Inmarsat, the global mobile satellite communications provider, has announced a key infrastructure milestone for its European Aviation Network (EAN), following the successful test and validation of the EAN Satellite Access Station (SAS).
The Marshall Islands, a chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in the central Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and the Philippines, now has internet services restored, after the nation endured a three-week blackout while its only subsea fiber-optic cable was repaired.
Chinese telecoms giant ZTE Corporation, together with Indonesian service provider Smartfren Telecom Tbk, successfully completed the Pre5G Massive MIMO service test. This is Southeast Asia's first field commercial trial of Pre5G technology that could support technology evolution from 4G to 5G, demonstrating Smartfren’s continuous leadership in 4G technologies to the benefit of its customers.
Singtel has launched Singapore's fastest mobile network with the nationwide deployment of a 450Mbps 4G LTE-Advanced service. Delivering up to 50% faster download speeds than prevailing LTE services, this enhanced peak speed will allow customers to download a full length HD movie in less than two minutes over mobile data. The 450Mbps service is available to all Singtel 4G customers at no additional charge.
Australian mobile operator Optus has launched native Voice over WiFi – or WiFi Calling – which allows customers to easily make and receive calls, SMS and MMS where there is limited mobile coverage but an accessible WiFi service, such as home or public
Facebook and Ericsson, in conjunction with Thailand's Total Access Communication PLC (dtac), have joined forces to measure and improve the user app experience on the dtac network. Using a methodology developed by Ericsson and Facebook, typical Facebook interactions were triggered from Facebook test accounts and measured on different mobile test devices in central Bangkok. After adjustments to the dtac network, results showed big improvements to the Facebook app experience such as 60 percent improvement in Facebook uploads and downloads time.
M1 Limited (M1), Singapore’s third largest mobile carrier, and Huawei announced on 18 January that they had successfully achieved Singapore’s highest 5G transmission speeds of 35Gbps. The demonstration, at M1’s main operating centre in Jurong, is part of Huawei’s long-term commitment to the successful deployment of 5G network by the year 2020.
Nokia and Smart, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PLDT, have achieved 5G speeds of 2.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) using 100 MHz with latency of just 1 millisecond for the first time in the Philippines over a 'live' network. With its capability to deliver extremely high speeds coupled with low latency, 5G opens up exciting possibilities for Internet of Things (IoT) applications for Filipinos, particularly in healthcare and smart cities.
Ericsson and Australian mobile operator Telstra have successfully demonstrated the ability to encrypt data securely while in transit between Los Angeles and Melbourne at 10Gbps, using Ciena’s ultra-low latency 10G wire-speed encryption solution. While encryption solutions exist today to protect data when it is ‘at rest’ (at the start and end points), this trial demonstrates the advanced security that can be delivered while data is ‘in transit’; that is, being transmitted beyond the walls of a datacenter across large networks, without any impact to performance.
Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson revealed their ambitious plans for 5G deployment in China. Ericsson endured a number of high-profile setbacks in recent months, but they've disclosed some of its strategies in relation to the 5G deployment in China '“ which is a market they feel is the future of global communications.
