UK completes spectrum auction - EE and Vodafone gain 5G bands

Ofcom, the official telecoms regulator in the U.K., completed the auction of 190 MHz of spectrum across two frequency bands: 40 MHz in the 2.3 GHz band, which will be used to increase 4G mobile broadband capacity; and 150 MHz in 3.4GHz, which has been earmarked for 5G.

Here are the results:

EE won 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £302,592,000.

Hutchison 3G UK won 20 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £151,296,000.

Telefónica UK won all 40 MHz of 2.3 GHz spectrum available, at a cost of £205,896,000; and 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £317,720,000.

Vodafone won 50 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £378,240,000.

Airspan Spectrum Holdings, which would have been a new entrant to the UK mobile market, failed to win spectrum in either band.

The total value of the winning bids amounts to £1,355,744,000.

Philip Marnick, Spectrum Group Director at Ofcom: "This is good news for everyone who uses their mobile phone to access the internet. As a nation, we’re using ever more mobile data on smartphones and mobile devices. Releasing these airwaves will make it quicker and easier to get online on the move. It will also allow companies to prepare for 5G mobile, paving the way for a range of smart, connected devices."

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Verizon and partners drive advancements on CBRS spectrum

Verizon is collaborating with Corning, Ericsson, Federated Wireless, Google, Nokia and Qualcomm on end-to-end system testing of solutions for CBRS (Citizen Band Radio Spectrum) spectrum.

Testing is being done at Verizon’s facility in Irving, Texas. The end-to-end system tests are designed to accomplish several goals on the path to widespread commercial deployment:

To test and verify the Spectrum Access System algorithms from Google and Federated Wireless are consistently providing the best channel match from the SAS database.
To test data rates, modulations and the customer experience using CBRS spectrum.
To test interoperability between infrastructure providers to ensure seamless handoffs between CBRS spectrum and licensed spectrum for customers.
To test mobility handoffs on the CBRS spectrum.
To evaluate performance and data from LTE over CBRS spectrum.

Federated Wireless and Google are providing prioritization through the Spectrum Access System (SAS) that dynamically prioritizes traffic within the FCC’s spectrum sharing framework for this band.

Qualcomm is providing its Snapdragon LTE modem, which is needed to access LTE on CBRS on mobile devices.

Corning, Ericsson and Nokia have provided indoor and outdoor radio solutions which can run on the CBRS Spectrum.

Corning provided a SpiderCloud Enterprise RAN composed of a Services Node and SCRN-330 Radio Nodes.

Ericsson’s Radio System solution is comprised of 4x4 MIMO, 4x20MHz Carrier Aggregation, including CBRS spectrum delivered over infrastructure aggregating Ericsson’s outdoor micro base station (Radio 2208 units) with the indoor B48 Radio Dot System in the same baseband (5216 units).

Nokia provided FlexiZone Multiband Indoor (MBI) BTS, FlexiZone Multiband Outdoor (MBO) BTS and FlexiZone Controller (FZC).

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Cisco delivers Segment Routing and Ethernet VPN for Colt

Cisco has delivered a major upgrade to Colt's pan-European, U.S. and Asian packet network.

The Colt IQ Network is using Cisco's segment routing and Ethernet VPN (EVPN) technologies to deliver further differentiated, high-bandwidth connectivity solutions.  The companies have also been working on a system-wide, multiple 100Gbps upgrade to Colt's IQ Network.

EVPN provides a unified control plane protocol (Border Gateway Protocol - BGP) for all services types, including both Layer 2 VPN and Layer 3 VPN services. It also provides faster convergence times. Cisco said its segment routing also:

• improves network availability with 50ms protection mechanism, covering 100% of the possible network topologies using TI-LFA SR;
• enables better utilization of the network with simple and scalable MPLS segment routing traffic engineering for the data plane;
• makes possible the delivery of innovative network services possible, offering on-demand real-time delivery capabilities.

The Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 5500 series and the Cisco Aggregation Services Router (ASR) 9000 platforms will form the main components of a unified fabric powered by IOS XR and its market-leading software innovations -- segment routing and EVPN.

