Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Vertical Systems' Mid-2014 U.S. Carrier Ethernet LEADERBOARD

Vertical Systems Group released its Mid-2014 Leaderboard for U.S. Carrier Ethernet service: (in rank order based on retail ports): AT&T, Verizon, tw telecom, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox, Level 3 and XO. Port shares were calculated using the base of enterprise installations of Ethernet services, plus input from Vertical Systems Group's independent surveys of Ethernet service providers. The LEADERBOARD threshold is four percent (4%) or more of billable port installations.

The next, or Challenge Tier, includes all providers with between 1% and 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market. The following seven companies attained a position in the mid-2014 Challenge Tier (in alphabetical order): Charter, Cogent, Integra, Lightpath, MegaPath, Windstream and Zayo.

"Now beyond the hockey stick ramp stage, the U.S. Ethernet services market has entered a very healthy growth period. During the first half of 2014, more new Ethernet customer ports were installed than during any previous corresponding period," said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. "Customers shopping for Ethernet services have a broader choice of companies with substantial Ethernet assets, including the sixteen providers on the mid-2014 LEADERBOARD and Challenge Tier rosters."

A shakeup of the U.S. LEADERBOARD may be ahead, pending the outcome of merger activity for four of the top nine providers. In February, Comcast announced its intent to acquire Time Warner Cable. In June, Level 3 announced an agreement to acquire tw telecom.

Companies with Ethernet port share below 1% are in the Market Player tier. The Market Player tier includes the following providers selling retail Ethernet services in the U.S. market (in alphabetical order): Alpheus Communications, American Telesis, Bright House Networks, BT Global Services, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications, Earthlink Business, Expedient, FairPoint Communications, FiberLight, Fibertech, Frontier, Hawaiian Telecom, Lightower, LS Networks, Lumos Networks, Masergy, NTT America, Orange Business, RCN Business, Reliance Globalcom, Sprint, SuddenLink, Tata, TDS Telecom, TelePacific, US Signal, WOW!Business and other companies.

http://www.verticalsystems.com

China Telecom Tests Huawei's LTE eMBMS Broadcasts

China Telecom deployed pre-commercial, LTE-based evolved multimedia broadcast/multicast service (eMBMS) for the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games (YOG), which are underway and run from August 16-28 in Beijing. eMBMS enable a high-quality video broadcasts for mobile LTE users during the games.

During the YOG, Huawei and China Telecom will demonstrate the eMBMS service live at the YOG Control Center and the temporary business hall in the Youth Olympic Village (YOG), as well as tertiary educational institutions, such as Hohai University campus and Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications campus, in Nanjing. In addition, China Telecom has made 18,000 Huawei C8817 eMBMS-enabled device units available to YOG service volunteers so that they can enjoy watching HD YOG games on their mobile terminals anytime, anywhere, and free of charge.

http://pr.huawei.com/en/news/hw-362438-lte.htm#.U_WATPmWWSo

CenturyLink Launches Private Cloud Service in 57 Data Centers

CenturyLink officially launched a new Private Cloud service feauturing the physical isolation, dedicated hardware and security standards that many large enterprises require.

CenturyLink Private Cloud is now available from the company's 57 data centers located in 34 cities around the world. Each private cloud instance is federated into the CenturyLink Cloud network of public cloud nodes, giving users a single interface for creating and maintaining a hybrid environment that spans both public and private clouds. The end result is greater agility for businesses across a broader range of workloads – even those that require additional security and compliance.

“CenturyLink continues to realize our vision for business-friendly hybrid IT solutions, with public cloud, private cloud and network connectivity all available from one provider,” said Andrew Higginbotham, senior vice president, cloud and technology, at CenturyLink. “CenturyLink Private Cloud delivers the best of private cloud – from dedicated hardware and physical isolation to enterprise-level security and service-level agreements – along with our truly innovative public cloud experience, featuring advanced self-service automation and a fast pace of feature innovation.”

http://www.centurylink.com/technology


  • In January, Savvis adopted the CenturyLink Technology Solutions brand. CenturyLink acquired Savvis in 2011.

PernixData Raises $35M for Storage Software

PernixData, a start-up based in San Jose, California, raised $35 million in Series C funding for its server-side storage intelligence solution.

PernixData said its mission is to fundamentally changing how storage is designed and operated in virtual data centers. The company’s flagship product, PernixData FVP software, virtualizes server flash and RAM to enable scale-out storage performance that is independent of capacity. No changes are required to VMs, servers or primary storage, ensuring maximum performance of all virtualized applications in a seamless, scalable and cost-effective manner.

The company reports 42 percent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth. PernixData has sold its FVP software to approximately 200 companies in over 20 countries, ranging from two to 300+ node deployments.

The new funding round was led Menlo Ventures and included new individual investments from Marc Benioff (chairman and CEO of salesforce.com), Jim Davidson (Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Managing Director at Silver Lake), and Steve Luczo (chairman and CEO of Seagate Technology).  Previous investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Lightspeed Ventures, Lane Bess, Mark Leslie and John Thompson also contributed to the Series C round, which now brings the total investment in the company to $62 million.

“PernixData has experienced an absolutely amazing year with groundbreaking product features, 160 percent growth in world-wide headcount, extensive industry accolades, top tier funding, and revenues that were 50 percent higher than any other enterprise software company during its first year of sales, handily beating the previous record in this space,” said Poojan Kumar, CEO and co-founder of PernixData.  “This underscores the enormous demand for our unique decoupled storage architecture. We will use this revenue momentum and the new round of funding to execute on our next phase of product vision and deliver FVP globally to all virtualized data centers.”

“We are witnessing a fundamental shift in storage design where performance is decoupled from capacity using PernixData FVP software and server side flash,” said Steve Luczo, chairman of the board and CEO of Seagate Technology. “This brings unparalleled performance and scalability to virtualized applications, and makes flash technology a strategic component of tomorrow’s software defined data center.”

http://www.pernixdata.com

Vodafone Australia Picks Ericsson for VoLTE/IMS

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has selected Ericsson to implement a core technology upgrade for their national network.

The deployment includes Ericsson's solutions for Evolved Packet Core and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), policy control and circuit-switched core.

Ericsson's IMS platform is the foundation for the introduction of next-generation communication services over LTE, such as voice over LTE (VoLTE).

Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.ericsson.com

Ericsson Lands 5-Year Managed Service Deal with Hrvatski Telekom

Ericsson has signed a five-year managed services contract with lea
ding Croatian operator Hrvatski Telekom, a member of the Deutsche Telekom Group.

The five-year contract for construction and maintenance of telecommunications infrastructure includes planning and construction of fixed and mobile networks, maintenance of telecommunications infrastructure, telecom network monitoring, as well as field maintenance of active access and passive networks. A total of 640 employees will be transferred to Ericsson.

Jean-Claude Geha, Vice President and Head of Managed Services, Ericsson, says: "While extending our relationship with Hrvatski Telekom and the Deutsche Telekom Group, we will use our expertise gained from more than 15 years in telecom managed services to improve end-user experience and optimize network operating costs. By saving time and resources, Hrvatski Telekom will be able to increase its investments in innovation, sales and customer management."

http://www.ericsson.com