China Unicom + China Telecom pick Huawei and ZTE for majority of 5G

China Unicom and China Telecom announced the winners of its 5G Stand Alone (SA) tenders, which were valued at a combined CNY183.5 billion. Vendor shares are as follows:

Huawei - 35.9%
ZTE - 35.9%
Ericsson - 17.9%
Datand Mobile Communications - 10.3%

Nokia did not win any share of the contracts.

China Mobile picks Huawei and ZTE for 5G base stations

Wednesday, April 01, 2020  China, China Mobile  

China Mobile has selected Huawei and ZTE as the primary suppliers in the latest tender for its nationwide 5G rollout. This phase of the rollout calls for 232,143 5G base stations to be deployed in 28 provincial-level regions.

Huawei Technologies will build 57.2% of the base stations,
ZTE Corp. will build 28.7% of the base stations
Ericsson will build 11.4% of the base stations
China Information Communication Technologies (FiberHome + Datang) will build 2.6%.

Nokia was not selected for the contract, although it has played a role in previous parts of the 5G rollout.

China Mobile officially launched its 5G commercial service in 50 cities across the country.

China Mobile has deployed 40,000 5G base stations in the first batch of 50 key cities.  5G network construction is underway in more than 300 cities across the country.

The carrier is offering a number of 5G subscriptions starting with a Personal Plan priced at RMB 128 per month (~US$18). Family plans and business plans are also available. Downlink speed caps and data caps apply.

China Mobile initially has ten 5G smartphones available, along with 3 hotspot devices.

Cities with 5G coverage include: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Shijiazhuang, Xiong'an, Taiyuan, Jincheng, Hohhot, Shenyang, Dalian, Changchun, Harbin, Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou , Ningbo, Wenzhou, Jiaxing, Hefei, Wuhu, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou, Nanchang, Yingtan, Jinan, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Nanyang, Wuhan, Changsha, Zhuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan, Liuzhou, Nanning, Haikou, Qiong, Hai, Chengdu, Guiyang, Kunming, Xi'an, Lanzhou, Xining, Yinchuan and Urumqi.

http://www.10086.cn/aboutus/news/groupnews/index_detail_34938.html

China Telecom and China Unicom reach 5G sharing deal in 15 cities

Monday, September 09, 2019  China, China Telecom, China Unicom  

China Telecom and China Unicom announced a "co-build, co-share" framework agreement aimed at cutting costs and speeding deployment. The sharing is limited to the access network and 5G spectrum resources. Each company will build and operate their own 5G core network.

The agreement, which covers 15 cities, is based on network construction and operation responsibilities in specific geographies. In the northern cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Qingdao and Shijiazhuang, the ratio of construction districts handled by China Unicom to China Telecom will be 6:4. In Shanghai and 9 other southern cities (Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou, Changsha, Wuhan, and Chengdu), the ratio of construction districts handled by China Unicom to China Telecom will be 4:6.

China Unicom and China Telecom will maintain their separate ownership structures. The company will continue competing under their existing brands.

http://www.chinaunicom.com/news/201909/1568027178888010079.html

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ADTRAN and Orange begin Software-Defined Access Network project

ADTRAN has signed a joint development project with Orange as part of its Access Renewal and Evolution Strategy (ARES) program.

The partnership is focused on the application of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology to fixed fiber access networks. The companies will:

• create a roadmap for Orange’s possible introduction of a Software-Defined management architecture
• ensure network elements can integrate with Third Party management, control and/or orchestration platforms and with other network devices
• secure conformity to Orange’s current and future engineering rules for GPON and XGS-PON architecture

“For Orange, the evolution of our Fixed Access Optical Network represents a challenge and opportunity as we look to extend the range and reach of our networks,” said Christian Gacon, Orange Vice President, Wireline Networks & Infrastructure. “We are delighted to begin this development with ADTRAN, based on the company’s leadership in developing Software-Defined Access Network architecture and our combined vision for how the fiber access network should evolve. This work will ensure that Orange can maximize the fiber broadband opportunity, create new business models and deliver an enriched service experience for our customers. This development program underscores our commitment to being a leader in each segment of the network.”

“Orange is committed to building a next-generation, software-defined access network that will serve as a foundation for the next wave of innovative residential and commercial business services,” said Dr. Eduard Scheiterer, ADTRAN Senior Vice President of Research and Development. “ADTRAN shares Orange’s commitment to innovation, service quality and building networks the way they should be built. We are helping operators across the world, like Orange, create the open, scalable and flexible network foundations that will support growth for the next several decades.”

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NVIDIA acquires Mellanox - focus on Next Gen Data Centers

NVIDIA completed its $7 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies. The deal was originally announced on March 11, 2019.

