T-Mobile US invests in Movius for mobile convergence

T-Mobile US has made an equity investment in Movius, a start-up software provider for secure and compliant mobile communications based in Cupertino, California. 

T-Mobile’s MultiLine service is powered by Movius. The service allows employees to use a single smartphone for personal and business communications in a way that meets compliance standards. It enables employees to use their personal phone to call, text and even use apps like WhatsApp on a dedicated, secure, compliant business line. 

“We’re thrilled to further advance our partnership with T-Mobile for Business to offer MultiLine to an expanded set of industries with diverse use cases across Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, Government, Legal Services and other highly-regulated industries,” said Ananth Siva, CEO at Movius. Siva added that T-Mobile MultiLine is gaining significant traction with companies in the non-regulated space as well, including those in the Hospitality, Transportation, and Construction industries and with small to medium size businesses looking to save on device costs.

www.movius.ai

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GSMA: Growth prospects with a second wave of 5G

More than 30 countries will begin 5G rollouts during 2023, heralding a second wave of 5G and potentially doubling the number of 5G connections over the next 24 months, and confirming 5G as the fastest generational roll-out, when compared to 3G and 4G.

At Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, GSMA Intelligence reported:

• As of January 2023, there were 229 commercial 5G networks globally and over 700 5G smartphone models available to users.
• Growth will also come from key markets within APAC and LATAM, such as Brazil and India, which have recently launched 5G networks. India will be especially significant, with the expansion of services from Airtel and Jio in 2023 expected to be pivotal to the region's ongoing adoption. 
• There will be four 5G networks in India by the end of 2025, accounting for 145 million additional users.
• 5G adoption in the sub-Saharan region sits below 1% but will reach over 4% by 2025 and 16% in 2030, largely thanks to a concerted effort from industry and government organisations to provide connectivity to citizens.
• As of January 2023, more than 90 fixed broadband service providers (the vast majority of which are mobile operators) had launched commercial 5G-based fixed wireless services across over 48 countries. This means around 40% of 5G commercial mobile launches worldwide currently include an FWA offering.
• In the US, T-Mobile added over half a million 5G FWA customers in Q4 2021 and Q1 2022 combined. By 2025, it expects to have eight million FWA subscribers, while Verizon is targeting five million FWA subscribers for the same period. And, with operators such as Jio announcing ambitions to connect as many as 100 million homes across India to its 5G FWA network, the number of FWA users looks likely to grow substantially over the next few years.
• Only 7% of 5G launches have been in 5G mmWave spectrum so far but this looks set to change given 27% of spectrum allocations and 35% of trials are already using 5G mmWave bands. Furthermore, in 2023 alone, the industry will see ten more countries assigned 5G mmWave spectrum for use – a significant increase from the 22 countries who have been assigned it to date. Spain received the first European 5G mmWave spectrum allocation this year, resulting in Telefónica, Ericsson and Qualcomm launching its first commercial 5G mmWave network at MWC Barcelona 2023.

"Until now, 5G adoption has been driven by relatively mature markets and consumer use cases like enhanced mobile broadband, but that's changing. We're now entering a second wave for 5G that will see the technology engage a diverse set of new markets and audiences," said Peter Jarich, Head of GSMA Intelligence. "The extension to new use cases and markets will challenge the mobile ecosystem to prove that 5G truly is flexible enough to meet these diverse demands in a way that's both inclusive and innovative."

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Deutsche Telekom and Asian operators

Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier, Sunrise and AIS Thailand have established an intercontinental 5G Standalone (SA) roaming connection between two networks in Europe and Southeast Asia. 

The direct SEPP-to-SEPP (Security Edge Protection Proxy) connectivity set-up between the home and visited networks was carried out via GSMA’s SEPP protocol. SEPP enables secure interconnect between 5G networks by ensuring end-to-end confidentiality for all 5G interconnect roaming messages between the originating and destination networks and by following 5G SA Roaming security design in 3GPP standard. 

