differed nationally with the Dutch and German governments urging the Commission to wait for BEREC’s final report, as well as open consultation with member governments and citizens before moving ahead with a proposal. In contrast, according to a Reuters report from earlier in the summer, the French and Italian governments have increased calls for a renumeration policy to be implemented.

The questionnaire has yet to be fully finalised, and a final proposal will be ready at the end of this year or the beginning of 2023. However, given the issues at stake, this is a debate that is likely to run for much longer.

 

Should the content giants be forced to help pay for the network infrastructure they so rely on? Join the experts in discussion about this and other fascinating topics at this year’s live Total Telecom Congress

Also in the news:
UK telcos to face stricter cybersecurity obligations under new govt rules
Jio prepares to plough $25bn into 5G
VMO2 activates first open RAN sites in live network

The post European Commission to ask telcos for proof that US tech giants should pay for traffic first appeared on Total Telecom.

Network operator and ISP Giganet, which offers gigabit broadband to UK homes and businesses via its own full fibre infrastructure (as well as via third-parties including Openreach and CityFibre), has today announced the acquisition of upcoming internet provider Cuckoo as part of efforts to grow its reach into the wider market. Giganet is currently best-known […]

Mobile operators and some broadband ISPs including Vodafone, BT, EE, Plusnet, iD Mobile, O2 and Virgin Media have in the last week responded, separately, to the massive floods in Pakistan by giving their UK customers free calls to the country and roaming. The gestures and timeframes tend to vary, but it appears to have started […]

Hull-based UK ISP Pure Broadband, which in March 2022 announced that their broadband packages had been made available via MS3’s new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in the North of England (here), has suddenly stopped offering related services since being taken over by Connexin in July (here). Until now Pure Broadband has tended to deliver […]

News

The partners say they will work together to develop premium metaverse experiences, with Meta’s Meta Quest platform leveraging Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip’s extended reality (XR) capabilities

This week, Meta and Qualcomm have announced a new multi-year partnership focussing on the creating customer chipsets for Meta’s Quest virtual reality (VR) platform.

The partners say they will work together to create new chips using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platforms, specifically optimised for XR devices.

“As we continue to build more advanced capabilities and experiences for virtual and augmented reality, it has become more important to build specialized technologies to power our future VR headsets and other devices. Unlike mobile phones, building virtual reality brings novel, multi-dimensional challenges in spatial computing, cost, and form factor. These chipsets will help us keep pushing virtual reality to its limits and deliver awesome experiences,” said Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.

“We are still in the early stages of the metaverse and this sort of deep technical integration will help VR move towards being a multifunctional computing platform,” he added.

Qualcomm and Meta have had a partnership in the VR space for around seven years, with the semiconductor specialists’ chips being an integral part of Meta’s various VR headsets, including its latest Quest 2 set.

Now, this new deal will see that partnership taken one step further, creating what Meta hopes will be the foundation upon which the elusive metaverse will ultimately be built.

“Building off our joint leadership in XR, this agreement will allow our companies to deliver best-in-class devices and experiences to transform how we work, play, learn, create and connect in a fully realized metaverse,” explained Cristiano Amon, president and chief executive officer of Qualcomm.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

It is worth noting that, in recent years, Meta has been moving towards creating its own custom silicon for its XR and metaverse creations, though progress here has seemingly been slow. Earlier this year, for example, Meta decided to go with Qualcomm’s technology rather than their own chip, Brasilia, for its launch of the second generation of Ray Ban Stories smartglasses.

Ultimately, it seems that Meta does not quite have the in-house semiconductor expertise it needs just yet and, with Zuckerberg banking the entire future of Meta on the success of the still-amorphous metaverse, it makes sense for the company to lean on tried-and-tested partners like Qualcomm to hopefully make the metaverse materialise.

 

How will the metaverse change the telecoms industry? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Total Telecom Congress  

Also in the news:
UK telcos to face stricter cybersecurity obligations under new govt rules
Jio prepares to plough $25bn into 5G
VMO2 activates first open RAN sites in live network

The post Meta increases partnership with Qualcomm to make metaverse a reality first appeared on Total Telecom.

Press Release

Ericsson is teaming-up with China Mobile Zhejiang and other partners to deploy 5G technology in public-safety-focused natural disaster management in China

The move follows successful testing of a 5G mission-critical partnership solution – called the 5G Full-Closed-Loop system for Integrated Natural Disaster Management – in ten cities across the Lishui region of China.

Spanning early-warning analysis, natural disaster monitoring, command and dispatch, and post-disaster assessment, the solution has now been included in China’s Ministry of Science and Technology’s Monitoring, Early Warning and Prevention of Major Natural Disasters demonstration projects. As a result, the partners expect nationwide deployment to get underway in the coming weeks.

The solution was developed and launched by the Lishui Branch of China Mobile Zhejiang Company Limited and Ericsson along with several industry ecosystem partners under the leadership of Lishui Municipal Emergency Management Bureau.

Ericsson and China Mobile provided key insights and support for the development and validation of core applications by combining respective emergency communication practices, digital twin use cases, and network slicing technologies while jointly building 5G network connectivity.

The project was listed in the recent 5G in Verticals in China 2022 report published by the GSMA.

The solution was developed and tested in Lishui due to the region’s vulnerability to large-scale natural disasters and flash floods during the wet season.

Several criteria were identified for the solution to address, including: accurate disaster prediction; visible disaster occurrence; shared data silos; coordinated emergency command; and timely evacuation.

The Solution tech

The solution combines the coverage, high bandwidth, low latency, and reliability benefits of advanced 5G network connectivity, edge computing, digital twins and 5G private network slicing.

It incorporates:

Integrated 5G sky-land monitoring network: Solves challenges in data integration and sharing, deployment, coverage, and construction and operational costs by ensuring rapid network deployment
Intelligent 5G multi-hazard early-warning model based: Accelerates data processing and improves accuracy for rapid data transmission, consolidated processing, and precise multi-hazard identification
Decision-making assistant based on digital map models: A 3D model of disaster sites built by utilizing 5G drones. Dynamic renditions of disasters duplicate and analyze impact range and create emergency evacuation routes
Portable 5G sites and communication vehicles for on-site communication: Vehicles provide 5G network coverage across disaster relief sites – with portable 5G antenna-integrated radios weighing less than 10 KG as well as satellite and microwave equipment
Simulated model assessment based on remote-sensing imagery: Evaluates disaster scale, physical damage and direct economic loss through the combined results from on-site surveillance results and the simulated assessment model.

 

When it comes to social contribution, are telecoms operators doing enough for their customers? Join the experts in discussion around this key topic at this year’s live Total Telecom Congress  

Also in the news:
UK telcos to face stricter cybersecurity obligations under new govt rules
Jio prepares to plough $25bn into 5G
VMO2 activates first open RAN sites in live network

The post China Mobile and Ericsson devise 5G disaster relief solution first appeared on Total Telecom.