Investment group acquires FireEye Products business for $1.2 billion

A consortium led by Symphony Technology Group (STG) will acquire the FireEye Products business, including the FireEye name, in an all-cash transaction for $1.2 billion.

The transaction, which is expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, will separate FireEye’s network, email, endpoint, and cloud security products, along with the related security management and orchestration platform, from Mandiant’s controls-agnostic software and services.

“We believe this separation will unlock our high-growth Mandiant Solutions business and allow both organizations to better serve customers,” said FireEye Chief Executive Officer Kevin Mandia. “After closing, we will be able to concentrate exclusively on scaling our intelligence and frontline expertise through the Mandiant Advantage platform, while the FireEye Products business will be able to prioritize investment on its cloud-first security product portfolio. STG’s focus on fueling innovative market leaders in software and cybersecurity makes them an ideal partner for FireEye Products. We look forward to our relationship and collaboration on threat intelligence and expertise.”

“We are extremely impressed by the FireEye Products business and the mission critical role it plays for its customers,” said William Chisholm, Managing Partner at STG. “We believe that there is enormous untapped opportunity for the business that we are excited to crystallize by leveraging our significant security software sector experience and our market leading carve-out expertise.”

Mandiant Solutions has established its position as the market leader in threat intelligence and cybersecurity expertise from the front lines, serving enterprises, governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide. 

FireEye pioneered the advanced threat detection market with the introduction of its Multi-Vector Execution (MVX) engine for network security.

FireEye Acquires Mandiant for $1 Billion

Friday, January 03, 2014  Cyber Security, FireEye, Mergers And Acquisitions  

FireEye acquired privately held Mandiant in a transaction valued at around $1 billion.  The deal consists of 21.5 million newly issued shares (NASDAQ: FEYE), options to purchase shares of FireEye stock, and approximately $106.5 million of net cash to the former Mandiant security holders. Mandiant is a leading provider of advanced endpoint security products and security incident response management solutions. It has more than two million endpoints...

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Digital Colony completes acquisition of Boingo Wireless

Funds managed by affiliates of Digital Colony completed their previously-announced acquisition of Boingo Wireless for approximately $854 million, including the assumption of $199 million of Boingo’s net debt obligations.

Under the deal, Boingo stockholders will receive $14.00 in cash per share of Boingo’s common stock. As a result of the completion of the transaction, Boingo is now a privately-held company and its common stock no longer trades on the NASDAQ.

“The completion of this transaction marks an exciting new chapter for Boingo to advance our business strategy forward with greater flexibility and resources,” said Mike Finley, Chief Executive Officer of Boingo Wireless. “Digital Colony brings significant operational expertise through its ownership of various digital infrastructure businesses, and together, we are committed to addressing the critical need for wireless connectivity. We believe the best is yet to come as this need continues to drive demand for our neutral host, converged networks.”

“With the adoption of 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and CBRS, demand for converged indoor networks will continue to dramatically increase over the next decade. As a leading indoor digital infrastructure provider serving the connectivity needs of essential properties, Boingo is ideally positioned to build on its market leadership and capitalize on this growth opportunity,” said Marc Ganzi, Colony Capital President and CEO of Colony Capital and CEO of Digital Colony. “This investment represents a unique platform that will only further be enhanced by Digital Colony’s strong operational capabilities, industry relationships, and access to capital. We look forward to working with Mike and the entire Boingo team as they continue to advance its business strategy in developing and deploying reliable networks and serving their diverse set of high-quality customers.”

http://www.digitalcolony.com

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MaxLinear showcases 5nm CMOS 800G PAM4 DSP

MaxLinear will showcase a 5nm CMOS 800Gbps PAM4 DSP for data center applications at the virtual Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition (OFC) from June 6 to June 11, 2021. 

