Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Next Gen Network Automation - AI inside China Mobile



AI is key for next-gen network transformation. Dr. Junlan Feng, General Manager of the AI and Intelligent Operation R&D Center & Chief Scientist at China Mobile, discusses the significance of AI and how AI coupled with automation is key to future networks.

https://nginfrastructure.com/network-automation/


Telia Carrier adds Ashburn-Atlanta DWDM route

Telia Carrier announced a new latency-optimized DWDM route between its existing infrastructure in Ashburn, Virginia, and Atlanta, Georgia, via Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Telia Carrier said the resiliency offered with the new route is unique in this region and provides three North/South options available to Telia Carrier customers along the East Coast, ensuring high availability.

Telia Carrier has also invested in metro network rings to provide seamless access to additional data centers in the dynamic growth areas of Ashburn and Reston, Virginia, and Atlanta, Georgia. With more than 2,000 customers worldwide, the expansion is a continuation of the carrier’s organic growth story and geographic expansion to better serve existing markets and reach new ones.

“We consistently hear from our customers that they need more diversity on routes between major North American cities. This protects against service interruption, which is essential for a first-rate customer experience in today’s competitive markets. This new expansion in the South East offers flexibility on several levels and lays the groundwork for future route investments in North America,” explained Staffan Göjeryd, CEO, Telia Carrier. “We’re committed to delivering a customer experience second-to-none. By adding new routes between Tier 1 cities and connectivity into Tier 2-3 markets on the way, we underpin this commitment with tangible network enhancements to serve both new and existing customers.”

Telia Carrier adds DWDM routes in North America

Telia Carrier has expanded its North American network with the addition of two new diverse and latency-optimized DWDM routes between New Jersey and Northern Virginia.

This includes metro expansions with additional points of presence (PoPs) in the Secaucus area to seamlessly serve New Jersey and the greater New York area. The expanded network also provides the capability to extend to new submarine cable landing stations in Virginia and New Jersey.

The new PoPs in Secaucus are running the latest generation of Infinera coherent ICE4 100G technology and enhance the local availability of high-speed IP Transit, Cloud Connect, Ethernet and IPX services for operators, content providers and enterprises alike.

Telia Carrier opens terabit scale PoP at NJFX

Telia Carrier has deployed a new network Point-of-Presence (PoP) delivering multi-terabit capacity at the NJFX Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus.

The new network infrastructure provides resilient network options for customers wanting diverse connectivity throughout North America. In addition, Telia Carrier’s extensive network in Europe enables seamless reach and unique diversity to connect from the cable landing point to extended destinations across Europe.

Telia Carrier’s new PoP in the NJFX facility provides high capacity, flexibility, and access to multiple reliable, diverse routes. By leveraging the Havfrue/AEC2 subsea cable system located at NJFX, Telia Carrier customers can now reach Denmark directly and transit the Nordics, Baltics, and can access four unique fiber routes going into Russia. Organizations located at NJFX can now access the Seabras cable system with direct routes into South America.

“Telia Carrier’s terabit scale capacity expansion into NJFX is a perfect embodiment of NJFX’s mission to enable the resilient global connectivity and capabilities for our customers and carrier partners,” said Gil Santaliz, CEO, NJFX. “Enterprises, financials, and service provider customers can now connect directly into Telia Carrier’s network and access a seamless network solution with terrestrial backhaul routes that reach key points of presence across the East Coast and beyond.”

“We designed our architecture at NJFX to support high capacity and huge demand ahead for expanded network reach and resiliency,” said Staffan Göjeryd, CEO, Telia Carrier. “At the NJFX CLS, we offer maximum flexibility and extensions into the rest of the Telia Carrier global network and tying it into the recently announced expansion of the East Coast corridor where we added two new routes between New Jersey and Northern Virginia.”

GTT upgrades European backbone routes with Infinera

GTT Communications has upgraded its fiber network across several of its European route to enhance the capacity and performance of its Tier 1 global IP network.

Specifically, GTT has upgraded routes that connect network points of presence in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris, including the subsea link between the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, along with an additional route in southern Europe that connects Madrid and Marseille.

