Verizon Invested $5B in Wireless Network in 1H16

Verizon invested $5 billion in its wireless network in the first half of 2016, bringing total investment in its wireless network to about $116 billion since 2000, more than any other wireless carrier, according to the company. In 2015, Verizon invested about $11 billion in its wireless network.

Some highlights:

• Verizon’s 4G LTE network is engineered to provide, on average, 5 Mbps to 12 Mbps while downloading and 2 Mbps to 5 Mbps while uploading. 
• The 2016 investment includes the expansion of Verizon’s XLTE network technology, which doubles the company’s 4G LTE bandwidth and provides enterprises with greater peak speeds covering nearly 2.4 million square miles in 466 markets nationwide, including 13 new markets launched in the last 90 days.
• Verizon installed more than 1,500 new cell sites and added XLTE technology to more than 1,700 sites across the country from January to July, accommodating exponential data usage growth and enabling clients to experience an unmatched level of reliable connectivity.
• Through mid-2016, Verizon deployed more than 2,100 small cell solution nodes, including dozens installed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in advance of Super Bowl 50.
• DAS consists of unseen cables and numerous antennas distributed throughout high traffic areas such as stadiums, convention or shopping centers, office buildings, train stations, airline terminals, and dense, outdoor urban areas. So far this year, Verizon has deployed more than 350 DAS solutions.
• In outlying areas, Verizon’s LTE in Rural America (LRA) program includes 21 participants spanning 15 states and representing communities in 169 rural counties. The 21 LRA participants combined currently reach over 2.7 million people while covering approximately 120,000 square miles of America’s rural areas with 4G LTE, an area larger than the state of Arizona.

http://www.verizon.com

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DT and SK Telecom Target First Transcontinental 5G Trial

Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom are aiming to deploy the world’s first transcontinental 5G trial network.

The operators said they plan interoperable network architecture in South Korea and Germany based on key 5G technologies such as NFV, software-defined infrastructure (SDI), distributed cloud and network slicing. The principal aim is to enable global reach for advanced 5G use cases by optimizing user roaming experiences.

Earlier this year at MWC in Barcelona, DT and SK Telecom announced a research partnership for 5G

“We are collaborating with a good mix of industry participants including AT&T, Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Samsung to make the vision of a common worldwide standard come true right in time. From our point of view, the next release of the official 3GPP specifications are set to form the basis of 5G,” says Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, CTO Deutsche Telekom AG.

“5G is making its way forward much faster than initially expected. For 5G to be successful, early harmonization and standardization are essential. SK Telecom and DT started initial collaboration on 5G technologies and are now expanding the scope with a larger group of relevant stakeholders to promote early harmonization and expansion of the 5G ecosystem. We strongly believe that this will serve as a foundation for future standardization activities,” said Alex Jinsung Choi, CTO and Head of Corporate R&D Center, SK Telecom.

https://www.telekom.com/media/company/320674

#MWC16: Ericsson and SKtel Plan 5G Field Trial This Year

Saturday, February 20, 2016  #5G, #MWC16, Ericsson, Korea, SK Telecom  No Comments

SK Telecom is working with Ericsson to build an end-to-end 5G trial network by the end of this year. The companies recently achieved peak downlink throughput of over 25 Gbps with Ericsson 5G Radio Prototypes  They have also previously demonstrated 5G network slicing. Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network R&D Center at SK Telecom, says: “SK Telecom is focused on technology innovations that will ensure the early success...

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Deutsche Telekom Added 578.000 Fiber Lines in Q2

Deutsche Telekom added 578,000 new fiber-optic lines in the second quarter of 2016, as service revenues in the German fixed-network business stablized for the first time since liberalization.

In its Q2 financial report, Deutsche Telekom reported revenue of EUR 17,817 million, up 2.2 percent in the quarter, on an organic basis up 3.9 percent.

