Netia tests Nokia's Photonic Service Engine 3 super coherent tech

Polish service provider Netia conducted the first field trial of Nokia's Photonic Service Engine 3 (PSE-3) super coherent technology over a live production network. In the trial, wavelengths driven by the Nokia PSE-3 and operating at 62-68 Gbaud traversed Netia's flex-grid infrastructure in 75GHz channels. Network paths currently supporting 100G and 200G wavelengths were shown to support of greater than 300G and 500G respectively, more than doubling network capacity.

Netia's WDM backbone based on the Nokia 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) with flex-grid technology, which enables a seamless upgrade to high baud-rate wavelengths, allowing the carrier to more than double supported data rates for links of any distance. Nokia said its PSE-3 powered line cards will significantly improve fiber capacity  while lowering costs and simplifying operations.

As the largest alternative network operator in Poland with over 50,000 kilometers of fiber connecting more than 80 percent of the A and B class office buildings throughout Poland, Netia is experiencing tremendous growth in demand for both consumer offerings and MEF-certified business services.

Grzegorz Bartler, member of the board and CTO at Netia, said: "Netia continues to invest in our infrastructure to ensure our customers benefit from the most technologically advanced network in Poland. The results of this field trial mean that our backbone network, originally designed for a total capacity of 8.8 terabits-per-second, now has a proven roadmap to 29 Tbps, ensuring we can continue to keep up with the rapid growth of our business and consumer services."

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2019/04/03/nokia-and-netia-conduct-first-field-trial-of-photonic-service-engine-3-super-coherent-technology-over-live-production-network/

Nokia's PSE-3 chipset leverages probabilistic constellation shaping

Tuesday, March 06, 2018  Nokia  

Nokia unveiled its Photonic Service Engine 3 chipset featuring probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) that pushes fiber-optic performance close to the Shannon limit to fully exploit channel capacity.

PCS is a new modulation technique pioneered by Nokia Bell Labs that the company says enables maximum capacity over any distance and on any fiber - from metro to subsea - increasing capacity up to 65% over currently deployed networks while reducing power by 60%. This includes 200G rates over most terrestrial and subsea links, as 400G over most shorter distances.

The PSE-3 chipset, which is the first coherent digital signal processor to implement PCS, provides finely adjustable wavelength capacity from 100G to 600G with a single, uniform modulation format, baud rate, and channel size. This simplifies network operations and planning.

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Intel to introduce 100G Ethernet adapter

Intel announced its first Ethernet 800 Series adapter with Application Device Queues (ADQ) technology, which increases application response time predictability while reducing application latency and improving throughput.

The Intel Ethernet 800 series adapter features up to 100Gbps port speeds and is aimed at moving massive amounts of data in cloud, communications, storage and enterprise market segments.

Intel has shipped over 1.3 billion Ethernet ports to date.

https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-data-centric-launch/

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Verizon activates 5G in parts of Chicago and Minneapolis

Verizon officially activated its 5G mobile network in parts of Minneapolis and Chicago.  The launch comes a week ahead of schedule. Early customers in Chicago and Minneapolis should expect typical download speeds of 450 Mbps, with peak speeds of nearly 1 Gbps, and latency less than 30 milliseconds.

Verizon is offering the moto z3 combined with 5G moto mod as its first 5G smartphone and CPE. The company said it is on track to activate the 5G service in 30 U.S. cities this year.

“Verizon customers will be the first in the world to have the power of 5G in their hands," said Hans Vestberg, Verizon’s chairman and chief executive officer. “This is the latest in our string of 5G firsts. Verizon launched the first commercial broadband 5G service last October, Verizon 5G Home, and now we’re lighting up our 5G Ultra Wideband network in Chicago and Minneapolis, providing the world’s first commercial 5G mobile service with a 5G-enabled smartphone.”

In Chicago, 5G coverage is concentrated in areas of the West Loop and the South Loop, around landmarks like Union Station, Willis Tower, The Art Institute of Chicago, Millennium Park and The Chicago Theatre. Customers also have 5G Ultra Wideband service in the Verizon store on The Magnificent Mile and throughout The Gold Coast, Old Town and River North.

