AT&T to Expand its Fiber Residential Footprint to 38 More Metros

AT&T unveiled plans to extend its  fiber residential network, which offers Internet speeds of up to 1 Gbps, to an additional 38 metro areas across the U.S..  This rollout will double the reach of the AT&T GigaPower service, which currently passes over 1 million locations, bringing the total number of metros served to 56.

AT&T also announced the launch of its ultra-fast Internet service in parts of 2 of these metros – Los Angeles and West Palm Beach.  AT&T GigaPower is now available in 20 of the nation’s largest metros.  

“Customer demand for AT&T GigaPower and sales have exceeded expectations since launching speeds up to 1 gigabit per second in Austin,” said Brad Bentley, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, AT&T Entertainment Group. “The faster speeds offered through AT&T GigaPower keep consumers and small businesses connected as they are accessing more content on more devices. This improves a customer’s experience when they are connecting to the cloud, hosting a videoconference, streaming videos and music, playing online games and more.”

The 38 metro areas that AT&T will be entering, starting with the launch of service in parts of the Los Angeles and West Palm Beach metros today, are:

• Alabama: Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile and Montgomery
• Arkansas: Fort Smith/Northwest Arkansas and Little Rock
• California: Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose4
• Florida: Pensacola and West Palm Beach
• Georgia: Augusta
• Indiana: Indianapolis
• Kansas: Wichita
• Kentucky: Louisville
• Louisiana: Baton Rouge, Shreveport-Bossier, Jefferson Parish region and the Northshore
• Mississippi: Jackson
• Missouri: St. Louis5
• Michigan: Detroit
• Nevada: Reno
• North Carolina: Asheville
• Ohio: Cleveland and Columbus
• Oklahoma: Oklahoma City and Tulsa
• South Carolina: Charleston, Columbia and Greenville
• Tennessee: Memphis
• Texas: El Paso and Lubbock
• Wisconsin: Milwaukee

http://www.att.com/gigapowermap

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GSMA: Mobile Industry Boosts European Economy

The mobile industry’s contribution to European GDP will increase from EUR500 billion in 2014 to EUR600 billion by 2020, as markets across the region benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by the adoption of new mobile technologies, including machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, according to a new study by GSMA.

“Europe’s mobile operators have invested heavily in 4G over the past few years despite challenging macroeconomic and regulatory conditions, and we expect investments in 4G deployments, capacity and spectrum to be sustained for the remainder of the decade,” said Alex Sinclair, Acting Director General and Chief Technology Officer at the GSMA. “Mobile subscribers in Europe are now benefiting from download speeds that far exceed the global average and are taking advantage of a range of innovative new services made possible by next-generation networks and devices.”

Some highlights:

• 4G will account for 60 per cent of the continent’s mobile connections1 by 2020, according to the report, up from 20 per cent today.
• 4G network coverage passed 80 per cent of the European population in early 2015 and is forecast to exceed 95 per cent by the end of the decade.
• Smartphones are forecast to account for 76 per cent of Europe’s mobile connections by 2020, up from 60 per cent this year.
• Average monthly data usage for Western Europe is set to grow from less than 1GB per month in 2014 to nearly 6GB in 2019, a 45 per cent compound annual growth rate, according to Cisco.
• The EUR500 billion generated by the mobile industry in Europe last year was equivalent to 3.2 per cent of the region’s GDP. 
• The mobile industry directly and indirectly supported 3.8 million jobs and contributed approximately EUR84 billion to public funding in the form of various types of taxation. 

http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/europe/

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QLogic and Brocade Demo NVMe Over Fabrics with Fibre Channel

QLogic and Brocade demonstrated a Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) over Fabrics solution using Fibre Channel as the fabric.

The demonstration, which is an industry first, is based on the draft specification of NVMe over Fabrics under definition by the NVM Express, Inc. organization and the draft Fibre Channel over NVMe (FC-NVMe) standards under definition by T11.

The companies said this FC-NVMe proof of concept (POC) sets a foundation for lower latency and increased performance, while providing improved fabric integration for flash-based storage.

NVMe provides a standards-based approach for PCI Express (PCIe) solid state drive (SSD) access that significantly improves performance by reducing latency and streamlining the command set while providing support for security and end-to-end data protection. NVMe over Fabrics defines an efficient mechanism to utilize these devices in large scale storage deployments and provides investment protection by allowing the latest in innovations and advances in low latency SSD flash to be used over proven Fibre Channel fabrics. This enables the NVMe storage devices to be shared, pooled and managed more effectively.

