Paradise Mobile taps Mavenir for 4G, 5G network build

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Comcast signs deals worth $50m with State of Indiana for rural fibre expansion


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The move will see the operator take aim at Indiana’s digital divide, seeking to connect some of the state’s most remote communities with fibre broadband

This week, Comcast has announced that it has signed a number of contracts with Indiana’s Office of Community & Rural Affairs (OCRA), aiming to deliver fibre services to rural locations throughout the state.

The deals are part of Indiana’s Next Level Connections Broadband Grant Program, with Comcast partnering with both state and local governments to deploy around 1,200 miles of fibre. These fibre deployments will impact over 10,000 homes and businesses in 19 counties within Indiana.

In total, the deals are worth roughly $50 million, with Comcast investing $36 million and the state of Indiana investing $13.6 million.

“Next Level Connections is used as a model by other states to deliver the best tech infrastructure to rural areas,” explained Indiana’s lieutenant governor Suzanne Crouch, who also serves as Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development. “The investments made by Comcast and other partners will not only benefit residents and businesses but also contribute to Indiana’s rural economic engine.”

According to Comcast, the network expansion will be completed within two years.

Comcast notes that it has already invested around $500 million in Indiana over the past three years to expand and upgrade its existing broadband networks.

Are US operators doing enough to reach rural customers with high-quality connectivity? Join the discussion at this year’s Connected America conference

Also in the news:
Bouygues Telecom lays out 2G and 3G sunsetting plans
Ofcom leans towards permitting Openreach’s Equinox 2 price cuts
Nokia: The new Metaverse and our 2030 Vision

Orange Cameroon to spend $244m to bolster service

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Oracle lines up $1.5bn cloud investment in Saudi Arabia


Press Release

With the expanded footprint, Oracle will operate six cloud regions in the Middle East

To meet the rapidly growing demand for its cloud services, Oracle today announced plans to open a third public cloud region in Saudi Arabia. Located in Riyadh, the new cloud region will be part of a planned US $1.5 billion investment from Oracle to expand cloud infrastructure capabilities in the Kingdom. The Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region will join the existing Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region and the planned Oracle Cloud Region to be located in the futuristic city of NEOM.

This investment is included in an MoU that Oracle has signed with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to help Saudi Arabian businesses take advantage of the latest innovations in the cloud. The MoU was signed during Oracle CEO, Safra Catz’s recent visit to Riyadh in the presence of His Excellency Eng. Haitham AlOhali, Vice Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).

To quickly meet the requirements of its growing cloud business in Saudi Arabia, Oracle will also expand the capacity of the Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region.

“In the last century, Saudi Arabia transformed its economy by developing the infrastructure needed to produce, refine, process and transport hydrocarbons. This century we are committed to creating the digital infrastructure that will underpin future economies,” said His Excellency Khalid Al-Falih, Minister of Investment. “Oracle’s decision to expand its cloud computing capacity in the Kingdom will play a key role in unlocking the opportunities that rapid technological advancements are creating. MISA will continue in its quest to enable the building of a robust digital infrastructure, by creating an attractive environment for these investments – for example, by establishing special economic zones that are tailored to particular industries such as cloud computing and digital transformation.”

As part of the MoU, Oracle will also work with MCIT and the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) to establish a commercial and operational model for an additional cloud region in Saudi Arabia that is aligned with Saudi government requirements and local data residency regulations. Oracle will also work with MCIT to help foster the development of Saudi Arabia’s cloud industry.

Unique among hyperscale providers, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers customer choice to deploy OCI based on regulations, data residency, or latency requirements. OCI distributed cloud includes its public regions, Dedicated Region, Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer, multicloud offerings, and recently-announced Oracle Alloy.

“Oracle’s investment will rapidly accelerate the cloud transformation across Saudi Arabia’s business and public sector,” said Richard Smith, Executive Vice President, Technology – EMEA, Oracle. “Oracle Cloud delivers pioneering innovation in technologies like AI, Machine Learning, and IoT, and it will help fuel the economic growth and digital transformation that is an integral part of the Saudi Vision 2030.”

