Huawei slams DoJ indictment as 'political persecution'

The U.S. Department of Justice is charging Huawei with racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets, with a new federal indictment against the Chinese telecom equipment giant unsealed Thursday.

Verizon touts New York contract for public safety

In yet another indication that Verizon isn’t ceding the public safety market to AT&T, the company announced that the State of New York Office of General Services (OGS) has authorized Verizon as one of multiple contractors to offer services to state agencies and public safety entities through a newly awarded telecom connectivity services contract.

Cisco CEO: Customers 'just tapping the brakes'

Hours after Cisco Systems’ stock price fell Thursday morning on concerns about its fiscal second quarter performance, CEO Chuck Robbins defended his firm, saying some customers are merely “tapping the brakes” on capital spending amid a swirling global storm of macro market factors.

Editor’s Corner: Who is Dish’s mystery partner?

In his ruling in favor of the T-Mobile purchase of Sprint, Judge Victor Marrero seemed very impressed with a mystery partner or partners that Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen is talking with. As a result of the judge’s ruling, Dish will enter the U.S. wireless market as the fourth major nationwide facilities-based wireless operator.

Doyle: Four leading networking trends that are not 5G

The networking industry has been overwhelmed by news (and hype) around 5G. However, plenty of other developments are worth our attention, including software-based routing, containerization of NFV, distributed multi-cloud and enabling edge computing. Here's a look at four of the non-5G trends and the vendors that are behind them.

Huawei dismisses fresh US racketeering charges

Huawei has publicly rebutted the new superseding charges of racketeering and trade secret theft filed by the US Department of Justice.

Indian Supreme Court takes another step towards telco duopoly

The Indian Supreme Court has rejected a plea from Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel to defer disputed spectrum licence fee payments, making the collapse of Vodafone Idea a realistic outcome.

Verizon pledges 5x more small cells in 2020

Verizon is building on its millimeter wave (mmWave) strategy, pledging to deploy its 5G Ultra Wideband service in more than 60 cities by the end of this year—and relying on a lot of small cells to do it.

Three enters the 5G marathon with ‘free’ 5G

There might not be enough base stations or devices yet, but Three has completed the UK’s 5G portfolio with the connectivity upgrade at no extra cost for existing customers.

Daily Roundup: Cloud Titans Tank Arista’s Q4

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Arista Finally Makes Big Switch Official, Disappoints in Q4

Arista Networks finally made its Big Switch Networks acquisition official, three weeks after SDxCentral broke the news, on its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings call.

US Charges Huawei With Theft, Espionage

Federal prosecutors on Thursday levied new charges against Huawei, accusing the world’s largest telecom equipment vendor of conspiring to steal trade secrets, ratcheting up pressure on the besieged Chinese company.

The Force Sides With Amazon, Microsoft JEDI Training Stalls

Amazon snagged a win in its ongoing battle for the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract, as a federal judge ordered Microsoft to cease work on the $10 billion project.

Judge pauses Microsoft's work on $10B JEDI cloud contract

The brawl between Microsoft and Amazon entered a new round on Thursday when a U.S. judge granted a preliminary injunction to temporarily pause Microsoft from working on the $10 billion JEDI contract.

Altice Mobile raises price by $10 for new customers

Altice Mobile is raising its prices for new subscribers from $20 per line, per month to $30. Altice only launched its mobile service in September 2019. On its earnings call with investors yesterday, it said as of the end of Q4 it had 69,000 subscriber lines, which is about 2% of its broadband customer base. It reported mobile revenues of $18 million for the quarter, up from $3 million the previous quarter.

BT adds Dell's uCPE line to its Dynamic Network Services

BT has added Dell Technologies' universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) to its Dynamic Network Services roster in order to offer business customers more choices. BT will offer its multinational customers Dell's Virtual Edge Platform (VEP) platform of networking-specific uCPE as a converged networking, IoT and IT application platform.

Telefonica’s O2 taps Mavenir for vIMS

O2, the Telefónica -owned UK mobile operator, has chosen Mavenir’s for virtualized IMS within its network functions virtualization (NFV) OpenStack cloud infrastructure.  

Ericsson tries to put a brave face on the MWC catastrophe

Networking vendor Ericsson decided to press ahead with its pre-MWC briefing but couldn’t avoid addressing the elephant in the room.

Huawei attacks US Government and Wall Street Journal credibility

Huawei has issued its retort to US accusations that it has access to telco networks, suggesting the US Government should be more mature than resorting to PR and propaganda campaigns.

