Using a free dial code and toll-free lines from Safaricom, displaced people in Kenya will be able to access the family reconnection platform invented by Refugees United. Additionally, Vodacom is launching a similar service in DRC.

Refugees United is a free, mobile and online platform that allows people to search for missing family members, friends, and relatives on a safe and anonymous basis. Until now the platform was only accessible via a computer or internet-enabled mobile phone.

Thanks to the partnership the platform will now be available through a toll-free line and via a simple dial-code system, just like users know it from mobile banking, for example.

Safaricom will support a series of awareness activities, including SMS campaigns for the two largest refugee camps in Kenya, Dadaab and Kakuma.  Vodacom will launch a new hotline for service assistance in DRC.

Christopher Mikkelsen, co-founder of Refugees United, said, “Everyone has the right to know where their family is. Thanks to Ericsson and operator partners like Safaricom and Vodacom DRC, we can empower refugees to take the search for missing loved ones into their own hands.”

Through this platform, families can simply call their toll free line or dial a simple short code from their mobile phone to start the search for long lost family members or relatives.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said, “Millions of families have been separated as they flee violence and war in their home countries. Refugees United empowers separated family members to take the search for missing loved ones into their own hands.”

“This initiative has the power to transform the nature of family reconnection for generations to come. It is an example of how mobile technology is truly changing the lives of people on the African continent for good. We are looking for innovative ways to get this to scale, and partnerships are key to success,” says Elaine Weidman-Grunewald, vice president, Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility at Ericsson.

Ericsson and Refugees United have set a goal to reach one million users on the platform by the end of 2015.

Leveraging the ubiquitous nature of simple mobile phones across Kenya and DRC, the new, simple ways of accessing the Refugees United family reconnection platform will serve many more thousands of families in the search for their missing loved ones.

In the run-up to World Refugee Day, Ericsson and Refugees United hosted a Global Hack for Good” in Cairo, Nairobi and Silicon Valley, where developers were tasked with a challenge of coding applications to ensure that the platform is accessible to families living in refugee camps and remote areas.

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On behalf of GSMA, Phillips issued the following statement: “The GSMA congratulates Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore on their joint decision to commit to aligning with the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) band plan for the allocation of the 700MHz band to mobile broadband services.”

“This week’s decision is an important step forward in meeting the fast-growing demand for mobile data and a positive signal to the wider mobile ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region. Alignment with the harmonized APT band plan will create important economies of scale, enabling citizens in these countries to enjoy affordable handsets and equipment and will also provide seamless cross-border and international roaming. Further, the 700MHz band is ideally suited to provide extended mobile broadband coverage to rural and remote areas where fixed infrastructure is often unavailable and also has ideal characteristics to improve indoor coverage in saturated urban areas,” Phillips said.

“The GSMA now calls on these four national administrations to start planning and implementing the switch-off from analogue to digital television without delay, to ensure countries can reap the full social and economic benefits associated with the release of the Digital Dividend to mobile.”

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The multi-million dollar contract will see Supernet contract C-band capacity on the SES NSS-12 satellite at the prime orbital location of 57 degrees East.

This satellite capacity, coupled with Supernet’s strong system integration capabilities, provides a high quality GSM backhaul services to Pakistan’s leading mobile operators. The capacity is expected to further improve network coverage in Pakistan by providing voice and data signals to remote mountainous areas in the northern region and hard to reach southern regions, the company said.

Hamid Nawaz, COO Supernet, said, “SES is a trusted partner and an industry leader. We and our customers are extremely satisfied with the performance of the NSS-12 satellite throughout our networks. We are happy to enhance our relationship with SES as we continue to provide world class cellular backhaul solutions in Pakistan and in the region.”

SES has been working with Supernet since 2010.  Deepak Mathur, senior vice president Commercial, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at SES, said, “Supernet will be able to benefit from the great location of NSS-12 to enable the delivery of voice and data to underserved markets and rural areas in the country.”

The announcement was made at CommunicAsia 2013.

SES also announced two other deals at the event. In the first deal, Thailand’s IPMTV has expanded its partnership with SES.

