CommScope's Multi-Operator Digital DAS Covers Citi Field Ballpark

The Citi Field ballpark in New York is using a multi-operator digital distributed antenna system (DAS) supplied by CommScope.

The CommScope FlexWave Prism and InterReach Fusion system deployed at Citi Field provides 850 MHz, 1900 MHz, AWS, and 700 MHz frequencies to deliver 3G and 4G mobile services for fans at the 41,000-seat stadium. The deployment covers the stadium seating areas, luxury boxes, walkways and parking areas at the ballpark in Queens.

FlexWave Prism features modular, high-power remote units to deliver the performance and frequency bands needed in each location. The InterReach Fusion system is a low-power solution that delivers strategic and pin-point services to interior portions of the stadium.

http://www.commscope.com

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5G Trial Hits 19.1 Gbps Using Nokia's cmWave technology

Nokia Networks and SK Telecom reported an over-the-air transmission speed of 19.1 Gbps.

The joint 5G trial in South Korea used Nokia's cmWave technology, 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), 8x8 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) transmission and 400 MHz of bandwidth. This capacity would enable over-the-air delivery of a full-HD movie in a matter of seconds.  

Some highlights of the trial from Nokia:

• Demonstrates access point sending downlink transmission over the air and receiving it at the mobile terminal
• Evaluates radio channel performance at cmWave frequency band
• Provides runtime feedback while moving the mobile terminal or blocking paths between the access point and the terminal

"With the world's first demonstration of the cmWave technology, we have reached a significant milestone towards realizing 5G. The 19.1Gbps transmission speed we achieved almost meets one of the key capabilities of 5G defined by the ITU-R. SK Telecom will continue to work closely with Nokia Networks to maintain this momentum towards creating a new era of communications," stated Alex Jinsung Choi, Chief Technology Officer, SK Telecom.

http://company.nokia.com/en/news/press-releases/2015/10/30/sk-telecom-and-nokia-networks-achieve-191-gbps-over-the-air-in-joint-5g-trial

Nokia Unveils 5G "System-of-Systems" Architecture

Monday, September 07, 2015  #5G, #mobile, #SDN, Nokia  No comments

Nokia Networks unveiled its programmable 5G architecture with the ability to reshape radio and core networks in real time to adapt to changing demands.  The goal is to enable Network-as-a-Service for operators to offer network functions to other industries. The announcement outlines key principles of this architecture and its suitability to address a variety of 5G use cases. In a nutshell, Nokia will leverage the concept of network slicing...

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SK Telecom and Nokia Collaborate on 5G

Thursday, January 22, 2015  #5G, Nokia, SK Telecom  No comments

SK Telecom and Nokia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on the development and verification of 5G mobile technologies. The companies will conduct joint research on core 5G technologies such as the gigabit-level data communications and cloud-based virtualized base stations. They plan to establish a test bed at SK Telecom’s R&D Center in Bundang, Seoul. One area of R&D will be cmWav

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Verizon Expands Secure Cloud Interconnect in Asia

Verizon Enterprise Solutions is adding HP and Verizon Cloud to its Secure Cloud Interconnect service, essentially doubling the size of its footprint in the Asia-Pacific region to 12 locations and five cloud providers.

The company previously offered access to Amazon (Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo) and Google (Hong Kong, Singapore) and Microsoft (Hong Kong) at six locations.

“With Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect service we can now take full advantage of the cloud given the richness and reliability of the solution,” said Mok Jooyoung, IT director of technology division, Giosis. “Knowing Verizon’s Private IP network has an expansive Asia-Pacific footprint and its performance stellar made Verizon the ideal provider to meet our stringent requirements to provide our online shoppers with a first-class customer experience.”

http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-doubles-size-secure-cloud-interconnect-footprint-asia-pacific

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AWS Enables Direct Connect to its GovCloud

Amazon announced first availability of Direct Connect to its AWS GovCloud (US) region.  The first direct connect is from Equinix SV1 & SV5, San Francisco, CA.

