Exeter and Leeds win National Infrastructure Commission prize

With the technology world dreaming of autonomous vehicles, everyone has to remember perfecting the technology is only part of the battle. The roads have to be updated as well.

AT&T, Microsoft Score Multi-Million-Dollar Air Force Wins

Both are “service experiments” in that the military wants to trial private companies — as opposed to Air Force service members — to provide IT and networking services.

Double-digit growth in spending on cloud IT infrastructure in Q2

Vendor revenue from the sales of cloud IT infrastructure increased by more than 48% year over year in the latest second quarter, according to a report.

AT&T’s Cricket removes 8 Mbps throttle on $60 unlimited plan

AT&T’s Cricket prepaid brand refreshed its unlimited offers with a new Unlimited Extra plan that is not subject to a speed throttle.

NZ and Canada decline to jump on the Huawei banned wagon

Despite the current fashion for banning Huawei among US allies, New Zealand and Canada have both indicated they may not play ball.

Three and O2 put positive spin on sh*t connectivity

Three and O2 have signed a deal with SSE Enterprise which will enable the pair to access its fibre ring, part of which is located in the Thames Water waste water network, to improve connectivity backhaul capabilities.

Verizon touts 1.4 Gbps LTE speeds with LAA, carrier aggregation

Verizon said it was able to obtain a peak data rate of 1.4 Gbps on its LTE network by using unlicensed spectrum and carrier aggregation technology.

Trump officials vow ‘America first, 5G first’

Top White House officials are asking how the Trump administration can encourage the private sector to deploy 5G as quickly as possible.

AT&T expected to refarm low band for 5G next year

AT&T isn’t revealing specifics on when it will use low-band spectrum for its 5G deployment but confirmed plans to start deploying it next year.

Super-complaint targets claimed telco customer exploitation

The UK Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) has launched a super-complaint with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) asking the regulator to outline plans on how it will protect the consumer from loyalty penalties.

Synchronoss allowed off the Nasdaq naughty step

The Nasdaq stock exchange has had a look at Synchronoss’ belated accounts and decided everything is now sufficiently in order for it to be re-listed.

Perhaps MANO Is Irrelevant for Virtualized Carrier Networks

Good integrated CI/CD and an orchestrator like Kubernetes could negate the need for MANO.

Telus' Mitchell: Industry needs to change cultural mindsets

Telus' Bryce Mitchell is sounding a rallying cry to push carriers and vendors more aggressively into cloud-native approaches for NFV.

Security could make telcos more than a utility in the smart home

With the smart home becoming more of a reality, new research from Open-Xchange suggests the largely ignored security market could be a money-spinner for the telco industry.

SDxCentral's Weekly Roundup — September 28, 2018

Vasona Networks gets purchased by ZephyrTel; Kubernetes releases its newest version; and news out of Microsoft Ignite.

Sprint Says Packet, Open19 Give It 5G Flexibility

Sprint's Aaron Hinkle also weighed in on SDN: “When you move to the edge you have to be able to do a full SDN deployment.”

Iridium hooks up with AWS on IoT

Iridium joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network where it is collaborating with AWS on the development of Iridium CloudConnect for IoT.

In Memoriam: Sir Charles Kao

The 'father of fiber optics' has passed away at 84.

In Memorium: Sir Charles Kao

The 'father of fiber optics' has passed away at 84.

Comcast & Prepaid TV – There's An App for That

Operator's set-top-free, app-based 'Instant' offering is also part of the company's prepaid service portfolio.

The Network's Edge Is Being Redefined

Maintaining visibility into the network is among the challenges faced as processing and compute creeps toward smaller and more numerous facilities and out to the CPE.

Microsoft Ignite Slideshow: Stay Away From the Agony Booth

Microsoft made Florida even hotter.

Eurobites: Telenor Takes NB-IoT Nationwide in Norway

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: the smell of 5G; augmenting the grim reality of Michael Bublé; Ericsson and Qualcomm claim 28GHz band breakthrough.

WiCipedia: Valley of the Boom & Women in Comms Live

This week in our WiC roundup: A new series shows the tech boom's consequences; our WiC event was a huge success; a sobering look at women's progress in STEM; and more.

