What’s up with… Altiostar, Qualcomm, Etiya, CSG

• Altiostar’s vRAN has been deployed in India
• Qualcomm confident about 5G in 2020
• Etiya and CSG add to cloud-native BSS/OSS push

Here’s what tickled our news fancy today!

• Altiostar says Indian operator Bharti Airtel has deployed its open vRAN technology in its 4G network. The operator’s CTO, Randeep Sekhon, noted that Airtel is "consistently strengthening our network architecture with innovative technology break-through. An Open vRAN is one such solution which is essential for the deployment of next-generation 4G and 5G technologies efficiently as we take mobile broadband to the masses.” See this press release for more details.

• Qualcomm appears confident that 5G device sales will hold up for the full year, despite the impact of Covid-19: See this Marketwatch article that picks out the highlights from Qualcomm’s fiscal second quarter that ended March 29, and check out this press release for the full details from the wireless chip giant.

• Telecom software vendor Etiya has made its suite of OSS and BSS applications available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company has announced. 

• CSG has unveiled a cloud-native addition to its BSS offerings, dubbed CSG Ascendon Rating & Charging, which is available on AWS. 

• Ericsson has provided details of its 5G radio access network (RAN) and 5G core engagement with China Mobile following the operator’s contract awards for its standalone rollout. The Swedish giant has also been crowing about some of the 5G deals it has won across Europe.

• Microsoft reported a 39% increase in cloud revenues to $13.3 billion during the first three months of this year. For the full details on its latest performance, see this announcement.

• Revenues were down at Dutch incumbent KPN for the first quarter of this year, but cost-cutting helped it become more profitable, with operating profits climbing 14% year-on-year to €216 million. The operator has been investing in fiber access lines, and can now offer FTTH service to more than 2.5 million households, but noted the “speed of the mobile network modernization is impacted by COVID-19 measures as indoor and rooftop sites are less accessible.” KPN is yet to launch its 5G service. Full details can be found in this report.   

• Lower first quarter revenues have also been reported by Proximus, Belgium’s national operator, and Swisscom, where intense competition is putting pressure on tariffs and sales. It hasn’t been a fantastic start to the year for many of Europe’s national operators.

• Netcracker has landed a deal for its Digital Marketplace platform with European IT services and systems integration specialist Bechtle.

• Twitter saw a surge in usage during the first three months of this year but experienced a significant dip in advertising revenues during the final weeks of March, which suggests the social media giant could be in for a tough few months financially. However, Facebook also reported a tough March in terms of ad sales, but reported greater “stability” in April when it shared its latest financials. So who knows, right?

• White box vendor Lanner is adding UBiqube’s Integrated Automation Platforms (IAP) software onto its NCA-1515 universal CPE platform to enable the onboarding of virtual network functions (VNFs) from any vendor. For more details, see this press release. 

• The staff, TelecomTV