EllaLink cites 30% less latency for gamers on transatlantic link

EllaLink said its new fiber optic submarine cable linking Europe with Latin America enables gamers on both continents to play online matches with 30% less latency. 

EllaLink has entered into a partnership with IP Telecom - which provides differentiated IP transit access to the main content servers spread across the European continent - and with NoPing, a high-performance solution for latency improvement focused on the online gaming segment.

Inaugurated in June, after a BRL 1 billion investment, the EllaLink cable has four pairs of optical fibers, linking Fortaleza (Ceará) and Sines (Portugal), a distance of 6,000 km.

"This reduction in latency in the connection between Brazil and Europe, counted in milliseconds (ms), represents the biggest differential of our cable, but many people could not realize this gain in most applications," explains Rafael Lozano, EllaLink's Brazil manager. "In an online game, if we imagine two players, a Brazilian and a North American, playing on a European server, aiming at the same target at the same time, the differentiator between winning and losing will be who hits it first, and this is determined by latency, called LAG by gamers," he adds. According to Lozano, with this new route, they will compete on an equal footing.

Lozano notes that until the partnership between EllaLink, IP Telecom and NoPing, latencies across continents were around 250ms between major game servers, and a gaming experience considered good should be below 150 ms. "With the EllaLink cable, this latency reduces to less than 120 ms between points of high traffic concentration in Europe," he says.

"IP Telecom has in its DNA the search for state-of-the-art connectivity. We are creating a watershed in Latin America by offering the lowest latency between Brazil and Europe. This provides the market with a new experience," said IP Telecom's CEO, Jefferson Carvalho.

"This is just the beginning. EllaLink will connect a DataCenter in Cape Verde soon, which should impact on the increase of intercontinental play of popular online games. Then we will have a wave of African gamers joining the circuit," predicts Vasconcelos.

EllaLink and Equinix see big performance gain on Brazil-to-Europe route

Sunday, November 28, 2021  Ellalink, Equinix, Subsea  

 Equinix and Ellalink, which recently inaugurated service on its high-capacity cable between Latin America and Europe, report that the new system is delivering a 50% increase in network performance between data centers in Brazil and Portugal and Spain when compared to routes that had to previously transit through North America. EllaLink's subsea cable system provides direct connectivity to Equinix’s International Business Exchange (IBX)...

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NEC's Optical Sensing measures vibrations in fiber cables

Tuesday, June 29, 2021  NEC  

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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EllaLink completes Portugal-Brazil cable, picks Infinera's ICE6 coherent tech

Thursday, March 11, 2021  Brazil, Ellalink, Infinera, Portugal, Subsea  

EllaLink completed the marine installation of its trans-Atlantic cable system between Europe and Latin America.EllaLink has selected Infinera's ICE6 800G coherent technology to light the network, providing a direct single hop transmission path between data centers in each continent. Infinera’s solution will enable EllaLink to offer advanced customer products and services, supporting over 100 Tbps between Portugal and Brazil. Furthermore, the network...

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EllaLink's transatlantic cable to deploy acoustic sensor tech

Monday, June 29, 2020  Brazil, Ellalink, Portugal, Submarine Cable, Subsea  

EllaLink, which is building a four-pair subsea cable between Portugal and Brazil, will deploy smart sensor on its cable to provide the scientific community with real-time, accurate and relevant data on seabed conditions. This will make EllaLink the first commercial subsea telecom cable system to integrate SMART cable concepts. The EllaLink GeoLab infrastructure, which will be provided by EllaLink in cooperation with EMACOM, will leverage distributed...

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New Atlantic Data Center Hub planned in Portugal

Sunday, November 03, 2019  Data Centers, Portugal, Subsea  

The EllaLink Group and aicep Global Parques – Gestão de Áreas Empresariais e Serviços, unveiled plans for a new "Sines Tech – Innovation & Data Center Hub" in Portugal. The new campus is to be built in the Portuguese port city of Sines, in proximity to the landing station for the new Ellalink subsea cable to Latin America. Diego Matas, Chief Operating Officer of EllaLink, added “I am delighted to announce our collaboration with Global Parks...

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Ekinops debuts Compact OTN

Ekinops introduced its first Ekinops360 ETSc, a new compact Optical Transport Networking (OTN) platform that enables a new Transport-as-a-Service (TaaS) model for service providers.

