Interxion Plans 8th Frankfurt Data Center

Interxion announced plans to build its 8th data center in Frankfurt, Germany.  The new facility will be built on an adjoining campus, consists of four phases, each of approximately 900 m2.  CAPEX for the first two phases is expected to total EUR 30 million. Interxion said the data center market in Frankfurt is being driven by cloud services, digital media and the financial sector. http://www.interxion....

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Huawei Announces LTE Carrier Aggregation Solution

Huawei introduced a Carrier Aggregation designed to maximize spectrum resource utilization for existing operators.  It is deployable using Huawei's SRC (Single Radio Controller) hardware platform solution for centralized cell resource coordination. Peter Zhou, VP & COO for Huawei LTE, said: "Through customer-centric innovation and strong partnerships, we are dedicated to providing competitive solutions that create maximum value for our...

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Cyan's Blue Planet SDN Digs into Multi-Vendor Network Inventory and Resources

Cyan introduced Planet Inventory, a multi-vendor network asset management application that forms part of the company's Blue Planet suite of software-defined network (SDN) applications. Planet Inventory provides physical asset and logical resource management in complex, multi-layer, multi-vendor environments, including Cyan’s Z-Series family of packet-optical transport platforms, as well as equipment from a broad range of third-party network equipment...

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GSMA: Average Mobile Data Speed 75% Faster in U.S. Than Europe

Europe now lags far behind the United States in the deployment of next-generation mobile technologies and the advanced services, according to a new report from the GSMA. As recently as five years ago, the European mobile market was performing as well as, or even better than, the United States. However, since then, the situation has dramatically reversed. The report, developed in collaboration with Navigant Economics, explores the many factors...

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Telefónica Announces Digital Wallet Joint Venture with Spanish Banks

Telefónica will form a joint venture company with CaixaBank and Santander to develop new business opportunities based on the latest mobile and communication technologies. The new company will build an online community to ease the connection between merchants and consumers when it comes to offers, discounts and promotions. It also plans to offer a Digital Wallet in which customers can keep all their cards, which will serve as identification in stores...

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Rogers and Videotron Announce LTE Network Sharing Deal in Québec and Ottawa

Videotron and Rogers announced a 20-year, LTE network sharing agreement in the province of Québec and the Ottawa region. The two companies will pool their efforts to quickly build out and operate a shared LTE wireless network.  The deal will deliver capital and operating savings, allowing both companies to reinvest in their customers and networks. Videotron and Rogers will maintain their business independence, including their product and service...

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Digital Realty Buys Six Buildings to Expand Austin Data Centers

Digital Realty Trust has acquired six buildings at the MetCenter Business Park in Austin, Texas for $31.9 million.  The facilities include operating data centers and flex office space totaling approximately 337,000 square feet.  The overall portfolio is currently 90% leased to a variety of data center, biotechnology, technology and/or telecommunications enterprises. The six buildings are located adjacent to Digital Realty's data center...

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Verizon Pumps its Private IP network with 100GE Access

Verizon is bringing 100GE to the edge routers of its Private IP network, giving its enterprise customers faster access speeds to support growing cloud applications.  The company confirmed plans to implement the technology on the same U.S. and European routes where 100G long-haul is deployed. In addition, Verizon now is offering standardized 1GE and 10GE access for its Private IP network to continue to support the growing bandwidth needs of customer...

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Broadcom's Bluetooth Smart SoC Targets Android Peripherals

Broadcom introduced a new Bluetooth Smart system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed to connect a broader range of low-cost, low-power peripherals to work with Android-based smartphones and tablets. Broadcom's new BCM20732 Bluetooth Smart SoC seamlessly connects peripheral devices like heart rate monitors, pedometers, door locks, lighting, proximity alarms, etc. that are powered by coin cell batteries.  It is powered by an ARM Cortex M3.  Broadcom...

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Telecom Italia to Spin-Off Fixed Line Infrastructure

The board of directors of Telecom Italia adopted a plan to spin-off the company's fixed line access business into a separate company. Infrastructure belonging to the separated company will include resources for developing and managing the passive access network (both copper and fibre) and the active components of the fibre, consisting of OLTs (Optical Line Terminals) and cabinets. Telecom Italia said its new structure will guarantee all operators...

