PEACE Cable completes final splice linking Marseille to Karachi

PEACE Cable International Network Co. announced the final slicing of the Pakistan-Egypt segment of its subsea cable system, thus enabling ready-for-service connectivity from Karachi, Pakistan to Marseille, France.

The PEACE Pakistan-Egypt segment connects Karachi, Pakistan and Zafarana, Egypt, spanning a total length of 5,800 km. The landings of Karachi and Zafarana were completed in March and December 2021 respectively. In addition, the Mediterranean segment of PEACE linking Marseille, France, to Abu Talat, Egypt, a 3,200km long project, has also achieved RFS in March 2022. 

In 2019, the landing agreement was signed by Cybernet and PEACE Cable. Cybernet, the landing partner of PEACE in Pakistan, has built the country’s state-of-the-art, Cable Landing Station in Karachi, which will allow global carriers, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), content providers and virtually all IT-enabled firms to tap into the submarine cable capacity at easily accessible interconnect points across Pakistan. Cybernet has the most robust fiber optic network across the country which will also facilitate access and boost business opportunities for PEACE in the Asian region.

The PEACE Cable System, connects Asia, Africa and Europe, with its stronghold connecting Pakistan, France, Egypt, Kenya. The whole system deploys a state-of-the-art “system-within-a-system” and adopts advanced ROADM powered by WSS and Flexible Grid, providing PoP to PoP solutions. 

PEACE has a capacity of up to 96T for Pakistan - Egypt segment and 192T in the Mediterranean segment from Egypt connecting to France. Meanwhile, PEACE is now under construction for the Singapore extension, which will extend the coverage of the PEACE cable system to Southeast Asia and continue to enhance the value of the PEACE cable system's network resources, forming a major Asia-Europe interconnection channel by connecting Singapore, the southeast Asian international circuit transfer center, and France, the European transfer center.

"The segment from Pakistan to France has now been built well, which is really a thrilling milestone”, Sun Xiaohua, COO of PEACE Cable, says. “With Cybernet, we will bring much-needed redundancy to Pakistan's Internet backbone and provide users with high-speed traffic to meet the rapidly growing demand for internet access in different types of digital scenarios in Pakistan.” Mr. Shoaib Qureshi, Country Manager of PEACE Cable in Pakistan, says: “PEACE is the first international submarine cable starting from Pakistan and reaching Europe, Africa and Singapore. It is a new beginning of submarine chapter for Pakistan market, we are very excited to grow this region’s connectivity.”

http://www.peacecable.net/News/Detail/16641

Orange and PCCW join PEACE subsea cable project

Wednesday, September 18, 2019  Orange, PCCW, Peace, Subsea  

PCCW Global, Orange, and PEACE Cable International, a leading international submarine cable operator, reached agreement to deploy the Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) submarine cable system.

PEACE will be a 12,000km ultra-low latency cable system connecting three of the largest and most populous continents in the world - Asia, Africa and Europe. The backbone of the project will interconnect Pakistan, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya and France, with additional planned landing points and extensions. Completion is targeted for 2021.

In terms of the cooperation, Orange will supply and operate the cable landing station in Marseille, as well as linking the system to one of the city’s major data centers - creating a connectivity gateway across Europe and on to the Americas through existing transatlantic networks.

Mr. Marc Halbfinger, Chief Executive Officer, PCCW Global, said, “Our collaboration with Orange is a critically important step towards bringing PEACE online and we trust the capabilities and vast experience of their teams in France to provide a successful and timely delivery of the European leg of the project. Orange has vast experience in submarine cable infrastructure development. So we are confident that Orange will not only successfully provide the necessary cable infrastructure in France, but also benefit from being one of the first major users of the PEACE cable to connect important and growing traffic from Africa to Europe.”

Telecom Egypt signs PEACE subsea cable

Sunday, May 12, 2019  Subsea, Telecom Egypt  

Telecom Egypt entered agreements enabling the Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) subsea cable system to cross Egypt through new diversified terrestrial routes between the Zafarana and Abou Talat cable landing stations, where Telecom Egypt will provide PEACE with brand new state of the art landing facilities. The total value of the agreement amounts to US$45 million over the lifetime of the cable.

In addition,  PEACE will be granted an additional fiber pair to its redundant cross Egypt routes to accommodate PEACE extensive demand to Europe with a total value of US$20 million. China-based HENGTONG OPTIC-ELECTRIC, which is a backer of PEACE, has also agreed to provide Telecom Egypt with fiber optic cables of different cores based on competitive pricing. This cabling will be used in Telecom Egypt's strategic plans for fiber deployment inside Egypt.