Ekinops said its new ETSc platform leverages the latest advances in network processor chipsets to enable a new ‘Transport-as-a-Service’ (TaaS) model for service providers supporting client data rates from Gigabit Ethernet (1.25 Gbps) to 400GbE with dedicated resources end-to-end and rapid provisioning capability. The Ekinops360 ETSc provides full OTN switch capability with scalability from 100Gbps to 6 Tbps to address the requirements of any network node from access to the core. As small as 1RU and with low power consumption, it can even be used as customer premises equipment (CPE) for Layer 1 services. 

The ETSc is currently undergoing full field validation and integration into an open, multi-vendor SDN-controlled environment. The new OTN platform can also be managed by Celestis NMS, Ekinops’ converged network management system that provides a single tool for end-to-end management of both Ekinops360 OTN and WDM networks.

“We designed the ETSc to be a flexible scalable, future-proof system using state-of-the-art technologies that can operate in open network environments,” says Vincent Munière, Group Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research & Development at Ekinops. “It will allow Ekinops to address new customers and applications that we couldn’t with our WDM portfolio alone helping Ekinops achieve its stated goal of tripling transport revenue by the end of 2024.”

https://www.ekinops.com/products-services/products/ekinops360/otn/ets-compact

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Telehouse picks Ribbon for Metro Connect offer

London-based Telehouse, one of Europe's leading colocation data center providers, has selected Ribbon's Apollo solution to power its flagship Metro Connect offer.

The deployment features Ribbon's programmable TM1200 and TM1200E muxponder cards on Apollo 9603 and 9608 platforms, providing optimized transport for 100GbE and 400GbE clients. Based on two redundant fiber links, with a failover of less than 50ms in the event of an outage, this enables Telehouse to guarantee its customers 99.999% service availability.

"Ribbon prioritized our needs by offering a combination of advanced technological capabilities and a customized, turnkey installation of their solution," said Sami Slim, Telehouse France Deputy Director. "Our business customers can now maximize cost efficiencies by hosting their IT infrastructures in our suburban data center and enjoy high speed, reliable, low latency connectivity to our central Paris TH2 connectivity hub, one of the world's top 5 most connected data centers."

"Telehouse needed a provider who could deliver security and operational excellence when connecting to its TH2 Connectivity hub, which provides direct access to more than 750 global ISP operators," said Steve McCaffery, Ribbon's Executive Vice President of Sales, APAC and EMEA. "We're delighted to be working with them and helping to fuel their continued success."

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Toshiba aims for HDDs with 30TB by 2023, 40TB by 2026

Toshiba published the following roadmap for its next-generation Nearline HDDs. 

Toshiba plans to leverage its proprietary recording technologies, FC-MAMR (Flux-Controlled - Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording), MAS-MAMR (Microwave Assisted Switching – Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording), and Disk Stacking technology to lift Nearline HDD capacities to 30TB by FY2023, and greater capacities beyond.

“Toshiba continues to work closely with the cloud companies to understand their exact capacity and performance requirements, and the ability to utilize our next-generation technologies will be key to meeting our customers’ needs,” said Raghu Gururangan, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. Vice President, Engineering & Product Marketing. “Many years of close collaboration work with our key component suppliers is leading to impactful technology breakthroughs to achieve higher capacities, which ultimately reduces TCO (total cost of ownership) of our Nearline HDDs.”

http://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/product/storage-products.html

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Keysight submits test cases for enhancements in 5G NR rel16

 Keysight Technologies' S8704A Protocol Conformance Toolset was used to submit the industry’s first 5G new radio (NR) release 16 (Rel-16) test case for verifying mobility enhancements in 5G NR devices to 3GPP.

3GPP’s 5G NR Release 16 specification delivers a wide range of enhancements over Rel-15. These enhancements will support transformation in private 5G, industrial internet of things (IoT), automated factories, healthcare, public safety, logistics and transportation.

“This 3GPP Release 16 test case submission underscores Keysight’s commitment to the 5G device ecosystem and the ability to rapidly adopt new 5G NR specifications,” said Muthu Kumaran, general manager of Keysight's device validation solutions business. “Access to a comprehensive suite of test cases via common software and hardware tools allows users to accelerate design validation and capture early revenue opportunities.”

In August 2021, Keysight used the Protocol Conformance Toolset to submit the industry’s first 5G NR Rel-16 protocol test case to 3GPP. This was followed by the first approval by the Global Certification Forum (GCF) for 5G NR protocol conformance test cases based on 3GPP Release 16 specifications. In December 2021, Keysight was also first to submit Rel-16 test cases to 3GPP, enabling device makers to verify enhanced network slicing and power saving features.

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NVIDIA and SoftBank terminate Arm acquisition

NVIDIA and SoftBank cancelled the acquisition of Arm Limited by NVIDIA. The companies cited significant regulatory challenges.

