Google Builds Expresso SDN for Public Internet

"SDN is how we do networking… so what’s next?" asked Amin Vahdat, Fellow and Technical Lead for Networking at Google, at the opening of his keynote address at the Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara, California.

Google has been using SDN for years to manage its private B4 global WAN (interconnects data centers) and its Jupiter networks (inside its data centers, which have up to 100,000 servers and up to 1 Pb/s of aggregate bandwidth). Traffic on its private networks exceeds that on its public Internet backbone, and the growth rate is faster too. Google also relies on its Andromeda network functions virtualization platform as one of its pillars of SDN.

Google's next step is to introduce "Expresso" SDN for its public Internet backbone.  Expresson has been running on the Google network for the past two years and is currently routing about 20% of traffic to the Internet.

Essentially, Google Expresso SDN Peering takes a metro and global view across many routers to find optimal route for traffic delivery.  Whereas traditional, router-centric protocols take a connectivity-first approach with only local information, Vahdat said Expresso is able to optimize route selection in real-time by leveraging application signals across the metro or global infrastructure. One effect is to remove the logic and control of traffic management from individual boxes and make it network-centric.

Here is an architectural view of Google Expresso SDN:

Expresso sets the stage for the next decade in networking, said Vahdat, where the Internet must deliver improvements in scale, agility, jitter, isolation and availability. Google sees each of these attributes as necessary for the next wave of serverless computing.

A blog posting by Amin Vahdat is here:
https://blog.google/topics/google-cloud/making-google-cloud-faster-more-available-and-cost-effective-extending-sdn-public-internet-espresso/

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Radisys DCEngine and FlowEngine Benefits for CORD Deployments

Telco central offices will undergo significant transformation in the years ahead as they adopt SDN, NFV, and cloud technologies. In this video, Bryan Sadowski, VP, FlowEngine & DCEngine for Radisys, presents the DCEngine 16U rack-scale platform, along with the new FlowEngine TDE-2000 open networking switch, which together deliver scalable storage, compute and networking infrastructure for Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter (CORD) deployments.

See video:  https://youtu.be/dAfAow62KoM

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Radisys Professional Services for CORD Deployments

CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) is a platform combining leading SDN, NFV and Cloud technologies for transforming Service Provider networks. Radisys is now bringing its expertise in professional telecom services to help Service Providers lead the way to open source CORD.

See video: https://youtu.be/pNHeVqka5Vw

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ONF Demos CORD open innovation pipeline solutions at ONS

CORD Project, the community developing an open source service delivery platform that combines SDN, NFV and elastic cloud services to transform the edge of operator networks, announced it is holding a demonstration at the Open Networking Summit (ONS) and noted continued progress for the project in collaboration with new collaborators Deutsche Telekom, Sprint, Ixia and Xpose.

CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) combines SDN, NFV and cloud technologies with the aim of creating flexible in-line data centres at the network edge. CORD integrates a curated collection of open source projects and leverages devops application development models to create an open, programmable, agile platform for network operators.

CORD incorporates a range of upstream open source components and is designed to deliver a next-generation cloud-native data centre capable of supporting functionality including compute, storage and networking, with service creation enabled via the XOS project.

Specifically, CORD features OpenStack support as an optional component for larger deployments where full IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) capabilities are required, while to address the limitations of OpenStack for certain applications CORD integrates ONOS software for networking, along with other customisations to deliver a unified solution.

At ONS, the following demonstrations will be showcased:

1. Central office in a day, showing how a complete CORD-based carrier central office can be built and deliver services within hours, highlighting the efficiencies enabled through integration of SDN, NFV and cloud technologies.

2. Rapid service enablement, demonstrating the rapid creation of new services and the capabilities of the micro-service architecture enabled via the XOS project (XaaS operating system).

3. Mobile-CORD (M-CORD), showing an open reference implementation for 5G.

4. Enterprise-CORD (E-CORD), demonstrating an SD-WAN solution supporting zero touch provisioning of enterprise WAN networks, with integrated analytics and SLAs.

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Status Report for OPNFV - the Blue Danube Release

Heather Kirksey provides a status update on OPNFV as the project makes its fourth major release -- Danube.

See video: https://youtu.be/5pLlP6KBgDc

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Cavium integrates FastLinQ 25/100 GBE adapter into DPDK

Cavium, a provider of products designed to enable intelligent, secure processing for enterprise and cloud data centres, announced that its FastLinQ 45000 Series 25/100 Gigabit Ethernet adapter technology, which delivers up to 200 Gbit/s throughput, has been integrated into Data Plan Development Kit (DPDK).

As a result of the integration, Cavium's FastLinQ technology is able to host demanding network function virtualisation (NFV) and cloud workloads while helping to reduce deployment costs.