PEACE is a 12,000 km long cable system with landings in Pakistan, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya and France.

Huawei Marine advances PEACE subsea cable project

Monday, October 22, 2018  China, Huawei Marine, Subsea  

The Pakistan East Africa Cable Express (PEACE) Cable project, which will connect Asia, Africa and Europe, has entered into the cable and material manufacturing stage.

The PEACE cable system will span 12,000 km and is designed for 200G, 16Tbps per fiber pair connectitivity. The ready for service date is targetted for first quarter of 2020.

The project is being developed by PEACE Cable International Network Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of China's HENGTONG Group.  Huawei Marine Network is lead contractor.

Sun Xiaohua, Chief Operating Officer of PEACE Cable said, “PEACE Cable has created a new business model in the submarine cable industry that builds a bridge for these regions communications and provides connectivity opportunities to players all along the route by investing in the branches and gaining bandwidth on the trunk in a more efficient way.”

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CoreSite signs Adela Technologies, a managed security service provider

Adela Technologies, a Maryland-based managed security service provider (MSSP), is using CoreSite’s hybrid IT environment, which combines compliant colocation with native onramps to leading cloud providers, to provide hosted security solutions.

Adela's customer base ranging from small businesses to government entities such as the Department of Defense (DoD). The company chose to deploy its physical servers in CoreSite’s VA1 data center, which provides multi-layered physical security and hardened construction to address intense security requirements of its customers and compliance levels that support FISMA and FedRAMP deployments. The MSSP leveraged CoreSite’s infrastructure to build a multi-tenant cloud to support its customers’ production and non-production workloads with a security focus and deliver the flexibility and FedRAMP readiness it requires to accredit its DevSecOps environment for the DoD.

To support production workloads, Adela also leverages CoreSite’s native cloud onramps to securely integrate with applications running in AWS using direct low-latency interconnections. As a result, Adela was able to architect a dedicated environment in AWS to support clients who cannot operate in a shared environment.

“At Adela Technologies, we support our customers’ digital journeys and cloud-emerging technology requirements while enabling them to focus on their core business objectives rather than their underlying infrastructure,” said Fred Evans, Chief Operating Officer for Adela. “CoreSite’s hybrid IT solutions allow us to use a single provider to support diverse workload requirements that encompass both colocation and public cloud environments. By simplifying this integration, we can dedicate more time to building solutions that support our clients’ business objectives.”

“CoreSite has on-net connectivity to all the major cloud providers including AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, IBM and Alibaba. Through these native onramps, CoreSite provides customers like Adela secure network connectivity and seamless integration to leading cloud providers that enables high-performance hybrid cloud architectures,"said Brian Eichman, Vice President of Solution Architecture for CoreSite. 

American Tower to buy CoreSite for $10B

Monday, November 15, 2021  American Tower, Data Center, Mergers And Acquisitions  

American Tower agreed to acquire CoreSite for $170.00 per share in cash, an enterprise value of $10.1 billion when including the assumption and/or repayment of CoreSite’s existing debt.CoreSite, which as of Q3 2021 consisted of 25 data centers, 21 cloud on-ramps and over 32,000 interconnections in eight major U.S. markets, generated annualized revenue and Adjusted EBITDA of $655 million and $343 million, respectively, in Q3 2021. CoreSite has averaged...

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Nokia's SaaS iSIM Secure Connect gains GSMA certification

Nokia's iSIM Secure Connect solution has been accredited under the GSMA’s Security Accreditation Scheme (SAS), which confirms the quality and capabilities of security and privacy policies, procedures, and controls that play an important role in supporting additional certifications in compliance with other external standards, like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001, System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2, and Cloud Security Alliance. With the GSMA accreditation in hand, Nokia will now pursue those additional certifications for its other SaaS services later this year and into 2023.

GSMA’s SAS is typically required as the necessary security grade by CSPs globally, so reaching this significant milestone gives operators and enterprises a high degree of confidence of using Nokia iSIM Secure Connect in a SaaS delivery model.

iSIM, or integrated SIM, Secure Connect, through a SaaS delivery model, manages machine-to-machine and consumer device subscriptions for embedded SIM, or, eSIM- and iSIM-enabled devices. iSIM Secure Connect gives control to automate the entire eSIM/iSIM profile lifecycle management process; enables CSPs and enterprises to quickly onboard and manage connected devices at massive scale; and opens opportunities to monetize services linked to trusted digital identities.

Since November 2021, Nokia has introduced seven SaaS services, including iSIM Secure Connect, NetGuard Cybersecurity Dome, Nokia Home Device Management, and Nokia AVA NWDAF, which enhances network operations with AI/ML driven closed-loop automation.

