Annie Turner, Editor of Mobile Europe speaks with Dr. Keith Bhatia, CEO of SS8 Networks (www.ss8.com)
Advancements in technology are enhancing the speed and capacity of communications, while AI and ML are reshaping the digital landscape. Coupled with current macroeconomic conditions and shifting political dynamics, the telco industry is navigating new strategies of consolidation and cost-cutting in a highly competitive market.
In this context, vendors working with telcos must be both efficient and flexible, employing a standards-based approach to easily adapt to changing conditions.
Watch the video to learn:
What strategies telcos are leveraging to cope with the competitive market, and the future may unfold
How is the regulatory environment changing for telcos and are how SS8 are navigating these changes
What impact has the technology investment in the last 3 years had on telco vendors
An outlook for telcos the next 5 years on emerging technologies
This video was sponsored by SS8 Networks. To learn more, visit www.ss8.com
Partner content: Reducing spend on lawful intelligence technologies is a strategic necessity for law enforcement agencies and communication service providers globally
The division of financial responsibility between these parties for mediation, location-based services, and monitoring centers varies among jurisdictions. This funding depends on factors such as regulatory frameworks and the specific funding mechanisms of the agencies involved.
Often, communication service providers (CSPs) must provide end-to-end capabilities to track and intercept devices, hand that information over to investigators, and provide the analytics engines to unlock its value, including combining it with other information sources. In multi-operator environments, initial and ongoing investments tend to be duplicated among CSPs. Likewise, this solution sprawl increases the complexity of the lawful intelligence environment for law enforcement agencies (LEAs).
Regardless of the funding model, these factors tend to cause total cost of ownership (TCO) to rise for both CSPs and LEAs. SS8’s ongoing initiative for reducing the TCO of cutting-edge lawful intelligence includes multiple cost benefits associated with providing a single solution, end-to-end, backed by 25 years of industry experience all over the world. The initiative spans many dimensions, with value to both types of organizations; other examples of this effort include:
Improving efficiency of investigator workflows. Capabilities such as recursive identity lookup and data fusion help analysts more quickly find hidden patterns and trends to increase overall efficiency.
Reducing bloat of intercepted data.Data engineering filters out irrelevant traffic such as real-time entertainment content to reduce transmission and retention costs and further streamline analysis.
Lowering the cost of change. Streamlining compliance with new mandates such as stricter evidence preservation and warrant management requirements helps lower implementation and operating costs.
An end-to-end lawful intelligence solution builds on these TCO-reduction opportunities by avoiding waste and improving both initial and ongoing cost profiles. Key aspects of that cost reduction are outlined in the remainder of this article.
Pooling Solutions and License Costs
The common case where each CSP in a service area purchases an end-to-end solution to meet their lawful intelligence obligations is inherently inefficient. In this scenario, each provider can be responsible for software licensing costs as well as the associated maintenance and support. Alternatively, that spend can be consolidated and shared among the CSPs, a benefit that is also present under other funding models where expenses are shared among various parties including CSPs, LEAs, and government entities. Consolidating the pool of money to purchase a single solution and support agreement flattens TCO for all parties concerned.
Reducing the Requirements and Expense for Monitoring Centers
Beyond acquisition costs, expenses associated with implementing lawful intelligence grow with the number of solutions involved. In the multi-vendor case described above, a separate monitoring center must typically be maintained for each solution, even when the monitoring and analysis are co-located in a single physical location. This reality compounds the wasteful duplication of resources that arises from disconnected acquisition by various parties. Joint procurement and implementation of a single platform eliminates that duplication for reduced spend and improved TCO.
Cutting Back on Integration Complexity
Integrating multiple lawful and location intelligence solutions together presents a key pain point for LEAs and other agencies. Initial and ongoing engineering effort to ensure that the whole environment works as a coherent whole generates substantial labor costs. Increased troubleshooting and break-fix requirements also interfere with broader strategic initiatives, diverting network engineering resources from that more valuable work. As projects arise aligned with technology requirements such as improved support for 5G and beyond, the importance of this factor grows, and it may also interfere with regulatory requirements.
