Singapore Airlines Chooses Ultra-Fast Starlink Wi-Fi But Passengers Could Be Left Disappointed… Here’s Why
Singapore Airlines announced a partnership with Elon Musk’s Starlink to provide ultra‑fast, free Wi‑Fi on its long‑haul fleet. The airline will equip only three aircraft types – the Airbus A350‑900 LR, A350‑900 ULR and the A380 – and the retrofit will start in early 2025, finishing by the end of 2029. As a result, roughly two‑thirds of SIA’s fleet, including Boeing 737, 777 and 787‑10 models, will remain without Starlink. Airlines that fail to meet this expectation risk losing high‑value customers.
TIM to Hike Cost of Further Prepay Plans by EUR 3 a Month
Telecom Italia (TIM) announced a monthly price increase of €1.99 to €2.99 (≈$2.15‑$3.25) for its prepaid mobile plans, effective 7 June. This marks the seventh unilateral hike since January, attributed to “economic needs connected to changed market conditions.” The adjustment targets...
Megafon Expands LTE Network in St Petersburg Region
Russian telecom operator Megafon has expanded its LTE network in the St. Petersburg region by installing new base stations in the Murino, Ruchyi and Ozerki residential complexes. The rollout brings high‑speed mobile broadband to roughly 8,000 newly built apartments, offering...
Burundi Signs USD 6 Mln Deal to Expand 4G in Rural Areas
Burundi’s state‑owned telecom operator Onatel has signed a $5.9 million agreement with PAFEN Burundi, backed by the World Bank, to roll out 4G coverage in rural areas. The Ministry of Finance, Budget, and Digital Economy will oversee the project, which will...
Australia to Label Unregistered Branded SMS as 'Unverified' Under New Anti-Scam Rules
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will require all businesses to register their branded SMS sender IDs by 1 July. Messages sent from unregistered IDs will no longer show the organisation’s name and will be labelled “Unverified,” placing them alongside...
LG Uplus Expands MVNO Retail Presence Within E-Mart Stores
LG Uplus has opened a chain of offline retail outlets under its Altteulphone Plus brand inside E‑Mart stores across South Korea. The kiosks are designed to give smaller mobile virtual network operators, which typically rely on online sales, a physical presence for...
SwiNOG 41: It Was Nice to Be Back
SwiNOG 41 returned to the Gurtenpark pavilion in Switzerland, offering an extended “talk less, chat more” format that emphasized networking among engineers. Highlights included a deep dive into transceiver power consumption, shared‑spectrum strategies for dark‑fiber, and a candid look at...
Only 4 Tier-1 Telcos Are Growing at Two Digits
The Q1 2026 financial e‑report shows that revenue growth for global Tier‑1 carriers has essentially stalled, despite record data consumption. In the West, telcos are locked in a zero‑sum churn battle tied to flat GDP. Only four operators—T‑Mobile US, Reliance Jio,...
Los Angeles Convention Center Taps Boldyn Networks to Deploy Wi‑Fi 7
The Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) has completed its first year of a Boldyn Networks‑designed Wi‑Fi 7 deployment, delivering next‑generation connectivity to more than 2.5 million annual visitors. The upgrade raised backbone capacity to 25 Gbps, doubled device connections and quadrupled bandwidth by adding...
Weekly Brief – 1st May 2026
Truespeed and Freedom Fibre have completed their merger, creating Freedom Truespeed Group with 70,000 customers across 412,000 premises. Freedom Fibre will continue as the wholesale network while Truespeed and LilaConnect remain the consumer‑facing brands, ensuring service delivery stays unchanged. In...
Altnet Platforms Drive Partner Demand at Zen
Zen Internet announced a 52% year‑over‑year demand surge through The Fibre Hub, its wholesale platform that bundles Openreach services with multiple altnet partners. The hub now offers connectivity from CityFibre, Freedom Fibre, Trooli, ITS and MS3, giving smaller partners a...