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2022/08/23/nokia-saas-services-strengthened-with-key-gsma-security-accreditation/

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Video: Key thoughts on CISA's Shields Up

https://youtu.be/ooLtVCLPM6s

Where is the U.S. critical infrastructure 6 months after CISA launched the "Shields Up" program?

Can the "shields" ever be taken down at this point with so many adversaries interested in disrupting the US? Given the disparities in resources across certain industries, which area is most behind? 

Ron Fabela, CTO and Co-founder, SynSaber, offers his thoughts.

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Nokia and Furukawa partner on Optical LAN in Latin America

Nokia announced a partnership with Furukawa, which is a market leader for copper cables and optic fiber in Latin America. With this agreement, Furukawa will incorporate Nokia’s optical networking equipment into its Laserway passive optical LAN solution, marketed by its partner ecosystem to the enterprise market.

Optical LANs, also known as POLs, are used in commercial buildings and campuses to provide local area network connectivity, offering significant advantages over traditional copper-based solutions. These solutions provide lower energy consumption, increased security, more scalable deployments and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

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Fiber Broadband Association study highlights societal impact

The Fiber Broadband Association published a study, authored by RVA Market Research & Consulting, entitled “A Detailed Review: The Status of U.S. Broadband and The Impact of Fiber Broadband.” The report highlights five key areas of impact: Digital Equity, Performance, Sustainability, Economic Impact, and Quality of Life/Personal Productivity. 

These key highlights illustrate why the U.S. has begun the largest fiber broadband investment cycle in history. Nearly $130 billion in federal, state, and local subsidies are being invested from the Competitive Carriers’ Association, the American Rescue Plan Act, the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund, the NTIA, the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service ReConnect loan and grant program, and most recently the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

“This investment in fiber as the critical broadband infrastructure for the nation’s future will further accelerate innovation and the next phase of the internet – the Metaverse,” said Gary Bolton, President and CEO at the Fiber Broadband Association. “As every American becomes connected with future-proof fiber broadband, consumers and businesses will begin to leverage the amazing future that is in store for all of us as digital equity reaches everyone, regardless of where they live.”

Highlights from the study include:

Digital Equity

• Lowest density zip codes have service levels with 1/3 the bandwidth of high-density areas
• 58% of broadband adopters in the past 4 years are low income
• 37% of broadband adopters in the past 4 years are non-white households

Performance

• Fiber has 45% faster download and 4.7x faster upload speeds than cable
• Fiber has reduced the cost per bit by 90% over the past decade
• Fiber has half the latency of cable
• Fiber providers’ Net Promoter Scores are significantly better

Sustainability

• Fiber delivers 20% more carbon savings than DSL and 40% more than cable HFC
• Overall, fiber shows the highest net reduction in carbon based on transmission itself and the impact of enabling work from home

Economic Impact

• 47% of rural moves are to areas with fiber
• Over $78 million per year of additional primary revenue from home-based businesses could be gained from an FTTH community of 100,000 households

Quality of Life / Personal Productivity

• 72% of consumers rank broadband as very important
• Broadband is a Top Three attribute for selecting a community (in addition to safe streets / low crime and affordable living)
• Homes with fiber have better access to healthcare and education

https://www.fiberbroadband.org

Fiber Connect 2022: Why the fiber industry is super hot

Wednesday, June 15, 2022  FBA, FTTH  

 https://youtu.be/iItoKxW6WaoGary Bolton, president and CEO of Fiber Broadband Association, shares his key takeaways from the Fiber Connect 2022 conference and exhibition in Nashville, TN.With tens of billions in new subsidies promised for broadband rollouts, interest in fiber-to-the-home and middle mile solutions is at an all-time high. Expect new players to join the moment...

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Broadcom advances its co-packaged optics network switch

Broadcom will provide its new 25.6-Tbps Humboldt co-packaged optics (CPO) network switch to Tencent.

Humboldt features Broadcom’s StrataXGS Tomahawk 4 switch chip directly coupled and co-packaged with four 3.2-Tbps Silicon Photonics Chiplets In Package (SCIP) optical engines. 

Tencent has defined the system architecture and worked closely with Broadcom to develop hardware and software for field deployment of the 25.6-Tbps CPO switch system. Ruijie Networks Co., Ltd. will verify the design, manufacture and test the full CPO switch system, and then provide the finished product to Tencent. 

The companies plan to demonstrate the jointly developed 25.6-Tbps CPO switch system at the China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE) in Shenzhen from September 7th to 9th.

