VA Group of Companies https://www.vagroup.com.my Pioneering Telecommunication Fri, 14 Apr 2023 05:18:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 Huawei: ‘We stand naked in front of the world’ https://www.vagroup.com.my/2023/03/08/huawei-we-stand-naked-in-front-of-the-world/ Tue, 07 Mar 2023 19:50:53 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=194

Huawei has denied that it has any links to the Chinese government.

Huawei’s cyber-security chief John Suffolk told MPs on Monday that the tech giant had never been asked by China or any other government to “do anything untoward”.

Mr Suffolk said Huawei welcomed outsiders to analyse its products and detect engineering or coding flaws.

“We stand naked in front of the world, but we would prefer to do that, because it enables us to improve our products.”

He added: “We want people to find things, whether they find one or one thousand, we don’t care. We are not embarrassed by what people find.”

Huawei was invited to the Technology and Science Select Committee to answer questions from MPs on the security of its equipment, and its links to the Chinese government.

The US has encouraged allies to block Huawei – the world’s largest maker of telecoms equipment – from their 5G networks, saying the Chinese government could use its products for surveillance.

Huawei cyber-security chief John Suffolk
Huawei’s cyber-security chief John Suffolk said the tech giant has no access to mobile networks

“We’ve never had a request from the Chinese government to do anything untoward at all,” said Mr Suffolk. “We have never been asked by the Chinese government or any other government, I might add, to do anything that would weaken the security of a product.”

MPs raised concerns about Chinese human rights abuses, such as reports that up to a million Muslims are in detention centres in Xinjiang province.

They asked whether Huawei was required to provide equipment to Xinjiang province, especially in light of the 2017 Chinese intelligence law, which requires individuals and associations to comply with Chinese intelligent agencies.

Mr Suffolk said: “We have had to go through a period of clarification with the Chinese government, that has come out and made it quite clear that that is not the requirement of any company.

“We’ve had that validated via our lawyers and revalidated by Clifford Chance…according to our legal advice, that does not require Huawei to undertake anything that weakens Huawei’s position in terms of security.”

Remote access

MPs asked whether Huawei would be able to remotely access the UK’s 5G mobile networks via its equipment.

A woman using 5G to access the internet on her smartphoneHuawei said it would have no access to any data on a 5G mobile network

In reply, Mr Suffolk stressed that Huawei is a provider of telecommunications equipment to mobile network operators.

“We don’t run networks, and because we don’t run the network, we have no access to any of the data that is running across that network,” he said.

He also explained that Huawei is only one of about 200 vendors who would be providing various different bits of equipment that would eventually make up a 5G network in the UK.

However, if an operator were to have a problem with Huawei equipment, a support centre based in Romania would be able to remotely access the equipment to fix the problem.

MPs wanted to know whether it would be possible for a 5G network to be used to track an individual user.

In response, Mr Suffolk explained that mobile phone technology requires the mobile operator to constantly track a user’s phone, in order to be able to connect them to the mobile network.

By that logic, the operator is constantly tracking all of its customers, all the time.

He also told MPs that only about 30% of the the components in Huawei products are actually made by the company – the rest of the components are obtained from a global supply chain that Huawei closely monitors in order to prevent security breaches.

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Samsung looks to capitalise on Huawei’s woes https://www.vagroup.com.my/2023/02/08/samsung-looks-to-capitalise-on-huaweis-woes/ Tue, 07 Feb 2023 19:57:06 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=193

By Wei Shi

Samsung is reported to be investing heavily in infrastructure business to fill the market gap left by Huawei’s ban from 5G business in the developed markets.

Sources inside Samsung and other industry executives have told the Reuters that Samsung is pouring resources into its telecom infrastructure business unit, aiming to seize the opportunity created by the ban on Huawei in a number of important western markets. Samsung’s infrastructure business had been insignificant until recently, trailing Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco, and ZTE, according to figures from the research firm Dell’Oro Group. But it saw a chance when first ZTE then Huawei found themselves being shut out of the lucrative 5G markets in one country after another in the developed world.