GTT has also deployed more fiber capacity on its metro networks in Paris and Marseille. The upgrade to the Marseille metro network extends to multiple subsea cable landing stations. Additionally, GTT has expanded its European network footprint by deploying a new point of presence in Belgrade, Serbia.

GTT utilized Infinera’s FlexILS line system and high-performance ICE4 optical engine with instant bandwidth to complete the upgrades.

“Europe is a major market for GTT, and we are continuing to invest in our advanced network infrastructure to support clients’ ever increasing bandwidth requirements,” stated Rick Calder, GTT president and CEO. “This is a further demonstration of GTT’s commitment to deliver on its purpose to connect people across organizations, around the world and to every application in the cloud.”

GTT to acquire KPN International for EUR 50 million

GTT Communications agreed to acquire KPN International for approximately €50 million in cash, on a cash and debt-free basis.

KPN International, which is headquartered in the Netherlands and is a division of KPN N.V., operates a global IP network serving enterprise and carrier clients.

GTT said the acquisition augments its the scale and reach of its Tier 1 global IP network in Europe. KPN International's network spans 21 countries, including long-haul fiber routes and metro rings in Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris. It has more than 400 strategic enterprise and carrier clients.


EllaLink and Telxius collaborate on Brazil-Portugal subsea cable

The EllaLink Group and Telxius signed a collaboration agreement for international subsea capacity and terrestrial connectivity in Latin America, including cable landing facilities in Fortaleza, Brazil.

The complementary infrastructure owned by EllaLink and Telxius will enable European traffic to reach Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other key cities in Brazil and across Latin America.

EllaLink is an open state-of-the-art 4 fiber pair submarine cable system currently under construction. It will provide the first direct fiber route between Europe and Latin America.  The

Rafael Arranz, Chief Operating Officer of Telxius for its Cable Business, said: “We are proud to closely work with EllaLink on this project, which will further advance communications between Europe and Latin America. This collaboration will leverage on the extensive Telxius’ subsea cable network and its terrestrial extensions across Latin America. In particular, Telxius’ Fortaleza cable landing station interconnects subsea cables stretching towards three continents: America (Central and North), Africa and Europe (with EllaLink). Telxius’ BRUSA, with its 138 Tbps, is currently the highest capacity and lowest latency subsea cable connecting the Americas, potentially extending EllaLink’s reach and ability to serve their customers even further.”

Diego Matas, Chief Operating Officer of EllaLink, added: “I am delighted to announce our collaboration with Telxius which supports EllaLink’s primary objective of providing advanced products and services on a carrier neutral and open access basis. The Telxius facility in Fortaleza provides the ideal landing solution for a next generation subsea system like EllaLink, while strengthening Telxius’ transatlantic route diversity.”

https://telxius.com/en/ellalink-and-telxius-collaborate-to-bring-next-generation-connectivity-to-latin-america-and-europe/

EllaLink begins Marine Route Survey for Brazil-Portugal cable

Alcatel Submarine Networks has finalized the Cable Route Study and mobilized the marine survey vessel for the EllaLink submarine cable system. A marine route survey will be conducted over the coming months.

EllaLink will be a state-of-the-art 4 fiber pair submarine cable system linking Europe and Latin America with up to 72 Tbps of capacity. The low latency EllaLink route avoids the congestion of the North Atlantic.

EllaLink plans to be Ready for Service by the end of 2020.

https://ella.link/2019/05/06/ellalink-announces-commencement-of-marine-route-survey-activities/

F5 Networks supplies NFV for Rakuten Mobile

F5 Networks confirmed that it is supporting Rakuten Mobile's fully virtualized, cloud-native mobile network.

Specifically, Rakuten Mobile is using F5’s network functions virtualization (NFV) capabilities to optimize its new mobile network and accelerate its path to 5G services in 2020.

