Cignal AI: North American WDM transport spending rises

 Spending on optical transport hardware by North American network operators grew more than 20% in 2Q22 compared with the year before. Equipment capex by traditional network operators as well as large cloud operators has now surpassed pre-Covid levels, according to the most recent Transport Hardware Report from research firm Cignal AI. Spending by European and Asian operators remains low by comparison.

“Funding for broadband infrastructure, continuing 5G rollouts, and pent-up demand because of supply chain disruptions have catalyzed growth in North American transport spending,” said Kyle Hollasch, Lead Analyst for Transport Hardware at Cignal AI. “Massive order backlogs and an anticipated easing of supply issues point to a period of rapid spending growth for Service Providers and Cloud operators in the region.”

Highlights from the 2Q22 Transport Hardware Report:

Second quarter 2022 worldwide optical hardware spending grew 3%. Revenue grew in North America and China while all other regions declined.

Worldwide Cloud and Colo spending grew over 10%, compared to roughly flat spending by traditional service providers. Enterprise and Government sales declined YoY for the fifth consecutive quarter as the heightened spending levels during the pandemic reverted to normal.

Cisco, Infinera, and ADVA benefited the most from an increase in spending by Cloud Operators in North America

Results varied widely by region; North American optical revenue grew to the highest second-quarter level on record, while European spending declined. EMEA’s decline is due to a shift from transport to RAN spending, combined with a disadvantageous dollar exchange rate.

Worldwide packet transport sales grew 6%, driven by Cloud and Colo packet spending, which grew 16%.

North American packet transport sales climbed in tandem with optical and grew over 30%, with Cisco, Nokia, and Juniper all participating. EMEA packet sales fell.

https://cignal.ai/2022/08/north-american-wdm-transport-spending-surpasses-pre-covid-levels/

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Dell'Oro: High demand drove North American optical transport

Demand for optical transport equipment remained strong in North America during 2Q 2022, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. In the quarter, the North American market for Optical Transport grew 10 percent year-over-year.

"At this pace, we could be headed for another year of double-digit growth in North America," said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group. "While we expected another year of North American optical market expansion in 2022, we thought the growth rate could slow a bit after such a strong 2021.  However, considering the first-half results and higher than usual backlog held by equipment manufacturers, we think a double-digit rate of growth could occur in 2022. Our biggest concern, however, remains to be the component shortage and supply chain issues that have limited revenue growth for the past couple years," added Yu.

Additional highlights from the 2Q 2022 Optical Transport Quarterly Report:

• The worldwide Optical Transport market excluding China grew 2 percent in 2Q 2022 and is projected to grow a little over 4 percent in 2022.
• The region with the lowest year-over-year growth rate in the quarter was Asia Pacific due to lower demand in China.
• The system manufacturers with the highest share of North America Optical Transport revenue in the quarter were Ciena, Infinera, Cisco, and Fujitsu. These four vendors held a combined market share of approximately 85 percent.

https://www.delloro.com/news/high-demand-drove-north-american-optical-transport-equipment-market-up-10-percent-in-2q-2022/

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Lightmatter hires Richard Ho, former top Google TPU engineer

Lightmatter, a start-up based in Boston developing a new class of photonic processing chip, named Richard Ho as its new Vice President of Hardware Engineering.

Ho,who spent nearly 9 years at Google leading the Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPU) project, will spearhead Lightmatter’s chip engineering division, with a focus on developing and deploying Lightmatter’s state-of-the-art photonic AI accelerator and wafer-scale interconnect for faster and cleaner computing solutions at scale.

Ho was one of the earliest engineers on the Google Cloud TPU project, most recently serving as the Senior Director of Engineering.

“Advances in AI and machine learning will slow down unless we develop new solutions that can be deployed at scale. The products Lightmatter is developing are ground breaking,” said Richard Ho, newly appointed Vice President of Hardware Engineering at Lightmatter. “I’m excited to be a part of the company that’s completely changing the way the industry is approaching power constraints, and am incredibly impressed with the results the team has already produced.”

Lightmatter recently announced other high-profile hires, appointing Ritesh Jain as the new VP of Engineering, Systems and Packaging, formerly Intel; Jessie Zhang as VP of Finance, formerly Apple; and Steve Klinger as VP of Product, formerly Innovium. 

https://lightmatter.co

Lightmatter raises $80 million for its photonic processor

Sunday, May 09, 2021  Lightmatter, New England, Start-Ups  

Lightmatter, a start-up based in Boston, has raised $80 million in Series B funding for its development of a new class of photonic processing chip.Founded in 2017, Lightmatter is pioneering a new paradigm in processor chip architecture that uses photons instead of electrons.Over the last year, Lightmatter announced the first photonic computer code-named Mars and a new wafer-scale solution, code-named Passage, to enable computer chips to communicate...

