AT&T signs with Ericsson for 5G RAN over C-Band

AT&T awarded a five-year contract to Ericsson covering the rollout of 5G over its recently acquired C-band spectrum and the launch of 5G Standalone (SA). Financial terms were not disclosed

AT&T has stated a goal of covering 70-75 million people with 5G over C-Band by end of 2022 with plans to reach 200 million by end of 2023.

The new contract covers the Ericsson Radio System portfolio, which includes the Advanced Antenna System, Advanced RAN Coordination and Carrier Aggregation technologies. It will also support future network enhancements like Cloud RAN, which offers communications services providers increased flexibility, faster delivery of services and greater scalability in networks.

Ericsson said its cloud-native  solution supports centralized RAN architecture, including:

• 5G Carrier Aggregation and Advanced RAN Coordination -- a blended solution that optimizes coverage, capacity, and latency of mid-band and high-band deployments. It enables communications service providers to maximize their spectrum assets when deploying 5G.
• Advanced Antenna System (AAS) -- enables extended coverage, while providing tremendous throughput/capacity that can truly enable enhanced mobile broadband.
• Ericsson Fronthaul Gateway -- enables more efficient transport of the fronthaul interface by converting it to packet enhanced Common Public Radio Interface (eCPRI)

Scott Mair, President, AT&T Network Engineering and Operations, says: “As we continue to expand our nationwide 5G network, Ericsson’s technology offerings and 5G expertise will assist with our network evolution. This latest agreement provides the pathway for us to deploy Ericsson’s next-generation centralized RAN architecture, enabled by Fronthaul Gateway, with the ability to support future network enhancements, like the evolution to Cloud RAN.”

Niklas Heuveldop, President and Head of Ericsson North America, says: “This agreement reinforces our long-standing partnership of innovation and execution with AT&T. 5G networks will enable unprecedented, sustainable and exponential growth, accelerating the digital transformation of industries and the public sector, for the benefit of consumers, enterprises and society at large. Ericsson is excited to join forces with AT&T to help make this vision a reality.”

https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2021/10/att-selects-ericsson-for-expansion-of-5g-network-and-c-band-spectrum-build

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

Wednesday, June 30, 2021  AT&T, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Telco Cloud  

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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Video: Optics is Easy - the data center perspective

https://youtu.be/mhfFx4_h_74

In this 15 minute video, Brad Booth, Chair and President, the Consortium for On-board Optics (COBO), as well as Principal Network Architect, Azure Hardware & Architecture at Microsoft, gives his perspective on how data center architecture and energy efficiency requirements are driving a new way of thinking about network connections.

Presented virtually at this year's ECOC 2021.

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LF Networking adds Edge Multi-Cluster Orchestrator project

The Edge Multi-Cluster Orchestrator (EMCO) project will join LF Networking (LFN).

EMCO aims to create a universal control plane that helps organizations to securely connect and deploy workloads across public clouds, private clouds and edge locations, with end to end inter-application communication enabled. Intel seeded code for the project. Aarna Networks is also a contributor.

“As the industry continues to evolve with even greater demands on networks, open source solutions offer a flexible, scalable model to support increasing needs,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “LFN and its growing community are pleased to welcome EMCO to the LFN roster, embracing the challenge, continuing to evolve its ecosystem with the projects and initiatives that will help carriers and vendors meet tomorrow’s needs.”  

“With the increasing adoption of cloud native technologies for building network, edge and IOT applications, having the ability to easily distribute applications across hybrid cloud or multi-cloud deployments can offer increased flexibility and scale,” said Rajesh Gadiyar, VP/CTO in Intel’s Network Platforms Group. “With very few established, truly independent open-source frameworks available today, the Edge Multi-Cluster Orchestrator (EMCO) is a notable tool for intent-based deployment of cloud-native applications to a set of Kubernetes clusters spanningenterprise data centers, multiple cloud service providers and numerous edge locations. It is architected to be flexible, modular and highly scalable.”

“There is a gap in the industry for a cloud native edge orchestration solution that works across a large number of edge and core sites,” said Amar Kapadia co-founder and CEO and Aarna Networks, Inc. “The LF Networking EMCO project fills this gap with an open source approach that includes multiple users and vendors.”

https://www.lfnetworking.org/

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Crehan: 400 GbE port shipments to exceed 10 million this year

Shipments of 400 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) data center switch ports are on track to exceed 10 million this year, more than triple the prior year's shipments, according to an upcoming report from Crehan Research Inc. 

In correlation with this strong 400GbE data center switch ramp, 50Gbps SerDes shipments are surpassing 25Gbps SerDes shipments, to become the mostly widely deployed data center switch SerDes lane speed.

“The 400GbE data center switch transition is well under way, with volumes now starting to move toward the tens of millions in conjunction with broader customer adoption,” said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “Newer applications and architectures such as machine learning and disaggregated computing, on top of existing high-bandwidth drivers including video, machine-to-machine traffic anddata analytics, are driving the need for faster switch speeds with better bandwidth economics.”

These results reflect the data center switch silicon transition from 3.2Tbps to 12.8Tbps and their respective underlying technologies of 25Gbps and 50Gbps SerDes. Crehan’s report further points out that the 50Gbps SerDes transition time of approximately three years is faster than what the 25Gbps SerDes transition was.