“Colt is focused on providing best-in-class, high-bandwidth connectivity solutions to meet our customers’ ever-growing business needs,” said Peter Coppens, vice president, Product, Colt. “Aligning with these overarching goals, we worked closely with Cisco to design a network architecture that is simple to operate, highly available and capable of delivering innovative network services. This also enables Colt to benefit from faster time-to-market. Segment routing significantly decreased complexity in the IQ Network and helped us start offering differentiated network services such as disjoint path. EVPN further contributed to operational simplification and made the delivery of services much more efficient.”

“We have been working on this initiative with Colt for more than a year, and we are proud to bring additional benefits to its network, as well as lay the groundwork for new opportunities,” said Jonathan Davidson, senior vice president and general manager, Service Provider Networking, Cisco."

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Eutelsat plans next gen sat for European fixed broadband and in-flight

Eutelsat Communications unveiled plans for a next-generation VHTS satellite system named KONNECT VHTS for its European fixed broadband and in-flight connectivity businesses.

The KONNECT VHTS satellite is due to enter into service in 2021. Thales Alenia Space will build the satellite along with the ground segment solution. The satellite will have Ka-band capacity of 500 Gbps, making it the most powerful on-board digital processor ever put in orbit.

Eutelsat also announced that it has secured firm multi-year distribution commitments from Orange and Thales, two key European players and leaders in their businesses. A retail partnership was signed with Orange to address the fixed broadband market in European countries where the Group has a retail presence, and a distribution partnership was inked with Thales to serve the government connectivity services market.

Commenting on the contract, Rodolphe Belmer, CEO of Eutelsat, said: “We are delighted to sign this agreement with global partners, Orange and Thales, which confirms the place of satellite-based solutions in the drive for enhanced high-speed internet coverage. As a core complement to terrestrial broadband networks, high-speed broadband will be a critical driver of Eutelsat’s growth from 2020 onwards. Over the next decade, VHTS satellites will bring enough capacity to serve high speed internet and in-flight connectivity markets at scale, offering fiber-like services both in terms of price and speed.”

The investment in KONNECT VHTS replaces the project of a joint investment with ViaSat in a ViaSat 3 satellite for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and is covered by Eutelsat’s capex objective of an average of 420 million euros per annum.

Eutelsat faces pressure in its traditional video business, seeks new opportunities

Monday, March 05, 2018    No Comments

Eutelsat, originally known as the European Telecommunications Satellite Organization, is known for being the first satellite operator in Europe to broadcast television channels direct-to-home beginning in the 1980s with its first generation of Hot Bird satellites. The company was founded in 1977, has its headquarters in Paris, and now operates ground stations in every region of the world.  Its business interests have diversified to include...

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Microsemi announces Cesium Atomic Clock certified for G.811.1

Microsemi announced that its portfolio of cesium clocks have now been to be compliant with the new G.811.1 recommendation (known as enhanced Primary Reference Clocks, or ePRC) from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for timing characteristics of enhanced primary reference clocks.

G.811.1 raises the bar for frequency accuracy by an order of magnitude from 1x10E-11 to 1x10E-12.

“As next-generation networks increasingly rely more on accurate time to achieve higher transport speeds and increased reliability, the pervasive use of GNSS technology as a time reference has become a major concern because of vulnerabilities to threats such as jamming and spoofing,” said Ramki Ramakrishnan, director of product management at Microsemi. “As a result, use of Cesium technology as the primary reference clock has become critical.”

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NTT develops realtime 4K high frame rate HEVC codec

NTT has developed a real–time 4K high frame rate HEVC codec for the live transmission of high frame rate (HFR) video. The codec doubles the frame rate of the standard video frame rate (SFR), from 50/60p to 100/120p.

NTT has demonstrated a 4K HFR HEVC encoder appliance and a 4K HFR HEVC decoder appliance, both of which are 1U size.

The 4K HFR HEVC encoder appliance provides backward compatibility by supporting temporal–scalable encoding, meaning the output stream can be decoded by conventional SFR decoder to yield 4K SFR video.

Moreover, our codec supports the MPEG Media Transport (MMT) protocol which enables hierarchical transmission. Two independent transmission routes can be used to transfer the base–layer data, which is used for decoding of 4K SFR video, and the enhancement–layer data, which is used together with base–layer data for decoding 4K HFR video.

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TI Sparkles appoints new chairman and CEO

TI Sparkle S.p.A. appointed Stefano Siragusa as Chairman and Riccardo Delleani as Chief Executive Officer, replacing Alessandro Talotta who has left the company.

