Nokia debuts its Software-Defined Access Network vision

Nokia is introducing its Software-Defined Access Network (SDAN), which comprised of its "Altiplano" cloud-native software, "Lightspan" open programmable hardware, scalable deployment practices, automated operations and integration services for operators.

The cloud-native, Altiplano SDN/NFV software helps operators scale their network by centralizing and virtualizing network functionality that was traditionally embedded in the access equipment. Altiplano leverages open interfaces, open data models and open industry initiatives such as Open Broadband , ON.LAB , Open Networking Foundation (ONF), CORD , ONAP and BBF. Nokia developed Altiplano to be integrated in multivendor environment.

The Nokia Lightspan family of programmable access nodes bring data center practices to the central office. The programmable design brings cloud and operational agility to the copper/fiber outside plant. It features the Lightspan SX-16F, the world's first 16-port reverse-powered G.fast micro-node which can be safely reverse-powered from the home. It also includes the Lightspan CF-24W, a stackable software-defined optical line terminal (OLT) that delivers the industry's highest next-generation PON (NG-PON) capacity in a single one-rack unit.

Nokia said it already had real world SDAN use-cases defined developed in cooperation with leading operators like du, nbn, and SK Telecom.

"Nokia focuses on areas where virtualization provides concrete benefits to operators. We deliberately go for an open, standardized, vendor-agnostic approach that smoothly integrates legacy as well as new cloud services. Our fixed access virtualization portfolio now covers copper, fiber, coax networks and professional services, which makes us ideally placed to transform the operator's network, operations, and business just as the opportunities of 5G begin to accelerate," stated Federico Guillén, president of Nokia Fixed Networks.

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Iron Mountain to buy data centres in London and Singapore

Iron Mountain has agree to acquire two Credit Suisse data centers in London and Singapore for approximately $100 million. As part of the transaction, Credit Suisse will enter into a long-term lease with Iron Mountain to maintain their existing data center operations. The two facilities combined add 273,000 square feet and over 14 megawatts (MW) of capacity (including future expansion) to Iron Mountain’s growing portfolio – of which 4.2MW is leased to Credit Suisse. The London data center is 120,000 total square feet and located in the Slough Trading Estate, while the Singapore data center is 153,000 total square feet located in Serangoon.

The deal represents the first international expansion of Iron Mountain's data center business.

Iron Mountain plans to fund the purchase with proceeds from a new share issua.

• In September, Iron Mountain acquired the FORTRUST data center business.
• Also in September, Iron Mountain opened the first of four planned data centers at a new, 83-acre campus in Northern Virginia. The first is a Tier III, 165,000 square-foot, 10.5-megawatt multi-tenant and cloud facility located in Prince William County. The company invested over $80 million in the first phase of this data center and expects to invest $350 million to bring the full campus to completion. The first phase opens with more than half of its first phase capacity pre-leased, including customers like Virtustream, a Dell Technologies business. 
• Northern Virginia is Iron Mountain’s fifth U.S. data centre market. Additional locations include Boston, Denver, Kansas City and Western Pennsylvania.

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Ericsson refocuses on 5G silicon with ASIC design center in Austin

Ericsson has selected Austin, Texas to be the site of a new ASIC Design Center that will develop core microelectronics of 5G radio base stations. Ericsson said it intends to employ 80 designers at the facility by mid-2018.

Ericsson said it selected Austin to be near other processor manufacturers.

Sinisa Krajnovic, Head of Development Unit Networks, Ericsson, says: “We are strengthening our radio design capability in one of the world’s 5G pioneer markets. We’ll be up and running with our first group of designers in Austin by the end of 2017. Along with our ASIC design teams in Sweden and China, we’ll be making faster, better and greener 5G products to bring into the Ericsson portfolio by 2019.”

• In 2008, Ericsson merged its Mobile Platforms business with ST-NXP Wireless in a 50/50 joint venture  to create a leading supplier of semiconductors and platforms to Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and Sharp. The fabless joint venture had almost 8,000 people with pro-forma 2007 sales of US$3.6 billion.
• In 2013, Ericsson and STMicroelectronics agreed to split up their joint venture, ST-Ericsson.  After the split, Ericsson took on the design, development and sales of the LTE multimode thin modem products, including 2G, 3G and 4G multimode. ST took the existing ST-Ericsson products, other than LTE multimode thin modems, and related business as well as certain assembly and test facilities.

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Telenor and Cisco introduce WorkingGroupTwo

Telenor and Cisco are launching a new business entity called “WorkingGroupTwo” (WG2) that will offer mobile operators a cloud solutions platform.

WG2 will offer a mobile-core-network as-a-service and as-a-platform supporting IoT and other industry verticals.

Erlend Prestgard has been appointed CEO of “WorkingGroupTwo” and Birger Magnus has been appointed Chairman of the Board. The Board of Directors and employees own about 5% of the company, with Telenor and Digital Alpha LLC owning the remaining shares in equal proportion.

