DOCOMO's LTE-Advanced to Hit 225 Mbps in March

NTT DOCOMO is preparing to launch LTE-Advanced service in Japan on March 27.  The carrier announced top downlink speeds of 225 Mbps with top uplink speeds of 50 Mbps.

The LTE-Advanced service will leverage the company's Advanced C-RAN network architecture, which optimized radio capacity and maximum transmission speed simultaneously, especially in high-traffic areas.  DOCOMO said the use of carrier aggregation technology will enable it to push the LTE-Advanced to achieve maximum downlinks of 300Mbps towards the end of the next fiscal year ending in March 2016. The carrier is aiming for 5G services in 2020.

The DOCOMO LTE-Advanced network will launch initially in 22 prefectures, including Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. Nationwide availability is expected by March 2016.

Two DOCOMO mobile Wi-Fi routers will be available for the service—the Wi-Fi STATION HW-02G, which is now on the market, and the L-01G, which is scheduled to launch in March. DOCOMO is also preparing to expand its lineup of compatible smartphones soon.

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/info/media_center/pr/2015/0225_00.html


Earlier this month, NTT DOCOMO has achieved 240 Mbps downlink performance using 35MHz of bandwidth in a live field trial of Advanced C-RAN technology.

Advanced C-RAN leverages carrier aggregation (CA) technology to enable users to receive data simultaneously over small cells for localized coverage deployed in congested areas, and macro cells that provide wider area coverage. The carrier said Advanced C-RAN will prove especially useful for improving radio capacity and transmission speed in train stations, large-scale commercial facilities and other high-traffic areas.

A previous verification trial last November used category-6 mobile devices capable of download speeds up to 300Mbps in the Yokosuka area of Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo.

"Advanced C-RAN represents an important contribution to the evolution of LTE and will be a key technology for the realization of 5G in the future," said Seizo Onoe, DOCOMO's Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.

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Huawei Sees 4.5G Technology Delivering 1 Gbps Rates

Huawei outlined its vision of a 4.5G “business blueprint" for mobile operators that it sees as an intermediate step for LTE on the road to 5G.

In a briefing held a week before Mobile World Congress, Huawei said 4.5G will help stimulate the increasing popularity of many technologies such as mobile virtual reality glasses, smart metering and drones.  Some observations from Huawei:

• 4.5G can deliver up to 1Gbps bandwidth on mobile networks, making mobile virtual reality possible and this immersive experience available everywhere. Virtual reality glasses provide an immersive HD experience, but the bandwidth requirement can be as high as 1Gbps, 4.5G will be capable of meeting this requirement.
  
• 4.5G will make cellular IoT a reality. Industry applications such as smart metering require low-power terminals and better network coverage. While LTE is mainly designed to handle smart phone capacity, which is unable to reach a large scale, 4.5G supports up to 100K per cell connections via LTE-M, 100 times that of 4G. LTE-M also provides better coverage (Receivers require just 1/100th of the signal of existing 2G system, 20dB Gain) using low-power terminals (10 year battery life).
  
• Industry 4.0 requires lower latency between command and execution. For example, the precision control of a drone requires at least a 20ms end-to-end latency. 4.5G as a key component of Industry 4.0 provides the capability of less than 10ms end-to-end latency, opening the door for large scale commercialization of real-time mobile applications.

"4.5G is a natural evolution of LTE, and supports new business opportunities and an improved user experience through enhancement of the mobile network‘s capacity and capability. This in turn will transition our industry into an all online world with ultra high speed massive connections and low latency, allowing all of us to be fully prepared for the large-scale arrival of applications for cellular IoT," stated Bob Cai, Vice President of Marketing, Huawei Wireless Network Product Line.

http://pr.huawei.com/en/news/hw-415269-4.5g.htm#.VO1dovm-2-0

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IBM and Juniper Tie Real Time Analytics to MX Routers

IBM and Juniper Networks are extending their longstanding partnership by announcing plans to provide real-time network analytics to help communications service providers (CSP) and enterprises become more agile and efficient, reducing time to deployment and cost, while enhancing end user application experiences.

The companies are designing a new solution in which Juniper Networks' MX Router Service Control Gateway (SCG) will integrate with IBM Now Factory analytics to enable the optimization of network operations, as well as the customization of service experience based on who is using the network and the applications being run, taking into account the device's capabilities and location.

"Integrating predictive analytics directly into the stream of data processing – and embedding it into the network of CSPs – will help to ensure the reliability of the network and improve customer engagement," said Bob Picciano, Senior Vice President, IBM Analytics. "Juniper Networks' focus on cloud-based analytics complements IBM's strategy to apply analytics capabilities to help organizations sense, predict and respond to opportunities."

