GTT to Acquire Global Capacity, Building its SD-WAN

GTT Communications agreed to acquire Global Capacity, a provider of enterprise network connectivity solutions, for $100 million in cash and 1.85 million shares of GTT common stock, to be issued to the sellers at closing.

Global Capacity, which is based in Waltham, Mass., addresses a range of enterprise network issues including difficulty in load sharing traffic across a mix of access connections, complex, static and manual network configurations that inhibit mapping to business requirements and lack of application visibility and control over connections. Global Capacity has a partnership with VeloCloud. that unifies network management across disparate network technologies, including Ethernet, MPLS, broadband and LTE, whether these are on the Global Capacity network, a competing network or a combination of the two. This is designed to enable a more agile and responsive hybrid WAN solution and to offer a simplified path for migration from an existing network architecture.

In January, Global Capacity launched the Ethernet Multi-Cloud Connect service, a virtual network service based on its One Marketplace software-defined network platform that allows enterprises to build multiple cloud services from a single port to access hybrid and multi-cloud solutions across multiple locations. The Ethernet Multi-Cloud Connect service employs an interconnection architecture with software orchestration to simplify multi-cloud connectivity and improve service performance. The solution enables businesses to connect to cloud locations or select from a list of interconnected One Marketplace Cloud destinations, including AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and twenty cloud providers on the Equinix Cloud Exchange.

GTT said the acquisition will add marquee clients in the healthcare, application service provider, retail and carrier markets, adding highly complementary recurring revenue streams. GTT also operates an SD-WAN service based on Velocloud.

Global Capacity also operates an extensive on-net Ethernet over Copper infrastructure that reaches over 9.6 million U.S. commercial addresses, from 41 data centers and 1,750 Central Office points of presence. Global Capacity acquired Megapath's wholesale business and national colocation aggregation network in 2015.

“The acquisition of Global Capacity accelerates GTT’s growth strategy and underscores our commitment to connecting people across organizations and around the world,” said Rick Calder, GTT president and CEO. “GTT gains new marquee clients, enhanced network reach and scale, and a great team of employees to drive outstanding client experience, through our core values of simplicity, speed and agility. After integration, we expect to achieve our previously announced, next financial objectives of $1 billion in revenue and $250 million in Adjusted EBITDA.”

“This transaction further advances the breadth, depth and ease of deploying connectivity services for our customers,” commented Jack Lodge, president of Global Capacity. “GTT’s global network reach and extensive portfolio of managed services are a compelling complement to our connectivity platform, resulting in substantial benefits for our carrier and enterprise customers. Together, we anticipate growth and success for our customers, employees, and partners.”

http://www.globalcapacity.com

GTT acquires Perseus for $37.5m

Wednesday, June 21, 2017  GTT  No Comments

GTT Communications based in McLean, Virginia, a global cloud networking provider to multinational clients, announced the acquisition of Perseus, a provider of high-speed network connectivity that serves major financial and e-commerce companies worldwide.GTT stated that the purchase price for Perseus was $37.5 million, plus the assumption of approximately $3 million in capital leases. GTT anticipates that the purchase price will represent a multiple...

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GTT establishes Enterprise, Carrier, EMEA Divisions

Thursday, June 15, 2017  GTT  No Comments

GTT Communications, a global cloud networking provider to multinational clients, which in January completed the acquisition of Hibernia Networks, announced it has established three new divisions - Enterprise, Carrier and EMEA - intended to accelerate sales growth and enhance services for customers. Each of the new divisions is responsible for the primary customer experience functions, including sales, quoting, ordering, service delivery and collections. In...

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Video: Connecting Everywhere - GTT at #ITW2017

Tuesday, May 16, 2017  #ITW2017, GTT, Video  No Comments

It's been a very big year for GTT.  In January, GTT completed the aquisition of Hibernia Networks, which brings substantial assets, including a Layer 1 optical transport networrk and three subsea cable routes. GTT Express is now the fastest transatlantic cable. In this video, Rick Calder, GTT/s CEO, provides a company update. See video: https://youtu.be/qiU9aG07W8w ...

