The Myanmar soldiers descended before dawn on Feb. 1, bearing rifles and wire cutters. At gunpoint, they ordered technicians at telecom operators to switch off the internet. For good measure, the soldiers snipped wires without knowing what they were severing, according to an eyewitness and a person briefed on the events. The New York Times: The data center raids in Yangon…
Tag: telecom
Ghana Plans To Relax Telecom Licensing Rules To Lower Data Costs
Ghana plans to broaden the scope of its telecommunications licenses so mobile operators can have more spectrum available for internet use, lowering data costs for consumers. From a report: Ghana currently sells licenses that are spectrum-specific “and the technology is tied to the spectrum that you can use,” said Communications Minister-Designate Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, who took questions from lawmakers Monday as part…
Myanmar’s New Military Government is Now Blocking Twitter and Instagram
Myanmar’s new military government has ordered local telecom operators, internet gateways, and other internet service providers to block Twitter and Instagram in the South Asian country days after imposing a similar blackout on Facebook to ensure “stability” in the Southeast Asian nation. From a report: Norwegian telecom giant Telenor, which is one of the largest telecos in Myanmar, said the government…
Pakistan Forced Down Apps Made By a Persecuted Religious Minority
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Over the last two years, the government of Pakistan has forced Google and Apple to take down apps in the country created by developers based in other nations who are part of a repressed religious minority. The move is part of a crackdown led by the country’s telecommunications regulator targeting the Ahmadiyya…
The Open-Source Magma Project Will Become 5G’s Linux
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Magma was developed by Facebook to help telecom operators deploy mobile networks quickly and easily. The project, which Facebook open-sourced in 2019, does this by providing a software-centric distributed mobile packet core and tools for automating network management. This containerized network function integrates with the existing back end of a mobile network and…
Myanmar Blocks Facebook as Resistance Grows To Coup
Myanmar’s new military government blocked access to Facebook as resistance to Monday’s coup surged amid calls for civil disobedience to protest the ousting of the elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. From a report: Facebook is especially popular in Myanmar and is how most people access the internet. The military seized power shortly before a new session of…
Corporate Trolls? A Covert, Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign on Social Media
“Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s technology industry, has suffered from a sustained American campaign to keep its equipment from being used in new 5G networks around the world,” reports the New York Times. Now they’ve identified “a covert pro-Huawei influence campaign in Belgium about 5G networks.” [Alternate URL here] It began when trade lawyer Edwin Vermulst was paid to write…
Ajit Pai is Officially Out of the FCC
Ajit Pai, the man who killed net neutrality, enacted a series of industry-friendly deregulatory moves for big telecom, and drank from a gigantic mug, is no longer around to terrorize the internet. The FCC confirmed to Motherboard that Pai is officially gone: “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai today concluded his four years as Chairman, eight years as a Commissioner, and…
SoftBank-Backed WhatsApp Rival Hike Goes Off the Air in India
Hike, the messaging app backed by SoftBank Group that aimed to compete against WhatsApp in the world’s second-most populous country, shut down and vanished from app stores Monday. From a report: The startup valued at $1.4 billion in a 2016 funding round announced its app was going off the air earlier this month without explanation. The app started by billionaire-family scion…
NYSE Abruptly Reverses Plan To Delist Three Chinese Telecoms
The New York Stock Exchange has abruptly reversed plans to delist three major Chinese telecommunications companies after consulting regulators about an investment ban ordered by President Donald Trump. From a report: Coming days before the companies were to be delisted — and just over two weeks before Trump is to leave the White House — the U-turn avoids a step that…