How a Connectivity Levy Became a Tax on Telecoms
South Africa’s universal service levy, a 0.2% charge on telecom licence revenue, is being funneled through Icasa and the national treasury, effectively turning it into a general tax rather than a dedicated fund. The Universal Service and Access Agency (Usaasa) received R268 million for operations and R173 million for the fund in 2025/26 (≈$9.5 million and $6.1 million), yet it lacks clear definitions of “universal service” and “needy persons,” limiting its impact. Industry leaders warn that the agency’s fragmented execution and institutional uncertainty have slowed broadband rollout to underserved areas. The government plans to subsume Usaasa into a new Digital Development Challenge Fund, aiming to streamline funding and improve digital inclusion.
United Airlines Quietly Rolls Out Free Wi-Fi, Even On Non-Starlink Planes
United Airlines is quietly extending free in‑flight Wi‑Fi to aircraft equipped with Viasat and Panasonic systems, even though the rollout lacks an official press release. The move aligns with United’s broader plan to install Starlink satellite internet across its entire...
Satellite D2D Moving Into the Mainstream for Mobile Players – GSA
Direct‑to‑device (D2D) satellite connectivity is moving from hype to mainstream as operators worldwide announce partnerships to extend 5G coverage to remote areas. The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) reports that 97 operators in 70 countries have committed to satellite D2D...
Vuma’s Fibre Initiative Connects 1 000 SA Schools
South African fibre operator Vuma has linked 1,000 schools to broadband, giving roughly 860,000 learners and 40,000 teachers online access. The rollout, launched in 2020, is part of parent company Maziv’s broader push to expand digital infrastructure nationwide. Officials at...
India Strengthens Role in Ericsson Revenue Mix: Q1-2026 Growth Driven by 5G Scale and AI-Led Telecom Expansion
Ericsson reported India generated SEK 3.944 bn (≈$434 m) in Q1 2026, accounting for 8% of its global revenue and making India its second‑largest market after the United States. The Indian market drove a 7% organic rise in Ericsson’s Networks segment, supported by accelerated...
Ericsson Q1-2026 Revenue Dips 10% to SEK 49.3 Bn: Sales Trends Highlight Growth in India, Japan, and EMEA
Ericsson posted Q1 2026 revenue of SEK 49.3 billion (≈ $5.4 billion), a 10% year‑on‑year decline from SEK 55 billion despite 6% organic sales growth, as currency headwinds and weak North‑American spending weighed. Networks revenue fell 8% to SEK 32.9 billion, Cloud Software and Services dropped 9% to SEK 11.8 billion,...
French Telcos Plan SFR Acquisition
Bouygues Telecom, the Free‑iliad Group and Orange have submitted a joint €20.35 billion offer (≈ $22 billion) to acquire Altice France’s SFR assets, entering an exclusive negotiation period that runs until May 15. The consortium plans to split the purchase price roughly 42% Bouygues,...
0G IoT Solutions Scales to 500,000 Endpoints in Mexico with Hybrid LPWAN Strategy
0G IoT Solutions announced it now monitors over 500,000 IoT endpoints and processes more than 8 million messages daily across 200+ Mexican cities, covering roughly 60% of the population. The bulk of deployments are smart electricity meters, which use a concentrator‑based...
Vodafone Beats BT and VMO2 to SLA-Backed 5G Network Slicing in UK
Vodafone Business announced the UK’s first commercially available 5G network slicing service backed by a service‑level agreement, positioning it ahead of rivals BT’s EE and Virgin Media O2. The “5G+ Local Slicing” offering guarantees dedicated slices of up to five...
Singapore's Circles Targets Nasdaq Listing as It Doubles Down on US Expansion
Circles, the Singapore‑based digital telecom platform provider, is targeting a Nasdaq listing within the next 18‑24 months as it accelerates its U.S. expansion. The company says the United States represents roughly 40% of its total addressable market and is close...
UTOPIA Fiber Laid over a Million Feet of Conduit and Fiber Last Year
UTOPIA Fiber reported installing over 1.03 million feet of conduit and fiber across Utah in 2025, including 13,728 feet of aerial strand and 3,331 new handholes. The rollout enabled more than 9,000 homes and 968 businesses to connect, adding 6,355 new...
IPv8 Draft Proposes Backward-Compatible IPv4 Evolution with Integrated Routing and Security
The IPv8 draft introduces a 64‑bit addressing scheme that nests IPv4 addresses, aiming for a seamless evolution of the current Internet architecture. It proposes a new routing metric called Cost Factor, which weighs congestion and physical distance to optimize path...