Humboldt 25.6-Tbps CPO Switch Product Highlights:

• 2RU system design with high efficiency air cooling to support 4x3.2-Tbps optical CPO interfaces routed to 16 MPO connectors and 32x400G electrical QSFP112 ports
• CPO engine to front-panel routing supports both traditional fiber and flexible printed fiber (FPF) solutions
• System design compatible to support multiple remote laser modules (RLM)
• More than 50% optical interconnect power consumption savings compared to standard pluggable optics solutions
• Production ready for data center deployment

Broadcom said CPO will become increasingly important for data center switches as copper interconnects approach a reach limit.  Likewise, traditional pluggable optical transceivers require high power to equalize signal impairments incurred on a signal as it traverses long traces and through multiple connector discontinuities in a standard switch system. 

The 25.6-Tbps Humboldt CPO switch leverages Broadcom's uncooled continuous wave (CW) laser at 1310 nm for silicon photonics, delivering significant power efficiency and cost gains.

Broadcom also notes that it has over 15 external partners currently working on its SCIP and CPO designs.

“We are pleased to announce our strategic partnership with Tencent as we enable the industry’s first 25.6-Tbps CPO system for hyperscale data center field deployment,” said Near Margalit, Vice President and General Manager, Optical Systems Division, Broadcom. “We expect to continue to innovate and extend our market leadership position with Tencent as we migrate to 51.2-Tbps switch CPOs and next generation 200G/lane PAM-4 applications.”

“Customer demands for higher bandwidth have pushed Tencent to perpetually scale our network,” said Sage Zou, Vice President of Tencent Cloud. “We are glad to partner with Broadcom on CPO based technology, which will bring not only higher bandwidth for applications such as AI/ML and HPC, but also it could address the power constraints from the acceleration of growth in new workloads.”

“Addressing the general trend towards chip-scale optical interconnects versus traditional copper-based implementation, CPO technology combines microelectronics and optoelectronics on silicon-based platforms, which can carry more information and transmit longer distances,” said Liu Zhongdong, President and CEO, Ruijie Networks. “CPO switching networks have the advantages of high bandwidth and low power consumption, and Ruijie is glad to participate in the innovation and implementation of this new technology with Tencent & Broadcom.”

https://www.broadcom.com/info/optics/cpo

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Lumen gains FCC approval for sale of ILEC assets to Brightspeed

The FCC approved Lumen's sale of certain incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) assets in 20 states to Brightspeed. The deal has now received all final regulatory clearances needed to close.

Brightspeed plans to make significant investments to build an expanded fiber optics network throughout the 20-state footprint. These plans include providing fiber facilities that are expected to reach up to three million homes and businesses over the next five years, including in many rural and suburban locations where fiber and advanced technology have not yet been deployed.Lumen will retain its ILEC operations in 16 states, where it will continue to invest in bringing fiber broadband to more communities. Lumen will also retain its national fiber routes and associated networks in all of these states, as well as its international operations. 

"This transaction will benefit all of these customers, both in Lumen's remaining 16-state footprint and in the 20 states moving to Brightspeed," said Melissa Mann, Lumen vice president of public policy and government affairs.

"The FCC's approval paves the way for Brightspeed to help close the digital divide in communities across the country that are most in need of high-quality broadband," said Tom Dailey, Brightspeed vice president of public policy and government affairs. "This is a significant step in our journey to begin serving customers as Brightspeed. We appreciate the efforts of all the regulators and our Lumen counterparts who worked diligently with us over this past year to achieve this milestone. We look forward to building our fiber network and participating in programs that support affordability for our new customers."

Brightspeed outlines initial FTTP builds

Thursday, July 07, 2022  Brightspeed  

Brightspeed has outlined plans to rollout fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) in a number of locations across its 20-state footprint. Brightspeed will initially be comprised of the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) assets and associated operations of Lumen Technologies, which are the subject of a pending acquisition by Apollo-managed funds. The company recently announced that it had secured all necessary state-required regulatory approvals in...

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Cirion spins out of Latin American operations from Lumen

Tuesday, August 02, 2022  Cirion, Lumen  

Cirion, previously the Latin American operations of Lumen Technologies, officially launched as an independent company with approximately 86,000 kms of fiber, an extensive subsea cable network, and data centers in major economic centers across Central and South America.Stonepeak, a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real assets, acquired the Cirion assets for US$2.7 billion. Lumen acquired the Latin American...

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Video: Cirion's Principal Network Architect on Service Automation

Tuesday, August 02, 2022  Cirion, MEF, Video  

 https://youtu.be/LfD2XW2OJ5MCirion, the new spin-out international carrier that was previously the Latin American operations of Lumen Technologies, is engaged with MEF and other global operators, to automate its service activation. Jorge Brites, Principal Network Architect at Cirion, discusses service automation and MEF LSO AP...