In Minneapolis, service is concentrated in the Downtown area, including Downtown West and Downtown East, as well as inside and around U.S. Bank Stadium, the site of this weekend’s NCAA men’s basketball Final Four. Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband service is also available around landmarks like the Minneapolis Convention Center, the Minneapolis Central Library, the Mill City Museum, Target Center and First Avenue venues, The Commons, areas of Elliot Park and in the Verizon store in The Mall of America.

https://www.verizon.com/about/news/customers-chicago-and-minneapolis-are-first-world-get-5g-enabled-smartphones-connected-5g

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Colt plans hyperscale data center in Osaka

Colt Data Centre Services (Colt DCS) has acquired a site in Osaka, Japan to house its first hyperscale data centre near the city. The expansion is driven by the surge in cloud service providers in Japan.

Construction of the 30MW hyperscale facility is expected to commence later this year.

The Osaka data centre will be Colt DCS' third hyperscale data centre in Japan, adding to the existing Inzai campus just east of Tokyo, which already houses two other hyperscale facilities.

"The acquisition of the site and our continued focus and investment in Japan is being driven by our hyperscale customers who are in need of large capacity requirements and require reliable and scalable solutions. We are confident that our track record of building and delivering hyperscale facilities will be able to support the influx of cloud service providers in the country as they continue to expand their operations. The Osaka site acquisition is yet another step forward for us in significantly strengthening our foothold in APAC as well as being testament that our land banking strategy remains solid."

http://www.coltdatacentres.net

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AWS to Open New Region in Indonesia

Amazon Web Services (AWS) will open an infrastructure region in Indonesia by the end of 2021 / early 2022, its ninth in Asia Pacific including Beijing, Mumbai, Ningxia, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and an upcoming region in Hong Kong SAR.

The new AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region will consist of three Availability Zones at launch.

“The cloud has the power to transform businesses, educational institutions, and entire government agencies across Indonesia, and with another AWS infrastructure region coming to Asia Pacific, we look forward to helping accelerate this transformation,” said Peter DeSantis, Vice President of Global Infrastructure and Customer Support, Amazon Web Services. “Opening an AWS Region in Indonesia will support the country’s fast-growing startup ecosystem, large Indonesian enterprises, and government agencies by helping drive more technology jobs and businesses, boosting the local economy, and enabling organizations across all verticals to lower costs, increase agility, and improve flexibility. We’re excited about AWS being a meaningful part of this journey.”

Currently, AWS provides 61 Availability Zones across 20 infrastructure regions worldwide, with another 12 Availability Zones across four AWS Regions in Bahrain, Hong Kong SAR, Italy, and South Africa expected to come online by the first half of 2020.

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure

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OPNFV Verification Program adds VNF testing

LF Networking (LFN) is expanding its OPNFV Verification Program (OVP) to include Virtual Network Function (VNF) compliance testing.

The expanded OVP, created in conjunction with the ONAP testing community, now includes publicly-available VNF compliance test tooling based on requirements developed within ONAP, as well as a Verified Labs Program and the induction of the University of New Hampshire-Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL) as the first OPNFV Verified Lab.

Initially developed to simplify validation testing of commercial NFVI/VIM products based on OPNFV, the expanded program now covers interoperability with ONAP-compliant on-boarding requirements using both Heat and TOSCA package validation. The first of its kind, OVP combines open source-based automated compliance and verification testing for multiple parts of the NFV stack specifications established by ONAP, multiple SDOs such as ETSI and GSMA, and the LF Networking End User Advisory Group (EUAG). Demonstrating the readiness and availability of commercial products based on these requirements improves time-to-market, reduces costs, and improves the overall quality of  NFVI and VNF deployments.

“Overcoming interoperability challenges has become a top industry priority as NFV and software defined networking (SDN) technologies truly power next-generation networks,”  said Heather Kirksey, vice president, Community and Ecosystem Development, the Linux Foundation. “OVP was created to address these challenges and ensure commercial NFVI and VNF products are ready for market. I am incredibly proud of the community for achieving this cross-project milestone and adding VNF testing to this community-led effort.”