VodafoneThree Upgrades Eliminate 16,500 Sq Km of Mobile Notspots
VodafoneThree has completed a series of network upgrades that eradicate 16,500 square kilometres of mobile dead zones across the United Kingdom. The enhancements are expected to bring reliable coverage to roughly 1,400 car parks, averaging 16 per county, just before...
Yas Tanzania Launches Nationwide Campaign to Promote Network Quality and Coverage
Yas Tanzania has launched a nationwide campaign called “Zingatia Mtandao wa Viwango” (Experience a quality network) to boost network quality, reliability and speed. The initiative pivots from pure infrastructure construction to delivering tangible customer benefits. It includes accelerated 4G expansion...
T-Mobile Czechia Withdraws Old Plans, Migrates Customers to Next Tariffs
T‑Mobile Czech Republic announced it will phase out legacy rate plans, moving all existing subscribers onto its Next tariff suite launched in 2024. The carrier says the shift will simplify the product portfolio and provide clearer pricing. While most customers...
Airtel Tanzania Holds Strategy Meeting to Grow Business
Airtel Tanzania convened a strategic planning session titled “Step Up” to map its 2026/2027 roadmap. The agenda centers on technological innovation, including a planned 5G rollout, and raising service standards for customers. By aligning internal teams around key priorities, the...
Berg Insight Says Cellular Connections Reach 53% of Point-of-Sale Terminals Shipped Globally in 2025
More than half of point‑of‑sale terminals shipped in 2025 now include cellular connectivity, according to Berg Insight. The installed base of cellular POS devices reached 184 million units worldwide. Berg Insight projects the segment to expand at a 7.6% compound annual...
Vivo Introduces Roaming Package for World Cup
Brazilian carrier Vivo launched Vivo Travel Seleção, a roaming package aimed at prepaid and control customers heading to the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The plan offers three data bundles—5 GB, 10 GB and 20 GB—each valid for...
Asia Daily: May 1, 2026
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted to expand its China tech crackdown, barring Chinese labs from testing electronics for the U.S. market and moving to restrict China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom from operating U.S. data centers. In Beijing,...
Big Tech Is Moving Data Out of the Gulf Through Iraqi Oil Pipelines
U.S. hyperscalers with data centers in the Gulf are routing traffic through a fiber‑optic network that runs alongside Iraqi oil pipelines. The overland Silk Route Transit, built by IQ Networks, offers a faster, more secure alternative to submarine cables that...
£3 Million Added to West and Parts of North Yorkshire Gigabit Contract
The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has allocated an extra £3,195,012 (about $4.1 million) to the West and North Yorkshire Project Gigabit contract, raising its total value to £65,470,012 (≈$83.8 million). The amendment adds 2,642 premises, bringing the rollout scope...
Q1 Results for Virgin Media O2 Show Broadband Losses Decreasing
Virgin Media O2 reported Q1 2026 results showing a sharp slowdown in broadband churn, with net losses dropping to 5,300 customers versus 42,800 a year earlier. Average revenue per user fell 1.6% to £46.50 (about $59.50) per month, and total...
Weekly Wrap: SpaceX Opposes Satellite Spectrum Auctions
SpaceX’s satellite‑policy vice‑president David Goldman told an Australian parliamentary committee that the regulator’s plan to auction 2 GHz (S‑band) spectrum could jeopardize the company’s second‑generation direct‑to‑device (D2D) service. SpaceX already operates a 4G‑based D2D service in Australia and intends to launch...
Celestica DS6000-Series 1.6TbE Switches Now Available to Order
Celestica announced that its DS6000‑series 1.6TbE switches are now available for order, marking the shift from development to production. Powered by Broadcom’s Tomahawk 6 silicon, each unit delivers up to 102.4 Tbps of non‑blocking capacity across 64 1.6TbE (OSFP224) ports. The line ships...
Starlink Drops ‘Demand Surcharge’ in South East but £75/Month Minimum Package Remains
Starlink has eliminated the £195 demand surcharge that previously limited new fixed‑line broadband orders in London and the South East. The service now offers a Residential Max package at £75 per month (≈$94) in London, while the rest of the...
Is the U.S. Fiber Frenzy Justified?
