Ericsson's Q2 Sales Declined 11% YoY, Further Cuts Announced

Ericsson's Q2 sales decreased by 11% YoY, or down 7% YoY when adjusted for comparable units and currency, as mobile broadband sales continued to decline particularly in markets impacted by a weak macro-economic environment, such as Brazil, Russia and the Middle East.

"The negative industry trends from the first quarter have intensified impacting demand for mobile broadband, especially in markets with a weak macro-economic environment. We are delivering on ongoing cost reduction activities. However, in light of market development, management has, with the support of the Board of Directors, initiated significant actions to further reduce cost," stated Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson.

In addition to its ongoing cost and efficiency program targeting savings of SEK 9 b. during 2017, Ericsson said it now plans to reduce R&D investments in IP and capture efficiency gains from the new company structure. Together, these activities are expected to reduce the annual run rate of operating expenses, excluding restructuring charges, to SEK 53 b. in the second half of 2017. This is to be compared with SEK 63 b. for full-year 2014 and equates to double the previously targeted savings in operating expenses.

Some highlights:

• In Europe, completion of mobile broadband projects in 2015 continued to have a negative effect on sales growth YoY. 4G sales in Mainland China were stable YoY as the fast pace of deployments continued.
• Network sales in North America were stable YoY driven by continued mobile broadband capacity investments. Global Services sales declined in North America as activities in Professional Services were lower.
• The transition from 3G to 4G continued primarily in parts of Asia, contributing to solid sales growth in region South East Asia and Oceania.
• Sales in the targeted growth areas were 20% of total sales and grew by 5% in the quarter in constant currencies. 

https://www.ericsson.com/news/2029293

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Broadcom Samples NVMe over Fibre Channel

Broadcom announced sampling of its Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) over Fibre Channel solution on its Emulex Gen 6 Host Bus Adapters- a first for the industry.

The NVMe over Fibre Channel solution delivers 55% lower latency when used with NVMe drives compared to SCSI drives and a 28% performance advantage versus Ethernet solutions.

Broadcom said its NVMe over Fibre Channel builds on the performance improvements delivered by Emulex Gen 6 HBAs, which cuts latency in half versus the previous generation.  The combination of Emulex Gen 6 with NVMe over Fibre Channel delivers an even greater reduction of 75% in latency versus legacy 8Gb Fibre Channel storage networks.

“NVMe over Fabrics is going to fundamentally change datacenter architectures over the next few years,” said Jeff Hoogenboom, vice president and general manager, Emulex Connectivity Division, Broadcom Limited. “Fibre Channel will play a pivotal role in NVMe deployments because it delivers a superior connectivity solution by providing better performance, lossless and reliable networking with no dropped packets, and it’s incredibly easy to deploy.”

http://www.broadcom.com

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Skycure Raises $16.5 Million for Mobile Threat Defense

Skycure, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, announced $16.5 million in series B funding for its mobile threat defense.

Skycure helps enterprises secure employee mobile devices when adopting BYOD to increase productivity.

The new funding was led by Foundation Capital and included the participation of all of the company’s previous investors, including Shasta Ventures, Pitango Venture Capital, Skycure customer New York Life, and private investors Peter McKay, and Michael Weider. This round brings Skycure’s total funding to $27.5 million.  The company also added Lane Bess, industry veteran and former CEO of Palo Alto Networks, as a private investor in this series.
 
“The more devices we carry to streamline business, the larger the attack surface to the organizations grows,” said Yair Amit, CTO and co-founder of Skycure. “IT departments just can’t deal with the massive assault on their mobile devices every day from vulnerability exploits, malware, and network threats. Skycure’s predictive technology uses a multi-layered approach that leverages our crowd-sourced threat intelligence, plus device- and server-based analysis, to proactively protect mobile devices from all of these threats. Solutions using a single approach are just not effective. With our new funding we can focus more on research and invest more in development, further enhancing our security innovation and expanding our product leadership in the market.”

http://www.skycure.com

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NETSCOUT Announces nGenius for Flows

NETSCOUT SYSTEMS announced its "nGenius for Flows" solution for extending its Adaptive Service Intelligence analysis to flow-based data sources

Specifically, nGenius for Flows, which is an integrated extension to nGeniusONE, adds NetFlow and other flow data to the core packet flow. The data sources all are converted to proprietary Adaptive Service Intelligence® (ASI) data for business assurance analytics.

