Zayo separates its European operations

Zayo unveiled plans to carve out its European business as a separate legal company.

Zayo Europe, now headed by newly-appointed CEO, Colman Deegan, already operates a largely autonomous, mostly-owned fiber infrastructure network across eight Western European countries. Zayo Europe will maintain key employee hubs in London, Paris, Stuttgart, and Sofia. Following the separation, Zayo Europe will have a new board of directors, including Jens Schulte-Bockum as chairman of the board. Schulte-Bockum is the former CEO of Vodafone Germany and Group COO of MTN Group. 

As a standalone business, Zayo Europe will be better positioned to achieve growth objectives across the Western European markets in which it operates. Zayo and Zayo Europe will remain under the same ownership group and offer network services globally through formal contracts. 

“The transition of our European business into an independent entity marks a pivotal moment in Zayo Group’s strategic journey as we look to maximize our potential across the continent,” said Steve Smith, CEO at Zayo. “Under the experienced leadership of Colman Deegan, our shared owners will continue to invest in Zayo Europe and position the organization for accelerated growth and momentum in the European market.”

“This strategic move will allow us to tailor our services and solutions to the needs of our European customers. As an independent company, we will have the agility to innovate faster, enhance our customer service, and deepen our commitment to the local markets,” said Colman Deegan, CEO of Zayo Europe. “This is an exciting new chapter for us, and we are committed to leveraging this opportunity to deliver even greater value to our customers and investors.”

Zayo’s business that manages the global network needs of customers outside of Zayo’s core North American and European networks will also become a standalone entity with a separate management team that will continue to support North American and European customers’ international network expansions.

https://www.zayo.com/newsroom/zayo-group-to-accelerate-growth-in-north-america-and-europe-through-carve-out-of-strategic-businesses/

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Tech Update: DigiCert on the Post-Quantum Threat

 There's growing awareness of the post-quantum threat to cybersecurity and NIST is expected to deliver recommendations soon. Avesta Hojjati, VP of Engineering from DigiCert, provides an update:

- The potential risk quantum computers pose to existing security protocols and algorithms, which could be broken in a matter of hours or weeks once a stable and powerful enough quantum computer is developed.

- The importance of incorporating security into the design cycle of networking equipment, following the "security by design" recommendation, to protect against quantum threats.

- The introduction of post-quantum crypto, a new set of cryptographic algorithms being developed to secure devices against quantum computers, despite the complexities and limitations of these devices and use cases. 

https://youtu.be/P84MnWSeX5U

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Arista's Q1 sales rise 16% yoy to $1.571 billion

Arista Networks $1.571 billion, an increase of 2.0% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, and an increase of 16.3% from the first quarter of 2023. GAAP gross margin was 63.7%, compared to GAAP gross margin of 64.9% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 59.5% in the first quarter of 2023. Non-GAAP net income was $637.7 million, or $1.99 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $452.5 million, or $1.43 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2023.

“Arista is off to a strong start to 2024 with solid first quarter results,” said Jayshree Ullal, Chairperson and CEO of Arista Networks. “As we get ready to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our IPO in June, I am pleased with our progress in the Arista 2.0 journey as seen in breakthrough innovations, customer traction and building our next generation leaders.”

https://investors.arista.com/Home/default.aspx

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Tesla deploys Private 5G in Giga Berlin

Tesla posted a video about use of private 5G at Gigafactory Berlin -- its first deployment of the technology.

The private 5G network extends fast connectivity across the site, including the production floor as well as the outbound lots where newly manufactured vehicles can receive over-the-air software updates.

https://x.com/gigafactories/status/1787874862201012706?s=61&t=KdPY9XFEk_VcB1Pe-YD8VA

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Niobium raises seed funding for accelerator chip

 Niobium, a start-up based in Dayton, Ohio, announced $5.5 million in seed fundraising for its development of a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) hardware accelerator for Zero Trust  cryptography hardware. 

Niobium is a spin-out from Galois, a consultant group leading advanced cryptography and privacy research and development. The company's fully integrated custom silicon for FHE is a PCIe card based on Niobium's FHE System on a Chip (SoC) that can be inserted into any existing cloud server to accelerate the performance of FHE software solutions by up to four orders of magnitude while keeping data completely private and confidential and eliminating the possibility that encrypted data could be stolen at the moment of processing. The company will demonstrate the solution for customers and begin pilots starting in Q4 2024.

