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This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Nick Millward, Mobile Ecosystem Forum
As we journey into the future of mobile telecoms over the next five years, I’m excited about the transformative role that artificial intelligence will play. From enhanced network optimisation and intelligent customer service to hyper-personalised services and edge computing, AI promises to revolutionise every aspect of our mobile telecommunications experience. Let’s take a look at some of the anticipated innovations and transformations that AI … [visit site to read more]
Africa Mobile Networks Group (AMN) announced on Thursday that its first of its base stations in Nigeria to connect to SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is now live and using the LEO satellite network for backhaul connectivity.
It’s the first AMN base station to connect to Starlink since AMN and SpaceX signed a commercial deal in July 2023 to use Starlink for remote base station backhaul connectivity across Africa.
AMN said in a statement that Starlink’s low-latency connectivity enables its multi-carrier RANs to sustainably provide 2G, 3G and 4G services in remote, rural areas of Nigeria. AMN also said it also paves the way for the launch of 5G services, which AMN plans to do before the end of this year.
AMN, which builds, owns, operates and maintains mobile network infrastructure for African mobile network operators, currently operates 1,600 base stations across Nigeria. The company said it will continue to install new sites throughout 2024 in Nigeria, as well as Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Madagascar, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin and Rwanda. AMN also has operations in Bissau, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Sudan, and Zambia.
Starlink has been commercially available to consumers and enterprise customers since January 2023. Last week, according to a report from Nairametrics, Starlink slashed the price of its internet router by 45%, although its monthly subscription rate remains unchanged. No reason was given, but the report suggests the move may be related to the naira’s recent appreciation against the US dollar and other foreign currencies.
According to figures from the Nigerian Communications Commission, Starlink had over 11,200 subscribers in the country as of the third quarter of 2023 – which also makes it one of the top ISPs in Nigeria, the report said.
Dialog Axiata and its parent company Axiata Group announced on Thursday that they have signed a definitive agreement to effectively take over Bharti Airtel’s Sri Lankan operations, reducing the number of mobile operators in the country to three.
Under the merger deal, Dialog will acquire 100% of issued shares in Airtel Lanka, then give Bharti Airtel ordinary voting shares via a share swap, which will allow Airtel to retain a 10.35% stake in the combined company. No financial details have been disclosed, and no timeline has been given.
While the deal remains subject to approval of Dialog’s shareholders and the usual legal, corporate and regulatory compliance procedures – to include clearance from the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) – the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has already given its blessing.
Axiata said the merger – which has been in the rumor mill for years and officially in the works since May 2023 – will enable it to leverage economies of scale and reduce duplication of infrastructure, as well as save costs and improve operational efficiencies.
“This merger brings together the strengths of two leading telco groups and bodes well for the growth and sustainability of Sri Lanka’s flagship telecom sector,” said Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, Axiata’s group executive director and CEO of its telecommunications business.
Axiata Group CEO and MD Vivek Sood said the deal aligns with Axiata’s strategy of market consolidation and resilience. “The merger will create value for the shareholders of Dialog Axiata PLC and Axiata Group through achievable synergies.”
It will also further solidify its market share. Dialog already leads the market with an estimated 57% share with close to 18 million subscribers. Airtel Lanka will add another estimated 5 million to Dialog’s subscriber base.
The merger deal comes as Sri Lanka’s telecoms sector has been impacted by the country’s recent economic crises. According to the latest market report from BuddeComm, operators are struggling to make enough revenue to keep up with the cost of network upgrades. Meanwhile, overall subscriber numbers have dropped 3.1% in 2023 up to September. The government hasn’t helped by increasing both the Telecoms Levy and the value added tax on mobile devices.
The deal leaves Sri Lanka with just three mobile operators, the other two being SLT-Mobitel and Hutch Lanka, who will rank second and third, respectively, once the Dialog-Airtel merger is complete. It’s also the second big mobile consolidation deal in Sri Lanka since Hutch Lanka merged with Etisalat Lanka in 2018.
More news from around the industry from this week: … [visit site to read more]
UAE telco du, from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), says it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with global internet provider Expereo to help it provide network connectivity to global enterprises with a local presence.
Under the partnership deal revealed on Tuesday, du will offer enterprises and government entities in the UAE access to Expereo’s suite of global network services that currently reach over 190 countries.
Du said its enterprise and government customers will benefit from enhanced service offerings with access to a wider range of ICT services and tailored solutions that meet their specific needs, backed by Expereo’s responsive support services.
