New Dell EMC SD-WAN Edge is powered by VMware / VeloCloud

Dell Technologies introduced an SD-WAN Edge powered by VMware.

The Dell EMC SD-WAN Edge is an integrated platform that bundles VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud software as a subscription with Dell EMC hardware and a single support number.

Dell Technologies Consulting Services also is debuting three new services for customers adopting SD-WAN technologies: Advisory, Design and Implementation.

Dell Technologies said its sales and customer support force can help customers plan, customize and properly scale their SD-WAN for successful deployment and management of modernized virtual network functions.

The service is expected to be available in July 2019.

VMware to acquire VeloCloud for SD-WAN

Thursday, November 02, 2017  VeloCloud, Vmware  

VMware agreed to acquire VeloCloud Networks, a start-up offering SD-WAN technology for enterprises and service providers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

VeloCloud, which is based in Mountain View, California, says its SD-WAN solution is distinguished by supporting data plane services in the cloud, in addition to on-premise deployments; enabling policy-based access to cloud and data center applications. VeloCloud SD-WAN includes: a choice of public, private or hybrid cloud network for enterprise-grade connection to cloud and enterprise applications; branch office enterprise appliances and optional data center appliances; software-defined control and automation; and virtual services delivery. The solution aggregates multiple access lines (cable modem, DSL, LTE) into a single secure connection that is defined and controlled in the cloud.

VeloCloud was founded in 2013. The company is headed by Sanjay Uppal, who previously ran OnMobile Global.  He also spent time at Citrix through the acquisition he negotiated with Caymas where he was President and CEO. At Citrix, he defined the product strategy and go to market for the Access Management, Delivery Controller and WAN acceleration product lines.  VeloCloud co-founders also include Ajit Mayya (previously Sr. Director of Engineering in the Cloud and Infrastructure Management division of VMware) and Steve Woo (previously head of cloud strategy at Aerohive Networks).

VMware said the VeloCloud acquisition will enable it to build on the success of its NSX network virtualization platform to address end-to-end automation, application continuity, branch transformation and security from data center to cloud to edge.

"In the digital era, a new networking approach is required to solve the hyper distribution of applications and data, as we move from a model of data centers to one of centers of data at the edge," said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. "At the heart of VMware's networking strategy is the belief in delivering pervasive connectivity with embedded security that connects users to applications wherever they may be. With the addition of VeloCloud's industry-leading SD-WAN technology, we will be able to extend the VMware NSX approach of automated, secure, and infrastructure-independent networking to the WAN."

"Enterprises are transforming how they architect and utilize their infrastructure, with a shift towards a cloud-delivered, software-defined model. This enables organizations to have a globally consistent infrastructure regardless of where it is deployed -- from the data center and the cloud to the edge," said Sanjay Uppal, CEO of VeloCloud Networks. "We look forward to helping VMware, the leader in software-defined infrastructure, in the next evolution of the company's networking and NFV strategies."

• In March, VeloCloud closed a $35 million Series D round of funding for its SD-WAN solutions. The funding was led by Hermes Growth Partners and included new investors Telstra Ventures and Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the strategic investment fund of the Government of Malaysia (“Khazanah”), in addition to existing investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Venrock, March Capital Partners, Cisco Investments, and other undisclosed strategic investors. This brings total funding to $84 million.

• In March 2017, VeloCloud reported that its number of SD-WAN sites has grown to more than 50,000 and total customer wins exceed 600, including the two largest SD-WAN wins in the world. The company has secured deals from AT&T, Sprint, Mitel, TelePacific, and Windstream for its “VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN for Service Providers” solution for both Network Integrated and Over The Top implementations.

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China Telecom awards 5G agreement to Ericsson

China Telecom signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ericsson concerning 5G.

Ericsson said it has embarked on in-depth cooperation on a 5G test network with China Telecom. In addition to testing the technical networking scheme, the partners have completed innovative 5G projects, such as the live 4K HD broadcast of a marathon; live 8K HD broadcast of the Women's World Club Volleyball Championship; 360 degree panoramic live broadcasting, and driving demos.

The agreement was signed by Luca Orsini, Head of Networks, Market Area North East Asia, Ericsson, and Liu Guiqing, Deputy General Manager, China Telecom.

Ericsson noted that it has now signed forty-five 4G agreements with service providers.

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Corning's Optical Comm business delivers $1.06B in Q1 sales, up 20% yoy

Corning's Optical Communications division posted first-quarter sales of $1.06 billion, up 20% over the prior year. Net income for the division for the first quarter was up 30% year over year.

Sales growth was driven by data center and carrier business as well as sales from the recently acquired 3M Communication Markets Division.


Corning said its optical communications business remains on track to surpass its goal of $5 billion in 2020 sales, with continued growth beyond.

For full-year 2019, Optical Communications year-over-year sales growth is now expected to be up approximately 10%, revised from the company’s previous expectation of a low-teens percentage. This revision is the result of one major fiber-to-the-home customer shifting its deployment from homes passed to homes connected by one quarter earlier than
expected.

Corning expects its Optical Communications business to continue growing faster than the overall market as demand for the company’s fiber, cable, and connectivity solutions remain strong around the world.

https://investor.corning.com/investor-relations/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx

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CloudSmartz to provide portal for Seaborn's subsea cables

CloudSmartz will provide a fully integrated customer portal solution to automate Seaborn’s front-office processes.

Seaborn’s Seabras-1 offers the only direct POP-POP route between São Paulo, Brazil, and New York City, USA, and soon will offer an end-to-end automation platform that will enable services to be delivered by leading SDN technology.​

The automated customer portal is expected to bring more efficiency in Seaborn's sales, operations, inventory and service provisioning cycles, and provide real-time visibility into the service delivery functions. The platform will also enable on-demand SDN services and deliver bandwidth in near real-time delivery.​

Seaborn’s new full-service portal will enable customers to provision and amend Seabras-1 services in real time; enter service queries and quickly see updates to active tickets, delivery activities and service history; and see a detailed listing of all their Seabras-1 services, real-time usage information and billing status.

“CloudSmartz is very excited to enter our partnership with Seaborn, to not only enhance their customer experience but to enable the automation of their network and on-demand services as a next-generation subsea service provider,” says Dan Wagner, CEO, CloudSmartz. “We have been presented with the honor and privilege of helping a remarkable company rise to even greater heights – and look forward to a strong business partnership.”