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ZTE claims 75% share of True's beyond-100G backbone

ZTE announced that it has won the bid for three networks as part of True's beyond-100 Gbit/s backbone WDM network project in Thailand, representing an approximately 75% share of the project.

The new backbone transmission networks is designed to enable True to support functions such as ultra-high capacity OTN cross-connection, intelligent scheduling of optical networks and ultra-long-distance transmission. The project will also help True to address future service development and further develop its network in the future.

ZTE noted that the DWDM network will enable 100/400 Gbit/s backbone transmission speeds and will significantly improve True's network capacity and support service growth across its 3G/LTE, fixed and broadband networks.

For the project, ZTE is deploying its 100 Gbit/s and beyond-100 Gbit/s WASON solution featuring advanced PM-QPSK/PM-16QAM modulation and coherent reception technology. The solution also includes its digital signal processing (DSP) algorithm and third-generation soft decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) to enable transmission without the need for electronic relays across the network, thereby reducing the cost.

ZTE noted that the software-defined optical networking (SDON) technology is designed to make optical network transmission more intelligent and speed service deployment time, as well as enhancing the efficiency of network scheduling. In addition, the solution features embedded OTDR technology that allows real-time monitoring of the fibre and fault points of the existing network to enhance network maintenance and troubleshooting.

The project also includes colourless directionless contationless flexgrid ROADM (CDCF ROADM) functionality, designed to address True's requirements for transparent transmission, flexible scheduling, aggregation, management and monitoring of data services.

http://www.zte.com.cn/global/about/press-center/news

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CenturyLink details new organisation

CenturyLink has announced further details of its organisational structure and new executive appointments who will report to Jeff Storey, recently named as president and chief operating officer (COO) of the company upon the completion of its pending acquisition of Level 3 Communications, which is expected to occur by the end of third quarter of 2017.

The new appointments are as follows:

1.         Strategic enterprise, federal government and state government - Edward Morche, who is to rejoin Level 3 on July 5, will serve as president, with responsibility for large accounts, federal and state government, and large educational institutions and research networks.

2.         Global accounts management (GAM) and international – Laurinda Pang will be president, with responsibility for top global accounts and international teams.

3.         Small and midsize business (SMB), local government and education – Vernon Irvin to serve as president.

4.         Wholesale and indirect – Lisa Miller as president.

5.         Consumer – Maxine Moreau to serve as president, responsible for the company's local market consumer business in 37 states.

Additionally, these business units and ongoing integration activities will be supported by the following functional groups:

1.         Technology, product development and security operations - Aamir Hussain as EVP, responsible for IT, testing and integration, architecture, infrastructure, security, as well as overall business enablement.

2.         Transformation and integration – Clay Bailey, SVP, will lead the integration of CenturyLink and Level 3.

3.         North America operations - Richard Batelaan as EVP, with responsibility for North America service delivery, service assurance, access management and field operations.

http://news.centurylink.com/

• CenturyLink recently announced that on closing of the Level 3 transaction Jeff Storey, current president and CEO of Level 3, would become CenturyLink president and COO. Previously, CenturyLink named the senior leadership team following completion of the acquisition of Level 3.

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Global webscale company selects Zayo for wavelengths

Zayo Group announced that a global web-scale company has selected it to implement a network to connect data centres in Dublin and Amsterdam, with the wavelength solution to be deployed on a direct, diverse route bypassing the traffic clusters of London.

The solution provided by Zayo leverages acquired assets from Geo Networks and Viatel and connects Dublin and continental Europe via a strategic fibre route. Zayo noted that it experiencing continuing demand in Europe for dedicated, high-capacity connectivity, both dark fibre and wavelengths, from global companies across multiple sectors.

