NTT develops quantum random number generator

Researchers at NTT have developed a quantum random number generator (QRNG) that exploits the probabilistic nature of quantum measurements to generate genuine random numbers. 

The breakthrough could be implemented as a server that repeatedly produces fixed blocks of fresh, certifiable, public random bits. Applications might include communication networks with high security enhanced by quantum technologies.

NTT said previous high-performance QRNGs require fully characterized quantum devices, which could be subject to security loopholes. Although there are QRNGs that are secure with realistic devices, they need to run for a long time to accumulate sufficient randomness. This results in high latency from the initial request to the delivery of the requested random bits. It is desirable for real-world applications to realize QRNGs of low latency, high rate and high security. In this work, by developing an efficient method for certifying randomness (a collaborative work with the researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology) and by measuring the arrival time of an optical pulse with time-bin encoding, NTT was able toshow that every 0.1 seconds a block of 8192 quantum-safe random bits can be generated, enabling low-latency high-rate performance. 

https://www.ntt.co.jp/news2021/2102e/210224b.html

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European Commission plans €900 million for 6G research

by Benedict Chua, Associate Editor 

The European Commission is backing a public R&I investment of €900 million over its new long-term budget period 2021-2027 to coordinate research activities on 6G technology under Horizon Europe as well as 5G deployment initiatives under the Connecting Europe Facility Digital and other programmes.

A first set of 6G projects worth €60 million launched last month under the 5G-PPP with the Hexa-X flagship developing a first 6G system concept complemented by 8 projects investigating specific technologies for 6G.

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/europe-puts-forward-proposal-joint-undertaking-smart-networks-and-services-towards-6g

Europe's Hexa-X project aims to set 6G groundwork

Monday, December 07, 2020  6G  

The Hexa-X project, which is funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, will begin on January 1, 2021 with a focus on developing the vision for future 6G systems.  The project will bring together a consortium of major ICT, industry and academic stakeholders. Ericsson and Nokia have been selected to lead the effort.

Magnus Frodigh, Vice President and Head of Ericsson Research says: “We are proud to be the technical lead of the Hexa-X project, together with a strong line up of consortium partners from industry and academia. In 2030, society will have been shaped by 5G for ten years. While we continue to evolve 5G, now is also the right time to start collaborative 6G research activities. The Hexa-X project will be an important vehicle for joint exploration across European industry and academia, together shaping how exponential technology evolution will meet anticipated demands and opportunities for the 6G era. The road to 6G begins today.”

Peter Vetter, Head of Access and Devices Research, Nokia Bell Labs, said: “Even though there is still a lot of innovation in 5G with the release of new standards, we are already exploring 6G in our research lab. In the 6G era we will see applications that will not only connect humans with machines but also connect humans with the digital world. Such a secure and private connection can be used for preventive healthcare or even to create a 6G network with a sixth sense that intuitively understands our intentions, making our interactions with the physical world more effective and anticipating our needs, thereby improving our productivity.”

Six challenges for Hexa-X

• Connecting intelligence: AI/Machine Learning (ML) technologies need to be a vital and trusted tool for significantly improved efficiency and service experience, serving humans
• Network of networks: multiple types of resources need to be aggregated to create a digital ecosystem that grows more and more capable, intelligent, and heterogeneous, eventually creating a single network of networks
• Sustainability: energy-optimized digital infrastructure for a reduced global ICT environmental footprint, as well as delivering effective and sustainable digitization tools for global industry, society and policymakers
• Global service coverage: efficient and affordable solutions for global service coverage, connecting remote places
• Extreme experience: extreme bitrates, extremely low (imperceptible) latencies, seemingly infinite capacity, and precision localization and sensing
• Trustworthiness: ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of communications and delivering data privacy, operational resilience and security 

https://hexa-x.eu/

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Europe's 5G Infrastructure Association opens memberships

The 5G Infrastructure Association, as the industrial partner of the 5G PPP, has extended an invitation to all organisations and enterprises to join the new "Smart Networks and Services" (SNS) European Partnership in the framework of the Horizon Europe programme.

Within the SNS, the 5G IA will be the private side representative, jointly managing the Partnership with the EU. The SNS Partnership aims to support European technological sovereignty on Smart Networks and Services. It will contribute to enable the digital and green transitions and will allow European players to develop the technology capacities for 6G systems as the basis for future digital services towards 2030. 

https://5g-ia.eu

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Tektronix and Anritsu offer PCI Express 5.0 testing

Tektronix, in collaboration with Anritsu, introduced  a new PCI EXPRESS 5.0 transceiver (Base and CEM) and reference clock solution for pre-compliance testing. The collaboration between Tektronix and Anritsu enables receiver verification, complementing a world-class transmitter and reference clock test suite.

The PCI EXPRESS 5.0 Base Specification boasts bandwidth of 128 GB/s and the upcoming PCI EXPRESS 6.0 specification will push this to 256 GB/s and include multi-level PAM4 signaling.

The PCI EXPRESS 5.0 transceiver and reference clock solution from Tektronix was developed and continues to be aligned with the 5.0 Base specification, 5.0 CEM specification, and 5.0 test specifications.

Key features include:

• PCI EXPRESS 5.0 (32 GT/s) automated Base & CEM transceiver solution running on DPO700000SX series 70 GHz real time oscilloscope and MP1900A Signal Quality Analyzer-R series (BERT) from Anritsu
• New Receiver automation software from Tektronix with highly efficient algorithms for stressed eye calibration at 32 GT/s & 16 GT/s
• State-of-the-art tool support including SigTest Phoenix with highly parallelized processing to reduce overall test time
• Multiple form factors (M.2 & U.2) and Clocking Architectures (CC, SRNS, SRIS)
• Follows real time evolution of the 5.0 Base specification with 32 GT/s uncorrelated jitter and pulse width jitter measurements implemented to optimize A/D range and minimize noise
• Addresses the increasing challenges of 100 MHz reference clock jitter and signal integrity measurements through full integration with the Silicon Labs "PCIe Clock Jitter" tool and Tektronix's DPOJET tool
• Industry first pre compliance test fixtures for PCIe 5.0 CEM testing

The companies note that the server/storage industry is rapidly transitioning to PCI EXPRESS 5.0 due to new requirements imposed by 400G Ethernet, cloud AI and modeling (co-processors), storage capacity, and NAND-based storage. This rapid progression brings an entirely new problem set for test and measurement traditionally split into Base silicon level validation and CEM compliance testing with the PCI-SIG.