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Safaricom tests fixed wireless access 5G slicing with Nokia

Safaricom has successfully piloted its 4G and 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network slicing on its live commercial network in Kenya in partnership with Nokia. 

The trial utilized a multi-vendor network environment and included RAN, transport and core as well as software upgrades to a range of Nokia’s products and services. The pilot demonstrated a number of solutions including Nokia’s AirScale 4G/5G base stations, the NetAct network management and assurance system and Nokia’s FastMile 4G/5G CPE.

Nokia said the trial demonstrates that Safaricom is now poised to support new types of enterprise network services, including fast lane internet access and application slicing. In addition, Nokia is enabling secured FWA slice connectivity to enterprise locations, as well as to private or public application clouds.

Network slicing enables operators the ability to divide a network into multiple virtual slices, which can be optimized for a specific target application or service. The end user of each network slice can then be serviced with different priorities, routing, levels of network performance and security capabilities. Slices can be managed and deployed in minutes, and each one has key performance indicators used for service assurance.

James Maitai, Network Director, Safaricom, said: “We are proud to have hosted Africa’s first successful pilot of 4G/5G FWA slicing on our network, and looking forward to tailoring our service offerings to individual customers and industries, to meet their needs for high-speed connectivity precisely and without unnecessary cost. Nokia’s expertise has been key to this success, and we anticipate many more strategic wins in this area as our business expands.”

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Elisa to recapture waste heat from a data centre in Helsinki

Elisa is working with its utility provider to recapture waste heat produced in its data centre in Helsiki for use in community heating.

According to the agreement, waste heat recovered in the cooling process of Elisa’s modern data centre in Pasila is transferred for heating homes and business premises in the area. At best, the waste heat collected from the data centre can replace the annual heat demand of up to a thousand one-bedroom flats.

“In Finland, people regard recycling and the use of renewable materials as one of the most important indicators of sustainable business practice. Recycling is also sensible in the use of energy. Investing in both energy self-sufficiency and in technology that promotes energy efficiency is more important than ever. The cooperation with Elisa offers an excellent opportunity to increase the amount of recycled heat for our customers by utilising our energy platform,” explains Henrietta Lahti, Business Lead, Datacenter and Waste Heat Solutions at Helen, the Finnish utility provider.

“Elisa’s mission is a sustainable future through digitalisation, and we are strongly committed to sustainable development in all our activities. In cooperation with Helen, energy efficiency in our Pasila data centre will improve so that it will become environmentally positive, i.e. the data centre actually reduces global emissions. That way we can offer our customers digital services that are produced in an even more sustainable way than before,” says Sami Rajamäki, Elisa’s Vice President, Network Services.

https://elisa.com/corporate/news-room/press-releases/helen-and-elisa-to-heat-homes-in-helsinki-with-waste-heat-from-a-data-centre/31135227527634/

Nokia and Elisa achieve over 2 Gbps 5G uplink speeds on mmWave

Tuesday, June 21, 2022  5G, Elisa, Finland, Nokia  

Nokia, Elisa, and Qualcomm Technologies achieved arecord-breaking 5G uplink speeds of 2.1 Gbps. The live demonstration at the Nokia Arena in Tampere in Finland featured Nokia's AirScale base station in 26 GHz mmWave spectrum over Elisa’s commercial 5G network. The network was connected to a 5G device powered by a Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System featuring fourth-generation Qualcomm® QTM545 mmWave antenna modules. Additionally, Nokia deployed...

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Nokia and Elisa test first 1 terabit clear-channel interface

Wednesday, January 27, 2021  Elisa, Finland, Nokia, Terabit  

Elisa, a network operator serving Finland and Estonia, has tested the first 1 Tbps clear-channel interface across its commercial infrastructure.Elisa upgraded some of its Nokia 7950 Extensible Routing System (XRS) nodes with 1T interfaces powered by Nokia’s FP4 chipset, the industry’s first terabit capable routing silicon. The new FP4 terabit linecard supports two 1T ports and demonstrated deployment readiness by carrying live traffic on Elisa’s...

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Southeast Nebraska Communications deploys DZS for active Ethernet

Southeast Nebraska Communications (SNC) is upgrading its existing point-to-point fiber infrastructure with next generation Active Ethernet solutions from DZS. 

