Deutsche Telekom vowed to accelerate its rollout of residential fiber broadband, saying it now aims to ensure that all households in Germany have direct access to the fiber-optic network by 2030.
In 2020, Deutsche Telekom doubled the number of households that can receive FTTH to 600,000, more than twice as many as in the previous year (270,000). In total, Telekom now offers two million households an FTTH connection. Around two million more are to be added annually on average from 2021.
By 2023, 3,000 business parks are also to be connected to the fiber-optic network. Deutsche Telekom can already provide 17,000 schools with connections of up to 250 Mbps. In the next three years, at least one in four schools is to receive a fiber-optic connection from Deutsche Telekom alone.
Inside the home, Telekom has rolled out a new Speedport Smart 4 Plus router that can be connected directly to a fiber optic cable and has an integrated fiber optic modem. The device is also the first router with an OLED display that conveniently displays information on functions. It also features Wi-Fi 6 and mesh WLAN technology.
Deutsche Telekom also promised to accelerate its efforts in 5G. Two-thirds of people in Germany can now use 5G on the Telekom network. 45,000 antennas are already transmitting on 5G.
Deutsche Telekom is combining two 5G frequency bands. The company said that on the high-reach 2.1 GHz frequency, high mobile bandwidths will be brought to rural areas in particular. For example, the offshore island of Helgoland is now also being supplied with 5G. The 3.6 GHz frequency provides high-speed 5G where many people move around in a small area, such as in large cities. It is now also used at Frankfurt Airport. The technology will also be installed at Berlin's BER airport. New are also the 5G Highspeed antennas in Bremen, Hanover and Nuremberg. This means that 13 major cities are already benefiting from 5G in gigabit speed.
Telekom is planning the initial implementation of an O-RAN-Town in Neubrandenburg in 2021. In further steps, up to 25 O-RAN-compatible sites in active network operation with 4G/5G technology come together Cooperations with leading manufacturers such as Dell, Fujitsu, NEC, Nokia, Mavenir and others are under discussion.
Telekom also announced the deployment of a new 5G campus network at the University Hospital in Bonn. It is the first campus network to operate on the 3.6 GHz frequency. Indoor antennas supply several hospital buildings. 5G will initially be used in radiology. X-rays and MRT images are transmitted via secure mobile radio to several locations of the University Hospital Bonn.
"Telekom keeps its promises. This applies in particular to network expansion. Right now, the Telekom network is proving its worth. It was the right decision to put fiber optic in every street and thus to enable fast networks from Telekom for over 80 percent of all households. Home offices are possible throughout the country. Now comes the next step: Fiber optic to the home and 5G. Here too, we have a plan that we are working through step by step. Despite Corona, our expansion is running at full speed," says Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges. "And to make sure that everyone in Germany is part of it in the future, we are now really getting going. To achieve this, we have been investing around five and a half billion euros a year in Germany for years. Most of it will go into our network”.
http://www.telekom.de/jetzt-glasfaser
Xsight Labs, a fabless semiconductor start-up based in Israel, emerged from stealth to announce sampling of a 25.6T 32 x 800G data center switch and a 12.8T 32 x 400G data center switch based on 100G PAM4 SerDes.
The company's X1 switch chip, which is now sampling to alpha customers, is fabricated in 7nm silicon.
Some highlights:
Supports a broad range of switch configurations:
“Xsight Labs is the first in the world to sample a monolithic 7nm switch silicon that is on the frontier of the 100G SerDes ecosystem,” said Erez Shaizaf, Xsight Labs’ Co-Founder and Switch General Manager. “It is a true testament to the caliber of engineering talent that we have been able to assemble and we, as a team, are extremely proud of our execution.”
“The X1 family architecture has been built from the ground up to incorporate a unique set of value-added features like Application Optimized Switching, X-PND™, and X-IQ™, enabling customers’ switch deployments to achieve optimized latency and power,” said Gal Malach, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Xsight Labs.
NTT DOCOMO, in partnership with Qualcomm, activated the first commercial 5G sub-6 GHz carrier aggregation (sub6-CA) service in Japan. The service combines a 100 MHz carrier in band n78 and a 100 MHz carrier in band n79 to boost 5G performance and network capacity using DOCOMO's diverse spectrum assets.
Using DOCOMO's new 5G network and select devices powered by the Qualcomm® SnapdragonTM 865 Mobile Platform with the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System, customers can now enjoy mobile download speeds of up to 4.2 Gbps - the fastest speeds available in Japan.
