Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Lumentum to acquire Coherent for its photonics and laser expertise

 Lumentum agreed to acquire Coherent in a cash and stock transaction valued at $5.7 billion, with Coherent stockholders receiving $100.00 per share in cash and 1.1851 shares of Lumentum common stock for each Coherent share they own. The combination will create a leading photonics company with significant positions in the growing market for photonics, an expansive global customer base and a well-diversified revenue mix. The transaction value represents a premium of 49% to Coherent's closing price on January 15, 2021.

Coherent, which was founded in 1966 and is based in Santa Clara, California, is a leading supplier of photonics and lasers used in the microelectronics, precision manufacturing, instrumentation, and aerospace & defense markets. For its most recent fiscal quarter ended January 2, 2021, Coherent has announced preliminary revenue in the range of $325 - $327 million.

Lumentum, which is based in San Jose, California, is a leading supplier of photonic solutions for the Telecom, Datacom, and 3D Sensing markets.

Lumentum said the acquisition of Coherent accelerates its penetration of the more than $10 billion market for lasers and photonics outside of the communications and 3D sensing applications. Lumentum also expects photonics "to play an increasing role in the accelerating shift to increasingly digital and virtual approaches to work and daily life, addressing climate change, new approaches to health care and monitoring, and addressing new safety and security." The combined company is expected to generate more than $150 million in annual run-rate synergies within 24 months of the closing of the transaction.

"Today's announcement is an important advancement of Lumentum's strategy," said Alan Lowe, Lumentum President and CEO. "In our five years as a standalone public company, we have focused on developing the most innovative products and technology in our industry and partnering with market leading customers to help them compete and win in their markets. As we look ahead, we are thrilled to join forces with Coherent to create one of the world's largest and most diverse photonics technology companies with leading positions in the growing market for photonics. Coherent brings one of the most recognizable and respected brands in the photonics industry and a very talented and innovative team. By increasing our scale, expanding our portfolio, and bolstering our R&D capabilities at a time when global markets are increasingly relying on photonics products and technologies, we are confident in our combined ability to pursue exciting new growth opportunities.

"We are excited about the combination of Lumentum and Coherent, two iconic brands in their respective photonics markets. We anticipate the combined complementary product portfolio, breadth of customer application knowledge, and R&D capabilities, all based on photonics, will accelerate innovation and adoption of photonics across the many markets that we serve," said Andy Mattes, Coherent President and CEO. "We are excited to bring Coherent's strength in OLED display manufacturing, semiconductor wafer inspection and life science instrumentation to Lumentum's portfolio, to name but a few of the key applications we serve, and believe Lumentum's expertise and scale in world class photonics components and systems will accelerate Coherent's vertical integration and addressable market expansion in several high growth areas, such as directed energy in defense and precision battery welding in automotive."

Lumentum also announced preliminary results for its fiscal second quarter of 2021 ended December 26, 2020. The company expects net revenue of approximately $478.8 million; GAAP operating margin in the range of 22.6% to 24.1%; and GAAP diluted net income per share in the range of $0.98 to $1.06.

http://investor.lumentum.com

Lumentum completes acquisition of Oclaro

As expected, Lumentum closed its acquisition of Oclaro and trading in Oclaro common stock on the NASDAQ Stock Market has ceased. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Oclaro stockholders received $5.60 in cash and 0.0636 of a share of Lumentum common stock for each share of Oclaro common stock that is exchanged in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement. Lumentum financed the cash portion of the transaction consideration with cash...

Lumentum to acquire Oclaro for $1.8 billion

Lumentum agreed to acquire Oclaro for approximately $1.8 billion in cash and stock. Under the deal, Oclaro stockholders will be entitled to receive $5.60 in cash and 0.0636 of a share of Lumentum common stock for each share of Oclaro stock, representing a premium of 27% to Oclaro's closing price on March 9, 2018 and a premium of 40% to Oclaro's 30 day average closing price.  Oclaro stockholders are expected to own approximately 16% of the combined...


Orange expands transatlantic capacity with 2 new cables

Orange announced ready-for-service status on the new Dunant cable system linking France and the United States and also unveiled for another new transatlantic cable system that could be ready as early as next year.

