Operator MTN South Africa and leading tech vendor Huawei say that they have completed the first 5.5G network trial in South Africa at the MTN head office in Johannesburg.

During the trial, MTN South Africa used Huawei’s SingleRAN ultra-wideband active-antenna units and applied hybrid beam-forming architecture in conjunction with flexible dynamic beam management and inter-FR carrier aggregation technologies.

Spectrum resources in the millimetre wave and C-band, using spectrum obtained through a trial licence, were used on site in 5G standalone mode.

MTN says it achieved an ultra-high-speed experience of 8.6 Gb/s to a user.

A 5.5G network has ten times network performance compared to current 5G technology, massively improving connection speeds, the number of Internet of Things connections and latency, but doing so with less energy consumed on a per terabyte basis.

MTN South Africa CTO Rami Farah, quoted by Engineering News, says: « The 10 Gb experience will expand new commercial services for consumers, households, and enterprises, accelerating the development of advanced use cases such as 24K extended reality, high-speed fixed wireless access, holographic conferencing, and enhanced 5G private networks, among others. »

This is the latest in a number of recent partnerships between these two companies. In late October MTN and Huawei completed the world’s first commercial deployment of the innovative SDB IBT 2D microwave solution in Johannesburg, a breakthrough solution that leverages super dual band (SDB) and two-dimensional intelligent beam tracking (IBT 2D) to prevent pole shaking from affecting link stability in dual-band scenarios.

We also reported in June that MTN and Huawei had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for strategic cooperation on Net5.5G, the so-called next generation of IP networks.

In addition, MTN parent company MTN Group announced in April that it had inaugurated a Technology Innovation Lab in partnership with Huawei Technologies.

Multiple interesting developments from international sources this week to catch up on: … [visit site to read more]

UAE-based operator Etisalat by e& and Mauritius-based digital infrastructure provider WIOCC say they have formed a strategic partnership to integrate their subsea networks to accelerate growth of Africa’s hyperscaler ecosystem.

According to a joint statement released Tuesday, e& and WIOCC said the partnership aims to broaden their market presence and strengthen their respective capabilities to meet increasing demand from customers for scalable, resilient, and low-latency connectivity solutions.

The partnership also opens up new avenues for growth in underserved and emerging markets across various parts of Africa, including the eastern and southern regions where the majority of hyperscalers currently operate, said WIOCC group chief operating officer Ryan Sher.

“WIOCC’s carrier-grade infrastructure, combined with our deep local knowledge and vast regional footprint, allows us to deliver tailored, high-capacity connectivity solutions that supports the complex needs of telcos and hyperscalers,” he said.

The announcement came the same day that WIOCC’s data centre subsidiary Open Access Data Centres (OADC) announced the imminent launch of Open Access Fabric (OAfabric), its open digital interconnection platform that will establish interconnection hubs across Africa to address escalating demand for advanced interconnection services. OADC said the platform will launch initially in Nigeria and the DRC in January 2025.

Meanwhile, Nabil Baccouche, group chief carrier and wholesale officer for e&, said that the tie-up with WIOCC – which currently supplies high-capacity connectivity between more than 30 African countries – will boost e&’s presence in Africa, as well as enhance to its global reach that currently spans 38 markets in Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Central & Eastern Europe.

“By combining e&’s carrier-grade infrastructure, global reach from Asia to Europe via the Middle East, and regional expertise, we offer tailored, high-capacity connectivity solutions for telcos and hyperscalers,” he said. “Our Smarthub edge data centres, featuring AI-grade capabilities, further enhance this offering.”

A fair amount of fiber is changing hands in the Pacific Northwest between two providers that themselves are being or have recently been consolidated. Ziply Fiber has announced an agreement to acquire a selection of assets from Unite Private Networks in the Pacific Northwest. … [visit site to read more]

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Three interesting technology deployments from around the world, and one federal contract win: … [visit site to read more]

euNetworks has tapped Ciena for a technical first over in Europe. They have leveraged Ciena’s WL6e technology to deploy a wavelength solution of 1.6Tbps through one of Europe’s busiest data corridors. … [visit site to read more]

Telekom Malaysia’s wholesale arm TM Global said on Monday it will expand its core data centres in Cyberjaya and Johor  to serve growing demand for domestic and international data hosting services.

TM Global said the second phase of both the Klang Valley Data Centre (KVDC) in Cyberjaya and Iskandar Puteri Data Centre (IPDC) in Johor will deliver a combined IT load of around 20MW. Both data centres will meet Tier-III standards, as well as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver rating for long-term sustainability.

The KVDC and IPDC upgrades – which are scheduled for commercial operations sometime in 2025 – are part of the next phase in TM’s roadmap to grow its infrastructure ecosystem as Malaysia overall positions itself as a data centre hub and a digital powerhouse in Southeast Asia.

That strategy also includes TM’s recently established joint venture with Nxera, the regional data centre arm of Singtel’s Digital InfraCo unit, which plans to develop data centres in Malaysia, starting with a 200MW hyperscale AI-ready data centre campus in Johor.

TM Global EVP Khairul Liza Ibrahim said the KVDC and IPDC expansions and the Nxera tie-up will lay the foundation for digital services such as cloud, advanced analytics, AI and IoT.