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Orange sees flat revenue in Q1, 204 million mobiles worldwide

Orange reported Q1 2019 revenue of EUR 10,185 (-0.1% year on year) on a comparable basis. Growth in most segments offset the slight downturn in revenues in France (-1.8% and -0.7% excluding the effect of the digital reading offers) in what continues to be a fierce promotional environment. Spain's value positioning led to 0.4% growth, despite greater competition. Europe was up 1.4%, underpinned by convergence and IT services, whilst steady growth of 5.3% continued in Africa & Middle East due to a very solid retail services performance. Enterprise had a second consecutive quarter of growth, rising 0.6%.

EBITDAaL grew 0.7% year on year, despite the impact of digital reading offers. Restated for this impact, growth in EBITDAaL would be 2.8%. The EBITDAaL margin from telecoms activities improved by 0.4 points in the 1st quarter. eCapex grew 8.4% to reach €1.6 billion, linked to the acceleration in the 1st quarter of the FTTH rollout in France and continued investment in 4G networks. In line with the objectives, eCapex for 2019 will be slightly lower compared to 2018, excluding the impact of the new network sharing agreement in Spain.

Key metrics

• Revenues from Convergence - marketed in all European countries – were €1.7 billion in the 1st quarter, up 4.6%. This improvement enabled Orange to consolidate its position as the leading convergent operator in Europe.
• Revenues from mobile-only services were €2.6 billion in the 1st quarter, up 1.1%.
• Revenues from fixed-only services fell 3.1% in the 1st quarter (€2.4 billion), as a result of the migration to convergent services and the slowdown in fixed narrowband services.
• Revenue from IT and integration services posted accelerated growth of 6.6% in the 1st quarter (€616 million), versus the 0.8% increase in the 1st quarter of 2018. This growth was driven by the Enterprise market as well as by Poland.
• Wholesale revenues fell 1.4% in the 1st quarter (€1.9 billion). This was primarily due to the decrease in international voice traffic and visitor roaming.
• Revenues from equipment sales were down 8.4% (€722 million), due to lower volumes of terminal sales.
• There were 10.506 million convergent customers across the Group at 31 March 2019, stable year on year on a comparable basis, underpinned by very strong growth in Europe.
• There were 203.781 million mobile customers at 31 March 2019, with a net addition of 163,000 in the 1st quarter. 
• There were 20.275 million fixed broadband customers at 31 March 2019, with a net addition of 130,000 in the 1st quarter.

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IDC: Smartphone market continues to decline

2019 will be another down year for worldwide smartphone shipments, as vendors shipped a total of 310.8 million units in 1Q19, marking a 6% drop year-over-year and the sixth consecutive quarter of decline, according to newly published figures from IDC.

Some highlights from IDC

• Samsung saw volumes drop 8.1% in 1Q19 with shipments of 71.9 million. The newly launched Galaxy S10 series did sell well during the quarter, and the 5G variant is now shipping in Korea, with additional markets launching soon.
• Huawei increased shipments and market share, moving its way into a clear number two spot.
• Huawei saw year-over-year growth of 50.3% in 1Q19 with volumes of 59.1 million units and a 19.0% market share. 
• Apple's Q1 shipments dropped to 36.4 million units representing a staggering 30.2% decline from last year. 
• Xiaomi also experienced a decline in 1Q19 with volumes of 25.0 million, which was down 10.2% year over year. 
• vivo returned to the top 5 of the smartphone market with volumes of 23.2 million and a market share of 7.5%, tying it with OPPO for the number 5 position. 
• OPPO shipped 23.1 million smartphones in 1Q19, enough to capture a 7.4% market share, although volumes were down 6.0% from 1Q18.

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS45042319

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Equinix acquires Switch Datacenters' AMS1 data center

Equinix acquired Switch Datacenters' AMS1 data center business in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in an all-cash transaction for €30 million.

The facility, which will be renamed Equinix AM11 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center, is in close proximity to Equinix's existing campus in southeast Amsterdam. AM11 becomes Equinix’s ninth IBX data center in Amsterdam. The data center is a leased asset and adds approximately 250 cabinets of sold capacity and a total capacity for approximately 700 additional cabinets once the facility is completely built out. The site can also support the potential to expand into an adjacent building to accommodate future growth and approximately 1,300 additional cabinets.

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Inphi posts Q1 revenue of $82.2M, up 37% yoy

Inphi reported Q1 2019 revenue of $82.2 million on GAAP basis, up 36.7% year-over-year, compared with $60.1 million in the first quarter of 2018.  The increase was due to higher demand for both telecom and datacenter products.

Gross margin under GAAP in the first quarter of 2019 was 57.9%, compared with 54.1% in the first quarter of 2018. The increase in gross margin primarily reflects a change in the product mix. There was a GAAP operating loss of $15.5 million or (18.8%) of revenue, compared to GAAP operating loss in the first quarter of 2018 of $28.0 million or (46.5%) of revenue. The decrease in operating loss was mainly due to higher revenue. GAAP net loss for the first quarter of 2019 was $22.7 million or ($0.51) per common share, compared with $23.0 million or ($0.53) per common share in the first quarter of 2018.

“Year-over-year revenue growth of 37% coupled with Non-GAAP gross and net operating margin expansion resulted in Q1 Non GAAP EPS that exceeded the midpoint of our outlook by $0.05,” said Ford Tamer President and CEO of Inphi Corporation. “Our strong Q1 benefited from robust demand for both Telecom products, Coherent M200 DSPs, TiAs and drivers as well as the Data Center 50, 100, 200 and 400G PAM4 DSPs, TiAs and drivers.  We also benefited from the start of the 5G backhaul infrastructure buildup.”

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Percepto flies autonomous drones over SK Tel's 5G net

Percepto demonstrated its autonomous drones over SK Telecom’s 5G trial network in Korea.

Percepto provides a Drone-In-a-Box (DIB) for autonomous flights over cellular networks. This milestone prepares Percepto to provide its customers with significant operational advantages including better real-time video stream quality, reduced battery consumption, which means longer mission times and greater distances and readiness for greater data processing in real-time.

https://youtu.be/goMJrchX7RU

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Twilio hits Q1 revenue of $233.1 million, up 81% yoy

Twilio reported revenue of $233.1 million for the first quarter of 2019, up 81% from the first quarter of 2018 and 14% sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2018. Total Revenue includes revenue from Twilio SendGrid starting on February 1, 2019 (the date of acquisition). GAAP loss from operations was $87.6 million for the first quarter of 2019, compared with GAAP loss from operations of $24.3 million for the first quarter of 2018. Non-GAAP income from operations was $3.4 million for the first quarter of 2019, compared with non-GAAP loss from operations of $4.7 million for the first quarter of 2018.