AWS Direct Connect is recommended when working with large data sets, for real-time data feeds, and for hybrid environments with regulatory restrictions requiring the use of private connectivity.

https://aws.amazon.com/

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France's RENATER Selects Coriant Universal Transport Platform and hiT 7300

RENATER, the French national telecommunications network for technology education and research, has selected Coriant to deploy a new 100G-capable end-to-end packet optical transport network .

Spanning approximately 15,000 kilometers of fiber optics and 75 points of presence, the RENATER transport infrastructure connects over 1,400 sites via campus, metropolitan, and regional networks and provides bandwidth and IP services that support a broad community of education and research institutions in France, as well as throughout Europe and the world.

The Coriant solution, which includes the Coriant mTera Universal Transport Platform (UTP) and Coriant hiT 7300 Multi-Haul Transport Platform, met RENATER's stringent network architecture requirements with features such as hybrid Optical Transport Network (OTN) and packet switching, flexible protection and restoration, and coherent 100G optical transport. Management of the mTera UTP and hiT 7300 network nodes will be supported by the Coriant Transport Network Management System (TNMS), an end-to-end management platform that simplifies service provisioning and reduces operating expenses.

"Our customers continue to experience increased demand for fast, reliable, and high-capacity connectivity to support a wide range of critical research and education applications, including bandwidth-intensive data transfer, video conferencing, and grid computing," said Patrick Donath, director of RENATER. "In bringing new and more robust capabilities to our underlying transport infrastructure, we were looking for a highly flexible technology solution with the ability to efficiently and cost-effectively meet current as well as future capacity requirements – and Coriant proved the most capable and trusted solutions provider."

http://www.coriant.com/company/press_release.asp?id=1254

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Nokia Reports Quarterly Results, Confirms ALU Purchase On Targe

Nokia Corporation reported Q3 net sales of EUR 3.0 billion (EUR 3.1 billion in Q3 2014), down 2% year-on-year (down 10% year-on-year on a constant currency basis).  Non-IFRS diluted EPS in Q3 2015 was EUR 0.08 (EUR 0.09 in Q3 2014), a decrease of 11% year-on-year.








Quarterly net sales for Nokia Networks decreased 2% year-on-year (11% year-on-year decrease on a constant currency basis), as strong net sales growth in Greater China partially offset decreases in North America and Europe. On a sequential basis, strong net sales growth in Greater China also helped to offset the impact of industry seasonality.


Rajeev Suri, Nokia's President and CEO, stated: "Nokia's third-quarter can be summarized in two words: progress and performance. Progress in moving the Alcatel-Lucent transaction closer to completion and solid performance across all of our businesses.  The performance at Nokia Networks was the highlight of the quarter, and allowed us to raise our full-year outlook for that business. Even if I am not pleased with the overall sales development, our strong profitability is testament to the strength of our operating model. We said earlier in the year that we would redouble our efforts to ensure our cost structure was aligned to market conditions, and the success of those efforts is very clear in our results. Nokia Technologies also had a solid quarter, with year-on-year growth in licensing revenues. Our commitment to bringing innovative new products to market was apparent with the announcement of the OZO virtual-reality camera. OZO has been extremely well-received and will be launched officially before the end of the year."

Nokia reported significant progress towards the closing of its transaction with Alcatel-Lucent. The companies have received all the necessary regulatory approvals to proceed with the public exchange offer. The Nokia Board of Directors has recently called for an Extraordinary General Meeting, to be held on December 2, to request shareholder approval for the transaction. Nokia now expects the deal to be completed in the first quarter of 2016.

Nokia also announced a planned EUR 7 billion program to optimize its capital structure and return excess capital to shareholders. This program would consist of approximately EUR 4 billion in shareholder distributions and approximately EUR 3 billion of de-leveraging. In addition, Nokia today accelerated its annual operating cost synergy target related to the Alcatel-Lucent transaction. Nokia now targets to achieve approximately EUR 900 million of operating cost synergies in full year 2018, compared to its earlier target to achieve approximately EUR 900 million of operating cost synergies in full year 2019.

