Ghost Comm launches Gig broadband in Baltimore

Ghost Communications based in Beltsville, Maryland, announced it is launching what is believed to be the highest speed fibre-based broadband services in Maryland for businesses and multi-tenant residential locations in Baltimore.

Ghost Communications delivers high speed, secure networks and serves businesses, government, healthcare and educational institutions in the Maryland and Washington DC/northern Virginia markets. In the Baltimore region, the company provides gigabit Internet service from $250 a month, with access at up to 10 Gbit/s available priced from $700 a month.

Ghost Communications claims to offer the fastest broadband speeds in Baltimore, providing access speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s. Its services also include a SLA with a network availability guarantee of 99.995%, packet loss guaranteed not to exceed 0.01% and latency not to exceed 1.5 milliseconds within the Maryland and Washington DC area.

Ghost Communications offers customers the option of either shared or dedicated gigabit speed fibre services as well as cloud connectivity services to major cloud providers including AiNET Cloud Services (ACS), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apple iCloud and Microsoft Azure.

In addition, the company builds fibre optic networks and deploys dark fibre, allowing customers to deliver dark fibre links to the specific locations and data centres they require. Ghost Communications states that to date it has deployed around 10,000 miles of fibre.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ghost-communications-to-bring-regions-highest-fiber-speeds-to-baltimore-businesses-300499318.html

http://www.ghostcomm.com/

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Cisco completes acquisition of Viptela for $610m

Cisco announced that it has completed the acquisition of Viptela, a privately held start-up company focused on software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology based in San Jose, California, for approximately $610 million in cash and assumed equity awards under an agreement originally announced in May, 2017.

Viptela has developed a secure overlay fabric for SD-WAN, cloud onramp and Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) applications for enterprise clients. The Viptela fabric is designed to enable separation of control, data, management and orchestration layers and integrates routing, security and policy controls and application awareness across all elements in the system. A key feature of the solution is integrated authentication, encryption, segmentation and access controls.

Viptela has announced major deployments of its fabric solution with customers including Verizon, Singtel and NTTPC of Japan.

Cisco noted that it already offers the software-based Cisco Intelligent WAN (IWAN) and Meraki SD-WAN solutions, with the Viptela acquisition intended to enable it to accelerate the development of next generation SD-WAN solutions. The Viptela team will join Cisco's Enterprise Routing team within the Networking and Security Business, led by SVP David Goeckeler.

https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1870481

* In June, Cisco unveiled its 'intent-based' networking solutions that are designed to provide an intuitive network able to continuously learn and adapt and automate and protect processes and services to provide organisations with an intelligent and secure platform for digital transformation. The acquisition of Viptela will support its strategic transition towards a software-centric, subscription-led networking model.

* Cisco stated that it plans to commit significant engineering resources to deliver next-generation SD-WAN solutions based on Viptela's technology. Cisco will combine Viptela's cloud-first network management, orchestration and overlay technologies with its existing enterprise routing platforms and solutions.

* Cisco, which was an investor in Viptela, entered into an agreement to acquire the company for $610 million from equity investors including Redline Captial, Northgate Capital and Sequoia Capital. The company was founded in 2012 and had raised total funding of approximately $108 million in four rounds, including $75 million in a Series C funding round announced in May 2016.

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ZTE and Singtel trial Pre5G massive MIMO

ZTE announced that it has partnered with Singtel to complete the live deployment of the 2.6 GHz Pre5G massive MIMO network at one Marina Bay site in Singapore to enhance Singtel's 4G user experience ahead of Singapore's National Day celebrations.

ZTE noted that its Pre5G massive MIMO is suitable for high-density scenarios and will be deployed to help guarantee service quality during the high data traffic volumes that will result from the crowd gathered at the location during Singapore National Day.

ZTE stated that after site commissioning, the Pre5G massive MIMO cell experienced a significant increase in throughput, shared the traffic volume of busy macro-station cells and enabled significantly improved network speed to user terminals, as well as an enhanced user experience and increased overall service throughput in the region.

Separately, Singtel announced plans to deploy massive MIMO technology on its commercial LTE-Advanced network and using recently acquired 2.5 GHz spectrum with the aim of enhancing data rates by up to 200% at special events for its customers.

Singtel stated that it will team with Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE to deploy massive MIMO technology at the Marina Bay area, and will initially roll out the technology for the forthcoming National Day celebrations, with further deployments planned for the Singapore F1 Night Race and the New Year countdown event.

Singtel noted that it has identified massive MIMO as one solution to address growth in data traffic volume, and that it will specifically use massive MIMO base stations with an array of 64 antennas designed to improve spectral efficiency and cell capacity. The new antenna system channels signals to users' specific locations instead of broadcasting across a wide area, so multiplying the number of data paths from the base stations.