To join the ranks of Ericsson and Nokia, Samsung is said to be moving strong management resources as well as software engineers from the smartphone unit to the infrastructure business and to have started charming Huawei’s current customers. One of the global heavyweights that has been impressed by what Samsung has got to offer is Orange. After visiting Japan, where Samsung was conducting a 5G trial, Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, Orange’s CTO, was happy to include Samsung in its shortlist of alternative suppliers, after the telco decided to ban Huawei, its long-term top supplier, from its 5G business in France. An Orange 5G trial with Samsung will be conducted this year.

One difficulty Samsung needs to overcome is the shortage of talents. To start with it needs good engineers. To this end, Samsung’s heir apparent and de facto head Lee Jae-yong, or Jay Y. Lee as he is known in the western world, has sought the support from the Prime Minister when the latter visited Samsung in January. “We need more software engineers and want to work with the government to find that talent,” Lee was quoted by government officials. Samsung’s infrastructure unit has a workforce of about 5,000 people, both Nokia and Ericsson employ more than 100,000 people, and Huawei is said to have employed 200,000 people.

Another type of people Samsung needs to get onboard is those that can build operator relations. This needs a different skill sets from what Samsung has excelled in dealing with distribution channels for its smartphones, and it needs them to be in all the right places in the mature markets, and, better still, to have already worked with the potential operator customers. Due to the nature of business, trusty relationship with telcos often need to be cultivated for years or even decades.

However, Samsung may have just chosen a perfect timing for expansion. Both Ericsson and Nokia are laying off people, either wholesale shutting down of full business units, or selectively downsizing certain teams. Many of these functions have actually had customer interface experience. Huawei’s founder meanwhile has warned that the company may also need to adopt some cost control measures. Though they could not bolster Samsung’s strengths to the same level of its competitors, these could all be good recruitment targets for Samsung to pounce.

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starbucks-will-anchor-the-new-400-million-food-focused-valor-siren-ventures-fund/ https://www.vagroup.com.my/2019/03/08/starbucks-will-anchor-the-new-400-million-food-focused/ Fri, 08 Mar 2019 02:42:07 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=179 Starbucks is serving up a steaming hot $100 million cash commitment to anchor a new food-focused fund in partnership with the consumer and tech-focused focused private equity firm Valor Equity Partners.

The behemoth of burnt-coffee said that its commitment to the Valor Siren Ventures fund is an attempt to focus on “new ideas and technologies that are relevant to customers, inspiring to partners (employees), and meaningful to Starbucks  business.”

The Starbucks announcement was short on details, except for a general statement that it would focus on investments in companies developing technologies, products and solutions related to food or retail.

As a company, Starbucks has been incredibly innovative — rolling out new tech-enabled services to customers. The company has one of the most popular mobile payment services, is dabbling with cryptocurrency payments and has a robust on-demand delivery service through UberEats.

Meanwhile, Valor has a long history of investing in both technology and consumer food businesses. The firm has investments in companies that run the gamut from SpaceX,  Tesla and Addepar  to food services companies and restaurant chains like WowBao, Fooda and Eatsa.

With its commitment, Starbucks joins a growing number of food and beverage companies that are embracing venture capital. Kellogg’sTyson Foods and General Mills all have affiliated venture funds, and even Chipotle is starting an accelerator program.

“We believe that innovative ideas are fuel for the future, and we continue to build on this heritage inside our company across beverage, experiential retail, and our digital flywheel,” said Kevin Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Starbucks, in a statement. “At the same time, and with an eye toward accelerating our innovation agenda, we are inspired by, and want to support the creative, entrepreneurial businesses of tomorrow with whom we may explore commercial relationships down the road. This new partnership with Valor presents exciting opportunities, not only for these startups, but also for Starbucks, as we build an enduring company for decades to come.”

