Saudi Arabia's TAWAL picks Nokia for 5G expansion

TAWAL, the leading Saudi ICT Infrastructure company, has selected Nokia to provide full turnkey services towards expanding and deploying 5G for TAWAL’s infrastructure in the western and southern parts of Saudi Arabia. This project is part of TAWAL’s plan for 5G expansion in the western and southern parts of Saudi Arabia, where Nokia will be adding 5G capabilities to 670 4G sites over the course of six months. In addition, Nokia will be replacing...

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stc tests Open vRAN and invests $500m in cloud with Alibaba

Saudi Arabia's stc is conducting ORAN testing. Altiostar confirmed that its Open vRAN software is part of the trial.Eng. Khaled Aldharrab, VP, Infrastructure, stc, said: “Open RAN is a large and crucial part of stc’s future virtualized infrastructure. This technology is promising to change the way we currently think of Network solutions, providing: Openness, disaggregation, speed, efficiency and reduced time to market. The future of Cloud-Native,...

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AT&T mounts disaster recovery effort in Nashville

AT&T mounted a round-the-clock recovery effort in Nashville to respond to the explosion on Christmas morning.  The explosion impacted a range of telecommunications, including mobile phone, broadband, TV and 911 service in Middle Tennessee and Kentucky. A major challenge has been restoring power to its damaged building.The network recovery effort includes two portable cell sites operating in downtown Nashville with numerous additional...

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Oklahoma's Totah deploys Ribbon's packet transport

Totah Communications, a leading Independent Operating Company (IOC) and provider of residential and broadband communications services in Northeastern Oklahoma and Southeastern Kansas, has deployed Ribbon's Neptune 1300 Packet Transport solution.The Neptune 1300 Extension Shelf provides Totah several benefits including allowing the company to reclaim precious fiber that was being used to deliver services in its legacy network; the ability to offer...

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Nework Predictions 2021: TelcoDR's Danielle Royston

 by Danielle Royston, Founder, TelcoDRA telco will figure out how to really use the public cloud and save 50% on its IT costs – or moreHow will it happen? It'll move a ton of software to the cloud and prove: 1) it works; 2) it’ll save a ton of money (the company that embraces the software of the public cloud will see a 50% savings on IT costs); 3) life is sweet! (And way sweeter than it ever was before. I’m talking about taking the oldest, suckiest,...

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U.S. Covid-19 relief bill provides $1.9 billion to rip/replace Huawei

The $900 billion coronavirus relief package approved by the U.S. Congress contains several provisions for telecommunications, including $1.9 billion to fund the rip/replace of Huawei and ZTE equipment, $3.2 billion for Keep Americans Connected programs, $250 million for telehealth initiatives, and requirements for the FCC to begin auctioning the 3.45-3.55 GHz band by the end of 2021."FCC Chairman Ajit Pai:“I applaud Congress for including in the...

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Arista begins Attack Surface Assessment service

Arista Networks will begin offering an Attack Surface Assessment, an advanced security service delivered through the recent acquisition of Awake Security, a start-up offering a Network Detection and Response (NDR) platform. Arista's new offering finds threats to devices and applications known to the IT and security teams, as well as shadow IT and unmanaged infrastructure across client to campus, data center and cloud.“Sophisticated threats are...

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Verizon Business and Deloitte collaborate on 5G edge opportunities

Verizon Business is teaming with Deloitte to co-innovate 5G and mobile edge computing (MEC) solutions that can transform manufacturing and retail.The companies plan to create transformational solutions to serve client-specific needs using Deloitte’s industry and solution engineering expertise combined with Verizon’s advanced mobile and private enterprise wireless networks, 5G Edge MEC platform, IoT, Software Defined-Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), and...

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Sumitomo Electric begins production of 0.14 dB/km ultra-low-loss optical fiber

Sumitomo Electric Industries is ready to begin mass production of an optical fiber having an ultra-low transmission loss of 0.14 dB/km, representing a significant reduction in transmission loss from the current 0.150 dB/km product. The applications of the product include the following.Applications of the new Z-PLUS Fiber 150 could include:Transoceanic submarine optical cable systemsTerrestrial trunk line, such as transcontinental networksTransmission...

