Nokia extends mmWave 5G at 2 Gbps over 11 km

Nokia achieved sustained average downlink speeds of over 2 Gbps using millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum and 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), over a distance of 10.86 kilometers. 

The test, which was carried out at the OuluZone test facility in Oulu, Finland, used Nokia’s AirScale baseband and AirScale 24GHz (n258 band) mmWave radio and a Nokia FastMile 5G PoC CPE (customer premises equipment). Testing involved eight component carriers (8CC) in the downlink, aggregating 800MHz of mmWave spectrum. This enabled a top downlink speed of 2.1 Gbps, and an uplink speed of 57.2 Mbps.

Ari Kynäslahti, Head of Strategy and Technology at Nokia Mobile Networks, said: “We just set a new speed record for extended range 5G mmWave. This demonstrates that mmWave solutions will be an essential building block for operators to efficiently deliver widespread, multi-gigabit 5G broadband coverage to their customers in urban, suburban, and rural areas, complementing sub-6 GHz spectrum assets. This is a substantial achievement that reflects how we are constantly innovating and evolving our 5G services and solutions.”

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/06/26/nokia-hits-extended-range-mmwave-5g-speed-record-in-finland/

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Nokia to adopt Red Hat as primary cloud for core apps

Nokia will tightly integrate its core network applications with Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift. 

Under a new partnership, the companies agreed to jointly support and evolve existing Nokia Container Services (NCS) and Nokia CloudBand Infrastructure Software (CBIS) customers while developing a path for customers to migrate to Red Hat’s platforms over time. Additionally, Nokia will leverage Red Hat’s infrastructure platforms to enable faster development and testing of Nokia’s extensive core network portfolio.

Nokia Container Services (NCS) is ready to use, pre-integrated, and based on open source toolsets and software services, including Kubernetes. Designed for communication service providers (CSPs), it enables deploying and managing cloud-native applications, whether inside a virtual machine (VM) or bare metal (BM).

CloudBand Infrastructure Software (CBIS) is a ready-to-use, open source-based virtual infrastructure that provides serviceability, operability and universal applicability for OpenStack virtual machines, with a highly available, more secure and protected solution that is designed to be simple to use and easily upgradeable.

Highlights of the agreement:

• Nokia will adopt Red Hat as its primary cloud infrastructure platform to develop, test and deliver Nokia’s core network applications;
• Nokia will continue to support its core network applications on the Nokia NCS and CBIS platform offerings;
• Nokia’s core network applications will be tightly integrated with Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift, the leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes;
• Nokia will certify Nokia’s core network cloud-native network functions (CNFs) and virtualized network functions (VNFs) on Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenStack Platform with customer deployment options on bare-metal, virtualized and public cloud telco infrastructure offerings, including those from Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and others.
• Nokia cloud infrastructure platform customers will have the full service and support of Red Hat’s open source ecosystem and access to Red Hat’s transformative 4G and 5G technologies and use cases. By combining Nokia’s 5G expertise with Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud vision, customers will be able to transform their core network infrastructure and applications to be fully cloud-native and future-ready with service and support from Red Hat as the industry accelerates to the edge.

“This agreement further demonstrates Nokia Cloud and Network Services’ continued momentum to rebalance its portfolio. It will allow us to provide customers with our best-in-class core network applications, together with best-in-class cloud infrastructure from Red Hat, a global leader in open source infrastructure technology,” stated by Fran Heeran, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Core Networks, Cloud and Network Services, Nokia.

“Red Hat recognizes the explosive impact of 5G — not only for service providers, but across all industries — with the most exciting developments still to come. 5G is revolutionizing how businesses and people interact with the development of next-generation applications, services and use cases. As part of this partnership, Nokia is offering our multicloud, cloud native infrastructure together with their core networks applications, enabling service providers to capitalize on the 5G opportunity by deploying their 5G networks using Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift,” commented Darrell Jordan-Smith, Senior Vice President, Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment & Edge, Red Hat.

https://www.redhat.com

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Adtran S-Flex 400G muxponder carries 64G Fibre Channel over DWDM

Adtran introduced its FSP 3000 S-Flex DWDM muxponder able to support 64 Gbit/s Fibre Channel services and designed for next-generation storage area networks (SAN) and critical infrastructure. 

