Deutsche Telekom commercializes network APIs

Deutsche Telekom announced the commercial launch of network APIs under the brand “MagentaBusiness API”. This new service allows developers and business customers to build apps and services that communicate seamlessly with Deutsche Telekom’s network in Germany.

The MagentaBusiness API platform is powered by Vonage, which is a division of Ericsson. It serves as a one-stop shop for access to communications and network APIs, allowing developers and business customers to embed communication functions like video, voice, messaging, and other capabilities into their products, applications, and workflows.

The companies describe the launch of network APIs service as a significant development for the telecommunications industry, as it opens up new possibilities for businesses of all sizes to innovate and develop new products and services. The MagentaBusiness API platform could be used to develop a wide range of applications, such as:

• Smart city applications that use real-time traffic data and other sensor data to improve transportation and other services
• Industrial IoT applications that connect machines and devices to the cloud to enable real-time monitoring and control
• Customer relationship management (CRM) applications that use network APIs to integrate with customer communication channels

The following three network APIs will be made available by the MagentaBusiness API Portal (powered by Vonage):

Quality-on-demand

This API allows an application to request a certain quality of service for a SIM card. Data can be transferred with stable latency or bandwidth, even under high load conditions in the network. Teleoperated driving, for example, requires low latency at all times for safety purposes. This was successfully showcased at the International Motor Show Germany together with partners from the automotive industry.

Device Status – Roaming 

The Device Status – Roaming API will be implemented to determine whether or not a device is in international roaming mode, and in which country. This has use-cases for example in credit card fraud detection, where a banking app can instantly check whether a customer is likely to be making a payment abroad.

Device Location

The network can verify the location of a SIM card within the mobile network in Germany, independent of GPS availability.  One successful trial with a major logistics company saw delivery vehicles tracked and routed to the correct loading ramp of a freight plane, increasing efficiency and minimizing the risk of delay. 

"In the future, our network itself will enable new growth opportunities for businesses through APIs. We invite our customers to explore new use cases or optimize existing business processes by participating in our friendly adopter program," said Claudia Nemat, Board Member for Technology and Innovation at Deutsche Telekom. "Together with Vonage and Ericsson, we are the first to expose network APIs in a one-stop shop portal. APIs are a key strategic focus for Deutsche Telekom. This is underlined by our status as a founding member of the CAMARA alliance, which aims to make standardized APIs available internationally."

"We are excited to be working with Deutsche Telekom as our first strategic CSP partner. Together, Deutsche Telekom, Vonage and Ericsson will leverage our strengths to help companies enhance user experience and growth opportunities with both communications APIs and new network APIs," said Rory Read, Vonage CEO and SVP, Head of Business Area Global Communications Platform for Ericsson. 

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/telekom-commercially-launches-network-apis-1049276

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Ericsson Cloud RAN now runs on Google Distributed Cloud

Ericsson Cloud RAN solution can now run on Google Distributed Cloud (GDC), offering integrated automation and orchestration and leveraging AI/ML for additional communications service providers (CSP) benefits. The companies have  demonstrated the full implementation of the Ericsson vDU and vCU on GDC Edge and the solution is running live in the Ericsson Open Lab in Ottawa, Canada, with joint ambition for market development.

Google Distributed Cloud is an on-premise solution with fully managed hardware and software. 

Deploying Ericsson Cloud RAN on GDC Edge enables the delivery of a fully automated and very large-scale distributed cloud, resulting in an efficient, reliable, highly performant and secured software centric radio access network infrastructure. In this setup, the on-premises GDC Edge is managed using functions such as fleet management from the public cloud through a dedicated secure connection between on-prem hardware and the cloud, while also addressing sovereignty and privacy requirements of the CSP customers. This architecture ensures the clear path for CSPs toward the implementation of a fully hybrid cloud solution for RAN.

Ericsson and Google Cloud are jointly enhancing the solution through the Linux Foundation open-source project Nephio (a Kubernetes-based automation platform for deploying and managing highly distributed, interconnected workloads such as 5G network functions).

Mårten Lerner, Head of Product Line Cloud RAN, Ericsson, says: “This partnership enables us to deepen and expand our valuable collaboration with Google Cloud, and it opens new opportunities for operators to utilize the benefits of cloud-native solutions and automation. Ericsson remains committed to ensuring the adaptability of its Cloud RAN applications on diverse cloud infrastructures, offering operators enhanced flexibility and choice in deploying Cloud RAN as well as supporting the evolving hybrid cloud architectures together with Google Cloud.”

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Linux Foundation announces funded model for CAMARA project

The Linux Foundation has announced that its CAMARA project, an open source community working on API interoperability for the telecommunications industry, has graduated to a funded model.

CAMARA was launched in February 2022 with 22 initial partners and has since grown to over 250 participating organizations with over 750 contributors. The funded model will help to sustain the project's rapid growth and ensure that it has the resources it needs to succeed.

The funded model will also introduce a Governing Board, Technical Steering Committee, and End User Council to manage collaboration at scale.

Earlier this year, CAMARA partnered with the GSMA, TMForum and LF Networking to publish a white paper, “The Ecosystem for Open Gateway NaaS API Development.” The paper outlines collaborative concepts of Open Gateway (a framework of common network APIs designed to provide universal access to operator networks for developers, helps application developers enhance and deploy services more quickly across operator networks via single points of access to the world’s largest connectivity platform) Network as a Service (NaaS) architecture.

https://camaraproject.org/

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Digital Realty links to Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud

Digital Realty to offer connectivity to the recently-launched Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud via Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) FastConnect. 