Some highlights:

• The combination of Juniper Networks MX Router SCG, Juniper Contrail and IBM Now Factory will allow for complete visibility of subscribers and VPN behaviors, for CSPs to offer scalable automated services based on actual data.
• Juniper Networks will utilize IBM Analytics capabilities to better understand data flows and self-configure to automatically update and optimize network operations and the subscriber experience whether subscribers are watching videos or using business applications.
• IBM Analytics capabilities, such as real-time and predictive insights, will also be integrated in Juniper Networks' Cloud Analytic Engine (CAE) and switching solutions to enhance the quality of experience and application performance by predicting and remediating anomalies such as latency before they occur.

http://www.ibm.com/analytics
http://www.juniper.com

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Mirantis and Google Integrate Kubernetes with OpenStack

Mirantis and Google are working to integrate Kubernetes with OpenStack with the goal of letting developers deploy containers on OpenStack in minutes.

Mirantis said this development work uses Murano, the application catalog project in the OpenStack ecosystem. Murano automatically configures the compute, storage and networking resources for Kubernetes clusters, and provides integration for OpenStack infrastructure components such as load balancers and firewalls. Murano can then deploy the Docker application onto the Kubernetes cluster and manage the application’s lifecycle. To provide production-grade Kubernetes clusters, Murano adds integration with monitoring and log collection services. This delivers Kubernetes on OpenStack out of the box. Developers will be able to seamlessly move entire environments between OpenStack private clouds and public clouds that support Kubernetes, such as Google Cloud Platform.

“Our development work with Google to combine the power of Kubernetes with Mirantis OpenStack makes it easy for developers to manage Docker containers at scale,” said Mirantis CEO, Adrian Ionel. “Kubernetes automates the management of Docker containers, while OpenStack automates the configuration and deployment of infrastructure resources on which those containers run. By using the two technologies together, developers can focus on creating software because their underlying infrastructure just works.”

“Integrating Kubernetes with OpenStack gives developers more choice and flexibility over how they want to build and run applications,” said OpenStack Foundation Chief Operating Officer, Mark Collier. “OpenStack’s pluggable design allows users to integrate and leverage emerging technologies like containers, while relying on the proven automation engine in OpenStack to handle compute, storage, and networking.”

https://www.mirantis.com/company/press-center/company-news/mirantis-collaborates-google-kubernetes-openstack-integration/
http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2015/02/run-container-based-applications-on-OpenStack-with-Kubernetes.html

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RETN Deploys Infinera 500G Super-Channels Across Europe

RETN, which operates a DWDM network connecting 26 countries across Europe, Asia and North America, has deployed Infinera's DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform to power its network core and its crucial points of presence that are located in Europe.  RETN's homogeneous Pan-European network infrastructure along with associated Internet Protocol circuits is now capable of providing 100 Gbps services on multiple routes in Europe.

Infinera said its DTN-X platform enables RETN to deliver capacity of 100 Gbps coherent transmission today via 500 Gbps super-channels, with a forward-scale design to support terabit super-channels in the future. The high capacity super-channels are enabled by 500 Gbps photonic integrated circuits developed and fabricated by Infinera -- the only supplier delivering 500 Gbps of transmission capacity from a single line card today. PICs enable the DTN-X platform to integrate DWDM super-channel transmission with up to 12 Tbps of non-blocking optical transport network switching, providing seamless scaling as traffic requirements grow in the future. The DTN-X also features SDN-ready application programming interfaces that enable network programmability and automation of network operations to reduce both operational cost and service delivery times while facilitating new services.

"RETN's global footprint is growing rapidly due to constantly increasing traffic between different territories on the one hand, and RETN's intention to address our customers' geographical interests and to improve their connectivity between the world's largest telecommunications nodes. At the moment, the RETN network has a total capacity of 5 Tb/s on the four main traffic routes and handles a considerable amount of international Internet traffic. In order to respond to the traffic growth, we need to scale our network, while complying with strict requirements for high performance WDM equipment," said Anthony O'Sullivan, Director at RETN Ltd.

"For the past five years, Infinera's solutions have powered the RETN network and now RETN has again selected an Infinera Intelligent Transport Network for its network extension beyond Russia and into Central Europe," said Chris Champion, Infinera vice president, EMEA sales. "Infinera is pleased to continue to enable RETN to automate, converge and simplify its transport network to rapidly and reliably deliver advanced services to its customers."

http://www.retn.net
http://www.infinera.com

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Mavenir Debuts its SDN-enabled EPC

Mavenir Systems announced its advanced SDN-enabled Evolved Packet Core (EPC).

