Nokia and Orange achieve 800G on 6,600km Dunant subsea cable

Orange achieved a record 800 Gbps per wavelength transmission over the 6,600 km Dunant transatlantic subsea cable using the Nokia PSE-6s super coherent optics productized in the Nokia 1830 Photonic Services Interconnect – Modular (PSI-M). 

In the trial, Orange and Nokia demonstrated error-free performance at 800G over a 6,600km link between the cable landing stations at Virginia Beach, U.S. and St Hilaire de Riez, France and at 700G over a total link distance of 7,345km from Virginia Beach to Paris. The terrestrial links consisted of 9 spans of Orange’s existing fiber network, through multiple cascaded reconfigurable optical add/drop multipliers (ROADMs), using 150GHz WDM spectrum channels.

The trial, which was conducted under real-world network conditions, validates a planned upgrade of the Orange long-haul network using Nokia’s PSE-6s super coherent optics. It demonstrates the ability to expand the capacity and spectral efficiency of existing subsea cable systems while reducing the number of coherent optics needed by 33% and lowering total power consumption compared with existing coherent optics.

The introduction of the PSE-6 super coherent capabilities across the Nokia 1830 portfolio enables high-performance, spectrally efficient transport of high-speed services across long-haul, ultra-long haul and trans-oceanic networks spanning multiple 1000s of kilometers.

Jean-Louis Le Roux, Vice President International Networks at Orange, said: “This trial demonstrates OINIS’ commitment to supporting ever-greater network scale and new high-bandwidth services across our global network, which combined with our subsea networks truly connects the whole world. We are pleased to validate Nokia’s latest generation of super coherent optics as an important enabler to these continuous network upgrades, with high spectral efficiency, sustainability and operational deployment flexibility.”

James Watt, Head of the Optical Networks Division at Nokia, said: “We are very pleased with the success of Nokia’s high-performance PSE-6s in this trial and delighted to continue to work with Orange in support of their network upgrade plans. As data volumes grow unabated worldwide, innovation in optical networks is critical to stay far ahead of the curve. The PSE-6 super-coherent optics supercharge the Nokia optical portfolio, delivering massive network scale and service reach while ensuring sustainable growth with power-efficiency.”

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Dell'Oro: North American Optical Transport Market Declined in 3Q 2023

The North American Optical Transport equipment market contracted 4 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) in 3Q 2023, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. This is in contrast to the market outside the North American region where demand improved for a third consecutive quarter, growing 6 percent Y/Y.

“The market dynamics are different in North America than other parts of the world because the supply chain and component crises resulted in a run for optical equipment,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Then when component supply improved, service providers started to receive more equipment than they needed, creating a pause in new orders and requests to move out deliveries into 2024. The market dynamics were different in other regions for varying reasons such as Covid policies slowing economic growth in some countries and a war in others. Hence, service providers in these countries did not build inventory in early 2023,” added Yu.

Additional highlights from the 3Q 2023 Optical Transport Quarterly Report:

• The worldwide Optical Transport market is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 3 percent, reaching $16 billion by 2024.
• The North American and Latin American regions declined Y/Y in 3Q 2023 due to a mixture of issues: excess inventory, worsening macro-conditions, fear of recession, and higher borrowing costs.
• Ciena, FiberHome, and Nokia each gained more than one percentage point of market share in the trailing four quarter period compared to a year ago.

https://www.delloro.com/news/north-american-optical-transport-market-declined-in-3q-2023/

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Nokia responds to AT&T's vendor selection

Following the news that AT&T awarded a $14 billion contract to Ericsson, Nokia issued a statement expressing its disappointment and assesing its next steps.

Specifically, Nokia now expects revenue from AT&T in Mobile Networks will decrease over the next 2-3 years. AT&T accounted for 5-8% of Mobile Networks net sales year-to-date in 2023. 

Nokia has previously announce plans to reduce its cost base, and these actions are expected to partially mitigate the impact of AT&T’s decision. Nokia expects Mobile Networks to remain profitable over the coming years but this decision would delay the timeline of achieving double digit operating margin by up to 2 years.

