A new subsea cable, some dollars for data centers, a new infrastructure division, and fiber to the middle of a frozen lake: … [visit site to read more]

Could a new hydrogen fuel cell-based backup power solution for telecom towers revolutionise power supply in India by providing a cleaner, more efficient alternative to traditional diesel generators?

This appears to be the thinking behind a government announcement earlier this week, which highlighted proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells as a way to offer an environmentally friendly, efficient, and reliable energy source.

PEM fuel cells generate electricity by using hydrogen as fuel; water vapour is the only by-product. They also offer quick start-up times, operate at relatively low temperatures, and require much less maintenance than diesel generators.

News service IANS explains that the fuel cell technology works by an electrochemical reaction, where hydrogen gas is fed into the anode, oxidised to release protons, and then travels through a polymer membrane to the cathode. It reacts with oxygen to generate electricity and water, providing a clean energy solution.

India has over a million telecom towers, many in remote areas where diesel generators are often used as backup power sources. However, these generators are costly, inefficient and contribute significantly to carbon emissions,

Regulator TRAI in a 2012 directive mandates that at least 50% of rural telecom towers and 33% of urban towers switch to hybrid renewable energy sources.

Integrating PEM fuel cells with telecom towers might support this vision, though a timetable for their rollout does not appear to have yet been suggested.

Could a new hydrogen fuel cell-based backup power solution for telecom towers revolutionise rollout in India by providing a cleaner, more efficient alternative to traditional diesel generators?

This appears to be the thinking behind a government announcement earlier this week, which highlighted proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, as a way to offer an environmentally friendly, efficient, and reliable energy source.

PEM fuel cells generate electricity by using hydrogen as fuel; water vapour is the only by-product. They also offer quick start-up times, operate at relatively low temperatures, and require much less maintenance than diesel generators.

News service IANS explains that the fuel cell technology works by an electrochemical reaction, where hydrogen gas is fed into the anode, oxidised to release protons, and then travels through a polymer membrane to the cathode. It reacts with oxygen to generate electricity and water, providing a clean energy solution.

India has over a million telecom towers, many in remote areas where diesel generators are often used as backup power sources. However, these generators are costly, inefficient, and contribute significantly to carbon emissions,

Regulator TRAI, in a 2012 directive, mandated that at least 50% of rural telecom towers and 33% of urban towers switch to hybrid renewable energy sources. Integrating PEM fuel cells with telecom towers might support this vision, though a timetable for their rollout does not appear to have been suggested.

Two interesting metro fiber questions were answered this week by a bit of fiber M&A. Lightpath has announced the acquisition of WANRack’s business in Phoenix, Arizona. … [visit site to read more]

Hytera Communications, a provider of professional communications technologies and solutions, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cable & Wireless Seychelles (CWS), the country’s pioneering quad-play telecommunications operator at MWC.

This strategic cooperation aims to drive digital transformation across Seychelles’ enterprises and government sectors. The MoU establishes a framework to advance Seychelles’ digital transformation through a series of key initiatives. A major focus of the collaboration is the joint development of a resilient Seychelles emergency communications redundant network, designed to ensure uninterrupted communications during critical scenarios such as natural disasters.

Additionally, the partnership will deliver tailored communication solutions for key sectors, including public safety, energy, transportation and tourism. Hytera will provide push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) devices, mission-critical services (MCX) core networks, and cloud-based platforms, seamlessly integrating with CWS’s existing 4G/5G public networks while supporting the future expansion of private networks.

The MoU was signed by Mr Naadir Hassan, Chief Executive Officer at CWS, Mr Oliver Fock-Tave, Associate Director Products & Services and Information Systems at CWS, and Mr Tony Wang, Business Development Director of Hytera, at MWC 2025 in Barcelona, where Hytera showcased its mission-critical portfolio across multiple protocols such as 4G/5G, MCX, and PoC, as well as body-worn camera (BWC) and digital evidence management (DEM).

Naadir Hassan remarked at the MoU signing ceremony: “As a trailblazer in Seychelles’ telecommunications sector, we are dedicated to introducing the world’s leading technologies to our nation. Our cooperation with Hytera will not only enhance our service offerings, but also strengthen digital infrastructure, unlocking new opportunities for local businesses and communities in the Seychelles.”

Tony Wang added: “At Hytera, we bring over 30 years of experience in delivering innovative professional and private communication solutions that support seamless connectivity and enhance operational efficiency. We are confident that this partnership will help Cable & Wireless Seychelles advance its digital transformation goals while ensuring a resilient and future-ready communication infrastructure. We look forward to contributing to the growth and success of Seychelles’ digital economy.”

With MWC underway over in Barcelona, there is lots of partnership news out there as well as plenty of vendor announcements: … [visit site to read more]

Red Hat, a provider of open source solutions, has announced at MWC25 that Kenyan operator Safaricom has deployed Red Hat OpenShift as a common cloud platform for applications, including the M-Pesa mobile payment system.

Safaricom has more than 45 million subscribers and the widest modern mobile network coverage in Kenya. It runs sensitive applications with high uptime and stability requirements. This includes third party applications that connect to the renowned M-Pesa core platform, a mobile payment system that supports 51 million customers making over US$314 billion in transactions per year across Africa.

Safaricom’s vision is to be Africa’s leading purpose-led technology company by 2025. To fulfil this vision, Safaricom identified the need to move from monolithic, traditional infrastructures to a cloud-native, container and microservices-based architecture that provides a flexible, stable foundation to grow and support its digital requirements.

