Facebook Intros Open Source Wireless Access Platform

Facebook introduced OpenCellular, its open source, wireless access platform designed for remote areas of the world not served by traditional networks. Facebook said it seeks to encourage telecom operators, entrepreneurs, OEMs, and researchers to locally build, implement, deploy, and operate wireless infrastructure based on this platform.

Facebook plans to open-source the hardware design, along with necessary firmware and control software.

OpenCellular consists of two main subsystems: general-purpose and base-band computing (GBC) with integrated power and housekeeping system, and radio frequency (RF) with integrated analog front-end.

https://code.facebook.com/posts/1754757044806180/introducing-opencellular-an-open-source-wireless-access-platform/

Facebook's Telecom Infra Project Gets Organized

Tuesday, May 24, 2016  Facebook  No Comments

The Telecom Infra Project (TIP), which was kicked off by Facebook earlier this year with a mission to take the principles of the Open Compute Project (OCP) model and apply them to software systems and components involved in access, backhaul, and core networks, has expanded its membership and formed the first set of technical project groups.

New TIP members include Axiata Digital, Indosat, MTN Group, Telefonica, Vodafone, Acacia, ADVA, BlueStream, Broadcom, Coriant, Deloitte, Juniper Networks, and Lumentum. TIP launch partners included Intel, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom.

The new Project Groups include:

Access
System integration and site optimization – Chaired by SK Telecom
New integration via innovative, cost-effective and efficient end-to-end solutions that address rural and urban regions difficult to serve profitably.

Unbundled solutions – Co-chaired by SK Telecom and Nokia
Taking a fresh look at access, specifically through a cost-effective approach for low-power, low-maintenance solutions.

Media-friendly solutions – Chaired by Intel
Focusing on methods to increase effective throughput and further enhance the mobile user experience by bringing compute and storage capacity closer to the network edge.

Backhaul
High-frequency autonomic access – Chaired by Facebook
Defining thin and extensible software stack to autonomously coordinate routing, addressing and security related functions in packet-switched IPv6 networks.

Open optical packet transport – Co-chaired by Facebook and Equinix
Defining Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) open packet transport architecture that triggers new pace of technology innovation and flexibility, and avoids implementation lock-ins.

Core and Management
Core network optimization – Chaired by Intel
New innovation through disaggregation of traditional telecom core network via deconstructing traditionally bundled components.

Greenfield telecom networks – Co-chaired by Nokia, Facebook and Deutsche Telekom
Accelerating operator-friendly evolution towards a pure and efficient IT-based network architecture via greenfield solutions designed from the ground up.

https://telecominfraproject.com/news/updates-to-the-tip-foundation/

Facebook's Terragraph Accelerates WiGig for City Access

Wednesday, April 13, 2016  Facebook, WiGig  No Comments

Facebook took the wraps off of two terrestrial connectivity technologies for fast wireless access.

Terragraph is a 60 GHz, multi-node wireless system for dense urban areas and that uses radios based on the WiGig standard. Facebook said Terragraph will deliver gigabits of data capacity. IPv6-only Terragraph nodes will be placed at 200m intervals. Terragraph will incorporate commercial off-the-shelf components and aim for high-volume, low-cost production. Facebook noted that up to 7 GHz of bandwidth is available in the unlicensed 60 GHz band in many countries.  U.S. regulators are considering expanding this to a total of 14 GHz.

Facebook Terragraph will also leverage an SDN-like cloud compute controller and a new modular routing protocol that Facebook optimized for fast route convergence and failure detection. The architecture also tweaks the MAC layer to solve shortcomings of TCP/IP over a wireless link. The company says the TDMA-TDD MAC layers delivers up to 6x improvement in network efficiency while being more predictable than the existing Wi-Fi/WiGig standard.

Terragraph is already in operation at the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, California, where it delivers 1.05 Gbps bidirectional (2.1 Gbps total throughput per distribution node) in P2P mode, up to 250 meters away. A wider trial is planned for San Jose, California.

Facebook also released details on Project ARIES, a transmission technology that is a) spectrally efficient and allows for higher throughput in even the smallest bandwidths, and b) energy efficient, allowing for extended coverage range.

The proof-of-concept system features a base station with 96 antennas and can support 24 streams simultaneously over the same radio spectrum. Researchers have demonstrated 71 bps/Hz of spectral efficiency. The target is aiming for an unprecedented 100+ bps/Hz of spectral efficiency. Facebook said ARIES is an embodiment of Massive MIMO — by using “spatial multiplexing,” the antenna array at the base station can serve a multiplicity of autonomous user terminals on the same time-frequency resource. This opens up possibilities such as resource sharing as an alternative not only to the need for spectrum licensing.

