Monday, October 15, 2012

Hyundai Partners with Broadcom on In-Vehicle Network


Broadcom announced a joint development agreement with Hyundai Motor to power the next-generation connected car, integrating infotainment, telematics and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) features such as surround view parking and lane departure warning.

The in-vehicle network will be based on Broadcom's BroadR-Reach Ethernet technology, which supports the IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging (AVB)  standard, a key technology for achieving high quality audio and video transmission in automotive by providing guaranteed quality of service (QoS), frame synchronization and timing necessary to stream professional-quality audio and video traffic.

"Hyundai is confident about the viability of Ethernet in the car and looks forward to closely collaborating with Broadcom to develop an Ethernet network for Hyundai vehicles. The in-vehicle Ethernet network will enable key features including infotainment, lane departure warning, park assist and telematics to deliver greater value to our customers.  We chose to partner with Broadcom as they deliver superior Ethernet-based innovation to enrich the driver and passenger experience," stated SunJai Lee, Infortainment Design Division Leader, Hyundai Motor.

http://www.broadcom.com

Procera Builds Momentum with MSOs

Procera Networks announced a $1.4 million follow-on order from an existing Tier 1 Cable Multi-System Operator (MSO) in the U.S. for its PacketLogic products and services.

Procera said it continues to build deployment momentum across five of the top ten MSOs in the U.S.

Procera solutions are currently installed in over 30 North American MSOs that represent an installed base of tens of millions of cable subscribers.

“Cable MSOs have seen a dramatic rise in their subscribers using OTT streaming video and audio over the last year and continue to look for ways to better analyze the impact of these services on their networks,” said David Ahee, Vice President of Sales Americas at Procera. “The usage profile of cable subscribers continues to evolve as they take advantage of high speed, fixed-line broadband networks that are capable of streaming a larger portion of their video and music programming. Cable operators are looking to maintain a very high quality of service for all of their customers while they access video and music programming through various content outlets.”

http://www.proceranetworks.com


Mellanox SwitchX-2 Silicon Virtualizes Infiniband and Ethernet SANs

Mellanox introduced its SwitchX-2 switching silicon optimized for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and featuring the company's  Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) technology, which allows for simultaneous connection to InfiniBand or Ethernet with integrated gateways to legacy data center and storage systems.


SwitchX-2 breaks new ground by incorporating RDMA-based 56Gb/s Ethernet and InfiniBand, while packing 4Tbps of aggregate switching capacity. It also promises low power consumption, extremely low 170ns latency, hardware-based L2/L3 congestion management for highest efficiency and hardware-based data error correction for highest reliability.


Mellanox said the SDN capabilities, including remote configurable routing tables, lossless and congestion free networks, efficient control planes, and SDN-optimized software interfaces, will bring a number of advantages.  IT managers will be able to program and centralize their server and storage interconnect management and dramatically reduce their operational expenses by completely virtualizing their data center network.

“Mellanox’s SwitchX-2 VPI switch leads the industry with the highest throughput capacity, low latency with nearly zero jitter, as well as advanced SDN interfaces for control and management,” said David Barzilai, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “SDN technology has been a critical component of the InfiniBand scalable architecture and has been proven worldwide in data centers and clusters of tens-of-thousands of servers. Now, with SwitchX-2, Mellanox provides the most efficient SDN solution for both InfiniBand and Ethernet data centers. Mellanox’s fast, RDMA-based interconnect technology leads the competition in terms of performance, SDN technology and return-on-investment advantages it brings to IT and application managers.”

http://mellanox.com/content/pages.php?pg=press_release_item&rec_id=880

ZTE Shows Big Loss for First Nine Months of 2012


Despite higher revenue overall for the first nine months of 2012, ZTE reported a preliminary loss of between RMB1.65 billion and RMB1.75 billion, a reversal of between 254.42% and 263.78% compared to the same period of a year earlier.  

For the most recent quarter (ended 30 September 2012), ZTE's revenue decreased by approximately 13% as compared to same period last year.