Some metrics

• 154,797 Active Customer Accounts as of March 31, 2019, compared to 53,985 Active Customer Accounts as of March 31, 2018. Active Customer Accounts in the current period include the contribution from Twilio SendGrid customer accounts.
• Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate was 146% for the first quarter of 2019, compared to 132% for the first quarter of 2018. Twilio SendGrid results do not impact the calculation of this metric in the current period.
• 2,114 employees as of March 31, 2019.

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Bloomberg: Vodafone found hidden backdoors in Huawei equipment

Vodafone discovered multiple backdoors in home routers, broadband gateways,  and optical service nodes supplied by Huawei and deployed in Vodafone's fixed-access network in Italy, according to Bloomberg. The issues date back to 2009-2011 and have been resolved, according to the report.

Both Huawei and Vodafone said it is not unusual to discover vulnerabilities in networking gear and to issue fixes over time.

Vodafone has taken a public role in defending its choice of Huawei equipment for next-gen deployments.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/vodafone-found-hidden-backdoors-in-huawei-equipment?srnd=premium

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Luna Innovations cites $6M order for tunable lasers

Luna Innovations received a purchase order valued at more than $6 million to supply it Phoenix tunable lasers to a leading robotics company. The lasers will be delivered over four years, with deliveries beginning this summer.

Luna’s Phoenix tunable external cavity laser was designed for a wide range of fiber optic sensing instrumentations.

http://www.lunainc.com

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DASAN Zhone Solutions intros gateways for 10G

DASAN Zhone Solutions introduced its 5200 family of multi-protocol smart gateways designed for 10G and DZS’s portfolio of multi-service optical network terminals (ONTs) and optical line terminals (OLTSs).

DASAN Zhone Solutions' 5200 family of smart gateways offer choice between 10/10G symmetrical PON technology and 10G Active Ethernet using SFP+ optics for more seamless connectivity to existing FTTx and Enterprise business subscribers over a single common network.  Initial models allow for one fixed 10G copper LAN port and four GE ports, with options for voice or PoE+ / PoE++. Leveraging a common platform that is future-ready for globally standardized 10G GPON technologies, new models in the 5200 family will support NG-PON 2 as the availability and price/performance of optics make a positive business case.

“Offering our customers a common platform with choice among technologies and form factors is core to our 10G solution development. In this way, DZS can best serve the diverse needs of operators across the globe,” said Dr. Seungdong Lee, Chief Technology Officer, DZS.  “We believe that 10/10 symmetrical XGS-PON is the best upgrade path to evaluate in 2019. Our portfolio of modular chassis, fixed 1RU, and industrially-hardened systems has been designed to provide choices to operators as they plan ahead for the fundamental shift toward cloud-based everything.”

https://investor-dzsi.com/news/dzs-smart-10g-network-evolution/

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Dell and Microsoft enable VMware cloud infrastructure on Azure.

Dell Technologies and Microsoft will deliver a fully native, supported, and certified VMware cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure.

Azure VMware Solutions are built on VMware Cloud Foundation, enabling customers to migrate existing VMware workloads from on-premises environments to Azure without the need to re-architect applications or retool operations. 

The companies said this collaboration will enable organizations to tap into Azure’s scale, security and fast provisioning cycles.  Azure VMware Solutions are first-party services from Microsoft developed in collaboration with VMware Cloud Verified partners CloudSimple and Virtustream (a Dell Technologies company).

In a keynote address at its annual DellTechWorld event in Las Vegas, Michael Dell said “Our goal is to provide a single view from edge to core to cloud – an integrated platform for our customers’ digital future.”

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft, added "“At Microsoft, we’re focused on empowering customers in their digital transformation journey, through partnerships that enable them to take advantage of the Microsoft cloud, using the technologies they already have,” said  “Together with Dell Technologies and VMware, we are providing our mutual customers with an integrated cloud experience and digital workplace solutions to open up new opportunities and meet their evolving needs.”

In addition, joint Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers will be able to manage Office 365 across devices via cloud-based integration with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory. VMware will also extend the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop leveraging VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.

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Dell Technologies Cloud targets data center as a service

Dell Technologies Cloud is a new offering enterprises a consistent operating model for private, public, and hybrid cloud operations.

Unveiled at this week's Dell Tech World conference in Las Vegas, Dell Technologies Cloud Platforms promises to be an operational hub for hybrid cloud environments, reducing total cost of ownership by up to 47% compared to native public cloud.  The company officials said the new framework will "control the chaos" of managing hybrid cloud environments. It works across more than 4,200 VMware Cloud Provider Program providers and hyperscalers including new addition, Microsoft Azure.

The Dell Technologies Cloud portfolio consists of the new Dell Technologies Cloud Platforms and the new Data Center-as-a-Service offering, VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.

Dell Technologies Cloud Data Center-as-a-Service, delivered as VMware Cloud on Dell EMC with VxRail, currently is available in beta deployments with limited customer availability planned for the second half of 2019.

“For many organizations, the increasingly diverse cloud landscape is resulting in an enormous amount of IT complexity, and no one is more qualified or capable to help customers solve this challenge than Dell Technologies,” said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman of products and operations, Dell Technologies.

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Cisco announces big push into Wi-Fi 6

Cisco is making a major push into Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) with the launch of access points and core switches for building the next generation of campus networks.

Wi-Fi 6 delivers up to 400 percent greater capacity and is more effective in high-density settings like large lecture halls, stadiums and conference rooms. Latency is vastly improved, allowing for near real-time use cases. Wi-Fi 6 also promises lower power usage in end devices.



Cisco said Wi-Fi 6 offers many of the benefits of 5G for driving business transformation.

The rollout includes:

• Wi-Fi 6 Access Points: New access points across the Catalyst and Meraki portfolios leverage custom, programmable chipsets. The new access points are also multilingual, with the ability to communicate with multiple IoT protocols, including BLE, Zigbee, and Thread.
• Core Switch for the Campus Network: The Catalyst 9600 core switch family is built as the next evolution of the Catalyst 6000. 
  
