Displaying items by tag: PCCW Global

PCCW Global has signed a collaboration agreement with Spanish technology company Nayar Systems that will provide the European technology specialist with access to a global telecommunications network and fabric, with coverage of over 120 countries using PCCW Global’s Console Connect IoT SIM connectivity.

Nayar Systems is a major industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technology developer serving the global elevator industry, and the collaboration will enable it to significantly reduce the time and cost associated with deploying the telecommunications services most required by modern high-tech elevator systems.

In addition to its IoT relationships in the elevator industry, PCCW Global’s growing portfolio of IoT vertical markets already include the media, logistics, aviation and transportation industries.

PCCW Global will provide Nayar Systems with Console Connect IoT single SIM technology, which delivers a global fabric of connectivity and enables Nayar Systems to offer a complete IoT solution to their clients worldwide.

Through the Console Connect IoT management portal, Nayar Systems has the ability to activate, monitor, and manage any number of IoT SIMs remotely in over 120 countries where the company has presence, enabling immediate 4G connectivity for the telemetry, safety and remote control functions of its elevators.

Incorporating single SIM IoT technology into the elevator production process will result in a significant reduction in time and costs related to provisioning for telecommunications services at the point of production.

Nayar Systems’ customers and end-users will benefit from simplified installation and the deployment of reliable elevator communications using single IoT SIM technology over extensive worldwide mobile partner networks, supported by PCCW Global’s high-speed, robust and secure international IPX infrastructure.

In addition to supporting both single SIM and eSIM technology across a global infrastructure, PCCW Global’s Console Connect IoT connectivity service offering includes an intuitive self-service portal, 24x7 international NOC monitoring and multilingual service hotline, fully private on-demand connectivity to clouds and data centres, Software Defined Network (SDN) orchestration, and support for a universal API facilitating connectivity monitoring and management.

Craig Price, Senior Vice President, Mobility Product and Marketing, PCCW Global, said, “We are proud to be powering Nayar System’s IoT solution, and we look forward to assisting to deliver this integrated IoT solution to the international market. It is exciting to be the enabler of such an innovative service, which will deliver real benefits to Nayar Systems’ end-users.”

José Luis Sanchis, CMO, Nayar Systems, said, “The collaboration will allow us to expand the business footprint around the globe and provide after-sales service in real-time to our clients. All problems related to elevator telecommunication connectivity are solved as the manufacturer controls the condition of the lift remotely at all times, without the installer having to deal with the problem of obtaining telecommunications connectivity from a local supplier.”

Telecom Review, the leading global telecoms news platform, held a virtual panel on 21 July, attended by 346 participants, to discuss the latest and most pressing issues in the wholesale and capacity space. Telecom Review mobilized an impressively unique panel with representatives from Etisalat, MTN GlobalConnect, PCCW Global, Tata Communications, SES, Orange and GBI.

Following the success of its previous virtual events, the panel titled, ‘Capacity and data traffic: Enabling a seamless experience’, was held at 16:00 UAE time on July 21^st.

The session was moderated by Founder of Telecom Review and CEO of Trace Media, Toni Eid, and the panelists included: Ali Amiri, Group Chief Carrier & Wholesale Officer at Etisalat; Frederic Schepens, CEO of MTN GlobalConnect; Marc Halbfinger, CEO of PCCW Global; Vaneet Mehta, AVP & Region Head- MECAA at Tata Communications; Elias Zaccack, EVP of Global Sales at SES; Cengiz Oztelcan, CEO of GBI and Emmanual Rochas, CEO, International Carriers at Orange.

The globally renowned panelists discussed the management of the sheer amount of data which was generated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of the cloud in ensuring a seamless remote experience and the challenges that COVID-19 posed to the wholesale industry.

Ali Amiri, Group Chief Carrier & Wholesale Officer at Etisalat, said, "Organizations were less concerned about security and remote working because of cloud readiness. Everyone has to be cloud equipped and this showed during the pandemic. This was really quite important that people could connect from anywhere and from any device.”

Frederic Schepens, CEO of MTN GlobalConnect, stated, “When COVID-19 hit our operations, we already had more backups and strengthened networks. In certain markets, we saw 30-35% growth. Voice also increased because people were calling each other to make sure everyone was OK. As an industry, we can do a lot of good to make sure we support all these changes with a reliable, robust infrastructure and also ensure that we facilitate the digitization process.”

Marc Halbfinger, CEO of PCCW Global, said, “The one thing that I’m certain of as a result of COVID-19 is that I’m not certain of anything. The situation has made forecasting an art form. We need to consider as many possibilities as may exist. We don’t know when this issue will be resolved or how governments will deal with it. COVID-19 has demonstrated that anything that is driving new age automation is necessary.”

