DT activates its first pre-standard 5G connection in Berlin

Deutsche Telekom activated its first, pre-standard 5G connection over its commercial network in central Berlin using 3.7 GHz spectrum.

The 5G connection is operating a over 2 Gbps with a low latency of three milliseconds.

Huawei supplied the user equipment based on 3GPP specifications for 5G New Radio (NR), the deployment on commercial sites is the first in Europe and marks an important advancement in the global development of 5G.  

DT said the implementation in a live real-world setting in central Berlin using Huawei equipment and software is based on pre-standard 5G that closely tracks the 3GPP global standard for so-called ‘Non-Standalone New Radio’. With the Non-Standalone 5G NR mode for the enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) use-case, it is meant that the connection is anchored in LTE while 5G NR carriers are used to boost data-rates and reduce latency. Therefore, 5G new radio will be deployed with the evolution of 4G LTE as the baseline for wide-area broadband coverage. The specifications enabling that system will be complete by December 2017 as part of the first drop of 3GPP Release 15.

“5G new radio will be critical for meeting our customers’ ever-increasing connectivity requirements that are steadily growing with more and more network connections,” said Claudia Nemat, Deutsche Telekom Board member for Technology and Innovation. “Our achievement demonstrates the feasibility of our plans to deliver a superior, new customer experience.”

“As long time partners, both Deutsche Telekom Group and Huawei have joined hands to successfully test 5G NR equipments in field environments based on latest 3GPP R15 standards. These achievements highlight the capabilities of the 5G NR equipment to meet operators’ requirements for addressing new business opportunities for end users. Huawei is confident that the partnership with Deutsche Telekom can fully prepare the commercial launch of 5G NR services in Europe by 2020 thanks to 3GPP standardization efforts,” said Huimin Zhu, Vice President 5G Huawei.

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/dt-and-huawei-go-live-with-europes-first-5g-connection-501660

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Juniper to acquire Cyphort for security analytics

Juniper Networks agreed to acquire Cyphort, a start-up specializing in security software. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cyphort, which is based in Santa Clara, California, describes its security analytics and advanced threat defense platform as the Anti-SIEM (security information and event management) because it leverages machine learning to address the time, cost, and complexity challenges associated with traditional SIEMs. Cyphort’s open, scalable Cyphort security analytics platform helps incident responders and security analysts work more effectively.

Juniper said the acquisition will strengthen the capabilities of its Sky Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP), giving security practitioners a consistent feature set for both on-premises and cloud solutions. Combined with Sky ATP, Cyphort will provide increased efficiency and performance, a wider range of supported file types, and new threat-detection functionality that draws from advanced machine learning and behavioral analytics.

The acquisition is expected to close within the next month.

http://www.juniper.net

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Dell'Oro: Spending on Small Cells Starts to Take Off

The Small Cell Radio market continued to be the bright spot during 1H17 — advancing at a double-digit pace — in the otherwise gloomy RAN market, according to a newly published report from Dell'Oro Group.

In rank order, Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE, and Samsung accounting for over 90 percent of the Small Cell market in IH17.

“It is no longer a question if carriers are shifting CAPEX from macro to small cells. Now the question is how quick it is happening and what is the impact on vendor shares,” said Stefan Pongratz, Senior Analyst with Dell’Oro Group. “While the pace of small cell growth remains impressive —2Q17 was the sixteenth consecutive quarter of greater than 50 percent year-over-year shipment growth — RAN vendors with macro solutions accounted for more than 90 percent of the combined indoor and outdoor Small Cell market during 1H17. Huawei, Nokia, and Ericsson accounted for more than 70 percent of this market during that time,” continued Pongratz.

http://www.delloro.com

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Bouygues Telecom grows revenue, subscriber count

Bouygues Telecom reported sales of €2,434 million in the first half of 2017, 6% more than in the first half of 2016. Sales from network also rose 6% to €2,084 million and sales from network excluding incoming traffic rose 7% over the period. The increase in data usage resulting from the decline in voice and text usage is leading to a decrease in sales from network generated by incoming traffic. However, there is no impact on EBITDA, since this decline in sales is offset by reduced interconnection costs.

EBITDA was up €139 million versus the first half of 2016 to €547 million. The EBITDA margin rose by 5.5 points year-on-year to 26.2%. Operating profit was €215 million higher at €210 million. It included non-current income of €48 million, mainly related to the capital gain on the sale of towers to Cellnex, which more than offset non-current charges related to the roll-out of network sharing.

Some highlights:

• In the first half of 2017, gross capex stood at €585 million, in line with the 2017 full-year gross capex target of €1.2 billion. 
• Bouygues Telecom added 645,000 mobile customers in the first half of 2017, resulting in a total base of 13.6 million customers at end-June 2017. 
• There were over 10 million mobile plan customers excluding MtoM at end-June 2017, with 240,000 new adds in the first half of 2017, of which 110,000 in the second quarter. 
• In the fixed market, Bouygues Telecom signed up 133,000 new customers in the first half of 2017, of which 45,000 in the second quarter. 
• Bouygues Telecom confirms its target of 1 million additional fixed customers by end-2017 versus end-2014. The Miami FTTH offer accounted for close to two-thirds of net growth in the second quarter of 2017. As a result, Bouygues Telecom had 171,000 FTTH customers at end-June 2017, more than twice as many as at end-June 2016. 
• Bouygues Telecom is continuing to roll out FTTH, with 16 million premises secured at end-June 2017, 7 million more than at end-2016, and 2.6 million premises marketed, 0.6 million more than at end-2016. Bouygues Telecom confirms its target of 12 million premises marketed in 2019 and 20 million in 2022. In all, Bouygues Telecom had 552,000 very-high-speed customers at end-June 2017. 

http://www.bouygues.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/press-release.pdf

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