Indonesia’s PRT BRIN, and Indian companies Signaltron and Signalchip Innovations have signed a letter of intent for collaboration and co-development in the field of electronics, telecommunications, networking and drone technologies.

Under this arrangement, government agency BRIN, connectivity products company Signaltron and fabless semiconductor company Signalchip aim to collaborate to create secure, high-performance, and customised connectivity solutions in supporting the goal of connecting the unconnected in Indonesia, particularly in remote, under-served and island regions. 

Research Centre for Telecommunication (PRT) under the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN), is a sovereign research arm which works in the fields of advanced communication technologies including next-generation antennas, 6G and sub-Terahertz communication, among others, focusing on solutions for connectivity in Indonesia.

India’s Economic Times news service points out that Signaltron has developed advanced communication technologies ranging from small cells for local area deployment to micro and macro-level base stations like 4G and 5G using chips developed by Signalchip.

The areas of cooperation that the parties intend to work on include network customisation and the development of connectivity topologies suited to Indonesia’s archipelagic conditions, inter-island and intra-island solutions to provide last-mile connectivity to the underserved regions and pilot deployments of 4G/5G connectivity solutions, and future-generation solutions (including 6G), in both urban and rural settings. 

Signaltron, Signalchip and BRIN also intend to pursue joint research and co- development of advanced solutions for tropical and maritime environments in telecommunications, networking, positioning, optical networks, high-speed data and drone/unmanned aircraft system (UAS) integration.

A partnership expansion, some intercity momentum, and a bit of M&A: … [visit site to read more]

Press Release

Compact customer-premises appliance pairs with the MaiaEdge PBC 2000 to deliver automated, encrypted Ethernet connectivity over any available transport

MaiaEdge has introduced the PBC 100 Series, compact customer premises equipment (CPE) that helps fiber operators and service providers extend private Ethernet beyond their owned fiber footprints, directly to customer sites.

With the PBC 100 Series, part of the Path Border Controller product family, a service provider’s reach no longer stops where its fiber ends. Operators can extend private Layer 2 services to off-net customers over available transport, without an expensive new fiber build or a manually negotiated NNI. Instead of spending weeks or months extending network reach, providers can automatically establish the connection and start delivering services faster.

Designed to complement the PBC 2000 deployed at an operator’s point of presence (PoP), Metro Ethernet edge or data center, the PBC 100 Series brings the same automated path-provisioning capabilities to the customer premises. Operators can use available fiber, dedicated internet access, satellite or other IP transport to automatically establish a Layer 2 connection to a customer site. A single interface abstracts routing complexity and gives operators end-to-end visibility.

The PBC 100 Series is built on SD-Ethernet, the architecture behind MaiaEdge’s ability to extend Ethernet services simply and programmatically over any available transport. The PBC 100 Series is the newest building block in that architecture, and the first to bring it to the customer premises. This is giving operators a faster, simpler way to reach more customers and deliver more services without waiting on new physical infrastructure.

“For decades, where your fiber ended, your service opportunity ended with it,” said Abilash Menon, CEO and Co-Founder of MaiaEdge. “The PBC 100 Series breaks that link. Providers can reach off-net customers without building fiber or negotiating a new NNI, then turn that connection into private connectivity, cloud access, AI infrastructure, and more. We’re giving operators a way to expand their addressable market without expanding their physical network.”

Beyond the initial connection, the PBC 100 Series turns a newly reachable customer site into a platform for additional services, whether from the operator’s own network or from MaiaEdge-enabled partners. An operator can extend cloud on-ramps, distributed AI access and future services to that same connection, without a separate integration project for each one. With the PBC 100 Series, operators aren’t only able to reach customers they couldn’t before, but can also unlock new revenue from services they couldn’t previously deliver.

For data center and AI infrastructure operators, the same model can speed tenant onboarding by reducing the manual configuration typically required to connect a new customer.

“With the PBC 100 Series, we’re delivering Layer 2 services to customer sites that simply weren’t practical to reach before,” said Victor Rodriguez, CTO at HDCO Group. “It gives us a simple Ethernet experience over infrastructure that may come from multiple sources. Compared with the networking approaches we’ve used before, it is five times easier to operate, and it opens opportunities we previously could not pursue.”

A fiber footprint used to be where Layer 2 services ended. The PBC 100 Series removes that boundary. The first device in the series, the PBC 124-C, is available now. Read the full story at maiaedge.io/pbc100.

Ericsson will merge its North East Asia and South East Asia, Oceania and India operations into a single Asia-Pacific unit from 2027, as part of a broader effort to streamline its structure and improve efficiency.

Patrick Johansson, currently head of Market Area Europe, Middle East and Africa, will lead the new Market Area Asia-Pacific, and remain on Ericsson’s Executive Team. The company said it will begin recruiting a successor to Johansson in EMEA.

Chafic Nassif, who leads North East Asia, and Andres Vicente, head of South East Asia, Oceania and India, will support the transition before handing over their responsibilities on 31 December 2026.

