The cost to operate a network is much higher than the cost to initially deploy a network says Ben Baker, Senior Director, Cloud/SP Marketing at Juniper Networks. Service providers realize they need more agility and speed. Juniper Networks is working with SPs to virtualize service delivery points farther out to the edge while keeping management and control centralized.
Ethernet Switch Data Center port shipments are forecast to surpass 60 million by 2024, with more than 50 percent of the port shipments will operate at 100 Gbps, 400 Gbps and 800 Gbps - according to a recent report from Dell'Oro Group.
“800 Gbps, 400 Gbps, as well as new waves of 100 Gbps will be enabled by faster SerDes technologies and higher speed optics,” said Sameh Boujelbene, Senior Director at Dell’Oro Group. “Optics will continue to play a vital role in the data center switch market. The availability of high volume, low-cost optics is crucial in driving any speed transition. Additionally, as network speed increases beyond 800 Gbps, pluggable optics will hit density and power issues. Hence it will become imminent for the industry to adopt alternative options such as Co-Packaged Optics (CPO). We expect such transition to bring major disruptions to the supply chain as it requires new business and serviceability models,” added Boujelbene.
Additional highlights from the Ethernet Switch – Data Center 5-Year Forecast Report:
Demand for 400 Gbps from the broader market is expected to ramp by end 2020 and in early 2021.
400 Gbps and higher speeds are predicted to account for more than 25 percent of port shipments by 2024.
5G mobile backhaul transport equipment revenue will reach $3 billion by 2024. Demand for 5G backhaul is expected to drive multiple years of growth for the total mobile backhaul transport market for the next few years, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.
“We anticipate the Mobile Backhaul Transport market to return to a period of growth as operators roll out 5G,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Hence, we are predicting that demand for backhaul equipment will grow at an average annual rate of four percent for the next four years, surpassing $5 billion annually. We suspect this demand will mostly further the sales of fiber backhaul equipment initially, but in the long term, there will be a growing share of new deployments using wireless backhaul,” Yu added.
Highlights from the Microwave Transmission & Mobile Backhaul 5-Year Forecast Report:
Over 50 percent of Mobile Backhaul Transport revenue and over 35 percent of Microwave Transmission revenue will be from equipment deployed in 5G networks by 2024.
5G is also expected to drive the use of transport systems to increase the span between mobile radios and baseband units. As such, we forecast a strong adoption of Mobile Fronthaul during the forecast period.
Spectra7 Microsystems and Luxshare-ICT demonstrated OSFP format Active Copper Cables (ACCs) using Spectra7 technology in a live demo passing 400Gbps Ethernet traffic generated by a 12.6 Tbps switch.
Luxshare-ICT, which offers high performance interconnects and cable assemblies, has chosen Spectra7’s GaugeChanger technology for integration into this new line of OSFP Active Copper Cables. The embedded Spectra7 GC2502 Linear EQ Chips dramatically increase the length of standard copper cables by almost 3 times. This enables a significant number of cables in the 3 to 7m range to remain copper-based instead of having to switch to optical solutions which are dramatically higher in power and cost.
“Spectra7 continues its leadership in helping to drive the future of the data center interconnects industry, and we are proud to be collaborating with them to demonstrate next-generation high-speed solutions,” said Jinhua Chen, Enterprise GM at Luxshare-ICT. “Our continued collaboration with Spectra7 highlights our vision to build relationships that benefit our customers, partners, and provide flexible solutions to their toughest challenges.”
“Luxshare is a dynamic technology and market leader in the data center interconnect market," said Spectra7 CEO Raouf Halim. "Their adoption of our GaugeChanger™ technology has already led to the first 25G deployment in China in 2019 and we are now well on our way to significant 400G deployments in the US in 2020."
The demo was conducted at DesignCon this week in Santa Clara, California.
Spectra7 Microsystems and Molex showcased 400 Gbps Active Copper Cables (ACCs) at DesignCon in the Santa Clara, California.
Molex recently began shipping its Passive Copper QSFP-DD (Quad Small Form Factor–Double Density) Cable Assemblies in volume production and the same customers are asking for Active Copper versions for longer lengths.
"Spectra7 has created a compelling solution to address the dramatically increasing power and cost of data center interconnects," said Greg Walz, advanced technical marketing manager, Molex. “We are seeing significant interest from our largest customers for 400 Gbps ACCs with Spectra7 technology and are pleased to be showcasing this product at DesignCon 2020.”
"Molex is a technology and market leader in the hyperscale interconnect market," said Spectra7 CEO Raouf Halim. "The adoption of our 400 Gbps GaugeChanger™ technology by Molex is a significant milestone in the coming volume deployment of GaugeChanger™, our data center product line."
Amazon Web Services (AWS) generated revenue of $9.954 billion during Q4 2019, up 34% compared to a year earlier. Operating income for AWS was up 19% year over year, reaching $2.596 billion for the quarter.
On an annualized basis, AWS is on a $35 billion run rate and represents 12% of Amazon's overall revenue.
Some additional highlights for AWS during Q4:
AWS announced several significant new customer commitments and migrations during the quarter spanning major industries, including finance with Western Union, FINRA CAT, LLC, a subsidiary of FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), and Klarna, a leading global payments provider and bank; media with Fox Corporation, and ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, Europe’s leading satellite and cable broadcaster; sports with a new player health and safety initiative with the NFL, the Seattle Seahawks, Bundesliga, Germany’s premier football league, and Formula One Group; energy with BP; pharmaceuticals with Novartis; and hospitality with Best Western Hotels & Resorts, among others.
