2020 Next-Gen SD-WAN and SASE Series Overview

In this SD-WAN and SASE overview video, we present the concise thoughts of the industry's thought leaders including Sunil Khandekar, General Manager/Founder of Nuage Networks from Nokia; Rupesh Chokshi, Vice President of AT&T Cybersecurity; Jeff Aaron, VP of Enterprise Marketing at Juniper Networks; Mick Higgins, SVP of Product at Asavie, now part of Akamai; Marc Halbfinger, CEO of PCCW Global; and Craig Connors, VP and CTO of SD-WAN at VMware.https://youtu.be/D3n_vIYDFSAOur...

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Ericsson: Mobile network data traffic up 50% from 3Q19 to 3Q20

Mobile network data traffic grew 50 percent between Q3 2019 and Q3 2020, according to the newly updated Ericsson Mobility Report.A second key finding is that current 5G uptake in subscriptions and population coverage confirms 5G as deploying the fastest of any generation of mobile connectivity. Ericsson estimates that by the end of this year, more than 1 billion people – 15 percent of the world’s population – will live in an area that has 5G coverage...

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SK Telecom designs its own AI chip

SK Telecom unveiled its own artificial intelligence (AI) chip and announced plans to enter the AI semiconductor business.The South Korean telecoms operator said its new "SAPEON X220" chip is optimized for processing large amounts of data in parallel. Its deep learning computation speed is 6.7 kilo-_frames per second, which is 1.5 times faster than that of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for inference that are being widely used by AI-service companies....

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Huawei previews 800G module

Huawei previewed an optical module that supports an adjustable line rate ranging from 200 to 800 Gbps. It will use a proprietary Channel Matched Shaping (CMS) algorithm to increase range. Huawei also highlighted its Liquid OTN solution, saying it reduces per-site latency by 70%, and supports 100-fold more connections by breaking bandwidth into 2M hard slices. The company is also introducing a compact OXC product -- the OSN 9800 P32C.“Optical...

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AWS launches EC2 Mac instances

Amazon Web Services announced new Mac instances (EC2 Mac instances) for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), enabling customers to run on-demand macOS workloads in the AWS cloud.EC2 Mac instances are powered by a combination of Mac mini computers—featuring Intel’s eighth-generation 3.2GHz (4.6GHz turbo) Core i7 processors, 6 physical/12 logical cores, and 32 GiB of memory—and the AWS Nitro System, providing up to 10 Gbps of VPC network bandwidth...

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Zoom affirms AWS as its preferred cloud

Zoom Video Communications has named AWS as its preferred cloud provider. AWS said it has supported Zoom since 2011, and earlier this year when the COVID-19 pandemic began impacting businesses, schools, and governments around the world, Zoom expanded its relationship with AWS to keep up with surging demand as hundreds of millions of new Zoom participants began to use the platform for everything from online education to business meetings to social...

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FCC chairman Pai to step down in January

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he intends to leave the FCC on January 20, 2021.  Chairman Pai issued the following statement:“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve at the Federal Communications Commission, including as Chairman of the FCC over the past four years.  I am grateful to President Trump for giving me the opportunity to lead the agency in 2017, to President Obama for appointing me as a Commissioner in 2012, and to...

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CENIC builds new fiber route in northern California

The California Research and Education Network (CalREN) has built a new and diverse fiber path between Sacramento and Northern California, adding to its inland route. The new path creates a diverse 260-mile regional loop from Sacramento and back, traveling through Colusa, Corning, Palo Cedro, and Chico. The path has 3.2 terabits of spectrum capacity and includes new nodes in Chico and Palo Cedro.http://www.cenic.comCalifornia Research and Education...

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SpaceX completes 16th Starlink launch, feedback from beta users

On Tuesday, November 24, SpaceX successfully completed its 16th Starlink launch mission, delivering a further 60 satellites to orbit, bringing the total number of Starlink satellites launched to date to over 950. The number of Starlink satellites currently in ordit may be a bit lower, as media reports indicate that the company could have de-orbited a small number of its earliest satellites. Following Tuesday's launch, the booster rocket successfully...

