FWD: Australia's nbn hits 4 million connection milestone

Australia's nbn broadband access network initiative surpasses the four million connection milestone -- representing the halfway mark of the previously stated goal of connecting eight million homes and businesses by 2020.  This compares with approximately 2.4 million connections a year ago.

“With our aim to help bridge the digital divide and see that Australians, regardless of location, have access to fast broadband, we are proud today to announce that the rollout of the nbn access network to regional Australia is on the home stretch. We have seen a massive improvement in regional internet access, with our wholesale broadband services offering more competition, faster speeds and even giving some Australians internet access for the first time," stated NBN Co’s CEO Bill Morrow.

Key points

• In regional Australia, nearly all homes and businesses outside of major urban areas now in design or construction stages, or able to order an nbn™ service from a phone or internet provider.
• Australia now ranks 17th among OECD countries (up from 29th in 2012) in terms of equality of internet speed and proportion of people without internet access. By 2021, Australia is estimated to move from being in the bottom 10 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in equality of internet access and speed to the top 102.
• The nbn access network is estimated to have helped drive A$450 million in additional gross domestic product in regional Australia in the 2017 financial year and is forecast to drive an additional $5.3 billion in additional gross domestic product in regional areas in FY21.
• The nbn access network is estimated to have helped create an additional 1,750 jobs in regional Australia by the 2017 financial year and this employment impact is forecast to reach up to 20,000 jobs by FY21.
• Annual growth in people working from home in regional areas with access to the nbn access network is significant, at 2.2 per cent per year from 2011–2016 versus a decline in the annual growth rate of 1.1 per cent in regional Australia without access to the nbn™ access network.
• The growth of new businesses in regions connected to the nbn access network accelerated at twice the pace of the national average with up to 5,400 additional new businesses created in 2017.

Australia's NBN Co launches Fibre-to-the-Curb

Sunday, April 08, 2018    No Comments

NBN Co announced the launch of Fibre-to-the-Curb (FTTC) access service in its first locations.

NBN Co has provided a limited release of FTTC services to more than 1,000 homes and businesses in Coburg, North Melbourne in Victoria and Miranda, South Sydney in New South Wales. A larger rollout is planned for later this year. The service supports speeds up to 100/40Mbps. Faster speeds will be possible when G.fast becomes available over the copper link into the home. NBC Co expects to launch G.fast later this year too.

“As with the introduction of any new technology, we will continue to gain insights as we navigate the complexity of the build as well as potential issues which can arise when people connect to the network. We are committed to working with internet providers to optimise the customer experience of people who connect the network using nbn™ services over the FTTC network before we make services available to a larger footprint," stated Brad Whitcomb, NBN Co’s Chief Customer Officer – Residential.

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Juniper extends EVPN-VXLAN fabric to the campus

Juniper introduced a common architecture for campus and data center fabrics based on its EVPN-VXLAN fabric. The idea is to create an enterprise-wide fabric with simple, secure and automated multi-cloud capabilities. The company says the EVPN-VXLAN protocol is ideal for campus architectures because it provides layer-3 transport with layer-2 capabilities that allow enterprises to evolve while also taking into consideration legacy applications.

Highlights of the announcement:

• Juniper’s EX Series Switches are augmented for EVPN-VXLAN campus architecture. A new EX4650 Switch with 25G/100G density complements the already available and EVPN-VXLAN capable EX9000 Series Switches.
•  A global resell agreement with Aerohive Networks. This resale deal enables Juniper to provide a unified cloud managed campus and branch networking solution from Ethernet switches to enterprise-ready wireless access points. 
• Enhancements to Juniper’s branch portfolio: Juniper’s Contrail SD-WAN now supports fine-grained Application Quality of Experience (AppQoE), offering visibility and dynamic management into individual granular application session performance for more than 3,700 unique applications, such as Microsoft Outlook, Sharepoint and Skype for Business. Based on real-time analysis of application traffic in Juniper’s NFX, SRX and vSRX Series WAN edge endpoints, customers can tune application performance to and from the branch using Contrail Service Orchestration managed policies. This gives enterprise IT managers the ability to dynamically prioritize business-critical application traffic based on business policy intent. Juniper has also enhanced architectural reliability and flexibility in the branch and WAN. An SD-WAN industry first, Juniper’s NFX and SRX Series branch devices now support active-active clustering, delivering double the connectivity and reliability to important sites across any type of WAN connectivity, such as LTE, broadband internet or traditional MPLS. 