ZTE apologized to shareholders for the poor results and cited four factors for its weaker performance

(1) the current global economic and industry trends, 
(2) the recognition of low-margin contracts in the third quarter, 
(3) a delay in some projects of overseas clients, and 
(4) a change in the procurement mode of domestic operators.  

In China, ZTE was hit by, a change in the operators’ procurement mode and the timing of their investments. 
In the international market, ZTE said operators slowed down their pace of investments because of a weakening global economy.  ZTE's gross profit decreased significantly due to the recognition of some lower-margin contracts.  In Africa, where the company was previously able to achieve higher-margin business, the overall market was undergoing a transitional stage, resulting in fewer new contracts.

ZTE also acknowledged that its results were adversely affected by operations in Iran.  The company noted that these operations are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Commerce.


The company outlined several steps to address these problems:

  • ZTE's management has agreed to cut their own compensation collectively.
  • ZTE will raise its level of responsiveness to the internal and external environment
  • ZTE will conduct a review of its product portfolio and of its regional operations
  • ZTE will put profit at the center of its focus and be committed to increasing the profitability of contracts and reducing the losses of unprofitable businesses.
  • ZTE will reduce its selling costs and research and development expenses.
  • ZTE will eliminate offices that record losses for a long time and which have limited prospects of a turnaround.
  • ZTE will consolidate products that offer little development potential,
  • ZTE will exercise headcount control and conduct organizational change.

ZTE's strategy calls for more resources on its terminals business in North America and Europe.  The company will proactively pursue opportunities in the wireless and wired broadband segments in emerging markets including China and Asia Pacific. 

  • In April 2012, ZTE reported operating revenue of US$2.96 billion fo rQ1 2012, an increase of 29.46% over the same period last year. Net profit attributable to shareholders was US$22.99 million, an increase of 23.85% over the same period last year. Basic earnings per share were US$0.00635.
  • For the first 9 months of 2011, ZTE claimed a 33.4 per cent increase in sales revenue year-on-year to US$9.17 billion in the first nine months of 2011, earning it the claim of "the fastest growing major network equipment supplier." Average revenue growth for the industry during the first three quarters of 2011 was approximately 10 percent, according to the company.

Vistapointe Combines Packet Parsing with Cloud-based Analytics

by James E. Carroll

Vistapointe, a start-up based in San Ramon, California with R&D in Bangalore, India, introduced its cloud-based and embedded network intelligence solutions for mobile and enterprise Wi-Fi operators.


Unlike general purpose, deep packet inspection (DPI)-based network intelligence platforms, Vistapointe features a Linux-base packet parser engine to selectively decode 3GPP and 4G/LTE protocols, capture only specific protocol fields, apply compression and then deliver this data to a cloud-based mobile analytics platform.The cloud-based analytics enables Vistapoint to offer a highly scalable Network Intelligence As A Service (NiAS) for 3G, 4G/LTE and Wi-Fi carriers.  Vistapointe's Dynamic Subscriber Profiling enables the operator to predict subscriber usage patterns and profile their mobile data customers so as to offer fine-tuned tariff plans.  Vistapointe also said its dynamic subscriber profiling could leverage APIs to integrate with 3rd party mobile ad platforms.
http://vistapointe.net
  • Vistapointe is headed by Ravi Medikonda (CEO), who previously held leadership roles at Juniper Networks in its Product Management & Marketing groups. Before Juniper, he was Director of Product Management at Tellabs/Vivace Business Unit with P&L responsibility for the IP/MPLS products and successfully led Tellabs into the 3G/Wireless RAN backhaul market.




By capturing only the selected protocol fields, Vistapointe substantially improves data collection efficiency while still gaining granular visibility into mobile users and applications.






Cariden Tunes its Network Engineering Software for Flow Collection & Business Intelligence

Cariden Technologies is extending its network visibility and traffic control platform to business intelligence based on accurate and efficient traffic flow collection from key nodes in a carrier network. Cariden's MATE software is widely used by global tier-1 ISPs, PTTs, MSOs and mobile operators for IP/MPLS network engineering.

