T-Mobile US posts strong Q1, withholds guidance due to COVID-19

T-Mobile US reported a record-setting first quarter in 2020, including record service revenues of $8.7 billion, up 5%, and record net income of $951 million, up 5%.

Some highlights:

• Branded net customer additions were 649,000 in Q1 2020, bringing the total branded customer count is 68.5 million.
• Branded postpaid net customer additions were 777,000
• Branded postpaid phone net customer additions were 452,000 down 204,000 year-over-year. This decrease was primarily due to lower gross additions impacted by reduced demand from social distancing rules and retail store closures arising from COVID-19, partially offset by lower churn. 
• Branded postpaid other net customer additions were 325,000 in Q1 2020, down 38,000 year-over-year..
• Branded postpaid phone churn was a Q1 record-low 0.86% in Q1 2020, down 2 bps year-over-year, primarily impacted by the beginning effects of reduced demand from social distancing rules and retail store closures arising from COVID-19.
• Branded prepaid net customer losses were 128,000 in Q1 2020, primarily due to lower gross additions impacted by reduced demand from social distancing rules and retail store closures arising from COVID-19, partially offset by lower churn. Migrations to branded postpaid plans reduced branded prepaid net customer additions by approximately 115,000 in Q1 2020.
• Branded prepaid churn was a Q1 record-low 3.52%, down 33 bps year-over-year, primarily due to the continued success of our prepaid brands due to promotional activities and rate plan offers and the beginning effects of reduced demand from social distancing rules and retail store closures arising from COVID-19.
• Branded postpaid Average Revenue per Account (ARPA) was essentially flat year-over-year. Branded postpaid ARPA was primarily impacted by an increase in average customers per account due to the growing success of wearables, specifically the Apple Watch, and other connected devices, offset by an increase in our promotional activities, including the ongoing growth in the Netflix offering, a reduction in regulatory program revenues from the continued adoption of tax inclusive plans and a reduction in certain non-recurring charges including the impact of credits for restore fees, international calls and data usage in connection with our response to COVID-19.
• Branded postpaid phone Average Revenue per User (ARPU) decreased 1% year-over-year to $45.80.Branded prepaid ARPU increased 1% year-over-year to $38.11 in Q1 2020 primarily due the removal of certain branded prepaid customers associated with products now offered and distributed by a current MVNO partner, partially offset by dilution from our promotional activities, a reduction in certain non-recurring charges and growth in our Amazon Prime offering.

“Just five weeks ago, we merged with Sprint to create the New T-Mobile, and we’re more excited today than ever before about the massive value creation opportunity and synergy potential that lies ahead. We are off to the races laying the foundation for the future of the New T-Mobile as we work to execute on our business plan and harness the incredible opportunity ahead,” said Mike Sievert, President and CEO of T-Mobile. “In the face of a challenging climate for Q1, T-Mobile once again led the industry in postpaid phone net customer additions and set even more financial records, including record service revenues, record Q1 Net income and record Adjusted EBITDA. Additionally, I'm so proud of our teams for their creative and passionate work in the face of the COVID-19 health crisis as we continue to provide crucial connectivity to our customers and impacted communities, while ensuring the safety of our employees.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely impacted, and will continue to adversely impact, T-Mobile’s business and operating results, the company continues to work to ensure the health and safety of its employees, the ongoing reliability of its network, which continues to perform strongly and function with minimal interruptions, and the ability to serve and connect our customers. These prioritizations have resulted in key operational changes, affecting T-Mobile’s service revenues, equipment revenues, customer additions, churn rate and SG&A expenses, including increased labor costs. Additionally, T-Mobile continues to actively monitor and assess the impacts of COVID-19 on all facets of its business and operations, and as a result - the company is not in position to issue full year guidance, which depends on future developments that remain highly uncertain and unpredictable at this time, including the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and related mitigation and response efforts. "

• The Sprint merger was completed on April 1, 2020.

Read More

Equinix's revenues top $1.445 billion, up 6% YoY

Equinix reported Q1 revenue of $1.445 billion, a 2% increase over the previous quarter and a 6% increase over the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $684 million, a 47% adjusted EBITDA margin, including higher seasonal costs. Net income amounted to $119 million, a 5% decrease from the previous quarter.

"The Equinix business continues to perform well and show resiliency through these times of uncertainty, enabling us to remain focused on the clear set of priorities we laid out at the beginning of the year—investing in our people, evolving our platform and service portfolio to meet the changing needs of customers, expanding our go-to-market engine to fuel long-term growth, and simplifying our business to drive operating leverage and enhance our customer experience," states Charles Meyers, President and CEO, Equinix.