TI Sparkle renewed its Board of Directors for the financial years 2018-2020. It also announced the appointment of the following directors: Stefano Siragusa, Riccardo Delleani, Roberto Moro, Michela Mossini, and Ettore Spigno.

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Google Cloud adopts P4Runtime as foundational for network programming

Google Cloud will use P4Runtime as the foundation for its next generation of data centers and wide area network control-plane programming, according to a new blog posting from Jim Wanderer, Engineering Director at Google and Amin Vahdat, Google Fellow.

P4 is a programming language was designed to be target-independent (i.e. a program written in P4 could be compiled, without modification, to run on a variety of targets, such as ASICs, FPGAs, CPUs, NPUs, and GPUs), and protocol-independent (i.e. a P4 program can describe existing standard protocols, or be used to specify innovative, new, customized forwarding behaviors). P4 can be used for both programmable and fixed-function devices alike. For example, it is used to capture the switch pipeline behavior under the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) APIs. P4 is also used by the ONF Stratum project to describe forwarding behavior across a variety of fixed and programmable devices. The P4 Language Consortium (P4.org), creator of the P4 programming language, recently transitioned to become a project of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) and part of the Linux Foundation portfolio.

Google, which designs and builds its own hardware switches and software, sees the P4Runtime as a new way for control plane software to program the forwarding path of a switch as it provides a well-defined API to specify the switch forwarding pipelines. The vision is that the P4Runtime will be used to control any forwarding plane, from a fixed-function ASIC to a fully programmable network switch.

Google is working with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) on Stratum, an open source project to implement an open reference platform for a truly "software-defined" data plane, designed and built around the P4Runtime.


https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/

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Facebook: Likely that most user public profile data has been scraped

Most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped by malicious actors or bots, according to a new blog posting by Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's Chief Technology Officer.  Data scraping occurs when a bot submits a person's email or phone number to a Facebook API to gain access to other public data on their account.

Facebook also confirmed that it analyzes call and text history for people using Messenger or Facebook lite but that it does not collect the content of messages. The tracking is described as an opt-in capability to help users build more useful contact lists.

https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/restricting-data-access/

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Broadcom is now officially a U.S. company

Broadcom officially completed the redomiciliation process to change from a Singapore company to a Delaware corporation. Broadcom is now officially headquartered in San Jose, California. It has over 8,500 employees in 35 states.

The change in residency is expected to lead to several hundred million dollars in additional U.S. taxes.

Effective as of the close of trading on April 4, 2018, all issued ordinary shares of Broadcom Limited have been exchanged on a one-for-one basis for newly issued shares of common stock of Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. common stock will begin trading on April 5, 2018, and the company's trading symbol on NASDAQ will remain unchanged as "AVGO."

The completion of our redomiciliation to the United States marks an important milestone in our company's history as Broadcom has been an American company in every respect but our legal domicile. As I said when we announced our intention to redomicile from the Oval Office in November 2017, we believe that America is once again the best place for Broadcom to do business," Hock Tan, Broadcom's President and Chief Executive Officer.

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Juniper bolsters its unified cybersecurity platform

Juniper announced a series of enhancements to its unified cybersecurity platform, with a focus on simplifying security operations by accelerating time to detection and orchestrating mitigation, and helping customers improve their security posture across enterprise networks and cloud workloads whether in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or private data centers.

Enhancements include:

• A consolidated timeline view of threat behavior with integrated inline blocking: Juniper SRX Series Next-Generation Firewalls now feed directly into the Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP) Appliance, enabling the aggregation and correlation of security events from various Juniper and third-party sources into a consolidated timeline view of all threats in the network.
• Adaptive detection and automated enforcement against advanced threats: the Juniper ATP Appliance is bringing its built-in threat behavior analytics and one-touch mitigation to Junos Space Security Director Policy Enforcer, offering a unified view of threat behavior across the security fabric for extended remediation. This integration enables adaptive malware detection that triggers automated policy enforcement for a substantially hardened security posture across networks and cloud environments.
• Extending cloud workload protection: Security Director Policy Enforcer is now integrated with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Juniper extends multicloud workload protection and consistent security across multicloud environments, securing workloads in AWS Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs).
• Global data center expansion for Juniper Sky ATP: As part of its commitment to global cybersecurity, Juniper Networks now has data centers for Juniper Sky ATP in Asia Pacific and Canada, in addition to its existing data centers in the U.S. and Europe. Customers with offices in these regions can rely on lower latency and may be better able to comply with regional data regulations.
• Sharing expert knowledge of the threat landscape: Juniper is joining the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA), an organization dedicated to improving the security of the global digital ecosystems through cyber threat information sharing. Be sure to visit us at RSA where we’ll be showcasing our refreshed threat research website featuring the latest threat research, information on in-the-wild cyber attacks and cyber operations from Juniper Threat Labs.
• Simplifying the buying process: Juniper now offers Enterprise Agreements (EAs) for its security portfolio.

