The Intelsat 33e geostationary high-throughput satellite (HTS) covering Europe, Africa, the Middle East and parts of the Asia-Pacific experienced a permanent power failure on Saturday and has since broken up.

According to a statement from Intelsat, the satellite “experienced an anomaly on October 19” that resulted in loss of power, consequently cutting service to all customers.

Intelsat said in the statement that while it was working with the satellite’s manufacturer, Boeing Space Systems, to address the problem, “we believe it is unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable.”

On Sunday, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), U.S. Space Command confirmed that Intelsat 33e had broken up, and that it was “currently tracking around 20 associated pieces.”

Intelsat 33e’s payload included C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band transponders. The C-band spot beams covered Europe, Central Africa, Middle East, Central South Asia, eastern China, part of southeast Asia and Australia. A wide C-band beam covered sub-Saharan Africa.

The Ku-band spot beams covered most of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The Ka-band transponder had a single beam covering those regions.

Intelsat said It is in contact with all affected customers as well as third-party providers to mitigate service interruptions while it looks for back-up connectivity options within its satellite fleet.

Intelsat 33e – which occupied the 60 degrees East orbital slot – was launched in August 2016, but didn’t enter service until January 2017 due to a problem with its primary thruster. The satellite was designed with a lifespan of 15 years, but that was reduced by 3.5 years after another propulsion problem occurred during orbit tests.

Intelsat 33e was the second of Intelsat’s EpicNG HTS satellites to be launched following Intelsat 29e, which was launched in January 2016. Intelsat 29e lasted a little over three years before developing a fuel leak, which eventually resulted in total loss of the satellite in April 2019.

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Hormuud Telecom strengthened its EVC Plus mobile money platform by making it interoperable with MyBank and Agro Bank, with plans to onboard more banks in 2025.

Responding to questions from Developing Telecoms, Hormuud Telecom CEO Ahmed Yusef (pictured) described this deal as the first of many towards achieving full interoperability between financial platforms and institutions in Somalia.

“For full interoperability, we need to ensure that every mobile money platform and banking system allows for seamless transactions,” said Yusef.

The partnerships represent a “critical step” in building trust between citizens and financial institutions, promoting financial stability. Somalia, having suffered decades of civil war that decimated its economy, saw a rise in mistrust toward institutions.

EVC Plus customers will now be able to perform banking functions with MyBank and Agro Bank directly from their mobile devices.

The Somalian Central Bank launched the National Payment System in 2021, laying the necessary groundwork for integration between banks and mobile money providers.

According to the Central Bank, 70% of Somalians use mobile money, while only 15% have a traditional bank account. Hormuud reports that around 90% of Somalis now use mobile money platforms.

Hormuud Telecom is also working with the GSMA to extend its mobile services to remote areas in Somalia, connecting the last segment of unbanked Somalis.

Hormuud’s CEO Yusef stated that making EVC Plus compatible with formal banking services enhances financial inclusion. “Small businesses can access credit, aid beneficiaries can build financial histories, and cross-border transactions become easier for everyone. This is a significant step toward a fully interconnected financial system in Somalia,” Yusef said.

Hormuud Telecom currently has four million customers on its EVC Plus mobile money platform.

Hong Kong-based HGC Global Communications (HGC) says it has officially launched data centre interconnect (DCI) clusters in key data hubs across Asia to position itself as a major regional provider of in-country and inter-country data centre connectivity.

Having launched DCI solutions in Malaysia, the Philippines and (most recently) Thailand, HGC aims to combine those DCI clusters with mature DCI hubs in Hong Kong and Singapore to offer an extensive DCI infrastructure connecting major data centres across Southeast Asia.

The DCI clusters currently comprise existing and planned six data centres in Malaysia, seven in Thailand and Singapore (each), and six in Malaysia, as well as 27 in Hong Kong.

Earlier this week, HGC beefed up its data centre PoP in the Philippines by joining PLDT Enterprise’s Vitro Partner Network (VPN), which enabled it to expand its footprint to the new Vitro Sta. Rosa data centre.

HGC plans to leverage its DCI infrastructure to enable in-country and inter-country connectivity for enterprise solutions customers from Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East looking to enter the region.