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Top 3 telecom trends for 2019 https://www.vagroup.com.my/2019/01/11/top-3-telecom-trends-for-2019/ Fri, 11 Jan 2019 03:10:35 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=184 2018 was an important and transformational year for the networking industry, but how is it looking in 2019?Top 3 telecom trends for 2019 image

Consumer-driven data consumption, fuelled by the mobile and broadband services in IoT devices, which have soared and put unprecedented pressures on networks.

Thanks to the introduction of GDPR, It has also been the year of stronger encryption practices as users, organisations and lawmakers alike became increasingly concerned about privacy and the safety of their data and infrastructure.

The landscape has changed shape as telcos pushed into the OTT space and increased their user access capabilities as well as high-profile merger activity in the sector making headline news.

The industry has made great strides in 5G development, BT is planning to have commercial 5G products launching in the UK within the next 18 months, while Deutsche Telekom has just activated a 5G New Radio (NR) Cluster in downtown Berlin, where it will use the test bed to see how next-generation networks perform in real-life situations, latching onto the DevOps movement as service providers begin to future-proof their networks for the years ahead.

In 2019 expect to see some of these trends continue to gain momentum, while fresh ones emerge and steer this industry in new directions. Specifically, here are three trends that will shape the next 12 months.

OTT and value-added services – AI exclusive

2019 is set to be another pivotal year for over-the-top (OTT) service growth, fuelled by streaming video and public demand for more non-linear media consumption.

However, with any boost in OTT adoption and consumption, further financial and infrastructure pressure will be placed on network operators.

With the advent of 5G on the horizon, 2019 is likely to see further efforts from telcos and other service providers to partner with and become primary OTT solution providers in their own right in order to bolster revenues, offset downward price pressures on last-mile connectivity and build customer loyalty.

5G

The race for 5G is on and will continue apace in 2019.

Many telcos around the world have already developed 5G architecture and initiating their field tests this year.

Across the industry, expect to see 1GB access move to 10GB and 10GB aggregation to 100GB in order to cope with 4G growth and to lay the groundwork for new 5G-bearing core networks.

 

There will also be increased interest in 5G research and development emerging from other industries outside the traditional telco market, including in energy, agribusiness and transportation, who all see the vast potential 5G technology presents to revolutionise the way they can deliver their goods and services.

Fuelled by consumer and business demand, carriers and governments alike are pushing the deployment forward with the ambitious goal of rolling out 5G networks more widely by 2020.

Security

It felt like not a week went by in 2018 when there wasn’t news of a data breach or a network being compromised. According to the report from EfficientIP in November, 43% of telco organisations suffered from DNS-based malware over the previous 12 months. It was also highlighted that 81% took three days or more to apply a critical security patch after notification.

Stats like this has made network operators and telcos realise that they need to protect more than just the data being transferred over their systems.

As networks become increasingly software-defined their infrastructure is as vulnerable to attacks as the bits and bytes sent through the network.

For this reason, 2018 saw more and more network operators and telcos role out business-wide encryption.

In 2019, holistic network security will become more important than ever and expect to see encryption transition from a niche play to a more pervasive technology.

New EU legislation such as the GDPR has been a significant driver behind broader adoption of encryption across networks.

This year, the data demand landscape will continue to change and with it, the underlying network infrastructure, both from a physical and virtual perspective.

Service providers will continue to realign and consolidate their offerings to maximise revenue and ensure their networks are ready to accommodate future technological advancements.

Sourced by Joe Marsella, Vice President, Global Sales Engineering, at Ciena

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5 Tech Trends in Telecommunications https://www.vagroup.com.my/2019/01/08/5-tech-trends-in-telecommunications/ Tue, 08 Jan 2019 03:46:53 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=195 By Owen Ray

It’s no secret that the telecom industry is struggling with change and facing disruption. It isn’t sitting back watching the world pass it by, though. Here are some of the top technologies that will help carry communications providers through the next generation.