Some highlights for the quarter

• Key customer expansions included Hurricane Electric, TikTok and Zoom
• Global connectivity remains a growth area as customer deployments across multiple metros comprised 87% of total recurring revenues, and Interconnection revenues increased 14% over the same quarter last year; peak Equinix Internet Exchange™ traffic increased 44% over the same quarter last year, or over 20% compared to the prior quarter, reflecting the impact of the sudden global shift to remote and work-from-home practices
• Equinix continues the growth of its indirect selling initiatives, as Q1 channel activity accounted for approximately 30% of bookings
• Interconnection revenues in Q1 grew 14% year-over-year, or 15% on a normalized and constant currency basis, steadily rising over the last few quarters, reflecting the demand across our portfolio of interconnection products. 
• Equinix's global interconnection platform now comprises over 370,000 physical and virtual interconnections. In Q1, Equinix added an incremental 6,800 interconnections.

https://www.equinix.com/newsroom/press-releases/pr/123943/Equinix-Reports-First-Quarter--Results/

Read More

VIAVI reports sales of $256 million, down 3% YoY

VIAVI reported net revenue of $256.2 million for its third fiscal quarter ended March 28, 2020, down $9.0 million or (3.4)% year-over-year. GAAP net loss was $(32.8) million, or $(0.14) per share. Non-GAAP net income was $32.0 million, or $0.14 per share.

"Fiscal Q3 2020 revenue came in below our guidance range. The emerging COVID-19 pandemic was the principal driver behind the revenue shortfall. Despite that, through disciplined OPEX management, we managed to deliver the midpoint of our non-GAAP EPS guidance range, at 14 cents per share," said Oleg Khaykin, VIAVI's President and Chief Executive Officer. "The NSE business segment was most impacted by the COVID-19 headwinds, as our customers increasingly went into WFH and lockdown mode of operations and many purchase decisions were either pushed out or put on hold. The OSP business segment, on another hand, saw some late quarter customer order upsides and expedites, coming in above the revenue and non-GAAP operating margin guidance range."

Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA customers represented 34.7%, 29.0% and 36.3%, respectively, of total net revenue for the quarter ended March 28, 2020.

https://investor.viavisolutions.com/

Read More

2020 CLEO Technical Conference, 11 – 15 May

Silicon photonics, the next generation of optical quantum information processing, the adoption of flexible technology and optical frequency comb technology are the main topics of plenary talks at the all-virtual 2020 CLEO Technical Conference, 11 – 15 May. The online event highlights the latest research, applications and market-ready technologies in all areas of lasers and photonics. In addition to the plenary sessions, the conference features comprehensive peer-reviewed presentations in three topic areas: Applications & Technology, Fundamental Science and Science & Innovations.

Technical sessions will be presented live from the Pacific Daylight Time Zone (PDT) with a recorded archive available later for on-demand viewing. Authors will pay a US$ 100 publishing fee; all others can access the conference at no cost.

The plenaries scheduled for Tuesday, 12 May and Wednesday, 13 May will be presented live with a recorded archive available later for on-demand viewing. The conference, originally planned as an in-person event, has been transitioned to an all-virtual format to ensure registrants have access to the high-quality, peer-reviewed technical program. Technical sessions will be presented live from the Pacific Daylight Time Zone (PDT).

In his talk titled “Silicon Photonics,” plenary speaker John Bowers, director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and professor, University of California Santa Barbara, USA, will provide an overview of recent research and prospects for future results. Silicon photonics has become a mainstream technology for high-volume, low-cost manufacturing of photonic devices and integrated circuits for a wide variety of applications.

Plenary speaker Paul Kwiat, professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Director of Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (IQUIST), USA will discuss near-term prospects for multi-photon quantum processing in his talk titled “Advanced Resources for Optical Quantum Information Processing – the Next Generation.” Recent advances in sources, detectors and memories hold promise for a new generation of QIP, with enhanced rates and complexity orders of magnitude beyond current capabilities.

Plenary speaker Bill Liu, Chairman and CEO, Royole Corporation, China and USA will talk about “The Future of Flexible Electronics” particularly fully flexible displays, flexible sensors and their fast-growing applications. The next generation of human-machine interactions or HMI pivots on the wide adoption of flexible technology.

In the plenary talk titled “Intelligent Optical Synthesizer: Versatile Control of Optical Waves with Frequency Combs Towards Innovative Applications,” Kaoru Minoshima, professor, The University of Electro-Communications, Japan, will discuss how full use of comb properties has opened up broad applications such as direct study of full properties of materials, adaptive sensing and rapid 3D imaging.

Conference registration is free for all participants and currently open.

https://www.cleoconference.org/home/registration/

Read More

Arista adds support for SONiC on its switching platforms

Arista Networks introduced a Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) option that enables its customers to deploy SONiC software on Arista switching platforms.

Arista switches Powered by SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) combines the open source software first introduced by Microsoft with Arista's EOS platform.

Arista’s SAI layer allows SONiC to run on Arista switches, leveraging Arista’s advanced hardware design and platform drivers. SONiC is an open source network operating system that runs on multiple hardware platforms and was developed initially by Microsoft for the Azure cloud platform.

Arista says the solution delivers robust software, modern streaming telemetry, verbose troubleshooting tools and diverse platform support. In addition, Arista provides integrated software and hardware support through its engineering and customer support organizations.