  According to the datasheet, the Cisco Catalyst 9606R chassis is hardware ready to support a wired switching capacity of up to 25.6 Tbps, with up to 6.4 Tbps of bandwidth per slot. Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series switches support nonblocking 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP+, QSFP28) and 1, 10, and 25 GE Small Form-Factor Pluggable Plus (SFP, SFP+, SFP28) The switches also support advanced routing and infrastructure services (such as MPLS Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs, Multicast VPN [MVPN], and Network Address Translation.
  
  The platform's ASIC is the first to support double-width HW tables.
  
• New Developer Resources: Wi-Fi 6 and 5G represent an incredible opportunity for developers. To enable them to create the immersive experiences that these new levels of connectivity promise, Cisco is unveiling the DevNet Wireless Dev Center. DevNet, Cisco’s developer network, offers the learning labs, sandboxes and developer resources needed to create game-changing wireless applications. The Cisco Catalyst and Meraki access platforms are open and programmable all the way down to the chipset level, allowing applications to take advantage of network programmability in new and exciting ways.
• New Ecosystem Partnerships: Prior to the launch of its Wi-Fi 6 access points, Cisco completed interoperability testing with Broadcom, Intel and Samsung to address the inevitable gaps that come with a new standard. Samsung, Boingo, GlobalReach Technology, Presidio and others are expected to join the Cisco OpenRoaming project to solve one of today’s biggest wireless pain points. The Cisco OpenRoaming project aims to make it easier to seamlessly and securely hop between Wi-Fi and LTE networks and onboard public Wi-Fi.

"Every leap in connectivity enables the next wave of profound innovation. 5G and Wi-Fi 6 represent a new era of connectivity," said David Goeckeler, EVP and General Manager, Networking and Security Business at Cisco. "Developers are already creating the next generation of wireless-first, immersive experiences. With billions of things connecting to the network, this growth will create unprecedented complexity for IT. Cisco is building a multi-domain network architecture to simplify complexity for IT, allowing CIOs to deliver against their innovation agenda."

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AT&T activates NB-IoT nationwide

AT&T activated its nationwide NB-IoT network.

The launch required the upgrade of AT&T 4G LTE cell sites across the country.

A&T also operates an LTE-M network in the U.S. and Mexico. NB-IoT is optimized for stationary use cases with basic data requirements like simple sensors, on-off buttons, smart agriculture, smoke detectors, door locks and industrial monitors. LTE-M, with its greater bandwidth, can support firmware and software updates, mobility and voice-over services. LTE-M use cases include pet trackers, asset management, medical wearables, utility meters, etc.

AT&T said it is working with suppliers to certify $5 modules that connect devices to NB-IoT. Multi-mode modules are also expected. AT&T is offering pricing plans starting at $5/year/device.

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Fiberlight installs Blue Planet for Inventory and Service Orchestration

FiberLight, which operates metro and long-haul fiber transport services in over 30 metro areas across the U.S., will deploy automation software from Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, across its multi-vendor network.

Specifically, FiberLight is deploying Blue Planet Inventory (BPI) and Blue Planet Multi-Domain Service Orchestration (MDSO) to automate the rapid turn-up and delivery of the new, on-demand services.

FiberLight’s network includes 14,000 miles of fiber in some of the most rapidly expanding metro areas in the U.S., including Atlanta, Baltimore, Tampa and Washington D.C., as well as throughout the state of Texas. Its portfolio includes managed Ethernet and Wave Transport, Cloud Connect, Dedicated Internet Access, Dark Fiber, and Wireless Backhaul over private and diversely constructed fiber backbone rings.

“A crucial step in delivering a superior customer experience is having the ability to turn up services quickly and easily. Ciena’s Blue Planet gives us an unprecedented understanding of our network resources, allowing us to optimize service delivery, fault isolation and resolution, so we can provide the quality of service that our customers require today and in the future,” stated Kevin Coyne, Chief Operating Officer, FiberLight.

https://www.ciena.com/about/newsroom/press-releases/FiberLight-Automates-Network-Operations-with-Blue-Planet.html

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China Telecom continues to add mobile subs as it prepares for 5G

China Telecom is now serving approximately 315 million mobile users, representing a net addition of 12.05 million for Q1 2019.

China Telecom's operating revenues for the quarter amounted to RMB377.1 billion, of which, service revenues amounted to RMB350.4 billion, representing an increase of 5.9% compared to last year. EBITDA reached RMB104.2 billion, representing an increase of 2.0% over the same period last year. Net profit amounted to RMB21.2 billion, representing an increase of 13.9% compared to last year, while basic earnings per share were RMB0.262.

CAPEX was RMB74.9 billion, representing a decrease of 15.5% compared to last year, the third consecutive annual decline.
Some highlights from the quarterly report:

• 4G users reached approximately 256 million, representing a net addition of 13.67 million. 
• Handset data traffic2 increased by 140% over the same period of last year. 
• The monthly average data traffic per 4G user reached nearly 7GB. 
• The net addition of wireline broadband subscribers was 2.08 million, reaching a total of approximately 148 million. 
• The number of e-Surfing HD subscribers reached approximately 109 million. 
• Revenues for Intelligent Applications ecospheres grew rapidly, accounting for nearly 20% of the service revenues and its contribution to incremental service revenues significantly increased.
• Revenues from cloud services increased by 99.5% over the same period of last year.

https://www.chinatelecom-h.com/en/global/home.php

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T-Systems launches Managed Cloud Services for Microsoft Azure

Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems division has begun offering Managed Cloud Services for Microsoft Azure.

T-Systems is reselling the Microsoft cloud portfolio. T¬Systems will handle all complex and critical cloud operations. T-Systems will offer its services in almost all Azure regions while providing networking connectivity. In 2018, for example, T Systems moved the entire SAP landscape from Zuellig Pharma Singapore to Microsoft Azure.

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Sabre's outage disrupts air travel

An outage on Monday at Sabre disrupted air travel across the United States.

Airlines impacted included American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Jetblue.

Systems appeared to return to normal approximately 90 minutes later.

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ZTE posts revenue was RMB 22.202 billion, net profit

ZTE reported first-quarter 2019 operating revenue of RMB 22.202 billion (approximately US$3.295 billion).