Nokia has invested heavily in the last few years to deliver market leading radio technology and a highly competitive product portfolio. This has helped it gain the most 5G market share since Q1 2022 among the top RAN suppliers, reaching 29% in Q3, excluding China (source: Dell’Oro). Nokia remains one of the few global vendors of mobile network equipment with significant scale and R&D investment capability to deliver market leading products to customers and while the company is taking action to lower its cost-base, it will protect its R&D output. The company notes that NTT DOCOMO recently selected Nokia’s O-RAN 5G network for their commercial deployment.

Nokia remains a key partner for AT&T within both its Network Infrastructure and Cloud and Network Services businesses. AT&T will also continue to buy products such as microwave radio links and femto solutions from Mobile Networks. AT&T confirmed to Nokia that while its decision was driven by reasons specific to AT&T, it believes Nokia has highly competitive products and services in Radio Access Networks (RAN) and an accomplished R&D capability.

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO of Nokia, said, “Whilst the news from AT&T is disappointing, our Mobile Networks business has made significant progress in recent years, increasing our RAN market share and technology leadership. I firmly believe we have the right strategy to create value for our shareholders into the future with opportunities to gain share, diversify our business and improve our profitability. Mobile Networks are critical to our global connected future and as I have said before the cloud computing and AI revolutions will not materialize without significant investments in networks that have vastly improved capabilities. Our customers can rest assured that we continue to invest in R&D and develop market-leading products for them.”

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/12/05/nokia-comments-on-att-vendor-plans/

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MEF packages IP Services and API portfolio

MEF announced availability of its IP Services and API Portfolio featuring a range of new and existing MEF assets for SD-WAN services, cloud access and edge computing applications.

The MEF IP Services and API Portfolio offers a suite of MEF-developed deliverables for NaaS services and solutions, including:

• IP service attributes and service definition standards
• Standardized IP service and product schemas including new IP product and service data schemas (payloads) and developer guides
• Open standard Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) business and operational APIs
• Onboarding and Interop Testing (OIT) and API certification services
• LSO community

“The MEF IP Services and API Portfolio is a culmination of years of collaboration and innovation within the MEF community,” said Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF. “We are proud to make this comprehensive portfolio available to the industry, empowering service providers to seamlessly offer NaaS services and capitalize on the rapidly growing Internet Access services market.”

IP Services Standards

MEF’s extensive library of standards is developed and approved by the world’s leading service and technology providers and based on IETF standards. These standards include IP Service Attributes, Subscriber IP Service Definitions, SOAM for IP Services, Service Activation Testing for IP Services and MEF Services Model: Information Model for IP/IP VPN. MEF standards continuously evolve to meet the latest requirements of NaaS use cases.

Standardized IP Schemas

MEF’s standardized product and service data schemas for IP services work together with the comprehensive open standard LSO APIs for both automated business and operational interactions between NaaS operators and IP services operators. MEF’s new IP broadband and DIA services product payload and accompanying MEF developer guide are available now. MEF’s IP service data schemas and developer guide will be available in January 2024.

LSO Business and Operational APIs

MEF’s extensive portfolio of LSO APIs enable IP broadband and DIA service providers to automate all aspects of their business interactions with their customers increasing their ability to participate in NaaS offerings including SD-WAN, cloud and 5G/6G services. LSO APIs are published with business requirements and use case standards, API schema and developer guide standards, and test requirement standards and are continuously iterated on a six-month cadence.

Additionally, MEF’s powerful LSO Blending Tool enables developers to blend MEF LSO APIs with MEF’s Internet Access product data schemas amplifying the value of LSO API implementations used with any MEF standardized product payload.

MEF OIT and LSO API Certification Services

MEF’s IP Services and API Portfolio includes OIT services, which enables operators to constantly test their interoperability readiness with their partners using a subscription- and cloud-based test harness service used by over 20 service providers to date. MEF OIT is highly valuable both for sellers and buyers as it dramatically shortens the onboarding process.

In addition, MEF’s LSO API Certification program, part of its MEF 3.0 Certification program which has certified over 150 companies for thousands of products and services, enables IP Broadband, DIA and IP VPN operators to prove their ability to use LSO APIs for buying and selling of their services.