With a total capacity of 400Gbit/s and a compact design, S-Flex supports stringent DCI requirements in terms of speed and footprint. Its extensive feature set also addresses all SAN and DWDM network operation demands, including ultra-low latency, Fibre Channel performance monitoring, and seamless integration with Fibre Channel trunking technology. The highly secure variant of S-Flex is protected by powerful quantum-safe ConnectGuard encryption, which complies with governmental and industrial standards for classified and sensitive data.

“We’ve always led the way with SAN innovation and our solutions have supported every generation of Fibre Channel. Now we’re empowering a new breed of disaster recovery and business continuity implementations by enabling the leap to 64Gbit/s Fibre Channel transmission, while at the same time taking speed, security and crypto-agility to the next level,” said Christoph Glingener, CTO of Adtran. 

“The FSP 3000 S-Flex is the ultimate one-card solution. It enables enterprises to dramatically increase transport capacity and reduce operational complexity while seamlessly supporting a variety of DCI technologies, including Ethernet, IBM mainframe, Fibre Channel and more. S-Flex will also be a vital asset in the ever-evolving battle to guarantee the integrity and privacy of our most valuable information.”

“In today’s era of digital transformation, organizations are facing new performance requirements and surging application workloads. They need a way to prevent traffic bottlenecks, reduce complexity and unleash the full potential of their data center infrastructure. Now Adtran’s customers have a way to address these urgent requirements with a secure, long-distance transport solution that interoperates seamlessly with our Gen 7 Fibre Channel technology,” commented Martin Skagen, VP of architecture and technology, Brocade Storage Networking Division, Broadcom. 

https://www.adtran.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/20230629-adtran-unveils-industrys-first-64g-fibre-channel-solution-for-quantum-safe-dci-networking

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Huawei looks to 5.5G commercialization in 2024

At this week's MWC Shanghai 2023, Huawei announced plans to launch commercial 5.5G network equipment in 2024, supporting downlinks for 10G.

Huawei said its new 5.5G gear will protect operators' previous investment in 5G, while also improving network performance by 10 times. 

The company says it has made significant progress 5.5G verification process, specifically for extremely large antenna array (ELAA) which underpins 10 Gbps downlinks, flexible spectrum access which helps realize gigabit uplink, and passive IoT which can enable 100 billion IoT connections. 50G PON is another key technology that can enable 10 gigabit speeds for F5.5G ultra-broadband networks, and is expected to be extensively used in homes, campuses, and productions in the future. Huawei has worked with over 30 operators around the world on technological verification and application pilots for these technologies.

Huawei's Director and President of ICT Products & Solutions Yang Chaobin states "With a clearly defined standardization schedule, the 5.5G Era is already poised for technological and commercial verification. In 2024, Huawei will launch a complete set of commercial 5.5G network equipment to be prepared for the commercial deployment of 5.5G. We look forward to working with all industry players to embark on the new journey towards the 5.5G era."

In addition to the development of key technologies for 5.5G wireless and optical access networks, Yang announced that the company has been working on applying AI-native technologies to 5.5G core networks to continuously enhance network capabilities and availability. This would allow AI capabilities to be delivered to the very ends of networks, so that they can better serve numerous industries. Net5.5G promises 10 gigabit access, ultra-broadband transport, and microsecond-level latency over AI networks, allowing it to serve as a next-generation network foundation for industrial digitalization by providing high-quality network access.

https://www.huawei.com/en/news/2023/6/5-point-5g-commercial-fullset-equipement

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Nokia intros 5G FWA receiver for subscriber homes

Nokia introduced a Fixed Wireless Access receiver for the North American market that uses a high gain antenna to deliver high speeds over long distances. The FastMile 5G receiver, which mounts to the outside of a subscriber's home, supports a broad range of 4G and 5G bands including CBRS in either 4G or 5G as well as c-band. It also supports up to 4CA NR carrier aggregation meaning operators can bundle bands for higher throughput. The outside receiver is teamed with an inside Wi-Fi router, such as Nokia’s Beacon G6.2 which has managed mesh Wi-Fi capability to deliver strong signals throughout the home.