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Octasic Enables 20 km Small Cell Radius

Octasic released an updated version of its flexiPHY HSPA software, adding support for a cell radius of 20 kilometers. Octasic’s flexiPHY software, which runs on Octasic’s OCT2224W base station devices and Octasic’s small cell platform products such as the OCTBTS2000 and OCTBTS4000, offers 3GPP-compliant physical layers for GSM, UMTS, and LTE, integrated with leading RNC and Iuh stack vendor products. This eliminates the need for OEMs to develop...

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NSN and MediaTek Test Orthogonal Sub-Channel for GSM Spectral Efficiency

Nokia Siemens Networks has successfully completed testing of Orthogonal Sub-Channel (OSC) support for Voice services over Adaptive Multi-user channels on One Slot (VAMOS) handsets with the mobile chipsets provided by MediaTek. OSC, which was invented by NSN, improves the spectral efficiency for GSM. Nokia Siemens Networks Liquid Radio Software Suite uses OSC to support up to four devices in one radio timeslot, providing up to double voice capacity...

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Cisco: Total IP Traffic to Grow 3X from 2012 to 2017

Total global IP traffic will grow three-fold between 2012 and 2017, according to Cisco's newly released Visual Networking Index Forecast.  Cisco is projecting that PC-originated traffic will grow at a 14% CAGR, while other devices/connections will have higher traffic growth rates over the forecast period ― TVs (24%), tablets (104%), smartphones (79%), and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules (82%). Some highlights from the latest Cisco VNI: Global...

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D11: Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report

Mary Meeker, a partner at the venture investment firm of the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, presented her annula Internet Trends report at the D11 conference organized by The Wall Street Journal.  Her series of 117 slides covers a wide range of key trends in mobile networking, smartphone adoption, advertising and social issues. Here are a few highlights on the networking side: 2.4 billion Internet users is 2012, up 8% Y/Y. 80% of...

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BT Reduced Energy Consumption by 3.3% in Last Year

BT published its annual Better Future sustainability report, promising to use the power of communication to improve lives, ways of doing business and to make its overall impact on society a positive one. Some highlights of the report: BT invested £27 million in 2012/13 to support its commitment to being a responsible and sustainable business.  There are three focus areas - Connected Society, Net Good and Improving Lives – each with its...

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Sprint + Softbank -- No Unresolved National Security Concerns

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) completed its investigation of the proposed transaction between Sprint and SoftBank and determined that there are no unresolved national security issues relating to the transaction. As part of this aspect of the transaction’s clearance, Sprint and SoftBank have entered into a National Security Agreement with the U.S. government. Details of the agreement were not made public but...

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AMD Debuts Opteron Processors for Scale-out Data Center Servers

AMD introduced its Opteron X-Series x86 processors for scale-out server architectures. The first AMD Opteron X-Series processors, formerly known as “Kyoto,” will come in two variants: The AMD Opteron X2150, which consumes as little as 11 watts, is the first server APU system-on-a-chip integrating CPU and GPU engines with a high-speed bus on a single die. It incorporates AMD Radeon HD 8000 graphics technology for multimedia-oriented server workloads. The...

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AT&T Mobile Workplace Offers Remote Content Access/Editing/Sharing

AT&T launched a cloud-based service designed to simplify how businesses access and share content with coworkers and teams across multiple mobile devices. AT&T Mobile Workplace enables employees to seamlessly access, share, edit and create content through their mobile devices.  Key capabilities: Store, share and view content from the cloud Create, edit and annotate documents Access the service from virtually any mobile device Automatic...

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Cisco to Acquire JouleX for Energy Management Software

Cisco agreed to acquire JouleX, a start-up specializing in enterprise IT energy management for network-attached and data center assets, for approximately $107 million in cash and retention-based incentives. JouleX, which is based in Atlanta, Georgia, develops software that helps to reduce energy costs by monitoring, analyzing and managing energy usage of all network-connected devices and systems through a set of policies derived through analytics...

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UK's Zen Internet Deploys ADVA FSP 150

Zen Internet, a leading Internet Service Provider in the UK, has chosen the ADVA Optical Networking's FSP 150 to scale its Ethernet delivery platform and efficiently hand over services to service provider partners. The ADVA FSP 150 is a family of intelligent Ethernet access and aggregation devices designed to optimize site costs, increase service offerings and reduce operational expenditures. The platform monitors availability, latency, jitter and...

