Sparkle announces BlueMed subsea cable - up to 240 Tbps

Sparkle announced plans for a massive subsea cable along the west coast of Italy, linking Genoa and Palermo.

BlueMed will be a multi-fiber cable spanning 1,000 kilometers and with a design capacity of 240 Tbps. It will cross the Tyrrhenian Sea connecting Sparkle’s Sicily Hub open data center in Palermo, which serves eighteen international cables, with Genoa’s new open landing station, directly connected to Milan’s rich digital ecosystem. BlueMed will also include multiple branches within the Tyrrhenian Sea and is set to support further extensions southbound of Sicily.

With a capacity up to 240 Tbps and about 1,000 km long, BlueMed will provide advanced connectivity between Middle East, Africa, Asia and the European mainland hubs with up to 50% latency reduction than existing terrestrial cables connecting Sicily with Milan.

BlueMed is expected to enter service in 2020.

Sparkle also noted that its new open landing station in Genoa is set to become the alternative priority access for other upcoming submarine cables to Europe.

“The investment on the deployment of BlueMed and of the landing station in Genoa represents the first phase of a wider plan aimed at consolidating Sparkle’s leadership in the Mediterranean basin through the extension and enhancement of its regional backbone”, says Mario Di Mauro, CEO of Sparkle.

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Telstra broadens its Global Media Network

Telstra Broadcast Services is expanding the reach of its Global Media Network (GMN) by adding new partners in the Americas and Europe.

Telstra’s GMN is a media contribution and distribution network that enables the delivery of live, linear and file-based media content worldwide, helping sports and entertainment companies reach viewers and sports fans in Asia and around the world. The GMN utilises Telstra’s global infrastructure including fibre cable networks, data centres and cloud platforms, combined with the networks, media assets and broadcast operations of partners.

The expansion brings together Telstra’s GMN with its first Latin American partner,

New partners include Gold Data, one of Latin Americas's leading telecommunications providers, Zayo Group, a major provider of American and global communications infrastructure, and Norkring, a division of Telenor that provides broadcast and connectivity services across the Nordic region.

The new partners join a growing Telstra GMN partner alliance that includes The Switch, AT+T, TDF Group, NEP Connect, MTI Teleport Munchen, GlobalConnect, Nexion, Softbank, PCCW and China Unicom.

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Samsung Electronics' 5nm EUV tech is ready for sampling

Samsung Electronics confirmed that its 5-nanometer (nm) FinFET process technology is complete in its development and ready for customers’ samples.

Compared to 7nm, Samsung’s 5nm FinFET process technology provides up to a 25 percent increase in logic area efficiency with 20 percent lower power consumption or 10 percent higher performance as a result of process improvement to enable us to have more innovative standard cell architecture.

In addition to power performance area (PPA) improvements from 7nm to 5nm, customers can fully leverage Samsung's highly sophisticated EUV technology. Like its predecessor, 5nm uses EUV lithography in metal layer patterning and reduces mask layers while providing better fidelity.

Another key benefit of 5nm is that we can reuse all the 7nm intellectual property (IP) to 5nm. Thereby 7nm customers' transitioning to 5nm will greatly benefit from reduced migration costs, pre-verified design ecosystem, and consequently, shorten their 5nm product development.

“In successful completion of our 5nm development, we’ve proven our capabilities in EUV-based nodes,” said Charlie Bae, Executive Vice President of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics. “In response to customers' surging demand for advanced process technologies to differentiate their next-generation products, we continue our commitment to accelerating the volume production of EUV-based technologies.”

• In October 2018, Samsung announced the readiness and its initial production of 7nm process, its first process node with EUV lithography technology. The company has provided commercial samples of the industry’s first EUV-based new products and has started mass production of 7nm process early this year.

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David Chen of Applied Optoelectronics (AOI) discusses on-board optics

David Chen of AOI explains how Cobo provides a nice single platform for a very flexible integration path from 400G, 800G to 1.6T Modules at OFC in March 2019.

https://youtu.be/jBjEzU07FFc

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AT&T sells its minority stake in Hulu

AT&T sold its minority stake in Hulu back to the streaming video joint venture. The transaction valued Hulu at $15 billion, with AT&T’s 9.5% interest valued at $1.43 billion.