“With the exponential growth of data traffic within hyperscale cloud networks, the needed increase in interconnect bandwidth in those networks requires lower-power, higher-density optical modules that support higher lane rates,” said Drew Guckenberger, Vice President of Optical Interconnect at MaxLinear. “We are extremely excited to announce the availability of our Keystone family of 5nm CMOS PAM4 DSPs, specifically designed to address these requirements. With our third generation Keystone DSP design, and the power advantages of 5nm CMOS technology, we are directly addressing our customers’ critical needs for low power, highly integrated, high performance interconnect solutions in next generation hyperscale cloud networks.”

“We’re pleased to see the result of our collaboration with MaxLinear, a strategic technology partner of TSMC, in developing and manufacturing its leading PAM4 DSPs on TSMC’s 5nm technology to address the rapidly growing cloud datacenter network infrastructure market,” said Alex You, Vice President of Business Management, TSMC North America. “The Keystone family of SoCs are amongst the first radio-frequency mixed-signal digital SoCs leveraging TSMC’s 5nm CMOS process. The excellent power, seamless integration, and performance benchmarks set by Keystone are a testament to the advanced capabilities of our process technology, and also to MaxLinear’s design expertise in the most advanced processes.”

The new 800G DSP is part of MaxLinear’s new Keystone family of 5nm CMOS PAM4 DSPs. Keystone represents MaxLinear’s third generation of PAM4 DSPs for 400G/800G optical interconnects. This is the first generation to provide 106.25Gbps host side electrical I/O to match the line side 106.25Gbps interface rate. This is a crucial capability for next generation 25.6T switch interfaces.

The Keystone family’s host side interfaces support 25.78125/25.5625/53.125/106.25Gbps signaling per lane over C2M host channels. The line side interfaces also support the same rates and are targeted for 100G/λ DR, FR, and LR applications. All devices provide extensive DSP functionality, including line-side transmitter digital pre-distortion (DPD), transmit pre-emphasis (TX FIR), receiver feed forward equalization (FFE) and decision feedback equalization (DFE).

The Keystone family (MxL9364x, MxL9368x) includes both standalone DSPs and DSPs with monolithically integrated drivers that offer high-swing differential and single-ended output driver options to address both SiPh and EML direct drive applications. The following channel configurations are available in each case:

• 8x50G to 8x50G
• 8x50G to 4x100G
• 4x100G to 4x100G
• 8x100G to 8x100G

https://www.maxlinear.com/Company/press-releases/2021/MaxLinear-Showcases-Industry%E2%80%99s-First-5nm-CMOS-800G

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BT begins testing hollow core fibre

BT kicked off trials of hollow core fibre at the BT Labs in Adastral Park, Ipswich, in a collaborative project with Lumenisity, a Southampton University spin out company, and Mavenir.

BT researchers are conducting the trials at BT’s research and engineering campus, using a 10-kilometre-long hollow core fibre cable provided by Lumenisity. The new fibre has a hollow, air filled centre that runs the entire length of the cable. It will be used to test a variety of use cases, including potential benefits for 5G networks and ultra-secure communications, like Quantum Key Distribution (QKD).

BT notes that single-mode optical fibre was pioneered at Adastral Park. Research into hollow core fibre presents an opportunity to explore how the capabilities of optical fibre can be enhanced in future, with the potential to reduce the latency, or signal delay, caused by the light travelling through glass, by up to 50%. This new fibre has an air-filled central core, with an outer ring of glass, to guide the laser beam whilst maintaining the signal speed at very close to the ultimate speed of light.

Professor Andrew Lord, BT’s Head of Optical Network Research, said: “We’re excited to begin trialling hollow core fibre and to discover the potential opportunities and benefits of deploying this technology in certain scenarios. This new type of fibre cable could play an important role in the future of the world’s communications infrastructure, heralding a step-change in capability and speed, to keep up with the demands for high-speed, low latency communications driven by 5G networks, streaming, and more.”

Mike Fake, Lumenisity’s Director responsible for Product Management, said: “Lumenisity is delighted to be the supplier of field deployable CoreSmart hollowcore cable for these trials with BT. This is further evidence of the impact our unique low loss, high performing cables can have on the networks operated by our carrier partners.”