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Amazon Web Services Adds Web Identity Federation

Amazon Web Services has expanded its identity federation capabilities to support web identity federation. AWS said this enables developers to create cloud-backed mobile apps that use public identity providers such as Facebook, Google, or the newly launched Login with Amazon service for authentication. Apps can use Amazon.com, Facebook, or Google sign-in without having to write any server-side code and without distributing long-term AWS security...

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France Telecom to Become Orange on July 1st

France Telecom-Orange will officially change its name to simply "Orange" on 01-July-2013.  The name of the shares will be Orange under the ticker symbol' "ORA". Orange was adopted as the single brand for all of the company's mobile, Internet and digital services in 2006. The fixed line services adopted the Orange brand in 2012. http://www.orange.com...

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TIA Lobbies for Unlicensed Access to 5 GHz Band

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), which represent the manufacturers and suppliers of high-tech communications networks, filed comments with the FCC advocating an expansion of unlicensed access to the 5 GHz Band on a technology-neutral basis. TIA noted that commercial wireless networks are already offloading 47 percent of all traffic to fixed wireline networks and that offloading is projected to grow to 66 percent by 2017. The...

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T-Systems and Orange Business Sign Corporate Video Pact

T-Systems and Orange Business Services signed an interprovider agreement for corporate video services that will allow customers who use T-Systems' Corporate Video Exchange Services to meet live with customers of Orange's Telepresence Community via videoconference. T-Systems and Orange Business Services already have video interconnections with other providers in place and will continue to expand these networks to give their customers access to as...

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Savvis Builds Out its Data Center Fleet

CenturyLink's Savvis division announced 10 expansions to its worldwide data center footprint, including the opening of new facilities in Hong Kong and London. The expansions will add approximately 85,000 square feet of new space to Savvis' global presence, boosting the company's total available data center space to more than 2.4 million square feet across more than 50 data centers located throughout North America, Europe and Asia: Boston (expansion...

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Dell'Oro: Strong Demand for Microwave Transmission Gear in N. America

The point-to-point Microwave Transmission equipment market grew 33 percent year-over-year in the North American region, according to a newly published report by Dell'Oro Group.  For the trailing four quarter period, the North American microwave market grew 18 percent over the year ago period reaching $645 million.  However, North America was the only region to achieve significant positive growth in the first quarter 2013. Dell'Oro finds...

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HomeGrid Forum and HomePNA Alliance Merge

The HomeGrid Forum and the HomePNA Alliance have merged into a single industry group dedicated to promoting G.hn for home networks while continuing support for HomePNA. The combined organization, under the HomeGrid Forum banner, will promote the smooth transition of all current generation wireline home networking technologies to G.hn, the “any wire” technology defined by ITU-T open international standards. “HomePNA is a mature, field proven technology,...

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Sonus and Juniper use SDN to Integrate SBC and Edge Routers

Sonus has formed a partnership with Juniper Networks to develop SDN solutions.  The partners will integrate the Sonus 5000 Series of Session Border Controllers (SBCs) with the Juniper MX Series Routers and SRC Policy Engine in order to pool intelligence from the application/session layers of the OSI stack with the network layer. Sonus and Juniper Networks are also working to deliver, test and demonstrate integration between Sonus Session Border...

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T-Mobile Poland Selects Ericsson for Billing

T-Mobile awarded a three-year contract to Ericsson for application development and maintenance for its billing system in Poland.  T-Mobile, Poland has previously selected the Ericsson BSCS iX, a billing system that is now complemented with a service to cost-efficiently develop and maintain the associated business-critical applications. Ericsson noted that it employs over 12,000 consulting and systems integration professionals globally.  In...

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Washington Post: Weapons Designs Compromised by Chinese Hackers

The Washington Post posted a long list of U.S. missile defense and combat aircraft programs that have been compromised by hackers from China. T he report warns that the cyber intrusions are far more extensive than previously acknowledged by the Obama Administration and will greatly help China accelerate its own developments of advanced weapons.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/confidential-report-lists-us-weapons-system-designs-compromised-by-chinese-cyberspies/2013/05/27/a42c3e1c-c2dd-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_stor...

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Huawei Publishes Sustainability Report

Huawei published its 2012 Sustainability Report, focusing on its efforts to bridge the digital divide, supporting stable and secure network operations, promoting environmental protection, and seeking win-win development.   Some highlights of the report: In 2012, Huawei demonstrated optical transport at 2 Tbps line rate.  This will lead to DWDM systems with 56 Tbps capacity per fiber. As of September 2012, Huawei had deployed 100G...

