There was an interesting bit of fiber consolidation over in western Europe yesterday. euNetworks has announced an agreement to acquire the dark fiber business of a Belgian utility company, referred to as ‘the Business Branch’. … [visit site to read more]

It seems that mobile money is a major driver of an impressive set of figures from operator MTN Uganda, the country’s largest telecom company, which has a subscriber base of about 17.2 million, and is part of the pan-African MTN Group.

In fact the rise announced – a 20% rise in pre-tax profit for the full year 2022 – was boosted by financial technology and data services, according to the company. Fintech and data service sales led a rise in pre-tax profit to 591 billion shillings ($160 million) from 491 billion shillings in 2021. Fintech revenues and data service revenues both increased by roughly a quarter.

Much of this is about mobile money services. As in much of East Africa, mobile payments have grown tremendously over recent years in Uganda as businesses have embraced cashless payments and e-commerce in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

MTN Uganda says some of the businesses that have embraced the MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) offering include supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants, hardware shops, fuel stations and salons among others.

In fact MTN Mobile Money Uganda recently announced a MoMoPay Merchant milestone with the number of businesses on the service crossing the 200,000 mark. MoMoPay enables merchants to receive payment for goods and services using MTN Mobile Money.

MTN Uganda listed on Uganda’s stock exchange in December 2021, although, as Reuters points out, its initial public offering was undersubscribed. 

The nearest rival to MTN in Uganda is Airtel. Statista says that in the second quarter of 2022 MTN held a majority of the share of mobile subscriptions in Uganda with 53%. Airtel reached 42% in 2022.

The other operators are Uganda Telecom and Lycamobile. Africell exited Uganda in October 2021.

Infinera revealed a couple of interesting trials yesterday. They went after the longhaul, both in the field with Arelion and in the lab with Corning. They have been stretching the reach of their 400G wavelength technology, leveraging their ICE-X pluggable solution. … [visit site to read more]

Two Saudi service providers have signed deals with Rakuten Symphony as they look towards their next generation of mobile networks.

Salam has signed a strategic alliance framework agreement that will see Rakuten Symphony provide Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) and network planning, implementation and operation services while Zain KSA has signed an MoU to enable strategic collaboration in building next-generation telecommunications networks based on open standards and network infrastructure.

Under the Salam agreement, Rakuten Symphony will provide platforms, expertise and services relating to 4G and 5G Open RAN technology. The alliance will allow for delivery of software, hardware, service delivery platforms and managed services in several areas, including e-commerce, fintech, mobile banking, big data and digital content.

Ahmed Al-Anqari, CEO, Salam, said: “Our strategic alliance with Rakuten will power Salam’s ambition to transform our existing mobile offering with richer customer experiences and unlock new possibilities for Saudi Arabia’s digital generation in support of the Kingdom’s digital transformation journey.”

Under the MoU signed with Zain KSA at Mobile World Congress 2023, Rakuten Symphony will deliver mobile network services through the use of open technology that will facilitate wireless infrastructure. The firms will collaborate on a blueprint for a cloud-native, fully virtualised, new-generation radio access solution architecture, which will be Open RAN 4G and 5G-based with advanced automation capabilities.

Zain KSA Chief Technology Officer, Abdulrahman Al-Mufadda, said: “This collaboration will leverage and maximise the strengths of Zain KSA and Rakuten to accelerate innovation and drive the Saudi ICT sector toward achieving Saudi Vision 2030’s goals to transform the Kingdom into a digital hub that fosters a digital economy and hyper-connected society.”

Now is the season for next generation equipment trials, and today we saw one of the first indications of the coming Terabit wavelength era. Windstream Wholesale put Acacia’s latest optical technology to the test, successfully demonstrating some big bandwidth on a live network. … [visit site to read more]

Ericsson has signed a reseller agreement with South African service provider Comsol to provide the Ericsson Private 5G solution; this will enable Comsol to expand its enterprise business within South Africa’s mining industry.

Comsol, which describes itself as a leading provider of guaranteed, dedicated and high-speed, last-mile connectivity and private networks, will receive the right to resell the high-speed wireless networking solution to customers across South Africa’s mining industry.

With Ericsson’s high-end connectivity solution and Comsol’s expertise in mining and systems integration, this collaboration is set to help the nation’s mining industry improve worker safety, increase operational efficiency, and realize its sustainability goals.

Ericsson Private 5G is Ericsson’s next-generation private network solution providing secure and reliable 4G and 5G connectivity through its single server dual mode core. Built for business operations, the solution comes pre-integrated to ensure rapid time to use and turning on advanced and intelligent operations in any environment.

Helping the mining industry gain robust 4G/LTE and 5G standalone (SA) connectivity, the solution will also help Comsol’s customers optimize and simplify business operations through data creation, collection, and analysis. This solution will enable Comsol to provide reliable and secure communication while connecting people, industrial sites and devices.

Ericsson has successfully delivered a proof of concept (PoC) implementing the Ericsson Private 5G solution as a pre-packaged standalone implementation of the Ericsson Dual Mode Core, which supports end-to-end cellular data-only services focusing primarily on enterprise applications.

