The company has signed an exclusive agreement to show La Liga games featuring Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and other stars for the next three years. The deal will allow Facebook to show all 380 matches for the new season, which starts on Friday, to users in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Facebook will show the games for free to its 348 million users in the region, including 270 million in India. The company did not disclose how much it was paying for the rights, which cost Sony Pictures Network $32m (£25m) last time they were for sale in 2014.

Facebook will show the games for free to its 348 million users in the region, including 270 million in India

Facebook and other US technology companies have been buying up rights to popular sports for streaming services. Competition from cash-rich US tech companies is a threat to cable and satellite TV broadcasters, which have used sport as a way to attract and keep customers.

Facebook pays about $1m a game to show 25 Major League Baseball games worldwide for no fee, supported by advertising. From next season in the UK, Amazon will bundle 20 English Premier League matches with its Prime subscription service. Sky and BT currently share the rights to show live games on TV.

Peter Hutton, Facebook’s director of global live sports, told Reuters its La Liga streams would be free of advertising at first but that it was considering its options. He said the La Liga deal was an experiment and not part of a land grab of sports rights.

Barcelona fans in India will now be able to watch Barcelona for free on Facebook

“This is one deal,” Hutton told Reuters. “It’s not something that is a big threat to broadcast world.”

The deal is La Liga’s latest effort to expand its fanbase in India, where it opened an office in New Delhi in 2016.

Jose Antonio Cachaza, La Liga’s country manager for India, said: “This is the first step for us. We’re excited to see it and we want make it as successful as possible so we can unlock other territories around the world.”

India and the surrounding south Asian countries are a crucial untapped market for Facebook, which has hit saturation point in the US and most of Western Europe. The social network already has over 241 million users in India alone – the largest single country user base for Facebook, exceeding its 240 million US users – but there is plenty of room for growth.

India’s population passed 1.3 billion people in 2017 and is expected to hit 1.5 billion by 2030. Meanwhile about 500 million people in India are expected to be internet-connected this year, in a country that is primarily mobile first and has relatively affordable mobile data.

Facebook has already had some setbacks in India as it strives to reach chief executive Mark Zuckberg’s goal of connecting “the next five billion people”. In a coalition with Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera, Nokia and Qualcomm, called Internet.org, Facebook launched its Free Basics service in India in 2015 with local mobile network Reliance Communications.

Real Madrid will also be among the teams which will be watched

The service provided free internet access to select sites, including Facebook but excluding competitors. It was banned from India by the nation’s Telecom Regulatory Authority in 2016 for breaching net neutrality rules.

Since then Facebook has launched its Watch video on-demand service, Watch, in the US – a rival to Google’s YouTube and Netflix, it features original shows viewed through its site.

Facebook is said to be planning to launch Watch in India this year, according to a report from local news outlet The Ken, as a way to entice the other 250 million-plus internet-connected people in India on to its main social-networking platform.

Last year Facebook failed in its attempts to acquire the rights to Indian Premier League cricket with a $610m bid. The La Liga rights may make a suitable alternative vehicle with which to launch Watch in India.

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The post Facebook to stream free La Liga football matches in Asian sub-continent first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

5G innovation aims at higher capacity speed during downloads than current 4G.

MTN in partnership with networking equipment provider Ericsson launched the first 5G trial in South Africa last November and found that the technology is at least 100 times faster than 4G

The group unveiled Africa’s quickest mobile download. This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Ericsson at AfricaCom, an industry event in Cape Town, in late 2017 to collaborate on the roll-out of 5G.

5G innovation aims at higher capacity than current 4G‚ allowing a higher density of mobile broadband users‚ and supporting device-to-device‚ more reliable‚ and massive machine communications.

The research and development also aims at lower latency than 4G equipment and lower battery consumption‚ for better implementation of the internet.

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“This is the highest achieved on a mobile network in Africa,” MTN said in a statement.The 5G trial is based on commercially available baseband hardware and 5G mobility is supported, the group said.

“MTN has tested a range of 5G use cases and applications in its test lab proof of concept in South Africa, which will lead to commercial deployment in the near future,” a statement said.

The 5G trial has achieved download speeds of more than 20 gigabits per second in its first trial of fifth-generation (5G) technology.

“This is the highest achieved on a mobile network in Africa‚” the service provider said in a statement on Monday.

MTN Group chief technology and information officer Babak Fouladi said at a press conference at the operator’s Fairland, Johannesburg head office on Monday that its plan is to have everyone in South Africa connected to mobile broadband, including in rural areas. He said MTN will do this by building a ubiquitous 3G network covering the entire country, while offering the latest technologies based on 4G/LTE and — hopefully soon 5G — in urban areas.

However, MTN South Africa chief technology and information officer Giovanni Chiarelli emphasised that the operator is hamstrung in its roll-out plans until it can get access to additional radio frequency spectrum.

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The post MTN launches 5G technology trial in Africa first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.