Nokia Bell Labs to lead 5G NGPaaS platform project

Nokia Bell Labs will lead a consortium of vendors, operators, IT companies, small and medium-sized enterprises and European academic institutions in the development over the next 2 years of the Next Generation Platform-as-a-Service (NGPaaS) for the 5G era.

The NGPaaS consortium is part of the 5G Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership (5G-PPP), launched in 2014 as an initiative between the European Union and telecoms industry.

Nokia noted that the cloud is transforming many industries and services, leading to the need for innovations to be cloud-native in order to be successful, which necessitates the adoption of a model beyond the current telco Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): a Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) model.

Such a 5G cloud-native platform needs to offer two key features:

1.         To facilitate building, shipping and running of virtual network function (VNF) applications with telco-grade quality in terms of latency, reliability and capacity, in line with the requirements of 5G performance.

2.         The ability to combine all types of third-party applications with those VNFs to create more versatile and powerful cloud objects and break down silos between connectivity (for people, robots and sensors) and computing (machine learning, big data and video applications).

The NGPaaS consortium's goal is to enable adoption of the PaaS model to optimally support cloud-native 5G systems.

Industry and academic members of the consortium include: Nokia Bell Labs France; Nokia; ATOS (Spain); BT (UK); Orange (France); Virtual Open Systems (France); Vertical M2M (France); B-COM (France); ONAPP (UK); the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy); Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU); and IMEC (Belgium).

Nokia Bell Labs has been a key player in 5G research and industry collaboration, and views PaaS as an essential platform for service providers seeking to leverage the carrier cloud as they evolve their networks. In addition to leading the NGPaaS consortium, Nokia Bell Labs is also cooperating with academic partners and is participating in events such as ICC, MWC, OpenStack Summit and OPNFV to support efforts to achieve this goal.

http://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases

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SK Telecom Develops 5G Repeater

by James E. Carroll

SK Telecom has developed a 5G repeater that improves signals in blanket/shadow areas by amplifying 5G radio signals. The 5G repeater, which is currently in a field trial Gangnam Station in Seoul, could held reduce or elimiate shadow areas of network coverage.  It works by improving the propagation characteristics of radio signals at super-high/above-6GHz frequency bands.

SK Telecom said the Gangnam area in Seoul is one of the most difficult places to plan/build a network due to the presence of a large number of radio wave obstacles and high-density data traffic.

“SK Telecom is moving closer to launching a commercial 5G network by applying key 5G technologies to our 5G trial network in Gangnam, an area with the highest data traffic,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center of SK Telecom.

http://www.sktelecom.com/en/press/detail.do?idx=1224

SK Telecom – setting the pace in the 5G race

Friday, June 23, 2017  Korea, OND Commentary, SK Telecom  No Comments

SK Telecom, South Korea's leading mobile operator by market share, is one of the big players to watch on the global stage for early 5G commercialisation. In fact, a race is on with local rivals KT and LG Uplus to have the first 5G service running in time for the 2018 Winter Olympics, which will be hosted in Pyeongchang, South Korea in February 2018 - only seven months away. Of course, 5G standards are not complete and won't be in time for the Winter...

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New Automotive Edge Computing Consortium Gets Underway

A new Automotive Edge Computing Consortium is being organized with a mission to develop an ecosystem for connected cars to support emerging services such as intelligent driving, the creation of maps with real-time data and driving assistance based on cloud computing.

Founding members include DENSO, Ericsson, Intel, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), NTT DOCOMO, Toyota InfoTechnology Center Co., and Toyota Motor Corp.

The organizers said thet plan focus on increasing network capacity to accommodate automotive big data in a reasonable fashion between vehicles and the cloud by means of edge computing and more efficient network design.