"These large deployments of 12.8Tbps data center switches, with underlying 50Gbps SerDes technology, are laying the groundwork for the deployments of next-generation 25.6Tbps data center switches with 100Gbps SerDes technology, which we expect to start ramping next year," Crehan said.

https://crehanresearch.com/

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Openreach awards 3-year contract to Prysmian for full fibre rollout

Openreach awarded a new three-year contract to Prysmian Group to support its updated Full Fibre broadband build plan which will be fundamental to the UK Government achieving its target of delivering ‘gigabit capable broadband’ to 85 per cent of UK by 2025.

Openreach has recently undertaken a live trial using the double overblow installation method developed by Prysmian Group. This Karona installation technique enables the installation of high density optical fibre cable into pre-existing sub-ducted routes, already containing legacy cable. The trial took place at Stonehaven in Scotland. The cable used for the trial was Sirocco HD 144f with 5.0mm diameter, and the innovative installation method allowed to overblow 600mts of cable in less than 4 hours, increasing the capacity of the route to 432f. This installation technique was repeated at Bury St Edmunds, where a route of 730mts was successfully overblown in less than 4 hours.

“Prysmian has been a partner with Openreach for over 50 years. This latest contract reflects the positive impact our working relationship has had on the UK’s digital networks infrastructure,” comments Marcello Del Brenna, CEO Prysmian Group UK. “The extension of our working relationship comes at a time where Prysmian is investing in telecommunications innovation to ensure our digital network partners have the cutting-edge solutions. We have also taken great steps forward with our sustainability effort, eliminating paper inclusions from our products and replacing them with digital solutions.”

Matthew Hemmings, MD for Fibre and Network Delivery at Openreach, said “Building a new broadband network across the UK is a hugely complex, nationwide engineering project – second only to HS2 in terms of investment. It will help level-up the UK because the impact of Full Fibre broadband stretches from increased economic prosperity and international competitiveness, to higher employment and environmental benefits by enabling more home working and fewer commuting trips. ”

https://www.prysmiangroup.com/en/press-releases/prysmian-group-extends-its-partnership-with-openreach-to-support-full-fibre-broadband-plan

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MIPI Alliance doubles performance of automotive SerDes to 32 Gbps

The MIPI Alliance completed development work on A-PHY v1.1, the next version of the automotive serializer-deserializer (SerDes) physical-layer interface. 

Version 1.1 will double the maximum available downlink data rate from 16 Gbps to 32 Gbps and include other enhancements to help automotive OEMs and their suppliers implement high-performance image sensors and displays in next-generation vehicles. The specification is undergoing member review, with official adoption expected within the next 90 days.

"A-PHY continues to evolve to meet the ever-increasing demand for high-performance, end-to-end automotive connectivity solutions with high reliability, resiliency and interoperability," said Joel Huloux, chairman of MIPI Alliance. "With unprecedented bandwidth and a growing number of implementation options, A-PHY is positioned to power the development of the next generation of safer, more connected and autonomous vehicles."

MIPI A-PHY is the first industry-standard, long-reach, asymmetric SerDes interface to provide high-performance links between automotive image sensors and displays and their associated electronic control units (ECUs). It was developed to simplify the integration of greater numbers of onboard sensors and displays for applications such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), digital cockpits, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and autonomous driving systems (ADS).

• A-PHY offers a reach of up to 15 meters, unprecedented reliability with an ultra-low packet error rate of 10-19, high noise immunity and ultra-low latency. It also forms the foundation of MIPI Automotive SerDes Solutions (MASS), an end-to-end framework for connecting cameras, sensors and displays with built-in functional safety, security and data protection.
• A-PHY v1.1 doubles the total downlink data rate from 16 to 32 Gbps by adding support for Star Quad (STQ) shielded dual differential pair cables that provide dual differential pairs of conductors within a single shielded jacket. This enables two A-PHY ports over a single cable, saving cost, weight and complexity compared with using two separate coaxial or shielded twisted pair cables.
• Version 1.1 will also add optional PAM4 encoding for A-PHY downlink gears G1 and G2, with data rates of 2 Gbps and 4 Gbps, respectively. PAM4 encoding features lower modulation bandwidth for sub-1 GHz operation, allowing manufacturers to more easily migrate to A-PHY while using either legacy cables on current platforms or lower-cost cables on new platforms.
• The new version will also add a faster uplink gear with an available data rate of up to 200 Mbps, twice the rate of the existing 100 Mbps uplink gear, providing more bandwidth for command and control of automotive peripherals. A-PHY v1.1 will be fully interoperable with A-PHY v1.0, and devices using both specifications will be able to coexist on the same network.

https://www.mipi.org/mipi-alliance-completes-development-a-phy-v1-1-doubling-data-rate-adding-to-automotive-serdes-interface

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Optica: Cities are the Key to the Climate Solution

 The Global Environmental Measurement and Monitoring (GEMM) Initiative, an international project of Optica (formerly OSA) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), is inviting city leaders, policymakers, scientists and the business community to discover how cost-effective technologies for monitoring greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollution emissions in urban environments can measure and predict the impact of climate policy and planning decisions.

Recent deployments of low-cost, high-density GHG sensors in several cities have yielded initial datasets demonstrating the utility of mapping GHG and air pollution levels in real time. Analyses of the COVID-19 emission reductions show that determining the emission contributions from various source sectors with detailed mapping and timing across the full diurnal cycle is possible and can provide invaluable information on governmental policies affecting GHG emission levels.

https://new-og.is.strath.ac.uk/workwithus/globalenvironmentalmeasurementmonitoring/citiesarekeytotheclimatesolution/

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