Vertical Systems: AT&T tops U.S. Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD

Vertical Systems Group’s 2018 U.S. Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD results are as follows (in rank order by number of fiber lit buildings): AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum Enterprise, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox, Crown Castle Fiber, Frontier, Zayo, Altice USA, and Windstream. These eleven retail and wholesale fiber providers qualify for this benchmark with 10,000 or more on-net U.S. fiber lit commercial buildings as of year-end 2018.

Additionally, thirteen companies qualify for the 2018  Challenge Tier as follows (in alphabetical order): Atlantic Broadband, Cincinnati Bell, Cleareon, Cogent, Consolidated Communications, FiberLight, FirstLight, GTT, IFN, Logix Fiber Networks, Segra, Unite Private Networks, and Uniti Fiber. These fiber providers each qualify for the 2018 Challenge Tier with between 2,000 and 9,999 U.S. fiber lit commercial buildings.

“Following a flurry of mergers and acquisitions, fiber providers focused on new buildouts in 2018 to meet customer demand for higher speed dedicated access to business services and to support 5G pilots,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal of Vertical Systems Group. “Our research shows that while the majority of large and medium size commercial buildings in the U.S. are fiber lit with one or more providers, relatively few small multi-tenant buildings are fiber connected. Cable MSOs and regional network operators have been most actively targeting fiber investment opportunities in this underserved segment.”

Fiber Provider Research Summary

• AT&T ranks #1 on the Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD for the third consecutive year.
• Frontier moves into the #8 position, up from ninth in the prior year.
• As a result, Zayo falls to #9, down from eighth position.
• Windstream enters the LEADERBOARD at #11, moving up from the Challenge Tier.
• Atlantic Broadband and GTT advance to the Challenge Tier, both moving up from the Market Player tier.
• Cincinnati Bell’s acquisition of Hawaiian Telecom, which was completed in 2018, is reflected in this analysis.
• Segra is the new brand name for the merged entity of Lumos Networks and Spirit Communications.

https://www.verticalsystems.com/2019/03/26/2018-fiber-lit-leaderboard/

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Zayo signs IaaS provider for East Coast data center

Zayo announced a major colocation contract with a global infrastructure as a service (IaaS) (IaaS) provider for space and power in a zColo East Coast data center.

The solution, which includes approximately 2,000 square feet of space and multiple hundreds of kilowatts of power, will serve as a virtual extension of one of the company’s facilities in the Southwest. The space and power will support the customer’s mission-critical processes.

“Zayo won this business because of our ability to deliver flexible and customized data center colocation solutions. In this case, our Ashburn facility will provide the customer with the scale needed for its East Coast business expansion,” said Bruce Garrison, senior vice president of Zayo’s zColo business segment. “We look forward to continuing to expand the relationship and to provide additional space and power in other key cities.”

Zayo’s zColo portfolio includes 51 data centers in more than 30 markets.

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Keysight and Qualcomm test first 5G NR data call in FDD mode

Keysight Technologies and Qualcomm announced the first 5G New Radio (NR) data call in the Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) mode.

The industry milestone was achieved using Qualcomm Technologies’ second-generation Snapdragon X55 5G modem with integrated multi-mode support and Keysight’s 5G network emulation solutions. Keysight enables device makers to validate 5G NR multi-mode (FDD and TDD) designs in both non-standalone (NSA) and stand-alone (SA) modes.

“Our close 5G collaboration with Keysight, initiated more than two years ago, has resulted in yet another great achievement. Such collaborations have accelerated our ability to power upcoming 5G launches in 2019 and enrich the lives of consumers,” said Prashant Dogra, vice president, engineering, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

“Keysight’s first-to-market 5G solutions enable OEMs using the Snapdragon X55 5G modem to speed validations of 5G devices that are used for a wide range of exciting use cases,” stated Lucas Hansen, senior director in Keysight's wireless test group. “These use cases include smartphones with download speeds of up to 7 Gbps, as well as industrial IoT, always-connected PCs and fixed wireless access applications.”

https://about.keysight.com/en/newsroom/pr/2019/01apr-nr19054.shtml

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Intel Capital invests in 14 start-ups

Intel Capital announced new investments totaling $117 million in the following 14 startups:

AI

Cloudpick Limited (Shanghai, China) is a smart retail technology provider. With proprietary computer vision, deep learning, sensor fusion and edge computing technologies, Cloudpick enables highly digitized, intelligent, cashier-free stores with grab-and-go shopping experiences. Cloudpick has collaborated with e-commerce companies, traditional retailers and payment partners worldwide to upgrade many brick-and-mortar stores’ shopping experiences.

