Nokia extends mmWave 5G at 2 Gbps over 11 km

Nokia achieved sustained average downlink speeds of over 2 Gbps using millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum and 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), over a distance of 10.86 kilometers. 

The test, which was carried out at the OuluZone test facility in Oulu, Finland, used Nokia’s AirScale baseband and AirScale 24GHz (n258 band) mmWave radio and a Nokia FastMile 5G PoC CPE (customer premises equipment). Testing involved eight component carriers (8CC) in the downlink, aggregating 800MHz of mmWave spectrum. This enabled a top downlink speed of 2.1 Gbps, and an uplink speed of 57.2 Mbps.

Ari Kynäslahti, Head of Strategy and Technology at Nokia Mobile Networks, said: “We just set a new speed record for extended range 5G mmWave. This demonstrates that mmWave solutions will be an essential building block for operators to efficiently deliver widespread, multi-gigabit 5G broadband coverage to their customers in urban, suburban, and rural areas, complementing sub-6 GHz spectrum assets. This is a substantial achievement that reflects how we are constantly innovating and evolving our 5G services and solutions.”

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/06/26/nokia-hits-extended-range-mmwave-5g-speed-record-in-finland/

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Nokia to adopt Red Hat as primary cloud for core apps

Nokia will tightly integrate its core network applications with Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift. 

Under a new partnership, the companies agreed to jointly support and evolve existing Nokia Container Services (NCS) and Nokia CloudBand Infrastructure Software (CBIS) customers while developing a path for customers to migrate to Red Hat’s platforms over time. Additionally, Nokia will leverage Red Hat’s infrastructure platforms to enable faster development and testing of Nokia’s extensive core network portfolio.

Nokia Container Services (NCS) is ready to use, pre-integrated, and based on open source toolsets and software services, including Kubernetes. Designed for communication service providers (CSPs), it enables deploying and managing cloud-native applications, whether inside a virtual machine (VM) or bare metal (BM).

CloudBand Infrastructure Software (CBIS) is a ready-to-use, open source-based virtual infrastructure that provides serviceability, operability and universal applicability for OpenStack virtual machines, with a highly available, more secure and protected solution that is designed to be simple to use and easily upgradeable.

Highlights of the agreement:

• Nokia will adopt Red Hat as its primary cloud infrastructure platform to develop, test and deliver Nokia’s core network applications;
• Nokia will continue to support its core network applications on the Nokia NCS and CBIS platform offerings;
• Nokia’s core network applications will be tightly integrated with Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift, the leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes;
• Nokia will certify Nokia’s core network cloud-native network functions (CNFs) and virtualized network functions (VNFs) on Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenStack Platform with customer deployment options on bare-metal, virtualized and public cloud telco infrastructure offerings, including those from Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and others.
• Nokia cloud infrastructure platform customers will have the full service and support of Red Hat’s open source ecosystem and access to Red Hat’s transformative 4G and 5G technologies and use cases. By combining Nokia’s 5G expertise with Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud vision, customers will be able to transform their core network infrastructure and applications to be fully cloud-native and future-ready with service and support from Red Hat as the industry accelerates to the edge.

“This agreement further demonstrates Nokia Cloud and Network Services’ continued momentum to rebalance its portfolio. It will allow us to provide customers with our best-in-class core network applications, together with best-in-class cloud infrastructure from Red Hat, a global leader in open source infrastructure technology,” stated by Fran Heeran, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Core Networks, Cloud and Network Services, Nokia.

“Red Hat recognizes the explosive impact of 5G — not only for service providers, but across all industries — with the most exciting developments still to come. 5G is revolutionizing how businesses and people interact with the development of next-generation applications, services and use cases. As part of this partnership, Nokia is offering our multicloud, cloud native infrastructure together with their core networks applications, enabling service providers to capitalize on the 5G opportunity by deploying their 5G networks using Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift,” commented Darrell Jordan-Smith, Senior Vice President, Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment & Edge, Red Hat.

https://www.redhat.com

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Adtran S-Flex 400G muxponder carries 64G Fibre Channel over DWDM

Adtran introduced its FSP 3000 S-Flex DWDM muxponder able to support 64 Gbit/s Fibre Channel services and designed for next-generation storage area networks (SAN) and critical infrastructure. 

With a total capacity of 400Gbit/s and a compact design, S-Flex supports stringent DCI requirements in terms of speed and footprint. Its extensive feature set also addresses all SAN and DWDM network operation demands, including ultra-low latency, Fibre Channel performance monitoring, and seamless integration with Fibre Channel trunking technology. The highly secure variant of S-Flex is protected by powerful quantum-safe ConnectGuard encryption, which complies with governmental and industrial standards for classified and sensitive data.

“We’ve always led the way with SAN innovation and our solutions have supported every generation of Fibre Channel. Now we’re empowering a new breed of disaster recovery and business continuity implementations by enabling the leap to 64Gbit/s Fibre Channel transmission, while at the same time taking speed, security and crypto-agility to the next level,” said Christoph Glingener, CTO of Adtran. 

“The FSP 3000 S-Flex is the ultimate one-card solution. It enables enterprises to dramatically increase transport capacity and reduce operational complexity while seamlessly supporting a variety of DCI technologies, including Ethernet, IBM mainframe, Fibre Channel and more. S-Flex will also be a vital asset in the ever-evolving battle to guarantee the integrity and privacy of our most valuable information.”