CenturyLink CEO: Fiber build helps create a 'virtous cycle'

CenturyLink CEO Jeff Storey said his company's transformation plan for last year and the continued deployment of fiber have paid off for the telco.

Loon poses little impact on LTE: study

If operators are worried that Loon’s balloons are going to interfere with their terrestrial wireless networks, a new study shows there’s little to fear.

Industry Voices—Raynovich: Cisco takes a hit

Cisco shares are falling hard after the company reported lackluster growth across nearly all of its product segments except for cybersecurity on Wednesday. The less-than-stellar quarter comes at a time when Cisco is undergoing some big transformations, including the absorption of acquisitions of optical suppliers, as well as the launch of a new chip business through its Silicon One. 

Exfo uses AI to reassure 5G operators

Testing and service assurance vendor Exfo has launched some new cleverness designed to take the stress out of managing a 5G network.

Essential’s attempt to reinvent the wheel has predictably failed

When Android creator Andy Rubin started a new company, big things were expected, however it now appears the ideas were far too glorious to have any basis in reality.

Vodafone and TPG win appeal for $15bn mega merger

The Australian Federal Court has overturned a decision by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), paving the way for Vodafone and TPG to create a converged telco giant.

Lowenstein: Strategic Priorities for The New T

Now that it appears that the T-Mobile/Sprint deal will go through, the cliché phrase would traditionally be that ‘the hard work begins now.’ But this two-year saga involved plenty of hard slogging, plus gazillions of dollars in legal fees and too many (not good for the optics) nights at the White House dorm, aka the Trump International Washington Hotel, D.C. But I’m sure that T-Mobile execs are pleased to get going on the post-merger plans that have been gathering dust in the War Room since 2018, and that the folks in Kansas City are happy for some clarity after these two years of purgatory. To complete the picture, John gets to ride off into the sunset with his $111 million windfall, while Marcelo gets to enjoy 3 a.m. calls from Masayoshi Son while toiling to turn around SoftBank’s even-bigger-than-Sprint problem, WeWork. 

BT Taps Dell For uCPE Powered Managed Services

United Kingdom-based operator BT today announced that it will build out its next generation of managed services using Dell Technology’s universal CPE appliances.

Daily Roundup: MWC Cancelled

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Equinix CEO Talks Packet Purchase, Teases More Edge Services

Interconnection giant Equinix this week reported its 68th consecutive quarter of growth and said it ended fiscal year 2019 with $5.56 billion in revenue — a 10% increase over the previous year. And on a call with analysts, CEO Charles Meyers hinted that the mega data center company had more edge services in the works.

Ericsson Taps Bare Metal, AI, Dual-Mode Core for 5G

Ericsson today unveiled a series of updates to its 5G software platform, including a dual-mode 5G core with cloud-native infrastructure, an array of network services that leverage artificial intelligence (AI), and an energy management offering that claims to reduce opex and carbon dioxide emissions.

Affirmed vEPC Supports Nordic, Latin America 5G

Affirmed Networks scored a pair of operator deals this week that will see its virtualized evolved packet core (vEPC) deployed to support 4G LTE and 5G networks in parts of Finland and Latin America. It also follows a growing trend of operators digging deeper into virtualized platforms to provide new services and differentiation in the market.

Mobile World Congress 2020 has officially been cancelled

The major telecoms trade show of the year has seen officially called off due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.

Tower companies get bump from T-Mobile deal

U.S. tower companies saw some relief with Judge Victor Marrero’s approval of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, with shares rising on the news Tuesday.

US throws more mud at Huawei

US Government officials have been baiting the line of deceit for Huawei once again, this time half-accusing the vendor of maintaining backdoor entry to networks through its equipment.

New Samsung 5G phones can tap both sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday introduced its new Galaxy S20 5G lineup of smartphones, including two 5G models that are the first capable of tapping both sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave spectrum bands.

Adtran enlarges its SD-WAN roster for SMBs

Adtran has added to its portfolio of SD-WAN services for small and medium-sized businesses with the addition of its 934 SD-WAN edge platform.

Siris Capital Group wraps up deal to buy TPx Communications

Siris Capital Group announced on Wednesday that it has completed its purchase of Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) and managed services company TPx Communications.

Colt makes a FastConnect to the cloud with Oracle

Colt Technology Services is now providing dedicated, private and on-demand access to Oracle Cloud via Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect.

Verizon pegged as loser in T-Mobile/Sprint deal

As the industry considers impacts from T-Mobile and Sprint’s merger win, some analysts say it's bad news for Verizon. 

