AT&T to power its network with Microsoft Azure for Operators

AT&T will power its mobile network on Microsoft's Azure for Operators cloud starting with the 5G and migrating existing and future workloads over time. Microsoft will assume responsibility for both software development and deployment of AT&T’s Network Cloud immediately and bring AT&T’s existing network cloud to Azure over the next three years. Financial terms were not disclosed.Under an expanded strategic alliance between the firms, AT&T...

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Orange to build experimental 5G SA cloud network in Lannion

Orange is preparing to build an experimental 5G Stand Alone (SA) fully end-to-end cloud network in Lannion, France to serve as a blueprint for its next generation of agile, cloud-native, AI-driven and fully automated infrastructure.Orange is working with a number of industry partners, including Mavenir for cloud 5G Open RAN, Casa Systems for cloud 5G SA core network, Hewlett Packard Enterprise for Cloud 5G SA SDM (Subscriber Data Management), Dell...

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MEF milestone for certified solutions

More than sixty service providers and technology vendors around the globe now offer MEF 3.0-certified Carrier Ethernet (CE) and SD-WAN solutions. Four of the top five companies as ranked on Vertical Systems Group’s 2020 U.S. Carrier Managed SD-WAN Leaderboard—AT&T, Verizon, Comcast Business, and Windstream—have achieved MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification. In addition, the top four SD-WAN technology providers as ranked by Dell’Oro Group—Cisco, VMware,...

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Telstra sells a 49% stake in its towers business

Telstra will sell a 49% share in its Telstra InfraCo Towers business, which consists of approximately 8,200 towers across Australia, to a consortium comprised of the Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Sunsuper.The transaction values Telstra InfraCo Towers at $5.9 billion, representing an FY21 pro forma EV/EBITDAaL multiple of 28x. Telstra expects net cash proceeds after transaction costs of $2.8 billion at completion and the...

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Comcast Business wins $102M, 10-Year Ethernet Contract with DISA

The United States’ Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) awarded a 10-year, $102.8M contract to Comcast Businesss to provide Ethernet that will enhance connectivity, improve network performance and manage overall telecommunications costs throughout the Agency’s Defense Information Systems Network (DISN), which includes Maryland, Washington, D.C, Virginia, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. DISA provides enterprise network and IT infrastructure...

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Versa Networks secures $84 million for its SASE

Versa Networks, a start-up based in San Jose, California, announced $84 million in a Series D funding round for its Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions, which combine security, advanced networking, SD-WAN, multitenancy, and analytics via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both.The funding round was co-led by investors Princeville Capital and RPS Ventures, with additional participation from existing investors, including...

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Fujitsu teams up with the TIP on O-RAN compliant 5G radios

Fujitsu Network Communications is collaborating with the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) OpenRAN Project Group to accelerate adoption of open radio access network infrastructu. Specifically, Fujitsu is contributing 5G multi-band O-RAN compliant radios to the TIP OpenRAN project group. The dual-band and tri-band radios are certified by Fujitsu and listed on the TIP Exchange marketplace, allowing service providers to quickly find interoperable solutions...

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Deutsche Telekom tests network slicing with Ericssson, Samsung

Deutsche Telekom completed a 5G end-to-end (E2E) network slicing trial at its Bonn lab on a Samsung S21 commercial device tethered to a VR headset. The trial used a commercial-grade 5G standalone (SA) infrastructure provided by Ericsson, including Radio Access Network (RAN), 5G Cloud Core, slice orchestration and ordering automation. Through 5G E2E network slicing, different service characteristics and quality parameters can be provided...

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SentinelOne completes highest-valued cybersecurity IPO

SentinelOne, a cybersecurity firm based in Mountain View, California, completed an initial public offering of 35,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock at a public offering price of $35.00 per share, raising $1.2 billion for the firm. The shares, which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "S", closed on 30-June-2021 at $42.50, giving the company a market cap of over $10 billion.https://www.sentinelone.c...