John Baker, Mavenir’s Senior Vice President Business Development, said: “The ability to extend the reach of fibre connected radios only further demonstrates the power of Open RAN and its Eco System. This improvement will significantly increase the number of use cases that can be served from containerised cloud-based Open RAN solution.”

https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-kicks-off-trials-of-revolutionary-new-optical-fibre/

euNetworks connects LSE with hollowcore fibre from Lumenisity

Thursday, April 15, 2021  Eunetworks, Hollowcore, Lumenisity, Start-Ups, UK  

Lumenisity Limited, a start-up based in Romsey, United Kingdom, supplied its ultra low latency CoreSmart cable solution based on "NANF" hollowcore fibres, to euNetworks Fiber UK. The fibre route connects an Interxion data center with the London Stock Exchange.

Lumenisity Limited, which was formed in early 2017 as a spin out from the University of Southampton, said data travels 50% faster in hollowcore cable, reducing latency by 1/3, and providing a round trip saving of 3μs per km. These latency savings are very significant in financial trading applications. 

euNetworks offers a fibre-based, dedicated network platform supporting the bandwidth needs of the financial services community. 

“We’re very pleased to partner with euNetworks to enable them to provide the lowest latency performance to a major trading exchange using our CoreSmart cable,” said Tony Pearson, Business

Development Director at Lumenisity. “We are excited to be collaborating with such an established Carrier and to already have hollowcore deployed, carrying traffic as part of this development.”

“We continue to focus on delivering lowest latency services for our customers. We focus on identifying new and innovative technologies that can be deployed on our network to provide the best possible bandwidth solutions,” said Brady Rafuse, Chief Executive Officer of euNetworks. “We’re excited to be working with Lumenisity, helping to develop and deploy hollowcore fibre. We’re confident that with this technology we can achieve market leading fibre-based latencies much closer to radio frequency systems, without the constraints that are inherently present with those radio frequency solutions.”

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Ribbon intros 2-port 400G ZR+ card for metro and long-haul

 Ribbon Communications introduced a 2-port 400G ZR+ line card for its Apollo optical networking portfolio, optimized for metro and long-haul applications.

The TM400_2 delivers 400G optical transmission using standard and interoperable CFP2 DCO (Digital Coherent Optic) pluggables, optimized for transport over CDC (Colorless Directionless Contentionless) ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer) networks, in either independent wavelength or dual carrier modes. Leveraging multiple wavelengths allows for longer transmission distances than what embedded 800G solutions, often reliant on costly proprietary technology, can achieve with a single wavelength.

• In independent wavelength mode, the TM400_2 uses two 400G wavelengths to provide significant cost efficiencies compared to a single 800G embedded solution for metro applications.
• In dual carrier mode, the TM400_2 combines two high-performance 200G wavelengths to provide a 400G channel for long haul applications, delivering superior cost performance to current embedded solutions.

"With traffic loads increasing, our customers are looking for a revolutionary  transport solution that meets today's and tomorrow's needs," said Sam Bucci, Executive Vice President & General Manager of Ribbon's IP Optical Networks Business Unit. "We're proud to be the first to market with this flexible, cost-effective solution."

https://ribboncommunications.com/company/media-center/press-releases/ribbons-innovative-400g-zr-solution-changes-optical-transport-economics

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Colombia's UFINET picks Infinera’s ICE6 800G

UFINET, a neutral infrastructure wholesale operator in Latin America, selected Infinera’s ICE6 800G coherent technology for its new national long-haul network in Colombia. 

UFINET is a neutral infrastructure operator serving the wholesale telecommunications market, providing capacity services and connectivity with a 75,000+ km optical fiber network connecting 17 countries in Latin America. This deployment will double the capacity of UFINET’s current network in Colombia.

Infinera said its ICE6 800G solution will enable UFINET to offer new high-bandwidth connectivity with industry-leading optical performance throughout Colombia. UFINET plans to deploy Infinera’s 800G solution across its terrestrial network to deliver maximum capacity at the longest reach and offer enhanced service flexibility while reducing operating costs.

