IDC: Cloud infrastructure spending surged 47% yoy in 3Q18

Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, grew 47.2% year over year in the third quarter of 2018 (3Q18), reaching $16.8 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker.

IDC also raised its forecast for total spending (vendor revenue plus channel mark-up) on cloud IT infrastructure in 2018 to $65.2 billion with year-over-year growth of 37.2%.

"The first three quarters of 2018 were exceptional for the IT Infrastructure market across all deployment environments and the increase in IT infrastructure investments by public cloud datacenters was especially strong driven by the opening of new datacenters and infrastructure refresh in existing datacenters," said Natalya Yezhkova, research director, IT Infrastructure and Platforms. "After such a strong year we expect some slowdown in 2019 as the overall market cools down and some cloud providers work through adjustments in their supply chain. However, IDC expects the shift in IT infrastructure spending toward cloud environments will continue."

Some highlights from IDC:

• Quarterly spending on public cloud IT infrastructure has more than doubled in the past two years reaching $12.1 billion in 3Q18 and growing 56.1% year over year, while spending on private cloud infrastructure grew at half of this rate, 28.3%, reaching $4.7 billion. Since 2013, when IDC started tracking IT infrastructure deployments in different environments, public cloud has represented the majority of spending on cloud IT infrastructure and in 2018 IDC expects this share will peak at 68.8% with spending on public cloud infrastructure growing at an annual rate of 44.7%. Spending on private cloud will grow 23.3% year over year in 2018.
• In 3Q18, for the first time, quarterly vendor revenues from IT infrastructure product sales into cloud environments surpassed revenues from sales into traditional IT environments, accounting for 50.9% of the total worldwide IT infrastructure vendor revenues, up from 43.6% a year ago. However, for the full year 2018, spending on cloud IT infrastructure will remain below the 50% mark at 47.4%. Spending on all three technology segments in cloud IT environments is forecast to deliver double-digit growth in 2018. Compute platforms will be the fastest growing at 59.1%, while spending on Ethernet switches and storage platforms will grow 18.5% and 20.4%, respectively.
• The rate of growth for the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment slowed down from the first half of the year to 14.8%, which is still exceptional for this market segment. For the full year, worldwide spending on traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure is expected to grow by 12.3% as the market goes through a technology refresh cycle, which will wind down by 2019. By 2022, we expect that traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure will only represent 42.4% of total worldwide IT infrastructure spending (down from 52.6% in 2018). This share loss and the growing share of cloud environments in overall spending on IT infrastructure is common across all regions.
• All regions grew their cloud IT Infrastructure revenues by double digits in 3Q18. Revenue growth was the fastest in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) at 62.6% year over year, with China growing at an even higher rate of 88.7%. Other regions among the fastest growing in 3Q18 included Japan (48.2%), USA (44.2%), and Canada (43.4%).
• Long-term, IDC expects spending on cloud IT infrastructure to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3%, reaching $88.6 billion in 2022 and accounting for 57.6% of total IT infrastructure spend. Public cloud datacenters will account for 66.3% of this amount, growing at an 13.6% CAGR. Spending on private cloud infrastructure will grow at a CAGR of 12.6%.

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Huawei's CloudEngine 16800 data center switch boasts 768-port 400GE

Huawei unveiled its CloudEngine 16800 data center switch built for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era.

The platform has three defining characteristics making it suitable for the AI era: an embedded AI chip, the capacity for a 48-port 400GE line cards per slot,, and the capability to evolve to the autonomous driving network.

Huawei said its embedded, high-performance AI chip will apply an innovative iLossless algorithm for the auto-sensing and auto-optimization of the traffic model. It promises lower latency and higher throughput based on zero packet loss. The company estimates its optimization will increase the AI computing power from 50 percent to 100 percent compared to traditional Ethernet, while improving the data storage Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) by 30 percent. The CloudEngine 16800’s local intelligence and the centralized network analyzer FabricInsight creates a distributed AI O&M architecture capable of identifing faults -- a key goal of an autonomous driving network.

