Tuesday, May 28, 2013

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 next generation of Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11ac, allows a significant increase in data rates by empowering wider channel bandwidths than prior Wi-Fi standards, and is designed to take maximum advantage of the large contiguous 5 GHz band that would be created in the United States by designation of the 5350-5470 MHz and 5850-5925 MHz bands for “Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure” (U-NII) use.

TIA President Grant Seiffert commented, “America is experiencing exploding demand for wireless data connectivity that cannot possibly be satisfied by licensed spectrum alone.  Consumers and businesses — today’s society as a whole —depend on their mobile devices, and need access everywhere.   Of the 326 million connections to U.S. mobile networks, 174 million consisted of smartphones, laptops, tablets or modems.”

Seiffert continued, “By making available, on a technology-neutral basis, the large swath of contiguous spectrum at 5 GHz available, the FCC can help provide the high capacity throughput that is needed to support advanced applications, as well as optimizing a more efficient channel arrangement.”

“TIA supports allowing U-NII use of additional 5 GHz band spectrum under the technology-neutral approach could provide capacity for data offload by heterogeneous networks, particularly in urban regions, airports, stadiums and other area where congestion is a growing concern,” Seiffert said.  “Such expansion, however, must be accomplished in a manner that affords suitable protections for incumbents.”

http://www.tiaonline.org

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 many video users around the world as possible.

http://www.orange-business.com

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 completed in April 2013)
  • Atlanta (expansion completed in April 2013)
  • London (addition completed in April 2013, plus separate facility expansion to be completed in September 2013)
  • Singapore (completed expansion in April 2013) 
  • Washington, D.C. (expansion completed in May 2013)
  • Dallas (expansion to be completed in July 2013)
  • Piscataway, N.J. (expansion to be completed in August 2013)
  • Tampa (expansion to be completed in October 2013)
  • Hong Kong (addition to be completed in November 2013)

"Whether it's empowering stock trades in the global market, pulling data from the cloud to deliver life-saving medical treatments or simply sending e-cards to friends across the world, the foundational technology that makes it all possible resides in a data center," said Jeff Von Deylen, president of Savvis. "By expanding our footprint, we're giving businesses additional strategic, secure locations and interconnectivity opportunities for growing their capabilities and core business offerings through infrastructure outsourcing."

http://news.centurylink.com/index.php?s=43&item=3050

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 that Alcatel-Lucent benefited from its dominant North American market position, growing its trailing four quarter revenues 28 percent year-over-year.


"LTE mobile radio backhaul has been a catalyst for high speed microwave equipment roll-out in the North American market," said Jimmy Yu, Vice President of Microwave Transmission research at Dell'Oro Group.  "While fiber backhaul to cell towers has been the focus over the past few years, time-to-market is one the strongest advantages that microwave has had.  So as operators work towards offering LTE coverage in geographic regions where fiber isn't readily available, microwave has been proven to be a great alternative to meet the bandwidth, reliability and quality requirements while reducing installation times from years to weeks," Yu added.


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, and continues to be selected by large service providers worldwide for IPTV deployments,” said HomePNA president Eran Gureshnik. “Service providers over four continents have achieved great results with HomePNA-based products and we have gained considerable experience in deploying home networks. However, the obvious future direction for all wireline home networking is to migrate to G.hn. Therefore, it made sense for us to merge the HomePNA Alliance with the HomeGrid Forum at this time, providing a clear, strong vision to existing and new customers.”

The merged HomeGrid Forum has more than 70 members, including 28 Service providers, and some of the largest OEMs, ODMs and retailers in the world.

http://www.homegridforum.org/

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 Controllers and Juniper Networks JunosV App Engine.

http://www.sonus.net/resources/press-release/sonus-juniper-form-alliance-develop-sdn-capabilities

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 addition, Ericsson is the global leader in Business Support Systems (BSS) with more than 1,000 billing and revenue management solutions supporting more than 2 billion subscriptions.

http://www.ericsson.com

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_story.html?hpid=z1

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 networks for more than 40 customers in over 30 countries and regions.
  • In 2012, Huawei supported communications security for one-third of the world’s population and supported the stable operations of 1,521networks for more than 600 customers in over 140 countries and regions.
  • Huawei will begin offering carbon footprint data for all of its devices. In addition, the company has optimized methods for assessing the carbon footprint of such devices as mobile phones, mobile broadband products, and home devices. The company so far has released assessment reports for the carbon footprint of ten selected products.
  • Huawei now has over 30,000 non-Chinese employees in 156 countries.

http://www.huawei.com/ucmf/groups/public/documents/csr_report/hw_263600.pdf

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 offices in China and Taiwan.

http://www.sourcephotonics.com