Reliance plans to offer its services through an all-LTE (Long Term Evolution) network- its voice services will be through the so-called VoLTE (voice over LTE). “India and Indians cannot afford to be left behind in this new world. India is ranked around 150 in the Internet and mobile broadband penetration out of 230 countries,Jio is conceived to change this.1.3 billion Indians cannot be left behind as the world enters a new era,” RIL chairman, Mukesh Ambani said in a statement issued by the company. (Source: indianexpress.com)

Some of the most significant changes in these adoption patterns are taking place among African Americans, those with relatively low household incomes and those living in rural areas. Nearly 15 percent of American adults report they have become “cord cutters” – meaning they have abandoned paid cable or satellite television service.“Many of these ‘cord cutters’ say that the availability of televised content from the internet and other sources is a factor in their move away from subscription television services,” the survey pointed out. (Source: Telecomlead)

The launch of Idea 4G LTE services will further expand Idea's wireless broadband network and propel the brand to an even higher growth trajectory, consolidating its market position," Himanshu Kapania, managing director at Idea Cellular, said in a statement. The telco said it will rapidly expand 4G services in all southern India metros and large towns including Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Mangalore and Coimbatore by March. Idea also plans to roll out 4G services in a phased manner by March in markets such as Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra & Goa, Punjab, Haryana, Northeast and Odisha.

Market leader Bharti AirtelBSE -0.71 % was first to launch 4G service in India in 2012 and has since expanded it to over 300 cities and towns, while No. 2 Vodafone recently launched in Kerala. Jio, telecom unit of Reliance Industries and the only pan-India holder of 4G spectrum in the 2300 Mhz band, plans to launch complimentary 4G services for all group employees on December 27 and scale up in April-May. (Source: Economic Times)

The 50GbE Boost test system used in the interoperability test, provided full wire-rate packet generation and analysis at 50Gb/s. The 50GbE Boost tests layer 1 to layer 3 quality and highlights error-free performance with different combinations of streams, frame lengths and rates by delivering per-port and per-stream statistics such as latency, frames out of sequence, frame counts and rates, L1 PRBS capability and layer 1 statistics to help debug physical link problems. By demonstrating this ability during the interoperability test, Spirent continues to build on its leadership in high speed Ethernet, showcased in its upcoming QUINT-speed MX3, FX3, DX3 module series for 100/50/40/25/10GbE.

“According to Dell’Oro Group 2015 data, 50Gbps servers will represent more than 30 percent of server shipments in 2019, up from essentially zero percent today,” says Abhitesh Kastuar, General Manager of Spirent’s Cloud and IP business. “With virtualized applications driving server performance it makes sense that access speeds are increasing from 10 to 25 and further to 50Gbps. I believe the rapid adoption of 25G and 50G server links will drive the move to 100GbE and beyond for the uplinks from the leaf nodes to the spine nodes.”

The 25G/50G Ethernet Consortium specification for Gigabit Ethernet (50GbE) benefits cloud and enterprise data center environments with high bandwidth server workloads or very low latency requirements. The 25G/50G Ethernet Consortium was formed to enable 25GE and 50GE solutions and promote standardization efforts. The 50GbE specification cost-effectively increases network bandwidth to allow for cloud service providers to increase the performance and breadth of their services. Because of the work of the 25G/50G consortium, and accelerated by the industry’s work on 100GbE, the basic building blocks for 50 GbE are now in place. With its new 50G Boost program, Spirent is providing a path forward for industry leaders to get their initial 50 Gigabit Ethernet products to market. (Source: Convergence Plus Bureau)

Says Rajdip Gupta, Co-founder & CEO, Routesms Solutions Limited, “We are focusing very strongly to get enroll 150 MNOs as a GDCPs by the end of this financial year. This will give us unmatched reach, stability and delivery rates. Partnering with T-Mobile gives us more intimate access to T-Mobile’s vast subscribers base as well as increases our coverage reach to countries such Austria, Croatia (as Hrvatski telekom), Czech Republic, Albania, Germany (as Telekom), Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Island.”

