MEASAT is the leading Asian satellite operator. With capacity across five communication satellites, MEASAT has over fifteen years of experience providing satellite communication services to the region’s international broadcasters, DTH platforms and telecom operators.

As a main supplier of AIRCOM’s tools, Viet Hai will give operators across Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos additional local presence and expertise across AIRCOM’s entire suite of network planning and optimisation solutions. This includes AIRCOM’s I-VIEW framework that brings together AIRCOM’s specialist tools to provide mobile operators with a single, real-time, end-to-end view of their network performance.

Viet Hai has 15 years’ experience providing engineering and consultancy services to telecom operators, broadcasters and internet service providers. By maintaining strong local connections, good practices, and investing in customers, it is one of the most successful consultancy and engineering services providers in South East Asia. The company is building on its long-established relationship with AIRCOM, having been a sales agent and referral partner since 1998, providing network planning solutions to operators such as MobiFone, Vinaphone and Viettel.

“Operators in South East Asia are facing the same pressures as those across the globe. They must all optimise and manage their networks to get the most value from existing assets,” says Nguyen Ngoc Toan, Director at Viet Hai. “We’re looking forward to helping our operator customers achieve this in partnership with AIRCOM.”

“Our partner programme is very much an extension of the AIRCOM international team. As a trusted partner Viet Hai will continue to provide operators in South East Asia with quality, localised support, says Alwyn Welch, CEO at AIRCOM International. “We’re very happy to welcome Viet Hai as our new Certified Channel Partner.”

The Commission has also agreed to recommendations given by the telecom regulator on spectrum sharing and unified licensing.

2G auction

The Department of Telecom is planning to hold 2G spectrum auction in a bid to determine market price for airwaves. There were concerns that this auction could be limited to existing players in which case the spectrum price could be kept down. Price from this auction will be used to fix the one-time fee for existing players.

According to the Minutes of the Meeting of the Telecom Commission, all operators with more than 4.4 Mhz of spectrum will have to pay a one-time fee. The fee will be imposed with prospective effect and will be based on the auction price.

The Commission has also proposed to impose a retrospective fee for spectrum used until now from the time it was allocated. This fee will be based on the 3G auction held in 2010. Price of spectrum in 900 Mhz will be 1.5 times that of spectrum in 1800 Mhz. This will mean a huge pay out for incumbent players.

The Commission has also proposed to cap the maximum spectrum at 10 Mhz for each operator in Metro areas and at 8 Mhz for other circles. Once implemented some of the operators such as Airtel and MTNL could be asked to give back airwaves as they have over 10 Mhz in a few circles.

Spectrum sharing

On the issue of spectrum sharing, the Commission has said that spectrum sharing will be permitted as long as both the players have airwaves. The operators will also have to pay spectrum charges on the combined quantity. For example, if two operators with 4.4 Mhz each decide to share spectrum then they will have to pay charges applicable for 8.8 Mhz.

But the Commission has decided that 3G spectrum cannot be shared. This comes as another blow to the operators that are fighting the DoT on roaming issue since none of the players own pan-Indian 3G spectrum. The operators were hoping to use ach others spectrum once sharing is permitted.

The Commission has suggested that if the Government has additional spectrum beyond the auction then it can allocate the same to existing operators that have already applied for additional airwaves. The criteria for allocation will be based on the date of application and the category.

Operators, which are yet to get airwaves in part of a circle, will get the first priority. Second in line will be those players such as Reliance Communications that have been given initial start-up spectrum of 4.4 Mhz and are waiting for additional airwaves till 6.2 Mhz.

Third in line are those operators that have paid for spectrum in a circle but haven’t been given airwaves. Tata Teleservices will fall in this category as it has paid for Delhi circle but it hasn’t got spectrum. And if there is more spectrum then other players that want more than 6.2 Mhz will be given. But all these players will have to pay a price once it is finalised through the auction.

This year’s content reflects the focus of the association and its members on three of the main cornerstones of your @IT infrastructure – where you store and protect your data, how it is moved and where and how it is processed. The Academy agenda will include the following industry sessions developed by members of the SNIA and closely monitored to ensure they give a vendor-independent industry view that can help delegates in the IT planning and implementation.

Interoperable Cloud Storage With the CDMI Standard

The Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) is an industry standard on its way to ISO ratification. There is now an open source reference implementation available from SNIA as well. Storage vendors and Cloud providers have started announcing their implementations of the CDMI standard, demonstrating the reality of interoperable cloud storage. This talk will help you understand how to keep from getting locked into any given vendor by using the standard. Real world examples will help you understand how to apply this to your own situation.

The Benefits of Solid State in Enterprise Storage Systems

This session presents a brief overview of the solid state technologies which are being integrated into Enterprise Storage Systems today, including technologies, benefits, and price/performance. It then goes on to describe where they fit into typical Enterprise Storage architectures today, with descriptions of specific use cases. Finally the presentation speculates briefly on what the future will bring.

Trends in Data Protection and Restoration Technologies

This session will discuss many of the modern backup and archival technologies that are used to augment established data protection methodologies to deliver improved levels of data management and accelerate information and application backup and restore performance. Technologies covered include contemporary backup, disk-based backups, snapshot and mirroring, continuous data protection and compression and deduplication applied to both storage and networking traffic reduction.