Building on its use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a stable, reliable and flexible Linux platform and Red Hat Satellite for infrastructure management, Safaricom sought an open source solution for containerisation. Initially, Safaricom deployed upstream Kubernetes but faced stability challenges and a lag in resolving bugs quickly enough to meet its business needs. Safaricom then chose to move to Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, which provides production-ready maturity and carrier-grade stability along with enterprise-grade support.

Safaricom collaborated with Copy Cat Group, an experienced systems integrator, as well as the Red Hat team to deploy the platform and develop a roadmap for application modernisation. This included aligning processes across Safaricom’s security, application development and platform teams.

The companies ran joint technical workshops and a developer day to get the teams upskilled on DevOps and agile methodologies.

Safaricom in 2024 then expanded to Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus to harness Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for additional cybersecurity capabilities, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes for holistic orchestration of its workloads at scale and Red Hat Quay, a security-focused and scalable private registry platform for managing content across globally distributed data center and cloud environments.

Red Hat OpenShift is now the core Kubernetes-based platform in Safaricom’s IT environment, running all of its containers and supporting approximately 70% of its tier 1 and tier 2 applications. It is moving much of its estate to Red Hat OpenShift on bare-metal for greater control, increased economic efficiencies and more flexible scale-out capabilities. Benefits that Safaricom has seen include customer experience improvements, greater platform stability, faster time-to-market, expanded automation capabilities, increased scalability and additional security.

Looking ahead, Safaricom is assessing the opportunity to expand these benefits into the network space, such as its 5G core, by expanding its Red Hat OpenShift footprint. The team is working on a proof-of-concept to kick off and define the process before scaling up to onboard the full team and applications.

The communications and media space has been quite a dynamic environment over the past few years as companies balance both internal and external transformations.  But the arrival of AI is just accelerating everything.  Professional services companies, like Accenture, are right in the middle of all of it with both a ringside seat and a hand in the changes themselves.  With us today to talk about the state of the sector and look at where things tend to be going is Dan Rice, Accenture’s Communications and Media Lead for the USA. … [visit site to read more]

Netcracker is helping communications service providers around the world execute successful, results-driven digital transformations. AI and Generative AI play a central role in everything we do, helping operators thrive in a digital economy.

We can help operators redefine monetization for a digital world, revolutionize customer engagement with immersive digital experiences and maximize agility and efficiency with pioneering autonomous networks.

In late 2024, long-standing Netcracker customer Swisscom decided to leverage Netcracker’s cloud-native OSS and operations solutions to support its strategy of adopting TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture to achieve decoupling and autonomy of architectural domains.

Swisscom’s use of the Netcracker Digital OSS suite allowed the operator to quickly respond to future technical and market requirements across the business through a decoupled system that increases efficiencies and removes bottlenecks. This includes an accelerated rollout of Swisscom’s new wireline access network platform and the use of Netcracker’s cross-domain service orchestration for the provisioning of connectivity services. Active Resource Inventory supplies real-time information about the network to greatly facilitate planning for new services.

“After many years of successful collaboration with Netcracker in the OSS domain, we are excited to plan for additional network transformation requirements,” said Markus Reber, Head of Networks at Swisscom. “Netcracker’s expertise and our synergies in developing a robust platform for our lines of business will help map our next steps towards a modern digital architecture.”

“The deployment of cloud-based autonomous operational domain management functional blocks brings us closer to achieving a lean and fully modular IT architecture,” said Felix Jaeger, Co-Head of Software Development at Swisscom. “By fostering closer collaboration and adopting an agile approach, we will enhance customer experience and boost operational efficiency through the creation of simpler IT solutions.”

“We greatly value our partnership with Swisscom, including helping it reach the next level in its IT transformation,” said Benedetto Spaziani, GM at Netcracker. “We are delighted to work closely with Swisscom to continue the success we’ve already achieved and are looking forward to many more milestones.”

To learn more about Netcracker’s Digital Platforms Click here

Philippines-based operator PLDT has revealed its interest in acquiring private equity firm KKR’s stake in fintech company Maya Innovations.

PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan stated during an earnings briefing that the company wants to increase its stake in Maya and has engaged Goldman Sachs to explore a potential transaction. Maya competes with Globe Telecom’s financial services platform GCash, which is operated by Mynt.

According to DealStreetAsia, KKR holds around 30% of shares in Maya, but it remains unclear whether the investment firm intends to sell its stake.

Pangilinan told reporters: “We know they (KKR) are trying to scan the market for the value of Maya. Maya is just starting to turn the corner, so we’d be keen to increase our stake in whatever might be available.”

PLDT noted that Maya Innovations turned a profit for the first time in December, driven by strong performance from its digital banking arm.

Founded in 2013, Maya offers mobile money and payments under the PayMaya brand, remittances through Smart Padala, and B2B card payments as PayMaya Business.

PLDT and KKR, alongside Tencent and the International Finance Corporation, invested US$215 million in Maya in 2018 and backed its US$120 million funding round in 2020.

PLDT’s enterprise arm has announced plans to introduce “long-range fixed wireless access” technology to underserved areas across the Philippines with challenging terrain.

While specific locations and a deployment timeline have not been disclosed, PLDT pledges to deliver “fibre-like speeds” capable of supporting high-bandwidth applications such as cloud computing and e-commerce. By eliminating the need for physical cables, PLDT Enterprise emphasised that FWA is a more cost-effective solution that can be deployed regardless of geographic limitations.

“At PLDT Enterprise, we recognise that reliable connectivity is a critical enabler of economic growth. Through long-range fixed wireless access, we can ensure that no business—regardless of location—is left behind in the digital transformation journey,” said John Gonzales, First Vice President and Head of Enterprise Consulting Services and Technology Management at PLDT Enterprise.