Qualcomm targets 5G RAN platforms

Qualcomm introduced a new family of chipsets targetting 5G infrastructure, ranging from macro base stations with massive MIMO to micro base stations with compact designs. There are new three new 5G RAN platform offerings: Qualcomm Radio Unit Platform, Qualcomm Distributed Unit Platform, and Qualcomm Distributed Radio Unit Platform. 

Qualcomm said it took a ground up approach is designing these chipsets to support leading mobile operators in the deployment of a new generation of converged, open and virtualized RAN (vRAN) networks. 

“Our 5G expertise and global technology leadership uniquely positions Qualcomm Technologies to provide a comprehensive horizontal infrastructure platform to enable the deployment of innovative, high-performance, virtualized, and modular 5G networks at scale,” said Cristiano Amon, President, Qualcomm Incorporated. “We are working closely with mobile operators, network equipment vendors, standards bodies and other key stakeholders to make the deployments of these networks a reality.”

Key highlights of the Qualcomm 5G RAN Platforms portfolio:

• From Macro to Small Cells: The solutions offer scalable support for a wide range of infrastructure categories ranging from macro base stations with massive MIMO to small cells.
• High performance Modem-RF: Designed for superior radio performance including high-power, high capacity operation, the Qualcomm 5G RAN Platforms feature a comprehensive 5G Modem-RF System including baseband, transceiver, front-end and antenna panels.
• Enabling high performance virtualized products with integrated hardware acceleration: Flexible vRAN architecture with hardware accelerators for modem and fronthaul processing designed to enable high throughput low latency network processing for superior power-efficiency and compact equipment designs.
• Flexible, scalable, interoperable interfaces: Support for all key 5G functional split options between Distributed Unit (DU) and Radio Unit (RU), to allow for the disaggregation of the RAN into standards-based and interoperable modular components.
• Integrated Sub-6 and mmWave solution: Natively integrated Sub-6 GHz and mmWave concurrent baseband support in the Distributed Unit along with global support for 5G sub-6 GHz, mmWave and 4G bands in the Radio Unit.

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Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm hit 5.06 Gbps

Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies demonstrated 5G peak speeds of 5.06 Gbps using 5G mmWave spectrum with carrier aggregation.

The demonstration, completed in a lab environment, used 5G infrastructure equipment from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio and a 5G smartphone form factor test device powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System featuring 3rd-generation Qualcomm QTM535 mmWave antenna modules.  

The set-up used 800 MHz bandwidth in 28 GHz mmWave spectrum combined with 40 MHz for the 4G LTE anchor. 

Looking ahead, the companies said 5G technology has the potential of reaching speeds up to 10 Gbps, latency under 5 milliseconds, and service deployment times of 90 minutes. They also believe 5G networks will have the ability to manage over a million devices per km2 and data volumes of 10 Tb/s/km2. 

“We have been driving the evolution of 5G technology from the early days and we continue to aggressively drive innovation -- pushing the limits of the technology farther and faster for our customers,” said Brian Mecum, vice president, device technology, Verizon. “This latest achievement is yet another milestone in providing a genuinely differentiated service for our customers on mmWave.”

“Our strategy from the beginning has always been to reshape the world by driving innovation and leading the way in deploying the keenly differentiated 5G Ultra Wideband experience customers can only get from the mmWave based 5G network. It is the 21st century infrastructure that will shape the future,” said Mecum. “Today’s demonstration shows the advancements we are making to provide our customers with the mobile technology and capabilities they don’t even yet know they need.”

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Microsoft announces Azure Modular Datacenter for remote areas

Microsoft announced Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC) for bringing cloud computing capabilities into hybrid or challenging environments, including remote areas. 

Azure MDC is a self-contained datacenter unit that can operate in a wide range of climates and harsh conditions in a ruggedized, radio frequency (RF) shielded unit. 

MDC is designed so that it can run with full network connectivity, occasionally connected or fully disconnected. Microsoft said it is partnering with satellite operators to provide an option for secure and reliable connectivity to field deployed MDC units.

In addition, Microsoft announced a partnership with SpaceX Starlink to provide low-latency satellite broadband for the new Azure MDC.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-the-microsoft-azure-modular-datacenter/

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Goldman Sachs backs Global Compute, a new data center player

The Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division will invest up to $500 million of equity capital in Global Compute Infrastructure, a new data center company. The Goldman Sach funding is expected to enable approximately $1.5 billion in near-term investments in Global Compute as its grows through data center acquisitions and new construction in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Global Compute, which is headed by Scott Peterson, formerly Chief Investment officer and co-founder of Digital Realty, said it will focus on acquiring and developing facilities which can meet the growing compute, storage, connectivity and colocation deployment needs of the world’s largest technology companies. Peterson is joined by fellow DLR co-founder Christopher Kenney as COO, and former senior DLR executive in EMEA, Stephen Taylor as Head of Europe. Kenney was largely responsible for the expansion of DLR’s footprint internationally, and Stephen led many of those initiatives throughout EMEA. 

Global Compute has already agreed to acquire ATM S.A. , a leading data center and communications infrastructure business in Poland from a consortium of funds managed by MCI Capital.

“Goldman Sachs is the perfect partner for us as we pursue global investment opportunities in the data infrastructure space,” according to Scott Peterson, CEO of Global Compute. “Our combined global pedigrees and networks, together with GS MBD’s access to ample growth capital, will allow the Global Compute platform to not only serve the critical needs of our customers around the world, but also create and unlock value for our partners. Our initial investment in ATM S.A. is an ideal illustration of this collaboration. We are extremely enthusiastic about our partnership with Goldman Sachs enabling us to provide creative solutions for our global customers.”

