Telefónica Provides Vodafone with Wholesale Access to Fiber Network

Telefónica and Vodafone announced that they have entered into a commercial agreement providing for wholesale access to Telefonica's fibre optic network.

Through the new agreement, Vodafone will immediately have access Telefonica's fibre infrastructure, both in certain municipalities that are subject to regulation and in other municipalities where Telefónica has been freed of wholesale fibre access obligations. The agreement allows Vodafone to utilise the Telefónica fibre to supplement its network coverage and significantly extend the service area where it can offer high speed broadband and TV services.

The agreement is based on purchase commitments over a five year period and is intended to leverage the synergies that can be generated through Vodafone accessing Telefónica's network, which will increase network utilisation and enhance the efficiency of deployments and optimise investment for both parties.

The agreement is also expected to provide consumers with improved coverage and greater choice in terms of services and next generation networks and to expand the availability of services as part of the digital economy.

Telefónica stated that the new agreement represents a key development in its wholesale business strategy through enabling the company to take a more active role in offering wholesale services in a dynamic and evolving market. It also provides more options both in terms of the provision of services by third party operators and the development of co-investment models and the delivery of its own services.

https://www.telefonica.com/es/web/press-office/-/telefonica-and-vodafone-sign-a-commercial-agreement-for-wholesale-access-to-fibre-optics

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IBM Launches Enterprise-Ready Blockchain Services for Hyperledger Fabric

IBM InterConnect is launching the first enterprise-ready blockchain service based on the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Fabric version 1.0.

The service enables production blockchain networks on the IBM Cloud, and is underpinned by the IBM LinuxONE server.

"IBM has applied decades of experience running the world's largest transaction systems for banks, airlines, governments and retailers, to build the most secure blockchain services for the enterprise," said Marie Wieck, general manager, IBM Blockchain. "IBM's blockchain services are built on IBM's High Security Business Network and designed for organizations that require blockchain networks that are trusted, open and ready for business."

IBM said blockchain networks are only as safe as the infrastructures on which they reside. Security features it provides includes:

• Protection from insider attacks - helps safeguard entry points on the network and fight insider threats from anyone with system administrator credentials
• The industry's highest certified level of isolation for a commercial system - Evaluation Assurance Level certification of EAL5+ is critical in highly regulated industries such as government, financial services and healthcare, to prevent the leakage of information from one party's environment to another
• Secure Service Containers – to help protect code throughout the blockchain application – effectively encapsulating the blockchain into a virtual appliance, denying access even to privileged users
• Tamper-responsive hardware security modules - to protect encrypted data for storage of cryptographic keys. These modules are certified to FIPS 140-2 Level 4, the highest level of security certification available for cryptographic modules
• A highly auditable operating environment – comprehensive log data supports forensics, audit and compliance

IBM also announced today the first commercially available blockchain governance tools, and new open-source developer tools that automate the steps it takes to build with the Hyperledger Fabric from weeks to days.

http://www.ibm.com

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