AT&T will use proceeds from this transaction, along with additional planned sales of non-core assets, to reduce its debt.

“We thank AT&T for their support and investment over the past two years and look forward to collaboration in the future. WarnerMedia will remain a valued partner to Hulu for years to come as we offer customers the best of TV, live and on demand, all in one place,” said Hulu CEO Randy Freer.

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HPE and Nutanix enter global partnership for hybrid cloud

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Nutanix have formed a global partnership to deliver an integrated hybrid cloud as a Service (aaS) solution to the market.

The partnership combines Nutanix’s Enterprise Cloud OS software including its built-in, free AHV hypervisor, delivered through HPE GreenLake to provide a fully HPE-managed hybrid cloud.

As part of the deal, Nutanix will enable its channel partners to directly sell HPE servers combined with Nutanix’s Enterprise Cloud OS software.

“Our customers tell us that it’s their applications that matter most. Our partnership with HPE will provide Nutanix customers with another choice to make their infrastructure invisible so they can focus on business-critical apps, not the underlying technology,” said Dheeraj Pandey, founder, CEO and chairman of Nutanix. “We are delighted to partner with HPE for the benefit of enterprises looking for the right hybrid cloud solution for their business.”

https://www.nutanix.com/documents/datasheets/ds-nutanix-hpe.pdf

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Keysight continues to refine its 5G Conformance Toolset

Keysight Technologies'5G Conformance Toolset now supports additional validated Global Certification Forum (GCF) and PTCRB protocol, as well as radio frequency (RF) conformance test cases, for both 5G new radio (NR) non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) mode, as reaffirmed at the recent GCF meeting.

Keysight said its 5G Conformance Toolset was used to submit 5G NR non-standalone RF test cases – targeting spurious emission testing in the sub-6Ghz frequency range (FR1) – to GCF. Early access to a comprehensive set of test cases on a common platform enables the mobile ecosystem to validate the performance of new 5G designs.

“This achievement confirms Keysight’s continued 5G conformance test case leadership in GCF and PTCRB and enables designers to confidently evolve with the latest 5G NR specifications,” said Kailash Narayanan, vice president and general manager of Keysight's wireless test group. “As 5G NR NSA and SA deployments are progressing in parallel, we’re excited to play a foundational role in accelerating 5G mobile device certification for both modes of operation, addressing global requirements.”

Keysight’s 5G Conformance Toolset forms part of Keysight's suite of 5G network emulation solutions that leverages the company’s UXM 5G Wireless Test Platform to address device development workflow from early design to acceptance and manufacturing. These compact solutions support the device certification process and scale to facilitate mobile device verification, as well as certification across RF, radio resource management (RRM) and protocol. Mobile operators and their ecosystems use Keysight's 5G network emulation solutions to validate new devices across sub-6GHz and mmWave frequency bands.
https://about.keysight.com/en/newsroom/pr/2019/15apr-nr19060.shtml

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Palo Alto Networks appoints Lorraine Twohill and Sir John Key to Board

Palo Alto Networks announced the appointment of Lorraine Twohill, chief marketing officer at Google, and the Right Honorable Sir John Key, former member of Parliament and prime minister of New Zealand, to the company's board of directors.

Lorraine Twohill currently leads global marketing for all of Google's products and services. She is responsible for managing the company's brand and bringing Google's products to life for billions of users every day. Previously, she ran marketing at Google for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and helped build the company's European business and operations. Prior to joining Google, Lorraine held various positions, including head of marketing at European travel site Opodo and general manager Northern Europe for the Irish Tourist Board. In 2018, she was named the Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year, using her platform to advocate for greater representation of women in the advertising industry.