The United States has moved past the hype of its fiber rollout and entered a capital‑intensive rebuild of the fixed‑access layer. By April 2026, fiber will serve more than 60% of households and exceed 100 million passings, yet roughly 16% of...
Advanced Microelectronics Paving the Way for 6G with Alphacore
The telecom ecosystem is already laying the groundwork for sixth‑generation (6G) mobile networks, guided by the ITU’s IMT 2030 framework and early 3GPP study items. 6G aims to exploit sub‑terahertz spectrum, massive phased‑array antennas, and AI‑embedded air interfaces, demanding semiconductor breakthroughs...
Satellite Update April 2026
Amazon announced a $10.8 billion acquisition of Globalstar, giving it a foothold in direct‑to‑device satellite broadband with roughly two dozen satellites. Blue Origin filed an FCC request to launch 51,600 low‑Earth‑orbit satellites that would act as an AI‑focused data center, echoing...
Ishan Technologies Launches ‘Mera Broadband’ in Gujarat
Ishan Technologies, a pan‑India ICT provider, rebranded its consumer broadband service to Mera Broadband and began an expanded high‑speed rollout in Gujarat’s key cities, including Surat, Ahmedabad and Rajkot. The company targets 500,000 subscribers over the next few years as...
NCC Expands Regulatory Remit to Tower Companies and Warns of Potential Fines
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced it will extend its regulatory oversight to include tower companies, in addition to mobile network operators. The move aims to compel tower firms to upgrade infrastructure and support systems critical for nationwide service delivery....
Are Market Shaping Measures Effective?
Recent PolicyTracker research notes evaluate three common market‑shaping tools—coverage obligations, spectrum caps, and licence duration—used to steer efficient spectrum use. An EU Commission study found coverage obligations and caps had no statistically significant impact on rollout speed or market competition....
Making Resource Holders Easier to Identify: Introducing Reg-Nr: In the RIPE Database
RIPE NCC has introduced a new "reg‑nr:" attribute to organisation objects in the RIPE Database, publishing official company registration numbers alongside existing name and country data. Approved under Numbered Work Item 21, the change now covers more than 32,000 objects,...
Afghanistan Starts First 5G Trial in Kabul
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has launched a pilot 5G service in Kabul, upgrading 74 city antennas to the new standard. The trial is being run by domestic carrier Afghan Wireless (AWCC) and marks the country’s first foray...
Vodafone Approach to AI Driven Networks Built on APIs
At FutureNet World 2026 in London, Vodafone’s Víctor Fernández highlighted the shift from AI models to AI‑driven actions via APIs. He argued that for AI agents to deliver operational value, network capabilities must be exposed through standardized, discoverable interfaces designed...
Generate Partial Device Configurations with Netlab
At ITNOG 10 the author used netlab to automate a complex, multi‑vendor lab consisting of a leaf‑and‑spine fabric, BGP route reflectors, and edge devices. By defining the topology in a YAML file, netlab produced a wiring diagram, an IP‑addressing plan, and...
![[Podcast] CIDR Inside](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://blog.apnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/CIDR_FT.jpg)
[Podcast] CIDR Inside
In the latest episode of APNIC’s PING podcast, chief scientist Geoff Huston revisits the origins of Classless Inter‑Domain Routing (CIDR) and the two‑decade‑old CIDR Report that monitors routing announcements. He explains how CIDR shattered the rigid Class A‑C model, enabling flexible...
Worth Reading 042926
Recent research highlights five emerging networking trends. Automated BGP leak detectors often flag brief convergence artifacts rather than genuine routing attacks. Long round‑trip times continue to strain TCP’s acknowledgment loop, while ultra‑high‑speed datacenter links push host‑side packet processing energy to...
Quantum Dots Now Emit Secure Photons at 1260 Nm Wavelength
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have engineered quantum dots that emit single, coherent photons at the 1300 nm telecom wavelength, directly compatible with existing fiber‑optic networks. The nanostructures, 5.2 nm tall and 20 nm wide and composed of roughly 30,000 atoms, overcome...