Commenting on the latest contract, Andrew Crouch, president and COO at Zayo, said, "This long-standing customer needs multiple terabytes of throughput on a direct route… illustrating the leveraging of Zayo's embedded network to provide a solution that meets its capacity needs… the new network will provide the anchor customer with high-capacity bandwidth along a highly strategic route…".

http://www.zayo.com/newsroom/news/

* Zayo recently announced it had been selected by a major data centre provider for a dark fibre solution to connect its East Coast facilities. The solution included primary and diverse routes in New York and New Jersey providing low-latency infrastructure, with more than 30 dark fibre pairs along diverse routes.

* The company also recently announced that a U.S.-based multinational bank had selected it for long haul and metro dark fibre. The dark fibre was to connect the bank's new data centres with its existing fibre network and leveraged a popular long haul route and metro fibre in the U.S. Zayo noted that solution would utilise approximately 1,100 route-miles from Zayo across four states.

* Zayo Group is a major provider of communications infrastructure services, including fibre and bandwidth connectivity, colocation and cloud infrastructure to customers such as wireless and wireline carriers, media and content companies, the finance and healthcare sectors and other large enterprises. The company's 122,000-mile network in North America and Europe includes metro connectivity to thousands of buildings and data centres.

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Huawei and TELUS Collaborate on 5G

Huawei and telco TELUS of Canada announced they have successfully completed a 5G wireless connection using the global 3GPP technology standards platform as the industry moves towards the deployment of 5G.

TELUS noted that the pilot not only demonstrates the faster wireless speeds and lower latency that will be available to customers using 5G technology, but also showcases the potential for 5G technology to deliver wireless-to-the-premise (WTTx) connectivity with speeds and reliability required for smart homes and businesses.

The pilot network created with Huawei was designed to reflect a real-world point-to-multi-point connection over commercial central office equipment and transport networks. The network featured equipment based on 3GPP 5G foundational technologies over 28 GHz spectrum, although 5G standards are not expected to be finalised until early in 2018.

The pilot forms part of TELUS and Huawei’s joint 5G Living Lab facility in Vancouver, where the companies have been trialling next-generation technologies since 2015 in a live real-world environment. TELUS noted that last year the Living Lab demonstrated speeds of 30 Gbit/s in a controlled environment and implemented a heterogeneous network (HetNet) in downtown Vancouver.

While 5G wireless technology is expected to become commercially available in 2020, TELUS stated that customers living in the Vancouver area will have early access to the latest wireless technologies leveraging advances achieved at the 5G Living Lab.

http://www.huawei.com/en/news

• Previously, in October last year TELUS and Huawei announced they had achieved wireless speeds of up to 29.3 Gbit/s at the 5G Living Lab in Vancouver. The companies also equipped a 4G LTE wireless site in Vancouver with the latest LTE-Advanced Pro technologies, enabling speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s, and planned to upgrade a further 5 sites.

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IBM launches new microservices tools

IBM announced it is expanding its portfolio of developer tools with the new Microservice Builder, designed to make it easier for developers and organisations to create, deploy and manage apps built with microservices and part of its effort to simplify how developers manage their data and build applications.

IBM's Microservice Builder offering is designed to provide developers with the flexibility to deploy microservices onto on-premises systems or in any cloud environment.

IBM noted that microservices are being adopters as they allow developers to work on multiple parts of an app simultaneously without disrupting operations. The new set of capabilities offers developers an end-to-end solution so that they can quickly create these services and better integrate common functions for faster app deployment.

Microservice Builder helps developers with each stage of the development process from writing and testing code, to deploying and updating new features, and helps create and standardise common functions such as runtimes, resiliency testing, configuration and security, so developers do not have to handle these tasks separately. Teams can also build with specific policies and protocols to ensure all services work together as a complete solution.

Microservice Builder works in conjunction with existing tools available via IBM Cloud that are designed to support microservices development and deployment. It uses a Kubernetes-based container management platform to simplify deployment, running and management of applications in public or hybrid cloud environments.