LSO Community

The widespread adoption of LSO APIs, with over 40 service providers in production and an additional 100 in various stages of adoption, has fostered a thriving community of service providers leveraging MEF’s standardized IP Services and API portfolio to automate business and operations with partners. Additionally, a growing ecosystem of LSO Solution Providers is empowering Internet Access operators to harness the power of LSO APIs and LSO Internet Access product payloads to seamlessly collaborate with any LSO partner. For more insights, refer to MEF’s comprehensive State of the Industry Report published earlier this year.

https://www.mef.net/news/mef-introduces-industry-leading-ip-services-and-api-portfolio-with-standards-schemas-tools-testing-certification-for-ip-broadband-dia-and-ip-vpn-for-wholesale-and-retail/

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Nokia launches gigabit Multi-Dwelling Unit for cable operators

Nokia will add a MoCA Access solution to its Gigabit Connect portfolio, giving cable operators additional options for addressing customers in multi-dwelling units (MDUs) that are difficult to serve with fiber. 

Specifically, Nokia will resell MoCA from InCoax products as part of its Gigabit Connect solution which easily combines with Nokia’s PON OLT portfolio. The initial products offered include a one-port indoor/outdoor DPU serving up to sixteen subscribers, two models of modems that can be self-installed by the consumer, and a passive splitter/combiner to enable coexistence with legacy services. The Gigabit Connect MoCA solution can deliver a 2Gbps symmetrical subscriber experience with low latency on both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint deployments.

The solution will be managed as a single pane of glass through Nokia’s Altiplano Access Controller.

Geert Heyninck, Vice President of Broadband Networks for Fixed Networks at Nokia, said: “Solutions like MoCA, are going to play an important role in helping operators connect customers to gigabit speeds in difficult to reach buildings. The addition of MoCA to our Gigabit Connect solution enables cable operators to move to fiber faster and better serve locations that are too difficult or expensive to run with fiber. The integration also makes it easy to operate since both the FTTH and MoCA can be managed as a single network.”

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/12/05/nokia-launches-gigabit-multi-dwelling-unit-mdu-solution-for-cable-operators-0/

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Adtran cites momentum for Mosaic One SaaS

Adtran cited rapid adoption of its cloud-based, Mosaic One software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, which optimizes network operations by utilizing AI-driven algorithms.  Its three dedicated portals - Care, Operate and Promote – enable service providers to manage complex deployments, reduce costs and deliver superior services to their subscribers. What’s more, Mosaic One is vendor- and technology-neutral, providing an all-encompassing monitoring solution for FTTH, DOCSIS, DSL and fixed wireless networks across multiple vendors.

Adtran added over 300+ customers in under 18 months.

“In less than 18 months, Mosaic One has hit a huge milestone. We often talk about how it empowers service providers to maximize the value of fiber networks. But Mosaic One’s success is also due to the fact that it gives customers what they need — a service with no hidden fees and no additional charges post-deployment. Many of our new customers came to us drained by the intricate licensing and perplexing invoicing their prior vendors used. Instead, what you get with Mosaic One is one invoice, one service, one incredibly easy way to manage your entire network,” commented Robert Conger, GM of software platforms at Adtran. “Achieving 300 deployments in such a short period is impressive, but for Mosaic One, it’s just the beginning. With more service-enhancing and revenue-boosting features in the pipeline, we’ll help shape a new era of opportunity for service providers.”

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Deutsche Glasfaser awards optical contract to Ekinops

Deutsche Glasfaser (DG), a leading competitive service provider in Germany serving over 1.2 million private household, businesses and public institution customers and adding around 40,000 new homes passed per month, selected Ekinops as a single vendor. DG will deploy the Ekinops360 portfolio across all tiers of its optical transport network including the Core, Aggregation, and Central Office (street cabinet). Ekinops’ FlexRate™ 100G to 400G coherent solutions are being introduced with its advanced colorless and gridless ROADM architecture. Enhanced by Celestis NMS management system to provide flexibility, ease-of-use and the seamless support of Alien wavelength services. Ekinops ETR (Extended Temperature Range) solutions are being deployed in central offices to extend capacity as close to the customer as possible and support the deployment of 10Gbps XGS-PON access technology as standard across DG's network.

Ekinops is also providing a full suite of professional services to assist DG in optimizing its network deployment. This includes whole scope of works from site surveys to equipment installation and commissioning.