Establishing 5G Connectivity to Enable a Smart Regional Health System
Singapore’s National University Health System (NUHS) has signed a strategic agreement with GSMA Foundry to embed private 5G across its hospital cluster. The partnership will integrate 5G private networks with digital twins, XR, IoT and ambient AI to accelerate remote...
Fibre Break Hits Vocus Customers Across Two States
Vocus reported a fiber break about 32 km north of Melbourne at Broadford, disrupting inter‑capital and regional transmission for customers in Victoria and New South Wales. The fault was announced at 10 am AEST, with field technicians on site by 11:15 am. Approximately...
Bharti Airtel Advises Customers to Opt for This Instead of AirFiber
Bharti Airtel, India’s second‑largest telecom, is urging customers to choose traditional fiber over its AirFiber service whenever fiber is available. AirFiber, a 5G‑based Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) offering, provides 1 TB of data at the same price that fiber delivers more...
Telecom News: Tejas Networks, COAI, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea
Tejas Networks’ shares fell about 6% after reporting a Q4 FY26 loss of ₹211 crore (≈$25 million) and an 82% revenue drop to ₹333 crore (≈$40 million). The company has now logged five consecutive quarterly losses, with full‑year losses near ₹909 crore (≈$110 million). Meanwhile, India’s...
Telecom News: Zayo, Starlink, Blue Origin, SpaceX, AST SpaceMobile
Zayo secured an anchor customer to fast‑track an 8,000‑mile AI‑centric fiber build, adding six long‑haul routes across high‑traffic U.S. corridors. A Starlink outage briefly disabled more than two dozen autonomous Navy vessels, spotlighting the Pentagon’s growing dependence on commercial satellite...
Telecom News: InCoax Networks, LF Networking, Hubble Network, InPlay
InCoax Networks secured its first U.S. deployment order with CTI Connect to support Underline’s fiber expansion, targeting over 100,000 new broadband connections. The company’s MoCA‑based solution reuses existing coaxial lines, delivering multi‑gigabit speeds while lowering capex and installation complexity. LF...
The Zero Touch Future: Enabling Telstra’s Path to a Fully Autonomous, Self-Healing Network
At MWC 2026, Telstra showcased a proof‑of‑concept that automatically detected and healed an unplanned infrastructure outage within minutes, leveraging Red Hat’s OpenShift AI and Ansible Automation Platform. The AI agent unified multivendor data, reasoned about the fault, and executed remediation through policy‑as‑code...
Telecom Sales Platform CableFinder Announces Partnership with Fiber Carrier Lightpath
CableFinder, a telecom sales platform, announced a partnership with fiber carrier Lightpath that will enable single‑session contracts and real‑time serviceability checks via an API‑driven marketplace. Lightpath contributes over 12,000 miles of AI‑grade fiber, owned by Optimum and Morgan Stanley, to...
FCC’s Carr Concerned About Verizon-Contractor Commitments
FCC Chair Brendan Carr voiced concern that Verizon may be breaching its post‑merger commitments to contractors, a condition of the FCC’s approval of the $20 billion Frontier acquisition. The agreement with NATE requires transparent procurement and inflation‑adjusted pricing, but contractors allege...
B4DE Reprise: Following the Money on Digital Equity and AI Data Centers
On Tax Day, the Institute for Local Self‑Reliance and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance hosted the Building for Digital Equity livestream to examine how public funding intersects with the rapid expansion of AI hyperscale data centers. Speakers highlighted that promised...
Building Broadband: Brightspeed Completes 60% Fiber Build in Illinois; C Spire Completes Mississippi Capital Projects Fund to Expand Broadband
A wave of broadband investments is reshaping mid‑size and rural markets across the United States. Brightspeed reports its Illinois fiber build is 60% complete, covering 31,000 locations and backed by $3.2 million of BEAD funds. C Spire finished its Mississippi Capital Projects...
Loud, Power Hungry - Opposition Grows to Datacenters as Maine Passes Bit Barn Ban
Maine lawmakers approved the nation’s first statewide moratorium on new datacenters that draw 20 megawatts or more, pausing approvals until November 1, 2027 pending the governor’s signature. The pause gives regulators time to assess the facilities’ impact on power grids, water use, noise,...