Connecting the IoT

It has already been established that being successful in the IoT market is going to take way more than neat devices, and that IoT is going to be more than just a way to flip on the A/C from an iPhone. The IoT will become a complete ecosystem that connects everything we do, from the home to the car, to the workplace to the electrical grid. Telecoms seem keenly aware of the potential—in 2015 the industry ranked 4th in IoT spending, committing nearly $111 million to IoT pursuits. Telecoms are not going to sit back, build the infrastructure for it and watch the world ride piggyback with all the profits like they have in the past 10 years when more agile digital service providers ran roughshod over their business.

Building infrastructure will indeed be part of the deal. Massive amounts of M2M data will have to be moved quickly and securely. Not to mention that much of it will be mobile, increasing commitments to 5G and secure carrier-grade WiFi networks. However, telecom companies will also be providing services, and capitalizing on the valuable user data born from IoT devices. Verizon’s recent investments in  shows not only a commitment to powering automotive IoT, but any “thing” that may require location services.

Cloud Computing

Communications providers are facing some great challenges and opportunities in cloud computing. They can potentially use the cloud to deliver higher quality, more flexible and more scalable enterprise IT services at lower cost than on-premise solutions. On the consumer side, there’s a big opportunity for communications providers to offer more cloud-based services that can be accessed, updated, and purchased from anywhere. For example, the clunky, ugly, and outdated set top boxes (STBs) that have plagued our living rooms since the 70s might finally be on the way out. Both Charter and Comcast are either offering or exploring cable and DVR services that live in the cloud, eliminating the need for the STB. This reduces costs for the cable providers by eliminating the need for on-site installations and manufacturing and engineering new STBs every three years. Not to mention that cloud accessibility may help lure back some cord-cutters that long ago retreated to Roku.

Carrier-Grade WiFi

Remember how we said the communications industry will be going big in IoT? Well, that’s not going to happen if constant broadband connectivity is not available.

When it comes to wireless connectivity over short distances, WiFi is hard to beat. Theoretically, it’s faster than the leading alternative, 4G LTE, and can handle bandwidth-hogging services like mobile video for a fraction of the cost. But in practice, today’s WiFi hotspots are notoriously slow and fickle. That’s about to change.

The next generation of WiFi will have the same or better reliability as cellular, hence its carrier-grade moniker. By 2020, more than 90% of wireless hotspots will be carrier grade, according to a 2015 WiFi industry survey.

5G Wireless

The pressures of IoT on top of our insatiable desire for streaming video will absolutely decimate 4G LTE. (Seriously, 3.25 BILLION hours of video is watched every month on YouTube alone. That’s about 400,000 years, in case you were wondering). And according to Gartner, 20.8 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020. That’s a lot of YouTube-ing, Netflix-ing, and IoT-ing, and the fifth generation (sixth, if you’re counting LTE) of wireless is being built to handle it. 5G is projected to be about 10x faster than 4G, with download speeds around 10 GBPS.

So how exactly does building all this new infrastructure benefit carriers? Well, all the IoT services they are banking on will not work without it, for one. The consumer revolt that is going to occur when 4G inevitably falls flat would be rather unpleasant as well.

Testing of 5G has just begun and it won’t be available until 2020, so hopefully WiFi will help fill in the gaps until then.

Integration with Content

It has been said more than once, “one or more communication service providers will be acquired by content providers by 2020.” Well, it is 2016 and it is starting to seem like the CSPs are the ones doing the acquiring. AT&T bought DirecTV in 2014, Verizon has absorbed both AOL and Yahoo!, Comcast bought NBC, and Time Warner just bought a 10% stake in one-time arch enemy of the cable company, Hulu. With the Amazons, Rokus, and Netflixes of the world snatching up more and more cable customers by the day, it only makes sense that CSPs get into the content game themselves. The strategy of most CSPs seems to be owning the content, so however it is consumed, they still derive revenue from it (and user data). Verizon’s strategy is a bit different, in that its acquisitions seem to be even more focused massive amount of user data it provides and the ad network that can be built from it.