Sir John will bring to the board extensive experience in foreign affairs, investment banking and finance. He was a member of Parliament for Helensville in New Zealand until April 2017 and served as prime minister of New Zealand from November 2008 to December 2016. Prior to his political career, Sir John spent nearly 20 years in international finance, primarily for Bankers Trust of New Zealand and Merrill Lynch in Singapore, London and Sydney.

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Southern Cross signs Alcatel Submarine Networks

Southern Cross Cable Limited awarded a contract to Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) to supply the Southern Cross NEXT submarine cable, based on an Open Cable architecture. The Southern Cross NEXT submarine cable is a state-of-the-art 4 fibre pair undersea route utilising an open cable design and enhancing the existing Southern Cross eco-system. The system will also provide full fibre connectivity to Auckland, New Zealand, and will incorporate Branching Units (BU) and OADM technology for connections to Fiji, Tokelau and Kiribati.

The US$350 million Southern Cross NEXT project will be the largest capacity, lowest latency link between the U.S. West coast and Sydney and Auckland, providing Australia and New Zealand, the largest capacity markets in the South Pacific region, with a powerful solution.

The solution includes ASN’s submarine WSS ROADM units, the latest generation of repeaters and will offer high performance and powering resilience, enabling over 72 Tbps transmission capacity. The Open Cable system is also designed to be compatible with future generations of submarine line terminal equipped with Probabilistic Shaping technology.

Laurie Miller, President and CEO of Southern Cross Cables, said the contract is an important milestone for the project which will be completed in 2021. 

“Since the initial phases in 2016, interest in the project has grown significantly,” he said. “The Southern Cross team has worked tirelessly alongside ASN to design a high capacity system on the optimum marine route between Sydney and Los Angeles, and this contract shows that the hard work has paid off.”

“A number of critical milestones have already been achieved prior to contract signing, with the Marine Survey completed in 2017, the completion of the Sydney BMH and bore landing facilities in 2018, along with landing arrangements in Los Angeles, and Auckland,” said Miller. “These milestones and the efforts of the SX and ASN teams have us on track to target completion of the system in the second half of 2021.”

Telstra acquires capacity and 25% stake in Southern Cross Cable

Wednesday, January 02, 2019    

Telstra will acquire a 25 percent stake in Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) and substantial capacity on both its existing network and the new Southern Cross NEXT subsea cable.

Existing stakeholders in SCCN include Spark NZ (50%), Singtel-Optus (40%) and Verizon Business (10%).

SCCN owns and operates the trans-Pacific Southern Cross Cable and has initiated work on the Southern Cross NEXT cable, which will be a high capacity express route, providing data-centre connectivity between Sydney, Auckland, and Los Angeles and is scheduled for completion by end-2020. Southern Cross NEXT is expected to cost around US$300 million and is designed to carry 72 Terabits of traffic.
https://www.southerncrosscables.com

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KT officially launches its 5G network

On April 11, KT officially launched its nationwide commercial 5G network in South Korea. The nationwide service primarily covers the country's most populated areas, including the capital Seoul and its surrounding metropolitan area, six other metropolitan cities, most of all 85 major cities, 70 large shopping malls and discount stores and 464 college campuses.

Ericsson provided the 5G new Radio (NR) hardware and software to cover KT's 3.5 GHz Non-Standalone (NAA) network.

"KT has been the top global leader in 5G commercialization, not to mention it successfully showcased the world's FIRST trial 5G services at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in February last year," Chairman Hwang said in a note to employers. "We will become the number one operator of the next-generation intelligent platform, delivering the first and best 5G network services throughout South Korea."