Singtel currently provides Singapore’s fastest national mobile data speeds of 450 Mbit/s, and recently launched 800 Mbit/s speeds in selected high-traffic locations.

http://www.zte.com.cn/global/about/press-center/news/201708ma/0803ma2

https://www.singtel.com/about-us/news-releases

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MaxxSouth expands DOCSIS 3.1 in Mississippi

MaxxSouth Broadband, a subsidiary of media holding company Block Communications, announced it has completed the network upgrade to provide up to 1 Gbit/s Internet broadband services to all of Oxford and to Starkville's surrounding areas, providing students and these communities with increased broadband speeds.

Utilising DOCSIS 3.1 technology, combined with the existing fibre-to-the-home services that MaxxSouth launched last year, the company is now able to offer all Oxford residents and a number of Starkville areas access to gigabit Internet speeds.

MaxxSouth has also announced that the towns of Bruce, Calhoun City, Derma, Houston and Vardaman now have access to the gigabit Internet broadband service, as part of its network enhancements. The company is demonstrating the gigabit service to Mississippi residents at its new retail location at 1901 Jackson Ave. West Oxford. MaxxSouth is planning to continue upgrading its broadband network.

MaxxSouth offers video, high-speed Internet and digital phone services across its service area that extends over more than 200 miles and includes 20 counties and 61 communities in northern Mississippi and Alabama. The company claims approximately 85,000 subscribers for broadband services and passes around 110,000 homes.

Regarding the expansion, Peter Kahelin, president and CEO of MaxxSouth, commented, "MaxxSouth (is) continuing the expansion of advanced Internet, video and telephony services into other communities throughout central and northern Mississippi… the ultimate goal is that the 61 municipalities that comprise our coverage area will have access to these new technologies".

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/maxxsouth-broadband-completes-expansion-of-1-gigabit-internet-technology-in-oxford-and-starkville-mississippi-300499645.html

http://www.maxxsouth.com/

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SoftBank deploys Cisco NCS with Segment Routing

Cisco Systems GK announced that SoftBank of Japan has adopted the Cisco Network Convergence System 5500 Series to enable high-density 100 Gigabit Ethernet routing and Segment Routing technology to optimise network operations for its next-generation mobile IP core network.

Cisco noted that mobile carriers such as SoftBank not only face the need to respond to the demands of user growth by delivering higher communication speeds, lower latency and dynamic provisioning that will be enabled by 5G networks, but also to deliver new mobile services to home and enterprise markets. SoftBank is planning to upgrade and expand its existing equipment that supports mobile Internet traffic, which is forecast to increase at a rate of 50% per year.

As part of this initiative, SoftBank has upgraded the core routers used in its existing network to the Cisco NCS 5500 Series, which is capable of supporting 576 x 100 Gigabit Ethernet ports. This capacity will enable the company to build a next-generation mobile IP core network able to meet the bandwidth demands from the deployment of new services such as IoT and mobile video.

Cisco noted that the next-generation mobile IP core network is able to support high-traffic volume and to reduce fault recovery time to help improve the processes for ensuring the high reliability of services in the event a fault occurs.

In addition, SoftBank has become the first company in Japan to introduce Segment Routing technology provided by Cisco, which is designed to simplify and optimise the mobile IP core network and facilitate the automation of network operations.

Cisco's Segment Routing TI-LFA capability is designed to reduce fault recovery time while also improving reliability and redundancy. This can enable the provisioning of a more reliable mobile network while delivering an enhanced user experience for SoftBank's consumer and corporate customers.

Through the deployment, SoftBank is aiming to become more competitive by enabling the rapid, flexible deployment of reliable services leveraging a core network that can support traffic demand while providing low operating costs.

Cisco noted that according to its recent Mobile Visual Networking Index Forecast (VNI) 2016-21, global mobile data traffic will increase seven-fold to 1.4 zettabytes over the period, driven by increasing mobile users, smartphones and the Internet of Things (IoT), higher network speeds and rising mobile video consumption.

https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1871147

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Peak 10 completes acquires ViaWest from Shaw for $1.67bn

Peak 10, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, announced that it has completed its acquisition of ViaWest through an agreement announced on June 13, 2017, positioning the combined company as a major national provider of hybrid IT solutions including colocation, interconnection, cloud, managed solutions and professional services with more than 4,200 customers nationwide.

The combined solution portfolio of the new company is designed to help organisations with their IT transformation projects while addressing cost, scalability, compliance and security requirements.

Following the combination, the company, renamed Peak 10 + ViaWest, offers a suite of assets that spans 20 domestic and international markets. The company operates 40 redundant data centres, 2.7 million sq feet of data centre space, 13 cloud nodes and more than 10,000 cross connects, supported by 1,000-plus dedicated staff. Through the combination, customers will gain increased scale and geographic coverage.