Niobium will leverage this new funding to develop commercial applications for FHE acceleration, including healthcare and pharmaceutical research, financial fraud detection, blockchain public ledgers, digital advertising, and other use cases where sharing and analyzing data while maintaining complete privacy is paramount. Niobium also plans to grow its software engineering team, expand existing IP protection, and continue to optimize its FHE hardware products.

https://niobiummicrosystems.com

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Australia's Optus appoints Rue as next CEO as Singtel sets new governance model

Stephen Rue, who is currently CEO of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN),has been appointed CEO of Optus with effect from November 2024. 

Stephen joined NBN as CFO in 2014 before becoming CEO in 2018. In his decade at NBN, he led the nation’s broadband rollout to completion, connecting over 8 million Australian homes and businesses with fast and secure broadband access. 

The CEO appointment coincides with the introduction of a new governance model that is in line with the Singtel Group’s move in 2022 to adopt a decentralised operating company-driven structure to empower its businesses and leverage commercial synergies and capabilities to drive growth.

Moving forward, the Optus CEO and executives will report to the Optus Board and Stephen will join the Board and report to the Chairman. The Board and executives will work together to reset strategy and rebuild customer trust in the Optus brand. Members of the Optus Board include Paul O’Sullivan (Chair), Yuen Kuan Moon, John Arthur, Lim Cheng Cheng and Michael Venter.

Stephen Rue said, “I’m honoured and excited to be given the opportunity to lead Optus, a company that has strived to serve Australians for over two decades. Optus’ continuous investments in critical infrastructure through the years has resulted in an extensive 5G network that is being strengthened in regional Australia. My job will be to take care of Optus’ customers, people and business and to provide strong competition and choice. I look forward to accelerating the transformation at Optus so fellow Australians continue to have the choice of a strong alternative telecoms provider and the country as a whole can harness the power of digital connectivity to drive economic participation and social inclusion.” 

Singtel Group CEO, Yuen Kuan Moon said, “Optus has been part of the Singtel stable for two decades and remains a strategic long-term commitment. We are extremely excited to have Stephen, with his deep understanding of the industry and strong operational experience to take Optus forward. In today’s uncertain economic environment, businesses need greater independence and agility to better navigate the market and we believe the new governance model will set the Optus management up for success and help Optus restore and cement its position as a leading player in the Australian telecommunications market.” 

https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2024/05/stephen-rue-appointed-optus-ceo-under-new-governance-model

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin steps down as CEO of Optus

Monday, November 20, 2023    

Optus Chief Executive Officer Ms Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has tendered her resignation.  The announcement comes in the wake of an Australia-wide blackout across the Optus mobile and landline networks for most of Wednesday, November 8.“On Friday I had the opportunity to appear before the Senate to expand on the cause of the network outage and how Optus recovered and responded. I was also able to communicate Optus’ commitment to restore trust and...

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Optus suffers widespread outage across Australia 

Wednesday, November 08, 2023    

Optus experienced an Australia-wide blackout across its mobile and landline networks for most of Wednesday, November 8.  Service has now been restored.The company said the problem was a network fault, but did not elaborate.The outage impacted 10 million customers across the country.  The Australian government has launched an investigati...

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Astera Labs posts revenue of $65 million, up 269% yoy

Astera Labs reported Q1 revenue of $65.3 million, up 29% sequentially and up 269% year-over-year. GAAP gross margin was 77.4%. Non-GAAP net income was $14.3 million.

“Astera Labs started the year strong, achieving record revenue in the first quarter, driven by the accelerating deployment of AI infrastructure,” said Jitendra Mohan, Astera Labs’ Chief Executive Officer. “As hyperscalers embark on a significant transformation of their data centers to support AI applications with increased capital investment, we're witnessing the emergence of a multi-year growth cycle. Our Intelligent Connectivity Platform, comprising of the COSMOS software suite and semiconductor-based PCIe, Ethernet, and CXL solutions, is uniquely positioned to support this growth and is foundational to deploying AI infrastructure at scale. In the first quarter, we further extended our connectivity platform and started sampling our third generation of Aries Retimers with support for PCIe 6.x and the industry’s first PCIe/CXL Smart Cable Modules for Active Electrical Cable applications to enable multi-rack GPU clustering.”

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Toshiba and PacketLight demo QKD over DWDM

PacketLight Networks and Toshiba Digital Solutions demonstrated quantum key distribution (QKD) over DWDM.