In terms of capacity, the Huawei CloudEngine 16800 data center switch boasts the industry’s highest density 48-port 400GE line card per slot, yielding an overall 768-port 400GE switching capacity. Huawei says power consumption per bit is reduced by 50% with the massive configuration. The company also claims to have overcome multiple technical challenges such as high-speed signal transmission, heat dissipation, and power supply.

http://e.huawei.com/topic/cloud-engine2019/en/index.html?ic_medium=hwdc&ic_source=ebg_banner_EEBGHQ179Q19W

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Sprint's first 5G data call using 2.5 GHz and Massive MIMO

Sprint completed the first over-the-air 5G data transmission using 2.5 GHz and Massive MIMO. The test was carried on Sprint's live commercial network in San Diego.

The field test used global 5G standards on a commercial 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) network with Sprint's 2.5 GHz spectrum, Nokia's dual-mode AirScale Massive MIMO radio, and a mobile smartphone form-factor test device powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem and antenna modules with integrated RF transceiver, RF front-end and antenna elements. The test demonstrated a seamless transition of connectivity between Sprint's 4G LTE Advanced and 5G network, while streaming YouTube videos, conducting Skype audio and video calls, and sending and receiving Instant Messages.

"This is a big step forward – Sprint 5G is now out of the lab and in the field as we prepare for our commercial launch in the first half of this year," said Dr. John Saw, Sprint's Chief Technology Officer. "We're making great progress towards giving Sprint customers the first mobile 5G experience in nine top cities with the first 5G smartphone in the U.S."

"Nokia is pleased to work on another 5G first with Sprint and Qualcomm," said Mike Murphy, Chief Technology Officer for North America, Nokia. "By using 2.5 GHz for 5G, existing sites nationwide can be re-used, with indoor coverage as well. This first standards-based call is thus a critical step towards Sprint's offering of a 5G service to its customers."

"Today's announcement marks a major milestone in 5G commercialization using sub-6 GHz spectrum, which provides wide area and high-performance connectivity," said Durga Malladi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, 4G/5G, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "We look forward to continue working with Sprint and Nokia in bringing high-capacity and multi-gigabit 5G networks to consumers in 2019."

Sprint said it is on track to launch its 5G service beginning in nine top cities in the first half of 2019. They include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.  The 5G build out is well under way with hundreds of Massive MIMO radios deployed last year.

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AWS acquires CloudEndure for cloud migration and back-up tools

Amazon Web Services has acquired CloudEndure, a start-up based in Israel that specializes in cloud migration and back-up. Financial terms were not disclosed.

CloudEndure's IT Resilience Suite for the Hybrid Cloud provides disaster recovery, continuous backup, and migration of any application from any physical, virtual, or cloud-based source to cloud infrastructure.

CloudEndure, which was established in 2012, raised over $18 million from Dell Technologies Capital, VMware, Mitsui, Infosys, and Magma Venture Partners. Founders included Ofer Gadish, Ofir Ehrlich, Gil Shai, and Leonid Feinberg.

https://www.cloudendure.com/

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Sophos acquires Avid Secure for AI-base cloud security analytics

Sophos has acquired Avid Secure, a start-up that offers an artificial intelligence-based cloud security analytics, compliance, and DevSecOps platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Avid Secure, which was founded in 2017 and is based in San Francisco with engineering operations in Gurgaon, India, uses artificial intelligence and automation to address the real-world challenges of effective cloud security including lack of workload visibility, and the constant monitoring required to stay ahead of today’s sophisticated attacks. The system provides protection in public cloud services such as AWS, Azure, and Google.

“The accelerated adoption of public cloud environments is presenting new data security challenges to organizations. With the cloud workload protection and the cloud security posture management software from Avid Secure, Sophos will expand its current capabilities in cloud security and drive leadership in this growing space,” commented Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of Products at Sophos. “We welcome the Avid Secure team to Sophos and are excited to bring their transformational technology into our portfolio, strengthening our ability to offer the best protection for our customers’ data on endpoints and networks, wherever their services are hosted.”

