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 optical technologies to achieve the best cost point, huge capacity, fastest time-to-market, and simplest evolution path compared to 50G PON, which will require a massive technology leap or long time to mature.

All customers with 10 Gbps Quillion boards will also now have 25 Gbps capabilities in their network. Nokia 25G PON can co-exist with GPON and XGS-PON on the same infrastructure, allowing CSPs to add 25 Gbps in overlay without disrupting existing customer services. This will allow them to add 25G PON quickly and efficiently when and where needed to capitalize on new opportunities.

Sandra Motley, President of Fixed Networks at Nokia, said: “Nokia continues to lead the PON evolution. We have a long history of firsts: from the first volume GPON deployments to the first 10G PON and next-generation access platforms. It is vital that we keep pushing and enable our customers to capitalize on new opportunities while fully leveraging their existing investments. By delivering a step-change increase in fiber broadband networks with our 25G PON solution, CSPs will be able to bring better broadband to consumers and businesses, both through fixed fiber and 5G mobile broadband.”

New 25GS-PON multisource agreement gets underway

Sunday, October 25, 2020  25G, 25G PON  

A new 25G symmetric PON multi-source agreement (25GS-PON MSA) is underway with the goal of promoting and accelerating the development of 25GS-PON. 

The MSA Group has defined the 25GS-PON specification needed to address the gap between 10G XGS-PON and 50G PON in the ITU-T. The MSA was created after the ITU-T SG15/Q2 group did not reach consensus to standardize 25GSPON, which is seen as a crucial technology by many of the world’s top operators and vendors.

As a first step, the 25GS-PON MSA Group created a specification for 25GS-PON which includes optical specifications based on the IEEE 802.3ca 25G EPON standard, along with a Transmission Convergence (TC) layer that is an extension of XGS-PON. 

The MSA Group will also promote and catalyze the market development for 25GS-PON.

The founding members of the 25GS-PON MSA Group include: AOI, Chorus, Chunghwa Telecom, Ciena, MACOM, MaxLinear, NBN Co., Nokia, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd, and Tibit Communications.

http://www.25gspon-msa.org

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Cignal AI: EMEA optical and packet transport spending bounces back

European operators resumed purchases of optical and packet transport hardware in 3Q20 as COVID-related supply chain and operational delays eased, according to the most recent Transport Hardware Report from research firm Cignal AI. At the same time, North American spending weakness spread to the optical hardware segment as the region’s operators paused capex after aggressive deployments in the first half of the year.

“EMEA’s packet and optical transport sales growth was bolstered by sales deferred from Q2 and raised the market overall during the third quarter,” said Scott Wilkinson, Transport Hardware lead analyst at Cignal AI. “The outcome was different in North America, where sales were more frontloaded in the first two quarters than in EMEA, especially by the larger operators. NA annual CapEx budgets are largely exhausted, producing declining sales in the second half of the year for this region.”

Highlights:

• Optical hardware spending grew by double-digits in EMEA, countering expectations of a flat-to-down quarter in optical spending. Nokia led the robust growth with a boost from sales deferred from Q2. Worldwide, optical hardware spending was up slightly.
• Packet transport hardware spending also rose in EMEA but declined worldwide. EMEA packet transport revenue for both Huawei and Juniper grew by more than 20% YoY as the two companies gained ground on market leaders Cisco and Nokia.
• North American optical and packet spending declined this quarter, as anticipated by vendors (Ciena, Cisco) with exposure to large network operators. Ciena continues to lead optical market share with slight YoY revenue growth, while Cisco maintains packet transport market leadership despite a sharp YoY revenue decline.

https://cignal.ai/2020/11/emea-optical-and-packet-transport-spending-bounces-back-in-3q20/

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Dell'Oro: Optical transport equipment market grew 9% in 3Q 2020

Thanks to higher demand in Asia Pacific, optical transport equipment revenue increased 9 percent year-over-year in 3Q 2020 reaching $3.8 billion, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.