Cariden has now added a Flow Interface to its MATE portfolio, enabling the ability to collect and analyze NetFlow, S-Flow and J-Flow data to determine the cost of traffic flows and monitor their use of network resources.  This includes being able to analyze peering traffic compliance to agreements and calculate bit-mile costs for that and other services, thus providing operations staff the ability to meet their obligations for transparency to the commercial side of their business.

Compared to existing NetFlow collectors, Cariden's approach is fully integrated with its network planning and simulation tool (MATE).  This provides enhanced accuracy of the collected flow data by ensuring results match existing traffic counter data and adjusting the final matrix accordingly.

Cariden said its new capabilities enable network operators to identify the costs for actual network performance on specific links or nodes. For instance, carriers could identify partners who are violating peering agreements with unequal flows or who are dumping excessive traffic on least favorable nodes and thereby requiring the carrier to bear the long haul transit costs.

The latest release also provides modeling of the impact to the network when peering connections change due to outages.

http://www.cariden.com/

ZTE Wins Major TD-LTE Contract with China Mobile


ZTE announced a major contract to supply TD-LTE equipment to China Mobile in five cities, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shenyang. The contract cover more than 13,000 carrier frequencies. Financial terms were not disclosed.

ZTE confirmed that it is now China Mobile's leading LTE supplier for China Mobile.

China Mobile launched the TD-LTE bidding in August 2012. The tender included contracts for some 20,000 base stations and 52,000 carrier sectors, and theTD-LTE devices purchased by China Mobile will be deployed in an expanded trial TD-LTE network in 13 Chinese cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Qingdao, Tianjin, Shenyang, Ningbo, Chengdu and Fuzhou. Ten major telecom firms including ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens bid for the tender.

SoftBank Deal Injects $8 Billion in Capital into Sprint

SoftBank will invest $20.1 billion to acquire a 70% in Sprint.  The deal consists of $12.1 billion to be distributed to Sprint stockholders and $8.0 billion of new capital to strengthen Sprint’s balance sheet.  The investment aims to accelerate Sprint's next generation network and its competitive position as the No. 3 U.S. mobile operator.  For Softbank, this represents a major leap beyond its home market of Japan, where it is the No. 3 mobile operator and No. 2 wireline broadband provider. The companies hope to get the deal done by mid-2013, pending regulatory approvals.

Under the deal, approximately 55% of current Sprint shares will be exchanged for $7.30 per share in cash, and the remaining shares will convert into shares of a new publicly traded entity, New Sprint. Following closing, SoftBank will own approximately 70% and Sprint equity holders will own approximately 30% of the shares of New Sprint on a fully-diluted basis.

  • $8.0 billion of primary capital to enhance its mobile network and strengthen its balance sheet
  • No action on Clearwire at the moment, other than supporting the existing agreement.
  • New Sprint’s headquarters will continue to be in Overland Park, Kansas.
  • New Sprint will have a 10-member board of directors, including at least three members of Sprint’s board of directors.
  • Dan Hesse will continue as CEO of New Sprint and as a board member.
 “This transaction provides an excellent opportunity for SoftBank to leverage its expertise in smartphones and next-generation high speed networks, including LTE, to drive the mobile internet revolution in one of the world’s largest markets. As we have proven in Japan, we have achieved a v-shaped earnings recovery in the acquired mobile business and grown dramatically by introducing differentiated products to an incumbent-led market. Our track record of innovation, combined with Sprint’s strong brand and local leadership, provides a constructive beginning toward creating a more competitive American wireless market,” stated SoftBank Chairman and CEO, Masayoshi Son.

 “This is a transformative transaction for Sprint that creates immediate value for our stockholders, while providing an opportunity to participate in the future growth of a stronger, better capitalized Sprint going forward. Our management team is excited to work with SoftBank to learn from their successful deployment of LTE in Japan as we build out our advanced LTE network, improve the customer experience and continue the turnaround of our operations,” said Dan Hesse, Sprint's CEO.