To support the company's increased geographic footprint and strategic growth, Peak 10 + ViaWest has expanded its senior leadership team. Chris Downie will remain as chief executive officer, while Nancy Phillips will serve as the executive chair of the board of the combined company.

http://www.peak10.com/peak-10-completes-viawest-acquisition-forming-nationwide-leader-hybrid-solutions/

• ViaWest was acquired by Peak 10 from Canada's Shaw Communications. The transaction involved a share purchase agreement with GI Partners portfolio company Peak 10 to buy ViaWest for approximately C$2.3 billion ($1.675 billion).

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Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm Demo LAA at 953 Mbit/s

Verizon announced that in what is believed to be a U.S. wireless industry first, it has partnered with Ericsson, and Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, to demonstrate a mobile data rate of 953 Mbit/s in a joint commercial network deployment in Boca Raton, Florida.

Verizon noted that while lab tests have achieved comparable speeds in recent demonstrations, this is the fastest speed announced to date that has been achieved in a real-world, dynamic network environment leveraging Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology.

The demonstration utilised commercially available Verizon network components including a cell site, hardware, software and backhaul, with Ericsson providing the advanced remote radio head. The Ericsson micro Radio 2205 for LAA, designed for unlicensed spectrum use, is compact, provides for flexible mounting and is a component of the Ericsson Radio System, an end-to-end modular radio network portfolio of hardware and software designed for any site type and traffic scenario as networks transition towards 5G.

In addition, for the trial Qualcomm Technologies provided a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile platform test device equipped with Gigabit LTE capability leveraging the integrated Snapdragon X16 LTE modem.

Verizon stated that the latest demonstration used a combination of the latest 4G LTE wireless technologies to deliver the higher mobile speeds. Technology employed included carrier aggregation, which enables multiple spectrum channels to be combined to allow data to be carried more efficiently and faster peak speeds.

Verizon noted that it was the first U.S. carrier to launch LTE Advanced with two channel carrier aggregation nationally last year, and has subsequently completed the deployment of three channel carrier aggregation using its licensed spectrum.

To achieve latest near-gigabit mobile speeds, Verizon used a combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum for the first time. The four carrier aggregation utilises LAA to combine its spectrum holdings with unlicensed spectrum via home and commercial WiFi connectivity.

The demonstration with Ericsson and Qualcomm Technoogies also involved technology including 4 x 4 MIMO, which uses multiple antennae at the cell tower and on consumers' devices to optimise data rates, 256QAM, allowing customer devices and the network to exchange information in larger amounts and thereby to deliver more bits of data in each transmission.

http://www.verizon.com/about/media-center

• Recently, AT&T announced that it had achieved mobile speeds of 650 Mbit/s using LTE and LAA technology in a field trial working with Ericsson, while T-Mobile announced it had demonstrated 741 Mbit/s mobile data rate in a field trial of LAA technology.

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Microsemi unveils Switchtec PAX PCIe fabric switch

Microsemi, a major provider of semiconductor solutions, announced the availability of its new Switchtec PAX advanced fabric Gen3 PCIe switch, designed to provide high-performance fabric connectivity for scalable, multi-host systems and just a bunch of flash (JBOF) and supporting single root input/output (I/O) virtualisation (SR-IOV), NVMe and multi-function endpoints.

Microsemi noted that hyperconverged systems are shifting towards composable/disaggregated infrastructures (C/DI) such as rack scale architecture to meet the changing demands on resources and storage capacity of next-generation applications. PAX advanced fabric PCIe switches are designed to provide a scalable, low latency and cost-effective solution to the disaggregation of computing, networking, graphics processing units (GPUs) and storage resources.

The new PAX PCIe switches, which are flexibly interconnected with configurable high-speed fabric links, virtualise PCIe domains and SR-IOV endpoints. System development is simplified through a fabric application programming interface (API) and the ability to utilise off-the-shelf NVMe host drivers, reducing time-to-market for complex multi-host systems.

Microsemi's Switchtec PAX family features switches supporting from 96 lanes to 24 lanes and up to 48 ports, offering capabilities including:

1. PCIe fabric connectivity to address the limitations of the PCIe specification for rack scale multi-host systems.

2. Multi-host sharing of SR-IOV and multifunction endpoints.

3. Virtualisation of PCIe domains and SR-IOV NVMe SSDs, plus software development kit (SDK) for virtualisation of other SR-IOV endpoints and enclosure management.

4.  Flexible port bifurcation, enabling from x2 to x16 lanes per port.

5.  Advanced diagnostics and debug features to identify, diagnose and fix problems.

6.     Separate Refclk Independent SSC (SRIS) for cabled PCIe and lower cost system designs.

Microsemi's PCIe product portfolio includes the scalable, low power PFX family of PCIe Gen3 fanout switches, the programmable PSX family of PCIe Gen3 storage switches and the multi-protocol, adaptive EQNOX family of signal conditioners with FlexEQ equalisation technology supporting PCIe Gen3 and Gen2.

https://investor.microsemi.com/releases

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Mirantis expands NFV capabilities of MCP solution for telco, enterprise customers

Mirantis has announced a series of NFV-focused updates to Mirantis Cloud Platform (MCP), optimised to facilitate deployment, operations and updates via DriveTrain and to support NFV for telecom operators, cable providers and enterprises.