"It is a pleasure to continue our work with DOCOMO to advance and accelerate 5G technology throughout Japan," said Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager, 4G/5G, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "By providing access to breakthrough technologies like 5G carrier aggregation, we are enabling consumers and companies throughout Japan to access faster connectivity, enhanced capacity and better reliability."
"In collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, we are pleased to begin delivering this advanced and groundbreaking mobile technology to our customers nationwide," said Naoki Tani, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, NTT DOCOMO. "DOCOMO subscribers can now enjoy superior 5G service together with exciting mobile experiences. Moreover, by establishing a new standard of possibility for the industry, we are proud to help initiate a new era of connectivity in Japan."
Ericsson filed a lawsuit in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, against Samsung..
Ericsson says Samsung has failed to negotiate in good faith and to license patents on Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms and conditions.
Ericsson warned that several license renewal negotiations may delay the payment of IP royalties if they extend beyond the expiry of existing licenses into an unlicensed period. The company also warned that current geopolitical conditions are impacting handset sales volumes as is the shift from 4G to 5G handsets.
FireEye closed on a $400 million strategic investment led by funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and joined by ClearSky, a cyber security-focused investment firm, as a co-investor in the transaction.
FireEye also announced that Viral Patel, a Senior Managing Director of Blackstone, and Art Coviello, former chief executive officer of RSA Security, have been appointed to the FireEye Board of Directors, effective immediately.
Art Coviello, former chief executive officer of RSA Security said, “FireEye and Mandiant are widely recognized for their threat intelligence and security expertise, and I am delighted to join the board. I look forward to working with Kevin and the FireEye leadership team to help them realize their vision of intelligence-driven security solutions for organizations of all sizes.”
Under the revised terms of their investment, Blackstone and ClearSky purchased 400,000 shares of FireEye’s newly designated 4.5% Series A Convertible Preferred Stock (the “Series A Preferred”), with a purchase price of $1,000 per share, for $400 million in the aggregate. The Series A Preferred will be convertible into shares of FireEye's common stock at a conversion price of $17.25 per share, subject to certain customary adjustments. Additional information regarding the investment and the Series A Preferred were included in the Form 8-K previously filed by FireEye with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 18th, 2020.
FireEye claims over 9,600 customers across 103 countries, including more than 50 percent of the Forbes Global 2000.
NBN Co is rolling out a Disaster Satellite Service to communities and emergency services personnel during and in the aftermath of emergency events, such as bushfires and floods.
The service is provided with funding from the Australian Government’s Strengthening Telecommunications Against Natural Disasters (STAND) package. Specifically, NBN Co has been awarded a grant of $7 million to install nbn™ Disaster Satellite Service units at designated emergency management sites and evacuation centres across the country. Around 95 nbn Disaster Satellite Services will be installed by the end of the year, with the remaining locations to be completed in 2021 as agreed with Federal and state and territory governments.
https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements
WeaveWorks, a start-up developing a GitOps-powered Kubernetes platform built on open source software, raised a total of $36.65m from a pool of telecom and enterprise investors including Orange Ventures, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Amazon Web Services and Sonae IM. Existing investors including Accel, Google Ventures and Redline Capital also participated in the round.
The company says its Weave Kubernetes Platform enables telecommunications companies tp securely deliver containerised 5G across data centres, cloud, hybrid, and edge environments while significantly reducing operating costs.
Alexis Richardson, co-founder and CEO of Weaveworks, said: “Cloud Native and Kubernetes are revolutionising the way we build and operate applications. The challenge is how to manage these environments with the scalability, reliability and control enterprises need when managing thousands of developers and applications at the same time. This is what sets Weaveworks apart.
“Our new funding, backed by two of the world’s leading public cloud providers and industry-leading telecoms companies, is a powerful validation that Weaveworks provides the speed, flexibility, and control telecoms and large enterprises need to rapidly innovate and scale cloud native applications.”
“As global telcos ramp up to deliver high-speed 5G applications and services, and enterprises build and operate cloud-native applications, the need for a reliable, secure and standards-based operating model is more important than ever. GitOps is that operating model for large scale cloud native implementations across environments and serves as the backbone of the Weave Kubernetes Platform (WKP),” said Remi Prunier, Investment Principal, Orange Ventures.
https://www.weave.works/blog/announcing-weaveworks-36m-series-c/
Ericsson demonstrated a temporary cellular network mounted on a drone. The proof-of-concept could be deployed to provide mission-critical voice and video connectivity services in areas with poor or zero network coverage during an emergency.
