Networking

Singtel says its standalone 5G coverage in Singapore has exceeded 95%, three years ahead of the government’s 2025 target. The local telco is looking to drive adoption amongst businesses with use cases spanning the public, transport, and tourism sectors. Its nationwide standalone 5G network currently covers more than 1,300 outdoor locations and 400 in-building sites, including underground, according to Singtel. The mobile carrier was awarded the 3.5GHz and millimetre wave spectrum in June 2020, when Singapore’s industry regulator Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) handed out two nationwide 5G licences. An additional 2.1GHz spectrum was issued in November 2021. Singtel’s 5G infrastructure runs on Ericsson equipment, while joint 5G licensees StarHub and M1 have built their networks on Nokia. All three telcos previously launched their respective consumer services, running these on 5G non-standalone architectures. Licensees are expected to obtain at least 95% standalone network coverage by end-2025.In its statement Friday, Singtel said it was looking to drive 5G adoption amongst businesses with use cases that included the public sector. The telco launched a 5G testbed in the southern island of Sentosa last year alongside several government agencies.The Singapore government last October unveiled plans for 5G pilots across various industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, and construction, with 15 live trials running on Sentosa. It said it was targeting to ramp up this figure to at least 30 by the first half of 2023. Singtel also inked various partnerships with industry players, including Micron and Hyundai to roll out 5G services that aimed to enhance operational efficiencies and decision making. These initiatives would run on Singtel’s Paragon orchestration platform, which the carrier said pulled together essential resources across 5G and edge computing into “one touchpoint” to ease deployment and integration for businesses. In April last year, it introduced a “portable 5G platform” to offer 5G network resources anywhere, with an available power source, on which enterprise customers could deploy and test their apps. Tucked inside a suitcase-sized container, it would enable organisations to experience 5G capabilities and test use cases on-site, in their own premises, Singtel said.”Now that our nationwide 5G coverage is in place, we expect commercial adoption to accelerate,” said its group enterprise and regional data centre CEO, Bill Chang. He added that its 5G infrastructure supported functions such as real-time computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge, which would facilitate mission-critical enterprise applications that included automated inspection in factories, smart city planning, and connected autonomous vehicles. RELATED COVERAGE More

Pros Reliable and speedy connection User-friendly interface No activity logs Available on most platforms A large number of servers Variety of useful features Cons Not the cheapest Only six simultaneous connections Some features not available for Apple productsNordVPN More

Looking for a smart home hub needs to be done thoughtfully seeing as a hub can become your right-hand-man for the foreseeable future. If used to its potential, it can be your go-to for anything from setting routines and automations to maintaining your calendar, getting you an Uber, and giving you recipes. So we chose these smart hubs by testing for best reliability, fast response times and load times when you open the app or make a command, user interface, how easy setup and adding devices is, among other things. Compatibility across brandsWhether you’re a fan of Apple or Alexa, compatibility across brands is certain to be something you’re looking for in a hub. When you make a run to the hardware store and decide to buy a smart bulb, you don’t want to worry about the fact that there’s only two overpriced models compatible with your home automation system and wonder what the quality is like. This is why the best hubs are the ones that have the widest range of compatibility across brands on the market. User application and speedWhichever hub you choose to buy will determine what application you’ll download and use on your smartphone to control your home. So while we chose the best smart home hub, which is the device itself that you use to set up your smart home and kept it separate from a home automation system, which is the platform itself where you control your smart home, the user interface is a pretty big part in our decision.The speed with which your smart devices respond to the app on your smartphone is a big part of everyday use. There’s no use having motion alerts on your security camera just to have it take a whole minute or two just to load the video feed on the app. We chose the home hubs with the best user experience on the market.CostWhen choosing these smart home hubs, cost was also a determining factor, both in the short and long term. Startup cost is obviously important, and most home hubs available retail for less than $150 nowadays, but you also want to consider what devices are compatible with it and what the cost of those devices are. This is why Echos are a pretty affordable option, since Amazon has low cost smart home devices like Blink, for example, with the option for higher-end ones like Ring. Built to last, figuratively speakingIn doing home automation, we’ve seen the birth of smart home hubs and the death of them as well. So we decided on the smart home hubs that are still relevant, meaning many users are still active and compatible devices are still being actively manufactured for them. No one wants to invest hundreds of dollars in a technology that will be obsolete in a year’s time. More