“We are incredibly excited about partnering with Scott and the Global Compute team,” said Leonard Seevers, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. “We see a tremendous opportunity in the data center space driven by increasing computing and storage demand and we believe the Global Compute team, backed by the global resources of Goldman Sachs, is uniquely positioned to deliver world class solutions to meet that demand.”

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Sweden bans Huawei and ZTE for 5G infrastructure

The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) issued new license conditions that ban the use of infrastructure products from Huawei or ZTE in new 5G installations in the 2.3 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands.  Four carriers have been approved to participate in the auction for these bands: Hi3G Access, Net4Mobility, Telia Sverige and Teracom.

The Swedish regulatory authority said if existing infrastructure for central functions is to be used to provide services in the concerned frequency bands, products from Huawei and ZTE must be phased out 1 January 2025 at the latest. A further condition is that if central functions are dependant of staff or functions placed in foreign countries, such dependencies must be phased out and, if necessary, be replaced by functions or staff placed in Sweden. This must be completed by 1 January 2025.

https://www.pts.se/en/news/press-releases/2020/four-companies-approved-for-participation-in-the-3.5-ghz-and-2.3-ghz-auctions/

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Australia's QCN Fibre deploys Ciena's Waveserver with 400G

QCN Fibre, a new government owned telecommunications company in Queensland, Australia, is rolling out Ciena’s Waveserver Ai compact interconnect platform powered with programmable 400G coherent optics across its edge environment. QCN Fibre will provide backhaul to all six Queensland NBN Points of Interface (PoI) in Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, and Cairns. QCN Fibre is also deploying Ciena’s MEF 3.0 certified 5170 Platform.

“Our launch strategy was to activate services to these key regional centres by mid-2020. We have achieved that,” said QCN Fibre’s Chief Executive Officer, Derek Merdith. “Now, we continue to improve Coverage, Capacity and Competition throughout Queensland, through connecting to all 22 NBN PoIs.”

“As a small and dynamic organisation, we can quickly adapt our strategies to meet our customers’ needs. When we inspected the more than 12,000km of fibre we inherited from our parent companies, Energy Queensland and Powerlink, and considered current market conditions, connecting to all 22 PoIs became both technically achievable and a competitive necessity.”

“Today, there are only two primary backhaul providers to the six regional PoIs. Whilst NBN provides some competition, small ISPs must ultimately rely on a limited range of suppliers for backhaul services from the PoI to Brisbane. Regional backhaul currently costs several times that of metropolitan backhaul.” 

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Seaborn deploys Infinera on AMX-1 cable connecting US and Brazil

Seaborn Networks has deployed Infinera’s XT Series submarine network platforms to launch new services on its AMX-1 cable connecting the U.S. and Brazil. 

Seaborn operates two leading cable systems, Seabras-1 and AMX-1, both powered by Infinera solutions. Seaborn’s AMX-1 cable system provides transport, Ethernet private line, and IP services on a geographically diverse path from its Seabras-1 cable, connecting Rio de Janeiro and Jacksonville, Florida, to offer its customers high-capacity, low-latency connectivity services.

“Our longstanding relationship with Infinera and this collaboration have enabled us to cost-efficiently address our customers’ growing capacity demands with reliable, low-latency solutions purpose-built for subsea transport,” said Paul Cannon, Vice President of Engineering & Operations at Seaborn. “Key factors in Seaborn’s selection of Infinera’s solutions are its history of consistently delivering industry-leading optical engines and the roadmap for its ICE6 800G generation technology.”

“We’re pleased to partner with Seaborn to provide submarine network services enabling the company to operate a resilient, high-capacity network,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Sales at Infinera. “Infinera’s optical engines consistently demonstrate proven benefits in subsea applications, delivering superior spectral efficiency while significantly lowering network costs. With Infinera’s optical engine, Seaborn has the network capacity needed today and can seamlessly upgrade its network in the future to Infinera’s ICE6 800G generation coherent technology with ease as bandwidth demands dictate.”

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Optelian intros disaggregated optical transport platform

Optelian today introduced its DA (Deploy Anywhere) Series of multi-service, compact and hardened (OSP-compliant) platforms for multi-haul transport upgrades, remote business services access and fiber deep architectures.

Optelian’s first DA Series member, the TMX-4400, is a DWDM transport solution for anyhaul deployment of hardened 100/200/400 GbE or OTU services. It interfaces a 100G to 400G QSFP28/DD on the client side and a CFP2-DCO on the line side with software programmable DWDM modulation supporting operation from 100G to 400G, including openZR+, CableLabs® and openROADM standards.

Optelian said its hardened platform is capable of being deployed in harsh environments where a temperature controlled shelter or facility does not exist, while still providing next generation multi-service capability anywhere from 1G to 1.6T.

“Demand continues to grow for flexible, high-bit-rate, compact and disaggregated transport equipment. We are excited to roll out both the TMS-1190 platform and its family of OSP-capable 100G to 800G multi-rate transponders – each providing reliability, flexibility and extended operating temperature in a compact form factor,” said Scott Agnew, CTO, Optelian. “This platform promises to improve overall cost per bit in any deployment environment without sacrificing optical transport performance parameters.”

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