Key Takeaways From NFV & Carrier SDN

Here's a quick snapshot of my impressions from this week's NFV-Carrier SDN: Automation and Monetization event in Denver.

Ciena's CTO on Optical Success in India

Ciena has been riding high in India's optical equipment market, but a wave of consolidation and government steps to bring manufacturing back home could make life difficult in the months ahead.

Facebook unveils latest attempt to take VR mainstream

Facebook has had a fair few cracks at creating the perfect VR headset, but the Oculus Quest looks like a product which could take Virtual Reality (VR) into the mainstream market.

LinkedIn: Open19 Data Center Tech Ready for Prime Time and Edge

While the Open19 Project started as a way for LinkedIn to optimize its data centers, its founders quickly realized that the platform was well suited for edge deployments.

Barefoot Preps for 5G and IoT With Its Tofino Chip and the P4 Language

Paired with the P4 programming language, Barefoot’s Tofino chip gives users the freedom to design what the chip can do.

FCC moves forward with small cell plans despite backlash

The FCC has officially given new small cell deployment rules the thumbs up, despite protest from municipal leagues and local governments.

Europe gets tech and ad giants to play ball on ‘online disinformation’

The European Commission’s drive to control what takes place online took one more step forward with the unveiling of a code of practice on online disinformation.

X by Orange embraces cloud-native platform

Orange Spain subsidiary X by Orange is embracing a cloud-native platform to deliver digital services to its business customers.

Indian government greenlights plan to increase broadband penetration

While Reliance Jio has been ripping up the rulebook, causing chaos in the Indian mobile market, some might be surprised to hear broadband penetration is still less than 10%.

Only one in four businesses are ready for digital era – Vodafone

Despite dawn breaking on the digital economy, Vodafone claims only 24% of businesses globally could reasonably call themselves cyber ready, but those who are should prepare themselves for a cash boost.

NB-IoT gathers momentum

Trials in Australia and the UK involving Ericsson and Vodafone indicate the NB-IoT standard is starting to become a reality.

Breeze Broadband to discontinue fixed wireless internet service

Breeze Broadband, a wireless internet service provider owned by Union Pacific Railroad, is shutting down its service.

Sprint lost $180M on abandoned monopole network build-out plan

Sprint provided its clearest view yet on the company’s attempts to reduce its network expenses by building out monopoles for network coverage.

The top 6 issues facing rural carriers

The issues facing rural carriers are many.

F5 Networks' Feger: Reduce complexity for end customers

After 14 years at CenturyLink, F5 Networks' James Feger knows a thing or two about providing value to both service provider and enterprise customers.

Samsung, AT&T team up on smart 5G factory

AT&T and Samsung Electronics America are applying their 5G know-how to a Samsung semiconductor factory in Austin, Texas.

Bandwidth Alliance Works to Slash Cloud Interconnect Fees

AWS and Google are notably absent from the group, though Microsoft and IBM are on board.

NB-IoT Bounds Toward Reality With Network Deployments and Trials

Ericsson and Telstra extended the 3GPP standards-based limit for a long-range narrowband IoT data connections from 40 km to 100 km through software upgrades.

Rosenworcel ‘exasperated’ over 3.5 GHz CBRS limbo

The FCC concluded its September open meeting Wednesday with no new action on the CBRS band, but commissioners were still asked about its status.

5G Rollouts Get a Boost From FCC Small Cell Rules

The government agency gave time limits to cities to approve or reject requests from wireless operators to install small cell sites in neighborhoods.

Vasona gets combined into ZephyrTel

Vasona Networks, provider of multi-access edge computing solutions, has been acquired by ZephyrTel, an ESW Capital software company.

Riverbed Strikes SD-WAN and IT Edge Partnerships With Microsoft

Previously, SteelFusion has been available out-of-box for VMware environments only. But now, Riverbed is providing SteelFusion for native Microsoft Windows Server environments for Hyper-V.

Alphabet’s Chronicle Launches VirusTotal Enterprise With 100x Faster Malware Search

VirusTotal also has new capabilities to help companies’ threat intelligence teams better analyze massive amounts of data.

Tech firms dominate Millennial Rankings for positive buzz – YouGov

Netflix number one, Spotify number two and Primark number three; who doesn’t love cheap pants though.