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Mavenir and Airtel demo O-RAN RIC

Bharti Airtel and Mavenir demonstrated an O-RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) that makes use of advanced machine learning algorithms to optimize network performance. This demonstration showed RIC in action, ingesting configuration data and performance metrics from a demonstration RAN, and iteratively optimizing the configuration parameters to achieve improvement in key performance indicators. The target objective function is configurable by the operator,...

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U.S. to block China's SMIC from accessing U.S. investment

The Trump administration is planning to add Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), China's leading chip producer, to a blacklist of alleged Chinese military companies, according to an exclusive report from Reuters. The move would restrict the company's access to U.S. investors. Reuters also reports that China Construction Technology Co Ltd, China International Engineering Consulting Corp, and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC)...

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NEC participates in the UK Government-led 5G Open RAN trial

NEC is showcasing its Open Radio Access Network (RAN) technology in the UK.The NeutrORAN project will be used to test and demonstrate a multiple operator, neutral host solution using an Open RAN ecosystem. NEC also confirmed that will establish a Global Open RAN Center of Excellence in the UK. The NeutrORAN will be one of the first solutions delivered by the Center of Excellence."The project is another step in NEC's growing commitment to the...

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Kaneka develops heat-resistant polyimide film for 5G circuit boards

Kaneka Corporation of Japan has developed a super heat-resistant polyimide film for use in two-layer, flexible print circuit boards for 5G millimeter-wave devices.Two-layer flexible print circuit boards can be made thinner than conventional three-layer boards, and also have superior reliability and dimensional stability.The company says its new film reduces the dielectric loss tangent in high frequencies down to 0.0025, the best level achieved to...

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AWS suffers outage impacting Kinesis Data Streams API

Amazon Web Services reported a widespread outage in North America impacting its Kinesis Data Streams API.Amazon Kinesis is a managed service that lets websites ingest, buffer, and process streaming data in real-time.In a status update, AWS said the issue was "also affecting other services, including ACM, Amplify Console, API Gateway, AppMesh, AppStream2, AppSync, Athena, Batch, CodeArtifact, CodeGuru Profiler, CodeGuru Reviewer, CloudFormation, CloudMap,...

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Hawaiki to deploy Ciena's WaveLogic 5 Extreme

Hawaiki Submarine Cable will deploy Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme technology on its 15,000km Hawaiki Transpacific Cable, the largest in ultimate system capacity, with the fastest wavelength rate in the region, connecting Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.The WaveLogic 5 Extreme upgrade uses Ciena's Waveserver 5 platform and delivers significant channel speed increases, lower latency, greater scale and increased...

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Siklu ships Terragraph-compliant fixed wireless broadband access

Siklu will begin shipping its new N366 & T265 Terragraph-compliant, gigabit-speed fixed wireless broadband access systems to service providers in the U.S. and UK. Field trials have also begun and full commercial services are expected to commence in 1Q 2021.Terragraph is an 802.11ay-based, multi-gigabit wireless technology developed by Facebook to deliver fiber-like speeds over the air at a significantly lower cost and faster time to market than...

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VMware sees strong growth in subscription and SaaS revenue

VMware reported revenue of $2.86 billion for its third quarter of fiscal 2021, an increase of 8% from the third quarter of fiscal 2020. GAAP net income for the third quarter was $434 million, or $1.02 per diluted share, compared to $407 million, or $0.96 per diluted share, for the third quarter of fiscal 2020. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter was $704 million, or $1.66 per diluted share, up 17% per diluted share compared to $602 million,...

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Windstream brings 400G to EdgeConneX Detroit and Pittsburgh

Windstream Wholesale has established a presence in EdgeConneX’s data centers at 282 Corliss St. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and at 21005 Lahser Road in Southfield, Michigan, near Detroit.Windstream Wholesale will offer fully diverse wavelength solutions at speeds up to 400G to the companies operating in either of the EdgeConneX locations along with access to its full suite of ethernet and internet services.“Our edge-of-network facilities were engineered...

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Zenlayer picks Juniper for data center upgrades

 Zenlayer, a leading edge cloud services provider, has selected Juniper Networks for datacenter network upgrades including the MX Series Universal Routing Platforms as backbone routers. Deployments are occuring in Zenlayer’s initial phase of upgrades, with plans for the potential replacement of other vendor backbone routers in later phases.Zenlayer will also use a variety of other Juniper platforms from the QFX Series of data center switches...