Net profit attributable to holders of ordinary shares of the listed company amounted to RMB 0.863 billion.

R&D costs for the first three months amounted to RMB 3.093 billion, accounting for 13.9% of the operating revenue, with the percentage being increased by 4.1%, compared to 9.8% for the same period last year.

ZTE estimated the net profit attributable to holders of ordinary shares of the listed company to be from RMB 1.2 billion to RMB 1.8 billion for the six months ended 30 June 2019.

https://www.zte.com.cn/global/about/press-center/news/2019/201904/20190429e2

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Indonesia's Smartfren signs ZTE for 4G & 5G upgrade

Indonesia’s Smartfren has selected ZTE for 4G network expansion and 5G network trials. Financial terms were not disclosed. The agreement was signed by Merza Fachys, President Director of Smartfren, Gandi Sulistyanto, Chairman of Smartfren, Liang Weiqi, President Director of ZTE Indonesia, and Mei Zhonghua, Senior Vice President of ZTE at Indonesia - China Business Forum.

“The agreement this time will definitely bring the partnerships between ZTE and Smartfren to a new level,” said Mei Zhonghua, senior vice president at ZTE. “We are pleased to be chosen for the development of Indonesia's telecommunications infrastructure, so as to improve Indonesia's national broadband network quality.”

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ETSI and Linux Foundation agree on Open Source collaboration

The Linux Foundation and ETSI signed a Memorandum of Understanding to bring open source and standards closer and foster synergies between them.  Areas of mutual interest include technologies concerning NFV, MANO, AI and edge computing.

The collaboration agreement is expected to enable faster information-sharing and deployment of open networking technologies. The organinzations will engage in collaborative activities, joint communication, promotion and events, as well as potential common initiatives related to interoperability and conformance testing.

“It’s encouraging to see how far the industry has come in such a short time,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “This agreement with ETSI signals it’s possible to reach a harmonization of collaborative activities across open source and standards for the networking industry. Working together results in less fragmentation, faster deployments, and more streamlined innovation.”

“We are eager to deepen our work with the open source communities at the Linux Foundation,” said Luis Jorge Romero, Director-General, ETSI. “Open Source has been part of our working methods and our technical groups, Open Source MANO being an example, for several years now. Further collaboration provides the standards community with a quick feedback loop on how our specifications are being implemented.”

https://portal.etsi.org/webapp/AgreementView/Mapping_tables/Mapping_LinuxFoundation.htm

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Slack reports 10 million daily active users, high level of engagement

In an S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding an upcoming IPO, Slack Technologies reported that it now serves over 10 million users daily on a worldwide basis, of whom more than 50% are outside the U.S. The Slack messaging service is being used by over 600,000 organizations. It is delivering over 1 billion messages per week.

Some other details gleaned from Slack's S-1 prospectus:

• More than 88,000 Paid Customers, including more than 65 companies in the Fortune 100 and a total of 575 paid customers paying over $100,000 annually
• More than 500,000 organizations on the Free subscription plan
• Slack's annual revenue was $105.2 million, $220.5 million, and $400.6 million in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively, representing annual growth of 110% and 82%, respectively. The company incurred net losses of $146.9 million, $140.1 million, and $138.9 million in fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. 
• Users spend more than 50 million hours in active use of Slack in a typical week, on either a free or paid subscription plan.
• Over 1,500 third-party apps are now listed in the Slack App Directory. 
• Slack has more than 500,000 registered developers.
• Slack operates on AWS infrastructure.
• The company was founded as Tiny Spec Inc in 2009. The company changed its name to Slack publicly launched its service in 2014.
• Slack had 1,502 employees as of January 31, 2019.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1764925/000162828019004786/slacks-1.htm

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KPN to select a Western vendor for 5G core

Citing an urgency to further tighten security policies for its fixed and mobile network suppliers, KPN announced plans to select a "Western vendor" for the construction of its new 5G mobile core network.

KPN, which is committed to a multivendor procurement strategy, said it is currently reviewing all parts of its fixed and mobile network and assessing with which suppliers it can best achieve its network ambitions.

Nokia has already been named as a supplier for the fixed network.  For the modernization of the mobile radio and antenna network, KPN has signed a preliminary agreement to start preparations with Huawei

KPN also confirmed plans to roll out fiber to another 1 million Dutch households.

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Hurricane Electric adds POP at e-shelter in Frankfurt

Hurricane Electric activated a new point of presence (PoP) at e-shelter in Frankfurt, Germany.

e-shelter’s Datacenter Frankfurt 1 boasts a total of 54,000 sq. m. of space and is Europe’s largest individual data center site.

This PoP is Hurricane Electric’s fifth in Frankfurt and tenth in Germany and will provide organizations in Frankfurt with improved fault tolerance, load balancing and congestion management in the delivery of next generation IP connectivity services.

“As a main center of business and finance in Germany, Hurricane Electric is excited to provide e-shelter’s Frankfurt customers cost-effective connectivity options,” said Mike Leber, President of Hurricane Electric. “This new PoP is Hurricane Electric’s 71st in Europe and 185th around the globe and part of our global commitment to provide high-speed connectivity to users everywhere.”

Customers of e-shelter and those in and near Frankfurtcan connect to Hurricane Electric’s extensive IPv4 and IPv6 network through 100GE (100 Gigabit Ethernet), 10GE (10 Gigabit Ethernet) and GigE (1 Gigabit Ethernet) ports. Additionally, customers at the facility are able to exchange IP traffic with Hurricane Electric’s vast global network, which offers over 20,000 BGP sessions with over 7,500 different networks via more than 200 major exchange points and thousands of customer and private peering ports.

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Video: Ciena's Hugues Tournier on COBO's working groups

COBO's Data Center Networking Group has two workgroups: mechanical and electrical. Considering the OIF 400ZR and the IEEE, COBO selects the Class C Connector as explained by Hugues Tournier of Ciena.

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Pica8 intros Nymble Automation Framework for open switches

Pica8 introduced its new NymbleT automation framework add-on for its Linux-based network operating system (NOS) -- PICOS. 

Nymble utilizes the open-source Ansible AWX web user interface to run a large library of Ansible networking “Playbooks” for enterprise networking services. It can run as a containerized virtual machine in either a private or public cloud.  Nymble is also agentless, so requires no additional software to be loaded onto white box switches or servers.