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Ericsson refocuses Business Support System (BSS) on current platform

Acknowledging that its Business Support System (BSS) is not performing satisfactorily, Ericsson announced a further restructuring that will result in revisions to its BSS product and contract portfolio, as well as an associated headcount reduction.

Ericsson said its launch of a next-generation BSS platform, the full-stack Revenue Manager, has not been successful and to date, the full-stack Revenue Manager has not generated any revenues. Customer demand for a full-stack pre-integrated BSS solution has not materialized, and delays in product and feature development have also made the full-stack Revenue Manager less competitive. R&D resources in BSS have been focused on full-stack Revenue Manager, causing further delays in product releases of the established platform. In addition, certain complex transformation projects experienced delays and cost overruns. Ericsson said its strategy now is to focus on its established platform, Ericsson Digital BSS, and refocusing the full-stack Revenue Manager to fulfilling existing customer commitments only.

Ericsson said the restructuring will negatively impact operating income in Q4 2018 by SEK 6.1 billion (US$690 million), mainly impacting gross margin. Out of this amount, SEK 3.1 billion (US$350 million), is treated as restructuring charges. Further restructuring charges related to the planned measures, including related headcount reductions, estimated to SEK 1.5 b. are anticipated in 2019.

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Silicon demos Active Optical Cable supporting HDMI 2.1 in 8K TV

Silicon Line GmbH announced the first active optical cables with embedded technology supporting all features of the recently released HDMI 2.1 specification.

At CES 2019 in Las Vegas, the company demonstrated its new active optical cable connecting HDMI 2.1-enabled 4K and 8K TVs.

“CES is the premier world stage for debuting the latest consumer technologies, and we are pleased to unveil what will become a common standard for connectivity with TVs, set-top boxes, video game consoles, mobile devices, virtual and augmented reality headsets and other consumer electronics,” said Silicon Line CEO Ruud van der Linden.  “Copper cabling presents many limitations for very high bandwidth applications that make it impractical for use in many applications,” van der Linden said. “Our embedded technology supports all the advanced new features of the HDMI 2.1 specification and will allow the production of thin, long, flexible optical HDMI cables at prices affordable to consumers.”

http://www.silicon-line.com

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A10 cites five major 5G Gi-LAN security design wins in 2H2018

A10 Networks announced it secured five major 5G network design wins in the second half of 2018 for its A10 Thunder Convergent Firewall Gi/SGi firewall solution, including three wins in the fourth quarter. All five operators are planning to launch their first commercial 5G services in the first quarter of 2019.

The company said it was selected by these carriers in Asia and EMEA because of the Thunder CFW’s ability to meet the massive capacity demands of 4G and 5G networks with performance and scale, comprehensive feature set, and rich automation capabilities. Capacity demands rise significantly in 5G networks due to substantial increases in concurrent sessions, extreme reliability and higher connections per second. As a result, legacy firewalls often cannot handle the traffic.

“A10 is extremely well positioned to address the security needs of mobile carriers and their 4G and 5G networks,” said A10’s CEO Lee Chen. “We secured five major 5G design wins in recent months and are working closely with numerous other leading operators around the world on their 5G security upgrades and transformation projects.”

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Liquid Telecom appoints regional CEO

Liquid Telecom has appointed Mohamed Abdel Bassit as its new Regional CEO for Middle East and West Africa (MEWA). Based in Cairo, Bassit will oversee the group’s expansion further into MEWA following the recent news that it is investing US$400m in the Egyptian market and has completed the first fibre network to stretch all the way from Cape Town to Cairo.

Bassit will also explore new market opportunities in West Africa as Liquid Telecom begins expanding its service offering into the region. He joins Liquid Telecom from Orange Group, where he served as Regional Director for voice, data and mobile services in the Middle East for the past year. He previously served as VP of operations for Gulf Bridge International, and prior to that spent 10 years as Managing Director for Middle East and North Africa at Belgacom International Carrier Services (BICS), where he helped establish the company as a leading regional voice and mobility services carrier.

