China Mobile: over 173 million 5G customers, 390,000 5G base stations

As of February 2021, China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator, was serving 173 million customers with 5G packages and had more than 390,000 5G base stations in operation.

For 2020, China Mobile has just reported operating revenue of RMB768.1 billion, up by 3.0% compared to the year before. Of this, telecommunications services revenue amounted to RMB695.7 billion, representing growth of 3.2% year-on-year. Profit attributable to equity shareholders reached RMB107.8 billion or RMB5.27 per share, up by 1.1% year-on-year. 

Some highlights:

• Wireline broadband revenue increased by 17.4% year-on-year and reached RMB80.8 billion. 
• Revenue from applications and information services increased by 22.4% year-on-year and reached RMB101.0 billion. 
• As of the end of December 2020, the number of mobile customers reached 942 million, of which, 165 million customers were on 5G packages, representing a net increase of 162 million customers. The overall subscriber count dropped from 950 million at the end of 2019.  
• Mobile ARPU (average revenue per user per month) reached RMB47.4 where the decline rate was flattened by 4.0 percentage points compared to the previous year.
• DOU (average handset data traffic per user per month) increased by 39.0% to 9.4GB.
• In 2020, total 5G-related investment amounted to RMB102.5 billion out of a total CAPEX budget of RMB180.6 billion. 
• For 2021, 5-G related investment is estimated at RMB110.0 billion out of a total CAPEX budgest of RMB183.6 billion.
• In 2020, China Mobile put in use around 340,000 new 5G base stations, bringing the total number of 5G base stations to a cumulative 390,000, providing 5G services to all prefecture-level cities, selected counties and key areas in China. 
• The total number of wireline broadband customers was 210 million, up from 187 million a year earlier.

Mr. Yang Jie, Chairman of the China Mobile commented, ‘We were faced with a complex operating environment in 2020. COVID-19 affected all aspects of life, while the digital transformation of our economy and society further accelerated, and coopetition within the telecommunications industry and beyond continued to evolve. Despite various difficulties and challenges, we managed to forge ahead steadily with the goal of achieving high-quality development and becoming a world-class enterprise by building a dynamic “Powerhouse”.

China Mobile is putting forward a new strategic vision: "We will open up development space toward information services and focus on technological innovation to create competitive advantages. These moves will form part of our concerted efforts to achieve our goal of joining the league of the world’s first- class information service technology companies. At the same time, we will focus on “two facilitations and two integrations”: We will fully facilitate the construction of information infrastructure and facilitate the digitalized and intelligent transformation of the whole society. We will also make endeavors to accelerate the integration and innovation of various information technologies, and speed up the deep integration of information technology and the economy, society and people’s livelihood."

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Analog Devices launches ASIC for O-RAN compliant radios

Analog Devices announced an ASIC-based radio platform for O-RAN compliant 5G radio units. The solution includes all the core functionality needed in an O-RAN compliant 5G radio unit, including a baseband ASIC, software-defined transceivers, signal processing, and power. 

The company says its advanced radio platform is designed to enable significant performance and form factor improvements to address the critical power consumption and cost challenges.

The Analog Devices platform allows radio designers and manufacturers to optimize total system performance for macro and small cell solutions. The reference design will enable designers to create O-RAN compliant radios with the use of:

• ADI’s next-generation transceiver featuring advanced digital front-end signal processing (DFE), digital pre-distortion with GaN PA support, crest factor reduction, channel digital up converters and channel digital down converters.
• A low-PHY baseband ASIC that delivers a 7.2x compliant solution for LTE, 5G and NBIoT, including IEEE1588 Precision Time Protocol and an eCPRI interface.
• Complete clock and power chain solution

“O-RAN looks to disrupt the traditional market by rethinking the network structure with open standards that will require new and innovative radio solutions,” said Joe Barry, Vice President of Wireless Communications at Analog Devices. “ADI’s new O-RAN compliant solution marks a major step forward for the ecosystem by providing a performance optimized radio platform for 5G applications.”

“Bringing an ASIC low PHY baseband to market is a big step forward for Open RAN. Now, there is a clear path for OEMs to build competitive systems for macro and small cell,” said Andy Dunkin, Open RAN RF and Digital Platform Development Manager at Vodafone Group. “It is initiatives like this that help build a healthy ecosystem.”

http://platform.radioverse.com

http://www.analog.com/radioverse

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Marvell and Samsung collaborate on Massive MIMO chip

Samsung Electronics and Marvell have  jointly developed a new System-on-a-Chip (SoC) to power Samsung’s Massive MIMO and other advanced radios.