"Electronics designers today demand future-proofing to protect their innovations' longevity into tomorrow," says Takeshi Shima, senior vice president at Anritsu corporation. "Providing a solution through Gen6 gives our customers a sense of our commitment to stay with them on the cutting edge of development."

"As PCIe becomes faster and more complex with the emergence of the Gen5 standard, engineers are faced with new design challenges, shorter time-to-market windows, new standards specifications to understand and apply, and new compliance testing requirements," says David Bouse, PCI EXPRESS systems engineer at Tektronix. "It is vital to have a comprehensive test equipment and software solution in place prior to workshop certification. Our PCIe 5.0 test and debug solution can easily guide the engineer through compliance testing and debug to ensure their design meets new standards with a high degree of confidence."

http://news.tektronix.com/2021-02-25-Tektronix-introduces-PCI-Express-R-5-0-transceiver-and-reference-clock-solution

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HPE to build supercomputer for Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute

KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, one of Sweden’s largest technical universities dedicated to science and engineering research, has selected Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to build a new supercomputer to improve modeling and simulation of complex data.

The HPE Cray EX supercomputer will feature over 65,000 CPU cores and it be ready for research use in July 2021. The second phase of the installation will consist of GPUs which will be installed later this year and be ready for use in January 2022.

The HPE Cray EX supercomputer will include HPE Slingshot for purpose-built HPC networking to address demands for higher speed and congestion control for data-intensive workloads. It will also feature next generation AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct GPU accelerators to improve efficiency and achieve the performance required to process and harness insights from computationally complex data.

The new supercomputer, which KTH has named “Dardel” in honor of the Swedish novelist, Thora Dardel, and her first husband, Nils Dardel, the post-impressionist painter, will replace KTH’s current flagship system, Beskow, and will be housed on KTH’s main campus at the PDC Center for High Performance Computing.

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Deutsche Telekom tests solar powered base stations with Ericsson

Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson are testing the use of solar energy for mobile broadband sites. 

The first site is in a German village about 100 miles north of Munich. The Ericsson Power System is handling maximum power point tracking (MPP) as well as the necessary voltage conversion.  The solution also includes integration of the solar solutions into the same management system that also controls the Radio Access Network (RAN).

The tests, carried out in the second half of 2020, showed that solar energy is able to contribute to more than two-thirds of the site's total power during peak hours. Depending on the solar irradiation and technology configuration, larger shares, including up to fully autonomous power supply, where are also observed. This is thanks to the energy-efficient radio equipment.

Leif Heitzer, Senior Vice President Technology Guidance & Economics at Deutsche Telekom, says: “Autonomous power supply for mobile sites not only reduces our CO2 emissions, but also shall help enabling network expansion in locations, where development costs were previously not economical.”

Heather Johnson, Vice President for Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, Ericsson, says: “Ericsson is a driving force for global climate action and this project is another example for how a network-level approach can be deployed sustainably for mobile networks. We welcome this partnership with Deutsche Telekom and we continue to be committed to supporting our customers, manage their network energy consumption and related carbon emissions.”

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Nokia lands 5G contract in Ecuador

Ecuadorian mobile operator, Corporación Nacional de Telecommunicaciones (CNT), has selected Nokia for the extensive network modernization of existing LTE infrastructure as well as the installation of a 5G non standalone (NSA) network. Deployment is underway.

The project encloses the modernization of existing 3G/LTE infrastructure in the provinces of Guayas, Los Rios, Manabi, Bolivar, Morona Santiago and Santa Elena, already implementing over 500 sites for a seamless migration to 5G services. Nokia will also deploy the first 5G non standalone (NSA) sites which will operate in the cities of Guayaquil and Manta. These first 5G sites will enable CNT to plan the services they want to launch with 5G.

The deal comprises Nokia equipment from its comprehensive AirScale portfolio, that will enable CNT to deliver market-leading 5G experiences to subscribers with ultra-low latency, connectivity and capacity as well as reducing complexity and increasing cost efficiencies. Nokia is also supplying its massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna and Micro Remote Radio Head (RRH) solutions to meet the demand for capacity and reliable coverage. CNT also deployed the Nokia AirFrame data center solution to support cloud-based applications necessary for future telco and IT networking.

Martha Moncayo Guerrero, CEO CNT EP, commented: “Being the only public telco company in Ecuador and market leaders in offering hyper-converged services, we are prepared for the deployment of 5G networks to provide a new future for Ecuadorians. With Nokia, we will be able to present the benefits of this fifth generation technology and show their impact on healthcare, education and industry, for the social and productive development of the country.”

Ari Kynäslahti, Head of Technology and Strategy at Nokia Mobile Networks, said: “We are proud to work on this ambitious network evolution plan together with CNT in Ecuador as its long-standing supplier and look forward to delivering compelling 5G experiences to enterprise, consumer and corporate businesses.”

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Equinix and Vodafone to build subsea hub in Genoa for 2Africa cable

Equinix and Vodafone announced a plan to build a new subsea hub in Genoa, called GN1, to serve as a strategic interconnection point for the 2Africa cable system.