The DCI clusters will be offered to its carriers partners, who will be able to integrate them with their own networks and DCI infrastructure.

HGC said the clusters will also enable it to offer customized low-latency cross-border connectivity, ICT services, and cybersecurity solutions to its own customers. Such services include IP-related services, AMS-IX’s internet exchange solution, and HGC’s “Eyeball-as-a-Service” (a platform that leverages 5G edge computing to enable OTT players, content providers and e-commerce companies to expand their geographical footprints quickly).

“Our unique strengths in Asia, combined with our global reputation and network, position this solution to effectively address the challenges of shifting the emerging economies to modernize inclusively in the rapidly digitalising era,” said Ravindran Mahalingam, SVP of HGC’s international business in a statement.

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The western Caribbean could be getting some new subsea fiber infrastructure soon. Sparkle has joined Gold Data and Liberty Networks to construct and commercialize the MANTA regional system. … [visit site to read more]

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A set of interesting global investments and customer wins: … [visit site to read more]

While new features are an important part of every product, ensuring that these new features either support existing features or are compatible with them stands as an additional priority when handling a product.

These two aspects are what version 4.7 aims to achieve, and here is what it has done to facilitate them.

VPS Snapshots & Volume Shrinking

The first set of changes revolve around VPS functionality.

VPS snapshots

One of the more important changes comes with the ability to create VPS snapshots of datasets from a particular moment of a VPSs operation that can be used to roll the server back to the snapshot in case of an emergency.

While any number of snapshots can be created, and while they don’t take up a lot of space upon creation, leaving older snapshots around for too long will gradually start cutting into available storage space.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that snapshots get deleted 15 days post creation to combat said problem.

The rollback function provides a number of advantages, particularly in tasks involving maintenance, upgrades and file recovery, allowing users to safeguard their systems and perform upgrades without having to worry about their servers breaking.

IMPORTANT NOTE: VPS snapshots aren’t a replacement for existing SERVERware data backup and recovery options.

VPS volume shrinking

The second change in the VPS spectrum revolves around VPS volume sizes where we’ve implemented the ability to automatically decrease the committed size of a volume based on how much space is utilized, allowing admins to further free up and optimize resources for other operations if necessary.

It’s worth noting that this feature can only be performed when the VPS isn’t in operation.

Template Restructures

One other major change that v4.7 brings to SERVERware is our template restructure, sorting existing templates into clearer categories: official, community and third-party.

Official templates are ones created, maintained and supported by Bicom inc. whereas the third party ones are not.

The community templates are considered third party, but are still hosted on the Bicom Systems repository, chosen based on internal and external feedback. However, it’s worth noting that Bicom isn’t liable for their maintenance or continued support with future releases.

Additionally, all templates now comply with the OCI standard, making their implementation and management much easier going forward as well as improving overall system security.

Improved OCI Image Management

In regards to the management side of things, OCI deployment has been made easier with the restructure of the OCI deployment window, allowing admins to install, update, and remove templates from a single point, providing a more intuitive and less cumbersome experience.

Replication And Backup From Local Storage On Processing Hosts

The final major change that comes with SERVERware’s 4.7 version is the ability to add processing hosts from remote locations while still enjoying SERVERware’s geo-redundancy and data backup capabilities.

All of this is reflected in the “Recent replications” window where admins can get an overview of which host the replication is running from, the replication’s duration, and data transferred alongside other, potentially relevant data.

Moreover, 4.7 also provides admins with more flexible replication scheduling options, allowing them to set when they want the first server replication to start.

And More…

Alongside these major changes, we’ve also been hard at work ironing out any kinks and squashing bugs that were present prior, ensuring a smoother experience with both SERVERware and sipPROT alike.

The SERVERware team has also done a number of DNS cache improvements to minimize any issues with the VPS or potential outages.

For more detailed information regarding all the changes, you can check out the full v4.7 release notes.

We are sure to continue our efforts in developing a platform that satisfies the needs of your clients while retaining its intuitive design throughout and we are looking forward to showing you more of what we have in store, but more on that in our future releases.

Until then, we hope to have met your expectations and that both you and your clients remain satisfied.

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