Stripping Out Overhead for LEA Analysts
Day-to-day operations in monitoring centers become unwieldy when analysts must swivel among multiple interfaces. The cumbersome nature of working in that environment is often compounded by the need for analysts to manually correlate the information provided by all of the tools in use. That inefficiency increases costs as well as the incidence of human error that can compromise investigations. Moreover, agencies must train monitoring center personnel on multiple platforms, with implications for operating costs and distracting analysts from their core duties. Enabling those personnel to focus on a single, end-to-end lawful intelligence environment improves those outcomes.
Lowering Security and Costs and Power Consumption
Operating overhead for lawful intelligence extends to the fundamental costs to keep the lights on. Separate security is required for each solution instance and connection, including firewalls, IPsec, and VLANs. All those security functions must be managed and maintained on an ongoing basis. At the same time, a converged platform reduces the number of racks and systems needed, which cuts down on power and cooling requirements for lower energy costs and a boost to sustainability initiatives. Evolving lawful intelligence infrastructure with a streamlined, single-vendor solution drives law enforcement and intelligence missions forward, with higher efficiency and greater success.
About the author
Rory Quann is a Senior Solutions Engineer specializing in End-to-End Government Solutions at SS8 Networks and brings with him over 14 years of experience in the Lawful Interception and Data Analysis industry. Prior to joining SS8 in 2013, Rory worked for BAE System Applied Intelligence where he was focused on large scale Government deployments of Intelligence Solutions. Rory has held multiple positions in the Lawful Intelligence space ranging from Deployment Engineer, System Consultant, and Sales Engineer focusing on Country-wide Passive deployments. Rory is a Certified Microsoft MCSA Engineer and EMC Certified deployment Engineer. You can learn more about Rory on his LinkedIn profile by clicking here.
About SS8 Networks
As a leader in Lawful and Location Intelligence, SS8 helps make societies safer. Our commitment is to extract, analyze, and visualize the critical intelligence that gives law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and emergency services the real-time insights that help save lives. Our high performance, flexible, and future-proof solutions also enable mobile network operators to achieve regulatory compliance with minimum disruption, time, and cost. SS8 is trusted by the largest government agencies, communications providers, and systems integrators globally.
Intellego® XT monitoring and data analytics portfolio is optimized for Law Enforcement Agencies to capture, analyze, and visualize complex data sets for real-time investigative intelligence.
LocationWise delivers the highest audited network location accuracy worldwide, providing active and passive location intelligence for emergency services, law enforcement, and mobile network operators.
Xcipio® mediation platform meets the demands of lawful intercept in any network type and provides the ability to transcode (convert) between lawful intercept handover versions and standard families.
The idea is to support infrastructure that can meld older, virtualised applications with newer, cloud-native ones
Red Hat has announced that OpenStack Services on OpenShift, the latest major release of the OpenStack Platform, is now widely available.
The company describes it as “a significant step forward in how enterprises, particularly telecommunication service providers, can better unify traditional and cloud-native networks into a singular, modernized network fabric”.
Virtualisation and cloud
The company says the release is designed to meet the needs of network infrastructures and their automated resource scaling at the edge. The idea is that the architecture can optimise use of resources wherever applications are located. This means the underlying infrastructures must meld older virtualised applications with modern cloud-native ones.
Red Hat says OpenStack Services on OpenShift can deploy compute nodes four times faster than Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1 – as measured in Red Hat labs in April 2024.
The company lists other benefits as:
faster time-to-market with Ansible integration
a scalable OpenStack control plane that can manage Kubernetes-native pods running on Red Hat OpenShift
easier day 2 operations for control plane and lifecycle management
better cost management
freedom to choose third party plug-ins and virtualise resources
improved security and compliance scanning of the control plane
role-based access control encrypts communications and memory cache
deeper understanding of the health of users’ hybrid cloud, with visibility of the user and cluster operator, and an OpenShift cluster logging operator.
Red Hat states that the AI-optimised infrastructure helps speed up hardware with the aim of “seamless integration and efficient utilization of specialized hardware for AI tasks”.
Operators’ view
Nilay Rathod, Technology Automation and Services Lead, Spark New Zealand, comments,”Spark is pleased Red Hat is continuing to evolve Red Hat OpenStack Platform. Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift will help to further enhance our telecommunications infrastructure, providing even greater flexibility, scalability and resilience. Our collaboration with Red Hat continues to drive innovation, allowing us to deliver superior performance and reliability to our customers. Together, we are building the future of New Zealand’s wireless mobile networks.”
