Telefónica and Huawei test 5G-V2X Radio for uRLLC Assisted Driving

Telefónica and Huawei are running a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) testbed for 5G based vehicle communication networks (known as 5G-V2X) in their 5G Joint Innovation Lab at Madrid.

The 5G-V2X test is based on the latest 5G NR specs and includes advanced services such as vehicles platooning, extended sensors, advanced driving and remote driving, among others.

The so-called Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) mode for 5G NR offers the flexible design to support services with low latency and high-reliability requirements.

Huawei said the PoC demonstrates that URLLC can effectively support V2X with higher system capacity and better coverage. The exercise achieved 99.999% reliability with a low latency of 1ms required for autonomous driving in a typical macro cellular outdoor environment, such as dense urban, suburban and rural areas.  In the 5G-V2X PoC, a novel self-contained frame structure for radio transmission was used, both from the base station to the vehicle and from the vehicle to another vehicle. This allows much faster transmission feedback, enabling very low-latency communications. The great flexibility of the NR system framework allows the support of some advanced features, like Polar coding for small V2X packet error correction, an optimized HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) procedure for increased transmission reliability, or an ‘Inactive State’ for instantly sending short packets to control the car maneuver. To further enhance performance, another key technology, ‘SCMA-based (Sparse Coded Multiple Access) Grant Free Access, was tested.

Mr. Enrique Blanco, Telefónica Global CTIO, said: “This PoC between Telefónica and Huawei is another step towards 5G commercialization and a fully connected society. We will strengthen our collaboration by verifying 5G key technologies. Multiple novel use cases will be developed and provided to our customers.”

Dr. Wen Tong, Huawei Fellow and Huawei Wireless CTO, said: “We are pleased with our further collaboration with Telefónica in 5G technologies. The 5G-V2X PoC is another joint effort to pave the way for commercialization of 5G and lay a solid foundation to realize the 5G vision of enabling cooperative autonomous driving.”

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Nokia and Qualcomm conduct 5G NR testing

Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies completed 5GNR interoperability testing in the 3.5Ghz and 28Ghz spectrum compliant with the global 3GPP 5G NR Release 15 standard.

The testing, which was complete at Nokia's 5G center of excellence in Oulu, Finland and using the commercially available Nokia AirScale base station and device prototypes from Qualcomm, will provide the basis for 5G NR field trials with operators in 2018.

Marc Rouanne, President of Mobile Networks, Nokia said: "These tests by Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies are important to the progress of 5G. Importantly, they demonstrate how we have quickly applied the 3GPP Release 15 specifications that were set in December, using our AirScale base station - which has been shipped to more than 100 customers - together with a prototype Qualcomm Technologies UE. Now, we can look forward to commencing standards-based, over-the-air 5G NR trials with operators."

Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm Incorporated, said: "The successful completion of an end-to-end interoperable connection based on the global 5G NR standard is a significant step on the path to launching 5G NR commercial networks and devices starting in 2019. We look forward to further collaboration on standard-compliant field trials with Nokia and global operators on the path to commercialization."

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Zayo to open dark fiber route via Prineville, OR

Zayo announced plans for a new long haul dark fiber network between Reno, Nevada and Umatilla, Oregon -- a distance of 600 miles (1,000 km).

Zayo said the project is anchored by a webscale customer.

The route, which will be fully underground, connects the two cities via Prineville, Oregon.

“The new route completes a piece of the puzzle that the western U.S. needs to connect the dots between content companies’ core data center locations in a way no other carriers can provide,” said Jack Waters, CTO and president of Fiber Solutions at Zayo. “As more companies add data centers in Oregon and Nevada, Zayo is well positioned to provide them with high-capacity fiber infrastructure.”

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SiTime reaches big milestone: 1 billion timing devices shipped

SiTime Corporation, which specializes in MEMS timing devices, announced a big milestone - the cumulative shipment of over 1 billion timing devices.