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The stakes are high for Europe in the global race for 5G https://www.vagroup.com.my/2018/12/12/the-stakes-are-high-for-europe-in-the-global-race-for-5g/ Wed, 12 Dec 2018 04:15:08 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=204

By 

Many at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month were pessimistic because of trade and the global economy. But one issue should concern them even more: the “splinternet.”

It’s increasingly likely China, Russia and their allies will adopt one type of internet reinforcing the power of political regimes, removing data privacy for citizens under the guise of security and efficiency, a policy which would further mainland hardware and software sales while the rest of the world adopts a different set of common standards and principles reflecting western values on democracy, freedom of speech and privacy. Make no mistake, the U.S. is pitted against China in the race to tech supremacy and 5G is integral to that future. Given the high stakes, how do investors in Europe play?

5G equipment makers Nokia and Ericsson are the two big players for now but would need partners if Chinese giant Huawei is shut out of 5G development in the west and if extreme scenarios happen where governments order the replacement of previous 3G and 4G Huawei equipment because of security fears. Remember, many ordered Huawei equipment not just because of good technology but because it was cheaper. Watch for equipment pricing implications and additional costs for telecoms. That said, telecoms refuse to let history repeat itself.

GSMA, the body for telecommunications, is urging telecom operators to alter their DNA so they not only create value with 5G but actually benefit from that value, unlike the transition from 3G to 4G when they were saddled with investment and low returns. As operators launch early versions of 5G this year, we will begin to witness how 5G revenue is split between equipment makers, telecoms, software makers, tech giants, handset makers and new entrants.

5G in Finland: How one country is betting big on the high-speed networkEuropean telecoms are still angling for scale to weather the changes and for good reason. Take the Chinese telecommunications market – a duopoly from the outside, yet internally a monopoly with two operators carving up the region – one dominant in the north, one in the south versus Europe with 3-4 operators in most countries. That means the likes of China Telecom has 300 million mobile users; Orange has 19 million in its home market of France, but 200 million thanks to other markets such as Africa and the Middle East; BT has about 29 million. European regulators must allow cross border and internal consolidation in 2019, telecom companies think the mood is friendlier at least in Brussels.

Investors will be watching the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of the month, where ARM will talk about being ready to connect to a trillion devices with the internet of things – scale matters.

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2019 Telecommunications Industry Outlook https://www.vagroup.com.my/2018/05/08/2019-telecommunications-industry-outlook/ Tue, 08 May 2018 04:09:50 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=203 What’s ahead for telecom providers in 2019? Fifth generation (5G) wireless technologies will be gaining ground quickly, unleashing the full potential of augmented and virtual reality, Smart Cities, and IoT. Mic Locker, managing director in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) industry practice, shares her thoughts on opportunities for growth in our new telecom industry overview.

2019 will present several opportunities for providers to bolster current revenue sources—or to create entirely new revenue streams. Many of those opportunities will arise from changing market conditions and consumer preferences—and from the first large-scale rollouts of 5G technologies, which are expected to create significant business opportunities for telecom companies.

Even before the rollout of the 5G, there is work to be done. Consumers continue to display an insatiable appetite for mobile data. With more data-heavy applications securing their place in consumers’ daily lives, we only expect this trend to continue. Consumers demand higher data limits, and they opt in for unlimited data plans. According to the US edition of Deloitte’s 2018 Global Mobile Consumer Survey, 37 percent of respondents now have unlimited data plans—up from 25 percent in 2017.1 We now see providers offering lower prices for these plans as well as a variety of bundled services, decreasing the average revenue per user (ARPU). To balance the competitive landscape and possibly stabilize pricing, telecom companies will likely be looking to expand their boundaries and search for new opportunities.