Takeshi Maehara, Deputy GM, Network and Cloud Platforms at KDDI, adds, “KDDI has been a longstanding user of both Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift and we’re excited about this next evolution. These solutions have enabled us to quickly and flexibly develop and deploy new services and applications. This integration will allow organizations like KDDI to modernize and manage complexity from the core to the edge.”
Don’t bank on it. In three Q2 reports by Dell’Oro there is much talk of “cratering” and “worst for a decade”
Dell’Oro is not making happy ready for equipment vendors, although it does seem there might be light at the end of what has been a long tunnel in some areas at least.
Routers fall furthest
Firstly, routers for service providers fell by a stomach-dropping third (33%)in Q2 this year, which runs from April to the end of June, continuing a downward trend. “The service provider router market contracted for a fourth consecutive quarter due to customers pulling back on spending to lower equipment inventory,” said Jimmy Yu, VP at Dell’Oro.
The report identified Cisco, Huawei and Nokia as the three biggest players in this sector. Yu added, “The drop in quarterly revenue was one of the worst we have seen in this market for over a decade. The only silver lining to this quarter’s results is that we believe the inventory correction is nearly complete”.
The worst hit part of the sector was core routers which halved in value.
Cloudy for optical equipment
Secondly, the research house found that the global optical network equipment revenues fell 19% in Q2 compared to the same period last year. Network operators are still relying on what they have in stock rather than ordering more. Last year Dell’Oro reckoned this market sector was worth more than $4 billion in Q2 2023.
Yu predicts this situation will continue at least throughout Q3, commenting, “In the second quarter, nearly every region declined at a double-digit rate compared to 2Q 2023. This included a 15% decline in North America, 22% in Europe, and 28% in China to name a few.”
He is now predicting an overall shrinkage of 8% for the sector in 2024. Despite this, Cisco gained more than 1% market share in 2Q compared to Q2 last year while Huawei’s market share rose by almost 6%.
Mobile core falls too
Thirdly, Dell’Oro reported the value of the mobile core network (MCN) sector fell by 15% compared to Q2 2023. Dave Bolan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group, stated, “We have entered unchartered territory, indicating that economic headwinds have a firm grip on the market. It also strongly suggests that mobile network operators (MNOs) have excess capacity to meet subscriber growth numbers.”
In this sector, the downturn in large part due to “the China region” which “dramatically impacted the MCN market’s lower Y/Y growth rate for the quarter,” Bolan adds. “The Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and North American regions were also depressed but not nearly as low as China. Only the Asia Pacific region, excluding China, had a positive Y/Y growth rate.”
He also said that although new 5G Standalone (SA) networks were implemented in the quarter, “The market has slowed to the point that 2Q 2024 was the first quarter of the 5G era, with a negative growth rate Y/Y. To date…about 58 MNOs…have launched commercial 5G SA eMMB [enhanced mobile broadband] networks.”
“In 2022 there were 21 new 5G SA networks; in 2023, 13; and in the first half of 2024, three. As a result, we estimate that the MCN market will decline 11 percent Y/Y in 2024,” Bolan concluded.
New 1&1 customers will be using the Vodafone network, while existing customers will be migrated from O2 to Vodafone in batches by autumn 2025 at the latest
Vodafone and 1&1 have officially launched their national roaming partnership in mobile communications, after reaching a preliminary agreement last year. Both network operators have now signed the final contract, setting the stage for collaboration starting this summer. Beginning on Thursday 29 August 2024, new 1&1 customers will be able to access Vodafone’s mobile network alongside 1&1’s own network with their smartphones.
As Germany’s fourth mobile network operator, 1&1 is currently developing its infrastructure and has a long way to go. In areas where the new 1&1 5G network does not yet have full coverage, customers have so far been connected via O2 Germany antennas, owned by Telefónica.
This time last year the two companies were at loggerheads after 1&1 had contracted Vodafone’s Vantage to build most of its initial towers but was claiming it failed to meet its deadlines. 1&1 had complained to Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (the Bundeskartellamt) that Vodafone actions had caused “obstacles to the roll-out of its 5G mobile network”. It said the obstacles had prevented it from meeting the roll-out obligations that are part of its licence terms.