2Africa is a consortium cable project backed by China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC. At 37,000km long, 2Africa will be one of the world’s largest subsea cable projects and will interconnect Europe (eastward via Egypt), the Middle East (via Saudi Arabia), and 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa.

Vodafone is the cable consortium's lead for European landings.

Equinix said GN1 will have a direct fiber connection to ML5, the soon-to-be opened Equinix flagship data center in Milan, and will allow Equinix customers to increase the number of partners they connect with and expand their reach into new markets.

GN1 will offer customers secure, resilient colocation and interconnection services, as well as the ability to directly leverage Equinix's digital ecosystems and colocation facilities in Milan. It will provide a capacity of 150 cabinet equivalents, and colocation space of approximately 6,000 square feet (560 square meters).

Eugene Bergen Henegouwen, President, EMEA, Equinix, states: "I am thrilled we are adding a new metro to our EMEA portfolio. Equinix's Genoa site provides a great landing hub for subsea cable operators, whilst at the same time boosting the digital ecosystems at our recently announced Milan flagship, ML5. Equinix continues to focus on expanding its position as a global connectivity service provider. Our commitment is always to support the increasing demands we're seeing from companies globally to accelerate their digital transformation. We're helping businesses connect to everything they need to succeed, and will continue to do so."

https://www.2africacable.com/

http://www.equinix.com

Equinix builds flagship data center in Milan

Tuesday, July 21, 2020  Data Centers, Equinix, Italy  

Equinix is building a new state-of-the-art colocation data center in Milan, Italy.

Known as ML5 and due to open in Q1 2021, the International Business Exchange (IBX) data center will host advanced interconnection services, including Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric (ECX Fabric) and Equinix Internet Exchange.

The facility is situated in North-West Milan, which will provide customers with direct access to Equinix's industry-leading software-defined networking service, ECX Fabric, enabling virtual interconnections to some of the largest cloud providers in the world, such as: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Google Cloud.

The $51 million first phase of ML5 is expected to provide a capacity of 500 cabinet equivalents and colocation space of approximately 15,000 square feet (1,400 square meters). Upon completion of the planned future phases, ML5 is expected to provide total capacity of more than 1,450 cabinet equivalents and colocation space of more than 45,000 square feet (4,200 square meters).

The ML5 IBX is the fourth data center for Equinix in Italy.

https://www.equinix.com/newsroom/press-releases/pr/123965/Equinix-to-Open-New-Flagship-Data-Center-in-Milan/

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NeoPhotonics ships QSFP-DD 400G ZR modules

NeoPhotonics announced the availability of its extended case temperature QSFP-DD 400G ZR modules.

NeoPhotonics said the new 400G ZR modules leverage its Silicon Photonics Coherent Optical Subassembly (COSA) and low power consumption, ultra-narrow linewidth Nano-ITLA tunable laser.  Each of these components can be operated over a wide module case temperature range up to 80C. This enables the Neophotonics 400G ZR modules to be deployed in extended temperature data center environments while reducing cooling requirements and fan power.

“The ability of 400G ZR vendors to offer thermally-optimized designs capable of supporting higher case temperatures will significantly help reduce system cooling requirements,” said Dr. Hacene Chaouch, Distinguished Engineer at Arista Networks. “This is an important consideration for implementing power efficient data center interconnect architectures.” 

“We are pleased to support customers with high-performance 400G ZR modules that operate across a wide thermal envelope, without sacrificing optical performance.” said Tim Jenks, Chairman and CEO of NeoPhotonics.  “By utilizing our leading high-speed coherent components technology and optimizing the entire optics suite through in-house design, we are able to favorably benefit data centers need to reduce power consumption and improve environmental sustainability,” concluded Mr. Jenks.

https://www.neophotonics.com/press-releases/?newsId=12221

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II‐VI develops VCSEL module for driver monitoring systems

II‐VI introduced its vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) flood illuminator modules for driver and occupancy monitoring systems in vehicles.

II-VI said its new VCSEL flood illuminator modules emit higher optical power and with a narrower spectral width than infrared LEDs currently used in existing driver monitoring systems, enabling substantial improvements in system performance. The infrared light emitted from II-VI’s flood illuminator modules can be modulated to frequencies greater than 100 MHz, making them ideal for 3D time-of-flight cameras for driver and occupancy monitoring systems. The modules are expected to be AEC-Q102 certified for automotive applications in the second quarter of calendar 2021.

“Our new VCSEL flood illumination modules integrate VCSEL chips, photodiodes, and diffuser optics, achieving a greater level of vertical integration and value for our customers,” said Dr. Julie Eng, Sr. Vice President, Optoelectronic & RF Devices Business Unit. “We leveraged our in-house 6-inch GaAs technology platform to successfully scale production of our VCSEL arrays for consumer electronics, and we look forward to ramping production of flood illumination modules for in-cabin sensing in automotive as the demand grows.”

https://ii-vi.com/news/ii-vi-incorporated-unveils-vcsel-flood-illuminator-modules-for-driver-and-occupancy-monitoring-systems-in-vehicles/

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Credo intros PAM4 Optical DSP

 Credo introduced its Seagull 200 Optical DSP for supporting high-performance QSFP56 optical modules to enable 200GbE SR4, DR4, FR4, and LR4 applications in hyperscale data centers, cloud networks, and 5G wireless mid-haul and back-haul networks.

Seagull 200 accepts four lanes of 53.125Gbps (26.5625Gbaud) PAM4 on the client (host) interface and sends the traffic to four lanes of 53.125Gbps PAM4 signal on the optical (line) interface. The device is designed in Credo’s unique architecture and optimized for die size and mainstream silicon process technology, enabling low cost-of-ownership and accelerating 200GbE market adoption.

Seagull 200 (CFD50502) integrates high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) engine and equalization techniques to compensate for optical impairments while achieving good BER performance and maintaininglow power dissipation. The architecture has minimal and deterministic latency that is needed in the mobile infrastructure. 