Providing up to 200 Gigabit Ethernet line rate throughput, the FastLinQ 45000 series 25/100 Gbit/s adapters offer support for a range of features and protocols, and are designed to provide key benefits for cloud and telco deployments including:

1. High performance and scalability for NFV and cloud workloads leveraging standard technologies and small packet performance, with functionality optimised for software-defined networking (SDN) and OpenStack deployments requiring high speed networking.

2. Improved server utilisation via hardware offloaded protocol processing for RDMA, VxLAN, GENEVE and NVGRE, reducing the CPU burden and enhancing server efficiency and enabling optimised performance and reduced cost for network encapsulation with virtualised workloads and hybrid cloud deployments.

3. Combined with Mirantis Fuel for OpenStack orchestration and QConvergeConsole topology maps for OpenStack, the Cavium solution enables integration and helps to accelerate the deployment of workloads in telco and cloud data centres.

The Cavium FastLinQ 45000 Series 25/100 Gigabit Ethernet adapters are available from Cavium, HPE and other major OEMs, fully integrated into DPDK, and are shipping in volume.

Last week, Cavium announced that its FastLinQ QL45000 Series of 10/25 Gigabit Ethernet NICs had been certified for Microsoft Windows Server Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC) Premium.

http://www.cavium.com

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Verizon to Resell Equinix Colo and Interconnection Services

Verizon Enterprise Solutions and Equinix, the global interconnection and data centre company, announced an agreement through which Verizon will resell Equinix colocation and interconnection services worldwide.

Under the new reseller agreement, Verizon will be able to offer expanded solutions by combining colocation and interconnection services in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres worldwide with its security, network and communications services to enable enterprises to implement hybrid cloud solutions and access a multi-cloud environment. The agreement provides direct, private access to cloud service providers including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

The companies noted that the agreement builds on a long-standing relationship between Equinix and Verizon and follows an agreement of December 2016 through which Equinix is to acquire certain data centre sites from Verizon.

Equinix announced on December 6th last year that it had entered into a definitive agreement to purchase a portfolio of 24 data centre sites and operations from Verizon for $3.6 billion through an all cash transaction.


The 24 sites encompass 29 data centre facilities in 15 metro markets across the Americas region. The facilities and customers will strengthen Equinix's global platform by increasing interconnection in the U.S. and Latin America and adding three new markets, namely Bogotá, Colombia, Culpeper, Virginia and Houston, Texas. The acquisition also strengthens Equinix's position in the enterprise and strategic market sectors such as government and energy.

The agreement will expand Equinix's total global footprint to 175 data centres across 43 markets, with approximately 17 million gross sq feet of space throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific markets. The transaction is expected to close around mid-2017.

Earlier this year, Equinix announced agreements to acquire ICT-Center AG, Zurich's data centre operating business in Zurich, Switzerland, with a facility adjacent to its existing Zurich IBX data centres ZH2 and ZH4, and a transaction to purchase IO UK's data centre operating business in Slough, UK, close to its existing Slough data centre campus.

http://www.verizon.com
http://www.equinix.com

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FirstLight partners with f6networks to provide U.S.-Canada transport services

FirstLight Fiber of Albany, New York, a fibre-optic bandwidth infrastructure services provider operating in the northeast U.S., announced today that it has entered into a partnership with f6networks, the owner and operator of a high-capacity fibre link that provides transport between New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec in Canada to locations throughout the northeast U.S.

FirstLight noted that the relationship began when it collaborated with f6networks on a solution for a large industrial enterprise customer in Canada. FirstLight operates a connection from Calais, Maine to St. Stephen, New Brunswick that allowed the companies to implement a reliable, end-to-end solution offering cost effective, wholesale pricing to support the customer's call centre operations.

Following this initial collaboration, FirstLight and f6networks sought to further leverage the partnership and have launched lit services for customers with locations in both the U.S. and Canada that require a reliable connectivity solution.

The FirstLight network comprises 9,600 route miles of fibre and serves more than 5,000 lit locations, with access to 20,000 near net locations, in six states with connectivity to Montreal. f6networks is a fibre-based telco serving Atlantic Canada and providing connectivity solutions worldwide through partners.

Recently, FirstLight Fiber announced that owner Oak Hill Capital Partners had completed the acquisition of Sovernet Communications and combined the operations of the two companies. Sovernet offers high-capacity network transport, broadband Internet, data centre and voice services in Vermont and New York. The acquisition added approximately 3,300 fibre route miles across New York, 1,300 fibre route miles in Vermont and Sovernet's data centre in Burlington, Vermont.