Customers can connect to the Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud regions in Frankfurt and Madrid, and they can choose to use Digital Realty to interconnect their Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud-based applications and workloads to other cloud platforms.

The OCI FastConnect interconnection to Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud is facilitated by Digital Realty's proprietary interconnection and orchestration solution ServiceFabric™\, which also extends access to Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud from more than 130 locations globally. In addition to OCI FastConnect connectivity to Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud in Madrid, Digital Realty currently hosts nine other OCI FastConnect points-of-presence (PoPs) globally, including Amsterdam, Chicago, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, London, Madrid, Marseille, and Sao Paulo.

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Sabey Data Centers to build new data center campus in Oregon

Sabey Data Centers unveiled plans for a new, 100MW data center campus on a 60 acre plot in Umatilla, Oregon.

The 700,000 square foot data center campus will support 100+ MW of critical IT load. As of 2020, Oregon reported a 40% renewable utility power fuel mix with a target to hit 100% by 2040. Sabey will procure/invest in carbon free energy in time to meet the Company’s net-zero target by 2029 in Umatilla and across the SDC portfolio, 11 years ahead of Oregon's target.

The campus will offer multiple diverse connectivity solutions, provide low latency to West Coast metro areas and enjoy proximity to west coast subsea cables.

“Sabey continues its commitment to build cutting-edge, super-efficient data centers in markets like Umatilla that move us toward our goal to operate with net-zero carbon emission by 2029. Our data centers combine that level of sustainability with low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) throughout the data center lifecycle, reliability and connectivity,” says Rob Rockwood, President of Sabey Data Centers. “And as we have in every one of our markets, we will run our campuses with men and women from the local community who share our vision to build opportunity along with the world’s best data centers.”

http://www.sabeydatacenters.com/umatilla.

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Netcracker integrates its GenAI Telco with Google Cloud

Netcracker is working to combine its GenAI Telco Solution with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.

Netcracker leverages its expertise in the telecom BSS/OSS domain together with Google Cloud's Vertex AI to enable a variety of high-value use cases that securely use real-time telecom data. By adding precise telco data and instructions to enrich GenAI models acquired through Vertex AI and fine-tuning these models, CSPs can enable exceptional quality responses and resolutions in their GenAI use cases.

“We’re pleased that Netcracker has identified Google Cloud Vertex AI as an underlying technology powering its new generative AI solutions and services,” said Vivek Gupta, Head of Telecom AI Solutions and Partnerships, Google Cloud. “We look forward to seeing the impact this will have on our Telecom clients looking to build and deploy time-saving, innovative programs across their businesses.”

“Netcracker is excited to work closely with Google Cloud to bring the transformative value of GenAI to our telecom customers,” said Bob Titus, CTO at Netcracker. “With our telco IT leadership and history of innovation, we are ideally positioned to help CSPs leverage this technology to make radical improvements and innovations and achieve real results that will dramatically impact their businesses.”

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Juniper expands Apstra, its Intent-Based Networking solution

Juniper Networks announced enhancements to its Apstra solution, which is an intent-based networking (IBN) software platform that automates and validates the design, deployment, and operation of data center networks. 

Apstra works by modeling the network as a graph, which allows it to understand the relationships and dependencies between all of the network devices and elements. This model is used to validate the network design and to generate configuration instructions for the devices. Apstra can also monitor the network in real time and identify any problems or misconfigurations.

New capabilities in the latest release of Apstra software include:

• Simple data collection and visualization - users can now  customize intent-based analytics probes for telemetry and visibility into network operations, then easily explore and visualize the data using the new database query interface included in Apstra 4.2.0. 
• Complete network visibility with integrated flow data - multivendor flow data through Apstra provides granular visibility for in-depth analysis and insights into the application traffic flows traversing the network without the complexity and cost of a separate monitoring system. When paired with Apstra’s telemetry and analytics features, these capabilities simplify and speed troubleshooting, enable better performance management, capacity planning and cost control, and improve security and compliance - regardless of vendor.
• Automated and streamlined network provisioning with Terraform. Companies currently using the Terraform infrastructure-as-code (IaC) platform to automate their public cloud deployments can now use the Terraform provider for Apstra to automatically push configurations to the data center through Apstra without any API programming. 

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Amazon previews Wi-Fi 7 mesh system

Amazon announced its first Wi-Fi 7 mesh system - -the eero Max 7 combines the company’s patented TrueMesh networking technology with Wi-Fi 7 standard to increase speeds, avoid interference from neighboring networks, and improve mesh latency–and with 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

As eero’s fastest tri-band mesh wifi system, eero Max 7 supports the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz radio bands, and delivers wireless speeds up to 4.3 Gbps and wired speeds up to 9.4 Gbps. With two 10 and two 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, it can support multiple wired devices and enable customers to take advantage of internet plans up to 10 Gbps. 

“Connectivity is core to our everyday lives—we stream movies and TV, take video calls for work, play online games with our friends, and use an ever increasing number of connected devices,” said Nick Weaver, co-founder and CEO of eero. “With tens of millions of eero devices around the world, we know customers notice even a millisecond delay when streaming a movie or gaming, want reliable connectivity in every corner of the home, and always look for faster speeds. eero Max 7 is the culmination of everything we’ve learned—this is an entirely new class of eero, built without compromise.”

eero Max 7 will be priced at $599.99 (one-pack), $1,149.99 (two-pack), and $1,699.99 (three-pack). 

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