Karim Benkirane, chief commercial officer at du, said the collaboration will also result in improved network infrastructure, ensuring better connectivity and coverage.
« This collaboration opens the doors for us to deliver cutting-edge technologies and superior customer experiences, addressing the global networking demands of our customers in the UAE and government sector,” he said.
The MoU with du was revealed the day before Expereo announced that it has added fixed wireless access to its global solutions portfolio.
The service gives enterprises direct access to wireless networks across 190 countries, either as a primary connection or as a backup. While the fixed wireless solution is pitched as a connectivity option for remote areas, Expereo says it can also be used to set up branch offices quickly.
The fixed wireless access option is also integrated into Expereo’s customer experience platform, expereoOne, which means customers have a single window to view all of their Expereo services. For fixed wireless, that includes monthly invoices and an up-to-date status of all data pools and bundles, as well as signal strength, signal quality and the carriers providing the connectivity.
A few interesting bits of vendor news from around the industry: … [visit site to read more]
PLDT’s wireless unit Smart Communications said on Tuesday that in the first quarter of this year, it has blocked more than 13 million SMShing (a.k.a. “smishing”) messages designed to help criminals take over people’s social media accounts.
SMShing is the SMS equivalent of email phishing. Like with email phishing, SMShing tries to get the victim to click a malicious link. However, SMShing uses short links, which makes it harder for users to see the actual link before they click.
According to Smart, the Philippine National Police (PNP) has linked SMShing to a rise in ‘hijack profile’ cases, in which attackers gain unauthorized access to someone’s social media account. In some cases, the victims are locked out of their own account, after which the attacker messages the victims’ contacts to ask for money, usually pretending to be sick or suffering from some other calamity.
Smart said that in addition to blocking SMShing messages, it has also blacklisted almost 200,000 mobile numbers involved in phishing activities.
Elijah Mendoza, digital communications senior manager at Smart, advised customers to be extra cautious when receiving SMSs with embedded short links, even if they appear to be from someone they know.
“Phishing is the most common technique employed by bad actors to trick you into revealing your data. Don’t go on autopilot mode and click or tap links,” Mendoza said.
SMS fraud has been a problem in the Philippines for years, although a 2022 law requiring people to register for prepaid SIM cards is often credited by regulators and telcos to have helped curb the problem.
In February, Globe Telecom said that it intercepted 21.9 million bank-related spam and scam SMSs in 2023, which is over 73% less that the 83.39 million messages it blocked in 2022.
However, mobile fraud remains one of the most common forms of fraud in the Philippines. According to survey data from Statista, 43% of consumers said they had been targeted by SMShing messages in the fourth quarter of 2023.
On Monday, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian – who co-authored the SIM registration law – said the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) needed to do more to enforce the law. According to the Philippine News Agency, Gatchalian cited recent cases in which authorities discovered that offshore gaming operators are still using unregistered SIMs.
A federal contract, a couple of data center development items, and a new regional IX. … [visit site to read more]
An integral part of a communications platform is how well it connects people.
For this to happen, it needs to have the right tools and features that facilitate clear lines of communication and enable team collaboration with minimal hiccups.
These are some of the core tenets that the Bicom Systems communications platform is based on and ones we strive to improve on with every release to make these core processes as seamless as they can be for each and every user.
Let us see just how the Bicom Systems platform manages this across its entire suite of available products.
The most common form of interaction between colleagues happens either face-to-face or through chat messages.
The Bicom platform ensures that businesses have access to instant text communication so teams can transfer information internally or between one another for easier and faster project collaboration, ensuring that nothing gets lost in the process.
To make chat messages a less sterile environment filled with walls of text, our features enable users with more freedom in their interactions through file sharing, allowing them to incorporate images, links, and different text files into conversations which cuts down several additional steps that would be required to accomplish tasks otherwise.
We also ensure that they can express their emotions to various news, comments and messages left by other employees through reactions that are available both through chats and meetings, sprinkling a bit of excitement in the workday to help lift everyone’s spirits.
Finally, any important announcements and messages can be pinned in groups and individual conversations so that participants never lose track of an important piece of information.
If pinned messages do not cut it, the file search option always helps users find a specific piece of information that was posted within a chat that may have otherwise gotten lost in a sea of responses, allowing users to not have to repeat themselves and to keep chats cleaner and easier to navigate.