"As pioneers of fiber rollout in Germany we have always sought to employ state-of-the-art technology in our network,” commented Pascal Koster, Chief Operating Officer of Deutsche Glasfaser. "The Ekinops360 gives us the ability to streamline our operations with a single end-to-end system that meets our ambitions to be even more efficient and responsive.”  

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AT&T sets course to Open RAN with Ericsson

In what it describes as the largest deal financially in its 147 year history, Ericsson confirmed that it has been selected by AT&T to supply 5G Open Radio Access Networks products and solutions to support AT&T’s nationwide Open RAN ambitions in the U.S.

The deal is valued at approximately US$14 billion over five years.

AT&T’s Open RAN plan is for 70% of its wireless network traffic to flow across open-capable platforms by late 2026. 

AT&T said it is motivated to accelerate the commercial introduction of Open RAN equipment and open network management solutions from multiple vendors, utilizing purpose-built hardware and virtualized commercial off the shelf (COTS) hardware.

Under the contract, Ericsson will supply:

• The latest generation Ericsson Massive MIMO and remote radios that are hardware-ready for the next generation of open fronthaul technologies.
• Next generation, Ericsson RAN Compute, which was recently launched.
• Ericsson Cloud RAN solutions that will introduce the shift to Open RAN architecture with open interfaces and disaggregation to enable new partnerships in new areas of the Radio Access Networks. It will also allow us to build RAN SW in a modular way truly building a horizontal connectivity platform.
• Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform (EIAP) will provide comprehensive multi-vendor, multi technology service management and automation for the AT&T network. AT&T and Ericsson will jointly promote and utilize the open EIAP rApp Ecosystem with its marketplace and Software Development Toolkit (SDK) to accelerate rApp development and innovation for AT&T and third party software providers globally. Ericsson will utilize its leading position in Open RAN standardization to provide comprehensive support within the AT&T network for O-RAN Alliance SMO interfaces including: O1, O2 and A1 interfaces (in the non-Real-time RIC) and encapsulates the R1 interface between the non-Real-Time RIC and the rApps.

The gear will be produced at Ericsson’s recently expanded 5G Smart Factory in Lewisville, Texas, in compliance with the Build America, Buy America infrastructure laws Act.

AT&T said it is working with other suppliers, including Fujitsu, Corning, Dell Technologies, and Intel.

Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson, says: “High-performance and differentiated networks will be the foundation for the next step in digitalization. I am excited about this future and happy to see our long-term customer, AT&T, choosing Ericsson for this strategic industry shift – moving to open, cloud-based and programmable networks. Through this shift, and with open interfaces and open APIs, the industry will see new performance-based business models, creating new ways for operators to optimise and monetize the network. We are truly proud to be collaborating with AT&T in the industrialization of Open RAN and help accelerate digital transformation in the U.S.”

Chris Sambar, Executive Vice President, AT&T Network, says: “AT&T is taking the lead in open platform sourcing in our wireless network. With this collaboration, we will open up radio access networks, drive innovation, spur competition and connect more Americans with 5G and fiber. We are pleased that Ericsson shares our support for Open RAN and the possibilities this creates for American digital infrastructure.”

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Fujitsu and KDDI cite gains with multiband wavelength multiplexing

Fujitsu Limited and KDDI Research have developed a large-capacity multiband wavelength multiplexing transmission technology using installed optical fibers.

The companies say the new technology enables wavelength transmission at 5.2 times the wavelength multiplicity of current commercial optical transmission technology. To increase the transmission capacity per fiber, the two companies aimed to increase the wavelength band used from the C band to the L band (1,565 nm to 1,625 nm), the S band (1,460 nm to 1,530 nm), the U band (1,625 nm to 1,675 nm), and the O band (1,260 nm to 1,360 nm), with the aim of making it multi-band.

As part of the project, Fujitsu built a simulation model that accounts for the degradation factors of transmission performance in multiband transmission, enabling the transmission design of multiband wavelength multiplexing systems.

The development was undertaken as part of the ”Research and Development Project of the Enhanced Infrastructures for Post-5G Information and Communication Systems” commissioned by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

https://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/resources/news/press-releases/2023/1204-01.html

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IBM intros Quantum Heron processor

IBM introduced its 133-qubit "Quantum Heron", the first in a new series of utility-scale quantum processors, offering up to five-fold improvement in error reduction over its previous generation quantum designs.

