Here are 3 predictions from Blastwave’s Tom Sego on what we will see with ransomware attacks this year.
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The FCC published a 166-page report and order that establishes a coordinated nationwide approach to managing the 4.9 GHz (4940-4990 MHz) band. The new rules introduce a nationwide Band Manager, which will be selected based on its expertise and connections to the public safety community and will coordinate all operations in the band to ensure that any non-public safety use remains fully secondary to, and preemptible by, public safety operations. This nationwide framework will optimize public safety use and enable the integration of the latest commercially available technologies, such as 5G. The FCC is seeking comment on details of implementing this model.
The new rules allow for the collection of granular data on public safety operations in the 4.9 GHz band in order to improve interference mitigation efforts and bolster public safety confidence in the band.
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-updates-49-ghz-band-rules-seeks-further-comment
Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to invest $35 billion by 2040 to establish multiple data center campuses across Virginia.
The Commonwealth of Virginia is developing a new Mega Data Center Incentive Program. The new program includes up to a 15-year extension of Data Center Sales and Use tax exemptions on qualifying equipment and enabling software. In addition, and also subject to approval by the General Assembly, AWS will be eligible to receive an MEI custom performance grant of up to $140 million for site and infrastructure improvements, workforce development, and other project-related costs.
“AWS has a significant presence in Virginia, and we are excited that AWS has chosen to continue their growth and expand their footprint across the Commonwealth,” said Glenn Youngkin, Governor of Virginia. “Virginia will continue to encourage the development of this new generation of data center campuses across multiple regions of the Commonwealth. These areas offer robust utility infrastructure, lower costs, great livability, and highly educated workforces and will benefit from the associated economic development and increased tax base, assisting the schools and providing services to the community.”
“With the highest concentration of tech talent in the U.S., Virginia boasts one of the largest data center workforces in the nation—an advantage that sets us apart and directly benefits an industry leader like AWS,” said Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick. “We thank AWS for its commitment to the Commonwealth of Virginia and look forward to a continued partnership in the years to come.”
“Virginia is a world leader in innovation and cloud computing, thanks to its investment in a robust, highly-skilled workforce and emphasis on long-term public and private partnerships,” said Roger Wehner, Director of Economic Development, AWS. “Since 2006, AWS has invested more than $35 billion in Virginia, boosting the Commonwealth’s total Gross Domestic Product by nearly $7 billion and supporting thousands of jobs annually. Building on these successful beginnings, we plan to invest an additional $35 billion in the Commonwealth of Virginia by 2040 and create 1,000 jobs.”
Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2023, an increase of 2.4% from 2022, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. This is down from the previous quarter’s forecast of 5.1% growth.
Gartner observes that inflation continues to erode consumer purchasing power and drive device spending down, but predicts that overall enterprise IT spending will remain strong.
“Consumers and enterprises are facing very different economic realities,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “While inflation is devastating consumer markets, contributing to layoffs at B2C companies, enterprises continue to increase spending on digital business initiatives despite the world economic slowdown.
The software and IT services segments are projected to grow 9.3% and 5.5% in 2023, respectively. The devices segment is forecast to decline 5.1% this year as both consumers and enterprises lengthen device refresh cycles.
Ericsson reported Q4 2022 sales growth in North America – mainly from 5G Core contracts - offset by declines in IPR revenues and previously announced charges, including the DOJ provision, IoT divestment and Cloud Software and Services contract and portfolio exits. EBITA excluding restructuring charges amounted to SEK 9.3 (12.8) b. with an EBITA margin of 10.8% (17.9%). EBITA was impacted by the previously announced charges.
Ericsson's CEO, Börje Ekholm, provides the following update:
"With our fourth quarter result we are on track to deliver on our long-term EBITA target of 15-18% by 2024. We remain fully committed to our strategic ambitions and have full confidence in the long term. During the quarter, we made measurable progress towards achieving these ambitions, against a backdrop of broad macroeconomic headwinds. As we said during our Capital Markets Day, there are near-term uncertainties, however, we are still in the early phase of global 5G rollout and widespread enterprise digitalization."
"Our strategy remains rooted in driving sustainable growth and maximizing value across all stakeholders. We are confident that we have the right team and strategy in place to extend our leadership in mobile networks; achieve profitability in Cloud Software and Services; execute in our high growth Enterprise segment; shape the industry landscape by becoming a platform company leveraging the 5G innovation platform; and continue our unwavering commitment to a culture of integrity."