Liquid Telecom to invest US$400 million in deal with Telecom Egypt

Monday, December 10, 2018  Africa, Egypt, Liquid Telecom, Telecom Egypt  

Liquid Telecom will invest 8 billion Egyptian Pounds (US$400 million) in Egypt over the next three years as part of its partnership with Telecom Egypt on network infrastructure and data centres.

Specifically, Liquid Telecom will make an initial investment of US$50 million in data centres and cloud services. Liquid Telecom plans to invest an additional US$350 million in broadband and financial inclusion initiatives, as well as high capacity data centres.

Liquid Telecom’s expanding network is almost 70,000km in length and is linked to more than 600 towns and cities in 13 countries across Africa.

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Cignal AI: Cloud and Colo operators ramp up optical transport spending

Record spending in the cloud & colo market continued in the third quarter and it is now forecast to top $1.4 billion worldwide for the year 2018 -- almost a 50% spending increase over 2017, according to the most recent Optical Customer Markets Report issued by networking equipment and component market research firm Cignal AI.

Some highlights in the 3Q18 Optical Customer Markets Report:

• Cloud & colo operators continue to be the fastest growing market in optical networking, with double-digit year-over-year growth in North America and EMEA and triple-digit growth in APAC in the third quarter.
• Ciena led equipment vendor market share for cloud & colo with over 40% share in the third quarter and over 30% share for the last 12 months combined. Huawei and Cisco tied for second place in the third quarter followed closely by a combined Infinera/Coriant.
• Despite incumbent spending growing at less than 2% year over year worldwide, incumbent spending in APAC grew 10% and represented over 35% of the total optical market in the third quarter.
• Incumbent spending growth in APAC is expected to decelerate in 2019 as double-digit growth cannot continue indefinitely for such a large market. Incumbent spending in North America is expected to continue to decline as capital spending is focused on mobility and switched backhaul deployments.
• Cable MSO optical spending continued to grow at a moderate pace into the third quarter, led by double-digit growth in North America to support fiber deep architectures.

“The slowdown in cloud & colo spending during 2017 ended with a return to record growth in 2018,” said Scott Wilkinson, Lead Analyst for Optical Hardware at Cignal AI. “While incumbent operator spending is still dominant, especially in Asia, cloud & colo spending growth is becoming more influential on the market.”

Cignal AI’s Optical Customer Markets Report is issued quarterly and quantifies optical equipment sales to five key customer markets – incumbent, wholesale, cable MSO, cloud and colo, and enterprise and government. The current report includes results through 3Q18 including detailed equipment vendor market share for sales to cloud operators. Regional forecasts based on expected spending trends by customer market are also included.

http://www.cignal.ai

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AT&T and Nokia collaborate on open RAN platform

by James E. Carroll

AT&T and Nokia are collaborating on an open software platform under the ORAN Alliance to open up access to 5G radio access networks (RANs). The goal is faster, more flexible service deployments and programmability within a rapidly-evolvable RAN.  The ORAN Alliance aims to enable a multi-vendor open ecosystem of interoperable components for the disaggregated RAN.

AT&T said it is commencing development of a software platform for the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), to enable the creation of open source software that is aligned with the O-RAN target architecture. AT&T and Nokia are co-creating the platform code to accelerate the deployment of open source software for the 5G RAN.

“We’re delighted to work with Nokia on co-creating an open source implementation of the RIC platform to accelerate innovations and interoperability in the RAN,” said Mazin Gilbert, vice president of advanced technology and systems at AT&T Labs. “We continue to look for opportunities to drive open platforms and open interfaces in the community."

“Nokia is a strong proponent of RAN network openness and has been active in numerous open source communities, contributing code and defining open interface specifications,” said Mike Murphy, CTO for North America, Nokia. “We are excited to be partnering with AT&T to co-create RIC software and share with the open-source community to foster further collaboration and innovation.”

