This month, Senet and Inland Cellular announced a partnership to deliver Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) connectivity across Inland Cellular’s coverage areas and extend Inland’s branded services to support the rapid growth of IoT applications. This partnership significantly expands Inland Cellular’s portfolio.

Deutsche Telekom has announced an investment in Axonize, a startup specializing in IoT services based on Microsoft Azure. Deutsche Telecom will invest $6 million in Round A financing in the Israeli start-up.

Security

In security news this month, Meta Networks Ltd., the technology leader in secure cloud-native networking, launched its flagship network and security platform – Meta NaaS (Network-as-a-Service). The platform delivers zero-trust and always-on network security.

Orange Business Services announced a collaboration with CERT NZ, a cybersecurity unit in the New Zealand government that supports businesses, organizations and individuals affected by cybersecurity incidents. Orange will provide automated threat intelligence services for CERT NZ to enhance cyberdefense.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Vodafone Group announced the sale of Vodafone Qatar with the Qatar Foundation’s completion of acquisition of Vodafone Europe B.V.’s 51% stake in the joint venture company. Vodafone Group and Vodafone Qatar have entered into a five-year Partner Market agreement so that Vodafone Qatar will continue to use the Vodafone brand and tap the expertise and marketing assets of the global company.

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation news percolated along this month with several interesting news updates. Calix and Infosys announced a strategic multiyear partnership to accelerate communications service provider (CSP) adoption of AXOS, its Software Defined Access (SDA) platform. Calix and Infosys will jointly invest to co-create new services and value-added offerings.

Square Box Systems is previewing a range of groundbreaking new content analysis capabilities for its flagship CatDV media asset management (MAM) solution, leveraging the latest artificial intelligence (AI) technology for speech recognition and image analysis. 

In another example of the implementation of AI and machine learning, Apcela announced the launch of its Enhanced Analytics Platform (EAP) with SD-WAN API. Built for complex enterprise IT environments, EAP assesses real-time event and metric-driven data between networks, applications and tools, bridging the gap between data silos due to limited analytics, while addressing enterprises’ need for dynamic, predictive, automated analysis across networks.

AT&T will provide advanced technology solutions for more than 1,100 branches of Citizens Bank, one of the largest retail banks in the U.S. This initiative aims to transform the customer experience through technology, including state-of-the-art digital signage and network services while also wrapping all digital touchpoints in security.

Customer Experience

Customer experience news this month included new solutions to deliver superior and personalized customer messaging and interaction at scale. Telefonica’s wholesale business unit, Telefonica International Wholesale Services, announced the launch of a brand new service, Marketing Campaigns Manager, a fully virtualized solution designed to enable any mobile operator to enhance the mobile customer experience with location, time relevant and personalized content at any time—giving operators additional tools to build connection with customers.