Design features:

• Directional antenna design, up to 18dBi gain for sparsely populated areas
• 3GPP release 16 compliant
• Supports all North American 5G mid and low-bands and 4G bands
• Supports NSA and SA
• B48/n48 band for unlicensed CBRS application
• Support for Wall and Pole Mount Options
• Includes modem and high gain antennas in one hardened IP66 compliant outdoor receiver
• 2.5Gbps Ethernet connection the home network includes PoE to power the outdoor device
• The solution is complimented by Nokia Beacon G6.2 as the indoor router providing mesh Wi-Fi 6 and integrated PoE.

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/06/28/nokia-launches-high-gain-5g-fixed-wireless-access-receiver-to-connect-the-north-american-underserved/

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Keysight supports O-RAN Spring 2023 Global PlugFest

Keysight Technologies collaborated with 14 industry partners to demonstrate Open RAN deployment readiness testing at the O-RAN Spring 2023 Global PlugFest organized by the O-RAN ALLIANCE.

During PlugFest, Keysight Open RAN Architect (KORA) solutions were used with Keysight co-developed O-RAN test specifications across these focus areas:

• Open RAN Radio Unit (O-RU) Fronthaul Conformance / Performance – Conducted automated testing of O-RU compliance to WG4 fronthaul technical specifications using the Keysight O-RU test suite, including control, user, synchronization and management (CUSM) planes and performance across the radio frequency (RF) and protocol measurements domains. Test collaborators included Compal, ETRI, Inventec, Pegatron, and SOLiD.
• RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) Conformance – Used the cloud-native Keysight RIC Test Suite to test and validate near-real-time RIC and non-real-time RIC compliance to the WG2 A1, WG3 E2, and O1 technical specifications by emulating E2 nodes, near-real-time RIC, and user equipment (UE). Test collaborators included Compal, ITRI, LITEON, and Pegatron.
• End-to-End (E2E) Network Performance – Provided E2E testing and assessment of small cells, macro cells, and gNodeBs (gNB) for performance, security, latency under, load and stress test conditions using the Keysight E2E test suite. An over-the-air (OTA) monitor was used to extend real-time visibility to disaggregated radio access, correlation, and interaction between O-RAN protocol and 3GPP physical layers in wireless transmissions. Test collaborators included Askey, Compal, LIONS Technology, Pegatron, SageRAN, SOLiD, and Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT).
• 5G and O-RAN Security – Validated the design and implementation of security for O-RAN gNBs with simultaneous operations of emulated UEs and security attack modules (3GPP SCAS automated testing, DDoS, Fuzzing) using the Keysight 5G and O-RAN security test suite. Tests ensured that the experience of emulated subscribers and network performance were not adversely impacted during simulated attacks. Test collaborators included LITEON and Pegatron.

https://www.keysight.com/us/en/about/newsroom/news-releases/2023/0629-pr23-098-keysight-demonstrates-open-ran-deployment-readines.html

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MEF to host Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) Global Summit

MEF will host its first-ever Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) Global Summit, an innovative event that will bring together leading service and technology providers from across the global automation ecosystem for the benefit of companies implementing or evaluating automation APIs.

The LSO Global Summit takes place October 2, 2023, in Dallas, Texas at MEF’s Global Network-as-a-Service Event (GNE).

Key focus areas that play a crucial role in shaping the future of automated business and operational service functions include:

• LSO vision, releases, and roadmap provides attendees with an in-depth overview of MEF’s LSO API and LSO Blockchain strategy and adoption, showcasing how it supports the roadmap for secure NaaS implementations. MEF-TMF collaboration, the latest LSO Fergie release and planned releases will be reviewed, as well as pioneering service offerings from MEF based on the latest industry advances.
• LSO solutions and support showcases the complete LSO Solution Provider ecosystem, sharing details on the range of commercial solutions, resources, and tools available to accelerate LSO implementation including a new LSO Consultancy category.
• LSO user stories features compelling case studies, implementation success stories, and ROI considerations, providing tangible examples of how organizations have achieved business outcomes through LSO adoption. Attendees will gain practical knowledge and guidance on leveraging LSO solutions to transform their service delivery models.