Comcast Eyes 'Scale Deployments' of Remote PHY in 2018

Pivot to remote PHY and distributed access architectures is paving the way to Full Duplex DOCSIS, engineering exec says.

DT's Clauberg Urges Cloud-Native Caution

The telco cloud community is excited about the impending shift towards cloud-native, but Deutsche Telekom's Axel Clauberg has raised a big warning flag.

Eurobites: Ooredoo Takes 5G for a Ride in Self-Flying Car. Seriously.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson takes NB-IoT to the max in Oz; cybersecurity laggards get left behind; is Gavin's potential BT successor gorgeous enough?

TiVo Sharpens Its Cord-Cutting Shears

With the Bolt OTA, TiVo will try to jolt the market and separate itself from new DVR combo products focused on cord-cutters from Amazon and AirTV.

Cisco's Jonathan Davidson: 5G's Software & Enterprise Networking Opportunity

5G is bringing the industry a new mechanism for delivering services, said Jonathan Davidson, Cisco's new service provider boss. In the run-up to 5G, Davidson said Cisco is helping enterprises partner with service providers to deliver application services with just the right level of policy and security. He also updates us on Cisco's role in building out T-Mobile's virtual packet core in preparation for 5G.

AT&T's Zeto on Smart Cities: Let There Be Light

Updated LED street lighting will be a harbinger of smart cities in the US, says AT&T GM Zeto.

Telus: Let's Push to Cloud Native Now

NFV isn't where it should be but it's clear that cloud-native approaches offer the promise of automation and scale, says Bryce Mitchell.

ONAP: Time to Move On Up?

ONAP has been a hot topic at the Open Networking Summit Europe event in Amsterdam and it's clear it has a lot of issues as well as a lot of carrier support.

Lifecycle Test, Assurance of 5G Vital to Its Success

To really get the benefits of the applications that are possible in a 5G world, the industry first needs to transition to software-defined testing and assurance solutions that are flexible and efficient.

Is X by Orange Showing Us the OTT Future for Telcos?

With NFV still unable to deliver agility and scale, Orange launches public cloud-based, OTT enterprise services in Spain with Red Hat as its platform partner. Is this the future for SME communications and networking services?

Vodafone Brings NB-IoT to UK, Starts Trial With Scottish Power

Vodafone has finally launched an NB-IoT network in the UK and is carrying out trials with energy provider Scottish Power.

Chef Adds More Microsoft Ingredients to Its Cookbook

The company provides DevOps automation tools focused on AWS and Azure public cloud environments but expects to announce some work with Google Cloud later this year.

Google attempts damage control on privacy regulations

Google has unveiled its ideas on the regulatory framework of tomorrow in what looks like an attempt to influence legislation and restrict the long-arm of government intervention.

US contemplates its own version of GDPR

The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration has started a 30-day public hearing process to gather comments on its policy options towards consumer privacy protection.

RingCentral Calls on ThousandEyes to Monitor Data Center Migration During Hurricane

RingCentral deployed ThousandEyes monitoring platform last quarter to add an additional layer of visibility over its global network and services.

UK news media want tech giants to pay them annual license fees

A UK governmental review into threats to the press, principally from the internet, has led to calls for tech giants to pay for news content that appears on their platforms.

FCC approves new rules to speed deployment of small cells and 5G

The FCC voted to approve rules aimed at speeding up the deployment of small cells and other 5G network equipment.

Ericsson disagrees that it's missing from AT&T’s 5G build-out

Ericsson said it disagrees with an analyst report that found that Ericsson is mostly missing from AT&T’s physical 5G build-out.

AT&T launches online advertising marketplace Xandr

Two multi-billion dollar acquisitions and a funny name later, the AT&T content business vision starts to become a bit clearer.

U.S. Cellular to lean on LoRa in IoT efforts

U.S. Cellular announced it will team up with a company called IoT America to sell internet-of-things services, including LoRa technology.

AT&T announces suite of blockchain services

AT&T announced a suite of blockchain-based services designed to help its enterprise customers cut costs and speed automation processes.

NFV: The good, the bad and the ugly

NFV is not—definitely not—living up to its touted potential, according to Masergy's Ray Watson.

