Interxion Brings AWS Direct Connect to Frankfurt Data Center

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a new Direct Connect location at Interxion’s Frankfurt facility, enabling customers to achieve secure and high performance private network connections to AWS.

Customers can now connect directly to AWS through Interxion’s Cloud Connect platform, in addition to the traditional cross connect option. Cloud Connect enables customers to build and manage private, secure and high-performance VLAN connections to multiple clouds over a single physical SLA based connection.

http://www.interxion.com/about-us/news/amazon-web-services-aws-direct-connect-now-available-at-interxion-frankfurt/

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Interxion's Lex Coors on Data Center Efficiency

Interxion, which operates 40 data centres in 11 European countries. has a special focus on energy efficiency, says Lex Coors, VP DTEG & Chief Engineering Officer.

One of the fronts of activity is developing Best Practices for Data Center Energy Efficiency, including the effort to increase the allowable operating temperatures inside the facility. Equipment vendors are moving in this direction, says Coors, but vendors still specify that these peak temperatures be spread out in time rather than occurring all at once.

See video: https://youtu.be/qz_0w1fDqAI

 

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Deutsche Telekom and Inmarsat to Combine LTE + Satellite for Aviation Network

Deutsche Telekom and Inmarsat have formed a strategic partnership to offer a European Aviation Network that combines LTE-based ground network and satellite capabilities for Europe. The service will deliver high-speed, in-flight high-speed Internet access.

The European Aviation Network will combine satellite connectivity from a new Inmarsat S-band satellite with DT's LTE-based ground network. Imarsat possesses 30MHz (2 x 15MHz) S-band spectrum in all 28 EU member states.

Lufthansa, which will be the first European hub airline to tral the service, plans to test satellite-based broadband service on board its European flights in summer 2016.  Lufthansa will take part in a flight trial program of the new European Aviation Network from 2017 onwards.

“This bold step will make Deutsche Telekom the first telecommunications operator to take the advantages of LTE technology to the European airspace and fits perfectly into our strategy to become the leading European telco,” explains Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “As a groundbreaking innovation we will roll out a powerful terrestrial network based on LTE within the European Aviation Network. This will be the first aviation connectivity network in Europe powered by both LTE and satellite combined! Our technology leadership provides a solid foundation for the best customer experience possible – be that on the ground or in the skies – and enables us to work with the finest partners in Europe and beyond.”

"With this integrated network we can meet the need for capacity, flexibility and quality of service, including the ability to expand quickly to anticipate growth in demand,” says Andy Sukawaty, Chairman of Inmarsat. “The integrated satellite and complementary LTE-based ground network will ensure that Inmarsat and Deutsche Telekom together deliver the fastest, best and most consistent in-flight broadband experience that meets the needs of airlines in this region. Combined with our global GX (Ka-band) and L-band services, we now have connectivity solutions for the cockpit and the cabin of any type of aircraft, flying in any geography."

http://www.inmarsat.com
https://www.telekom.com/home

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Ericsson and LG Uplus Collaborate on 5G and IoT

Ericsson and LG Uplus will collaborate on the development of 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.

Under the research pact, which will initially run until 2020, the two companies will work on four key areas: IoT infrastructure, including narrow-band LTE; software-defined networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), making the core network 5G ready; global content delivery networks (CDNs); and IoT-Advanced technologies.

Ulf Ewaldsson, Chief Technology Officer, Ericsson, says: "By enabling essentially unlimited access to information anywhere and anytime, 5G can deliver enormous benefits to people, business and society. Realizing this transformative vision requires a strong industry ecosystem, and we are delighted to partner with LG Uplus to lead the development of both 5G and IoT platforms."

http://www.ericsson.com

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Cable & Wireless Communications Picks Ericsson for Mobile Upgrades

Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) has selected Ericsson to transform its 3G network and deploy 4G LTE technology to its over six million Caribbean and Latin American subscribers.

Under the deal, Ericsson will deliver equipment and a range of professional services, including project management, systems integration and support. It also includes software updates that deliver new capabilities in radio access, network management and network control. Meeting consumer demands for high performance, in addition to the growing need for coverage and capacity, requires continual network evolution.