Then in August 2023, the two operators signed a national roaming partnership that will allow United Internet’s 1&1 to finally roll out 5G services. That deal, which could last up to 18 years if extended, would provide 5G coverage to areas not served by 1&1 Mobilfunk’s own network and would also include access to 2G, 4G and future mobile technologies.
As the deal now comes into force, Vodafone’s network will be available to new 1&1 customers in areas where 1&1’s own coverage is still being developed. The transition between networks will happen seamlessly and automatically, ensuring a smooth experience for mobile users.
Existing 1&1 customers will also gain access to the combined 1&1 5G network and Vodafone national roaming soon. As a result, 1&1 will gradually transition the mobile plans of its 12 million-plus customers by autumn 2025.
“We get started: We’re about to embark on Germany’s largest mobile migration. This partnership will enable us to optimally utilise our networks and further expand their reach for our customers, while helping us grow sustainably in the coming years,” said Vodafone Germany CEO Marcel de Groot (above).
“We’re confident that our customers will benefit from this partnership. Vodafone has invested in network quality in recent years, delivering very good results, especially in expanding 5G coverage nationwide. At the same time, our primary focus remains on rapidly expanding the 1&1 mobile network, rolling out our innovative Open RAN technology to more and more regions,” said Ralph Dommermuth, CEO of 1&1.
The partnership between Vodafone and 1&1 is designed for the long term and includes mechanisms to protect both companies against rising costs and increasing data demands. Vodafone and 1&1 have a history of collaboration, having previously worked together under their MVNO agreement.
The debate around telcos owning smart home spaces is over so the question is, will AI reopen parts they can monetise?
Almost every second household (46%) is currently smart according to a study carried out by Germany’s digital association Bitkom. This is up from 43% in 2022 and 37% in 2020. Meanwhile, even seniors are increasingly open to smart home technologies: 30% of people between 65 and 74 already use at least one such application. Among those over 75, however, the figure is only 6%.
Telcos pretty much missed the smart home management market but the emergence of edge AI applications much give them a second shot to grab at least some of the functionality as a potential managed service, even if they are providing it on a wholesale basis to specialised service providers.
80% of all Germans are open to AI-controlled smart home tools in the future. Most (70%) can imagine using AI in their heating, for example by not only learning the comfortable temperature at different times of the day, but also taking energy saving into account. 51% would use an AI that can proactively detect damage to building technology and arrange for maintenance. Many people can also imagine AI control of lighting (66%), alarm systems (51%) or vacuum and mop robots (36%).
“Smart home applications can make life more comfortable, safer and more energy efficient. AI will make intuitive interaction with the smart home even easier and create the basis for completely new services and applications. It is to be expected that the smart home market will experience a real growth spurt thanks to AI,” said Bitkom CEO Dr Bernhard Rohleder.
Robot vacuum cleaners
Smart lamps and lights are already in use in 41% of households (2022: 36%). This is followed by smart radiator thermostats with 36%, which were still used by 25% of Germans two years ago. Smart sockets are in third place with 31% (2022: 21%).
In one in four households (26%) a robot vacuum cleaner does its rounds (2022: 22%). 18% still let a robot lawnmower do its work in the garden. Window cleaning robots (1%), on the other hand, are used extremely rarely. The survey found that, 28% have given their robot a name. It is often derived from the function of the robot: Rasimir, Mählanie, Dolly or Rasenpirat, Staubinator, Hauself, Heinzelmann or Saugus Rex were mentioned as examples.
Smart video
Smart video surveillance (21%) and smart alarm systems (18%) are each used by around a fifth – there have been slight declines here compared to 2022 (smart video surveillance: 25%; smart alarm systems: 24%).
On average, users of smart home technologies have seven corresponding devices or applications in their home. Two thirds (69%) of users say: “I never want to live in a home without smart home applications again.”
Living smarts
Most people use smart home devices in the living room (54%) and in the bedroom (47%) or in the garden area (42%). The dining room (28%) and kitchen (25%) were less so. One tenth of smart home users also have smart home technologies in their childrens’ rooms (10%). Regardless of which and how many rooms they have, one third (34%) have equipped their entire house or apartment with smart home devices.