Getty Images/iStockphoto The vast majority of Brazilian students at public schools lack broadband access or personal computers at home. This is one of the findings of a new study published by the research arm of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Cetic.br, on the use of technology in education in 2021. Conducted since 2010, the TIC […] More

VPNs are resource-intensive and can take a huge toll on your network bandwidth, which is why you should only employ them when you need them. Getty Images Welcome to another installment of Ask ZDNet, where we tackle the questions even Google can’t solve.   In the mailbag this week: Why should I consider a VPN?  […] More

Pros Wi-Fi 6 and 5G mobile broadband Easy-to-use iOS/Android app Fast, far-reaching wi-fi performance Cons Expensive Security features and parental controls require additional subscriptions Lacks advanced features for IT managers Netgear has an extensive range of premium priced Orbi mesh networking systems that are well designed, easy to use and deliver good performance, making them a good – if pricey — option for both offices and homes.   That’s particularly true of the latest addition to the range, the Orbi 5G WiFi 6 Mesh System (NBK752), which combines high-speed Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) connectivity with 5G mobile broadband to provide a ‘failsafe’ backup in case you lose your main internet connection at a critical moment.  More

Optus soon will have more autonomy to run its enterprise business, giving the Australian telco direct accountability of how it wants to navigate the unit’s growth path. Its enterprise division would be transferred from Optus’ parent company Singtel, so it would have “more operational autonomy” with the unit under its direct management, Singtel said in a statement Wednesday. Optus’ enterprise revenue clocked at AU$1.21 billion ($843.69 million) in its financial year, ended March 2022.Effective from July 1, the move is part of Singtel’s reorganisation efforts that began last year to “decentralise” the Singapore telco’s organisational structure and “empower” its businesses to tap commercial synergies and capabilities for growth. Singtel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon said this was essential in the current volatile macro-economic environment where business units needed greater independence and agility to better navigate the market.Yuen said: “Optus has been part of the Singtel stable for two decades and a leading player in the Australian consumer market. Given the hyper digitalisation that enterprises are currently experiencing, this is also timely as Optus can focus on advancing its growth as a B2B (business-to-business) player.”Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin noted that a “more unified and collaborative” model would allow the Australian telco to support its enterprise customers’ localised needs and push products and services more quickly to the local market.  She added that the company not only would have the autonomy to make decisions quickly, but also still be able to tap Singtel’s global reach and knowledge.Singtel last year kickstarted a business transformation it dubbed a “strategic reset”, which also saw its ICT business unit NCS spun off from its enterprise business and positioned as a pan-Asia B2B digital services provider. NCS’ growth strategy was focused on Australia and Greater China, as well as on diversifying beyond its stronghold in Singapore’s public sector into the enterprise space.According to Singtel, these efforts had pushed its digital revenue to account for almost half of overall revenue in the last fiscal year. In its announcement Wednesday, the telco also announced that Bill Chang would assume a new role as CEO of the group’s data centre business, effective July 1. Chang would retain his current role as CEO of Singtel’s enterprise unit. Both its data centre unit and NCS had been earmarked as growth engines for Singtel’s digital businesses. NCS last October acquired a majority stake in Australian cloud consultancy, Eighty20 Solutions, as part of efforts to expand its footprint in the country. The move followed the purchase of another Australia-based cloud services vendor, Riley, which service offerings were specialised on Google platforms and comprised cloud-native transformation, data supply chain, and cloud operations. Singtel in February unveiled plans to spend at least SG$2 billion ($1.49 billion) to redevelop its global headquarters, pitching the new site as a smart building that would showcase sustainable workspaces for employees and future tenants. Called Comcentre, the building has sat on its current plot since 1979 and occupies an area of 19,252 square metres. RELATED COVERAGE More

NurPhoto / Getty About once a day I get a message from someone asking for my help with restoring their Instagram account. Like me, they did all the right security things. They used two-factor authentication (2FA). They jumped through the hoops to restore their hacked Instagram account. None of it worked, so they ask me […] More