“UFINET’s deployment of fifth-generation coherent technology will provide them with higher capacity and enhanced spectrum utilization over routes across the country,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Infinera. “Deploying Infinera’s ICE6 solution will enable UFINET to deliver these benefits to their customers, providing service providers in the region with access to cost-effective, high-performance, and high-capacity services.”

https://www.infinera.com/press-release/ufinet-selects-infineras-ice6-800g-technology-for-colombia-network

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Amazon activates Location Services for app developers

Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon Location Service, which adds location functionality to applications without compromising user privacy or data security.

With Amazon Location Service, customers can embed location functionality in their applications using data from location-based service (LBS) providers Esri and HERE Technologies to provide maps, points of interest, geocoding (converting location information to a point on a map), route planning, geofencing (creating virtual perimeters), or asset tracking. 

AWS said pricing of its new location service is as low as 1/10th the cost of the most common LBS providers, and customers pay only for the number of user requests, assets tracked, or devices managed. 

Customers can access Amazon Location Service through the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or via the Amazon Location Service API. Amazon Location Service is available today in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Stockholm), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) regions.

https://aws.amazon.com/location/

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HPE posts sales of $6.7 billion, up 11% yoy

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) reported sales of $6.7 billion for its 2nd quarter, ended April 30, 2021, up 11% from the prior-year period or 9% when adjusted for currency, with better than normal sequential seasonality driven by strong demand. GAAP gross margins was 34.1%. Non-GAAP diluted net EPS was $0.46, compared to $0.27 in the prior-year period and above the previously provided outlook of $0.38 to $0.44 per share. 

“Our disciplined execution on our strategic priorities is positively impacting both top and bottom line performance,” said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “We are strengthening our core compute and storage businesses, doubling down in our growth Intelligent Edge and HPC businesses and accelerating our pivot to as-a-service, while also advancing our cloud-first innovation agenda to become the edge-to-cloud platform as-a-service choice for our customers and partners.”

“As businesses emerge from the pandemic and move beyond the immediate needs of COVID, digital transformation is at the forefront of their strategic initiatives,” said Neri. “Our focus has been to accelerate our strategy in order to help our customers transform their businesses, optimize their applications and data across an increasingly distributed world, and be future ready, today.”

Some highlights:

• Intelligent Edge revenue was $799 million, up 20% from the prior-year period or 17% when adjusted for currency, with 15.5% operating profit margin, compared to 12.3% from the prior-year period. Switching was up 17% from the prior-year period when adjusted for currency, WLAN was up 16% from the prior-year period when adjusted for currency, and Aruba SaaS offering was up triple-digits from the prior-year period and is now a meaningful contributor to HPE’s overall ARR.
• High Performance Compute & Mission Critical Systems (HPC & MCS) revenue was $685 million, up 13% from the prior-year period or 11% when adjusted for currency, with 2.8% operating profit margin, compared to 7.6% from the prior-year period. We remain on track to achieve our full year and 3-year revenue growth CAGR target of 8% to 12%.
• Compute revenue was $3.0 billion, up 12% from the prior-year period or up 10% when adjusted for currency, with 11.3% operating profit margin, compared to 5.8% from the prior-year period.
• Storage revenue was $1.1 billion, up 5% from the prior-year period or up 3% when adjusted for currency, with 16.8% operating profit margin, compared to 15.7% from the prior-year period. Notable strength in software-defined solutions, including Nimble, up 17% from the prior-year period when adjusted for currency with strong momentum in dHCI growing triple-digits. All flash Arrays grew 20% from the prior-year period led by Primera, up triple-digits from the prior-year period.
• Financial Services revenue was $839 million, up 1% from the prior-year period or down 3% when adjusted for currency, with 10.8% operating profit margin, compared to 9.2% from the prior-year period. 

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Windstream Enterprise enhances its VMware-powered SD-WAN

Windstream Enterprise (WE) announced new feature enhancements and hardware available for its VMware-powered SD-WAN.

