Thai regulator threatens to ban Pokemon Go
Thailand’s telecoms regulator has threatened to ban Pokemon Go in the country if the creator, Niantic, doesn’t follow its request to create no-go zones at sensitive locations, such as government buildings, temples, highways and railways.

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) contacted Niantic last week and has given it until 17 August to comply, the Bangkok Post reported.

SKT expands 5G partnership with Verizon
South Korea’s SK Telecom (SKT) announced it is partnering with US-based Verizon to drive standardisation and to conduct joint 5G studies.

The two operators, which recently signed a deal at SKT’s headquarters in Seoul, said they will co-develop “5G technical specifications into global standards and conduct joint studies to identify 5G use cases and applications”.

The have been discussing 5G requirements and technical specifications since October 2015 and in February, together with other operators, formed a global initiative called the 5G Open Trial Specification Alliance.

The two companies also agreed to strengthen their cooperation in the Open Compute Project and the Mobile Central Office Rearchitected as a Datacentre (M-CORD) project.

Taiwan’s APT deploys dual-network IoT platform
Asia Pacific Telecom (APT) has rolled out what it says is Taiwan’s first dual-network Internet of Things (IoT) platform.

The platform, dubbed “IoT by Gt Smart Life”, combines a low power wide area (LPWA) network based on LoRa technology with the operator’s 4G network to support a wide range of IoT applications.

APT has been partnering with Cisco, Jasper, Actility and IBM Bluemix to develop the dual-network platform over the past two years.

The operator, one of the smallest in the country with a 9 per cent market share, said it has rolled out 500 LoRa hotspots in Taipei and Taoyuan.

China Telecom, Nokia sign 4G deal
China Telecom signed an agreement with Nokia to expand its 4G coverage and capacity in 19 provinces to keep up with soaring demand for 4G data, which jumped six-fold last year as its 4G users increased to 90 million.

The rollout includes Nokia’s Flexi MultiRadio 10 base stations as well as project management, network design and installation, and hardware and software maintenance services.

China Telecom, the country’s third largest operator with 207 million total mobile connections (but second largest 4G operator), plans to launch voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services next year using Nokia gear covered in the deal.