“This latest initiative is another proof point of the continued long-term partnership between Arista and Microsoft on our mutual cloud networking journey. This expansion of SONiC support allows customers to take advantage of Arista’s broad platform portfolio, high quality system design, as well as global support allowing for broader adoption of cloud networking,” said Dave Maltz, Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft.

“Arista has a long history of collaboration and support for open networking with major contributions to SONiC. Arista switches Powered by SONiC brings open software choices for on-premise enterprise datacenters. We are helping customers realize their cloud networking transformation around resilience, automation and modern analytics backed by world class engineering and support,” said Anshul Sadana, Chief Operating Officer, Arista Networks.

Key benefits of Arista SAI include:

• Choice of high-performance platforms from Arista’s data center portfolio for leaf and spine networks
• Lower opex by leveraging DevOps tools for consistent automation for compute and networking deployments
• Native streaming of deep platform telemetry with OpenConfig APIs
• High scale and extensive debugging capabilities leveraging from cloud deployment experience
• 24x7 global customer support from Arista services organization for SAI and platform related issues for a positive end-user experience
• Distribution of Arista switches Powered by SONiC will be available as a network operating system in addition to Arista’s standard EOS offering. Customers have the option of choosing between Arista EOS and Arista SAI with SONiC software on these systems, and as an added benefit, Arista platforms running SAI can be easily migrated to EOS, providing a flexible path to the mainstream, feature-rich EOS software for broader network roles.

The open source SONiC operating system is already available and in production on Arista switching platforms for select customers. Arista SAI on a range of Arista 7050X and 7060X switching platforms will be available in the second half of 2020.

Read More

Digital Realty hosts AI clusters powered by NVIDIA GPUs

Digital Realty announced a new solution to deliver AI-ready IT infrastructure powered by NVIDIA DGX systems. The solution enables the rapid deployment of artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads, and provides the components customers need to solve global coverage, capacity and network needs.

Powered by PlatformDIGITAL and NVIDIA DGX, the Data Hub solution accommodates typical enterprise deployments of AI infrastructure to address the placement, connectivity and hosting of critical data infrastructure in proximity to users, networks, clouds and things. It localizes data aggregation, staging, analytics, streaming and data management to optimize data exchange, empowering businesses to distribute intelligence across the enterprise to accelerate digital transformation initiatives.

NVIDIA DGX-1 delivers over 1 petaFLOPS of performance; NVIDIA DGX-2 delivers over 2 petaFLOPS.

https://www.digitalrealty.com/nvidia-digital-realty-partnership

Read More

Finland's IT Center for Science tests 400G with ADVA FSP 3000 TeraFlex

CSC – IT Center for Science, which operates the Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET), has transported 400 Gbps over its existing long-haul network using the ADVA FSP 3000 TeraFlex.

The trials pave the way for ultra-fast access to Finland’s supercomputers and could offer a major boost to Europe’s research and education community.

ADVA's FSP 3000 TeraFlex enables channels of up to 1200 Gbps for 3x 400GbE services and a total capacity of 3.6 Tbps. Using network telemetry, software-defined fractional QAM modulation and adaptive baud rate capabilities, the solution is able to ensure maximum spectral efficiency at every point in the network. This enables operators to leverage previously unused optical spectrum so that deployed infrastructure can be made to transport far more data. As well as succeeding with 600 Gbps transport over 278km and with 400 Gbps over 2,844km, the trials showed the power of harnessing granular increments with speeds of 300 Gbps over 4,681km.

“These trials demonstrate how the ADVA FSP 3000 TeraFlex™ performs over long-haul distances, and the results were well above our expectations. It was the first time when we really needed a gridless line system to enable a full choice of line speeds and modulations. The powerful performance of TeraFlex™ and its flexibility to tune line speed and modulation, will allow us to optimize spectrum usage and minimize the cost of providing services to our users,” said Jani Myyry, FUNET network, CSC – IT Center for Science. “Our network provides essential connectivity for research and education institutes in Finland and throughout the Nordics. Initially we were aiming for transport based on 100Gbit/s and 200Gbit/s but are now seeing an increasing need for speeds above that, up to use cases requiring a bandwidth of multiple Tbit/s. TeraFlex and our ADVA open line system infrastructure enable us to efficiently scale our network with line speeds of 400Gbit/s and above. The trials show how TeraFlex™ dramatically increases flexibility and efficiency for 100GbE and 400GbE transport over long-haul distances.”

https://www.adva.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/20200505-funet-trials-adva-fsp-3000-teraflex-to-dramatically-expand-network-capacity

Read More

Arista posts Q1 revenue of $523 million, down 12% YoY

Arista Networks reported Q1 2020 revenue of $523.0 million, a decrease of 5.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, and a decrease of 12.2% from the first quarter of 2019. GAAP gross margin was 64.7%. GAAP net income was $138.4 million, or $1.73 per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income was $161.7 million, or $2.02 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $187.7 million, or $2.31 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2019.