“Next-generation data intensive workloads are utilizing low latency NVMe flash-based storage to meet ever increasing user demand,” said Vikram Karvat, vice president of products, marketing and planning, QLogic. “By combining the lossless, highly deterministic nature of Fibre Channel with NVMe, FC-NVMe targets the performance, application response time, and scalability needed for next generation data centers, while leveraging existing Fibre Channel infrastructures. QLogic is pioneering this effort with industry leaders, which in time, will yield significant operational benefits to data center operators and IT managers.”

http://www.qlogic.com
http://www.brocade.com

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Spirent to Acquire Epitiro for Wi-Fi Experience Monitoring

Spirent Communications has acquired Epitiro, a privately-help company specializing in Wi-Fi experience monitoring.

Epitiro, which is based in Cardiff (UK), offers compact, rugged probes that may be deployed in office buildings, factories, stadiums and other mobility locations providing real-time insight into the availability and experience of services.  Key metrics include availability of Wi-Fi connectivity, file transfer and web browsing speed, availability and performance of social media applications like Facebook, etc..

Spirent said the acquisition of Epitiro builds on the success of a strategic partnership which has led to experience monitoring system deployments at multiple customers, including a tier 1 US service provider. Spirent’s service assurance suite enables providers to proactively identify problems, often before they impact the customer experience. The suite consists of four product lines: Device and End-to-End, Network, In-Home and Mobility.

“Our service provider and enterprise customers increasingly see Wi-Fi as an integral part of their strategy to provide services anywhere and anytime,” said Des Owens, general manager of Service Assurance at Spirent. “With this acquisition, we’re building on the success of our strategic partnership with Epitiro and see an exciting opportunity to improve the visibility of Wi-Fi experience for many more service providers and enterprises worldwide. We’ll also be better positioned to integrate Epitiro’s pioneering Wi-Fi technology across our suite and to provide our customers with seamless support and services.”

http://www.spirent.com/Solutions/Service-Assurance

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New IBM Cloud Service for Apps Targeting Unstructured Data

IBM introduced a new, Bluemix cloud service that lets developers interactively compose and connect object storage into their apps.

IBM Object Storage service provides app creators with a fully scalable, API-accessible platform to store and retrieve unstructured data, as well as build apps around this content.  It also allows developers to access this valuable data from external apps.

IBM said that to help capture, store and gain intelligence from rapidly increasing amounts of unstructured data, it has built a portfolio of technologies - including IBM Object Storage and its recent acquisition of Cleversafe. Cleversafe’s portfolio allows businesses to efficiently store and manage massive amounts of data throughout their organization, enabling them to scale and connect into large-scale content repositories, backup, archives and more.

https://developer.ibm.com/bluemix/2015/10/20/getting-started-with-bluemix-object-storage

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Alcatel-Lucent Lands Two More Big Routing Contracts in China

Alcatel-Lucent confirmed that China Unicom and China Mobile are both significantly expanding their deployment of the company’s core router. Financial terms were not disclosed.

China Mobile’s CMNET, its national IP backbone network, is to deploy Alcatel-Lucent's 7950 XRS IP Core Router. China Mobile will also use the 7950 XRS in its metro networks. The agreement expands on terms announced in October 2014 of Alcatel-Lucent’s selection as the sole supplier for the China Mobile 2014 high-performance Ethernet router central bid. In July, Alcatel-Lucent announced it would advance China Mobile’s move to the cloud using ultra-broadband access, IP networking and NFV technology. With 820 million subscribers, China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile operator.

China Unicom will expand the deployment of the Alcatel-Lucent 7950 XRS IP Core Router to meet high-traffic demand in nine Chinese cities within the Jiangsu, Shandong, Jiangxi, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia provinces. Specifically, Alcatel-Lucent is deploying its 7950 XRS IP Core Router within the 14 metro network nodes of nine cities in China. Deployment will be completed toward the end of 2016. China Unicom is aiming to ensure its metro networks can meet the surging capacity demands of a growing base of more than 400 million fixed and mobile broadband subscribers into the future. This agreement expands on Alcatel-Lucent’s 2014 announcement of its selection as the supplier for the China Unicom 2014 IP metro network core router central bid.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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City of San Jose Tests LED SmartPoles with LTE Small Cells

The City of San Jose will install 50 Philips SmartPoles, which bring together energy efficient LED lighting and fully integrated 4G LTE small cell technology by Ericsson. This pilot was initiated through the City’s Demonstration Partnership Policy.

The 50 Philips SmartPoles, along with 750 Philips RoadFocus LED luminaires, are connected through a system in which they can be wirelessly controlled to modify lighting to accommodate the needs of the city. Philips said its SmartPole fixtures are 50 percent more energy efficient than conventional street lighting.