Seagull 200 comes with advanced diagnostics and loopback features to reduce time-to-market and aid with rapid system debug. The device footprint is compatible with Credo’s low power Dove 200 Optical DSP, which allows customers to design a common PCB for either component and choose the DSP that best meets the application need.

“Seagull 200 is the ideal high-performance and low power DSP for data centers and for 5G wireless mid-haul and back-haul deploying PAM4 networks,” said Scott Feller, Vice President of Marketing at Credo. “The low power and fixed latency enable 200G upgrades on the next generation wireless networks,” Feller added.

https://www.credosemi.com

Credo intros DSP for 5G front- and mid-haul

Thursday, September 10, 2020  #5G, Credo, DSP  

Credo introduced a DSP for optical modules used in 5G front- and mid-haul wireless networks. 

The Credo Seagull 50, CFD10101, is a versatile full-duplex product that can be used in next-generation QSFP28, DSFP, and SFP56 pluggable optical transceivers. It supports 50Gbps SR/DR/FR/LR and ER applications based on PAM4 modulation. 

Seagull 50 operates over the full industrial temperature range of -40oC to +85oC module case and is ideal for use in datacenters and 5G wireless/eCPRI front-, mid- and backhaul applications.

The DSP can be used as a gearbox or retimer. In gearbox mode, the IC is configured as two lanes of 24.33-25.78Gbps NRZ on the host side to one lane of 50.135-53.125Gbps PAM4 on the line side. In retimer mode, the DSP is configured as one lane of 50.135-53.125Gbps PAM4 to one lane of 50.135-53.125Gbps PAM4. 

https://www.credosemi.com/releases/2020/9/7/credo-introduces-seagull-50-pam4-dsp-to-drive-front-and-mid-haul-5g-wireless-networks

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AT&T to spinoff its video business into New DIRECTV

AT&T reached a deal with TPG Capital, a private equity firm, to establish a new company named DIRECTV that will own and operate AT&T’s U.S. video business unit, which includes the current DIRECTV, AT&T TV, and U-verse video services.

Under the deal, AT&T will own 70% of the common equity of the new company and TPG will own 30%. The transaction to separate AT&T’s U.S. video business into New DIRECTV implies an enterprise value for the new company of $16.25 billion.

“This agreement aligns with our investment and operational focus on connectivity and content, and the strategic businesses that are key to growing our customer relationships across 5G wireless, fiber and HBO Max. And it supports our deliberate capital allocation commitment to invest in growth areas, sustain the dividend at current levels, focus on debt reduction and restructure or monetize non-core assets,” said AT&T CEO John Stankey. “As the pay-TV industry continues to evolve, forming a new entity with TPG to operate the U.S. video business separately provides the flexibility and dedicated management focus needed to continue meeting the needs of a high-quality customer base and managing the business for profitability. TPG is the right partner for this transaction and creating a new entity is the right way to structure and manage the video business for optimum value creation.”

AT&T Completes Acquisition of DIRECTV

Friday, July 24, 2015  ATT, DirecTV  

AT&T completed its acquisition of DIRECTV, making it the largest pay TV provider in the United States and the world, providing service to more than 26 million customers in the United States and more than 191 million customers in Latin America, including Mexico and the Caribbean. Additionally, AT&T has more than 132 million wireless subscribers and connections in the U.S. and Mexico; offers 4G LTE mobile coverage to nearly 310 million people in the U.S.; covers 57 million U.S. customer locations with high-speed Internet; and has nearly 16 million subscribers to its high-speed Internet service.

DIRECTV shareholders received 1.892 shares of AT&T common stock, in addition to $28.50 in cash, per share of DIRECTV.  The implied total equity value is $48.5 billion and the total transaction value is $67.1 billion, including DIRECTV’s net debt.

AT&T said the DIRECTV acquisition significantly diversifies its revenue mix, products, geographies and customer bases. As a result of this acquisition, as well as AT&T’s acquisition of Iusacell and Nextel Mexico, AT&T expects that, by the end of 2015, its largest revenue streams will be, in descending order: Business Solutions (both wireless and wireline); Entertainment & Internet; Consumer Mobility; and International Mobility and Video.

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Akraino Release 4 extends Kubernetes to more edge use cases

LF Edge announced the availability of Akraino Release 4 featuring additional blueprints that support various deployments of Kubernetes across the edge, from Industrial IoT, to Public Cloud, Telco, and Machine Learning (ML). 

Akraino delivers an open source software stack for edge computing systems and applications. New use cases and new and existing blueprints provide an edge stack for Industrial Edge, Public Cloud Edge Interface, Federated ML, KubeEdge, Private LTE/5G, SmartDevice Edge, Connected Vehicle, AR/VR, AI at the Edge, Android Cloud Native, SmartNICs, Telco Core and Open-RAN, NFV, IOT, SD-WAN, SDN, MEC, etc.

Akraino R4 includes seven new blueprints for a total of 25+, all tested and validated on real hardware labs supported by users and community members, and API map.

The 25+ “ready and proven” blueprints include both updates and long-term support to existing R1, R2, and R3 blueprints, and the introduction of seven new blueprints:

• Public Cloud Edge Interface (PCEI)
• Private LTE/5G ICN
• The AI Edge: Federated Machine Learning (ML) at Edge
• The AI Edge: Intelligent Vehicle-Infrastructure Cooperation System(I-VICS)
• IoT Workloads at the Smart Device Edge – Predictive Maintenance (with a Thermal Imaging Camera, vibration sensors, etc.)
• KubeEdge Service
• Kubernetes Native Infrastructure (KNI) for Industrial Edge

“Now on its fourth release, Akraino is a fully-functioning open edge stack,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “This latest release brings new blueprints that focus on Kubernetes-enablement across edges, as well as enhancements to other areas like connected cars, ML, telco and more. This is the power of open source in action and I am eager to see even more use cases of blueprint deployments.”  

https://www.lfedge.org/projects/akraino/release-4-2/

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VMware posts revenue of $3.3 billion, up 7% yoy

VMware reported Q4 2020 revenue of $3.3 billion, an increase of 7% from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. Non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $936 million, or $2.21 per diluted share, up 8% per diluted share compared to $868 million, or $2.05 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.

