Tech

Ariana Grande is coming to Fortnite. On Sunday, Epic Games revealed the “record-breaking superstar” who is coming to Fortnite’s Rift Tour series — it’s the 28-year-old Grammy-winning artist known for songs such as “Thank U, Next”. She’s also the most streamed female artist on Spotify and Apple Music, and the most subscribed solo female artist

Safaricom’s shareholders formally approved the operator’s incorporation in neighbouring Ethiopia, following it led a successful bid for a telecoms licence in Africa’s second largest country. The licence, the first of its kind in Ethiopia, whose telecoms market has been monopolised by the state-owned Ethio Telecom, was awarded after the consortium led by Safaricom outbid a

Samsung and Apple experienced an exceptional drop-off in smartphone sales volumes in the second quarter, allowing Chinese vendors to gain ground. Omdia was first out of the blocks among the smartphone market trackers this quarter, maybe for the first time, so we’ll use its data and canned quote. This means the year-on-year changes need to

WhatsApp groups are a great way to stay connected to family, friends, or even colleagues, but the feature is often exploited by many to add tons of people to groups in order to sell products or promote services. These groups are often created without permission from participants and this could be frustrating for many. Most

Newly merged Virgin Media O2 has announced it plans to upgrade its entire fixed network to fibre. The operator is also assessing the prospect of becoming a fixed broadband wholesaler. Two months after it was created by the merger of Virgin Media and O2, the new integrated operator announced its fixed network upgrade plan for

Also in today’s EMEA regional round-up: Proximus earnings slip in Q2; Sparkle teams up with Google on subsea links; Orange sets targets. Shares in French operator Iliad soared by as much as 62% on the Paris exchange on Friday morning in response to billionaire owner Xavier Niel’s €3.1 billion bid – equivalent to €182 per

Apple has introduced three new payment modes for App Store users in India. The new payment modes include united payments interface (UPI), RuPay, and netbanking. Before this, App Store and even iTunes users could only use credit and debit cards on both the platforms. These payment modes come in handy when you’re looking to buy

Amazon has delivered another solid quarter, but the numbers fell short of market expectations. When looked together with the latest financial results from other big tech companies, it is tempting to ask if the pandemic bonus is coming to an end. There’s no doubt that the big techs have had a very good pandemic. Lockdowns

Satellite operator to invest $100m in at least 150 LEO satellites to create a multi-orbit constellation combined with a terrestrial 5G network. Inmarsat announced plans to create a ‘multi-orbit’ constellation called Orchestra, intensifying competition in an increasingly crowded market in space. The UK-based satellite operator aims to add a terrestrial 5G network and a small

Huawei Smart Screen V 75 Super smart TV was launched on Thursday as the company’s first model to carry a proprietary Mini-LED display called SuperMiniLED. The smart TV is also the first in its range to run on HarmonyOS 2 — an update to Huawei’s HarmonyOS platform. The new operating system offers better smart TV

T-Mobile USA reported a strong Q2, which the company attributed to growth of its subscriber base, outgrowing its direct competitors AT&T and Verizon. T-Mobile USA reported that it added 1.3 million postpaid wireless customers, including 627,000 postpaid phone users. This addition is slightly smaller than AT&T’s 789,000 but way ahead of the 275,000 new postpaid

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Xanthos Angelides, EXFO Product Line Manager, explores what it will take for OpenRAN to become a mainstream technology. Today’s 5G networks are dependent on virtualized, software-defined radio access networks (RAN) that are open and intelligent to ensure

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed that the next hardware product from the company will be smart glasses being developed in collaboration with Ray-Ban owner Essilor Luxottica. The glasses are said to have the iconic frames that Ray-Ban is famous for, integrated with AR features. Zuckerberg announced this during the company’s Q2 2021 earnings call.

Also in today’s EMEA regional results-fest round-up: Telefónica’s Q2 boosted by Virgin Media O2 merger and Telxius deal; BT’s fiscal Q1 dented by corporate and public sector struggles; Cellnex puts in a towering performance in H1. Orange suffered pain in Spain during the second quarter, as the business environment there forced the group to “book

UK communications regulator Ofcom has worked out that younger people mainly get their news from the internet. Any parent could have told Ofcom that kids and teens these days hardly watch broadcast TV at all, let alone the Nine O’Clock News. Instead, what news they consume will come from a combination of messaging groups, social

Over two-third of customers in major markets planning to purchase a new smartphone in the next six months prefer getting a 5G model, according to a report released by consulting firm Kantar. China led the markets where as much as 91 percent of customers showed interest in purchasing a 5G phone. However, the trend of

Also in today’s EMEA regional round-up: T-Systems heads deeper into the Google Cloud; customer satisfaction (or not) in France; Telefónica Tech takes up with CrowdStrike. In its second-quarter figures Dutch incumbent operator KPN has returned to mobile service revenue growth in its consumer segment for the first time since Q1 2017, a turnaround that helped

Two UK telcos are urging the government to do more to push 5G along, especially in the areas of manufacturing and FWA, for the good of the country of course. Vodafone sent out a press release titled ‘5G could provide £6.3 billion boost to UK manufacturing by 2030’, to promote a report called ‘Powering up