The new processor powers the IBM Quantum System Two, which combines scalable cryogenic infrastructure and classical runtime servers with modular qubit control electronics. IBM's architecture combines quantum communication and computation, assisted by classical computing resources, and leverages a middleware layer to appropriately integrate quantum and classical workflows.

IBM also outlined a ten-year Quantum Development Roadmap, wherein future generations of quantum processors will gradually improve the quality of operations they can run.

By 2033, IBM expects its "Blue Jay" generation of processors will power systems capable of executing 1 billion gates across 2,000 qubits.  If achieved, this would represent a nine order-of-magnitude increase in performed gates since IBM put our first device on the cloud in 2016.

"We are firmly within the era in which quantum computers are being used as a tool to explore new frontiers of science," said Dario Gil, IBM SVP and Director of Research. "As we continue to advance how quantum systems can scale and deliver value through modular architectures, we will further increase the quality of a utility-scale quantum technology stack – and put it into the hands of our users and partners who will push the boundaries of more complex problems."

https://newsroom.ibm.com/2023-12-04-IBM-Debuts-Next-Generation-Quantum-Processor-IBM-Quantum-System-Two,-Extends-Roadmap-to-Advance-Era-of-Quantum-Utility

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Rambus debuts Quantum Safe IP for ASICs, SoCs, FPGAs

Rambus introduced a Quantum Safe Engine (QSE) for integration into hardware security elements in ASICs, SoCs and FPGAs. 

The Rambus QSE IP core uses NIST-selected quantum-resistant algorithms to protect valuable data center and government hardware against attacks emerging in the post quantum computing era.

The Rambus QSE IP is available as a standalone cryptographic core or integrated in the Rambus Quantum Safe Root of Trust IP as a comprehensive hardware security solution. It supports the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) draft standards for quantum-resistant algorithms (FIPS 203 ML-KEM and FIPS 204 ML-DSA), and provides SHA-3, SHAKE-128 and SHAKE-256 acceleration. 

“From AI, to streaming video, to email, the applications we rely on daily depend on the integrity of data and must be guarded against the growing risk of attacks enabled by quantum computers,” said Neeraj Paliwal, general manager of Silicon IP at Rambus. “The Rambus Quantum Safe Engine is another important addition to our security IP portfolio helping customers transition to Quantum Safe Cryptography starting today.”

“Quantum computers will provide individuals and organizations the exponential speed-up and compute power needed to solve some of today’s most complex problems, including the ability to decrypt current data encryption algorithms,” said Heather West, PhD, research manager of Quantum Computing Research at IDC. “Implementing quantum-resistant cryptography now is key for organizations to protect their past, current and future data from quantum computing enabled attacks.”

https://www.rambus.com/security/quantum-safe-cryptography/qse-ip-86

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Liberty Networks and Gold Data to combine subsea cables

Liberty Networks and Gold Data agreed to combine their subsea systems, GD-1 and LN-1 into a new subsea system.

The subsea cable system is designed to offer two diverse routes with the shortest latency from Mexico to the US, providing additional connectivity between the data hubs in Mexico City, Queretaro, and onward to the US as new routes. It will further connect new data hubs in Colombia and Panama to these critical data hubs.

The subsea system will be split into two segments, with the northern segment called GD-1. Liberty Networks and Gold Data will invest in and operate GD-1 together. Meanwhile, Liberty Networks will fully own the southern leg of the system. The system is expected to be up and running by the second half of 2026.

Liberty Networks operates nearly 50,000 kilometers of submarine fiber optic cable and 17,000 kilometers of terrestrial networks across Latin America.

Gold Data operates 156 PoPs, 76 data centers with a presence in 35 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"We are excited about collaborating with Gold Data on this groundbreaking project," said Ray Collins, Liberty Latin America's SVP of Infrastructure and Corporate Strategy. "The combination of GD-1 and LN-1 will deliver a subsea cable system with unparalleled capabilities. The new system will seamlessly integrate into our existing subsea meshed platform, adding new routes and materially expanding our capacity. The LN-1 system can be further expanded to complement our capacity and diversity throughout the Caribbean. This investment shows our commitment to enabling connectivity across the region and cements our position as a leading wholesale provider.”