Facebook already has an ARIES testbed delivering 10x spectral and energy efficiency gains in point to multi-point deployments.

https://code.facebook.com/posts/1072680049445290/

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Ixia's TrafficREWIND Captures Traffic Patterns for Replay

Ixia announced TrafficREWIND, a new solution that captures traffic patterns from a production network and accurately recreates them in a controlled sand-box environment.

Ixia said the goal of TrafficREWIND is to speed fault isolation and outage resolution with real world testing. The solution leverages the advanced functionality of several of the company’s solutions, including the Vision ONE network visibility solution to capture production network traffic profiles, the BreakingPoint testing platform to replay the traffic in a controlled environment such as a pre-deployment lab or a staged network, as well as Ixia’s Application and Threat Intelligence (ATI) technology for advanced threat intelligence.

“Ixia continues to lead the industry in the development of test and visibility technologies that solve complex network challenges,” said Sunil Kalidindi, vice president of product management at Ixia. “We’ve used that expertise to design TrafficREWIND and make it easy for customers to recreate their unique network traffic to quickly identify problems and fix them before there is any significant loss of productivity or potential revenue.”

https://www.ixiacom.com

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Twistlock Raises $10 Million for Container Secuirty

Twistlock, a start-up based in San Francisco and Tel-Aviv, announced $10 million in funding for its enterprise security suite for virtual containers.

The company says its security suite provides full stack vulnerabiltiy management, advanced access control, and smart runtime protection.

The Series A funding round was led by TenEleven Ventures and Rally Ventures.

Twistlock was founded by Ben Bernstein (CEO) and Dima Stopel (VP R&D).

“A good security protection is one that you never hear from. We aim to deliver completely automated security for the entire container stack without manual intervention and disruptive false alarms,” said Dima Stopel, head of R&D and co-founder of Twistlock. “This is what enterprises want and this is where Twistlock is headed.”

https://www.twistlock.com

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KOSC Telecom Picks ADVA for National Network in France

KOSC Telecom has selected the ADVA FSP 3000 for a new nationwide DWDM transport network in France for delivering 100G wholesale connectivity to other service providers.

KOSC is a new telecom operator dedicated to the wholesale business connectivity market in France. The new network will serve major French cities, such as Paris and Marseille, to mid-sized cities, including Annecy and La Rochelle, spanning 20,000km and covering all regions of the country.

“We’re bringing a new level of flexibility and efficiency to the wholesale connectivity market. That’s why it’s essential to have a technology partner we can trust. ADVA Optical Networking’s team has supported and worked with us at every stage to create our ideal solution,” said Antoine Fournier, CEO, KOSC Telecom. “We knew we wanted phenomenal capacity and always-on dependability. Our other essential requirement was scalability. As French businesses harness more cloud-based services and virtual reality applications, and as the industrial internet of things continues to develop, demand for reliable, super-fast broadband will only accelerate. That’s why we’ve invested in a network that can grow and we’ve already discussed the potential to deploy the 400Gbit/s capabilities of ADVA Optical Networking’s CloudConnect™ solution in the future.”

“KOSC Telecom’s new transport system features a seamless combination of our long-haul technology and our highly versatile metro solution. By teaming up these technologies we’ve enabled KOSC Telecom to deliver 100Gbit/s capacity across its entire national network,” commented Fabrice Jean, VP, North and Southwest Europe sales, ADVA Optical Networking. “The people behind KOSC Telecom share many of our core values. At every level, they have a clear vision of what customers need and a bold strategy for delivering it. By working closely with their engineers we’ve been able to create a network tailor-made to their customers’ needs. Now service providers will be able to deliver even more in France by accessing cost-effective, super-fast and incredibly reliable wholesale broadband.”

http://www.advaoptical.com/

http://www.kosc-telecom.fr/

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Ericsson to Acquire Spanish fiber-services leader Abentel

Ericsson agreed to acquire Abentel, a subsidiary of Abengoa that specializes in end-to-end fiber installation and management.  The deal includes the transfer of Abentel's assets, projects and employees to Ericsson. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Abentel has approximately 500 employees who provide fiber network roll-out and maintenance services.