"The extension of our strategic partnership with Ericsson consolidates our commitment to delivering high-quality communications services to our customers and to working together to keep our outstanding network position. It is key for us to be working with global, innovative vendors such as Ericsson," stated Carlo Alloni, EVP Technology and Group CTIO, Cable & Wireless Communications.

http://www.ericsson.com

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Allot Lands $8 million Expansion Order from a Tier-1 Operator

Allot Communications confirmed the receipt of an expansion order of approximately $8 million from a major APAC tier-1 fixed-line operator for Allot Service Gateway Tera, Allot Service Protector and Allot Websafe.

The company said this incumbent operator is using its Service Protector in-line solution to protect national critical infrastructure, business communication, and IT infrastructure nationwide against destructive DDoS attacks. This is an expansion order to an existing project, which augments the solution's scale, providing rapid identification and in-line mitigation of large scale attacks .

http://www.allot.com

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AWS Suffers Sunday Morning Anomalies in Virginia

Amazon Web Services experienced significant error rates for a number of its cloud services in the the US-EAST-1 region ( northern Virginia data center). The disruption occurred between 2:13 AM and 8:15 AM PDT, when AWS posted that the issue was resolved.

Media websites reported that the AWS incident took down number a number of popular websites for the eastern U.S., including Netlix.

http://status.aws.amazon.com/?nc2=h_l2_su

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NTT and University of Tokyo Cite Progress in Quantum Cryptography

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone(NTT) and The University of Tokyo reported progress in developing a quantum cryptography scheme that can assure security without monitoring the error rate of photon transmission.

In an article in the UK science journal “Nature Photonics”, the researchers describe a quantum key distribution (QKD) experiment based on a novel QKD scheme called the round-robin differential phase shift (RRDPS) protocol.

NTT said the experiment is the first demonstration of QKD based on “wave function collapse”, which is distinguished from previous QKD schemes whose security is based on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. A major finding is that QKD that does not require error rate monitoring between the sender and receiver.  This could lead to simple and efficient quantum cryptographic systems.

http://www.ntt.co.jp/news2015/1509e/150914a.html

Researchers at NTT Envision Quantum Repeaters in Future Photonic Networks

Thursday, April 16, 2015  Japan, NTT, Optical, Quantum  1 comment

Researchers at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) and the University of Toronto are proposing all-photonic quantum repeaters for long-distance quantum communication.  If achieved, such devices would disprove the necessity of matter quantum memories in long distance quantum communications, which is seen by many as the ultimate future of optical communications. In a paper published this week by the journal Nature Communications,...

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Advancements in Semiconductor Quantum Dots with Single-atom Precision

Sunday, June 29, 2014  NTT, Quantum, Silicon  No comments

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT), the Paul-Drude-Institute (PDI; Germany), and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL: USA) have cooperatively developed a novel quantum dot (artificial atom) and used it to crate artificial molecules with single-atom precision. The achievement was achieved using a clean surface of semiconductor single crystal thin film manufactured by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) by using a low-temperature, Scanning Tunneling...

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NTT Develops Long-lived Quantum Memory

Sunday, April 27, 2014  NTT, Quantum  No comments

NTT, in partnership with Japan's National Institute of Informatics and Osaka University, announced a new approach in the development of a long-lived quantum memory that could be used in quantum computing. The research involves a superconductor diamond quantum hybrid system in which a dark state was shown to be 150 ns, an order of magnitude longer than previous attempts to hold state. By using a gap-tunable superconducting flux qubit, the researchers...

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NTT Creates Quantum Buffer in Optical Waveguide

Sunday, November 17, 2013  Japan, NTT, Quantum  No comments

Researchers at NTT have developed a quantum buffer on an optical waveguide that takes advantage of the "slow light effect:, where the propagation speed of a pulsed light in a special optical waveguide slows significantly compared with the speed of light in vacuum. The company said this innovation facilitates the precise synchronization of photons, thereby creating a buffer that could be used to create quantum computers.  Experiments have shown...

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Mirantis Launches NFV/OpenStack Initiative

Mirantis has launched a network function virtualization (NFV) initiative with partners Citrix, Metaswitch Networks and Overture Networks.

Mirantis will offer an NFV reference architecture and OpenStack validation program for partner virtual network functions (VNFs). New partner validations have been completed for:

• Citrix NetScaler
• Metaswitch‘s Perimeta Session Border Controller (SBC)
• Overture Networks’ Ensemble Service Orchestrator (ESO), which provides NFVO & VNFM capabilities and will be validated with Mirantis OpenStack and a broad ecosystem of VNFs

Mirantis’ NFV initiative will also add critical NFV features to Mirantis OpenStack, making it a carrier-grade OpenStack distribution that offers a small physical footprint, high availability (HA), single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) and other NFV features that support high performance VNF deployments.