•AWS announced three Arm-based instances (M6g, C6g, R6g) powered by AWS’s new Graviton2 processors, that deliver up to 40% better price and performance than current x86 processor-based instances. These new Arm-based instances are powered by the AWS Nitro System, a combination of dedicated hardware and lightweight hypervisor, enabling faster innovation and enhanced security for customers at a much lower cost.
AWS announced the general availability of AWS Outposts, a fully-managed service that extends AWS infrastructure and services to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility. AWS Outposts offers customers the same AWS hardware infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to build and run applications on premises and in the cloud for a truly consistent hybrid experience. AWS compute, storage, database, and other services run locally on Outposts, and customers can access the full range of AWS services available in the region to build, manage, and scale on-premises applications using familiar AWS services and tools.
AWS announced AWS Local Zones, a new type of AWS infrastructure deployment that places AWS compute, storage, database, and other select services closer to large population, industry, and IT centers where no AWS Region exists today. With the opening of the first AWS Local Zone in Los Angeles (LA), developers will have the ability to deploy applications that require single-digit millisecond latencies to end-users also in LA. AWS Local Zone customers will be able to use their compute, storage, database, and other select services locally in LA, while also being able to seamlessly connect back to the rest of their workloads running in the AWS U.S. West (Oregon) Region or other AWS Regions a customer may be using.
AWS announced AWS Wavelength, which enables developers to build applications that deliver single-digit millisecond latencies to mobile devices and users by deploying AWS compute and storage at the edge of the 5G network. With AWS Wavelength, developers can serve use cases that require ultra-low latency like machine learning inference at the edge, autonomous industrial equipment, smart cars and cities, Internet of Things (IoT), and Augmented and Virtual Reality. AWS is partnering with Verizon on making AWS Wavelength available across the U.S., and is collaborating with other leading telecommunications companies, including Vodafone and SK Telecom, to launch AWS Wavelength across Europe and South Korea in 2020, with more global partners coming soon.
CenturyLink was selected by the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as a key provider for its Wide Area Network and related high-speed network services.
Under the contract, CenturyLink will provide Ethernet, virtual private network, intrusion prevention and self-healing optical wave ring services with speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 100 Gbps at each of SSA's more than 1,700 locations in the U.S. and around the world, including data centers, field offices, foreign service posts, headquarters, program service centers, regional offices, remote operations centers and external business partner sites. CenturyLink said the award also includes secure high-speed cloud connectivity, proactive distributed denial of service protections and a network operations center that supports all SSA activities and its more than 60,000 employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year.
The SSA has a dual carrier network approach. CenturyLink won the task order with the largest scope and is responsible for all single and dual carrier requirements, including architecting and deploying SSA's 100 gigabit business-critical data replication network.
"Social Security's network, called SSANet, is the central nervous system of all SSA operations, which touch every American from birth throughout their entire life," said David Young, CenturyLink senior vice president, public sector. "SSA continues to place its trust in CenturyLink as a mission-critical network provider by extending and expanding its relationship with us as we help the agency modernize its IT systems that provide crucial services to the American public."
As part of its quarterly financial, provided the following operational updates:
5G now live in over 50 locations; EE found to have broadest 5G network by RootMetrics
Openreach accelerates FTTP build at c.26k premises passed per week; 2.2m FTTP premises passed to date
Openreach awarded two of three lots to provide superfast speeds to Scotland; vast majority of build to be FTTP
Consumer fixed ARPC £38.2, down 4% year on year due to decline in voice revenue; postpaid mobile ARPC £20.3, down 5% due to impact of regulation and continued trend towards SIM-only; RGUs per address 2.38
Postpaid mobile churn remains low at 1.3% in Q3 despite impact of auto switching; fixed churn at 1.3% in Q3 down from 1.4% in prior year following customer experience improvements and new pricing strategy
Capital expenditure for the nine months to 31-Dec-2019 reached £2,877m. Up £251m excluding BDUK funding deferral, driven by fixed and mobile network investment
"The security of our network is paramount for BT. We therefore welcome and are supportive of the clarity provided by Government around the use of certain vendors in networks across the UK and agree that the priority should be the security of the UK’s communications infrastructure. We are in the process of reviewing the guidance in detail to determine the full impact on our plans and at this time estimate an impact of around £500 million over the next 5 years," stated Philip Jansen, Chief Executive, BT.
It’s been seven years since a group of telecom service providers launched the initiative that came to be known as NFV. We decided to sit down with 12 service providers from around the world to understand the status of their NFV deployments, the business benefits they have realized, and the challenges they see ahead.
In this video, Charlie Ashton, President at 21K Consulting working with AvidThink, talks about some key findings from the carriers we surveyed and what to expect in the 2020 State of NFV Report.
Alcatel Submarine Networks introduced a new 3 Degree WSS ROADM unit designed to reduce the number of fiber pairs in the branch, leading to significant cost savings in subsea networks. The new ASN 3D WSS ROADM provides full WSS device flexibility maintaining East+West connectivity between trunk and branch. This simplifies the topology of complex networks and facilitates the implementation of branches on branches.
Key features:
Full flexibility in traffic routing thanks to WSS component
Submarine grade reliability thanks to WSS redundancy
Fully configurable through active supervisory commands
Embedded management of noise loading and traffic confidentiality
Fully managed by ASN SN10 Network Management
Alain Biston, President and CEO of Alcatel Submarine Networks said: “The introduction of innovation 3D design as part of ASN WSS ROADM product family addresses the market demand for more connectivity and flexibility at a reasonable cost, keeping the same level of quality and reliability. It effectively complements the SDM1 by ASN product portfolio to support all traffic demands and decrease cost per bit. ASN is strongly supporting its customer initiatives to provide a reliable internet infrastructure to all communities around the world and will continue to innovate to support this common goal.”