The Dunant cable, which is a joint project with Google, is now ready for service for its wholesale and business customers. Dunant boasts 12 fibre pairs with over 30 Tbps of capacity each.

The next submarine cable, called AMITIÉ, will take a more northerly route, linking Massachusetts to le Porge near Bordeaux. AMITIÉ will offer 16 fiber pairs of up to 23 Tbps of capacity each. Orange believes this new cable will make Bordeaux a regional connectivity hub. The French operator will supply land links for both systems from the landing station to Bordeaux and then to Paris and Lyon for one, and will offer capacity between Ashburn, the Datacentre alley and Paris, will the latest Point-to-Point optical transmission technology.

Orange will benefit from two fibre pairs on both transatlantic systems, with a total capacity of up to 100 Tbps. Orange is responsible for the French part of these two cables, as the “landing provider”, and is in charge of the operation and maintenance of the landing stations.

Jean-Luc Vuillemin Executive Vice President of Orange International Networks, Infrastructures and Services, said: “In the context of the explosion of international traffic, the arrival of a new generation of more efficient submarine cables, and in view of strategic issues and national sovereignty related to submarine cables, Orange continues to be a key global player. With capacity on these two cables, Orange will be able to offer the latest technology, diverse routes and the best latency to its customers once implemented.” 

Furthermore, both cables are designed to evolve at the same pace as future generations of optical transmission technology and will be able to maintain high-level performance for at least the next 20 years.

 “At Orange, we invest continually to provide faster, more flexible and more secured connectivity and these two new cables will enable us to get even closer to our customers in today's data-hungry environment,” said Emmanuel Rochas CEO of Orange International Carriers. “Orange provides an enriched multiservice offering for carriers and content providers to better support their development strategies and ultimately to offer improved services to retail and business customers.”

https://www.orange.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2021/orange-takes-leading-role-us-europe-route-two-new-generation-submarine

Google's Dunant transatlantic cable makes landfall in France

Google’s transatlantic Dunant cable has landed in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, in the Vendée region of France. The terrestrial stage of the laying of this cable is proceeding.

As the “Landing Party” and owner of the French part of the cable, Orange has completely refurbished the historic station in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, which was no longer in use, to house the terminal equipment for the Dunant system. This area is a strategic location, close to the main connectivity hubs on this side of the Atlantic. From this landing station, Orange is deploying terrestrial optical fibres in France between Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez and Paris to route its traffic on the Dunant cable to the capital's major Data Centres and will also provide service to the rest of Europe and major international Data Centres.

Orange will benefit from two pairs of optical fibres with a capacity of up to 30Tbps each.

"We are very pleased with the arrival of the Dunant cable in France. It is the concrete realization of a project in co-construction with Google that will enable us to respond to the explosion of Internet usage over the long term. This partnership strengthens Orange's role as a world leader in the investment, deployment, maintenance and operation of strategic infrastructures. The landing of Dunant on our shores once again places France at the heart of the global digital development," said Jean-Luc Vuillemin, Senior Vice President, International Networks and Services at Orange.

Orange and Telxius to backhaul Google's Dunant transatlantic cable

Orange and Telxius will provide terrestrial backhaul extensions in France and in the US for Google's Dunant submarine cable, which is expected to enter service in late 2020.

Under this agreement, Orange and Telxius offer co-location services at their respective Cable Landing Stations in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez (France) and Virginia Beach (US).

From its Saint- Hilaire-de-Riez (85) Cable Landing Station, Orange will enable terrestrial connection to Telxius up to Paris, while Telxius will connect Orange to Ashburn from Virginia Beach.

This collaboration represents a strong transatlantic bridge as both companies can effectively provide multi- terabit capacity on this Europe-US route. It also reinforces Orange and Telxius’ respective positions to support the development of new digital usages for their international customers in Europe and America and bolsters the international leadership position of both companies on the wholesale market to better address the needs of content-providers and third-party operators.

