Ericsson Reaffirms Strategic Objectives

Ericsson is projecting that its total addressable market for 2014-2018 will grow at a CAGR of 2 to 4 percent.  It's ambition is to grow faster than the overall market, while focusing on growth areas, implementing cost control measures and seeking new partnerships.  The newly announced alliance with Cisco targets US$1 billion or more in additional sales by 2018.

At its Capital Markets Day earlier this week in Stockholm, Hans Vestberg, President and CEO, commented: "We are continuing our journey to transform Ericsson into a leading ICT player, building on our leadership in our core business and extending into targeted growth areas. The partnership with Cisco is a key step forward in our company transformation and enables us to create unique value for our customers. Together, we will build on our longstanding technology and services leadership to define the networks of the future and accelerate realization of the Networked Society."

The company said its strategy is to excel in its core business - radio, core and transmission, and telecommunications services - while establishing leadership in targeted areas, such as cloud, IP networks, TV and media, OSS and BSS. The cost and efficiency program announced in November 2014 is on target to achieve annual net savings of SEK 9 billion during 2017.

Some highlights:

• Ericsson ambition is to capture opportunities with virtualization and cloud for the IP and core portfolio based on its number one position in telecom core networks
• North America leads the way in average data traffic per active smartphone (GB/month), which is currently at about 4GB per month and projected to grow to around 22GB/month by 2021.
• 30+ VoLTE, Ericsson supports >50%
• 11 live Wi-Fi Calling, Ericsson supports 9
• The Ericsson Dot solution is now live with 41 mobile operators
• Ericsson is well on the way to 5G, having demonstrated numerous technological firsts, such as LTE-LAA
• In Global Services, Ericsson now has 65,000 professionals and 20,000 sourced
• Ericsson has 4 Global Service Centers, incl. Global NOCs
• Ericsson is investing in new global labs to develop IP services capabilities and solutions

Presentations from the day-long event are posted on the Investors page of the company website.

http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/investors/events/2015/capital-markets-day-2015-presentations.shtml

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A10's Thunder Convergent Firewall Delivers 150 Gbps

A10 Networks introduced its Thunder Convergent Firewall (CFW), a standalone security product that leverages its ACOS Harmony platform for converging security and application delivery in a single appliance for service providers, cloud providers, and large enterprises. Firewall performance is rated at over 150 Gbps throughput and 5 million CPS in a one rack-unit appliance. A10's ACOS Harmony platform uses standards-based RESTful APIs to providing access to telemetry data and all aspects of configuration.

Some highlights:

• High-performance Secure Web Gateway with integrated explicit proxy, URL filtering and SSL Insight. It enables security policy enforcement for client outbound HTTP/HTTPS traffic.
• High-performance data centre firewall (DCFW) with integrated network denial-of-service (DoS) protection and Server Load Balancing (SLB). It provides Layer 4 stateful firewall and Layer 7 application-level gateway.
• High-performance Gi/SGi firewall with integrated network DoS and Carrier Grade NAT (CGN). The Gi/SGi firewall protects the mobility infrastructure with advanced policy enforcement.
• High-performance IPSec site-to-site VPN. It helps enterprises to secure application traffic between sites and it enables global enterprises to use public networks to transport application traffic securely.
• aGalaxy Centralised Management System support for Thunder CFW. aGalaxy provides device management, configuration, reporting and troubleshooting for Thunder CFW.

"I'm thrilled to announce the industry's first solution that consolidates multiple converged security solutions in one package," said Lee Chen, CEO of A10 Networks. "Thunder Convergent Firewall provides a highly effective, highly scalable all-inclusive converged secured application network platform to protect organisations' assets. Thunder CFW is a testament to the power and versatility of the ACOS Harmony platform and we've worked with our customers in implementing some of the key security modules."

https://www.a10networks.com

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LG Launches LTE-Connected Android Smart Watch

LG is launching the first Android Wear smartwatch to feature cellular connectivity

The LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE, which begins shipping this month in the United States and Korea, allows users to answer calls and check messages. They can receive and respond right from their smartwatch, even when they are not carrying their mobile phone.  It features a hairline-etched stainless steel body and a full-circle 348ppi P-OLED display. The three buttons on the right side of the smartwatch provide quick access to shortcut settings, LG Health and other apps.

AT&T will be offering the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE in its store on Nov. 13.  The new Watch Urbane is also available for pre-order online from Verizon.

"Staying connected is of the utmost importance to consumers today. With the introduction of the second edition Watch Urbane LTE, consumers have options when it comes to their devices and we are excited to bring the latest to the wearables category," said Morris Lee, senior vice president and head of North American sales and marketing, LG Mobile Communications Company.

http://www.lg.com

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ESnet and NERSC Build 400G BayExpress Super-Channel

The Department of Energy’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) have built the first 400 Gbps super-channel production link to be deployed by a national research and education network. ESnet currently operates a 100G backbone network connecting DOE sites and universities.  The new 400G BayExpress connection will provide support for NERSC’s 6,000 users as the facility moves from its current location in Oakland, Calif. to the main campus of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley over the next year.