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Vertical Systems: Lumen tops Mid-2022 U.S. Ethernet LEADERBOARD

Six companies achieved a position on Vertical Systems Group's mid-year 2022 U.S. Carrier Ethernet LEADERBOARD (in rank order based on retail port share as of June 30, 2022): Lumen, AT&T, Spectrum Enterprise, Verizon, Comcast Business and Cox Business. To qualify for a rank on this LEADERBOARD, network providers must have four percent (4%) or more of the U.S. retail Ethernet services market.

Challenge Tier citations were attained by the following six companies (in alphabetical order): Altice USA, Cogent, Frontier, GTT, Windstream and Zayo. The Challenge Tier includes providers with between 1% and 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market.

“Share rankings on the U.S. Ethernet LEADERBOARD remain unchanged for the first half of 2022, however a shakeup is possible by the end of the year,” said Rick Malone, principal of Vertical Systems Group. “Escalating requirements for Gigabit Ethernet services – and particularly 100+Gbps – are spurring capacity upgrades and intensifying competition among fiber-based providers.”

Mid-2022 U.S. Ethernet Market Analysis

• Lumen continues to hold the top rank on the Mid-2022 U.S. Ethernet LEADERBOARD based on port share.
• Our latest Ethernet research shows that port shares are tightening between several of the market leading providers.
• Dedicated Internet/Cloud Access (DIA) was the fastest growing Ethernet service for the first half of 2022 and is on pace to be the largest Ethernet service overall by year-end based on billable U.S. customer installations. Primary Ethernet DIA applications are connectivity for Cloud services and Managed SD-WANs.
• Market demand is rising for Ethernet services ranging up to 100+ Gbps. Customers requiring higher bandwidth connectivity are also evaluating alternatives to Ethernet, including Wavelength and Dark Fiber services.
• Ethernet service providers continue to grapple with supply chain challenges, including lengthy lead times and shortages of the supplies necessary for customer deployments and backbone network operations.
• Lumen and Verizon are the only LEADERBOARD companies with MEF 3.0 Carrier Ethernet (CE) certification.

https://www.verticalsystems.com

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Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei: Think survival

A memo from Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, which was leaked online, urger all 195,000 company employees to brace for bitter times during the coming recession. 

Ren advises the company to cut back on marginal businesses and instead focus on profitability as a urgent survival strategy. 

Separately, other news media in China revealed that Huawei is preparing to cut 4,000 - 5,000 middle managers as part of a restructuring.

See reporting from South China Morning Post:

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3190050/why-huawei-founder-ren-zhengfeis-new-memo-has-turned-viral-chinas?module=more_top_stories_int&pgtype=homepage

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NVIDIA posts revenue or $6.7B, decline in gaming revenue

In what it described as a "challenging quarter" driven primarily by weaker gaming revenue, NVIDIA reported revenue of $6.70 billion for the second quarter ended July 31, 2022, up 3% from a year ago and down 19% from the previous quarter.

GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.26, down 72% from a year ago and down 59% from the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.51, down 51% from a year ago and down 63% from the previous quarter.

NVIDIA said there was a steeper than expected decline in gaming revenue, which amounted to $2.04 billion, down 33% from a year ago and down 44% from the previous quarter. The company did not quantify the negative impact from crypto mining.

Data center revenue was $3.81 billion, up 61% from a year ago and up 1% from the previous quarter. 

Automotive revenue was $220 million, up 45% from a year ago and up 59% from the previous quarter.

“We are navigating our supply chain transitions in a challenging macro environment and we will get through this,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

“Accelerated computing and AI, the pioneering work of our company, are transforming industries. Automotive is becoming a tech industry and is on track to be our next billion-dollar business. Advances in AI are driving our Data Center business while accelerating breakthroughs in fields from drug discovery to climate science to robotics.

“I look forward to next month’s GTC conference, where we will share new advances in RTX, as well as breakthroughs in AI and the metaverse, the next evolution of the internet. Join us,” he said.

During the second quarter of fiscal 2023, NVIDIA returned to shareholders $3.44 billion in share repurchases and cash dividends, following a return of $2.10 billion in the first quarter. The company has $11.93 billion remaining under its share repurchase authorization through December 2023. NVIDIA plans to continue share repurchases this fiscal year.

https://investor.nvidia.com/events-and-presentations/events-and-presentations/event-details/2022/NVIDIA-2nd-Quarter-FY23-Financial-Results/default.aspx

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Teltech deploys Betacom 5G as a Service in its logistics business

Teltech Group, which offers logistics/supply chain services, asset management and technology solutions, is deploying Betacom 5G as a Service to automate its 200,000 square-foot warehouse in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area. 

