Qualcomm offers Mesh Wi-Fi design kit for Amazon Alexa

Qualcomm is introducing a development kit for mesh Wi-Fi networks, qualified by Amazon, to integrate the Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS). This helps manufacturers to quickly create mesh Wi-Fi systems with Alexa for bringing the convenience of voice control to connected devices throughout the home.

Voice control is becoming a new way for consumers to be able to more easily manage their smart home devices. The addition of Alexa, integrated via the ClearVoice far-field voice enhancement software solution from Meeami Technologies, makes it easy for mesh networking manufacturers to provide leading voice capabilities to their customers layered on the Qualcomm Wi-Fi mesh platforms.

“Mesh networks have become the new standard to support the best possible connected experience in the home. By adding Amazon’s advanced voice capabilities through the Alexa Voice Service, we are unlocking new opportunities for customers to enable exciting new smart home experiences controlled with the simplicity of voice,” said Nick Kucharewski, vice president and general manager, Wireless Infrastructure and Networking, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “By integrating our mesh platform with Alexa, we create a powerful development kit that is designed to enable device manufacturers to quickly and economically bring innovative new products to market and meet the development speed of this fast-growing market.

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Infovista expands 5G testing and planning capabilities

Infovista announced new versions of its TEMS Investigation and Planet network planning and test solutions for mobile operators.

With this release, Infovista introduces support for 5G smartphones based on the Qualcomm X50 chipset. With initial support of Qualcomm based devices and plans for agnostic device support, customers will be able to choose between different test devices and scanners to support 5G NR network testing. This allows early adopters of 5G NR to gain insight into the performance of different smartphones and their interaction with real 5G NR networks ensuring QoE for subscribers. Infovista is now delivering this solution to a number of 5G NR Mobile Operators and to several global infrastructure suppliers.

Infovista also announced a new version of its RF planning tool, Planet. Planet now provides customers with new, unprecedented levels of accuracy and performance including, enhanced 3D capabilities, and its ability to use big data to predict data traffic. Infovista has also improved accuracy by producing high-definition GeoData and 5G antenna patterns.

https://www.infovista.com/products/tems-portfolio

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Ixia launches 5G User Equipment Emulation Solution

Ixia is introducing a new scalable 5G User Equipment (UE) Emulation Solution that provides network equipment manufacturers and solution providers with end-to-end, scalable testing of 5G base stations to ensure that devices and network services meet customer expectations for latency, reliability, and high-speed broadband at scale.

Keysight’s 5G UE Emulation solution features the XAir3 platform, a powerful test product delivering functional layer-by-layer testing, as well as load, scale, and performance testing. XAir3 is the successor to XAir2 4G LTE-Advanced UE emulation platform. The XAir3 platform supports both Non-Stand Alone and Stand Alone modes, sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave radios as well as xRAN architectures. With this solution, users can perform capacity tests, analyze cell throughput, measure voice and video quality and model a wide variety of mobility scenarios in the lab prior, during and after service roll-out from a single tool without the need for real devices.

“The industry needs a scalable and flexible UE emulation solution that simulates complex network configurations and real subscriber behavior,” said Mark Pierpoint, president, Ixia Solutions Group, Keysight Technologies, Inc. “Keysight’s XAir3 UE platform successfully enables network equipment manufacturers and service providers to test for a wide range of demanding requirements and a variety of configurations for 5G to ensure their products and services meet the promises of 5G -- low latency, ultra-reliability and high speed at scale. We're pleased that Keysight provides the solution for NTT DOCOMO to validate 5G base station."

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Qualcomm shows 5G PC with Snapdragon 7nm CPU and modem

Qualcomm introduced the first commercial 5G PC Platform, powered by its Snapdragon 8cx 5G compute platform and its Snapdragon X55 5G modem.

The premium thin and light PC will take advantage of the multigigabit capabilities of new 5G networks.

Qualcomm said its Snapdragon 8cx 5G platform will extreme performance, extreme battery life, and extreme connectivity. Snapdragon 8cx 5G platform promises multi-day battery life and multi-gigabit connectivity, in new thin, light and fanless designs. The company predicts that with the introduction of Snapdragon 8cx 5G, private 5G small-cell networks will proliferate in the enterprise.

