It looks like Indian operator Vodafone Idea’s plans to pay at least some of its outstanding debts may have run into trouble.

As we reported last month, Vodafone Idea (aka Vi) seemed to have found a way to solve at least one of its debt issues after announcing plans to issue debentures worth 16 billion rupees (about US$195.6 million) to American Tower Corporation (ATC).

However, Vodafone Idea has now said that the planned preferential bonds issue could not be concluded. That’s because a key condition was government conversion of the 161.3 billion rupees (about US$1.96 billion) accrued interest on the operator’s deferred AGR-related dues into equity.

Vodafone Idea says it has not received any communication from the government on such a conversion, so according to an exchange filing, “the issuance of OCDs (optionally convertible debentures) to ATC has not been completed within the validity period of the shareholders’ resolution (i.e. 15 days from the date of passing of the resolution).”

Vodafone Idea is now in discussions with ATC for an extension of the agreement, which may require a new shareholders’ approval.

This follows recent news that the operator had been in talks with State Bank of India (SBI) for a 150-160 billion rupee loan ($1.94 billion), though here too, the need for clarity on the government’s potential shareholding in Vodafone Idea, as well as the operator’s business scale-up plans could be issues.

However, ironically, the government itself also seems to be waiting for a clear fund-raising plan, which puts Vodafone Idea in a very difficult position.

Vodafone Idea needs external funding to clear its over 120 billion rupees (US$1.45 billion) of dues to large vendors such as Indus Towers, ATC, Nokia and Ericsson, besides funding its pending 5G services rollout and bolstering its 4G coverage.

Vodafone Idea still apparently plans to raise Rs 200 billion rupees (US$2.43 billion) via a mix of debt and equity, but without clear signals from the government, that could be difficult.

The new year will see a changing of the guard over at euNetworks. The Western European bandwidth infrastructure company’s board of director has agreed to the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer. … [visit site to read more]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Erik Nordquist, Global Managed Security Product Director at GTT

As ransomware and data breaches have been grabbing headlines for the past few years, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have stopped being top of mind for many CIOs, but they’re still more dangerous than ever and companies cannot neglect the necessary steps for prevention and securing internal traffic. In fact, Google Cloud recently recorded the largest DDoS attack ever of 46 million requests per second in an offensive that lasted 69 minutes. … [visit site to read more]

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One of the biggest byproducts of the global pandemic is its impact on accelerating the digital transformation process. In just a few years, data digitization, often referred to as digital transformation, has profoundly changed the shape of digital business in every industry and for consumers globally. Increased usage of digital applications in video calling, telehealth, e-commerce and e-learning and entertainment has significantly increased the need for data capacities.  Unrelenting data growth, combined with the continuing migration of enterprises offsite into multitenant colocation data centers, is having a significant impact on the industry.  With us today to talk about their experiences over the last few years is Tag Greason, Chief Hyperscale Officer, at QTS Data Centers. … [visit site to read more]

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Keep up-to-date with all the latest news, articles, event and product updates posted on Developing Telecoms.
Subscribe to our FREE weekly email newsletters for the latest telecom info in developing and emerging markets globally.

AMD and Viettel High Tech – a member of Viettel Group – have completed a 5G mobile network field trial deployment conducted by Viettel and powered by AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC devices.

Viettel High Tech has used AMD radio technology with prior 4G deployments and is now accelerating new networks via new 5G remote radio heads. Designed to meet the growing capacity and performance requirements of mobile users globally, the Viettel 5G mobile network is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.

AMD is the exclusive radio unit silicon supplier for Viettel’s indigenous 5G radio development. After the successful completion of the first field trial, Zynq MPSoCs are now set to be extended to an additional 300 Macro 8T8R base stations and 900 5G 8T8R Macro radios. The Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC was also chosen by Viettel for its first-generation 64T64R Massive MIMO radio which is currently being optimized for field trials. Viettel is developing the next generation of radios to also include Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC devices, to provide industry-leading integration and higher performance.

“Viettel is committed to advancing mobile technology leadership by working closely with AMD to incorporate its adaptable SoC technology into our new generation of 5G networks,” said Nguyen Vu Ha, General Director of Viettel High Tech. “Going from VHT’s history of making 4G BTS, this decision to scale for the growing demands of 5G was based on evaluating various factors including flexibility, simplification, design stability and the experience of engineers.”

“5G provides new opportunities to offer higher levels of performance, power efficiency and new services along with increased reliability required to meet the growing data demands of cellular networks,” said Yousef Khalilollahi, corporate vice president, APAC Sales, Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group, AMD. “We are proud of our close collaboration with Viettel and remain focused on enabling its mobile network to deliver the optimal end-user experience as well as the flexibility to evolve and grow as Viettel’s user base and required bandwidth continue to increase globally.”

Viettel is the largest telecom operator in Vietnam, serving more than 130 million mobile customers.

Optical fibre and satellite are driving two very different business models from Ekinops and World Mobile which could, potentially, boost African connectivity.

Ekinops, an optical transport and network access specialist, has been selected by telecom infrastructure provider Bandwidth & Cloud Services Group (BCS), a pan-African wholesale telecom infrastructure provider, for its network backbone upgrade, which, the partners say, will enhance connectivity throughout Africa. 

The project involves long-distance regional optical transport networks capable of 1Tbps capacity across Africa, and urban connectivity upgrades through 44 metro ring deployments, offering 10G traffic from points of presence and towers to the network hub.

Supplying its Ekinops360 optical transport portfolio, Ekinops says it will increase BCS’s backbone capacity with both single and dual fibre capabilities, aggregating low-capacity circuits to high bit rate protocols to deliver speeds ranging from 1Gbps to 1 Tbps. The solution also accommodates future demand for backbone capacity increases through the company’s FlexRate coherent channels, to extend the network’s reach and capacity throughout the region. 

Meanwhile, World Mobile, which aims to provide affordable connectivity to rural and remote areas worldwide via its blockchain-based mobile network, says it is expanding its network across the African continent following a series of successful pilot tests using low earth orbit (LEO) satellites in the US and UK. 

Using innovative satellite and relay technology with stratospheric balloons, its first efforts are looking to provide connectivity in hard-to-reach areas within Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria.

World Mobile pilot tested the use of Starlink’s satellite network as a backhaul option for providing internet to World Mobile’s AirNodes (or internet access points). The company says it expects further tests with other LEO satellite systems will enable services to roll out more efficiently across sub-Saharan Africa.