Microservice Builder also works with Istio, an open platform IBM has built in conjunction with Google and Lyft to connect, manage and secure microservices. IBM plans to extend the integration between Microservice Builder and Istio as the Istio fabric develops.

IBM Microservice Builder uses programming languages and protocols including MicroProile and Java EE programming models, Maven, Jenkins and Docker and offers functions including: MicroProfile programming model, which extends Java EE; integrated devops pipeline; security features via OpenID Connect and JSON Web Token; production-ready runtime environment for cloud or on-premises systems through WebSphere Liberty.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressreleases/recent.wss

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Sandvine enhances its business intelligence

Sandvine, a provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for fixed and mobile operators, announced enhancements to its business intelligence solutions designed to enable faster, more flexible and intuitive reporting across an expanded range of key metrics.

The enhancements to Sandvine's business intelligence solutions include:

1.         A new columnar data warehouse that supports faster read and write and increased storage, enabling improved performance and functionality across the business intelligence portfolio, including network demographics and analytics and record generator for the export of data to service provider's existing big data solutions.

2.         A faster, simpler version of Network Demographics reporting product that notifies operations and engineering teams of network activity and performance via an intuitive, customisable interface.

3.         Native integration to big data systems and technologies, enabling service providers to integrate real-time measurements and observations into telemetry message buses such as Kafka, Flume and Apache NiFi without the need for offline data mediation processes.

Sandvine noted that service providers can use data from network-based business intelligence solutions for use cases including:

• Real-time monitoring of the network to identify issues and opportunities in real-time, create new measurements and apply policies on the fly, such as for security, fraud or downtime events.

• Ongoing, long-term analysis of key KPIs such as application and device usage trends and subscriber quality of experience metrics for video and web surfing.

• In-depth views of developing network trends, such as adoption of connected home devices on the network, encrypted traffic levels or emerging fraud events, such as fully-loaded Kodi boxes and unlicensed IPTV, zero-rating fraud and OTT voice bypass.

Additionally, Sandvine's FlexPanels feature allows Network Analytics users to engage in free-form exploration of network data to analyse anomalous or interesting results. Network Analytics offers multiple fixed views of data, while FlexPanels enables analysis beyond these views to help users address key issues.

https://www.sandvine.com/company/news/

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Calix's Gfast node and GigaPoint earn certification

Calix announced that the AXOS E5-16F Gfast Node and the 801F GigaPoint products have become amongst the first end-to-end solution to receive certification as part of the inaugural Gfast certification program from the Broadband Forum (BBF) and the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL).

Additionally, for multi-vendor Gfast interoperability the AXOS E5-16F has been certified when paired with CPE from Arris.

Calix stated that the certification marks a key milestone, demonstrating market readiness for certified end-to-end and multi-vendor deployment, and underpins the ability of service providers to leverage their existing copper infrastructure to deliver gigabit services to subscribers.

Calix noted that it has been involved in the development of the certification program at the BBF from inception, helping to establish the interoperability between Gfast vendors. Leveraging this base, Calix's AXOS-enabled anyPHY capabilities will help the company to adopt future enhancements to Gfast technology and quickly complete the certification process.

Calix stated that it has been experiencing significant service provider interest in Gfast. Calix is a leading vendor for Gfast deployments, currently counting over 60 service providers that are delivering AXOS Gfast services to subscribers, as well as what is believed to be North America's largest Gfast deployment with CenturyLink.

https://www.calix.com/news-and-events/news-and-media-hub.html

• The Broadband Forum (BBF) launched the Gfast Council earlier in June with the goal of centralising and disseminating expertise and experience relating to the Gfast market and to support the deployment of Gfast technology.
• The Gfast council also promotes the Gfast certification program, which announced the first certified, interoperable products, to help accelerate the availability of interoperable solutions and aid integration into service provider networks. The forum also announced the first six products to have completed the certification at the UNH-IOL in accordance with its IR-337 test specification. Initial products certified under the program were from ARRIS, Calix, Huawei, Metanoia, Nokia and Technicolor.

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