Dell'Oro: Mobile infrastructure market growing at fastest clip since '14

Following three consecutive years of contracting worldwide Radio Access Networks (RAN) revenues, the overall Mobile Infrastructure market improved at a high single-digit rate in the third quarter—recording the strongest growth rate since 2014, according to Dell'Oro Group.

ZTE’s RAN business gained five points share and recovered rapidly in the quarter. The vendor was able to reclaim its number four position during 3Q 2018.

“The results in the quarter support the thesis we have communicated for some time that market conditions are improving,” said Stefan Pongratz, Senior Director with Dell’Oro Group. “In addition to resurging investments in the North America region propelled by operators investing in LTE and 5G ready networks, the Asia Pacific region rebounded after multiple quarters of steep declines, reflecting improved momentum in China,” continued Pongratz.

The report also shows that while the vendor rankings for the top three vendors remained unchanged with Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia leading the market, the gap between Huawei and Ericsson narrowed sequentially. ZTE was able to reclaim its number four position after Samsung briefly surpassed ZTE during 2Q 2018.

http://www.delloro.com/

Read More

Google plans next data center near Las Vegas

The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development has approved a plan from Google to develop a hyperscale data center on a 64-acre site in Henderson, Nevada. The state reportedly will provide tax exemptions for the project.

The initial investment is estimated at $600 million. The ready-for-service date is expected to be in 2020.

https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/

Read More

Fujikura releases 6,912 fiber count optical cable

Fujikura announced the world's highest fiber density cable -- a 6,912F Wrapping Tube Cable (WTC).

To achieve this density, the cable leverages 200 μm diameter fiber along with the company's Spider Web Ribbon (SWR) technology, which is a 12 core optical fiber ribbon.

In addition, Fujikura says the existing mass fusion splicer, jacket stripper and cleaver can be used for splicing with 200 μm SWR and 250 μm SWR.

http://www.fujikura.co.jp/eng/newsrelease/products/2058047_11777.html

Read More

Wave2Wave expands its line of robotic patch panels

Wave2Wave Solution introduced two new products in its ROME family of robotic fiber switches, the ROME 64Q and 128Q - providing direct MPO patch panel interfaces and incorporating eight fiber any to any connections. Robotic fiber switches at the optical layer automate the process of configuring and reconfiguring physical optical connections.

The ROME 64Q has 64 MPO ports with each port connecting 8 fibers (a total of 512 fiber connections) and the ROME 128Q has 128 MPO ports (a total of 1024 fiber connections) in an Any-to-Any configuration.

The company says multiple-Fiber Push-On/Pull-off (MPO) connectivity is playing an important role in data centers as a means to deploy higher speed interfaces cost effectively. Because each MPO port simultaneously connects 8 fibers this approach delivers an effective way to easily connect QSFP+ transceivers that are delivering these high speed connections.

“We are seeing increased use of high-density cabling in data centers,” said David Wang, President and CEO, Wave2Wave Solution. “Space in data centers is already tight and MPO cabling provides a cost-effective way to deliver higher speed connectivity. The ROME 64Q and 128Q have been designed to support this need and bring the benefits of physical layer automation to MPO configured data center networks.”

 http://www.wave-2-wave.com/

Read More

Ayar raises $24m for TeraPHY chips, appoints CEO

Ayar Labs, a start-up based in Emeryville, California, raised $24 million in Series A funding for its work in silicon photonics for high-speed connectivity.

Ayar Labs said it is pursuing a unique silicon photonics approach that uses fiber optic technology to move data between chips, rather than traditional copper pins and wires. It delivers improvements of 10x more bandwidth and 10x lower power compared to electrical interconnections.

The funding round was led by Playground Global and included Founders Fund, GlobalFoundries, and Intel Capital.

“The Series A investment is a big step towards enabling optical I/O for next-generation computing architectures, and prepares the company to reach scale production” says Ayar Labs co-founder and President Mark Wade.

“As we enter this next phase in our company’s growth, we are thrilled to be adding such strong investors with deep roots and expertise in the semiconductor and microelectronics industry,” says Ayar Labs co-founder Alex Wright-Gladstein.

The company also announced that Charlie Wuischpard, former vice president and general manager at Intel, has joined Ayar Labs as chief executive officer (CEO) and a member of the board of directors (Board). Wuischpard succeeds co-founder Alexandra Wright-Gladstein, who will assist with the transition and remain a senior member of the management team.

https://ayarlabs.com

Read More

LeoSat promises fast optical connections via low-earth-orbit

LeoSat Enterprises has been granted authority by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to provide NGSO (non-geostationary satellite orbit) services in the United States.