OVP has also created a Verified Labs program to augment the current self-testing model, giving users the choice to test their products/services with these Verified labs or performing the testing in-house. Benefits of working with a Verified lab include access to subject matter experts, additional test infrastructure, and they enable ecosystem-wide scaling as the number of VNFs entering the market increases. This program is also overseen by the LFN Compliance and Verification Committee and passing labs receive a badge. UNH-IOL is the first lab to receive the OVP Verified Lab badge, and other labs active in the LFN communities are encouraged to submit an application.

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NBASE-T Alliance and Ethernet Alliance to merge

The NBASE-T Alliance and the Ethernet Alliance will consolidate their activities under the Ethernet Alliance.

The NBASE-T Alliance is focused on enabling the development and deployment of products that support 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet.

The Ethernet Alliance serves as the premier global repository for all things Ethernet, helping keep everyone with an interest in Ethernet aware of advancement and innovations in the technology. This agreement serves as a significant growth milestone for the Ethernet community and represents four years of collaboration between the organizations, including joint market research, member plugfests and support of the IEEE 802.3bz 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet standard development.

“Ethernet has become the world’s most popular networking technology, and the Ethernet Alliance has been busy fulfilling its mission of advancing and promoting the family of IEEE 802™ standards that will carry Ethernet forward today, tomorrow, and into the future. As the Ethernet roadmap expands, NBASE-T technologies focused on 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T have become an integral part of the industry ecosystem, and we consider this merger a natural, evolutionary step,” said Greg McSorley, Ethernet Alliance President. “The demand for faster, more reliable high-speed connectivity is exploding across many market segments. We can better meet this growing need by combining our resources, membership and expertise.”

“In just over four years, the NBASE-T Alliance member companies helped build consensus within the IEEE 802.3™ Ethernet Working Group, enabling approval of a new 2.5G/5G Ethernet standard, and deployed the technology so it is now entrenched in multiple markets well beyond our target industries. With the momentum growing stronger every day, the time is right to consolidate the strength of our members with the Ethernet Alliance, the leading voice of Ethernet technology, to ensure NBASE-T, and all Ethernet technologies, continue to best serve the needs of the market,” said Peter Jones, NBASE-T Alliance Chairman.

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UNH-IOL to serve as first OVP Verified 3rd Party Laboratory

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is the first lab to complete and receive the verification badge as the first OVP Verified Lab within the OPNFV Verification Programs.

As a verified test lab, the UNH-IOL has demonstrated a commitment to the open source community and a level of competence in the execution of testing. This announcement comes with the expansion of the programs to include testing of VNFs (virtual network functions), based on requirements defined within the ONAP project. Previously, the programs included functional testing of the NFVI platform or infrastructure, according to a set of tests agreed within the OPNFV community.

“As the ecosystem of open source software continues to grow, operators and end users are facing an increasingly complex problem in integrating and testing of those systems,” said Lincoln Lavoie, UNH-IOL Senior Engineer & Chair of the LF Networking Compliance and Verification Committee. “By creating these programs, the industry is working together to create scalable testing, taking input from end users for the program requirements and goals. The UNH-IOL is thrilled to participate in this process by offering testing services to the industry based on open and agreed test plans.”

The UNH-IOL has been working with the OPNFV and Linux Foundation since late 2016 as the host for OPNFV's Lab as a Service (LaaS) infrastructure, providing community and developer resources for the Linux Foundation's Networking Projects. The UNH-IOL is also hosting hardware for other OPNFV projects, available to developers within those projects.

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Aqua raises $62M for cloud-native security

Aqua Security, a start-up based in Tel Aviv, Israel, announced $62 million in Series C funding for its cloud-native security solutions.

Aqua’s Cloud Native Security Platform provides visibility and security automation across the entire application lifecycle, using a zero-touch approach to detect and prevent threats while simplifying regulatory compliance. Aqua has extended its platform to support serverless environments, and all major cloud and orchestration environments. Its solutions are available on demand with consumption-based pricing on the recently launched AWS Marketplace for Containers and Google Kubernetes Apps Marketplace, as well as on Azure Marketplace.

Aqua said it now has more than 100 blue-chip companies across the energy, aerospace, internet, media, travel, retail, pharmaceutical and hospitality sectors among its customers. The company also claims that its platform secures five of the world’s ten largest container production deployments.