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Splunk to acquire Flowmill for network performance monitoring

Splunk agreed to acquire Flowmill, a Palo-Alto based cloud network observability company with expertise in network performance monitoring (NPM). Financial terms were not disclosed.Flowmill gives customers the ability to ingest, analyze and take action on additional cloud network and infrastructure data to quickly resolve network-related issues, optimize network performance and reduce network costs.Splunk said Flowmill will complement its recent acquisitions...

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Canada's TELUS names Nokia as a 5G partner

TELUS is deploying Nokia's solutions in its Canadian 5G infrastructure. The Nokia solutions being deployed for 5G include its subscriber data management and the policy controller, as well as its NetAct network management, LTE indoor picocells and IP edge routers. Nokia’s products will allow TELUS to cost-effectively manage its network through near zero-touch automation and adherence to service level agreements while helping the operator deliver...

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Xilinx and Texas Instruments partner on 5G radios

Xilinx is collaborating with Texas Instruments (TI) to develop scalable and adaptable digital front-end (DFE) solutions to increase energy efficiency of lower antenna count radios. The collaboration will combine Xilinx's Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC family and adaptable RF IP with the AFE7769 quad-channel RF transceiver from TI.Xilinx's Adaptable Digital RF IP includes specialist functionality of Crest Factor Reduction (CFR) and Digital Pre-distortion...

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FiberLight names Christopher Rabii as its new CEO

FiberLight named Christopher Rabii as its new Chief Executive Officer, replacing Jim Lynch, who was announced as the company’s interim CEO in July 2020 and will remain the Executive Chairman of FiberLight.Prior to Rabii’s appointment as CEO of FiberLight, he was the SVP of Technology, Fulfillment and Operations for Altice Business, a division of Altice USA, where he was responsible for all activities related to service delivery, engineering and operations...

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NETGEAR ships WAX204 WiFi 6 Access Point for SMBs

NETGEAR is shipping its new WAX204 WiFi 6 Access Point, adding to the company’s portfolio of WiFi 6-enabled business products.The WAX204 is aimed at small single-site locations and provides today’s home office workers, microbusinesses and small retail owners with a cost-effective solution to typical wireless networking challenges. With the capability to establish up to 3 separate wireless networks with separate dedicated channels (SSID), the WAX204...

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Orange Business forms strategic pact with Amazon Web Services

Orange Business Services  announced a global strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS).As part of this agreement, a dedicated Cloud Center of Excellence will be built on AWS, coordinating joint development of an extensive training and certification program for more than 3,000 Orange Business Services cloud, cybersecurity, digital and data experts.“We are delighted with the business opportunities this partnership will bring...

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Nutanix sees rising demand fornew products and new workloads

 Nutanix reported revenue of $312.8 million for the first quarter of its fiscal 2021, down 0.6% from the same period a year ago. Non-GAAP gross margin was 81.9%, up from 80% a year earlier. “We are pleased with our financial performance in the first quarter, which marked a strong start to fiscal 2021 including increased adoption of new products as well as continued growth in our core hyperconverged infrastructure software,” said Dheeraj...

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Broadband Forum publishes 3 specs targeting 5G

Broadband Forum published three new standards including 5G Wireless Wireline Convergence Architecture (TR-470), Access Gateway Function (AGF) Functional Requirements (TR-456) and Device Data Model (TR-181). Together, these documents provide functions and interfaces for Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), the AGF, and customer premises equipment (CPE) such as 5G-enabled routers.Highlights:TR-470 – produced in conjunction with 3GPP – describes the 5G FMC...

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Russia's MTS builds private net based on Ericsson for mining company

 Russian communications service provider Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) is to deploy an Ericsson-powered 5G-ready dedicated network for gold and silver producer Polymetal at the Nezhdaninskoye gold deposit in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). This is expected to be the first commercial Private LTE network in Russia for remote monitoring and managing critical processes in difficult geographic and weather conditions.The Ericsson Dedicated Networks solution...

