T-Mobile tests Standalone 5G with multivendor radio/core

T-Mobile completed a standalone 5G data session on a multi-vendor 5G radio access and core network -- an industry first according to the company.

“This major 5G breakthrough is another example of how the T-Mobile engineering team continues to innovate and drive the entire industry forward. I could not be more proud of them,” said Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer at T-Mobile. “5G brings a new era in wireless, and if our merger with Sprint is approved, the New T-Mobile will bring together the resources and vision necessary to ensure America has a network that’s second to none.”

The standalone 5G milestone data session was carried out at T-Mobile's Bellevue, Washington lab with the participation of Ericsson, Nokia, Cisco and MediaTek.

T-Mobile said it is on track to introduce standalone 5G in 2020.

https://www.t-mobile.com/5g

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Verizon expands 5G to areas of Atlanta, Detroit, Indy and Wash DC

Verizon launched its 5G Ultra Wideband service in four additional U.S. cities. Customers in parts of Washington DC, Atlanta, Detroit, and Indianapolis will now be able to access Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, joining Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Providence and St. Paul as Verizon’s first 5G mobility cities.

“Verizon continues its steady expansion of 5G Ultra Wideband service and is excited to bring the 5G future to Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis and Washington, DC,” said Kyle Malady, Verizon’s chief technology officer. “Customers in these cities are at the forefront of game-changing technology, with access to download speeds and bandwidth that will power the future of consumer, business and government mobile applications. Similarly, cities that embrace new technology, like 5G Ultra Wideband, have a leg up in competition to attract businesses and create jobs.”

Verizon’s 5G is typically available in dense, urban areas where people tend to congregate – public parks, monuments, outside museums, on college campuses and in stadiums.

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IDC: Worldwide public cloud service revenue hit $183B in 2018

The worldwide public cloud services market grew 27.4% year over year in 2018 with revenues totaling nearly $183 billion, according to results from the 2H 2018 release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker.

The growth rate was down slightly from 2018 but is still more than 4.5 times that of the IT industry overall.

"Our latest public cloud data continues to show robust growth – headed toward almost $500 billion by 2023 – and consolidating power positions across the board," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC. "The most intense and strategic consolidation – in the combined IaaS and PaaS segments – is being driven by developers' and enterprises' bets on which vendors will sustainably deliver tech innovation for the next decade and beyond."

"Software as a Service (SaaS) continued to be the most highly deployed cloud segment, representing a commanding 62.4% of the total cloud market revenues, including system infrastructure software (SIS). Adoption of cloud enterprise business applications like ERP, SCM, and HCM also accelerated across all segments with most buyers taking a SaaS-first or SaaS-also posture for new applications," said Frank Della Rosa, research director, Software as a Service at IDC.

Another key finding from IDC:

• The top 5 public cloud service providers accounted for 46.3% of all spending growth in 2018 and 35% of all 2018 spending, up 3 points from 2017. This continues a consolidation trend in the overall public cloud services market among the leaders, most pronounced in the combined Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) segments, in which the top 5 vendors accounted for a 63% share of spending.

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Equinix revenues increased 10% yoy in Q2

Equinix reported Q2 2019 revenue of $1.385 billion, up 10% over the same period last year and up 2% over the previous quarter. Net income and net income per share attributable to Equinix amounted to $144 million, a 22% increase over the previous quarter, or $1.69 per share.

Charles Meyers, President and CEO, Equinix stated: “Equinix had another strong quarter, as it continues to deliver distinctive and durable value for customers pursuing their digital transformation initiatives. As a variety of trends are making global businesses think differently about their infrastructure, Equinix is responding by both investing across its traditional strengths and layering in incremental capabilities that make it an easier-to-use, more accessible global platform. We see a large and expanding market opportunity, and we believe Equinix is uniquely positioned to capture this opportunity as customers prioritize digital transformation and adopt hybrid and multicloud as their architecture of choice.”

http://www.equinix.com

Equinix partners with Singapore's GIC on xScale Data Centers in Europe

Monday, July 01, 2019  Data Centers, Equinix  

Equinix has formed a joint venture with GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, to develop and operate xScaleTM data centers in Europe. The joint venture is initially valued at over $1 billion.

Equinix said initial facilities in the joint venture will serve the unique core workload deployment needs of a targeted group of hyperscale companies, including the world's largest cloud service providers. The facilities will be located on or proximate to some of Equinix's existing IBX campuses.xScale data centers will be managed and staffed by Equinix while ensuring seamless connectivity to the Equinix global platform, providing a consistent experience for the hyperscale companies.