“The telecommunications industry is in the midst of a massive transformation. It faces a ballooning customer base consuming massive amounts of data, and competition from a new wave of startups born out of the Web,” said Mirantis VP of Product and Partner Marketing, Kamesh Pammaraju.

https://www.mirantis.com/company/press-center/company-news/mirantis-launches-nfv-initiative-citrix-metaswitch-overture-networks/

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FCC Proposal Seeks Outage Reports for Submarine Cables

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering new rules that would require submarine cable licensees to report significant outages to the FCC. Licensees currently only report outages on an ad hoc basis, so the FCC only has limited data.

The FCC notes that there are approximately 60 primary submarine cables that connect the mainland U.S. and Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories, as well as between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Under the new proposal, submarine cable licensees report would be required to report major outages (i.e. outages involving either lost connectivity or degradation of 50 percent or more of an undersea cable’s capacity for periods of at least 30 minutes, regardless of whether the cable’s traffic is re-routed) to the agency’s Network Outage Reporting System (NORS). The Commission also seeks comment on how the agency can improve submarine cable deployment processes generally.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-proposes-rules-promote-reliable-submarine-cable-communications

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Facebook's VP of Infrastructure to Chair Open Compute Project

Jason Taylor, vice president of infrastructure at Facebook, will serve as the president and chairman of the OCP Foundation board of directors from October 2015 to October 2016. He takes over from his former Facebook colleague Frank Frankovsky, who led the board since the foundation was created in late 2011.

The OCP Foundation board of directors has decided to adopt an annual rotating leadership among the member companies who serve on the board: Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Microsoft, and Rackspace.

http://www.opencompute.org/blog/new-leadership-on-the-ocp-foundation-board/

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Ericsson Expands 5G R&D Program in Europe

Ericsson is expanding its cross-industry 5G research and development (R&D) program in Europe, aiming to bring together major industrial players, the public sector and leading universities across Europe to strengthen the continent's competitiveness and maximize the benefits of the Networked Society.

The 5G for Europe program will focus on delivering research, innovation and industrial pilots that use next-generation 5G networks as an enabler. One of the goals is to deliver industry pilots of possible 5G solutions in areas including transport and automotive, the Internet of Things, utilities, public safety, public infrastructure and retail.

The program's academic and research partners include major technical universities such as Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, Universidad Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, IMDEA Networks Institute, Madrid, Spain, and King's College, London, United Kingdom. Among the industry partners are leading enterprises such as wiseSense, Weiss Robotics and MyOmega System Technology in Germany and Zucchetti Centro Sistemi in Italy.

Ulf Ewaldsson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Ericsson, says: "5G is the next step in the evolution of mobile communication and will be a fundamental enabler of the Networked Society. However, Ericsson needs to work together with industries to understand their specific network requirements in order to realize the full benefits of 5G technologies. "By expanding our 5G program to include major partners across Europe, we will gain valuable insights that will enable industries to digitalize effectively, to create new value and to strengthen the competitive position of European industry."

http://www.ericsson.com/thecompany/press/releases/2015/09/1952645

• In March 2015, Ericsson launched the 5G for Sweden R&D program, together with partners in Swedish industry and academia. 5G for Europe broadens this initiative to seven countries and 10 institutions, with further partners to be included over time.
  
• Ericsson noted that around 60 percent of its global R&D spending is invested in Europe, and 15,000 of Ericsson's 25,000 R&D employees work in Europe. 
• 
  

Ericsson's 5G Radio Test Bed Tops 5 Gbps

Wednesday, February 25, 2015  5G, Ericsson  No comments

An Ericsson 5G radio test bed has topped 5 Gbps throughput.  The company will demonstrate fundamental 5G technologies at next week's Mobile World Congress, including 5G-LTE Dual Connectivity and 5G Multipoint Connectivity. Ericsson's 5G radio test bed features 5G devices and 5G radio base stations operating at in the high frequency 15 GHz band. 5G-LTE Dual Connectivity:  The 5G mobile device moves between LTE and 5G radio access coverage...

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China Mobile and ZTE Sign TD-LTE with South Korea

ZTE has signed a cooperation agreement with China Mobile Research Institute and South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) for research including TDD/FDD data roaming and VoLTE.