The operating cost synergies are expected to be derived from a wide range of initiatives related to operating expenses and cost of sales, including:

• Streamlining of overlapping products and services, particularly within the planned Mobile Networks business group;
• Rationalization of regional and sales organizations;
• Rationalization of overhead, particularly within manufacturing, supply-chain, real estate and information technology;
• Reduction of central function and public company costs; and
• Procurement efficiencies, given the combined company's expanded purchasing power.

http://www.nokia.com

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ALU Posts Q3 Revenues

Alcatel-Lucent reported group revenues, excluding Managed Services and at constant perimeter, of Euro 3,429 million, up 7% year-on-year, with notable strength in next-generation revenues, which grew 23%. At constant exchange rates, group revenues were down 5%, while next-generation revenues were up 11%. The weight of next-generation revenues continued to progress, representing 77% of revenues compared to 66% in the year-ago quarter.

Gross margin reached 34.5% of revenues, expanding 50 bps year-on-year, driven by a higher proportion of software sales, notably in IP Platforms, and improved profitability in certain businesses.

Some highlights:

• Core Networking segment revenues were Euro 1,608 million in Q3 2015, an increase of 11% year-over-year at actual rates and 2% at constant rates. Adjusted operating income totalled Euro 151 million, or 9.4% of segment revenues in Q3 2015, up from Euro 123 million and 8.5% respectively in Q3 2014, essentially driven by improved profitability in IP Platforms.
• IP Routing revenues were Euro 649 million in Q3 2015, an increase of 9% at actual rates and flat at constant rates, when compared to Q3 2014. The business witnessed contrasting trends, with continued strong performance in EMEA and CALA almost entirely offset by softness in other geographies, notably in Japan. Revenues from non-telco customers grew at a double-digit pace year-over-year, at constant exchange rates, and now represented more than 15% of total IP Routing sales.
• The 7950 XRS IP Core router now has a total of 50 wins to-date, with 6 new wins in Q3 2015, including Telefonica.
• Virtualized routing momentum continues, with 15 new customers for the VSR in Q3 2015, bringing the total to 31 deployments and over 80 trials.
• Nuage added 5 new customers, bringing the total to 30 wins, including being recently named in an ecosystem of partners that will develop an NFV proof of concept for Telstra in Australia.
• IP Transport revenues were Euro 556 million in Q3 2015, up 6% at actual rates and 1% at constant rates, compared to the year-ago quarter.
• IP Platforms revenues were Euro 403 million in Q3 2015, a year-on-year increase of 25% at actual rates and 11% at constant rates. Revenue growth in IP Platforms was driven by continued strength in IMS for VoLTE, notably in North America, where sales almost doubled year-over-year.
• Access segment revenues were Euro 1,811 million in Q3 2015, flat year-over-year at actual rates and a decrease of 11% at constant rates.
• North America revenues increased 4% at actual rates year-over-year and declined by 13% at constant rates, as growth in IP Platforms and resilience in IP Routing was not enough to offset weakness in other businesses. Revenues in Europe increased 12% year-over-year (10% at constant rates), driven notably by strength in IP Routing and IP Transport. Asia Pacific posted an 8% year-over-year increase in revenues at actual rates and a 2% decrease at constant rates, reflecting slight growth in China that was more than offset by weakness in other countries, notably Japan. In Rest of World, revenues decreased 5% year-over-year (down 7% at constant rates), as flattish revenue performance in CALA was not enough to compensate declines in MEA.

https://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2015/alcatel-lucent-reports-q3-2015-results

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A10 Posts Q3 Revenue of $51 Million, up 17% YoY

A10 Networks reported Q3 revenue of $50.8 million, up 17 percent when compared with $43.4 million in the third quarter of 2014. There was a net loss (GAA) for the third quarter 2015 of $9.0 million or $0.14 per share, compared with a net loss of $12.3 million or $0.21 per share in the third quarter of 2014. Non-GAAP net loss for the third quarter of 2015 was $4.4 million or $0.07 per share, compared with a non-GAAP net loss of $8.8 million or $0.15 per share in the third quarter of 2014.