Richard Hoepner, Head of Network Roll-Out and Customer Support, Ericsson, says: "Fiber is a key component for the next generation all-optical IP network. By acquiring Abentel's capabilities and coupling them with Ericsson's world-class service offering, Ericsson can deliver unmatched scalability for its customers' fiber projects. This agreement is a winning combination as it brings together the global leader in telecommunications services with one of the leading fiber-related service provider in Spain."

http://www.ericsson.com

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Google Acquire Moodstocks for Machine Vision

Google has acquire Moodstocks, a start-up based in Paris, that specializes in image recognition and machine vision technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Moodstocks said its new mission "will be to build great image recognition tools within Google." The team included Denis Brule and Cedric Deltheil.

http://www.moodstocks.com

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Vodafone Tests 136 Mbps Uplink Carrier Aggregation

Vodafone Ireland has tested Ericsson's Uplink Carrier Aggregation (CA) and 64 QAM modulation technology in its commercial network.  The tests achieved 136 Mbps uplink speeds -- a 200 percent improvement compared to current uplink performance, with the ability to deliver peak throughputs of up to 150 Mbps. The demonstration also featured the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with X12 LTE.

“Qualcomm, Ericsson and Vodafone have collaborated to greatly improve uplink speeds in Europe with Carrier Aggregation, and this is just one example how Qualcomm continues to lead the evolution of 4G LTE technology,” said Enrico Salvatori, President, Qualcomm Europe.

http://www.ericsson.com

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ThousandEyes Brings Support For Cisco Enterprise Routers

ThousandEyes, a San Francisco-based start-up offering a network intelligence platform that delivers network visibility, announced support for Cisco Enterprise Routers.

ThousandEyes Enterprise Agents that use containers to run directly on Cisco equipment at branch offices.

ThousandEyes is one of the first technology partners to certify support for application hosting on Cisco Integrated Services Routers (ISR) 4000 Series and Aggregation Services Routers (ASR) 1000 Series, part of Cisco’s move to enable additional capabilities from trusted third parties directly on Cisco routers.

“Cisco and ThousandEyes customers can now benefit from network intelligence with expanded vantage points through the deployment of smart agents that run directly on Cisco routers,” said Sanjay Mehta, Chief Marketing Officer at ThousandEyes.

https://www.thousandeyes.com

ThousandEyes Raises $35 Million for Monitoring Software

Thursday, February 25, 2016  Funding, Silicon Valley, Start-Ups  No Comments

ThousandEyes, a start-up based in San Francisco, closed $35 million in Series C funding for its network intelligence solutions.

ThousandEyes is a network intelligence platform that delivers visibility into every network an organization relies on, enabling them to optimize and improve application delivery, end-user experience and ongoing infrastructure investments. The company said modern enterprises rely on third-party applications, services and infrastructure connected over networks they don't manage or control and have little visibility into.  Its solution provides the ability to see their now borderless network, providing network intelligence so they can better deliver on customer service level agreements.

The new funding was led by Tenaya Capital, with participation from new investor GV (formerly Google Ventures) and existing investors, including Sequoia Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures.

https://www.thousandeyes.com/

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Samsung's Universal Flash Storage Cards Reach 256 GB

Samsung Electronics introduced a line of removable memory cards based on the JEDEC Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 1.0 Card Extension Standard.

The cards are designed for high-resolution mobile shooting devices such as DSLRs, 3D VR cameras, action cams and drones. Storage capacities include 256, 128, 64 and 32 gigabyte (GB).

Samsung’s new 256GB UFS removable memory card ─ simply referred to as the UFS card - provides more than five times faster sequential read performance compared to that of a typical microSD card, reading sequentially at 530 megabytes per second (MB/s) which is similar to the sequential read speed of the most widely used SATA SSDs. With this UFS card, consumers have the ability to read a 5GB, Full-HD movie in approximately 10 seconds, compared to a typical UHS-1 microSD card, which would take over 50 seconds with 95MB/s of sequential reading speed. Also, at a random read rate of 40,000 IOPS, the 256GB card delivers more than 20 times higher random read performance compared to a typical microSD, which offers approximately 1,800 IOPS.

When it comes to writing, the new 256GB UFS card processes 35,000 random IOPS, which is 350 times higher than the 100 IOPS of a typical microSD card, and attains a 170MB/s sequential write speed, almost doubling the top-end microSD card speed.

http://www.samsung.com

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Telefonica Picks Cisco’s Network Services Orchestrator

Telefonica Business Solutions has selected Cisco’s NSO (Network Services Orchestrator), enabled by Tail-f, for automating and configuring its IP infrastructure and business customer premises equipment. Financial terms were not disclosed.

With Cisco's NSO, Telefonica will be transitioning from manual, workflow-based provisioning to YANG-based DevOps (Development & Operations) service modeling.  The solution provides a highly efficient abstraction layer between network services and the underlying infrastructure components.

