Asia > Communication

Communication / ICT in Asia

  • Telecom News in Brief 25 May 2017

    WORLD, 2017/05/28 Africa: European access - Econet World subsidiary Liquid Telecom said on 15 May that it had established a point of presence (PoP) at Interxion's data centre in Marseille, its initial foothold in mainland Europe. The PoP will reduce roundtrip delays from Africa by up to 20 milliseconds. Interxion's MRS1 data centre in Marseilles is a major connectivity hub for Europe since it opened in 2014. It offers direct access to 13 major international submarine cables, inclunding SEACOM, I-ME-WE and SEA-ME-WE4, providing Liquid Telecom with onwards connectivity to its World PoPs in London, Mombasa and Fujairah. MRS1 provides direct access to the France-IX, NL-ix and DE-CIX Internet exchanges, providing new peering opportunities for Liquid Telecom.
  • The company showcases both Israel’s chip-making power and its communications acumen

    CHINA, 2016/11/02 atellite communications startup SatixFy is celebrating this morning following the announcement Tuesday that they had raised a $25 million Series B investment led by the Israeli-Chinese venture, Catalyst CEL Fund. SatixFy sells indoor and outdoor VSAT units (“Very Small Aperture Terminal” that links a computer with a transceiver), plus designs its own chips that are capable of supporting IoT networks. They recently opened a new research center in the UK next receiving a grant from the UK Space Agency via ESA.
  • Baidu to Share Artificial Intelligence Platforms

    CHINA, 2016/09/06 China's Baidu decided Thursday to make its artificial intelligence (AI) system's core capabilities and underlying technology available to program developers, start-up entrepreneurs and traditional companies to help develop AI for the public good. The company will launch two AI platforms for public use, PaddlePaddle and ai.baidu.com, to help companies develop AI systems for their own sectors, according to Baidu chief scientist Andrew Ng, speaking at the Baidu Technology Innovation Conference. AI will be a core tool for remarkable changes in daily life, just as electricity was over a century ago, said Robin Li, founder, CEO and chairman of the search engine titan.
  • Beeline mobile operator’s license extended in Uzbekistan for 15 years

    UZBEKISTAN, 2016/07/23 VimpelCom Ltd announced about the extension of the major license of its subsidiary in Uzbekistan - Unitel, operating under Beeline brand, for rendering communications services, VimpelCom said in a message July 22. The official exchange rate is 2958.87 Uzbek soums /$1 July 22. According to the message, VimpelCom renders 2G, 3G and LTE services in Uzbekistan.
  • China's WeChat takes on WhatsApp in Africa

    CHINA, 2016/07/22 Late to the party, WeChat, China's biggest Internet-based mobile messaging platform, is scrambling to get a piece of the action in the booming African market. The move is leading the South Africa-China joint venture down a fiercely competitive path as Facebook's WhatsApp is by presently part of the social media fabric in most African nations.
  • The next generation A new wave of mobile technology is on its way, and will bring drastic change

    WORLD, 2016/02/21 THE next is by presently arriving, it is just a question of knowing where to look. On Changshou Road in Shanghai, eagle eyes may spot an odd rectangular object on top of an office block: it is a collection of 128 miniature antennae. Pedestrians in Manhattan can catch a glimpse of apparatus that looks like a video camera on a stand, but jerks around and has a strange, hornlike protrusion where the lens should be. It blasts a narrow beam of radio waves at buildings so they can bounce their way to the receiver. The campus of the University of Surrey in Guildford, England, is dotted with 44 antennae, which form virtual wireless cells that follow a device around. These antennae are vanguards of a new generation of wireless technologies. Although the previous batch, collectively called “fourth generation”, or 4G, is still being rolled out in a lot of nations, the telecoms industry has by presently started working on the next, 5G. On February 12th AT&T, America’s second-major mobile operator, said it would begin testing whether prototype 5G circuitry works indoors, following similar news in September from Verizon, the number one. South Korea wants to have a 5G network up and running at the same time as it hosts the Winter Olympics in 2018; Japan wants the same for the summer games in 2020. At the same time as the industry holds its annual jamboree, Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona this month, 5G will top the schedule.
  • E-commerce expansion primed for Indonesian market

    INDONESIA, 2016/02/14 As smartphones become additional commonplace in Indonesia, apps are enjoying a surge in popularity, suggesting that e-commerce – for both goods and services – is filling market voids and strengthening its economic foothold. Online trading and transport apps in particular are generating interest, offering a solid foundation for other start-ups, and attracting international players and financiers to the country.
  • Brazil and China launch sixth CBERS satellite

    CHINA, 2015/12/31 The sixth CBERS (China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite) satellite is scheduled to be launched into space in December 2018, said the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The announcement of the date came as technical teams from both nations concluded that the CBERS-4A satellite project should proceed to the production phase of the flight models and their subsystems and equipment. On the Brazilian side, a team made up of experts from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), both linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI), assessed whether the satellite project met the requirements set for the CBERS-4A mission.
  • ICT tops priorities in Malaysia’s new budget

    MALAYSIA, 2015/12/27 The new national budget signals an acceleration of Malaysia’s digital drive, with both ICT research and improvment(R&D) and broadband provision awarded significant funding increases. While higher investment in the digital economy spells good news for the sector, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular, some stakeholders would like to see additional done to boost industry sales. Bigger, better broadband Presented to Parliament on October 23, the 2016 budget sets out a series of spending programmes aimed at supporting ICT services and bolstering R&D.
  • Vietnam's prime minister posted a letter online on Thursday urging the public to use the Internet responsibly

    VIETNAM, 2015/11/26 Vietnam's prime minister posted a letter online on Thursday urging the public to use the Internet responsibly and build a civilized web environment, in rare comments promoting cyberspace in a country renowned for crushing dissent. In a letter additional than 1,100 words long posted on the government's website and its new Facebook page, Nguyen Tan Dung said the Internet was key to transparency and "contributes to the assurance of freedom, human rights and civil rights". While Internet usage and smartphone sales have soared in Vietnam, its communist government has dealt harshly with its online critics, with rights groups angered by the arrests, intimidation and jailing of dozens of bloggers and activists.