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AT&T Android customers get Google RCS as default

AT&T is adopting Messages by Google as the default messaging application for all AT&T customers in the United States using Android phones. The collaboration aims to help accelerate the industry toward global Rich Communication Services (RCS) coverage and interoperability to offer a consistent, secure, and enhanced messaging experience for all Android users around the world.“Many AT&T customers have enjoyed the advantages of RCS for...

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Ericsson 5G is onboarded on Google Cloud's Anthos

Ericsson and Google Cloud have completed functional onboarding of Ericsson 5G on Anthos to enable telco edge and on-premise use cases for CSPs and enterprises.The companies have also agreed to jointly develop 5G and edge cloud solutions. As part of the partnership, Google Cloud and Ericsson are also piloting enterprise applications at the edge on a live network with TIM. The project, which will automate the functions of TIM’s core 5G network and...

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WATCH: Elon Musk expects Starlink to hit 500,000 subscribers in a year

"Think of Starlink as filling the gaps between 5G and fiber connectivity... reaching 3-5% where connectivity is limited" stated Elon Musk in a virtual keynote for MWC Barcelona.Some highlights1,500 Starlink satellites are currently in serviceover 5MW of combined power from the solar arrays on each satelliteThe Starlink constellation is currently carrying 30 Tbps of dataBy August, there will be global coverage except for the polesCurrently offering...

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NEC's Optical Sensing measures vibrations in fiber cables

NEC has begun commercial sales of a new AI-driven technology that analyzes small vibrations detected with optical fibers.The "NEC Intelligent Optical Fiber Sensing Solution" enables the operator of fiber cables to utilize optical fiber as a sensor. The detected vibrations can be indicative of fiber damage or environmental shaking. In addition to a sensing device attached to one end of the optical fiber, this solution consists of software with a function...

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Rakuten Mobile implements Cisco SRv6 micro-segments

Rakuten Mobile, which launched 4G service in Japan in April 2020 and 5G non-standalone (NSA) services in September 2020, will implement Cisco's Segment Routing over IPv6 (SRv6) and Cisco Routed Optical Networking. To support its future 5G SA services with network slicing capabilities, Rakuten Mobile will introduce SRv6 micro-segments, an extension to the SRv6 network programming model that is key to addressing multi-domain 5G deployments across its...

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Qualcomm's new 5G RAN for Small Cells support Release 16

Qualcomm Technologies introduced its second-generation  5G RAN Platform for Small Cells featuring support for all commercial global mmWave and Sub-6 GHz bands, including the new n259 (41 GHz), n258(26 GHz) and FDD bands. Key features:Extends mobile 5G mmWave coverage and power efficiencyOffers 3GPP Release 16 Modem-RF with data speeds of up to 8 Gbps with 1 GHz bandwidth support on mmWave and support for wider 200MHz carrier bandwidth.Supports...

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Huawei updates its 5G RAN portfolio

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Huawei announced major upgrades to its 5G portfolio, especially products and solutions offering multi-antenna technology for all 5G bands. Highlights:A 400 MHz Ultra-Wideband 64T64R Massive MIMO product that supports the entire C-band, enabling operators to deploy their multi-segment spectrum on just one module to reduce the number of devices. One module can be shared by multiple operators. This allows...

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NETGEAR's new WiFi 6 AP is Tri-band, PoE powered, mesh-capable and cloud manageable

 NETGEAR unveiled a fourth member in its Insight Managed WiFi 6 Access Points.The Insight Managed WiFi 6 AX6000 Tri-band Multi-gig Access Point delivers up to 40% higher speeds to each connected device as compared to WiFi 5 (802.11ac). WAX630 interoperates with other NETGEAR Insight Managed Access Points, including the existing WiFi 5 (WAC510, WAC540) and WiFi 6 (WAX610, WAX610Y, WAX620) models. Additionally, WAX630 allows access points to be...

