Alaskan internet service provider (ISP) OptimERA is leveraging SES Networks’ new managed infrastructure service and a full 72MHz transponder to significantly improve broadband connectivity speed 10-fold throughout the remote port city of Unalaska, and neighboring towns and islands across Southwest Alaska.

GENBAND, a provider of real time communications software solutions, announced that it has added to its Voice over LTE (VoLTE) media processing solutions to help mobile service providers optimize their LTE Radio Access Network (RAN) capacity and offer high-definition voice services with Advanced Media Software (AMS) technology and the Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) codec. The AMS software-based media processing solution is now also available as a virtualized offer on a new M5 Rack Mount Server platform, providing mobile service providers industry-leading EVS transcoding capacity on a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) appliance, and serving as a stepping stone to full network functions virtualization (NFV) deployments.

Cellular data services provider Eseye has launched a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that delivers global cellular IoT connectivity using Amazon Web Services. The cellular service is one of the first to directly integrate with AWS in order to help customers globally deploy IoT devices and securely activate, provision, authenticate and certify "things" over-the-air, as well as ingest data from devices onto AWS for further data processing. 

ECI has introduced a carrier-grade operational solution addressing CSPs' needs to increase service agility, lower OPEX, and provide better SLAs to their customers. The Hybrid Virtualization Platform is designed to support multiple NFV-based use cases to help CSPs simplify operations, increase agility, reduce OPEX and provide better SLAs. By supporting delay-sensitive services, and offering better security and termination of flows at the network edge, the platform supports a variety of applications including modernized business services, as well as future needs driven by the IoT and 5G.

News Around the World

Worldwide connectivity received a boost with a number of initiatives in second- and third-world regions.

Nepal's largest fixed broadband service provider WorldLink and Nokia are building the Himalayan country's first 100G optical network in an upgrade of the operator's 650km optical backbone connecting Nepal with other countries. The two companies are upgrading the backbone network with Nokia's 1830 PSS Photonic Service Switch (PSS) and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to support bandwidth-hungry entertainment and enterprise services across the country.

Multinational telecommunications company Angola Cables has announced that construction has begun on its South American data center in Fortaleza, Brazil as an important step in the company's digital inclusion and empowerment of Africa through a subsea internet cable that connects Africa to the Americas, providing high-speed internet at some of the lowest latency speeds between the two continents.

VNPT, a leading Vietnamese telecom operator, is modernizing its business support system (BSS) by partnering with Ericsson to carry out its digital transformation with a new online charging system and improved user experience. The modernization will enable service convergence and advanced charging capabilities, and improve the user experience for VNPT’s 40 million prepaid and postpaid subscribers. The new system will also reduce operational costs and lay the foundation for the operator’s transformation to a digital enterprise.

A possible merger between Argentina's Cablevisión and Telecom companies would create the largest telecommunications business in the country, responsible for 42 percent of telecom invoicing. Moody’s credit rating agency had estimated that the Cablevisión and Telecom together generated U.S. $5.9 billion in total billing in the past year, which represents 42 percent of invoicing in the Argentine telecommunication sector.