The enhancements to Mirantis' MCP solution include:

1.         OVS-DPDK over bonded interfaces, which allows users to consume higher bandwidth over a single link aggregated interface.

2.         VLAN-aware VMs, enabling users to consume fewer vNICs, where previously a separate vNIC was required for each VLAN, thereby helping to reduce network complexity in virtualised environments.

3.         Per-VF QoS to offer support for bandwidth capping on a per-virtual-function level, permitting finer-grained traffic shaping and preventing 'noisy-neighbour' syndromes.

Mirantis stated that with MCP it is moving from the traditional software-centric method based on licensing and support subscriptions to offer an operations-centric approach, where open infrastructure is continuously delivered with an operations SLA via a managed service or by the end customer. This approach allows software updates to be introduced incrementally on a bi-weekly basis with no down time, rather than via major bi-annual or annual updates.

Launched in April, Mirantis Cloud Platform incorporates open source software such as OpenStack and Kubernetes, continuously delivered via the DriveTrain continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline and provided to customers in a build-operate-transfer delivery model designed to enable hybrid cloud operations at scale.

The MCP provides a single platform to orchestrate VMs, containers and bare metal compute resources through the inclusion of Kubernetes for container orchestration and supports virtual compute stacks complemented with open source software defined networking (SDN). It also features StackLight, enabling compliance to availability SLAs via continuous monitoring of the open cloud software stacks.

Mirantis' build-operate-transfer model provides customers with a turnkey experience, with Mirantis operating the cloud for a period of at least six months with up to four-nines SLA prior to offboarding operational responsibility to the customer, if required. This delivery model is designed to ensure that the customer's team and processes are aligned with devops best practices.

https://www.mirantis.com/company/press-center/info/
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Windstream enhances SD-WAN offering with Concierge managed service

Windstream has announced the introduction of a more robust SD-WAN solution that is designed to provide customers with an enhanced managed SD-WAN experience.

Windstream's new SD-WAN solution includes additional broadband flexibility, improved self-service monitoring and control options, and a new SD-WAN Concierge managed service that is designed to automatically optimise application performance, enable lower costs and to simplify network management. Customers can also combine SD-WAN with Diverse Connect to gain a 100%-availability service level agreement (SLA).

Windstream's expanded SD-WAN solution offers customers:

1.         Concierge Service, a fully-managed service that helps customers effectively use SD-WAN via Windstream experts that proactively monitor and optimise network environments for application performance.

2.         Integrated SD-WAN management tool, which provides visibility and control of a customer's SD-WAN network via a centralised management portal, with the facility to deploy configurations for new locations, services and security policies.

3.         Business Aware Cloud Network, enabling dynamic traffic steering based on real time network conditions to improve application performance and the end-user experience.

4.         Industry-tailored cloud-based solutions, offering a suite of adjunct services designed to improve the customer experience, including cloud-based unified communications and security, with a tailored network to connect to services such as UCaaS, Cloud Connect, secure WiFi, and PCI suite.

Windstream's enhanced SD-WAN solution is available immediately to businesses within its national service area.

http://news.windstream.com/news-releases/news-release-details/windstream-adds-improved-customer-experience-and-network

* Windstream launched its SD-WAN service in January of this year, and noted that it is working to enhance the SD-WAN solution following its merger with EarthLink. Windstream announced in November 2016 that it planned to acquire EarthLink for $1.1 billion; it announced in February that it had completed the transaction.

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T-Mobile US continues market disruption

T-Mobile US delivered record service revenues, in Q2, along with strong net income, 1.3 million customer net additions and a record low churn. T-Mobile, which is the third largest wireless carrier in the United States, is clearly gaining post-paid customers at the expense of AT&T and Verizon. Moreover, T-Mobile takes credit for having pushed its two larger competitors into offering unlimited data plans. Deutsche Telekom (DT), the majority shareholder in TMUS, should be pleased. DT's financial report is due August 3rd.

Customer acquisition trends at T-Mobile US

Although T-Mobile boasts about adding more than a million mobile subscribers for 17 consecutive quarters, and more than its rivals, the absolute number of mobile subscribers in the U.S. is quite steady. It is a mature and fully saturated market. Customers jump from one carrier to the next when there is a major promotion, such as T-Mobile's 2-for-1 offer for Samsung's new Galaxy S8 during June. There are also people moving from pre-paid to post-paid plans, and vice versa. T-Mobile's total number of customers decreased slightly from Q1 and was 2.178 million more than a year earlier. Here are the figures:

		Quarter												6 months ended June 30th
(in thousands, except churn)		Q2 2017				Q1 2017				Q2 2016				2017			2016
Total net customer additions		1,333				1,142				1,881				2,475			4,102
Branded postpaid net customer additions		817				914				890				1,731			1,931
Branded postpaid phone net customer additions		786				798				646				1,584			1,523
Branded prepaid net customer additions		94				386				476				480			1,283
Total customers, end of period (1)		69,562				72,597				67,384				69,562			67,384
Branded postpaid phone churn		1.10	%			1.18	%			1.27	%			1.14	%		1.30

•   Another factor contributing to the strong customer additions for T-Mobile is its physical retail push. The company opened 1,000 T-Mobile and 1,100 MetroPCS stores during the first half of the year. T-Mobile says it now aims to open 3,000 stores during 2017.