“We are pleased to announce this agreement with Telxius, which will allow us to provide our customers with very high capacity end-to-end services, as well as network redundancy, on the strategic transatlantic route. We will be operating two fiber pairs of over 30 terabits per second between France and the USA. It is a valuable extension to Orange’s global network joining our Atlantic and Mediterranean routes to Africa, the Middle East and Asia with guaranteed best in class quality of service,” said Jerome Barré, CEO of Orange Wholesale and International Networks.

https://telxius.com/en/orange-and-telxius-are-teaming-up/

Google's Dunant cable leverages SDM for 250 Tbps capacity

Google's Dunant submarine cable system, which will link the U.S. and France, will be the first subsea cable to leverage space-division multiplexing (SDM), enabling 250 terabits per second capacity.

In a blog posting, Vijay Vusirikala, Director of Network Architecture and Optical Engineering at Google, says SDM will increase cable capacity in a cost-effective manner.

Dunant's design uses twelve fiber pairs and power-optimized repeaters. Whereas traditional subsea cables are powered from the shore end and rely on a dedicated set of pump lasers to amplify the optical signal for each fiber pair, SDM allows pump lasers and associated optical components to be shared among multiple fiber pairs.


SES O3b provides capacity during Southern Cross upgrade

 Southern Cross Cables Limited (SCCL) will leverage SES Networks’ O3b satellite service to improve communications between Nukunonu of Tokelau, Kiritimati Island of Kiribati and the rest of the world as it upgrades the undersea Southern Cross cable network. Specifically, SES’s O3b constellation of medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites will be used to connect remote stations on the incoming Southern Cross NEXT cable network during its commissioning phase. The service will offer latency of less than 150ms round trip.

The Southern Cross cable network, in use since 2000, is a key internet gateway for the Pacific region. 


“We are glad to have a partner in SES Networks that is well-known in the region for providing tried-and-tested, fibre-like, high-speed connectivity services through its O3b constellation. As we work on laying the groundwork to improve connectivity, network resilience and network performance with the incoming Southern Cross NEXT network, we needed a strong and robust satellite network which could perform at the same level of low-latency, high-availability standards as our incoming next-generation cable network. SES’s solution not only fit the bill, but actually far exceeded our stated requirements,” said Laurie Miller, CEO of SCCL.

“This cooperation with Southern Cross is of utmost importance because it truly shows the complementary nature of satellite and undersea cable networks. It is a great example of how the entire network ecosystem can work together to ensure the Pacific region – with thousands of islands and vast open seas in between – remain connected at all times,” said John Turnbull, Director for Australia and the Pacific region of SES Networks. 

https://www.ses.com/press-release/ses-networks-and-southern-cross-cables-bolster-connectivity-resilience-pacific-region

Construction begins on Southern Cross NEXT Cable

The Southern Cross NEXT project has achieved CIF (Contract in Force) status and has entered the construction project phase. The Southern Cross NEXT submarine cable is a state-of-the-art 4 fibre pair undersea route utilising an open cable design and enhancing the existing Southern Cross eco-system. The system will also provide full fibre connectivity to Auckland, New Zealand, and will incorporate Branching Units (BU) and OADM technology for connections...

PacketFabric's Cloud Router delivers multi-cloud connections

PacketFabric launched Cloud Router, a multi-cloud connectivity solution built on the edge with a distributed architecture. The service will help enterprises as well as small businesses to connect to multiple cloud providers. PacketFabric’s Cloud Router can be used for data transfer, disaster recovery, distributed cloud applications and managed Layer 3 connectivity, among other use cases. 

PacketFabric’s Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform orchestrates and guarantees connectivity between collocation facilities, clouds, and offers private network interconnection across the globe. The NaaS platform is private, secure, and scalable. The company also highlights full redundancy.


“With the launch of Cloud Router, PacketFabric now can provide connectivity to colocation, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud, so we check all the boxes that an enterprise or small business needs for digital transformation,” said Dave Ward, PacketFabric, CEO. “Cloud Router offers predictable pricing with an elegant technical solution. It is a game changer for PacketFabric and the telecom industry.”

“PacketFabric’s Cloud Router is a DevOps dream come true because you can connect multiple cloud resources. You just script it and connect to cloud. It’s that easy,” said Anna Claiborne, PacketFabric Co-founder and SVP Engineering and Product.