The Ericsson Private 5G solution enables 5G standalone (SA) connectivity with a low carbon footprint and low lead time. Comsol will utilize the PoC solution to experiment and test various use cases for mining and other industries, including augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, and fixed wireless access.

Private 5G rollout seems to be something of a trend in South Africa lately. Among recent announcements, we reported late last year that operator MTN plans to build private 5G networks for mines and ports.

Ericsson is pleading guilty to a number of deferred charges from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) arising from offences committed before 2017.

The allegations indicated possible corruption among salespeople and consultants, and were based on irregular expense claims that may have been bribe payments to terrorist groups in order to circumvent Iraqi customs.

The plea will also see Ericsson hand over a fine of US$206,728,848 to the DOJ, concluding the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) signed by the two parties in 2019 to resolve Ericsson’s various declared violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), committed across several of its markets between 2010 and 2016.

Since Ericsson entered the DPA in 2019, the DOJ has brought no new criminal misconduct charges or allegations against the vendor, and this remains the case at the DPA’s conclusion. However, the DOJ did inform Ericsson on two occasions (October 2021 and March 2022) that it had made non-criminal violations of the DPA by failing to submit relevant documentation by required deadlines, as well as failing to provide salient information to the DOJ regarding its 2019 internal investigation of its activities in Iraq.

The DPA terms stipulate that the DOJ has unilateral authority both to decide whether Ericsson has breached the agreement, and to prosecute the company in the event of any violation. Accordingly, Ericsson’s guilty plea relates to the FCPA violations to which it admitted under the DPA.

Börje Ekholm, CEO of Ericsson since 2017, hailed the step as a “resolution” of the issue which would help drive “cultural change across the company.” He claimed that Ericsson had learned from its “historical misconduct” and would “transform [its] culture” to become a leader in how we conduct our business”, implementing “stringent controls and improved governance, ethics and compliance.”

Ericsson’s internal 2019 investigation did not find that the firm had made or was responsible for making payments to any terrorist organisations. The vendor carried out further probes across 2022 which upheld this finding.

The DOJ noted that Ericsson had “significantly enhanced its compliance program and internal accounting controls through structural and leadership changes.”

AALTO HAPS, an Airbus subsidiary, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enter a strategic partnership with STC Group, the Saudi digital enabler in the region, that will involve introducing high altitude platform station (HAPS)-based solutions to Saudi Arabia.

AALTO HAPS is an Airbus subsidiary that provides services from its stratospheric Zephyr solar-powered aircraft for mobile connectivity, platform mobility, earth observation, and government applications.

STC Group will have access to AALTO’s solutions when the company rolls out commercial services by the end of 2024. Those solutions will enable STC to expand its geographical coverage to rural and remote areas currently unconnected, improving service quality. In addition, HAPS solutions can serve to augment coverage during critical events and can be deployed quickly and easily in case of natural disasters.

AALTO’s Zephyr HAPS flies in the stratosphere, above conventional air traffic, and provides low latency, direct-to-device 4G/5G services, acting as a tower in the sky with the capability to complement terrestrial networks.

It has a coverage of 7,500 square kilometres which is the equivalent of up to 250 towers on the ground. In areas of lower population densities or difficult terrain, Zephyr integrates seamlessly in the mobile operators’ networks and, says AALTO, becomes the right technical and economic solution to expand the edge of coverage of those mobile networks.

This isn’t the first time HAPS and Saudi Arabia have been in the news. As we reported at the time, earlier this year UK company Stratospheric Platforms Limited (SPL), a partner of German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, successfully trialled pioneering technology that provides 5G network coverage from the stratosphere in Saudi Arabia.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Joshua Feast, CEO and co-founder of Cogito

Between customer complaints and requests for perks, discounts, and upgrades, telecommunications contact centers face unique challenges. Frontline agents often serve as the first point of contact for many customers, making them the face and voice of the company. In such a competitive landscape, where one bad customer service interaction could result in the consumer switching service providers, telecommunications teams must figure out what to do to stay ahead of the rest. … [visit site to read more]

Pan-African technology group Liquid Intelligent Technologies, which has a fibre backbone of over 100,000 kilometres across the African continent, has announced a new collaboration to deliver internet access to 20 million underserved people in Africa by the end of 2025, partnering with Microsoft.

Working together through Microsoft’s Airband initiative, the new collaboration will initially target regions that include, but are not limited to, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia. Additionally, the partnership will allow for increased proliferation of high-speed connectivity to the farthest parts of Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.

The companies say they will empower individuals and businesses in some of the United Nations’ least developed countries to help bridge the digital divide and assist in transitioning more African countries into the digital economy.

The effort will be discussed during a panel discussion at the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) which takes place in Doha, Qatar from 5-9 March.

According to the International Telecommunication Union, roughly 2.7 billion people globally remain unconnected because it’s either unavailable or they can’t afford it. Rural areas around the world are especially disadvantaged, as traditional telecom infrastructure fails to go the final mile in low-density regions.

Microsoft’s Airband Initiative partners with a wide-ranging ecosystem of organisations to design, implement and support programmes that deliver unique connectivity solutions designed for local communities and their challenges. This includes working with broadband providers, local ISPs, energy partners, international organisations and local governments to deliver internet access in unserved or underserved communities worldwide.