As per the second deal, SES will sign a multi-transponder agreement with MediaScape of the Philippines on SES-7 at 108.2 degrees East. The new capacity expansion will allow MediaScape, through Cignal Digital TV – its DTH satellite television service provider – to expand its services for the provision of DTH satellite TV in the Philippines.

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Rates for outgoing calls to India/other countries will be Rs 80 / minute.

For incoming calls, mobile phone users need to pay Rs 60 / minute.

Indian telecom operator Aircel on Thursday said it tied with Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), a sole provider of telecom services in Myanmar, to offer international roaming services for its customers travelling to the country.

The roaming facility is available for postpaid subscribers in Aircel circles. With this exclusive partnership, Aircel becomes the first Indian telecom operator to offer such services to its customers for Myanmar.

Anupam Vasudev, chief marketing officer, Aircel, said: “A sizeable number of customers travel to Myanmar for work and leisure and our international roaming services will allow them to be connected 24X7. The customers will now be able to enjoy roaming facilities in all key destinations in Myanmar.”

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Tony joined Vodafone India in April 2012, after working with Citi Group. His contribution to Vodafone has been significant as the telecom operator achieved several milestones in the recent past.

IT investments are important for a telecom operator who is constantly adding subscriber base and bringing new products and services.

At present, Vodafone handles over 10 billion CDRs (Call Data Records) per day including roaming CDRs.

In an interaction with TelecomLead.com’s chief editor Baburajan K during Amdocs’ InTouch 2013 in Singapore, Tony shared Vodafone India’s new initiatives and IT investment focus areas to improve customer experience and better growth.

Billing

Billing transformation — which is currently in association with IBM and Amdocs — will enable Vodafone to ensure strong billing platform. Vodafone’s roaming products are now part of the new billing platform. Vodafone is bringing down the number of billing instances to a single common instance across the country, streamlining processes and plans.

Big Data and Analytics

The Vodafone CIO says implementation of analytics solutions enables Vodafone to ensure that most appropriate services and products are offered to its customers.  The volume and quality of available data had impacted deriving right insights in the past. With the convergence of IT and Networks, a more homogenous environment will be created for better analytics.

Green Vodafone

Vodafone gives special thrust on green IT and green networks. “This includes green focused designs, green equipment, monitoring and optimizing consumption, etc. We have a special team to execute and monitor our green projects,” Tony added.

The printers are managed by centralized network and Vodafone can control the toner usage and monitor paper usage the in their corporate office and regional offices.

Focus on Cost

Through cost efficiencies, Vodafone India targets to be one of the lowest cost operations in the world as a percentage of spend per customer.

Vodafone, like most large operators in India, outsources a majority of its IT functions. Hence, selection of vendor partners becomes very important. Foremost priority in vendor selection is on the vendor’s reliability, feasibility, expertise, global presence, etc.

The mobile operator, which is expanding its 2G and 3G network in India, will focus on paperless acquisition of customers. This will enable the telecom operator to focus on digital signature, biometrics, digital documents providing better customer experience and greener environment.

Innovation at Vodafone

Vodafone focuses on innovation. “It has just completed a successful pilot involving Aadhaar based mobile user verification. Focused innovation by IT vendors and operators will help the sector,” Tony added.

More about Tony:

Before joining Vodafone India, Tony served Citigroup, Ernst & Young, Intelligroup and SEEC among other organizations and held leadership roles in management consulting, information technology and business operations.

Though most of his career was based out of the USA, Tony has managed teams across the globe including in India. Tony has managed many key initiatives across multiple organizations and has made many key contributions to IT.

During his tenure at Citigroup as the global head of Digital Banking Operations, Tony drove the digitization of all Banking processes, including acquisitions, servicing, payments for a full lifecycle positive channel agnostic customer experience, reduced cost, reduced process cycles and increased revenue opportunities.

Prior to that Tony was the global head and Chief Architect of Citi eDelivery where he drove the development, roll-out and support of electronic interactive communications platform to digitize 2 billion communications; 3 billon pieces of paper at a $1Billion annual cost.

Baburajan K

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GENBAND is upgrading the network operator’s TDM and first-generation IP switches to GENBAND’s IMSLiTE solution to increase the capacity of Welcome Italia’s growing network and empower the operator to deliver enhanced multimedia communications and SIP Business Trunking services to its enterprise customers.

