FCC Clears Softbank-Sprint-Clearwire Without Conditions

The FCC approved Sprint's acquisition of the remaining shares of Clearwire that it doesn't already hold, and Softbank's subsequent acquisition of Sprint. There were no special conditions imposed by the FCC in granting approval.

The deals required FCC approval in order to transfer control to SoftBank of various wireless licenses and leases, domestic and international section 214 authorizations, earth station authorizations, interests in submarine cable licenses, and cable television relay service
station licenses held by Sprint and its subsidiaries.

The FCC ruled that the transactions are in the public's interest and are not likely to lead to any competitive harm to the market.

SoftBank will pay approximately $16.64 billion to purchase shares from existing Sprint shareholders. It has also agreed to invest an additional $5 billion in Sprint's network.

http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-approves-softbank-sprint-clearwire-transactions

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Ericsson: 5G Radio Access by 2020

Beginning sometime around 2020, the first 5G networks will be supporting traffic volumes more than 1,000 times higher than today with data rates up to multi-Gbps for specific scenarios, according to a newly published whitepaper on 5G Radio Access R&D by Ericsson.

The whitepaper envisions that existing HSPA and LTE technologies will continue to evolve and provide the backbone of the overall radio-access solution of the future beyond 2020. Key improvements are expected to include smart antennas including a very large number of steerable antenna elements, more spectrum, and better coordination between base stations.  Network architectures are expected to adopt dense small-cell deployments.

In moving to ultra high-capacity and data rates, the whitepaper foresees the introduction of ultra-dense network deployments with nodes operating with very wide transmission bandwidths in higher-frequency bands.  It predicts ultra-dense networks will primarily operate in the 10-100GHz range.

The 6-page whitepaper is posted online.

http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/whitepapers/wp-5g.pdf

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Deutsche Börse to Launch Cloud Exchange

Deutsche Börse, which operates the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, has formed a joint venture with Berlin-based Zimory GmbH to create a neutral, secure and transparent trading venue for cloud computing resources.

Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange AG will serve enterprises, public sector agencies and also organizations such as research institutes that need addition

al storage and computing resources, or have excess capacity that they want to offer on the market.

Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange will set and monitor standards regarding the product offering, admission procedure, changes of provider and guaranteed purchased capacity. Clients will be able to choose capacity providers freely, as well as select the jurisdiction that will apply to the outsourced data. The product offering will initially include outsourced storage capacity and computing power.  The company said it will work closely on standards with potential marketplace participants, including traditional IT vendors, national and international SMEs, and large corporations from a wide range of industries, such as CloudSigma, Devoteam, Equinix, Host Europe, Leibniz- Rechenzentrum, PROFI AG, T-Systems and TÜV-Rheinland.

“With its great expertise in operating markets, Deutsche Börse is making it possible for the first time to standardise and trade fully electronically IT capacity in the same way as securities, energy and commodities,” said Michael Osterloh, Member of the Board of Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange.

Zimory specializes in management software for private, public, hybrid and database clouds.

http://www.dbcloudexchange.com
http://www.zimory.com

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Rival Carriers Agree to In-building Fiber Sharing in Spain

Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange agreed to share vertical fiber in buildings.  The deal will help the operators deliver new services in apartment buildings where rivals have already installed vertical fiber.

Vertical infrastructures in buildings will be shared through a single payment for each vertical infrastructure, which will give the operator the right to use it for no less than 20 years. The prices that will govern this use will be set, via resolution, by the Spanish Telecommunications Market Commission.

http://pressoffice.telefonica.com/

http://www.cmt.es/

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Poland's Vectra Builds Nationwide Optical Backbone with Cisco

Vectra S.A., one of the leading cable operators in Poland, has built a nationwide fiber backbone using ONS 15454 Multiservice Optical Transport Platform (MSTP).

Vectra’s new network is a nationwide ring, connecting nearly 30
cities around Poland, including Warsaw, Katowice, Wroclaw, Poznan, Radom, Bydgoszcz, Torun, Gdynia and more.  Initially, the network operates multiple wavelenghts at 10 Gbps.

Cisco said the optical network can be easily scaled to 100 Gbps when traffic requires it. The deployed Cisco solution can support 42 x 100 Gbps wavelengths in a single bay.  The 100 Gbps DWDM solution is based on the Cisco nLight coherent optical technology, providing the capability to transmit 100 Gbps wavelengths over fully uncompensated networks, up to 3,000 km optical spans.

Klonex, a Cisco Premier Certified Partner in Poland, designed and implemented the DWDM network for Vectra.

http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1216657

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Estonia's EMT Picks Ericsson for 800 MHz LTE

EMT, a mobile operator in Estonia that is part of the TeliaSonera group, has rolled out LTE using a new 800 MHz license, nearly doubling the geographic footprint of its 4G network, which now covers 95% of the country.  Ericsson delivered the 800MHz LTE network as a turnkey project in only two weeks.

Valdo Kalm, CEO at EMT, says: "Now, 95 percent of Estonia is geographically covered by our LTE network, which is very good news for our subscribers. Over 30 percent of our mobile-broadband subscribers have already opted for an LTE plan, and now we’re bringing that option to people in the other half of the country. Together with Ericsson, we were the first to launch LTE in Estonia in 2010. Our close relationship with Ericsson made it possible to roll out the new bandwidth quickly, so our customers could start enjoying LTE services throughout the nation."

Ericsson provided the supply of radio network equipment, the upgrade and expansion of Packet Core to Evolved Packet Core, rollout, integration and deployment services.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.ericsson.com/news/130705-ericsson-expands-emts-lte-network-nationwide-in-estonia_244129227_c

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ZTE Confirms New Contracts in China Telecom's CDMA Expansion

ZTE was awarded the most new contracts in phase 1 of China Telecom's 2013 CDMA network procurement program.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

In 2012, ZTE launched the new generation radio remote unit R8881, delivering a more compact and lower power consumption solution to China Telecom. In addition, to help China Telecom overcome the issue of 3G signaling storms, ZTE developed a customized signaling storm solution, which resolved the problem of signaling storms always caused by on-line applications.

ZTE noted that it has shipped more than 355,000 units of CDMA base stations to date, representing a cumulative wireless capacity of 380 million lines.

http://www.zte.com.cn

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