“The digital transformation pace today requires enterprises to have real-time visibility into the health and dependencies of their key digital initiatives and into the infrastructure supporting them so that they can accelerate time to deployment and reduce risk to service continuity and quality,” explained Michael Szabados, chief operating officer at NETSCOUT. “With the introduction of nGenius for Flows, NETSCOUT offers the most extensive and most scalable service monitoring capability and enables the largest global enterprises and government agencies to deploy major new initiatives with confidence.

http://www.netscout.com/press-release/netscout-strengthens-its-powerful-business-assurance-lineup-for-the-enterprise-with-ngenius-for-flows/

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SoftBank Confirms Acquisition of ARM

SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to acquire ARM Holdings Plc in an all-cash deal valued at £24.3 billion. (US$32.4 billion), or 1,700 pence per ARM share, and representing a premium of 43% over the closing price on preceding trading day. The deal would be Softbank's largest to date.

SoftBank, which is based in Tokyo and is headed by Masayoshi Son, said it intends to preserve the ARM organization and business model, including ARM's senior management team and its headquarters in Cambridge, England. The companies said they intend to double employee headcount in the UK over the next five years.

ARM is the leading developer of RISC processor designs that are widely licensed for use in smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, embedded systems, and, increasing, servers. The company posted 2015 revenue of £968.3 million. A total of 14.8 billion ARM-powered SoCs shipped in 2015, up from just over 12 billion in 2014.

SoftBank will fund the acquisition with cash on hand and a load from Mizuho Bank of Japan.

“We have long admired ARM as a world renowned and highly respected technology company that is by some distance the market-leader in its field. ARM will be an excellent strategic fit within the SoftBank group as we invest to capture the very significant opportunities provided by the “Internet of Things,” stated  Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank.

Regarding strategic rationale, both companies said they see big opportunities ahead with IoT.

ARM's next generation designs are expected to increase the number of processors per chip from a maximum of 8 today to 256 cores per chip.


http://www.softbank.jp
http://www.arm.com

• In July 2013, Softbank paid $22.2 billion for a 78% ownership interest in Sprint.

Softbank to Sell $7.9 Billion of its Stake in Alibaba

Wednesday, June 01, 2016  Alibaba, China, Japan, Softbank  No Comments

Softbank announced plans to sell US$7.9 billion of the shares it holds in Alibaba Group Holding Limited (“Alibaba”).

Specifically, the transactions are comprised of (i) the intended sale of $2.0 billion of Alibaba ordinary
shares to Alibaba, (ii) the intended sale of $400 million of Alibaba ordinary shares to members of the Alibaba Partnership acting collectively, and the sale of $500 million of Alibaba ordinary shares to a major sovereign wealth fund pursuant to an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act and (iii) an intention to offer, subject to market conditions and other factors, $5.0 billion aggregate purchase price of its mandatory exchangeable trust securities exchangeable into American depositary shares of Alibaba in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act.

After the sale, Softbank would continue to hold approximately 28%3 of Alibaba’s total outstanding shares.

“When I first met Jack Ma, I knew immediately he had the vision and passion to build the world’s leading e-commerce company, and I was very happy to invest alongside him to help him realize his ambition.” said SBG Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son. “This investment has been phenomenally successful and, over the past 16 years, we have built a close relationship, working together on many exciting projects. In that time, we have not sold any Alibaba shares. There are huge opportunities ahead for Alibaba and SBG looks forward to the continued partnership.”

http://www.softbank.jp/en/corp/set/data/news/press/sb/2016/20160601_02/pdf/20160601_02.pdf

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Infineon to Acquire Wolfspeed for $850 Million

Infineon Technologies AG agreed to acquire the Wolfspeed Power and RF division of Cree for US$850 million in cash (approximately Euro 740 million.  The deal also includes the related SiC wafer substrate business for power and RF power.

Wolfspeed, which is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, is a premier provider of SiC-based power and GaN-on-SiC-based RF power solutions. This also includes the related core competencies in wafer substrate manufacturing for SiC, as well as for SiC with a monocrystalline GaN layer for RF power applications. It has more than 550 highly skilled employees and a strong IP portfolio of approximately 2,000 patents and patent applications.