ASN confirmed that its new 3D WSS ROADM has already been selected for a major submarine cable system project.
Revenue for Microsoft Azure rose 62% yoy in the fourth quarter of 2019 compared to a year earlier.
Overall, Microsoft reported 4Q19 revenue of $36.9 billion, up 14% yoy. Operating income was $13.9 billion, up 35% yoy. Net income was $11.6 billion, up 38% GAAP and 36% non-GAAP.
“We are innovating across every layer of our differentiated technology stack and leading in key secular areas that are critical to our customers’ success,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Along with our expanding opportunity, we are working to ensure the technology we build is inclusive, trusted and creates a more sustainable world, so every person and every organization can benefit.”
Highlights:
Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $11.8 billion and increased 17% (up 19% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
Office Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 16% (up 18% in constant currency) driven by Office 365 Commercial revenue growth of 27% (up 30% in constant currency)
Office Consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 19% (up 20% in constant currency) with continued growth in Office 365 Consumer subscribers to 37.2 million
LinkedIn revenue increased 24% (up 26% in constant currency)
Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 12% (up 15% in constant currency) driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 42% (up 45% in constant currency)
Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $11.9 billion and increased 27% (up 28% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
Server products and cloud services revenue increased 30% (up 32% in constant currency) driven by Azure revenue growth of 62% (up 64% in constant currency)
Enterprise Services revenue increased 6% (up 7% in constant currency)
Revenue in More Personal Computing was $13.2 billion and increased 2% (up 3% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
Windows OEM revenue increased 18% (up 18% in constant currency)
Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 25% (up 27% in constant currency)
Surface revenue increased 6% (up 8% in constant currency)
Spectra7 Microsystems and Molex are demonstrating 400 Gbps Active Copper Cables (ACCs) at DesignCon in the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California.
GaugeChanger is an innovative and disruptive technology that allows copper to extend much longer lengths without the cost and power penalty of optics. It works equally well at 25 Gbps NRZ and 50 Gbps PAM-4 enabling new connector standards of 100, 200 and 400 Gbps.
Molex recently began shipping its Passive Copper QSFP-DD (Quad Small Form Factor–Double Density) Cable Assemblies in volume production and the same customers are asking for Active Copper versions for longer lengths. The Molex system along with Spectra7’s GaugeChangerTM technology offers up to 12 times less power, while providing significant cost savings over optical solutions for hyperscale customers.
"Spectra7 has created a compelling solution to address the dramatically increasing power and cost of data center interconnects," said Greg Walz, advanced technical marketing manager, Molex. “We are seeing significant interest from our largest customers for 400 Gbps ACCs with Spectra7 technology and are pleased to be showcasing this product at DesignCon 2020.”
"Molex is a technology and market leader in the hyperscale interconnect market," said Spectra7 CEO Raouf Halim. "The adoption of our 400 Gbps GaugeChangerTM technology by Molex is a significant milestone in the coming volume deployment of GaugeChangerTM, our data center product line."
Inphi released its second-generation, high performance 112Gbps SerDes IP solution in 7nm.
Inphi said its new Capella SerDes IP is designed to ensure high performance across the most demanding environments for network connectivity and data transmission.
The announcement builds on Inphi’s track record of having shipped over a million 56Gbps and 112Gbps ports to date.
“Delivering the next generation of SerDes IP technology is a significant milestone for Inphi and for the industry, as we enable ASIC and silicon product vendors to take advantage of our state-of-the-art Capella solution,” said Kumaran Siva, AVP, Networking Interconnect, Inphi. “With our 56Gbps Syrma IP and our new next-generation 112Gbps Capella IP offering, we are raising the bar for what is possible in networking and AI applications.”
Luxshare-ICT and Inphi are showcasing 800G OSFP over copper at the DesignCon 2020 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California.
The demonstration shows how Inphi’s new SerDes IP solution, Capella, can robustly drive the 800G Luxshare copper cables with exceptional BER performance.
“We are extremely excited in our joint demo with Inphi. The Capella IP can easily drive the passive cable for total channel loss <= 35dB. When we integrate other Inphi 100 Gbps PAM4 retimer in our OSFP copper cables, the solution will enable long reach beyond 35dB. The technology can robustly drive our 800G copper cables with exceptional BER performance. Our ongoing collaboration with Inphi brings solutions to the market to address industry-wide challenges,” said Henning Hansen, VP of Global Sales at Luxshare-ICT.
“Having the ability to drive 100Gbps across cost efficient copper cabling is critical for broadening the market penetration for 100Gbps across the data center. At DesignCon 2020, Luxshare and Inphi will be showcasing the new Inphi Capella 112Gbps SERDES IP driving 800Gbps high performance copper cable products,” said Kumaran Siva, AVP, Networking Interconnect, Inphi.
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) will deploy a submarine cable linking the three Tokelau atolls of Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo in the South Pacific.
The contract covers an unrepeated (OALC5) 250km-long open cable based on 2 fiber pairs and built by ASN. The cable will provide a connection to the archipelago up to 20 Tbps.
This new subsea cable will be interconnected with the Southern Cross NEXT submarine cable, also built and deployed by ASN.
The Tokelau Cable is co-funded by the Government of New Zealand and the Government of Tokelau, and the cable will be managed by Teletok on behalf of the two government partners. The system will be ready at the beginning of 2021.
AT&T reported 4Q2019 revenue of $46.8 billion (~$48.0 billion excluding HBO Max investment) versus $48.0 billion in the year-ago quarter. Net income was $2.4 billion, or $0.33 per diluted common share, versus $4.9 billion, or $0.66 per diluted common share, in the year-ago quarter.