Nymble uses English-language commands to perform functions such as activating dozens of switches at the push of a button to running inventory; turning up VLANs and MLAG; and performing health checks of all the PoE (Power-over-Ethernet) devices in an enterprise access network.

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Pica8 extends its NOS to more Dell EMC open switches

Pica8 has ported its Linux-based PICOS network operating system (NOS) to new Dell EMC open networking aggregation switches, including the Dell EMC Z9264F-ON, S5248F-ON, and S4128F-ON campus aggregation switches and the Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) PoE+ and 60-watt PoE N3024EP-ON access switch. This brings the total number of Pica8-supported Dell EMC open access and campus switches to twelve.

The S5248F-ON is the first open networking switch supported by Pica8 that is based on Broadcom’s latest Trident 3 switching silicon. PICOS enables the S5248F-ON to be deployed as a campus aggregation switch that collects and processes traffic from remote Dell EMC N3000 Series open networking access switches located in branch offices and/or retail stores.

The company also noted that the bundled Pica8 Nymble automation framework software that comes with PICOS can remotely activate, configure and manage the lifecycle of all deployed Dell EMC campus and access switches in a network at the push of a button. 

“PICOS is the only open networking Linux-based NOS in the market that has proven itself in commercial deployments in some of the largest enterprise campus/access networks out there,” said Jeff Paine, SVP of marketing at Pica8. “Pica8 has spent years developing the built-in enterprise feature set – and backward compatibility – and automation capabilities needed to simply step in and replace both legacy-vendor enterprise chassis switches and wiring-closet switch stacks with an intelligent, easy-to-deploy modern architectural alternative.  The economic savings windfall that automatically comes with the type of disaggregated networking hardware and software solutions that Pica8 and Dell EMC are bringing to market is simply the proverbial icing on the cake.”

http://www.pica8.com

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Big Switch Networks announces OEM agreement with Dell EMC

Big Switch Networks announced an OEM agreement under which Dell EMC will brand, market and sell Big Switch’s products under the Dell EMC brand.

Additionally, Big Switch and Dell EMC will work together to design Dell Ready Stack solutions.

Big Switch and Dell EMC have been collaborating for the past five years on open, cloud-style networking.

Big Switch’s Cloud-First Networking portfolio includes:

• Big Cloud Fabric - a VPC-based logical networking fabric, 
• Big Monitoring Fabric - a network visibility fabric
• Multi-Cloud Director - provides federated management of multi-site BCF and BMF deployments, across public, private or multi-cloud environments.

“Dell EMC and Big Switch continue to lead the open networking evolution with open, differentiated, best-in-class solutions that allow our customers to build powerful on-prem clouds,” said Douglas Murray, President and CEO, Big Switch Networks. “The OEM relationship is an acknowledgement of the tremendous demand Dell EMC and Big Switch are seeing with open networking data center switching, visibility and security solutions for on-prem cloud and multi-cloud environments.”

“For Dell EMC, this OEM agreement with Big Switch was the natural next step. Together we have experienced tremendous momentum during the past five years, delivering open networking to end users globally,” said Tom Burns, SVP & GM, Networking & Solutions, Dell EMC.

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Zayo delivers wavelengths to transport company

Zayo was selected to deliver wavelength connectivity for a major transportation company.

CloudLink provides an on-ramp to Zayo’s extensive fiber network, enabling global connectivity to the world’s largest cloud services providers. Zayo’s global network connects thousands of on-net facilities, including data centers and public cloud providers.

“This customer will rely on Zayo’s CloudLink on ramps in our zColo data centers, effectively creating a connectivity hub,” said Jack Waters, president of Zayo Networks and COO. “The solution further solidifies our relationship with this important customer, who appreciates our agility, responsiveness, and breadth of solutions.”

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AWS continues to grow at 41% clip, profitability increases

Amazon Web Services (AWS) generated revenue of $7.696 billion in Q1 2019, up 41% over the same period last year.  Operating income for the business was $2.223 billion, up 59% year over year.

On a trailing 12 months (TTM) basis, AWS represents about 11% of Amazon's net sales on a global basis,

https://ir.aboutamazon.com/static-files/ade0787c-6617-4f69-8147-5d00ff0eb0bb

Some additional AWS highlights for the quarter:

• Amazon announced renewable energy projects in Ireland, Sweden, and the U.S. totaling over 670,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy annually, as part of its long-term commitment to achieve 100% renewable energy powering the AWS global infrastructure.
• AWS announced several new customer commitments and major migrations during the quarter: Gogo and Lyft are going all-in on AWS; Second Spectrum and the L.A. Clippers named AWS their official cloud and machine learning provider; Standard Bank Group and Vertafore selected AWS as their preferred cloud provider; the Guinness Six Nations Championship named AWS as their official technology provider; Volkswagen is joining forces with AWS to transform automotive manufacturing, powering the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud, and integrating more than 30,000 facilities and 1,500 suppliers and partners in Volkswagen’s global supply chain over time; and Ford and Autonomic, creators of the Transportation Mobility Cloud (TMC), selected AWS to power TMC and become the standard connected car solution for Ford vehicles, giving automotive manufacturers and software developers the cloud infrastructure needed to build innovative connected vehicle services at scale.
• AWS continued to expand its infrastructure to best serve customers, launching the AWS Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Region, and announcing plans for the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region. AWS now provides 64 Availability Zones across 21 infrastructure regions globally, with announced plans for another 12 Availability Zones and four regions in Bahrain, Indonesia, Italy, and South Africa.
• AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive, a new storage class that provides secure, durable object storage for long-term retention of data that is rarely accessed, and priced at $0.00099 per GB-month (less than one-tenth of one cent, or $1 per TB-month).
• AWS announced the general availability of Concurrency Scaling for Amazon Redshift, a new Amazon Redshift feature that automatically adds and removes capacity to handle unpredictable demand from thousands of concurrent users. With more than 200 new features and enhancements in the last two years, Amazon Redshift is delivering an average of 10x faster query times. Pfizer, McDonald’s, Hilton Hotels Worldwide, Yelp, Intuit, Redfin, FOX Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, Equinox Fitness, and Edmunds are among the more than 10,000 customers collectively processing more than two exabytes with Amazon Redshift every day.
• AWS announced the general availability of Amazon EFS Infrequent Access (IA), a new storage class for Amazon EFS that is designed for files accessed less frequently, enabling customers to reduce storage costs by up to 85% compared to the Amazon EFS Standard storage class. With EFS IA, Amazon EFS customers simply enable Lifecycle Management, and any file not accessed after 30 days gets automatically moved to the EFS IA storage class.
• AWS announced Open Distro for Elasticsearch, a 100% open source distribution of the Elasticsearch analytics engine that includes features like security, alerting, cluster diagnostics, and SQL support. With all of the features of Open Distro for Elasticsearch licensed under Apache 2.0, developers can use it without any commercial use restrictions, providing customers a fully-featured, completely open source distribution that makes it easy for everyone to use, collaborate, and contribute.
• AWS announced the general availability of Amazon WorkLink, a fully-managed service that enables companies to provide their workforce with secure one-click access to internal websites and web applications from their mobile devices without connecting to VPNs or using custom browsers. Amazon WorkLink removes the need to build and maintain complicated infrastructure and software deployments to secure mobile access to internal content while also reducing the risk of information loss or theft because content is never stored or cached on devices.