On the business Impact of COVID 19, Vaneet Mehta, Region Head, Tata Communications, mentioned, “In terms of wholesale segment, we had growth in data traffic, on account of OTT content consumption. But the enterprise segment saw decision making getting delayed.”

Vaneet, was still bullish on the enterprise segment, in markets like Saudi Arabia, UAE and certain select countries of Africa. He also touched upon the recent news of the recent Tata Communications local telecom license in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Elias Zaccack, EVP of Global Sales at SES, said, “Without dismissing the severity of COVID-19, we are seeing is a lot of opportunities.  One of those opportunities is digitization. A lot of countries are moving a lot faster to digitization. What we have realized is just how essential satellites are to the global infrastructure.”

“For many years we’ve been talking about digitalization, we also learnt that most governments are nowhere near being digital especially during the lockdown. We suffered a lot of time wastage in terms of organizing basic processes. Also, security is currently in the back burner because people are just trying to be connected. It’s a good time for us to think about this, but the market will demand better security eventually,” commented Cengiz Oztelcan, CEO of GBI.

Emmanual Rochas, CEO, International Carriers at Orange, said, “This crisis has been dramatic in terms of human impact. It also had a massive impact on our international wholesale business. We have experienced a very strong shift in usage in terms of our businesses. Our networks have either been emptied or overloaded. We have seen an increase in domestic voice whilst international voice suffered. We had a very strong increase in public networks due to increase in consumption of entertainment.”

PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, and data center and cloud specialist TierPoint announced a collaboration to offer US-based enterprises the world’s first global software-defined interconnection platform using TierPoint’s infrastructure, with access to PCCW Global’s Console Connect.

As enterprises migrate critical applications and content to the cloud, they are discovering that the public internet was not designed or built with business connectivity in mind, especially when it comes to reliable performance, predictability and security. PCCW Global’s Console Connect answers these business challenges by delivering an affordable platform that makes connections to cloud-based applications, partners and client IT infrastructure simple, easily managed, predictable and secure, with seamless access to the world’s major cloud hosting services, including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud and Yunify.

Console Connect will initially be available at TierPoint facilities in Andover, MA, Bethlehem, PA, and Durham, NC, enabling enhanced performance, visibility, monitoring and security. TierPoint’s data center tenants will also gain additional benefit from having access to the digital innovation capabilities delivered via fast and secure direct connectivity provided by PCCW Global’s Tier 1 IP network, which spans more than 150 countries worldwide.

TierPoint’s customers will have an opportunity to easily provision on-demand direct access to their business-critical applications. Console Connect is also able to connect all points in a network with simple-to-use automation software that eliminates the complexity of network configuration while simultaneously reducing cost. Furthermore, the platform brings enterprises and cloud providers from around the world together by building a networking community, created by network engineers for network engineers, with the goal of improving communication and collaboration toward delivering improved data services.

Marc Halbfinger, Chief Executive Officer, PCCW Global, said, “The various Console Connect points of presence in TierPoint’s data centers will deliver simple and dynamic access to applications by pairing network and cloud more easily.”

Chief Revenue Officer at TierPoint, Tony Rossabi, commented, “A growing number of companies are seeking more reliable and secure alternatives to the public Internet for cloud connectivity. This new collaboration with PCCW Global helps address that need, further expanding the options available to clients in our leading, edge-capable facilities.”

PLDT, NTT Communications, PCCW Global, SoftBank, Facebook and Amazon have selected TE SubCom to install a high-capacity transpacific cable system scheduled to launch in 2020. TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. Company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology.

“The demand for bandwidth in the Pacific region continues to grow at a remarkable rate, and is accompanied by the rise of capacity-dependent applications like live video, augmented and virtual reality, and 4k/8k video,” said Koji Ishii of SoftBank, co-chairperson of JUPITER consortium.

The JUPITER cable system will connect the following locations: Maruyama, Japan; Shima, Japan; Los Angeles, California; and Daet, Camarines Norte, Philippines. The new transpacific route will provide greater diversity of connections and enhanced reliability for customers, as well as optimal connectivity to data centers on the West Coast of the United States.

“JUPITER will provide the necessary diversity of connections and the highest capacity available to meet the needs of the evolving marketplace,” Ishii added. “TE SubCom has a proven record of success in the design and implementation of innovative, scalable and robust transoceanic cable systems, making the company the most reliable choice for the JUPITER supply partner.”