The new SoC supports 5G and 4G networks simultaneously, and it can also save up to 70 percent in chipset power consumption compared to previous solutions.

“We are excited to extend our collaboration with Marvell to unveil a new SoC that will combine both companies’ strengths in innovation to advance 5G network solutions,” said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung prioritizes the development of high-impact 5G solutions that offer a competitive edge to our operators. We look forward to introducing this latest solution to the market shortly.”

Samsung and Marvell have been working closely to deliver multiple generations of leading network solutions. Last year, the companies announced a collaboration to develop new 5G products, including innovative radio architectures to address the compute power required for Massive MIMO deployments.

“Our collaboration with Samsung spans multiple generations of radio network products and demonstrates Samsung’s strong technology leadership. The joint effort includes 4G and 5G basebands and radios,” said Raj Singh, Executive Vice President of Marvell’s Processors Business Group. “We are again honored to work with Samsung for the next generation Massive MIMO radios which significantly raise the bar in terms of capacity, performance and power efficiency.”

https://news.samsung.com

Marvell partners with Samsung on RAN processing

Wednesday, March 04, 2020  Marvell, Samsung  

Marvell and Samsung Electronics Co. are extending their collaboration to include additional segments of the Radio Access Network (RAN). The solutions will build on the OCTEON Fusion platform and integrating Samsung’s unique intellectual property.

To date, the companies have worked closely to deliver multiple generations of baseband and transport processing solutions for base stations based on Marvell’s OCTEON and OCTEON Fusion processors.

In addition, the companies are collaborating on innovative radio unit architectures designed to meet the dramatic increase in compute power required for the complex beamforming algorithms inherent to massive MIMO deployments. 

“Samsung is committed to helping mobile operators meet their performance targets,” said Jaeho Jeon, executive vice president and head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics.  “Our relentless spirit to find innovative ways to address the next set of 5G market challenges will drive us to enhance our 5G technical capabilities.  Marvell is a valued collaborator in helping us achieve these goals.”

“Marvell believes that close collaboration with Samsung has allowed both companies to excel in the 5G infrastructure market,” said Raghib Hussain, chief strategy officer and executive vice president of the Networking and Processors Group at Marvell.  “It is our goal to ensure that infrastructure equipment suppliers such as Samsung can allow network operators to thrive in the fast-paced world of 5G.”

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NXP debuts Microsoft Azure Sphere-certified processor for IoT

 NXP introduced its first cloud-secured crossover applications processor, the i.MX 8ULP-CS with Azure Sphere. The processor is based on the ARM Cortex A35 is aimed at IoT applications requiring continuous security updates in the field.

Together, NXP and Microsoft are delivering a new class of secured SoCs for the IoT market. Azure Sphere provides ongoing protection, responding to emerging threats and providing continual updates to help keep devices secured. 

NXP's new i.MX 8ULP-CS processor, is cloud secured by Azure Sphere, including: the Microsoft Pluton hardware root of trust enabled on NXP EdgeLock™ secure enclave, the secured Azure Sphere OS, the cloud-based Azure Sphere Security Service and ongoing on-chip OS and security improvements from Microsoft for each device, for more than ten years. 

https://www.nxp.com/company/blog/nxp-introduces-its-first-cloud-secured-microsoft-azure-sphere-certified-processor-family:BL-I-MX-8ULP-CS

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OneWeb launches 36 satellites, bringing its constellation to 146

OneWeb confirmed the successful launch of all 36 satellites by Arianespace from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, bringing the company's in-orbit constellation to 146 satellites. 

OneWeb said this is the second in a five-launch programme that will enable OneWeb’s connectivity solution to reach all regions north of 50 degrees latitude by the middle of 2021, with service ready to start by year's end, giving OneWeb the ability to connect millions of consumers in the northern hemisphere. These services will cover the United Kingdom, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas and Canada, and will be switched on before the end of the year. 

OneWeb anticipates launching global services in 2022. The company plans to have a fleet of 648 LEO satellites.

Neil Masterson, OneWeb CEO commented: “This is the second of our ‘Five to 50’ launch series and represents a key moment in OneWeb’s return. The next launch in the series is scheduled for the end of April, as we continue our drive towards commercial service this year. OneWeb is rising to the challenge of our mission to provide connectivity to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Backed by exemplary shareholders, we are connecting the world.”

https://www.oneweb.world/media-center/successful-launch-marks-key-milestone-for-onewebs-five-to-50-ambition

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Zayo deploys Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 between Dublin and Amsterdam

 Zayo announced the deployment of Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) technology between Dublin, Ireland and Amsterdam, Netherlands.