The three new SD-WAN edge devices offer better performance with enhanced processors that support additional functionally, simplified design, and deployment with less complexity. Specifically, the new SD-WAN edges support the SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) evolution by integrating SD-WAN and security. Managed Network Security (MNS) is deployed as a Virtual Network Function (VNF) on the VMware edge delivering unified threat management protection for the SD-WAN network.

Customers will be able to access the MNS VNF from Windstream Enterprise’s WE Connect portal to remotely self-service, view and configure their VNF firewalls to enable:

• View firewall details and policies to enable proper configuration to protect their networks
• Manage web filtering policy, including the ability to block specific URLs or categories based on content
• Application control policies that protect employees from inappropriate, harmful and unprotected apps
• Automated reports generated to review and audit internet use and potential risky behavior

“These new capabilities deliver a significant technological upgrade to Windstream Enterprise SD-WAN customers,” said Mike Flannery, chief marketing officer at Windstream Enterprise. “As the company continues to lean into the use of virtualization technology alongside its networking and security solutions, Windstream Enterprise remains committed to delivering customers an unrivaled experience and accelerated success.”

https://news.windstream.com/

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American Tower completes first tranche of Telxius Towers acquisition

American Tower Corporation closed the first tranche of its Telxius Towers acquisition, comprised of nearly 20,000 communications sites in Germany and Spain, for total consideration of approximately €6.2 billion (approximately $7.6 billion at current foreign currency exchange rates). 

The closing was funded by a combination of cash on hand and borrowings under the Company’s revolving credit facilities and term loans. Approximately 4,000 additional rooftop communications sites in Germany are expected to close in the third quarter of 2021.

Tom Bartlett, American Tower’s Chief Executive Officer stated, “We are excited to close on these high-quality, well-located assets and are ready to quickly and efficiently integrate them into our existing European portfolio. We expect to utilize our newly augmented leadership position in Germany and Spain to drive strong, sustainable, long-term growth while delivering best-in-class service to existing and new tenants as they enhance mobile broadband connectivity for their customers. As one of the largest independent communications infrastructure providers in Europe, we believe we are now optimally positioned to benefit from accelerating 5G deployments across the region through a combination of organic growth, new builds and the potential for selective future acquisitions.”

American Tower to acquire Telxius Towers for €7.7 billion

Wednesday, January 13, 2021  American Tower  

Telefónica agreed to sell Telxius Towers to American Tower Corporation for approximately €7.7 billion (approximately $9.4 billion at current foreign exchange rates), subject to customary closing adjustments. 

The deal consists of approximately 31,000 existing communications sites in Germany, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina. In addition, American Tower expects to spend approximately $500 million to construct a committed pipeline of approximately 3,300 new sites in Germany and Brazil through 2025.

Following this operation, American Tower becomes Telefónica's leading supplier in both Europe and Latin America and maintains its status as a partner in strategic projects in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

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Private equity firms to acquire Cloudera for $5.3 billion

Cloudera will be acquired by affiliates of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (“CD&R”) and KKR in an all cash transaction valued at approximately $5.3 billion. Cloudera expects the deal to close in the second half of 2021, making it a private company.

The acquisition price of $16.00 in cash per share represents a 24% premium to the closing price as of May 28, 2021 and a 30% premium to the 30-day volume weighted average share price.

"This transaction provides substantial and certain value to our shareholders while also accelerating Cloudera’s long-term path to hybrid cloud leadership for analytics that span the complete data lifecycle - from the Edge to AI,” said Rob Bearden, CEO of Cloudera. “We believe that as a private company with the expertise and support of experienced investors such as CD&R and KKR, Cloudera will have the resources and flexibility to drive product-led growth and expand our addressable market opportunity."

“We very much look forward to working with Cloudera as it continues to execute its long-term transformation strategy,” said Jeff Hawn, CD&R Operating Partner who will serve as Chairman of the company upon the close of the transaction. “The company has made significant progress establishing the Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) as a leader in hybrid and multi-cloud analytics, and we believe that our experience and capabilities can offer valuable support to accelerate expansion into new products and markets.” Mr. Hawn’s past roles include serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Quest Software, Vertafore, and Attachmate.

