Thursday, May 16, 2019

U.S. Dept of Commerce: Huawei restriction begins Friday

Wilbur Ross, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, announced that restrictions on the export of U.S. technology to Huawei begin on Friday.

Earlier, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, confirmed that Huawei and its affiliates have been added to the Bureau’s Entity List. The reason given is that "Huawei is engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interest."

For companies on the Entity List, a license must be issued by BIS for the sale or transfer of U.S. technology. A license may be denied if the sale or transfer would harm U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.

“This action by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, with the support of the President of the United States, places Huawei, a Chinese owned company that is the largest telecommunications equipment producer in the world, on the Entity List. This will prevent American technology from being used by foreign owned entities in ways that potentially undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “President Trump has directed the Commerce Department to be vigilant in its protection of national security activities. Since the beginning of the Administration, the Department has added 190 persons or organizations to the Entity List, as well as instituted five investigations of the effect of imports on national security under Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1962.”

https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2019/05/department-commerce-announces-addition-huawei-technologies-co-ltd

On Thursday, Huawei issued a statement condemning the decision by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), saying "This decision is in no one's interest. It will do significant economic harm to the American companies with which Huawei does business, affect tens of thousands of American jobs, and disrupt the current collaboration and mutual trust that exist on the global supply chain."

https://huawei.eu/media-centre/press-releases/media-statement-regarding-decision-bureau-industry-and-security-bis-us

FirstLight acquires Maine Fiber Company

FirstLight, which delivers fiber, Internet, data center, cloud and voice services to enterprise and carrier customers throughout the northeastern U.S., has acquired Maine Fiber Company (MFC), a dark fiber leasing company with a 1,100-route-mile, high-capacity fiber network in the state of Maine. Financial terms were not disclosed.

FirstLight said the MFC network adds unique routes into Canada including a cable landing, the Maritime Express Route from Nova Scotia to Boston, as well as additional diversity to FirstLight’s robust network.

MFC was established in 2009 to drive the construction of the Three Ring Binder - a network of three fiber rings encircling rural western, eastern and northern Maine. The network was built through a combination of a federal grant and private investment.

“Acquiring MFC is very exciting for FirstLight. We have a long-standing, positive working relationship with this organization and are impressed with what they have been able to accomplish since the company’s inception in 2009,” stated Kurt Van Wagenen, President and CEO of FirstLight Fiber. “The companies have leveraged their strong ties over the years to expand broadband access to customers in Maine and beyond.  We expect the integration process will be swift and seamless to our customers and stakeholders.”

http://www.mainefiberco.com/
https://www.firstlight.net/firstlight-acquires-maine-fiber-company/

ADTRAN's SmartOS gateways leverage Super-Vectoring

ADTRAN introduced its new SmartRG 652ac (SR652ac) residential and small business gateway with the ability to deliver highly competitive broadband—up to 700 Mbps — without service or customer disruptions via bonded super-vectoring (VDSL2 profile 35b) technology.

ADTRAN said this highly scalable fiber broadband extension technology is ideal for the rapidly growing MDU/MTU markets because it uses the existing in-building wiring to each unit. Further, service providers can run super-vectoring in parallel to other xDSL technologies in their access network, adding additional operational savings.

The SR652ac also provides advanced capabilities via its open software platform (based on OpenWrt), including self-service portals, self-healing Wi-Fi and subscriber analytics. When paired with the ADTRAN 1148SVX 48-port sealed broadband micronode, operators now have a highly scalable solution to create efficient and cost-effective whole-home and whole-business Wi-Fi environments without the time and expense of pulling new facilities to each unit.

“The design philosophy with SmartOS is to give service providers a single, open source-based, secure software framework so that providers gain consistency and commonality to reduce testing or qualification cycles and increase speed to market for new and innovative services,” ADTRAN’s Senior Vice President of Subscriber Solutions & Experience, Jeff McInnis, said. “We can significantly reduce the cost and resources required to introduce new solutions into a network and help our customers bring better services to their subscribers through our feature-rich, SmartOS platform—enhancing the experience for everyone.”

ADTRAN acquires SmartRG for Connected Home software platforms

ADTRAN has acquired SmartRG Inc, a supplier of open-source connected home platforms and cloud services for broadband service providers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

SmartRG, which is based in Vancouver, Washington, offers a portfolio of cloud-management, analytics, Wi-Fi-enabled residential gateways along with a SmartOS software platform.

SmartRG counts more than 3 million devices in service and over 1.3 million devices under management in North America, the Caribbean and South America. The company expects to scale and drive growth through its differentiated software solutions as more customers shift from closed, proprietary options to SmartOS—its open-source-based, cloud-enabled solution suite.

ADTRAN said SmartRG's Smart OS, together with its own ADTRAN Mosaic platform, provides full end-to-end management and orchestration solutions from cloud edge to subscriber edge. Service providers understand that bandwidth must now be delivered not only to the doorstep but down to every device within a home to meet consumer expectations.