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Alaska's KPU Telecommunications deploys Infinera

KPU Telecommunications, a local provider of residential and business communications services owned by the city of Ketchikan in Alaska, deployed Infinera’s XTM Series to enhance broadband service connectivity. Infinera said its XTM solution enables KPU to offer flexible optical and packet-based high-speed services while cost-effectively powering high-speed 200G optical transport over its 167-kilometer-long unamplified undersea fiber cable connecting...

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Network predictions 2021: Ciena's Steve Alexander

by Steve Alexander, CTO, Ciena2021 will take investment to the edge5G networks are primed to deliver faster web browsing and video streaming with reduced latency, both very appealing for consumers. But 5G can do so much more once networks have matured. Advanced 5G services like rich AR and VR, cloud gaming, telemedicine, and Industry 4.0 (the connected manufacturing revolution), all require highly reliable networks that can deliver low latency as...

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Palo Alto Networks responds to SolarStorm

In a company blog post, Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, writes: "We will soon be talking about this as one of the most serious cyberattacks in history. Tainted updates to SolarWinds Orion software were distributed for months before they were identified, positioning attackers to obtain administrative privileges and establish long-term network access – potential for a complete compromise of an organization by malicious actors. We must come...

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NTT Ltd. opens London 1 Data Center

 NTT Ltd. opened its new London 1 Data Center, more than tripling its data center footprint in the UK and making the company the third largest data center company globally. NTT also expects 100 people with technical and operational skills will be employed at London 1 Data Center when it is fully operational with clients. The new data center is located in Dagenham, East London. The location was chosen due to its proximity to the Docklands, which...

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Vantage Data Centers on track with Zurich data center

Vantage Data Centers completed construction a concrete shell and is on schedule to deliver its first greenfield European hyperscale data center in 2021. The new facility, which is located just 25 kilometers northeast of Zurich, will offer 40MW capacity. The seven-acre (three-hectare) campus will be home to four multi-story, state-of-the-art data centers totaling more than 400,000 square feet (37,000 square meters) once fully developed. Vantage...

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Nokia appoints Nishant Batra as Chief Strategy and Technology Officer

Nokia appointed Nishant Batra as Chief Strategy and Technology Officer and member of the Group Leadership team.Batra joins Nokia from Veoneer in Sweden, a worldwide leader in automotive technology, where he was Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Prior this role he held several positions at Ericsson over twelve years in Sweden, India and the US, most recently as Head of Product Area Networks. Batra holds an MBA from INSEAD,...

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Singtel installs Ericsson 5G gear

Singel is deploying Ericsson's 5G New Radio (NR) Standalone and dual-mode 5G core network products and solutions, including real-time rating and policy control.The energy-efficient, end-to-end 5G network will operate on Singtel’s 3.5GHz and 28GHz spectrum bands, spanning outdoor and indoor 5G coverage. Millimeter wave (mmWave) connectivity will also be deployed in hotspots across the city state.Ericsson said the 5G contract award takes the partnership...

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NTT Ltd. names Abhijit Dubey as next CEO

Abhijit Dubey will succeed Jason Goodall as Global Chief Executive Officer for NTT Ltd. Abhijit takes the role following over 20 years with global advisory firm McKinsey & Company.  He will be based at NTT Ltd.’s headquarters in London. Following a three month handover period, Jason Goodall will retire from his executive role on 30 June 2021 and will remain as a Board Director for NTT Ltd, and Dimension Data, as well as act as a strategic...

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U.S. restricts exports of 10nm technology to China's SMIC

Citing national security, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) officially added Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) of China to the Entity List.  BIS said the action stems from China’s military-civil fusion (MCF) doctrine and evidence of activities between SMIC and entities of concern in the Chinese military industrial complex. “We will not allow advanced U.S. technology to help...

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U.S. scrambles to assess damage from nation-state cyberattack

U.S. government officials warned that the cyberattack identified earlier this week has compromised dozens of federal government networks and likely thousands of private networks globally. The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced a Cyber Unified Coordination Group (UCG) to coordinate a whole-of-government response to the infiltration of U.S. government...