Some highlights:

• The combination of Subscription and SaaS and license revenue was $1.7 billion, an increase of 8% from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.
• Subscription and SaaS revenue for the fourth quarter was $707 million, an increase of 27% year-over-year.
• Workloads on VMC on AWS and revenue nearly doubled YoY in Q4
• NSX and vSAN had single-digit YoY declines in Q4, an improvement for both over Q3FY21

"We are pleased with our fourth quarter financial performance and it was a good finish to the fiscal year. Our results reinforce that customers continue to choose VMware technologies and solutions to drive their digital foundation for today and for the future,” said Zane Rowe, CFO and Interim CEO, VMware. “We continue to build and scale our Subscription and SaaS business, bringing customers flexibility in consumption choices, as well as delivering new offerings to market.”

https://ir.vmware.com/

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Marvell supplies OCTEON baseband processors for Fujitsu base stations

Fujitsu has selected Marvell’s baseband processor silicon to power its new 5G New Radio (NR) base stations.

Specifically, Fujitsu will adopt Marvell’s OCTEON Fusion baseband processors for their 5G base station designs and also plans to engage with Marvell on O-RAN distributed unit (DU) products, enabling them to bring advanced 5G technologies to the worldwide market.

“We are extremely pleased that Fujitsu has selected Marvell to help increase their 5G RAN footprint around the globe,” said Raj Singh, Executive Vice President of the Processors Business Group at Marvell. “Fujitsu is an innovator in 5G infrastructure solutions from the radio unit (RU) to the DU and the network core. OCTEON Fusion provides a scalable and flexible platform that will enable Fujitsu to leverage the technology across multiple product offerings.”

www.marvell.com/solutions/carrier

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L-Com offers 18 new passive fiber optic splitters

L-com introduced a new series of passive optical splitters/combiners for use in various Passive Optical Network (PON), Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) applications and in a wide range of fiber to the home, building, curb and other (FTTx) networks. 

L-com's new line of passive fiber optic splitters/combiners consists of 18 new models that are comprised of LGX-style cassettes as well as 900um and 250um fiber cable form factors. The LGX cassettes are available with 1x02, 1x04, 1x08, 1x16 and 1x32 even splits and feature SC fiber connectors with an APC polish. The 900um field units are available with 1x04, 1x08, 1x16 and 1x32 even split options as well as non-connectorized versions or connectorized versions with SC/APC polish connectors. The 250um field units are available in 1x02, 1x04, 1x08, 1x16 and 1x32 even splits using bare fiber (no connectors).

"Our new line of passive splitters/combiners is perfect for use in metro and regional transport, and distribution networks including passive fiber applications where two or more channels need to be either combined or split. Our new splitter/combiner offering provides installers with a range of styles and form factors to address just about every fiber PON application," said Paul Hospodar, Product Line Manager.

https://www.l-com.com/

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C-band auction: Verizon $45B; AT&T $23B; T-Mobile $9B

Verizon was the top bidder with a commitment of over $45 billion in the FCC's recent C-band auction.

Auction 107 net winning bids totaled $81,114,481,921 and gross winning bids totaled $81,168,677,645.  Twenty-one bidders won all of the available 5,684 licenses.

“It is essential to America’s economic recovery that we deliver on the promise of next-generation wireless services for everyone, everywhere,” said FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.  “This auction reflects a shift in our nation’s approach to 5G toward mid-band spectrum that can support fast, reliable, and ubiquitous service that is competitive with our global peers.  Now we have to work fast to put this spectrum to use in service of the American people.  Special thanks go to our great FCC auctions team, and their colleagues in the Wireless Telecommunications and International Bureaus, among others, for this success.”

The five bidders with the largest total gross winning bid amounts from both the clock and assignments phases were as follows:

Full results are here:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-21-207A2.pdf

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Juniper integrates Mist AI with SD-WAN and Secure Branch Gateway

Less than 2 months after completing its acquisition of 128 Technology, Juniper announced several new products integrate 128 Technology and further its vision of end-to-end AI-driven automation, insights and actions from client-to-cloud. The releases combine Mist AI with 128 Technology’s Session Smart SD-WAN technology to deliver integrated AIOps, security and troubleshooting across the WLAN, LAN and WAN. 

The latest additions to Juniper’s AI-driven enterprise include:

• WAN Assurance and Marvis™ Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) for Session Smart SD-WAN. Ingesting telemetry data from Session Smart Routers into the Mist AI engine enables customers to set, monitor and enforce service levels across the WAN, proactively detect anomalies and gain enhanced insight into WAN conditions to assure optimal user experiences.
• 
  
• Enhanced SRX operations driven by Mist AI. The SRX Series of secure branch gateways can now be onboarded and configured using Mist AI and the cloud. With zero touch provisioning (ZTP) and automated workflows, Juniper simplifies deployment of these devices.
• New EX4400 secure access switch. The latest addition to the EX Series portfolio is optimized for the cloud with best-in-class security and AIOps.