Equinix cites two ways in which the new xScale data centers will provide hyperscale companies a differentiated value proposition from existing wholesale data center operators in two key areas:
xScale data centers will offer access to Equinix's comprehensive suite of interconnection and edge services. These services will tie into the hyperscale companies' existing access points at Equinix, thereby increasing the speed of connectivity to their existing and future enterprise customers.
xScale data centers will be engineered to meet the technical and operational requirements and price points of core hyperscale workload deployments. This enables hyperscale companies to consolidate core and access point deployments into one global provider to streamline and simplify their rapid growth.

Equinix has been working for years with hyperscale operators, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Google Cloud. Currently, global deployments from the top hyperscale companies exceed $500 million in annual revenue at Equinix, with interconnection-rich retail deployments representing the most rapid growth segment of their deployments.

Under the deal, GIC will own an 80% equity interest in the joint venture and Equinix will own the remaining 20% equity interest. Equinix will sell both its London LD10 (retaining part of that business under a lease back) and Paris PA8 IBX data centers and the associated leases, as well as certain other development interests, to the joint venture. A significant portion of London LD10 and Paris PA8 are already leased.

The cmpanies envision additional new xScale data centers in Amsterdam, Frankfurt (two sites) and London. These initial six facilities, when fully built out, will provide approximately 155 megawatts (MW) of power capacity.

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CyrusOne posts Q2 revenue of $251 million, low colocation churn (0.6%)

CyrusOne reported revenue of $251.5 million for the second quarter, compared to $196.9 million for the same period in 2018, an increase of 28%. The increase in revenue was driven primarily by a 20% increase in occupied colocation square feet (CSF) from organic growth and the Zenium acquisition, a $14.7 million increase in equipment sales, and additional interconnection services.

Net loss was $(8.5) million for the second quarter, compared to net income of $105.9 million in the same period in 2018. Net loss for the second quarter included an $8.5 million loss on the Company’s equity investment in GDS, a leading data center provider in China. Net loss per diluted common share3 was $(0.08) in the second quarter of 2019, compared to net income per diluted common share of $1.06 in the same period in 2018.

“Our results this quarter reflect very strong financial performance, and the midpoints of our current 2019 guidance ranges imply revenue growth of 19%, Adjusted EBITDA growth of 18%, and Normalized FFO per share growth of 10% compared to 2018,” said Gary Wojtaszek, president and chief executive officer of CyrusOne. “We continue to be one of the fastest-growing REITs, and the investments we have made over the past two years building out our international platform should enable us to continue to grow at industry-leading rates through 2020 and beyond.”

Some key metrics from the quarterly report:

• The weighted average lease term of the new leases, based on square footage, is 67 months (5.6 years), and the weighted average remaining lease term of CyrusOne’s portfolio is 54 months (taking into account the impact of its backlog). 
• Recurring rent churn for the second quarter was 0.6%, compared to 1.1% for the same period in 2018.
• In Q2, CyrusOne completed construction on 59,000 CSF and 21 MW of power capacity across four projects in Raleigh-Durham, the New York Metro area, London, and Frankfurt. 
• CSF leased as of the end of the second quarter was 89% for stabilized properties and 84% overall. 
• CyrusOne has development projects underway in Northern Virginia, Dallas, the New York Metro area, Austin, Frankfurt, London, and Amsterdam that are expected to add approximately 146,000 CSF and 55 MW of power capacity.

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Fujitsu delivers 5G base station products to NTT DOCOMO

Fujitsu Limited has begun delivery of 5G base station products, comprising of Central Unit (CU, 1) and Radio Unit (RU, 2), to NTT DOCOMO for its commercial 5G network.

The 5G CU products that Fujitsu has started delivering realize the 5G system through a proprietary software design from the company using software-defined radio technology, which can implement different wireless technologies on the same hardware.

The 5G RU products have built-in antennas (which had conventionally been installed externally) equipped with beam forming, enabling efficient network deployments. These RU products have a lineup consisting of 3 types of equipment that support 5G frequencies (the 3.7 GHz band, the 4.5 GHz band, and the 28 GHz band). he products are compliant with the O-RAN fronthaul interface specifications. Using this open interface, Fujitsu's products can connect to various vendors CU/RU products. The products also support 3GPP's (Release 15) specifications.

Fujitsu said it has been working with NTT DOCOMO to develop a CU and RUs that comply with the O-RAN fronthaul interface specifications. T

Hiroshi Nakamura, Executive Vice President and Member of the Board of Directors, NTT DOCOMO, states "NTT DOCOMO is leading the O-RAN Alliance and contributing to the creation of specifications for open RAN. By utilizing 5G base station products compliant with open interfaces, we will build a flexible and efficient 5G network that can handle a variety of use cases, including the B2B2X business in the 5G era. We expect that Fujitsu's CU and RU products will contribute to such development. We will continue to expand our 5G network and accelerate the creation of 5G services and markets together with our partners in a variety of industries."

