The Data Driver

Bharti Airtel announced the launch of *121# Digital Care platform in Hindi and10 more regional languages - Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bangla, Oriya and Assamese. This makes the Digital Care platform much more accessible for millions of Airtel prepaid mobile customers across the country. This is yet another industry first from Airtel to empower customers and deliver best-in-class service experience.  
*121# Digital Care is a quick and easy to use platform for Airtel prepaid customers to get basic information like balance amount/recharge validity/ details of last few transactions etc. In addition, information relating to ongoing offers can be accessed via this platform and customers can also activate/deactivate value added services on their own.       Customers simply need to dial *121# from their mobile phones and access an easy to navigate menu on their mobile screens to get their account related information in a matter of seconds. No need to wait …

Tata Docomo Business Services (TDBS) received the CII Award for Customer Obsession 2016, in the Services segment for Large Business Organization.
CII Customer Obsession Award recognizes businesses that demonstrate highest level of commitment towards their customers by following a ‘customer first’ approach and continuously promote customer-centric culture across their value chain.
Speaking on the recognition, Mr. Prateek Pashine, President - Enterprise Business, Tata Docomo Business Services, said “We are thrilled to receive this award from CII. The award drives us to do more, anticipate our customers’ requirements earlier and better. We believe the journey of excellence is a continuous one and commit ourselves to put in all our energies to simplify customers’ lives, enable them to be more productive, competitive and ‘Do Big’ in their business.”
Tata Docomo Business Services (TDBS) is an acknowledged leader in the Enterprise space providing integrated voice, data and managed services …

Velocity MR a new age market research agency, unveiled their latest study report conducted among mobile users in the country. The study was conducted among 2000 + respondents to understand user sentiment and their views about competition in this volatile market segment.
The study was conducted across the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad, Kochi through an online Panel Poll of respondents in the age group of 18 to 45 with a male to female split of 70:30.
There is a lot of consolidation in the extremely competitive mobile communication industry in India. Airtel is acquiring Telenor; Vodafone and Idea are merging; Reliance, Aircel, MTS are heading towards talks of merger; Tata Docomo is also likely to join in a merger; BSNL and MTNL are also likely to merge. Set against this backdrop in a country with an estimated 1.18 billion mobile subscribers according to Trai, this sector is probably the most talked about. Reliance Jio threw its hat into the …

Viavi Solutions announced the launch of CPRIAdvisor, a remote RF spectrum monitoring system that addresses a wide range of antenna deployment options in heterogeneous networks. Developed in partnership with tier one mobile service providers, it offers the ability to monitor and troubleshoot RF conditions around the clock for any cell site with fiber fronthaul.
As a highly scalable solution, CPRIAdvisor can support a macro cell with a smaller number of fronthaul fiber links; a large centralized radio access network (C-RAN) or distributed antenna system (DAS) with hundreds of fronthaul links. Depending on the network configuration, it can save mobile service providers up to 50 per cent in terms of time and cost compared to current practices in place for monitoring and troubleshooting.
To stay ahead of continually increasing mobile bandwidth demand while managing cost and efficiency, service providers are expanding and transitioning from a typical distributed radio access network (RAN) …

India is getting future ready and has started serious work on identifying and formalizing the standards for the rollout of 5G. The standards are likely to be ready by 2018. This was stated by the Shri D P De, Sr DDG, Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) at the 5G India 2017 Conference here. TEC is the nodal agency of the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Government of India responsible for drawing up of standards, generic requirements, interface requirements, service requirements and specifications for telecom products, services and networks.
The first 5G India 2017 Conference was organized in national capital by Bharat Exhibitions with support from COAI, 3GPP, TSDSI and saw massive participation from various telecommunication industry verticals including networks, service providers, manufacturers etc. The introductory address and inaugural discussion regarding the future of 5G was initiated by Mr. Adrian Scrase, Chief Technical Officer, ETSI (Europe…

By: Mohammed Al-Moneer, Regional Director, MENA at A10 Networks
The adage “it costs money to make money” has never been more truthful than it is today. Telco Service providers in the Middle East, especially, understand that to build revenue, financial investments are key.
But there’s a big difference between spending money and investing in the future.
For service providers, the first step to reducing costs is whittling down legacy infrastructure. The bulky old-school boxes taking up too many rack units and draining power are a cost center.
Modernizing and reducing your hardware footprint with more powerful, more compact and more environmentally friendly boxes is the first step toward spending less on the capital expenditure side.
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) 
Adopting software-defined networking (SDN) is one way service providers can leverage cutting-edge technologies that, while still relatively new, are already proven to cut costs.
SDN abstracts network elements to create an op…