Some highlights:

• The RIC platform will provide a set of functions and interfaces that allow for increased optimizations through policy-driven closed loop automation 
• The platform will be architected in the form of an extensible real-time microservices framework coupled with a radio information database and key open control plane interfaces for mobility management, spectrum management, load balancing, radio resource control and RAN slicing to name a few.  
• Implementations of these functions, sourced from multiple vendors, could be mixed and matched on a single network infrastructure. 

The platform will also enable interfaces to third-party applications for enhanced mobility functions such as cross layer optimization and machine learning inferences.

AT&T also plans to increase its engagement in Akraino Edge Stack, a Linux Foundation project focused on building production ready cloud infrastructure for edge deployment in open source. In particular, AT&T has also signed a multiyear co- development agreement with Nokia to further expand Akraino Edge Stack capabilities supporting the needs of the RIC and other edge cloud platform deployments.

O-RAN approves architecture, sets WGs, elects AT&T's Fuetsch as chair

Sunday, July 08, 2018    

The O-RAN Alliance has approved its overall O-RAN architecture plan and established an initial set of seven working groups to drive the work forward. These are:

WG1: Use Cases & Overall Architecture
WG2: Radio Intelligent Controller (RIC) (non-Real Time) & A1 Interface
WG3: RIC (near-Real Time) & E2 Interface
WG4: Open Fronthaul (FH) Interface
WG5: Stack Reference Design and F1/V1/E1/X2
WG6: Cloudification and orchestration
WG7: White Box Hardware

At its recent meeting at Mobile World Congress Shanghai, the O-RAN Alliance also elected Andre Fuetsch, president of AT&T Labs, as chair of the Board. In addition, Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Strategy & Technology Innovation at Deutsche Telekom, was appointed as Operations Officer; and Bharti Airtel, China Telecom, KT, Singtel, SK telecom, Telefonica, and Telstra were approved as new Board members. This expands the number of Board Directors to 12.

Akraino Edge Stack advances as LF project

Monday, August 20, 2018  Linux Foundation  

The Akraino Edge Stack project, which promises new levels of flexibility to scale edge cloud services quickly, has moved from formation into execution as a project hosted by The Linux Foundation.  The project originated inside AT&T.

New members of the Akraino project include Arm, AT&T, Dell EMC, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, inwinSTACK, Juniper Networks, Nokia, Qualcomm, Radisys, Red Hat, and Wind River.

Akraino Edge Stack seed code will be opened up to the community this week based on AT&T’s seed code, (the Network Cloud blueprint,) contributed to The Linux Foundation.

“Since forming earlier this year, the Akraino Edge Stack project has generated strong industry support and is now well-positioned to create blueprints optimized for various edge use cases,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking and Orchestration, The Linux Foundation. “We are pleased to welcome leading members with a broad swath of edge expertise and resources to collaborate on improving the state of open source edge software.”

“We welcome the new members to the Akraino Edge Stack project. As a community, we can expand the development of next gen zero-touch edge cloud infrastructure for carrier and enterprise networks, and foster a new ecosystem of applications that demand high performance, ultra-low latency and blazing speed,” said Mazin Gilbert, vice president of Advanced Technology & Systems, AT&T. “Embracing open interfaces and collaboration with edge computing will expedite new solutions and innovations for 5G services.”

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Amazon DocumentDB brings MongoDB compatibility

Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced Amazon DocumentDB, a fast, scalable, highly available, and fully managed document database service that supports MongoDB workloads.

The implementation allows developers to reuse existing MongoDB application code, drivers, and tools. This enables AWS customers to migrate their on-premises or Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) MongoDB databases to Amazon DocumentDB.

“While other companies have taken the same emulation approach we have to providing a MongoDB compatible service, nobody has built the unique, distributed, fault-tolerant, highly scalable, self-healing storage system that AWS has to work seamlessly with MongoDB,” said Shawn Bice, Vice President, Non-Relational Databases at AWS. “To meet developers’ needs, we looked at multiple different approaches to supporting MongoDB workloads and concluded that the best way to improve the customer experience was to build a new purpose-built document database from the ground up, while supporting the same MongoDB APIs that our customers currently use and like. This effort took more than two years of development, and we’re excited to make this available to our customers today.”

https://aws.amazon.com/documentd

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MaxLinear partners with Intel on 10G DOCSIS 3.1 home gateways

MaxLinear is working with Intel on the home gateway designs supporting 10 Gigabit Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1 (FDX) cable services.