Data Center Storage … Spend Less, Deliver More
This session is designed to examine the application of data center storage technologies to affordably solve business problems and to meet and exceed business requirements. It sets out to look at where overspends can happen on storage-related technology and how the adoption of consolidated storage, the effective management of aging data, the implementing storage tiering and well planned service level agreements (SLAs) can help address the overall cost of storage infrastructure.

Securing the Cloud – Using Encryption and Key Management to Solve Today’s Cloud Security Challenges

This session provides an introduction to those threats and what techniques are available to mitigate the threats. Learn about storage vulnerabilities in service providers and the cloud models, hear more about solutions available for securing data in service providers and cloud deployments and what legal and regulatory implications there are for cloud and service provider deployments.

The SNIA Academy program has consistently supported the UAE region with events running every year since 2007 and delegates consistently praise the content and approach that the events take –“Datacenter Technology Academy Program is one of the significant IT events in the field of Datacenter trends and technologies. The program is offering a range of technical and business sessions that direct a spot of light on new technologies, new challenges and new opportunities. Attending the Datacenter Technology Academy Program is a valuable action that I am keen to do. The program is adding a real value to my knowledge and ability to review Datacenter technologies and trends and sequentially decision making on my future plans and objectives.” Project Manager, Injazat Data Systems.

Places are free for IT professionals within public and private enterprises and representatives of the IT reseller/integrator and distribution community. Representatives/employees of non-sponsoring IT manufacturers/vendors will be charged a delegate fee to attend.

Registration is now open at: http://www.datacenter-academy.com/site/register.php?id=16

Register for free with promo code D42M12.

Why attend the SNIA Datacenter Technologies Academy?

• First and foremost the event brings a significant level of content that is guaranteed to be vendor-neutral. These presentations are developed by members of the SNIA and reviewed by a wide number of individuals, vendors, consultants, analysts and end-users to ensure they give a broad industry view and are not the views or a single supplier.
• Event sponsors and the association ensure that they have subject-matter-experts on hand to discuss with you the trends and standards being developed and implements in the IT data management sector so that you can get your own questions answered and enter into valuable discussions to help you in your own environment.
• As well as leading vendors and the industry association there will be several local systems integrators and consulting organisations on hand to discuss your requirements in detail.
• The Academy is FREE OF CHRAGE to qualifying IT end-users in the public and private sector from organisations of any size.  A limited number of free places are also available for IT equipment and services resellers.

With only 1 Million Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) homes passed at end-2011, Germany remains one of the European laggards in ultra-fast broadband.

According to exclusive preliminary data revealed today by the FTTH Council Europe during a press conference in Munich, Germany’s FTTH market is dominated by alternative players, often supported by municipalities and utilities, and mostly focused on large cities.

The data, which is collected for the Council on a twice-yearly basis by industry analyst firm IDATE, shows that the number of FTTH/B subscribers in Germany stands at just 166,000. This represents only 0,4% of the country’s households, and is just a drop in the ocean, preventing the majority of German citizens from reaping the socio-economic benefits of FTTH/B access.

German consumers are very slow in adapting to Fibre-to-the-Home high-speed networks. In cities and regions where FTTH or FTTB (Fibre to the Building) is available, only one in six households currently subscribes to the new networks. The lack of interest on the part of the consumers is in part due to existing long-term contracts that bind customers to an internet provider for up to 24 months and to the fact that many of the new connections are not – or badly – marketed and communicated to the end users.

Only FTTH/B can ensure continuously large reliable upload and download bandwidth, combined with high quality of service. But FTTH/B is much more than fast internet: it enables a new world of services and applications in home entertainment, as well as new ways of working and taking care of the sick and the elderly. Alternative technologies using existing copper networks are merely partial and temporary responses, not comparable to future-proof fibre access solutions.

It is widely recognised that broadband, and particularly ultra-fast broadband is a key factor for productivity and economic growth. While politicians, carriers, and organisations in Germany are still discussing the importance of fibre networks, other countries are already rolling out this solution. In Sweden, Norway and Lithuania more than 10% of all households are already using FTTH/B connections. France, the Netherlands, Russia and Turkey also have a considerable head start.

“It remains to be seen whether the year 2012 will mark a change in Germany’s FTTH positioning”, said Hartwig Tauber, Director General of the FTTH Council Europe. “For a large country such as Germany, time is of the essence and the course has to be set today in order to ensure a timely solution for the implementation of future-proof access solutions, particularly if the country is to keep its leading role as the driving force of the European economy!”

The FTTH Conference, which will be taking place at the International Congress Centre Munich (ICM) on 14-16 February 2012 will highlight the many different ways in which FTTH can create social, economic and environmental benefits and cover a wide range of other topics such as financing and regulatory environment. The event’s theme is “Creating a brighter future”.

The FTTH Conference is the largest FTTH event in the world. The conference fee includes entry to all conference sessions, free admission to the exhibition, general catering, all printed documentation and online access to the presentations after the event. Registration to the event is offered free of charge for media representatives.