The lightweight network comprises both radio and a packet core, enabling the system to act in isolated mode, without connectivity to a backhaul and the Internet. The end-to-end system weighed 150g.
The Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO) has formed a Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) Working Group to encourage the adoption of co-packaged optics by developing technical guidance and standards for CPO implementations.
This effort focuses on the optical connectivity and remote laser sources necessary to make co-packaged optics a reality and it is complementary to other co-packaging standardization efforts. COBO's CPO Working Group is a collaboration of end users and technology suppliers uniquely positioned to address these topics for hyperscale data centers.
"To support advancements in bandwidth requirements, COBO has advanced to co-packaged optics for enablement of robust fiber optic networks with higher, more reliable, and more efficient throughput," said Tiger Ninomiya, CPO Working Group Chair and COBO Board Member. "Stakeholders involved in co-packaging applications are lending their expertise to advance the industry in a standardized way that meets all anticipated future requirements and to increase adoption with ease in this rapidly expanding market."
"COBO has a unique eco-system of member companies which is well suited to address these optical connectivity related challenges," said Jeff Hutchins, Director in the CTO Office at Ranovus and COBO Board Member. "The working group's efforts will help make the co-packaging of optics a reality."
https://www.onboardoptics.org/
The ONAP community announced the 7th ONAP release, codenamed Guilin after the Chinese city of the same name in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
New use cases include:
Other enhancements to the ONAP Blueprints includes a new Standard Defined VNF Event Stream (VES) event for Fault Management (FM) / Performance Management (PM) Data Collection, the first use of Machine Learning in Self-Organizing Networks (SON), and greater support for 5G RAN Wireless Network Resource Model (NRM) with Service Modeling and Definition and Intent Based Network supporting intent-drive 5G slice creation.
Multi-Domain Optical Network Services (MDONS) first introduced in Frankfurt, now supports Inter Domain Link (IDL)/Path Optimization for Optical Transport Network (OTN) links across multiple optical domains. This enables improved policy-driven automated service operations and LCM across cross-carrier optical domains.
Keysight Technologies launched new 800G test solutions for validating electrical and optical interfaces to speed development of next generation data center technologies, including the first 100Gbps transmitter and receiver pre-conformance test solution.
Keysight’s new portfolio of electrical and optical analysis solutions enable an 800G ecosystem, consisting of optical components, chipset, switch and semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) vendors, as well as system integrators, to speed design, development, test and validation across the entire design cycle.
New Keysight 800G test solutions include:
100Gbps electrical conformance test
Pre-silicon design verification
200Gbps solution for 800G research and pathfinding
Physical layer test system (PLTS)
“Keysight’s close collaborations across the high-speed industry, as well as with standard organizations such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), enable us to deliver first-to-market solutions that accelerate design cycles and technology waves, well before standards mature,” said Dr. Joachim Peerlings, vice president of network and data center solutions at Keysight Technologies. “Access to a portfolio of 800G test solutions across physical and protocol layers, from simulation to design, validation, conformance and manufacturing, enables our customers to verify interoperability and simplify testing across the workflow using common, uniform interfaces and software automation.”
Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft announced a seven-year strategic agreement to help customers of all sizes accelerate their cloud transformation initiatives.
"We have agreed on the framework for joint strategic growth with our long-term partner Microsoft. We are delighted," said Adel Al-Saleh, member of the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management and CEO of T-Systems. "This partnership will enable us to enhance services for our customers. We will also be supporting each other with digitalization and network build-out."
Highlights
“The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent. We know that the next decade of economic performance for every business, whether large or small, will depend on the digital investments made today," said Jean-Philippe Courtois, executive vice president and president, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations. “Through this strategic partnership, which combines the power of Deutsche Telekom’s network and Microsoft’s cloud, customers will have more opportunities to become resilient, accelerate innovation and ultimately drive success.”
AWS announced the launch of Transit Gateway Connect, a native way to connect SD-WAN infrastructure with AWS without having to set up IPsec VPNs between SD-WAN network virtual appliances and Transit Gateway.
Transit Gateway Connect is a new attachment type that supports Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) for higher bandwidth performance compared to a VPN connection. Transit Gateway Connect supports Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for dynamic routing, and removes the need to configure static routes. This simplifies network design and reduces the associated operational costs. In addition, integration with Transit Gateway Network Manager provides advanced visibility through global network topology, attachment level performance metrics, and telemetry data.
AWS Transit Gateway Connect integrates with a number of industry-leading partners, including:
Verizon Business and Corning have begun commercial installations of 5G in-building cell sites for enterprise customers.