"We delivered record revenue for the second consecutive quarter and achieved better than expected bottom line results,” said Lee Chen, president and chief executive officer of A10 Networks. “Our security focused portfolio, encompassing our standalone high-end Thunder TPS appliance and Thunder ADC with advanced security features such as SSL Insight and web application firewall, continues to gain traction with customers and partners. We are encouraged by our momentum as we enter the fourth quarter and will remain focused on executing our growth strategy, furthering our technology leadership, and expanding our addressable markets.”

http://www.a10networks.com

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Cisco: Global Cloud Traffic to Quadruple by 2019

Global cloud traffic will more than quadruple by the end of 2019, from 2.1 to 8.6 zettabytes (ZB), outpacing the growth of total global data center traffic, which is forecast to triple during the same time frame (from 3.4 to 10.4 ZB), according to the newly released Cisco Global Cloud Index.

Total global data center traffic, which is forecast to triple during the same time frame (from 3.4 to 10.4 ZB).

“The Global Cloud Index highlights the fact that cloud is moving well beyond a regional trend to becoming a mainstream solution globally, with cloud traffic expected to grow more than 30 percent in every worldwide region over the next five years,” said Doug Webster, vice president of service provider marketing, Cisco. “Enterprise and government organizations are moving from test cloud environments to trusting clouds with their mission-critical workloads. At the same time, consumers continue to expect on-demand, anytime access to their content and services nearly everywhere. This creates a tremendous opportunity for cloud operators, which will play an increasingly relevant role in the communications industry ecosystem.”

The report, which serves as a complement to the widely-cited Cisco Visual Networking Index, is generated by modeling and analysis of various primary and secondary sources.

Some key take-aways:

• By 2019, 55 percent of the residential Internet population will use personal cloud storage (up from 42 percent in 2014). 
• Annual global data center IP traffic is projected to reach 10.4 ZB by the end of 2019, up from 3.4 ZB
• per year in 2014.
• Annual global cloud traffic is projected to quadruple, reaching 8.6 ZB (719 EB per month) by the end of 2019, up from 2.1 ZB per year (176 EB per month) in 2014, and is expected to account for more than four-fifths (83 percent) of total data center traffic by 2019.
• New technologies such as SDN and NFV are expected to streamline data center traffic flows such that the traffic volumes reaching the highest tier (core) of the data center may fall below 10.4 ZB per year and lower data center tiers could carry over 40 ZB of traffic per year.
• By region, North America will have the highest cloud traffic volume (3.6 ZB) by 2019; followed by Asia Pacific (2.3 ZB) and Western Europe (1.5 ZB).
• By region, North America will also have the highest data center traffic volume (4.5 ZB) by 2019; followed by Asia Pacific (2.7 ZB) and Western Europe (1.8 ZB). 
• By 2019, 55 percent (more than 2 billion users) of the consumer Internet population will use personal cloud storage up from 42 percent (1.1 billion users) in 2014.
• Globally, consumer cloud storage traffic per user will be 1.6 gigabytes per month by 2019, compared to 992 megabytes per month in 2014.

Data center virtualization

• Overall data center workloads will more than double from 2014 to 2019; however, cloud workloads will more than triple over the same period.
• The workload density (that is, workloads per physical server) for cloud data centers was 5.1 in 2014 and will grow to 8.4 by 2019. Comparatively, for traditional data centers, workload density was 2.0 in 2014 and will grow to 3.2 by 2019.

IoE-Generated Data

• Globally, the data created by IoE connections will reach 507.5 zettabytes per year (42.3 zettabytes per month) by 2019, up from 134.5 zettabytes per year (11.2 ZB per month) in 2014.
• A smart city of 1 million will generate 180 million gigabytes of data per day by 2019.

Private vs. Public Cloud Growth
Public cloud, in which services are rendered over a network that is open for public use, is growing faster than private cloud, which includes cloud infrastructure operated for a single organization, in terms of workloads. However, throughout the five-year forecast, private cloud will continue to outpace public cloud in its degree of virtualization.

The Cisco Cloud Index projects:

• Public cloud workloads are going to grow at a 44-percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019 and private cloud workloads will grow at a slower pace (16-percent CAGR) from
• 2014 to 2019.
• By 2019, 56 percent of the cloud workloads will be in public cloud data centers, up from 30 percent in 2014. (CAGR of 44 percent from 2014 to 2019.)
• By 2019, 44 percent of the cloud workloads will be in private cloud data centers, down from 70 percent in 2014. (CAGR of 16 percent from 2014 to 2019.)