IPv6 Usage Reaches Historic 50% Across Google Services
Google briefly reached 50% IPv6 traffic across its services on March 28, marking the first time half of its global users accessed the platform via the newer protocol. IPv6, introduced in 1998 to solve IPv4’s address shortage, offers an astronomically...
Starlink Outage Hit Drone Tests, Exposing Pentagon’s Growing Reliance on SpaceX
In August 2024 a global Starlink outage crippled two dozen U.S. Navy unmanned surface vessels off California, halting communications for about an hour. Internal Navy documents show the outage exposed a single point of failure for the Pentagon’s autonomous drone...
NAB 2026: DPA Microphones N-Series Firmware Update Adds Duplex Gap and Guard Band Access for North American Users
DPA Microphones has issued a firmware update for its N‑Series digital wireless system, unlocking the 2 MHz Guard Band (614‑616 MHz) and the 6 MHz unlicensed portion of the Duplex Gap (657‑663 MHz) for U.S. and Canadian users. The added spectrum lets licensed operators...
Netgear, EVS Team Up for Certified AV–Over–IP Live Production Workflows
Netgear announced a global partnership with EVS Broadcast Equipment to deliver certified, interoperable AV‑over‑IP solutions for live production. The collaboration validates EVS’s Cerebrum, Neuron and Strada systems on Netgear’s M4350 and M4250 switches, providing pre‑tested configurations that support SMPTE ST 2110, NDI...
Delivering Reliable Connectivity And Cybersecurity On The High Seas: Inside MSP Marlink’s Approach
Marlink, a maritime‑focused managed services provider, delivers satellite connectivity and cybersecurity to oceangoing vessels despite tight budgets that often hover around $100‑$200 per month. The company leverages an "exchange platform" that aggregates Inmarsat, OneWeb, Starlink, SES and Iridium links, providing...
Lawmakers Aiming to Circulate Draft USF Framework This Summer
Lawmakers are preparing a discussion draft to modernize the $8.5 billion‑per‑year Universal Service Fund, with a target release this summer. The FCC has opened a comment period, ending May 15, on potential reforms to the nonprofit that administers the fund, USAC, focusing...
How to (Finally) Monetise 5G
5G networks are now widely deployed, with penetration approaching 80 % in leading markets, but operators still wrestle with recouping the massive capex. Traditional mobile plans are proving price‑elastic, prompting carriers to bundle value‑added services, launch 5G Fixed Wireless Access for...
Despite the Government’s Ban, Netgear Just Got an Exemption to Keep Selling New WiFi Routers in the U.S.
The Federal Communications Commission granted Netgear an exemption that lets the company sell new foreign‑made Wi‑Fi routers in the United States through October 1, 2027, despite a recent ban on all new overseas router models. The exemption still requires each new Netgear...
Iran Has Something America Can only Dream Of: Cheap Broadband
A new Global Broadband Price League 2026 study finds Iran offering the world’s cheapest broadband at just $2.61 a month, while North America pays an average of $98.40. The United States ranks 167th out of 214 nations, with a typical...
Cinia Taps Nokia for DDoS Protection of Critical Infrastructure
Cinia announced a new managed security service that leverages Nokia’s Deepfield Defender to provide 24/7 DDoS protection for its critical infrastructure networks. The AI‑based solution embeds detection and mitigation directly into the transport layer, giving Finnish customers real‑time threat awareness....
WFN Strategies, APTelecom Expand SubConnex Environmental Work
WFN Strategies is expanding its partnership with APTelecom by delivering a focused Preliminary Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (PESIA) for the SubConnex submarine cable system across seven landing sites in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. The assessment blends desktop...
OQ Technology Awarded ESA Contract to Adapt 5G Beamforming for Space
OQ Technology has been awarded a €1 million (≈$1.08 million) contract by the European Space Agency to adapt 5G beamforming for satellite‑to‑phone connectivity under the BEAMSAT‑5G project, which began on February 3, 2026. The initiative will develop phased‑array hardware, optimize link budgets for LEO‑to‑smartphone...
Ambassador Pitches China Telecoms Credentials
China’s 2023‑2030 five‑year plan calls for opening its telecoms sector through expanded value‑added service trials, increased imports, and two‑way investment cooperation. Ambassador Xie Feng told a roundtable in Indiana that foreign‑funded enterprises will receive national treatment, while IP and trademark...
Fragmented Regulation Complicates Telco Sovereignty Agenda – Omdia
A new Omdia report highlights that more than 100 countries now enforce data‑sovereignty or localization laws, creating a patchwork of regulations for telecom operators. The fragmented landscape forces telcos to incur higher compliance costs, redesign networks, and train staff to...
EnGenius Announces Availability of ECW515 Wi-Fi 7 Wall-Plate Access Point
EnGenius Technologies has launched the ECW515, a Wi‑Fi 7 wall‑plate access point tailored for multi‑dwelling unit (MDU) deployments. The device delivers ultra‑fast, low‑latency connectivity directly inside individual apartments, moving away from traditional hallway‑mounted solutions. It also integrates WPA3 security combined with...
Gemtek DOCSIS 4.0 Device Nets CableLabs Interoperability Stamp
Gemtek became the first CPE maker to receive CableLabs’ “verified for interoperability” stamp for its CAVD‑100 DOCSIS 4.0 eMTA modem, confirming it can operate on existing DOCSIS 3.1 networks. The device, powered by MaxLinear’s Puma 8 chip, includes two VoIP ports and is...
Belden Unveils World's First 5G Industrial Switch Powered by Qualcomm at Hannover Messe
Belden Inc. unveiled the BRS‑5G, the world’s first industrial switch that runs native 5G, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X72 modem. The concept will be demonstrated at Hannover Messe from April 20‑24, 2026, showcasing a live conveyor‑belt system that communicates over a private 5G...
The Wall Street Journal Wonders Why There Are Suddenly So Many Sleazy Fees
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece on the proliferation of “sleazy” surcharges such as a 3% credit‑card fee, a 5% wellness contribution and a $25‑a‑month trash‑service charge. The article attributes the surge to inflation‑driven cost‑shifting but omits that...
TCI Aircraft Interiors to Become New HBCplus Provider Following Collaboration with Airbus
Airbus and Turkish cabin specialist TCI Aircraft Interiors signed an MOU to add TCI as a Managed Service Provider for Airbus' HBCplus satellite connectivity platform. The agreement will initially deliver a proposal for Turkish Airlines' Airbus fleet, integrating TCI into...
Uswitch Says Broadband Switching Jumped 24% in March
Uswitch reports broadband switching rose 24% in March, with three million households moving before price hikes. The surge follows a £6.9 bn ($8.8 bn) increase in household bills, including an average £39.60 ($50) rise in broadband costs. Regional providers offering “no‑rise” deals...
EdgeBeam Wireless and Soracom Partner to Extend Last-Mile Connectivity over Hybrid Cellular and Broadcast Networks
EdgeBeam Wireless announced a partnership with Soracom, making the Japanese IoT platform the first cellular partner on EdgeBeam’s hybrid network operator platform. The collaboration blends EdgeBeam’s ATSC 3.0 broadcast capability with Soracom’s 4G/5G connectivity, creating a dual‑path solution that can broadcast...
Esport Firm Veloce Wants to Put 5G in Pole Position
Veloce, a racing‑simulation esports firm, has teamed with the GSMA to define a set of Quality‑on‑Demand (QoD) API requirements that would let telcos deliver ultra‑low‑latency, high‑throughput connectivity for competitive gaming. The "statement of requirements" calls for standardized, programmable 5G network...
Vodafone Touts Commercial 5G Slicing for Enterprises
Vodafone Business has rolled out a commercial 5G+ Local Slicing service that delivers a dedicated slice of its standalone 5G network to enterprise customers across areas up to 5 km². The offering promises guaranteed mobile performance for high‑density venues such as...
Esports Specialist, GSMA Target SA 5G Gaming Opportunity
Veloce Media Group and GSMA Fusion released a network‑requirements guide showing how standalone (SA) 5G can power low‑latency esports, cloud gaming, and live creator streaming. A demo at MWC Doha 2025 used SA 5G for racing simulators, proving events can...
BSNL and Airtel Top nPerf's India Broadband Rankings
India’s state‑run BSNL has overtaken Reliance Jio and Airtel to become the top fixed‑line broadband provider in nPerf’s FY 2026 rankings, scoring 89,174 nPoints. The leap follows a 21% boost in download speed to 78.53 Mbps and a surge in FTTH performance to...
The Best Small Business VoIP Providers of 2026: Expert Tested and Reviewed
The 2026 guide ranks Grasshopper as the most affordable small‑business VoIP, launching at $14 per month with core calling, voicemail transcription and mobile apps. Zoom Phone follows for teams already using Zoom, offering seamless video‑call escalation at $10‑$15 per user. Enterprise‑focused options...