“Juniper has a longstanding commitment to an open, unified approach to cybersecurity that helps customers automate, adapt and simplify their network security. This approach is further bolstered by our recent admission to the Cyber Threat Alliance, as we continue to make strides toward truly open threat sharing and collaboration to keep our customers’ networks safe," stated Bikash Koley, Chief Technology Officer, Juniper Networks.

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Shutterfly Goes All-In on AWS

Amazon Web Services announced Shutterfly as another business that will go "all in" on its cloud infrastructure.

Specifically,  Shutterfly is migrating all of its core production applications and its more than 75-petabyte image library to AWS. The company's next gen image sharing platform is also being developed on AWS, where it can leverage a wide range of AWS services, including machine learning and analytics, to deliver a more streamlined customer experience.

“Millions of customers turn to Shutterfly’s lifestyle brands to help them make memorable moments last a lifetime,” said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS. “We are excited to deepen our relationship with Shutterfly, enabling them to allocate more of their valuable resources towards the development of new, cloud-based applications that deliver even more value to their customers."

AWS also announced that Cox Automotive is going all in. The already running several business-critical applications on AWS, and will migrate the majority of its more than 20 brands—including Autotrader, Dealer.com, Dealertrack, Kelley Blue Book, Manheim, vAuto, and Xtime—to AWS.

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ECI intros packet transport edge device for utilities

ECI introduced a compact, managed, packet transport edge device designed for cloud-based distributed energy resources (DER) network environments of power utility companies.

The NPT-1010D serves as an MPLS/Ethernet switch and is hardened to handle extreme conditions in locations without continual monitoring and maintenance and can be installed in compact or non-assisted cabinets.

“Revolutionary market shifts are looming, presenting a new host of challenges. The NPT-1010D is the most compact device available, about the length of a ballpoint pen. Moreover the appliance is fully hardened, meaning utilities can place it anywhere, even in non-assisted cabinets. It is one of the few solutions on the market with full management and monitoring capabilities due to Ethernet/MPLS support, which makes it a perfect DER gateway,” said Moshe Shimon, VP product management at ECI Telecom.

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AT&T's new ad campaign focuses on Edge-to-Edge Intelligence

AT&T kicked off a new advertising campaign with TV commercials that focus on "Edge-to-Edge Intelligence" -- covering a range of services to business customers and actionable intelligence. The ads debuted during the 2018 Masters Tournament broadcast.

“AT&T Business offers end-to-end solutions wrapped in security so that you can flexibly respond to business needs quickly, helping you increase revenue and decrease cost,” said Sandra Howard, vice president-Corporate Brand Marketing. “While other companies might be able to compete with us on specific products, our breadth of services sets us apart.”

There are also 2 new “It Can Wait” ads on distracted driving. They both feature professional golfer and AT&T athlete Jordan Spieth.

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Satellite TV from SES now reaches 1 billion viewers worldwide

SES now reaches 351 million TV homes, according to the company's research. This means that SES is now delivering video content to more than 1 billion global viewers.

This compares with 325 million households at the end of 2016.

SES attributes its increased reach to the addition of new countries (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Turkey) and the wider reach of Yahlive, namely in the Maghreb countries, together accounting for 17 million more SES TV homes. On a like-for-like basis, the technical reach grew by 9 million SES TV homes, mainly in Nigeria, Ghana and the Middle East.

Out of its 351 million TV homes, SES directly reaches 145 million, and indirectly serves another 147 million cable homes, 40 million IPTV homes, and 18 million terrestrial homes.

“The Satellite Monitor shows that our strategy to invest in growth markets is successful and results in a significantly larger geographical reach,” said Ferdinand Kayser, CEO of SES Video. “We continue to leverage our growing, unique technical reach worldwide to help our customers build their businesses and expand their audiences. In Africa, our infrastructure will continue to play a key role in the digital switch-over, while in developed countries, namely Europe, our satellites remain the leading platform to deliver HD and drive Ultra HD to millions of households. We are also strongly supporting the development and roll-out of HD and Ultra HD in the Americas and Asia Pacific.”