Pedro López, Telefonica Business Solutions’ B2B Customer Operations Director: “Telefonica is always seeking to serve more efficiently its worldwide customers. With Cisco NSO we get the agility to design, refine and repackage network devices and services at the speed of software through standards-based modeling and end-to-end zero-touch automation, responding dynamically to our customer demands and dramatically cutting service delivery cost and time.”

“We are very pleased Telefonica selected Cisco as its primary partner to digitize its network operations, which will have a profound and positive impact on its customer base of more than 300 million businesses. Telefonica’s visionary decision to embrace YANG-based, DevOps service modeling will allow it to greatly simplify network operations, while building the foundation to deliver exciting new revenue-generating experiences to its customers,” stated Scot Gardner, vice-president, Service Provider EMEAR at Cisco.

http://www.cisco.com

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Google Signs Up for 236 MW of Wind Energy from Norway, Sweden

Google has agreed to purchase an additional 236 MW of energy from two new wind farms in Norway and Sweden, adding to three other Swedish wind deals. The new, long-term contracts cover all of the output from a 50-turbine project near Stavanger, Norway, which is set to be completed in late 2017, and a 22-turbine project near Mariestad and Töreboda, Sweden, which will be completed by early 2018.

This brings Google's number of wind power power agreements in Europe to seven, totalling more than 500 MW.

Google has now signed 18 such wind power deals globally, representing nearly 2.5 gigawatts (GW) worldwide of contracted wind power output.

http://googlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/more-nordic-wind-power-for-our-european.html

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SES to Acquire 100% of O3b

SES exercised its call option and offered to acquire the remaining shares and warrants of O3b Networks, bringing its ownership stake from 49% to 100%.


Specifically, SES will pay US$730 million to directly increase its fully diluted ownership of O3b from 49.1% to 100%, using proceeds from the company’s recent equity raising. On completion, SES will consolidate USD$1.2 billion of O3b net debt and will, following completion, refinance a significant proportion of the most expensive debt facilities, using the proceeds secured by the recent hybrid bond issuance and the remaining proceeds from the equity raising. This will significantly reduce O3b average cost of debt of 9.5%, noting that SES's current average cost of financing is approximately 4%.

SES said O3b’s unique and global high throughput, low latency solution expands its own global reach and satellite-enabled solutions.

Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES, commented: “Moving to 100% of O3b will be highly accretive for SES, both from a strategic and economic standpoint. In addition to exceeding SES’s investment hurdle rates, full consolidation accelerates the delivery of important transformational and combinational synergies that are only possible with 100% ownership.”

http://www.ses.com

O3b Networks operates a constellation of 12 High Throughput Satellites (HTS) in a Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) around 8,000 kilometres from the Earth. The company offers customers a ‘fibre in the sky’ solution, with each of the constellation’s beams capable of delivering up to 1.6 Gbps of throughput at a low latency of less than 150 milliseconds, a significant improvement over geostationary connectivity. O3b has procured an additional eight satellites to accommodate rapidly-expanding demand, with four satellites expected to be launched during H1 2018, and the remaining four satellites expected to be launched in H2 2019. These procurements will increase the size of the current fleet from 12 to 20 satellites (including three satellites currently flying as in-orbit back-up). At ‘steady-state’ utilisation, which is targeted to be achieved by the end of the third year of a satellite’s commercial service, the full operational constellation is expected to generate annualised revenue of between US$32 million and US$36 million per satellite.

O3B Lands $460 Million to Expand Global Satellite Constellation

Thursday, December 10, 2015  O3b, Satellite  No Comments

O3b Networks closed $460 million in incremental financing to support its next-generation satellite network.  The company plans to use the money to expand the total number of satellites in its constellation from twelve to twenty.

O3b began full commercial operations in September 2014. The company said it now supports connectivity for more than 40 customers worldwide, with more than 50% of those customers having already upgraded their service commitments to O3b during the first year of commercial operation.

“This is an incredibly exciting time for O3b and its customers. Our constellation is highly scalable and can be grown in direct response to market demand. In only a little over a year from our full commercial launch, we can already see the need for substantially more capacity in orbit to serve our customers. We are the No.1 operator in the Pacific and, together with Royal Caribbean, we have revolutionized the cruise connectivity market. Our Telco customers are expanding their service offerings and growing their markets on the back of O3b’s performance and capability,” said Steve Collar, CEO of O3b Networks.

http://www.o3bnetworks.com

• O3b Networks’ investors include SES, Google, Liberty Global, HSBC Principal Investments, Northbridge Venture Partners, Allen & Company, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Sofina, Satya Capital and Luxempart. O3b Networks is headquartered in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands.

