Ant Financial, the parent company of Chinese mobile payment platform Alipay, has reached an agreement to invest US$184.5 million for a 45 percent stake in Norwegian telecom group Telenor subsidiary Telenor Microfinance Bank (TMB) in Pakistan, to further develop TMB’s mobile payment and digital financial services in the country.
Chinese multinational telecommunications vendor ZTE which is a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet has partnered with market research firm IDC to jointly issue an "Expediting AI for Operations in the Networks of Future" white paper.
United States President Donald Trump issued a Presidential Order on 12 March blocking semiconductor company Broadcom from acquiring chipset maker Qualcomm for $117 billion. Under the terms of the order released by the White House, all of Broadcom’s director nominees are disqualified from standing for election as directors of Qualcomm.
Chinese multinational telecommunicator vendor ZTE and velcom, the Belarusian telecommunication operator have deploed the first commericial 5G-ready virtual core network in Belarus. Due to superior technical results, the project is one of the shortlisted nominees for the Best Network Software Breakthrough award of the Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2018 (MWC).
Chinese ICT solutions provider Huawei announced the initiation of its "Slice Mall" innovation project, based on the concept of "slicing as a service and as a commodity." This global project aims at accelerating the commercialization of 5G slicing and helping carriers achieve business success in a range of vertical industries.
Chinese multinational telecommunications vendor Huawei has announced that it has penned 5G MoUs with 45 operators which spans across three continents - Asia, Europe and North America. Huawei’s rotating CEO Ken Hu made the confirmation during Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona. In addition to this Hu also revealed that the Chinese vendor is already conducting pre-commercial trials with 30 mobile players.
The Australian government plans to auction off 125MHz of spectrum in the 3.5GHz band in October this year for use in 5G implementation across urban and regional areas of the country. Australia’s telecom regulator, the ACMA, will determine the terms of the auction based on its recommendations and those of the public.
The Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has published draft criteria for interested parties to bid for a license to operate as the country’s third telecom operator. The NTC will hold a public consultation on the proposed rules in early March in Quezon City, Philippines.
Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecommunications service provider, and Gulf Bridge International (GBI), a global cloud provider for the Middle-East and Europe, announced a strategic agreement to unlock the capacity on GBI’s India-Middle East-Europe submarine cable system.
Chinese vendor ZTE has hit back amidst allegations from the US government that they pose a serious threat to national security. A number of prominent Republican politicians and leading spy experts have expressed their concern over the influence of Chinese technology companies in the US.