“We are thrilled to have Insight Partners as investors to propel Aqua’s next phase of growth,” noted Dror Davidoff, CEO and co-founder of Aqua. “The adoption of cloud native technologies provides an opportunity for security to be redefined, addressing the chronic cybersecurity skills shortage through automation, and creating applications that are secure by design. With this significant investment and our focus on the needs of enterprise customers and product innovation, we can take the next step to realize our vision.”

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SK Telecom's 5G network is live with 34,000 base stations deployed

SK Telecom has activated a total of 34,000 5G base stations across Korea.

In a press conference at its headquarters in Seoul, SK Telecom marked "the beginning of the age of Hyper-Innovation with 5G".

The company's 5G network initially targets the nation's most data traffic-concentrated areas, including main areas of 85 cities nationwide (Seoul, six metropolitan cities, etc.), university districts, KTX, sports stadiums, expressways, subway lines (Seoul and Seoul Metropolitan Area) and beaches. SK Telecom is also expanding in-building coverage centered around 120 department stores, shopping malls and airports. In the second half of 2019, SK Telecom will expand 5G network coverage to subway systems nationwide, national parks and festival sites.

SK Telecom’s 5G network supports downlinks up to 2.7 Gbps.

New 5GX price plans go into effect on April 5, 2019. Four plans are offered.

• Slim offers 8GB of data (1Mbps speed after data cap) at KRW 55,000 month 
• 5GX Standard comes with 150GB of data (5Mbps after data cap) at KRW 75,000 per month.
• 5GX Prime comes with 200GB of data at KRW 95,000 per month
• 5GX Platinum comes with 300 GB of data at KRW 125,000 per month

SK Telecom said its 5G pricing structure offers the same amount of data at lower prices compared to its LTE service.

https://www.sktinsight.com/111031

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Intel Xeon processors pack up to 56 cores, add capabilities

The 2nd-Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platform will deliver an evolutionary leap in agility and scalability.

At Intel’s “Data-Centric Innovation Day” in San Francisco, the company outlined many new Xeon benchmarks and capabilities:

• Support for Intel Optane DC persistent memory, delivering up-to 36TB of system-level memory capacity when combined with traditional DRAM.
• Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 ramps up-to 4.4GHz, alongside memory subsystem enhancements with support for DDR4-2933 MT/s and 16 Gb DIMM densities.
• Built-in Intel Deep Learning Boost delivers up to 14x2 inference throughput improvement, and combined with software optimized Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit
• Intel Speed Select will enable new Xeon Scalable processors to be configured to performance settings of core counts and frequencies, effectively creating “Three CPUs in One.”
• Enhanced Intel Infrastructure Management Technologies will enable increased utilization and workload optimization across data center resources.
• New side-channel protections are directly incorporated into hardware.
• Intel Security Libraries for Data Center (Intel SecL-DC) is designed to simplify the integration and deployment of hardware-rooted Intel security technologies at cloud scale. Intel SecL-DC brings optimized programming interfaces and management tools for many Intel security technologies together in one easy-to-use set of libraries and tools compatible with cloud environments like OpenStack, Docker and Kubernetes Extensions. 
• For security-sensitive organizations, Intel engineers have worked with Lockheed Martin to deliver a new hardened virtualization platform. This Intel Select Solution for Hardened Security with Lockheed Martin is a full-stack solution, from hardware through hypervisor that features greater data confidentiality through VM memory encryption and cache isolation. It offers robust platform integrity with trusted boot all the way through to runtime, and improved availability through more deterministic Quality of Service and protections from Noisy Neighbors.
• The new Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 processors feature up to 56 cores and 12 memory channels to deliver breakthrough levels of performance with the highest Intel architecture FLOPS per rack, along with the highest DDR4 native memory bandwidth support of any Intel Xeon processor platform.
• The new Intel Xeon Platinum Processor (8200 Series) will offer up to 28 cores and 2, 4 and 8+ socket configurations.
• The Intel Xeon Gold Processor (6200 Series) is Networking Specialized (NFVi optimized) with Intel Speed Select Technology – Base Frequency. It offers up to 1.76x NFV workload perf improvement and additional flexibility to enable up to 8 high-priority cores that support virtualized workload acceleration for maximum performance and power efficiency. It scales to up to 24 cores.

https://newsroom.intel.com/news/fact-sheet-intel-unveils-new-technologies-accelerate-innovation-data-centric-world/#gs.3lgjeu

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Intel's 10nm Agilex FPGA targets embedded, network and data centers

Intel introduced its new  Intel an"Agilex" field programmable gate array (FPGA) family targetted at embedded, network and data center markets.