Voice control is becoming increasingly important in the smart home. 65% already operate their devices and applications using voice commands, compared to 55% two years ago. A stationary voice assistant such as Alexa, Google Home, etc. is usually used for this, although mobile voice assistants via smartphone or smartwatch also play a major role. Almost all users of smart home tools (90%) also control their devices via an app on their smartphone, 44% via a tablet app and 28% via a smart display. 14% use a remote control.
Users with security concerns
While people see great advantages in improving their physical security, they sometimes worry about whether smart home applications can also pose a risk to IT security. 55% are worried that they are being monitored via smart home applications. 5% say they use smart home applications to monitor family members or the neighbourhood.
96% of smart home users want an independent seal or certificate to guarantee a high level of security against hacker attacks – and 87% want a corresponding label that guarantees a high level of data protection. 86% want the manufacturer to offer the longest possible update guarantee.
Even those who do not have any smart devices in their household are often put off by security concerns. More than half of non-users (54%) are afraid of hacker attacks. 43% are afraid of their personal data being misused and 36% are worried about their privacy. Many also find the devices too expensive (31%) or the operation seems too complicated (27%).
Despite the concerns mentioned, so far no one has observed hacker attacks on one of their smart home devices – the same applies to the preliminary survey in 2022. For those who rarely (25%), occasionally (13%) or regularly (8%) struggle with outages in their applications, this is usually due to a disruption in the internet connection (77%).
These are the results of a representative survey of 1,193 people in Germany aged 16 and over, which was carried out on behalf of the digital association Bitkom on the occasion of the Berlin IFA show, which begins in September.
First collaboration partner for BT’s multicast-assisted unicast delivery is the content delivery network Edgio
BT Group has announced that it will be collaborating with Edgio to integrate MAUD tech into its content delivery network (CND).
Edgio is an advocate for Open Caching and supports the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA) in its mission to establish standards for scalable, efficient content delivery networks (CDNs).
Building on the strengths of the Open Caching proposed and accepted standards, Edgio and BT Group reckon they can “quickly establish the mechanisms needed to share the required information for this partnership to succeed”.
What is MAUD?
MAUD, for Multicast-Assisted Unicast Delivery, promises to improve the quality of streaming content. Unlike unicast delivery – where each viewer watches content via a dedicated internet stream – MAUD groups the single streams into a shared one.
This means MAUD uses up to 50% less bandwidth in peak hours, benefiting broadcasters, CDNs and internet providers by reducing energy consumption as fewer caches are needed.
Freeing up internet capacity should translate into better quality transmission.
BT announced MAUD in December 2023, calling it a “technology breakthrough for TV” and said “major broadcasters”, including the BBC, would be involved in evaluating and possibly trialling the technology for a range of live content.
Edgio is the first one to be named. With BT, it plans to trial delivery of EE TV content on some set-top-boxes in the live network in the coming months. BT said this collaboration “takes the technology from proof of concept to real-world application with the first live CDN deployment, paving the way for other CDNs to follow”.
Emma Whitmore, Group Vice President EMEA at Edgio adds: “Having worked with BT Group since the inception of MAUD we’re delighted to be the first CDN to serve content through it. By reducing congestion in the core of telco networks, clients will benefit from a more consistent, high-quality experience.
“Combined with the seamless integration of our content providers, clients can easily adopt this technology in markets where there is a mix of solutions across the network.”
Howard Watson, Chief Security and Networks Officer at BT Group said, “BT Group’s goal is to develop an efficient live streaming solution that addresses the needs of players within the content delivery path. Partnering with Edgio, we’re pioneering an effective content delivery system that seamlessly integrates with CDNs, making it accessible for external content providers”.
61% of NHS staff believe new technologies could enable treatment for an additional 18.6 million patients annually
Digital tools are vital for supporting frontline staff and ensuring a resilient National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Embracing innovations across the healthcare system can drive efficiencies and improve the delivery of patients’ care.
In fact, 61% of NHS staff believe new technologies could enable treatment for an additional 18.6 million patients annually, according to Virgin Media O2 Business’ Bridging the Digital Gap in UK Healthcare report.
To achieve this, healthcare professionals must collaborate closely with core connectivity and technology suppliers to build the necessary infrastructure for their digital transformation efforts. The tech and telecoms sector are instrumental in this change, providing secure, integrated, and care-ready connectivity solutions.
