GSMA's Vision for the 5G Era

At the opening of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the GSMA outlined five goals for the 5G era: Provide boundless connectivity for all: 5G networks will co-exist with 4G networks and alternative network technologies to deliver a high-speed, reliable and secure broadband experience; Deliver future networks innovatively and with optimal economics: All stakeholders will strive to cost-effectively deliver improved networks, relying on a combination...

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Nokia Promises 5G FIRST End-to-End Solution in 2H17

At Mobile World Congress, Nokia is showcasing its 5G FIRST end-to-end solution incorporating its AirScale and AirFrame technology, including AirScale massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna, Cloud Packet Core and mobile transport.  The solution is expected to launch in the second half of 2017. Nokia said it intends to give operators a first-to-market advantage based on early specifications. The radio access network components of 5G FIRST comprise...

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Cisco Intros Security Architecture for Mobile Operators

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Cisco is introducing its Security Architecture for Mobile Service Providers, promising multi-layered protection across the network, the endpoint (device) and the cloud. New elements include: Network Security: To help service providers protect their mobile backhaul from attacks against the core network, Cisco introduces its next generation of highly scalable, physical and virtual Security Gateway (SecGW) solutions,...

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ADVA Advances Facebook-Designed Open Optical Packet Transport

ADVA Optical Networking reports that it is now working with nine customers on trials of the Facebook-designed Voyager solution, including Tier 1 service providers and large enterprises.  The open optical packet transport system is being tested in a range of proof of concept (POC) installations. ADVA said the over the last nine months, Voyager has matured rapidly from blueprint to physical product. The 1RU DWDM unit features 12 x 100Gbit/s QSFP...

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Huawei and Softbank Complete 3.5 GHz Massive MIMO with CA Test

Huawei, in collaboration with SoftBank, completed a Massive MIMO verification test using the operator's 40 MHz spectrum on the 3.5 GHz band in Tokyo, Japan. The test of Massive MIMO and multi-carrier technologies achieved a peak downlink rate of 1.4 Gbps. Huawei said the 3.5 GHz band, with its abundant bandwidth resources, offers a great opportunity for the global development of LTE TDD, and has grown increasingly important as a 5G catalyst to...

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CORD and xRAN Consortium Partner in Software-based Extensible RAN

CORD and xRAN consortium partner to develop carrier grade software-based, extensible RAN February 23rd The CORD Project, an open source project seeking reinvent network access via enabling data centre economics and cloud agility in the central office, announces an agreement to partner with xRAN Foundation to collaborate on standardising and promoting a software-based, extensible RAN (xRAN) architecture. The partnership is intended to deliver a...

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ZTE Shows its 5G Pre-commercial Base Stations

At Mobile World Congress, ZTE is showcasing a range of 5G mmWave and Sub6GHz pre-commercial base stations.  The equipment will support 3GPP's 5G new radio (NR) new air interfaces and mainstream 5G frequency bands. The base stations use massive multiple input, multiple output (MIMO), Beam Tracking, beamforming and other key 5G technologies. The company is demonstrating a 5G mmWave base station with a 50 Gbps peak rate.  ZTE completed...

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Source Photonics ramps 100G QSFP28 LR4 transceiver capacity

 Source Photonics, a supplier of optical transceivers for data centre and broadband access connectivity, announced that in December 2016 it reached an operational milestone when it expanded capacity to over 10,000 units per month for 100 Gbit/s QSFP28 LR4 transceivers. Source Photonics noted that it began shipping its 100 Gbit/s QSFP28 LR4 product in March 2015 following completion of a targeted sampling and qualification program. Subsequent...

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Baicells Debuts its "Neutral Host" Small Cells

Baicells Technologies introduced its "NeutralCell", which provides a shared infrastructure that can be leveraged by multiple operators and neutral host service providers. Baicell said its NeutralCell allows neutral host service providers to deliver a shared infrastructure solution – a single small cell that can be used by multiple operators. The NeutralCell units support the frequency band and transmitted power requirements of multiple operators,...

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Qualcomm Adds Support for Android Things OS on 4G LTE Processors

Qualcomm plans to add support for the Android Things operating system (OS) on its Snapdragon 210 processors with X5 LTE modems. The Android Things OS is a new vertical of Android designed for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and Snapdragon processors are expected to be the world’s first commercial System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions to offer integrated 4G LTE support for this OS. This combination is designed to support a new class of IoT applications...

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