The start-up plans to deploy a unique new data network comprised of a constellation of up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites to serve sectors such as enterprise-to-enterprise communications, telecommunications, oil & gas operations and maritime services with global premise-to-premise connectivity.

The LeoSat constellation will be distinguished by optical inter-satellite links, on-board processing, and polar orbits at an altitude five times closer to the Earth than medium earth orbit satellites and 25 times closer than geostationary orbit (“GSO”) satellites. LeoSat says its will be able to provide enterprise-grade, highly secure data transmissions with up to 1.2 Gbps of full-duplex connectivity per link (and 5.2 Gbps where needed), along with low latency of less than 20 ms. The high-throughput satellites will form a mesh network interconnected through inter-satellite laser links. The company projects that its optical backbone will be is approximately 1.5 times faster than terrestrial fiber networks.

LeoSat’s CEO, Mark Rigolle said, “Getting approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission – among the world’s most sophisticated radio frequency regulators – is an important milestone for LeoSat and recognizes that we have a unique solution for high-speed and ultra-secure enterprise connectivity. I am delighted by this significant step forward for LeoSat as we continue to make excellent progress on our journey to deliver the world’s first business backbone in space, opening-up new markets for data networking, telecoms, enterprise and government communications across the globe”.

LeoSat attracts a strategic investor in its upcoming LEO constallation

Tuesday, July 10, 2018  LEO, Satellites  

Hispasat, the Spanish national satellite operator, has agreed to invest in LeoSat, which is preparing to launch a constellation of low-earth-orbit communications satellites. Financial terms were not disclosed.

With this agreement, Hispasat joins Asia’s largest satellite operator, SKY Perfect JSAT, as investors in LeoSat.

Washington, D.C.-based LeoSat is working with Thales Alenia Space to develop a constellation of up to 108 low-earth-orbit, Ka-band communications satellites. Launch of the constellation is expected in 2019. LeoSat is targetting high-speed, low-latency and highly secure communications and bandwidth for telecom backhaul, energy, maritime, government and international business markets.

http://leosat.com/

• LeoSat Enterprises was established in 2013 by Cliff Anders (Chairman) and Phil Marlar (Chief Operating Officer), two former Schlumberger executives.

Read More

BlackBerry to acquire Cylance for AI-power cybersecurity

BlackBerry Limited agreed to acquire Cylance, a privately-held develop of cybersecurity solution, for US $1.4 billion in cash, plus the assumption of unvested employee incentive awards.

“Cylance’s leadership in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity will immediately complement our entire portfolio, UEM and QNX in particular. We are very excited to onboard their team and leverage our newly combined expertise,” said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO of BlackBerry. “We believe adding Cylance’s capabilities to our trusted advantages in privacy, secure mobility, and embedded systems will make BlackBerry Spark indispensable to realizing the Enterprise of Things.”

Cylance's cybersecurity software leverages artificial intelligence, algorithmic science, and machine learning. The approach has proven highly effective at predicting and preventing known and unknown threats to fixed endpoints. The company generates recurring revenue from over 3,500 active enterprise customers, including more than 20% of the Fortune 500.

“Our highly skilled cybersecurity workforce and market leadership in next-generation endpoint solutions will be a perfect fit within BlackBerry where our customers, teams and technologies will gain immediate benefits from BlackBerry’s global reach,” said Stuart McClure, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Cylance. “We are eager to leverage BlackBerry’s mobility and security strengths to adapt our advanced AI technology to deliver a single platform.”

BlackBerry is developing Spark as a next-generation secure chip-to-edge communications platform for the EoT. The company says its platform is designed for ultra-security and industry-specific safety-certifications, such as ISO 26262 in automobiles. BlackBerry Spark will leverage the company’s deep portfolio of technology that includes FIPS-validated, app-level, AES 256-bit encryption to ensure data is always protected.

https://www.blackberry.com

Read More

Video -- Cylance CEO on AI and Cybersecurity

Stuart McClure, CEO and founder of Cylance, discusses the intersection of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Cylance began selling its AI-based solution in 2014. Filmed at Net Events' Global Press & Analyst Summit in September 2016.

https://youtu.be/27yUlW0lskg

Read More

Xtera completes final splice on DISA’s Guantanamo – Puerto Rico cable

Xtera announced that the final splice on the Guantanamo – Puerto Rico submarine cable system has been completed. 

The new, 1,400 km cable is being deployed for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).  The marine installation for the project was successfully performed by International Telecom’s cable ship the IT Intrepid.