SpaceX Launches SES-9 on Falcon 9 Rocket

Saturday, March 05, 2016  Satellites, SES, SpaceX  No Comments

SpaceX successfully launched the SES-9 satellite using a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

SES-9 is SES’s largest satellite to serve the Asia-Pacific region. It weighed 5.3 tonnes at the launch and has 57 high-power Ku-band transponders – equivalent to 81x36 MHz transponders’ It thus provides significant expansion capacity to serve the buoyant and fast-growing video, enterprise, mobility and government sectors across Northeast Asia, South Asia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Boeing was lead contractor.

In addition, SES-9 is equipped with dedicated mobility beams to provide maritime coverage vessels on high-traffic maritime routes between the Suez Canal and Strait of Malacca.

The Falcon 9 rocket attempted to land on a drone ship in the Atlantic, but missed narrowly.

http://www.spacex.com

Gogo Leases Capacity on SES Next Gen Satellites

Tuesday, February 23, 2016  Gogo, Satellite, SES  No Comments

Gogo has contracted major High Throughput Satellite (HTS) spot beam and wide beam capacity aboard two SES next-generation HTS satellites, SES-14 and SES-15, which are set for launch in 2017.

The deal will enable Gogo to address the growing demand for high-speed inflight connectivity on travel routes over North America, including Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico and Canada, as well as Central America and the Caribbean. Gogo will also have access to HTS capacity on an additional satellite, SES-12, which is set to be launched in 2017 with high-powered spot beam and wide beam coverage over Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Russia.

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Intel Teams with BMW and MobilEye for Autonomous Driving

BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye announced an alliance to combine their strengths in automotive, technology and computer vision to bring solutions for highly and fully automated driving into series production by 2021.

In a press conference in Munich, the companies said their goal is to develop future-proofed solutions that enable the drivers to not only take their hands off the steering wheel, but reach the so called “eyes off” (level 3) and ultimately the “mind off” (level 4) level transforming the driver’s in-car time into leisure or work time. This level of autonomy would enable the vehicle, on a technical level, to achieve the final stage of traveling “driver off” (level 5) without a human driver inside. The timeline calls for self-driving fleets by 2021.

“Highly autonomous cars and everything they connect to will require powerful and reliable electronic brains to make them smart enough to navigate traffic and avoid accidents,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. “This partnership between BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye will help us to quickly deliver on our vision to reinvent the driving experience. We bring a broad set of in-vehicle and cloud computing, connectivity, safety and security, and machine-learning assets to this collaboration enabling a truly end-to-end solution.”

http://www.intel.com

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BT to offer Direct Access to Oracle Cloud

BT will begin offering direct access to the Oracle Cloud in the final quarter of calendar year 2016.

With BT Cloud Connect for Oracle FastConnect, customers can use a private connection based on BT’s IP Connect VPN service, which is designed to predictably, securely and consistently exchange large volumes of data between the Oracle Cloud and their own on-premises environment. BT will connect directly to Oracle’s Cloud locations in Amsterdam and London, giving customers access from anywhere in the world to services provided in European data centres. Through pre-provisioning via BT Cloud Connect, BT can cut the typical dedicated connection deployment time from months to days.

The Oracle Cloud supports 70 million users and more than 34 billion transactions each day and runs in 19 data centres around the world.

“Cloud is the fastest growing part of Oracle’s business,” said Thomas Kurian, president of Product Development, Oracle.“This partnership will help our customers leveraging the Oracle Cloud execute on their business strategies by taking advantage of the breadth and depth of BT’s global network and its Cloud Connect offering for their high bandwidth connectivity needs.”

http://www.btplc.com/
http://www.oracle.com

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Deutsche Telekom Opens Narrow-Band IoT Prototyping Hub

Deutsche Telekom has established a Narrow-Band IoT (NB-IoT) Prototyping Hub that brings existing and potential customers together with Deutsche Telekom’s pool of specialized and highly skilled IoT developers. The aim is to increase time-to-market speed to the benefit of business and consumers alike. Most importantly, Deutsche Telekom’s B2B customers will be able to gain crucial market insights which will allow for rapid market entry, as well as build flexible and highly scalable NB-IoT applications and business models that will be effective for years to come.