NVIDIA says that by combining its computing expertise with Mellanox’s high-performance networking technology, data center customers will achieve higher performance, greater utilization of computing resources and lower operating costs.

“The expanding use of AI and data science is reshaping computing and data center architectures,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “With Mellanox, the new NVIDIA has end-to-end technologies from AI computing to networking, full-stack offerings from processors to software, and significant scale to advance next-generation data centers. Our combined expertise, supported by a rich ecosystem of partners, will meet the challenge of surging global demand for consumer internet services, and the application of AI and accelerated data science from cloud to edge to robotics.”

Eyal Waldman, founder and CEO of Mellanox, said: “This is a powerful, complementary combination of cultures, technology and ambitions. Our people are enormously enthusiastic about the many opportunities ahead. As Mellanox steps into the next exciting phase of its journey, we will continue to offer cutting-edge solutions and innovative products to our customers and partners. We look forward to bringing NVIDIA products and solutions into our markets, and to bringing Mellanox products and solutions into NVIDIA’s markets. Together, our technologies will provide leading solutions into compute and storage platforms wherever they are required.”

The acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to NVIDIA’s non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow, inclusive of incremental interest expense related to NVIDIA’s recent issuance of $5 billion of notes.

With Mellanox, NVIDIA targets full compute/network/storage stack

Monday, March 11, 2019  Mellanox, Nvidia  

NVIDIA agreed to acquire Mellanox in a deal valued at approximately $6.9 billion.

The merger targets data centers in general and the high-performance computing (HPC) market in particular. Together, NVIDIA’s computing platform and Mellanox’s interconnects power over 250 of the world’s TOP500 supercomputers and have as customers every major cloud service provider and computer maker. Mellanox pioneered the InfiniBand interconnect technology, which along with its high-speed Ethernet products is now used in over half of the world’s fastest supercomputers and in many leading hyperscale datacenters.

NVIDIA said the acquired assets enables it to data center-scale workloads across the entire computing, networking and storage stack to achieve higher performance, greater utilization and lower operating cost for customers.

“The emergence of AI and data science, as well as billions of simultaneous computer users, is fueling skyrocketing demand on the world’s datacenters,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Addressing this demand will require holistic architectures that connect vast numbers of fast computing nodes over intelligent networking fabrics to form a giant datacenter-scale compute engine.

“We share the same vision for accelerated computing as NVIDIA,” said Eyal Waldman, founder and CEO of Mellanox. “Combining our two companies comes as a natural extension of our longstanding partnership and is a great fit given our common performance-driven cultures. This combination will foster the creation of powerful technology and fantastic opportunities for our people.”

NVIDIA also promised to continue investing in Israel, where Mellanox is based.

The companies expect to close the deal by the end of 2019.

NVIDIA cites increasing GPUdemand from data centers and gaming

Thursday, February 13, 2020  Nvidia  

NVIDIA reported quarterly revenue of $3.11 billion, up 41 percent from $2.21 billion a year earlier, and up 3 percent from $3.01 billion in the previous quarter.

GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $1.53, up 66 percent from $0.92 a year ago, and up 6 percent from $1.45 in the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.89, up 136 percent from $0.80 a year earlier, and up 6 percent from $1.78 in the previous quarter.

For fiscal 2020, revenue was $10.92 billion, down 7 percent from $11.72 billion a year earlier. GAAP earnings per diluted share were $4.52, down 32 percent from $6.63 a year earlier. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $5.79, down 13 percent from $6.64 a year earlier.

“Adoption of NVIDIA accelerated computing drove excellent results, with record data center revenue,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Our initiatives are achieving great success.

“NVIDIA RTX ray tracing is reinventing computer graphics, driving powerful adoption across gaming, VR and design markets, while opening new opportunities in rendering and cloud gaming. NVIDIA AI is enabling breakthroughs in language understanding, conversational AI and recommendation engines ― the core algorithms that power the internet today. And new NVIDIA computing applications in 5G, genomics, robotics and autonomous vehicles enable us to continue important work that has great impact."

Mellanox hits revenue of $429 million, up 40% yoy

Thursday, April 23, 2020  Mellanox  

Mellanox Technologies reported Q1 2020 revenue of $428.7 million, an increase of 40.5%, compared to $305.2 million in the first quarter of 2019.
GAAP gross margins were 66.8%, compared to 64.6% in the first quarter of 2019.

“Mellanox delivered record revenue and operating income in the first quarter of 2020. All our major product lines continued to grow. We are pleased to be shipping end-to-end solutions at speeds of 200 gigabits per second (Gbps) for both InfiniBand and Ethernet. In addition, we are shipping 400 Gbps Ethernet switches,” said Eyal Waldman, President and CEO of Mellanox Technologies.

