Indosat trims 4G capex, prepares for commercial launch
Indosat, Indonesia’s second largest operator, has reduced its 4G capex for next year by nearly 7 per cent to IDR7 trillion ($477 million).

The operator, with almost a 22 per cent market share, has invested heavily in upgrading its network over the last two years as it gears up for a full commercial launch next month. Indosat, along with the country’s other operators, has rolled out 4G services on the 1.8GHz band in selected cities and regions over the past few months.

Indosat had about 260,000 4G connections at the end of Q3, according to GSMA Intelligence.

Hanoi holds electronics recycling drive
Vietnam’s capital Hanoi held a recycling drive for used electronic equipment on 26 September to encourage the public to build a greener Vietnam through safe electronic waste recycling.

The programme called Viet Nam Recycles was organised by the Ha Noi Department of Natural Resources and Environment and sponsored by Apple and HP, Viet Nam News reported.

The free take-back programme collected equipment at five locations, then sorted and dismantled the material at a designated facility to maximise material recovery.

Viet Nam Recycles is run by the Viet Nam Recycling Platform, a consortium of manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment founded by HP PPS Asia Pacific and Apple South Asia.

LG Uplus launches VoLTE with HK’s SmarTone
South Korea’s LG Uplus introduced voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) roaming for its customers travelling in Hong Kong on SmarTone’s network.

The service is supported by Syniverse’s IPX network, which claims to allow operators to interconnect with nearly every LTE network worldwide. An estimated 25 operators have launched VoLTE.

The two operators have entered into a bilateral roaming partnership.

South Korea’s third largest mobile operator launched VoLTE roaming with Japan’s KDDI in April.

Globe’s AdSpark signs partnership deal with Wattpad
AdSpark, Globe Telecom’s mobile-first digital marketing unit, signed an advertising partnership deal with Wattpad, an app that lets people discover and share stories about their favaourite topics.

Wattpad, founded in 2006, has more than 40 million users a month, with 90 per cent of traffic coming from mobile devices. The Philippines represents Wattpad’s second largest user base worldwide. Filipinos spend 25 million minutes a day reading Wattpad stories, with the majority of users under 30 years old.

The exclusive deal will enable AdSpark to help brands curate sponsored reading lists and collaborate with Wattpad writers to amplify promotional content, said Bela Gupta D’Souza, director of AdSpark.

US, China account for 54% of cloud/internet data centres
While the US accounts for 44 per cent of major cloud and internet data centre sites, China is number two with a 10 per cent share, followed by Australia, the UK, Japan and Singapore, each with a 4-5 per cent share.

The research is based on analysis of the data centre footprint of 13 of the world’s largest cloud and internet service firms in Q2, which together have 150 data centres, according to Synergy Research.