Bharti Airtel has trialled and subsequently deployed a new technology for wireless backhaul. The technology, free-space optical communications (FSOC), has been pioneered by Taara - a division of X, the Moonshot Factory of Alphabet. This case-study report explains FSOC, outlines Bharti Airtel's deployment of the technology, and assesses FSOC's viability as an alternative transport solution.

Unmanned/uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, continue to be a promising future means of transport of goods and people and enabler of transformational applications. The mobile industry is becoming increasingly relevant to and involved with UAVs and this analysis elaborates on the opportunity, as well as the challenges, that mobile-connected UAVs present for mobile operators.

In this edition of the Region in Focus, we examine the strong start to 2019 made by US operators. We also explore how unlimited data plans threaten to destabilise the trend of strong mobile service revenue growth in Canada and the challenges around the affordability of services in the Caribbean.

There are clear social and economic benefits of connectivity for rural areas, but the costs of - and returns from - providing the underlying infrastructure have proved stubbornly unfavourable. Several factors have raised the profile and urgency of this issue over the last 12 months: political championing, 5G rollouts, the rising value of fibre, and altnets challenging incumbent wholesalers.

MWC Las Vegas 2024 saw three days of meetings, demos, keynotes and engaging content. Beyond the broad enterprise 5G theme, three areas of insight stood out: AI, IoT and non-terrestrial network (NTN) development.