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/global-cloud-index-gci/index.html

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Verizon's ThingSpace Ties IoT with Data Analytics and Cloud

Verizon launched ThingSpace, a new IoT platform allowing developers to create applications, customers to manage devices, partners to market their services, and Verizon to launch integrated vertical solutions in an open environment.

Thingspace, which will leverage an existing ecosystem of more than 1,000 channel partners and revenue from the company's IoT and telematics business, promises to accelerate innovation and adoption of IoT devices.  At a press event in San Francisco, Verizon's executives said the industry is poised to move from millions to billions of connected devices and sensors in the coming years. To achieve this, Verizon is creating a new dedicated network core and new connectivity options for the next-generation of IoT use cases in verticals such as agriculture, healthcare, the consumer electronics evolution and the sharing economy.

Verizon has created a core IoT network within its LTE architecture optimized for Cat1 devices.  The company is also working with partners to embed LTE chipsets in a wide-range of connected machines to automate the provisioning process and make it faster to deploy IoT devices on its wide-area network

Significantly, Verizon will offer a big data analytics engine tied into its IoT deployments. ThingSpace will provide end-to-end management of IoT environments and related data, from device to network to application. The goal is to offer hundreds of APIs via the Thingspace environment. The data and analytics engine is being developed at the Verizon labs in Palo Alto, California.

“Continued innovation in smart cities, connected cars and wearables demonstrates that IoT is the future for how we will live and work,” said Mike Lanman, senior vice president Enterprise Products at Verizon. “Despite the exciting potential, IoT is still too complex, too fragmented, too expensive to connect and too hard to scale. Success in that future relies on a leader that can cut through the complexity and change the IoT model. That’s where Verizon comes in. With our experience in networks, devices, platforms and applications, we are taking a holistic approach to simplifying adoption to expand the IoT market from millions to billions of connections.”

http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-simplifies-internet-things-accelerate-adoption

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LTE IoT Chipset Targets 10 years of Battery Life

Ericsson, in partnership with AT&T and Altair Semiconductor, plan to demonstrate ultralow power consumption for IoT devices with a target battery operational life of ten years.

The demonstration of LTE Power Saving Mode on a commercial LTE Internet of Things (IoT) chipset is showcased at this week's GSMA Mobile 360 Series - North America event in Atlanta, Georgia.

The IoT device Altair's FourGee-1160 Cat 1 chipset featuring ultra-low power consumption. Power Saving Mode is an Ericsson Evolved Packet Core feature based on 3GPP (Release 12) for both GSM and LTE networks. The feature is able to dramatically extend IoT device battery life up to ten years or more for common use cases and traffic profiles.

Cameron Coursey, Vice President, Product Development, AT&T's IoT Organization, says: "IoT connectivity is essential to helping businesses stay tethered to their assets around the world. Whether a trucking company hauls expensive cargo across the country or a restaurant transports fresh food overseas, a long battery life on their connected devices can help them provide continuous service.  Businesses can save money and become more efficient with battery replacements every few years rather than very few months.

"Power Saving Mode running on a Cat 1 device enables new use cases and services so far impractical for LTE based IoT networks. We are very pleased to cooperate with ecosystem partners such as Ericsson and AT&T to demonstrate how these use cases are made possible today, based on existing and commercial device and infrastructure technology," stated Eran Eshed, Co-Founder and VP of Marketing and Business Development, Altair.

http://www.ericsson.com/news/1962068

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IBM to Acquire Weather Company's B2B, Mobile, Cloud Properties

IBM plans to acquire The Weather Company’s B2B, mobile and cloud-based web properties, including WSI, weather.com, Weather Underground and The Weather Company brand. The Weather Company is currently owned by a consortium comprising the private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, and NBCUniversal.

The deal does not include the TV segment – The Weather Channel, which will license weather forecast data and analytics from IBM under a long-term contract.

IBM is seeking to integrate weather expertise into a new Watson IoT Unit and Watson IoT Cloud platform. The idea is to bring together IBM’s cognitive and analytics platform and The Weather Company’s dynamic cloud data platform, which powers the fourth most-used mobile app daily in the United States and handles 26 billion inquiries to its cloud-based services each day.