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Etisalat leverages Ciena's Blue Planet for DWDM orchestration

Etisalat is using software from Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, for end-to-end multi-vendor DWDM Transport network orchestration in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.The Blue Planet software has been designed to support Etisalat’s specific intelligent automation requirements and has been implemented in close collaboration with Etisalat. The companies cite substantial efficiency gains achieved via the Blue Planet Multi Domain Service...

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NTU Singapore develops transceiver test for V2X with Keysight

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) is working with Keysight Technologies to develop a transceiver test bench for a hybrid vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication system.To fully realize smart mobility, there are several technology challenges including V2X, which is a rapidly emerging technology. V2X technologies include dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) and cellular-V2X (C-V2X). However, a single unified V2X test...

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Vantage acquires Hypertec’s Quebec data centers

Vantage Data Centers has acquired the hyperscale data center business from Hypertec in Montreal. Financial terms were not disclosed.Hypertec’s 49MW campus includes 25MW across two existing facilities and 24MW of expansion capacity. The campus, located less than two miles from Vantage’s existing 11MW campus in Montreal, sits on 10 acres and will consist of 320,000 square feet once fully developed. Vantage will immediately begin construction of a third...

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Switch expands its Reno Data Centers

Switch signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract with an existing global e-commerce client to significantly grow its footprint at Switch's Citadel Campus in Northern Nevada. This transaction follows the previously announced multi-megawatt expansion from a leading developer of advanced semiconductor technologies. Switch says over 80% of its TAHOE RENO 1 facility is committed to clients, including space and power currently sold and future...

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Marvell samples Alaska Octal Scalable mGig PHY

 Marvell has begun sampling its second-generation Alaska Octal Scalable mGig PHY family, its first optimized, low power dissipation, low footprint Octal 10M/100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10GBASE-T Ethernet transceivers with IEEE 1588v2 PTP support. The Octal mGig-10G 88X3580, a 10G PHY transceiver and the Octal mGig-5G  88E2580, a  2.5/5G PHY transceiver both exceed IEEE cable reach requirements, optimizing the number of access switch deployments...

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Ericsson picked for 5G by CETIN in Czech

Ericsson announced a 5-year contract with CETIN, a wholesale telecom infrastructure company, to bring 5G to the Czech Republic.Ericsson is set to modernize more than 4,000 cellular sites across the full operational area of CETIN’s mobile network, covering two thirds of the Czech Republic, including the population-dense areas of Prague, Brno and Ostrava. CETIN, whose customers include T-Mobile and O2, are powering multiple network providers in...

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Accenture buys Spanish engineering company for 5G expertise

Accenture has acquired Arca, a Spanish engineering services company with a focus on network operations and business services. Arca provides multidisciplinary services for network operations — including activities to engineer, design, deploy, and manage telecom infrastructure — supported by an integrated platform that automates network monitoring, optimizes processes and predicts system anomalies. The combination of these capabilities with Accenture’s...

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NEC enters strategic pact with AWS

NEC Corporation has entered into a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS, making it the first Japanese company to do so.With the support of the AWS Professional Services team (new windowProServe), NEC will develop a framework of ready-to-deliver cloud services, including migration, integration, consulting and more, to support the acceleration of digital transformation among government and enterprises.NEC will provide managed services optimized...

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Claro Colombia conducts 5G trials with Nokia

Claro Colombia has launched an ambitious 5G trial program in four cities in partnership with Nokia.  The tests cover mobile, fixed wireless access (FWA) and corporate 5G services in 3.5GHz spectrum in Bogota, Medellin, Cali, and Barrancabermeja.Nokia will supply its AirScale portfolio to support both indoor and outdoor coverage, including AirScale Base Stations, AirScale massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna solutions and other radio access network...

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Nokia intros 25 Gbps symmetrical PON solution

Nokia introduced a 25 Gbps symmetrical PON fiber broadband solution based on its own Quillion chipset and existing next-generation PON access platform and line cards.Nokia says 25G PON will be a key technology to enable fiber to become the single infrastructure that underpins the entire telecom industry and to deliver any service to any end point. It is also the best next step for PON: it leverages the high volumes and mature eco-system of data center...

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