DT said Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technology is currently one of the most widely discussed innovations in M2M communication for the Internet of Things, with analysts anticipating around three billion LPWA connections by 2023. The technology is especially optimized for applications with low bandwidth requirements (from 100bit/s to just a few Kbit/s), such as smart parking, smart metering or smart waste management, and enables a much deeper indoor penetration than currently available (+20db compared to GSM). With low power consumption and a battery life of up to 10 years, the technology is environmentally friendly and ideal for mass production and deployment.

"Our aim is to provide our customers with IoT solutions that work worldwide based on international standards," says Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, Chief Technology Officer, Deutsche Telekom. "The NB-IoT technology is a future-proof and reliable solution that supports international operations and will enable a meaningful and broad IoT ecosystem for our customers in the coming years."

https://www.telekom.com/innovation/317738

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BT Smart Hub Packs 7 Wi-Fi Antennas

BT is launching a new Smart Hub that is optimised for strong Wi-Fi performance.  It comes with 7 antennas and the ability to deliver 3x3 11b/g/n/ac in the 2GHz band, and 4x4 11a/n/ac in the 5 GHz band. It also comes with the latest chipset and has built in advanced filters that automatically block interference.

Pete Oliver, MD consumer, commercial, marketing and digital, BT, said:“Customers want a quality connection throughout their homes and the new BT Smart Hub delivers the UK’s most powerful wi-fi signal so customers can enjoy wi-fi in more places. It’s packed with the latest wi-fi technology and is the only router from a major UK broadband provider to offer 7 antennas to offer unbeatable wi-fi range”.

http://www.btplc.com/news/#/pressreleases/bt-smart-hub-launches-with-the-uk-s-most-powerful-wi-fi-signal-1446529

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MWC Shanghai Attended by 53,000 Visitors

This year's Mobile World Congress Shanghai, held 29 June – 1 July, attracted 53,000 visitors from 104 countries. The event hosted nearly 550 exhibitors, with 64 percent of exhibiting companies coming from outside of China. The conference programme attracted more than 4,100 attendees, with over 57 per cent of delegates holding C-level positions, including over 300 CEOs. Nearly 840 international media and industry analysts attended the event.

“We are thrilled with the results of our 2016 Mobile World Congress Shanghai, which set new records for attendance and exhibition,” said John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. “This was our largest and most ambitious event in Asia, with many new event features and programmes for business attendees and consumers alike. It truly showcased the power of mobile and its impact in our everyday lives.”

http://www.gsma.com

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Cisco and IBM Collaborate on Cloud-based Apps

IBM and Cisco will form a suite of cloud-based workplace tools and applications infused with IBM Watson.

Specifically, Cisco Spark and WebEx collaborative workspace platforms will be integrated with IBM’s leading cloud collaboration solutions, including Verse and Connections, and underpinned by IBM’s cognitive computing capabilities. The joint solutions will utilize IBM Watson and Connections APIs as well as Cisco Spark and WebEx APIs.

“The irony of many workforce tools available today is that with because there are so many to choose from, they can reduce employee effectiveness,” said Inhi Cho, General Manager, IBM Collaboration Solutions. “With our combined technology strengths and understanding of how teams get work done, IBM and Cisco can deliver the next generation of collaboration tools needed to cultivate innovation and drive productivity. By incorporating analytics and cognitive technologies into these solutions, we expect them to be able to learn what is important, in context, and take the right actions on behalf of the user.”

“At Cisco, we are constantly innovating to improve the collaboration experience and there has never been a better time to take our offerings to the next level,” said Jens Meggers, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Cloud Collaboration Technology. “That’s our goal here—to think exponentially and together with IBM create the next generation of collaboration. Now we can deliver amazing, next-generation “Intelligent Collaboration” that allows enterprises to compete in this fast moving digital world.”

http://www.cisco.com
http://www.ibm.com

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Shanghai Mobile Implements VoLTE Optimization with Nokia

Shanghai Mobile, China Mobile's regional subsidiary, has implemented Nokia's Predictive Optimization technology to quickly deploy high-quality VoLTE service. Nokia has applied its technical and professional services expertise to combine big data collection, storage and processing capabilities to develop an analytics platform monitoring signalling data across the network at all times.

The companies said the deployment of this technology allowed Shanghai Mobile to quickly expand its VoLTE service from hundreds of pre-commercial users to the more than 700,000 subscribers to its 4G network in Shanghai.

Optimization of the Shanghai Mobile's VoLTE in Shanghai is underpinned by the platform, which enables end-to-end performance management and assurance across a multi-vendor core and radio network. Intelligence analytics are used to identify issues in real time, such as the setting up of a new mobile device as it joins the network, allowing Shanghai Mobile to resolve the issue and minimize impact to quality of service.