Infineon said it expects next-generation wireless standards such as 5G, which will use frequencies up to 80 gigahertz, will require advanced compound semiconductors.  GaN-on-Si allows higher levels of integration and offers its advantages at operating frequencies of up to 10 gigahertz. GaN-on-SiC enables maximum efficiency at frequencies of up to 80 gigahertz.

“Wolfspeed’s and Infineon’s businesses and expertise are highly complementary, bringing together industry leading experts for compound semiconductors. This will enable us to create additional value for our customers with the broadest and deepest portfolio of innovative technologies and products in compound semiconductors available in the market. With Wolfspeed we will become number one in SiC-based power semiconductors. We also want to become number one in RF power," stated Dr. Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon Technologies AG.

http://www.infineon.com

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IBM Cites Strong Growth in Cloud and Analytics

IBM reported Q2 revenue from continuing operations of $20.2 billion, with second-quarter revenues from the company’s strategic imperatives --- cloud, analytics and engagement --- increased 12 percent year to year. Cloud revenues (public, private and hybrid) for the quarter increased 30 percent. Cloud revenue over the trailing 12 months was $11.6 billion.

The annual run rate for cloud as-a-service revenue --- a subset of total cloud revenue --- increased to $6.7 billion from $4.5 billion in the second quarter of 2015. Revenues from analytics increased 5 percent (up 4 percent adjusting for currency). Revenues from mobile increased 43 percent and from security increased 18 percent.

"IBM continues to establish itself as the leading cognitive solutions and cloud platform company. In doing so, IBM is pioneering new business opportunities beyond the traditional IT marketplace," said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. "In the second quarter we delivered double-digit revenue growth in our strategic imperatives, driven by innovations in areas such as analytics, security, cloud video services and Watson Health, all powered by the IBM Cloud and differentiated by industry. And we continue to invest for growth with recent breakthroughs in quantum computing, Internet of Things and Blockchain solutions for the IBM Cloud."

Segment Results

• Cognitive Solutions (includes solutions software and transaction processing software) -- revenues of $4.7 billion, up 3.5 percent (up 3.8 percent adjusting for currency). Cloud revenue within the segment grew 54 percent. Solutions software revenue grew, led by Analytics (including Watson) and Security.
• Global Business Services (includes consulting, global process services, application management) -- revenues of $4.3 billion, down 2.0 percent (down 2.5 percent adjusting for currency). Strategic imperatives revenue within the segment was up 14 percent (up 13 percent adjusting for currency).
• Technology Services & Cloud Platforms (includes infrastructure services, technical support services, integration software) -- revenues of $8.9 billion, down 0.5 percent (flat adjusting for currency). Growth of 35 percent in strategic imperatives revenue within the segment was driven by strong hybrid cloud infrastructure services performance.
• Systems (includes systems hardware and operating systems software) -- revenues of $2.0 billion, down 23.2 percent (down 23.3 percent adjusting for currency). Revenue reflects z Systems product cycle dynamics; gross profit margin improved in both z Systems and Power.
• Global Financing (includes financing and used equipment sales) -- revenues of $424 million, down 11.3 percent (down 10.0 percent adjusting for currency).

http://www.ibm.com

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VMware Posts Q2 Revenue of $1.69 Billion, up 6%

VMware reported GAAP and non-GAAP revenues for the second quarter were $1.69 billion, an increase of 6% from non-GAAP revenues for the second quarter of 2015, and an increase of 11% from GAAP revenues for the second quarter of 2015.

• License revenues for the second quarter were $644 million, an increase of 1% from the second quarter of 2015.
• GAAP net income for the second quarter was $265 million, or $0.62 per diluted share, up 54% per diluted share compared to $172 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2015. Non-GAAP net
• income for the quarter was $414 million, or $0.97 per diluted share, up 5% per diluted share compared to $396 million, or $0.93 per diluted share, for second quarter of 2015.
• strong bookings growth with NSX, vCloud Air Network andh hyper-converged solutions
• completed Arkin acquisition
• headcount reached 19,075, up from 18,691 a year earlier

Q2 was a continuation of the good start to the year we experienced in Q1, both for results and against our strategic goal of building momentum for our newer growth businesses and in the cloud,” said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. “Customers are turning to VMware to help them run, manage, secure and connect their applications across all clouds and all devices, with unparalleled connectivity, security and visibility.”