 The demonstration, which featured the integration of Toshiba’s QKD solution with PacketLight’s OTN encrypted transport solutions, was led by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) of Japan at the Sapporo Snow Festival and the Okinawa testbeds respectively held in February.

PacketLight and Toshiba teams validated the compatibility of quantum communication systems with optical networking infrastructure through a detailed series of successful evaluations that delivered QKD alongside a high number of conventional DWDM data signals, and demonstrated quantum secure data transmission with QKD encryption.

The validation was conducted over two types of QKD networks in Japan: a long-haul link in Okinawa and a multiplexed QKD link in Sapporo. 

Toshiba’s long-haul QKD system in Okinawa utilized PacketLight’s PL-4000M Muxponder to transmit two 200G wavelengths over a 74-km link with the Quantum channel running over 1550 nm. The link performance was measured using a 100G tester, showing 100% throughput and low latency, in compliance with RFC2544 standard.

Toshiba’s multiplexed QKD system in Sapporo utilized PacketLight’s PL-4000M Muxponder to transmit a 400G wavelength, with the Quantum channel running over 1310 nm.

PacketLight and Toshiba demonstrate that QKD-secured signals can share the same space as classical data transmissions on the same fiber network, and show how QKD technology can be easily deployed on today’s existing networks without the need for a separate fiber. Using QKD on existing fiber networks provides significant cost savings and increases deployment speed as it removes the need to use dedicated fiber for QKD transmission. 

"We are thrilled that the trial with PacketLight was successful,” said Shinya Murai, Senior Fellow, QKD Business Development Office, Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation. “Toshiba has been at the forefront of quantum computing technology since 1999. We’ve achieved a series of world firsts in quantum technology deployment, developing quantum-secure and future-proof network communications infrastructures that can protect data from any threat – even those posed by quantum computers. This trial has verified that our technology work when connected to PacketLight's equipment, making it accessible to a broader customer base. We will continue to work together with our partners to provide solutions for quantum safe communications."

"The integration of Toshiba's QKD technology with PacketLight's DWDM/OTN devices paves the way for enhanced secure data transmission," said Koby Reshef, CEO of PacketLight. "We take pride in our involvement in this cooperation and eagerly anticipate the market’s response to the new opportunities it presents."

 

https://www.global.toshiba/ww/company/digitalsolution.html

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DZS to acquire NetComm Wireless from Casa Systems

DZS agreed to acquire NetComm Wireless Pty Ltd. (NetComm), an Australian supplier of access systems that operates as a subsidiary of Casa Systems. NetComm has approximately 50 active communications service provider (CSP) and enterprise customers in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Financial terms were not disclosed.

NetComm’s Product Portfolio:

• Fiber Extension: Delivers fiber-equivalent gigabit broadband speeds leveraging Gfast technology over copper and coaxial cable
• Fixed Wireless Access (FWA): Provides fiber-equivalent gigabit broadband via 4G/5G millimeter wave technology
• Home Broadband: Enables WiFi 6/6E/7 in-home coverage at gigabit broadband speeds
• Industrial IoT: Delivers networking connectivity leveraging 4G/5G wireless and WiFi technologies

Among active NetComm customers are numerous large scale CSPs such as UScellular (the fourth-largest full-service wireless carrier in the United States), Bell Canada (Canada’s largest telecom company), Vodafone (one of the world’s largest telecom operators), Telstra (Australia’s largest telecom company), Aussie Broadband (Australia’s fourth-largest ISP) and More Telecom (fast-growing Australian ISP), all of which have been previously disclosed.

“NetComm’s cutting-edge fixed and mobile subscriber access technologies and marquee customers spanning Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe will bolster DZS’ broadband networking and cloud software portfolio,” said Steve Collins, CEO, NetComm. “Getting to know Charlie, his team and the DZS products and customers has assured us that the combination of technology, culture, customers, suppliers and employees is an ideal fit to continue the innovation and product excellence NetComm has cultivated over the last 40 years.”

• In 2019, Casa Systems acquired 100% of the equity shares in NetComm in a deal valued at A$161 million.
• In April, citing "a significant decline in revenue and profits due in large part to industry-wide downward capital investment and procurement trends in the cable and telco markets," Casa Systems filed  voluntary petitions for debt relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. 

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Anetac emerges from stealth with Identity and Security Platform

Anetac, a start-up based in Los Altos, California, emerged from stealth to unveil its Dynamic Identity and Security Platform for protecting companies from blind spots of service accounts in hybrid environments. The company also announced a funding investment totaling $16 million.