Together with the previous acquisitions of Oxford Networks and Finger Lakes Technologies Group, FirstLight will operate a regional network comprising approximately 12,000 route miles of fibre across six states and Canada, with more than 7,000 on-net locations and 12 data centres.

https://www.firstlight.net/

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Telia Carrier Expands with 100G NYC - Chicago Route

Telia Carrier, the global wholesale carrier business of Telia, announced that it has extended the reach of its global backbone in the U.S. via a new fibre-route between New York City and Chicago.

Telia Carrier's new express route, combined with additional fibre in the New York metro area, further diversifies the wholesale carrier's network and provides enhanced 100 Gbit/s-plus service options to carrier, content and cloud provider customers in New York and Chicago and across the U.S. The new route is also designed to improve the efficiency of existing routes, including New York to San Francisco and New York to Denver.

The carrier noted that leveraging the diversity of its offerings it is able to add new routing options and points of presence (PoPs) in the New Jersey/New York region, thereby reducing the length of the network path and improving latency performance. Additionally, Telia Carrier has deployed coherent 100 Gbit/s-ready equipment and employs advanced modulation formats to enable faster delivery and service turn-up.

Last October, Telia Carrier announced it had established a new network PoP at the OJUS cable landing station in Hollywood Florida. The new network infrastructure provides resilient network options for customers requiring diverse connectivity to the NAP of the Americas in Miami and Equinix MI3 in Boca Raton, as well as Telia Carrier's global IP backbone, AS1299.

In April 2016 Infinera announced it had been selected by Telia Carrier to deploy a second Infinera DTN-X-based low latency Pacific Coast Highway route between the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, and for a project to extend the operator's network to enable 100 Gbit/s services in Bay Area metro markets via the deployment of the TM-Series for metro 100 Gbit/s. Infinera noted at the time that Telia Carrier was operating an end-to-end Infinera Intelligent Transport Network, spanning long-haul and metro.

Telia Carrier announced in July 2016 that it had selected Coriant to provide its 400 Gbit/s-capable CloudWave Optics technology for its pan-European backbone network. The coherent interface technology is designed to enable Telia Carrier to double the capacity on its DWDM infrastructure and further reduce network latency.

http://www.teliacarrier.com/Newsroom/Press-Releases/Telia_Carrier_adds_North_American_network_muscle_with_additional_route_from_New_York_to_Chicago.html

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Austrian Utility Salzburg Deploys Ciena for 100G Coherent Core

Ciena announced that Salzburg AG, a major full-service provider of utilities, transport and communication solutions in Austria, is deploying the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform to establish a 100 Gbit/s coherent core network, designed to improve network resiliency, reduce costs and increase capacity.

The project is additionally intended to help to prevent disruptions due to fibre maintenance work for Salzburg's customers and improve the reliability in the core of its energy and communication networks.

Salzburg AG delivers a combination of energy, communications and transport services for the city and province of Salzburg in Austria. The company provides a range of services, spanning electricity, water, gas, cable Internet, telephony and TV, and also operates a modern fleet of trolleybuses. Deployment of Ciena's 6500 platform is intended to enable Salzburg to more effectively meet the increasingly digitally-connected needs of its customers.

The 100 Gbit/s coherent ROADM network that is being supplied by Ciena is based on a flexible OTN layer, with the 6500 platform providing support for high OTN switching capacity and rapid service protection to enhance reliability for end customers. The 6500 solution will also enable expanded capacity in Salzburg's overall network, including for connectivity to the Vienna Internet Exchange, the largest Internet exchange point in Austria.

Ciena noted that Kapsch BusinessCom, a local BizConnect partner, is supporting the deployment of the 6500 platform.

Previously, in 2016 Ciena announced that Austrian credit card issuer card complete had selected it for a redundant data centre interconnect (DCI) network based on the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, and that eww ITandTEL, the telecom division of utility eww.ag, was to deploy its 100 Gbit/s solutions for an upgrade of its backbone network.

In 2015, Ciena announced deployments in Austria with utility company Energie and service provider CityCom.


http://www.ciena.com

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The ONOS Project Makes its Next Advance

The ONOS Project, which is developing an open source software-defined networking (SDN) OS for service providers, announced that its latest release is now in operation in several new lab & field trials.

"ONOS delivers important performance and scalability advancements that are needed for service providers and enterprises to advance SDN, said Bill Snow, chief development officer, ON.Lab. “New demos and POCs at ONS this week will bring to life how ONOS enables next-generation disaggregated IP/Optical transport network solutions, and how the dynamic configuration capabilities make it easy to add innovative new services, like L3VPN.”