SD-WAN's Future Will Rest on the Universal CPE

“The path forward is an open platform,” said Adva’s Prayson Pate, adding that an open platform will meet the full-potential of an agile and flexible SD-WAN.

Nutanix Bumps VMware Off Top HCI Software Ranking

VMware ranked No. 2 in the HCI software vendor list while Dell remained the market leader for branded hyperconverged products.

Vodafone Picks Juniper’s SD-WAN for Its Enterprise Services

Vodafone said Juniper’s Contrail Service Orchestrator is a key part of the platform because it provides customers with a self-service portal.

Ericsson planning 39 GHz tests around foliage

Ericsson is planning to test 5G at 39 GHz in Miami and Coral Gables, Florida.

NFV’s Return on Investment Disappoints Some NFV Players

“We had inflated expectations” because the promise was vendors could easily obtain commodity hardware and “throw some VNFs on it and it would make money," said a Masergy executive.

CNCF, Eclipse Foundation Push Kubernetes to the Edge

The Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group is looking to see how far it can push the centralized Kubernetes platform out into the distributed edge and IoT ecosystem.

AT&T and Samsung Create America's First Manufacturing-focused 5G "Innovation Zone"

AT&T, Samsung Electronics America and Samsung Austin Semiconductor Test for Industry 4.0 and the Future of Smart Factories

NFV & SDN Event Wines Down in Denver

Light Reading's dynamic trio wind down from the NFV & Carrier SDN event by answering the question: Which wines pair with telecom acronyms?

Design Matters – Even for Business Service Providers

Spectrum Enterprise's Scott Fairchild says business service providers should borrow from the customer experience playbooks of Apple, Tesla and Bose.

Telefonica: OSM Paves the Way for Network Slicing

Telefonica's Antonio Elizondo says its common information model and orchestration layer will enable network slicing for 5G.

Fox to Unload Sky Stake for $15B

Will sell its 39% holdings in UK pay-TV and media company in light of Comcast's 'premium' offer.

Comcast Business Positions Itself 'Beyond Fast'

At analyst event in Philadelphia, Comcast's business unit launches new branding strategy to promote SD-WAN and other services that go beyond high data speeds.

NFV 1.0 Is Passé; Cloud Native Is Coming

Telcos are referencing NFV less these days and are talking more about cloud-native functions. But what's the difference, and why are cloud-native applications any better?

Qualcomm: Apple Stole Our Software & Gave It to Intel – Reports

Qualcomm has accused Apple of pinching its software and providing this to Intel.

Eurobites: Italy's 5G Auction Crosses €5B Mark

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Mobolize gets mobilized in Europe; Tele2 trumpets new IoT platform; Deutsche Telekom shares cybersecurity know-how with Germany army.

MWCA 2018: Ericsson Booth Tour

Ericsson's Keith Shank gives us a quick tour of the vendor's sprawling stand at Mobile World Congress Americas, including a look at new medical device applications, city infrastructure and a holographic 'phone' call.

Ericsson's 5G Success Started by 'Doubling Down' on R&D

At MWCA earlier this month, Ericsson North America CEO Niklas Heuveldop discussed Ericsson's market advantage in securing 5G wins in North America and said the industrial IoT space could open up new opportunities in the enterprise in the coming months.

Mercy Makes Service Provider Transformation

Scott Richert, Mercy Technology Services chief technology officer, describes the organization's transformation from the IT shop of Mercy healthcare system into a service provider for multiple healthcare organizations. (See Mercy Fills Virtualization Prescription.)

Twitter wants your help with censorship

Social network Twitter continues to agonise over how it should censor its users and thinks getting them involved in the process might help.

Qualcomm points the industrial espionage finger at Apple

The long-running legal battle between Qualcomm and Apple has been stepped up a level as the chipmaker effectively accuses the iLeader of corporate espionage.

White House schedules 5G meeting for Friday, details vague

The White House has scheduled a meeting Friday with wireless industry executives to discuss 5G network technology.

ABI smart city warning tells all too familiar sluggish telco tale

ABI Research has warned MNOs might miss out on the $7.6 billion ‘UnTelco’ revenue opportunity if it waits for the 5G euphoria to kick in.

There’s a big difference between download speed and mobile video experience

Network rating outfit OpenSignal has started measuring ‘video experience’ as well as raw network performance and found they don’t necessarily correlate.