UTStarcom India Telecom Pvt. Ltd, a global telecommunications infrastructure provider, announced its plan to increase its investment in India at the event ‘Next Gen Innovation Summit 2017- and Beyond!’, organized by UTStarcom Inc. While speaking at the event Mr. Tim Ti, Chief Executive Officer, UTStarcom Inc. said, “We have been committed to the Indian communications industry and have been making the required investments in India. The Company would be increasing its investment in India so as to further consolidate its presence in the Indian telecom infrastructure market.”
The Company would be making investments in setting up its local manufacturing and R&D. Further investments will be used in increasing its equipment portfolio and scaling up its manpower in India.
“Besides focusing on increasing the equipment portfolio, we have decided to localize the ‘optical transport and broadband solutions for Indian market,” said Dr. Zhaochen Huang, Chief Operating Officer, UTStarcom Inc.
Wh…

In its commitment to offer affordable mobile internet and meet the ever increasing demand of customers for data, Aircel, one of the leading innovative telecom brands in India, today, launched ‘Aircel Goodnights’ which will offer free mobile internet access to all its prepaid users from 3am to 5am daily. The service will enable all Aircel customers to browse, watch, or schedule the download of the video content without any charge, during the off-peak hours.

Ken Research announced its latest publication on, “Japan: Operators Focus On Core Service Convergence; Diversify Revenue Through New Business Lines” which offers detailed insights into the trends, opportunities and challenges facing the telecomm sector in Japan. This publication offers an executive-level insight into the Japanese telecommunication industry with thorough forecasts of primary indicators up to 2020. The report delivers in-depth qualitative and quantitative information regarding the telecom industry in Japan by analyzing the market forces and evaluating the near-term opportunities and assessing risk factors. The findings of the report are based upon the Pyramid Research’s databases.

COAI on Wednesday requested the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and the Telecom Commission to implement a uniform SUC charge across spectrum bands for the industry. Currently, different SUC rates are applicable for spectrum assigned at different points of time. The new norms are expected to bring uniformity and introduce a level-playing field.

ShoreTel has rolled out ShoreTel Connect HYBRID Sites in North America, which enables companies to mix-and-match Connect ONSITE and Connect CLOUD services and applications across multiple locations.

Brocade announced new offerings to help mobile operators re-architect their networks to support 5G services and deliver higher agility and performance at a fraction of the cost of traditional networks. These innovative New IP offerings uniquely position Brocade as a disrupter with 5G capabilities that solve the key challenges facing mobile network operators (MNO) and mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) today.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced  the launch of a solution to enable Voice over LTE for virtualized networks using TCS’ Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Concerto platform.

To improve both the performance and efficiency of today’s LTE technology, which will evolve to become part of 5G, Ericsson announced new Ericsson Radio System software and hardware supporting 1 Gbps user peak rates and a hyper-scalable radio access network (RAN) architecture. With LTE subscriptions forecast to reach 4.1 billion by the end of 2021, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25 percent, and increased data consumption per subscription, operators are challenged to efficiently scale their networks while ensuring great app coverage for their customers. Ericsson’s newest hardware and software address LTE growth opportunities while supporting the operator’s evolution to 5G.

Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Communications announced the signing of Agreements for Change in Spectrum Allotment in 800 MHz band across 9 Circles from RCOM to RJIL and for Sharing of Spectrum in 800 MHz band across 17 Circles. As part of the strategic collaboration, both Companies also intend to enter into reciprocal Intra Circle Roaming (“ICR”) arrangements.

Vodafone, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, today committed investments totalling Rs 13,000 crore (£ 1.3 billion) for capacity augmentation and new business initiatives. This significant investment was committed to by Mr. Vittorio Colao, Vodafone Group Plc‘s CEO, in his meeting with the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in London earlier today.

Amdocs announced that it has been selected by Singtel, Asia’s leading communications group, for a new business transformation project targeted to replace various legacy and third-party systems with a new, online, self-service and commerce platform that will enable Singtel to offer an improved and differentiated digital service experience to customers in its key markets of Singapore and Australia.

Routesms, one of the top global SMS aggregators and leading messaging & voice API companies, announced that Norway headquartered Telenor has signed up as a Global Direct Connect Partner (GDCP).

American Tower Corporation, Tata Teleservices Limited, and SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited announced that they, along with several other minority holders,  haveentered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which American Tower will acquire a 51% controlling interest in Viom Networks Limited (“Viom”). Viomcurrently owns and operates approximately 42,200 wireless communications towers and 200 indoor distributed antenna systems across India. The total cash consideration will be INR 76 billion.

By: Yarob Sakhnini, regional director, MEMA at Brocade With some analyst firms reporting that SDN-driven backhaul could save carriers up to $9 billion by 2017, mobile network operators (MNOs) are evaluating software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) because they provide the opportunity to make the transition from appliance-based, proprietary hardware implementations to software-based, open platforms.