“KVDC and IPDC are integral infrastructures in Malaysia’s digital ecosystem, serving as international gateways and interconnected points to support 5G networks,” she said in a statement. “This second phase of our data centre expansion will feature sustainable designs, boosting our capacity to support hyperscalers, OTT players, cloud and next generation AI providers, as well as enterprises.”

Khairul Liza added that TM Global’s recent acquisition of a facilities-based operator license in Singapore will allow the company to provide seamless data centre-to-data centre connectivity.

“This enables us to meet the growing connectivity demands across the region, linking data centres from Thailand to Malaysia, Singapore, and Batam in Indonesia,” she said.

TM currently operates seven data centres across Malaysia. The operator has said its participation in the Asia Link Cable Systems (ALC) subsea club cable – which links Hong Kong and Singapore, with branches connecting Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam and Hainan, China – will add another 24 Tbps of international capacity for its data centres in Johor when the cable goes live in the third quarter of 2025.

The vision of the micro data center empowering an underserved market was everywhere for a while. Now that the conversation has moved on to AI, I’ve seen some ask if the edge is ‘dead’. But it’s all part of the same infrastructure discussion, because in the end the beneficiaries of AI will be at the edge and the infrastructure will have to be there. With us today to take another look at the next generation of edge data centers is Doug Recker, President of Duos Edge AI.  Doug previously founded and led EdgePresence before it was sold to Ubiquity in 2023, and has clearly wasted no time getting back into the saddle. … [visit site to read more]

U Mobile defended its qualifications to run the country’s second 5G network on Sunday after enduring a week of criticism from rivals, industry analysts and politicians who expressed bafflement at the government’s decision to give U Mobile the nod.

On November 1, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) picked U Mobile to implement Malaysia’s second 5G network to compete with original 5G operator Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB).

The result came as a surprise to rival telcos Maxis and CelcomDigi – both of whom were in the running  – and industry observers and financial analysts who had tipped either Maxis or CelcomDigi as the likely winners.

Most of the criticism has focused on the fact that U Mobile is the youngest and smallest of the contenders, having only started services in 2007. According to news site Soya Cincau, U Mobile has said it currently runs more than 10,000 mobile sites and had over 9 million subscribers as of the end of 2023. CelcomDigi has 25,000 sites and 20.2 million subscribers, while Maxis has over 11,000 sites and 12.7 million subscribers.

Last week, the MCMC issued a statement defending the decision, saying that the decision was “based on a combination of factors”, from its business and technical plans, consumer complaints and satisfaction records to its performance in carrying out other infrastructure initiatives, including Universal Service Provision (USP) projects such as JENDELA Phase 1 and other 4G upgrade projects.

However, the statement didn’t go into specifics and raised more questions than answers. On Friday, Dr Ong Kian Ming, former Deputy Minister for International Trade and Industry (MITI), issued a statement calling on the MCMC, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil and Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo to release more details on the tender process and the scoring method to determine the winner.

Meanwhile, U Mobile Chairman Vincent Tan defended the telco’s ability to roll out the second 5G network in a column published on Sunday in Malaysian business news publication Business Today.

Among other things, Tan cited U Mobile’s 95% network population coverage, its success in the JENDELA and USP programmes, and its ability to undersell the competition, particularly with 5G.

“As the first telco in the country to offer 5G service at no additional costs for all Malaysians and consistently offering similar services at 20-25% cheaper than competitors, U Mobile’s aggressive investments and innovations have and will continue to challenge our competitors resulting in cheaper and better services for all Malaysians,” Tan said.

Funding questions

Tan also reiterated earlier comments from MCMC that the second network will be funded entirely by U Mobile, as opposed to being subsidised with taxpayer money, as was the case with DNB.

That said, critics have also questioned U Mobile’s ability to fund a new 5G network rollout. According to The Edge Malaysia, CIMB Securities said in a research note last week that U Mobile would need to invest up to MYR3 billion (US$681 million) over 18–24 months to cover 80% of the population, and MYR1 billion a year after that, which is higher than U Mobile’s average capitalised capex of MYR500 million per annum between FY2014 to FY2023.

CIMB Securities added that U Mobile will need a strong financial partner to share the cost, “given U Mobile’s higher net debt-to-earnings before interest tax, depreciation and amortisation ratio at 4.3 times, compared to Maxis’ (2.2 times) and CelcomDigi’s (2.1 times).”

In his column, Tan said that U Mobile recorded a higher revenue of MYR3.5 billion and higher net profit of MYR102 million in 2023, with increased operating cash flows of MYR1.2 billion. U Mobile’s total assets stood at MYR6.2 billion with a total share capital of MYR2.6 billion.

U Mobile issued a statement on Sunday adding that it has “robust financial backing from its shareholders, financial institutions such as UOB, CIMB and AmBank, as well as strategic vendor partners who enable the telco to continuously innovate to stay competitive and to meet network deployment targets.”

U Mobile also confirmed that its biggest shareholder – Singapore-based Straits Mobile Investments (a subsidiary of ST Telemedia), which owns a 48.3% stake – has agreed to bring its share down to 20%.