Anetac says its Dynamic Identity and Security Platform addresses the problem of unmonitored or poorly monitored service accounts, tokens, API, and Access Keys. According to Anetac research data, service accounts outnumber user accounts by 30-45 times. Unlike static scanning tools, Anetac’s solution offers real-time streaming and visibility into service account access chains, protocols, security hygiene, privilege escalations, and indicators of attack and compromise, enabling security teams to quickly identify and remediate vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them.

Highlights

• Real-time streaming visibility of non-human and shared-use service accounts reducing blind spots and improving security hygiene - in a recent retail organization’s deployment, we discovered that 20% of provisioned accounts had never been used, 55% of all accounts were disabled, 30% had passwords over a year old, and hundreds of passwords  that were over 5 years old
• Mapping of access chains illuminating complex chains between service accounts, critical resources, business applications, and processes
• Automated behavioral analysis combined with time-series data detecting unusual activity and expediting discovery and incident response time 
• Dynamically reducing attack surface by continuously mapping and reinforcing the organizations' security posture 

“This is a problem for every organization, in every industry. In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, we must acknowledge that the soft underbelly of any organization lies in its ability to monitor and secure dynamic and ever-changing environments with real-time security measures. It’s imperative to recognize that virtually every breach over the past decade has been exploited via service accounts,” said Tim Eades, CEO and co-founder of Anetac. “It’s staggering to discover the extent of poor security hygiene amongst service accounts. With our new platform, available today, we will proactively solve the disconnect of static scanning tools with an innovative, streaming approach that dynamically addresses identity problems and improves organizations’ security posture.”

The funding round was led by Liberty Global with support from Shield Capital and GP Ventures.

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Lumentum posts flat revenues and it looks to cloud data center optics

 Lumentum reported revenue of $366.5 million for its fiscal third quarter ended March 30, 2024, with GAAP net loss of $127.0 million, or $1.88 per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income for the fiscal third quarter of 2024 was $19.6 million, or $0.29 per diluted share.  For comparison, net revenue for the fiscal second quarter of 2024 was $366.8 million, with GAAP net loss of $99.1 million, or $1.47 per diluted share. Net revenue for the fiscal third quarter of 2023 was $383.4 million, with GAAP net loss of $39.3 million, or $0.57 per diluted share.

“Lumentum is well-positioned to capitalize on surging cloud data center demand driven by the exponentially increasing requirements of artificial intelligence,” said Alan Lowe, President and CEO. “We are making significant strides in developing new products and customer programs, and expanding production capacity to capitalize on exciting opportunities that we expect will meaningfully increase calendar 2025 revenue and beyond.”

https://investor.lumentum.com/quarterly-results/default.aspx

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EKINOPS signs optical distribution deal with EUVIC of Poland

EKINOPS announced a distribution partnership with EUVIC, which offers a range of ICT, security and IP communications technologies for its home market of Poland.

Through this partnership, EUVIC can now offer the Ekinops360 portfolio of open and fully interoperable optical transport solutions including Core, Aggregation, and Central Office (street cabinet). The portfolio is further enhanced by the Celestis NMS management system to provide flexibility, ease-of-use and fast deployment. Ekinops proven expertise in high capacity transmission over simple fiber will help customers across Poland to optimize their operational expenditure (OPEX)  while significantly increase the capacity of their links.

Commenting on this partnership, Andrzej Kudra, Vice President of EUVIC said: "Service providers are constantly assessing their network capacity to stay ahead of the competition in this rapidly changing digital ecosystem. With the market-proven Ekinops360 optical transport solutions and Ekinops' team of experts on hand, we are confident that we can help our customers modernize their networks."  

"Our partnership with EUVIC marks yet another milestone for our growth in Eastern Europe. Ekinops' strong expertise in optical transport solutions enables EUVIC to efficiently address the technical and budgetary needs of its customer base," added Frank Dedobbeleer, Chief Revenue Officer, EMEA & APAC at Ekinops. "We are also excited to work with EUVIC in supporting its customers to achieve market differentiation through our dynamic edge and optical transport solutions."

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Adtran reports Q1 revenue of $226 million

Adtran reported Q1 revenue of $226.2 million, down from $324 million for the same period last year.  Non-GAAP net loss attributable to the company for the first quarter of 2024 was $1.7 million. Non-GAAP diluted loss per share attributable to the Company for the first quarter was $0.02.