Separately, Cloudera reported revenue for its first quarter of fiscal 2022, ending April 30, 2021, of $224.3 million, an increase of 7% as compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Subscription revenue was $200.7 million, an increase of 7% as compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Annualized Recurring Revenue grew 12% year-over-year.

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Samsung unveils SSD with Zoned Namespace (ZNS) technology

Samsung Electronics unveiled its new enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) featuring Zoned Namespace (ZNS) technology for maximizing available user capacity and extending the drive's lifespan.

ZNS allows data to be grouped based on their usage and access frequency, and stored sequentially in independent zones within an SSD. Without the need to move and rearrange data, ZNS SSDs can significantly reduce the number of write operations, lowering the drive’s write amplification factor (WAF) — the amount of actual writes performed by the drive compared to writes initially instructed by the host system. The closer the WAF is to one, the more efficient the SSD and the longer it will last.

Samsung said its new ZNS SSD can achieve a WAF close to one, a major improvement over typical server SSD values between three and four. This will make the drive last up to four times longer than conventional NVMe SSDs. 

“Samsung’s ZNS SSD reflects our commitment to introducing differentiated storage solutions that can substantially enhance the reliability and lifetime of server SSDs,” said Sangyeun Cho, senior vice president of the Memory Software Development Team at Samsung Electronics. “We plan to leverage quad-level cell (QLC) NAND technology in our next-generation ZNS drives to enable higher thresholds for storage performance and capacity in the enterprise systems of tomorrow.”

Built upon Samsung’s sixth-generation V-NAND, the 2.5-inch PM1731a will come in two terabyte (TB) and four TB models. 

https://news.samsung.com/us/samsung-introduces-first-zns-ssd-maximized-user-capacity-and-enhanced-lifespan/

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Capgemini and Orange to build "Cloud de Confiance" in France

Capgemini and Orange will establish a joint venture company called “Bleu” to provide a "Cloud de Confiance" to address the security requirements of the French State, public administrations and critical infrastructure companies across France. The idea is to build a French hyperscale cloud, fully under French and European jurisdictions.

Bleu will provide its customers with an independent, trusted cloud platform with a broad catalog of digital solutions and cutting-edge collaborative tools. 

Capgemini and Orange will work with Microsoft to develop the Cloud de Confiance. Bleu will offer Microsoft’s secure cloud technology including the modern collaboration and productivity solutions of Microsoft 365 and the services available on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, delivered via an independent environment.

Bleu will be governed by key requirements regarding sensitive data to ensure that the unique needs of its French customers are met. 

• Firstly, these include providing immunity from all extraterritorial legislation and economic independence - Capgemini and Orange will be the majority investors in Bleu. 
• Secondly, these rely on meeting data transfer requirements and ensuring the full control of cloud-based applications from within an isolated infrastructure that uses data centers located in France. These data centers will thereforse be strictly separated from Microsoft’s global data center infrastructure, which guarantees operational autonomy. 
• In addition, Bleu will be entirely operated by its own staff in France. 

Capgemini and Orange expect that Bleu will be recognized as a ”Cloud de Confiance” by French authorities and receive the SecNumCloud label by the National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI).

Bleu will also ultimately join the Gaia-X initiative, of which Orange and Capgemini are members, in order to support the emergence of sovereign solutions on a European level.

Aiman Ezzat, CEO of Capgemini, said: “As a strategic partner to our clients, Capgemini is focused on building the services they need, based on leading technologies and the highest standards. The creation of a ”Cloud de Confiance” for France will provide French State and critical infrastructure organizations with the many benefits of flexible cloud services on a secure platform. Now is the right moment to launch this project which benefits from strong political will and very advanced technologies. We are excited to be partnering with Orange on this pioneering project.”

Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO of Orange, commented: “This ‘Cloud de Confiance’ meets a growing need in the digital world. The French State recently highlighted this in defining their ‘cloud au centre’ policy and setting out the standards required regarding data protection and sovereignty. Orange, as a trusted partner for the digital transformation of businesses, operates, integrates and manages a range of trusted infrastructure services for its customers, whether they are public or private entities. We are delighted to partner with Capgemini to create a trusted-cloud solution for our existing and future BtoB customers and public organizations that will provide a wide range of services, and in particular Microsoft 365, from within a sovereign infrastructure.”

