Infonetics: North America Drives Growth in Optical Networking

The optical network hardware market, including WDM and SONET/SDH equipment, totaled $3.3 billion worldwide in 2Q13, up 27% over the preceding quarter, according to a new report from Infonetics Research.

Some highlights:

• EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) is operating at record low levels of optical capital intensity; positive capex rumbles from tier 1 carriers have yet to translate into more optical spending
• The top 3 optical market share leaders in 2Q13 are, in rank order, Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent and ZTE
• Alcatel-Lucent continues to decline on a year-over-year basis, though optical investment is set to increase in 2013 as part of its SHIFT Plan to double down on optical and routing
• Ciena is well positioned to capture the torrent of 100G spending expected this year from AT&T and Verizon
• Infinera is the fastest-growing supplier of optical WDM gear in Europe

“We expected the optical hardware market to turn, particularly in North America, and that’s exactly what happened in the 2nd quarter. Total optical spending is up 27% quarter-over-quarter, and the WDM equipment segment is up 21% year-over-year,” notes Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics Research.

“WDM spending accelerated dramatically in North America as a result of 100G deployments hitting the ground, and worldwide spending on 100G speeds is tracking close to 15% of all optical spending,” Schmitt adds. “China’s 100G deployments will begin in earnest as the year closes, led by China Mobile, and we’re anticipating more than 5,000 ports of 100G in China alone in 2013.”

http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2013/2Q13-Optical-Network-Hardware-Market-Highlights.asp

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HP's New Graphic Server Blade Virtualizes NVIDIA GPUs

HP introduced a Graphics Server Blade powered by NVIDIA GRID GPUs.  This allows up to 8 simultaneous virtual desktops to benefit from the processing performance of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs).

HP said its Gen8 server with NVIDIA GRID or Multi-GPU Carrier lowers the cost per user while delivering levels of graphics performance previously unavailable for desktop virtualization users. The NVIDIA GRID K1 and K2 GPU adapters also enable multiple media-rich PC or high-end graphics users per blade by providing graphics capability to each virtual machine.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1461268#.UhKNApLlZ8G

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2013/08/19/blade/

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Digital Realty Joins Epsilon's Global Network Exchange

Digital Realty, which owns 127 data center properties worldwide, has signed a network partnering agreement with Epsilon to offer a dynamic bandwidth solution in London to cloud and content providers for seamless backbone connectivity.  The new platform facilitates enhanced connectivity for cloud and content providers from Digital Realty's London-area data centers with seamless interconnectivity to over 65 data centres globally.

Epsilon is a privately owned communications service provider specializes in operating high-density metro connectivity platforms.  It operates an extensive global network exchange, powered by BTI's intelligent networking software and systems, to enable the delivery of on-demand metro connectivity services. Epsilon has created an application-aware network to rapidly scale capacity to support 100G connectivity and facilitate on-demand switching of cloud-based application workloads between data centres.

The partnership initially involves the establishment of points of presence in two of Digital Realty's data centers in the UK (Chessington and Woking). The connectivity platform will operate on a major dark fiber ring, commissioned by Digital Realty, and connecting to 22 key London-area Internet and metro gateway centres.  Further expansion across Europe is contemplated.

"Our goal is to provide flexible solutions that accommodate the evolving needs of our customers' businesses, now and in the future," said Bernard Geoghegan, Managing Director, EMEA, for Digital Realty. "Our London-area customers require on-demand and rapidly scalable automation of their bandwidth as part of their data centre solutions. We are pleased to offer this platform as we continue to build the Digital Realty Ecosystem across our portfolio in Europe and globally."

"Epsilon's global network exchange, powered by BTI's Cloud Networking Solution, provides the platform that we believe will help us achieve our distributed cloud data centre vision," said Robert Bath, Vice President, Engineering, at Digital Realty. "We expect the solution to attract a new class of global cloud and content provider customers to our data centres."