ADTRAN Holdings’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Stanton stated, "First quarter revenue and profitability came in as expected, with the weakness still impacting our results. However, we were pleased with the continued momentum in our customer win rate which was bolstered by the ongoing expansion of our Mosaic One platform. As we continued to execute on our business efficiency program, we were able to reduce inventory and significantly improve our operating cashflow while maintaining our diligence in gaining market share during this pivotal time in our industry. We believe that as markets return to normal, our continued focus on these measures, will lead to sustainable margin expansions and shareholder value creation in the mid-term.”

https://investors.adtran.com/overview/default.aspx

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Meta to build $800 million data center in Alabama

Meta plans to build an $800 million data center in Alabama’s capital city.

The new 715,000-square-foot, AI-optimized data center will be built off Interstate 65 in Montgomery, across from a Hyundai automotive assembly plant.

The Montgomery data center, reflecting Meta’s latest design, will become its 24th data hub and the 20th in the United States. Once operational, the facility will be LEED Gold certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. It will be supported by 100% renewable energy and reach net zero emissions. The new facility is expected online by the end of 2026.

“We are thrilled to announce our newest data center will be located in Montgomery. The city — and our specific location — offers great access to infrastructure and renewable energy, a strong pull of talent and most importantly, an amazing set of community partners,” said Brad Davis, director of community and economic development at Meta. “We look forward to having a strong partnership for years to come.”

In 2021, Meta opened a data center in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

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Microsoft boosts RAN slicing with AI-assisted app service assurance

 Microsoft has developed a radio resource scheduler that fulfills throughput and latency SLAs for individual apps operating over a cellular network. 

Microsoft's system organizes applications with similar SLA requests into network slices. It utilizes traditional schedulers that optimize base station throughput by creating resource schedules for each slice to meet the requirements of each application. In this model, applications convey their network needs to the operator by specifying minimum throughput and maximum latency. Our system, acting on behalf of the operator, ensures these SLAs are met across the shared wireless medium by calculating and assigning the necessary PRBs (Physical Resource Blocks) to each slice.

The systems is able to decouple the network model and the control policy by formulating SLA-compliant bandwidth allocation as a model predictive control (MPC) problem. 

Microsoft says MPC is great at solving sequential decision-making problems over a moving look-ahead horizon. It decouples a controller, which solves a classical optimization problem, from a predictor, which explicitly models uncertainty in the environment.

Here is a Microsoft blog: 

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-ran-slicing-solutions-discover-ai-assisted-application-service-assurance-capabilities/

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IDC: Slower Growth for Global Telecommunications Services

Worldwide spending on Telecom Services and Pay TV Services reached $1,509 billion in 2023, an increase of 2.1% over 2022, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Telecom Services Tracker. IDC expects worldwide spending on Telecom and Pay TV services will increase by 1.4% in 2024 and reach a total of $1,530 billion.

The five-year outlook for the global connectivity services market remains positive, albeit slightly less optimistic than the previous forecast. Key central banks in the U.S. and Europe have repeatedly postponed decisions to decrease reference interest rates, impacting the potential for a more robust economic recovery. Consequently, the market environment is expected to remain relatively unfavorable for several more years. 

Some highlights

Global Market Slowdown: In the latter half of 2023, the global market growth rate decreased, falling about one percentage point below IDC's earlier forecasts.

Factors in the Americas:

• Economic growth was slower than anticipated.
• High inflation levels persisted.
• Market saturation hindered development.
• These factors combined created a challenging market environment.

Market in EMEA:

• Despite facing similar economic challenges as the Americas, the EMEA region saw somewhat faster market growth.
• Regulatory approval for telecom operators to align tariff increases with inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) model contributed to this growth.

Impact of Tariff Adjustments in EMEA:

• The adjustments led to a shift in consumer behavior:
• Customers migrated to cheaper tariff packages.
• There was an increased patronage of more affordable operators.
• As a result, actual value growth rates were significantly lower than the nominal tariff increases, often less than half.

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Oracle deploys GPU infrastructure at Digital Realty in No VA

Digital Realty and Oracle have announced a strategic collaboration aimed at accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in enterprises. This partnership signifies a significant step forward in the advancement of AI technologies, leveraging the expertise and resources of both industry leaders to empower businesses to unlock the full potential of their data.