“Sales slowed in North America following a strong first half of the year,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Whether it was due to network demand caused by people working and studying from home or new projects at the beginning of the year, the demand for optical equipment in the region rose 11 percent in the first half of 2020. But I think there was enough concern surrounding the longevity of the pandemic that service providers grew cautious and refrained from overextending their capital. As a result, optical revenue in North America declined 7 percent in the third quarter,” continued Yu.

Highlights:

• Growth in Asia Pacific more than offset the lower revenue in North America and Latin America. 
• Optical revenue grew 22 percent year-over-year in Asia Pacific, driven largely by higher deployments in China and Japan. 
• With lockdown restrictions easing, some regions such as Middle East and Africa (MEA), significantly rebounded in the quarter following a sharp decline in 1H 2020. 
• Sales in China, Japan, and MEA each grew over 25 percent.

https://www.delloro.com/news/optical-transport-equipment-market-grew-9-percent-in-3q-2020-to-3-8-billion/

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Dell'Oro: Surging demand for 5G accelerates RAN growth

Preliminary readings indicate that the positive momentum that has characterized the radio access network (RAN) market since the upswing began in the second half of 2018 extended into the third quarter, with surging demand for 5G propelling the RAN market to robust year-over-year growth, according to Dell'Oro Group.

“While we correctly identified that the RAN market would appear disconnected from the underlying economy throughout this year, we also underestimated the pace and the magnitude of these 5G rollouts,” said Stefan Pongratz, analyst with the Dell’Oro Group. “This shift from 4G to 5G, including low-band-and mid-band 5G NR, continued to accelerate at a torrid pace in the quarter, underpinned by stronger-than-expected 5G activity in multiple regions.”

Highlights:

• RAN revenue shares were impacted to some degree by the state of the 5G rollouts in China and North America, resulting in share gains for both Huawei and ZTE over the 1Q20-3Q20 period.
• The near-term outlook remains favorable for both macro and small cells, with combined 2020 and 2021 2G-4G and 5G base station shipments projected to eclipse 10 M units.
• We have adjusted the near-term RAN market outlook upward, to reflect stronger than expected activity in China, Europe, and North America, with total RAN projected to approach $70 B to $80 B for the combined 2020 and 2021 period.

https://www.delloro.com/news/surging-demand-for-5g-accelerates-ran-growth/

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IBM to acquire Instana for AIOps application monitoring

IBM will acquire Instana, an application performance monitoring and observability company based in Chicago and with a development center in Germany. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Instana provides businesses with capabilities to manage the performance of complex and modern cloud-native applications no matter where they reside – on mobile devices, public and private clouds and on-premises, including IBM Z.  Instana's enterprise observability platform automatically builds a deep contextual understanding of cloud applications and provides actionable insights to indicate how to best prevent and remedy IT issues that could damage the business or reduce customer satisfaction -- such as slow response times, services that aren't working or infrastructure that is down.

Once Instana's capabilities are integrated into IBM, companies will be able to feed these insights into Watson AIOps. The information could then be compared to a baseline of a normal operating application, with AI triggering alerts to resolve issues quickly before negative impacts to that transaction or activity. This can help eliminate the need for IT staff to manually monitor and manage applications, freeing these employees to focus on innovation and higher value work. 

"With the added responsibility of ensuring the build and run quality of the software they develop, DevOps teams need a new generation of application performance monitoring and observability capabilities to succeed," said Mirko Novakovic, co-founder and CEO, Instana. "Instana's observability capabilities combined with IBM's AI-powered automation capabilities across hybrid cloud environments will give clients a full view of their application performance to best optimize operations."

https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/ibm-and-instana

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Verizon to install private 5G Ultra Wideband for GM, Honeywell

Verizon will install its 5G Ultra Wideband service inside the corporate offices of General Motors and Honeywell to help drive digital transformation initiatives.

General Motors (GM) and Verizon Business partnered to install 5G Ultra Wideband at GM’s recently announced Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center, known as Factory ZERO, an all-electric vehicle (EV) assembly plant. 

Honeywell is installing Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband inside their new corporate headquarters in Charlotte. The service will serve their Innovation Center and Executive Leadership floor, where they will showcase different Honeywell products and solutions that benefit from the high bandwidth and low latency provided by Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband.

