Vodafone plans 4G on the moon for rover mission

PTScientists, a privately-held venture based in Berlin, Germany is aiming for a historic lunar landing next year. The plan calls for delivering two rovers, or up to 100 kg of payload, to the lunar surface using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission will be to approach and study NASA's Apollo 17 lunar roving vehicle that was used by the last astronauts to walk on the Moon (Commander Eugene Cernan and Harrison...

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Sprint deploys 64T64R Massive MIMO antennas

Sprint is deploying Massive MIMO antennas as it prepares for a 5G rollout in the first half of 2019. Sprint expects to deploy thousands of Massive MIMO radios in 2018 and 2019, significantly increasing network capacity for millions of customers across the country. Specifically, Sprint will deploy 64T64R (64 transmit, 64 receive) Massive MIMO radios using 128 antennas from Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung Electronics. The Massive MIMO radios from all...

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Vodafone and China Mobile enter IoT resale partnership

Vodafone and China Mobile agreed to resell each other’s IoT services. Under the agreement, each company will share new IoT project opportunities. Vodafone customers will be given access to China Mobile IoT SIMS for deployments in China, and China Mobile customers wanting to offer IoT-enabled products outside of China will use Vodafone’s Global IoT SIM and management platform. Vodafone will manage all elements of the operational model for its customers...

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Huawei develops FDD bull-band 4x4 MIMO compact antenna for TIM

At Mobile World Congress 2018, Huawei is showcasing the first FDD full-band 4x4 MIMO antenna - a designed developed for TIM, the Italian mobile operator. The antenna uses Huawei's patented AirType Dipole and AirMax Feeding Network technologies to support 4x4 MIMO on all of TIM's sub-3 GHz frequency bands in a single sector and a single antenna, including 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1400 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2600 MHz, while leaving room for...

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Ericsson supplies radio access for T-Mobile's 5G in NY, LA, LV

Ericsson is supplying its radio access platforms for T-Mobile's 5G rollout in U.S. cities using 600 MHz and 28 and 39 millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum. Financial terms were not disclosed. Specifically, T-Mobile is building out 5G in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas this year utilizing Ericson's 5G New Radio (NR) radios and baseband. Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area Networks, Ericsson, says: “We have been...

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6WIND, Advantech and Cloudify demo vRouter for White Box Networking

At this week's Mobile World Congress, 6WIND is demonstrating high-performance vRouter use cases for white box networking with partners Advantech and Cloudify. The demo infrastructure includes: vRouter: 6WIND Turbo Router and Turbo IPsec are routing and IPsec VPN software network appliances to be deployed in bare metal environments or as Virtual Machines (VMs) on COTS servers with licenses for 1 – 100G throughput in a single software instance. COTS...

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GSMA: 23 operators now running both NB-IoT and LTE-M

To date, 23 mobile operators have commercially launched 41 Mobile IoT networks worldwide across both NB-IoT and LTE-M, according to the GSMA. The GSMA's Mobile IoT Innovators Community has grown to include 34 IoT Labs and an expanding community of over 800 organisations. According to GSMA Intelligence forecasts, by 2025 there will be 3.1 billion cellular IoT connections, including 1.8 billion licensed LPWA connections. “2018 is the year that Mobile...

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Mist raises $46 million for self-learning WLAN

Mist, a start-up based in Cupertino, California. raised $46 million in an unsubscribed C round of funding for its self-learning wireless networks powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Mist says its wireless platform, which is designed specifically for the Smart Device era, makes Wi-Fi predictable, reliable and measurable by providing visibility into the user experience and by replacing time-consuming manual IT tasks with proactive automation. The...

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China Mobile signs cooperation pact with Ericsson

At Mobile World Congress, China Mobile signed a Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement with Ericsson to develop Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities in industry and enterprises. The partnership will build on Ericsson’s Device Connection Platform IoT (DCP-IoT) Connectivity Management platform, as part of the IoT Accelerator Platform, to help China Mobile expand IoT business worldwide, and to support China’s One Belt One Road initiative. The...

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Qualcomm's Snapdragon 700 on pace for this year

Qualcomm confirmed that it will begin sampling its Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series in the first half of this year. The chipset promises features and performance previously only available in the premium Snapdragon 800 Mobile Platform Series. These capabilities include on-device AI supported by the Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine, and improvements to camera, device performance and power. "The Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series...