Zane Rowe, executive vice president and chief financial officer, VMware, said, “This was another good quarter for VMware, and I’m particularly pleased with our financial performance and increasing strength of our balance sheet. We’re also looking forward to returning value to our stockholders through the $1.2 billion stock repurchase we announced last quarter.”

http://www.vmware.com

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US Ignite's Advanced Wireless Consortium Looks Beyond 5G

US Ignite, which is a non-profit organization inspired by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation, has formed a new Advanced Wireless Industry Consortium "to help align and focus US efforts to exploit new wireless technologies beyond 5G."

The group is aiming to speed up the transfer rate of breakthrough ideas from university research to industry end users, overcoming what is sometimes called the “valley of death” between basic research and commercialization. Big breakthroughs of 1000X are targeted in areas such as millimeter wave (mmWave), dynamic spectrum, 5G+ architecture, and wide-area white space – all areas in which the US will need to excel to sustain its leadership in the global wireless industry.

The Consortium includes 21 companies and organizations: ATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions), ATT, Carlson Wireless Technologies, CommScope, CTIA, HTC, Intel, InterDigital, Juniper Networks, Keysight Technologies, National Instruments, Nokia Bell Laboratories, Oracle, Qualcomm, Samsung, Shared Spectrum, Sprint, TIA (Telecom Industry Association), T-Mobile, Verizon, and Viavi Solutions.

http://advancedwireless.org
https://www.us-ignite.org

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Saudi Telecom Deploys Juniper Contrail SDN

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has deployed Juniper Networks Contrail Networking and NFV to create automated cloud services for its customers.

With dedicated cloud services powered by Contrail Networking, STC now has a fully scalable, flexible resource to sell to subscribers and customers on-demand as their IT requirements evolve and change. Contrail Networking enables full automation, better scalability, security and flexibility for STC's NFV-based cloud computing services.

Juniper's Contrail Networking SDN solution automates and orchestrates the creation of highly scalable virtual networks. It interoperates with an OpenStack cloud orchestration platform, enabling the agile creation and dynamic scaling of service instances with high availability and reliability.

"At STC, we have a 'customer-first' approach. We aim to earn our customers' trust and enrich society with comprehensive, innovative services and solutions. The network, underpinned by advanced NFV and automation capabilities, can deliver substantial value to our customers by providing the agility, speed and simplicity that today's businesses require. Juniper is an ideal partner with the same customer-centric approach, providing us with state-of-the-art technology for our cloud-based offerings," stated Dr. Tarig M. Enaya, senior vice president for enterprise at Saudi Telecom Company.

http://www.juniper.net

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AT&T Launches Network Functions on Demand Internationally

AT&T announced the launch of its Network Functions on Demand service in 76 countries and territories, including:

AMERICAS – Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominican Republic,Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, United States, Uruguay, U.S. Virgin Islands and Venezuela

ASIA PAC – Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines,Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand

EMEA – Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania,Luxembourg, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia,Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom

The service uses a single universal piece of equipment at the customer premise to deliver virtualized functions via the AT&T Network on Demand platform. AT&T Network Functions on Demand is the third service on the platform.

The first AT&T Network Functions on Demand capabilities that customers can choose from include:

• Juniper Networks virtual routing
• Cisco virtual router
• Fortinet virtual security
• Riverbed virtual WAN optimization

"Building networks by deploying network functions in software is a major shift in network design," said Ralph de la Vega, Vice Chairman of AT&T Inc. and CEO of AT&T Business Solutions and International. "We've broken through traditional, cost-prohibitive barriers. Our software platform delivers a simple, flexible and efficient experience for any business, virtually anywhere and anytime they need it."

AT&T noted that since its launch in 2015, more than 1,200 businesses across multiple industries have signed up for AT&T Network on Demand solutions.

http://www.att.com/nfv

AT&T Commits its ECOMP Service Orchestrator to Open Source

Wednesday, July 13, 2016  #SDN, ATT, Mano, NFV, Open Source  No Comments

AT&T confirmed that it is committed to releasing into open source its current Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy (ECOMP) platform, which is the service orchestration system that powers the AT&T software-defined network (SDN).

AT&T said ECOMP is mature, feature-complete, and tested in real-world NFV deployments. The company believes open source ECOMP will bring maturity to SDN and become the industry standard for orchestration, management and policy control.