SiTime's MEMS timing devices are used in a wide range of applications such as mobile phones, tablets, fitness trackers, cameras, automobile, autonomous vehicles, rockets, earthquake detection systems, etc.

The company estimates the market for all timing devices is $6 billion, and SiTime supplies 90% of the MEMS timing components sold.

"SiTime is redefining timing technology, and we've only just begun our journey," said Rajesh Vashist, CEO of SiTime. "SiTime is uniquely focused on solving the most difficult timing problems for the electronics industry. That is why customers are using our timing products in self-driving cars, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence systems, and 5G infrastructure. We believe that our timing components will be the device of choice for the next few decades."

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Intel intros Xeon D-2100 for edge

Intel introduced a system-on-chip processor in its Xeon line that is architected to address the needs of edge applications and other data center or network applications.

The new Intel Xeon D-2100 processors include up to 18 “Skylake-server” generation Intel Xeon processor cores and integrated Intel QuickAssist Technology with up to 100 Gbps of built-in cryptography, decryption and encryption acceleration.

Intel said this processor will be supported by system software updates to protect against the Spectre and Meltdown security exploits.

In addition to edge deployments in communications service provider networks, other use cases for the Intel Xeon D-2100 processor include:

• Storage: The Intel Xeon D-2100 processor is an option for density-optimized, lightweight hyperscale cloud workloads such as dynamic web serving, memory caching, dedicated hosting and warm storage.
• Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): The processors can bring higher performance to content delivery at the network edge, which is critical to keep latency low for streaming media to viewers and those working in media fields with massive files.
• Enterprise networks: The processor family also targets entry enterprise SAN and NAS storage, midrange routers, network appliances, security appliances, wireless base stations and embedded midrange IoT usages, among others.

“To seize 5G and new cloud and network opportunities, service providers need to optimize their data center and edge infrastructures to meet the growing demands of bandwidth-hungry end users and their smart and connected devices,” said Sandra Rivera, senior vice president and general manager of the Network Platforms Group at Intel. “The Intel Xeon D-2100 processor allows service providers and enterprises to deliver the maximum amount of compute intelligence at the edge or web tier while expending the least power.”

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Infinera posts quarterly sales of $196 million

Infinera reported GAAP revenue for the quarter was $195.8 million for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 30, 2017. This compares with $192.6 million in the third quarter of 2017 and $181.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2016.

GAAP net loss for the quarter was $(74.0) million, or $(0.50) per share, compared to $(37.2) million, or $(0.25) per share, in the third quarter of 2017 and $(36.3) million, or $(0.25) per share, in the fourth quarter of 2016. Non-GAAP net loss for the quarter was $(18.6) million, or $(0.12) per share, compared to $(17.0) million, or $(0.11) per share, in the third quarter of 2017, and $(17.0) million, or $(0.12) per share, in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Non-GAAP gross margin for the year was 39.3% compared to 48.3% in 2016.

“In Q4 we made some difficult but necessary decisions to reposition the company for crisper execution and increased focus on our go to market strategy,” said Tom Fallon, Infinera’s Chief Executive Officer. “With our full product refresh nearing completion, positive sales momentum ending the year, and a significant pipeline of opportunities, we enter 2018 with confidence that our recent positive revenue trajectory will continue.”

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Rubrik to acquire Datos IO

Rubrik, agreed to acquire Datos IO, a market leader in backup and recovery for NoSQL databases and big data file systems. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition of Datos IO will extend Rubrik’s reach into mission-critical cloud applications and databases increasingly adopted by application and DevOps teams at Fortune 500 companies.

The companies said they share a common vision for building a control plane that can automate, orchestrate, and secure data in the cloud.

Datos IO’s flagship platform RecoverX pioneers a radically new approach to comprehensive data management for modern cloud applications built on modern NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Cassandra, Couchbase, Amazon DynamoDB) and big data file systems (Cloudera, Hortonworks). Datos IO has filed 22 patents in application-aware data management for enterprise use cases of backup and recovery, test/dev refresh, in-place analytics, and cloud mobility. Fortune 100 companies have chosen Datos IO to protect and manage their cloud applications enabling digital transformation, including three of the top Fortune 15 companies and the world’s largest home improvement retailer.