Major enhancements for ONOS include:

• Whitebox Leaf-Spine Fabric – the flexible datacenter fabric solution offered by ONOS has been enhanced to support IPv6 routing, vLAN tagged external interfaces and AAA endpoint authentication.
• GUI v2.0 – an enhanced Web user interface is now included, improving usability on large-scale networks by providing regional topology views with drill-down, context sensitive help, and global search

• SDN-IP enhancements: VLAN support, VPLS support. IGMPv2
• Southbound Enhancements: Lumentum WaveReady support (TL1), Pipeline support for Nokia OLT, RESTCONF
• vRouter: IPv6 support
• Framework: New distributed system support – consistent document tree, LISP, CI/CT improvements (build speed enhancements), High Availability (HA) enhancements
• Northbound Intent Interface Enhancements:  IETF ACTN – enabling management of multiple TEs as one, Optional Guaranteed Bandwidth Allocation, Protection Intent Support, Shared resource modeling, Hashing support for ECMP traffic distribution, RESTCONF
• Traffic Engineering: Policers and bandwidth monitoring
• User Interface: Scalability improvements and regionalization support

http://onosproject.org/2017/04/03/onf-showcases-new-onos-release-use-cases-field-trials-ons/

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Huawei Reports FY'16 Revenue of CNY 521.57bn, up 32.0%

Huawei announced financial results for the full year 2016 ended December 31, 2015, as follows:

1. Revenue for 2016 of CNY 521.57 billion (approximately $75.1 billion), up 32.0% compared with CNY 395.01 billion in 2015.

2. Gross profit of CNY 210.13 billion, up 27.6% versus CNY 164.70 billion in 2015.

3. R&D expenditure of CNY 76.39 billion, up 28.1% versus CNY 59.61 billion in 2015.

4. SG&A expenditure of CNY 86.44 billion, up 38.8% versus CNY 62.28 billion in 2015.

5. Total operating expenditure of CNY 162.83 billion, up 33.6% versus CNY 121.89 billion in 2015.

6. Net profit of CNY 37.07 billion ($5.34 billion), compared with CNY 36.91 billion in 2015.

7. Cash and cash equivalents of CNY 123.05 billion ($17.72 billion) as of December 31, 2016, compared with CNY 110.56 billion at the end of 2015.

Additional results and notes

Reporting by business group for 2016, Huawei's Carrier unit reported sales of CNY 290.6 billion, up 25.1% year on year, the Consumer unit reported sales of CNY 179.8 billion, up 39.2% year on year, and the Enterprise unit reported sales of CNY40.7 billion, up 47.5% versus 2015.

On a geographic basis, the company reported sales as follows: China - CNY 235.5 billion, up 29.1% year on year; EMEA - CNY 156.5 billion, up 22.5% year on year; Asia Pacific - CNY 67.5 billion, up 36.6% year on year; Americas - CNY 44.1 billion, up 13.4% year on year.

Huawei reported cash flow from operating activities in 2016 of CNY 49.22 billion ($7.09 billion), compared with CNY 52.3 billion in 2015.

http://www.huawei.com

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Intel Security Relaunches as McAfee

Intel Security officially relaunched under its old name - McAfee - as a new standalone company.

McAfee is driven by more than 7,500 cybersecurity professionals.  The company's intellectual property includes some 1,200 security technology patents.

“Cybersecurity is the greatest challenge of the connected age, weighing heavily on the minds of parents, executives and world leaders alike,” said Christopher Young, CEO of McAfee. “As a standalone company with a clear purpose, McAfee gains the agility to unite people, technology and organizations against our common adversaries and ensure our technology-driven future is safe.”

“We offer Chris Young and the McAfee team our full support as they establish themselves as one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity companies in the industry,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO. “Security remains important to Intel, and in addition to our equity position and ongoing collaboration with McAfee, Intel will continue to integrate industry-leading security and privacy capabilities in our products from the cloud to billions of smart, connected computing devices.”

https://www.mcafee.com/us/about/ceo-letter.html

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Ericsson and Cisco to deploy ASR9010 IP routers for Nextel in Brazil

Ericsson and Cisco, which in late 2015 established a global business and technology alliance, announced they have been selected to deliver and install IP routers for Nextel Brazil, owned by NII Holdings, to support traffic growth and improve network performance, marking their first joint project in the country.

Under the agreement in Brazil, the two companies will work together to supply and install IP routers for Nextel Brazil, which serves around 3 million subscribers, with the combined solution including hardware from Cisco and services and support from Ericsson. The deal specifically includes the deployment of Cisco ASR9010 routers, plus project management and customer support.

Recently, Cisco and Ericsson announced that Korek Telecom, a major mobile operator in Iraq serving around 7 million customers, had selected the companies to transform its IP core network to expand coverage and enhance services. Under the agreement, Ericsson, Korek Telecom's longstanding network equipment provider, and Cisco will deploy new IP core network sites and optimise existing sites using the Cisco ASR 9000 router platform as part of the Ericsson Evolved IP network.