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Also in the news:
Bouygues Telecom lays out 2G and 3G sunsetting plans
Ofcom leans towards permitting Openreach’s Equinox 2 price cuts
Nokia: The new Metaverse and our 2030 Vision

Rwanda cuts KTRN monopoly over 4G spectrum

Keep up-to-date with all the latest news, articles, event and product updates posted on Developing Telecoms.
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Bouygues Telecom lays out 2G and 3G sunsetting plans


News

The French operator said it will shut down its 2G networks in 2026, followed by its 3G network in 2029

This week, Bouygues Telecom’s B2B Market Director, Jean-Christophe Ravaux, has been quoted by French news media L’Usine Digitale suggesting that the company still has a few years to go before shutting down its 2G and 3G networks.

According to the article, Ravaux says that the French mobile operator is aiming to shut down its 2G network in 2026 and its 3G network by 2029.

“The closure of these networks is a fundamental trend because these technologies are coming to an end,” he said. “That’s why it makes sense to reallocate these frequencies to 4G and 5G for better quality of service. This is the meaning of the story. We have therefore decided, after studying the interest for our customers, to switch off our 2G network at the end of 2026 and our 3G network at the end of 2029.”

This schedule is roughly in-line with that the company’s local rivals; Altice France (SFR) said earlier this year that they are also aiming to decommission their 2G network in 2026 and their 3G network by the end of 2028, with Orange saying it would target 2025 for the shutdown of 2G and 2028 for 3G.

It is worth noting here that strategies regarding the shutdown of 2G and 3G networks vary widely from market to market. In the UK, for example, all of the national mobile operators have committed to shutting down their 3G networks by the end of 2024, though 2G networks may, in some cases, remain operational until 2033.

This is because 2G networks provide a useful low-power fallback, is well suited for machine-to-machine communications (such as for smart meters), and in some cases is the only network available in some of the country’s most rural regions.

France’s neighbour Germany has been even faster to sunset these older networks, with all of the country’s mobile operators having shut down their 3G services already, and most targeting 2G decommissioning by the end of 2025.

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Bullish Jansen questions need for choice

FICO and FPG bringing digital transformation solutions to West Africa

Global analytics software provider FICO has partnered with FPG Technologies & Solutions to bring advanced decision management and analytics tools to companies across West Africa.

“West African companies are engaged in digital transformation initiatives that have gotten extra momentum from the pandemic,” said Rex Mafiana, CEO of FlexiP Group, a leading enterprise IT solutions provider and systems integrator. “Across all industries, it’s critical to be able to automate more decisions, to change strategies faster, and to increase efficiency. FICO has world-class tools that can help our customers be more competitive.”

FPG will sell, implement and support these tools – including FICO Blaze Advisor decision rules management system and FICO Xpress Optimization, which allow businesses to automate high-volume decisions, rapidly change strategies and leverage advanced analytics to improve performance.

As FICO’s flagship rules authoring solution, FICO Blaze Advisor decision rules management system maximizes control over high-volume operational decisions. Blaze Advisor provides businesses across multiple industries with a scalable solution that delivers unprecedented agility and actionability for smarter, transparent, and better business decisions.

FICO Xpress Optimization allows businesses to build, deploy and use optimization solutions that crunch through millions of potential scenarios to find the ideal solution. Standard capabilities include scalable high-performance solvers and algorithms, flexible modeling environments, rapid application development, comparative scenario analysis and reporting capabilities, for on-premises and cloud installations.

“Rules management and mathematical optimization are the core technologies for better decisions,” said Mark Farmer, who manages partner relationships for FICO in EMEA. “FPG has deep domain expertise in multiple industries in West Africa, and can help businesses there use these technologies to transform their performance.”

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