Financial trends for Q2

Overall revenue for T-Mobile reached $10.2 billion, up 10% year over year. Service revenue increased 8% in Q2 to a quarterly record-high of $7.4 billion, while many other telecom sectors, especially in mature markets, are flat or experiencing revenue growth in the 1-3% range. The T-Mobile figures look strong in that comparison. T-Mobile believes that its revenue growth performance will outpace its rivals.

Branded postpaid phone ARPU was $47.01 in Q2, essentially flat from Q2 2016. The company says that branded post-paid phone ARPU in full-year 2017 will be generally stable compared to full-year 2016, with some quarterly variations driven by the actual migrations to T-Mobile ONE rate plans. As the biggest promoter of unlimited voice/text/data plans, T-Mobile is largely responsible for this environment of flat ARPU and rising data traffic. With everything included on one bill, it is likely the fixed ARPU number will become a constant for the U.S. market.

Branded prepaid ARPU was a record-high $38.65 in Q2 2017, up 2.1% from Q2 2016, primarily due to the continued growth of MetroPCS customers. T-Mobile usually plays the role of the aggressor in pricing wars. In the pre-paid space, however, the company seems to have found its bottom line, saying it has made a deliberate decision not to respond to irrational offers in the marketplace from some of our competitors.

T-Mobile continues to generate higher net income and earnings per share. Net income increased 158% year-over-year in Q2 2017 to a strong $581 million, while net income as a percentage of service revenue was 8% in Q2 2017, up from 3% in Q2 2016. Meanwhile, diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 168% year-over-year in Q2 2017 to $0.67.

John Legere, T-Mobile’s outspoken president and CEO, commented:

-    "We just delivered a quarter with record service revenue, record-low churn, strong net income and record Adjusted EBITDA - all while leading the industry in post-paid phone growth. On top of that, our network just keeps getting better and faster while the Duopoly's networks seem to be choking after we forced them to go unlimited".

Network update

T-Mobile's 700 MHz deployment is now essentially complete, with live coverage in 575 market areas covering 271 million people. The next big project is the 600 MHz rollout.

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IBM sees optimism for cloud and AI despite its weaker financials

IBM recently reported that its cloud revenues continue to rise, however not at the rate of its larger public cloud competitors and not at the pace that investors have come to expect. The company's Q2 financial report posted in late July revealed that that cloud revenues grew 17% in the quarter, led by as-a-service offerings, which were up 32% year-to-year.

Total cloud revenue was $15.1 billion for the last 12 months and XaaS revenue was $8.8 billion at an annual exit run rate in the quarter, up 30% year to year (up 32% adjusting for currency). Revenue from analytics increased 4% (up 6% adjusting for currency), revenue from mobile increased 27% (up 29% adjusting for currency) and revenue from security increased 4% (up 5% adjusting for currency).

These growth areas were offset by continued declines in legacy revenue, leading to an overall decline in revenue for the company compared to the same period a year earlier and marking the 21st consecutive quarter of decline for the company. Overall, Q2 revenue was down 4.7% to $19.3 billion compared to a year ago.

Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and CEO, said:

-    "In the second quarter, we strengthened our position as the enterprise cloud leader and added more of the world's leading companies to the IBM Cloud… it continues to innovate, adding regtech capabilities to its portfolio of Watson offerings; developing solutions based on emerging technologies such as Blockchain; and reinventing the IBM mainframe by enabling clients to encrypt all data, all the time".

Progress in cloud services

IBM's optimism, despite the sliding sales and slower than expect growth in cloud services, perhaps can be traced to its early and strategic entrance into the nascent market for artificial intelligence, a string of recent high-profile wins for cloud services, and a vast pace of innovation in new services. Some of IBM's major new customer engagements for Q2 included:

·         Lloyds Banking Group, which signed a 10-year cloud services agreement with IBM. Under the contract, IBM will transform Lloyd’s from branch structures to digital channels, embracing the API economy without compromising their existing systems and focusing on end-to-end cost reductions.

·         American Airlines, which has agreed to use IBM Cloud as the foundation for a massive cloud transformation. The IBM Cloud will host the airline’s website, aa.com, its customer-facing application, airport kiosks and critical enterprise workloads.