"We are delighted to cooperate with ZTE and China Mobile in this project," said Dr. Cui Kuishi, head of the Convergence Technology research department at MSIP’s Telecommunications Institute. "China Mobile and ZTE are leaders in the global telecommunications industry, and this strategic cooperation will help South Korea with the deployment of 4G interconnection and interoperability tests, especially the tests based on TD-LTE."

"We are excited about this tripartite cooperation with MSIP and China Mobile,” said Jason Cao, ZTE’s chief representative in South Korea. “The adoption of common telecommunications standards in China and South Korea will generate increased opportunities for industry and commerce, as trade and partnerships between businesses in the two countries grow under the China-South Korea Free Trade Agreement.”

http://www.zte.com.cn

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AWS Adds S3 Infrequent Access Tier, Cuts Archival Storage Pricing

Amazon Web Services introduced a new Infrequent Access tier to its S3 cloud storage service.

The new tier could be useful for shared documents, log files or raw data that see frequent activity right after upload but then experience a significant drop off as they age.  This tier provides the same high durability, low latency, and high throughput of S3 Standard at a lower cost. Object lifecycle policies can direct the file into an AWS Glacier archive after a specified time.

AWS is also reducing the price for data stored in Amazon Glacier from $0.01 / gigabyte / month to $0.007 / gigabyte / month.

https://aws.amazon.com/?nc2=h_lgnd.

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Telstra Enables VoLTE

Telstra has enabled Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) on its commercial network.

The carrier says the roll out will be staggered, gradually enabling the full HD capability for different types of calls (ie 4G to 4G, 4G to fixed,4G to 3G etc). The new voice capability will first be enabled for post-paid consumer customers with supported handset.  Telstra will then extend VoLTE to business customers and finally to prepaid customers.

Telstra describes the VoLTE rollout as one of the largest and most complex changes to voice calling in its network for more than 40 years.

http://exchange.telstra.com.au/2015/09/16/next-generation-voice-calling-starts-today-telstra-volte/

• Telstra first enabled HD voice capabilities in 2011. Currently, Telstra estimates 70 percent of mobile handsets in Australia support HD and over 30 percent of all mobile calls use HD Voice today.

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Altice to Enter U.S. Cable Market with Acquisition of Cablevision & Suddenlink

Altice, the second largest communications company in France, confirmed plans to acquire Cablevision, the fifth largest cable operator in the United States. Under the agreement, Altice will pay $34.90 in cash for each Cablevision share, for an enterprise value of approximately $17.7 billion. The transaction is to be financed with $14.5 billion of new and existing debt. Altice has received full financing commitments from JP Morgan, BNP Paribas and Barclays.

Cablevision serves the New York City metropolitan area, passing more than 5 million premises and serving more than 3.1 million residential and business customers.  With approximately 65% of its cable customers subscribing to triple-play services, Cablevision generates industry-leading ARPU and benefits from high customer loyalty. The deal also includes Lightpath, the company’s business services unit, as well as local news operations.

Earlier this year, Altice announced plans to acquire Suddenlink for $9 billion, a cable operator based in St. Louis with 1.4 million subscribers in 17 states. The combination of Cablevision + Suddenlink will make Altice the fourth largest cable operator in the U.S. with 4.6 million customers in 20 states.

“As a family business we are proud to be entrusted by the Dolan family with the ownership of Cablevision and look forward to continuing the pioneering path they have paved for us. The strategy of Altice in the large and highly strategic US market is reinforced with the acquisition of Cablevision. We will be in a stronger position, as in all other markets in which we operate, to deliver the best services, invest in the most advanced technology, and develop innovative products for the benefit of our customers,” stated Patrick Drahi, Founder and President of Altice.


http://www.altice.net/

• Cablevision was founded in the 1960s by Charles Dolan.
• In 2014, Altice acquire SFR from Vivendi, combining it with Numericable, which has over 5.2 million fiber homes in France, with more than 10 million homes passed. SFR has 3G/4G mobile networks in France as well as 1.6 million fiber homes.
• In June 2015, Altice acquired Portugal Telecom.

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Ericsson and HP (Aruba) Sign Bilateral Mobile Networking Sales Agreement

Ericsson and HP have signed a bilateral reseller agreement focused on mobile networking.  The deal open up enterprise market opportunities beyond Ericsson's carrier-grade Wi-Fi and provides go-to-market opportunities for Ericsson's small cells through HP's global enterprise channels.