Boosting frontline support
We have seen several new technologies emerge that have significantly transformed healthcare. Internet of Things (IoT) powered devices, such as fitness trackers, have proven invaluable, enabling healthcare professionals to monitor patients’ vital signs in real-time and detect potential health issues early on.
Beyond wearable devices, IoT technology facilitates remote monitoring for patients with chronic conditions, allowing patients to track and send their data from home. This reduces the need for frequent hospital visits, allowing healthcare professionals to review the data and intervene as necessary – all without occupying hospital beds or increasing wait times.
5G observations
The 5G-connected e-observations (eObs) app is another example, allowing clinical staff to update patient records and make live observations all via handheld devices. The high-speed platform keeps healthcare professionals connected in real-time without relying on a hospital Wi-Fi networks.
These digital innovations, with their high throughput and low latency, improve the efficiency of daily operations, making healthcare services smarter, more accurate, and more effective. As many as 86% of NHS staff reported that IoT devices helped reduce frontline staff workload and decreased patient waiting times.
Almost two fifths (38%) of healthcare workers surveyed, ranging from clinical to admin and IT roles, believe that these tech improvements could increase patient consultations by at least 5%, potentially helping up to 31 million* additional people annually.
Holistic care through sharingdata
The introduction of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) across England in 2022 marked a big step towards holistic patient care. ICSs enable effective communication and real-time data sharing between staff across different locations, standardising digital practices and promoting best practices across regions. Nonetheless, there is ample scope for technology to improve operational efficiencies for patients and staff.
While data sharing across GP surgeries, hospitals, and all touch points is critical, it’s important to ask: what does true digital integration look like?
One way to achieve this is by building a culture of digital integration within organisations. Technologies like unified communications (UC) and cloud-based storage can bring data closer to the staff and patients who need it.
Healthcare professionals should collaborate with trusted digital partners to map out the necessary infrastructure and tools to support their data ambitions and explore how their existing systems are being used.
Breaking down barriers to tech adoption
Overhauling legacy systems can be challenging and disruptive, with 41% of healthcare decision makers citing resistance to change as a significant barrier to tech adoption. Coupled with concerns about maintaining the same standard of care with new solutions, it can leave healthcare professionals feeling overwhelmed.
By working closely with technology suppliers, healthcare professionals can prioritise and optimise their current tech stack, identifying where existing technology can be better utilised and upskilling staff on existing tools. Adopting cloud-based SD-WAN infrastructure and cybersecurity solutions can also provide substantial benefits.
However, for technology to be effective, people need to be well-equipped to maximise these tools. Digital skills are crucial for productivity and efficiency, and healthcare providers should seek support from their tech partners, including onboarding, tailored transition support, and dedicated account teams for troubleshooting.
Promoting positive tech dialogue and hands-on experience with new solutions can help staff understand how improved tech leads to better patient outcomes.
A future-ready NHS
As the NHS continues to evolve and innovate, the speed of technological advancement will only increase. To keep up, healthcare professionals must focus on integrating tools, maintaining transparent communication, and strategically investing in technology.
Embracing these changes will make the NHS future-ready, leveraging technology to better support patients, streamline delivery of care and improve outcomes across the board.
Raxio Group spends $30 million at Kinshasa location in drive to realise the Plan National du Numérique
A new data centre has gone live in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Limete, southeast of the capital city, Kinshasa. It is the country’s largest so far, built and operated by the Raxio Group, which invested $30 million in the project (pictured above). It has Tier III accreditation from the Uptime Institute.
The company says this represents “a pivotal milestone in the nation’s Plan National du Numérique to drive digital inclusion, foster private sector growth, and transform public services through digitalisation”. The provision of data centres is a key pillar of the government’s plan, improving the digital landscape through reduced latency for real-time applications and providing a reliable backbone for mobile and internet connectivity.
Record facility
The two-storey Raxio Data Centre covers 1,542 square meters and can house up to 400 racks and can deliver 1.5MW of IT power to customers’ equipment. The 24/7 facility is located along key fibre routes, offering colocation and connectivity services.
It has multiple paths for power and cooling systems and its “cutting edge components, guarantee unmatched levels of efficiency and a strong commitment to sustainability principles”.
The project was completed in record time since breaking ground on construction in early 2023, a testament to Raxio’s track record of designing and constructing data centre facilities in Africa, and the support of government authorities in fast-tracking priority national projects.