"Our platforms were the first to bring gigabit, and now multi-gigabit LTE to the PC,” said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile, Qualcomm Technologies,Inc. “We also brought multi-day battery life to the PC, and with the Snapdragon 8cx 5Gcompute platform, we innovate once again to bring the best of our computing and connectivity technologies into a single platform to modernize the enterprise.”

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Qualcomm builds its Snapdragon automotive 4G, 5G solutions

Qualcomm is introducing new wireless solutions for next-generation connected vehicles.

The Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G Platforms feature integrated C-V2Xdirect communications, high-precision multi-frequency global navigation satellite system (HP-GNSS) and RF Front-End (RFFE)functionalities to support major operators across key spectrum bands globally.

These capabilities enable rich in-vehicle experiences, including dual SIM dual active(DSDA)(included on the Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform), precise positioning for lane level navigation accuracy, multi-gigabit cloud connectivity, vehicle-to-vehicle(V2V) and vehicle-to-roadside infrastructure (V2I) communications.

The new SnapdragonAutomotive 4G and 5G platforms are expected to sample later this year and are planned for production vehicles in 2021.

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Cisco customer wins at MWC: Airtel, KT, Softbank, Sprint

Airtel has selected Cisco to build India's largest 5G-ready, IP-based fully automated network. Airtel's IP-based network architecture will enable new functionality, including segment routing, traffic engineering and ethernet VPN that helps ensure seamless interoperability and the ability to leverage existing investments in its MPLS-TP network.

KT has selected Cisco to transition its network architecture to better manage upcoming 5G traffic with advanced routing and automation software, intelligent analytics and machine learning. Specifically, KT has rolled out a new 5G mobile network platform with automated and virtualized technologies on Mobile Edge Cloud, featuring Mobile Packet Core, network slicing, segment routing, control and user plane separation (Remote-CUPS). The new architecture with Remote-CUPS is designed to serve reliable, scalable, flexible and low-latency network services. The virtualized mobile packet platform is designed to remotely manage traffic at scale and accelerates packet processing to meet the requirements of commercial 5G services with high throughput and low-latency network services.

The end-to-end network includes a 5G routing backbone with Cisco Network Convergence System Router 6000 and ACI on Nexus 9000 switching platform at KT’s distributed data centers.

“As the global leader in 5G, KT is aligned with innovative technology partners like Cisco that can design and launch commercial 5G services focused on ultra-low latency as the world’s first CUPS architecture use in combination with the strong foundation of IP network hardware, software and cloud-powered technologies” said Su-Kil Lee, Senior Vice President of Network Research Technology Support Unit, KT Corp.

SoftBank is deploying Cisco's Segment Routing IPv6 (SRv6) networks nationwide to build a future network architecture. Cisco says current mobile networks are deployed as divided networks, with several layers and complicated control plane processing, which makes it difficult to respond to strict quality requirements like in the case of 5G. Deploying SRv6 in a 5G mobile network simplifies network layers and integrates user plane functions from end-to-end with only IPv6 protocol, making things simple, controllable, and flexible.

Sprint is relying on the Cisco Network Convergence System 540 router series, which is capable of tripling backhaul network capacity and delivering 100G connectivity into the core transport network, and the Cisco Network Services Orchestrator for performance optimization and network automation.

"Cisco NCS routing technology powered by automation software running traffic over dark fiber offers us an ideal blend of innovative technology to support our LTE Advanced and 5G network," said Greg O'Connor, vice president of Network Core and Access, Sprint. "This mix of innovation strengthens our backhaul network and our ability to support connect-to-everything experiences for our customers."

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Cisco and Verizon partner on 5G SD-WAN

Verizon’s Virtual Network Services will support 5G devices on Cisco’s SD-WAN platform.

This will enable enterprises to leverage the performance of 5G when using services such as network slicing and mobile edge computing.

“These solutions highlight what a transformative platform 5G will be for enterprises,” said Shawn Hakl, senior vice president, Business Products, Verizon. “Cisco has been a close technology partner in driving SD-WAN based transformation in campus and branch environments, and we look forward to bridging those same best practices to mobile devices.”

“We’re excited to partner with Verizon to take the next step in SD-WAN. 5G is a transformational technology, and when combined with Cisco SD-WAN, users’ application experience can be better than ever before,” said Scott Harrell, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Networking Business, Cisco.“Verizon’s new Mobile SD-WAN will help enterprise customers quickly and easily transition to 5G, giving them an edge as we embrace the next generation of mobile connectivity.”

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