"Arista delivered solid Q1 2020 financial results despite the global pandemic that we all are experiencing. We are committed to our employees’ safety while bringing value to our customers, shareholders and community in these unpredictable times and believe we will emerge stronger in the long term,” stated Jayshree Ullal, Arista’s President and CEO.

Commenting on the company's financial results, Ita Brennan, Arista’s CFO, said, “We are pleased with our business execution in the quarter, with the majority of our team effectively working from home, yet continuing to engage productively with our customers, supply chain and other partners.”

Some highlights from Q1:
Acquired Big Switch Networks, a network monitoring and SDN pioneer.
Announced an Optical Line System for 400G – The Arista OSFP-LS is a highly compact, low power solution for increasing bandwidth between data centers without the need for external optical line systems. This pluggable OSFP form factor simplifies DWDM network deployment and reduces valuable rack space, appealing in particular to Tier2 Cloud and Internet Service Providers.
Ciena and Arista completed interoperability testing of a dense and spectrally-efficient 400GbE transport solution with a native 400GbE router.

Read More

Lumentum posts sales of $402.8 million, down 7% YoY

Lumentum reported net revenue for its fiscal third quarter of 2020, ended March 28, 2020, of $402.8 million, with GAAP net income of $43.4 million, or $0.56 per diluted share. Net revenue for the fiscal second quarter of 2020 was $457.8 million, with GAAP net income of $49.1 million, or $0.63 per diluted share. Net revenue for the fiscal third quarter of 2019 was $432.9 million, with GAAP net loss of $(74.3) million, or $(0.98) per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income for the fiscal third quarter of 2020 was $98.0 million, or $1.26 per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income for the fiscal second quarter of 2020 was $119.4 million, or $1.53 per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income for the fiscal third quarter of 2019 was $70.9 million, or $0.92 per diluted share.

COVID-19 revenue impact was more than $10 million higher than in prior guidance due to the spread beyond China late in the quarter.

"While the COVID-19 pandemic is currently impacting our ability to satisfy strong customer demand for our communications products, we believe the world's experience with COVID-19 will accelerate the shift to increasingly digital and virtual approaches to work, education, health care, entertainment, social interaction, and commerce, creating even more opportunity for Lumentum over the long-term", said Alan Lowe, President and CEO. "Our strategy of technology and product leadership in close alignment with market leading customers is even more apt in these times. The market and technology leadership positions and financial strength we have attained to date, with this strategy, position us well for the future."

https://www.lumentum.com/en/media-room/news-releases/lumentum-announces-fiscal-third-quarter-2020-financial-results

Read More

Nutanix sees sales bump from remote work and VDI

Nutanix expects total revenue to be between $312 and $317 million for its fiscal third quarter ended April 30, 2020, up 8% to 10% year-over-year. Total revenue growth rate reflects the top line compression resulting from the company’s ongoing transition to a subscription business model and away from selling hardware. TCV revenue is expected to be between $307 and $312 million, up 16% to 17% year-over-year, in line with prior guidance of $300 to $320 million.

Nutanix has withdrawn its fiscal 2020 guidance and calendar 2021 business model targets due to market uncertainty.

Total Contract Value billings (software and support revenue) is expected to be between $371 and $376 million, up 14% to 16% year-over-year, in line with prior guidance of $365 to $385 million. The growth rates of TCV revenue and TCV billings reflect the top line compression resulting from the company’s ongoing transition to a subscription business model. These results are preliminary and unaudited, and are subject to adjustment during the company’s regular quarterly close process.

“Our business is taking important strides in digital prospecting, virtual selling, and remote work. A new company will emerge from this pandemic, and this quarter is just the beginning of that,” said Dheeraj Pandey, Chairman, Co-Founder and CEO of Nutanix. “The recessionary macro environment makes our subscription transformation and our delightful zero-touch products even more impactful, as we enable our customers to be resilient, prepared, and productive. For example, we’ve seen an emerging tailwind in VDI and DaaS this past quarter. With our FastTrack program, we are doubling down with our channel partners and global system integrators to redefine the future of work. Corporate initiatives around remote work, hands-free IT automation, disaster recovery, and lift-n-shift to public cloud datacenters will be some of the pillars of digital transformation, and we believe we will be at the center of these conversations.”

“Thanks to the dedication, teamwork, and excellent customer service demonstrated by our employees and our partner community, we expect to meet our third quarter guidance for TCV billings and TCV revenue,” said Duston Williams, CFO of Nutanix. “While we have continued to see steady demand for our hybrid cloud solutions, there is a significant level of uncertainty regarding the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on our customers and end markets over the coming quarters. As we said we would in our last earnings call, we have been proactively and prudently managing expenses to help ensure the long-term health of our business during this pandemic. In addition, as a result of these uncertainties we are withdrawing our guidance for fiscal 2020, which we provided on February 26, 2020, as well as our business model targets for calendar 2021, which we discussed during our Investor Day in March 2019 and which included, among other things, a target for achieving $3 billion in TCV billings.”

