Orange selects Edgecore for access disaggregation via SONiC

Edgecore Networks and Orange delivered the first disaggregated switch composed of Edgecore hardware and Orange network operating system based on SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) open source community.

Orange selected Edgecore switches to deliver connectivity for its hundreds of access Points of Presence (PoP). These locations provide 1G, 10G, and 100G access services to enterprise customers.

The disaggregated Edgecore hardware platform comes pre-loaded with the ONIE (Open Network Install Environment) software installer for the automated loading of compatible open source or commercial network operating system offerings. 

Orange is installing its own SONiC distribution to run on the switches. Orange relies on its developers’ expertise working in conjunction with Edgecore and the SONiC community, to which Orange actively contributes, to develop their own networking software solutions.

Heimdall Siao, President of Edgecore said, “As the leader in disaggregated open networking solutions, Edgecore is excited to be involved in this disaggregated and community SONiC networking project with Orange in a telecom use case. Edgecore’s switches running SONiC software provide the high-capacity throughput required for access networks. And, by utilizing Edgecore’s carrier grade and proven robust designs, Orange is able to deploy solutions in the most demanding of carrier networks. This successful experience in Orange’s network proves that disaggregated open networking solutions are robust and capable of handling the most demanding of network environments.”

Jean Luc Vuillemin, Executive Vice President of Orange International Networks, said, “We are pleased to team up with Edgecore to launch our network disaggregation transformation. This joint work enables us to drastically transform the way we build and upgrade our networks. It allows us to move away from off the shelf and locked-in solutions to in-house developed solutions relying on our network developers’ expertise. Upskilling our teams to master our software allows us to regain full control of our networks and therefore manage upgrades in a fast, cost-effective and sovereign way, while providing an improved and reliable service to our customers.”

https://www.edge-core.com/sonic.php

Read More

Ericsson Network Slicing runs during Singapore F1 Grand Prix

During the recent Grand Prix Season Singapore 2022 (GPSS 2022) in October, Singtel employed Ericsson’s Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning feature to deliver end-to-end network slicing in a live 5G Standalone network to power 5G experiences and festivities along the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

Network slicing creates a logically separated, self-contained slice of the network, offering differentiated service performance with prioritised assurance on speed, latency and reliability. Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning is a software solution that allocates spectrum resources at millisecond level scheduling.

Ericsson’s end-to-end network slicing solution also included cloud-native capabilities to create a dedicated slice of its network that was reserved for subscribers of Sports Plus on Singtel’s app marketplace, CAST. This meant subscribers could enjoy seamless video streaming of the action of the high-velocity race from wherever they were. The network delivered the live content even in congested areas along the Marina Bay Street Circuit due to the dedicated capacity being allocated to the service.

Singtel announced in July that it had achieved over 95 percent 5G Standalone nationwide coverage – three years ahead of the regulator’s deadline.

Mark Chong, Group Chief Technology Officer, Singtel, said, ”We’re proud to have been the official network partner of the GPSS, providing race spectators and attendees of the various GPSS related events with the superior features of Singapore’s most powerful 5G network. With the world’s first application of end-to-end network slicing technology to our CAST app, we were able to provide F1 fans a superior viewing experience of the action on the track and enhance the experience of 5G race-related activations held across the island.”

Martin Wiktorin, Head of Ericsson Singapore states:” The fast and efficient delivery of services as well as high-quality user experience provided by Singtel CAST was enabled by a range of Ericsson technologies working together to deliver a full end-to-end network slice on 5G sites surrounding the F1 race. With Singtel CAST subscribers being assigned the premium slice, they were able to enjoy the full race via seamless video streaming even in congested areas along the F1 race.” Around 302,000 fans turned up for the Singapore Grand Prix this year.

https://www.ericsson.com/en/newsroom

Read More

Video: Prospects for Telco Cloud and Edge

 https://youtu.be/NohRra-rkvI

Join us on a 1-mile walk around central San Jose, California to discuss some of the big trends around Telco Cloud and Edge while enjoying the scenery.

