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The metro fiber business has been fascinating to watch over the last decade and a half, as the opportunities in the marketplace shift around.  At various points, it has been about data centers, enterprises, and towers, but of late, we have seen FTTH stepping to the front.  One rising company with FTTH and SME plans built on top of an existing deep metro fiber footprint is Ezee Fiber, which operates an extensive footprint in the Houston metro area with the backing of I Squared Capital.   With us today to look at Ezee Fiber’s plans in Houston and beyond is CEO Scott Widham.  We last interviewed Scott when he was leading Alpheus Communications back in 2015. … [visit site to read more]

ZTE announced that its CEO Xu Ziyang was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to the Asia Mobile Industry Award at the GSMA’s Asia Mobile Awards (The AMOs) 2022 in Hong Kong on July 29^th.

The award recognizes Mr. Xu Ziyang’s outstanding leadership in leading ZTE to continuously promote industrial innovation, increase cross-industry cooperation and boost the development of the global mobile industry.

Mobile communication technology has become the key driving force in the booming digital economy for enriching people’s lives, accelerating the digital transformation of industries, and promoting economic growth. To cope with the challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic with innovative ICT technologies and facilitate the digitalization and low carbonization of the industry for healthy development of the economy, ZTE has carried out in-depth cooperation in digital infrastructure construction, digital industry development and more with its global partners. To date, ZTE has entered into cooperation with more than 110 operators worldwide on 5G, while working with over 500 partners to jointly explore more than 100 innovative 5G application scenarios in 15 industries.

Moving forward, with a focus on the construction of ICT infrastructure, ZTE will keep working with the whole industry to expand the application scenarios of digitalization to build a green digital and intelligent world, and contribute to the sustainable development of the global mobile communications industry and society.

The GSMA’s Asia Mobile Awards are the Asia Region’s leading stage for excellence, innovation & achievement. As the highest honour in the Asia Mobile Awards, the Outstanding Contribution to the Asia Mobile Industry Award recognizes sustained or extraordinary contributions by individuals, organizations or collaborative achievements that advance the value and benefits of mobile communications for people, business and societies in Asia.

Day four of the Indian 5G spectrum auction is drawing to a close, and we hope to have a clearer idea of the winners and losers by early next week. But in the meantime 5G testing is continuing, with Vodafone Idea (aka Vi) now involved in a pilot project run by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Vodafone Idea has been selected by TRAI to conduct a trial on the use of street furniture for small cells and aerial fibre deployment.

The idea is to look at how to make infrastructure more accessible for the quick rollout of 5G networks. Small cells – low-powered, compact, easy-to-deploy radio access nodes with a coverage range from a few metres up to a few hundred metres – will play a major role in this.

Hence street furniture – such as electric poles, bus stands and traffic lights – is being used for testing 5G small cells, in this case at Namma Metro Bengaluru, a rapid transit system serving the city of Bengaluru (or Bangalore), the capital and largest city of the state of Karnataka.

India’s Economic Times says that the Bengalaru trial is targeting 5G coverage at road level, in the concourse area, on the platform and on tracks. The learnings of this project and others like it will, in turn, be used for 5G deployment in other metro rail systems in the country.

As for the spectrum sale, a continuing battle for 1800MHz spectrum in the key Uttar Pradesh (East) market between the three big operators has unexpectedly pushed the auctions into a fourth day. The would-be buyers are battling it out for influence in an area with the highest number of mobile users in India – at 101.54 million, almost 10% of India’s total wireless subscriber base.

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.

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.

Four interesting items from Africa to catch up with: … [visit site to read more]

Telefonica Brazil did not rule out acquisitions to bolster its Vivo brand’s internet offering, after being linked to buying rival ISPs, despite plunging year-on-year income. 

In an earnings call, Telefonica Brazil CFO David Melcon said the operator is “always attentive to market opportunities in every way, and that also includes fibre”.

Melcon highlighted the company has a target to gain 29 million internet connections by the end of 2024 with six million stemming from joint venture FiBrasil and the other 23 million stemming from its Vivo brand.

Currently, Vivo has 21 million connections a rate which is “on pace” to hit target said Melcon, which is why the operator is not rushing into mergers and acquisitions.

“If we are going to face any M&A decision in the future it depends on the overlap of the network, on the quality of the network and the quality of the companies being sold.

“M&A is complex [in fibre]. We also need to see how we are going to integrate our customer base because one factor to consider is buying the network, and the second is buying the customer [base]. We have a clear plan to get to 29 million and that’s building together with FiBrasil, » said Melcon.

In its Q2 2022 financial results, the company reported a net income year-on-year plunge of 44.6% to BRL746 million (US$140m) due to higher expenses stemming from its mobile unit.

There was a 282% surge in operating costs to BRL601 million as the company took on debt to pay for 5G licenses in Brazil’s recent auction, and acquired rival Oi’s mobile assets, at a time of higher interest rates.

EBITDA  amounted to BRL 4.5billion which was an increase of 8.3%, while net revenues grew 7.8% to BRL11.8 billion.