By releasing the ECOMP code as open source, AT&T said other service providers will be able to use this software to meet non-stop network demands as data-hungry technologies like autonomous cars, augmented and virtual reality, 4K video and the Internet of Things (IoT) take off.

“In March, we opened the hood of our network, showed you the engine and the industry responded asking to join us,” said John Donovan, Chief Strategy Officer and Group President, Technology and Operations, AT&T. “Over the last few years, AT&T invented what we believe to be the most sophisticated, comprehensive and scalable software-centric network in the world. Today, we’re letting anyone use and build upon our millions of lines of software code by committing to releasing it into the open source community.”

“This is a big decision and getting it right is crucial,” Donovan continues. “We want to build a community – where people contribute to the code base and advance the platform. And, we want this to help align the global industry. We’ve engaged a third-party company to be the integrator and provide support in the industry for the ECOMP platform. And we’ve received positive feedback from major global telecom companies. We’re excited to share more on that front very soon.”

http://about.att.com/story/network_playbook_into_open_source.html

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pureLiFi Secures Funding for LED Wireless Communications

pureLiFi, a start-up based in Edinburgh, Scotland, announced a new round of funding supporting its proprietary LiFi technology, which uses modulated LED light to provide wireless communications. The company says LiFi has the potential to be significantly faster than current WiFi.

The company, which was created in 2012 as a spin-off from the University of Edinburgh, has raised $10 million to date. Investors include Temasek, an investment company based in Singapore, and London & Scottish Investment Partners (LSIP).

Professor Russel Griggs OBE, Chairman of pureLiFi said “This funding, which exceeds what we set out to secure, gives the company the resources required to rapidly scale over the next few years. When I was asked to become Chairman, my task was to build the initial base of the company and secure the funding to take it forward into the sectors we see as the future for the business. Having delivered all that successfully now, I am delighted that we have secured Mike Hickey to take over from me as Chairman, whose international and sector experience will lead the company to even greater success.”

http://purelifi.com/

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AWS Acquires Cloud9

Amazon Web Services has acquired Cloud9, a start-up based in San Francisco & Amsterdam.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cloud 9 provides a development environment in the cloud. Its mission is "to unlock the benefits of writing code in the cloud." The company was founded in 2010 and was backed by Accel and Atlassian.

https://c9.io

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QTS Opens Mega Data Center in Former Chicago Sun-Times Bldg

QTS Realty Trust opened a new mega data center at 2800 S. Ashland Avenue in downtown Chicago.

QTS transformed the iconic Chicago Sun-Times facility into a 317,000 square foot mega data center. The facility will serve as QTS' Midwest hub to deliver its fully integrated portfolio featuring customizable data center solutions, colocation, managed hosting, hybrid cloud and disaster recovery services for enterprise and government organizations.

"This data center is restoring an iconic building and giving it a 21st-century purpose," Mayor Emanuel said. "Chicago is a global hub for innovation and technology, and this QTS data center will help the city build on that reputation for years to come. Welcome to Chicago!"

http://www.qtsdatacenters.com/

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Bay Dynamics Raises $23 Million for Cyber Risk Analytics

Bay Dynamics, a start-up based in San Francisco, announced $23 million in Series B financing for its cyber risk analytics.

Bay Dynamics' flagship analytics software, Risk Fabric, automates the process of analyzing security information so that it's traceable, trustworthy and prioritized.

The funding round was led by Carrick Capital Partners and included capital from Series A investor Comcast Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation.

"We are very impressed with the quality of Bay Dynamics' cyber risk analytics platform and the endorsements we have heard from Bay Dynamics customers," said Jim Madden, co-founder and Managing Director of Carrick Capital Partners. "We believe the strongest and highest quality companies, like Bay Dynamics, will continue to thrive and we are excited to be a part of that growth."

http://baydynamics.com/

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AT&T's Threat Intellect Sifts Billions of Security Events in Minutes

AT&T unveiled a new Threat Intellect service that takes a Big Data + machine learning approach in sifting through billions of security events captured on the AT&T backbone to identify abnormal and malicious activity based on data patterns.

This new approach, which will be the brains behind AT&T security services going forward, provides visibility into the data patterns and threat activity by using multitudes of unique threat signature data streams, analytics and intelligence. Data can come from mobile devices, applications, data centers, or through AT&T security services. The software-defined network can then apply policies to mitigate the threat.

