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An iTWire publication www.itwire.com Editor: Beer Friday 05 July 2019

ACMA GIVES THUMBS UP TO 5GHZ NBN MODEMS

CommsWire (ISSN 2202-4549) is published by iTWire Pty Ltd. 18 Lansdown St, Hampton, Vic, 3188 CommsWire/ Editor: Stan Beer Staff writers: Peter Dinham, Alex Zaharov-Reutt, Sam Varghese. Columnist: John de Ridder Advertising: CEO and Editor in Chief, Andrew Matler: [email protected] • Tel: 0412 390 000 ACMA NBN MODEM TESTING SHOWS 5GHZ BAND BETTER FOR WI-FI A test of 43 modems used on fibre-to-the-node and fibre-to-the-building NBN connections indicates that use of the 5GHz band is much better than 2.4GHz when it comes to Wi-Fi throughput. The tests were carried out during December and January in laboratory conditions by a company known as Enex for the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Services from Optus, and iiNet were used for the tests. Both wired and Wi-Fi throughput were tested and the findings indicated that in the former case there was little difference between the various modems, but in the case of Wi-Fi there was a great deal of difference in throughput. Modem performance was also tested through walls, at long distances and in circumstances where interference was present from cabling and common household devices like microwave ovens. While the 43 modems tested spanned a range pf brands, only one, the Linksys X6200 AC750, was unable to connect to any of the test services. Twenty-six of the devices were sourced from electronic retailers with the remaining 17 sourced from 10 NBN retail service providers. Enex found that better Wi-Fi performance could be achieved using a device that used the 802.11ac standard (or next generation 802.11ax, also known as Wi-Fi 6) operating in the 5GHz band. The tests showed that for copper cabling up to 450 metres, most devices were able to achieve 80% of the manufacturer’s advertised line performance. As the length of copper was increased, performance dropped. But the Netcomm N300 NF10WV, a device supplied by Harbour ISP, was an exception as performance dropped sharply at a line length of 450 metres. Sam Varghese

Friday 05 July 2019 No: 190705 iTWire Pty Ltd www.itwire.com page 2 PENTANET TRIPLES SIZE OF NETWORK, SPONSORS PERTH WILDCATS Perth-based Internet start-up Pentanet has revealed its telecommunications network has tripled in size since the same time last year, while claiming to be "one of the fastest growing Internet service providers in the country". The company has expanded from just nine telecommunications towers in mid-2018 to more than 30 towers, in addition to commissioning about 300 kilometres of fibre optic cable across Perth to power its 10Gbps+ network. Managing director and founder Stephen Cornish said: “Pentanet’s services are available from Mindarie in the north of Perth down to Rockingham in the south. We started with just three people and we’ve quickly grown to thirty staff. Thirty-one-year-old Cornish started Pentanet just over two years ago, after he and his gaming friends became "so frustrated with Perth’s slow Internet speeds" that they decided to start building their own telecommunications network". The company said Perth residents collectively gave the company a review score of 4.8/5 stars", while its customer base had "tripled over the last 12 months". Cornish attributed the positive online reviews as one of the biggest factors fuelling the company’s customer growth rate of 20% month-on-month. Pentanet said it had been "investing in developing its own intellectual property to sustain its competitive advantage" and has been "undertaking 3D terrain mapping of its network to custom build software that will allow households to understand the availability and likely performance of Pentanet’s Internet service at their home or business". Cornish said: “We are doing everything we can to make it easier for customers to do business with us." As for the company’s decision to sponsor Perth’s national basketball team, The Wildcats, we're told that it "aligns with Pentanet’s highly localised customer acquisition strategy". “Pentanet is based in the same city as our local team and we want to support the clubs we feel passionate about,” said Cornish. Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Friday 05 July 2019 No: 190705 iTWire Pty Ltd www.itwire.com page 3 MGM $250K CONVERTIBLE NOTE DRAWDOWN TO FUND EXPANSION MGM Wireless, creator of the Spacetalk smartwatch, says it will drawdown a further $250,000 of its existing $2 million convertible note to support expanded distribution in the and UK markets. The technology company said the facility - due to be received later this month - will be drawn to $1.50 million following receipt of the additional funds. MGM said the funds will be used to manufacture additional inventory of the Spcetalkk “children’s phone+watch” required for future and existing distribution arrangements.