“Sales of Ethernet adapter products increased 112% year-over-year. We expect our new ConnectX-6 Dx adapters and Bluefield-2 I/O Processing Units (IPUs), the latest additions to our industry-leading family of Smart NICs, to bring unprecedented security and co-processing capabilities to enterprise and cloud data centers. These capabilities will be further strengthened by our recent acquisition of Titan IC, the leading developer of network intelligence and security technology to accelerate search and big data analytics across a broad range of applications in data centers worldwide. The product line revenue of our Spectrum ASIC based Ethernet switch business grew 66% year-over-year. We recently began shipping Spectrum-3 based switches, the world’s first 12.8 Tbps networking platforms optimized for cloud, storage, and artificial intelligence,” continued Waldman.

“We are experiencing very strong adoption of InfiniBand for hyperscale artificial intelligence and cloud environments, resulting in tens of thousands of compute nodes connected with InfiniBand, which demonstrates the superior performance and scalability of InfiniBand. We saw 27% year-over-year growth in InfiniBand, led by strong demand for our HDR 200 gigabit solutions. HDR InfiniBand has been selected to interconnect national Exascale programs, large scale artificial intelligence and cloud platforms, and enterprise compute and storage infrastructures. We are proud that our InfiniBand technology is being utilized by many of the supercomputers in the Covid-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium, which is helping to aggregate computing capabilities for researchers to execute complex computations to help fight the novel Corona virus,” continued Waldman. “We are excited to participate in such important global initiatives through the adoption of our industry-leading adapters, switches, cables, and software, while also delivering strong financial performance for the first quarter of 2020.”

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Verizon extends COVID-19 policies for consumers

Verizon is extending its COVID-19 commitment to keep customers connected through June 30.

Under the policy, Verizon will neither terminate service nor charge late fees to postpaid wireless, residential, and small business customers who are unable to pay their bills due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Customers can notify us by visiting here.

Verizon is also increasing its capital investment guidance from $17 to $18 billion to $17.5 to $18.5 billion in 2020.

“Now more than ever, we need to ensure that our customers, their families and businesses have the ability to connect to the internet even if they’re facing financial hardship from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic,” said Hans Vestberg, Verizon Chairman and CEO. “We want to ensure that our customers can continue to use the internet to work, learn, and carry on with their lives as we all address this collective challenge. We’re confident this joint effort will help make that happen.”

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Comcast extends COVID-19 policies for consumers

Comcast has extended its commitments for Xfinity customers through June 30 to help ensure students can finish out the school year from home and remain connected to the internet during the COVID-19 crisis. These include:

• No Disconnects and Waiving Late Fees
• Xfinity WiFi Free for Everyone: Xfinity WiFi hotspots in business and outdoor locations across the country will be available to anyone who needs them for free
• Pausing Our Data Plan: giving all customers unlimited data for no additional charge.
• Internet Essentials: 60 days of complimentary service for new customers through June 30. Internet Essentials is normally available to all qualified low-income households for $9.95/month. 

“These extended measures will continue to keep Americans safe and ensure that households are equipped for students to learn and stay informed at home as the nation copes with this unprecedented disruption to our daily lives,” said Dave Watson, Comcast Cable Chief Executive Officer. “Our services have never been more important, and we’re doing everything we can to keep people connected to the internet.”

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F5 Networks posts revenue of $583 million, up 7% yoy

F5 Networks reported GAAP revenue of $583.4 million for its second quarter of fiscal year 2020, reflecting a 7% growth from $544.9 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019. GAAP net income for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 was $61.4 million, or $1.00 per diluted share compared to second quarter fiscal year 2019 GAAP net income of $116.1 million, or $1.93 per diluted share.

Following its acquisition of Shape Security, to provide transparency to what F5 management believes reflects its ongoing business results, F5 is reporting both GAAP and non-GAAP revenue. Non-GAAP revenue excludes the impact of the purchase accounting write-down on Shape’s assumed deferred revenue.  Non-GAAP revenue for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 was $585.6 million, reflecting 7% growth in total revenue and 96% growth in software revenue in the year ago period.

“During our second quarter, we saw continued rapid acceptance of our software and subscription-based offerings as enterprises and service provider customers worldwide look to F5 to ensure consistent application access, delivery and security,” said François Locoh-Donou, CEO and President of F5. “In the last month of the quarter, we also saw increased demand for capacity as customers looked to quickly and, in some cases, massively scale remote access capabilities to keep their employees safe and their businesses running.”

“As a result of transforming F5 to a more software-driven business, we have built greater resiliency into our business model,” continued Locoh-Donou. “With 65% recurring revenue, $182 million in cash flow from operations and cash and investments totaling $1 billion at the end of our second quarter, we can weather the economic uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and we are confident our multi-cloud vision, our investments, and our innovation are well aligned with both near- and longer-term customer demand.”