KT is offering unlimited data plans without a speed cap. KT's 5G Super Plans come in three packages: Basic (80,000 won per month) with 5GB of tethering, Special (100,000 won per month) with 50 GB of tethering, and Premium (130,000 won per month) with 100GB of tethering. Each plan offers unlimited roaming services in 185 countries. Customers can receive a 25 percent discount to join any of these Super Plans on a 2-year contract and an extra 25 percent off by signing up with a family member. Light data users can subscribe to 5G slim, which caps speed at 1Mbps after 8GB of data for 55,000 won per month.

https://corp.kt.com/eng/html/promote/news/report_detail.html?rows=10&page=1&datNo=14719

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China Mobile, Huawei, and Baidu demo 5G Stand-Alone

China Mobile, Huawei, and Baidu showcased a 5G stand-alone technology delivering 8K video conferencing. At an event in Beijing, 8K live videos were collected, processed, and broadcast through the 5G SA architecture. These videos were also recorded with 8K cameras in real time and sent back to the 5G SA core network through 5G gNodeBs established by China Mobile in Beijing. After being quickly encoded and decoded by Baidu servers on the same network segment, the videos were sent back to the conference hotel for the 8K live video broadcast. The 5G network uses the 5G Vertical LAN technology to build a dedicated LAN where cameras, networks, and Baidu cloud servers are co-deployed.

For this showcase, Huawei implemented the 5G Vertical LAN technology through the 3GPP-defined 5G SA network and core network function upgrades. Baidu applies this technology for flexible configuration and remote management of 8K cameras within a 5G vertical LAN.

Huawei describes 5G Vertical LAN technology as one of the most promising technologies defined in 3GPP R16.

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Construction on track for Japan-Guam-Australia South Cable System

RTI Connectivity Pte. Ltd. (RTI)  reported that construction of the Japan-Guam-Australia South Cable System (JGA South) is on schedule and will be commercially available by the end of the year.

JGA South has an initial design capacity of 36 terabits per second (Tbps), enabling carrier-neutral data centres in Sydney to connect to RTI’s combined cable landing station / neutral data centre in Piti, Guam. From Guam, JGA South connects seamlessly to key cities with neutral data centres including Los Angeles, California, USA, Tokyo, Japan, and Hong Kong, SAR, over the Southeast Asia-United States Cable System (SEA-US), JGA North and the Hong Kong Guam Cable System (HK-G), respectively.

JGA South will also connect to the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, making it the first new cable ever to land on the east coast of Australia, outside of Sydney.

http://www.rticable.com/others/JGA-S%20Ready%20for%20Subsea%20Installation%208%20Apr%202019.pdf

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Ekinops: Talks over Alcatel Submarine Networks discontinued

EKINOPS confirmed that discussions with Nokia regarding its possible acquisition of Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) did not reach an agreement. The discussion have now been discontinued.

Ekinops, which is based in France, supplies optical transport solutions for metro, regional, and long-haul applications. The company also supplies physical and virtualized deployment options for layer 2 and layer 3 network functions under its OneAccess brand.

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SpaceX successfully launches Arabsat 6A

SpaceX's Falcon-Heavy rocket successfully launched Arabsat 6A satellite, a high-capacity telecommunications satellite that will deliver television, radio, Internet, and mobile communications to customers in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

Arabsat 6A is the largest and most powerful commercial satellite Lockheed Martin has ever produced. Arabsat 6A provides advanced Ka-spot beam communications services and Ku and Ka-band coverages in addition to other frequency bands. It will be located at Arabsat exclusive orbital position 30.5, supporting Arabsat competitiveness, as the first satellite operator in the region, in respect to its capabilities and satellite broadcasting services.

 Arabsat-6A is part of the two-satellite Arabsat-6G program for Arabsat and is the second of Lockheed Martin's modernized LM 2100 series satellites to complete assembly. The other satellite in the Arabsat 6G program, Hellas Sat 4/SaudiGeoSat-1, recently completed assembly and was also shipped to Sunnyvale in November of 2017 for testing.

"Arabsat-6A and its companion satellite, Hellas Sat 4/SaudiGeoSat-1 are the most advanced commercial communications satellites we've ever built," said Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of Commercial Civil Space for Lockheed Martin. "The modernized LM 2100 that these satellites are built on is packed with new innovations, including solar arrays that are 30 percent lighter and 50 percent more powerful, upgraded flight software and more efficient propulsion capabilities resulting in longer maneuver life. Those improvements will deliver greater precision, performance and value in orbit."