As reported by CommsWire, MGM announced in November last year the Spacetalk kids watch was to be distributed and sold in New Zealand by the country’s largest telco Spark under a new master services agreement. MGM described the agreement as another significant milestone for the company with CEO Mark Fortunatow saying “We are tremendously excited to add our first international to our growing network of bricks and mortar distributors”. “Further we see it as a huge endorsement by a leading international telco of the calibre of Spark. “Thanks to Spark, New Zealand parents will now be able to go to any one of their 73 stores across New Zealand, to look, touch and feel our revolutionary kids watch and GPS wearable device.” MGM’s AllMyTribe division developed Spacetalk which allows two-way 3G phone calls and SMS messaging to a parent-controlled list of contacts.

“Importantly, a key safety feature of SPACETALK is that it doesn’t give children access to social media, apps, open internet, YouTube or other such services dangerous to young children,” MGM says. Peter Dinham

Friday 05 July 2019 No: 190705 iTWire Pty Ltd www.itwire.com page 4 LAUNCHES 5G SERVICE ACROSS SEVEN UK CITIES Vodafone has become the second British telecommunications provider to switch on 5G services in the country, unveiling a service across seven UK cities on Wednesday and saying it plans to expand to 27 cities in total throughout Europe. In a statement, the company claimed it would become the first to offer unlimited data on both 4G and 5G when it launches its Vodafone Unlimited service on 10 July. There would be no additional charge for accessing the 5G network and all unlimited SIMs were 5G-ready, the statement added.

EE, which is part of the BT Group, was the first UK operator to switch on 5G, launching its service on 30 May. The switching on of the Vodafone service was also used to demonstrate the ability that 5G has to transmit a sense of touch using haptic technology. Two players from the Wasps rugby union team demonstrated a tackle, despite being more than 160 km apart. Vodafone is a sponsor of the team. Vodafone UK chief executive Nick Jeffery said: “5G will transform the way we live and work. Our customers are streaming over 50% more content today than they did last year, and with 5G the demand for data is only set to increase. "That is why we want to remove the limits on data, so that customers can unlock the full potential of 5G, and we can really propel the UK into the digital age. By offering unlimited plans to our consumer and business customers, we will revolutionise the market. We will give customers all the data they need, when and where they want it.” Vodafone is offering customers the choice of two 5G smartphones: the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 and the Samsung S10 5G, as well as a 5G router, the 5G GigaCube. Sam Varghese

Friday 05 July 2019 No: 190705 iTWire Pty Ltd www.itwire.com page 5 ESIM-BASED DEVICE SHIPMENTS SET TO GROW TO 2B BY 2025 About two billion eSIM-based devices will ship globally by 2025, up from 364 million in 2018, the analyst company Counterpoint Research says, adding that most of these devices would have a hardware chip-based eSIM solution until 2025.

Research analyst Satyajit Sinha said the growth of eSIMs would revolutionise how connectivity across devices would be activated and managed. "The eSIM’s compact form factor offers significant space reduction for device manufacturers along with potentially higher security, re-programmability, and power efficiencies over the traditional SIM card solutions," he said. "For operators, eSIMs can significantly reduce the SIM distribution and activation costs while the potential to generate higher roaming revenues exists.

"Furthermore, eSIMs offer great benefits for consumers and enterprise customers to seamlessly choose, activate, connect, and manage connectivity on their devices.” Sinha said though most current eSIM deployments were proprietary software solutions, hardware-based eSIMS were gaining traction, thanks to Apple, automotive OEMs and wearables. Leading suppliers of hardware-based eSIMs include Infineon, ST Micro, Gemalto, G+D, and Workz while proprietary soft SIM-based eSIM solutions were supplied by RedteaMobile, Truphone, Telna, ARM, roam2free, and others. Counterpoint research director Neil Shah said automotive and enterprise IoT devices would continue to remain high on the eSIM adoption curve in future. "Further, the eSIM activation rate in cellular enterprise IoT devices will also be much higher than consumer IoT devices," he said. "Key drivers are fragmented deployments, module space savings, robust tamper-proof security, flexibility in choosing the best available and competitive seamlessly as well as saving significantly on physical provisioning, and maintenance costs.” The company said adoption of eSIMS in smartphones should be the main driver of volume growth as big players like Apple and Google adopted the technology. eSIM adoption by mobile hotspots, routers, connected PCs, drones and smartwatches would exhibit a higher compound annual growth rate due to their smaller base. Sam Varghese

Friday 05 July 2019 No: 190705 iTWire Pty Ltd www.itwire.com page 6