In January, Ericsson and Cisco announced they had been selected to transform and virtualise Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA)'s networks to help VHA prepare for new emerging services and to evolve its core network to increase agility and programmability via the use of network slicing. The companies noted the project represented their first major collaboration for Telecom Cloud infrastructure.

The Ericsson-Cisco partnership is designed to enable delivery of solutions incorporating advanced routing, data centre, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, as well as global services capabilities. To date, the companies state they have signed more than 300 active customer engagements, including over 100 deals covering IP routing and transport and services with customers such as 3 Italy, Vodafone Portugal, Aster Dominican Republic, Cable & Wireless and Telefonica Guatemala.

http://www.ericsson.com
http://www.cisco.com

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Update on the telecommunications market in Poland - Part 5

Profile of T-Mobile Polska, the 4th largest mobile operator

T-Mobile Polska is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom of Germany and the fourth largest mobile operator in Poland, serving over 10.6 million mobile customers. The company claims to provide a full range of telecommunications services to both private and business customers. In 2015 TMP acquired the fixed network and services of GTS Poland, thus enabling it to offer a full range of ICT services. T-Mobile customers also have access to a full range of financial services as part of its parent's banking services. Mobile Polska covers nearly 100% of Poland’s population with its 3G and 4G networks and currently employs around 4,400 people. For the calendar year 2016 it reported revenue of Euro 1,488 million and net profit of Euro 201 million, down from Euro 1,544 million and Euro 350 million, respectively, in 2015.

More specifically, in Q4 2016 T-Mobile Poland reported 10.634 million mobile customers, down 11.8% compared to 12.057 million at the end of 2015. This decline included the loss of 587,000 customers in Q4 2016 due mainly to the disconnection of unregistered prepaid users. Despite Q4 2016 revenue up 4.8% to PLN 1.723 billion; EBITDA margin fell by 1.8 points to 34.7%.

In mid-November 2016, T-Mobile Poland announced a limited commercial launch with the support of Samsung of VoLTE and VoWiFi but said that by the end of March 2017, it hoped to make the service available on a broader range of up to 500,000 terminal devices.  As previously reported, in early December 2016 T-Mobile Poland and Orange Poland extended their original cooperative agreement for radio access network sharing, originally signed in 2011, to include base station sharing for LTE services using the frequency blocks that they each separately obtained at auction in the 800 and 2600 MHz bands.

In early January 2017 Orange Poland announced that its LTE network, consisting of over 8,500 base stations using 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz band spectrum and at over 140 basestations 300 Mbit/s services using tri-carrier aggregation, had reached coverage of 99% of the population. In late January T-Mobile Poland announced changes in its business segment aimed at increasing the focus on customer care and its quality including strengthened management and making the Department of Business Customer Care the direct responsibility of a board member. In early February, the European Investment Bank published a request by T-Mobile Poland for Euro 250 million of co-financing investments in a mobile broadband infrastructure project in Poland expected to cost Euro 550 million.

Profile of UPC Poland the leading Polish cable operator

According to the $20 billion sales-level, 45,000 employee, 50 million homes-passed Liberty Global international TV and broadband group (with operations in over 12 European countries and the Caribbean and South America), UPC Poland is the largest of its operations in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of revenue, and the largest cable TV operator in Poland. UPC Poland, which as of the end of September 2016 projected revenue of $393.8 million for all of 2016, at that time passed 3.1 million Polish homes and provided video, broadband Internet and digital (VoIP) telephony services, including 2.9 million service subscriptions (RGUs) to 1.4 million customers split as follows: 1.2 million video RGUs; 1.1 million broadband RGUs; and 632,000 fixed telephony RGUs. According to the company, its network is 98% upgraded to two-way capacity, with almost all of its homes passed served by a network with a bandwidth of at least 860 MHz.

In late October 2016, UPC Poland agreed to acquire, for $760 million in cash, the cable operations of Multimedia Polska, the third-largest cable operator in Poland. However, that proposed merger is still the subject of a regulatory inquiry by Polish anti-monopoly authority UOKiK, whose analysis has so far shown that in many municipalities, the joint share of UPC and Multimedia Polska exceeds 40% for the pay TV and Internet market, a threshold which the competition law defines as a dominant and anticompetitive position.

According to Multimedia Polska's Q4 2016 financial report published in mid-March, its revenue were down 1.1% YoY to PLN 176.346 million compared to PLN 178.285 million in Q4 2015. Of the total, revenue from video services amounted to PLN 90.454 million, revenue from the Internet amounted to PLN 55.399 million, revenue from telephony amounted to PLN 22.073 million, and other revenue amounted to PLN 8.419 million. The total RGUs as of December 31, 2016 were 1.692 million, up 2% compared to the end of 2015. During Q4, the company increased video subscriptions by 20,300 to 868,000, and broadband customers rose by 7,100 to 537,400, while in telephony there were a total 266,600 customers.

