Nokia lands $3.5 billion, multi-year 5G deal with T-Mobile

T-Mobile US awarded a $3.5 billion contract to Nokia for the deployment of its nationwide 5G network. Specifically, Nokia will help build T-Mobile's nationwide 5G network with 600 MHz and 28 GHz millimeter wave 5G capabilities compliant with 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standards. The agreement covers Nokia's end-to-end 5G technology, software and services portfolio. This includes Nokia's AirScale radio platforms and cloud-native core, AirFrame hardware,...

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MEF 3.0 -- Overview and Mid-2018 Update with Verizon's Shawn Hakl

MEF 3.0 is the spec that defines how carriers will talk to each other in the age of software-defined services. In this video, Shawn Hakl, Senior Vice President Business Products, Verizon, provides a general overview of MEF 3.0 and then gives a technical update on the latest development as of mid-2018. Filmed at the MEF Annual Members Meeting in Nashville. See video: https://youtu.be/6J5BZ-L_Zpo ...

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MEF introduces SDN and NFV Professional Certifications

MEF is launching an SDN/NFV Professional Certification program. Nearly 6,000 people have completed MEF's Carrier Ethernet certification. A Network Foundations certification was recently introduced. This new SDN/NFV certification builds on this base. Dan Pitt, SVP at MEF, introduces the professional certification program. Learn more at http://www.mef.net/certification ...

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MEF's 2018-2019 Board draws from global service providers

MEF announced its 2018-2019 Board of Directors, representing a broad geographic distribution of major service providers. MEF Board of Directors and Advisory Director Nan Chen, Executive Vice Chairman, CENX Frederick Chui, Senior Vice President, Global Data Sales and Presales, PCCW Global Shawn Hakl, Senior Vice President Business Products, Verizon Aamir Hussain, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, CenturyLink Scott Mansfield,...

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Altice to sell its towers in the Dominican Republic

Altice Europe will sell off its communications tower business in the Dominican Republic to Phoenix Tower International, a portfolio company of Blackstone, for US$170 million. The deal covers 1,049 sites currently operated by Altice Dominicana. In addition, Altice Dominicana will enter into a 20-year master agreement to lease back the facilities. Altice forms tower infrastructure companies in France and Portugal Thursday, June 21, 2018  Altice   Altice...

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TE Connectivity' next-gen connectors ready for 56G PAM4

TE Connectivity (TE) introduced its next-generation, 0.8mm free height board-to-board connectors designed for higher-speed, mezzanine board systems. The company says its mezzanine connectors are capable of delivering 25 Gbps and higher signals for supporing PAM4 and PCIe Gen 5 architectures. The new free height connectors are also said to deliver higher reliability through a stronger plug/receptacle mechanical design, maintaining the same performance...

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Serverless raises $10M

Serverless, a start-up based in San Francisco, announced $10 million in Series A funding for its open source Serverless Framework. The company's mission is to provide a single toolkit offering everything teams and enterprises need to operationalize serverless deployments. The company said it takes a vendor-agnostic approach across major platforms and cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Functions, Kubernetes, etc. The funding was...

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Telefónica sells 10% stake in Telxius to long-term partner

Telefónica will sell a 9.99% equity stake in Telxius, its infrastructure arm, to Pontegadea for a total of 378.8 million euros.  This transaction represents a price of 15.2 euro per share of Telxius. Telefónica said the deal incorporates a long-term partner in a holding company that controls its infrastructure arm.  The sale has been structured via Telefónica’s subsidiary, Pontel Participaciones, which owns 60% of Telxius’ capital stock....

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Dell'Oro forecasts fast growth for next-gen PON technologies

The worldwide PON market will grow to over $7 billion by 2022, according to a newly published report by Dell’Oro Group, driven by next-generation PON technologies, including 10 Gbps EPON, XGS-PON, and NG-PON2. This represents a compounded annual growth rate of almost 40 percent from 2017 to 2022. “Where PON technologies are used for residential broadband services, 2.5 Gbps GPON will remain as the dominant technology due to its lower price and sufficient...

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FCC appoints Babette Boliek as chief economist

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today announced the appointment of Dr. Babette Boliek as chief economist for the Federal Communications Commission. She earned her doctorate in economics from the University of California, Davis, and her law degree from Columbia University School of Law.  “Our work at the FCC often sits at the intersection between law and economics.  It seems only fitting, then, that our new chief economist has deep experience in...

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The Carlyle Group sells some of its shares in CoreSite to Citi

CoreSite Realty Corporation (NYSE:COR) announced the sale of 2,250,000 shares of its common stock by investment funds affiliated with The Carlyle Group to Citigroup and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, as the underwriters in connection with the offering. Share of COR closed at $113.03 on 30-July-2018, valuing the transaction at around $254 million. CoreSite noted that investment funds affiliated with The Carlyle Group will continue to hold an...

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Cloudify appoints Ariel Dan as CEO

Cloudify, which specializes in IT operations automation technology, named Ariel Dan as its new CEO, replacing Zeev Bikowsky, who has been serving as Chief Executive Officer for nearly a decade. Prior to Cloudify, Ariel led two companies to M&A, and has extensive experience in building sustainable cloud & SaaS operations. While leading Cloudify, Bikowki was also the driving force behind establishing GigaSpaces. Cloudify is based in Herzliya,...

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