Network News

Cambodia is to get a connection into the 25,000km AAE-1 cable being built by a consortium of 19 global telcos to link Asian, African, Middle Eastern and European nations.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, are to each provide $150m loan funding to Ooredoo Group's fully owned subsidiary Ooredoo Myanmar to expand its mobile network in Myanmar.

Satellite services provider SpeedCast International has announced a multi-million dollars agreement with Pakistan telco Multinet Pakistan that will enable Multinet to add satellite communications to its private network offerings. SpeedCast has also announced a deal to use the O3b satellite network to provide services to Kiribati.

Energia Communications (EneCom) - a telco providing Internet and communication services to residential and corporate customers in Hiroshima and the surrounding Chugoku region of Japan - is to launch the first commercial deployment of G.fast technology in Japan using technology from Nokia.

Hutchison Global Communications Limited (HGC), the fixed-line division of Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings, has become the first telco to deploy the Infinera TM-Series Mobile Fronthaul Solution. It has been deployed across HGC's optical network in Hong Kong.

Ericsson and Bangladesh mobile operator, Robi Axiata, have signed a three-year contract to upgrade Robi's 2G/GSM network in the Chittagong and Comilla regions of Bangladesh to 3G/WCDMA and make it ready for 4G/LTE. Existing base stations will be upgraded and Ericsson will deploy a substantial number of additional 3G/WCDMA sites in the same regions, enabling Robi to expand the network to address demand from rapid data growth.

Indosat Ooredoo is to expand its 4G/LTE network to 16 cities across Indonesia this year, the Jakarta Post reports. Indosat Ooredoo CEO, Alexander Ruslie, was reported saying the expansion would be done gradually over the course of the year. Currently, the company's 4G network is available in 27 cities.

PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, and Telstra International have signed an IPX multi-service interconnection agreement, expanding their relationship in new market segments and benefiting their respective mobile and multinational customers.

Ericsson has been selected by Indonesian operator XL Axiata, to supply network functions virtualization (NFV) technology. Ericsson will deploy its full stack cloud solution, including the Ericsson Hyperscale Datacenter System 8000 based on Intel Rack Scale Architecture, and virtual network functions (VNFs) as part of XL Axiata's cloud evolution and realization of NFV. Separately, Ericsson has announced an NFV deal with Korean telco LG.

The Singapore-based Campana Group and Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, now  a subsidiary of Nokia, have announced plans to build MYTHIC (Myanmar-Malaysia-Thailand International Connection), a 1,600 km submarine cable system that will link Myanmar to Malaysia and Thailand with onward connectivity to Singapore, Hong Kong and beyond.