“The “WorkingGroupTwo” platform is a Telenor innovation. I am proud that we as a company are able to leverage new technologies to make a pioneering telco platform with the potential of bringing the whole industry forward. We are firmly committed to supporting “WorkingGroupTwo”, and want to give the entity the freedom to unleash wider industry eco-system dynamics. For this reason we have also set up a strong global partnership with Cisco,” said Sigve Brekke, CEO of Telenor Group.

“Cisco’s partnership with Telenor to launch “WorkingGroupTwo” demonstrates how we are driving positive change for our customers,” said Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco.  “Our joint efforts will help mobile operators automate the delivery of mobile cloud services and deliver innovation at a faster pace.”

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McLaren-Honda turns to NTT Com's SD-WAN Solution

High-speed SD-WAN will connect Suzuka Circuit and McLaren-Honda's UK headquarters to efficiently transmit car data for strategic in-race management according to data priority

McLaren-Honda will use SD-WAN from NTT Communications for track-side connectivity for its Formula 1 motor racing team.

Specifically, NTT Comm's software-defined-everything (SDx) will be used in a track-side network connecting the Suzuka Circuit in Japan and the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, UK during the 2017 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix.

McLaren-Honda will conduct a series of tests during the Japanese Grand Prix to strengthen its remote management of race strategy using telemetry data provided at extra high speed.

NTT Comm said its secure ICT infrastructure will control network bandwidth flexibly and efficiently. Data will also be transmitted between Japan and the UK via an existing MPLS circuit, as well as by the SD-WAN which will integrate complementary circuits, including Internet, constructed at the circuit. Large-capacity, high-resolution, video conferencing will be distributed over the NTT SD-WAN to enable the all-important collaboration between engineers working trackside and other global locations.

The SD-WAN will also enable WAN acceleration and unified threat management (UTM) protection via NTT Comm's NFV infrastructure. NTT Comm is also providing McLaren-Honda with its Arcstar Universal One enterprise VPN network service to connect its 16 global offices.

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Aquantia files for IPO

Aquantia Corp., which supplies high-speed Ethernet silicon for data centres, enterprise infrastructure and client connectivity, filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of shares of its common stock.

Aquantia has applied to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “AQ.”

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., and Deutsche Bank Securities are acting as bookrunners for the proposed offering. Needham & Company and Raymond James are acting as co-managers.

• Aquantia is based in Fremont, California. 
• Aquantia is headed by Faraj Aalaei, CEO and Chairman of the Board. Previously, Aalaei served as Chief Executive Officer and was one of the founders of Centillium Communications, a semiconductor solutions company.

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Nokia intros virtualized Distributed Access Architecture

Nokia introduced the next generation of its Unified Cable Access solution based on a Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) that gives cable operators the flexibility to deploy both R-PHY and R-MACPHY devices within the same network and easily switch from one to the other based on their network requirements and strategic direction.

The basic idea with DAA is to move cable access layer functions that are traditionally placed in the headend and hub sites to the access nodes. To date, cable operators have had to choose between two DAA approaches: R-PHY, which moves only the DOCSIS signal generation (PHY) to the access node; and R-MACPHY, which moves both the PHY and DOCSIS processing (MAC) to the access node.

Features of Nokia's new vDAA include:

• vCMTS Anywhere - Nokia has virtualized a cable modem termination system (CMTS), which includes the DOCSIS MAC, as a virtual network function (VNF). This provides the flexibility to run the vCMTS anywhere in the network: on the node, or on an off-the-shelf server in the outside plant, hub, headend or data center. 
•  Universal Node - Cable operators can convert a Gainspeed cable access node from R-PHY to R-MACHPHY, or vice versa, on the fly. This capability lets operators choose the best approach to a node for a given use case. It also enables an operator to seamlessly evolve from an R-PHY to R-MACPHY deployment.
•  Unified Control - The Gainspeed access controller can simultaneously support both R-PHY and R-MACPHY nodes, expanding its current cable and fiber unified control capabilities. This helps operators reduce costs and simplify network design by using the same controller to manage all types of Nokia access nodes deployed across HFC and fiber networks 
• Interoperability - Nokia is committed to full solution interoperability and will support any R-PHY or R-MACPHY node as part of its solution.
  

In 2016, Nokia acquired Gainspeed, a start-up specializing in DAA (Distributed Access Architecture) solutions for the cable industry via its Virtual CCAP (Converged Cable Access Platform) product line. Financial terms were not disclosed. Gainspeed's Virtual CCAP enables cable operators to increase the capacity of their existing HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coax) infrastructure and rapidly deploy new services, while simultaneously reducing space and power requirements in the headend. The solution also enables cable operators to migrate their networks to a software-driven, all-IP architecture. Gainspeed's design eliminates the physical CCAP by leveraging SDN and NFV to distribute the CCAP’s functions to other devices and locations in the network. This centralizes routing, control and management in the data center or cloud and pushes
the physical layer, DOCSIS processing and RF modulation into the node, deep within

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