When important information from calls needs to be logged, the call recording feature comes in handy, allowing users to record the conversation for future use and allowing call participants to converse without having to additionally note information down, keeping them focused on the call at hand.
Another potent collaboration tool can be found with meetings, a feature that is much needed with modern business practices to provide an extra avenue of communication between remote workers and to bring a little bit of that human touch through the power of audio and video.
It also makes interaction between teammates easier as users do not have to resort to typing everything out if it is easier for them to showcase everything through a presentation.
Meetings are a whole new can of worms though, one that takes a lot of effort to get in line and make them.
Thankfully, we here at Bicom Systems make sure that every aspect of communication is made as seamless and as intuitive to use as possible.
Our first delve into that was ensuring that meetings are not a hassle to schedule and organize, making that process doable in a few simple clicks and letting organizers add users just as easily.
On top of that, co-organizers can be assigned to help make the meeting run smoothly once it is fired up.
After the meeting itself has been organized and gets started up, the problem of participant interactivity and collaboration tools is the next one that we tackled.
We have covered this through a number of basic features like adding a chat functionality within the meeting to allow participants to converse and pitch in without disrupting the meeting’s flow or the current speaker.
A feature that also helps preserve meeting flow and incite collaborative efforts is the Raise Hand option in meetings, allowing meeting participants to pitch in with their questions without disrupting the flow of the meeting as the presenter gets to them when he has free time, introducing a bit of order, especially during meetings with a large number of participants where a lot of them may want to get a chance to speak their turn.
Screen sharing is another key feature of any successful meeting as it allows users to successfully present their screen to others and allow for smoother collaboration and task elaboration without requiring others to follow along on their own and allowing them to simply watch and remain focused on the speaker.
Accompanying tools that make managing presentations during meetings easier and improving overall collaboration are the remote control and clipboard sharing tools, allowing participants to immediately share important information on the presenter’s screen if given permission to do so.
This allows the presenter in question to focus more on the presentation itself while relaying the task of information presentation over to an assistant, improving overall presentation flow, saving precious time and participant patience.
Remembering important information during long meetings can be a tedious process and not every team member can catch all of it throughout the length of the meeting itself.
In order to prevent future miscommunication and needless repetition during a meeting, users can record their meetings, save them and share them with the relevant members in order to preserve that information through a lot less effort than manually noting it down.
This also applies to the meeting’s chat history which gets logged so users do not have to worry about losing access to that either.
Aside from assisting with team collaboration, this can also be used as a means of creating training videos for new hires, making the onboarding process that much easier to understand with visuals attached to written explanations.
When working on different projects, the various management tools offered by the Bicom Systems product suite allow for a better overview of how and where different resources are utilized and can help uncover pain points that should be ironed out.
PBXware, SERVERware, sipPROT and Contact Center utilize optimized system dashboards that track necessary information and check for any faults as well as resource availability and allocation throughout their different spheres of operation.
This information can range anywhere from how many resources are assigned to an individual VPS, how many PBX extensions are online and how many attacks on the system are prevented to average customer handling time per employee in a Contact Center and their availability status, among many other methods of measuring workplace effectiveness and resource utilization.
Additionally, our Contact Center solution even offers the option of automating report generation and delivery so managers and team leads can have more free time on their hands to devote to issue resolution, especially considering how crucial optimization in CCs is.
These reports can cover singular channels or can come in the form of blended reports, covering all Agent and Queue statistics per communication channel.
The function of these management tools ultimately depends on which product is in use, but rest assured that all of them are continuously optimized to display all of the necessary information that managers and team leaders need to be able to assess the current situation and figure out whether action is needed to remedy any present or potential future issues, ensuring seamless operation.
“A big role in making communication possible is our dedication to refining workflow and making team collaboration a smooth and painless experience.”
One of the main goals of Bicom Systems is to enable access to enterprise-level communication tools for any small to medium-sized business, allowing them to have a fighting chance in very competitive markets.
A big role in making this goal possible is our dedication to adding features which help refine business workflow and make team collaboration a smooth and painless experience, helping these businesses grow and keep pace with already established ones.
While we already possess a solid foundation of these tools across the Bicom Systems product suite, we do not plan to stop anytime soon.
Our teams are always hard at work researching new potential features that will make the work that your users do that much easier to execute.
If you would like a taste of what we have to offer, be sure to request a demo or contact us directly should you require further elaboration.