“We are thrilled to combine forces with Liberty Networks to create a new subsea system that extends the previously announced GD-1,” said Renato A. Tradardi, Gold Data’s Chief Executive Officer. “Combined with our terrestrial investment in Mexico and offering the lowest latency route, we are setting a new standard for connectivity between Mexico and the US."

https://golddata.net/

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Buddy Bayer steps down from Windstream

Buddy Bayer is stepping down and Windstream Wholesale and Enterprise President at the end of the year to pursue another opportunity.

Windstream Chairman and CEO Paul Sunu announced the following appointments:

• Joe Scattareggia has been named president of Windstream Wholesale.   
• Mike Flannery has been named president of Windstream Enterprise.

Scattareggia and Flannery previously served as the chief revenue officers of their respective business units.vScattareggia, who joined Windstream in 2013, and Flannery, who joined in 2017, will be responsible for all sales, marketing, service delivery and customer care for their respective business units. Scattareggia will also have responsibility for field operations. Flannery will continue to oversee the Windstream Enterprise Channel Program.

www.windstream.com

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Chiplet Summit scheduled for Feb 6-8 in Santa Clara

The Chiplet Summit 2024 will be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center on February 6-8. 

The Tuesday superpanel features leading experts expressing their views on “How Can Chiplets Accelerate Generative AI?”. The Wednesday plenary has Palo Alto Electron CEO Jawad Nasrullah presenting “Developing Chips for Tomorrow: You, Me, and ChatGPT”. A Thursday session offers an annual update on generative AI applications.

The Summit also offers major company keynotes, tutorials, panels, and paper sessions on subjects ranging from optimization to industry trends. An exhibit hall has key products from industry leaders.

“Chiplet Summit will help designers meet Generative AI’s challenges,” said Chuck Sobey, Summit General Chair. “We invite everyone in the ecosystem to come learn about new technologies, discuss issues face-to-face, and set the direction for the industry.”

https://chipletsummit.com/

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H3C confirms performance of its new 800G CPO Ethernet switch

H3C completed a massive test of its co-packaged optics (CPO) enabled Ethernet switch (H3C S9827) driving traffic across 64 800G ports.

The companies said the test results demonstrate that H3C's 800G CPO silicon photonic switch series has "excellent reliability and stability in key performance indicators such as overall switch capacity, full-port 100%-line speed forwarding, and transmission latency." 

The test leveraged Spirent TestCenter 800G B2 Appliance, which offers an L1-L2 feature set combined with broad L3 protocol support over multi-rate 800G/400G/200G/100G/50G speeds, and enables testing of network switches and routers for benchmark performance and scale standards required by today's AI/ML datacenter operators. The B2 supports multi-rate interconnection with the switches via cables, optical fibers and other methods, and supports performance testing based on benchmark performance and routing switch protocol standards. 

The H3C S9827 series is an 800G data center switch based on CPO silicon photonics technology. It has a total switching capacity of up to 51.2T, and all 64 ports achieve 100%-line speed forwarding under different traffic. Each port transmission rate can reach 800Gbps. The product integrates CPO silicon photonics technology, fully meets the high throughput demand of intelligent computing network, and is suitable for AIGC cluster or data center high-performance core switching and other business scenarios.

The companies note that in actual operation, a 1% packet loss rate in Ethernet will lead to a 50% performance loss in the computing cluster.

After testing, the single-port transmission average delay of H3C 800G CPO silicon photonic switch is 1.085 microseconds, 20% lower than the previous generation product. The product uses CPO opto-electronic encapsulation technology to significantly shorten the high-frequency electrical signal interconnection distance from the switch chip to the optical module, helping to increase GPU computing efficiency by 25% within a single AIGC cluster.

"We were pleased to support H3C in verifying multiple breakthrough technology solutions for 800G Ethernet," said Andrew Liu, VP of Sales for Spirent in Greater China. "We have developed a comprehensive, end-to-end 800G testing suite that leverages decades of experience in Ethernet testing. This latest positive 800G test validating the reliability and high performance of H3C S9827, H3C's 800G CPO silicon photonic switch series, will help ensure successful deployments of this complex new technology and reliable high-speed networks to meet future demand."