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Orange Labs integrates Radisys' virtualized Media Resource Function into ONAP

Orange Labs Networks has integrated Radisys’ MediaEngine virtualized Media Resource Function (vMRF) in the ONAP (Open Network Automation Platform) “Amsterdam” release. This paves the way for additional VNF integrations with ONAP, accelerating commercial deployments. The overall solution includes complete cost-effective vMRF lifecycle management of ONAP infrastructure, including elastic scaling, policy-driven controls, and zero-touch automation and...

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T-Mobile US to deploy Nokia 5G in 600MHz and 28GHz mmWave this year

T-Mobile U.S. announced plans to build out 5G in 30 cities this year and Nokia confirmed that its equipment has been selected for the rollout. T-Mobile will deploy its 5G RAN using both 600MHz and 28GHz millimeter wave spectrum. Nokia will begin building the network during the second quarter of 2018, completing the deployment during 2020. Financial terms were not disclosed. T-Mobile said New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Las Vegas will be first...

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xRAN Forum merges with C-RAN Alliance, seeking innovation in radio access

Two industry organizations are combining their efforts to drive innovation in radio access networks. The xRAN Forum will merge with the C-RAN Alliance to form the ORAN Alliance, which is backed by AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DOCOMO, and Orange. The key principles of the ORAN Alliance include: Leading the industry towards open, interoperable interfaces, RAN virtualization, and big data enabled RAN intelligence. Maximizing the...

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Telefónica implements 4.5G technologies from Huawei

Telefónica is introducing 4.5G Evolution technologies from Huawei, 4x4 MIMO, 3x Carrier Aggregation (CA), 256-QAM and CloudAIR (Huawei’s proprietary technology), into its international networks. The first deployments are happening in Bogotá (Colombia), Monterrey (Mexico) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). After several months assessment in these cities, Telefónica will consider additional rollouts. Telefónica Deutschland and Huawei have implemented in...

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DT, Intel and Huawei show 5G NR interoperability

Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Huawei have completed 5G interoperability and development testing (IODT) based on the 3GPP R15 Standard with a commercial base station in an operator lab environment. The test, which was carried out in Bonn, Germany, used  Huawei's 5G commercial base station and Intel's third generation 5G NR Mobile Trial Platform (MTP). The testing included synchronization, coding, frame structure, and numerology components underlying...

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ECI presents its connectivity fabric for 5G

At Mobile World Congress, ECI is presenting its dynamic, intelligent connectivity fabric for 5G networks. At the core of ECI’s solution is its newly launched Elastic Services Platform, which consists of its: Apollo Optical family, Neptune Packet-Optical family and Mercury NFV-based solutions. ECI has developed an open, modular SDN software suite for eal-time network control and optimization of service delivery. The company says its solution brings...

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Avanti readies Ka-band satellite for March launch

Avanti Communications confirmed that its HYLAS 4 satellite has arrived safely in French Guiana ahead of a scheduled launch in March. The Avanti HYLAS 4 is a Ka-band satellite that will provide coverage over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It has 64 active fixed beams and four independent steerable beams and is designed for: Backhaul services for mobile network operators Wholesale broadband for ISPs Connectivity for governments (civil and...

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Samsung's Galaxy S9 brings camera improvements but no 5G

Samsung is ready to ship its Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones in March in global volumes. The new flagships boast an improved camera with a dual aperture lens for low light, Super Slow-mo video capabilities, and personalized AR Emoji. As the units are now ready, network connectivity remains pretty much unchanged, with no 5G in this generation. However, Samsung is introducing a SmartThings App with S9 and Galaxy S9+ that will connect...

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Italy's SM-Optics develops OTN switching matrix scaling 300G to 1T

SM-Optics, a technology developer based in Milano, introduced a single chip OTN switching matrix that scales from 300 Gbps to 1 Tbps. The company said its FLEX device can be addressed by ports spanning from traditional low-speed services like 2Mbps over micro-OTN, to layer2 and layer3 over ODUFlex, 100G over ODU4 and 200G over FlexO. Embedded capabilities include multi-technology OAM, packet processing, synchronization and fast protection functions....

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Dell'Oro: Fast growth predicted for CBRS

The nascent Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) market opportunities are expected to grow 10-fold between 2018 and 2022 with total RAN investments approaching $1 billion, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. “One of the more compelling propositions relating to the CBRS band is that it lowers the barrier to entry and provides opportunities for a wide range of participants to operate a public or private LTE network — or eventually even...