The Intel Agilex family combines FPGA fabric built on Intel’s 10nm process with innovative heterogeneous 3D SiP technology. This provides the capability to integrate analog, memory, custom computing, custom I/O, and Intel eASIC device tiles into a single package with the FPGA fabric.

Intel delivers a custom logic continuum with reusable IPs through a migration path from FPGA to structured ASIC. One API provides a software-friendly heterogeneous programming environment, enabling software developers to easily access the benefits of FPGA for acceleration.

Intel said the new product is the first FPGA to support Compute Express Link, a cache and memory coherent interconnect to future Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

Agilex also supports 2nd-generation HyperFlex Architecture, which offers up to 40 percent higher performance, or up to 40 percent lower total power compared with Intel Stratix 10 FPGAs. The new Agilex family is also the only FPGA supporting hardened BFLOAT16 and up to 40 teraflops of digital signal processor (DSP) performance (FP16). It also supports Peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) Gen 5.

The Agilex transceiver supports up to 112 Gbps data rates. Advanced memory support includes DDR5, HBM, and Intel Optane DC persistent memory.

“The race to solve data-centric problems requires agile and flexible solutions that can move, store and process data efficiently. Intel Agilex FPGAs deliver customized connectivity and acceleration while delivering much needed improvements in performance and power1,2 for diverse workloads," stated Dan McNamara, Intel senior vice president, Programmable Solutions Group.

https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-driving-data-centric-world-new-10nm-intel-agilex-fpga-family/#gs.3lgdg8

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West deploys Fujitsu's 1FINITY and Virtuora for DCI

West Corporation, a global provider of communication and network infrastructure services headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, has deployed Fujitsu Network Communications' 1FINITY and Virtuora platforms in a live 200G data center interconnect (DCI) network.

West chose to deploy enhanced optical transport on top of their existing network to interconnect data centers in four key metro areas: Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and Phoenix. In 2018, West provisioned high-performance 1FINITY T310 Transport blades in a 200 Gbps alien wavelength configuration, introducing greater capacity, speed, efficiency and resiliency to their existing optical network platform. West also deployed the Virtuora Network Control Solution to simplify operations for their entire network, facilitating scalability and agility to meet real-time capacity demands with an open, programmable platform.

“The disaggregated, blade-based 1FINITY transport solution is an ideal upgrade for West’s DCI network, delivering the speed and performance their clients have come to expect,” said Annie Bogue, head of sales and marketing, Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. “By pairing the 1FINITY T310 blades with our open-source, adaptable Virtuora management system, West can easily scale capacity when and where it’s needed, vastly improving the overall efficiency of their network.”

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O-RAN Open Source Community gets underway

The O-RAN Alliance and the Linux Foundation have established the O-RAN Software Community (O-RAN SC) to provide open software aligned with the O-RAN Alliance’s open architecture.

As a new open source community under the Linux Foundation, the O-RAN SC is sponsored by the O-RAN Alliance, and together they will develop open source software enabling modular, open, intelligent, efficient, and agile disaggregated radio access networks. The initial set of software projects may include: near-real-time RAN intelligent controller (nRT RIC), non-real-time RAN intelligent controller (NRT RIC), cloudification and virtualization platforms, open central unit (O-CU), open distributed unit (O-DU), and a test and integration effort to provide a working reference implementation. Working with other adjacent open source networking communities, the O-RAN SC will enable collaborative development across the full operator network stack.

“This collaboration between the O-RAN Alliance and the Linux Foundation is a tremendous accomplishment that represents the culmination of years of thoughtful innovation around the next generation of networks,” said Andre Fuetsch, Chairman of the O-RAN Alliance, and President of AT&T Labs and Chief Technology Officer at AT&T. “The launch of the O-RAN SC marks the next phase of that innovation, where the benefits of disaggregated and software-centric platforms will move out to the edge of the network. This new open source community will be critical if 5G is to reach its full potential.”

