AT&T Network 3.0 Indigo Envisions Closed Communities fo Data Sharing

AT&T outlined Indigo -- a "Network 3.0" initiative to create a trusted environment where organizations can share data and collaborate on analytics.

The announcement, which was made at the annual AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas, envisions a more advanced network centered around trust. Trusted identification, network connection, cloud provider and network operator.

AT&T Network 3.0 Indigo has three pillars:

• A new platform to enable closed communities of data sharing and collaboration. This platform will have strong identity management, a policy engine (rules enforcer), rightful retention of data ownership, and 2 types of analytics – built-in and bring-your-own. Organizations will create communities and invite others to join.
  
• Running on a virtualized network, such as the AT&T software-defined network. The AT&T SDN has API access, built-in secure access channels like NetBond, and identity and access-management services. As other networks adopt our open-source ECOMP framework, community memberships can span across networks.
  
• Necessary infrastructure services – compute, network and storage.  Any virtual private cloud provider with API-accessible cloud orchestration could enable these services.

http://about.att.com/innovationblog/indigo

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AT&T Tests Fixed 5G for DIRECTV NOW

AT&T announced its 5G Evolution plans for 2017 and beyond, including the growing possibility that it will offer fixed 5G residential access for video services. Some highlights:

• AT&T is working with more than a dozen global technology companies around 5G standards efforts
• 5G lab trials are already achieving speeds up to 14 Gbps over a wireless connection.
• 5G lab trials have demonstrated less than 3 milliseconds of latency. The industry expectation for 5G is latency less than 5 milliseconds.
  
• 1 Gbps Speeds in 2017: AT&T's continued deployment of its 4G LTE-Advanced network is expected to deliver peak theoretical speeds of up to 1 Gbps at some cell sites in 2017. AT&T is currently deploying three-way carrier aggregation in select areas, and plans to introduce four-way carrier aggregation as well as LTE-License Assisted Access (LAA) this year.
• 5G Video Trial with DIRECTV NOW: In the first half of 2017, AT&T plans to conduct a trial in Austin where residential customers can stream DIRECTV NOW video service over a fixed wireless 5G connection. The trial will include next-generation entertainment services over fixed 5G connections. The trial will evaluate how fixed wireless mmWave technology handles heavy video traffic.  
• First 5G Business Customer Trial: the industry’s first 5G business customer trial is underway in Austin with Intel and Ericsson using millimeter wave (mmWave) technology, which can deliver multi-gigabit speeds using an unlicensed band of spectrum. 
• Additional 5G Trials: AT&T recently announced plans to team up with Qualcomm Technologies and Ericsson for mobile and fixed wireless trials in the second half of 2017. 

“Our 5G Evolution plans will pave the way to the next-generation of higher speeds for customers. We’re not waiting until the final standards are set to lay the foundation for our evolution to 5G. We’re executing now,” said John Donovan, chief strategy officer and group president, Technology and Operations.  “Data on our mobile network has increased about 250,000% since 2007, and the majority of that traffic is video. 5G’s promise of greater speed and overall network performance brings huge opportunities not only for video but in the Internet of Things, 4K video, augmented and virtual reality, smart home and cities, autonomous vehicles and much more.”

http://www.att.com

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T-Mobile Pushes LTE to Near 1 Gbps with Nokia

T-Mobile pushed LTE speeds to near 1 Gbps in a demonstration using Nokia's deployed 4.5G Pro technology.

The demonstration, conducted at T-Mobile's lab in Bellevue, Washington, encompassed technologies currently live in the operator's network, including carrier aggregation, 256 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) and 4x4 MIMO (Multiple Input and Multiple Output) on Nokia's commercially available radio access hardware.

T-Mobile has already launched 4x4 MIMO, carrier aggregation and 256 QAM modulation. Its network currently provides speeds up to 400 Mbps.

Overview of the demo solution:

• Three-carrier aggregation technology using Bands 2 and 66.
• 4X4 MIMO technology for doubling peak speeds.
• 256 QAM, which is a higher order modulation scheme that allows an increase in peak data rates of up to 30% compared to 64 QAM.
• Nokia commercial LTE eNodeB.

"We've had the fastest LTE network for the last three straight years, but we never stop innovating. We demonstrated nearly 1 Gbps speeds over the air on LTE with our long-standing strategic partner, Nokia, to show how much more our network can do to achieve higher speeds and superior performance."

http://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases/2017/01/04/nokia-and-t-mobile-achieve-ground-breaking-lte-speeds-near-1-gbps-ces2017

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