SambaNova Systems (Palo Alto, California, U.S.) is a rapidly growing Silicon Valley-based company that is building the industry’s most advanced systems platform to run AI applications from the data center to the edge. Founded by industry pioneers and experts in systems hardware and software design from Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Stanford University, SambaNova Systems’ mission is to bring AI innovations discovered in deep research to enterprises and organizations in all industries around the world, creating AI for everyone, everywhere.

Untether AI (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is developing ultra-efficient, high-performance AI chips that will be the foundation for the next wave of innovation in AI. Untether AI has invented an entirely new type of chip architecture that is specifically designed for neural net inference by eliminating bottlenecks in data movement. This unique architecture moves data 1,000 times faster than traditional architectures, resulting in extreme performance and efficiency. The company was founded by a team of scientists, engineers and experienced entrepreneurs who have successfully brought to market more than 1 billion chips.

Zhuhai EEasy Technology Co. Ltd. (Zhuhai, China) is an AI system-on-chip (SoC) design house and total solution provider. Its offerings include AI acceleration; image and graphic processing; video encoding and decoding; and mixed-signal ULSI design capabilities. Its AI SoCs targeting video, automotive and smart devices will enter mass-production in late 2019.

Communications

Mighty Networks (Palo Alto, California, U.S.) is designed for brands and businesses to bring people together by offering community, content, online courses and subscription commerce in one place. The company is unique in serving a new breed of digitally native “creators with a purpose” selling experiences, connections and expertise to their followers – an emerging category of digital services called Experiential Commerce.

Pixeom (Santa Clara, California, U.S.) is redefining how enterprises manage hybrid cloud resources with its edge computing software platform that re-creates and orchestrates cloud functionality on-premise. It makes it easy to deploy and manage large-scale, geographically distributed infrastructure and workloads.

Polystream (Guildford, U.K.) is a deep-tech startup fundamentally changing how video games and demanding 3D applications are delivered via the cloud. Polystream’s Software Defined Imaging technology enables interactive graphics content to be streamed at unprecedented scale, with truly global reach.

Tibit Communications (Petaluma, California, U.S.) is developing next-generation devices to provide a broadband onramp to the home, office or cell site, managed virtually from the cloud to the user. Tibit replaces dedicated hardware boxes in carrier and enterprise networks with a small module connected to a standard Ethernet switch – providing significant savings of cost, power and space.

Healthcare

Medical Informatics Corp. (Houston, Texas, U.S.) is a software-based monitoring and analytics company. Its revolutionary Sickbay* platform archives, aggregates and transforms otherwise not-recorded, high-resolution waveform data across disparate devices to enable anywhere, anytime remote monitoring across the continuum of care. The same platform can then be leveraged to use machine learning and AI to deploy real-time, predictive, critical care analytics that get ahead of deterioration and risk and enable data-driven medicine and patient-centered care.

https://www.revealbio.com/Reveal Biosciences, Inc. (San Diego, California, U.S.) is creating a new generation of data-powered pathology to improve global healthcare. ImageDx, a proprietary deep-learning platform, delivers pathologists and scientists a novel class of actionable, quantitative data to accelerate research and enhance patient care.

Manufacturing

Landing AI (Palo Alto, California, U.S.) provides AI-powered SaaS solutions and corporate-level AI transformation programs to turn enterprises into AI companies. Founded by Dr. Andrew Ng, the Landing AI team enables companies in industries, including manufacturing and agriculture, to develop and execute cohesive AI strategies.

OnScale (Cupertino, California, U.S.) offers on-demand scalable engineering simulation software, empowering engineers to accelerate innovation across multiple industries, including next-generation technologies such as MEMS IoT, 5G, biomedicine and autonomous vehicles. OnScale combines powerful multiphysics solver technology, used and validated by Fortune 50 companies for over 30 years, with the speed and flexibility of cloud high-performance computing (HPC). By removing the constraints of legacy simulation tools, OnScale allows engineers to dramatically reduce cost, risk and time to market for cutting-edge technologies.

proteanTecs (Haifa, Israel) develops revolutionary Universal Chip Telemetry for electronic systems throughout their entire lifecycle, increasing their performance and reliability. By applying machine learning to novel data created by embedded agents, proteanTecs provides meaningful insights unattainable until today, leading to new levels of quality, reliability and scale.

Qolibri, Inc. (Roseville, California, U.S.) is a creative technical company developing breakthrough proprietary solutions that address problems in semiconductor subfabs. The Qolibri team has extensive expertise in semiconductor capital equipment technology and renewable energy. Qolibri technologies will change the landscape of the subfab, leading to substantially reduced chip manufacturing costs with positive environmental impact.

“Intel has driven disruption for the last 50 years, changing the way we live by making compute ubiquitous. Intel Capital is continuing that legacy of disruption with these investments,” said Wendell Brooks, Intel senior vice president and president of Intel Capital. “These companies are shifting the way we think about artificial intelligence, communications, manufacturing and health care – areas that will become increasingly essential in coming years as the linchpins of a smarter, more connected society.”