Our topics:

01:31 Are you seeing real deployments at the edge? 2:07 Who are the main players that we are talking about? 2:53 The Sustainability imperative 4:09 Is there a killer application or killer network function? 5:17 Who has the early advantage in terms of edge deployments and strategy? 6:07 What can you tell us about Kaboom? 8:54 There are really just a handful of significant suppliers for 5G infrastructure. Are they sincere about openness 9:10 Let's talk about OCP for the service provider world 12:00 How many edge locations do telcos really need? 13:21 Will the Metaverse, AR, and VR become big drivers for the edge? 17:47 Ecosystem partners including Red Hat 18:53 How is the P4 programming language being used? 20:42 The Start-up Life

Read More

EE deploys Ericsson’s Massive MIMO radios at key UK sites

EE, part of the BT Group, has begun deployment of Ericsson’s ultra-lightweight radios  to deliver improved 5G energy efficiency and network performance across the UK.

EE’s first deployments of the equipment are in London, with sites in Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, and Belfast to follow this year. The improved technology will be expanded to more urban and suburban areas in the future, where Ericsson is a key partner for EE. Operating within EE’s 3.4GHz and upper 3.6GHz spectrum bands, the new radio will initially be deployed over 1,000 sites, not only offering substantial energy efficiencies but also improving capacity, coverage, speed and mobile experience for customers.

Ericsson’s AIR 3268 is the lightest and smallest Massive MIMO radio with up to 40 percent less weight (14kg) and volume (25 litres) than Ericsson's previous generation of radio.

Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer, BT Group, said: “We’ve already made significant progress in making EE a more efficient network, delivering vast quantities of additional data without equivalent energy increases. Our partnership with Ericsson is a further milestone in this journey, enabling us not only to accelerate our 5G roll-out in city centres, but to do so in a more sustainable way. That’s good for us, but also incredibly important to our customers and the planet.”

Björn Odenhammar, CTO, Networks and Managed Services, Ericsson UK and Ireland, said: “It is incredibly exciting to see our partnership with BT Group succeed with such fantastic results. This is a great step forward for the deployment of 5G in the UK and gives a much-needed boost in both 5G coverage and mid-band performance. Together we are not only leading the delivery of next-generation connectivity across the country, but also reducing energy consumption to build a more sustainable mobile network of the future.”

https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/3/2022/ericsson-and-ee-deliver-more-sustainable-5g-network-with-european-first

Read More

Germany opens ground station for optical satellite links

Earlier this month, the Institute of Communications and Navigation of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) inaugurated a ground station at its Oberpfaffenhofen site to test optical satellite links.

"In the future, it will become increasingly important to efficiently network satellites with each other and to exchange data securely and efficiently with the ground," says Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, Chair of the DLR Executive Board. "This is driven by the ever-increasing data volumes involved in communications, navigation and Earth observation activities, as well as by the increasingly scarcity of radiocommunications licences."

The newly expanded ground station in Oberpfaffenhofen will make it possible to test and further develop its numerous applications, including satellite-based quantum communication solutions.

The centrepiece of the new optical ground station is a new telescope with a diameter of 80 centimetres. The telescope is a Coudé focus telescope, in which the light collected by the telescope is guided via mirrors directly into a laboratory.

https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2022/04/20221012_new-optical-ground-station-inaugurated-at-dlr-site-oberpfaffenhofen.html

Read More

AWS intros Amazon Neptune Serverless for graph databases

AWS introduced a serverless option for Amazon Neptune, which is itsfully managed graph database service for apps based on highly-connected datasets. Neptune supports open and popular graph query languages for powering use cases such as recommendation engines, fraud detection, knowledge graphs, drug discovery, and network security.

Neptune has always been fully managed and handles time-consuming tasks such as provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, failure detection and repair. However, managing database capacity for optimal cost and performance requires you to monitor and reconfigure capacity as workload characteristics change. 

The new Amazon Neptune Serverless option scales automatically as queries and workloads change, adjusting capacity in fine-grained increments to provide just the right amount of database resources that an application needs. 

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-amazon-neptune-serverless-a-fully-managed-graph-database-that-adjusts-capacity-for-your-workloads/

Read More