AT&T cited growth in domestic wireless services and strategic and managed business services revenues partially offset declines in revenues from domestic video, legacy wireline services and WarnerMedia.
The company completed or announced about $9 billion in non-core asset monetizations in the fourth quarter.
“We delivered what we promised in 2019 and we begin this year with strong momentum in wireless, with HBO Max set to launch in May and our share retirement plan well underway,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “Our 2020 outlook positions us to deliver meaningful progress on our 3-year financial and capital allocation plans as we continue to invest in growth opportunities and create value for our owners, as we did last year.”
Some highlights
Mobility service revenues in Q4 were up 1.8% and 1.9% for the full year.
Total wireless revenues (including equipment) were up 0.8% in 4Q and for the full year.
Q4 229,000 postpaid phone net adds; nearly 1 million total phone net adds for full year (483,000 postpaid, 506,000 prepaid)
FirstNet coverage more than 75% completed
A total of 19.5 million premium TV subscribers – 945,000 net loss
AT&T TV NOW subscribers – 219,000 net loss
191,000 AT&T Fiber net adds; IP broadband revenue growth of 2.7%
Approximately 600,000 U.S. business buildings are now lit with fiber from AT&T, enabling high-speed fiber connections to more than 2.5 million U.S. business customer locations.
Saudi Telecom Company agreed to acquire Vodafone’s 55% shareholding in Vodafone Egypt for US$2.392 million (SAR 8,970m3). This implies a total enterprise value of US$4.350 billion for Vodafone Egypt.
Nasser al Nasser, Chief Executive of stc, said: “The potential acquisition of Vodafone Egypt is in line with our expansion strategy in the MENA region. The transaction, which is still subject to detailed due diligence, confirms stc’s eagerness to maintain a leadership position not only in the KSA, but also in the wider region. Vodafone Egypt is the leading player in the Egyptian mobile market and we look forward to contributing further to its continuing success.”
Nick Read, Chief Executive of Vodafone, said: “I am deeply proud of our business in Egypt, being the clear number one leader in the market. Under stc, I believe they will continue to flourish. This transaction is consistent with our efforts to simplify the Group to two differentiated, scaled geographic regions - Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, it will reduce our net debt and unlock value for our shareholders. We look forward to continuing our close relationship with the business through a Partner Market agreement, and building on our significant shared service operations in Egypt, known as _VOIS (Vodafone Intelligent Solutions).”
Mellanox Technologies posted 4Q2019 revenue of $379.8 million, an increase of 30.9 percent, compared to $290.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. GAAP gross margins were 66.2 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to 65.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. GAAP net income was $73.9 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $42.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. Non-GAAP net income was $129.3 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $77.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. GAAP net income per diluted share of $1.29 in the fourth quarter, compared to $0.78 in the fourth quarter of 2018.
“Mellanox delivered record revenue, operating income, and cash flow from operations in both the fourth quarter and the full year 2019. All our major product lines grew in the fourth quarter, demonstrating the advantages of our broad product portfolio. We are shipping over 1.2 million units per quarter of ConnectX and Bluefield adapters, driven by strong adoption of our smart offload and secure in-network compute capabilities. We continue to lead with our Ethernet adapters at data rates of 25 gigabits per second and above. Our Ethernet switch business is expanding at a healthy rate as well, attaining sequential revenue growth of 25% for two quarters in a row. Powered by our Spectrum product line with data rates of up to 400 gigabits per second, our Ethernet switch solutions are being deployed in a wide range of applications for hyperscale, cloud, storage, and financial markets. We expect to see continued growth with the introduction of Spectrum-3 products very soon,” said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO of Mellanox Technologies.
“Fourth quarter revenue for our InfiniBand solutions grew 19% sequentially, and 2019 annual revenue grew 29% compared to 2018, driven by the strong adoption of our 200 gigabit per second HDR solutions in the high performance computing, artificial intelligence, cloud, and storage market segments. HDR InfiniBand accelerates nearly one-third of the new InfiniBand platforms on the recent TOP500 supercomputing list and has been selected to connect some of the most powerful supercomputing installations in 2020, including Meteo France, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the Eni Supercomputing platform, and several national and Exascale programs,” continued Waldman. \
The UK will permit Huawei to participate in the rollout of 5G and gigabit-capable networks with certain conditions. The decision defied pressure from the U.S. government to ban Huawei on security grounds.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has recommended the "high risk vendors" should be:
Excluded from all safety related and safety critical networks in Critical National Infrastructure
Excluded from security critical ‘core’ functions, the sensitive part of the network
Excluded from sensitive geographic locations, such as nuclear sites and military bases
Limited to a minority presence of no more than 35 per cent in the periphery of the network, known as the access network, which connect devices and equipment to mobile phone masts
For its part, Huawei issued the following statement:
"Huawei is reassured by the UK government’s confirmation that we can continue working with our customers to keep the 5G roll-out on track. This evidence-based decision will result in a more advanced, more secure and more cost-effective telecoms infrastructure that is fit for the future. It gives the UK access to world-leading technology and ensures a competitive market.
"We have supplied cutting-edge technology to telecoms operators in the UK for more than 15 years. We will build on this strong track record, supporting our customers as they invest in their 5G networks, boosting economic growth and helping the UK continue to compete globally."
Coherent port shipments on DWDM systems are forecast to reach 1.3 million by 2024, according to a recent report from Dell'Oro Group. A major share of these port shipments will operate at 400 Gbps.
Additional highlights from the Optical Transport 5-Year Forecast Report:
Total Optical Transport market consisting of Multiservice Multiplexers and WDM systems are forecast to reach nearly $18 billion by 2024.