He added, “Our sustained effort in getting more MNOs onboard has helped us become an automatic choice for enterprises, MNOs and resellers alike when it comes to any messaging requirement worldwide.” (Source: Convergence Plus Bureau)

1. Mobile threats will become more than just headline-grabbers
2016 will see an increase in the number of Android exploits becoming weaponized (as opposed to bugs like Stagefright which was heavily reported earlier in 2015 but was never fully exploited). There are significant vulnerabilities in the Android platform which may take months to patch. SophosLabs has already seen samples that go to extreme lengths to avoid App Store detection and filtering—giving malicious Apps a better chance of surviving on App stores. iOS is also likely to get into the line of fire as we’ve already seen the Apple App Store get hit a few times this year.

2. IoT platforms – not yet the weapon of choice for commercial malware authors – but business beware
Advent of IoT (Internet of Things) has already produced scary stories on webcams, baby monitors, children’s toys and even cars being easy targets for hackers. However, we won’t see widespread IoT exploits anytime soon. What we will see is more research and Proof of Concepts demonstrating that non-vendor code can be installed on these devices because of insufficient validations (lack of code-signing, susceptibility to Man in the Middle-class exploitations) by the IoT vendors. We can also expect an increase in data-harvesting/leakage attacks against IoT devices to eventually attain information like video/audio feeds, stored files, credential information for logging into cloud services, etc. Notably, security concerns on IoT will move beyond industrial control systems (e.g. SCADA) and threats may target other connected / IoT devices.

3. SMBs will become a bigger target for cybercriminals
A recent PwC report revealed that 74% of Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) experienced a security issue in the last 12 months, and this number will only increase due to SMBs being perceived as easy targets.

4. Data protection legislation changes will lead to increased fines for the unprepared
In 2016, the pressure on business to secure customers’ data will increase as the EU data protection legislation looms closer. Fear of facing penalties is likely to have far reaching impact on how businesses deal with security. Two major changes will be the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Investigatory Powers Bill in the UK. The EU Data Protection regulation will come fully into force across Europe by the end of 2017, so companies need to start preparing in 2016.

5. VIP Spoofware will raise more havoc
We’ll see a growth in the use of VIP spoof wire transfers as we move into 2016. Hackers are becoming increasingly talented at infiltrating business networks to gain visibility of personnel and their responsibilities, and then using this information to trick staff for financial gain.

6. Ransomware to gain momentum
Ransomware will continue to dominate in 2016. Attackers will increasingly threaten to go public with data, rather than just taking it hostage and we have already seen websites being held ransom to DDoS. Many Ransomware families are using Darknets for either command or control or for receiving payments, as we saw with the likes of CryptoWall, TorrentLocker, TeslaCrypt, Chimera, and many more in 2015.

7. Social engineering to remain lethal as ever
As always, Social Engineering attacks will continue to remain a major concern for security practitioners, as attackers continue to utilize same old practices for weaving their attacks. This again emphasizes the need for effective training and awareness programs to counter such attacks.

8. Both bad and good guys will be more coordinated
The bad guys will continue to use coordinated attacks but the cyber security industry will make significant strides forward with information sharing.

9. Commercial malware authors will continue to invest heavily
Commercial malware authors will continue to reinvest at ever greater rates, bringing them towards the ‘spending power’ of nation-state activity. This includes purchasing zero days. These bad guys have lots of cash and they are spending it wisely.

10. Exploit kits will continue to dominate on the web
Exploit kits, like Angler (by far the most prevalent today) and Nuclear, are arguably the biggest problem we have on the web today as far as malware goes and this looks set to continue thanks to the thousands and thousands of poorly secured websites out there on the internet. Cyber criminals will exploit where they can most easily make money and therefore exploit kits have simply become stock tools of the trade, used by criminals to attempt to infect users with their chosen malware. (Source: Convergence Plus Bureau)

Passengers on the Qatar Airways flights will be made aware that the network is available with the Ooredoo logo on the log-in screen, crew announcements, in-seat pocket information and on-flight screen adverts. (Source: Telecom lead)