Some highlights:

• Capital expenditure (before spectrum) increased by 7.6 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2016 to 5.5 billion euros. 
• In Germany, DT now has 5.6 million fiber access lines. 
• Rapid customer growth at T-Mobile US made a substantial contribution to the Group's net revenue growth. 
• LTE coverage in Germany increased by 6 percentage points within a year to 91 percent. The percentage of households in Germany that have the option of connecting to Deutsche Telekom's fiber-optic network increased by 10 percentage points to 57 percent, an increase of well over 4 million households.
• In the European subsidiaries, household coverage with fixed-network optical fiber increased by almost 1 million and now stands at 21.4 percent of households. In mobile communications, population coverage increased by some 19 million to 97 million people, or 75 percent of the population.
• In the years 2014 to 2016, Deutsche Telekom invested an average of almost 5 billion euros per year in Germany across all segments, a rate of almost 20 percent of revenue. The majority of the investments went into building out the network, which underpinned strong demand for fiber-optic lines in Germany. 
• In Germany, mobile service revenues declined slightly by 0.8 percent to 1.7 billion euros. This decrease was in line with the trend in the overall market, thus Deutsche Telekom retained its position as clear market leader. There were two factors that negatively impacted revenue, i.e., the reduction of roaming rates, and the discounts under the MagentaEINS rate plan program, both of which exclusively related to mobile communications. If these factors had been added back, mobile service revenues would have increased by around 1.1 percent.
• Overall, total revenue in the Germany operating segment decreased by 3.1 percent in the second quarter to 5.4 billion euros. The reduction of the distribution business with mobile devices had a negative impact of around 2 percentage points. 
• T-Mobile US LTE network coverage increased by around 20 million people year-on-year to 311 million. 
• T-Mobile US won 1.9 million new customers in the second quarter. It was the thirteenth quarter in succession with more than one million customer additions. And T-Mobile US once again achieved positive porting ratios versus all three other national mobile providers, i.e., not only is the company growing overall, but also relative to each of the three providers, the number of customers won significantly exceeded the numbers lost to the respective competitor.
• The strong customer growth had a positive impact on revenue, which increased by 12.6 percent to 9.3 billion U.S. dollars. Service revenues also increased in line with this trend to 6.8 billion U.S. dollars, both growth rates representing the highest in the U.S. mobile industry. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 34.6 percent, improving the margin by more than 4 percentage points to 26.5 percent. T-Mobile US plans to maintain this growth trend as the year progresses: The earnings target for the full year was narrowed around the average to date and the guidance range for branded postpaid customer additions revised upwards by 200,000 to between 3.4 and 3.8 million.
• More than half of the fixed-network lines in DT's European companies have now been migrated to IP. At the same time, activities are intensified to build the pan-European network, which will provide an efficient, harmonized production platform for operation across all national companies.
• T-Systems generated revenue of 1.6 billion euros in the Market Unit in the second quarter, a slight decline of 3.0 percent compared with the same quarter of the prior year.
• The cloud business was again one of the positive revenue drivers, generating some 70 percent of revenue at T-Systems. After an increase at Group level of around 31 percent in the first quarter, in the first six months of the year cloud revenue increased by 22 percent to more than 0.7 billion euros. T-Systems still expects the cloud business to grow faster than the overall market for the full year and for the period up to and including 2018.

https://www.telekom.com/media/company/320254

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Aquantia Samples 2.5, 5 and 10GBASE-T in SFP+

Aquantia has begun sampling the industry’s first copper SFP+ product family to offer 2.5, 5 and 10GBASE-T capabilities.

The new Aquantia AQS series modules, which leverage an active rate-adaptation technology, enables 10GBASE-T for lengths up to 30 meters and 100 meters at 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T.

“Aquantia is committed to providing the broadest portfolio of high-speed Ethernet connectivity solutions on the market. Our new SFP+ modules will allow data center and network managers to further leverage their installed base of switches and servers equipped with SFP+ empty cages and connect with the newest generations of 2.5, 5 and 10GBASE-T appliances,” said Kamal Dalmia, senior vice president sales, and marketing of Aquantia. “These enhancements enable our customers to migrate successfully to higher levels of bandwidth and superior all-around performance.”

http://www.aquantia.com

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