F5 said it has provided a full-suite N6/SGi-LAN solution consisting of virtualized CGNAT, SGi Firewall, DNS Transparent Cache, and IP Traffic Optimization Functions to deliver enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) services. F5’s NFV capabilities and offerings enabled Rakuten Mobile, Inc. to:

  • Simplify and optimize service orchestration
  • Ensure application availability, performance, and security
  • Have unmatched freedom and agility in deployment of services
  • Enable a higher throughput, low-latency network and allow predictable scaling for services

Earlier this year, F5 announced several new solutions and enhancements designed to allow service providers to launch 5G services. These offerings enable service providers to maximize the investments in their current 4G networks, while optimizing their infrastructures with the scale to securely deploy emerging 5G.

“Rakuten, one of Japan’s most innovative and well-known brands, is an ideal company to partner with on strategic projects like this,” said James Feger, VP and General Manager of Service Provider business at F5.

“After years of preparing for 5G, we’re seeing progress as service providers like Rakuten begin to implement the infrastructure to make its promise a reality,” Yuichi Gonda, Regional VP at F5 Networks Japan, added. “With F5’s proven carrier-grade solutions, service providers like Rakuten Mobile can optimize their networks, monetize new 5G solutions and applications, and ensure world-class security of their network and subscribers.”

Orange to provide international roaming for Rakuten

Orange is providing international data roaming services for Rakuten Mobile.

Specifically, Orange provided Rakuten with a complete roaming solution that enables Rakuten to directly connect with carriers in others countries via IPX network connection, supporting with industry-leading technical expertise on-site that allowed the network to be built in record time.

Orange operates as a mobile network operator in 27 countrie. Orange is an established leader in the provision of worldwide roaming services to operators and has long demonstrated its ability to manage complex wholesale outsourcing projects in the fields of roaming, voice and data services.

France-IX updates its IP backbone with Nokia

France-IX, the premier Internet Peering Service Provider in France, has selected Nokia to upgrade its IP backbone.

The update will use the Nokia 7750-SR-s IP router to provide a higher port density to accommodate anticipated growth and the evolution of France-IX’ service offerings. Deployment of the new platform is due to start in Paris and Marseille this year with upgrades to all PoPs to be completed progressively from 2020.

These will also allow a smooth upgrade path from VPLS to EVPN (Ethernet VPN), as well as the ability to offer network automation and Telemetry. The new backbone will enable France-IX to be more flexible, allowing it to automate the provisioning of new services and cutting the time to their activation to less than a day from receiving a request from resellers and France-IX Marketplace sellers.

"We are very pleased to partner with France-IX as it takes another leap forward in renewing its infrastructure by selecting Nokia’s latest generation of powerful IP routers,” says Rafael De Fermin, Senior Vice President Europe and MEA for Nokia’s IP and Optical business. “Among the most innovative IXPs, France-IX is keen to scale 100G capacity and deliver 400G interconnection on a stable, programmable platform that leverages automation and reduces time to market for new services."

“We chose Nokia as our long-term partner because it offers the most advanced technology to homogenise the whole foundation for our IXP platform infrastructure starting with the renewal of our backbone and working towards a broader objective of achieving a long-term homogenous platform for all our PoPS,” says Simon Muyal, Chief Technical Officer at France-IX. “This major investment – the highest made by France-IX since its creation – will give us outstanding stability and the ability to meet our anticipated growth in terms of increased demand for capacity. We look forward to being able to scale valuable new service offerings, automate network operations, or rapidly deploy new services without constraints.”

http://www.franceix.net

Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier launches Encrypted Lambda Service

Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier, in collaboration with Ciena, has developed a new Encrypted Lambda service that encrypts data on hardware located at the client’s site and protects it over Layer 1.



Stuart Evers, Vice President, Access & Transport Management, Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier, explained: “Our Encrypted Lambda solution is truly an innovation. Other providers use traditional methods, which are software based over Layer 3 or 4. That makes encryption CPU intensive, slower and expensive. Because utilizing software requires more servers, adds latency and needs superior set-up and management capabilities.”

Jamie Jefferies, Ciena’s Vice President & General Manager of Europe said: “Data security remains more crucial than ever for businesses around the globe. With Ciena’s WaveLogic Encryption solution, Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier can deliver always-on, proven inflight encryption combined with market-leading performance to its customers whereever they need it.”

 https://globalcarrier.telekom.com/business-areas/access-transport/lambda-connect/encrypted-lambda

FCC to set rules Z-axis mobile location

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released his proposal that would help first responders locate people who call 911 from wireless phones in multi-story buildings. 