The LSO Global Summit offers exceptional networking opportunities, allowing participants to connect with commercial solution providers, and global and regional Tier 1, 2 and 3 buyers and sellers. These interactions will not only facilitate new and impactful business relationships but also provide a unique platform to gain insights into current procurement intentions and industry trends.

“Market momentum for LSO APIs is strong and growing rapidly with more than 135 service providers in some stage of the adoption lifecycle – from interest through to production. We are thrilled to bring together this group of global innovators for our inaugural LSO Global Summit,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “MEF has a rich history of fostering collaboration and addressing the opportunities and challenges faced by all ecosystem members. As the kick-off to GNE, the LSO Global Summit is an essential event for organizations embarking on this transformative journey, and we invite everyone to join us in shaping the future of open, interoperable standards-based automation.”

In addition, MEF recently released its State of the Industry Report: Paradigm Shift – Automating Business Functions Between Service Providers that explains why using standardized business and operational APIs is critically important for unlocking market opportunities for NaaS and other next-generation services. This report aligns with the focus of the LSO Global Summit, providing attendees with up-to-date insights into the latest developments in the industry. Download the report here

https://www.mef.net/news/mefs-first-lso-global-summit-highlights-innovation-and-collaboration/

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Windstream Wholesale rapidly activates 400G waves for cable customer

Windstream Wholesale reported a new benchmark for speed and efficiency in delivering multiple 400G wave orders to a large cable company. The team successfully completed service deployment to the customer in just 16 business days.

The company credits its “one team” approach, emphasizing seamless collaboration and alignment between engineering, service delivery, product, and sales teams. The Wholesale group's unified structure fostered open communication and facilitated close teamwork throughout the entire process, from initial service conceptualization to post-delivery support. 

Leveraging their readily available inventory of 400G equipment and the capabilities of Windstream's Intelligent Converged Optical Network (ICON) line system, the company enabled swift provisioning and activation, with a delivery interval far surpassing the customer’s expectations.

“We’re not only the tech leader with our next generation 400G service but we’re also the leader in flexible partnerships,” said Monther Hammoudeh, Windstream’s senior vice president of Transport Engineering and Operations. “I’m proud of our experienced team and their relentless pursuit to provide first-in-class service and customer satisfaction. Turning up 2.4 TB of capacity in 16 days requires a lot of collaborative teamwork.”

Joe Scattareggia, Windstream Wholesale’s chief revenue officer, emphasized the significance of the achievement. “What’s truly exciting and humbling to me is that we pioneered the 400G deployment in 2020 and now we’re introducing the industry’s newest Regional Rapid Fiber 400G in 2023, and our team is also the fastest,” Scattareggia said. “Turning up multiple 400G waves in the same month that the customer ordered the service is unheard of in the market. Others are just now moving to build a network that supports this technology while we are on the next generation and turning it up at record speeds.”

https://news.windstream.com/news/news-details/2023/Windstream-Wholesale-Achieves-Unprecedented-Multi-400G-Wave-Delivery-Interval/default.aspx

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Tech Update: Doubling Optical Transmission Capacity with C+ L-band

How can network operators increase the capacity of the optical transport network? 

There are 2 ways: increase the bits-per-hertz or increase the amount of spectrum.  This video explores the second option -- how operators can leverage an additional 4.8 THz spectrum in the L-band to double the capacity of the network.  

https://youtu.be/nklCbT8EW8s

Infinera's Robert Shore and Arelion's Mattias Fridström discuss how the upgrade of an existing Infinera FlexILS flexible-grid line system to support the L-band on Arelion's high-traffic route from Ashburn to Atlanta. 