“In today’s era of digital transformation, organizations are facing new performance requirements and surging application workloads. They need a way to prevent traffic bottlenecks, reduce complexity and unleash the full potential of their data center infrastructure. Now Adtran’s customers have a way to address these urgent requirements with a secure, long-distance transport solution that interoperates seamlessly with our Gen 7 Fibre Channel technology,” commented Martin Skagen, VP of architecture and technology, Brocade Storage Networking Division, Broadcom. 

https://www.adtran.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/20230629-adtran-unveils-industrys-first-64g-fibre-channel-solution-for-quantum-safe-dci-networking

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Huawei looks to 5.5G commercialization in 2024

At this week's MWC Shanghai 2023, Huawei announced plans to launch commercial 5.5G network equipment in 2024, supporting downlinks for 10G.

Huawei said its new 5.5G gear will protect operators' previous investment in 5G, while also improving network performance by 10 times. 

The company says it has made significant progress 5.5G verification process, specifically for extremely large antenna array (ELAA) which underpins 10 Gbps downlinks, flexible spectrum access which helps realize gigabit uplink, and passive IoT which can enable 100 billion IoT connections. 50G PON is another key technology that can enable 10 gigabit speeds for F5.5G ultra-broadband networks, and is expected to be extensively used in homes, campuses, and productions in the future. Huawei has worked with over 30 operators around the world on technological verification and application pilots for these technologies.

Huawei's Director and President of ICT Products & Solutions Yang Chaobin states "With a clearly defined standardization schedule, the 5.5G Era is already poised for technological and commercial verification. In 2024, Huawei will launch a complete set of commercial 5.5G network equipment to be prepared for the commercial deployment of 5.5G. We look forward to working with all industry players to embark on the new journey towards the 5.5G era."

In addition to the development of key technologies for 5.5G wireless and optical access networks, Yang announced that the company has been working on applying AI-native technologies to 5.5G core networks to continuously enhance network capabilities and availability. This would allow AI capabilities to be delivered to the very ends of networks, so that they can better serve numerous industries. Net5.5G promises 10 gigabit access, ultra-broadband transport, and microsecond-level latency over AI networks, allowing it to serve as a next-generation network foundation for industrial digitalization by providing high-quality network access.

https://www.huawei.com/en/news/2023/6/5-point-5g-commercial-fullset-equipement

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Nokia intros 5G FWA receiver for subscriber homes

Nokia introduced a Fixed Wireless Access receiver for the North American market that uses a high gain antenna to deliver high speeds over long distances. The FastMile 5G receiver, which mounts to the outside of a subscriber's home, supports a broad range of 4G and 5G bands including CBRS in either 4G or 5G as well as c-band. It also supports up to 4CA NR carrier aggregation meaning operators can bundle bands for higher throughput. The outside receiver is teamed with an inside Wi-Fi router, such as Nokia’s Beacon G6.2 which has managed mesh Wi-Fi capability to deliver strong signals throughout the home.

Design features:

• Directional antenna design, up to 18dBi gain for sparsely populated areas
• 3GPP release 16 compliant
• Supports all North American 5G mid and low-bands and 4G bands
• Supports NSA and SA
• B48/n48 band for unlicensed CBRS application
• Support for Wall and Pole Mount Options
• Includes modem and high gain antennas in one hardened IP66 compliant outdoor receiver
• 2.5Gbps Ethernet connection the home network includes PoE to power the outdoor device
• The solution is complimented by Nokia Beacon G6.2 as the indoor router providing mesh Wi-Fi 6 and integrated PoE.

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/06/28/nokia-launches-high-gain-5g-fixed-wireless-access-receiver-to-connect-the-north-american-underserved/

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Keysight supports O-RAN Spring 2023 Global PlugFest

Keysight Technologies collaborated with 14 industry partners to demonstrate Open RAN deployment readiness testing at the O-RAN Spring 2023 Global PlugFest organized by the O-RAN ALLIANCE.

During PlugFest, Keysight Open RAN Architect (KORA) solutions were used with Keysight co-developed O-RAN test specifications across these focus areas:

• Open RAN Radio Unit (O-RU) Fronthaul Conformance / Performance – Conducted automated testing of O-RU compliance to WG4 fronthaul technical specifications using the Keysight O-RU test suite, including control, user, synchronization and management (CUSM) planes and performance across the radio frequency (RF) and protocol measurements domains. Test collaborators included Compal, ETRI, Inventec, Pegatron, and SOLiD.
• RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) Conformance – Used the cloud-native Keysight RIC Test Suite to test and validate near-real-time RIC and non-real-time RIC compliance to the WG2 A1, WG3 E2, and O1 technical specifications by emulating E2 nodes, near-real-time RIC, and user equipment (UE). Test collaborators included Compal, ITRI, LITEON, and Pegatron.
• End-to-End (E2E) Network Performance – Provided E2E testing and assessment of small cells, macro cells, and gNodeBs (gNB) for performance, security, latency under, load and stress test conditions using the Keysight E2E test suite. An over-the-air (OTA) monitor was used to extend real-time visibility to disaggregated radio access, correlation, and interaction between O-RAN protocol and 3GPP physical layers in wireless transmissions. Test collaborators included Askey, Compal, LIONS Technology, Pegatron, SageRAN, SOLiD, and Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT).
• 5G and O-RAN Security – Validated the design and implementation of security for O-RAN gNBs with simultaneous operations of emulated UEs and security attack modules (3GPP SCAS automated testing, DDoS, Fuzzing) using the Keysight 5G and O-RAN security test suite. Tests ensured that the experience of emulated subscribers and network performance were not adversely impacted during simulated attacks. Test collaborators included LITEON and Pegatron.

https://www.keysight.com/us/en/about/newsroom/news-releases/2023/0629-pr23-098-keysight-demonstrates-open-ran-deployment-readines.html

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