Middle East operators have opened the first regional community lab in collaboration with Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and Intel, following the signing of the Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) MoU last year. The move will accelerate the implementation of Open RAN solutions in their existing telecom networks in order to support the early adoption and development of a robust regional ICT ecosystem.

Two new operators Batelco and Omantel have also signed the Open RAN MoU, joining the e& formerly known as Etisalat Group, stc, Zain Group, Mobily, and du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), in their commitment to deploy Open RAN across their footprint and enhance supreme network experiences for end-users.

The Middle East lab will provide a platform for the parties to jointly deploy open and disaggregated technologies into their networks to optimize the online experiences of businesses and consumers. Flexible, interoperable and standards-based solutions such as OpenRAN present a compelling opportunity for operators to become more efficient in meeting the ever…

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Owners of UK ISP BT’s latest set-top-box hardware for their broadband-based Pay TV (IPTV) service – TV Box Pro – have recently begun complaining about a series of new bugs related to problems with recordings (e.g. scheduled recordings failing to record) and some apps not working. But there’s a partial fix. The new kit officially […]

The Department for the Economy (DfE) in Northern Ireland has issued a brief progress update on their £197m state aid supported Project Stratum scheme, which is working with UK ISP Fibrus to spread a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across 85,000 premises in rural areas by March 2025. We should point out that the original […]

Having allocated EUR 1.15 billion to its first high-speed fibre voucher scheme in 2020, Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development (MISE) has now announced the second phase of the scheme…

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MTN have reiterated their commitment to supporting innovation by becoming the the first African company to enter the metaverse. Today they have announced the purchase of 144 plots of digital land in the Africarare metaverse Ubuntuland…

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City-focused full fibre (FTTB/P) broadband ISP Hyperoptic, which is present in parts of 57 UK towns and cities, has today launched a new mesh WiFi service called ‘Total Wi-Fi’, which aims to give new and existing customers the “ultimate [Wi-Fi] speed, reliability, and coverage – in every room.” But it will cost extra. The provider, […]

Broadband ISP Jurassic Fibre, which is busy building a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across rural parts of South West England (Devon, Somerset and Dorset), appears to have just significantly reduced the pricing of their packages for local homes by around 50%. The operator is currently being supported by an investment of £250 million from […]

Calls are growing for the UK Government to take action to stop OneWeb, a British-registered company where it holds a key £400m stake after helping to rescue it from bankruptcy in 2020 (alongside a consortium of investors), from using Russian rockets for future launches of OneWeb’s ultrafast low-latency broadband satellites. OneWeb has already launched a […]

Telesat , one of the world’s largest and most innovative satellite operators, and Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a business of Cassava Technologies, a leading pan-African technology group, today announced a strategic cooperation agreement to explore reciprocal go-to-market strategies to bring Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services to Africa…

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The UK Government has today begun to consult on draft regulations for their new Telecommunications (Security) Act which, aside from banning Huawei inside 5G mobile networks (and restricting their involvement with FTTP broadband), will also impose a cacophony of tedious new security rules on telecoms operators. The TSA became law in November 2021 (full summary) […]