Initial deployments are happening in Verizon retail store locations to provide the fastest 5G Ultra Wideband experience. WeWork has also chosen Verizon Business to provide Corning’s indoor 5G cells, with ten WeWork locations across the US set to receive installations.
Corning’s indoor cell site is designed to provide Verizon’s 5G mmWave service inside facilities such as hospitals, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, schools, ports, commercial office space, retail stores and any indoor environment where large amounts of data traffic must be managed and optimized. The launch of these indoor cell sites will not only extend the footprint of Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, but will also bring the promise of private networks with Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) capabilities one step closer.
Ciena posted revenue of $828.5 million for its fiscal fourth quarter ended October 31, 2020, down from $968.0 million for the fiscal fourth quarter 2019. For fiscal year 2020, Ciena reported revenue of $3.53 billion, as compared to $3.57 billion for fiscal year 2019.
Q4 net income per share was $0.42 GAAP; $0.60 adjusted (non-GAAP), increasing 3.4% year over year.
"Our fiscal fourth quarter and full-year 2020 performance reported today demonstrates that we have the innovation, diversification and global scale to perform well in a challenging environment," said Gary Smith, President and CEO, Ciena. "While we expect current market conditions to persist in the near-term, we are confident in strong secular demand dynamics and our ability to continue to outperform the market."
The FCC adopted rules to implement the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019, aimed at protecting the security of the United States and the safety of U.S. communications networks.
Specifically, the Second Report and Order approved today requires the Commission to publish a list of communications equipment and services determined to be a risk to national security that has been identified either by (1) executive branch interagency bodies with appropriate national security experience; (2) the Department of Commerce pursuant to its authority under Executive Order 13873; (3) Congress in the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, or (4) U.S. national security agencies. Once Congress appropriates funding, eligible telecommunications carriers that receive universal service funding to provide service in remote areas of the country must remove such equipment or services from their networks and properly dispose of it.
The Order also establishes and adopts rules for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, which will provide funds to smaller providers of advanced communications services for the removal and replacement of communications equipment and services on the list published by the Commission, conditioned on the appropriation of funds by Congress. Commission staff have estimated the program will require at least $1.6 billion to reimburse eligible providers, based on an analysis conducted by the Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics.
The Order further requires all providers of advanced communications services to report whether their networks include any covered communications equipment or services acquired after August 14, 2018. Finally, the Order mandates strict reporting requirements to ensure that the Commission is kept informed about the ongoing presence of insecure equipment in U.S. communications networks.
In addition, the FCC voted to deny Huawei Technologies Co.’s application for review of a June 30, 2020 order designating the company, as well as its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries, as posing a national security threat to the safety of communications networks and the communications supply chain. In the June order, the Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau formally designated Huawei as a covered company for purposes of the agency’s November 2019 ban on the use of support from the Commission’s Universal Service Fund to purchase equipment or services from companies posing a national security threat.
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-rules-secure-communications-networks-and-supply-chain
Inphi announced its Polaris Gen2 PAM4 platform, the industry’s first 50G, 28Gbaud PAM4 DSP solution based on low-power 7nm CMOS technology.
The Polaris platform is the industry’s leading 28GBaud PAM4 DSP solution offering integrated driver options for EML and Silicon Photonics to address a broad range of optical interconnects scaling from 50G to 400G. The Polaris Gen2 PAM4 platform supports 400G optical transceiver modules in both QSFP-DD and OSFP form factors and 200G modules in the QSFP56 package, in line with the optical PMD’s specified in the IEEE standards.
Polaris Gen2 PAM4 DSP Key Features:
Polaris Linear Drivers:
The Inphi IN2814DV is a 28GBaud low power quad VCSEL linear driver for PAM4 optical modules or Active Optical Cables. The IN2814DV is optimized for routing with a channel pitch aligned to the VCSEL optics driving over Multi-Mode Fiber MMF.
The Inphi IN2821SD is a 28GBaud low power single channel DML linear driver for PAM4 optical modules. The IN2821SD is optimized to direct drive commercial DMLs for excellent PAM4 optical performance.
Polaris Linear TIA’s:
The Inphi IN2864TA TIA is a 28GBaud low power quad linear TIA for PAM4 optical modules. It features a wide dynamic range to meet the different performance and link requirements for optical applications and excellent signal integrity necessary for PAM4 modulation schemes.
The Inphi IN2865TA is a 28GBaud low power quad VCSEL linear TIA for PAM4 optical modules or AOCs. The IN2865TA is optimized for direct routing with a channel pitch aligned to the MMF optics.