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Source Photonics Appoints CEO

Source Photonics, which supplies optical transceivers and subsystems, named Doug Wright as president and chief executive officer, effective immediately. Wright succeeds current CEO, Dr. Near Margalit, who will assume the role of chief product officer. Prior to joining Source Photonics, Wright served as a group president at United Technologies for five years, primarily based in Shanghai. Source Photonics is based in Chatsworth, California, with...

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DE-CIX Apollon Goes Live - World's Largest Internet Exchange

DE-CIX, which operates the world's largest Internet Exchange in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), has activated the first "supernode" if its next generation interconnection platform -- DE-CIX Apollon. The platform leverages ADVA Optical Networking's flagship FSP 3000 platform for optical transport capacity of up to 2 Terabits/sec per fiber pair.  The switching layer is powered by Alcatel-Lucent's Core Router 7950 XRS, which supports port density...

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Telefónica and MegaFon Form Global Strategic Partnership

Telefónica and MegaFon, a leading Russian universal telecommunications operator, have established a strategic partnership. The carriers hope to achieve cost savings in equipment purchases via joint procurement.  MegaFon and Telefónica will also exchange technological know-how. Under the Agreement Telefónica will provide services to multinational corporate clients using MegaFon’s network and similarly MegaFon business customers will have access...

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NTT Develops 10G LEAP Laser with 90% Power Reduction

Researchers at NTT have developed a Lambda-sacle Embedded Active Photonic-crystal (LEAP) Laser that enables 10 Gbps communications while using only 10% of the power of conventional lasers.  NTT believes the technology could be used for optical cross-connects between microprocessors, yielding significant reduction in power consumption and heat. NTT Laboratories have been developing the LEAP laser to create the world’s first continuum wave...

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Cisco Acquires Ubiquisys for Small Cells

Cisco completed its acquisition of privately held Ubiquisys for approximately $310 million in cash and retention-based incentives. Ubiquisys, which is based in Swindon, U.K., specializes in 3G and LTE small-cell technologies that provide seamless connectivity across mobile heterogeneous networks for service providers. Ubiquisys employees will be integrated into the Cisco Mobility Business Group, reporting to Partho Mishra, vice president and general...

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Colt: Largest Cloud Footprint in Europe

Colt Technology Services announced "the largest cloud footprint in Europe" via its data centers in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. Colt is using a standardised orchestration layer in these data centers to ensure that regardless of where the business is located, or where the applications are hosted, customers can access, provision, manage and automate their network, infrastructure and storage via a single, online portal. In...

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MTS to Sell Allstream for C$520 Million to Naguib Sawiris

Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) agreed to sell its Allstream division to Accelero Capital Holdings , an investment and management group, for $520 million, subject to certain customary adjustments.  The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2013, subject to receipt of Investment Canada approval and customary closing conditions. Allstream provides enterprise communications services acress Canada and counts more than 65,000 businesses...

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Telstra Activates 1500th 4G base station

Telstra turned on its 1,500th LTE base station. The network is expected to cover 2/3's of Australia's population by the end of June.  The company said it is deploying "dozens" of new base stations each week. Telstra’s 4G milestones: activating its first 4G site in May 2011; activating its 1000th 4G site in May 2012; and, activating its 1500th 4G site in May 2013. http://www.telstra.com.a...

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Google Acquires Makani Power for Power Generating Kites

Google will acquire Makani Power, a start-up that has been developing kites capables of holding wind turbines. The idea is for a tethered wing to generate 30 kW of electricity by flying in large circles. Financial terms were not disclosed. Makani is based in Alameda, California. http://www.makanipower.c...

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CloudEthernet Forum Gets Underway

A new CloudEthernet Forum has been established to address the specific issues of scaling and applying suitable Ethernet services to meet the stringent demands of delivering cloud services. The CloudEthernet Forum aims to provide a framework for industry stakeholders to collectively develop solutions that address technical challenges such as VLAN scaling, layer 2 performance and resilience across very large domains and consolidating storage network...

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Internet2 Establishes Direct Peering to Windows Azure

Internet2 has established a direct peering relationship with two Microsoft cloud services:  Windows Azure and Microsoft Office 365 Education. These services will enable unmetered access to both the high-performance computing and the communications infrastructure to aid collaboration. The move to privately peer the Microsoft data centers to the Internet2 Network eliminates the need to traverse these very large data sets over the public Internet. “Microsoft...

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