One of the main opportunities could come from consolidations and partnerships, especially in the areas of cable and content. Today, we observe a high number of consumers who prefer video streaming services over cable subscriptions. Our Digital Media Trends survey revealed that 55 percent of US households now subscribe to paid video streaming services while pay-TV penetration fell to 63 percent—down from 75 percent the previous year.2

In response, cable companies are looking to augment their pay-TV business with communications services—and by extending their programming distributions beyond fixed lines. Changing dynamics and competitive pressures from both sides can encourage telecommunications providers to consider M&A deals to integrate content and media into their offerings. Partnerships are also likely to increase as providers attempt to accelerate development of new business models and services based on 5G technology.

Once available, 5G is expected to create significant business opportunities for telecom companies,3 helping them gain revenue in the fixed broadband market and business-to-business (B2B) opportunities such as smart cities and Internet of Things (IoT). It will also provide the ideal environment for telecommunications providers to employ “network slicing” to customize their offerings.4 In the context of 5G, this will enable sharing of a given physical network to run IoT, mobile broadband, and very low-latency applications—including many connected-car and connected-home functions that have the potential to create entirely new revenue sources for providers in 2019.5

Two other key revenue-generating opportunities for telecom providers will be mHealth and mPayments. In the area of mHealth, operators can monetize services targeted to the growing number of subscribers who have adopted health care–centric wearables to, for example, help them ensure they’re taking the proper dosages of medications. In the world of mPayments, on the other hand, mobile operators can play a different role: As an integrator for devices, applications, methods of mobile payment, and customer identity management. One study estimated that this strategy could help telecommunications providers increase their mobile payments revenue at least fourfold by 2022.6

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Nokia plugs AI to get MWC ball rolling https://www.vagroup.com.my/2018/05/08/nokia-plugs-ai-to-get-mwc-ball-rolling/ Tue, 08 May 2018 04:05:09 +0000 https://www.vagroup.com.my/investment/?p=192 Nokia has announced the launch of its network of Cognitive Collaboration Hubs which will aim to bring telcos and enterprise into its realm to work on a series of AI use cases.

Fitting very well into Mobile World Congress’ ‘Intelligent Connectivity’ theme, the network based on a similar Cloud Collaboration Hubs, focusing on developing cloud-based capabilities. While artificial intelligence has been praised as one of the saviours of connectivity and a justification for 5G, the use cases are relatively simplistic, this initiative will aim to correct this.

“Network operators are eager to deploy AI to improve network operations and strengthen customer relationships,” said John Byrne, Nokia’s Service Director for Telecom Technology & Software, Global Data. “Nokia’s Cognitive Collaboration Hubs can help accelerate those plans by providing a space for operators, partners and enterprises to co-create new AI solutions utilizing a mix of data science and telco domain expertise.”

One example of these use cases is Driver Behaviour Analytics, a service which aims to analyse driver performance and road conditions. The data and insight can be offered to governments to help improve driving conditions, delivery companies to aide with logistics or insurance companies to more accurately price premiums. Such a system has already been trialled by the Dubai Police.

“Nokia Cognitive Collaboration Hubs are yet another step in the expansion of our data analytics and AI services capabilities, which are widely recognized as industry-leading,” said Dennis Lorenzin, Head of the Network Cognitive Service Unit at Nokia. “Building on our data science and telco expertise, we are helping our customers apply AI technologies to improve their operational efficiency, prepare their networks for 5G, and generate new revenues.”

This is perhaps the area where many are struggling right now; generating new revenues and creating new services for the data-driven era. The most simplistic was to implement AI is relatively obvious, buy an automated bit of software and sack the employees were roles have been made redundant, but the search for value creation is much more difficult than operational efficiency.

The use cases which are being discussed today are of course of value. Self-correcting networks which can identify difficulties will improve customer experience, as will building a profile of users to improve experience, but these are examples of improving what you already have. The reason internet companies secured the lion’s share of profits in the 4G era is because they sought to create new value and revenues which didn’t exist before. The telcos need to start doing this.

It will certainly be interesting to see the use cases which emerge from the Cognitive Collaboration Hub, but for now it serves as an excellent way for Nokia to plug itself under the increasingly popular AI buzz.

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