"We see growing demand from data centre customers for our outsourced connectivity model and this agreement with Digital Realty reaffirms our commitment to supporting cloud and content connectivity development," said Andreas Hipp, Chief Executive Officer at Epsilon. "As a global provider, we are driven by service excellence and agile operational objectives. Working with BTI helps us achieve our dual mission by simplifying network operations and increasing service velocity, while enabling the introduction of new cloud connectivity services."

http://www.digitalrealty.com
http://www.epsilontel.com
http://www.btisystems.com

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OIF Marks Progress in Pluggable Coherent Modules, OTN, Transport SDN

The Optical Internetworking Forum announced a new, second project for a pluggable coherent optics transceiver (CFP2) module, saying standardization of a micro Integrated Coherent Receiver (ICR) will enable component manufacturers to quickly ramp up production while also reducing the cost and time to market for high volumes of pluggable modules.

Following its quarterly meeting, the OIF also cited progress on projects addressing thermal aspects, CEI-56G, E-NNI multi-domain recovery, OTNv3, and transport SDN:

• The OIF Physical Layer Users Group is working to specify the surface smoothness and flatness of optical modules, which are key elements for thermal management by helping to improve heat dissipation.
  
• For CEI-56G, simulations of this proposed interface were presented to members of the Physical and Link Layer (PLL) working group. The CEI-56G work effort potentially supports both narrower 100Gbps as well as 400Gbps efforts.
  
• The E-NNI Recovery Amendment adds extensions to the E-NNI to allow automated backup from failure or maintenance in multi-domain carrier networks, a critical feature of the optical control plane.
  
• The OTNv3 Amendment adds updates to the E-NNI to support the latest OTN control plane standards, now supporting rates from 1Gbps up to 100Gbps.
  
• The Carrier completed documenting an initial set of carrier requirements for Transport SDN, providing a framework for Transport SDN in a multi-domain carrier network and identifying requirements on signaling network, control plane and management for deploying SDN in a reliable, secure and high performance manner. OIF members are reviewing this document before it is available to the public.

In addition, the OIF announced the election of Evelyne Roch of Huawei as the Networking & Operations Working Group chair and plans for workshops on Next Gen efforts and Transport SDN in early 2014.  New Members to date in 2013 include Google, KAIST, Mellanox, Optelian, Ranovus, Sandvine, TELUS and US Conec.

http://www.oiforum.com/

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Zayo Acquires Fiber Network in Minneapolis for $40 Million

Zayo agreed to acquire Access Communications, a metro network operator in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., for $40 million.

Access owns and operates a 1,200 mile metropolitan fiber network that covers the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, connecting more than 500 on-net buildings, including the area’s major data centers and carrier hotel facilities. Access is primarily focused on providing dark fiber services to a concentrated set of Minneapolis area carrier, enterprise and governmental customers, particularly within the education segment.

"Given the complementary breadth and depth of its fiber network, the Access transaction is a natural step for Zayo,” said Dan Caruso, President and CEO of Zayo Group. “The acquisition is the latest in a series of major investments supporting the growth of our Bandwidth Infrastructure business in Minnesota.”

http://www.zayo.com/news/zayo-group-acquire-minneapolis-based-access-communications

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Marvell's New Prestera Switching Processors Target Dynamic Access/Aggregation

Marvell introduced its Prestera DX4200 series of packet processors for the access and aggregation layers of fixed and mobile networks.

The new product family, which represents the eight generation of Marvell switching silicon, is implemented in 28nm. The design integrages multi-core ARM v7 CPUs, a carrier grade traffic manager and a flexible IPv6 packet processing pipeline to enable dynamic software defined networking and advanced service virtualization.

It supports CAPWAP, MPLS, VPLS, OAM, SPB and Bridge Port Extension, and offer synchronization features. An integrated InterLaken interface also enables the development of transport and circuit switched solutions while leveraging the service enabling paradigms of the DX4200. The integrated traffic manager offers hierarchical flow based quality of service and massive external buffering enabling tens of thousands of applications and users through unique queuing schemes that insure no variance in user experience across different access models. Sampling begins in September.

"As demand for higher service density per watt increases, Marvell is uniquely positioned to offer platforms for the software defined storage, networking, mobile and compute clouds being designed today," said Ramesh Sivakolundu, vice president for the Connectivity, Services and Infrastructure Business Unit (CSIBU) at Marvell Semiconductor.

http://www.marvell.com/

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Korea's Dacom Crossing Deploys Infinera DTN-X

Dacom Crossing, a Korean provider of international IP communications, has deployed the Infinera DTN-X packet optical networking platform connecting Seoul, the terrestrial backhaul network and the EAC Korea landing station.

