What’s up with… Verizon, Softbank, Mavenir

  • Verizon gets into the credit card business
  • Softbank is offloading a big stake in T-Mobile USA
  • Mavenir enables Tier 1 RCS interconnectivity

Verizon’s Visa card temptations and Softbank’s US mobile asset sales are the tasty morsels on our news plate today.

  • Verizon has launched its own Visa Card, which is available only to Verizon wireless customers and which makes those customers eligible for discounted unlimited plans – but be sure to note that terms and conditions will apply! 
  • In an effort to balance its books, Softbank is flogging a massive $21 billion stake in T-Mobile US, a move that will reduce its stake from about 24% to just a 9% holding, reports the Nikkei Asian Review. And if it follows up with plans to sell nearly all of its remaining stake later to T-Mobile’s parent operator Deutsche Telekom, it will then hold less than 0.4% of the operator’s stock.  
  • Mavenir says its Mobile Business Messaging Cloud in Europe completed peer-to-peer (P2P) RCS interconnection with the networks of Telefónica, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom Germany in what was “one of the largest RCS carrier interconnections achieved to date, with an estimated addressable market of more than 158 million RCS-upgradeable mobile subscribers in 13 countries.” OK, but how many people are actually using RCS (Rich Communication Service) applications? 
  • Nokia has been busy! It has: Been selected by TOYOTA Production Engineering Corporation (TPEC) to deploy a private wireless network at TPEC’s manufacturing design center in Fukuoka, Japan; been selected as the sole supplier of active FTTH gear by National Broadband Ireland (NBI), which will use the vendor’s tech to provide high-speed fiber broadband connectivity for 540,000 rural premises in the Republic of Ireland; and has been selected by the appropriately-named SDN Communications to help automate the management of the operator’s IP and optical network. Phew! 
  • Microsoft has acquired IoT security specialist CyberX, whose behavioral analytics platform integrates with Azure security to deliver end-to-end security across managed and unmanaged IoT devices.

- The staff, TelecomTV

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