Singtel to launch VoWi-Fi in August
Singtel, Singapore’s largest mobile operator, plans to roll out the city-state’s first commercial Voice-over-Wi-Fi service in August.

The announcement follows the success of heterogenous network (HetNet) trials in Jurong Lake district that confirmed that calls and texts can be sent over Wi-Fi in areas where mobile signals are weak. The trial was done in collaboration with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and other mobile operators.

Singtel said VoWi-Fi will improve indoor coverage, particularly in tall buildings and basements, and users will be able to make uninterrupted calls as they move between cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

Spark claims top spot by revenue
New Zealand operator Spark claims it is now the country’s number one mobile company by revenue, pipping Vodafone New Zealand, which is the largest mobile player by subscribers.

According to documents made available for Vodafone’s planned merger with Sky TV, its mobile revenue was NZD1.065 billion ($713 million) in the 12 months to 30 June 2016. Spark said it expects its mobile revenue for the same period to exceed NZD1.1 billion, although noted that full details won’t be published until the annual results announcement in August.

Vodafone had 2.4 million mobile connections at the end of Q1, for a 40 per cent market share, while Spark had 2.2 million, according to GSMA Intelligence.

Foxconn looks to expand cooperation with LeEco
Foxconn chairman Terry Gou recently visited a LeEco “experience shop” in Shenzhen with a group of the company’s executives to explore expanding the contract manufacturer’s cooperation with the smartphone newcomer.

LeEco, also know as the “Netflix of China”, is promoting the LeEco ecosystem, which covers everything from smartphones and TVs to movies and TV content to self-driving electric cars, DigiTimes reported. Its business model is to bundle paid content subscriptions with its platforms and devices.

Foxconn manufactures many of LeEco’s devices.

ZTE completes 5G high-frequency test in 15GHz band
Chinese vendor ZTE in partnership with China Mobile Research Institute in Shanghai announced they completed prototype verification and performance testing of key 5G high-frequency technology in the 15GHz band.

The joint test verified multiple technical performance indicators, including indoor transmission performance of the 5G high-frequency prototype, single-user peak rate, transmission rate in line-of-sight/non line-of-sight (LOS/NLOS) scenarios and indoor penetration loss and coverage.

The test achieved a single-user peak rate of more than 3.7Gb/s and service transmission performance for direct wave, reflection and transmission scenarios were deemed good, ZTE said in a statement.

ZTE’s 5G high-frequency prototype runs on the 15GHz carrier and has a bandwidth of 500MHz.