Read More

Boingo Wireless posts revenue of $59.9 million, down 10% YoY

Boingo Wireless reported Q1 2020 revenue of $59.9 million decreased 9.9% compared to $66.5 million in the first quarter of 2019. Net loss attributable to common stockholders was $(4.6) million, or $(0.10) per diluted share, compared to net loss of $(5.2) million, or $(0.12) per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2019.

“The last 90 days have been an extraordinary time in history and our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones or who have been infected by the coronavirus,” commented Mike Finley, Chief Executive Officer of Boingo Wireless. “Since Boingo has been deemed an essential business, we have been able to not only support our existing wireless networks, but continue to build out new neutral-host networks at a time when many other companies are not as fortunate. In addition, we were delighted to provide complimentary Wi-Fi service to more than 10,000 Air Force, Army and Marine beds set up for quarantine purposes around the country. I am incredibly proud of the Boingo team for going the extra mile to ensure our customers and our venue partners have the connectivity they need.”

Mr. Finley continued, “Boingo delivers a vital neutral solution in the essential space of connectivity, and is supported by a business model with approximately 95% contractual or recurring revenue. We have a strong balance sheet with ample liquidity and the ability to continue using our cash flow to fund our network builds where we have carrier commitments. Our focus on reducing expenses and increasing profitability at the end of 2019 has prepared us well to weather the recent events. While we cannot predict the nature, duration or scope of the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, we believe that Boingo will emerge from this period with velocity and continue to deliver a critical, and essential, service to our military men and women, our venues, our customers and our partners.”

Some highlights:

• Military/multifamily revenue of $22.7 million decreased 12.3% compared to $25.9 million in the first quarter of 2019.
• DAS revenue of $22.2 million decreased 7.9% compared to $24.1 million in the first quarter of 2019. DAS revenue for the quarter was comprised of $14.0 million of build-out project revenue and $8.2 million of access fee revenue. DAS access fee revenue increased 27.3% year-over-year.
• Wholesale Wi-Fi revenue of $9.7 million decreased 11.6% compared to $11.0 million in the first quarter of 2019.
• Retail revenue of $3.0 million decreased 24.6% compared to $3.9 million in the first quarter of 2019.
• Advertising and other revenue of $2.3 million increased 48.6% compared to $1.5 million in the first quarter of 2019.

Read More

Keysight intros semiconductor design validation software

Keysight Technologies introduced PathWave Waveform Analytics, an edge-to-cloud computing application that improves anomaly detection and reduces data storage costs in pre-silicon validation using machine learning algorithms.

Keysight's PathWave Waveform Analytics software solution includes a new data compression technology that enables long-duration waveform compression, high resolution playback and analysis exceeding several terabytes of data. Built-in machine learning improves the discovery of voltage and current anomalies, as well as transient trends captured by the waveforms.

Highlights

• Shortens analysis time in pre-silicon validation with patented machine learning algorithms that identify anomalies and outliers
• Reduces overall project costs by debugging in pre-silicon, which saves time in the costly post-silicon validation phase
• Improves design reliability with pre-and post-processing algorithms that accurately detect voltage and current spikes on power and signal waveforms

"Highly power-efficient semiconductors require robust, reliable and secure analytics during design qualification," said Christopher Cain, vice president and general manager of Keysight's Electronic Industrial Products. "Keysight's innovative big-data waveform analytics solutions enable those semiconductor designers to automate design analysis, improving productivity of those tasks by up to 90 percent, thus accelerating their companies' time-to-market opportunity."

https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/3120-1144/data-sheets/KS6300A-PathWave-Waveform-Analytics-PWA.pdf

Read More

NVIDIA acquires Cumulus, promising full-stack data center innovation

NVIDIA has acquired Cumulus Networks. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cumulus, which was founded in 2010 by JR Rivers and Nolan Leake, developed a Linux-based operating system for network switches. The company signed licensing deals with Dell, HPE, Mellanox, and Lenovo. Cumulus is also known for its pioneering work with the open network install environment (ONIE) project.  Investors in the company included Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Peter Wagner and 4 of the 5 original VMware founders. Cumulus is based in Mountain View, California.

NVIDIA said the combination of its recently-acquired Mellanox division with Cumulus Networks will enable a new era for accelerated, software-defined data centers.

NVIDIA's target is to "innovate and optimize across the entire networking stack from chips and systems to software including analytics like Cumulus NetQ, delivering great performance and value to customers."

Mellanox has been collaborating with Cumulus since 2013. Mellanox Spectrum switches already ship with Cumulus Linux and SONiC, the open source offering forged in Microsoft’s Azure cloud and managed by the Open Compute Project.

NVIDIA acquires Mellanox - focus on Next Gen Data Centers

Monday, April 27, 2020  Mellanox, Mergers And Acquisitions, Nvidia  

NVIDIA completed its $7 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies. The deal was originally announced on March 11, 2019.