The group had 783,200 customers at year-end, down from 790,000 at the end of Q3 2016.

Summary and commentary - economy strong, political stability in danger

Poland's economic situation for the moment looks extremely healthy, though much of it currently comes from external inputs such as foreign remittances and EU subsidies, which may not be sustainable beyond a medium-term horizon. However, Poland's political climate is blustery to say the least For the first time for many years Poland's rightwing Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (PiS or Law and Justice Party), led by Jarosław Kaczyński, has an overall majority in Poland's Lower House, the Sejm, and is taking a strongly authoritarian approach to government, which has included the passing of a bill which seriously undermines the powers of Poland's Constitutional Court*. Together with attacks on the media, including the firing of about 60 politically suspect journalists from state television, the preparation of a bill which would limit the access of the media to the proceedings of the Sejm, and a remarkable episode in mid-December  in which opposition protests against the proposed restrictive media bill erupted into semi-violence in the Sejm, and as a result the government moved a planned session for the vote on the state budget for 2017 to another hall, with both journalists and opposition delegates banned from the session.

The EU has publicly raised questions about these anti-libertarian moves by the PiS. More recently, the Polish government has reacted with outrage to, and described as a deliberate humiliation of Poland by the EU, the re-election on March 9th as President of the European Council of Donald Tusk, a Polish politician still regarded as the de facto leader of Poland's main Opposition Party. Tusk led neo-liberal opposition party Civic Platform (PO, Platforma Obywatelska) from 2003 to 2014 and was the Polish prime minister from 2007 to 2014, and is detested by the PiS. Poland, as stated earlier, leads the four-nation Visegrad Group and has historically tended to ally itself with the UK and also look towards the U.S. politically rather than Germany. With Britain leaving the EU and Donald Trump looking to reduce the U.S.'s expensive overseas entanglements, and with a truculent and resentful Russia on its flank, Poland is beginning to feel dangerously isolated.

*   The changes introduced by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) require a two-thirds majority of the 15 judges to support a ruling for it to be valid, and also stipulate a quorum of 13 judges for rulings to be valid.

Update on the telecom market in Poland - Part 1

Update on the telecom market in Poland,- Part 2

Update on the telecom market in Poland, Part 3
Update on the telecom market in Poland - Part 4
Update on the telecom market in Poland - Part 5

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Mexico's ALTAN Redes Picks Nokia for national LTE wholesale Net

Nokia announced that it has been selected by the ALTÁN Redes consortium to design, build and operate a new national LTE and 5G-ready wholesale network in Mexico in what represents its largest contract to date in Latin America.

Called Red Compartida, the shared network project in Mexico is an innovative program designed to provide wireless broadband coverage nationwide to 92% of the population, and thereby reduce the digital divide and strengthen the country's digital services capabilities. The greenfield deployment will utilise the 700 MHz frequency band.

The contract with Nokia includes provision of the core of the network, including 100% of the fully virtualised core network and 40% of RAN, IP backhaul, OSS and NOC solutions. The Nokia equipment is to be deployed in five regions of Mexico, out of a total of nine, including Guadalajara and Monterrey, the second and third largest cities.

The project also encompasses a range of services that mean Nokia will deliver a turnkey project, including site acquisition, construction, deployment, network integration, network planning and optimisation, master system integration (core network), operation and maintenance and managed services.

Nokia will specifically supply solutions including a virtualised core network, VoLTE and EPC based on Air Frame, 4.5G Pro radio access based on AirScale, IP and optical backhaul systems, DWDM 100 Gbit/s and IP routing platforms for aggregation, and microwave transmission platforms.

The Red Compartida project is a public-private international partnership led by the Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) and the Office for the Promotion of Investments in Telecommunications (PROMTEL), in coordination with the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT). The project is expected to involve a total investment of over $7 billion over nine years, financed by international and local investors.

ALTÁN Redes is a new wholesale carrier supported by international investors and Mexican shareholders that won the tender process to build and operate the shared network which will support the delivery of mobile and Internet services for existing mobile operators and existing and new MVNOs.

http://www.nokia.com

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Dobson selects ADVA fibre assurance solution for Oklahoma network

ADVA Optical Networking announced that Dobson Technologies, an Oklahoma-based telecom services, transport network and IT provider, has selected the ADVA ALM fibre assurance solution, launched last October, for its state-wide optical network.

ADVA's link monitoring technology is designed to deliver precise, real-time insight into key portions of Dobson Technologies' fibre plant, which spans over 3,000 miles across Oklahoma and the Texas pan-handle. The ALM solution provides continuous performance data and will help Dobson to improve service availability for its enterprise customers.

Leveraging the ALM solution's optical demarcation points, which are designed to provide full network visibility, Dobson Technologies will be able to rapidly respond to faults on the network and deliver enhanced service assurance for customers.

