Italtel Launches NFV--based 'SIP Trunking as a Service'

Italtel announced the availability of its 'SIP Trunking as a Service' solution - based on its NetMatch-S Cloud-Inside Session Border Controller (SBC) - for service providers' business customers.

The service enables the deployment of a session border controller in the cloud data center rather than at the customer premise.

Italtel CEO Stefano Pileri said: "This solution gives Service Providers a competitive advantage by allowing them to offer flexible and scalable UC&C solutions in their Clouds via an "as a service" model. Their business customers, on the other hand, will benefit from a flexible solution offering security and Service Level Agreements, as well as seamless and automatic updates with best-in-class features which follow a 'pay-as-you-grow' model and can be easily implemented."

http://www.italtel.com/en/

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Level 3: Demand for Bandwidth Remains Strong

Level 3 Communications reported revenue of 2.053 billion for the fourth quarter 2015, compared to $2.052 billion for the fourth quarter 2014 and $8.229 billion for the full year 2015 compared to $8.123 billion for the full year 2014. In the fourth quarter 2015, the company generated net income of $3.323 billion and basic earnings per share of $9.33.

"Our 2015 results demonstrate Level 3's solid execution and performance," said Jeff Storey, president and CEO of Level 3. "Demand for bandwidth remains strong and the proliferation of connected devices continues. These demand drivers are creating an enterprise networking opportunity that is well suited for the depth, scale and reach of Level 3's global network and capabilities. We believe we are well positioned to continue to take enterprise market share."

Some highlights:

• Grew Core Network Services revenue by 5.3 percent for the full year 2015, on a pro forma and constant currency basis
• Grew Enterprise Core Network Services revenue by 7.2 percent for the full year 2015, on a pro forma and constant currency basis.

http://investors.level3.com

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Telstra Books 1800 MHz Band in Australian Spectrum Auction

Telstra secured 57 blocks of spectrum licenses at an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) auction. The blocks of spectrum in the 1800 MHz band cover 12 regions across Australia and will be used to enhance the delivery of 4G mobile services. Telstra will pay A$190 million for the spectrum licences, which have a term of 11 years.

"As a result of the auction, we’ll be at least doubling the amount of spectrum in the 1800 MHz band that we can use to provide 4G services in these areas. In fact, in some regions we will more than triple the amount available. Securing this extra spectrum allows Telstra to deliver more capacity to cater to our customers’ growing demand for mobile data. It will also enable mobile data to be delivered at even faster speeds," stated Telstra CEO Andy Penn.

http://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/media/media-releases/telstra-customers-to-benefit-from-more-spectrum-in-1800-mhz-band.xml

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Final USAF GPS IIF Satellite Successfully Launched

United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched a Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF-12 satellite for the U.S. Air Force aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

GPS IIF-12 is the final satellite in the IIF-block of satellites, which are the next-generation GPS satellites that incorporate numerous improvements to provide greater accuracy, increased signals and enhanced performance for users. This mission was ULA's 104th successful launch since the company was formed in December 2006.

"Congratulations to the ULA, Boeing and Air Force teams on the successful launch of GPS IIF-12.  We began launching the IIF satellites in May 2010 and have appreciated the outstanding teamwork of everyone involved as we have worked together to deliver all 12 IIF satellites. This system provides incredible capabilities to our women and men in uniform while enabling so many technologies that impact all of our daily lives. We are proud to be GPS's ride to space," said Laura Maginnis, ULA vice president, Custom Services.

http://www.ulalaunch.com/

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Xilinx FPGA to Support 25G per Lane Copper Cabling at Five Meters

Xilinx announced that its Virtex UltraScale FPGAs have achieved compliance to the 25GE, 50GE and 100GE copper cable and backplane IEEE and related specifications, which supports up to five meters of copper cabling in the data center and up to one meter of backplane interconnect.

These specifications include the IEEE 802.3bj 100GBASE-CR4/KR4, IEEE 802.3by 25GBASE-CR/CR-S/KR/KR-S, and 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium 50GBASE-CR2/KR2. Data center customers can now leverage nx25G lanes of copper cabling versus optics for more cost and power-optimized solutions to connect servers to top-of-rack switches using any off-the-shelf, specification-compliant vendor.