Facebook creative culture questioned as Instagram founders exit

In a move which should have Instagrammers all around the world worried, co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have decided to take their leave from the popular social media platform.

AT&T: Our fixed wireless build-out remains on track

AT&T said its build-out of fixed wireless internet technology remains on track.

Qualcomm accuses Apple of ‘subterfuge’ in sharing data with Intel

Qualcomm has accused Apple of “subterfuge” in giving data to Intel.

HPE Selects Intel Programmable Card for Data Center Servers

HPE is the first original equipment manufacturer to incorporate the programmable card into its devices.

Linux Foundation aligns automation and cloud-native communities

The Linux Foundation announced a deeper collaboration between telecom and cloud industry leaders that should lead to better cloud-native use cases.

Vodafone, China Mobile Tap ONAP for Broader Network Orchestration

The CCVPN use case allows for the orchestration of an operator’s underlying optical transport network and overlay SD-WAN in a way to support the peering of inter-operator VPN service delivery.

Verizon keeps shrinking workforce with early-retirement program

The nation’s largest wireless network operator is looking to further reduce costs by encouraging some employees to retire early.

Open source is not 'one size fits all'

Open source communities are no doubt playing a key role in moving the telecommunications industry forward, but not everyone is on board the bandwagon.

VMware, Pivotal Execs Say Google’s On-Prem Kubernetes Validates PKS

The competitive landscape for managed, on-premises Kubernetes services is becoming increasingly crowded with the likes of Cisco and even Google itself jumping in.

Schoolar: RAN vendors will finally see growth thanks to 5G

As expected, the Mobile World Congress Americas event held in early September in Los Angeles, California, was a hotbed of 5G announcements.

Ericsson gets FCC approval for CBRS gear

Ericsson announced it has received FCC certification for its CBRS portfolio for both indoor and outdoor deployments.

Mode and Versa Use Ericsson’s Global Network for SD-WAN

The two vendors are offering connectivity and SD-WAN over Ericsson’s private network. The offering looks similar to Aryaka’s.

OpenSignal: Mobile video quality suffers from carrier throttling

The United States lags behind dozens of other countries when it comes to the quality of streaming video available to mobile users.

Telefonica's Elizondo: OSM Offers Best Information Model for Service Orchestration

ETSI open source organization will also have single point of entry to manage network services and network slices with release later this year.

Huawei NE9000 Routers Help Idea Cellular Deploy Future-Oriented & Sustainable Ultra-Broadband Networks

India's telecom service provider Idea Cellular and Huawei recently announced that they had successfully built converged, efficient, future-oriented and sustainable ultra-broadband networks.

IETF Releases 2 ACTN RFCs to Build an Open Northbound Interface Solution

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recently announced the official release of the RFC 8453 Framework for Abstraction and Control of TE Networks (ACTN) and RFC 8454 Information Model for ACTN.

Huawei Releases the Cloud VR Solution White Paper

At the fifth Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF 2018), Huawei released the Cloud VR Solution White Paper, providing an overview of the architecture and detailing the solution from the perspectives of the cloud, pipe, and terminal ecosystems.

CenturyLink's McBride: NFV 'Introduces a New Kind of Cloud'

Says thousands of on-net buildings can be used to distribute network functions virtualization closer to the edge.

Huawei & Industry Partners Announce Global 4K UHD Video Industry Cooperation Initiative

Huawei joined hands with leading parties in the UHD industry to form a new collaboration initiative.

Nokia, Samsung Are Beating Ericsson in 5G Sales to AT&T, Says Analyst

AT&T is replacing Ericsson with Nokia and Samsung as it rolls out a 5G network, according to Michael Genovese of MKM Partners.

MWCA 2018: Nokia Booth Tour

We took a quick walk around the Nokia stand at Mobile World Congress Americas earlier this month and enjoyed some virtual reality pitches, lessons in network demand forecasting and a discussion of decomposing network functions (I think).

The Telecoms.com Podcast: AI, UIs & WTF

At the Ovum Digital Futures summit, the pod-squadders talk media consumption, artificial intelligence and voice activation. And they upset a security guard.

Vodafone's Heeran: Defining the Telco Cloud

Vodafone's head of cloud and automation wants to define the telco cloud so that everyone's singing from the same hymn sheet.