New Ericsson CEO Per Narvinger said the consolidation is intended to help it operate more effectively across Asia-Pacific while maintaining a focus on customers and individual countries. It forms part of a broader simplification of the company’s operating structure, which Ericsson says is designed to strengthen customer focus, make greater use of its research and development capabilities, improve accountability and drive efficiencies.

The announcement came alongside Ericsson’s third-quarter results. The figures offer context for the company’s focus on efficiency, although Ericsson did not say that the APAC changes were a direct response to financial performance or to results in the region.

For the quarter, reported sales rose 6% year over year to SEK 59.5 billion (US$6 billion), while organic sales increased 7%, primarily on higher Networks sales. Organic sales grew in three of Ericsson’s four market areas. Adjusted EBITA was SEK 10.1 billion, down from SEK 15.8 billion a year earlier, but the comparison included a SEK 7.6 billion capital gain in the prior-year period. Adjusted EBITA margin was 17.0%, compared with 28.1% a year ago.

Narvinger described the quarter as strong, while pointing to a flat radio access network market, elevated geopolitical uncertainty and higher component costs as challenges ahead. The company said it is pursuing portfolio optimisation, pricing and efficiency measures to offset cost pressures and strengthen competitiveness.

The APAC consolidation is one element of a wider organisational reshuffle. Ericsson is also moving the portfolio of its Business Area Enterprise Wireless Solutions into other parts of the company, saying this will help create research and development synergies and provide scale for product innovation. Neutral Host and Ericsson Private 5G will move into Business Area Networks, while Wireless WAN will remain a standalone business reporting to the head of Market Area Americas.

Taken together, the announcements indicate a push to streamline management and bring related activities closer together as Ericsson seeks to improve execution and respond to market pressures. The company’s stated rationale for the new APAC unit, however, centres on operating more effectively across the region and serving customers – not on a specific regional financial shortfall.

Millicom, the digital telecommunications and media company operating primarily under the Tigo brand in Latin America, has announced an investment of approximately US$2.665 billion in Colombia over the next four years.

This follows its acquisition of Movistar Colombia, which we reported in February. The investment in Colombia, which will be added to the US$1.411 billion invested in acquisitions in the country, will be used to strengthen the capacity of the mobile network, expand coverage and increase the capacity of the fibre optic network.

According to the BNamericas website, the company has plans to cover 80% of the main cities with 5G and invest in more than 1,200 sites to cover approximately two million Colombians who do not have mobile service or may not have access to a second provider.

In Ecuador, where it has bought Telefonica Ecuador, Tigo plans to invest around US$460 million over the next three to four years, again on upgrades, including modernisation and expansion of the network, digital infrastructure, and improving the customer experience.

Investments of some US$440 million are also planned in the operations of the former Telefónica Uruguay and in the company’s existing operations in Honduras, where US$1 billion will be spent over the next five years.

According to BNamericas, the projected investments in Colombia added to those announced in Ecuador and Uruguay, bring planned investment to a total of US$3.725 billion over the next three to four years. The company has not yet announced investment figures for its operation in Chile.

Almost 30 suspected scammers have been arrested and 3.7 million online profiles and accounts removed as part of a multi-agency crackdown – also involving private sector companies – against fraud perpetrated from across Africa.

The arrests, which took place in recent weeks, primarily in Ghana and Nigeria, happened as more than 100 people from overseas law enforcement agencies and tech companies gathered in London to participate in an operational intensification targeting crime groups operating across Africa and the infrastructure that they use to target victims in the UK and beyond.

Officers from such organisations as the FBI, Nigeria Police Force and Ghanaian Cyber Security Authority were joined by industry representatives from 15 companies including Meta, Microsoft and Google.

According to the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), which hosted the event between 6 and 9 October, operational activity took place both during that week and in the run-up to the event. The operations included focus on fraudsters based in West African countries, including Ghana and Nigeria, where social media profiles are used to target victims of a number of fraud types, including investment and impersonation fraud.

Report Fraud, a UK service that enables people to tell the police about cybercrime and fraud, worked with tech giant Meta to provide data to identify fraud enablers. The NCA and other law enforcement agencies worked closely with industry to help locate the suspects behind the scams leading to their arrests. Meta also played a key role in coordinating the event and encouraging broad private sector participation to maximise scam compound disruption.

Over 1,110 West African Facebook and Instagram accounts that were associated with the data provided by Report Fraud were disabled, as were over 490 Facebook accounts and over 490 ad accounts identified by the UK’s OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) Data Enforcement. OCC Data Domain Enforcement identified and disabled over 380 scam domains that were assessed to potentially be associated with the scam domains provided by the OCC.

Arrests and seizure of associated electronic devices took place in the Sasaabi, Accra region of Ghana and the Delta State in Nigeria. This was a multi-agency operation led by the Ghana Cyber Security Authority, supported by the NCA, Ghana Police Service, FBI, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria.

The crackdown also saw 3.7 million online profiles and accounts removed by Meta and a total of $11 million dollars in potential freezable funds were identified by the private sector partners.