·         BMW - IBM became a pilot partner of BMW Car Data - which will leverage IBM Cloud and IBM Watson IoT - using cognitive and data analytics services to enable third parties, such as automotive repair shops or insurance companies, to develop entirely new customer experiences.

·         Bombardier, which announced it is extending its long-term partnership with IBM through a new six-year deal valued at approximately $700 million. The contract includes IBM Services and IBM Cloud management of Bombardier’s worldwide IT infrastructure and operations. The services management agreement spans 47 countries and represents one of IBM’s largest cloud partnerships in Canada.

·         Blockchain on the IBM Cloud - a consortium of seven large European banks selected IBM to build and host a new trade finance platform that will be based on IBM Blockchain and run on the IBM Cloud.

·         Danske Bank, which recently selected IBM for new 10-year IT infrastructure service transformation project. The IBM Services Platform with Watson provides artificial intelligence capabilities. IBM said its platform enables other automation tools to do more than execute simple instructions, they can now run diagnostics and execute actions to address the root causes of issues. Unstructured e-mails and chats can be read in natural language and resulting insights used to resolve problems without manual intervention.

Expanding the fleet of IBM Cloud Data Centers

IBM has announced the opening of four new Cloud Data Centers, two in the UK (London), one is in Australia (Sydney) and one in the U.S. (San Jose). This brings the total number of IBM Cloud Data Centers to 60 across 19 countries. One notable difference from Google’s hyperscale data centre strategy is that IBM operates smaller facilities but has many more. This helps address data sovereignty requirements in many countries as well as network latency issues.

Offering NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs as-a-service

NVIDIA and IBM announced that IBM it is the first major global cloud provider to make the NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPU accelerator available on the cloud, geared towards speeding AI workloads. IBM also achieved new performance benchmarks with the P100 GPU accelerator on the IBM cloud, reducing deep learning training time by up to 65% compared to NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPU.

Direct Cloud Connectivity

In April, Comcast Business announced that it was providing its customers with direct, dedicated links to IBM Cloud’s global network of data centres.

Progress with IBM Watson

Ever since the launch of Watson in 2011, it has been clear that IBM was on the path to artificial intelligence. Watson is its crown jewel and its key point for differentiation. IBM now offers many examples of how Watson can be a transformative decision maker for many industry verticals. IBM's television commercials, which have been heavily promoted in U.S. over the past several months, depict Watson in many industries, from wine vineyards to telemedicine. In the entertainment space, 20th Century Fox is now working with IBM Watson to better understand what is happening in videos. Automatic scene detection lets the cognitive platform analyse how the plot of a film progresses in comparison to other works of the same genre which have measured outcomes with real audiences. This lets Watson predict how a movie will be received, as well to automatically create a trailer.

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Dan Pitt, MEF: Perspective on Open Source

The industry is looking very closely at open source software and open source hardware for a number of reasons, says Dan Pitt, MEF, Senior Vice President. Open source shares the development costs in a way that provides everyone with access to the same code base. MEF builds a larger framework that incorporates components that could be built with open source or closed source software elements, shows how you can create end-to-end services with them, and defines LSO APIs that MEF members can instantiate with open source software. MEF currently is developing Software Development Kits (SDKs) for the LSO APIs.

See video: https://youtu.be/lBA9RjzvNdU

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Arista's Q2 Revenue Jumps to $405mn, up 51% YoY

Arista Networks reports stronger than expected results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2017.

Revenue rose to $405.2 million, an increase of 20.8% compared to the first quarter of 2017, and an increase of 50.8% from the second quarter of 2016. GAAP gross margin was 64.1%, compared to GAAP gross margin of 63.9% in the first quarter of 2017 and 63.8% in the second quarter of 2016. GAAP net income was $102.7 million, or $1.30 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $38.9 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2016.

"As we complete our third anniversary of becoming a public company, I am pleased with our record results in Q2 2017,” stated Jayshree Ullal, Arista President and CEO. “Our substantial financial performance, customer success and industry recognition has accelerated the migration to mainstream cloud networking.”

http://investors.arista.com/

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Full House Again at the FCC

The U.S. Senate approved the nominations of Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr to serve as FCC Commissioners. This restores the FCC as a five-person body.

Jessica Rosenworcel previously served as FCC Commissioner under the Obama administration since 2011 and was renominated in 2015 but the Senate failed to renew her posting during the 2016 election cycle. Rosenworcel replaced long-term FCC Commissioner Michael Copps when his term ended in December 2011. She previously was the Senior Communications Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Before that, she worked for Senator Jay Rockefeller IV, and at the FCC from 1999 to 2007, serving as Legal Advisor and then Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Michael J. Copps (2003-2007), Legal Counsel to the Bureau Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau (2002-2003), and as an Attorney-Advisor in the Policy Division of the Common Carrier Bureau (1999-2002). She holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Brendan Carr is currently the General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, where he serves as the chief legal advisor to the Commission and FCC staff. Previously, he was lead advisor to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on wireless, public safety, and international issues.  Carr has also worked as an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP. He hold an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and a J.D. from Catholic University.

http://www.fcc.gov

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Infinera Posts Q2 Revenue of $177mn

Infinera reported Q2 revenue of $176.8 million compared to $175.5 million in the first quarter of 2017 and $258.8 million in the second quarter of 2016. GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 36.7% compared to 36.5% in the first quarter of 2017 and 47.8% in the second quarter of 2016. GAAP operating margin for the quarter was (22.9)% compared to (21.6)% in the first quarter of 2017 and 6.2% in the second quarter of 2016.