The consortium will define requirements and develop use cases for emerging mobile devices with a particular focus on the automotive industry, bringing them to standards bodies, industry consortiums and solution providers. The consortium will also encourage the development of best practices for the distributed and layered computing approach recommended by the members.

https://www.ericsson.com/en/news/2017/8/consortium-for-automotive-big-data

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Luna sells optical receivers business to MACOM for $29.5m

Luna Innovations, supplier of products for the aerospace, automotive, energy, defence and telecommunications markets, announced that MACOM Technology Solutions has agreed to buy the assets and operations related to its high-speed optical receivers (HSOR) business.

The purchase price includes $29.5 million to be paid in cash at closing and an additional $4.0 million to be held in escrow until December 15, 2018 for possible working capital adjustments to the purchase price and potential satisfaction of certain post-closing indemnification obligations.

The sale includes the operations associated with Luna’s development, manufacturing and sales of products including high-speed integrated coherent receivers and photodiodes. Luna originally acquired these operations as part of its merger with Advanced Photonix, Inc. (API), in May 2015. The assets and employees associated with Luna’s Terahertz operations are not being transferred as part of this transaction.

Through the transaction, employees associated with the company’s HSOR operations and administration in the company's location in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will transfer to MACOM. The Picometrix line of high-speed optical receivers and optical-to-electrical converters serve the global telecommunications, data centre and manufacturing testing industries.

Luna noted that it intends to use a portion of the proceeds from the transaction to invest in expanding its fibre optic sensing product offering.

Regarding the acquisition, John Croteau, MACOM president and CEO, said, "Similar to MACOM's high performance analogue and 25 Gbit/s laser products, Luna's high speed optical receiver products and technology are well-aligned with its previously-announced growth strategy in cloud data centres and other high-speed networking markets".

http://lunainc.com/luna-announces-sale-high-speed-optical-receivers-technology/

• Earlier this year, Luna Innovations announced that its Picometrix unit had entered into a vendor managed inventory (VMI) agreement with a leading Chinese provider of telecoms equipment and network solutions, under which Picometrix was to maintain in Hong Kong a dedicated inventory of 100 Gbit/s integrated coherent receivers and other products. It also noted it had received a new order for coherent receivers for 100 Gbit/s transport network equipment valued at approximately $1.4 million.

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F5 selects Anuta NCX intent-based orchestration

Silicon Valley-based Anuta Networks, a provider of network services orchestration solutions, announced that its NCX intent-based orchestration platform has been deployed within F5 Networks Silverline to automate network services.

The F5 Silverline DDoS Protection service is designed to keep customer businesses online when under DDoS attack with a reduced risk of downtime while providing enhanced visibility. To address the global demand and to offer on-demand provisioning, F5 Networks explored the use of network orchestration solutions.

Anuta NCX is a model-driven orchestration platform that enables devops for networking. The solution has been demonstrated with large enterprises and service providers to accelerate network services, reduce opex and support consistency among heterogeneous infrastructure. NCX enables orchestration of L2-L7 physical and virtual appliances from more than 35 vendors and features a comprehensive REST API to integrate with multiple northbound ticketing systems and OSS/BSS.

Anuta Networks enables multi-vendor network orchestration for branch, campus, data centre and service provider-managed enterprise networks. Its NCX network orchestration platform allows customers to automate and accelerate network services. NCX offers lifecycle service orchestration of physical, virtual and hybrid networks, allowing customers to leverage existing investments in infrastructure and transition to the software-defined networking (SDN)/network functions virtualisation (NFV) environments.

Commenting on the agreement, Mike Lechner, manager, product development for Silverline at F5 Networks, said, “When F5 explored multiple orchestration solutions, it evaluated based on breadth of multi-vendor coverage, scalability, support for open APIs, extensibility and multi-tenancy… Anuta's Yang model-based NCX platform allows applications to describe intent to the network without worrying about underlying physical infrastructure… NCX enabled its devops teams to focus on the service workflow instead of learning complex CLIs".

http://www.anutanetworks.com/press-releases/anuta-networks-provides-f5-with-intent-based-network-services-delivery/

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Israel's Partner Comm to expand fibre network nationwide

Partner Communications Company, an Israeli communications operator, announced that following a pilot stage it is commencing the commercial phase and accelerated roll-out of its fibre optic network.