Key Points

• Collaboration between Digital Realty and Oracle to boost AI adoption in enterprises.
• Focus on hybrid integrated solutions addressing Data Gravity challenges and expediting AI deployment.
• Oracle to deploy critical GPU-based infrastructure in Digital Realty's Northern Virginia data center, leveraging PlatformDIGITAL.
• Strengthening existing partnership with multiple global deployments, including OCI FastConnect points and Oracle Solution Center.

Patrick Cyril, Global Vice President, Technical Sales & Customer Excellence – Revenue Operations, Oracle: "We're excited to be working with Digital Realty to bring innovative solutions to the market that empower our enterprise customers workloads and their ecosystems to harness the boundless possibilities of AI. Together, we're not just pioneering technology; we're unlocking a future where every challenge is met with unparalleled innovation and every opportunity is maximized."

Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Realty: "We're delighted to build upon our relationship with Oracle and enable the next generation of hybrid and private AI adoption among enterprises. Together, we're bringing the extensive capabilities of the cloud to enterprises' private data sets through secure interconnection, unlocking new data-driven business outcomes." 

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GLDS integrates Adtran's Mosaic CP and its OLTs

Adtran and GLDS have joined forces to integrate GLDS’s BroadHub platform with Adtran’s Mosaic CP and SDX Series of optical line terminals (OLTs). This collaboration improves service management by allowing quick adjustments to network conditions and fast responses to customer needs. It aims to enhance service capabilities and operational efficiency for global service providers, offering scalability for expanding networks and real-time data analytics for better service management.

By combining GLDS’s BroadHub with Adtran’s Mosaic CP and OLTs, service providers gain several benefits. They can manage customers more effectively with real-time updates and flexible billing options, all through an easy-to-use interface that simplifies workflows. 

“Our strategic partnership with Adtran is driven by a shared commitment to empowering service providers with robust customer management and billing solutions, simplifying complex network management and delivering superior broadband experiences,” said Adam Ross Hill, partner alliance manager at GLDS. “This joint solution goes beyond integration. It leverages our advanced automation to streamline billing processes, enhance subscriber management and optimize service delivery. By eliminating the need for swivel-chair operations, it delivers significant operational savings and enables service providers to serve their local communities more effectively.”

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O2 Telefónica activates O-RAN with Samsung in Germany

Samsung Electronics and O2 Telefónica launched their first virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN commercial site in Germany. This marks the first commercial deployment of Samsung’s 5G vRAN solution in Germany. The site is now operating in Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, providing high-performance and reliable 4G and 5G services to customers. The companies expect to expand the vRAN and Open RAN network to seven additional sites in the region in the coming months.

For the initial deployments, Samsung’s offering includes its market-leading 4G and 5G vRAN 3.0 solution and O-RAN compliant radios supporting low- and mid-bands (700MHz, 800MHz, 1.8GHz 2.1GHz, 2.6GHz and 3.6GHz), including 64T64R Massive MIMO radios. Samsung’s advanced vRAN 3.0 features enhanced capabilities for improved energy efficiency, optimized performance and intelligent automation.

"As the next step, the companies will introduce Samsung’s intelligent network automation solutions to control life cycle management — from deployment and operation to maintenance. This O-RAN compliant automation solution offers the ability to accelerate innovative software-based network rollouts by enabling automated deployment of thousands of network sites simultaneously.

"We are taking another big step in our Open RAN journey. Together with Samsung, we are utilizing the latest Open RAN technologies in our mobile network. On the way to the network of the future, we are integrating new network solutions to provide our customers with outstanding connectivity. Open RAN is a building block that can help us to automate our network, deploy new updates faster and use network components more flexibly,” said Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer of O2 Telefónica.

https://news.samsung.com/global/o2-telefonica-and-samsung-launch-vran-and-open-ran-network-in-germany

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BT connects first EV charger to outdoor cabin

BT  has installed its first EV charge point powered from a street cabinet. The charger, which is powered by a BT Group owned cabinet traditionally used to store broadband and phone cabling, forms part of a nationwide pilot by the business’ start-up incubation hub Etc., designed to address the shortfall in public EV charging infrastructure.

BT said the pilot installation, which is installed in East Lothian, Scotland, could lead to the wider upgrade of cabinet units across the UK. 

The pilot will focus next on West Yorkshire, with ambitions to scale up to 600 trial sites across the UK. EV drivers can use the charge point  by downloading the trial app from the App Store or Google Play Store.

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