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Linux Foundation marks first release of DENT Network OS

 The Linux Foundation announced the first code release of DENT, a  Network Operating System (NOS) for Disaggregated Network Switches in campus and remote enterprise locations. The project aims to address the specific needs of distributed enterprise edge networking, such as a simplified networking OS stack that is low cost and Linux-based. DENT enables an open community to build this solution without complicated abstractions. It also promises...

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Intel and Samsung achieve 5G SA Core capacity of 305 Gbps / server

Samsung and Intel achieved a record 5G SA Core data processing capacity of 305 Gbps per server – equivalent to hosting more than 200,000 users simultaneously live-streaming standard definition videos – as well as latency improvement in a mobile network environment with commercial features enabled. To achieve this result, Samsung’s 5G SA Core used the 2nd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor and the Intel Ethernet Network Adapter E810 with...

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T-Mobile rolls out Location-Based Routing and Next Gen 911

 T-Mobile US is rolling out  Location-Based Routing and Next Generation 911 connectivity over IP – two critical advancements for pinpointing the location of callers, reducing the need for call transfers, and enabling a more efficient and effective 911 communication system.Location-Based Routing (LBR) significantly cuts the need for 911 call transfers by leveraging low latency device-based location technology that at allows the network to...

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T-Systems enters strategic collaboration agreement with AWS

T-Systems and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a multi-year Strategic Collaboration Agreement to manage the digital transformation of companies more quickly, efficiently and securely. T-Systems said the agreement will spur it to build out capacity in both solutions and people through a strong training and enablement program. The ICT service provider intends to train 3,000 additional AWS experts as part of the new collaboration.Regarding security,...

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Singapore's StarHub leverages ADVA’ s Layer 1 encryption

StarHub is using ADVA's FSP 3000 ConnectGuard Optical Layer 1 encryption technology to power a fully-managed service enables local enterprises, government agencies and multinational corporations to harness telco-grade encrypted connectivity for their users and systems across multiple locations.The StarHub SDS Secured Service delivers highly-reliable and robustly protected enterprise connectivity on protocols including Ethernet, Fibre Channel and...

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SPIE 2021 Photonics West will be virtual, March 6-11

SPIE Photonics West, which normally convenes in San Francisco, will be held as an interactive, virtual conference 6-11 March 2021.“The SPIE Digital Forum platform was developed to help people share results and make connections during the pandemic, and we’ve continued to fine-tune our virtual platform and digital offerings throughout this year,” says SPIE CEO Kent Rochford. “We’ll be implementing the latest improvements during Photonics West and are...

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Molex acquires Fiberguide Industries

Molex has acquired Fiberguide Industries, a manufacturer of customized optical fiber solutions based in Caldwell, Idaho. Financial terms were not disclosed.Molex said Fiberguide will help it address the stringent needs of medical applications, including high-power laser surgery, DNA sequencing and flow cytometry. Both Molex and Fiberguide bring extensive expertise in optical fibers, analytical probes and fully packaged assemblies to support ...

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RIP: Norman Abramson, co-founder of ALOHAnet

Norman Abramson, one of the founders of the ALOHAnet, passed away on December 1, 2020, at the age of 88.In 1971, Abramson, who was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, teamed up with faculty member Franklin Kuo, other colleagues and graduate students, to lauch ALOHAnet, the first wireless packet data network. ALOHAnet pioneered the use of medium access (ALOHA random access) and experimental ultra high frequency...

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The Secret of Cloud-First WANs

As CIOs plan for the post-pandemic era, there’s more focus on Cloud-First architectures that can better manage change, increase business agility and lower costs. Shashi Kiran, Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka, draws from conversations with customers and partners to share his insights on key SD-WAN and SASE architecture attributes required for next-generation infrastructure deployments.https://youtu.be/5p_Ce8Qs...

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Nokia further outlines strategy

Pekka Lundmark, who was appointed President and CEO of Nokia earlier this year, outlined further updates to the company's strategy and operating model. A first look at the new strategy was provided on October 29 - see below). Nokia’s previously provided outlook for 2020 and 2021 remains unchanged. In connection with its Q3 2020 results, Nokia expects comparable* operating margin of 7-10% in 2021.“We are positioning Nokia to lead in a changing world,”...

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