T-Mobile US again expands fixed wireless access

 T-Mobile US is expanding its fixed wireless Home Internet service to more than 130 additional cities and towns across Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin. 

T-Mobile is preparing to launch commercial 5G Home Internet service next year.

“Home broadband has been broken for far too long, especially for those in rural areas, and it’s time that cable and telco ISPs have some competition,” said Dow Draper, T-Mobile EVP, Emerging Products. “We’ve already brought T-Mobile Home Internet access to millions of customers who have been underserved by the competition. But we’re just getting started. As we’ve seen in our first few months together with Sprint, our combined network will continue to unlock benefits for our customers, laying the groundwork to bring 5G to Home Internet soon.”

T-Mobile Home Internet is $50/month with no data cap.

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SKT and DT joint venture to target 5G in-building solutions

SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have for a 50-50 joint venture to develop and offer in-building 5G network solutions. The new company will be headquartered in Germany. 

SKT will contribute the technology assets it has developed over the years to the joint venture. The company has already provided 5G/LTE dual-mode repeaters to support Telekom’s customer trial for in-building coverage carried out in eight different cities in Germany - i.e. Berlin, Hamburg, Bonn, Cologne, Munich, Darmstadt, Frankfurt and Leipzig - from August to October 2020. 

“Together with SKT we are able to develop new and innovative products which enhance customer experience. The first feedback from repeater customer trial has shown the value of our partnership - for us, but more importantly, for our customers. We will start with the repeater, but this joint venture is aiming at a much higher goal. That goal is to create major innovations for both companies fin the years to come,” says Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom.

“The Partnership between SKT and Deutsche Telekom is very meaningful at a time when the world is heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Park Jung-ho, CEO of SK Telecom. “The deepened bond between the two companies will play an important role as a bridge between Asia and Europe and lead us to new technologies that can bring greater value to humanity.” 

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Western Digital intros faster NVMe SSDs for data centers

Western Digital introduced a news suite of new NVMe SSDs for  next-generation, data-centric architectures for data centers, industrial IoT, automotive and client applications. 

The new family includes:

• the Ultrastar DC ZN540 ZNS NVMe SSD for designing a more efficient data center storage tier with competitive TCO. The Ultrastar DC ZN540 ZNS SSD includes a vertically integrated, dual-port, high-availability NVMe controller with capacities up to 8TB in a standard U.2 form-factor; 
• the Western Digital IX SN530 Industrial SSD for the extreme environments of industrial and automotive applications. The IX SN530 NVMe SSD features a broad operating temperature range from -40°C to +85°C, and delivers a 20G operating vibration specification; 
• and the 2TB WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD for speeding up PC performance.

Zoned Storage is the new storage architecture for the next-generation enterprise data center. In addition to championing the Zoned Storage Initiative and ZoneStorage.io, and contributing to the NVMe Working Group ZNS specification and the Linux open-source community to further ecosystem development, Western Digital today announced that it is now sampling the new Ultrastar DC ZN540 ZNS NVMe SSD to select customers. 

Western Digital says the new DC ZN540 SSD delivers up to 4x performance and 2.5x QoS improvements, as well as better efficiency, utilization, and scale while lowering TCO for public and private cloud infrastructure.

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Orange builds indoor 5G network for LACROIX Electronics plant

Orange has designed and deployed an indoor 5G network based on Ericsson equipment at the LACROIX Electronics plant in Montrevault-sur-Evre, France.

LACROIX Group, an international technological equipment manufacturer, is testing 5G as part of its "Symbiose" project – the electronics factory of the future in France.

Highlights:

• Four indoor 5G antennas (Ericsson Dot) were installed inside the plant, broadcasting experimental frequencies to cover the production space.
• Orange operates a virtualized network core, distributed between the premises of Orange and the LACROIX Electronics plant. This enables local processing and data security, as well as network performance and efficiency, suitable for LACROIX Electronics use cases.

Orange and LACROIX Group are also testing 5G's contribution for better technical management of buildings and infrastructure. The experiment is carried out in a controlled environment, where electronic cards are produced for the aviation sector. The assembly of components requires strict temperature and hydrometric regulation to prevent damage. LACROIX Environment, a subsidiary specializing in water and energy network management, provides connected equipment to receive real-time measurements. Optimizing the settings will prevent over-consumption of energy. 5G will enable a response to the increasing number of sensors in the plant. In fact, 5G will be able to support up to 1 million sensors per km² (3GPP 5G standard). Eventually, thanks to the increase in the number of sensors, it will also be possible to calculate the carbon footprint and power consumption required for the production of each product.