Will it be enough? As Ecofin notes, in its cyberthreat assessment published in June 2025, Interpol reported that more than 30% of crimes reported in West and East Africa were linked to cybercrime, based on data provided by the countries surveyed. However, in its African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026, Interpol recommends strengthening digital investigation capabilities, cross-border cooperation and partnerships between law enforcement agencies and private companies, so this initiative seems to be a timely one.

The economics of fixed wireless access have always been a story of two costs: the cost of reaching a subscriber, and the cost of serving one once reached. Fiber dominates the first conversation — trenching, permitting, and a per-home-passed bill that runs into the hundreds or thousands of dollars per location. FWA’s enduring pitch has been that it collapses the “reach” cost by spending spectrum instead of construction. What has quietly held FWA back in the places where it matters most is … [visit site to read more]

Operator Ooredoo Qatar has announced the launch of Qatar’s first 5G+ mobile network, building on the capabilities of 5G standalone, the network Ooredoo Qatar was the first to deploy.

The operator says that the 5G+ (a term sometimes used for 5G Advanced) network supports increasingly demanding digital applications, with faster speeds, greater network capacity, and lower latency.

These improvements, it adds, enable more devices to connect and exchange information efficiently, while shorter response times support applications such as real-time equipment monitoring and automated processes.

For consumers, Ooredoo continues, the 5G+ network supports enhanced streaming, more responsive gaming and seamless connectivity on the move.

Ooredoo has deployed this new technology across different locations in Qatar, though these are not specified in the announcement. It is commercially available through mobile broadband in areas covered by the 5G+ network.

For businesses, these capabilities provide a foundation for more efficient operations and better-informed decisions. Enhanced network reliability and performance support real-time monitoring, AI-enabled services, and complex digital workloads.

Network slicing, which allows connectivity to be tailored to specific applications, is another opportunity enhanced by the 5G+ network, while 5G advanced networks and edge computing can support mission-critical applications that require rapid responses.

Expanded IoT capabilities also support industrial sensors, asset trackers, and utility meters, enabling automation, intelligent operations, and future smart city services.

This is another first for the company. Sheikh Ali bin Jabor bin Mohammad Al Thani, Chief Executive Officer of Ooredoo Qatar, explains: “From launching the world’s first 5G network in 2018 to deploying Qatar’s first 5G Standalone core network, we have consistently advanced connectivity. This launch marks the next step in that journey, supporting the next generation of digital services across Qatar.”

A partnership, a buildout completion, and some AI agent news: … [visit site to read more]

Large-scale data centre growth in India appears to be accelerating, with recently announced deals or plans including big names such as CtrlS Datacenters, Submer, BSNL and Google, but some public discomfort has been expressed about the rollout in Andhra Pradesh.

CtrlS Datacenters has signed a letter of intent (LoI) with the government of Bihar, a state in eastern India, to invest INR100 billion (an estimated US$1.05 billion) to set-up a 150 MW hyperscale AI factory in Bodh Gaya, one of Buddhism’s most important pilgrimage sites. CtrlS has also formally inaugurated its INR4 billion (about us$42 million) AI and cloud-ready data centre in the capital Patna.

Meanwhile, global IT services and digital infrastructure provider Submer and BSNL Tower Corporation Limited (BTCL), a wholly owned subsidiary of operator BSNL, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore the development of sovereign, AI-ready data centre infrastructure across India.

Submer and BTCL will jointly assess opportunities spanning GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS), sovereign AI cloud infrastructure, edge and micro-edge data centres and large-scale data centre projects of up to 20 MW.

Under the MoU, Submer will apply its expertise in integrated data centre architecture, liquid cooling, thermal management and high-density computing. BTCL will coordinate access to relevant BSNL premises and data centre facilities for technical and commercial feasibility studies. It will also support connectivity, regulatory alignment, and engagement with government and enterprise stakeholders.

However, in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh on India’s southeast coast, where the US$15 billion construction of Google’s largest data centre outside the United States is under way, such developments are being questioned.

Visakhapatnam is a landing point for submarine internet cables linking the country to Singapore, so, for India, the location of the 600-acre site is ideal. And other tech sites are planned in the area. Indeed, a joint venture between multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries, investment management company Brookfield and data centre platform provider Digital Realty, is investing US$11 billion in another AI data centre in Visakhapatnam.

Many residents fear the Google data centre will strain water and power resources, damage the environment and bring too few jobs in return, fears that Google and local government suggest are unjustified; they argue that many direct and indirect jobs, as well as significant economic activity, will result.

In response to comments about water supply, Google has said it will deploy ‘advanced’ air cooling technology to ease water use at the data centre, while the state plans six 1.2-gigawatt nuclear power plants to manage energy demand.

Nevertheless, news reports suggest that activists in Andhra Pradesh are demanding a moratorium on new data centres across the state until independent environmental and social impact evaluations are published.

However, more such developments are highly likely. India has only about 3% of global data centre capacity, according to government figures, and wants more. It has rolled out a variety of incentives to attract big tech companies, including tax cuts.