Last month, PacketFabric appointed Michael Glickman as Chief of Business Development. Glickman was most recently Senior Vice President for the Global Service Provider unit of Cisco where he was responsible for driving annual revenue in excess of $10B. During his tenure at Cisco, he also led their Cloud & Managed Services and Channels business worldwide. Glickman has previously held executive roles at Fujitsu Americas and the Amdahl Corporation.

  • Earlier last year, PacketFabric announced a pricing structure of $100 per month for hosted hybrid cloud connections up to 1Gbps, for both metro and long-haul capacity in the United States and Europe. 



Telstra activates Toronto POP

Telstra activated a point-of-presence in Toronto, its first POP in Canada. 

Telstra owns and operates the largest subsea cable system (with more than 250,000 miles of subsea cables globally); the company currently carries nearly one-third of all Asia-Pacific internet traffic.

The new Telstra POP is hosted at Cologix’s TOR1 interconnection hub in Toronto. Cologix’s TOR1 data center is located in the most connected building in Toronto with 150+ unique network partners in the onsite Meet-Me-Room (MMR) with more than 200 local customers. Cologix Toronto customers have direct connectivity to Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, IBM Cloud and Oracle FastConnect.


“We’re proud to be the largest and most connected data center company in Canada with 17 data centers across Canada in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver,” said Sean Maskell, Cologix Canada President. “Located at 151 Front Street, Canada’s largest and most important carrier hotel, Cologix’s TOR1 interconnection hub is a prime location for Telstra to enter the Canadian market. With our scalable, secure and reliable infrastructure across Canada, Telstra can quickly grow its business and reach new customers.”

Brazil's Vogel Telecom deploys Ciena's 800G in Sao Paulo

Vogel Telecom, a wholesale and B2B telecommunications provider in Brazil, recently deployed Ciena’s Waveserver 5 compact interconnect platform, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics, to deliver efficient high-bandwidth 100GbE and 400GbE connectivity services over an 800 Gbps wavelength.


The deployment in Sao Paulo helps supports Vogel's IP and high-capacity business services, as well as new services like Nx100G and 400G in the Sao Paulo metro area. Additionally, Vogel is using Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) software to provision, monitor and manage its network. MCP adds more automation and improves the speed at which Vogel can scale and release new services.

“By upgrading to 800G, Vogel continues to cement its position as a leader in high-capacity connectivity services. With Ciena, Vogel leverages this robust next-generation network to competitively scale and deliver high quality experiences for customers now and well into the future,” states Daniel Cardoso, Chief Operating Officer, Vogel Telecom.

https://www.ciena.com/about/newsroom/press-releases/vogel-telecom-and-ciena-deploy-first-800g-network-in-sao-paulo.html



Radisys picks Keysight to create O-RAN test environment

Radisyshas selected Keysight’s edge-to-core portfolio to establish a test lab that verifies interoperability between network elements and compliance to specifications set by the O-RAN Alliance.


Radisys selected Keysight’s user equipment emulation (UEE) solution platform (UeSIM), radio unit simulator (RUSim), Open RAN Studio software and Keysight’s PROPSIM channel emulators to validate the performance of distributed units (DUs) and central units (CUs) under real-world scenarios across the full protocol stack. As a strong proponent of open standard interfaces, Radisys turned to Keysight to set up a complete test lab for the company and its partners to verify interoperability between network elements and compliance to specifications set by the O-RAN Alliance.

Using Keysight’s user equipment emulation (UEE) solution platform (UeSIM) and Radisys’ O-RAN infrastructure solutions, the companies achieved combined downlink and uplink data throughput speeds of more than two gigabits per second (Gbps) in time division multiplexing (TDD) mode in sub-6GHz frequency band.

“We’re pleased to help Radisys establish a portfolio of open, virtualized and cloud-native solutions that allow mobile operators to create flexible telecom platforms based on 4G LTE or 5G new radio,” said Giampaolo Tardioli, vice president and general manager for Keysight network access group. “Keysight’s holistic approach to testing enables Radisys to push the boundaries of their designs and deliver solutions that support innovative service offerings.”