Check out other Tech Updates on our YouTube Channel (subscribe today): https://www.youtube.com/@NextGenInfra and download our latest reports at: https://nextgeninfra.io/

Have a tech update that you want to brief us on? Contact info@nextgeninfra.io

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Prosimo debuts free Multi-Cloud Networking tools

Prosimo, a start-up based in San Jose, California offering distributed enterprise connectivity services, introduced a free Multi-Cloud Networking solution powered by its Cloud-Native Full Stack Platform.

Prosimo's Multi-Cloud Networking (MCN) Foundation delivers VPC/VNet connectivity with route visibility and troubleshooting between cloud resources. The company provides a visual onboarding tool for cloud resource discovery and end-to-end traceability. Network policy controls, diagnostic tools and troubleshooting are also provided. MCN is free as an on-ramp to Prosimo's onramp to Prosimo’s Full Stack Cloud Networking platform.

Prosimo said it has set its sights on elevating the operating paradigm to the application layer and transitioning to a Service Networking environment. This transition enables seamless interconnectivity between applications and PaaS, addressing complex challenges like policy governance, segmentation, expediting app modernization, and optimizing cloud cost control.

"Enterprises are unfortunately stuck today in stage-1 of cloud networking - building network highways and cannot focus on real value - applications, services, and users. The customers who have adopted Prosimo have moved past the initial stages quickly and can rapidly innovate using cloud-native networking," said Ramesh Prabagaran, Co-founder and CEO at Prosimo. "30-50% savings is not something enterprises can ignore. Value is moving up the stack in cloud networking, and by democratizing MCN, we want to lead the charge to help enterprises get there quickly. Expect a lot of disruption in the market that is suppressed today by traditional approaches to cloud networking." 

https://prosimo.io/getmcn/

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Tech Update: Democratizing Multi-Cloud Networking

Prosimo is introducing a free Multi-Cloud Networking solution powered by its Cloud-Native Full Stack Platform.

https://youtu.be/JdrJ0-FYFtw

Ramesh Prabagaran, Co-founder and CEO of Prosimo, describes the key stages in an enterprise cloud migration journey, and how the focus must turn to applications, services, and users. Cost control can be a deciding factor. Stay tuned for our upcoming Enterprise Edge and Cloud Networking showcase series. In the meantime, check out other Tech Updates on our YouTube Channel (subscribe today): https://www.youtube.com/@NextGenInfra and check out our latest reports at: https://nextgeninfra.io/ Have a tech update that you want to brief us on? Contact info@nextgeninfra.io

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Plans for digital twin of UK's Spherical Tokamak project

Intel and Dell Technologies, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Cambridge Open Zettascale Lab plan to build a “digital twin” of the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) prototype fusion power plant. 

The UKAEA will utilize the lab’s supercomputer based on Intel technologies, including 4th Gen Intel® Xeon Scalable processors, distributed asynchronous object storage (DAOS) and oneAPI tools to streamline the development and delivery of fusion energy to the grid in the 2040s.

Intel notes that engineering a new breed of power plant requires a lot of advanced tools and massive amounts of modeling and simulations. The digital twin of the STEP machine design will accelerate engineering on the project. The technical challenge involves large simulations running across thousands of graphics processing unit nodes and then transferring a huge amount of data for fast post-simulation analysis. A single plasma turbulence simulation can output hundreds of petabytes of data in a very short window. Intel DAOS is an open source, software-defined, scale-out object store that provides high bandwidth, low latency and high I/O operations per second (IOPS) storage containers for high performance computing (HPC) applications. For fusion research, it offers a fast and frictionless pathway for analysis and calculations that need to happen in an incredibly small window of time.

“Planning for the commercialization of fusion power requires organizations like UKAEA to utilize extreme amounts of computational resources and artificial intelligence for simulations. These HPC workloads may be performed using a variety of different architectures, which is why open software solutions that optimize performance needs can lend portability to code that isn’t available in closed, proprietary systems. Overall, advanced hardware and software can make the journey to commercial fusion power lower risk and accelerated – a key benefit on the path to sustainable energy," states Adam Roe, Intel EMEA HPC technical director

“I firmly believe the future of sustainable energy will rely upon supercomputing,” said Rob Akers, director of Computing Programmes, UKAEA. “The world has an urgent need to provide energy security and combat climate change. This is a journey we must embark upon together, delivering access and capability to all those who will be instrumental in delivering commercial fusion energy.”