"This quarter, we signed a multiyear IPR patent license agreement with a major licensee. This positive outcome positions us well to capture further 5G patent license agreements among handset manufacturers and in new areas such as consumer electronics and IoT. We expect significant IPR revenue growth over the coming 18-24 months."
"Group Net Sales grew by 1% YoY, of which IPR revenues contributed with 5 percentage points. EBITA of SEK 9.3 (12.8) b. corresponds to a margin[2] of 10.8% (17.9%). The positive impact from higher IPR revenues was offset by expected business mix shift and previously announced charges of SEK -4 b. We executed on our ambition to reduce inventory contributing to our free cash flow before M&A of SEK 16.9 (13.5) b."
"Our Networks business grew in India on the back of significant market share gains. As anticipated, the growth from share gains in several markets could not fully compensate for reduced operator capex and inventory reductions in other markets, including North America. Gross margin[2] was 44.6% (46.4%), negatively impacted by this business mix shift including a higher share of services sales from large network rollout projects. The IPR patent license agreement had positive margin impact."
"During the quarter, we were able to largely offset the impact of high inflation with commercial activities, including product substitution. We continue to invest in technology to enhance performance and cost leadership, expand our global footprint and improve productivity and capital efficiency across the supply chain."
"In Cloud Software and Services, organic sales decreased by -2% excluding IPR revenues. Sales growth in North America – mainly from 5G Core contracts – was offset by a decline in other market areas. We remain committed to improving profitability and are on a clear path to reaching operating profit break-even for full-year 2023 by limiting subscale software development, accelerating automation, and changing focus from market share gains to profitability. In Q4, we decided to exit certain subscale business, with a one-off charge."
"Within Enterprise, we continue to leverage our strength in mobile networks to accelerate our business. Organically, sales grew by 15%. Our Enterprise strategy is underpinned by two pillars: First, our Enterprise Wireless Solutions business, focused on capturing the multi-billion-dollar enterprise market opportunity for 5G optimized networking and security solutions. Second, through the Global Communication Platform business, we will enable new ways of monetizing 5G by transforming how network features such as speed and latency are globally exposed, consumed and paid for. Enterprise is a growth engine for the company, and we continue to fine-tune our portfolio to maximize profitability. To this end, we announced the divestment of our loss-making IoT business in Q4. We continue to invest to strengthen our enterprise go-to-market channel and broaden our enterprise product portfolio. In addition, we are increasing our investments in developing the network APIs that will underpin the long-term growth in Global Communication Platform. From 2024 and beyond our enterprise business will be a major driver of Ericsson’s long-term growth and profitability, however, these investments will weigh on profitability during 2023."
"We remain positive on the long-term outlook for our business. However, the near-term outlook, as we also described at our Capital Markets Day, remains uncertain. We expect operators to continue to sweat assets in response to macroeconomic headwinds. In addition, we expect operators to adjust inventory levels as supply situation eases. These trends started to impact Networks in Q4 and we expect them to continue at least during the first half of 2023. At the same time, we expect good growth from market share wins, albeit not fully offsetting the near-term headwinds. In the longer-term, capex is driven by traffic growth. Given near-term macroeconomic headwinds, we expect Enterprise to grow somewhat slower than during 2022."
Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE), a global coffee company, has deployed Orange Business Services' Flexible SD-WAN to connect more than 120 locations worldwide.
Orange Business Services has implemented a global connectivity solution using managed Flexible SD-WAN across 40 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. In addition, Orange provides a range of managed network security services across the core infrastructure of JDE’s data centers located in Amsterdam, Sao Paulo and Singapore, along with cloud-based security solutions.
“JDE is benefiting from a secure and agile infrastructure built on our Evolution Platform connectivity, cloud and security expertise. This approach is designed to accelerate its digital transformation and propel its business forward. The company has already seen major performance benefits with the ability to quickly turn up and add new sites to its network, and this is hopefully just the beginning of a fruitful partnership,” said Nemo Verbist, Senior Vice President Europe for Orange Business Services.
IonQ will open a quantum computing manufacturing facility in Bothell, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.
The new 65,000 square foot facility will house IonQ’s growing R&D and manufacturing teams, as they develop systems to meet continued customer demand.
“IonQ making the decision to open the first ever quantum computing manufacturing facility in the country right here in Bothell is a very big deal — and it’s great news for Washington state,” said Senator Murray. “Opening this facility will absolutely help ensure Washington state continues to be a leader in innovation and cutting-edge technologies — but it also means jobs that will be an investment in our families and their futures. These are the kinds of investments that happen when we pass legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act to invest in American manufacturing and build the economy of the future right here at home.”