Deployment of WDM systems in metro applications is projected to drive over half of the WDM market over the next five years.
“We are projecting coherent port shipments on DWDM systems to grow at an 18 percent CAGR,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Further igniting this market will be all the new, higher baud rate coherent line cards entering the market this year that will set the path for many more years of growth. On a capacity shipment basis, we think the highest share of coherent line cards will be operating at 400 Gbps, a wavelength speed that will have the perfect balance of capacity, performance, and price in both metro and long haul networks,” continued Yu.
The OPENQKD project, whose mission is to create and trial a secure communication network across Europe based on quantum key distribution (QKD), will leverage ADVA's FSP 3000 and FSP 150 platforms.
ADVA will provide optical and Ethernet encryptors as well as open line systems for multiple testbed locations.
OPENQKD, which is funded by the European Commission, seeks to accelerate the commercial adoption of QKD technology and to promote interoperability through an ecosystem of 38 partners, including academic institutions, network operators, and manufacturers of network and QKD equipment.
“By bringing our technology and expertise to the OPENQKD project, we’re helping to address vital security issues in critical communications. Whether in telecoms or government networks, quantum hacking puts the long-term security of sensitive data at risk,” said Helmut Grießer, director, advanced technology, ADVA. “Our ConnectGuard™ encryption technology has earned a strong reputation for protecting service provider and enterprise networks while ensuring highest capacity, lowest latency and maximum scale. In OPENQKD, we’ll demonstrate in practical use cases how our ConnectGuard™ technology can be augmented with QKD to make encrypted communication resistant against quantum computer attacks.”
The world’s first commercial-grade quantum test network link is now operational between the BT Labs in Suffolk and the Cambridge node of the UK’s new Quantum Network, which is being built by the Quantum Communications Hub, a collaboration between research and industry, supported by the UK’s National Quantum Technologies Programme. The new connection stretches from BT’s Adastral Park research campus near Ipswich in the East of England, to Cambridge. The wider UKQN network then extends onward over the National Dark Fibre Infrastructure Service to Bristol in the South-West.
The link uses over 125km of standard BT optical fibre between Cambridge and Adastral Park, with BT Exchanges acting as ‘trusted nodes’ along the route. The link will carry both quantum and non-quantum traffic; the QKD technique shares data encryption keys via an ultra-secure quantum channel over the same fibre that carries the encrypted data itself.
ADVA confirmed that its FSP 3000 is playing a key role in the new UKQNtel transport network secured by quantum key distribution (QKD). As part of an initiative led by QComm Hub, and with partners BT, ID Quantique and the universities of Cambridge and York, ADVA has constructed a QKD link capable of carrying classical and quantum channels on the same standard, installed fiber.
GSMA is monitoring and assessing the potential impact of the Coronavirus on MWC Barcelona 2020, which will occur 24-27 February 2020. So far, GSMA confirms that there have been no registration impacts on MWC Barcelona and that preparations for the event are continuing.
The GSMA will undertake the following measures:
Carefully follow and adhere to: the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommendations, all applicable Chinese government recommendations, all Spanish health authority recommendations and all police/health recommendations and protocols
Provide additional medical personnel for on-site support in the run-up to and during the event
Work with Fira de Barcelona to ensure sufficient sanitising products throughout all venues and implement other activity in line with recommendations from our city partners
Support exhibitors who may not be able to travel to MWC Barcelona (via GSMA account managers or the Customer Care Team).
Visitors came from 198 countries and territories, and more than 55 percent of this year’s MWC attendees held senior-level positions, including 7,900 CEOs.
More than 2,400 companies participated at MWC19 across more than 120,000 net square meters of exhibition and hospitality space at Fira Gran Via.
Apstra released a new version of is network operating system for simplifying the management of data center networks. Major enhancements in AOS 3.2 include:
an Intent Time Voyager capability to decrease MTTR from network outages. This enables network engineers to recover their entire data center fabric state, configuration, and real time continuous validation to a specific point in time; backward or forward with a few clicks.
Intra and inter data center scale-out services - This includes the automation of EVPN DCI to allow VXLAN Data Center Interconnect with a simple, intuitive user interface and continuous DCI state validations. It also supports automation of EVPN VXLAN overlay across PODs in a 5-stage L3 Clos fabric, including continuous validations of BGP EVPN sessions and route expectations.
Expanded enterprise-class open source Open Compute Project SONiC support
Faster insights into the health and service assurance of network fabrics with customizable dashboards, probes, and widgets. Network operators can now create their own dashboards, probes, and widgets to get information about a large variety of parameters - such as device health, EVPN validations, throughput health, drain validation, traffic trends, virtual infrastructure redundancy checks, and fabric health for virtual infrastructures.
“Apstra AOS 3.2 is packed with innovative capabilities such as the industry’s first and only Intent Time Voyager capability which allows you to travel through the history of your network, and bring your network back to any known state in time helping to resolve network outages,” said Sean Hafeez, VP of Product at Apstra. “In addition, the latest product offers continued support for OCP SONiC, which enables network engineers to safely add newer OSS offerings to their networking toolkit.”
Semtech introduced a transceiver designed for battery-powered LPWAN based smart home, community and consumer applications. The new Semtech LoRa Smart Home transceiver provides low power, broad coverage for indoor and neighborhood area IoT devices connecting to sensors and actuators for safety, environmental and convenience use cases. The company said its design will power sensors with multi-year operation. It features 600nA of sleep current and 4.6 mA of active receive current consumption.