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US Space Force awards US$134 million to SES Space & Defense

SES Space & Defense will provide Global X-Band satellite capacity, teleport and network services over a highly secure global terrestrial network, and other ancillary services to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). 

The contract was awarded under a five-year X-Band Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with an estimated value of US$134 million through Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) by the US Space Force.

To provide secure satellite communications service, SES Space & Defense will leverage the multi-mission GovSat-1 satellite, which features high-power X-band and Military Ka-band beams. GovSat-1 is a satellite operated by GovSat and is entirely dedicated to government and military missions.

“SES Space & Defense believes the BPA is one of the foundation blocks in accelerating MILSATCOM-COMSATCOM integration for the space enterprise. The US Space Force established this contract as a mechanism to enable access to commercial X-band capacity globally for the DoD,” said SES Space & Defense President and CEO David Fields. “We have partnered with industry-leading X-Band owners and operators as we understand the demand for secure, non-preemptible mission-assured capacity for critical operations. By combining satellite capacity, SATCOM services can achieve the highest availability with redundant X-Band coverage and diverse gateway connectivity within sovereign space.”

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Alkira debuts Extranet as-a-Service

Alkira introduced an Extranet as-a-Service (EaaS) offering that leverages its global hyperscale cloud networking infrastructure to allow customers to instantly connect a variety of enterprise-class B2B applications and resources.

Alkira's EaaS enables enterprises to connect their customers, partners, and third parties across highly distributed IT environments and multi-cloud networks.

Highlights:

• Extranet at Hyperscale - Alkira leverages the hyperscale infrastructure of the public cloud – meaning your Extranet can extend to anywhere in the world.
• Powerful Segmentation and Microsegmentation: Alkira EaaS gives customers new levels of insight, visibility, and end-to-end control over their Extranet environments with Alkira’s unmatched suite of segmentation features. Network segmentation and microsegmentation capabilities scale with an organization’s business needs and require no cloud-native networking knowledge or implementation.
• Simple Connectivity: From network segmentation to complex shared services environments, Alkira EaaS provides the world’s most advanced B2B Extranet connectivity capabilities, all in one holistic solution.
• 100% as a Service: There is no hardware to buy, no software to license, and no virtual agents to manage. Alkira delivers the industry’s leading Extranet as-a-Service, with turnkey business outcomes, on-demand resources, and flexible consumption.

"To support businesses today, IT has to ensure that resources are readily available to everyone that needs them, including end users, business partners, and third parties. This is difficult to do quickly and safely in sprawling, highly distributed, modern IT environments and multi-cloud networks,” said Atif Khan, CTO and co-Founder, Alkira. “Alkira EaaS delivers all the benefits of a robust Extranet while eliminating the challenges, limitations and risks of building one manually. The technology helps enterprises accelerate M&A integrations, manage complex partner ecosystems, connect B2B applications, and deploy industry-leading security solutions.”

https://www.alkira.com/alkira-introduces-extranet-as-a-service-enabling-third-parties-to-securely-connect-to-critical-business-applications/

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Samsung Foundry targets first 2nm production in 2025

Samsung Foundry disclosed plans to begin 2nm process production for mobile applications in 2025, then expand to HPC in 2026 and automotive in 2027.

The company says its 2nm process (SF2) has shown a 12% increase in performance, a 25% increase in power efficiency and a 5% decrease in area, when compared to its 3nm process (SF3).