“This deployment demonstrates Zayo’s commitment to adopting innovative technologies that allow us to provide customized, state-of-the art network solutions to our customers,” said Jesper Aagaard, Managing Director of Zayo Europe. “This collaboration with Ciena enhances Zayo’s already extensive coverage throughout Europe and is an important step towards enabling 400G customer interface connectivity in the region.”

“We are pleased to support Zayo in delivering this market leading technology to their customers,” said Jamie Jefferies, Vice President and General Manager, EMEA, Ciena. “The global pandemic has significantly increased bandwidth demands as more organizations migrate business critical applications to the cloud. WL5e is the only technology readily available in the market today capable of supporting up to 800Gb/s transmission over 2x400GE client interfaces.”

http://www.zayo.com

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Qualcomm shows its Snapdragon 780G 5G chipset

Qualcomm Technologies introduced its Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform featuring a triple Image Signal Processor (ISP) capable of capturing from three cameras simultaneously (zoom, wide, and ultra-wide lenses).

It is powered by the 6th generation Qualcomm AI Engine with the Qualcomm Hexagon 770 processor delivering up to 12 TOPs AI performance, which is a 2x improvement compared to its predecessor. Voice and video calls can be enhanced by AI-based noise suppression and better AI-based voice assistant interactions. The platform is further enhanced by the 2nd generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub, which integrates a dedicated low-power AI processor for audio processing.

Snapdragon 780G also features an optimized Snapdragon X53 5G Modem-RF System with peak download speeds of 3.3 Gbps on sub-6 GHz frequencies. This platform takes the premium Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth audio features offered on Snapdragon 888 to the 7-series, for the first time, including recently debuted Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound technology. By featuring the Qualcomm® FastConnect™ 6900 Connectivity System, Snapdragon 780G supports  multi-gigabit class Wi-Fi 6 speeds (up to 3.6 Gbps), VR-class low latency and robust capacity. Further, with Wi-Fi 6E support, Snapdragon 780G is capable of extending this advanced feature set to 6 GHz spectrum as it gains momentum worldwide.

Commercial devices based on Snapdragon 780G are expected to be available in the second quarter of 2021.

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-780g-5g-mobile-platform

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Integra Optics' 100G QSFP28 ZR4 rated for 80km over SMF

Integra Optics is now stocking a new 100G QSFP28 ZR4 transceiver that is rated for 80km over Single Mode Fiber with forward-error correction (FEC).

Integra's new QSFP28 form factor transceiver operates at 100 Gbps and supports LWDM wavelengths in the 1310nm window.  Additional features include a silicon optical amplifier (SOA) and prismatic dispersion (PD) filter-based design that meets QSFP28 power consumption specifications.

"These new transceivers meet the industry's need for high speed, long reach fiber connectivity with the ability to transport 100G Ethernet signals to greater lengths. Having a signal that works over a 1310nm wideband channel makes these transceivers a prime companion to DWDM networks, especially now that an 80km distance is attainable. These transceivers are a perfect solution for customers currently using other 100GBASE-LR4 and ER4 solutions that need longer links," said Paul Hospodar, Product Line Manager.

https://integraoptics.com/products/160-9401-900-zr4-io/

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Tenebris plans dark fiber route across Virginia

 Tenebris Fiber is working with JLC Infrastructure (JLC), an infrastructure investor and asset management firm, and Diode Ventures, a global turnkey asset development company, to develop a new dark fiber network in northern Virginia.

The project’s first phase is an approximately 75-mile, buried network route through Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties, which will provide dark fiber access from the Virginia communities of Ashburn to Manassas. 

Tenebris says its full buildout will be an approximately 680-mile regional network that will connect submarine cables landing in Virginia Beach to public and private data centers and network operators situated within “Data Center Alley” in Ashburn.

“Tenebris is pleased to see our vision become reality for this newly created network,” said Sue Hageman, Chief Executive Officer at Tenebris. “It will support the low latency needs with ultra-high-level security infrastructure from Virginia Beach to Ashburn. The hardest aspect of the network will be constructed first, enabling us to reach the new subsea cables in Virginia Beach. The partnership with JLC and Diode will enable the initial growth and future expansions beyond our immediate scope.”

“JLC is very excited for this opportunity to work alongside Diode Ventures and Tenebris Fiber, and provide capital support for this dark fiber project, which promises to bring much-needed capacity to the northern Virginia area,” said Marlon Smith, Managing Director at JLC. “Both Diode and Tenebris have been tremendous partners in the development of this project, and we look forward to continuing our work together and leveraging each team’s expertise as we bring this crucial asset online.”

http://tenebrisfiber.com/

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