Eurobites: Eutelsat OneWeb lands Taiwan deal with Chunghwa Telecom

London-based Eutelsat OneWeb has secured a satellite connectivity contract with Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom. As part of the deal, Chunghwa Telecom plans to establish a satellite service terminal testing center in Taiwan with Eutelsat OneWeb to help integrate domestic and international satellite service resources. Eutelsat OneWeb's low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation is made up of more than 600 satellites. (See OneWeb, Eutelsat merge to form integrated GEO-LEO satellite firm.)

Sparkle, Telecom Italia's international services unit, is expanding its network footprint in South Africa with the opening of two new points of presence (PoPs), one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg. The PoPs will be integrated with Sparkle's global IP backbone, Seabone, and the Equiano subsea cable, which connects South Africa to Nigeria and Portugal.

In related matters, the Italian government believes the planned sale of Telecom Italia's fixed-line network to US investment firm KKR has made it more likely that the network could come under state control in due course. As Reuters reports, the KKR deal involves the Italian Treasury taking a 20% stake in the network, which observers have said could enable the Treasury to become the dominant shareholder if KKR decides to sell up in a few years' time.

Ericsson has added two new processors to its RAN compute range which, says the vendor, offer four times the capacity of previous-generation equivalents and can support up to six 4G and 5G modes in a single unit. The additional modes facilitated by the RAN Processor 6672 and Radio Processor 6372 will allow service providers to run more technologies simultaneously on one RAN compute board, says Ericsson.

Nordic operator Tele2 has signed a deal with irritatingly named IoT company TH1NG to bolster its presence in the corporate and public sector markets. TH1NG owns the IoT Open platform.

Xantaro has launched a new street cabinet that it says will allow altnets to extend FTTH connectivity for communities across the UK in both rural and urban areas. A single cabinet can serve more than 8,000 homes, says the company.