“Establishing a new ‘Cloud de Confiance’ service, which should be recognized by French authorities, through a company founded and led by Capgemini and Orange, will help accelerate France's digital transformation and meet the standards defined by the French government in its national policy,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, EVP and President of Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations. “This announcement will contribute to France's economic growth, benefit the national technology and services partner ecosystem, and support the country’s long-term success."

A presentation on France's National Cloud Strategy (17-May-2021, in French)

https://www.economie.gouv.fr/cloud-souverain-17-mai

https://www.capgemini.com/news/capgemini-and-orange-announce-plan-to-create-bleu-a-company-to-provide-a-cloud-de-confiance-in-france/

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Planning begins for a European quantum communication network

The European Commission has selected Airbus to lead a consortium of companies and research institutes to study the design of the future European quantum communication network, EuroQCI, to enable ultra-secure communication between critical infrastructures and government institutions across the European Union. The 15-month study will set out the details of the end-to-end system and design. The European Commission's ambition is to run a EuroQCI demonstrator by 2024 and an initial operational service by 2027.

EuroQCI aims to integrate quantum technologies and systems into terrestrial fibre optic communication networks, and will include a space-based segment ensuring full coverage across the EU and other continents. The first service to make use of it will be quantum key distribution (QKD). The QKD service will transmit encryption keys through quantum communication channels on both terrestrial fibre optic and space laser links.

The European consortium led by Airbus is composed of Leonardo, Orange, PwC France and Maghreb, Telespazio (a Leonardo and Thales 67/33 joint venture), the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) and the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM).

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/quantum

https://www.orange.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2021/consortium-european-digital-players-design-future-eu-quantum-internet

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OneWeb now has 218 LEO satellites in orbit

Arianespace successfully launches 36 satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on behalf of OneWeb, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company. Arianespace has deployed 218 satellites in low Earth orbit for the constellation.

This was the fourth in a five-launch programme to fulfil the ‘Five to 50’ service, enabling OneWeb to offer connectivity across the United Kingdom, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas and Canada. The completed programme will deliver 80 percent of the constellation required to enable its connectivity solution to reach all regions north of 50 degrees latitude by June 2021.

OneWeb said it is on track to start its commercial service by the end of the year.

This was the first batch of satellites manufactured by OneWeb Satellites at its new factory in Space Coast, Florida. 

https://www.arianespace.com/press-release/flight-st32-arianespace-successfully-deploys-oneweb-constellation-satellites/

https://www.oneweb.world/media-center/media-advisory

https://youtu.be/37D04uzfyus

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Nikkei Asia publishes Huawei's letter to Joe Biden

Huawei is calling for open dialogue with the U.S. government in hopes of lifting the blacklisting which is eroding its international business, according to an open letter to President Joe Biden published by Nikkei Asia from Vincent Peng, senior vice president at Huawei, and a member of the company's board.

In the letter, Peng argues that a continued decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese tech sectors will be very costly to the global economy. He states that Huawei is "open to discussing anything, including opening Huawei's equipment to independent testing, or licensing our fifth-generation, or 5G, technology to a U.S. company or consortium."

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Huawei-to-Joe-Biden-Let-s-talk

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Ericsson and DT propose a 5G rate adaptation mechanism

Ericsson and Deutsche Telekom published a joint whitepaper that describes a concept for rate adaptation in 5G networks based on Low Latency Low Loss Scalable throughput (L4S), a mechanism being standardized in IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). 

The overall objective is to enable a large scale of time-critical high data rate applications over 5G mobile networks and the companies believe a common feedback loop mechanism is required for fast rate adaptation.

https://www.telekom.com/en/company/details/enabling-time-critical-applications-over-5g-with-rate-adaptation-628058

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Deutsche Telekom intros Speedport Smart 4 router with Wi-Fi 6

Deutsche Telekom introduced its new Speedport Smart 4 home broadband router, featuring Wi-Fi 6 mesh capability and a two-line OLED display that provides information about the status and supports easy connections for users using QR codes.

