Thursday, August 18, 2016

Vertical Systems: Shakeup in Mid-2016 U.S. Ethernet LEADERBOARD

There is a shake-up in Vertical Systems Group’s U.S. Carrier Ethernet LEADERBOARD results for mid-2016, as Charter surges ahead of Verizon into third position due to its acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House.

Here is the new LEADERBOARD (in rank order based on retail port share): AT&T, Level 3, Charter (includes Time Warner Cable and Bright House), Verizon, CenturyLink, Comcast, XO, Cox and Windstream. Port shares were calculated using the mid-year base of enterprise installations of Ethernet services in the U.S. plus input from surveys of Ethernet providers. The LEADERBOARD threshold is four percent (4%) or more of billable port installations.

Charter joins the LEADERBOARD for the first time at third position based on aggregated ports from its May 2016 acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House. At the end of 2015, Time Warner Cable was the top Cable MSO and ranked fifth on the U.S. LEADERBOARD, while Charter and Bright House were in the Challenge Tier. Charter Spectrum is now the largest Cable MSO provider of retail Ethernet services.

As a result of this LEADERBOARD shakeup, Verizon’s mid-2016 rank drops to fourth from third in 2015 and CenturyLink moves from fourth to fifth. Additionally, XO moves into the seventh share position ahead of Cox, which dips to eighth. In the Challenge Tier, Integra is a new entrant rising from the Market Player tier.

“The competitive balance of the Ethernet marketplace is evident, as more than 60 percent of new connections were delivered by CLECs and Cable MSOs during the first half of 2016,” said Rick Malone, Principal of Vertical Systems Group. “Our analysis shows a 17% annualized growth rate for U.S. Carrier Ethernet services for the full year.”

The Challenge Tier includes providers with between 1% and 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market. The following four companies attained a position in the mid-2016 Challenge Tier (in alphabetical order): Cogent, Integra, Lightpath (an Altice USA brand) and Zayo.
 The Market Player tier includes all providers with port share below 1%. Companies in the Market Player tier include the following providers (in alphabetical order): Alpheus Communications, American Telesis, Birch Communications, BT Global Services, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications, Earthlink Business, Expedient, FairPoint, FiberLight, Frontier, Global Capacity, Global Cloud Xchange, GTT, Hawaiian Telecom, Lightower, LS Networks, Lumos Networks, Masergy, MegaPath, NTT America, Orange Business, RCN Business, Sprint, SuddenLink (an Altice USA brand), Tata, TDS Telecom, TelePacific, Telstra, US Signal, WOW!Business and other companies selling retail Ethernet services in the U.S. market.

Detailed Ethernet share results for the U.S. market plus in-depth share analysis are available now exclusively through Vertical Systems Group’s ENS (Emerging Networks Service) Research Programs.

http://www.verticalsystems.com/

Cisco Confirms EPICBANANAS, EXTRABACON NSA Exploits

Cisco confirmed that its ASA and PIX firewalls were targeted to by exploit code posted online by the "Shadow Brokers" purporting to be stolen infiltration tools of the National Security Agency (NSA).

There were three references to exploits that affect Cisco ASA, Cisco PIX, and Cisco Firewall Services Module: EXTRABACON, EPICBANANA, and JETPLOW.

Specifically, the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) has published an event response page (ERP) and the security advisories addressing the vulnerabilities that could be exploited by the code released by the “Shadow Brokers”:

  • Cisco ASA SNMP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
  • Cisco ASA CLI Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
  • The Cisco ASA SNMP Remote Code Execution vulnerability is a newly found defect, and TALOS and Cisco IPS have both produced signatures to detect this issue.

http://blogs.cisco.com/security/shadow-brokers

Nokia Lands Major Optical Contract with China Mobile

Nokia has been awarded over 30% of China Mobile's "Broadband China" project to construct a 100G optical network in support of its rollout of mobile broadband services for the world's largest 4G network.

The win, part of Nokia's 2016 frame agreement with China Mobile, will see Nokia deploy a 100G Optical Transport Network (OTN) and DWDM backbone based on the recently announced 1830 PSS-24X packet optical transport system.