The company said it is providing a full suite of standards-defined EPC functions (SGW, PGW, MME and ePDG) on a virtualized software platform that provides the flexibility and efficiency needed to cost effectively scale Evolved Packet Core networks. Mavenir also provides mobile operators a comprehensive suite of virtualized core network functions, including session border controller (SBC), diameter routing agent (DRA), IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), and security gateway (SEG), under the powerful mOne® software platform. Through service chaining of multiple Mavenir functions, operators can simplify network operations, secure the network, and reduce costs - quickly realizing the operational benefits of network functions virtualization (NFV).

“The SDN EPC is specifically designed to optimize the deployment of data and voice services for mobile operators transforming their networks to 4G LTE,” said Pardeep Kohli, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mavenir Systems. “As operators respond to the rapid increase in mobile data usage, adding new proprietary EPC hardware to scale networks linearly is cost prohibitive. Our innovative approach of combining NFV and SDN delivers a truly unique solution that addresses this problem statement.”

http://mavenir.com/Home/default.aspx

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Ixia Announces Native OpenFlow Integration

Ixia announced support for OpenFlow enabled switches from industry leading manufacturers for its ControlTower distributed network visibility platform.  Supported products include Arista, Dell and HP OpenFlow enabled switches.

Ixia said its ControlTower visibility solution allows customers to leverage SDN and seamlessly layer the sophisticated management and advanced processing features of Ixia’s Net Tool Optimizer (NTO) family of solutions on top of the flexibility and baseline feature set provided by OpenFlow switches.

Key highlights of the expanded visibility architecture include:

• Ease of use, advanced processing functions and single pane of glass configuration through Ixia’s NTO user interface and purpose-built hardware
• Full programmability and automation control using RESTful APIs
• Patented automatic filter compiler engine for hassle-free visibility
• Architectural support for line speeds from 1Gbps to 100Gbps in a highly scalable design
• Open, standards-based integration with the flexibility to use a variety of OpenFlow enabled hardware and virtual switch platforms
• Dynamic repartitioning of switch ports between production switching and visibility enablement to optimize infrastructure utilization

http://www.ixiacom.com/

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Spirent Intros Carrier Agg Test Capabilities for Mobile Devices with Keysight

Spirent Communications introduced a solution for testing maximum data throughput performance for LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation in mobile devices.

The product integrates Keysight Technologies’ UXM platform with the Spirent 8100 Carrier Acceptance and Conformance test solution. The new testing coverage supported by the Keysight UXM enables the Spirent 8100 cover three and four component carrier aggregation. It also supports both FD-LTE and TD-LTE technologies.

“Keysight’s UXM allows Spirent’s recently-launched 8100 X202 solution to offer the advanced carrier aggregation test capabilities needed for current and future LTE-Advanced deployments around the world,” said Rob Van Brunt, general manager of Spirent Communications, “With Keysight and Spirent’s combined testing expertise and sophisticated automated testing, integrating the UXM into our 8100 system positions our customers to stay highly competitive.”

http://www.spirent.com/Products/8100_LTE

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nCino Raises $29 Million for Cloud-based Services for Financial Sector

nCino, a start-up based in Wilmington, North Carolina, announced $29 million in Series B financing for its secure, cloud-based operating solutions for the financial services industry.

nCino's Bank Operating System leverages the Salesforce Platform to provide financial institutions with superior transparency and clarity into their existing loan production pipelines, portfolios and operating efficiencies across all business lines, resulting in increased profitability, productivity gains and regulatory compliance.

The funding was led by Insight Venture Partners, and also included investments from existing investors Wellington Management Company LLP, former Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO John Mack and Promontory Financial Group Founder and CEO Gene Ludwig.

http://www.ncino.com

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Ixia Announces Better than Expected Preliminary Q4 Revenue of $127 Million

Ixia now exptects total revenue for its 2014 fourth quarter to be $127.2 million, compared with $120.6 million reported for the 2013 fourth quarter and $114.0 million reported for the 2014 third quarter. 2014 and 2013 fourth quarter revenue includes $17.8 million and $4.8 million, respectively, of revenue attributable to Net Optics, Inc. (“Net Optics”), which we acquired in December 2013. On a GAAP basis, the company expects to report net income for the 2014 fourth quarter of $286,000, or $0.00 per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $3.1 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, for the 2013 fourth quarter.

“Our better than expected revenue was driven by record bookings and strong demand across our product lines and verticals, including higher sales of our visibility solutions to service providers,” said Bethany Mayer, Ixia's president and chief executive officer. “We are very pleased with our execution in the quarter. Looking forward, we will continue our efforts to transform Ixia into an enabler of Application Performance and Security Resilience and to diversify and grow our business while focusing on operational fundamentals and driving financial discipline.”

Total revenue for fiscal year 2014 is expected to be $464.5 million, compared with $467.3 million reported for fiscal year 2013. The 2014 and 2013 fiscal years include $59.0 million and $4.8 million, respectively, of revenue attributable to Net Optics.

http://www.ixiacom.com

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