Teltech consolidated four Dallas/Fort Worth-area warehouses into a single warehouse in 2020, developing the entire space and supporting systems from scratch. The Betacom private 4G/5G network supports the company’s NetSuite Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and enables enhanced scanning capabilities that greatly increase efficiencies in material receiving, order fulfillment and shipping. Airspan, a partner of  Betacom and Teltech, provided the underlying radio access network (RAN).

Founded in 1999, Native American and woman-owned Teltech provides a wide array of services, ranging from warehousing and third party logistics solutions (3PL) to solar power system development, talent resourcing and, recently, tethered drones that provide broadband in hard-to-reach places. 

“Teltech is leading the way in adoption and promotion of advanced technologies enabled by private wireless, increasing their own efficiencies while empowering others to do the same through ongoing awareness and education,” said Johan Bjorklund, CEO of Betacom. “I am very proud of the work we are doing together and look forward to working with them to bring more people to a clear understanding of the benefits of automation that will lead to the realization of Industry 4.0.”

https://www.betacom.com/news/betacom-private-5g-network-ushers-in-new-era-of-warehouse-automation-for-teltech/

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OFS integrates Go!Foton's midspan shell for FTTH

OFS is reselling Go!Foton's Midspan Clamshell Hardened Terminal (MCHT) for network projects supporting OFS customers worldwide. 

The Midspan Clamshell Hardened Terminal offers hardened connectivity without the need for hardened connectors. The clamshell design provides IP68 protection for each individual connection while enabling fast, easy, and secure optical drop cable deployment.

The MCHT's IP68-rated water-sealed mid-span enclosure, including splice tray, optical splitter, or other passive components, is designed to enable effortless add-drops, including fiber cable splicing as well as post-splicing drops with pre-terminated MCHT pigtails. The F2 drops port can be accessed without opening the main splicing chamber, supporting faster and thereby potentially safer customer additions than traditional closures. The MCHT deployment also translates into significant cost savings opportunities for network operators through the simplicity of ordering, inventory, and installation, as the MCHT terminal can be deployed below-grade, pole-mounted, or for messenger applications and uses the common SCA connector.

"The Midspan Clamshell Hardened Terminal helps to simplify and expedite network installations for our global solutions customers," said Dan Hendrickson, Director, NAR Network Systems PLM & R&D for OFS.  "Fundamentally most of our customers prefer traditional industry connectors. The CHT mid-span enclosure allows installers to add and drop cables with traditional connectors in the field while securing connections without opening an enclosure. "

Go!Foton CTO Dr. David Z. Chen said, "The MCHT represents a major advance in optical connectivity management and a completely fresh approach to managing the proliferation of fiber drops in confined spaces for both inside and outside plant networks. By hardening the individual drop connection chamber rather than the actual connectors themselves, the MCHT can offer hardened fiber terminal functionality using widely available, standard fiber drop cables and connectors. " 

https://www.ofsoptics.com

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Cisco adds Sarah Rae Murphy to its board

Cisco announced the appointment of Sarah Rae Murphy to its board of directors. 

Murphy served in several executive roles during her 16 years at United Airlines, most recently as chief procurement officer and senior vice president of Global Sourcing. 

In addition to Murphy, Cisco board members include: M. Michele Burns, Wesley G. Bush, Michael D. Capellas, Mark Garrett, John D. Harris II, Dr. Kristina M. Johnson, Roderick C. McGeary, Chuck Robbins, Brenton L. Saunders, Dr. Lisa Su, and Marianna Tessel. 

http://www.cisco.com

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MIPI DevCon 2022 (virtual) schedule for 20-21 September

The MIPI Alliance will be hosting a complementary virtual event on 20-21 September to feature technical sessions for developers, system architects and other implementers of MIPI specifications.

The virtual event will feature two days of expert sessions on key MIPI specifications, as well as application examples and implementation experiences across a range of areas, including mobile, automotive, IoT, AR/VR and 5G.

Attendees will learn about new specification implementations, industry advancements and trends in the MIPI ecosystem through a varied program of presentations:

• How to Engage in Data-Driven Development and Testing Using MIPI Automotive Sensor Interfaces (dSPACE GmbH)
• MIPI Sensor Solutions for Autonomous Driving (Rambus Inc. and Mixel, Inc.)
• MIPI CSI-2 Security Framework (MIPI Alliance)
• MIPI Sensor System-Interop and Debug for Vision Applications on a SOM (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc./Xilinx Inc.)
• Real Examples of MIPI IF in AR/VR, Mobile and Other Image Applications (Synopsys, Inc.)
• Leveraging MIPI DSI-2 and MIPI CSI-2 Low-Power Display and Camera Subsystems (Hercules Microelectronics and Mixel, Inc.)
• Enabling Simpler Design with MIPI I3C in Different End-Equipment Applications (Texas Instruments Incorporated)
• MIPI RFFE for 5G Front End Modules (Skyworks Solutions Inc.)

For complimentary registration, please visit

https://www.mipi.org/devcon/2022/register

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