NVIDIA says that by combining its computing expertise with Mellanox’s high-performance networking technology, data center customers will achieve higher performance, greater utilization of computing resources and lower operating costs.

“The emergence of AI and data science, as well as billions of simultaneous computer users, is fueling skyrocketing demand on the world’s datacenters,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Addressing this demand will require holistic architectures that connect vast numbers of fast computing nodes over intelligent networking fabrics to form a giant datacenter-scale compute engine.

“We share the same vision for accelerated computing as NVIDIA,” said Eyal Waldman, founder and CEO of Mellanox. “Combining our two companies comes as a natural extension of our longstanding partnership and is a great fit given our common performance-driven cultures. This combination will foster the creation of powerful technology and fantastic opportunities for our people.”

NVIDIA also promised to continue investing in Israel, where Mellanox is based.

The companies expect to close the deal by the end of 2019.

Read More

IDC predicts 5.1% dip in IT spending, growth for infrastructure

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, IDC lowered its forecast for global IT spending, saying it now expects a decline of 5.1% in constant currency terms this year to $2.25 trillion.

A new update to the IDC Worldwide Black Book Live Edition shows ICT spending, which includes telecom and business services, will decline by 3.4% this year to just over $4 trillion with telecom spending down 0.8%. However, IT infrastructure spending is still projected to grow overall by almost 4% to $237 billion with resilient spending by service providers in addition to ongoing enterprise demand for cloud services offsetting declines in business capital spending.

"Inevitably a major economic recession, in Q2 especially, will translate into some big short-term reductions in IT spending by those companies and industries that are directly impacted," said Stephen Minton, program vice president in IDC's Customer Insights & Analysis group. "Some firms will cut capital spending and others will either delay new projects or seek to cut costs in other ways. But there are also signs that some parts of the IT market may be more resilient to this economic crash in relative terms than previous recessions with technology now more integral to business operations and continuity than at any time in history."

Some additional highlights from IDC:

• Overall spending on devices including PCs and phones will be down significantly this year and is the main drag on total IT spending with the economic fallout likely to disrupt upgrade cycles for smartphones, which were expected to be boosted by the launch of premium 5G devices. The PC market was already expected to decline this year after a commercial refresh cycle in 2019, leaving discretionary upgrades to new notebooks and tablets extremely vulnerable to any period of economic decline.
• Infrastructure spending, on the other hand, is still expected to post moderate growth overall as businesses continue to fund existing cloud deployments while some may even look to accelerate their cloud projects during the remainder of the year as a means to control costs and defer capital spending on upgrades to on-premise datacenters and applications.
• IT services spending will decline, mostly due to delays in big new projects, but a large portion of services revenue will be relatively protected from spending cuts where it relates to the management, support, and operations of technology, which is now fundamental to business performance and viability. At the same time, many companies are also reluctant to reverse course on digital transformation, which is central to business strategy.
• Telecom spending will decline by almost 1%, which is relatively stable compared to other types of technology investments. Carriers will continue to invest in 5G network deployments in many countries, while the lockdown has increased demand for fixed broadband services in the short term. The economic fallout will put some macro pressure on consumer spending, including upgrades to 5G mobile contracts, in the second half of 2020, but the overall impact on telecom spending will be moderate compared to other ICT markets.

The latest IT spending forecast from the Worldwide Black Book will be covered during an IDC webinar to be held May 7, 2020 at 11:00 am U.S. Eastern time. Stephen Minton will review the current outlook for technology markets in the context of the COVID-19 impact, alongside an in-depth review of the industry impact led by Jessica Goepfert. Additional details and registration can be found at https://bit.ly/3cjMm4w

Read More

T-Mobile touts 5G Stand Alone milestones

T-Mobile US announced several world’s first milestones for standalone architecture (SA) 5G:

• The first SA 5G data session between commercial modems from two suppliers on a production network with Cisco, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia and Qualcomm.
• The first low-band SA 5G voice call using Evolved Packet System (EPS) fallback to VoLTE with Cisco, Ericsson, MediaTek and Nokia. This enables high quality voice services utilizing VoLTE in the SA architecture while the industry is fully developing voice over new radio (VoNR) 5G technology.
• The first low-band VoNR call on a production network with Cisco, Ericsson, MediaTek, and Nokia. VoNR allows for voice calls to run over 5G.
• The first video over new radio (ViNR) call on a production network with Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies. ViNR allows for high quality video calls to run natively, instead of an Over the Top (OTT) data service. In other words – no app needed!
• Several 5G firsts with a commercial smartphone on a production network, including the first low-band SA 5G data session, first call with EPS fallback, and first VoNR & ViNR calls. These were pulled off alongside Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia, OnePlus and Qualcomm Technologies.

T-Mobile said its new multi-vendor 5G production core enabled these achievements. During the tests, standalone and non-standalone (NSA) 5G devices were operating with active sessions at the same time in the same cell. The company plans to launch standalone 5G later this year.

