News
Around the world in 80 seconds – We take a look at some of the biggest stories from across the global telecoms industry this past weekend
India – Vodafone India may seek a new brand identity following its proposed merger with Idea Cellular, according to a report in The Economic Times of India.
"There will be a new brand identity — work has started on it," a senior consultant working on the merged company’s new identity told the Economic Times, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to non-disclosure agreements.
It is believed that the new brand will not come into force until at least a year after the completion of the proposed merger, to ease the integration and transitional process.
Italy – Italy’s leading wholesale provider, Open Fibre, will deploy Huawei’s 200 G Elastic OTN platform as the backbone of its Zion network. The Zion network is at the heart of Italy’s National Broadband Strategy and will cover 270 cities.
Italy’s National Broadband Strategy aims to provide 100Mbps broadband coverage for 85% of Italy’s population and 30Mbps broadband coverage for 100% of the country’s population. Open Fibre intends to build an all-optical network, offering faster, more affordable broadband access to households and businesses throughout Italy. This will help the Italian government deliver on its commitments under its "Digital Agenda for Europe" and "Italian Ultra-broadband" strategies.
Singapore – Singapore and Ericsson claim to be the first in the industry to achieve 1Gbps speeds on a quad-band FDD/TDD carrier aggregation network.
This achievement will enable Singtel to optimize the usage of its newly acquired 2500 MHz spectrum band and enhance the consumer mobile experience.
“As the world prepares for the 5G era, Singtel is leveraging its spectrum assets and the latest advancements in mobile technology to optimize our network usage. Singtel will continue to fully integrate our current capabilities and spectrum assets with cutting-edge technology solutions to ensure that we provide customers a future-ready, ultra-fast and low latency mobile network,” said Mark Chong, group chief technology officer, Singtel.
Mexico – Mexican telecoms regulator, IFT, has confirmed that 5G spectrum auctions will be open to everyone, paving the way for America Movil to enter into the proceedings.
"In reality nobody, no operator is restricted from participating, but effectively we have determined spectrum caps," Alejandro Navarrete, the head of spectrum at the IFT, said on local radio.
China – China mobile and VIAVI have announced a collaboration which will see the pair deliver 5G services in China by 2019. VIAVI will provide test and measurement hardware and software for China Mobile and several equipment manufacturers to support development of Slicing Packet Network (SPN) with FlexE interface, the technology the carrier is positioning for 5G transport.
“In order to realise China Mobile’s vision of introducing 5G service by the end of 2019, principal technologies including SPN for transport must be standardised by the ITU-T. We have advanced our test technology to meet this objective, and our solutions are ready to support the China Mobile ecosystem of partners to deliver interoperable network infrastructure,” said Oleg Khaykin, president and chief executive officer at VIAVI.