AT&T estimates this automation will improve the speed at which we can deploy security protections by over 95%, greatly improving threat detection and resolution.

“AT&T secures more connections than any communications company in North America,” said Steve McGaw, chief marketing officer, AT&T Business Solutions. “No carrier experiences the depth and scale of security threats we see on a daily basis– more than 30 billion vulnerability scans and 400 million spam messages are detected on our IP network. The power of Threat Intellect gives us the ability to process 5 billion security events, a full day’s worth of activity for all of our security customers combined – in only 10 minutes.”

“In the past, you had to know exactly where a specific file was stored to access it. Now, you only need a key word to find that file,” McGaw said. “AT&T Threat Intellect has a similar capability. It is the power behind every AT&T firewall, network security protection and every other security capability we have integrated in our network and services.”

AT&T said 117 petabytes of traffic are traversing its network every day.

http://www.att.com




See video:  https://youtu.be/rLWKTxw1fcE

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FCC Looks to Open Millimeter Wave Spectrum for 5G

The FCC adopted rules to identify and open up millimeter wave spectrum to support the rapid advancement to 5G networks and technologies in the United States.

Specifically, the new rules open up almost 11 GHz of spectrum for flexible use wireless broadband – 3.85 GHz of licensed spectrum and 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum.

The FCC said it is committed to moving fast to establish U.S. leadership in 5G, noting that the nation is the first to open millimeter wave spectrum for 5G.

The rules create a new Upper Microwave Flexible Use service in the 28 GHz (27.5-28.35 GHz), 37 GHz (37-38.6 GHz), and 39 GHz (38.6-40 GHz)
bands, and an unlicensed band at 64-71 GHz.

Licensed use in the 28 GHz, 37 GHz and 39 GHz bands: Makes available 3.85 GHz of licensed, flexible use spectrum, which is more than four times the amount of flexible use spectrum the FCC has licensed to date.

• Provides consistent block sizes (200 MHz), license areas (Partial Economic Areas), technical rules, and operability across the exclusively licensed portion of the 37 GHz band and the 39 GHz band to make 2.4 GHz of spectrum available.
• Provides two 425 MHz blocks for the 28 GHz band on a county basis and operability across the band.

Unlicensed use in the 64-71 GHz band: Makes available 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum which, when combined with the existing high-band unlicensed spectrum (57-64 GHz), doubles the amount of high-band unlicensed spectrum to 14 GHz of contiguous unlicensed spectrum (57-71 GHz). These 14 GHz will be 15 times as much as all unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum in lower bands.

Shared access in the 37-37.6 GHz band: Makes available 600 MHz of spectrum for dynamic shared access between different commercial users, and commercial and federal users

http://www.fcc.gov

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Digital Realty Signs Wind Power Agreements

Digital Realty Trust announced multiple renewable energy agreements for powering its U.S. data centers.

The deals include a long-term agreement with E.ON Climate and Renewables North America to procure approximately 400,000 megawatt-hours of wind power annually, which will offset 100% of Digital Realty's U.S. colocation and interconnection energy usage, reducing the company's carbon footprint by approximately 275,000 metric tons per year.

"Now more than ever, the overwhelming demand for real-time data, enhanced agility and scalability for online applications is increasing demand for power consumption within the data center," said A. William Stein, Digital Realty's Chief Executive Officer.  "Digital Realty recognizes the importance of addressing our customers' growing demand for renewably powered data centers, and this agreement serves as another example of our deep commitment to sustainable and environmentally responsible business practices."

Digital Realty also posted its Green Bond Use-of-Proceeds Statement, which details the use of the approximately $493 million of net proceeds raised through the issuance of a Green Bond in June 2015.  Digital Realty has allocated the net proceeds to nine projects:

• 3825 NW Aloclek Place / Hillsboro, OR / U.S.
• 43830 Devin Shafron Drive, Building F / Ashburn, VA / U.S.
• Unit 1, Power Avenue, Manor Royal / Crawley / Surrey / UK
• 7500 Metro Center Drive / Austin, TX / U.S.
• 900 Quality Way / Richardson, TX / U.S.
• 1-11 Templar Road / Sydney / Australia
• 98 Radnor Drive / Melbourne / Australia
• Grange Castle, Nangor Road / Dublin / Ireland
• 43940 Digital Loudoun Plaza, Building G / Ashburn, VA / U.S.

https://www.digitalrealty.com/solutions-services/sustainable-innovation/

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Infinera Joins Telecom Infra Project

Infinera has joined the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) to help accelerate the pace of innovation in telecommunications infrastructure.