“As enterprises adopt NoSQL cloud databases to undertake digital transformation and AI initiatives, the need to manage and recover applications and data is becoming top of mind. We are excited to have Datos IO join the Rubrik family to accelerate innovation in how enterprises manage and recover this modern application stack,” said Bipul Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO, Rubrik.

Rubrik Raises $180M for Cloud Data Management

Monday, May 01, 2017  Funding, Rubrik, Silicon Valley, Start-Ups  No Comments

Rubrik, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, closed $180 million in Series D funding for its cloud data management solutions.

Rubrik's platform delivers automated cloud data backup, instant recovery, offsite replication and data archival capability. One Intel-powered appliance manages all data in the cloud, at the edge, or on-prem for backup, DR, archival, compliance, analytics, and copy data management. The company said it is on an annual run rate approaching $100 million.

The latest investment round was led by IVP with strong participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greylock Partners, bringing total equity raised to $292 million. 

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Market Update for India

We think of India as having one of the fast growing mobile market in the world. There is a huge population of unconnected or under connected citizens with a strong desire to join the online economy. Most likely, that connection will be mobile broadband.

While India does indeed have the faster growing mobile operator—Reliance Jio, which zoomed from zero to 160 million in only 16 month (for comparison, Verizon has 116.3 million retail connections) – the nation is shrinking month by month in terms of total mobile lines in operation.

How can this be? One aspect of the Indian market is that SIM cards are relatively cheap, and monthly service plans are also inexpensive.  Even for high-flying Reliance Jio, the average revenue per user (ARPU) per month is only 154 rupees (approximately $2.41).  On top of this, most users are enrolled in pre-paid plans. There is also the aggressive promotions whereby operators make great offers just to more SIM cards activated. As a result, many people with financial means will pick up multiple mobile phones and SIM cards, never bothering to cancel them is the ongoing maintenance cost is low enough.

This tends to distort the reported figures for market growth and gives us an unreliable picture of the relative strengths of each operator.

A consolidation is certainly underway. Of India’s twelve mobile operators, only five gained subscribers while seven operators experience declines. The winners are Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance Jio and BSNL. The losers are Aircel, Reliance, Tata, Telenor, MTNL, Sistema, and Quadrant.

The total number of wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & LTE) in India dipped for a second quarter in a row in Q3 2017 to 1,183.04 million, down from from 1,186.79 million at the end of Jul-17, according to the latest figures compiled by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) . Urban subscribers numbered 684.77 million compared to 498.28 million rural subscribers. Wireless teledensity declined from 92.12 at the end of Jun-17 to 91.56 at the end of Sep-17.

Some metrics:

• Monthly ARPU GSM Full Mobility Service including LTE – 84 rupees
• Monthly ARPU CDMA Full Mobility Service – 125 rupees
• Minutes of Usage (MOU) per subscriber per month - GSM Full Mobility Service including LTE - 437
• Total Outgoing Minutes of Usage for Internet Telephony – 283 million
• Average Data Usage per subscriber per month – GSM (2G+3G+4G) - 1,610 MB
• Average outgo per GB data for GSM including LTE (2G+3G+4G) – 21.22 rupees
• Gross revenue for telecom operators in India (mobile and fixed) rose by 2.27%. The government statistics show that monthly Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for Access Services was 88.09 rupees (US$1.37) as of 30-September-2017.
• Not surprisingly, the number of wireline subscribers declined from 24.00 million at the end of Jun-17 to 23.67 million at the end of Sep-17 with quarterly decline rate of 1.37%.  However, it is strange that the number of Internet subscribers declined from 431.21 million at the end of Jun-17 to 429.23 million at the end of Sep-17, registering a quarterly growth rate of -0.46%.

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