Key Product Features of LoRa Smart Home (LLCC68)
High sensitivity to -126 dBm
+22 dBm output power with high efficiency PA
System works well even when the signal is 10dB below noise
Minimal external BOM/matching
Small size foot print, 24-pin 4x4
Works with existing LoRaWAN-based gateways
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25 mA TX @ +14dBm
Integrated DC-DC and LDO
Supports LoRaWAN and other protocols
“With its simple and flexible network architecture, Semtech’s new LoRa® Smart Home device offers a unique opportunity to accelerate the consumer adoption of smart home connected solutions. As an end-to-end solution, or as a complement to Wi-Fi, LoRa Smart Home broadens smart home solutions by enabling connectivity for low cost and battery powered end points both indoors and outdoors,” said Pedro Pachuca, Director of IoT Wireless in Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group. “The new LoRa Smart Home device provides a flexible and cost effective solution for low latency smart home applications, including smart key locks and lighting, enabling low cost network extension and providing a bridge to the many LoRaWAN®-based B2B and B2C solutions available in the IoT market today.”
ServiceNow agreed to acquire Passage AI, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, for its conversational AI platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
ServiceNow said the acquisition will enhance its deep learning AI capabilities and accelerate its vision of supporting all major languages across the company’s Now Platform and products, including ServiceNow Virtual Agent, Service Portal, Workspaces and emerging interfaces.
“Work flows more smoothly when people can get things done in their native language,” said Debu Chatterjee, senior director of AI Engineering at ServiceNow. “Building deep learning, conversational AI capabilities into the Now Platform will enable a work request initiated in German or a customer inquiry initiated in Japanese to be solved by Virtual Agent. Passage AI’s technology will enable us to accelerate our vision of empowering great employee and customer experiences by delivering great workflow experiences. ServiceNow believes in making work flow more smoothly across the enterprise, in all major languages.”
Passage AI was founded in 2016 by CEO Ravi N. Raj, CTO Madhu Mathihalli and CTO Mitul Tiwari.
Telecom Fiji is working with Oracle Communications to better serve their customers, orchestrate memorable events, and develop new revenue streams.
Specifically, Telecom will deploy Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management, Oracle Communications Order and Service Management, Oracle Communications Network Charging and Control, Oracle Field Service Cloud, Oracle Live Experience Cloud, and Oracle Marketing Cloud as part of the Oracle Digital Experience for Communications suite, to enable a transformative digital customer experience coupled with communications-grade modern monetization and service fulfillment. The solution is delivered on Oracle Private Cloud Appliance and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and will be implemented and managed by Oracle Communications Consulting, the trusted partner of hundreds of service providers around the world.
"As service providers transform their end-to-end processes, they're seeking more connected customer experiences and ways to engage via new digital channels," said Jason Rutherford, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Communications. "Innovative service providers like Telecom are reimagining communications by adopting real-time, scalable solutions to bring new services to market and simplify and automate their business."
DustPhotonics, a start-up developing optical modules for high-performance data center connectivity, announced the appointment of Anthony Musto as VP of Sales and Marketing, Brian Mulroe as Senior Director of Strategic Business Development, and Yaron Refaely as Vice President of Research & Development.
Musto brings 20 years of experience in fiber optics and the broader telecommunications industry. He was a founder and Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Optium Corporation, which was acquired by Finisar in 2008. Prior to Optium, Musto held various leadership roles at JDS Uniphase and Sarnoff Corporation.
Mulroe brings 30 years’ experience in telecom sales and will spearhead the company’s business development initiatives. Mulroe most recently served as a Senior Regional Sales Manager with Finisar Corporation, performing account management for key customers and specializing in transceiver and sensor products for LiDAR and Sensing. Mulroe also previously owned and operated a manufacturers’ representative firm specializing in optical, RF and microwave components and systems.
Refaely brings over 15 years of experience from leading telecommunication companies. In his previous role as Vice President of R&D for Ceragon Networks, Mr. Refaely managed over 200 engineers, leading development and managing innovative solutions for wireless backhaul systems.
DustPhotonics announced sampling availability and pre-production ramp of 400G QSFP-DD SR8 optical transceiver for short reach, high-density applications over multi-mode optical fiber. The 400Gbps module incorporates DustPhotonics' AuraDP optical engine with unique fiber integration and manufacturing technology .
Dust Photonics notes that 400G QSFP-DD SR8 transceivers support both 400G switch to switch and breakout options for high-radix configurations.
DustPhotonics claims its AuraDP light engine enables reduced power consumption, higher reliability, and superior module performance. The optical packaging design results in improved sensitivity and efficient coupling. The QSFP-DD optical transceiver is designed for use with cost effective multimode fiber and supports reaches of up to 100 meters using OM4 fiber. The SR8 module features; 8 parallel 50Gbps PAM4 optical channels, supports the latest CMIS Management Interface, and is compliant to the latest QSFP-DD MSA and IEEE 802.3bs 400GBASE SR8 standards.
The 400G QSFP-DD module is part of the DustPhotonic's family of 400G multimode transceiver and AOC product line. The 400G QSFP-DD SR8 has an expected production release date in the second half of 2019. DustPhotonics is currently sampling and accepting orders for evaluation of 400G QSFP-DD SR8 transceivers.
SoftBank will enterprise customers a tunnel-free, managed SD-WAN solution from 128 Technology. The service is being branded as “SD-WAN Type X”.
128 Technology said that by eliminating tunnels, its 128T Networking Platform and Session Smart Router will more effectively route network traffic to better pathways when there is network congestion, increasing both connectivity and bandwidth. Additionally, SoftBank’s “SD-WAN Type X” offering reduces complexity and operations costs by eliminating firewalls and VPNs and by cutting cloud rental costs. The 128T Networking Platform also is designed around a “Zero-Trust” security model, so enterprise customers that are transferring large amounts of sensitive data over their network can rest assured that it will remain protected, reducing the risk of security breaches.
