5G New Radio (NR) Specs Approved

The 3GPP initiative officially approved the 5G New Radio (NR) specifications. Balazs Berenyi, 3GPP RAN Chair, described the approval as "an impressive achievement in a remarkably short time, with credit due particularly to the Working Groups." At Mobile World Congress 2017 in February, major mobile network operators and vendors issued a call to accelerate the 5G New Radio (NR) standardization schedule to enable large-scale trials and deployments...

Read More

France's Iliad to acquire Ireland's Eir for €3.5 billion

Iliad, the fully-integrated operator in France with nearly 20 million subscribers, has agreed to acquire eir, the Irish telecommunications and broadband carrier, for approximately €3.5 billion. eir, which was formerly the state-owned telecom monopoly in Ireland until 1999 (Telecom Eireann), is currently owned by an investor group including Anchorage Capital Group, L.L.C, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, GIC, and management. The offer from...

Read More

AT&T to boost CAPEX by $1 billion, issue $1,000 bonus to 200K employees

In recognition of the new tax reform legislation, AT&T announced plans to boost its 2018 CAPEX by $1 billion and to pay a special $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 of its U.S. employees — all union-represented, non-management and front-line managers. “Congress, working closely with the President, took a monumental step to bring taxes paid by U.S. businesses in line with the rest of the industrialized world,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T...

Read More

Top 5 Container Predictions for 2018

by David Messina, CMO, Docker Prediction #1: The next big security breach will be foiled by containers As we witnessed with the Equifax breach in early September, data breaches can place personal data at risk and in doing so, erode consumer confidence. But what if you could prevent a major breach by simply placing the software in a container? The Equifax breach occurred when a piece of web software was vulnerable and exposed to hackers. Containers...

Read More

Comcast to Boost CAPEX, issue $1000 Holiday Bonuses

Following the passage of the tax reform legislation, Comcast announced plans to increase its capital expenditures and to issue $1,000 bonuses to more than one hundred thousand eligible frontline and non-executive employees. Comcast said it now plans to spend "well in excess of $50 billion over the next five years investing in infrastructure to radically improve and extend our broadband plant and capacity, and our television, film, and theme park...

Read More

Vodafone initiates 5G trial with Ericsson

Vodafone UK is conducting a trial of pre-standard 5G using 3.5 GHz spectrum in central London. The testing is carried out in partnership with Ericsson and King’s College London. The trial includes both indoor and outdoor configurations using MIMO, beamforming, beam tracking, and other advanced technologies. Vodafone UK Head of Networks Kye Prigg said: “We’re delighted to be the first provider to test standalone 5G in the field, however, building...

Read More

Fyusion raises $22M for computer vision

Fyusion, a start-up based in San Francisco, announced $22 million in Series B funding for its work in 3D computer vision and machine learning. Fyusion's mission is "to pioneer real-time visual understanding of the physical world using any camera though with a focus on Android & iOS devices." The technology creates immersive, interactive 3D images called ‘fyuses’ by moving any camera around a person, object or scene. Fyusion says its 3D AI technology...

Read More

Anodot raises $23M for AI-driven analytics

Anodot, a start-up based in Ra'anana, Israel with offices in Sunnyvale, California announced $23 million in Series B funding for its AI-powered analytics. Anodot's AI-powered analytics tracks and correlates massive volumes of business and technical data in real time to identify business incidents, such as e-commerce glitches. The company recently achieved Amazon Web Services' Machine Learning competency, a status held by only 17 companies globally. Anodot...

Read More

SendBird raises $16M for chat and messaging APIs

SendBird, a start-up based in Redwood City, California with R&D in Seoul, Korea, raised $16 million in Series A funding for its API and SDK for in-app chat and messaging. SendBird said its API is now powering chat for over 6,500 applications in 153 countries globally. It can support over a million concurrent users for each application. The funding round was led by Shasta Ventures and August Capital with participation from existing investors...

Read More