Pivotal moment
“The inauguration of our Kinshasa data centre marks a significant achievement for Raxio and a pivotal moment for the DRC’s digital landscape,” said Robert Mullins, CEO of Raxio Group. “DRC is one of Africa’s largest and fastest-growing markets with an existing latent demand for digital products and services that is forecast to soar in the coming years.
“With this facility, we are providing the critical infrastructure essential to supporting the digital economy and enhancing connectivity – and we expect to expand our presence in DRC through additional capacity and new facilities in years to come. Our investment reflects unwavering confidence in the DRC’s immense potential and our commitment to sustainable digital development across Africa.”
Raxio says it has the widest footprint of any data centre provider in Africa. Its strategy is to address the considerable demand for high-quality data infrastructure across the continent. Since opening its first data centre in Uganda in 2021, this year Raxio has expanded into Ethiopia and Mozambique.
The launch in the DRC is Raxio’s fourth facility to open this year with 1.5MW being the group’s largest Day 1 capacity to date.
Pan-African digital backbone
Raxio sees strong momentum behind the roll-out of its pan-African digital backbone as the appetite for data centre capacity is growing. This is amongst local enterprises, the public sector and, increasingly, some of the world’s largest hyperscale cloud service providers, content delivery networks and mobile network operators as they strengthen their networks and presence on the continent.
“Closing sub-Saharan Africa’s connectivity gap is no longer a pipe dream – it is happening now and we are extremely proud to be among the key enablers that are driving digital inclusion,” said Yannick Sukakumu, General Manager Raxio DRC.
“The commitment and pragmatism of the government has been a key enabling factor in spurring our project from inception to completion in record time and stands as an inspiration for the wider region in grasping this incredible opportunity for a broad-based digital economy expansion. We are looking forward to welcoming customers into an international-standard data centre environment.”
Samsung Galaxy S24 users will be first to experience Deutsche Telekom’s 5G boosted cloud game package
Deutsche Telekom and ALSO, with its technology partner Ludium Lab, a company specialising in cloud gaming, jointly presented their plans of an offer for the gaming scene at Gamescom in Cologne – ahead of a launch of its 5G+ Gaming service this autumn. Twitch streamer and TikTok star DI1ARAA and SK Gaming pro BigSpin demonstrated the 5G+ on stage (above), participating in an uneven Fortnite battle which will no doubt instill FOMO (fear of missing out) in gamers looking for the edge.
Telekom, ALSO and Ludium gave further details of the packages that will be on offer for cloud gamers. They will be able to play 100 top games free of charge for a six-month period. Popular games such as Fortnite, PUBG and 9 Years of Shadows belong to the planned offer. The cloud platform will be accessed via the Android app “Sora Stream”.
Customers with a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra will be the first to benefit. Samsung Electronics has already technically equipped this smartphone model so that it can implement all 5G+ Gaming functions. Telekom said the next step will be to support further devices. The operator is claiming 5G+ Gaming will be the world’s first consumer offer based on network slicing that Samsung is implementing with a telco.
To be able to use the 5G+ Gaming option, taking a current version of the MagentaMobil tariffs will be necessary and can be bought in the MeinMagenta app via Magenta Moments as of autumn. The gaming package will be available for all customers. Users of an iOS device can access the platform via the web browser of the Ludium platform Sora Stream.
The new gaming solution is implemented via Deutsche Telekom’s 5G standalone network. The operator said network slicing enables it to deliver low response times. Another feature used for 5G+ Gaming ensures a smooth picture by optimising the available data rate and thus ensuring low response times even in a busy cell. As soon as the customer starts a game on the Sora Stream platform, they are informed whether they are playing in 5G+ Gaming mode.
eSports Panel on non-male role models
After showing off the new service, Telekom’s VP brand experience Antje Hundhausen hosted a panel discussion on the importance of non-male role models in eSports. The discussion, which included DI1ARAA, eSports player Luna ‘Zavee’ Lochmann, was the backdrop for Telekom’s Equal eSports initiative, the Equal eSports Cup which is also currently taking place, with the final following at Gamescom on August 24 and 25.
The Equal eSports Cup is the largest League of Legends tournament series for women and non-binary players in the EMEA region. It will be held in front of the large trade fair audience and broadcast live on Twitch.