Dacom Crossing provides wholesale services to Tier One carriers, ISP’s and content providers. The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network, featuring the DTN-X, enables Dacom Crossing to offer 10, 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) services in addition to existing International Private Lease Circuit services up to 10 Gbps.

This marks the first deployment of Infinera's solutions by a Korean network operator.

http://www.infinera.com

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Digital Realty Completes $3 Billion Refinancing

Digital Realty Trust, which has 127 data centers around the world, has completed the refinancing of its global revolving credit facility and term loan.  The refinancing allowed the company to reduce pricing, extend loan maturities and increase its aggregate commitments by $450 million. The combined facilities total $3 billion, representing the 5th largest unsecured credit facilities among US REITs. The refinancing provides funds for acquisitions, development, redevelopment, debt repayment, working capital and global expansion.

"We are very pleased with the strong demand we received from the international lending community to participate in the refinancing of these facilities, which were oversubscribed with commitments totaling $4.6 billion from 27 financial institutions from around the globe," said A. William Stein, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Digital Realty.  "To satisfy this demand, we upsized our Global Revolving Credit Facility by $200 million and increased our Term Loan by $250 million.  In addition, the improved pricing grid is equal to or better than any widely syndicated credit facility for a U.S. large cap investment grade REIT, including those with a credit rating higher than DLR's BBB/Baa2 rating.  We believe these positive trends illustrate the institutional lender community's view on the strength of our balance sheet and underlying business, while providing us with greater financial flexibility as we continue to expand our portfolio globally."

http://www.digitalrealty.com/

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Google Outage Leads to Big Drop in Internet Traffic

Google experienced a global outage beginning on 16-Aug-2013 at 4:37 PM (Pacific) and lasting 1 to 5 minutes.  The disruption impacted all of the company's most popular services, including search, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Drive, Google Maps, etc.

GoSquared Engineering, which provides real-time analytics, said its tracking showed that the momentary Google outage resulted in an immediate, 40% drop in global Internet traffic.

https://engineering.gosquared.com/googles-downtime-40-drop-in-traffic
http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status&ts=1376895599000

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Microsoft Suffers Multi-Day Outlook Outage

Microsoft experienced a multi-day outage last week impacting its Outlook.com, Calendar and certain SkyDrive services.

In a status update, Microsoft attributed the outage to a failure in a caching service that interfaces with devices using Exchange ActiveSync, including most smart phones. The company said this failure caused these devices to receive an error and continuously try to connect to service, resulting in a flood of traffic that was not handled properly.  Restoration required that some customer be temporarily blocked by Exchange ActiveSync until traffic volumes allowed it.

https://status.live.com/history

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Google Activates Automatic 128-bit Encryption for Cloud Storage

Google Cloud Storage has begun to automatically encrypts all data before it is written to disk, at no additional charge.   The company said the encryption is automatic, transparent and without performance penalty.  Google manages the cryptographic keys while providing key access controls and auditing logs.  Users also have the option of managing keys on their own.

Google Cloud Storage is using 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128) for all data and metadata, which is the same level of encryption that Google uses for its own encrypted data. The server-side encryption is already active for all new data written to Cloud Storage.

http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2013/08/google-cloud-storage-now-provides.html

• Last week, Google announced Layer 3 load balancing for Compute Engine. This enables users to load-balance ingress network TCP/UDP traffic over a specific set of Compute Engine virtual machines (VMs) within the same region, thereby handling spikes in load without pre-warming. It also ensures that only healthy VMs are used to serve Internet requests through the use of HTTP-based health checks.

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MIT Technology Review: Ambient RF Backscatter Could Connect Devices

Researchers at the University of Washington are investigating the use of ambient radio wave energy to power communication between small devices, according to an article published in the MIT Technology Review.

The communication is made possible by varying the amount of backscatter TV signal that the transmitting device reflects.

http://news.cs.washington.edu/2013/08/14/devices-connect-with-borrowed-tv-signals-and-need-no-power-source/

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518111/devices-connect-with-borrowed-tv-signals-and-need-no-power-source/

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China Mobile: Data Traffic Up 129%, Data Revenue Up 62%, Profit up 1.5% 1H2013

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator, reported operating revenue for the first half of 2013 reached RMB 303.1 billion (US$49.58 billion), up 10.4% over the first half of 2012, while revenue from telecommunications services was up 6.8% to RMB 285 billion. Net profit increased 1.5% to RMB 63.13 billion.