The ADVA ALM technology serves to non-intrusively monitor Dobson Technologies' network, which supports 100 Gbit/s services utilising the ADVA FSP 3000 platform. Designed to operate with low power consumption, ALM works independently and creates no interference as it proactively monitors the network. This allows both transparency and avoids any impact on applications provisioned over the fibre infrastructure.

ADVA noted that the solution enables fibre links to be monitored in-service without the need to install active equipment at endpoints. In the case that a failure is detected by ALM, maintenance teams can be immediately alerted to investigate and discover whether the problem is fibre-related or due to equipment failure on the client side, helping to reduce costs for the service provider.

ADVA unveiled its ALM link monitoring solution in October 2016. Designed to change the way operators monitor fibre networks, the plug-and-play device ALM solution was claimed at the time to be the most compact and cost-efficient fibre assurance product available. ALM enables operators to pinpoint faults and avoid unnecessary repair work.

Regarding the deployment, Adam Cavazos, VP, network systems and engineering at Dobson Technologies, said, "ADVA's fibre monitoring technology… (offers) total access-link visibility… Dobson can proactively monitor its entire network, remotely pinpoint areas of concern and quickly identify and locate faults… the ALM assurance solution supports a simpler, more sustainable process for operations and maintenance…".

http://www.advaoptical.com

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Qualcomm Appoints CTO

Qualcomm appointed Dr. James H. Thompson to the additional position of chief technology officer (CTO), replacing Matt Grob, who will transition to the role of executive vice president of technology, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and continue to report to Steve Mollenkopf.  

Thompson currently servers as executive vice president of engineering, Qualcomm Technologies.  In addition to leading QCT engineering, as CTO, Thompson will align the companywide technical and product roadmaps across all business areas. He also will have oversight of Corporate R&D and Corporate Engineering, ensuring all research and development activities are coordinated across the company, and drive the development of next-generation wireless technologies.

http://www.qualcomm.com

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Verizon Adopts a New Operating Structure, Hires Hans Vestberg

Verizon appointed Hans Vestberg, former CEO of Ericsson, as executive vice president for its new Network and Technology team, where he will be responsible for further developing the architecture of Verizon’s fiber-centric networks.  Vestberg will report to Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam.

Verizon is adopting a new operating structure focused on three areas: Media and Telematics, Network and Technology, and Customer and Product Operations.

Marni Walden will serve as executive vice president for Media and Telematics, which will focus on integrating, scaling and growing Verizon’s portfolio of new businesses in digital media and telematics. The company said the combination of AOL with the assets of Yahoo will give it more than 1.3 billion digital media users and generate $7 billion in revenue. Walden’s team will be responsible for integrating these businesses and building brand and market share in this growing market. In addition, Walden will continue to lead Verizon’s integration and expansion of its telematics (connected car and fleet management) portfolio, including assets from Hughes Telematics, Fleetmatics and Telogis.

John Stratton will be executive vice president for Customer and Product Operations, which will focus on operating and growing Verizon’s established businesses, including Verizon Wireless, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, Verizon Partner Solutions, Verizon Consumer Markets and Verizon Business Markets. These businesses generate more than $120 billion in annual revenue and serve more than 120 million customers.

Lowell McAdam said, “This new structure is designed to accelerate our progress toward delivering the promise of the digital world to customers. It will give us greater organizational agility to continue to lead the market with our wireless and fiber services, scale and expand our media and telematics businesses, and maintain the leadership in network reliability and new technology that is a Verizon trademark.”

http://www.verizon.net

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A Complicated Chain of Mergers and Acquisitions

A convoluted set of interrelated mergers over the past two years has brought together players from Singapore, Irvine, San Jose, Suwanee (Georgia) and the UK, with the various companies in play including ARRIS, Avago, Avaya, Broadcom, Brocade, Extreme, Motorola Mobility, Pace and Ruckus. For customers, employees and investors in these companies, such transactions are always disruptive to some degree, while for the wider networking industry it is interesting to see how shareholder value is created or destroyed by rearranging the products and development teams between a handful of players. This piece will review the key moves in this complicated dance sequence.

Avago a big buyer and seller

Perhaps the prime mover here is Avago Technologies, which in May 2015 agreed to acquire Broadcom for approximately $37 billion in a deal involving $17 billion in cash the rest in Avago shares. As part of the deal, Avago changed its name to Broadcom. This merger was premised on the goal of building the 'world's leading' diversified communications semiconductor company. In terms of overall annual revenue, the combined company entered the space in the No.3 position, behind Intel (No.1) and Qualcomm (No.2), but ahead of Texas Instruments and NXP.