Starlink Is a Long-Term Risk to Telcos
SpaceX is pouring roughly $20 billion into its Starlink low‑Earth‑orbit constellation, positioning it as more than a backup for the world’s remaining unconnected pockets. Telecom operators worldwide are racing to embed Starlink into their service portfolios, hoping to offer truly ubiquitous...
EchoStar versus Tower Owners
EchoStar is walking away from roughly $9 billion of long‑term cell‑tower leases after abandoning its facility‑based cellular rollout, prompting a coalition of tower owners to demand FCC intervention. The dispute stems from EchoStar’s sale of spectrum to AT&T and SpaceX for...
Ofcom Launches Investigation Into BT
Ofcom has opened a formal investigation into BT’s EE and Plusnet units to determine whether they fully complied with statutory information requests made in December 2023. The regulator is scrutinising data that fed into its 2025 Comparing Customer Service Report,...
On Generating EVPN MAC/IP Routes
Arista EOS now advertises both MAC‑only and MAC+IP routes in EVPN, effectively doubling the size of the EVPN BGP table. The behavior was clarified by network engineer Naveen Kumar Devaraj, who linked it to the distinct triggers of MAC table...
Subsea Attack Could Rival COVID Damage, Babcock Warns
Babcock warned that a coordinated attack on the United Kingdom’s subsea infrastructure could cause economic disruption on a scale comparable to the COVID‑19 pandemic, potentially costing hundreds of billions of pounds (roughly $300 billion). It noted that about 95% of UK...
Nokia Reports AI Boost Following Nvidia Partnership: The Former Mobile Phone Giant Is Profiting Again From the Networks of the...
Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia posted Q1 2026 revenue of €4.5 billion (≈$4.9 billion) and comparable operating profit of €281 million, driven by a 49 percent surge in its AI & Cloud segment, which now represents 8 percent of sales and generated €1 billion (≈$1.1 billion) of new orders. The...
Pacific Routing Security Sets a Deadline
At the APNIC Sub‑Regional Forum during PITA 30 in Rarotonga, routing‑security chair Terry Sweetser asked Pacific telco leaders whether they filter forged BGP announcements. The discussion revealed widespread uncertainty, with only 49 of 116 regional ASNs showing any protection and many...
Dutch Govt Looks at Relaxing Rules for Mobile Antenna Sites
The Dutch government is reviewing its regulations to make it easier for mobile operators to install antennas in new locations, especially in densely populated cities. State Secretary Willemijn Aerdts presented the proposal to parliament, citing a Monet industry report that...
BH Telecom Boosts Data on Tourist Offers
BH Telecom announced an upgrade to its Tourist and Unlimited start packages, adding a new Tourist 1 offering. The plan costs 20 BAM (about $11) and provides 40 GB of mobile data usable in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Western Balkans. It also...
Cellular IoT Data Surge to 281.6 Exabytes Predicted by 2035 - Omdia
Omdia forecasts cellular IoT data traffic to hit 218.6 exabytes by 2035, with automotive applications accounting for more than half of the volume. Asia and Oceania are expected to generate 50.6% of the global traffic, propelled by early technology adoption and...
Godshill Residents Left in Lurch as New Forest Gigabit Contract Adjusted
Godshill, a village in the New Forest, has been removed from the UK Government’s Project Gigabit contract, leaving 159 homes without a guaranteed full‑fibre connection. The original timeline promised service by the end of 2026 from Wessex Internet, but the...
KPN Reports 14% Higher Data Traffic for King's Day with Fifth More Uploads
Dutch telecom operator KPN reported a 14% increase in mobile data traffic on the Netherlands' King's Day holiday compared with the previous year. The surge was led by 5G, which saw traffic rise 37%, while 4G grew 12%. Upload (uplink)...
Zain Launches ‘Regulatory Academy’ with GSMA Advance
Zain Group has teamed with GSMA Advance to launch the Zain Regulatory Academy, an industry‑first training hub under its Inclusion, Diversity & Equity University (IDEU). The academy delivers GSMA‑accredited public‑policy and regulatory‑impact certification through self‑paced modules, expert seminars and regional...