“Today’s announced campus and SD-WAN enhancements allow enterprises to bring best practices from the data center into their campuses, allowing them to more quickly realize secure and automated multicloud environments. The transition to multicloud doesn't have to be a long and drawn-out process. Through our 5-step multicloud migration framework, Juniper Networks is also providing enterprises the required building blocks that facilitate the transition and bring best practices to each stage along the way,” stated Michael Bushong, Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Marketing at Juniper Networks.

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NTT Com launches VMware Cloud service over its global MPLS backbone

NTT Com is preparing to launch a global Enterprise Cloud (ECL) service powered by VMware Cloud Foundation. The service will deliver advanced hybrid cloud environments consisting of VMware's full software-defined data center stack, and enable a frictionless path to the hybrid cloud through the inclusion of VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension.

NTT Com will also become a VMware Cloud Verified Partner and will display the VMware Cloud Verified logo as proof that its services are compatible with VMware cloud infrastructure.

NTT Com said that by combining the new ECL powered by VMware Cloud Foundation with its global MPLS service, Arcstar Universal One (UNO) and Nexcenter data centers, the new service will enable enterprises to securely and easily transit to the cloud, or provide a consistent hybrid cloud infrastructure across on-premises data centers and the cloud.

"In the midst of digital transformation, enterprises are accelerating cloud shift from on their own on-premises to cloud," said Masaaki Moribayashi, senior executive vice president, NTT Com. "This service is the solution, on top of our partnership, that will help enterprises in transitioning their applications to the cloud. I'm confident in the comfort that customers can feel using our more secure and high quality services backed by our combined capabilities. This announcement builds on more than a decade of collaboration in cloud between NTT Com and VMware, as we continue to create new value and deliver it to mutual customers."

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Reliance to acquire Radisys for approximately $67 million

Reliance Industries Limited agreed to acquire Radisys Corporation for US$1.72 per share in cash -- representing an enterprise value of about $67 million based on 39 million shares outstanding.

Radisys, which is based in Hillsboro, Oregon, has nearly 600 employees with an engineering team based out of Bangalore, India, and sales and support offices globally. Radisys delivers value to service providers and telecom equipment vendors by providing disruptive

The company supplies open-centric software, hardware and service capabilities to service providers and telecom equipment vendors.

“Reliance and Jio have been disrupting legacy business models and establishing new global benchmarks. Radisys’ top-class management and engineering team offer Reliance rapid innovation and solution development expertise globally, which complements our work towards software-centric disaggregated networks and platforms, enhancing the value to customers across consumer and enterprise segments,” said Akash Ambani, Director of Reliance Jio. “This acquisition further accelerates Jio’s global innovation and technology leadership in the areas of 5G, IOT and open source architecture adoption.”

Brian Bronson, CEO of Radisys said, “The backing and support of India-based global conglomerate Reliance, will accelerate our strategy and the scale required by our customers to further deploy our full suite of products and services. The Radisys team will continue to work independently on driving its future growth, innovation and expansion. The addition of Reliance’s visionary leadership and strong market position will enhance Radisys’ ability to develop and integrate large-scale, disruptive, open-centric end-to-end solutions.”

• Radisys was founded in 1987 by former Intel engineers Dave Budde and Glen Myers. The company completed its IPO in 1995.

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Formula One Group goes all-in with AWS

Formula One Group (Formula 1) is moving the vast majority of its infrastructure from on-premises data centers to AWS, and standardizing on AWS’s machine learning and data analytics services.

AWS is working with Formula 1 to enhance its race strategies, data tracking systems, and digital broadcasts through a range of AWS services. These include Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed machine learning service; AWS Lambda, AWS's event-driven serverless computing service; and AWS analytics services. Formula 1 has also selected AWS Elemental Media Services to power its video asset workflows, enhancing the viewing experience for its international fan base.

“For our needs, AWS outperforms all other cloud providers, in speed, scalability, reliability, global reach, partner community, and breadth and depth of cloud services available,” said Pete Samara, Director of Innovation and Digital Technology at Formula 1. “By leveraging Amazon SageMaker and AWS’s machine learning services, we are now able to deliver these powerful insights and predictions to fans in real time. We are also excited that the Formula 1 Motorsports division will run High Performance Compute workloads in a scalable environment on AWS. This will significantly increase the number and quality of the simulations our aerodynamics team can run as we work to develop the new car design rules for Formula 1.”

“Leveraging the cornucopia of services offered by the world’s leading cloud, Formula 1 will engage with its growing global fan base in unique ways,” said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS.

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