Friday Network News: April 26

Reliance Jio Infocomm has signed a deal with Bharti Airtel for its submarine cable network in the Asia-Pacific. In a joint statement, the companies said that Airtel's cable would provide data connectivity for the telecommunications arm of Reliance Industries utilising a dedicated fibre pair. [read more]

Tele2 Netherlands will delay the launch of a 4G network until 2014, a company spokesperson told reporters. The company won mobile spectrum in an auction late last year and a launch-date for 4G services had initially been set for 2013. [read more]

Qatari operator Ooredoo has launched its 4G mobile broadband service in Doha, Qatar, after partnering with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) for the LTE network implementation. The 4G service is designed to deliver speeds between three and six times faster than the existing 3G service. [read more]

Tata Communications has launched its international HD voice termination service. The service is designed to enable MNOs to connect HD calls to HD-compatible destinations across the globe through end-to-end IP, and the company claims it will allow their customers to receive a full HD experience. [read more]

Vodafone New Zealand has announced its first rural trial of 4G services in Lake Brunner, located in the country’s South Island. The trial will run until the end of July using 700MHz technology, and is expected to provide valuable data to support the eventual roll-out of 4G across rural New Zealand. [read more]

Middle East operator du has announced it has selected Alcatel-Lucent to build the second phase of its 100G optical network throughout UAE. du selected the French vendor in an effort to dramatically boost speed and capacity of its existing network, and address increased data traffic generated by smartphones and tablets. [read more]

The Caribbean arm of Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), LIME, has introduced its payTV service in the Cayman Islands. LIME is reportedly the first telecommunications operator to offer ‘quad play’ in the Caribbean, and the service, LIME TV, is expected to increase the loyalty of its customer base. [read more]

BT has confirmed it is searching for a partner to help roll out a domestic mobile network following its £200 million investment in UK 4G spectrum. The company has opened tender for an operator to provide BT mobile services to customers in consumer, in and out of the home, and business markets, along with its own staff. [read more]

Kenya Data Networks has claimed it is the first operator connecting east African capitals Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Kigali on a single fibre network. Data centre provider KDN has extended its network in an effort to increase capacity and reduce latency and the additional fibre link spans 120km from Nairobi to Namanga. [read more]