Broadcom, based in Irvine, California, was founded in 1991 by Henry Samueli and Henry T. Nicholas III, two professors from UCLA; by the time of the deal, Broadcom had about 10,000 employees worldwide and more than 10,700 U.S. and 3,700 foreign patents. Revenue in 2014 was $8.43 billion.

Avago traces its origins back to 1961, when it was established as the semiconductor division of Hewlett-Packard. In 1999, it became part of the Agilent Technologies split; in 2005 Agilent sold the division to the private equity firms of KKR and Silver Lake Partners. In August 2008, Avago completed its initial public offering and shares began trading on Nasdaq under the symbol AVGO.

Even prior to the mega transaction with Broadcom, Avago had been on as acquisition binge. In 2014, it acquired LSI for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.6 billion, but later sold off LSI's SSD division to Seagate and then its Axxia networking division to Intel. In February 2015, Avago agreed to acquire Emulex, which supplies Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity products to leading OEMS. In 2013, Emulex acquired Endace, a specialist in monitoring solutions.

In November 2016, Broadcom agreed to acquire Brocade Communications Systems for $12.75 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.5 billion, plus $0.4 billion of net debt. At the time the deal was announced, Broadcom said it was motivated by Brocade's Fibre Channel storage area network (FC SAN) switching business, but that it would divest Brocade's IP Networking business, consisting of wireless and campus networking, data centre switching and routing, and software networking solutions. This it has since done.

In February, ARRIS agreed to acquire Brocade's Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business for $800 million in cash, plus the additional cost of unvested employee stock awards, following the closing of Broadcom's acquisition of Brocade. The deal is contingent on Broadcom closing its acquisition of Brocade, as announced on November 2, 2016, which was approved by Brocade shareholders on January 26th. Broadcom presently expects to close the Brocade acquisition in its third fiscal quarter ending July 30, 2017. For ARRIS, the Ruckus deal expands its market segment into service provider WiFi and enterprise WLAN. As a side note, Brocade acquired Ruckus Wireless less than a year ago in a deal valued at approximately $1.5 billion, consisting of $6.45 in cash and 0.75 shares of Brocade common stock for each share of Ruckus common stock.

ARRIS a buyer

ARRIS began to consolidate its position as the leading supplier in cable networking five years ago by acquiring Motorola Home from Google for $2.35 billion in cash and stock. Motorola Home was a leading global supplier of digital video and IPTV hardware and software solutions for the cable, telecom, broadcast and satellite markets. Google had acquired Motorola for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, in 2012, primarily for its trove of 12,000 patents to strengthen the intellectual property domain of its Android ecosystem.

In 2015, ARRIS acquired Pace plc, another leading supplier of networking equipment for cable operators, for $2.1 billion (GBP 1.4 billion) is stock and cash.

Extreme also a buyer

Earlier this week, Extreme Networks agreed to acquire Brocade Communications Systems' data centre switching, routing, and analytics business from Broadcom for $55 million in cash, consisting of $35 million at closing and $20 million in deferred payments, as well as additional potential performance based payments to Broadcom, to be paid over a five-year term. The sale is contingent on Broadcom closing its acquisition of Brocade.

It is interesting to note that most of Brocade's data centre and routing team traces its origins to Foundry Networks, which Brocade acquired in 2008 for approximately $3 billion (the deal was amended prior to closing in November 2008). Foundry Neworks, established in 1996 by Bobby R. Johnson, gained notoriety for a spectacular IPO in 1999 during the height of the Internet bubble when its market capitalisation soared to $9 billion. Foundry was among the first to ship a Gigabit Ethernet switch.

In 2012, Brocade acquired Vyatta, a Silicon Valley-based developer of virtualised networking software. Financial terms of this deal were not disclosed. Brocade also acquired Vistapointe in 2014, a start-up based in San Ramon, California with operations in Ireland and Bangalore, India, for its cloud-based and real-time network intelligence solutions for mobile operators, on undisclosed terms. Vistapointe brought expertise in data extraction, analysis and insight generation technologies that enable mobile operators gain visibility into their mobile networks. These units presumably form part of the sale to Extreme Networks.

Extreme Networks has also made two other recent deals to fortify its position. Earlier this month, it entered into an agreement with Avaya to be the stalking horse bidder to acquire its networking business in an auction process. This deal was valued around $100 million. And in October 2016, Extreme acquired the wireless LAN business of Zebra Technology for $55 million in cash.

Brocade broken apart

One of the big outcomes from all this activity is that Brocade is being broken apart into its historical components: Fibre Channel, Ethernet switching, and the Ruckus Wireless Group. ARRIS emerges with a broadened portfolio and Extreme Networks appears to be rejuvenated. Most of all, Avago/Broadcom gains considerable leverage as the dominant supplier of several key networking components and also as a deal maker who is reshaping the industry.

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