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QCT builds a vRAN with Intel and Radisys

Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT) announced OmniRAN, its virtualized radio access network (vRAN) solution developed with Intel and Radisys. The solution uses Intel FlexRAN , a cloud-enabled wireless access virtual network functions reference implementation, and Radisys Connect 5G RAN software, a disaggregated RAN architecture for promoting 4G, 5G and IoT to build a cloud-native vRAN based on 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors running on QCT EGX63IS-1U...

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MWC Barcelona opens as an in-person event

 Mobile World Congress officially opened in Barcelona as both an in-person and virtual event with the theme of "Connected Impact".Kicking off MWC Barcelona 2021 with a keynote address, Mats Granryd, Director General of GSMA, said: "We are excited to be back to business, back in Barcelona and back together. This year's theme, Connected Impact, puts front and centre the power of mobile technology to affect meaningful change. With arguably our...

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NVIDIA Aerial 5G platform extends support for Arm

NVIDIA is extending support for Arm-based CPUs in the NVIDIA Aerial A100 AI-on-5G platform, bringing more choice to the 5G ecosystem. The idea is to enable leading OEMs to offer industry-standard servers running Arm-based CPUs and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software with Aerial 5G.In April, NVIDIA announced partnerships with Fujitsu, Google Cloud, Mavenir, Radisys and Wind River to develop solutions for NVIDIA’s AI-on-5G platform.These NVIDIA-Certified...

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Momentum for 5G mmWave ecosystem

At Mobile World Congress, a contingent of mobile communications operators and vendors announced their collective support for 5G mmWave technology globally. 5G mmWave uses abundant spectrum resources in frequencies above 24 GHz to complement sub-6 GHz rollouts.Major global mobile industry leaders advancing current 5G mmWave momentum include Airtel, AT&T, Casa Systems, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Electronics Telecommunications...

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Qualcomm intros 5G DU accelerator card

Qualcomm introduced its 5G DU X100 PCIe inline accelerator card with concurrent Sub-6 GHz and mmWave baseband support.The accelerator card is designed to ease of deployment with O-RAN fronthaul and 5G NR layer 1 High (L1 High) processing. It plugs into standard Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) servers to offload CPUs from latency-sensitive and compute-intensive 5G baseband functions such as demodulation, beamforming, channel coding, and Massive MIMO...

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Marvell debuts OCTEON 10 DPU

Marvell introduced its new OCTEON 10 DPU for accelerating security, networking, and storage workloads required by demanding 5G, cloud, carrier and enterprise datacenter applications. The OCTEON 10 DPU is designed on a 5nm process and incorporates Arm Neoverse N2 cores, as well as the first inline artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) hardware acceleration, the first integrated 1 terabit switch and the first vector packet processing...

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Verizon to build 5G core on hybrid cloud with IBM and Red Hat

Verizon has chosen IBM and Red Hat to help build and deploy an open hybrid cloud platform with automated operations and service orchestration as the foundation of its 5G core.IBM Global Business Services is also integrating Telco Network Cloud solutions into Verizon’s Service Orchestration Platform to automate and manage services much more efficiently. This integration is designed to improve the service quality, predictably and automation of virtual...

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Vodafone tests single 1T clear channel with Nokia

Vodafone Turkey has tested a 1T (terabit) clear-channel IP connection using Nokia's 7950 XRS routers with terabit interfaces powered by Nokia’s FP4 chipset. Nokia’s FP4 terabit linecard offers two 1T ports and demonstrated deployment readiness by carrying test traffic on Vodafone Turkey’s network. Nokia said the trial is part of an ongoing modernization effort to transform Vodafone Turkey’s IP network. Nokia is delivering a multi-access mobile...

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Brazil's Mercantil bank connects data centers with Padtec DWDM

Banco Mercantil do Brasil is increasing the transmission capacity of its DWDM networks in Belo Horizonte using a solution provided by Padtec.Padtec supplied transponders and route protection systems to connect the bank's data centers in Belo Horizonte. The project’s technical highlight is the use of the family of 200 Gbps transponders developed by the company for the transport of multiple 16 Gb/s data channels, in a network protocol called Fiber...

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