“Advanced technologies like quantum computing are key to solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges such as climate change, energy, and transportation,” said Peter Chapman, CEO and President of IonQ. “The Seattle region has been a hub of tech innovation and manufacturing for decades, and has the skilled workforce we need to design, build and manufacture our quantum computers. As we planned our expansion, the Seattle area was an ideal option for our new facility. We’re excited to be among the other innovative companies who call Seattle home, many of which are IonQ partners and customers.”
The EUTELSAT 5 West A satellite has been decommissioned after 20+ years ofin-orbit operation.
Based on a Spacebus 3000B3 platform manufactured by the then Alcatel Alenia Space (now Thales Alenia Space), the satellite was originally built on behalf of Stellat. Shortly after its launch in July 2002, the satellite was bought by Eutelsat and renamed Atlantic Bird-3, operating from the 5° West orbital position where it remained for its entire operational life. It was given the name EUTELSAT 5 West A in 2012 and operated in an inclined orbit since the end of 2019, which enabled an extended lifespan of the satellite.
A progressive transfer of services to the new EUTELSAT 5 West B satellite, as well as other satellites of the Eutelsat fleet, was started in January 2020, ensuring seamless continuity of operations for customers. The EUTELSAT 5 West A continued to operate until its decommissioning, notably providing maritime connectivity.
Eva Berneke, Eutelsat Chief Executive Officer, commented: “The impressive extended lifespan of EUTELSAT 5 West A showcases the first-rate satellite control expertise of the Eutelsat teams. The satellite provided an overall service availability of 99.999%, a figure that stands as a testament to the hard work and dedication of all the Eutelsat teams who have worked together throughout the years on this mission.”
James Matthews, Eutelsat CSR Director, added: “The decommissioning of EUTELSAT 5 West A satellite is a perfect example of our commitment to the responsible use of space, a fundamental element of the Group’s CSR mission. This operation shows how the Space Traffic Management expertise of Eutelsat is being used to mitigate the risk of space debris for both security and environmental concerns, ensuring the long-term sustainability of space for all operators”.
América Móvil and Telxius are planning a subsea cable linking Guatemala and the United States.
The cable, named AMX3 by América Móvil and Tikal by Telxius, will link Puerto Barrios (Guatemala) with Boca Raton (US) with an initial estimated capacity of 190 Tbps. An additional possible landing in Cancun (Mexico) is being considered.
ASN has been chosen to build the cable and a supply contract is already in force. ASN will provides options to increase capacity and to incorporate additional branching units to serve other destinations.
For América Móvil, this is a new step to build a most extensive subsea network in the Americas, which delivers capacity through more than 197 thousand km of submarine cables, including the AMX-1 submarine cable that extends 18,300 km and connects the United States to Central and South America with 13 landing points and also the South Pacific Submarine Cable that extends 7,300 km along the Latin American Pacific coast, connecting Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru and Chile with five landing points. Both systems provide international connectivity to all of their subsidiaries in these geographic areas.
For Telxius, Tikal is the 7th new next-generation cable to complete its network since 2018 in addition to Brusa, Mistral, Tannat, Junior, Marea and Dunant. This means a multiterabit, robust set of new next-generation subsea cables fully serving the Americas and Europe while enhancing Telxius traditional routes. Overall, Telxius will feature a 82,000 km network that has been designed to connect the main digital data hubs on both sides of the Atlantic.
The UK's National Grid has selected EXFO to provide monitoring for its ongoing fiber network health assessment.
National Grid has deployed an overhead fiber optic operational telecommunications network across its electricity transmission infrastructure that carries critical information essential for secure and efficient utility operations. EXFO will measure, analyze, and report results from an 80 km span of the National Grid network -- in one of the most challenging areas of the UK for weather issues – over a 12-month period. Deployment of test equipment and Intellisense devices got underway in October 2022.
EXFO said its technology will help assess the operational condition of the fiber network, while predicting its remaining technical lifespan and identifying potential points of weakness or failure. EXFO will also collect data from Intellisense Systems micro weather station (MWS) Internet of Things (IoT) devices being deployed to measure the specific environmental impact of wind, humidity and meteorological events. EXFO's Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based analytics solution will amalgamate and correlate data from both the fiber optic network and weather system inputs, and dynamically predict, detect, and prevent outages and impairments in the network that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Telefónica and Pontegadea have acquired the 40% stake in Telxius Telecom, S.A. which to date was held by entities managed by KKR. Consequently, Telefónica and Pontegadea now own 70% and 30% of Telxius, respectively.