“Powerful and reliable wireless networks are more important than ever, and these milestones mark a huge step forward for the entire wireless ecosystem,” said Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile. “Standalone 5G, paired with the broad and deep network we’re building by combining the assets of T-Mobile and Sprint, will accelerate 5G adoption and services and transform wireless!”

“T-Mobile continues to bring 5G into focus, making huge strides globally to signify exactly how things can work with the right vision, people and technology in place,” said Jonathan Davidson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mass Scale Infrastructure Group, Cisco. “Our work together on these series of firsts for standalone 5G to support both voice and video calls demonstrates our industry leadership and commitment to innovation. Our converged approach to 4G and 5G evolved packet core will help T-Mobile to enable mobile edge and low latency use cases with control and user plane separation (CUPS) while improving data center space, reduced power consumption and lower operational costs.”

“With 5G networks rolling out across the globe, we’re now stepping up to the next level: preparing the world for standalone 5G,” said Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Networks, Ericsson. “Using Ericsson commercial products together with T-Mobile and our ecosystem partners, we have demonstrated the potential of standalone 5G on low bands. We have achieved the latest technology milestones in a concerted effort that advances 5G technology.”

Read More

Intel acquires Moovit for Urban Mobility App

Intel has acquired Moovit, an Israeli-based mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) solutions company, for approximately $900 million ($840 million net of Intel Capital equity gain).

Moovit's urban mobility application offers multimodal trip planning by combining public transportation, bicycle and scooter services, ride-hailing, and car-sharing. The app has more than 800 million users and services in 3,100 cities across 102 countries. Moovit was founded in 2012 and has approximately 200 employees.

Moovit has also signed strategic partnership agreements with major ride-sharing operators and mobility ecosystem companies for analytics, routing, optimization and operations for MaaS. With this acquisition, Mobileye will be able to use Moovit’s large proprietary transportation dataset to optimize predictive technologies based on customer demand and traffic patterns, as well as tap into Moovit’s transit data repository of more than 7,500 key transit agencies and operators.

Intel says the addition of Moovit brings its Mobileye business closer to achieving its plan to become a complete mobility provider, including robotaxi services, which is forecast to be an estimated $160 billion opportunity by 2030.

“Intel’s purpose is to create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on Earth, and our Mobileye team delivers on that purpose every day,” said Bob Swan, Intel CEO. “Mobileye’s ADAS technology is already improving the safety of millions of cars on the road, and Moovit accelerates their ability to truly revolutionize transportation – reducing congestion and saving lives – as a full-stack mobility provider.”

Mobileye enables advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and is currently deployed on nearly 60 million vehicles with more than 25 automaker partners.

“Moovit’s massive global user base, proprietary transportation data, global editors community, strong partnerships with key transit and mobility ecosystem partners, and highly skilled team is what makes them a great investment,” said Professor Amnon Shashua, CEO of Mobileye. “Moovit is a strong brand trusted by hundreds of millions of people globally. Together, with Mobileye’s extensive capabilities in mapping and self-driving technology, we will be able to accelerate our timeline to transform the future of mobility.”

“We are excited to join forces with Mobileye and lead the future revolution of new mobility services,” said Nir Erez, Moovit co-founder and CEO. “Mobility is a basic human right, and as cities become more crowded, urban mobility becomes more difficult. Combining the daily mobility habits and needs of millions of Moovit users with the state-of-the-art, safe, affordable and eco-friendly transportation enabled by self-driving vehicles, we will be able to make cities better places to live in. We share this vision and look forward to making it a reality as part of Mobileye.”

• Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017. 

Read More

Bavaria's M-net picks ADTRAN for G.fast

M-net, the leading fiber optic provider in Bavaria, Germany, has selected the ADTRAN Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) portfolio, specifically for its Fiber-to-the-Building (FTTB) products, and Mosaic Cloud Platform to help accelerate the introduction of gigabit services to its residential and business customers.

M-net is leveraging ADTRAN’s second-generation G.fast technology to rapidly expand its fiber broadband network coverage by leveraging the existing wiring throughout the buildings within its footprint.

“M-net’s goal is to extend our fiber network into every connected apartment and office via FTTH over time. The new generation of Gfast is a solution that immediately enables us to provide our customers with gigabit services via the existing FTTB-infrastructure – a solution significantly more reliable, more robust against interference and much more efficient in the carbon footprint than alternative technologies in the market,” said Dr. Hermann Rodler, M-net Chief Technology Officer.