“Juniper is consistently recognized for our experience-first approach to networking, where AI-driven automation, insight and actions simplify operator experiences and optimize end-user experiences from client-to-cloud,” said Jeff Aaron, VP Enterprise Product Marketing. “These latest product enhancements underscore our sustained commitment to executing on this vision, as well as our unique ability to rapidly deliver new solutions that drive real value to both customers and partners.”

https://newsroom.juniper.net/news/news-details/2021/Juniper-Networks-Combines-Mist-AI-with-Session-Smart-SD-WAN-and-SRX-Secure-Branch-Gateway-for-Optimal-User-Experiences-from-Client-to-Cloud/default.asp

 Juniper to Acquire 128 Technology - focus on AI-driven WANs

Monday, October 19, 2020    

Juniper Networks agreed to acquire 128 Technology, a software-based networking company based in Burlington, Mass., for $450 million in cash and the assumption of outstanding equity awards. Juniper has also coordinated for 128 Technology to issue retention focused restricted stock units, which will be assumed by Juniper.

128 Technology’s session-smart networking enables enterprise customers and service providers to create a user experience-centric fabric for WAN connectivity. Routing decisions are based on real-time user sessions and agile business policies instead of static network policies configured on a per tunnel basis. The company, which was founded in 2014 and launched in 2016,  is headed by Andy Orly, co-founder and CEO.

 Juniper said the deal will enhance its AI-driven enterprise network portfolio by uniting 128 Technology’s Session Smart networking with Juniper’s campus and branch solutions driven by Mist AI. 128 Technology will be integrated with Juniper’s AI-Driven Enterprise business unit, which includes wired and wireless access and SD-WAN, all driven by Mist AI. The combined portfolio will give customers a unified platform for optimized user experiences from client-to-cloud.

“The acquisition of 128 Technology will enable Juniper to accelerate in a key area where we are seeing enormous success – the AI-driven enterprise,” said Rami Rahim, CEO of Juniper Networks. “Both companies share a common vision of putting user experiences above all else and leveraging automation with proactive actions to simplify IT operations. With 128 Technology, we are adding a highly differentiated technology into our award-winning arsenal of campus and branch solutions driven by Mist AI to deliver even more customer value while further accelerating Juniper’s continued growth in the enterprise.”

“128 Technology has brought to market a groundbreaking session-based routing solution that gives rise to experience-based networking. This allows our customers to realign their network with the requirements of a digital future that includes cloud, mobility and virtualization,” said Andy Ory, Co-Founder and CEO of 128 Technology. “The combination of our Session Smart Router with Juniper’s AI-driven enterprise portfolio, expansive channel and world-class support will dramatically accelerate our vision to transform networking and make a big impact on a very large, yet still highly under-served, WAN-Edge market.”

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NTT opens data center campuses in Oregon and Illinois

NTT Ltd. inaugurated two new 36 megawatt (MW) data centers in Chicago, IL, and Hillsboro, OR. 

The 36MW Chicago data center sits on a 19-acre campus just 25 minutes from the O’Hare International Airport. When finished, the campus will feature two data centers providing 72MW of critical IT load. For national enterprises, hyperscale cloud, and IT services firms seeking to add centralized data center capacity to power recent, latency-sensitive workloads, Chicago is a prime location for their demanding requirements.

The 36 MW Hillsboro data center is situated on a 47-acre campus at the heart of the Pacific Northwest technology hub and offers organizations the ability to meet sustainability goals with optional carbon-neutral IT and 100% renewable energy options. When the entire campus build is completed, it will deliver 126MW of capacity with more than one million square feet of data center space. Check out the full build plan here.

The Hillsboro campus also earned a Level 3 certification from the Cleaner Air Oregon program, the highest level of certification for a data center in the area. The facility is built for superior reliability from N+1 electrical and mechanical redundancy. A variety of cables deliver low-latency connections between the U.S. and high-growth Asian markets, giving organizations the low latency they need to serve market expansion initiatives as well as the latest services that need next-level responsiveness.

NTT plans to open two more data centers in North America this year: a completely new Silicon Valley campus and a planned expansion in Ashburn, VA.

https://hello.global.ntt/ja-jp/newsroom/ntt-opens-two-new-data-centers-in-illinois-and-oregon

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Windstream carries 400G wavelength over 1,027 km with Acacia

Windstream Wholesale successfully carried a 400 Gbps single-wavelength transmission over 1,027 kilometers across its long-haul network between Phoenix and Los Angeles. 

The live network trial used Acacia Communications’ digital coherent optics technology. 

“This record-setting accomplishment by Windstream Wholesale is a gamechanger for optical networks going forward,” said Buddy Bayer, chief network officer at Windstream. “Windstream is executing a well-crafted architectural strategy that embraces fundamental design principles of disaggregation, openness and flexibility. Windstream continues as an early adopter of coherent optical technologies to drive efficient growth and scale of our network and services for our customers. We expect to begin deploying ZR+ coherent pluggable modules in the second half of 2021, a technology that has applicability in as many as 80% of our existing links.”

“Windstream has demonstrated that 400G pluggable coherent modules can support not only metro, but also regional and long-haul network applications,” said Benny Mikkelsen, founder and chief technology officer of Acacia Communications. “Built on highly scalable technology that offers benefits in cost, size and power, we are excited about the opportunities for these pluggables in service provider networks.”

https://news.windstream.com/news/news-details/2021/Windstream-Wholesale-Sets-400G-ZR-Record-with-Acacia-Coherent-Pluggable-Module-Reaching-over-1000-km-in-Live-Network/default.aspx

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ADVA posts Q4 revenues of EUR 141 million, increased profits

ADVA reported revenues in Q4 2020 of EUR 140.6 million, down by 4.2% from EUR 146.7 million in Q3 2020 and down by 7.0% compared to EUR 151.1 million in the same year-ago period. Pro forma gross profit in Q4 2020 increased by 5.2%, reaching EUR 54.6 million (38.9% of revenues) compared to EUR 51.9 million (35.4% of revenues) in Q3 2020. Compared to EUR 54.6 million reported in the year-ago quarter, pro forma gross profit remained stable in absolute terms. Net income reached EUR 13.2 million in Q4 2020, substantially up by 98.6% from EUR 6.7 million in Q3 2020 and significantly up by 425.3% from EUR 2.5 million in Q4 2019.