TIP was co-founded by Facebook and operators such as Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom an engineering-focused initiative that aims to reimagine the traditional approach to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure.

Infinera said it will contribute its expertise in developing and deploying innovative packet-optical technologies and solutions for all three areas globally.

“We are delighted to join TIP and look forward to collaborating with Facebook and other industry leaders to define the future of telecom networks,” said Ashoka Valia, Senior Vice President, Business Development at Infinera. “With this collaboration, Infinera’s leadership in technology innovation and large-scale photonic integration to play an even greater role in solving the future connectivity requirements of networks across the globe.”

http://www.infinera.com

Facebook's Telecom Infra Project Gets Organized

Tuesday, May 24, 2016  Facebook  No Comments

The Telecom Infra Project (TIP), which was kicked off by Facebook earlier this year with a mission to take the principles of the Open Compute Project (OCP) model and apply them to software systems and components involved in access, backhaul, and core networks, has expanded its membership and formed the first set of technical project groups.

New TIP members include Axiata Digital, Indosat, MTN Group, Telefonica, Vodafone, Acacia, ADVA, BlueStream, Broadcom, Coriant, Deloitte, Juniper Networks, and Lumentum. TIP launch partners included Intel, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom.

The new Project Groups include:

Access
System integration and site optimization – Chaired by SK Telecom
New integration via innovative, cost-effective and efficient end-to-end solutions that address rural and urban regions difficult to serve profitably.

Unbundled solutions – Co-chaired by SK Telecom and Nokia
Taking a fresh look at access, specifically through a cost-effective approach for low-power, low-maintenance solutions.

Media-friendly solutions – Chaired by Intel
Focusing on methods to increase effective throughput and further enhance the mobile user experience by bringing compute and storage capacity closer to the network edge.

Backhaul
High-frequency autonomic access – Chaired by Facebook
Defining thin and extensible software stack to autonomously coordinate routing, addressing and security related functions in packet-switched IPv6 networks.

Open optical packet transport – Co-chaired by Facebook and Equinix
Defining Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) open packet transport architecture that triggers new pace of technology innovation and flexibility, and avoids implementation lock-ins.

Core and Management
Core network optimization – Chaired by Intel
New innovation through disaggregation of traditional telecom core network via deconstructing traditionally bundled components.

Greenfield telecom networks – Co-chaired by Nokia, Facebook and Deutsche Telekom
Accelerating operator-friendly evolution towards a pure and efficient IT-based network architecture via greenfield solutions designed from the ground up.

https://telecominfraproject.com/news/updates-to-the-tip-foundation/

Facebook Deploys Infinera for Multi-Terabit European Network

Tuesday, March 31, 2015  Data Centers, Facebook, Infinera, Sweden, Terabit, ULH  3 Comments

Facebook has deployed an Infinera Intelligent Transport Network  to light the world's longest terrestrial optical network route, spanning 3,998 kilometers without any regeneration. The network, which is capable of delivering up to eight terabits per second (Tbps) of data transmission capacity, stretches from Facebook's data center in Lulea, Sweden across major hubs throughout Europe. Facebook deployed the Infinera p

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Toshiba and WD Inaugurate Flash Memory Fab in Japan

Toshiba and Western Digital celebrated the opening of the New Fab 2 semiconductor fabrication facility located in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, Japan.

The new facility will support the conversion of the companies’ 2D NAND capacity to 3D flash memory, allowing realization of solutions offering higher densities and better device performance. Construction began in September 2014.

Satoshi Tsunakawa, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation, said, “Advanced technologies underline our commitment to respond to continued demand as an innovator in flash memory. We are enhancing manufacturing efficiency and the quality of our world-class facility. Building on that, we also plan investments of as much as 860 billion yen by FY2018, in line with the market situation. Our commitment is firm, and we are confident that our joint venture with Western Digital will produce cost competitive next generation memories at Yokkaichi.”

http://www.toshiba.com

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