“By utilizing our SD-WAN solution, SoftBank’s enterprise customers will be able to connect users with great experiences by efficiently delivering applications and resources that drive today’s businesses forward,” said Tim Ziemer, Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Business Development at 128 Technology. “We’re very excited to expand our presence in Japan and look forward to providing agile WAN connectivity to SoftBank customers that delivers enhanced security, performance and agility.”
MACOM Technology Solutions reported quarterly revenue of $119.1 million, a decrease of 21.0% compared to $150.7 million in the previous year fiscal first quarter and an increase of 6.1% compared to $112.2 million in the prior fiscal quarter. Gross margin was 48.9%, compared to 50.8% in the previous year fiscal first quarter and 47.2% in the prior fiscal quarter. Net loss was $28.4 million, or $0.43 loss per diluted share, compared to net loss of $23.4 million, or $0.44 loss per diluted share, in the previous year fiscal first quarter and net income of $10.5 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, in the prior fiscal quarter.
“Q1 was a solid start to our fiscal year,” said Stephen G. Daly, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our new organization and engineering leadership is having a positive impact on product development.”
The FCC certified four Spectrum Access System (SAS) Administrators, paving the way for full commercial operations in the 3.5 GHz band.
Specifically, the FCC has certified CommScope, Federated Wireless, Google, and Sony as Spectrum Access System administrators in the 3.55-3.7 GHz band.
“The FCC has made it a priority to free up mid-band spectrum for advanced wireless services like 5G. And today, I’m pleased to announce the latest step to achieve that priority: the approval of four systems that will enable the 3.5 GHz band to be put to use for the benefit of American consumers and businesses,” said Chairman Pai. “As with all of our efforts to execute on the 5G FAST plan, we’re pushing to get next-generation wireless services deployed in the 3.5 GHz band as quickly and efficiently as possible. I would like to thank Commissioner Mike O’Rielly for his leadership throughout this proceeding as well as the FCC staff and those in the private sector who have worked so hard to achieve this milestone.”
The CBRS Alliance, which now includes 159 companies, noted that the success of this opening was the result of unprecedented public-private partnerships between industry and government organizations.
Prior to commercial availability, the 3.5 GHz CBRS band was used primarily by the Department of Defense (DoD), mostly for shipborne radar systems. To ensure that the DoD has continued access to the band, environmental sensing capability (ESC) networks along the U.S. coast (operated by CommScope, Federated Wireless, and Google) will inform the SAS administrators to activate a protection zone and dynamically reassign users in the area to other parts of the band, thus protecting the incumbent’s use of the spectrum while maximizing availability of CBRS spectrum across coastal areas.
“The authorization of Full Commercial Deployments in the CBRS band is a significant milestone in our nation’s management and utilization of a vital resource, the radio frequency spectrum,” said Dana Deasy, chief information officer for the Department of Defense (DoD). “The Defense Department worked closely with our federal partners at the NTIA and FCC, and with industry, to ensure that our mission critical operations would be protected while enabling new commercial uses. Collectively, we were able to creatively address the engineering and security challenges associated with military and commercial spectrum sharing. We look to build upon those successes going forward. Additionally, I would like to thank the men and women in DoD who have diligently worked to make today possible.”
“With commercial deployments of OnGo already underway, the CBRS Alliance would like to recognize the exceptional efforts of the almost 160 member companies that comprise the Alliance, as well as the extensive industry and government collaboration required to bring OnGo to market,” said Dave Wright, president of the CBRS Alliance. “Over the past six years, our members have contributed incredible amounts of time, energy, and innovation to address the need for reliable, cost-effective wireless services and have now made OnGo a reality. At its start, this industry effort consisted of a handful of companies that saw the potential for new services utilizing CBRS’ innovative access framework. It is now comprised of 159 companies representing the diversity of OnGo solutions, including mobile, cable, rural, enterprise, and industrial uses. OnGo is ready for full-scale deployments – enabling 4G LTE systems today and 5G NR solutions this year.”
A tremendous amount of mid-band spectrum is opening up for enterprises, mobile network operators, cable operators, and new players, Kurt Schaubach, CTO of Federated Wireless, thanks to dynamic spectrum sharing with Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS).
This video covers: * The CBRS ecosystem and commercial rollout timeline * Who is Federated Wireless and what are its key technologies * How CBRS creates access to spectrum for densification of existing networks and entry for new players * CBRS in 4G and 5G scenarios
ServiceNow is pursuing a new industry solutions strategy, including for telecommunications and banking.
ServiceNow said its new telecommunications solution will align customer care and service assurance to transform how communication service providers deliver great customer experiences by proactively anticipating issues and addressing them quickly while maximizing availability and quality of service. The company's new banking solution will simplify middle-to-back office operations to help banks move at the speed of digital business, delivering seamless customer experiences throughout the enterprise that drive customer loyalty.
“Every company around the world aspires to deliver great experiences that drive fierce customer loyalty and create powerful employee engagement,” said Bill McDermott, president and CEO, ServiceNow. “And companies across many industries are turning to ServiceNow to help them transform their business to unleash productivity and fuel innovation. By creating industry-specific solutions, delivered through a partner-led model, we can better address the unique challenges that companies in key vertical markets face as they look to digitally transform their businesses.”
ServiceNow also announced extended partnerships with Deloitte and Accenture. Deloitte will become the “Lead Launch” Partner for ServiceNow’s banking solution, working with ServiceNow to implement new workflows that will transform how banks operate. Accenture will become the “Lead Launch” ecosystem partner for ServiceNow on its new telecommunications solution, helping companies drive digital transformation through purpose-built workflows. Accenture will also help guide ServiceNow’s product roadmap and create telecommunications-specific digital workflow solutions that deliver great experiences to help support software defined networking, especially vital for new connected services enabled by 5G.