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IDC: Smartphone shipments drop 2.3% in Q2

Worldwide smartphones shipments declined 2.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2019, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. China and the United States experiencing the sharpest quarterly declines.

Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 333.2 million phones in 2Q19, which was up 6.5% over the previous quarter.

"Despite a lot of uncertainty surrounding Huawei the company managed to hold its position at number two in terms of market share," said Ryan Reith, program vice president with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "When you look at the top of the market – Samsung, Huawei, and Apple – each vendor lost a bit of share from last quarter, and when you look down the list the next three – Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo – all gained. Part of this is related to the timing of product launches, but it is hard not to assume this trend could continue."

Some highlights:

• the top 5 vendors accounted for 69% of the total market volume
• the top 10 vendors accounted for 87%
• Samsung maintained the top position in the market for 2Q19 and returned to annual growth of 5.5% with a total of 75.5 million smartphones shipped. 
• Huawei saw its shipment volumes decline 0.6% when compared to 1Q19, which could be regarded as better than expected given U.S.-China trade tensions. 
• Shipment volumes in China hit an all-time high and accounted for 62% of Huawei's 2Q19 total with 36.4 million units. 
• Apple shipped 33.8 million new iPhones during 2Q19, which was down significantly from the same quarter a year ago. 
• Xiaomi experienced a small year-over-year decline during the quarter with a total of 32.3 million smartphones shipped.
• OPPO performed well in China and India, which together accounted for nearly three-quarters of its shipments in 2Q19. 

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Qualcomm cites slowing demand, pressure from China

Qualcomm reported quarterly revenue of $9.6 billion, including licensing revenues of $4.7 billion resulting from the settlement with Apple and its contract manufacturers, consisting of a payment from Apple and the release of certain of our obligations to pay Apple and its contract manufacturers customer-related liabilities.

The company said it is seeing slower demand for 4G devices as the market prepares for the global transition to 5G. In addition, Qualcomm cited continued weakness in China demand as Huawei gains share inside China and Qualcomm's other Chinese OEMs manage inventory ahead of 5G.

Qualcomm CEO stated:  CEO, Steve Mollenkopf during the call:

“Today, we are the only chipset vendor that has 5G system level solutions spanning both sub6 GHz and millimeter bands.  This is key to global deployments.”On the product side, our 5G design wins have doubled since our last earnings call.  We now have over one hundred fifty 5G designs launched or in-development using our 5G chipsets. In addition to core chipsets, virtually all our 5G design wins are powered by our complete RF Front-End solutions for 5G Sub6 and / or millimeter wave.  We are the only company today delivering an end-to-end comprehensive modem-to-antenna solution. Put simply, our position – at the center of developing this incredible technology – represents a large opportunity for our stockholders."

“By the first calendar quarter of 2020, we anticipate reaching the inflection point as our financial results begin to reflect the benefits of our substantial efforts over the years in to bring 5G to the market worldwide.”

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Twilio tops $275.0 million in sales, up 86% year-over-year

Twilio posted revenue of $275.0 million for the second quarter of 2019, up 86% from the second quarter of 2018 and 18% sequentially from the first quarter of 2019. Total revenue includes revenue from Twilio SendGrid starting on February 1, 2019 (the date of acquisition).

Base revenue was $256.7 million for the second quarter of 2019, up 90% from the second quarter of 2018 and 16% sequentially from the first quarter of 2019. Base revenue includes revenue from Twilio SendGrid starting on February 1, 2019 (the date of acquisition).

GAAP loss from operations was $93.7 million for the second quarter of 2019, compared with GAAP loss from operations of $22.0 million for the second quarter of 2018. Non-GAAP income from operations was $1.5 million for the second quarter of 2019, compared with non-GAAP income from operations of $2.2 million for the second quarter of 2018.

“We celebrated a big milestone in the second quarter, crossing the $1 billion annualized revenue run rate,” said Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “We see this as just the beginning, as we have the opportunity to change communications and customer engagement for decades to come. This is Day One and we're just getting started.”

Key metrics

• 161,869 Active Customer Accounts as of June 30, 2019, compared to 57,350 Active Customer Accounts as of June 30, 2018. Active Customer Accounts in the current period include the contribution from Twilio SendGrid customer accounts.
• Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate was 140% for the second quarter of 2019, compared to 137% for the second quarter of 2018. Twilio SendGrid results do not impact the calculation of this metric in the current period.
• 2,369 employees as of June 30, 2019.

