#MWC16: Cavium Demos M-CORD with ON.Lab

Cavium hosted a Proof of Concept (POC) for the Mobility Data Center (M-CORD) in collaboration with ON.Lab.  The demo used for using Cavium's ThunderX COTS servers and OCTEON Fusion-M baseband processors at Mobile World Congress.

CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) combines SDN, NFV and the elasticity of commodity clouds, leveraging merchant silicon, white boxes, standard leaf-spine fabric for network connectivity and open source platforms such as ONOS, XOS, OpenStack, and Docker to bring datacenter economies and cloud agility to the Telco Central Office.

The MCORD POC includes specific uses cases of SDN and NFV for mobility wireless applications, including Cloud RAN (C-RAN), Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and the ability to virtualize core functions such as the Evolved Packet Core (EPC).

Cavium said M-CORD promises to further transform the mobile network from a transport network into a service delivery platform, allowing operators to achieve considerable opportunities for edge services with cloud-based economies and cost-savings. With M-CORD’s potential, operators and their collaborators may tap deeper into services such as digital gaming, video streaming, IOT, safety, big data analytics, mobile health, education, smart cities, vehicular communications, and much more with improved QoE and agility.

 "We are excited  to collaborate with ON.Lab for a 3GPP compliant disaggregated, and virtualized mobile infrastructure using our ThunderX workload optimized servers and our OCTEON Fusion-M Baseband Processors," said Raj Singh, General Manager of the Wireless Broadband Group at Cavium. "The M-CORD collaboration allows us to demonstrate the benefits of SDN and NFV in mobile infrastructure, and several agile service deployment scenarios of mobile edge computing."

“We’re excited about the progress that our collaboration and community have made on M-CORD in such a short amount of time – a testatment to the importance of this initiative to vendors, service providers and enterprises alike,” said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director, ON.Lab and ONOS Board Chairman. “The delivery of M-CORD not only generates new opportunities for competitive mass market solutions such as IoT, Big Data, mobile healthcare, education and more, but also enables the supply chain efficiencies needed for the industry to provide cutting-edge innovation to consumers at affordable prices. We welcome new members to join us.”

http://onlab.us
http://www.cavium.com

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#MWC16 - Nokia Demos NB-IoT with Intel and Vodafone

At this week's Mobile World Congress, Nokia demoed Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) in collaboration with Intel and Vodafone. The demo shows future NB-IoT services from Vodafone in both rural and urban scenarios, supported by NB-IoT-enabled network equipment from Nokia and client device technology from Intel. The system highlights NB-IoT’s capability to support the massive number of low-throughput sensors and devices that will enable next-generation services to consumers, smart cities, utilities and industry.

NB-IoT is a 3GPP Rel. 13 radio access technology designed especially for enabling cellular connectivity to Internet of Things devices, and is designed to combine long range mobile connections with long battery life.

Nokia said NB-IoT has the potential to help billions of things connect by reducing costs, enhancing coverage and extending the battery life of connected objects. The enhanced coverage of NB-IoT compared to conventional LTE will allow for the tracking of objects deep within buildings and in rural areas, as shown in the joint demonstration.

http://networks.nokia.com

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#MWC16: MulteFire Alliance Pursues LTE in Unlicensed Spectrum

There is a growing interest in using LTE in unlicensed spectrum, according to The MulteFire Alliance, which was launched just over a year ago to promote the technology.  The alliance is developing a global ecosystem for LTE in unlicensed spectrum and the further development of small cell technology. Ericsson, Intel, Nokia and Qualcomm are key players behind MulteFire. Multiple demos were held at MWC16 this week in Barcelona.

The MulteFire Alliance technical specification group is developing the MulteFire specification based on 3GPP Release 13 and Release 14 advancements, including downlink and uplink in unlicensed spectrum. MulteFire is designed to initially operate in 5 GHz unlicensed bands and coexist with other technologies using the same spectrum. MulteFire can also act as a neutral host to serve multiple entities or deliver provider-specific services at enterprises, venues and small businesses. The Alliance plans to provide interoperability, conformance and coexistence specifications and to enable conformance testing to ensure a robust and interoperable ecosystem.

“The MulteFire Alliance is committed to developing a technology designed to meet global unlicensed band regulations, including Listen-Before-Talk features required in regions such as Europe and Japan, for a truly global reach,” said Stephan Litjens, MulteFire Alliance Board Chair and head of Innovation Steering at Nokia. “Our members are taking great care to ensure that MulteFire technology will harmoniously coexist with other technologies in unlicensed spectrum bands.”