SNC’s Active Ethernet network infrastructure includes solutions from the DZS Velocity Access Edge and DZS Helix Subscriber Edge portfolio, including:

• DZS Velocity V2, V14 and V16 Access Edge Platforms - offering common Active Ethernet line cards that bring services from 1 Gbps to 40 Gbps to subscribers. The Velocity chassis provides Active Ethernet density in a variety of environmentally hardened form factors ranging from a compact 2RU, 2 service card slot chassis to a 14RU, 16 service card slot chassis.
• DZS Helix Subscriber Edge Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) bring gigabit and multi-gigabit experiences to the connected home and business. 

“DZS, along with its value-added reseller Goldfield Telecom, is proud to support the network upgrade requirements of SNC, a fiber access pioneer that has served changing communications needs across Nebraska for more than 100 years,” said Andrew Finkelstein, Senior Vice President, North America Sales, DZS. “As some access vendors withdraw from the Active Ethernet marketplace, DZS is stepping up, enabling our customers to retain their preferred network configurations, improve manageability, reliability and performance, and prepare their networks for a leap to multi-gigabit services in the future."

https://www.dzsi.com

 

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NTT Data launches Innovation Centers in 6 countries

In a bid to generate new business through joint R&D with key customers NTT DATA is launching Innovation Center in six locations worldwide. Each location will focus on a unique topic wit the potential to become mainstream within five to ten years.

• Japan (NTT research lab technologies): Genomes, metaverse, quantum computing
• United States (customer contract-related technologies): Digital humans, smart city planning
• Italy/Germany (data processing, simulation technologies): Quantum computing, metaverse
• China (hardware-related technologies): Remote sensing technology (LiDAR), metaverse
• India (a framework for prototype development)

https://www.nttdata.com/global/en/media/press-release/2022/august/ntt-data-launches-innovation-center-in-six-countries

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Telus appoints Chief Transformation Officer

TELUS International appointed Beth Howen to the newly created role of Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) effective today.

Howen will lead the ongoing development and delivery of integrated transformation, digital, CX and analytics solutions for TELUS International’s more than 600 clients, including tech hyperscalers and digital disruptors, across high growth industry verticals, such as tech and games, communications and media, eCommerce and fintech, banking, financial services and insurance, healthcare, and travel and hospitality.

“On behalf of our almost 70,000 global team members, I am very pleased to welcome Beth to our TELUS International family to further focus and enhance our expertise in supporting the full life cycle of our clients’ digital transformation journeys by incorporating critical next-gen solutions and services into their customer journeys,” said Jeff Puritt, President and CEO, TELUS International. “Beth’s significant experience and track record of success as a highly-respected technology leader paired with our talented team’s deep domain expertise and company’s unique value proposition strongly position us to continue to capitalize on a surge in demand for digital transformation capabilities and drive the ongoing strong momentum we are achieving in the marketplace.”

Prior to joining TELUS International, Beth served as the Global Head of Digital Transformation at Atos, an information technology service and consulting company specializing in high-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and cybersecurity services.

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Broadcom delivers 51.2 Tbps Tomahawk 5

Broadcom has begun customer shipments of its StrataXG Tomahawk 5 switch series, providing 51.2 Tbps of Ethernet switching capacity in a single, monolithic chip.

“Delivering the world’s first 51.2 Tbps switch two years after we released Tomahawk 4, the industry’s first 25 Tbps switch, is a testament to the outstanding execution and innovation by the Broadcom team,” said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom. “Since the introduction of Tomahawk 1 in 2014, Broadcom has consistently executed on doubling the bandwidth approximately every two years. With today’s introduction of the fifth generation Tomahawk family, we are proud to say that a single Tomahawk 5 replaces forty-eight Tomahawk 1 switches in the network, resulting in over 95 percent reduction in power requirements. We applaud our customers, partners, and engineers for making this possible.”

StrataXGS Tomahawk 5 highlights:

• 64 ports of 800GbE switching and routing.
• Virtualization of general compute and AI/ML workloads with single-pass VxLAN routing and bridging.
• Unparalleled physical I/O options using 512 instances of 100G PAM4 SerDes.
• High-precision PTP and SyncE time synchronization.
• Six on-chip ARM processors for high-bandwidth, fully-programmable streaming telemetry, and sophisticated embedded applications such as on-chip statistics summarization.
• Implemented as a monolithic 5nm die

StrataXGS Tomahawk 5 Series Key Features for AI/ML:

• World’s highest radix of 200GbE ports: 256 ports supported on a single chip, enabling flat, low latency AI/ML clusters.
• Advanced 51.2 Tbps shared-buffer architecture, providing the highest performance and lowest tail latency for RoCEv2 and other new RDMA protocols.
• Advanced Broadcom Cognitive Routing, dynamic load balancing, and support for end-to-end congestion control capabilities specifically designed to handle the large, low entropy flows typical of AI/ML workloads.
• Support for Clos and non-Clos topologies such as torus, Dragonfly, Dragonfly+, and Megafly.
• Hardware-based link failover

Broadcom said it is targetting the Tomahawk 5 family at the massively shared infrastructure in large data centers, Tomahawk 5 provides AI/ML workload virtualization with features such as single-pass VxLAN routing and bridging. Critical to minimizing job completion time (JCT) for AI/ML workloads, Tomahawk 5 offers features such as Broadcom Cognitive Routing, advanced shared packet buffering, programmable inband telemetry, and hardware-based link failover.