The Speedport Smart 4 uses up to nine antennas to ensure greater range and a speed of up to 6 Gbps. The integrated mesh technology enables fast and stable data transmission. Together with the new Speed Home WLAN mesh repeater, the router delivers Internet reception to every corner of the home. 

The router connects to up to five mesh-capable repeaters. The router supports MagentaTV and transmits several channels in high-resolution 4K/UHD.

The Speedport Smart 4 is suitable for ADSL, ADSL 2+ and VDSL connections. The device also supports vectoring, supervectoring, and fiber-optic connections. 

An additional fiber-optic modem is required for use on a pure fiber-optic connection. In addition to the connection for an analog telephone, the router also has an integrated DECT-CAT-iq base station on board. Up to five Speedphones thus enable phone calls in HD voice quality. The preset DECT and WLAN encryption via WPA3/WPA 2 Mixed Mode and the high-performance VPN solution Wireguard ensure a high level of security. It allows users to access the home network and the operating menu remotely.

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/speedport-smart-4-and-speed-home-wlan-627850

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Orange upgrades its network in Guinea Bissau

The Orange Group announced a major upgrade of its mobile network in Guinea Bissau. a country on the northwestern coast of Africa with a population of 2 million people..

Orange Bissau 2G/3G rural coverage is being extended to more than 1,000 villages with the deployment of 150 new antennas. The network modernization and extension program will also see upgrades to the 3G + and 4G network across the country.

Orange Bissau currently has nearly one million (1,000,000) mobile customers and six hundred thousand (600,000) Orange Money customers.

Orange Bissau is one of the leading contributors to the Guinean Bissau economy with 9.7% of tax revenue and 3.1% of overall state budget revenue in 2020 and nearly 8,000 direct and indirect jobs created. 

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Colt upgrades with Cisco’s Silicon One, 400G OpenZR+, Segment Routing

Colt Technology Services is transforming its global IQ Packet Network through the deployment of Cisco’s Silicon One hardware alongside 400G OpenZR+ pluggable technology and Segment Routing MPLS software throughout the network. As part of this initiative, Colt is looking to Acacia’s 400G OpenZR+ technology for long-haul inter-metro connections greater than 200 km.

Colt's IQ Network, which launched in 2016, currently connects over 900 data centers across Europe, Asia and North America’s largest business hubs, with over 29,000 on net buildings and growing. 

Cisco’s Silicon One hardware converges IP and optical networking layers for a simpler and more scalable architecture that delivers cost efficiency and reduces space and power usage in data centers and colocations. Segment Routing MPLS offers software capabilities which further simplify the network and provide fine-grained control for guaranteeing stringent SLAs. Combined with pluggable 400G OpenZR+ technology within the IQ Network, Colt will deliver high-bandwidth and software-defined networking that meets connectivity demands of today and the future.

“Colt is committed to ensuring its network is at the forefront of technological innovation, and this latest investment is the next step in our network optimisation strategy, as we continue to leverage next- generation optical and packet technologies”, says Vivek Gaur, Vice President – Network Engineering, for Colt. “Over the last couple of years, Colt and Cisco have built a strategic relationship centered on innovation, and we’re excited to continue to push boundaries for our customers and the industry. We know the requirement for ultra-high bandwidth services is increasing. With Cisco’s technology in specific layers of our network, we’ll have a scalable and efficient packet core network that fulfils the connectivity demands of our customers across the globe.”

“The internet is now an integral part of critical national infrastructure and must be continually reimagined to help transform the way we live. Colt is helping accelerate this as one of the first network providers to leverage the full capability of 400G OpenZR+ coherent pluggable optics in data center interconnect for metro and long-haul applications,” said Adam MacHale, Vice President of EMEAR Service Provider, Cisco. “We look forward to continuing our exciting journey together with Colt and unleashing the full power of Routed Optical Networking technologies.”

 

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