Smartoptics debuts passive optical mux/demux and OADM

Smartoptics announced its H-Series platform for passive optical layer nodes, such as CWDM and DWDM multiplexers/demultiplexers and OADMs.

Smartoptics said its new passive multiplexing and OADM solutions take advantage of new component technology. Special attention has been paid to handling, compactness and flexibility, resulting in a 1 RU chassis housing a variety of filter modules and giving up to five times higher packing density than previous solutions.

The H-Series platform comprises a high-density 1 RU chassis that can be equipped with combinations of filter modules for state of the art CWDM and DWDM mux/demux and DWDM OADM applications.

The H-Series is fully compatible with the ITU optical grid and interconnects seamlessly with Smartoptics transponder and muxponder products as well as with other vendors’ products. It is available for immediate delivery, and shipments have already begun to initial customers.

Kent Lidström, CTO of Smartoptics, says: “Smartoptics’ long time experience of open line systems for CWDM and DWDM has taught us the importance of a cost-efficient passive optical networking platform. Therefore, we have used best of breed components to achieve maximum flexibility and compactness at the lowest possible cost when building the new H-Series. We can now proudly offer the smartest solution to your passive optical networking needs.”

Smartoptics is based in Oslo, Norway. The company was founded in 2006.

https://www.smartoptics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SO-DS-H-Series_overwiev_R4.0.pdf

IX Australia deploys Smartoptics’ low cost 100G Open Line System

Internet Exchange Australia (IX Australia) has deployed Smartoptics' DCP-M40 Open Line System and Pluggable DWDM QSFP28 PAM4 transceivers to provide high capacity links to metro locations in Sydney.

The new, automated, network was delivered by Independent Data Solutions (IDS) and provides IX Australia with lowest cost 40 x 100 Gb/s traffic capability over a single pair of fibers.

The new Smartoptics DCP-M40 Open Line System enables up to 40x100G wavelengths over spans exceeding 50km with fully automated addition of new channels for ease of use.

Oslo-based Smartoptics AB said space and power considerations were important factors in the technology choice due to the cost of colocation and available power in hosting facilities. The 1U form factor and max 45W power consumption for a fully loaded 40 channels system were significantly differentiating factors over more traditional coherent transponders.  

MACOM appoints Stephen G. Daly as CEO

MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings appointed Stephen G. Daly as its new President and CEO, effective immediately, following the resignation of John Croteau.

Croteau had served as President and Chief Executive Officer since December 2012. Mr. Croteau will be available to MACOM in an advisory capacity for the next two months to ensure a smooth transition.

Daly has served on MACOM’s Board of Directors since March 2015 and has over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. Prior to joining MACOM’s Board of Directors, Mr. Daly had served for almost ten years as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hittite Microwave, a provider of analog and mixed signal integrated circuits, modules and subsystems for commercial and military radio frequency, microwave and millimeterwave applications.

Ooredoo Qatar picks Nokia for 5G cloud native core

Ooredoo Qatar has selected Nokia to build a 5G cloud native core network.

Nokia's AirFrame solution, which will be deployed in Ooredoo's data centers in Doha, encompass Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs), including Mobile Core for Voice, with Cloud Packet Core, Subscriber Management Registers and Policy control on a cloud platform. The solution also includes Nokia CloudBand for virtual infrastructure management, Nokia NetAct, Nuage Networks for data center network automation, and Nokia Professional services.

Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Operating Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, said: "The modernization of our core network will enhance our capabilities to innovate with new services. It will also help us to meet additional demands for high-speed data services in general as well as bursts in demand, particularly in upcoming mega sporting events. Our 5G network will open the flood-gates for machine learning, automation and micro-services use-cases for consumer and business customers in the country."

Bernard Najm, head of the Middle East Market Unit at Nokia, said: "We are excited to partner with Ooredoo Qatar to set up a 5G core network that is truly 'cloud native' from the ground up, not just an evolution of current core solutions. Our solution supports all flavors of mobile access network technologies and enables our customers to bring new 5G services to market rapidly. The solution provides the low latency, high throughput and content-rich services that will support Ooredoo Qatar's business goals immediately and well into the future."

VMware to acquire Bitnami for app migration tools

VMware will acquire Bitnami, a start-up offering application packaging solutions for major cloud and Kubernetes environments. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Bitnami, which is based in San Francisco, has its roots in creating Windows and Linux installers for independent software developers. More recently, Bitnami has focused on packaging applications in ready-to-run virtual machines and cloud images to the world's leading cloud providers.

VMware said Bitnami will enable its customers to deploy application packages on any cloud— public or hybrid—and in the most optimal format—virtual machine (VM), containers and Kubernetes helm charts. Further, Bitnami augments VMware's existing efforts to deliver a curated marketplace to VMware customers that offers a rich set of applications and development environments in addition to infrastructure software.

https://cloud.vmware.com/community/2019/05/15/vmware-to-acquire-bitnami/