Is Nokia Ready for 5G in North America?

Nokia's head of North America, Rick Corker, gives us an update on the vendor's technical achievements in 5G, its announced wins with carriers and why the North American market is going to be so challenging and competitive as these networks roll out.

Verizon Outsources IT, Offers Sweetened Buyout

Moves seen as major effort to cut employee rolls, particularly US-based jobs as management is among the targets.

Liberty Global Ready to Lock Horns With Comcast

CEO Mike Fries says he's 'excited for the competition' in wake of the Comcast-Sky deal.

Orchestration & Open Source for 5G

Issues relating to services orchestration have still not entirely been resolved.

Eurobites: TIM, Fastweb Fire Up 5G With Help From Huawei

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telia tees up 5G test network in Estonia; Vodafone brings Juniper into its SD-WAN fold; new blood for Ofcom.

Future State for MSOs: Ready or Not?

OTT has changed everything and now 5G is on the way. How can cable operators stay ahead?

Microsoft: We're Not Bullies Anymore! We're Nice!

CEO Satya Nadella gives the side-eye to Amazon Web Services, saying Microsoft won't compete with its enterprise customers.

Vodafone & China Mobile Lead New Charge Towards Automated, Cross-Domain VPNs

With a contribution into ONAP that also involved Huawei, Vodafone and China Mobile take the lead on defining service orchestration and automation across carrier network borders. But they're not the first to do so.

Home Office to delay 4G emergency service network by another three years

The Home Office has announced its cumbersome project to overhaul the Emergency Services Network (ESN) with a 4G network has been set back by another few years.

Italian operators throw money at 3.7 GHz spectrum

Italian politicians must be loving the country’s ongoing 5G auction, with operators bidding on the 3.7 GHz band like they think they’re still using lira.

Vodafone dubiously tries to fix AI/job loss conundrum

Is the cost of profitability and efficiency worth the PR damage caused by automation and redundancies? That’s one of the difficult questions facing companies in the AI era.

T-Mobile Preps for Sprint Merger by Hiring CenturyLink’s Sunit Patel

Patel oversaw CenturyLink’s integration with Level 3 Communications and has experience with many large acquisitions.

Digital Realty Buys Ascenty for $1.8B, Battles Equinix for Cloud, Interconnection Deals

Digital Realty already has data centers in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. This expands its data center footprint to Latin American — a region primed for growth.

Jio leapfrogs Idea and Vodafone for second place in India

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has unveiled the monthly growth statistics for July and India is still the market which keeps giving.

HPE attempts to put positive spin on AI job losses

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has released new research which states redundancies are okay because more jobs will be created. But, how many of these new jobs will be offered to those shivering in the dole queue?

CenturyLink goes worldwide with its SD-WAN service

Thanks in part to its deal to buy Level 3, CenturyLink has rolled out its SD-WAN service to more than 36 countries across the globe.

Altice explains how its forthcoming MVNO will be different

Altice said its forthcoming mobile service won’t be just any old MVNO.

FCC’s Carr touts support for small cell proposal

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr pointed to support for his small cell proposal from officials across more than a dozen states.

Comcast opens up on Xfinity Mobile retail expansion plans

Comcast’s top retail executive offered a glimpse into how the nation’s largest cable company plans to expand sales of its Xfinity Mobile service.

Microsoft Azure IoT Plans Now Support Digital Twins

The integration allows users to manage the digital model using event-driven and serverless methods that can then be transferred to the physical environment.

No Qualcomm inside the Apple iPhone XS

The latest Apple iPhones are a Qualcomm-free zone according to people who have taken them to pieces.

And the winner is… Comcast!!!!

Comcast has emerged as the winner of the drawn-out Sky acquisition battle with 21st Century Fox, offering shareholders £17.28 per share.

Red Hat's Brian Gracely talks NFV and microservices

Despite being around for years, there's still a learning curve for network functions virtualization (NFV), according to Red Hat's Brian Gracely.

Microsoft Lures SAP, Adobe Into Open Data Initiative

The initiative supports the movement of transactional, operational, customer, or IoT data between the data lake and a customer’s operations.