"With Virtex UltraScale FPGAs in volume production, and as the industry's only FPGA supplier compliant to the 25Gb per lane copper cable and backplane specifications, we are committed to helping our customers utilize the lowest risk and most cost effective solutions for their data centers," said Kirk Saban, senior director of FPGA and SoC product management and marketing.

http://press.xilinx.com/2016-02-02-Xilinx-Transceiver-Breakthrough-Brings-Greater-Cost-Efficiency-to-Data-Center-Interconnects

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Xilinx Tech Ventures to Invest in Cloud & NFV Start-ups

Xilinx Technology Ventures is launching a Data Center Ecosystem Investment Program that will focus primarily on technologies that expand Xilinx's data center products and offerings and ignite industry innovation, time to market advantage, and lower overall cost of ownership. The new program targets solutions for emerging workload applications such as machine learning, image and video processing, data analytics, storage data base acceleration, and network acceleration.

As part of this program, Xilinx recently completed its first data center ecosystem investment in TeraDeep, Inc., a company specializing in convolutional neural networks-based machine learning. TeraDeep is widely recognized for its state-of-the-art deep learning expertise and acceleration technology which runs on Xilinx® FPGAs. Through this investment, TeraDeep will continue to work closely with Xilinx to further optimize its solutions on Xilinx-based FPGA boards.

"Through this investment program, we want to help enable start-ups that create libraries, middleware, and application software to accelerate the broad deployment of Xilinx FPGA solutions in the Data Center," said Greer Person, senior director, Corporate Business Development. "In addition to funding, our portfolio companies often gain access to Xilinx business and technology experts, products, and design environments to help them create more competitive solutions, accelerate time-to-market, and reduce development costs."

http://www.xilinx.com/about/technology-investments.html

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German Broadcaster Picks SES Platform

TELE 5, a leading commercial broadcaster in Germnay, has renewed a multi-year contract with SES Platform Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES.

Under the deal, SES Platform Services, a global service provider for the distribution of video content, will be providing services to TELE 5 which include editing and distributing video and metadata (such as information about license periods, pictures, trailers and brief descriptions) – from live broadcasting to video-on-demand.

TELE 5’s inventory of over 8,000 hours of HD video material and over 2,000 assets – from feature films to magazine formats and original reporting – is stored in Fluid MAM (Media Asset Management), a Web-based media management application developed by SES Platform Services and based on secure cloud technology. It enables companies to digitally manage their video and metadata easily and conveniently, before efficiently delivering the content to internet or VOD platforms.

TELE 5 will use Fluid MAM to deliver more than 1,200 hours of VOD content annually. The flexible playout system Fluid PLAY guarantees high audiovisual quality and allows for sophisticated video effects and special forms of advertising.

http://www.ses.com/4232583/en

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Swisscom: Flat Revenues, Higher CAPEX for Broadband Upgrades

Swisscom reported 2015 revenue of 11,678 million (CHF), down 0.2% from 2014.  Net income came in at 1,362 million (CHF).

“Currency effects and more intense competition with stronger price dynamic characterised our business in the last year”, said CEO Urs Schaeppi. “In view of the challenging environment in the ICT market, I am satisfied with our operating business. On a like-for-like basis, we achieved a slight increase in revenue as well as operating income (EBITDA). The expansion of the national infrastructure and new offerings according to the needs of our customers will continue to call for high capital expenditure. Fastweb recorded positive customer growth of 6.2% in the Italian market. As a result of strong competition and price pressure, we set ourselves the goal of reducing our costs by over CHF 300 million by 2020.”

Some highlights from the report:

• Swisscom TV access lines in Switzerland reached 1,331,000 as of 31-Dec-2015, up 14.2% from a year earlier.
• Mobile lines in Switzerland reached 6,625,00 as of 31-Dec-2015, up 1.3% from a year earlier.
• Broadband access lines Fastweb reached 2,201,000 as of 31-Dec-2015, up 6.2% from a year earlier.
• CAPEX in Switzerland reached 1,822 (CHF million), up 4.1 %
• Group-wide capital expenditure fell by CHF 27 million or 1.1% to CHF 2,409 million

https://www.swisscom.ch/en/about/medien/press-releases/2016/02/20160204-MM-Jahresbericht-2015.html

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