Some additional highlights from the 7th annual Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) 2023 event in  San Jose:

• Expanded production capacity at its Pyeongtaek fab Line 3 (P3)
• Launched a new “Multi-Die Integration (MDI) Alliance” for next-generation packaging for 2.5D and 3D Heterogeneous Integration. 
• Continued progress in the foundry ecosystem with Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFE™) partners. Samsung and its 23 EDA partners now offer over 80 design tools and is also collaborating with 10 OSAT partners to develop 2.5D/3D packaging design solutions.
• Mass production of SF1.4 will begin in 2027 as planned.
•  From 2025, Samsung will begin foundry services for 8-inch gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductors targeting consumer, data center and automotive applications.
•  To secure the most cutting-edge technology in 6G, the 5nm Radio Frequency (RF) is also under development and will be available in the first half of 2025. Samsung’s 5nm RF process shows a 40% increase in power efficiency and a 50% decrease in area compared to the previous 14nm process.
• In addition, the company will add automotive applications to its 8nm and 14nm RF, expanding beyond the mobile applications currently under mass production.
• Samsung has secured a portfolio of over 4,500 key IPs from 50 global IP partners. Samsung plans to secure additional next-generation high-speed interface IPs for SF2, including LPDDR5x, HBM3P, PCIe Gen6 and 112G SerDes.

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-unveils-foundry-vision-in-the-ai-era-at-samsung-foundry-forum-2023

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Cisco to acquire SamKnow for broadband network monitoring

Cisco announced its intent to acquire SamKnows, a privately held broadband network monitoring company headquartered in London, England. Financial terms were not disclosed.

SamKnow offers a FaultFinder solution that monitors network performance from the perspective of the end user. It builds a dynamic model of normal performance, constantly learning and re-learning to adapt to trend shifts. It compares real-time measurements against these models. When an anomaly is detected it can trace the root cause and also measure the impact of the fault in terms of performance and the volume of customers affected.

Cisco said the acquisition will expand ThousandEyes’ view of global internet health. Currently, ThousandEyes has hundreds of thousands of vantage points across the Internet, in enterprise environments, and on user devices. With the addition of SamKnows’ millions of vantage points into the last mile, customers now have a single source of truth for how the Internet is performing across their entire infrastructure, including home and mobile device networks.

The SamKnows team will join the Network Assurance business led by Mohit Lad of ThousandEyes.

https://www.samknows.com

https://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-further-strengthens-network-assurance-with-intent-to-acquire-accedian-and-samknows

Cisco to acquire Accedian for Service Assurance

Wednesday, June 21, 2023    

Cisco announced plans to acquire Accedian, a privately-held company based in Montreal that offers performance analytics and end user experience solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close during the first quarter of Cisco’s FY24. Accedian's cloud-native Skylight service assurance solution provides granular, end-to-end visibility within “the massive multi” – multi-layer, multi-cloud, and multi-vendor networks....

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AWS intros AppFabric to manage and secure applications

Amazon Web Services introduced a new AppFabric service that aggregates and normalizes log data from apps like Asana, Slack, and Zoom, as well as productivity suites such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, to increase application observability and reduce operational costs associated with building and maintaining point-to-point integrations. 

The new AWS AppFabric service automatically provides a standardized set of security and operational data for every connected app. AWS says this improves an organization’s security posture by connecting SaaS applications to security tools like Logz.io, Netskope, Netwitness, Rapid7, and Splunk. AppFabric aggregates and normalizes security data using the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF).

AWS also unveiled a generative artificial intelligence (AI) feature that will use large language models (LLMs) and content from multiple SaaS applications from the common API layer to automatically make suggestions, execute tasks, or generate insights across applications, and return results within the user’s preferred application. 

https://aws.amazon.com/appfabric/

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Spirent adds 400G testing and monitoring probe

Spirent Communications introduced a 400G probe for next-generation network testing and monitoring. 

The 400G 7574 Test Head is part of Spirent’s VisionWorks assurance solution, which enables service providers to address ever-increasing traffic speeds and density demands with test agents for physical and NFV-based networks. With VisionWorks, customers ensure that new services are provisioned correctly, tested for stressed scenarios during pre-deployment, and when faults do occur, they can be rapidly identified and corrected. The automated, always-on performance monitoring provides complete end-to-end transport network and service visibility, enabling network segmentation for fast and accurate troubleshooting.