The company said its decrease in revenues is primarily due to the devaluation of the US dollar compared to the euro. In addition, due to lockdown tightening again, some orders had to be postponed to the following quarter.

“Today’s communication infrastructure is critical to solving some of the biggest challenges facing our global society. And we are a key part of this process. We are the only remaining optical networking and synchronization specialist in Europe. Growing safety concerns, specifically around the major Chinese equipment suppliers, create new opportunities and unique selling points for us that further strengthen our market position,” said Brian Protiva, CEO, ADVA. “Technologically, our solutions are perfectly aligned with the network transformation that’s taking place, including a focus on cloud, mobility, 5G, network automation and security. With our investments, we’ve created a foundation for transforming our business model towards higher margins. This transformation includes growing revenue contributions from software and services, expansion into new industries and further verticalization of our business.”

Financial results and analyst presentation are available here:

https://www.adva.com/en/about-us/investors/financial-results/conference-calls

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AWS begins offering computer vision service

Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon Lookout for Vision, a new service that analyzes images using computer vision and machine learning capabilities to spot product or process defects and anomalies in manufactured products. Early customers include GE Healthcare, Amazon, and Basler.

“Whether a customer is placing toppings on a frozen pizza or manufacturing finely-calibrated parts for an airplane, what we’ve heard unequivocally is that guaranteeing only high-quality products reach end-users is fundamental to their business. While this may seem obvious, ensuring such quality control in industrial pipelines can in fact be very challenging,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Amazon Machine Learning for AWS. “We’re excited to deliver Amazon Lookout for Vision to customers of all sizes and across all industries to help them quickly and cost effectively detect defects at scale to save time and money while maintaining the quality their consumers rely on – with no machine learning experience required.”

Lookout for Vision is available directly via the AWS console as well through supporting partners to help customers embed computer vision into existing operating systems within their facilities. The service is also compatible with AWS CloudFormation. Lookout for Vision is available today in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), EU (Frankfort), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Asia Pacific (Seoul), with availability in additional regions in the coming months.

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Vodafone advances plan to spin-off tower business

Vodafone took another step toward spinning off its tower business as an independent business by completing its nomination of directors to a Supervisory Board.

The Supervisory Board of Vantage Towers will comprise nine members, led by independent Chairman Dr. Rüdiger Grube. The Supervisory Board will bring deep expertise in the towers sector and across the telecommunications industry, strong operational and M&A experience, together with high standards of financial and technical expertise.

In addition to Dr. Rüdiger Grube, who brings over 30 years’ experience including as a senior executive at Daimler, CEO of Deutsche Bahn and Chairman and non-executive director of Airbus, the nominated independent members of the Supervisory Board of Vantage Towers are:

Katja van Doren, who currently serves as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer at RWE Generation SE. Prior to her current role, Ms. van Doren held a number of senior finance positions at RWE and Innogy. Ms. van Doren is also expected to take the role of the Chair of the Vantage Towers Remuneration and Nomination Committee following her election

Charles C. Green III,a co-founder and previously the Executive Chairman of Helios Towers, a leading independent tower company in Africa, operating over 7,000 sites across 5 markets. Mr Green was previously CFO at communications infrastructure business, Crown Castle International, including at the time of its IPO. He is currently a non-executive director and advisor on the Board of edotco Group, a leading infrastructure company in South Asia with a regional portfolio of over 31,500 towers. 

Terry Rhodes, a co-founder and previously the CEO of Eaton Towers, a high growth pan-African tower company which operated approximately 5,700 sites at the time of its acquisition by American Tower Corporation in early 2020. Eaton Towers was built through a combination of M&A transactions and greenfield investments. Earlier in his career, Mr Rhodes was a co-founder of Celtel, the African mobile telecommunications company, where he served as Deputy CEO. 

https://www.vodafone.com/news/press-release/vantage-towers-announces-remaining-supervisory-board-nominations

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Dell'Oro: Microwave transmission equipment market dipped 6% in 2020

The market for Microwave Transmission equipment declined 6 percent in 2020 but is positioned for growth in 2021, according to new report from Dell'Oro Group.

“It was a difficult market environment for Microwave Transmission sales in 2020,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “The pandemic, of course, was the main cause for the market decline, especially in regions of the world that placed strict rules on travel. But throughout the year, following a sharp decline in the first quarter, the market steadily strengthened, resulting in quarter-over-quarter revenue growth in each quarter following 1Q20,” added Yu.

Some highlights:

• Huawei continued to hold the highest market share in each quarter of the year, and ultimately gained share against some of its competitors by the year’s end. 
• Huawei achieved its highest market share level in 2020, surpassing its record level set back in 2016. 
• The vendors with the next highest shares were Ericsson and Nokia, both of which benefited from the strengthening European market.
• Only two regions—North America and Europe—grew year-over-year in the fourth quarter and full-year 2020. 

“We believe the North American market improvement was driven by growing demand in the Verticals market for public safety and Internet services, and that the European market grew due to an increasing demand for mobile backhaul,” stated Yu.

https://www.delloro.com/news/microwave-transmission-equipment-market-declined-6-percent-in-2020/

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Inmarsat appoints Rajeev Suri as its new CEO

Inmarsat appointed Rajeev Suri as CEO and a director of Connect Bidco Limited, the holding company for Inmarsat, replacing Rupert Pearce who will step down as CEO from 28 February 2021.

Suri is the former President and CEO of Nokia, a position he held for six years. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks for five years, a joint venture company that merged Nokia’s and Siemens’ networks businesses. Since stepping down in August 2020, Rajeev has worked in senior advisory roles with private equity firms Warburg Pincus and Apollo Global Management.