“With 5G being one of the highest priorities and most significant investments for service providers, they are seeking a competitive advantage by establishing greater agility and scale in today’s cloud-first world,” said Peters Suh, North America Communications Industry Lead at Accenture. “Through our expanded ecosystem partnership with ServiceNow, we’re better positioned than ever to help companies elevate solutions and support the transitions of the telecommunications industry.”
Comcast has acquired Blueface, a developer of unified communications solutions based in Dublin, Ireland. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Comcast Business will add Blueface’s proprietary and fully customizable cloud voice unified communications platform to its portfolio of business-grade solutions.
“The addition of Blueface’s Unified Communications (UC) solution to the Comcast Business portfolio will provide customers access to industry-leading audio and video tools to connect employees across devices and locations,” said Bill Stemper, President, Comcast Business. “Whether connecting within a company or directly to customers, Blueface technology, powered by Comcast Business, will provide businesses a seamless communications experience. We look forward to delivering innovative solutions that enable businesses to help power employee productivity and extraordinary customer experiences in 2020 and beyond.”
Juniper Networks reported preliminary net revenues of $1,208.1 million for 4Q2019, an increase of 2% year-over-year, and an increase of 7% sequentially. GAAP operating margin was 14.8%, a decrease from 16.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018, and an increase from 12.2% in the third quarter of 2019. GAAP net income was $168.4 million, a decrease of 12% year-over-year, and an increase of 70% sequentially, resulting in diluted earnings per share of $0.49. Non-GAAP net income was $198.7 million, a decrease of 3% year-over-year, and an increase of 19% sequentially, resulting in non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.58.
Full Year 2019 net revenues were $4,445.4 million, a decrease of 4% year-over-year.
“We returned to year-over-year growth during the December quarter and saw encouraging trends across various areas of our business, including record Enterprise sales, double digit year-over-year growth in the Cloud, solid momentum with Mist, and another quarter of strength in our services organization,” said Juniper’s CEO, Rami Rahim. “We believe we are executing well and positioned to sustainably grow the business starting this year.”
“We experienced better than expected top and bottom-line results during the December quarter,” said Juniper’s CFO, Ken Miller.
Keysight Technologies, which was engagements with all four U.S. mobile operators, has now surpassed 600 validated 5G test cases for its 5G network emulation solution suite.
Keysight leveraged contributions to 5G NR standards and certification forums such as 3GPP, Global Certification Forum (GCF) and PTCRB, to create a comprehensive range of test cases used by mobile operators and their ecosystem of device makers to ensure new 5G devices operate as intended on their networks. It 5G network emulation solutions provide early access to a comprehensive range of test cases for protocol, radio frequency (RF), radio resource management (RRM) conformance and carrier acceptance validation. Following the most recent conformance agreement (CAG) meeting organized by GCF, the solution suite offers a leading number of GCF-validated protocol test cases for both non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) mode, for both TDD and FDD deployments and across any 3GPP-specified frequency band. It continues to offer a leading number of RF validated test cases in frequency range 2 (FR2) for NSA mode. Early access to a comprehensive set of GCF-validated test cases accelerates device certification according to the 3GPP 5G new radio (NR) standard.
“Our close collaborations across the mobile industry has enabled us to fully support major mobile operators’ deployments of 5G services that rely on high-end devices,” said Kailash Narayanan, vice president and general manager of Keysight's wireless test group. “We’re pleased to offer the industry’s most comprehensive range of 5G test solutions to support 5G rollouts in the more than 120 countries currently investing in this technology.”
As 348 mobile operators around the world ramp up deployment of their 5G services, Keysight is well-positioned to support a connected ecosystem with solutions for device performance validation in any 3GPP-specified frequency band. Keysight’s 5G test solutions help speed the commercialization of most of the 199 5G devices that the industry has announced according to latest report on the 5G device ecosystem as published by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association.
F5 Networks reported revenue of $569.3 million for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2020, up 5% from $543.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019, driven by software solutions revenue growth of 50%.
GAAP net income for the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was $98.5 million, or $1.62 per diluted share compared to first quarter fiscal year 2019 GAAP net income of $130.9 million, or $2.16 per diluted share.
Non-GAAP net income for the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was $155.4 million, or $2.55 per diluted share
“To better meet our customers’ changing application demands we have invested to deliver our world-class applications services across a wider range of deployment and consumption models,” said François, Locoh-Donou, CEO and President of F5 Networks. “As a result, customers are increasingly deploying F5 in multi-cloud environments, driving a revenue mix shift toward software. During our first quarter, customer demand for our software solutions and related services and support drove 50% software revenue growth and 5% revenue growth.”
Iguazio, a start-up based in Herzliya, Israel, raised $24 million in funding for its data science platform for real time machine learning applications.
The Iguazio data science platform helps data scientists create real-time AI applications while working within their chosen machine learning stack.
The funding was was led by INCapital Ventures, with participation from existing and new investors, including Pitango, Verizon Ventures, Magma Venture Partners, Samsung SDS, Kensington Capital Partners, Plaza Ventures and Silverton Capital Ventures.
“This is a pivotal time for AI. Our platform helps data scientists push the limits of their real-time AI applications and see their impact in real business environments,” said Asaf Somekh, co-founder and CEO of Iguazio. “With support from INCapital, Kensington Capital Partners, and our other investors, we are ready to expand our international team and reach our ambitious goals.”