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Japan-Guam-Australia Cable promises design capacity of 36 Tbps

Construction has commenced on the Japan-Guam-Australia Cable (JGA),  a 9,500-kilometer undersea fiber optic cable system will deliver a design capacity of more than 36 terabits per second (Tbps) and is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2019.

JGA is being co-built by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) and NEC.

JGA South (JGA-S), the segment between Sydney, Australia and Piti, Guam, is a consortium cable including AARNet, Google and RTI-C.

JGA North (JGA-N), the segment between the Minami-Boso, Japan and Piti, Guam, is a private cable with RTI-C as the sole purchaser. Both JGA-N and JGA-S will interconnect in Guam at GTA's newly built landing station.

Toru Kawauchi, General Manager of NEC's Submarine Network Division said, "We are honored to be selected once again by RTI-C to construct their third subsea cable. While both SEA-US and HK-G will provide horizontal East-West connectivity across the Pacific, JGA will now provide the much-needed vertical North-South connectivity, enabling high capacity communications to reach all corners. Furthermore, JGA will be the second project after HK-G to be co-financed by the Japanese government-led Japan ICT Fund, and the third project supporting RTI's investment after SEA-US and HK-G for the Japanese loan syndicate. We wish to further utilize these funds for many more cables in the future."

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Intel spins out Wind River

Intel has agreed to sell its Wind River subsidiary to TPG, a global alternative asset firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Wind River noted that its software "runs the computing systems of the most important modern infrastructure, including manufacturing plants, medical devices, aircraft, railway, automobiles, and communications networks."

“This acquisition will establish Wind River as a leading independent software provider uniquely positioned to advance digital transformation within critical infrastructure segments with our comprehensive edge to cloud portfolio,” said Jim Douglas, Wind River President. “At the same time, TPG will provide Wind River with the flexibility and financial resources to fuel our many growth opportunities as a standalone software company that enables the deployment of safe, secure, and reliable intelligent systems.”

Wind River President, Jim Douglas, and his existing executive management team will lead the newly independent Wind River after the transaction closes.

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Microsoft Azure opens partner data centre in Canberra, Australia

Microsoft launched a new Azure region in Canberra, Australia.

The new Australia Central regions enable customers to deploy their own applications and infrastructure within Canberra Data Centres directly connected via Azure ExpressRoute to Microsoft’s global network. The services are provided in partnership with Australian-owned Canberra Data Centres and are specifically designed to address the requirements of the Australian and New Zealand governments and critical national infrastructure, including banks, utilities, transport and telecommunications.

Microsoft now offers Azure from three cities in Australia: Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra with connectivity to Perth, Brisbane and Auckland.

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Vodafone sells its mobile towers in India to American Tower

Vodafone India completed the sale of its standalone tower business in India to ATC Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited (a unit of American Tower) for an enterprise value of INR 38.5 billion (EUR 478 million).

Vodafone India is merging with Idea. Both parties announced their intention to sell their individual standalone tower businesses to strengthen the combined financial position of the merged entity. Completion of Idea’s sale of its standalone tower business to ATC is also expected in the first half of this calendar year.

Completion of Vodafone+Idea merger is expected to complete in the first half of the current calendar year.

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Spirent adds scale testing for the new TLS v1.3 encryption protocol

Spirent Communications has expanded the functionality of its CyberFlood and Avalanche solutions by adding performance and scale testing for the new TLS v1.3 encryption protocol.

The new functionality enables testing and stressing traffic capacities on TLS v1.3-enabled devices and endpoint applications.

TLS (transport layer security) enables secure communication between web browsers and servers on the Internet. TLS v1.3 is the latest version and is quickly becoming the de facto encryption standard.

“TLS v1.3 will ultimately improve security and privacy for Internet users; however, there is risk with new standards and new potential holes in customers’ security,” said David DeSanto, director of products and threat research at Spirent Communications. “With Spirent’s performance and scale testing of this bleeding edge cryptographic standard, customers can validate that they are securely deployed, that they can achieve their desired performance, and that they know where the skeletons are in their TLS v1.3 deployments. With this capability, Spirent is helping to secure the future of the connected world.”

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