Nicholas Nikrouyan, Vice President, Voice & Mobile Solutions at Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier, said: “We want to accelerate innovation during the current transformation to 5G by encouraging active partnerships that allow the industry to jointly learn and master this technology. Our latest success in completing a 5G SA roaming connection together with Sunrise and AIS Thailand paves the way for further developments that will see 5G SA enable all sorts of next-generation telco service offerings for consumers and enterprises alike. SEPP can also be efficiently hosted on Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier’s IPX network, if operators wish to outsource its implementation and management.”

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Fujitsu teams with Microsoft on private 5G and edge computing

Fujitsu is expanding its partnership with Microsoft especially in the areas of private 5G and edge computing.

Work has been underway at the 5G-focused “FUJITSU Collaboration Lab”  testing facility in Kawasaki, Japan since last summer. Following the success of its initial demonstrations, Fujitsu will conduct future verification trials in fiscal 2023 at a planned verification facility in Birmingham, UK, with preliminary activities at the site starting from March 2023. With the expansion of these trials to the European market, Fujitsu aims to further accelerate business co-creation with customers based on private 5G services on a global scale.

Fujitsu says that by combining its 5G technology including base stations and applications with Microsoft’s Azure Private 5G Core, it has successfully built and operated one of Japan’s first private 5G platform in a commercial environment. 

“As one of our key partners, Fujitsu has been working with Microsoft to create a seamless and secure connected society by combining private 5G and edge computing. We are very pleased with the success of this verification, and we will continue to provide connected value to the global market by combining our market-leading 5G solutions and managed services with Microsoft's Azure private MEC service. As 5G, digital, and edge computing convergence advance, these technologies will also play a key role in enabling rich customer experiences. We will continue to work with Microsoft to support the digital transformation and growth of our customers,” said Koji Arai, Head of Uvance Hybrid IT, Fujitsu Limited.

https://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/resources/news/press-releases/2023/0227-01.html

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Deutsche Telekom to offer private 5G Campus service with Microsoft

Deutsche Telekom is collaborating with Microsoft for private 5G ampus networks. The company has successfully launched a pilot with a leading pharmaceutical company in Germany.

The solution is built on Microsoft Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC) which includes the new Azure Private 5G Core service deployed on Azure Stack Edge to provide customers with a private network that is reliable, secure and can operate across multiple sites. The newly developed concept integrates new and existing customer applications to quickly deliver secure, cloud-managed solutions at the edge.

Deutsche Telekom plans to provide customers with a complete campus network build-out, from planning to building the private network using Azure services with radio access network components and operations packaged as a packaged managed service. Through the solution, Deutsche Telekom is looking to offer a broad selection of robotics, video analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) use cases, validated as part of the ISV program (Independent Software Vendor) for Azure private MEC, tailored to specific customer needs, creating an end-to-end service for business customers. 

Hagen Rickmann, Managing Director Business Customers at Deutsche Telekom in Germany says: “Our new 5G campus network solution comes with low entry barriers regarding costs and effort. Therefore, we can not only address customers with an existing Microsoft Azure landscape, but also new customers in the segment of small and medium-sized businesses. They can adopt 5G technology easily and push their digitalization further - while maintaining flexibility”. 

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Dell'Oro: North American optical transport market 14%

Optical Transport equipment revenue in North America grew 14 percent in 2022, surpassing $4.0 billion, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. Among the large optical equipment suppliers, Fujitsu and Infinera stood out with revenue growth that far exceeded the market's rate of growth.

"Demand for optical systems in North America continued to be robust, surpassing even my lofty expectations," said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group. "The fourth quarter was particularly strong since many vendors received more component supply than expected, allowing for higher systems shipments. We believe this may possibly be a signal that component shortages are beginning to abate," added Yu.