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President Trump's comments on 5G

At a press event at the White House on Friday, President Trump made the following remarks regarding 5G:

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you very much, everybody.  Big day.  Very important day.  We have a lot of important days at our White House.  And this is, to me, the future.

I want to thank you all for being here to discuss a critical issue for our country’s future: winning the race to be the world’s leading provider of 5G cellular communications networks.  It’s all about 5G now.  We were at 4G, and everybody was saying, “We have to get 4G.”  And then they said, before that, “We have to get 3G.”  And now we have to get 5G, and 5G is a big deal.  And that’s going to be there for a while.  And I guess, at some point, we’ll be talking to you about number 6.  What do you think?  (Laughter.)  Do you think that’s true, Ajit?

But, right now, we want to be the leader in this.  We’re the leader in almost everything else. (continues)

Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman, comments (in part): 

Today, 5G is a success story — an American success story.  Well, how are we getting the job done?  As the lead agency on 5G, the FCC is pursuing a three-part strategy called the 5G FAST Plan.  First, we’re freeing up spectrum, the invisible airwaves that carry wireless traffic.  We finished our first 5G spectrum auction in January, and we’re holding a second, right now, that has already generated almost $2 billion in bids.

Second, we’re making it easier to install wireless infrastructure.  5G will rely heavily on a web of small antennas.  But when I came into office, regulations designed for tall towers threatened to strangle our 5G future in red tape.  We have eliminated these rules, because infrastructure the size of a pizza box shouldn’t have to jump through the same regulatory hoops as a 200-foot cell tower.

And third, we’ve taken action to encourage the deployment of optical fiber.  That is because 5G isn’t just about wireless.  We’ll also need strong fiber networks to carry 5G traffic once it goes from the air to the ground.  And we’ve done a lot to make that happen, including ending heavy-handed regulations imposed by the prior administration.  (continues)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-united-states-5g-deployment/

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CyrusOne raises $200M through sale of GDS shares

CyrusOne sold approximately 5.7 million American depository shares of GDS Holdings Limited for a total purchase price of approximately $200 million.

CyrusOne will continue to hold approximately 2.3 million ADSs, valued at approximately $90 million based on the GDS closing price on April 11, with the remaining shares being subject to a six-month lock up.

“GDS has created substantial value for its shareholders over the last 18 months, in turn allowing us to recycle capital and generate significant cash proceeds from the sale of shares, while maintaining a position that approximates our original investment,” said Wojtaszek. “This transaction replaces a meaningful portion of our equity capital requirements for the year, with the proceeds being deployed to fund attractive, profitable growth opportunities. William and his team have been fantastic partners, and the nearly 20 megawatts of leases we signed last year with Chinese hyperscale companies was a direct result of our relationship with GDS. As two of the fastest-growing data center companies, we look forward to continuing to work together to capitalize on the strong underlying secular demand trends and meet the needs of our customers in the two biggest economies in the world.”

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NTT Com opens first data center in the Netherlands

NTT Communications inaugurated its “Amsterdam 1 Data Center” (AMS1), its first in the Netherlands. The facility is managed trough e-shelter, a subsidiary of NTT Com and one of the leading data center providers in Europe.
Rupprecht Rittweger commented, “As a market leader in Europe we are continuously expanding our business with our market entry in Amsterdam and ongoing developments such as London and Madrid. Our customers are integral to our continued growth and we have successfully secured anchor customers for our AMS1 facility.”

AMS1 offers flexible and secure premium colocation services with scalable, carrier- neutral capacity of up to 16,000 sqm IT space and 40 MW IT load once fully developed.

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The P4 project is now under the ONF

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is now hosting the P4 Language Consortium, which the organization dedicated to the use and improvement of the P4 language.

P4 was designed to be target-independent (i.e. a program written in P4 could be compiled, without modification, to run on a variety of targets, such as ASICs, FPGAs, CPUs, NPUs, and GPUs), and protocol-independent (i.e. a P4 program can describe existing standard protocols, or be used to specify innovative, new, customized forwarding behaviors). P4 can be used for both programmable and fixed-function devices alike. For example, it is used to accurately capture the switch pipeline behavior under the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) APIs, used by the SONiC open-source switch OS. P4 is also used by the ONF Stratum project to describe forwarding behavior across a variety of fixed and programmable devices.