The new system will be fully commissioned as scheduled in December and placed into service in early 2019 after being fully integrated into the global DISN network.  The cable uses Xtera’s second generation low noise repeater.

Keith Henderson, Chief Executive Officer of Xtera comments, “The success of this project is a credit to the professionalism of our expert team and their ability to work seamlessly with our industry-leading partners.  Excellent collaboration between Xtera and the DISA project team has enabled the on-schedule delivery of the system despite regional weather challenges. Once again Xtera has demonstrated that it is the Supplier of choice for those seeking a high-quality innovative optical solution.”

This is the second submarine cable system that Xtera has deployed for DISA, the first has been in the water and fully operational since 2015.

Read More

Verizon acquires PrecisionAccess from Vidder

Verizon has acquired the PrecisionAccess solution and other Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) related assets from privately held Vidder.
Financial terms were not disclosed.

Vidder’s advanced technology is already integrated into Verizon’s SDP service, which helps organizations protect application infrastructure against cyber threats by blocking connectivity from unknown devices and making them invisible to anyone without approved access.

Verizon’s SDP provides pre-authenticated, context-aware, secure access to enterprise applications, helping to reduce the security risks associated with the multiple endpoints of an increasingly digital, mobile and virtual business world.

“Vidder’s technology is best-in-class in the trusted access space,” said Victoria Lonker, Verizon’s vice president of network and security product management. “This acquisition enables us to further build out our software-defined suite of services, creating a unified networking and security solution which we believe is best-in-class when it comes to protecting organizations against cyberattacks.”

Read More

Thomas Kurian to replace Diane Greene at Google Cloud

Thomas Kurian will succeed Diane Greene as head of Google Cloud beginning in January.

Kurian currently serves as President of Product Development at Oracle. He has an MBA from Stanford and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Princeton.

Greene has led the division since December 2015. In a Google blog post, Greene says she will now dedicate time to mentoring women entrepreneurs and focusing on education.

Read More

NTT joins Akraino edge computing project

NTT announced its support for the Akraino open source project for edge computing the is management under The Linux Foundation.

Akraino integrates open source software (OSS) into a whole platform optimized for edge computing. The Akraino Edge Stack is designed to meet the requirements of edge cloud infrastructure for enterprise edge, OTT edge, and carrier edge networks. It will support a broad range of Telco, Enterprise, and Industrial Edge uses, focused on creating blueprints with CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) that will consist of validated hardware and software configurations against a defined use and performance specifications.

Akraino Edge Stack advances as LF project

Monday, August 20, 2018  Linux Foundation  

The Akraino Edge Stack project, which promises new levels of flexibility to scale edge cloud services quickly, has moved from formation into execution as a project hosted by The Linux Foundation.  The project originated inside AT&T.

New members of the Akraino project include Arm, AT&T, Dell EMC, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, inwinSTACK, Juniper Networks, Nokia, Qualcomm, Radisys, Red Hat, and Wind River.

Akraino Edge Stack seed code will be opened up to the community this week based on AT&T’s seed code, (the Network Cloud blueprint,) contributed to The Linux Foundation.

“

AT&T seeds Akraino project for carrier-scale edge computing

Tuesday, February 20, 2018  Akraino, Linux  

The Linux Foundation will host a new Akraino project to create an open source software stack supporting high-availability cloud services optimized for edge computing systems and applications. To seed the project, AT&T is contributing code designed for carrier-scale edge computing applications running in virtual machines and containers.

“Akraino, coupled with ONAP and OpenStack, will help to accelerate progress towards development of next-generation, network-based edge services, fueling a new ecosystem of applications for 5G and IoT,” said Mazin Gilbert, Vice President of Advanced Technology at AT&T Labs.

Read More

Huawei and ZTE lose AVC/H.264 patent case in Germany

The District Court in Düsseldorf, Germany has ruled that Huawei Technologies Deutschland GmbH and ZTE Deutschland GmbH infringed patents of two patent holders in MPEG LA’s AVC Patent Portfolio License by using their technologies in mobile phones that implement the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) Standard.

MPEG LA said the court also found that the license offered by the patent holders under those patents through the AVC License is fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory.

“The Landgericht Düsseldorf’s decision confirms the importance of respect for intellectual property, and offering everyone easy and affordable access to essential AVC technology under a single license is a cornerstone of the MPEG LA AVC License’s wide acceptance making that possible,” said Larry Horn, President and CEO of MPEG LA. “We continue to welcome Huawei and ZTE to join the nearly 2,000 Licensees who have entered into our AVC License.”

Read More