The newest members of the MulteFire Alliance include Athonet, Baicells, Boingo Wireless, Casa Systems, Ruckus Wireless and SpiderCloud Wireless.

http://www.MulteFire.org

#MWC16 - Qualcomm Brings Gigabit LTE, 4x4 MIMO LTE, Ultra HD Voice

Sunday, February 21, 2016  #MWC16, MulteFire, Qualcomm  No comments

Qualcomm Technologies is showcasing its recently-announced Snapdragon X16 LTE modem at this week's Mobile World Congress -- representing a 10X leap over first gen LTE and 500X over early 3G devices. In a demo featuring Ericsson's Software 16B release, the modem is achieving download speeds up to 1 Gbps using a combination of 3x carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO on two aggregated carriers, and higher-order modulation using 256-QAM. Other Qualcomm demos...

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#MWC16: Qualcomm and SpiderCloud Pitch Small Cells for Unlicensed

Saturday, February 20, 2016  #MWC16, Qualcomm, Spidercloud  No comments

Qualcomm and SpiderCloud Wireless are collaborating on LTE-U, LTE-LAA, and MulteFire systems for enterprises and public venues. SpiderCloud’s Enterprise RAN (E-RAN) architecture that includes a Services Node controlling up to 100 self-organizing LTE small cells, capable of delivering coverage and capacity in indoor locations as large as 1.5 million square feet. Verizon will trial SpiderCloud’s LTE-U system in the third quarter of 2016. SpiderCloud’s...

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#MWC16: Baicells' Mini Base Station Fits in Palm of Your Hand

Baicells introduced a mini, small cell base station based on Qualcomm's the FSM90xx chipsets.

The palm-sized elfCell, which integrates baseband, RF and antenna, is considered to be one of the world’s smallest base stations.

“Compliant with 3GPP standard, elfCell can be used by the general public. It can support flexible frequency bands, FDD/TDD dual modes and most importantly plug & play, which means a zero configuration, zero installation for indoor coverage. Qualcomm Technologies’ FSM90xx chipsets help the elfCell achieve stable performance in a palm-sized design with built-in antenna. We really appreciate support from Qualcomm Technologies,” said Mr. Wei Bai, Vice President Marketing of Baicells. 

“ElfCell can support 16 active users simultaneously, with DL rate reaching 150Mbps and UL rate reaching 75Mbps. We believe that the small and exquisite elfCell will gain widespread popularity among operators by tremendously reducing their deployment and maintenance cost,” Wei Bai added.

Baidcells is rolling out the LTE-U small cell solution with China Mobile and the company says it has plans to deploy in the U.S. in the near future.

http://www.baicells.com

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#MWC16- Samsung Spins 256GB Flash for High-End Phones

Samsung Electronics has begun mass production of the first 256-gigabyte (GB) embedded memory based on the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard.  The newly introduced embedded memory, which is targeted at high-end mobile devices, exceeds that of a typical SATA-based SSD for PCs.

The new Samsung UFS memory is based on the company’s most advanced V-NAND flash memory chips and a specially-designed high-performance controller. The UFS memory handles up to 45,000 and 40,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) for random reading and writing respectively, over two times faster than the 19,000 and 14,000 IOPS of the previous generation of UFS memory.

For sequential reading, the 256GB UFS takes advantage of two lanes of data transfer to move data at up to 850MB/s, which is nearly twice as fast as a typical SATA-based SSD used in PCs. In terms of sequential writing, it supports up to 260MB/s, which is approximately three times faster than high-performance external micro SD cards.

“By providing high-density UFS memory that is nearly twice as fast as a SATA SSD for PCs, we will contribute to a paradigm shift within the mobile data storage market,” said Joo Sun Choi, Executive Vice President, Memory Sales and Marketing, Samsung Electronics. “We are determined to push the competitive edge in premium storage line-ups – OEM NVMe SSDs, external SSDs, and UFS – by moving aggressively to enhance performance and capacity in all three markets.”

http://www.samsung.com

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#MWC16: IDT Partners with 5G Lab Germany on Autonomous Cars

Integrated Device Technology announced a multi-year collaboration with 5G Lab Germany on 5G tactile networks, including the application of IDT technology to enable network-connected autonomous vehicles.

The project extends the Dresden-based lab's focus on combining 5G technologies with system-transforming applications.

IDT said its RapidIO technology will be used to explore two key elements of the network. First, the 100ns latency RapidIO switching and interconnect technology will be used to realize 5G Lab Germany's vision of transforming the vehicle into a connected appliance by networking it with a 5G base station's "edge computing" server. Second, it is planned for RapidIO technology to be evaluated to connect multiple vehicle sensors in real time for the mission-critical sensor fusion network essential for the self-driving or computer-assisted driving experience. A RapidIO-connected heterogeneous computer network will run real-time analytics to assist various network devices, including vehicles.