Specifically, MaxLinear is currently developing a new front-end SoC for these platforms based on its patented Full-Spectrum Capture (FSC) technology that includes diagnostic and spectrum management capabilities. The front-end will include high-speed connectivity to Intel’s next-generation gateway SoC. Intel’s SoC will offer powerful computing and networking performance and is architected for a wide range of WAN, LAN and WLAN use cases to help MSOs achieve optimal performance and improve Quality of Service (QoS).

MaxLinear said its IC, along with Intel’s next-generation gateway SoC, will be highly optimized to provide the greatest level of integration while maintaining system design flexibility to support future evolution of implementations. The modular nature of this solution ensures a simple, non-disruptive, path to potential future DOCSIS standards. Samples of the MaxLinear chips and reference designs are expected in the second half of 2019. Mass production is targeted for 2020.

“10 Gigabit and symmetrical performance are the next wave of services needed in broadband and FDX is a significant step forward for home connectivity,” said Will Torgerson, Vice President & General Manager of the MaxLinear Broadband Group.

“The growing number of devices, large amounts of data and immersive experiences in the home are going to require 10 Gigabit connectivity that deliver faster speeds and more capacity,” said WK Tan, Vice President and General Manager, Intel’s Connected Home Division. “That is why Intel, the cable industry, and companies such as MaxLinear, are working together to deliver cutting-edge 10 Gigabit technologies to power tomorrow’s ultra-connected homes.”

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T-Mobile US posts best Q4 -- total net additions of 2.4 Million

T-Mobile US reported the following preliminary customer results.

Preliminary Fourth Quarter 2018 Customer Highlights:

• 2.4 million total net additions - best quarter ever
• 1.4 million branded postpaid net additions - best Q4 ever
• 1.0 million branded postpaid phone net additions - best Q4 in 4 years
• Lowest ever Q4 branded postpaid phone churn of 0.99%, down 19 basis points year-over-year
• 135,000 branded prepaid net additions
• 79.7 million customers in total at year-end 2018

Preliminary Full-Year 2018 Customer Highlights:

• 7.0 million total net additions - accelerated year-over-year
• 4.5 million branded postpaid net additions - best in 3 years
• 3.1 million branded postpaid phone net additions - accelerated year-over-year
• 460,000 branded prepaid net additions

“The T-Mobile team delivered our best customer results ever in Q4 2018 and we did it in a competitive climate while working hard to complete our merger with Sprint,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “That's 23 quarters in a row where more than 1 million customers have chosen T-Mobile - along with a postpaid phone churn result that's below 1%. These customer results speak volumes about our company, our network and our brand!"

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/t-mobile-customer-results-q4-2018

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Mitsubishi Electric develops Ultra-Wideband GaN amp for base stations

Mitsubishi Electric introduced the first ultra-wideband digitally controlled gallium nitride (GaN) amplifier.

The new device, which is compatible with a range of sub-6GHz bands focused on 5G mobile communication systems, offers a power efficiency rating of above 40%. The company says the amplifier will reduce the power consumption of mobile base stations.

Key features:

• Mitsubishi Electric’s novel ultra-wideband digitally controlled GaN amplifier uses an advanced load modulation circuit with two parallel GaN transistors. The circuit expands the bandwidth of load modulation, a key factor for the amplifier’s high-efficiency operation, for wideband (1.4–4.8GHz) operation. The wide-band operation of amplifier supports several frequency bands.
• Digitally controlled input signals for amplifier realize high-efficiency load modulation of above 40% over 110% of the fractional bandwidth. 

http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2019/0110.html

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Wi-Fi 6 certification program coming in Q3 2019

The Wi-Fi Alliance will launch a "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6" program  in 3Q19 to ensure devices based on IEEE 802.11ax technology meet industry agreed standards for interoperability and security.