The investments extend Intel Capital’s recent strategy of taking larger, more strategic positions in portfolio startups. Each year, Intel Capital puts $300 million to $500 million into innovative companies across a wide range of emerging technologies making the impossible possible.

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Spirent appoints Eric Updyke as CEO

Spirent Communications named Eric Updyke as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Updyke replaces Eric Hutchinson, who is retiring after 37 years with the Group, including serving as CEO since 2013.

Most recently, Updyke was on the Executive Management team of Amdocs reporting directly to the CEO. In his capacity as Group President, Services at Amdocs Ltd he had global responsibility for the entire Managed Services, Testing and SI businesses. This business encompassed 10,000 employees and roughly $2 billion in revenue. Prior to that role, Eric was Division President for North America at Amdocs where he managed a $1 billion P&L and was responsible for the relationship with North American communications service providers. Prior to his time at Amdocs, he held executive roles at Nokia Siemens Networks and AT&T.

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Makai develops tools for planning subsea cable deployments

Makai Ocean Engineering is working with Facebook’s submarine cable group to develop automated tools for laying subsea cables.

Makai has identified two areas that automate repetitive tasks. The first is an “Automatic Rule Checker” for assisting the planners during the route engineering process and the second is an “Auto-Position Tool” for assisting the installers during the cable installation.

"From initial testing, we see great potential in the automatic rule checker tool to speed up the process of generating cable routes at bid stage. The new tool in conjunction with the good vector-based databases will ensure that the routes generated will meet our standards for route engineering best practices and will increase the consistency by reducing human errors," said feedback received from the Cable Route Engineering Group at Alcatel Submarine Networks, one of the largest users of the MakaiPlan software.

Makai Ocean Engineering is based in Hawaii.

https://www.makai.com

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Private equity firm acquires Kemp for its load balancer and ADCs

Mill Point Capital, a middle-market private equity firm focused on control-oriented investments in North America, has acquired Kemp Technologies.

Kemp, which is based in New York, offers load balancer and application delivery controller (ADC) solutions. The company was founded in 2000. It has regional hubs in Limerick, Ireland; Munich, Germany; Singapore and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Ray Downes, CEO of Kemp, commented, “We are thrilled to be partnering with Mill Point and are excited about their commitment to our ongoing development efforts and future growth opportunities. I am very proud of the strong technology foundation we have built and look forward to continuing our world-class innovation and service that is helping customers deliver an optimal application experience.”

Craig Adler, an Executive Partner with Mill Point, said, “Kemp is one of the most respected names in application delivery, and is at the cutting edge of distributed computing network architecture. We believe Kemp is positioned for further success given its ever-growing suite of high performance load balancer and ADC products and services, as well as its true platform ubiquity that supports enterprises of every size and workload requirement.”

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DOCOMO to sell its 24% stake in Hutchison Telephone HKG

NTT DOCOMO will sell its 24.1% stake in Hutchison Telephone Company Limited (HTCL), a mobile network operator in Hong Kong and Macau, and Hutchison 3G HK Holdings Limited (H3GHK) to Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings Limited (HTHKH).  The price is US$60 million.

After the deal closes in May 2019, HTCL will become a wholly owned subsidiary of HTHKH.

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Kingston intros high write endurance microSD cards

Kingston Digital introduced a line of High Endurance microSD cards designed for write-intensive application use such as home security and surveillance cameras, dash cams and body cams.

Kingston said its High Endurance microSD cards are engineered and tested for use in harsh conditions and are durable enough to protect from extreme temperatures, shock, water and x-rays.

“Surveillance footage captured by home security systems and dash cams can prove to be incredibly valuable. Consumers need to feel confident their memory cards are built to withstand extreme conditions while still providing a stable storage solution to capture critical recordings when they need it the most,” said Annette Chan, Flash card business manager, Kingston. “Dash cameras in vehicles and security cameras at home are becoming more commonplace and with the addition of our new High Endurance microSD card we’re able to meet the ever-growing demand for capturing hours of video monitoring content, while providing high performance, seamless recording and trusted Kingston reliability.”

Kingston’s High Endurance microSD cards are available in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities.

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Infinera appoints Chief Legal Officer

Infinera announced the appointment of David Teichmann as Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary.

Prior to joining Infinera, Teichmann served as Oclaro’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary from January 2014 until its acquisition by Lumentum in December 2018. Previously, he served as the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Trident Microsystems, Inc., a public fabless semiconductor company that sold television and set top box integrated circuits, from 2007 to 2012.

Teichmann holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Trinity College, a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a J.D. from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii.

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