“We are really excited to see the establishment of the O-RAN Open Source Community,” said Chih-Lin I, chief scientist of China Mobile, co-chair of the O-RAN Technical Steering Committee and member of the Executive Committee of the O-RAN Alliance. “The O-RAN Alliance is aiming at building an ‘Open’ and ‘Smart’ Radio Access Network for future wireless systems. From day one, the Alliance has embraced open source as one of the most powerful means to achieve its vision. The O-RAN Open Source Community is the fruit of a yearlong extensive deliberation between the O-RAN Alliance and the Linux Foundation. We believe that the power of open source will further the momentum and accelerate the development, test, commercialization and deployment of O-RAN solutions.”

“We are excited to collaborate with O-RAN Alliance in bringing communities together to create software for this important access area of Telecommunications,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge & IOT, the Linux Foundation. “This step towards execution marks another major milestone in networking partnerships across standards and open source organizations.”

http://www.o-ran-sc.org

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George Davis leaves Qualcomm to join Intel as CFO

Intel announced the appointment of George S. Davis as executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO).

Davis, 61, joins Intel from Qualcomm Inc., where he served as executive vice president and CFO since March 2013. At Qualcomm, Davis served on the company’s executive committee and was responsible for leading the global finance organization, IT and investor relations. Prior to Qualcomm, Davis served six years as CFO for Applied Materials, with responsibility for finance, IT, strategy and corporate development, as well as government relations.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the Intel team,” Davis said. “With demand for the analysis, transmission and storage of data growing faster than ever, no company in the world is better positioned to capitalize on that opportunity than Intel. It’s an exciting time for Intel, and I’m looking forward to playing a role in the company’s transformation.”

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EXFO posts Q2 sales of US$73.9 million, up 14%

EXFO reported IFRS sales of US$73.9 million for its second quarter, ended February 28, 2019, up 14.2% from US$64.7 million in the second quarter of 2018. Second-quarter sales for 2019 included a US$7.5 million revenue contribution from Astellia, which was reduced by US$0.6 million to account for acquisition-related fair value adjustment of deferred revenue. In comparison, Astellia had generated US$1.8 million in revenue for one month in the second quarter 2018.

IFRS net earnings in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 totaled US$5.2 million, or US$0.09 per share, compared to a net loss attributable to the parent interest1 of US$4.7 million, or US$0.08 per share, in the second quarter of 2018. IFRS net earnings in the second quarter of 2019 included net expenses totaling US$3.9 million: US$1.9 million in after-tax amortization of intangible assets, US$0.5 million in stock-based compensation costs, US$0.5 million in after-tax restructuring charges, US$0.6 million for acquisition-related fair value adjustment of deferred revenue, and a foreign exchange loss of US$0.4 million.

"EXFO delivered outstanding second quarter results with strong revenue and bookings growth, profitability and cash flow generation—all encouraging signs for our T&M and SASS product families and the leverage in our operating model," said EXFO's CEO Philippe Morin.

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Vertical Systems: AT&T tops U.S. Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD

Vertical Systems Group’s 2018 U.S. Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD results are as follows (in rank order by number of fiber lit buildings): AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum Enterprise, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox, Crown Castle Fiber, Frontier, Zayo, Altice USA, and Windstream. These eleven retail and wholesale fiber providers qualify for this benchmark with 10,000 or more on-net U.S. fiber lit commercial buildings as of year-end 2018.

Additionally, thirteen companies qualify for the 2018  Challenge Tier as follows (in alphabetical order): Atlantic Broadband, Cincinnati Bell, Cleareon, Cogent, Consolidated Communications, FiberLight, FirstLight, GTT, IFN, Logix Fiber Networks, Segra, Unite Private Networks, and Uniti Fiber. These fiber providers each qualify for the 2018 Challenge Tier with between 2,000 and 9,999 U.S. fiber lit commercial buildings.

“Following a flurry of mergers and acquisitions, fiber providers focused on new buildouts in 2018 to meet customer demand for higher speed dedicated access to business services and to support 5G pilots,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal of Vertical Systems Group. “Our research shows that while the majority of large and medium size commercial buildings in the U.S. are fiber lit with one or more providers, relatively few small multi-tenant buildings are fiber connected. Cable MSOs and regional network operators have been most actively targeting fiber investment opportunities in this underserved segment.”