Additional highlights from the 4Q 2022 Optical Transport Quarterly Report:

• Currency exchange rate continued to be a concern throughout 2022, lowering market results in many regions. On a constant currency basis, the worldwide Optical Transport market grew approximately 4 percent in the year and the total WDM market grew approximately 5 percent.
• The largest suppliers in North America were Ciena, Cisco, Fujitsu, and Infinera. Among these vendors, Fujitsu and Infinera sharply outperformed. Fujitsu's optical equipment revenue grew 80 percent year-over-year and Infinera's grew 38 percent.
• Internet content provider spending on WDM equipment rebounded in 4Q 2022 after an unexpected drop in the third quarter, contributing to the strong North American results in the fourth quarter.

https://www.delloro.com/news/north-american-optical-transport-market-grew-14-percent-in-2022/

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Windstream Wholesale signs a global financial institution for 400G

Windstream Wholesale is to provide a custom, hybrid 400G spectrum solution for a large global financial institution.

The 400G spectrum service features a unique route design with customer-specific equipment, satisfying the need for capacity, encryption, and diversity. 

The hybrid solution will be controlled between endpoints by Windstream Wholesale and includes the capability to expand and upgrade capacity with the company’s winning Fast and Flexible process.

“We’re an open, collaborative partner, and this is a great example of how we are bringing our Fast and Flexible culture to the Global Accounts market. We were able to work with our customer with full transparency, come up with a very creative solution, make quick decisions, and set a delivery timeframe that met customer expectations,” said Joe Scattareggia, Windstream Wholesale chief revenue officer. “In this instance, we were the only provider willing and able to design and make the service offering available in a hybrid capacity. Our new Global Accounts vertical really delivered white glove service for this customer, and we’re proud to create the capability and technology to offer such a unique solution.”

Windstream achieves 400 Gig Open ZR+ integration

Tuesday, October 18, 2022  Windstream  

Windstream Wholesale, along with its partners Coherent and Nokia, completed full integration of the 400 Gig, 0 dBm QSFP-DD Pluggable into the generally available Nokia 7250 IXR X1 and 7250 IXR-X3 routers. The integrated solution is ready for full commercial deployment, accelerating Windstream’s ICON and ICON-Edge network strategy. Windstream announced in October 2021 co-development with Coherent (formerly II-VI) of the world’s first high...

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Windstream Wholesale launches Managed Spectrum optical transport

Monday, August 15, 2022  Windstream Wholesale  

 Windstream Wholesale announced nationwide availability of Managed Spectrum, a new network architecture solution that provides customers with a dedicated block of photonic capacity measured in GHz. Customers then procure, install, maintain and monitor the service layer equipment, giving them a secure, private connection between two locations within a metropolitan area or across the U.S.Managed Spectrum, which leverages Windstream Wholesale’s...

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Open XR Forum expands membership roster

Open XR Forum has added Hisense Broadband, KDDI, Lumentum and Viettel to its membership roster. The industry initiative aims to advance the deployment of software-configurable point-to-point and point-to-multipoint coherent optical networks utilizing industry-defined XR optics pluggable transceiver technology. 

“The robust multi-vendor ecosystem fostered by the Open XR Forum generates promising opportunities for accelerating the deployment of our 5G mobile and metro aggregation networks,” said Tomohiro Otani, Deputy General Manager at KDDI.

“Open XR Forum is pioneering cost-saving innovations in the optical space that will optimize our telecommunications networks,” said Nguyen Duc Tho, Network Strategy and Technology Innovation at Viettel Networks. “These advances hold significant promise for the optical transport layer of our 5G network infrastructure. We look forward to working closely with the Forum on future innovations.”

“Lumentum looks forward to working closely with the Open XR Forum ecosystem to accelerate the adoption of coherent optics closer to the network edge,” added Wupen Yuen, SVP and General Manager of the Telecom Transmission Business Unit at Lumentum. “XR optics can fundamentally grow the market for coherent optical components by changing the economics of deploying coherent in aggregation networks.”

Open XR Forum is an MSA consortium bringing together network operators, equipment vendors, and component suppliers committed to building the foundation for a new generation of coherent optical solutions that will cost-effectively meet the demand for greater network scalability and flexibility. XR optics is the industry’s first coherent optical solution to solve the access and aggregation challenges faced by network operators caused by the misalignment between network traffic patterns and the technology used to transport that traffic.

https://www.openxrforum.org

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