IDC Predicts Telecom VNF Market to Grow at a Compound Annual Rate of 45.4%

Worldwide revenue for the telco VNF market in 2017 stood at only $2.5 billion.

Intel Says Silicon Photonics Transceivers Will Be a 5G Fronthaul Savior

Originally developed for the data center, silicon photonics can pump lots of data from the tower to the baseband unit or central office.

SolarWinds Seeks $500 Million IPO

The planned IPO comes three years private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Silver Lake took the IT management company private for $4.5 billion.

Astrocast on mission to fill in coverage for IoT

Astrocast is preparing to launch a constellation of satellites that could be used to “fill in” areas that cellular IoT technologies don’t cover.

Canada’s Rogers hooks up with UBC on 5G

Rogers struck a deal with the University of British Columbia to build a 5G hub on campus that will serve as a testbed and blueprint for 5G in Canada.

T-Mobile rebrands MetroPCS prepaid as ‘Metro by T-Mobile’

T-Mobile announced that it will rebrand its prepaid service, MetroPCS, as “Metro by T-Mobile."

Intel takes aim at 5G with silicon photonics

Intel is expanding its portfolio of 100G silicon photonics transceivers beyond the data center and into the network edge.

Dell IPO Back on the Table

Dell plans to interview several banks this week to discuss underwriting an IPO, according to media reports.

Google seeks STA for 3550-3650 MHz tests in Philadelphia

Google is asking the FCC for permission to conduct tests in the 3550-3650 MHz band in Philadelphia.

CenturyLink Builds a Global SD-WAN Footprint

The company’s SD-WAN network now is available in 30 countries in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

T-Mobile Rebrands MetroPCS

MetroPCS will become 'Metro by T-Mobile' in October.

Roku Tries to Make 4K Affordable for the Masses

Roku reaches below the sub-$40 threshold with the new 4K/HDR-capable Premiere streaming player.

5G Transport Gets a Reboot in NY

The 5G Transport event will examine how packet/optical networking, edge data centers and distributed cloud platforms can combine to support the new 5G RAN and core architecture, and the many new service types associated with 5G.

Will Comcast's Pricey Play for Sky Pay Off?

Craig Moffett fears that deal for Sky could become an 'albatross' for Comcast, questions the potential to use acquisition to create a global OTT juggernaut.

SiriusXM Gets Serious About Streaming With Pandora Deal

In-car satellite radio specialist puts up $3.5 billion for Pandora in all-stock deal.

The Many Faces of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a complex challenge but one that will help service providers revitalize their businesses, as we found out at this year's Operations Transformation Forum (OTF) in Munich.

CenturyLink Goes Global With SD-WAN

Taking SD-WAN service beyond the US to 36 additional nations.

Italy 5G Auction Bids Top €4.4B in Worrying Sign for Telcos

Italy's ongoing 5G auction has already raised €2 billion more than its government was expecting. For telcos that had flagged concern about license costs, that is a troubling development.

UK May Be Stuck With Old Public Safety Network Till 2023

The new-look Emergency Services Network will be in no position to replace the ageing Airwave system next year, as originally intended.

Microsoft Goes Captain America, Launches 'Defending Democracy' Program

Microsoft is launching programs to protect the electoral process and use artificial intelligence to provide humanitarian aid.

Microsoft Flexes Muscles on AI, IoT & Security

Microsoft kicked off its Microsoft Ignite customer and analyst conference by punching all the hot buttons on enterprise cloud.

Battling Startup Video Buffering

How to solve mobile video's worst problem.

Microsoft: Now You Don't Need a %$#! Password

Bad news if you like making up and memorizing nonsense words.

Eurobites: WIG Raises £220M for Fiber, Small Cells Expansion

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telit seeks new CEO; DT embraces robots; new book sheds light on Nokia woes.

Agents Down: Vodafone's Chatbot & the Jobs Threat

Vodafone's UK business is offering customer service agents the chance to retrain as coders, as an increasingly sophisticated chatbot takes over their jobs.

BT in Talks With Worldpay's Jansen About CEO Job – Reports

Worldpay's Philip Jansen could succeed Gavin Patterson to become the next CEO of the UK's phone incumbent.

New iPhones Have Intel Inside

iFixit teardown finds that Intel is sole modem provider for new Apple iPhone models.