F5 completes its $1B acquisition of Shape Security

Sunday, January 26, 2020  F5, Mergers And Acquisitions  

F5 completed its previously announced acquisition of Shape Security, a privately-held company supplying fraud and abuse prevention solutions, for approximately $1 billion in cash.

Shape provides protection from automated attacks, botnets, and targeted fraud. In particular, Shape defends against credential stuffing attacks, where cybercriminals use stolen passwords from third-party data breaches to take over other online accounts. Shape’s application protection platform evaluates the data flow from the user into the application and leverages highly sophisticated cloud-based analytics to discern good traffic from bad.

Shape was founded in 2011 and is based in Santa Clara, California.

“We welcome Shape to the team and look forward to the work we will do together to transform the application security landscape for customers,” said François Locoh-Donou, F5 President and CEO. “Shape’s advanced AI and analytics capabilities will help accelerate new ways of securing and enhancing the performance of every application, across any cloud.”

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Thailand's True selects Ericsson 5G RAN

True Corporation Plc (True) of Thailand has selected Ericsson as a 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) vendor as part of its national 5G network.

The Ericsson Radio System will enable True to operate 5G on 700MHz (low-band), 2.6GHz (mid-band) and 26GHz (high-band) frequencies in the North, Central-West, and Upper South regions of Thailand. Network rollout got underway in March 2020 immediately following Ericsson’s selection as a 5G vendor.

Ericsson said the deployment includes active antenna products to support beam-forming functions that reduce wireless signal interference and improve 5G speed. In addition, True will benefit from increased system capacity and improved 5G user experience through 4G/5G dual connectivity and LTE-New Radio downlink data aggregation functions.

Nadine Allen, President of Ericsson Thailand, says: “With its higher reliability and speeds coupled with ultra-low latency, 5G technology will have a significant impact on both industries and consumers in Thailand. Ericsson is leading the way in terms of 5G deployments across the globe and we are delighted to make 5G experiences a reality for True’s customers soon.”

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Telit lauches mPCIe module for CBRS

Telit released a new version of its PCI Express Mini Card (mPCIe) family supporting Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS).

Telit said its new CBRS-specific module will help accelerate the deployment of IoT devices on private LTE CBRS networks. The new cost-optimized module is specified for full industrial temperature range, making it is ideal for high data rate applications, including industrial gateways, enterprise routers and CPEs, high resolution video cameras and bandwidth intensive industrial sensors like infrared, x-ray and ultrasound imagers. It can operate in the CBRS band 48 for the U.S. market and in band 42 and 43 for international markets. The LM960A family of modules also offers a 5G evolution path to Telit's FN980m 5G Sub-6GHz and mmWave data card, enabling original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to quickly develop next-generation solutions for the CBRS market, which ABI Research predicts will be worth $16.3 billion by 2025.

The company claims its LM960A family of data cards remains the only 1Gbps-class LTE Advanced Category 18 mPCIe module in the industry, and the world's first mobile broadband card to support CBRS band 48 (3.55 GHz). Powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X20 LTE modem, the LM960A18 rivals wired broadband technologies, with up to 1.2 Gbps download  and 150 Mbps upload speeds This makes the LM960 ideal for bandwidth-intensive CBRS applications such as enterprise routers and gateways, HD and 4K video, and software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WAN). It is also the only product fully certified on major mobile network operators in North America as well as others worldwide.

"CBRS and private LTE networks are changing the way enterprises wirelessly connect their sites and campuses. With Telit's enterprise-grade technologies and experience, they are among the leaders in the industry, helping system integrators and OEMs get their OnGo certified products to market faster," said Alan Ewing, Executive Director, CBRS Alliance. "We look forward to Telit's continued work in advancing this exciting market."

"The LM960A9-P and our membership in the CBRS Alliance highlight Telit's commitment to providing OEMs and their customers with industry-first private LTE solutions," said Safi Khan, Regional Product Marketing Director, Telit. "The new, CBRS-only version, LM960A9-P provides LTE Advanced high performance today and previews what OEMs and customers can expect from our forthcoming 5G mobile broadband devices for CBRS applications."

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China Unicom extends 5G coverage to Mt Everest base camp

China Unicom has extended 4G and 5G coverage to Mount Everest Observation Deck and Mount Everest Base Camp No. 1 on the Tibetan side of the mountain, altitudes of more than 5,000 and 5,200 meters respectively.

More than 10 construction personnel carried materials to the site, including optical cables, antennas, and auxiliary equipment. Solar panels are being used to power the sites.

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