GAAP net loss for the quarter was $(42.8) million, or $(0.29) per share, compared to a net loss of $(40.5) million, or $(0.28) per share, in the first quarter of 2017, and net income of $11.5 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2016.

“Highlighted by delivery of ICE4 products to market, I was pleased with our performance in the second quarter,” said Tom Fallon, Infinera's Chief Executive Officer. “We delivered the Cloud Xpress 2 to three customers and had early deployments of the XT-3300. As we continue to deliver on a suite of new products over the upcoming quarters, I believe we are well positioned to grow market share and to gradually improve our financial performance.”

http://www.infinera.com

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Oclaro reports Q4 revenue of $149.38m, up 19.3% yr/yr

Oclaro reported financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2017, ended July 1, 2017, as follows:

1.  Revenue for the fourth quarter of $149.38 million, down 7.9% compared with $162.18 million for the third quarter and up 19.3% from $125.18 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

2.  Gross income for the fourth quarter of $61.33 million, down 8.2% compared with $66.79 million for the third quarter and up 52.6% from $40.18 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

3.  R&D expenditure for the fourth quarter of $15.75 million, up 8.8% compared with $14.48 million for the third quarter and up 24.3% from $12.67 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

4.  SG&A expenditure for the fourth quarter of $15.58 million, up 5.7% compared with $14.74 million for the third quarter and up 8.2% from $14.40 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

5.  Total operating expenditure for the fourth quarter of $31.44 million, up 8.2% compared with $29.05 million for the third quarter and up 14.9% from $27.37 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

6.  On a GAAP basis, a net income for the fourth quarter of $56.03 million, compared with a net income of $38.21 million for the third quarter and a net income of $11.84 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

On a non-GAAP basis, a net income for the fourth quarter of $33.93 million, compared with a net income of $39.89 million for the third quarter and a net income of $14.41 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

7.  Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as of July 1, 2017 $219.99 million, versus $214.78 million as at April 1, 2017 and $96.64 million as at July 2, 2016.

Additional results and notes

For the full year 2017 Oclaro reported revenue of $600.97 million, compared with $407.91 million in 2016, and a net income of $127.86 million, versus net income of $8.58 million for the prior year.

Oclaro stated that, as expected, QSFP28 sales in the fourth quarter doubled sequentially, while QSFP28 and ACO products accounted for over 40% of total sales, with demand expected to be strong in fiscal year 2018 driven by growth in the metro and data centre markets. 100 Gbit/s and beyond sales were $121 million in the fourth quarter and represented 81% of total sales. Sales of client-side CFP products declined by 25% and 40 Gbit/s and below product sales decreased by over 20%.

In the fourth quarter, Oclaro's top four customers represented 55% of total revenue, versus 68% in the second quarter. The top four customers contributed 17%, 13% and 12% of sales.. For fiscal year 2017 the top customers were Cisco with 18%, ZTE 18%, Huawei with 15% and Nokia 12%.

Oclaro also announced the appointment of Ian Small, most recently chief data officer at Telefónica, to its board of directors, effective September 1, 2017. On July 27th, Oclaro increased the size of the board from seven to eight members.

Outlook

For the first quarter, Oclaro expects revenue of between $151 and $159 million, representing a sequential increase of 3.8% at the midpoint.

http://investor.oclaro.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1035715

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Verizon to acquire WOW! for $225m for Chicago Fiber Network

WideOpenWest (WOW!), a provider of Internet, cable TV and voice services based in Englewood, Colorado, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell a portion of its fibre network in its Chicago market to a subsidiary of Verizon for $225 million in cash.

In addition, WOW! and Verizon will enter into a new agreement pursuant to which WOW! will complete the build-out of the network in exchange for a payment of approximately $50 million (WOW!'s estimated cost for completion of the network build-out), payable as the remaining network elements are completed. The network, expected to be completed in the second half of 2018, will provide backhaul services to over 500 macro-cell wireless sites and more than 500 small-cell sites.

Through the agreement, Verizon will gain a high-capacity fibre network designed to support multi-use services. The company noted that the network already connects Verizon Wireless macro towers and small cells, and will reduce its leasing costs via fibre connectivity to more than 500 macro-cell wireless sites and 500 small-cell wireless sites.