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Seamless Air Alliance to ride OneWeb's LEO satellites

A new Seamless Air Alliance has been formed with the goal of providing better in-flight connectivity for passengers across airlines and irrespective of routes. Mobile operators would be able to extend seamless connectivity to their customers while in flight. Key members of the alliance include Airbus, Delta, OneWeb, Sprint, and Bharti Airtel. Low-latency, high-bandwidth in-flight connectivity will be delivered via OneWeb's forthcoming constellation...

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Cisco backs Open vRAN initiative for disaggregated mobile networks

Cisco is backing a new, open virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) initiative aimed fostering end-to-end, software-defined mobile networks. Additional backers include Altiostar, Aricent, Intel, Mavenir, Phazr, Red Hat and Tech Mahindra to spur rapid innovation in both hardware and software domains. Reliance Jio is the first carrier to join. While virtualization already plays a key role in other domains of mobile networking, such as in the Evolved...

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GTT's acquisition of Interoute would add 72K km of European fiber to its transatlantic cables

GTT Communications agreed to acquire Interoute, operator of one of Europe’s largest independent fiber networks and cloud networking platforms, for approximately €1.9 billion ($2.3 billion) in cash. Interoute's European fiber backbone spans 72,000 route kilometers connects nearly 200 data centres and colocation facilities.  Interoute also owns 15 of its own data centers and 33 colocation facilities. Its customers include international enterprises,...

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Intel enters 5G pact with China's Unigroup Spreadtrum & RDA

Intel announced a strategic alliance with Unigroup Spreadtrum & RDA, a core subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup. The plan is to develop a 5G smartphone platform for the China market that will feature an Intel 5G modem and will be targeted to coincide with 5G network deployments in 2019. “Undoubtedly, China will be an important market at the forefront of 5G. Together with Unigroup Spreadtrum & RDA, Intel looks forward to making a 5G smartphone...

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KT, Qualcomm and Samsung Achieve Multi-vendor 5G NR Interoperability

KT Corporation, Qualcomm, and Samsung Electronics have completed multi-vendor 5G NR interoperable testing compliant with the 3GPP Release-15 Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G NR global standard. The live, over-the-air interoperable testing demonstrated data connections operating in 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz bands, utilizing pre-commercial 5G NR base stations from Samsung and 5G NR UE prototype devices from Qualcomm. The end-to-end 5G NR interoperability testing...

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GSMA study warns the megacities could face bandwidth crunch by 2025

The world’s largest and densest cities, such as New York, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tokyo, could face a wireless bandwidth crunch in their urban cores by 2025 warns a new report published by the GSMA. The gap between mobile data traffic demand and available network capacity could become acute, with as much as 48 percent of traffic demand going unserved in ultra-dense urban areas by 2025. The report cites the rise of 5G and IoT as potentially increasing...

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Metaswitch lands extended reseller agreement with HPE

Metaswitch has signed a global resale agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) aimed at accelerating fixed and mobile network operators’ deployments of advanced services including VoLTE and VoWiFi on private, public or hybrid cloud infrastructures. Under the deal, Metaswitch’s core network software products, including the Clearwater IMS core and Perimeta session border controller (SBC), will be integrated with HPE’s own virtual network...

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Ericsson announces first Energy Infrastructure Management contract

Ericsson announced its first Energy Infrastructure Management contract with a mobile network operator -- Crnogorski Telekom, Montenegro’s leading telecommunications service provider and a member of the Deutsche Telekom Group Ericsson’s Energy Infrastructure Management integrates big data analytics, energy management software, and lithium-ion batteries for energy storage. The solution provides an efficient means of measuring, monitoring and maintaining...

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NETSCOUT brings NFV Service Assurance to VodafoneZiggo

NETSCOUT has been awarded a new multi-year agreement by VodafoneZiggo to support its Network Function Virtualization (NFV) transformation. Specifically, NETSCOUT will deliver end-to-end visibility and analytics into VodafoneZiggo’s converged, hybrid network to ensure the seamless delivery of services. VodafoneZiggo is a joint venture of Liberty Global, the largest international TV and broadband internet company, and Vodafone Group. It provides fixed,...

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