AT&T expands its Fixed Wireless Internet rollout

AT&T is expanding its Fixed Wireless Internet service for rural and underserved locations to 9 new states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.

This brings the rollout to 18 states, for a total of over 160,000 locations.  AT&T is aiming to offer the Fixed Wireless service in over 400,000 locations by the end of this year, and over 1.1 million locations by 2020.

AT&T Fixed Wireless Internet delivers download speeds of at least 10 Mbps and upload speeds of at least 1 Mbps. The LTE connection comes from a wireless tower to a fixed antenna on customers’ homes or businesses.

“For many rural families and communities, the introduction of this service from AT&T will mark a new era of increased broadband speeds and access to cheaper and more diverse content.” said Bret Swanson, president, Entropy Economics.  "AT&T's move into these new communities will also yield additional economic benefits and can help create new jobs.”

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ONAP Project adds Equinix, FiberHome and others to membership

The Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project, which brings together top global carriers and vendors with the goal of allowing end users to automate, design, orchestrate and manage services and virtual functions, has added Equinix, FiberHome, Kaloom, Netsia, Openet and ZTEsoft to its membership roster as silver members.

ONAP is working to deliver a neutral automation platform for network, infrastructure and services across service providers, cloud providers and enterprises as they seek to efficiently deliver on-demand services leveraging existing investments. Its first release, code named Amsterdam, is expected later this year.

“Open source networking has achieved significant market growth because it allows organizations of all sizes to quickly and innovatively bring new products and services to market using the largest shared technology investment,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager of Networking & Orchestration, The Linux Foundation. “

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FCC: 90% of cell sites still down in Puerto Rico

Communication networks are still struggling to recover basic services in Puerto Rico.

As of September 28, 2017 at 11:00 AM EDT,  90.3% (slightly down from 91.1% yesterday) of cell sites in Puerto Rico still are out of service, according to FCC data. All counties in Puerto Rico have greater than 75% of their cell sites out of service. This means that 2,411 cell sites have been unable to restore service since Hurricane Maria struck on September 20.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 67.0% of cell sites are out of service. Even worse, 100% of cell sites in St. John are now out of service (up from 66.7% yesterday).

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FCC waives spectrum restriction in Puerto Rico to aid first responders

The FCC waived rules to facilitate use of two nationwide interoperability channels (151.1375 MHz and 154.4525 MHz) in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico) and the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). 

The waiver authorizes the use of the designated frequencies in Puerto Rico and the USVI for public safety. 

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A10 expects bump up in Q3 revenue

A10 Networks increased its financial outlook for Q3 2017, saying it now expects revenue to be between $59 million and $60 million, above its prior guidance of $53 million to $57 million. The company also expects to report a profit on a non-GAAP basis.

A10 Networks also announced the departure of Ray Smets, EVP of worldwide sales, effective in the fourth quarter.

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AsiaSat 9 successfully launched from Kazakhstan

International Launch Services (ILS) successfully launched the AsiaSat 9 satellite into orbit aboard an ILS Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

AsiaSat 9, which was built by SSL (Space Systems Loral), will provide enhanced performance, higher efficiency and greater flexibility for DTH, video distribution, VSAT broadband and mobility services. It carries the world’s first dedicated Ku-band Myanmar beam, new Ku-band beams for Indonesia and Mongolia, in addition to two enhanced Ku-band beams serving Australasia and East Asia and a wider high-power C-band coverage across the Asia-Pacific region.

This was the 416th launch for Proton since its maiden flight in 1965. The Proton Breeze M vehicle is developed and built by Khrunichev Space Center of Moscow.

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Roku surges on first day of trading

Shares in Roku (Nasdaq:ROKU), which offers TV streaming devices, surged on their first day of trading, closing at

The company priced its initial public offering of 15,668,000 shares of Class A common stock at a price to the public of $14.00 per share.

Roku, which is based in Los Gatos, California, has 15 million monthly active accounts as of June 30, 2017 that streamed in the last 30 days. The company says its uses streamed nearly 7 billion hours of music and video in the first half of 2017.

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Toyota Racing's in-house engineering goes All-in on AWS

Toyota Racing Development (TRD), the in-house engineering division for Toyota and Lexus motorsports programs, has gone all-in on AWS.

AWS said its cloud services now support mission-critical applications that enable Toyota Racing crews to improve precision, consistency, and speed during practice runs and in competition. These race intelligence applications collect data from vehicles and their environments and apply real-time analytics and machine learning to better understand how a vehicle may handle on any track under any circumstance.

"We use AWS to do everything from setting up our cars in chassis tuning simulations to making fuel and tire strategy calls from the pit boxes during the races," stated Chris Andronaco, Technology Director at Toyota Racing Development.

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