“The Weather Company’s extremely high-volume data platform, coupled with IBM’s global cloud and the advanced cognitive computing capabilities of Watson, will be unsurpassed in the Internet of Things, providing our clients significant competitive advantage as they link their business and sensor data with weather and other pertinent information in real time,” said John Kelly, senior vice president, IBM Solutions Portfolio and Research. “This powerful cloud platform will position IBM to arm entire industries with deep multimodal insights that will help enterprises gain clarity and take action from the oceans of data being generated around them.”

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47952.wss

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Telco Virtualized Network Function (VNF) Runs in Apcera's Containerized PaaS

Ericsson and AT&T demonstrated a Telco Virtualized Network Function (VNF) running in a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment that is integrated with OpenStack.

The demo at this week's OpenStack Summit in Tokyo showcased a fast and secure deployment of the virtualized Web Communication Gateway (vWCG) in Apcera's container-based, policy-driven PaaS environment that is fully integrated with OpenStack. The demo showed audio and video communications between multiple Web browsers utilizing the vWCG deployed in an OpenStack-integrated PaaS environment.

"AT&T and Ericsson have been working together on a prototype to demonstrate the deployment of a Telco VNF in an OpenStack-based PaaS environment. This specific prototype showcased a fast and secure deployment of the virtualized Web Communication Gateway (vWCG) - a Telco VNF - in Apcera's container-based policy-oriented PaaS environment that is fully integrated with OpenStack," stated Toby Ford, Assistant Vice President, IT Operations Strategic Realization, AT&T.

"Ericsson is leading the development of both Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and PaaS environments that are integrated with OpenStack for deploying VNFs on Telco networks. This demonstration showed how a complex VNF such as vWCG can be deployed using Apcera's PaaS technology with a few clicks of a mouse. This is an important step toward fast, secure and policy-integrated deployment of Telco VNFs on micro-services-based containers," stated Magnus Arildsson, Head of IaaS and PaaS, Ericsson.

"The partnership between Ericsson and Apcera has accelerated the development of a micro-services-based PaaS environment suitable for deploying Telco VNFs. This PoC paves the way for cost-effective, efficient deployment of VNFs and further collaboration with Telco operators to integrate carrier-grade requirements with Apcera's trusted cloud platform," stated Derek Collison, CEO and founder, Apcera.

http://www.ericsson.com/news/1962292

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Google's Project Loon Announces Tests with Indonesian Operators

Three mobile network operators in Indonesia - Indosat, Telkomsel and XL Axiata - will begin testing Google's Project Loon for delivery balloon-powered Internet service.

Google estimates that about one in three of Indonesia's 250 million residents has Internet service.  Getting conventional service to Indonesia's 17,000 islands has proven difficult. Google said its Project Loon has the capability to transmit signal from areas that are connected to an Internet groundstation and bounce that signal across a constellation of balloons and back down to even the most remote islands.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ProjectLoon/posts

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SanDisk Software Delivers Flash Performance Boost for Virtualized Apps

SanDisk released a new version of its FlashSoft server-side, solid state caching software that delivers significant application performance acceleration gains, up to three to five times, especially in transactional and virtualized environments which often experience high I/O latency.

This newest version of its FlashSoft server-side is updated for Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Linux operating systems. It ensures that the most frequently accessed data (hot data) is serviced by server-side flash rather than slower back-end storage. This alleviates storage performance bottlenecks and accelerates applications by reducing response time, without mandating a large investment in hardware. Organizations running large database-driven applications on shared storage infrastructures typically experience high I/O latency as the primary constraint on application performance. FlashSoft software helps address the pain points of these enterprises by dramatically improving availability of hot data.

“This new offering exemplifies our dedication to transforming the data center through flash technology,” said Ravi Swaminathan, vice president and general manager, Systems and Software Solutions, SanDisk. “We recognize that efficient access to data for key applications is an essential requirement for our enterprise customers. The new version of FlashSoft software now offers customers even better application acceleration, regardless of the environment or scale.”

http://www.sandisk.com

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Cisco to Acquire 1 Mainstream for Cloud Video

Cisco announced plans to acquire 1 Mainstream, a start-up offering a cloud-based video platform designed to quickly launch live and on-demand OTT video services to a variety of connected devices. Financial terms were not disclosed.