"We are very pleased to collaborate with LACROIX Group as part of this digitized, human and environmentally friendly factory of the future. 5G will be a digitization facilitator for Industry and a competitive lever for both the economic environment and all enterprises, regardless of size or location," said Helmut Reisinger, CEO Orange Business Services.

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Cellwize raises $32 million for its 5G automation and orchestration

Cellwize, a start-up headquartered in Singapore with R&D in Israel, announced a $32 million Series B funding round for its mobile network automation and orchestration solution.

The new funding round was led by Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures LLC with participation from Verizon Ventures, Samsung Next, and existing shareholders.

Cellwize offers a RAN automation and orchestration platform for 5G rollouts. Cellwize CHIME enables operators to accelerate their 5G deployment by automating key business processes in the RAN domain. The company leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning for zero-touch 5G deployments, for automating 2G/3G/4G/5G network optimization, and for delivering mobile network assurance. 

"We are delighted to have been selected by these leading VCs for their strategic investments to accelerate 5G in a way that is open and disaggregated," said Ofir Zemer, CEO of Cellwize. "This is a clear reflection of the trust they have in Cellwize and in the cutting-edge capabilities of CHIME for enabling the 5G revolution. "

"Intel Capital is a lead investor in Cellwize because we're excited about the opportunity Cellwize has to help operators transform their networks to accelerate the 5G revolution," said David Flanagan, vice president and senior managing director at Intel Capital. "Cellwize and Intel Capital are aligned in their vision that Cellwize's cloud-native platform, which includes AI-based automation technology, will help customers deploy complex 5G networks in a more efficient, scalable, and flexible way. 

"Qualcomm is at the forefront of 5G expansion, creating a robust ecosystem of technologies that will usher in the new era of connectivity," said Merav Weinryb, Senior Director of Qualcomm Israel Ltd. and Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures Israel and Europe. "As a leader in RAN automation and orchestration, Cellwize plays an important role in 5G deployment. We are excited to support Cellwize through the Qualcomm Ventures' 5G global ecosystem fund as they scale and expedite 5G adoption worldwide." 

https://www.cellwize.com/

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BT to offer RingCentral's Unified Communications as a Service

BT will offer RingCentral's Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) services to its small, medium and large sized UK enterprises, as well as public sector customers.

“As businesses continue to navigate through the complexities of Covid-19, our extended partnership with RingCentral reinforces a commitment and shared vision of bringing innovative communications solutions to our customers so they can thrive now, and put the right building blocks in place for a successful post-pandemic workplace,” said Ashish Gupta, Chief Operating Officer, BT’s Enterprise Unit. “Every organization is adopting new remote and digital ways of working, with varying degrees of complexity. By collaborating with partners like RingCentral, we’re focused on removing this complexity for our customers to enable a successful digital transformation journey.”

Cloud Work provided by RingCentral will be available through BT’s Account managers (Corporate and Major Corporate), BT Local Businesses, and through dedicated telesales and call centers. Cloud Work service is provided by RingCentral UK, Ltd.

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Acacia posts Q3 revenue of $158.3 million

Acacia reported Q3 revenue of $158.5 million, compared to $119.6 million for the same period last year. GAAP gross margin was 50.4%; non-GAAP gross margin was 50.6%. GAAP net income was $24.3 million and non-GAAP net income was $33.9 million. GAAP diluted EPS was $0.56; non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.78.

http://ir.acacia-inc.com/investor-overview

• In July 2019, Cisco agreed to acquire Acacia Communications for $70.00 per share in cash, or for approximately $2.6 billion on a fully diluted basis, net of cash and marketable securities. 

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Finland's Elisa picks Keysight’s cloud infrastructure testing software

Finnish service provider Elisa has selected Keysight’s Cloud Peak cloud infrastructure testing software to accelerate the design and deployment of their next-generation 5G virtualized networks.

Keysight’s Cloud Peak helps validate NFV throughout the continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. This includes disaggregated fabric benchmarking and characterization of NFV infrastructure to compare technologies, identify bottlenecks and optimize configurations. Cloud Peak builds on the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) Yardstick framework, providing access to the industry-standard, open source test suite, while improving on and expanding its capabilities with new use cases. It also adds new capabilities such as container and virtual infrastructure manager (VIM) performance testing in an easy-to-use, lightweight and automated web application.

“As service providers virtualize their networks to cost-effectively deploy cloud-native 5G and roll out innovative new services, they need to ensure their infrastructure delivers the performance and reliability their customers depend on,” said Ram Periakaruppan, vice president and general manager of Keysight’s Network Test group. “Elisa provided great feedback in the development of Cloud Peak’s robust and scalable testing capabilities, as well as in the development of Cloud Peak’s easy-to-use web-based, real-time reporting.”

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