For this implementation, Philips collaborated with utility company PG&E and its metering engineering team over an unprecedented 90 day development cycle to design, test, certify and install a specialized two-way communicating meter that is affixed to the top of the SmartPole. This new meter measures the amount of electricity used by the mobile network and transmits the data transmitted directly back to PG&E. The new meters de-clutter dense urban areas by eliminating the need for standalone pedestal meters that are typically installed next to any equipment that uses electricity.

“Smart cities like San Jose share a commitment to safety, sustainability and connectivity, so we are pleased to be an integral part of this innovative project that delivers all these benefits in one sleek solution that complements their streetscape,” said Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Radio, Ericsson. “Integrating our LTE small cells in Philips SmartPoles and Ericsson Zero Site ensures that the mobile broadband connectivity requirements of citizens and new IoT applications can be addressed today and as we evolve towards 5G.”

http://www.ericsson.com
http://www.newscenter.philips.com/main

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Dell'Oro: Ethernet Switch Data Center Sales Surge

The Ethernet Switch – Data Center market surged to $2.6B, setting an all-time record in 3Q15, with the bulk of the increase driven by sales of 40 GE switches, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. In 2016, Dell'Oro Group is predicting explosive growth for 100 GE, with sales to well-exceed half a billion dollars.

"The quarter was highlighted by Arista achieving the number two rank in revenue for the first time along with strong growth from most vendors and the filling out of next generation 100 GE switch platforms," said Alan Weckel, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group.  "Looking forward to the last quarter of 2015 and early 2016, we expect to see a very strong ramp in 100 GE as customers like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft begin widespread deployments," stated Weckel.

The Quarterly Ethernet Switch – Data Center Report also indicates there is a significant difference in market share and rank across geographical regions with Cisco, Arista, and Juniper being the top three vendors in North America, but Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Huawei being the top three vendors in China in the third quarter 2015.

http://www.delloro.com/news/data-center-ethernet-switch-market-surges-to-2-6b-setting-an-all-time-record-in-3q15-according-to-delloro-group

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Mexico's Axtel to Merge with Alestra

Alestra announced a merger agreement with Axtel, a fixed line operator based in Monterrey, Mexico. It serves 39 cities across Mexico with fixed line services, including FTTH, VPNs and integrated communications.

Alestra is an IT services company based in Monterrey, Mexico.  It operates five data centers across Mexico. It's parent company. Alfa, purchased AT&T's 49% in Alestra baci in 2011.

http://www.alestra.com.mx/
http://new.axtel.mx/

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Huawei Supplies Cloud Data Center Network for Abraxas in Switzerland

Abraxas, a large information and communications technology (ICT) integrator and Cloud Service Provider (CSP) in Switzerland, has built a virtualized multi-tenant cloud data centre network with Huawei’s Cloud Fabric Data Centre Network Solution.

The fabric, built by Huawei through Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) and Ethernet Virtual Network (EVN), has helped Abraxas build an ultra-large cross-DC Layer 2 network, implementing flexible deployment and scheduling Virtual Machine (VM) resources. The Virtual System (VS) technology used by Huawei’s Cloud Fabric implements “1: N” virtualisation of a core switch.

“Huawei’s Cloud Fabric has been deployed in more than 1000 data centres in over 80 countries and regions around the world, including multiple world-renowned corporations such as Telefonica, Alibaba, Tencent, and 21Vianet Group, Inc., etc.” said Wu Chou, CTO, Switch & Enterprise Communications Product Line, Huawei. “As a leading global ICT solutions provider, Huawei will continue to devote itself to building a better connected world by carrying out customer-centric innovations.”

http://www.huawei.com

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Marvell Posts Revenue of $674 Million, Down 28% YoY

Marvell Technology Group reported preliminary third quarter fiscal 2016 revenue of $674 Million, down approximately 5 percent from $711 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, ended August 1, 2015, and down approximately 28 percent from $930 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2015, ended November 1, 2014.

In the third quarter of fiscal 2016, storage revenue declined 16% sequentially reflecting lower demand from HDD customers but was offset slightly by better-than-expected SSD controller sales.  Networking revenue in the third quarter of fiscal 2016 declined 8% sequentially reflecting continued weak demand for enterprise networking products while mobile and wireless revenue grew 15% sequentially on stronger smartphone demand, particularly in the low-end.

Marvell is restructuring its mobile handset business only. The company anticipates mobile handset platform-related revenue to decline through fiscal year 2017 due to the restructuring actions announced on September 24, 2015.

http://www.marvell.com/

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