Tomahawk 5’s Cognitive Routing improves network link utilization by automatically and dynamically selecting the most lightly loaded links in the system for every flow that transverses the switch. This is especially important for AI/ML workloads which often have a combination of short-lived mice flows and long-lived, high bandwidth elephant flows with low entropy. 

Tomahawk 5 includes real-time dynamic load balancing that tracks the utilization of all links, both at the switch and downstream in the network, to determine the optimal path for each flow. It also monitors the health of links in hardware and automatically steers traffic away from failed links. These features provide dramatically improved network utilization and reduced congestion, resulting in shortened JCT.

Tomahawk 5 also features extensive programmable inband telemetry on both live traffic and network probes. Real-time metadata can be inserted into traffic at line rate as it traverses the network to collect telemetry on queue size, packet latency, switch utilization, and a variety of other customer-selectable metrics. This metadata can be used for precise end-to-end network congestion control.

To enable the lowest power and lowest cost for physical connectivity, Tomahawk 5 enables a direct 100G PAM4 interface to direct attach copper (DAC), front panel pluggable optics, and co-packaged optics. The flexible, long reach Tomahawk 5 SerDes provides DAC connectivity to all devices within a rack, and even between racks, without the need for retimers or other active components. It can also interface directly to a broad ecosystem of standard front-panel pluggable optical modules.

Tomahawk 5 will be made available with co-packaged optics using Broadcom’s Silicon Photonics Chiplets in Package (SCIP) platform, providing more than 50 percent decrease in the power needed for optical connectivity. Since the same switch silicon provides all these options, customers can choose the optimal I/O for each part of their intra-cluster, inter-cluster, and inter-DC networks with no software porting required.

As part of its announcement, Broadcom showcased statements of support for the Tomahawk 5 from senior execs and network architects at Alibaba Cloud, AT&T, Baidu, Bytedance, Microsoft Azure, Tencent Cloud, Tenstorrent, Arista Networks, H3C, Juniper Networks, Nokia, Accton, Celestica, Delta, Inventec, Ruijie, Quanta Cloud, Wistron, and Ufispace.

https://www.broadcom.com/products/ethernet-connectivity/switching/strataxgs/bcm78900-series

Broadcom ships its 25.6 Tbps Tomahawk 4 

Wednesday, December 11, 2019  Broadcom, Silicon  

Broadcom has begun commercial shipments of its 25.6 Tbps StrataXGS Tomahawk 4 Ethernet switching silicon -- representing double the bandwidth of any other switch silicon currently on the market. The 25.6 Tbps capacity enables port densities of up to 64 × 400GbE, 128 × 200GbE, 256 × 100GbE, 256 × 40GbE, 256 × 25GbE, or 256 × 10GbE ports. Tomahawk 4, which is implemented in 7nm technology with 512 50G PAM4 SerDes, arrives less than two years after...

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Broadcom delivers its 12.8 Tbps Tomahawk 3 switching silicon

Tuesday, December 19, 2017  Broadcom, Silicon  

Broadcom announced commercial shipments of its StrataXGS Tomahawk 3 Ethernet switch silicon boasting 12.8 Terabits/sec in a single device -- double that of any other switching chip currently in the market. Tomahawk 3 paves the way for high-density, standards-based 400GbE, 200GbE, and 100GbE switching and routing for hyperscale cloud networks. The latest gen silicon is expected to be adopted by leading network equipment OEMs as well as by hyperscale...

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Broadcom's Tomahawk 2 Switch Packs 64 Ports of 100GE 

Tuesday, October 11, 2016  Broadcom, Data Centers, Silicon, Switch  

Broadcom announced its StrataXGS Tomahawk II Switching chip -- the highest performance Ethernet switch to date, packing up to 64 ports 100GE or 128 ports of 50GE with SDN-optimized packet switch engines operating at 6.4 Terabits per second. The StrataXGS Tomahawk II  Tomahawk II integrates 256 serdes running at over 25 Gbps, with large on-chip forwarding tables and packet buffer memory.  The chip supports Broadcom's next generation BroadView...