WOW! noted that the transaction is subject to receipt of various consents and approvals, as well as other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close early in the first quarter of next year. WOW! stated that it plans to use a portion of the proceeds from the transaction to pay-down existing debt balances.

Commenting on the transaction, Hans Vestberg, Verizon president of Network and Technology, said, "Following recent agreements with Corning, Prysmian and Straight Path, this is another example of Verizon's commitment to invest in multi-use fibre to provide customers with next-generation broadband services, such as smart cities and 5G… this acquisition will also help create comprehensive digital solutions for small- and medium-business and enterprise customers".

http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-purchase-fiber-network-infrastructure-chicago-market-wideopenwest

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MRV reports Q2 revenue of $19.72m, down 6.8% Q/Q

MRV Communications reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2017 as follows:

1.         Revenue for the second quarter of 2017 of $19.72 million, down 6.8% compared with $21.17 million in the preceding first quarter and down 8.6% versus $21.58 million in the prior year second quarter.

2.         Gross profit for the second quarter of $10.16 million, down 5.0% compared with $10.70 million in the preceding first quarter and up 1.2% versus $10.04 million in the prior year second quarter.

3.         R&D expenditure for the second quarter of $4.61 million, down 2.5% compared with $4.73 million in the preceding first quarter and down 10.0% versus $5.12 million in the prior year second quarter.

4.         SG&A expenditure for the second quarter of $7.45 million, up 10.0% compared with $6,77 million in the preceding first quarter and up 6.3% versus $7.01 million in the prior year second quarter.

5.         Total operating expenditure for the second quarter of $12.06 million, up 4.9% compared with $11.50 million in the preceding first quarter and down 0.6% versus $12.13 million in the prior year second quarter.

6.         On a GAAP basis, net loss for the second quarter of $2.10 million, compared with a net loss of $1.04 million in the preceding first quarter and a net loss of $2.02 million in the prior year second quarter.

On a non-GAAP basis, net loss for the second quarter of $0.44 million, compared with a net loss of $0.52 million in the preceding first quarter and a net loss of $1.31 million in the prior year second quarter.

7.         Cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, 2017 of $24.33 million, compared with $21.41 million as at March 31, 2017 and compared with $25.12 million as at December 31, 2016.

Additional results and notes

MRV noted that on July 2, 2017 it entered into a merger agreement with ADVA NA Holdings and its subsidiary Golden Acquisition (Merger Sub). Under the merger agreement Merger Sub was to commence a cash tender offer to purchase all issued and outstanding shares of MRV for $10.00 per share. On completion of the offer Merger Sub will merge with and into the company, with MRV continuing as the surviving corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of ADVA.

On July 17th, the offer commenced as per the agreement and is currently scheduled to expire at midnight, August 11, 2017.

http://mrv.com/mrv-reports-second-quarter-results-2/

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CESNET of Czech Republic deploys Coriant Groove

Coriant announced that the CESNET, provider of network infrastructure for the R&E sector in the Czech Republic, has tested the Coriant Groove G30 Network Disaggregation Platform combined with the CESNET-developed Czech Light family of advanced optical devices for a trial of high-capacity coherent optical transmission in its nationwide e-infrastructure.

As part of CESNET's planned deployment and ongoing exploration of new technologies, Coriant and CESNET are collaborating to demonstrate bi-directional single lambda 200 Gbit/s transmission in a multi-site data centre interconnect (DCI) application.

CESNET develops and operates the Czech Republic's national e-infrastructure that is designed to support the science, research and education communities. The nationwide broadband network connects universities and research institutions located in all of the country's major cities and is designed to provide a reliable foundation for high-performance computer networks, computational grids, data storage and transfer and collaborative working environments.

The Coriant Groove G30 Network Disaggregation Platform is an advanced 1 RU modular, open transport solution for cloud and data centre networks that can be configured both as a muxponder terminal solution and as an open line system (OLS) optical layer solution. Targeting interconnectivity applications, the disaggregated Groove G30 is designed to deliver high density and flexibility with low power consumption.

The CESNET Association, founded by Czech universities and the Academy of Sciences, engages in research and development in ICT and is responsible for building and developing the CESNET national e-infrastructure for research and education. CESNET also represents the Czech Republic in international projects, notably the pan-European GÉANT network project and grid projects (EGI.eu).

http://www.coriant.com/company/press-releases/CESNET-Selects-Coriant-Groove.asp

• In June, CESNET announced it had been awarded a U.S. patent for a device in the Czech Light family of advanced photonic solutions for transmission and processing of optical signals.
  
• The U.S, Patent and Trademark Office has registered patent No. 9,654,215, 'Spectrally flexible device for bidirectional transmissions of optical signals sensitive to timing'. The patented device enables long-distance transmission of accurate and stable optical signals over hundreds or thousands of kilometres utilising spectral bands that are not currently in use in telecommunications fibres.
  
• CESNET noted that it is seeking entities interested in manufacturing and deploying the Czech Light family of devices.

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