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Intel's data centric revenue dips 5%

Intel reported first quarter revenue of $16.1 billion, flat year-over-year (YoY), with GAAP earnings-per-share (EPS) of $0.87, a decline of 6 percent YoY.

Intel's data-centric revenue declined 5 percent while PC-centric revenue grew 4 percent. The company also trimmed its outlook for the rest of the year.

"Results for the first quarter were slightly higher than our January expectations. We shipped a strong mix of high-performance products and continued spending discipline while ramping 10nm and managing a challenging NAND pricing environment. Looking ahead, we're taking a more cautious view of the year, although we expect market conditions to improve in the second half," said Bob Swan, Intel CEO.

Highlights:

• In the Data Center Group (DCG), the cloud segment grew 5 percent while the communications service provider segment declined 4 percent and enterprise and government revenue declined 21 percent. 
• First-quarter Internet of Things Group (IOTG) revenue grew 8 percent YoY (19 percent excluding Wind River1), and Mobileye achieved record first-quarter revenue of $209 million, up 38 percent YoY as customer momentum continued. 
• Intel's memory business (NSG) was down 12 percent YoY in a challenging pricing environment. 
• Intel's Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) revenue was down 2 percent YoY in the first quarter.
  
  

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Comcast posts strong Q1 for its communications business

Comcast reported a strong quarter for its cable communications business with revenue increasing 4.2% to $14.3 billion in the first quarter of 2019, driven primarily by increases in high-speed internet and business services revenue. High-speed internet revenue increased 10.1%, driven by an increase in the number of residential high-speed internet customers and rate adjustments. Business services revenue increased 9.5%, due to an increase in the number of customers and rate adjustments.

Cable Communications’ capital expenditures decreased 19.4% to $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2019, reflecting a lower level of spending on customer premise equipment and scalable infrastructure. Cable capital expenditures represented 9.5% of Cable revenue in the first quarter of 2019 compared to 12.3% in last year’s first quarter. 

Other highlights:

• Total high-speed internet customer net additions were 375,000, total video customer net losses were 121,000, total voice customer net losses were 53,000 and total security and automation customer net additions were 17,000. 
• The company added 170,000 wireless lines in the quarter.
• Wireless revenue increased 21.4%, reflecting an increase in the number of customer lines, partially offset by lower device sales as more customers bring their own device. 
• Other revenue increased 7.0%, primarily driven by increases in revenue from X1 licensing agreements and our security and automation services. 
• Video revenue decreased 0.5%, due to a decline in the number of residential customers, partially offset by rate adjustments. 
• Advertising revenue decreased 4.5%, primarily due to a decline in political advertising revenue. Voice revenue decreased 1.6%, reflecting a decrease in the number of residential voice customers.
• Total Customer Relationships increased by 300,000 to 30.7 million in the first quarter of 2019. 
• Residential customer relationships increased by 276,000 and business customer relationships increased by 25,000. 
• At the end of the first quarter, 67.3% of residential customers received at least two Xfinity products. 
• Adjusted EBITDA for Comcast's Cable Communications increased 9.8% to $5.7 billion in the f
• First quarter of 2019, reflecting higher revenue, partially offset by a 0.8% increase in operating expenses. 
• Video programming costs increased 2.8%, primarily reflecting higher sports programming costs and retransmission consent fees. 
• Non-programming expenses decreased 0.5%, reflecting decreases in other operating costs, customer service expenses, franchise and regulatory fees and advertising, marketing and promotion costs, partially offset by an increase in technical and product support expenses. 

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Juniper posts 7% decline in Q1 sales

Juniper Networks reported first quarter 2019 net revenues of $1,001.7 million, a decrease of 7% year-over-year, and 15% sequentially. GAAP operating margin was 4.3%, a decrease from 5.1% in the first quarter of 2018, and a decrease from 16.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018. GAAP net income was $31.1 million, a decrease of 10% year-over-year, and a decrease of 84% sequentially, resulting in diluted earnings per share of $0.09. Non-GAAP net income was $92.7 million, a decrease of 7% year-over-year and a decrease of 55% sequentially, resulting in non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.26.

“The first quarter played out largely as we expected, with slightly better than forecasted sales across each of our core verticals,” said Rami Rahim, chief executive officer, Juniper Networks. “While we are pleased with the progress we experienced versus our guidance, we are not satisfied with these results and remain focused on delivering a return to growth later this year. We believe the investments we are making in our go-to-market organization, new products we are bringing to market and the acquisition of Mist Systems should position us to achieve this objective.”

Highlights:
Product

• Routing product revenue: $375 million, down 8% year-over-year and down 16% sequentially. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to Service Provider, and to a lesser extent Cloud, partially offset by strength in Enterprise. The sequential decline was due to Service Provider and to a lesser extent, Enterprise. The MX and PTX product families declined both year-over-year and sequentially.
• Switching product revenue: $176 million, down 23% year-over-year and sequentially. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to Cloud, and to a lesser extent, Service Provider. The sequential decrease was primarily due to Enterprise. The QFX and EX product families declined both year-over-year and sequentially.
• Security product revenue: $68 million, down 7% year-over-year and down 35% sequentially. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to Cloud, partially offset by growth in Enterprise. The sequential decrease was primarily due to Enterprise.
• Service revenue: $383 million, up 3% year-over-year and down 5% sequentially. The year-over-year increase was due to strong renewal and attach rates of support contracts. Sequentially, the decrease was primarily due to timing of professional services projects.