“As the market evolves and we see the deployment of growing numbers of 5G networks, data rates will continue to increase. It’s vital to have assurance tools that can keep up with these ever-growing thresholds,” said Charles Thompson, vice president of Lifecycle Service Assurance product management at Spirent. “Our new 400G probe further demonstrates Spirent’s leadership in the assurance market with a solution that ensures performance criteria are met during pre-deployment testing and is ready for customers to utilize for performance monitoring, as new technology and higher speeds enter early adoption in live networks.”

https://www.spirent.com/products/service-assurance-5g-cloud-sd-wan-ethernet-visionworks

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Australian Competition Tribunal blocks Telstra and TPG network sharing

The Australian Competition Tribunal has denied authorisation for the proposed regional spectrum authorisation arrangements between Telstra nd TPG Telecom.

The Tribunal denied authorisation because it was not satisfied that the proposed arrangements were not likely to have the effect of a substantial lessening of competition or that the benefit to the public likely to result would outweigh the detriment. 

The Tribunal noted that the proposed arrangements would give Telstra substantial benefits and increase its market strength on the retail and wholesale mobile markets, and would undermine Optus’ incentives to invest in 5G technology. Over time, this would weaken the competitive constraint on Telstra, and lead to increased prices and margins. 

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-competition-tribunal-denies-authorisation-for-telstra-and-tpg-regional-network-deal

TPG Telecom and Telstra reach network sharing deal in Australia

Monday, February 21, 2022  Australia, Telstra, TPG Telecom  

Telstra and TPG Telecom announced a ten-year regional network sharing agreement covering Telstra's Radio Access Network in defined territory.The deal provides TPG Telecom with access to around 3,700 of Telstra’s mobile network assets, increasing TPG Telecom’s current 4G coverage from around 96 per cent to 98.8 per cent of the population.Both carriers will continue to operate their own core network. Telstra will also obtain access to and deploy infrastructure...

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MaxLinear achieves 32.44 Gbps in JESD204C interoperability testing

MaxLinear's MxL1550 RF transceiver and Intel's Agilex 7 FPGA F-series device achieved 32.44 Gbps data rates during JESD204C interoperability testing.

JESD204C is a multi-lane, multi-gigabit serial interface for high-throughput digital communications between RF transceivers and logic devices. 

MaxLinear said its JESD204C conforming implementation is based upon best-in-class SerDes innovations and delivers 32.44032 Gbps lane speeds. Such JESD204C interface speeds are required to support the development of new ultra-wideband radio units (RU) for the 5G Radio Access Network (RAN). According to 2023 research by Research and Markets, the global 5G RAN market was valued at $12.4B billion in 2022, and is projected to reach $57.1 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 21.1% from 2022 to 2030.

“Implementing high-speed JESD204C SerDes interconnect between RF transceivers and FPGAs is a significant new design challenge for RF engineers delivering next-generation 5G radios,” said Gerry Leavey, Senior Director in MaxLinear’s Wireless Infrastructure Group. “By achieving 32.44 Gbps JESD204C interoperability in advance with a leading FPGA product from Intel, MaxLinear is facilitating the rapid development of right-first-time 400 MHz RU designs based upon our MxL1550 Octal RF transceivers.”

The MxL1550 is a state-of-the-art, low power octal RF transceiver that supports up to 400MHz instantaneous bandwidth for next-generation 5G Macro, Massive MIMO, and Small Cell radio applications. Coupled with ultra-low power consumption, this multi-channel RF transceiver is a key component for meeting the power consumption, size, performance, and cost requirements of next generation 5G radios.

“Intel Agilex 7 SoC FPGAs deliver ~2x performance per watt compared to competing 7nm FPGAs1, making it an optimal and scalable product family for thermally constrained RU environments. Combined with MaxLinear’s RF transceivers, we unleash 400MHz instantaneous bandwidth efficiently supporting wideband/multi-band RU applications,” said Christian Lanzani, Director of the Wireless Business Division, Intel Programmable Solutions Group. “This collaboration, along with Intel’s cutting-edge suite of radio IP and ORAN/Low-PHY enablement solutions, helps our wireless clients drastically reduce development time and costs while enhancing the feature sets and delivery of power-efficient RU solutions.”

https://www.maxlinear.com/

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