Following the company's report of June 2016 covering the deployment of an independent fixed-line infrastructure based on fibre optics, Partner is announcing that over the past few months it has significantly increased its deployment of fibre infrastructure in multiple cities across the country. The company is estimated to have connected around 30,000 homes in 20 cities, mainly is the centre of Israel.

To date, the operator has reached tens of thousands of households as it expands the existing deployment that includes thousands of kilometres of fibre and a presence in business centres and a number of cities throughout the country. As part of the accelerated deployment plan, Partner intends to double its reach in terms of households passed by the end of the year.

Partner's investment in the fibre network is part of its strategy to maintain its position in the market. The fibre network is designed to enable the company to offer higher internet speeds in Israel as well as advanced services such as quality TV services. Partner Communications is a major provider in Israel of telecoms services including cellular, fixed-line telephony, Internet and TV.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170809005443/en/Partner-Communications-Announces-Commencement-Commercial-Phase-Acceleration

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Dell'Oro forecasts double-digit growth for 100 GBE ports

Dell’Oro Group finds in its latest Router & Carrier Ethernet Switch 5-year Forecast Report that worldwide demand for edge routers and Carrier Ethernet switches will drive modest growth in the overall service provider (SP) and Carrier Ethernet switch market over the period to 2021.

Dell'Oro notes that over the 5-year period the SP core router market is expected to decline slightly.

Highlights of Dell'Oro's router and Carrier Ethernet switch report include:

1.         The SP core router market will continue to grow in 2017 driven by demand in China, while from 2018 the market will decline as projects in China are completed and IP traffic patterns continue to shift to more localised data sources.

2.         100 Gigabit Ethernet port shipments will experience double-digit growth each year over the forecast period, with 400 Gigabit Ethernet port shipments are expected to begin in 2019.

Regarding the report, Alam Tamboli, senior analyst at Dell’Oro Group, commented, "In the near term, operators will increase capacity of their IP router and switch networks to accommodate traffic from fixed broadband access networks, however, in 2019, there will be increased demand for mobile backhaul networks as operators actively build out their 5G networks… higher capacity and topology changes required for 5G will lead to an upgrade cycle of mobile backhaul networks".

http://www.delloro.com/news/service-provider-edge-routers-drive-market-growth-2021-according-delloro-group

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Tata teams with CoreSite to support enterprise digital transformation

CoreSite Realty, a provider of data centre and interconnection solutions across the U.S., announced that it has partnered with Tata Communications, a global provider of network, cloud, security and mobility services, to support the digital transformation.

Under the agreement, Tata Communications and its global communications and technology teams will have access to CoreSite's data centre and interconnection solutions across the U.S. Tata noted that the expansion of its cloud and managed hosting services in the U.S. through CoreSite is part of its strategy designed to facilitate customers' digital transformation initiatives without increasing costs.

Through the new relationship, CoreSite's data centre solutions teams will become extensions of Tata Communications' team to support its managed hosting and IZO cloud enablement platform in the U.S. As part of the partnership, Tata Communications has deployed a new IZO private cloud node in CoreSite's NY2 data centre in New Jersey to support U.S. enterprise adoption of hybrid cloud securely and flexibly.

The fully-managed IZO private cloud offering gives CIOs control over all their applications by creating a hybrid, high-performance IT infrastructure in which different cloud, colocation and managed hosting environments work together as a whole. In addition, via IZO private cloud, U.S. enterprises also gain access to IZO cloud storage for unlimited volumes of data in an always available and secure environment.

By working with CoreSite, Tata Communications will expand its data centre capacity by a total of 2.2 million sq feet spread across eight of the largest data centre markets in the U.S.

As part of the agreement, Tata Communications has become a member of the CoreSite Marketplace, which provides a dynamic web-enabled interface that provides customers with information about other service providers and support for their IT strategies.

http://www.coresite.com/investors/coresite-information/press-releases

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