GENBAND’s Smart Networking solutions provide the scalability to ensure that we are able to meet current and future customer and market growth requirements, said Stefano Luisotti, CEO of Welcome Italia.

By incorporating GENBAND’s EXPERiUS application server and CONTiNUUM C20 Call Session Controller on the all-IP GENiUS platform, GENBAND offers Welcome Italia an IMS-compliant, highly scalable network transformation solution that delivers new revenue enablers while significantly reducing total cost of ownership.

GENBAND  EXPERiUS solution is one of the world’s most widely-deployed voice and multimedia UC platforms, providing carrier-class, secure and highly scalable solutions that resolve challenges facing enterprises in today’s multi-faceted IP communications environment, the company said.

David Hiscock, GENBAND’s senior vice president of Sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said, “GENBAND’s SIP Business Trunking solution enables operators to offer enterprises an all-IP option that delivers the same carrier-class security, reliability and interoperability as traditional TDM circuits.”

In addition to deploying GENBAND’s SMART CORE and SMART EXPERIENCE solutions throughout its network, Welcome Italia is also working with GENBAND to implement an advanced geo-resilient disaster recovery process for business continuity to further protect its enterprise customers in case of unforeseen emergencies.

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CANARIE has deployed Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform equipped with third generation WaveLogic Coherent Optical Processors to support the 100G upgrade and network expansion of a route connecting Montreal and New York.

The new ultra-high-speed network link will sustain the “big data” streams used in today’s advanced academic and scientific research. For example, the 100G link can allow a full two hour HD movie to download in 4/10ths of a second.

Spanning across Canada – from Victoria, BC to St John’s, NL – CANARIE’s network connects more than 89 universities, 101 colleges, 47 CEGEPS, 127 provincial and federal government labs and research parks, 62 hospitals and health networks, 24 cultural institutions, thousands of K-12 schools, 12 provincial and territorial optical network partners, and more than 100 international peer networks in 80 countries.

Last year, CANARIE experienced 83 percent growth in data traffic, going from 46,149 Terabytes to 84,630 Terabytes in just twelve months. Much of this data comes from “big data” projects like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Europe, where they recently discovered proof for the existence of the Higgs’ boson particle.

Canada’s TRIUMF facility in Vancouver is a Tier-1 data site for the LHC computing grid and uses the CANARIE network to transfer data to and from the other sites.

The upgraded Montreal to New York link will provide high-performance optical transport to enable the delivery of big data streams and foster greater scientific collaboration – both in-region and internationally – for key Canadian research and education centers that are working on projects including everything from particle physics to genomics and neuroscience.

“Ciena has been a critical research and technology partner to CANARIE for more than two decades. CANARIE’s fiber optic networks and Ciena’s optical technologies are invisible to end users, but this infrastructure is absolutely critical to enabling academics, scientists and researchers to leverage global big data resources to create new knowledge and new opportunities for innovation,” said Jim Roche, president and CEO of CANARIE.

Also read: Ciena adds new packet capabilities to 6500 Packet-Optical platform

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Masergy’s continued global expansion and its recent acquisition of managed unified-communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) provider Broadcore has helped the company evolve from a leading network services provider to an innovative IT transformation provider.

The combines the world’s largest independent global network platform, its cloud communications offering and a passionate commitment to customer service to deliver high-performance network and communications solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of each customer.

Over the past year, Masergy has accomplished multiple strategic initiatives focusing on expanding services, value and reach for our customers, said Masergy CEO Chris MacFarland.

“Today our growing portfolio of network-embedded and cloud-based services helps companies do more with less so they can meet real business challenges such as globalization, IT cost containment, application experience and workplace evolution,” MacFarland added.

As part of its strategic transformation Masergy is launching new brand messaging to articulate what its recent evolution means to its customers, partners and the broader industry.

Centered on the core theme of improving customers’ IT performance the company’s new brand essence features the tagline “Performance Beyond Expectations.”

Masergy has undertaken several strategic programs and acquisitions during the past one year. In March 2012, the company launched cloud-based security initiative. The Intelligent Internet Management (IIM) is one of the company’s latest additions to its visibility and control solutions providing cloud-based security and application management.