Wi-Fi 6 benefits include higher data rates, increased network capacity, improved performance in congested environments, and improved power efficiency:

• Uplink and downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA): increases network efficiency and lowers latency for high demand environments
• Multi-user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO): allows more data to be transferred at once and enables an access point to transmit to a larger number of concurrent clients at once
• Transmit beamforming: enables higher data rates at a given range resulting in greater network capacity
• 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation mode (1024-QAM): increases throughput in Wi-Fi devices by encoding more data in the same amount of spectrum
• Target wake time (TWT): significantly improves battery life in Wi-Fi devices, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices

“Wi-Fi 6 delivers features to satisfy users’ evolving connectivity needs and to enable more efficiency in the expanding places where users rely on Wi-Fi,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance. “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 continues a nearly 20-year history of providing standards-based, interoperability testing to ensure Wi-Fi devices meet expectations for quality and interoperability.”

https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-certified-6

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Gemalto integrates eSIM into LTE-M IoT module for AT&T

Gemalto has integrated its embedded SIM (eSIM) for AT&T into its Cinterion LTE-M IoT module;

The new solution streamlines development for OEMs and reduces the cost and complexity of IoT deployment by eliminating the need for SIM card integration after manufacturing.

eSIMs also help maintain the strongest security levels with continuous security updates for the long life of IoT solutions. Samples of the new module are available with volume shipping to follow shortly.

“The increasing adoption of eSIM technology marks a significant transformation in wireless technology that is driving innovation and improved security across the whole lifecycle of devices, said Andreas Haegele, SVP IoT Products, Gemalto. “The Cinterion LTE-M Module with embedded SIM technology benefits mobile operators and OEMs alike with enhanced flexibility and seamless connectivity for the IoT.”

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Lexar intros first 1TB SD card

Lexar announced its Professional 633x SDXC™ UHS-I card with 1 terabyte (1TB) of memory.

The Class 10 card offers read speeds of up to 633x (95MB/s).

“Almost fifteen years ago, Lexar announced a 1GB SD™ card. Today, we are excited to announce 1TB of storage capacity in the same convenient form factor. As consumers continue to demand greater storage for their cameras, the combination of high-speed performance with a 1TB option now offers a solution for content creators who shoot large volumes of high-resolution images and 4K video,” said Joey Lopez, Senior Marketing Manager.

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Comcast offers AI-powered home security from Cujo

Comcast launched a new artificial-intelligence-powered service that monitors, blocks and informs customers of online threats to connected devices, and provides seamless digital protection for those devices when connected to their home network's Xfinity Advanced Gateway.

The new Xfinity xFi Advanced Security service is powered by Cujo AI, a start-up based in Mountain View, California. The platform uses AI and machine learning technology to monitor and analyze WiFi traffic in the home, and will automatically block identified suspicious activity in real time.

“As the digital world gets more complex, we wanted to make it simple and easy for our customers to protect their home networks. That’s why we developed xFi Advanced Security,” said Fraser Stirling, Senior Vice President of Digital Home, Devices and AI, Comcast Cable. “We want to give customers digital peace of mind for the devices they already own and the confidence to expand and evolve their connected homes knowing that every new camera, voice-assisted speaker or smart thermostat they add will be protected.”

The service is available for $5.99 per month, and is also available as part of a package in some markets.

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Reuters: Huawei linked to companies in Iran, Syria

A new report from Reuters alleges that corporate filings and documents from Iran and Syria suggest that Huawei is linked to Skycom Tech Co Ltd and shell company Canicula Holdings Ltd.

The report suggests that high-level Huawei executives controlled both companies, undermining the claim that Huawei was not directly involved in business transactions in violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Reuters reports that the findings could bear on the pending legal case involving Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-iran-exclusive/exclusive-new-documents-link-huawei-to-suspected-front-companies-in-iran-syria-idUSKCN1P21MH

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