Yutao Li, Vice President of Network Product Line of H3C and General Manager of Switch Product Line, said that "The 800G high-performance switch, bolstered by CPO technology, will provide higher network capacity for cutting-edge applications such as AIGC and large-scale model training, paving the way for further improvement in the scale and computing power of computing clusters. This joint test fully reflects H3C's leading technical strength in the field of digital infrastructure. In the future, H3C will also help customers from various industries to comprehensively boost Ethernet performance, fully unleashing the value of computing power."

https://www.h3c.com/

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Huawei offers OTN DWDM + Passive Optical LAN for Airports

At a meeting of Airports Council International (ACI) in Muscat, Oman, Huawei presented its design on how to build a fully-connected smart airport using OTN DWDM, fiber sensing, and Passive Optical LAN technologies.

Key elements:

• 
  Airport IP+DWDM backbone network solution: OTN DWDM enables physical isolation among multi service systems, ultra-high capacity up to 96 Tbps per fiber, supporting traffic growth in the next 10 to 15 years. In addition, this solution can support real-time intelligent fiber detection and provide the early warning for fiber abnormal status and the accurate fault location (meter-level). All this helps ensure highly-reliable data transmission, investment saving and O&M efficiency improvement.
• Airport IP+POL access network solution: For airport terminals and airfields, Huawei IP+POL point-to-multipoint passive optical network solution offers secure & reliable multi-service integrated access for various information terminals and simplifies the network architecture & cabling to reduce power consumption by 50%, reduce cables by 90% and support long-term smooth expansion for the future.
• Airport perimeter inspection solution: By using distributed optical fiber sensing and AI-enhanced algorithm, the innovative airport perimeter inspection solution can achieve zero false negatives, reduce the false positive rate by upwards of 90%, and enable meter-level accurate locating of intrusion events.

https://e.huawei.com/en/solutions/enterprise-optical-network/sensing-optix/perimeter-protection

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Dell'Oro: Cloud Service Provider Switch Sales Slow

For the first time in more than three years, spending on data center switches by Cloud Service Providers (SPs) was flat in 3Q2023, while overall global sales of data center switches was up 7%, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.

"Data center switch sales have maintained robust performance, reaching near-record levels in 3Q 2023," said Sameh Boujelbene, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group. "However, despite such a strong level of sales, the market growth started to exhibit signs of slowdown compared to previous quarters, particularly evident in the Cloud SP segment where spending remained flat compared to the year-ago period. Concurrently, spending from large enterprises surged by strong double-digits. While Cloud SPs seem to be shifting spending away from traditional front-end networks supporting general-purpose servers to focus more on Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure, the slowdown in Cloud SPs spending during the quarter is also the result of ongoing digestion of existing capacity. We anticipate this digestion will impact various segments to varying degrees and timelines, aligning with the sequence in which they got their demand and orders fulfilled. In other words, customers who received their orders early on are the first to enter a digestion cycle," added Boujelbene.

Additional highlights from the 3Q 2023 Ethernet Switch – Data Center Report:

• For the second consecutive quarter, Arista, Cisco, and HPE captured most of the revenue growth and were able to gain revenue share during the quarter.
• Geographically, sales growth was broad-based across all regions, except China which declined 12 percent.
• Further fueled by AI applications, shipments of 200 Gbps, 400 Gbps, and 800 Gbps switches constituted approximately 25 percent of the revenue and over 20 percent of the total shipments. 
• Although Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft continue to drive the majority of deployments, there was an increasing number of shipments directed toward Tier 2/3 Cloud Service Providers and Large Enterprises.

https://www.delloro.com

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Arista announces new CFO and Board changes

Arista Networks named Chantelle Breithaupt as its new CFO effective February 2024. She comes to Arista with over 25 years of global financial roles, including as senior vice president and CFO of Aspen Technology. Prior to that she had executive finance roles at Cisco Systems and across four GE businesses.

Arista Networks also announced that Andy Bechtolsheim will step down from its board of directors and as an executive officer. Bechtolsheim will become the chief architect for Arista Networks.

In addition, Ken Duda, founder and CTO, will join the board. 

Hugh Holbrook, group vice president, software engineering, will take on the role of chief development officer (CDO).