Fiber Provider Research Summary

• AT&T ranks #1 on the Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD for the third consecutive year.
• Frontier moves into the #8 position, up from ninth in the prior year.
• As a result, Zayo falls to #9, down from eighth position.
• Windstream enters the LEADERBOARD at #11, moving up from the Challenge Tier.
• Atlantic Broadband and GTT advance to the Challenge Tier, both moving up from the Market Player tier.
• Cincinnati Bell’s acquisition of Hawaiian Telecom, which was completed in 2018, is reflected in this analysis.
• Segra is the new brand name for the merged entity of Lumos Networks and Spirit Communications.

https://www.verticalsystems.com/2019/03/26/2018-fiber-lit-leaderboard/

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Zayo signs IaaS provider for East Coast data center

Zayo announced a major colocation contract with a global infrastructure as a service (IaaS) (IaaS) provider for space and power in a zColo East Coast data center.

The solution, which includes approximately 2,000 square feet of space and multiple hundreds of kilowatts of power, will serve as a virtual extension of one of the company’s facilities in the Southwest. The space and power will support the customer’s mission-critical processes.

“Zayo won this business because of our ability to deliver flexible and customized data center colocation solutions. In this case, our Ashburn facility will provide the customer with the scale needed for its East Coast business expansion,” said Bruce Garrison, senior vice president of Zayo’s zColo business segment. “We look forward to continuing to expand the relationship and to provide additional space and power in other key cities.”

Zayo’s zColo portfolio includes 51 data centers in more than 30 markets.

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Keysight and Qualcomm test first 5G NR data call in FDD mode

Keysight Technologies and Qualcomm announced the first 5G New Radio (NR) data call in the Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) mode.

The industry milestone was achieved using Qualcomm Technologies’ second-generation Snapdragon X55 5G modem with integrated multi-mode support and Keysight’s 5G network emulation solutions. Keysight enables device makers to validate 5G NR multi-mode (FDD and TDD) designs in both non-standalone (NSA) and stand-alone (SA) modes.

“Our close 5G collaboration with Keysight, initiated more than two years ago, has resulted in yet another great achievement. Such collaborations have accelerated our ability to power upcoming 5G launches in 2019 and enrich the lives of consumers,” said Prashant Dogra, vice president, engineering, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

“Keysight’s first-to-market 5G solutions enable OEMs using the Snapdragon X55 5G modem to speed validations of 5G devices that are used for a wide range of exciting use cases,” stated Lucas Hansen, senior director in Keysight's wireless test group. “These use cases include smartphones with download speeds of up to 7 Gbps, as well as industrial IoT, always-connected PCs and fixed wireless access applications.”

https://about.keysight.com/en/newsroom/pr/2019/01apr-nr19054.shtml

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Intel Capital invests in 14 start-ups

Intel Capital announced new investments totaling $117 million in the following 14 startups:

AI

Cloudpick Limited (Shanghai, China) is a smart retail technology provider. With proprietary computer vision, deep learning, sensor fusion and edge computing technologies, Cloudpick enables highly digitized, intelligent, cashier-free stores with grab-and-go shopping experiences. Cloudpick has collaborated with e-commerce companies, traditional retailers and payment partners worldwide to upgrade many brick-and-mortar stores’ shopping experiences.

SambaNova Systems (Palo Alto, California, U.S.) is a rapidly growing Silicon Valley-based company that is building the industry’s most advanced systems platform to run AI applications from the data center to the edge. Founded by industry pioneers and experts in systems hardware and software design from Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Stanford University, SambaNova Systems’ mission is to bring AI innovations discovered in deep research to enterprises and organizations in all industries around the world, creating AI for everyone, everywhere.

Untether AI (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is developing ultra-efficient, high-performance AI chips that will be the foundation for the next wave of innovation in AI. Untether AI has invented an entirely new type of chip architecture that is specifically designed for neural net inference by eliminating bottlenecks in data movement. This unique architecture moves data 1,000 times faster than traditional architectures, resulting in extreme performance and efficiency. The company was founded by a team of scientists, engineers and experienced entrepreneurs who have successfully brought to market more than 1 billion chips.