Dennis Lorenzin, head of Mobile Networks Network Planning & Optimization at Nokia, said: "This is another important achievement in a long-standing collaboration with China Mobile and its subsidiaries. Working with Shanghai Mobile we have developed a highly competitive end-to-end approach to optimizing VoLTE performance. In future, the Nokia AVA  platform will enable us to replicate this with other operators across the globe to ensure the fast roll-out of commercial VoLTE services, ensuring the provision of the highest-quality voice telephony possible."

http://www.nokia.com

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Blueprint: LSO Hackathons Bring Open Standards, Open Source

Open standards and open source projects are both essential ingredients for advancing the cause of interoperable next-generation carrier networks.

When a standards developing organization (SDO), like MEF, creates standards, those written documents themselves aren’t the end goal. Sure, the specifications look good on paper, but it takes a lot of work to turn those words and diagrams into hardware, software and services. And if there are any ambiguities in those specifications, or misinterpretations by vendors building out their products and services, interoperability could be problematic at best.

By contrast, when an open-source project is formed, the team’s job is obvious: to create software and solutions. All too often, the members of the project are focused on reaching a particularly objective. In those cases they are working in a vacuum, and might write code that works great but which can’t be abstracted to solve a more general problem. In those cases, interoperability may also be a huge issue.

The answer is clear: bring together SDOs and open-source teams to write open-source code that’s aligned with open specifications. That’s what is happening at the LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) Hackathons hosted by MEF: open source teams come together to work on evolving specifications, and the end result is not only solid code but also effective feedback to MEF about its specs and architecture. Another benefit: networking experts from across the communications industry work together with software developers from the IT world face-to-face, fostering mutual understanding of the constraints of their peers in ways that lead to more effective interaction in their day jobs.

MEF recently completed its Euro16 LSO Hackathon held in Rome, Italy during April 27-29, 2016. This followed the debut LSO Hackathon at MEF’s GEN15 conference in Dallas in November 2015. (See “The MEF LSO Hackathon: Building Community, Swatting Bugs, Writing Code,” published in Telecom Ramblings.)

“The Euro16 LSO Hackathon built on what we started in the first Hackathon at GEN15,” said Daniel Bar-Lev, Director of Certification and Strategic Programs, MEF and one of the architects of the LSO Hackathon series.

One big change: not everything had to be physically present in Rome, which expanded both the technology platform and the pool of participants. “We enabled work to be done remotely, said Bar-Lev. “While most of our participants were in Rome, we had people engaged from all over the United States. We also didn’t need to bring the networking equipment to Rome. Most of it remained installed and configured in the San Francisco Bay area. Instead of shipping racks of equipment, we set up remote access and were able to position the hardware and software in the optimal places to get development done.”

Lifecycle Service Orchestration and the Third Network Vision

Why “Lifecycle Service Orchestration” for the MEF-hosted LSO Hackathons? Bar-Lev explained that it ties into MEF’s broad vision for Third Network services that combine the ubiquity and flexibility of the public Internet with the quality and assurance of private connectivity services such as CE 2.0.

 “When we think of traditional CE 2.0 services, we tend to think of them as “static” — often taking weeks or months to provision or change a service,” said Bar-Lev. “With the Third Network vision, we are driving specifications for services like CE 2.0 that can be created and modified in minutes instead of months and also be orchestrated over multiple provider networks.”

As Bar-Lev explained, the real work of MEF today is to formally define Third Network services and all the related services required to implement flexible inter-network communications. “End-to-end LSO is essential for that,” he continued, “along with SDN and NFV.”

That’s where open standards and open source projects converge, with MEF initiatives like OpenLSO (Open Lifecycle Service Orchestration) and OpenCS (Open Connectivity Services). “It’s all about creating and trying out building blocks, so we can give service providers reference designs from which they can develop their offerings more quickly. They don’t have to define those services themselves from scratch; rather they can access them at MEF, which gives them a valuable and time-saving starting point,” Bar-Lev said.

Indeed, the OpenLSO and OpenCS projects describe a wide range of L1-L7 services that service providers need in order to implement Third Network services. MEF is defining these services, and developers work on evolving elements of the reference designs during LSO Hackathons.

A Broad Array of Projects and Participants at Euro16 LSO Hackathon

According to MEF, the OpenLSO scenarios worked upon at Euro16 LSO Hackathon were OpenLSO Inter-Carrier Ordering and OpenLSO Service Function Chaining. The OpenCS use cases were OpenCS Packet WAN and OpenCS Data Center. The primary objectives of the Euro16 LSO Hackathon included:

•        Accelerate the development of comprehensive OpenLSO scenarios and OpenCS use cases as part of MEF's Open Initiative for the benefit of the open source communities and the industry as a whole.