“I warmly welcome Chantelle to the team as my new business partner in 2024 as we work to achieve Arista’s ambitious goals,” said Jayshree Ullal, chairperson and CEO for Arista Networks. “I will enjoy continuing to work with Andy, Ken and Hugh as visionaries taking Arista through its next phase of growth and opportunity.”

https://www.arista.com/en/company/news/press-release/18643-pr-20231201

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Oxford Quantum Circuits raises $100M for QCaaS

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), a start-up based in the UK focused on quantum compute-as-a-service (QCaaS), announced a US$100 million funding round led the SBI Investment, a Japanese  VC fund. New investors in the round have been confirmed in addition to existing investors, Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC), Lansdowne Partners, and OTIF, acted by manager Oxford Investment Consultants (OIC).

In addition, OQC announced the public availability of OQC Toshiko, an enterprise-ready, 32-qubit quantum computing platform that will soon be offered on public clouds.

Commenting on the news, Ilana Wisby, Chief Executive Officer at OQC, said: “To solve the world’s most pressing challenges – from climate change to accelerated drug discovery – we need to put quantum computers in the hands of humanity and at the fingertips of our most brilliant minds. We’re proud to be pioneering enterprise ready quantum with our customers, partners and investors.”

Eugene Bergen President, EMEA at Equinix, said “As the world’s digital infrastructure company, Equinix continues to partner with the very best to accelerate innovation by facilitating secure, high-bandwidth access to cutting-edge technology such as quantum computing for thousands of organisations worldwide. The inclusion of OQC’s quantum computer into our global interconnection ecosystem on Platform Equinix® reinforces our dedication to fostering innovation and continues to push the boundaries of what is possible. We are thrilled by the great partnership with OQC that enables us to stay ahead in innovation to help organisations across the globe address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

“Addressing the grand challenges of tomorrow requires the seamless integration of quantum with the GPU-accelerated supercomputing of today,” said Tim Costa, director of HPC and quantum at NVIDIA. “By combining OQC Toshiko with the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip through NVIDIA CUDA Quantum, a platform for integrated quantum-classical computing, OQC can better empower businesses and researchers to make breakthroughs across industries and in critical scientific domains.”

https://oxfordquantumcircuits.com/toshiko-the-worlds-first-enterprise-ready-quantum-platform

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Dell'Oro: Party is Over for WLAN Market

Vendors depleted their backlogs of Wireless LAN (WLAN) orders faster than expected, bringing worldwide revenues down 4 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) in 3Q 2023, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.  Following an unprecedented stretch of revenue expansion, vendors are now reporting flat or declining orders from enterprises, and the slowdown is expected to last for several more quarters.

"3Q 2023 was an inflection point in the WLAN market. A large variability in vendor revenues summed to a slight market contraction," said Siân Morgan, Research Director at Dell'Oro Group.  "Cisco eked out a 3 percent Y/Y gain on a calendar quarter basis, with license revenues supporting the expansion despite a decline in the number of units shipped.

"The next few quarters are expected to be a challenge for WLAN vendors. Enterprises and system integrators must take the time to deploy the equipment they received before embarking on new projects.  In addition, the return to demand-driven conditions is expected to put downward pressure on unit prices.  Only a select few vendors can grow WLAN revenues in these market conditions," continued Morgan.

Additional highlights from the 3Q 2023 Wireless LAN Quarterly Report:

• Y/Y revenue growth varied widely from vendor to vendor, ranging from under -50 to over +50 percent.
• Price growth helped soften the decline in unit shipments, but prices for the different Wi-Fi technologies are shifting.
• More vendors recognized Wi-Fi 7 revenues, but enterprise class Wi-Fi 7 sales will not become significant until 2024. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi 6E adoption continued to climb slowly in 3Q 2023, to just over 10 percent of units shipped.
• Not all verticals declined with the market. For instance, WLAN sales to the Healthcare vertical grew Y/Y in 3Q 2023.
• WLAN sales to the major regions were flat or down, while the smaller regions grew Y/Y.
• Revenues from Public Cloud-Managed WLAN contracted Y/Y for the first time in history, although they still outperformed Premises+Private Cloud-Managed WLAN on a Y/Y basis.

https://www.delloro.com/news/party-is-over-for-wlan-market-as-revenues-contract-in-3q-2023/

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