"With Germany's leadership in the global automotive industry, our lab's focus on the tactile Internet of Things, and IDT's low-latency interconnect and market-leading timing portfolio, the key elements are in place to tackle the real-time mission-critical challenges of platforms for the tactile Internet, including autonomous vehicles," said Gerhard Fettweis, 5G Lab chair and Vodafone chair professor for Mobile Communications Systems. "With the 1 millisecond round trip constraints in 5G deployments, we need low-latency computing platforms for vehicles, base station and edge computing servers. This project will explore connecting the requisite high-performance computing nodes through the deployment of IDT RapidIO technology and associated timing products."

The collaboration will build on IDT's recently announced RXS family of 50 Gbps RapidIO products, as well as computing appliances under development by IDT partners in the Open Compute Project's (OCP) High-Performance Computing group. The OCP's projects support heterogeneous computing between x86, ARM, Power Architecture, GPU and FPGAs.

http://www.idt.com/

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#MWC: Pluribus Updates SDN Software for Dell ON Switches

Pluribus Networks released a new version of its Open Netvisor Linux (ONVL) for Dell, enabling the automatic creation of fully connected mesh networking for the data center along with deep visibility and application-awareness for applications like big data, network storage and virtual desktop infrastructure.

Highlights of Open Netvisor Linux version 2.3.2 for Dell include:

• The ability to create an agile, fully connected and single fabric regardless of the number of switches, with the added benefit of simplified deployment and maintenance of the data center network
• Complete visibility and application-level awareness of the flow of information between applications and services for optimizing demanding applications
• The unlocking of hardware potential found in the Dell Open Networking family of switches by providing wire-speed and low-latency switching with complete Layer-2 and Layer-3 compatibility for existing infrastructures
• The industry’s only high-availability, fully distributed controller architecture based upon proven protocols, which also offers a familiar, but fabric-wide management interface

http://www.pluribusnetworks.com

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#MWC16: Vimplecom Picks ZTE for NFV Rollout in 5 Countries

Vimplecom has selected ZTE to build a complete virtual network infrastructure providing 4G, 3G and 2G mobile data services to customers across five markets in 2016. Financial terms were not disclosed.

ZTE’s virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) network will be introduced in Kyrgyzstan and Laos in February 2016. Following these two markets, VimpelCom plans to introduce the fully virtualized network in Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Tajikistan during the course of 2016. With virtualization, the networks in the five VimpelCom markets will move from a legacy-heavy network made up of separate network elements to a common software-driven, lean infrastructure.

Yogesh Malik, Group Chief Technology Officer at VimpelCom said: “VimpelCom believes in instant innovation. Investing in innovative solutions to reinvent our network is high on the agenda as we transform into the digital operator of the future. We are convinced that virtualization represents the new way forward for the industry. The reinvention of the current network to one that is software-driven and asset-light plays an important part in our digital transformation and is a leap forward in bringing the digital world to each and every customer as they navigate their digital lives.”

http://www.zte.com

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Martin Casado Joins Andreessen Horowitz as a General Partner

Martin Casado, the founder and CTO of Nicira and most recently General Manager and Executive Vice President of VMware's Networking and Security Business, has joined Andreessen Horowitz as a General Partner. Casado is known for his pioneering work with OpenFlow while at Stanford.  In 2009, Nicira Networks was established to commercialize software-defined network. In 2012, VMware acquired Nicira for $1.26 billion. In a blog post, Marc Andreessen notes that under Casado's leadership, VMware’s networking and security portfolio closed out 2015 at a $600 million annual revenue run rate, and with a six-fold increase in paying customers only three years after Nicira was acquired.

http://a16z.com/2016/02/24/martin-casado/

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VMware Appoints Rajiv Ramaswami as GM of Networking & Security

VMware announced the appointment of Dr. Rajiv Ramaswami as General Manager and Executive Vice President of its Networking and Security Business, replacing Martin Casado.

Ramaswami most recently served as executive vice president and general manager of the Infrastructure & Networking Group of Broadcom Corporation. Prior to Broadcom, Ramaswami was vice president and general manager of the Cloud Services and Switching Technology Group at Cisco Systems, Inc., where he also served as vice president and general manager for a variety of business units in Optical, Switching and Storage Networking. Ramaswami holds both a Master of Science degree and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a B. Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras.

http://www.vmware.com

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