SoftBank said it now plans a public listing of Arm Limited within the fiscal year ending in March 2023.

“Arm is becoming a center of innovation not only in the mobile phone revolution, but also in cloud computing, automotive, the Internet of Things and the metaverse, and has entered its second growth phase,” said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group Corp. “We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress.”

“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” said Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. “Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”

Citing competition concerns, FTC moves to block NVIDIA + ARM

Thursday, December 02, 2021  ARM, Nvidia  

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the $40 billion proposed acquisition of Arm Ltd. by Nvidia Corp.The FTC vote was 4-0.The FTC complaint states that the acquisition will harm competition in three worldwide markets in which Nvidia competes using Arm-based products:High-Level Advanced Driver Assistance Systems for passenger cars. These systems offer computer-assisted driving functions, such as automated lane changing, lane keeping,...

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NVIDIA to acquire ARM for $40 billion

Sunday, September 13, 2020  ARM, Mergers And Acquisitions, Nvidia  

 In a deal that will redefine the semiconductor market, NVIDIA agreed to acquire Arm Limited from Softbank for $40 billion. Under the deal, NVIDIA will pay to SoftBank a total of $21.5 billion in NVIDIA common stock and $12 billion in cash. NVIDIA will also issue $1.5 billion in equity to Arm employees. The deal does not include Arm’s IoT Services Group.NVIDIA vowed to retain Arm's open-licensing model while maintaining the global customer neutrality...

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Arm Appoints Rene Haas as CEO

Arm appointed Rene Haas as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors, replacing Simon Segars, who has stepped down as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors after 30 years with the company. 

Haas has served as president of the Arm IP Products Group (IPG) since 2017. Under his leadership, IPG increased investment in the industry’s largest software developer ecosystem as well as products for growth markets such as infrastructure and automotive. These investments have resulted in new entrants to the Arm ecosystem including Alibaba, Ampere, AWS, Bosch, Denso, Mobileye and Telechips, and have the company on track to achieve record royalty revenue, licensing revenue and profits in the current financial year.

“It is an honor to lead the world’s most influential technology company at a time when Arm’s market opportunity has never been greater,” said Mr. Haas. “As the innovators of the industry’s most pervasive compute architecture, Arm changed lives around the globe by delivering the technology at the heart of the smartphone revolution. We are now uniquely positioned to address the diverse demands of AI, cloud, IoT, automotive and the Metaverse. And with the uncertainty of the past several months behind us, we are emboldened by a renewed energy to move into a growth strategy and change lives around the world―again.”

Mr. Segars stated, “Arm has defined my working life, and I am very thankful for being given the opportunity to grow from graduate engineer to CEO. I’m very bullish on Arm’s future success under Rene’s leadership and can’t think of anyone better to lead the company through its next chapter.”

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T-Mobile Netherlands deploys Netcracker Cloud BSS

T-Mobile Netherlands will upgrade to Netcracker Cloud BSS.

Netcracker said its cloud-native solution will be deployed in a fully Agile environment that supports public cloud options and leverages Netcracker’s expertise to establish a state-of-the-art IT infrastructure in an ongoing transformation journey.

After several acquisitions over the years, including Tele2 Netherlands and Vodafone Thuis, T-Mobile Netherlands was faced with the challenge of integrating the companies and their customers. The operator needed to consolidate its IT operations, which included the introduction of Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) capabilities across all networks.

“T-Mobile Netherlands has greatly benefited from the additional customers we gained through acquisitions over the years, but to provide the best possible experience for them while maintaining our technology edge, we decided to implement cloud-native BSS software, including CPQ and other critical functions that directly impact the customer,” said Kim Larsen, CTIO at T-Mobile Netherlands. “Netcracker has been a key partner of ours, and we are excited to continue the relationship by moving crucial BSS functions to the public cloud with an Agile/DevOps methodology.”

T–Mobile US extends BSS contract with Netcracker

Tuesday, February 01, 2022  NetCracker  

 T–Mobile US has extended its BSS and managed services partnership for its wholesale business, which includes the MVNO and IoT markets, with Netcracker Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC. Financial terms were not disclosed.Netcracker Digital BSS, including Netcracker Partner Management, and Netcracker Managed Services will help T-Mobile continue leveraging best-in-class capabilities for revenue management while optimizing a range of...

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U.S. charges Hyterra with stealing Motorola's digital mobile radio tech

The U.S. Department of Justice accused PRC-based Hytera Communications Corp. LTD with conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets involving  Motorola Solutions' digital mobile radio (DMR) technology from 2007 to 2020.