Segment

• Cloud: $223 million, down 18% year-over-year and down 6% sequentially. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to Switching and Routing, partially offset by growth in Service. The sequential decrease was primarily due to Security and Routing.
• Service Provider: $436 million, down 9% year-over-year and down 16% sequentially. The year-over-year and sequential decreases were primarily due to Routing.
• Enterprise: $343 million, up 3% year-over-year and down 20% sequentially. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by strength in Routing and to a lesser extent, Service and Security, partially offset by Switching. The sequential decrease was primarily due to Switching.

https://investor.juniper.net/investor-relations/press-releases/press-release-details/2019/Juniper-Networks-Reports-Preliminary-First-Quarter-2019-Financial-Results/default.aspx

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ECI enhances its Apollo optical transport with 8x24CDCF ROADM

ECI has enhanced its Apollo optical transport portfolio with the addition of a high performance, contentionless 8x24CDCF ROADM based on wavelength switching technologies. 

ECI said its programmable wavelength switching far surpasses the capabilities of contentionless ROADMs available today, which are based on multicast switches (MCS). The 8x24CDCF ROADM enables add/drop port scaling to support capacity growth while eliminating the need for additional amplification to overcome optical losses in multicast switches. As a result, the 8x24CDCF ROADM offers more density, reliability and power efficiency at a lower cost.

Key features of the 8x24CDCF ROADM include:

• Reduced cost: Next generation CDC ROADM networks see cost savings due to improved scalability of add/drop ports and removal of superfluous EDFA arrays.
• Improved performance: Delivers scalability and reliable performance regardless of port count and lessens strict filtering requirements on transmitters and receivers. It also eliminates the performance degradation from out-of-band noise accumulation.
• Increased Flexibility: Works in conjunction with ECI’s Apollo product line, including the recently debuted TM1200 programmable 1.2T dual channel blade, providing customers with a wide set of ‘mix-n-match’ modules from which they can choose to design the optical network of their choice.

“As mobile network operators (MNOs) prepare their networks for 5G, the demand they face is twofold: they must respond to the ever-increasing consumer demand for bandwidth, while also meeting the demand to remain profitable,” said Jimmy Mizrahi, head of global portfolio at ECI. “Thus, network operators are seeking technologies which allow them to cost-effectively, dynamically deliver and maximize network bandwidth in real time. The 8x24CDCF ROADM with its enhanced scalability, high-caliber performance, next-generation power efficiency and cost-savings is a unique addition to our family of ROADMs within the Apollo optical networking system, in line with our ‘as you like it approach’.”

The 8x24CDCF ROADM is compatible with all Apollo 9600 transport systems.

https://www.ecitele.com/productcat/apollo

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Nokia reports a weak Q1 as it waits for 5G spending to accelerate

Nokia reported a weak Q1 but said it remains confident that spending by mobile operator will accelerate in the second half of the year.

Overall, Nokia's reported net sales grew approximately 2% to EUR 5.032 billion. A decline in Nokia gross profit was primarily attributable to Networks, which was negatively affected by broad-based gross margin erosion in Mobile Access.

Rajeev Suri, Nokia's CEO, states: "As the year progresses, we expect meaningful topline and margin improvements. 5G revenues are expected to grow sharply, particularly in the second half of the year, driven by our 36 commercial wins to date. Global services profitability should improve as we recover in a handful of large rollout projects, IP routing is now firmly back to growth given our product leadership, and optical networks continues its long run of growth. We are also seeing good underlying momentum in our strategic focus areas of software and enterprise, and we are moving steadily forward on our path to build a strong licensing business that is sustainable for the long-term.

"In terms of risks, one factor is our slow start to the year. In addition, competitive intensity has slightly increased in certain accounts as some competitors seek to be more commercially aggressive in the early stages of 5G and as some customers reassess their vendors in light of security concerns, creating near-term pressure but longer-term opportunity. We will continue to take a balanced view, and are prepared to invest prudently in cases where there is the right longer-term profitability profile. We are also progressing well with our previously announced EUR 700 million cost savings program."

Some highlights:

• Networks net sales grew 4%. On a constant currency basis, Networks net sales were flat.
• A slight growth in Networks net sales was due to IP Routing, Mobile Access and Optical Networks, partially offset by a decrease in Fixed Access.
• A decrease in Networks gross profit was primarily due to Mobile Access and Fixed Access, partially offset by IP Routing and Optical Networks. 
• A decrease in Mobile Access and Fixed Access gross profit was primarily due to lower gross margin. The increase in IP Routing and Optical Networks gross profit was primarily due to higher net sales.
• In Q1 2019, Nokia was unable to recognize approximately EUR 200 million of net sales related to 5G deliveries mainly in North America, which the company expects to recognize in full before the end of 2019.

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Orange and Vodafone extend network sharing in Spain for 5G

Vodafone and Orange agreed to extend their current active mobile network sharing arrangement in Spain to include 5G. The original network sharing agreement signed in 2006 covered passive infrastructure nationwide and active infrastructure in smaller towns. The agreement was subsequently renewed in 2012 and in 2016.

Under the new agreement, Vodafone will be able to offer its customers broadband access and other fixed services on Orange’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network. Both companies have also agreed to explore potential co-investment opportunities to expand their fibre footprint in the future. The partnership is also expanded to include 5G. The terms of the new agreement allow active network sharing (including both the radio access network and high-speed backhaul) in cities with populations of up to 175,000 people, whereas the previous arrangement only enabled sharing in towns of between 1,000 and 25,000 people. Two thirds of the Spanish population will now be covered by Vodafone and Orange’s shared network agreement, with 14,800 sites expected to be shared vs. 5,600 shared today. The new agreement is expected to deliver cumulative opex and capex savings to Vodafone of at least €600 million over the next ten years.

Vodafone and Orange will continue to operate independent infrastructure in the biggest cities.

Nick Read, Chief Executive of Vodafone, said, “Vodafone is committed to deliver the best gigabit networks. As we approach a 5G world, we have a window of opportunity to design networks with other operators who share our passion for quality and coverage. These network sharing agreements mean we can provide a better service to customers, help us to address coverage requirements faster and more efficiently and also reduce the industry’s environmental impact.”

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