Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company OneWeb has confirmed the successful deployment and contact of 36 satellites launched by NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR) in Sriharikota, India, on Sunday 26 March.

This is OneWeb’s 18th launch, its third this year, bringing its constellation to 618 satellites. The OneWeb constellation design calls for 588 satellites for global coverage; additional satellites are planned for resiliency and redundancy.

Thus, the plan is that by the end of this year OneWeb will be ready to roll out global coverage, enhancing its existing connectivity solutions that are already live in regions north of 50 degrees latitude as it brings new areas online by partnering with leading providers.

This mission marks OneWeb’s second satellite deployment from India, which, says the company, highlights its commitment to provide connectivity across the length and breadth of the country. Once activated, OneWeb says its coverage solutions will bring secured connectivity to Indian enterprises, towns, villages, municipalities and schools, including the most remote areas across the country.

As India’s Economic Times news service points out, the company, co-owned by Bharti Group and the UK government, was awarded a GMPCS (global mobile personal communications by satellite services) permit from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) about a year ago. Reliance Jio has also received a GMPCS licence to roll out satellite broadband services.

Other satellite service providers like Starlink, Nelco and Amazon’s Project Kuiper could also choose to compete in the Indian satellite broadband market. All, however, appear to be waiting for clarity on a space communications policy. This will define the role of the Indian National Space Promotion & Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) — a central regulatory body — and authorise it to issue landing rights and market access clearances. 

Windstream Wholesale has added a new, unique route to its portfolio with the help of regional Canadian provider Bluewater Regional Networks. The arrangement creates diverse infrastructure between the two key markets of Chicago and Toronto. … [visit site to read more]

euNetworks has added to its infrastructure portfolio with a new exclusive partnership with Crosslake Fibre UK Limited. The deal enables euNetworks to offer ultra-low latency services between London and Madrid to the financial vertical. … [visit site to read more]

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In the metro fiber space, few companies have gone as deep into one market as Lightpath did, with tens of thousands of on-net buildings in the New York metro area.  The company was relatively quiet while under the umbrella of Altice, but in late 2020 it entered a new, independent phase when Morgan Stanley entered the picture.  Now the company has entered Boston and Miami and seems hungry for more.  More what, you ask?  With us today to talk about the company’s plans and intentions is Lightpath CEO Chris Morley, an industry veteran who spent 8 years at Zayo during the height of the consolidation wave. … [visit site to read more]

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Whale Cloud has signed a three-year BSS contract with Malaysia’s Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC), a government-owned company entrusted to lead the implementation of Sarawak’s Digital Economy initiatives.

The deal is aimed at accelerating the digital transformation of Sarawak, diversifying the telecommunication services available to the public. Sarawak’s Government aims to turn the state – the largest in Malaysia – into a modern and leading digital economy and society by 2030 under the Digital Economy Strategy.

As a company wholly-owned by the Sarawak Government, SEDC is acting to extend internet coverage for full network penetration; in the meantime, implementing an agile, reliable BSS solution is of great importance to enable the digital lifestyle of people in Sarawak.

Whale Cloud will deploy a full BSS suite, including charging, billing, and customer relationship management (CRM). The uniformity and automation of the system will streamline operations, introduce diversified, secure and trusted service faster, and deliver a consistent customer experience across all touchpoints.

“Providing high-speed connectivity and digital services is the foundation to create a better environment for growth in Sarawak. We are delighted to collaborate with Whale Cloud, in terms of leveraging the capabilities and functionality of its BSS suite to offer and optimise services to assist businesses and the public to adopt new technologies and to enhance efficiency through services and solutions offered by Whale Cloud,” said Ir Ts En Sudarnoto Osman, Chief Executive Officer of SDEC.

“We are proud to support SDEC and Sarawak Government on its way to a digital economy….The deployment of Whale Cloud BSS Suite will ensure SDEC serves its Telco customers better, and enable more essential services to citizens in Sarawak in the utility sector,” said Ben Zhou, CEO International of Whale Cloud.

The Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit for Africa 2023 has just ended in South Africa, and Africa’s technology press is reporting on the unveiling of what Huawei calls its Non-Stop Banking initiative.

The initiative was launched at the event in Cape Town, where the company said it plans to facilitate ‘a digital future of non-stop services, non-stop development, and non-stop innovation’. It also called for increased co-operation between the technology and banking industries to facilitate innovation in financial services across Africa.

Of course, highlighting the likelihood of exponential growth in spending on technology by the banking sector is nothing new. Nor is the argument that artificial intelligence, big data analytics and the cloud will see the largest investment. Banks have clear incentives to automate, digitise, and become more data-driven and intelligent, assuming, as Huawei points out, that  digital investments will reduce operational costs, allow the development of new products, and enhance relationships with customers, resulting in increased revenues.

But what about Africa? Well, Jason Cao, CEO of Huawei Global Digital Finance, quoted by ITWeb Africa, said: “Huawei is dedicated to helping its African financial customers address challenges and accelerate changes across six fields: shifting from transaction to digital engagement; cloud-native and agile businesses; data democratisation; secure and reliable infrastructure; hybrid multi-cloud and Lego-style modular services; and automated and predictable operation.”

In Africa, he added, there’s an even greater imperative for banks to embrace digitisation, as it allows for greater financial inclusion.

An audience that included key industry opinion leaders, as well as executives from major banks across Africa, heard this and will no doubt be keen to know more. It will therefore be interesting to see how and whether the Non-Stop Banking initiative translates into a detailed strategy.

By John Denemark, SVP and GM, Carrier Provisioning, TransUnion

A growing number of enterprises are using software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) to deliver the capacity and agility required in today’s complex, diverse networks to support technologies such as cloud services, mobility, edge computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT). As a result, SD-WAN is experiencing significant growth and creating increased … [visit site to read more]

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