The centerpiece of the network architecture is a four port 100G DWDM line card for the Nokia 1830 PSS-24X. This high density line card leverages the recently announced Photonic Service Engine 2 Compact (PSE-2c), Nokia's low-power 100G-optimized digital signal processor. In combination with CFP2 analog coherent pluggable optics, the line card enables China Mobile to simply and quickly add optical capacity as needed. This will be a key requirement as China Mobile rolls out mobile broadband services to satisfy its customers' increasing and rapidly shifting demands.

"This is a crucial win with our longstanding partner. With our innovative 100G OTN solution, we are able to help China Mobile meet the higher requirements for large-scale 4G construction. We are committed to delivering the latest optical transmission innovations to enable China Mobile to optimize their networks and open up new opportunities for their subscribers," stated Mike Wang, head of the joint management team of Nokia Networks China and Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell (ASB).

http://www.nokia.com

Nokia Expands 1830 Photonic Service Switch Portfolio


Nokia announced significant enhancements to its 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) portfolio, including the introduction of a new Photonic Service Engine version 2 (PSE-2) chip that enables the platform to double wavelength capacities and wavelengths per fiber. The new electro-optic chipset PSE-2 is available in two versions: the PSE-2 Super Coherent (PSE-2s) provides the ultimate in performance and flexibility for applications with very high traffic...


Ericsson to Transfer 2G/3G R&D in Sweden to Combitech

Ericsson will transfer its 2G and 3G development units in Linköping and Gothenburg, Sweden to Combitech, a technology consulting firm. About 300 employees will be transferred. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ericsson said it remains committed to its 2G and 3G portfolio but will consolidate development of these technologies to fewer sites, in line with its R&D strategy.

Hans Torin, President and CEO, Combitech, says: “This agreement will strengthen our long-term strategy within digitalization, Cyber Security and Internet of Things. The new competence we will bring onboard from Ericsson will strengthen our capabilities in communication technologies and bring new market opportunities.”
The agreement is expected to be effective October, 2016, subject to customary regulatory approvals. Approximately 300 employees will transfer from Ericsson to Combitech.

http://www.ericsson.com

OPNFV Announces Advisory Group

The OPNFV Project has formed an End User Advisory Group (EUAG) consisting of end-user organizations from both OPNFV members and nonmembers to provide technical guidance to the OPNFV developer community.

Founding members include:


  • AT&T’s Toby Ford, assistant vice president of Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Architecture and Strategy; Bryan Sullivan, director of Open Source Strategy; and Steven Wright, lead member of Technical Staff
  • British Telecom’s Milind Bhagwat, enterprise architect and technology strategy lead
  • CableLabs’ Don Clarke, principal network architect; Randy Levensalor, lead software architect; and Tetsuya Nakamura, principal systems architect
  • China Mobile’s Lingli Deng, project manager
  • China Unicom’s Chuan Jia and Junjie Tong from the Network Technology Research Institute of China Unicom, Department of Network Technology Research
  • Cox Communications’ Guy Meador, senior strategic architect; and Jeff Finkelstein, executive director of Advanced Access Architecture
  • Deutsche Telekom’s Herbert Damker, senior expert, Group Technology
  • Fidelity Investment’s Carlos Matos, director of global network architecture
  • Liberty Global’s Uzari Firoze, manager, Business-to-Business Network Design
  • KDDI’s Hajime Miyamoto, senior engineer and Kenichi Ogaki, assistant manager
  • KDDI Lab’s Masanori Miyazawa, research manager
  • Orange's Morgan Richomme, NFV architect
  • SK Telecom’s Jong Han Park, head of 5G Tech Lab, Network Technology R&D Center
  • Sprint’s Serge Manning, senior technology strategist, Global Standards
  • Telecom Italia’s Cecilia Corbi, standardization manager
  • Telefonica’s Diego Lopez, senior technology expert  
  • Telia Company’s Johan Gustawsson, network architect, SDN and NFV
  • Vodafone Group’s David Amzallag, group head of Network Virtualization, SDN and NFV; and Kodi Atuchukwu, network virtualisation architect, Vodafone Ocean

“The formation of the OPNFV EUAG will harness the knowledge and expertise of those responsible for actually running real-world networks as they deploy and scale,” said Heather Kirksey, director, OPNFV. “Feedback from the ecosystem using and deploying NFV is crucial to the future direction of OPNFV. Engaging these pioneers will help us address the most pressing pain points for the industry and build a platform with broad applicability.”

http://www.opnfv.org