1 Mainstream, which is based in San Jose, California, helps service providers, broadcasters, media companies and emerging digital content companies deliver their media content to almost any connected media device, from Apple TV to Microsoft Xbox.  The company was founded in 2012 and is backed by DCM, Menlo Ventures, BskyB, and Luminari Capital.

Cisco said the acquisition complements its new ‘Infinite’ suite of cloud-powered video entertainment solutions designed to help service providers, broadcasters and media companies.

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-announces-intent-to-acquire-1mainstream

• 1 Mainstream is headed by Rajeev Raman, CEO, who previously was Head of Product at Roku, CEO and Founder of mywaves, EIR at Menlo Ventures, as well as VP of Product and Engineering at Questra Corp.

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F5 Posts Revenue of $501.3 Million, up 8% YoY

F5 Networks reported revenue of $501.3 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2015, up 4 percent from $483.6 million in the prior quarter and 8 percent from $465.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2014. For fiscal year 2015, revenue was $1.92 billion, up 11 percent from $1.73 billion last year.

GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $97.0 million ($1.36 per diluted share) compared to $93.2 million ($1.29 per diluted share) in the third quarter of 2015 and $94.0 million ($1.26 per diluted share) in the fourth quarter a year ago.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2016, ending December 31, the company has set a revenue target of $480 million to $490 million with a GAAP earnings target of $1.13 to $1.16 per diluted share.

“Against the backdrop of a volatile macro-economy, F5 achieved a year of solid growth and profitability,” said Manny Rivelo, F5 president and chief executive officer. “With a Q4 revenue run-rate above two billion dollars, record annual revenue and gross margins contributed to a 17 percent increase in GAAP net income for the year. From a regional perspective, the United States and EMEA were the strongest performers, with solid year over year revenue growth in Q4, offset by weakness in Latin America, Canada and Japan.

“During the quarter, software sales continued to grow as a percentage of our product mix, reflecting incremental demand for our Virtual Editions and Good-Better-Best bundles and a steady ramp in sales of our Cloud-based Silverline SaaS offerings and our other subscription services. These trends validate our success in meeting the growing need for hybrid solutions that can be deployed and centrally managed on-premise and in the Cloud, and we expect to see them continue throughout fiscal 2016.

https://f5.com/about-us/investor-relations

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GSMA: North America Leads in New Mobile Tech Adoption

The North American mobile industry continues to lead other regions in the adoption of new mobile technologies, according to a newly released GSMA report called "The Mobile Economy - North America 2015’, including 4G networks, the Internet of Things (IoT) and digital commerce.

North America is home to more than 250 million unique subscribers, equivalent to a unique subscriber penetration rate of 70 per cent and 360 million mobile connections (excluding M2M), with three-quarters of connections being smartphones.

Some stats:

• 4G already accounts for just over half of the connection base in the US, while Canada is expected to breach the 50% level in early 2016. By the end of the decade, 84% of connections in North America are forecast to be on 4G networks.
• The US is by far the largest market with 232 million unique mobile subscribers, a penetration rate of about 72%. In Canada the rate is still much lower at 56%, with a total of 20 million unique subscribers.
• Cisco forecasts that mobile data usage will grow at a 42% CAGR in North America through to 2019, reaching nearly 11 GB per user per month. This compares to a global average growth rate of 24% and a 2019 usage level of 4 GB.
• This total impact includes a direct economic contribution of mobile operators and the rest of the mobile ecosystem of $217 billion (1.1% of GDP), an indirect impact on the rest of the economy of $130 billion (0.7% of GDP), and a productivity impact of $324 billion (1.7% of GDP) brought about by the use of mobile technology by businesses and workers in the region.
• Cellular M2M: 12.8% of connections in North America (Q3 2015), global average is 3.9%, the next highest region is Europe at 8.2%

“The North American mobile industry has been the strongest performing of any developed region globally for some time, characterised by substantial subscriber growth, the early adoption of new technologies, high levels of mobile usage and strong revenue trends,” said Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA. “The region continues to lead innovation in a number of areas in the mobile ecosystem, including hardware, access technologies, operating systems and new apps and services that are scaling rapidly and changing how individuals live and work.”

http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/northamerica/

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Equinix Picks Infinera Cloud Xpress for Metro Datacenter Interconnection

Equinix is deploying the Infinera Cloud Xpress to interconnect its four data centers in Tokyo. The Equinix IBX data centers in Tokyo currently serve over 260 companies.