The companies also plan to Leverage HP's enterprise WLAN technology (Aruba) alongside Ericsson's RBS 6402 picocell.

HP will also resell Ericsson's licensed band indoor small cell solutions, and bring the full value of licensed and unlicensed mobile networking to HP's global base of enterprise customers.
ate in joint market initiatives to address opportunities for indoor coverage and mobility for enterprises and operators, making effective use of both licensed and unlicensed technologies and frequency bands.

"This expansion of our existing partnership with Ericsson will allow HP to deliver more solutions to meet our customers' growing needs for productivity in the workplace.  Ericsson's global scale and market leadership in building mobile infrastructures with operators worldwide is an ideal complement to Aruba Networks' enterprise-wide networking solutions.Together we expect to transform the way mobile networks are deployed in order to stay ahead of the pace of mobile requirements," stated Antonio Neri, Executive Vice President and General Manager for HP's Enterprise Group.

http://www.ericsson.com/thecompany/press/releases/2015/09/1952506

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Avago Intros 255mW 100BASE-FX SFP Module

Avago Technologies introduced an ultra-low power Fast Ethernet small form-factor pluggable (SFP) fiber optic transceiver module device designed for industrial automation, controls and networking applications.

The device features a redesigned chip set for LED control, diagnostic monitoring interface (DMI) and signal processing, which significantly reduces the module power dissipation. Compared with the previous generation device, the AFBR-57E6APZ consumes 42% less in power while delivering superior electrical and optical performance.

Some highlights:

• Low power consumption: 255 mW (typ), 405 mW (max)
• Industrial operating temperature: -40 °C to +85 °C
• Link distances up to 2 km using 50/125um or 62.5/125um multimode fiber
• Compatible with SFF-8074i and SFF-8472 MSA specifications
• Compatible with 100BASE-FX version of IEEE 802.3u

“Fast Ethernet is widely used in industrial automation, controls and networking. As more fiber optic nodes are added to the network, cumulative heat dissipation becomes an industrial concern prompting the need for low power fiber optic transceiver solutions,” said Martin Weigert, vice president and general manager of the Industrial Fiber Product Division (IFPD) at Avago. “Our new ultra-low power 100BASE-FX SFP module is an ideal solution that addresses the power issue that affects many of our industrial customers, enabling them to simplify the network rack design and avoid having to use expensive cooling fans and ventilation in their systems.”

http://www.avagotech.com/products/industrial-fiber-optics/industrial-fiber-optic-transceivers/sfp/afbr-57E6apz

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Oclaro Samples 100G QSFP28 Client-Side Transceiver for Data Centers

Oclaro has begun sampling a 100G QSFP28 client-side transceiver that meets both the CWDM4 MSA and CLR4 Alliance optical interface specifications, as well as the IEEE 802.3bm CAUI-4 electrical interface specification.

The new transceiver boasts a low power consumption of 3.5 Watts and high transmission performance quality through the use of Oclaro's internal uncooled 1310nm 28Gbps DML technology.  It is suited for 100G interconnections between data center switches in addition to interfaces in high-end routers and packet-optical transport systems.

"The key to our success in the 100G pluggable transceiver market has been our proprietary indium phosphide laser technology," said Yves LeMaitre, President of Oclaro's Optical Connectivity Business. "With our new QSFP28 100G transceiver, mega-scale data center operators will be able to transition from 40G to 100G on their existing single mode fiber infrastructure without significantly expanding footprint, cost or power consumption."

http://www.oclaro.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Acquires Mformation for Mobile Device Management

Alcatel-Lucent has acquired privately-held Mformation, a provider of mobile device management solutions for mobile operators, service providers and enterprises. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Alcatel-Lucent said Mformation’s software products will extend and enhance the capabilities of its Motive Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution to provide service providers with an end-to-end, integrated and cost-efficient device management solution across home, mobile and enterprise networks.

Mformation, headquartered in Woodbridge, NJ, will be incorporated into Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Platforms organization, providing service providers and enterprises with a secure, scalable, application-independent IoT security and control platform for use across multiple industries including automotive, healthcare, utilities, manufacturing and the digital home.

Mformation was founded in 1999.  The company claims more than 20 service provider customers around the world, managing more than 500 million devices.

https://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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