Zhuhai EEasy Technology Co. Ltd. (Zhuhai, China) is an AI system-on-chip (SoC) design house and total solution provider. Its offerings include AI acceleration; image and graphic processing; video encoding and decoding; and mixed-signal ULSI design capabilities. Its AI SoCs targeting video, automotive and smart devices will enter mass-production in late 2019.

Communications

Mighty Networks (Palo Alto, California, U.S.) is designed for brands and businesses to bring people together by offering community, content, online courses and subscription commerce in one place. The company is unique in serving a new breed of digitally native “creators with a purpose” selling experiences, connections and expertise to their followers – an emerging category of digital services called Experiential Commerce.

Pixeom (Santa Clara, California, U.S.) is redefining how enterprises manage hybrid cloud resources with its edge computing software platform that re-creates and orchestrates cloud functionality on-premise. It makes it easy to deploy and manage large-scale, geographically distributed infrastructure and workloads.

Polystream (Guildford, U.K.) is a deep-tech startup fundamentally changing how video games and demanding 3D applications are delivered via the cloud. Polystream’s Software Defined Imaging technology enables interactive graphics content to be streamed at unprecedented scale, with truly global reach.

Tibit Communications (Petaluma, California, U.S.) is developing next-generation devices to provide a broadband onramp to the home, office or cell site, managed virtually from the cloud to the user. Tibit replaces dedicated hardware boxes in carrier and enterprise networks with a small module connected to a standard Ethernet switch – providing significant savings of cost, power and space.

Healthcare

Medical Informatics Corp. (Houston, Texas, U.S.) is a software-based monitoring and analytics company. Its revolutionary Sickbay* platform archives, aggregates and transforms otherwise not-recorded, high-resolution waveform data across disparate devices to enable anywhere, anytime remote monitoring across the continuum of care. The same platform can then be leveraged to use machine learning and AI to deploy real-time, predictive, critical care analytics that get ahead of deterioration and risk and enable data-driven medicine and patient-centered care.

https://www.revealbio.com/Reveal Biosciences, Inc. (San Diego, California, U.S.) is creating a new generation of data-powered pathology to improve global healthcare. ImageDx, a proprietary deep-learning platform, delivers pathologists and scientists a novel class of actionable, quantitative data to accelerate research and enhance patient care.

Manufacturing

Landing AI (Palo Alto, California, U.S.) provides AI-powered SaaS solutions and corporate-level AI transformation programs to turn enterprises into AI companies. Founded by Dr. Andrew Ng, the Landing AI team enables companies in industries, including manufacturing and agriculture, to develop and execute cohesive AI strategies.

OnScale (Cupertino, California, U.S.) offers on-demand scalable engineering simulation software, empowering engineers to accelerate innovation across multiple industries, including next-generation technologies such as MEMS IoT, 5G, biomedicine and autonomous vehicles. OnScale combines powerful multiphysics solver technology, used and validated by Fortune 50 companies for over 30 years, with the speed and flexibility of cloud high-performance computing (HPC). By removing the constraints of legacy simulation tools, OnScale allows engineers to dramatically reduce cost, risk and time to market for cutting-edge technologies.

proteanTecs (Haifa, Israel) develops revolutionary Universal Chip Telemetry for electronic systems throughout their entire lifecycle, increasing their performance and reliability. By applying machine learning to novel data created by embedded agents, proteanTecs provides meaningful insights unattainable until today, leading to new levels of quality, reliability and scale.

Qolibri, Inc. (Roseville, California, U.S.) is a creative technical company developing breakthrough proprietary solutions that address problems in semiconductor subfabs. The Qolibri team has extensive expertise in semiconductor capital equipment technology and renewable energy. Qolibri technologies will change the landscape of the subfab, leading to substantially reduced chip manufacturing costs with positive environmental impact.

“Intel has driven disruption for the last 50 years, changing the way we live by making compute ubiquitous. Intel Capital is continuing that legacy of disruption with these investments,” said Wendell Brooks, Intel senior vice president and president of Intel Capital. “These companies are shifting the way we think about artificial intelligence, communications, manufacturing and health care – areas that will become increasingly essential in coming years as the linchpins of a smarter, more connected society.”

The investments extend Intel Capital’s recent strategy of taking larger, more strategic positions in portfolio startups. Each year, Intel Capital puts $300 million to $500 million into innovative companies across a wide range of emerging technologies making the impossible possible.

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