Specifically, it would establish a vertical (or “z-axis”) location accuracy metric of three meters for 80% of indoor wireless 911 calls.  The FCC will vote on this proposal at its next meeting on November 19, 2019.

“If you call 911 for help, emergency responders need to know where to find you,” said Chairman Pai.  “But that can be a challenge if you make a wireless 911 call from a multi-story building, like many apartments and offices.  Even if first responders know which building you’re in—that is, your horizontal location—they may still need your vertical location to determine which floor you’re on.  Next month, the Commission will address this public safety gap.  If adopted, this new rule would help first responders locate emergency callers more quickly and accurately, which will save lives.  Establishing a z-axis metric of three meters is a major step forward, and I’m grateful for the broad support it’s received from the public safety community, including our nation’s firefighters.”

Gogo buys satellite capacity deal with Eutelsat

Gogo, which provides inflight Internet connectivity for aircraft, and Eutelsat Communications announced a new satellite capacity agreement for high-speed inflight connectivity services.

As part of the new multi-year agreement, Gogo has leased HTS bandwidth on EUTELSAT 10B satellite, to be leveraged over Europe and the Middle East. The new satellite is set to launch in 2022.

“We are advancing capacity capabilities given the growing demand for high-speed inflight connectivity services,” said Oakleigh Thorne, president and CEO of Gogo. "Through our partnership with Eutelsat, Gogo 2Ku will continue to enable the best passenger experience for global airlines.”

"We are thrilled about our ongoing relationship with Gogo, a long-standing partner and a leading provider for inflight connectivity,” said Philippe Oliva, Eutelsat’s Chief Commercial Officer. “This agreement highlights the relevance of our newly ordered EUTELSAT 10B for inflight connectivity and we look forward to supporting Gogo as they increase capacity in Europe and the Middle East to provide the best services to their airline partners.

A10 Networks returns to profitability as revenues rise 7% yoy

A10 Networks reported Q3 2019 revenue of $52.8 million, up 7 percent compared with $49.2 million in Q2 2019. GAAP gross margin was 77.4 percent. GAAP net income was $0.2 million, or $0.00 per basic and diluted share, and non-GAAP net income was $1.8 million, or $0.02 per basic and diluted share.

“We delivered results in the third quarter that were in-line to above our most recent guidance. Our revenue increased 7% sequentially, and we were pleased with improving demand from our service provider vertical, which grew 36% versus the prior quarter. We also saw continued strength in 5G security in South Korea, Japan, and the Middle East,” said Lee Chen, president and chief executive officer of A10 Networks. “We are optimistic as we look to the fourth quarter and beyond, due to improving demand signals from several key North America accounts, expanded 5G security infrastructure deployments on the part of service providers across the globe, an ongoing positive mix shift toward more recurring maintenance and subscription revenue, and the fact that the company is laser-focused on making progress to accelerate operating income.”

https://investors.a10networks.com/news/default.aspx

Chile's Gtd deploys Infinera

Gtd, a Chilean multi-service telecommunications provider, has deployed Infinera’s 7300 Multi-haul Transport Platform, mTera Universal Transport Platform, and Transcend software-defined networking (SDN) solutions to increase capacity across its terrestrial network in Chile and its subsea networks.

Gtd said its new "Prat" subsea optical fiber cable will allow the creation of a digital connectivity ring that will prepare Chile for the arrival of technological investments and position the country as a gateway to other countries in South America.

“Deploying Infinera enabled us to make significant upgrades in our metro and long-haul fiber networks, bringing much-needed broadband services to users across Chile and South America,” said Fernando Gana Barroilhet, Chief of Infrastructure Strategy at Gtd. “Infinera’s robust solutions increase our capacity and enable us to seamlessly scale our network to help us broaden our addressable market with high-performance services and set us on the right path for future services and applications.”

https://www.infinera.com/press-release/South-Americas-Gtd-Increases-Capacity-with-Infinera-Optical-Transport-Solutions