“If the past few months have taught us anything, it’s that the acceleration to digital will only get faster and our customers must seize this moment to scale quickly, and General Motors and Honeywell are two industry-leading companies that are first movers in this area,” said Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business.“We’ve opened the door to the 5G era and have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to completely reimagine the future of enterprise. Foundational to this is the power of Verizon’s 5G network coupled with our expanding portfolio of enterprise cloud applications and devices, including the powerful, new iPhone 12 lineup.”

Apple and Verizon also announced Verizon 5G Fleet Swap, a first-of-its-kind program that allows customers to trade in their entire fleet of smartphones, from Verizon or any carrier, and upgrade to any model in the iPhone 12 lineup for zero upfront cost, with zero to low cost per month.

“The iPhone 12 lineup is the best for business, with an all-new design, advanced 5G experience, industry-leading security and A14 Bionic, the fastest chip ever in a smartphone,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Markets, Apps and Services. “Paired with Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband going indoors and 5G Fleet Swap, an all-new device offer for enterprise, it’s now easier than ever for businesses to build transformational mobile apps that take advantage of the powerful iPhone 12 lineup and 5G.”

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Vantage raises US$1.25 billion in equity funding

Vantage Data Centers raised US$1.25 billion in incremental equity capital from its existing investors, led by Digital Colony. This funding will be used to fuel ongoing expansion and development across North America and Europe.

“Hyperscale data center market demand remains strong, and this capital raise will allow Vantage to accelerate its global expansion of sustainable, large-scale campuses,” said Sharif Metwalli, CFO, Vantage Data Centers. “This capital raise demonstrates our investors’ continued commitment to Vantage’s strategic growth plan.”

“The Vantage team continues to do an amazing job supporting the growth of their hyperscale customers as they expand in North America and increasingly throughout Europe,” said Marc Ganzi, president and CEO of Colony Capital and Digital Colony. “Supporting the strategic development and financing of our partner companies is a key pillar of Digital Colony’s alpha-creation strategies, so we’re thrilled to be a part of Vantage’s next big step forward.”

Vantage Data Centers opens data center campus near Frankfurt

Monday, November 02, 2020  Data Centers, Germany, Vantage Data Centers  

Vantage Data Centers inaugurated its first 15MW data center in Germany along with partners Energieversorgung Offenbach (EVO) and DataCenter-Group (DCG). 

The campus, located in Offenbach, will house three multi-story data centers totaling 55MW of critical IT capacity and 650,000 square feet (60,000 square meters) when fully developed. The opening of the Frankfurt campus is a key milestone in Vantage’s strategy to expand across Europe.

"The development of this campus in one of the most sought-after markets in Europe is the first milestone in our USD $2 billion European expansion strategy,” said Antoine Boniface, president, Vantage Europe. “Many of our customers need to be in Europe for a variety of reasons, whether it’s to reduce latency or to comply with local privacy laws. Offenbach is an ideal location, located within one kilometer of the main peering points and just 15 minutes from Frankfurt’s international airport."

The Frankfurt campus was part of the acquisition of Etix Everywhere in February 2020, which Vantage announced along with greenfield developments in Berlin, Milan, Warsaw and Zurich.

Vantage Data Centers gains strategic backing from Colony Capital

Tuesday, July 07, 2020  Data Centers, Vantage  

Vantage Data Centers announced a strategic partnership valued at $3.5 billion to accelerate the expansion of its wholesale data centers throughout North America and Europe.

Specifically, the Colony-led investor group will invest $1.2 billion in Vantage’s diversified portfolio, including 12 stabilized North American data centers, which span more than 1.4 million gross square feet and 150MW of IT capacity across key strategic markets in Santa Clara, California; Quincy, Washington; Montreal and Quebec City, Canada.

Vantage’s management team, led by Sureel Choksi, president and CEO, will continue to manage and operate these assets as part of its global data center footprint. Vantage will maintain the same level of superior service to its valued customers in each market, while simultaneously developing and operating additional data centers throughout North America and Europe. The capital provided by this transaction will support Vantage’s strategy to expand and enhance its global footprint.

http://www.vantage-dc.com

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