BayExpress is deployed as a pair of 200 Gbps per wavelength and allows for a dual subcarrier 400 Gbps connection. ESnet and NERSC worked with Ciena and Level 3 on the project.

ESnet also noted that the team has set up a 400 Gbps research testbed for assessing new tools and technologies without interfering with production data traffic and allowing staff to gain experience operating a 400 Gbps optical infrastructure. For the testbed, the optical frequencies are more narrowly tuned to maximize use of the fiber spectrum, known as “gridless superchannels,” said Chris Tracy, co-leader of the project and a member of ESnet’s Network Engineering team. The testbed uses a dark fiber link provided by Level 3 to ESnet and NERSC for six months. The team will begin conducting field trials on the testbed within the next two months.

“We expect the 400G prototype network to provide us with many valuable insights with regard to future network architectures and be useful to others in the research community,” said ESnet Chief Technologist Inder Monga. “Other universities, national laboratories and regional and commercial networks will be planning their next-generation networks on this time scale and our goal is to publicize not only our experiences from an optical networking perspective, but also from a scientific workflows perspective in which large-scale datasets are moved between facilities coupled by 400 Gbps of dedicated network bandwidth.”

More details on the ESnet site.

http://www.es.net/news-and-publications/esnet-news/2015/esnet-and-nersc-blaze-400g-production-network-path/

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Gogo Hits Inflight Wi-Fi Milestone - 2,500 Aircraft

Gogo's inflight Wi-Fi service hit a significant milestone this month as the company now has 2500 commercial aircraft equipped for its connectivity.

Out of the 2500 aircraft, more than 860 have been outfitted with the company's higher capacity air-to-ground solution – ATG-4 – and more than 150 aircraft are installed with its Ku-band satellite system.

The company expects nearly 1,000 aircraft to be flying with ATG-4 by the end of this year, which represents close to 40 percent of all Gogo equipped aircraft.

 "Increasing bandwidth to the aircraft is a big priority for us. What's notable about this milestone is the fact that we are not only increasing the number of aircraft with Gogo connectivity services, we are increasingly installing higher bandwidth solutions," added Michael Small, Gogo's president and CEO. "This milestone comes right before we get ready to launch our latest and greatest 2Ku technology to the world, which will further increase bandwidth to the aircraft."

http://gogo.to/2Ku

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TIA to Open NFV Testing Lab

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) it will launch a lab for interoperability testing of network functions virtualization (NFV) technology.

The TIA NFV Lab, which is expected to launch in early 2016, will help service providers to ensure that software and applications running on the network are able to perform as designed and work seamlessly together with other software and applications. The lab will now leverage ETSI’s framework for its testing.

“NFV is a game changer for the global communications industry and is rapidly driving innovative new services for consumers and businesses,” said TIA CEO Scott Belcher. “But in order to realize its full potential, companies must have access to sophisticated, neutral testing platforms. With the launch of the TIA lab, we are committed to giving solution providers, vendors and developers a place to test compatibility between multiple platforms.”

“The data revolution has created a need for extremely flexible and predictive network architecture that can only be achieved through virtualization,” said TIA CTO Franklin Flint. “The TIA NFV Lab will be the only lab of its kind to test true cross-platform, industry-wide, ecosystem agnostic equipment, software and solutions. It will serve as a neutral venue for technology companies to prove the compatibility and scalability of NFV solutions.”

http://www.tiaonline.org/tia-nfv-lab

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Perfecto Raises $35 Million for Testing Mobile User Experience

Perfecto Mobile, a start-up based in Boston, announced $35 million in venture funding for its work in ensuring high-quality digital and mobile experiences for enterprises.

Perfecto Mobile addresses the need for enterprises to continuously test and monitor their mobile and digital user experiences on real devices under real end-user conditions. Perfecto’s Continuous Quality Lab gives users access to a cloud-based test lab, complete with automated test scenarios that account for real user conditions across real devices. The company said its workforce has doubled this year with high growth projections for next year. Its customer base includes brands like Discover, Weather.com and Sky.

The funding came from new investor Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), with continued participation from existing investors FTV Capital, Carmel Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners and Vertex Ventures.

“Customers now expect and depend on high-quality digital experiences when interacting with brands via the Web, mobile apps and IoT devices,” said Eran Yaniv, CEO of Perfecto. “Perfecto has developed leading solutions that help enterprises deliver high-quality digital experiences via our Continuous Quality Lab. I am excited about the partnership with TCV and look forward to working together in growing Perfecto’s global presence, expanding our quality offerings and positioning Perfecto for continued growth and innovation.”

http://www.perfectomobile.com/

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