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Avicena raises $25 million for microLED interconnects

AvicenaTech, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, announced $25 million in Series A funding for its development of microLED-based chip-to-chip interconnects.

Avicena's LightBundle technology is based on arrays of GaN micro-emitters that leverage the microLED display ecosystem. The company says this can be integrated onto a high-performance CMOS IC. 

“We are excited about closing our Series A funding with a distinguished group of existing and new investors,” said Bardia Pezeshki, Founder and CEO of Avicena. “We will use the new funds to scale our team and build initial products for our growing family of partners and customers.”

The funding round was led by Samsung Catalyst Fund, Cerberus Capital Management, Clear Ventures, and Micron Ventures.

“We believe that Avicena technology can be transformational in unlocking compute-to-memory chip-to-chip high-speed interconnects. Such technology can be central to supporting future disaggregated architectures and distributed high-performance computing (HPC) systems,” said Marco Chisari, EVP of Samsung Electronics and Head of the Samsung Semiconductor Innovation Center.

https://avicena.tech/press-release_08-02-2022/

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ZTE tests co-routing detection in an existing optical network

ZTE completed a commercial trial of co-routing detection in China Mobile’s existing optical network in Yunnan Province, China. 

The trial with the Yunnan branch of China Mobile, involved two scenarios: co-cable routing detection and co-ditch routing detection. The trial result shows that there will be an early warning of active/standby paths in the same optical fiber or route so that it can be avoided in time based on fiber sensing.

According to the verification, ZTE's optical network co-routing detection function can exactly detect co-cable routing of 14 optical cables and 54 fiber cores by dynamic parameter optimization, AI algorithm and experience threshold adjustment. Also, ZTE takes analysis, contrast and on-site specialist inspection to exactly detect co-ditch routing of 12 optical cables and about 20 ditches in 4 core equipment rooms. The verification proves that ZTE can provide the operator with flexible optical network co-routing detection methods, along with real-time, accurate and reliable intelligent O&M measures, which well guarantees service survivability and alleviates the difficulty in dumb fiber resource management.

"The function can effectively solve actual problems in production and operation. Before this, active/standby routes are planned on the resource management map, and routing is determined manually, which leads to high error rate. Additionally, the accuracy of resource management information is hardly under control, thereby increasing routing risks,” said the leader of Network Management Center of China Mobile Yunnan.

“In the original routing detection, people pulled or pushed the cable underground manually, which resulted in low efficiency and service interruption. However, the co-routing detection now leverages dumb fiber resources without service switching. The innovative function remarkably reduces manpower and ensures service survivability while allowing resource management information modifications and route re-planning to avoid service interruption losses," he added.

https://www.zte.com.cn/global/about/news/20220818e1.html

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SpaceX completes 57th Starlink launch

On Friday, August 19, SpaceX launched 53 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

This was the ninth flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, and now four Starlink missions.

The mission was SpaceX’s 57th Starlink mission to date. 

It was SpaceX's third Starlink mission in August and 23rd Starlink mission this year.

https://spacex.com

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Dell'Oro: RAN Disappoints in 2Q 2022

The positive momentum that has characterized the Radio Access Network (RAN) market over the past four years is losing some steam, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. The overall 2G-5G RAN infrastructure equipment market – including hardware and software – declined in the second quarter, recording the first year-over-year contraction in more than two years and the third consecutive quarter of RAN coming in below expectations. Although the RAN market is not immune to external risks, initial readings suggest that the RAN impact from deteriorating macro conditions, high levels of inflation, and supply chain disruptions were limited in the quarter.

"The shift in the pendulum is not a surprise, but admittedly it has swung a bit faster toward the negative than initially expected", said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group. "Slower momentum is not a sign that the 5G deployment phase is over. The message we have communicated for some time now, namely that the 5G cycle will be longer than previous technology cycles, still holds. At the same time, market conditions in the quarter were impacted by APAC, excluding China, Russia, and foreign exchange," continued Pongratz.

Additional highlights from the 2Q 2022 RAN report:

• Top 5 global suppliers in the quarter include Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung.
• Top 4 suppliers outside of China in the quarter include Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, and Samsung.
• Huawei and ZTE continued to dominate in China, together accounting for 90 to 95 percent of 1H 2022 revenues.
• Ericsson maintained its grip on the RAN market outside of China, accounting for 39 percent of the revenues for the 1H 2022.
• Nokia's RAN position outside of China improved between 1Q and 2Q 2022.
• Samsung's 1H 2022 RAN share improved both in North America and globally.
• Even though RAN results disappointed in the quarter and first half revenues are tracking below expectations, RAN is still projected to record a fifth consecutive year of growth in 2022.

https://www.delloro.com

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