“The push for gigabit services is being fueled by competition and championed by regulatory agencies around the world. Together this drives the need to bring fiber deeper into the network and closer to the end user. In scenarios where Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployment architectures are not pragmatic, broadband access innovation is required,” said Dr. Eduard Scheiterer, Managing Director, ADTRAN GmbH. “With its broad Gigabit Gfast portfolio, ADTRAN is well-positioned to capitalize on this market opportunity as operators worldwide look to expand the range and reach of gigabit services to any customer over any network infrastructure.”

https://www.adtran.com/index.php/broadband-access/g-fast

Read More

ADVA supplies ConnectGuard encryption to dacoso

dacoso, an IT service provider based in Germany, has deployed ADVA's ConnectGuard Cloud encryption to ensure end-to-end security for its virtual private network (VPN). The low-latency solution is now safeguarding connectivity between dacoso’s data centers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as its virtual cloud services

“By deploying ADVA’s ConnectGuard Cloud technology, we’re harnessing virtualized encryption that’s flexible, scalable and doesn’t come with a heavy bandwidth penalty. The solution ensures rigorous data protection for both our branches and our cloud locations. And, because it works without large additional data ballast, it also improves network utilization and reduces cost-per-encrypted-bit,” said Karsten Geise, head of business and product development, dacoso. “Now our cloud network meets all regulatory requirements, such as GDPR, while being simpler and more efficient. Removing the need for hardware appliances also frees up valuable rack space and means we can easily shop around for new innovation in the future rather than being constrained by single-vendor lock-in.”

ConnectGuard Cloud, which is based on ADVA’s Ensemble Connector virtualization platform, delivers encryption at Layer 2, 3 and 4, along with improved latency and throughput performance compared to IPSec. With its zero-touch provisioning and automated key management, ADVA’s unique cloud-native technology also significantly simplifies operations for dacoso’s team. Complexity is further reduced by automated key distribution and management, centrally orchestrated by the ADVA Ensemble Controller management solution.

“dacoso now has all the advantages of highly efficient and extremely rigorous encryption, delivered entirely through software. That means ultra-low latency protection at Layers 2, 3 and 4, as well as unrivaled advantages in terms of scale and ease of use,” commented Hartmut Müller-Leitloff, SVP, sales, EMEA, ADVA.

Read More

Keysight's 5G NR test cases gain 3GPP approval

Keysight Technologies has gained approval from 3GPP for 5G new radio (NR) protocol test cases that support carrier aggregation (CA) technology, using its Protocol Conformance Toolset. The company says it is the first to gain such approval.

Keysight’s test cases were submitted on March 21, 2020 and verified by the 3GPP’s RAN 5 working group, which works to establish conformance testing specifications for the radio interface of a user equipment (UE). Chipset and device makers rely on 3GPP-verified 5G NR protocol CA test cases to verify designs that use CA to increase bandwidth and support higher data rates. These test cases focus on 5G NR deployments using CA in non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) mode in frequency range 1 (FR1) and FR2.

Keysight then submitted these test cases for verification at the most recent Conformance Agreement Group (CAG) #62 meeting, led by the Global Certification Forum (GCF) on April 23, 2020. There it was confirmed that Keysight’s Protocol Conformance Toolset maintains support for the widest range of GCF-validated protocol conformance test cases. Comprehensive test case support enables device makers to leverage Keysight’s common solution platform to verify designs that use different modes to address global requirements.

“Keysight consistently supports the development of 5G technologies, such as carrier aggregation, enabling a connected mobile ecosystem to market devices that support advanced 5G applications,” said Muthu Kumaran, Senior director of Keysight's wireless test group. “Many mobile device makers use Keysight’s 5G solutions to access a comprehensive range of validated test cases for GCF certification across multiple technologies, including 5G NR, LTE and C-V2X, on a common solution platform.”

Read More

Ceragon report weak Q1 results, cites COVID-19 disruption

Ceragon Networks reported Q1 revenue of $55.9 million compared with $69.2 million for Q1 2019 and $71.3 million for Q4 2019. Gross margin for the quarter was 25.1% compared to 35.6% a year earlier and 31.7% in the preceding quarter. Net income was $(6.9) million, $(0.09) per diluted share compared with $0.8 million, $0.01 per diluted share for Q1 2019 and $(4.1) million, or $(0.05) per diluted share for Q4 2019.

Commenting on the results, Ira Palti, President and CEO of Ceragon, said, "Our results were in line with the business update we provided on April 6th, reflecting the normal seasonality of the first quarter compounded by the disruption created by the COVID-19 environment. At the same time, the sweeping changes that the pandemic has made in the way we all work, shop, learn and stay entertained have created a global surge in demand for broadband capacity that has increased demand for our products. Although no one knows how to predict the timing of the recovery, the fact that broadband connectivity is now recognized as an essential utility brings urgency to the need to increase the capacity of existing networks and to extend network coverage to more of the population. During the first quarter, this trend accelerated bookings for our wireless hauling solutions, and we believe it will accelerate the transition to 5G, further emphasizing the need for our differentiated technologies."

Mr. Palti continued, "In the meantime, we are fully focused on serving our customers in today's dynamic environment. We are proud of our success in meeting our commitments in the face of supply chain disruptions, and working to overcome challenges as they arise. We are pleased that India's Airtel has recently placed a large order, indicating the return of India as a major focus market after last year's slowdown. In Europe, we had the strongest first-quarter bookings in six years, and in Latin America we continued executing on expansion projects across the continent."

Read More