The 21-count indictment was partially unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Chicago says Hytera recruited and hired Motorola Solutions employees and directed them to take proprietary and trade secret information from Motorola without authorization. The charges allege that, while still employed at Motorola, some of the employees allegedly accessed the trade secret information from Motorola’s internal database and sent multiple emails describing their intentions to use the technology at Hytera. According to the indictment, Hytera paid the recruited employees higher salaries and benefits than what they received at Motorola.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-indictment-charges-prc-based-telecommunications-company-conspiring-former-motorola

Jury awards Motorola Solutions $764.6m in case against Hytera

Friday, February 14, 2020  China, Legal, Motorola Solutions  

A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois awarded $746.6 million to Motorola Solutions in its trade secret theft and copyright infringement case against Hytera Communications of Shenzhen, China and its U.S.-based subsidiaries.  Motorola is now seeking a worldwide injunction preventing Hytera from further misappropriating its stolen trade secrets and infringing its copyrights.

“Today’s verdict is a tremendous victory for our company,” said Greg Brown, chairman and CEO, Motorola Solutions. “Motorola Solutions has always invested significantly in research and development to bring pioneering and beneficial technology to our customers around the world. In contrast, Hytera was simply profiting off of the hard work and innovation of our world-class engineers. The jury’s verdict validates our global litigation against Hytera by definitively affirming that stealing trade secrets and source code will not be tolerated.”

Biden signs Secure Equipment Act

Thursday, November 11, 2021    

President Biden signed into law the “Secure Equipment Act of 2021,” which requires the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules clarifying that it will no longer review or approve any authorization application for equipment that poses an unacceptable risk to national security.The bill would prevent further integration and sales of Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua – all Chinese state-backed or directed firms – in the U.S. regardless...

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FCC seeks to extend ban on equipment from Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision

Thursday, June 17, 2021  FCC, Huawei, ZTE  

 The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules that would prohibit all future authorizations for communications equipment deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to national security.  Specifically, the FCC is would prohibit the authorization of equipment through either the FCC’s Certification or Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity equipment authorization processes.  The proposal also seeks comment on whether to revise rules concerning...

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Nokia supplies 4G FWA over CBRS for California school district

Nokia delivered a 4G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solution to the Dos Palos Oro Loma (DPOL) school district which encompasses five campuses and serves a population of 5,000 residents in the predominantly rural San Joaquin Valley in California. 

The Nokia solution will provide secure, reliable, high-performance internet access to the homes of 2400 students using Nokia Private 4.9G/LTE Digital Automation Cloud (NDAC) operating in the CBRS/On-Go GAA spectrum, and customer premises equipment (CPE) including Nokia FastMile 4G Gateways and WiFi Beacons. AggreGateway served as Nokia's partner on the project.

The DPOL technology team will operate its new LTE network through the centrally secure Nokia DAC Cloud monitoring application. DPOL will also provision LTE / Wi-Fi hotspots to students to be used with any standard laptop or tablet to access high-speed internet.

Paoze Lee, Technology Systems Director of the Dos Palos-Oro Loma school district, said: “As we put a plan in place for distance learning during the pandemic we found we could only provide coverage for approximately 50% of DPOL students via commercial wireless network providers. Working with Nokia and AggreGateway, we are taking the next steps to level the field and ensure every student has the same access to our learning facilities.”

Matt Young, Head of Enterprise for North America at Nokia, said: “We are pleased to help close the digital divide in the Dos Palos-Oro Loma school district. For many rural areas of the US it’s not commercially viable to build out networks, and often families on the lowest income suffer. Leveraging our DAC and FastMile FWA technologies we can enable the delivery of much needed internet connectivity to students in the area.”

The project’s first phase was completed in November 2021. Nokia and AggreGateway will complete the second phase in 2022.

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NCI wins $13.4M Navy contract for fiber network modernization

NCI Information Systems has been awarded a five-year $13.4 million prime contract from the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division. Under the Installation Fiber Optic Networking Support Services contract, NCI, with its partner IntelliBridge, will enable faster, more secure network connections for the Navy by delivering state-of-the-art engineering and implementation fiber optic networking support services.

Under the contract, NCI and IntelliBridge will transform system interoperability and integration for networks supporting NAWCWD and NAVAIR, enabling seamless and secure computer connectivity. The two organizations will provide E&I fiber optic networking support services such as state-of-the-art network designs, fiber builds, infrastructure mapping and networking solutions.

https://www.nciinc.com

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