“As a pioneer of PAM4 technology for high-speed interconnects, Inphi is again breaking new ground and continuing to lead the industry with a highly integrated next generation DSP platform based on 7nm CMOS process technology,” said Eric Hayes, Sr. VP, Networking Interconnect at Inphi. “Leveraging our experience achieved over the past years hardening our successful 16nm Polaris PAM4 DSP, TIA and driver solutions in high volume deployment, we’ve introduced the new Polaris Gen2 family to fulfill the strong market demand for 50G data center low power interconnects.”
Inphi introduced its new Alcor PAM4 DSP platform to accelerate the industry’s transition from 25G to 100G per wavelength.
The new Alcor platform, which is based on Inphi’s Porrima PAM4 DSP platform, includes Inphi’s PAM4 DSP technology, Linear TIA and Driver to provide even higher levels of integration and lower power for high-performance hyperscale data center, cloud computing and emerging AI applications. It offers an enhanced feature set with integrated 56Gbaud laser drivers that enable less than 3.5W QSFP28, DSFP and SFP-DD optical modules. The new PAM4 DSP also offers integrated driver options to address a broad range of implementations for optical interconnects.
Alcor 100G PAM4 DSP Key Features:
IN566x Linear TIA:
The IN5661TA is a 56GBaud low-power single/quad linear TIA for PAM4 optical modules used in data centers. Key features include:
“Inphi’s execution and delivery of the Alcor PAM4 DSP with integrated driver, furthers our market leadership position, addressing an ever growing SAM, as NRZ based solutions accelerate migration to PAM4,” said Eric Hayes, senior VP, Networking Interconnect at Inphi. “The integration, low power, and advanced telemetry of Alcor will accelerate creation and adoption of PAM4 based 100G DR optical modules, continuing to grow Inphi’s already vast ecosystem to even more partners.”
The 100G Lambda Multisource Agreement (MSA) Group released three enhanced 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) specifications, extending the reach to three distinct lengths of up to 20, 30 and 40 km over single-mode fiber. These specifications are based on 100 Gbps per wavelength PAM4 optical technology that the MSA was founded on and has been promoting.
The specs address 100G-LR1-20 for 20 km reach, and 100G-ER1-30 and 100G-ER1-40 for 30 and 40 km reaches, respectively.
“Single-wavelength 100G PAM4 optical technology has gained industry-wide adoption”, said Mark Nowell, 100G Lambda MSA co-chair. “These longer reach specifications will further accelerate broader industry acceptance of single-wavelength 100G solutions, especially for service providers and carriers who are in high demand of efficient and cost-effective optical solutions for next-generation wireline and wireless networks.”
“The MSA has its mission to promote 100G per wavelength PAM4 technology as part of optical networking roadmap”, said Jeffery Maki, 100G Lambda MSA co-chair. “These new specifications support roadmap evolution for extended reaches of up to 40km for today’s implementations and ready to migrate to higher electrical lane speed, smaller form factors, and lower power dissipation.”
The 100G Lambda MSA Group member companies are: II-VI, Alibaba, Applied OptoElectronics, Arista Networks, Broadcom, Cambridge Industries Group, China Unicom, Ciena, Cisco Systems, Color Chip, Credo, Delta, Eoptolink, Fujitsu Optical Components, HG Genuine, HiSense, HiSilicon, Innolight, Inphi, Intel, Juniper Networks, Keysight Technologies, Lightwave Logic, Lumentum, MACOM, Maxim, Maxlinear, Mellanox, Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Molex, MultiLane, Neophotonics, Nokia, Panduit, Renesas, Rockley Photonics, Semtech, Sicoya, SiFotonics Technologies, Source Photonics, Sumitomo Electric, TE Connectivity, TFC Optical Communication, Tektronix and ZTE.
The 100G Lambda Multisource Agreement (MSA) Group released a 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) specification up to 10 km based on 100 Gbps per wavelength PAM4 optical technology.
The new 400GbE specification is designated as 400G-LR4-10 for duplex single-mode links up to 10 km and relies on multiplexing 4 wavelengths of 100 Gb/s PAM4 modulated optical signals.
The MSA members developed the 400GbE specification to fully address market requirements for 2 km to 10 km reaches over duplex single-mode for both 100GbE and 400GbE. The MSA believes that the 10 km reach specification will be fully interoperable with the 6 km version being developed by another industry standards group. The nomenclature use of “-10” in 400G-LR4-10 will inform users of the target reach.