Andrew Sukawaty Inmarsat’s Chairman, said: “The Board is delighted to welcome Rajeev to Inmarsat and we look forward to working closely with him and with the existing Executive team. Rajeev’s experience will support Inmarsat’s future growth and we look forward to the business transitioning successfully to another capable leader.”

Rajeev Suri said: “I am very excited to join Inmarsat, and to work closely with such skilled people, at such an important moment for the company and the satellite communications industry as a whole. I have been very impressed by the capabilities and ambitions of the company and its partner community and wish to pay tribute to their ethos, drive and ingenuity. Together, they have established technology leadership in satellite mobility, underpinned by a unique understanding of the customer.”

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Google Cloud and Intel partner on telco cloud architectures

 Google Cloud and Intel agreed to develop telco cloud reference architectures and integrated solutions for communication service providers to accelerate 5G deployment across multiple network and edge locations. 

The partnership is focused on:

• Accelerating the ability of communications service providers to deploy their virtualized radio access network (RAN) and open RAN solutions with next-generation infrastructure and hardware.
• Launching new lab environments to help communications service providers innovate for cloud native-based 5G networks.
• Making it easier for communications service providers to deliver business applications to the network edge.

“Communications service providers can adopt cloud-native technologies to harness the potential of 5G both as a connectivity solution and as a business services platform to deliver applications to the network edge,” said Shailesh Shukla, vice president and general manager of networking at Google Cloud. “Expanding on our work with the telecommunications industry, we are excited to work with Intel to help customers plan, test and deploy the technology and infrastructure needed to accelerate the delivery of cloud-native 5G for consumer and enterprise use cases.”

Intel said the collaboration marks another important step forward in its journey to help transform the 5G network with a software-defined, agile and scalable infrastructure.

“The next wave of network transformation is fueled by 5G and is driving a rapid transition to cloud-native technologies. As communications service providers build out their 5G network infrastructure, our efforts with Google and the broader ecosystem will help them deliver agile, scalable solutions for emerging 5G and edge use cases,” said Dan Rodriguez, corporate vice president and general manager of the Network Platforms Group at Intel.

Google Cloud said it is working closely with Intel in three main areas: accelerating the ability of communications service providers to deploy their Virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) solutions by providing next-generation infrastructure and hardware, launching new lab environments to help communications service providers innovate on cloud-native 5G, and making it easier for them to deliver business applications to the network edge. 

Regarding 5G vRAN deployments, the architecture will leverage Google Cloud’s global infrastructure and capabilities alongside Intel’s FlexRAN reference software; Intel’s cloud-native Open Network Edge Service Software (OpenNESS) deployment model and best practices applicable to Anthos; Intel’s Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) and hardware infrastructure based on Intel Xeon processors; and New reference architecture and solutions to accelerate 5G vRAN with Anthos, an application platform.

In addition, Google Cloud will jointly launch a Network Functions Validation lab and collaborate with Intel to support vendors in testing, optimizing, and validating their core network functions running on Google Cloud’s Anthos for Telecom platform. 

https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-google-cloud-aim-advance-5g-networks-edge-innovations/#gs.ubx9fa

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/partners/speeding-up-cloud-native-5g-networks-with-intel-and-google-cloud

Google Cloud and Nokia announce Telco Cloud Partnership

Thursday, January 14, 2021  Google Cloud, Nokia, Telco Cloud  

Google Cloud and Nokia announced a global, strategic partnership focused on cloud-native solutions for communications service providers (CSPs), including a cloud-native 5G Core and a network edge for business services.Under this partnership, Google Cloud and Nokia will work closely to validate, optimize and evolve cloud-native network functions, and the two companies will also co-innovate new solutions that will help CSPs deliver 5G connectivity...

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Xilinx debuts new family of Alveo SmartNICs and AI video analytics

Xilinx introduced a new family of Alveo SmartNICs, smart world AI video analytics applications, an accelerated algorithmic trading reference design for sub-microsecond trading, and a Xilinx App Store - all aimed at next gen data centers and workloads.

The Xilinx Alveo SN1000 SmartNICs, which is based on the Xilinx 16nm UltraScale+ architecture, are powered by the low-latency Xilinx XCU26 FPGA and a 16-core Arm processor. The SN1000 SmartNICs deliver dual-QSFP ports for 10/25/100Gb/s connectivity with leading small packet performance and a PCIe Gen 4 interconnect. The first model in the family is the SN1022, which is offered in a full height, half-length form factor in a 75-Watt power envelope.

The Alveo SN1000 SmartNICs deliver software-defined hardware acceleration for all function offloads. SN1000 SmartNICs directly offload CPU intensive tasks to optimize networking performance, with an open architecture that can accelerate a broad range of network functions at line rate. Programmability is provided via the company's Vitis Networking platform and industry standard, high-level programming languages such as P4, C, and C++. 

SN1000 SmartNICs provide software-defined hardware acceleration for a wide range of networking, security, and storage offloads, such as Open vSwitch and virtualization acceleration (Virtio.net). Security offloads include IPsec, kTLS and SSL/TLS and accelerated storage applications including Virtio.blk, NVMe over TCP, Ceph, and compression and crypto services.

“Data centers are transforming to increase networking bandwidth and optimize for workloads like artificial intelligence and real-time analytics,” said Salil Raje, executive vice president and general manager, Data Center Group at Xilinx. “These complex, compute-intensive and constantly-evolving workloads are pushing existing infrastructure to its limits and driving the need for fully composable, software-defined hardware accelerators that provide the adaptability to optimize today’s most demanding applications as well as the flexibility to quickly take on new workloads and protocols, and accelerate them at line rate.

In addition, Xilinx is launching an AI video analytics platform with an ecosystem of partner solutions built to accelerate the most complex and latency-sensitive AI video inferencing applications. One example use case is retail video analytics, where accelerated video processing could help identify key trends in consumer behavior.

https://www.xilinx.com/applications/data-center/network-acceleration/alveo-sn1000.html

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