•        Provide feedback to ongoing MEF projects in support of MEF's Agile Standards Development approach to specification development.

•        Facilitate discussion, collaboration, and the development of ideas, sample code, and solutions that can be used for the benefit of service providers and technology providers.

•        Encourage interdepartmental collaboration and communications within MEF member companies, especially between BSS/OSS/service orchestration professionals and networking service/infrastructure professionals

Strong Industry Participation at Euro16

Around 45 people participated in the Euro16 LSO Hackathon – the majority in Rome and the remainder being the AT&T Remote Team in Plano, Texas as well as other participants attending remotely from other parts of the United States.

“We brought people together with widely divergent backgrounds,” said MEF’s Bar-Lev. “We had software developers with no networking expertise, and network experts with no software skills. The core group worked in the same room in Rome for three days, with additional folks working independently and syncing up with the Rome teams when appropriate.”

The Euro16 LSO Hackathon included participants from Amartus, Amdocs, AT&T, CableLabs, CenturyLink, Ciena, Cisco, Edge Core Networks, Ericsson, Gigaspaces, HPE, Huawei, Infinera, Iometrix, Microsemi, NEC, Netcracker, NTT, ON.Lab, Telecom Italia Sparkle and ZTE. The whole process was managed by Bar-Lev and Charles Eckel, Open Source Developer Evangelist at Cisco DevNet.

“What is most important about the LSO Hackathon is that it takes the specifications that are being defined and transforms them into code”, said Eckel. “It moves that process forward dramatically. The way standards have traditionally been done is a very long process in which people spend months and sometimes years getting the details of documents figured out, and then it can turn out that the specification is almost non-implementable. With the LSO Hackathon we create code based on early versions of the specifications. This helps the process move forward because we identify what’s wrong, what’s missing, and what’s unclear, then we update the specs accordingly. This is an important reason for doing the LSO Hackathon.”

Eckels continued, “Equally important is the positive impact on the participating open source projects and open source communities. Usability issues and gaps in functionality are identified and addressed. The code implemented during the Hackathon is contributed back upstream, making those projects better suited to address the requirements mapped out by the specifications.”

Dawn Kaplan, Solution Architect, Ericsson, added: “The Euro16 LSO Hackathon aimed to solve a very crucial inter-carrier business problem that will change our industry when solved.  The ordering project in the LSO Hackathon is focused on implementing the inter-carrier ordering process between service providers. At the Hackathon we built upon the defined use case, information model, and a sample API to enable service providers to order from one another in a completely automated fashion. With the code and practices developed at the Euro16 LSO Hackathon we will come much closer to tackling this very real issue.”

“We are a new participant in the LSO Hackathon and find this initiative very important on a community level,” explained Shay Naeh, Solution Architect for NFV/SDN Projects at Cloudify by GigaSpaces. “Through the Euro16 LSO Hackathon, we are learning how to contribute our own  open source code solutions and combine them alongside closed source solutions to make the whole ecosystem work. Open source is very important to us,  and we are excited to see telcos coming around to the open source model as well. By having a close relationship with open source communities, the telcos influence those projects to take into account their operational requirements while reducing the chances of being locked into relationships with specific technology providers. You can mix and match vendor components and avoid having a vertical or silo solution. What is very important to telcos is to introduce new business services with a click of a button and this is definitely achievable.”

MEF Euro16 LSO Hackathon Report

MEF has published a new report spotlighting recent advances in development of LSO capabilities and APIs that are key to enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services over multiple provider networks. The report describes objectives, achievements, and recommendations from multiple teams of professionals who participated in the Euro16 LSO Hackathon.

Coming Next:  MEF16 LSO Hackathon, November 2016

The next MEF LSO Hackathon will be at upcoming MEF16 global networking conference, in Baltimore, November 7-10, 2016. The work will support Third Network service projects that are built upon key OpenLSO scenarios and OpenCS use cases.

“We will have different teams working on Third Network services,” said MEF’s Bar-Lev. The work will accelerate the delivery of descriptions of how to create Third network services, such as Layer 2 and Layer 3 services. Participants will get hands-on experience and involvement in identifying the different pieces of technology needed to develop those projects."

About the Author

Alan Zeichick is founder, president and principal analyst, Camden Associates. 

Follow Alan on Twitter @zeichick

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