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ATLAS Space opens nine new ground stations

ATLAS Space Operations activated nine new ground stations in its network, bringing its total of ground stations to 13. The company is aiming to activate an additional seventeen sites by 2020. The company is activating ground startions at a pace of one per month.

The new ground stations cover a range of polar and equatorial locations, including: Sodankyla, Finland; Cedar, Michigan; Harmon, Guam; Mojave, California; Chitose, Japan; Tahiti, French Polynesia; Longovilo, Chile; Ningi, Australia; and Usingen, Germany. Coming soon in Sept 2019 are Brewster, Washington and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“The new locations are highly strategic and enhance the geographical dispersion of the ATLAS ground network,” said Sean McDaniel, CEO and Founder of ATLAS. “Due to the locations of the sites we prioritized, our customers can realize near real-time latency when it comes to getting their valuable and time-sensitive data.”

Notably, eight of the new stations are capable of receiving data in S and X-band frequencies.

https://www.atlasground.com

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Ixia's CloudLens delivers packet-level visibility into clouds

Keysight Technologies announced Ixia CloudLens Self-Hosted 5.1, a new version of the company’s private cloud visibility platform which offers enterprises and service providers packet-level visibility into restricted cloud environments by enabling East-West traffic monitoring.

“Today’s network operations and security teams struggle to gain packet-level visibility into restricted cloud environments, and the addition of containers to virtual traffic increases that challenge,” said Scott Register, vice president, product management of Keysight’s Ixia Solutions Group. “CloudLens Self-Hosted 5.1 enhances visibility into virtual traffic, including containers in private clouds and data centers — enabling customers to clearly identify potential security threats and ensure optimal network and application performance.”

Ixia said its CloudLens platform for private, public and hybrid cloud visibility enables packet capture, as well as filtering and analysis in any cloud environment, eliminating blind spots and delivering actionable intelligence to security, analytics, and forensics tools. CloudLens Self-Hosted 5.1, formerly CloudLens Private, bridges the gap between cloud and physical networks by extending complete visibility to virtualized environments and inter-virtual workloads.

Key features:

• virtual taps that enable monitoring of Kubernetes inter-Pod traffic in container environments, as well as VM to VM monitoring to gain packet-level access to network data
• filtering at the source, as the only platform that aggregates, filters, and processes packets virtually to save bandwidth and reduce latency
• a platform-agnostic environment that supports VMware, Microsoft, OpenStack, and KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisors, as well as Kubernetes for deployment flexibility
• an integrated CloudLens Sensor Management Platform which enables seamless management in the private cloud/data center from the CloudLens Manager

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Xilinx completes Solarflare acquisition -- SmartNICs

Xilinx completed its acquisition of Solarflare, a provider of high-performance, low latency networking solutions for customers spanning FinTech to cloud computing. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal was first announced in April.

Earlier this year, the two companies demonstrated a single-chip FPGA-based 100Gb SmartNIC, processing 100 million packets per-second receive and transmit, all at less than 75 watts.

Xilinx to acquire Solarflare for SmartNIC solutions

Wednesday, April 24, 2019  Xilinx  

Xilinx agreed to acquire Solarflare Communications, a provider of high-performance, low latency networking solutions for customers spanning FinTech to cloud computing. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Xilinx said the acquisition enables it to combine its FPGA, MPSoC and ACAP solutions with Solarflare's ultra-low latency network interface card (NIC) technology and Onload application acceleration software. The target is new converged SmartNIC solutions, accelerating Xilinx's "data center first" strategy.


Xilinx and Solarflare have been collaborating on advanced networking technology for the last two years, with Xilinx becoming a strategic investor in 2017. The two companies recently demonstrated their first joint solution – a single-chip FPGA-based 100G SmartNIC, processing 100 million packets per-second receive and transmit, all at less than 75 watts.

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Submer opens North America HQ in Asburn

Submer Technologies, a company based in Barcelona that specializes in immersion cooling systems - has chosen Ashburn, Virginia for its new North American headquarters.

Submer's immersion cooling submerges servers in a proprietary dielectric fluid that has 1000-times the cooling capacity of air – delivering higher performance in less space at less than half the power consumption of a traditional, air-cooled environment.

“We need to be where our customers are,” said Daniel Pope, CEO of Submer Technologies. “When it came time to locate our North American division, Ashburn quickly rose to the top of the list. The amount of critical infrastructure and the diversity of operators make it the perfect location for Submer.”

https://www.submer.com/about

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