Sanjay Chowbey, president of TE SubCom, said submarine cables continue to have a critical impact on the global economy, as well as cultural, educational and medical advancement around the world.

“It is our privilege to help facilitate the growth of global connectivity and provide reliable, high-capacity and low-latency transmission to regions where bandwidth is at a premium,” Chowbey said. “We look forward to the next phases of what will be a high quality and industry leading system implementation.” 

PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, has launched the Online Cloud Connect service providing connectivity to Microsoft Azure.

This is an innovative Network-as-a-Service product that extends a customer’s MPLS network service to both Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365, benefiting them by providing a service which is insulated from the public Internet with improved and predictable performance and vastly reduced latency.

The Online Cloud Connect service leverages the capabilities of PCCW Global's Software Defined Network (SDN) and is an evolution beyond traditional and existing cloud connect services in the market. Enterprises and institutions gain flexibility, scalability, reliable performance and control over their connectivity to the cloud to fit their requirements at any given time.

Mr. Jordick Wong, Senior Vice President, Product and Vendor Management, PCCW Global, said, “Through an intuitive, easy to manage online service portal, our MPLS customers can now establish their own private connection to Microsoft Azure very easily and conveniently.”

Wong added, “The service portal offers online ordering and automatic provisioning together with flexible subscription packages starting from as little as a one-hour timeslot. Customers can subscribe to the bandwidth they require from a range of 50 to 1000 Mbps at the point of demand, and pay as they go without any human interaction being required.”

The Online Cloud Connect service is in the process of further extending its online ordering and automatic provisioning capabilities to include other major public cloud service providers.

Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Saudi Arabia’s largest telecom company, announced the company’s interim financial results for the period ending at 30 September 2017. The group’s net income for the 3rd quarter of 2017 increased 18.2 percent compared to the comparable quarter last year, and for the 9 months period of 2017, net income reached SR 7.5 billion, an increase of 10.4 percent compared to the comparable period last year.

The company’s operating profit for the 3rd quarter increased 23 percent compared to comparable quarter last year, while earnings per share for the 9 months period of 2017 grew to reach SR 3.76 compared to SR 3.41 for the comparable period last year.

STC CEO, Dr. Khalid Biyari, said the results reflect growth in enterprise and wholesale sectors which achieved revenue despite a decline in consumer revenue during the period. The results were also achieved, he said, despite various economic and regulatory conditions in the domestic market.

STC adopted a strategy years ago to focus on diversifying sources and introducing innovative programs to achieve operational efficiency. Therefore, net income for the 3rd quarter increased 18.2 percent compared to the comparable period last year, and for the 9 months period of 2017 net income increased 10.4 percent compared to the comparable period last year.

Dr. Biyari said that STC, through its various subsidiaries, works “hard and steadily side by side with public and private sector in the Kingdom to establish a contemporary environment for the digital transformation in Saudi Arabia and to establish a modern environment that contributes to the spread of the digital environment.”

STC’s growth strategy adopted recently seeks to achieve the kingdom’s Vision 2030 and the NTP 2020 which means entering into major transformation. The telecom sector, said Dr. Biyari, is seeking new opportunities outside of traditional services. The transformation will provide STC with new opportunities outside its core business, and thus its market capitalization will rapidly increase. 

“As an example of a new era for Sales and Distribution, (STC channels) was re-launched recently with an  innovative digital vision and new spirit as an important selling and distribution arm of the group, which is an important part of the transition to digital channels in the service of our clients and providing innovative new services,” Dr. Biyari said. “This will be followed by successive steps in the near future that will bring us closer to our objectives in meeting the customers’ needs and achieve attractive returns for the investors.”

In accordance with the approved dividend policy for three years starting from the 4th quarter 2015 which was announced on 11 November 2015, and have been ratified during the General Assembly Meeting on April 4th 2016, STC will distribute a total of SR 2,000 million in cash dividend for Q3 2017, representing SR 1 per share.

PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, is collaborating with Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, the leading OS for container, cloud, scale-out and hyperscale computing, and CPLANE NETWORKS, the leader in multi-site OpenStack cloud orchestration, to create new cloud services for its customers.

Implementation at PCCW Global’s two next generation data centers in Reston, VA, US and Hong Kong is currently underway, with plans to expand to other strategic cities around the world over time. Cloud services provided in these centers are designed to enable “self-service” provisioning to accelerate service deployment for customers as well as seamless integration with and easy consumption of existing PCCW Global integrated communications solutions.