Mario MartÃn, CEO of Telxius, said: “We are very proud of the decision of Telefónica and Pontegadea to strengthen their alliance and increase their participation in Telxius. The closing of this transaction encourages us to continue growing our digital infrastructure business. I would like to thank KKR for their continued support of our strategy focused on growth and value creation over the years.”
https://telxius.com/en/telefonica-and-pontegadea-increase-their-participation-in-telxius/
POET Technologies has developed multi-engine 100G CWDM4 and 100G LR4 chip-on-board solutions for its lead customer, ADVA Optical Networking SE.
“ADVA’s MicroMux Quattro brings the industry’s smallest aggregation technology all the way to the network core. Engineered as a standard-compliant plug in a QSFP-DD form factor, it fits into a 400Gbit/s socket, enabling it to meet legacy needs. This innovative pluggable solution packs the functionality of four independent 100Gbit/s interfaces or two independent 200Gbit/s interfaces into a single QSFP-DD housing,” said Ross Saunders, GM of Optical Engines, ADVA. “POET’s unique design of its optical engines with hybrid integration of optical chips and monolithically integrated MUX and DMUX enables us to deliver industry-leading products in a small form factor that is scalable to high volume production as well as to higher data rates, such as 1.6Tbit/s and 3.2Tbit/s, thereby enabling much higher bandwidth in a pluggable form factor.”
“We are excited to work with ADVA and to enable a high-density platform with a large market potential,” said Vivek Rajgarhia, President & GM of POET. “POET’s Optical Interposer platform provides a high level of photonic integration to provide unique solutions in miniature form factors. We believe that our wafer-scale integration platform provides ADVA with compelling solutions that are well aligned with their current and future products.”
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The advent of 5G is driving deep changes in the way that telcos deploy and manage their networks. Telco Cloud infrastructure must adopt a distributed, multi-cloud architecture. It must also be ready to leverage public cloud capabilities to benefit from new business opportunities.
Here are the insider views of Ram Venketaramani, Senior Director, Edge Solutions, VMware .
OFS is introducing a 150 W Raman Fiber Laser Module at the upcoming Photonics West Exposition in San Francisco from January 31 through February 2, 2023.
Phil Familletti, OFS Product Manager, states "OFS has designed the Raman Fiber Laser Module to serve as an ideal high-brightness pump source for other fiber and solid-state lasers. The new 150 W, 1480 nm Raman Fiber Laser Module significantly pushes the performance of Raman lasers designed for pumping EDFA's. The combination of the OFS Raman Fiber Laser Module and the OFS VLMA-Er Amplifier Module targets emerging applications such as next-generation LIDAR and free-space optical communications. Other applications include high brightness fiber laser pumping, pumping solid-state lasers, medical applications, and test and measurement." Technical details will be reported at Photonics West by Andrew Grimes in presentation 12400-49 "Long-term, stable, 115W output from an Erbium fiber amplifier pumped by a Raman fiber laser".
https://www.ofsoptics.com/photonics-west
CyrusOne acquired a 57.6-acre land parcel in Loudoun County, Virginia for a future, state-of-the-art data center complex designed for hyperscale cloud providers and large-scale companies.
“CyrusOne is excited to expand its investment in Loudoun County where we successfully operate 10 data centers at five campus locations in one of the most important digital gateway markets in the United States,” said company CEO Eric Schwartz. “With strong demand in the Northern Virginia market, we are positioned to initiate development consistent with the existing zoning on this new site and deliver world-class digital infrastructure that meet the growing needs of our customers.”
CyrusOne – which was acquired last year by KKR, a global investment firm, and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an infrastructure investment firm – is a recognized leader for innovating and advocating sustainability efforts in the data center industry, recently accelerated its goal to be a carbon neutral company by 2030. The company’s recognized sustainability efforts – centered on energy efficiency, water conservation, biodiversity, and circular economy – are detailed in its annual Sustainability Report.
OpenLight, a start-up offering an open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers, has appointed Dr. Adam Carter as its Chief Executive Officer.
Previously, Carter served as Chief Commercial Officer at Foxconn Interconnect and Oclaro. At Oclaro, he served as a member of the senior executive team from July 2014 to December 2018, when it was acquired by Lumentum Holdings for $1.85B. Prior to that, he served as the Senior Director and General Manager of the Transceiver Module Group at Cisco from February 2007 to July 2014, where he was instrumental in the acquisition of Lightwire, a Silicon Photonics start-up, and released the first internally-designed CPAK 100G transceiver family utilizing a Silicon Photonics Optical engine. Dr. Carter holds a B.Sc. (Honors) in Applied Physics from Portsmouth University and received a PhD from the University of Wales, Cardiff, for his research on Reactive Ion Etching of III-V semiconductor materials.