In July 2012, the company acquired Broadcore. This transaction marked the expansion of Masergy’s core services into cloud-based unified communications.

In September 2012, the company launched Global Cloud Communications, its first network-embedded unified communications offering for enterprise customers. This was the direct result from the Broadcore acquisition.

In February 2013 Masergy launched Broadcore Connect, a cloud communications product that marked Masergy’s foray from an exclusive provider to enterprise customers into a new market opportunity aimed at medium-sized businesses.

Masergy also recorded a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 59.3 percent. The score is based on direct customer feedback and far exceeds the technology industry’s benchmark of 24.7 percent. Masergy has experienced robust revenue growth over the past two years including 19.4 percent growth in its most recent fiscal year 2011-2012 and 13.2 percent growth in fiscal year 2010-2011.

Further the company expanded its network presence in Latin America with new POPs in Mexico City, Miami and Sao Paulo. The company’s major global solutions platform has a consistent growth rate of 3-6 new core datacenters per year on average.

Masergy continues to expand its Global Partner Program by adding more strategic partners each year. The company’s channel revenue has also grown 20 percent year-over-year from its existing base of Platinum and Gold partners.

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As part of this development, Sycamore Networks Solutions will partner with Coriant, a Marlin portfolio company and supplier of 100G+ optical transport, OTN switching, and software-defined service control and management solutions to Tier 1 service providers worldwide.

As a result, Sycamore, which was acquired by Marlin in January 2013, will become Coriant America Inc., and will remain headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

Sycamore will also adopt the Coriant brand for all of its product and service offerings, significantly enhancing the customer value proposition of an expanded Coriant portfolio with industry-leading optical mesh technology, intelligent control plane software, and multiservice switching solutions.

“We are excited to harness a deeper pool of optical networking expertise as we leverage the combined strengths of these exceptional teams to advance Coriant’s global market position,” said Pat DiPietro, an operating partner at Marlin. “With an expanded solutions portfolio and greater operational scale, we will be well-positioned for continued growth and innovation.”

Sycamore’s optical switching and multiservice access platforms complement and expand the Coriant optical networking portfolio, which includes the industry’s highest performing, future-proof 100G+ transport solution with advanced service design and planning automation software, as well as its OTN/MPLS packet-optical and multiservice aggregation platforms, and innovative network and service management systems for flexible, high-performance management of next-generation optical networks.

Sycamore’s proven optical mesh technology and industry-recognized leadership in control plane software, deployed in the world’s largest Tier 1 networks, enhances Coriant’s industry-leading software-defined optical networking capabilities, helping operators reduce operational complexity and increase service reliability as networks scale in response to hypergrowth demand.

With an established reputation for service excellence and proven ability to meet the carrier-class requirements of Tier 1 network operators, Sycamore brings expanded capabilities to Coriant’s world-class customer service and support offerings, enhancing the ability of its customers to maximize the lifecycle value of their network investments.

“The products of both companies are distinguished by technology innovation and best-in-class performance,” added Bob Leggett, an operating partner at Marlin. “As we bring these offerings together under the Coriant solutions portfolio, we will draw upon a broader set of capabilities, as well as Marlin’s financial and operational resources, to help service providers maximize the value of their optical networks in the hypergrowth era.”

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Under the terms set forth in the contracts, Globecomm will provide a Direct-To-Home (DTH) uplink system for a major Asian DTH operator and a disaster recovery system for a foreign government customer.

Globecomm anticipates the completion of these contracts by the Company’s fiscal year 2014 second quarter ending December 31, 2013.

Dov Cydulkin, Globecomm vice president of Asia Pacific, said: “We are pleased and honored to be part of these important expansions. In addition, these repeat customers continue to put trust in Globecomm’s high quality engineering, excellent support and on time delivery.”

Globecomm Systems also offers 4G hosted switching solution that reduces the requisite time, money and manpower to initiate or convert to a 4G business. Enabling operators to more easily create LTE networks and deploy Voice over LTE and other IMS related services, Globecomm’s 4G solution provides an affordable converged packet gateway solution.

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