Some operational highlights for China Mobile in the first half of 2013:

• Customers over 740 million, up 8.4% from 683 million at 1H2012.
• Data services revenue rose to 33.5% of revenue from telecommunications services.
• Wireless data traffic revenue up 62.2% while wire data revenue grew 129% over 1H2012.
• TD handset sales were up ~1.5 fold
• 3G customers are now over 137 million.
• 3G base stations reached 361,000
• The company plans to deploy >200,000 TD-LTE base stations in 2013.
• Wi-Fi APs reached 4.10 million
• WLAN offload accounts for 75% of data traffic -- a low cost bearer
• Growing TD device supply chain 595 new TD handset models available, virtually all smartphones
• So far, China Mobile has 25 TD-LTE trial devices, >100 models under development, of which 15 handsets intended for commercial use.
• China Mobile plans to procure < 1 million TD-LTE devices this year.
• Voice usage was up 3.7% to 2,061 billion minutes.
• China Mobile's transmission network increased by 23,600 of fiber route miles since last year.
• China Mobile's app store has 336 million cumulative registered customers. There were 506 million application downloads in 1H2013.
• In 2013, China Mobile aims to realize a 15% decrease in power consumption per unit of business.

Looking forward, the company says its top challenges include China's Slowing macroeconomic development, rising mobile penetration, increasing notable OTT headwinds, and ntensifying competition among operators.

An investor presentation in English is posted here:
http://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/ir/webcasts/pre130815.pdf

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Sprint Implements Long haul 100G with Ciena, Tests 400G

Sprint and Ciena announced two milestones in speed and capacity on Sprint’s network:

• Sprint has deployed one of the longest 100 Gbps circuits in the United States with a live transmission that required no signal regeneration over a distance of 2,100 km, or 1,304 miles, between Chicago and Fort Worth, Texas. The 100Gbps link uses Ciena WaveLogic 3 coherent optical processors on the 6500 Packet Optical Platform
  
• Last month, the companies successfully completed a live 400Gbps trial on Sprint’s network in the Silicon Valley area using existing Sprint fiber infrastructure and Ciena’s 6500 with WaveLogic 3 cards. The high-capacity link operated without error. The companies said this demonstrated the viability of using 400Gbps channels alongside existing channels carrying live customer traffic. 

“Customers have expressed their hunger for higher speed networks to support their substantial data needs, which we project will only continue to grow exponentially,” said Wayne Ward, vice president-Business and Product Development, Sprint. “The 400Gbps trial demonstrates our ability to offer higher speeds with our existing fiber, which means that our customers can feel assured that our network is future-proofed to meet their needs as they evolve. The delivery of 100Gbps and 400Gbps speeds will be critical as we launch our Ethernet Wave Services and support a growing wireless infrastructure.”

As announced in 2012, Sprint is upgrading its optical backbone network with Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform as part of its Network Vision initiative.

http://www.sprint.com
http://www.ciena.com

• Ciena has been a strategic supplier to Sprint since 1998.

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Emerald Networks Signs Vodafone Iceland for New Cable

Vodafone Iceland has signed a contract for capacity on Emerald Networks's new submarine cable system, "Emerald Express", which is a new-build system connecting North America to Europe, with a branch to Iceland. The system is scheduled to be ready for service in Q3 2014, and Vodafone Iceland plans on using it for communications for at least the next 15 years. Vodafone is the first Icelandic company to sign a contract with Emerald Networks.

The cable landing station in Iceland is in the vicinity of Grindavik, and Emerald will provide backhaul to Reykjavik and on the Reykjanes Peninsula.

http://emeraldnetworks.com

• Emerald Networks' submarine cable system span 6,700 km along the "Great Circle" route connecting North America to Europe via Iceland. The company has previous calculated that this northerly route will have a latency of less than 62 milliseconds round trip from New York to London, making it one of the fastest networks across the Atlantic. 