"OpenLight is exactly the compelling opportunity I was looking for," said Adam Carter. "I believe the company has a unique and innovative business model and a world class engineering team that will enable our customers with access to our intellectual property, design services and photonic integrated components to accelerate the use of PICs in a wide variety of markets and applications. I look forward to guiding the team through future growth as we scale our open-foundry business."
"Since our launch last year, our proven ability to integrate lasers, amplifiers as well as passive components on a single chip has already provided our customers with scalable, high-performance, cost-effective solutions while driving operational efficiency," said Dr. Thomas Mader, Chief Operating Officer at OpenLight. "As we begin a new year, we are delighted to have Dr. Carter join the company and lead our efforts in driving this new era of open silicon photonics with integrated lasers and our company growth."
OpenLight, a start-up based in Santa Barbara, California, introduced its open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers.
OpenLight operates under the tagline, "Open. Integrated. Scalable." The open platform includes integrated lasers, optical amplifiers, modulators, photodetectors, and other key photonic components to form a complete solution for low-power, high-performance photonics ICs. In addition, OpenLight offers select PIC designs and design services to accelerate time-to-market.
The company says it aims to accelerate the development of high-performance photonic integrated circuits (PICs) in applications such as datacom, telecom, LiDAR, healthcare, HPC, AI, and optical computing. The technology has passed qualification and reliability tests on Tower's PH18DA production process. OpenLight expects the first open Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) shuttle run on the PH18DA process as well as 400G and 800G reference designs with integrated lasers to be available in Summer 2022.
By processing the Indium Phosphide (InP) materials directly on the silicon photonics wafer, the PH18DA platform reduces the cost and time of adding lasers, enabling volume scalability and improved power efficiency. In addition, monolithically integrated lasers improve overall reliability and simplify packaging.
iliad SA has secured a €300 million loan from the European Investment Bank, bringing the total amount of EIB financing of France's leading alternative fiber operator to more than €1.4 billion.
The funding will be used to accelerate the rollout of ultra-fast broadband in France, including in less dense and rural areas and improve the energy efficiency of digital services.
With this agreement, the iliad Group, now Europe's sixth-largest mobile operator with more than 45 million subscribers, has strengthened its position as France's leading alternative fiber operator. With more than 3,800 employees working purely on fiber in France, the Group is a committed operator, working every day to support regional development and install optical fiber in homes, including in less densely populated and rural areas through Public Initiative Networks (PINs). Thanks to its investments, the Group now has 7 million fixed-line subscribers in France, including more than 4.5 million Fiber subscribers and more than 30 million connectible sockets.
"We are delighted about this new partnership with the EIB, which will enable us to pursue our ambitious rollout and densification objectives for our fixed networks in France. This financing operation, the sixth loan granted to iliad SA since 2009, confirms the quality of the long-standing relationship between our Groups in France, and also in Poland via our subsidiary Play since the beginning of 2022. Providing the best connectivity for as many people as possible is a major challenge for society and key to ensuring regional competitiveness. Increasing access to fiber is also the best way to aim for more energy-efficient digital services," said Thomas Reynaud, CEO of iliad Group.
“O-RAN is welcoming the opportunity to work with ATIS,” said Alex Jinsung Choi, Chairman of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “We look forward to the opportunity to consider ATIS adopting O-RAN specifications for ATIS Open RAN standards and working together to define the next generation of open and intelligent RAN technology.”
In addition, O-RAN ALLIANCE plans to hold its next industry event on February 28, 2023 from 15:30-16:30 CET at MWC Barcelona 2023, hosted by Deutsche Telekom at Hall 3 Stand 3M31.
After four years of extraordinary growth that propelled the radio access network (RAN) market to reach new record levels, the RAN market is now transitioning from the expansion phase to the next phase in this 5G journey with more challenging comparisons and slower growth, according to Dell'Oro Group's newly published forecast report.
“It is still early days in the 5G journey but at the same time, the coverage and capacity phases that have shaped the capex cycles with previous technology generations still hold,” said Stefan Pongratz Vice President and analyst with the Dell’Oro Group. “Still, even with the expected changes in capital intensities as the operators reach their initial 5G coverage targets, the plethora of 5G frequencies taken together with the upside from FWA and eventually private 5G, will curb the peak-to-trough decline relative to 2G-4G,” continued Pongratz.
Additional highlights from the Mobile RAN 5-Year January 2023 Forecast Report:
