Google announces Equiano cable from Portugal to South Africa

Google unveiled plans for new private subsea cable connecting Lisbon, Portugal and Cape Town, South Africa with branching units along the west coast of Africa.

The Equiano subsea cable, which is named for Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy, will include a branching unit to Nigeria.

Google plans to use state-of-the-art space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology to achieve approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region.

The cable will be the first to incorporate optical switching at the fiber-pair level, rather than the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching. Google says this design will greatly simplify the allocation of cable capacity.

Equiano is fully funded by Google. Alcatel Submarine Networks was awarded a contract in Q4 2018. The first phase of the project, connecting South Africa with Portugal, is expected to be completed in 2021.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/introducing-equiano-a-subsea-cable-from-portugal-to-south-africa

Google to build private "Dunant" cable from Virginia to France

Wednesday, July 18, 2018  Google, Subsea  

Google is planning a new transatlantic subsea cable system linking the east coast of the United States to Europe to bolster its global network.

Dunant, which is named in honor of Swiss businessman and humanitarian Henri Dunant, will be a four-fiber pair cable system spanning over 6,400km from Virginia Beach to the French Atlantic coast.

Google has selected TE SubCom to build the Dunant submarine cable system. Activation is expected in late 2020.

Google said it continues to consider three options when considering its subsea connectivity needs: (1) purchasing capacity on existing cables (2) joining a consortium to build new cables (3) building a private cable system. In this case, there is a growing need for capacity between its cloud data center regions in Virginia and Belgium.

“We are proud to be working with Google on this important cable system and to be helping to increase internet performance for all,” said Sanjay Chowbey, president of TE SubCom. “The Dunant cable system will be built using SubCom’s industry-leading A1 cable family, which is optimized for projects compatible with higher DCR. As a leading supplier of submarine cable systems, we look forward to continuing to work with our global partners to create more accessible and faster internet access.”

Henri Dunant was the founder of the Red Cross and recipient of the first Nobel Peace Prize.

https://blog.google/products/google-cloud/delivering-increased-connectivity-with-our-first-private-trans-atlantic-subsea-cable/
http://www.te.com/global-en/about-te/news-center/subcom-dunant-cable-system-google-071618.html

Google commissions own subsea cable from CA to Chile

Tuesday, January 16, 2018  Chile, Google, Submarine Cable, Subsea, TE Subcom, Undersea  

TE Subcom has been awarded a contract by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, to build a subsea cable from California to Chile. A ready-for-service date is expected in 2019.

The Curie Submarine Cable will be a four fiber-pair subsea system spanning over 10,000 km from Los Angeles to Valparaiso. It will include a branching unit for future connectivity to Panama.

The project is believed to be the first subsea cable to land in Chile in 20 years.

Google joins Havfrue and HK-G subsea cable projects

Tuesday, January 16, 2018  Data Centers, Google, Submarine Cable, Subsea, Undersea  

Google announced its participation in the HAVFRUE subsea cable project across the north Atlantic and in the Hong Kong to Guam cable system, both of which are expected to enter service in 2019.

In addition, Google confirmed that it is on-track to open cloud regions (data centers) in the Netherlands and Montreal this calendar quarter, followed by Los Angeles, Finland and Hong Kong.

HAVFRUE is the newly-announced new subsea cable project that will link New Jersey to the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark with a branch landing in County Mayo, Ireland. Optional branch extensions to Northern and Southern Norway are also included in the design. The HAVFRU system will be owned and operated by multiple parties, including Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Facebook, Google and others. Aqua Comms, the Irish cable owner/operator and carriers’ carrier, will serve as the system operator and landing party in U.S.A., Ireland, and Denmark. Bulk Infrastructure of Norway will be the owner and landing party for the Norwegian branch options. The HAFVRUE subsea cable system will be optimized for coherent transmission and will offer a cross-sectional cable capacity of 108Tbps, scalable to higher capacities utilizing future generation SLTE technology. SubCom will incorporate their Wavelength Selective Switching Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (WSS-ROADM) for flexible wavelength allocation over the system design life. It is the first new cable system in almost two decades that will traverse the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the U.S.A. TE Subcom is the system supplier.

The 3,900 kilometer Hong Kong - Guam Cable system (HK-G) will offer 48 Tbps of design capacity when it comes into service in late 2019. It features 100G optical transmission capabilities and is being built by RTI Connectivity Pte. Ltd. (RTI-C) and NEC Corporation with capital from the Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan's ICT and Postal Services Inc. (Japan ICT Fund), along with syndicated loans from Japanese institutions including NEC Capital Solutions Limited, among others. In Hong Kong, the cable is slated to land in Tseung Kwan O (TKO) and will land in Piti, Guam at the recently completed Teleguam Holdings LLC (GTA) cable landing station. HK-G will land in the same facility as the Southeast Asia - United States Cable System (SEA-US).

Google also noted its direct investment in 11 cables, including those planned or under construction:

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Trump allows U.S. tech shipments to Huawei

President Trump will allow the resumption of shipments of U.S. technology to Huawei. At a press conference following the G20 meetings in Osaka, Japan, Trump said the issue of Huawei should be saved until the end of the newly-resumed trade negotiations.

Trump's comments on Huawei were redacted by the White House as follows:

Q:  Did you agree that Huawei can sell to the U.S. or that U.S. companies can sell to Huawei?

THE PRESIDENT:  U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei.  I’m talking about equipment where there is no great national emergency problem with it.  But the U.S. companies can sell their equipment.  So we have a lot of the great companies in, Silicon Valley and based in different parts of the country, that make extremely complex equipment.  We’re letting them sell to Huawei.

Q: Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times. Can I just ask, first, one clarification?

THE PRESIDENT: Sure.

Q: Are you saying you’re taking Huawei off the Commerce Department entity list?

THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. No, no. We’re going to be talking about Huawei, but we are going to be supplying equipment from our companies. Our companies make billions and billions of dollars’ worth of equipment. But we are not discussing Huawei with President Xi yet. I want to see — before we start getting into that, I want to see where we end up. We have to — we have a national security problem, which to me is paramount. Very important.

Q: But are you taking Huawei off the Commerce Department entity list?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re talking about that. We have a meeting on that tomorrow or Tuesday.

Q: Thank you, Mr. President.  I actually have a Russia question but I wanted to quickly clarify: Is Meng Wanzhou’s case also going to need to wait until the very end?  Or is it possible the U.S. would drop the extradition effort?

THE PRESIDENT:  When what?  On what?

Q: Ms. Meng from Huawei.  The top financial (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT:  We didn’t discuss Ms. Meng.  We didn’t — that was not discussed.  We did discuss Huawei but we didn’t discuss her situation.

The sudden reversal from the Trump administration drew some challenges from his own party on Capitol Hill.

If President Trump has in fact bargained away the recent restrictions on #Huawei, then we will have to get those restrictions put back in place through legislation.

And it will pass with a large veto proof majority.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 29, 2019

If President Trump has agreed to reverse recent sanctions against #Huawei he has made a catastrophic mistake.

It will destroy the credibility of his administrations warnings about the threat posed by the company,no one will ever again take them seriously. https://t.co/jEhHcblsVG

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 29, 2019

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-press-conference-osaka-japan/

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Huawei refreshes its campus switching portfolio

Huawei refreshed its campus networking portfolio with the rollout of 16 new models of its CloudEngine S-series access, aggregation, and core switches. The refreshed switches offer common management for wired and wireless connectivity and are designed for enterprise adoption of Wi-Fi 6.

At the high end, the flagship CloudEngine S12700E campus core switch uses Huawei's new, in-house Solar chipsets to increase switching capacity to a record high of 57.6 Tbps.  It introduces upgraded network automation and AI-powered intelligent O&M capabilities. It also boasts the largest single-slot bandwidth, highest 100GE port density, and largest switching capacity among all comparable products.

"Campus networks, which serve as the foundation for constructing a future-proof digital platform for enterprises, are shifting their focus from data connectivity to service connectivity. As such, building intent-driven campus networks are at the top of our agenda," said Zhao Zhipeng, President of the Campus Network Domain, Huawei's Data Communication Product Line. "In the Wi-Fi 6 era, campus networks should take on new characteristics, including ultra-large capacity, 10-millisecond ultra-low latency, zero-configuration service rollout, and self-healing from network faults. Campus networks should also use an open architecture, facilitating smooth evolution from traditional campus networks to networks that are intelligent and simplified."

Huawei said its newest CloudEngine campus switches are designed for:

Automated management: provides a one-stop network management center that automates network planning, deployment, policy, and monitoring across WLAN, LAN, and WAN through Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), without the need for traditional Command Line Interfaces (CLIs).
Intelligent O&M: Faults can be accurately and quickly rectified only when users' network experiences can be quantitatively measured. Huawei has upgraded its Machine Learning (ML)- and AI-powered intelligent O&M system. This new system provides quantitative experience evaluation, root cause analysis, and intelligent fault prediction, enabling network faults to be located and resolved in minutes.
All-layer openness: the Huawei CloudCampus Solution is designed with all-layer openness to simplify the upgrade and evolution of enterprise networks. Currently, Huawei has verified successful multi-vendor interoperability with more than 800 models of network devices from mainstream vendors worldwide; cooperated closely with over 40 partners in network management, authentication, security, and other fields; and developed joint solutions with more than 30 business partners around the world. Huawei has also built 26 Joint Validation Labs (JVLs) globally that enable quicker and smoother rollout of services through joint solution verification.