Equinix is also using the Infinera Cloud Xpress in Hong Kong to interconnect local data centers.

“Equinix is rapidly expanding across the globe,” said Teri Francis, vice president of technology at Equinix. “Cloud Xpress is an ideal solution for us to scale bandwidth in our Hong Kong and Tokyo networks and enhance our ability to connect our customers. Cloud Xpress is extremely simple to deploy and manage and fits our high-density, low power requirements. We are now looking forward to deploying the Cloud Xpress family in other markets globally to take advantage of these same scaling benefits.”

“The continued deployment of the Cloud Xpress by a leading datacenter operator like Equinix underscores the value Cloud Xpress brings to high-bandwidth datacenter interconnect,” said Stu Elby, senior vice president of cloud network strategy and technology at Infinera. “The Cloud Xpress, a purpose-built rack-and-stack datacenter platform, is ideal for operators in Asia where space limitation is a factor. The Cloud Xpress addresses the critical needs of datacenter operators and continues to gain traction in networks across the globe.”

http://www.equinix.com

http://www.infinera.com

• In June 2015, Infinera announced the addition of 100 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) client services in its Cloud Xpress family of metro Cloud platforms.  The Cloud Xpress family, which Infinera announced last September 2014 and began shipping that December, is designed specifically to address the needs of Cloud service providers, Internet content providers, Internet Exchange service providers, large enterprises and other large-scale datacenter operators.  It leverages the company's unique oPIC-500 metro-optimized photonic integrated circuit to deliver DWDM datacenter interconnect services up to 500 Gbps in a compact two rack unit chassis.  With the addition of the new platform, the Cloud Xpress family now supports 10 GbE, 40 GbE and 100 GbE client-side interfaces to match customer specific requirements.
  Along with the introduction of the new Cloud Xpress with 100 GbE, Infinera announced important enhancements to the Cloud Xpress family including MACsec encryption for improved security, NETCONF & YANG support for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and ease of use, and LLDP discovery protocols enabling datacenter automation. NETCONF & YANG support enables smooth integration into datacenter automation and management systems; LLDP protocol awareness for auto-discovery of adjacent switches and routers across the WAN supports efficient connectivity validation and troubleshooting, and MACsec provides end-to-end encryption to keep data secure.

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Cisco to Acquire Lancope for Traffic Behavior Analytics

Cisco agreed to acquire Lancope, a privately held network security company for $452.5 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention based incentives for Lancope employees who join Cisco. The companies have been commercial partners for some time.

Lancope, which is based in Alpharetta, Georgia, provides network behavior analytics, threat visibility and security intelligence to help protect companies against top cyber security threats. Its StealthWatch FlowCollector collects and analyzes massive amounts of network data to obtain visibility for early threat detection. The goal is to quickly detect a wide range of attacks from APTs and DDoS to zero-day malware and insider threats.

Cisco said the Lancope acquisition will advance itsSecurity Everywhere strategy of providing advanced threat protection across the full attack continuum -- before, during and after an attack. With Lancope, Cisco's portfolio of security solutions adds an additional capability of network behavior analytics that extends protection further into the network.

"As enterprises digitize, security challenges rapidly evolve. Real time visibility and understanding of the behavior of every machine or device on the network becomes critical in adapting the ability of enterprises to identify and respond to the next wave of cyber threats," said Rob Salvagno, vice president, Cisco Corporate Development. "Cisco is committed to helping organizations defend their networks and devices. Together with Lancope, our combined solutions can help turn a customer's entire network into a security sensor."

Lancope was founded in 2000 with backing from Canaan Partners, Council Capital and H.I.G. Ventures. The company is headed by Mike Potts, who previously served as President and CEO of AirDefense.

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-announces-security-news-2
https://www.lancope.com/

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