ONF will now host all P4 activities and working groups moving forward. The ONF will bring the P4 work under its umbrella of operator-led open source SDN projects, and, as with all ONF projects, the ONF will aim to strategically align P4 activities with the Linux Foundation to advance our shared mission of promoting open source as a tool for transformation and innovation.  The P4 project will continue to operate as before with minimal disruption while benefiting from strategic alignment with ONF and from ONF’s operational infrastructure and expertise.

“The entire ONF team is extremely pleased to be joining with the P4 community to grow our combined ecosystem.  We see great synergy between all the ONF projects and P4, and our Stratum and COMAC projects are already making use of P4 in innovative ways.  More closely aligning our activities will be of benefit to both communities, and we expect P4 to play a pivotal role as we continue to pursue the broader Next-Generation SDN agenda,” said Guru Parulkar, executive director and board member for the Open Networking Foundation.

“P4.org helped grow the fledgling P4 language into the de-facto industry standard way to describe how switches, routers and NICs process packets. The synergies with ONF are clear: Both organizations develop community-owned open-source software for networking. It’s time for P4.org to be part of a larger, more established organization that can keep it open, independent and steadily growing for many more years to come,” said Nick McKeown, Stanford Professor and co-founder and board member of the ONF and P4.org.

http://www.opennetworking.org

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Deutsche Telekom reaches 20 million broadband lines at up to 250 Mbps

Deutsche Telekom is now serving 20 million residential and business broadband lines at up to 250 Mbps. Lines to over 1.5 million households and business locations have been added in the past 4 weeks alone. Some 75,000 street cabinets have been fitted with super vectoring technology.

“20 million households and businesses are now able to #takepart and benefit from our super vectoring build-out," says Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “To achieve that figure we have fitted at least one line card into over 75,000 street cabinets within 15 months. We’re building broadband for millions.”

Using other technologies, Deutsche Telekom has sped up lines of a further 105,000 households to up to 100 Mbps. The total number of households equipped to order a speed of 100 Mbps or faster has now reached 28 million.

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Bell Canada declines to buy spectrum in 600 MHz auction

The Government of Canada completed its auction of 600 MHz spectrum.

In total, 104 licences were awarded to nine Canadian companies, including 40 licences to regional providers, covering the entire country. Regional providers more than doubled their share of low-band spectrum, strengthening their ability to offer competitive services to all Canadians. In addition to improving competition, the results of this auction will improve our country's robust networks and support the deployment of current and next-generation technologies.

Bell Canada did not acquire any licenses in the auction. The company noted that it already has spectrum assets in the low, mid and high frequency bands in both urban and rural locations. Specifically, Bell holds spectrum in the 700, 850, 1900, AWS-1, AWS-3, 2500, 3500 MHz and 24 GHz bands. The previously announced shutdown of its CDMA network on April 30 also enables Bell to "re-farm" additional low band spectrum in the 850 MHz band for 5G services.

"We know that Canadians want more choice, lower prices and better service. Through this process, we have strengthened wireless competition, which will drive prices down and improve coverage. It is clear that the big winners in this auction will be Canadians in both urban and rural areas," stated Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

Highlights:

• 600 MHz spectrum carries signals over long distances and penetrates structures better than higher-frequency bands, making it well-suited to deliver services in both urban and rural settings.
• The auction started March 12, 2019, with 12 Canadian bidders qualified to participate.
• 70 MHz of spectrum divided in blocks of 10 MHz was available in each service area, including 30 MHz set aside for regional providers in each area.
• The 600 MHz auction raised $3.47 billion, which will be remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, administered by the Receiver General of Canada.
• As with the previous 700 MHz and 2500 MHz spectrum auctions, the Government of Canada successfully employed a comprehensive multistep bidding process that included rigorous security protocols to ensure the integrity of the auction.

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