A one-hour webcast introducing the new portfolio is posted here:



https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/6/huawei-all-new-cloudengine-campus-switches

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Huawei and China Telecom introduce 5G Super Uplink

Huawei and China Telecom introduced a 5G Super Uplink solution featuring TDD/FDD coordination, high-band/low-band complementation, and time/frequency domain aggregation. Super Uplink is supported from end to end by Huawei 5G technologies.

The 5G Super Uplink implements the time-frequency domain aggregation of TDD and FDD in the uplink frequency band. This increases uplink spectrum resources of NR, boosts the uplink capability of the 5G network, reduces latency, and improves the utilization rate of the uplink spectrum of 2.1 GHz/1.8 GHz.

At a launch event at last week's MWC Shanghai, the companies hosted a 5G Super Uplink demo. The test results showed that the experienced uplink rate of 5G UEs in the cell center was increased by 20% to 60%, the experienced uplink rate of 5G UEs at the cell edge was increased to 2 to 4 times, the air interface latency was reduced by about 30%, and the URLLC services were enabled.

The Huawei Balong 5000 chipset, customer-premises equipment (CPE), and Mate 20 X were also displayed at the event.

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/6/chinatelecom-huawei-5g-super-uplink-innovation-solution

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China Mobile implements intent-driven 5G transport with Huawei

China Mobile Zhejiang, in partnership with Huawei, has deployed an intent-driven 5G transport network that leverages Slicing Packet Network (SPN) technology.

SPN is used to enforce service level agreement (SLA)-based intelligent route selection for vertical industry applications, such as the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and smart grid. T

So far, China Mobile Zhejiang has established nearly 1,000 5G base stations and deployed Huawei's Network Cloud Engine (NCE) in its commercial network, creating China's first commercial site for the intent-driven 5G transport network. Huawei's NCE allows for automatic site addition and intelligent clock synchronization, improving both the base station service provisioning efficiency and clock synchronization deployment efficiency by over 85%. In-situ flow information telemetry (iFIT) helps achieve fast fault demarcation and location, greatly improving network O&M efficiency.

Existing equipment is being reused at the core and aggregation layers. At the access layer, 10GE/50GE access rings have been constructed to meet the massive data access requirements of 5G base stations.

"Huawei is honored to have supported China Mobile Zhejiang in building this world-leading intent-driven 5G transport network. This has also been a very successful application of our 5G transport solution," said Hank Chen, President of Service Router Domain of Huawei Data Communication Product Line. "Huawei will deepen our collaboration with China Mobile Zhejiang to help the company continue to lead in 5G transport and achieve business success."

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/6/chinamobile-zhejiang-research-institute-huawei-world-intent-driven-5g

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Orange sells its remaining stake in BT for GBP 486 million

Orange has sold its 2.5% residual stake (41 million shares) in BT Group plc for a net amount of GBP 486 million.  The shares were acquired by BT.

• Orange acquired the interest in BT in 2016 through BT's acquisition of UK operator EE, a 50/50 joint venture between Deutsche Telekom and Orange, through a transaction valued at approximately GBP 12.5 billion. Under the agreement, Orange received approximately GBP 3.4 billion in cash and a 4% stake in the combined BT-EE entity; Deutsche Telekom received a stake of 12% in BT, with a representative of Deutsche Telekom to be appointed to the BT board.

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Huawei: Ecosystem backs 5th Gen Fixed Network based on 10G PON

At last week's MWC Shanghai, industry partners launched "The 5th Generation Fixed Network: A Gigabit Future Is Now" initiative based on 10G PON technology. 

Partners include the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), Broadband Development Alliance, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, Ovum, China UHD Video Industry Alliance, China Telecom, China Unicom, and Huawei.

In his keynote speech at the forum, Ao Li, Director of the Technology and Standards Research Institute of CAICT and Deputy Secretary General of the Broadband Development Alliance, said: "From the perspective of the fixed network development history, we have witnessed the narrowband era (64 Kbps) represented by the PSTN/ISDN technology, broadband era (10 Mbps) represented by the ADSL technology, ultra-broadband era (30–200 Mbps) represented by the VDSL technology, and megabit era (100–500 Mbps) represented by the GPON/EPON technology. Now we are entering the 5th generation, gigabit broadband era featuring the 10G PON technology."

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/6/fixed-network-fifth-generation-10g-pon

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