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Fujitsu Gains MEF CE 2.0 Certification

Fujitsu Network Communications’ FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform and FLASHWAVE CDS Micro Packet Optical Networking Platform have achieved Carrier Ethernet (CE) 2.0 certification from the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF).

Specifically, Fujitsu’s FLASHWAVE 9500 is now MEF CE 2.0 certified for E-Line, E-Access, and E-LAN services and the FLASHWAVE CDS Micro Packet Optical Networking Platform is now CE 2.0 certified for E-Line and E-Access services.  

Fujitsu’s FLASHWAVE 9500 integrates Carrier Ethernet, ROADM, and SONET/SDH technologies. With the addition of the MEF certification, the FLASHWAVE 9500 forms a unified CE 2.0 Ethernet service delivery platform that can deliver any of the MEF services over any type of access network. The FLASHWAVE CDS system is an access and aggregation solution for mobile backhaul and commercial/enterprise Ethernet services.

“Achieving MEF CE 2.0 certification on our FLASHWAVE platforms is an important milestone for Fujitsu. With this certification, we are assuring customers that our solutions enable standardized, interoperable services with which Service Providers can offer world class carrier grade Ethernet connectivity while creating new revenue generating opportunities,” said Rod Naphan, Senior Vice President, Planning, Fujitsu Network Communications. 

http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/telecom/

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T-Mobile USA Sells $500 Million in Notes

T-Mobile USA will sell $500,000,000 aggregate principal amount of its 5.250% Senior Notes due 2018 (the “Notes”) in a private offering. The offering is scheduled to close on August 21, 2013, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

http://www.t-mobile.com/

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Mellanox Completes Acquisition of Kotura

Mellanox Technologies completed its previously announced acquisition of Kotura, a developer of advanced silicon photonics optical interconnect technology, for a total cash purchase price of approximately $82 million.

Kotura holds over 120 granted or pending patents in CMOS photonics and packaging design.  The company has made a number of ground breaking innovations in optical interconnects by integrating multiple high speed active and passive optical functions onto a silicon chip.

Kotura’s current location in Monterey Park, California, will serve as Mellanox’s first R&D center in the United States.

http://www.mellanox.com/
http://www.kotura.com/

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Ericsson appoints Head of Business Unit Modems

Ericsson has appointed Mats Norin as Vice President and Head of Business Unit Modems.  He will also take a seat on Ericsson’s Global Leadership Team, reporting to Chairman of Business Unit Modems and Head of Group Function Strategy, Douglas Gilstrap.

Business Unit Modems includes the design, development, supply and sales of the LTE multimode thin modem solutions, including 2G, 3G and 4G interoperability. On August 2, 2013, this activity was transferred to Ericsson from ST-Ericsson where Norin served as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer since 2012.

Hans Vestberg, President and CEO said: “The LTE multimode thin modems is an important enabler for our vision of 50 billion connected devices in a Networked Society. I am pleased that Mats Norin, with his extensive industry experience, will lead the work to realize the potential in this business. Our focus is on bringing the best modems to market, and to work closely with customers to integrate these modems into their products.”

http://www.ericsson.com

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Silicon Labs Launches SyncE-Compliant Clock

Silicon Labs introduced a low jitter, low power timing solution for high-speed networking equipment based on the Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) standard.

The new Si5328 precision clock multiplier and jitter attenuator boasts jitter performance as low as 263 femtoseconds RMS and is fully compliant with ITU-T G.8262 SyncE clock requirements including EEC Options 1 and 2. The SyncE clock can generate any output frequency ranging from 8 kHz to 808 MHz and from any input frequency from 8 kHz to 710 MHz. 

“As today’s telecom infrastructure rapidly migrates from legacy standards to SyncE, equipment manufacturers require fully SyncE-compliant timing solutions that not only offer low jitter performance but also reduce design complexity and power consumption,” said Mike Petrowski, vice president and general manager of Silicon Labs’ timing products. “Silicon Labs’ new Si5328 clock multiplier offers the most advanced SyncE timing solution available, giving designers an unparalleled margin in jitter performance, BOM cost, footprint and energy efficiency.”

http://www.silabs.com/timing

http://news.silabs.com/press-release/silicon-labs-launches-industrys-lowest-jitter-fully-synce-compliant-clock

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