Mr. Bret Rehart, Chief Network and Information Officer of PCCW Global, said: “As applications continue to move closer to the network edge, the demands for workload agility and mobility are becoming increasingly important for our customers. Customers have needs for new applications for NFV and Internet of Things (IoT) and want them faster, at the right location, and tailored to their specific needs.”

“Our aim is to provide dynamic network and cloud based services that not only automatically flex in response to our customers’ policies and service level commitments, but also self-adjust based on rapidly changing network conditions. The approach we have taken, working with Canonical and CPLANE NETWORKS, will enable us to deliver a level of performance, scalability and automation that would otherwise be unachievable with traditional service configuration solutions.”

The delivery of additional value-added services such as security, video or application suites can be easily added on-demand as well as integrated with connectivity to public clouds and other infrastructure to create enhanced, enterprise-level services, a truly hybrid private to public cloud offering.

Using Ubuntu OpenStack and CPLANE’s Multi-Site Manager, Canonical and CPLANE NETWORKS will deliver unmatched performance and scalability for a truly global OpenStack cloud. 

Canonical’s Juju Charms will also extend the Canonical / CPLANE OpenStack solution by providing an automated mechanism to deploy base OpenStack cloud services, and enables a full ecosystem of value-added services for enterprise and edge applications, NFV and IoT enablement.

Mr. Brandon Williams, Chief Executive Officer of CPLANE NETWORKS, said: “The two great market forces of today, the proliferation of mobile / IoT devices and the conquering wave of public clouds, are growing at a phenomenal rate. But they are growing apart; the first is becoming more distributed and fragmented while the latter is becoming cheaper and more centralized. Canonical and CPLANE NETWORKS have bridged this gap with a hyper-distributed cloud solution for service providers. PCCW Global will be the first to market with an edge-cloud offering for the applications that will power this new frontier.”

Mr. Anand Krishnan, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cloud, Canonical, said: “Canonical in partnership with CPLANE NETWORKS is enabling PCCW Global to deliver new cloud services. These services will be supplied to the edge of the network, meeting customer’s growing need for services at scale and speed with the economic benefit of an automated OpenStack deployment. Using Ubuntu OpenStack, the most widely deployed OpenStack in production clouds today, and CPLANE NETWORKS’ Multi-Site Manager, Canonical and CPLANE NETWORKS are delivering unmatched performance and scalability for a truly global OpenStack cloud.”

PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, and Caton Technology Corp. (Caton), a technology provider of advanced video transmission and managed file transfer solutions, will work together to deliver to international viewers the exciting 29th Summer Universiade, a global student sporting and cultural event to be hosted by Taipei, Taiwan in August.

Licenced broadcasters at the games will be able to contribute and distribute their live videos and big media files seamlessly from the International Broadcasting Center back to their home countries via the integrated delivery solution provided by this collaboration.

PCCW Global and Caton will jointly deliver new, innovative, cost-effective, and reliable services that redefine the workflow for global media contributions and distributions. PCCW Global will integrate Caton’s professional video transmission and managed file transfer solutions using Caton’s Real-Time Transport Protocol (R2TP*) and Fast Files Transfer Protocol (F2TP*) technologies, into PCCW Global’s reliable Global Television Network (GTVN) and Global Internet Access (GIA) networks.

These innovative technologies and service solutions will be installed and utilized at the 2017 Summer Universiade, a major international event staged every two years. Second only to the Olympic Games in significance and prestige, the Universiade covers 12 days of sporting competition, allowing university student-athletes from all over the world to celebrate with the host city in a true spirit of friendship and sportsmanship. This year’s competition will involve a total of 22 sports and 270 gold medal events. More than 150 countries are expected to participate in the Summer Universiade, confirming its status as a major media event with global connections.

Mr. Jordick Wong, Senior Vice President, Product and Vendor Management, PCCW Global, said, “We are extremely excited about our collaboration with Caton, which gives us another opportunity to serve international broadcasters with our robust global fiber infrastructure which delivers 99.999% service availability to our customers. By integrating Caton’s R2TP and F2TP technologies with our GTVN and Tier 1 GIA network, we are able to provide services with a perfect balance of cost, quality, reliability, and lead-time for live video signal and large media file delivery over the Internet.”

Mr. Eric Hamilton, Chief Operating Officer, Caton Technology Corp., said, “In 2011, Caton foresaw the need for dramatic improvements in how we support the surging demand of video on the Internet. We developed R2TP and F2TP technologies to enable more flexible, stable and reliable transmission even under the most demanding conditions. Now, building on our long standing partnership with PCCW Global, our combined solution will provide additional capacity, reliability and security to the global market.”

These integrated solutions are now available from PCCW Global and ready to service world class sports events, such as the Universiade, other live events, and worldwide media content contributions and distributions.

PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, and Ideal Systems, Asia’s largest broadcast and media systems integrator, have successfully delivered the world’s first live 360° and 3D multi-camera coverage of the 2017 Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens with the support of Now TV, the official host broadcaster of the event, providing viewers with a totally immersive virtual reality (VR) viewing experience.

PCCW Global’s expertise in live mega event management and new media technology delivery, together with Ideal Systems’ broadcast solutions and virtual reality expertise, enabled the team to deliver this complex solution in less than six weeks from project initiation.

The collaboration involved Ideal Systems delivering the content acquisition using a number of pitch-side Nokia OZO 360° cameras. These cameras provided a UHD IP signal which was delivered over HKT fiber to Nokia servers in the control room, to facilitate live stitching from each of the cameras’ eight 2K lenses to create multiple stitched 3D UHD streams.

These 360° audio and video streams were switched and passed through to the Harmonic Electra VS encoders for delivery to the PCCW Global media delivery network. Six streams were routed from the stadium for live distribution by Now TV to consumers’ mobile devices, PCs and VR headsets, including Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive, Zeiss VR One Plus and Google Cardboard via YouTube 360.

The challenges of real-time live VR streaming compared to traditional TV revolve around the complexity of dealing with data rates which are significantly larger and more demanding on the delivery networks - with close to 6Gbps of uncompressed video coming from each OZO Live Server. By way of comparison, reports from Broadband Forum suggest that even basic VR video requires 17 times the bandwidth of normal HD video.

From Ideal Systems’ side, the project involved its live production teams for the on-site set up and live “stitching and switching” production. It also involved Ideal Systems’ software development department, which developed and published the downloadable apps utilizing the Nokia OZO API for the VR headsets and provided onsite network security and publishing platforms.

Mr. Mike van den Bergh, Chief Marketing Officer of PCCW Global, said, “This world’s first delivery of a complete source-to-screen solution for immersive 360 VR viewing was one of the most exciting projects our team has been involved in, because while it truly showcased our innovation and media delivery capabilities, it also tested our abilities fully, leveraging as it did both our extensive experience in delivering mega sports events, and our ability to successfully put such a complex solution together in a very short space of time.”

Mr. Jim Butler, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ideal Systems Group, said, “We are very excited to be on the bleeding edge of this next wave of broadcast innovation and are honored to have been chosen as the 360 VR partner by PCCW Global. We had no play book to go by and are writing the rules as we go. It is a bit daunting to be first, especially with an event of this magnitude and duration. We are delighted that it has been such a successful project for us and PCCW Global and ultimately Now TV’s viewers.”

PCCW Global and Keppel Data Centres Holding Pte Ltd (Keppel Data Centres) have launched the PCCW Global-Keppel International Carrier Exchange (ICX) in the international telecommunications hub of Hong Kong to provide faster interconnects for businesses.

PCCW Global is the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, while Keppel Data Centres is a joint venture between Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation Ltd (Keppel T&T) and Keppel Land Limited.

The PCCW Global-Keppel ICX is based on robust design requirements and features more than 7,800 square feet of dedicated network facility management space with redundant power configuration.

The ICX is located at the same building of the AAE-1 city Point of Presence (PoP) and connected to the submarine cable landing stations of Hong Kong and other hyper scale data centers via an extensive fiber network supplied by HKT. The optimal and secure global network connectivity meeting point makes it a preferred choice for companies looking to establish network edge PoP.

PCCW Global and Keppel Data Centres entered into the long-term collaboration agreement for the development of the ICX in 2016. The collaboration seeks to utilize the vast submarine cable capacity in the region to provide fast, quality interconnections with Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America.

Leveraging PCCW Global’s extensive global network connectivity and Keppel Data Centres’ technical expertise and operational track record, the ICX venture aims to address the demand for access performance and network security arising from cloud services, big data, and rich media in business critical applications.

Mr. Marc Halbfinger, Chief Executive Officer of PCCW Global, said, “We are very pleased to see the exciting ICX opening which highlights our very positive relationship with Keppel T&T. Our customers and carrier partners now have more low-latency Hong Kong Island choice in accessing digital solutions for responding to the increasing cloud adoption in the region.”

Mr. Thomas Pang, Chief Executive Officer of Keppel T&T, said, “The ICX marks Keppel T&T’s first step into the Hong Kong data center market and brings together the best that PCCW Global and Keppel Data Centres have to offer under one roof. Customers in our ICX will enjoy connectivity to the city PoP of the AAE-1 cable as well as the global network of data centres from both companies.”