Sharma: Rule of three prevails in T-Mobile/Sprint saga

Earlier this week, the two-year-long saga of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger finally came to conclusion (Yes, some hurdles remain but it is unlikely there are any more meaningful bumps left.)

Benign brother has got your back: China launches coronavirus app

China’s government bodies and businesses have jointly launched a mobile app to help the populace self-detect if they have been in close contact with those confirmed or suspected of carrying the novel coronavirus. The app has access to private data in the hands of multiple official holders.

UPDATE: MWC Collapses - Editor's Corner

UPDATED 2:35 ET — GSMA CEO John Hoffman issued a statement, saying, "With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event."

FTC starts turning the screw on Big Tech

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued Special Orders to five of the technology industry’s biggest hitters as it takes a more forensic look at acquisition regulation.

Ofcom appoints safe pair of hands as new boss and gets new internet censorship role

Establishment figure Dame Melanie Dawes has been announced as the new Chief Exec of UK telecoms regulator Ofcom.

Telecoms.com joins the exodus from MWC 2020

The telecoms industry’s favourite news and analysis site had decided there’s no point in attending an event stripped of much of its purpose.

Samsung gets aggressive as rivals sit in 5G purgatory

With MWC 2020 quickly becoming a dud, Samsung didn’t hang around to unveil three new 5G smartphones, a foldable device and its latest earbuds.

Nokia pulls out of MWC – is that game over?

Finnish networking vendor Nokia has announced the cancellation of its presence at Mobile World Congress 2020.

Netflix is winning the streaming war – Nielsen

There might be a lot of pretenders to the video streaming crown but data from the US demonstrates one thing; no-one comes near Netflix.

5 Ways 5G Will Impact Your Life

5G is cool. It’s all the buzz these days in the tech business world and for consumers. You see it on every single telecom commercial as they race to 5G. Maybe you have heard a little bit about it and how ‘fast your cell phone will be’. I can assure you it’s much more than a faster cell phone. But what exactly is 5G and how will it impact your everyday life? Here are the top 5 ways that I believe 5G will impact your life and why it matters to you.

OPNFV Taps CNTT to Power Its Evolution

The most recent OPNFV platform release could be the last that adheres to the organization’s legacy mindset with future releases more tied into work around the burgeoning Common NFVi Telco Taskforce (CNTT).

Adtran Tackles Small Business With SD-WAN Hardware

Just a few months after Adtran leaped into the competitive SD-WAN market, the networking vendor is back with an SD-WAN appliance aimed squarely at the small to midsize business segment.

Daily Roundup: Mavenir Wins 5G Deals

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Oracle Supercharges Cloud Infrastructure With Data Science Platform

Oracle supercharged its efforts to take on cloud giants Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and today launched a data science platform that runs as a native service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Cisco’s Robbins: US Should Not Invest in 5G Companies

The U.S. government should stay out of the 5G investment business, said Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins on his company’s second-quarter fiscal 2020 earnings call.

Mavenir Lands Private 5G Network Deals in Japan, Germany

Mavenir is continuing to push its open and virtualized radio access network (RAN) offering into new markets. The Texas-based vendor today announced a collaborative effort with NEC to deliver local and private 5G networks for enterprises in Japan.

Coronavirus Kills MWC Barcelona

GSMA has canceled its flagship MWC Barcelona event for the first time in the show’s 33-year history citing ongoing concerns over possible spread of the coronavirus. The event was set to get underway on Feb. 24, but a wave of cancellations by network operators and vendors became too much for the event organizers to overcome.

Perimeter 81 Vows to Win SASE Space Race

Zero-trust networking and security startup Perimeter 81 today joined the secure access service edge (SASE) party with partner SonicWall.

It’s up to Dish to make Boost great again: Adderton

U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero may have spoken, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the fight, according to Boost Mobile founder and former CEO Peter Adderton.

Equinix joins LF Edge as premier member

LF Edge, an umbrella organization in the Linux Foundation, celebrated its one-year birthday by announcing on Tuesday that colocation and data center giant Equinix has joined as a "premier member."

T-Mobile/Sprint deal paves way for disruption: analyst

While reactions run the gamut from extreme disappointment to full-on elation, Judge Victor Marrero’s decision to allow the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile led New Street Research analysts to conclude the deal “paves the way for T-Mobile to fundamentally disrupt the U.S. wireless market.”

Report: Median broadband usage to top 250 GB per month in 2020

Driven by faster speeds, the median monthly usage by broadband customers in 2020 is on pace to surpass 250 gigabytes (GB) for the first time.

Germany set to follow UK on Huawei conundrum – report

Huawei looks to have survived another European scare as Germany closes in on a deal which would offer the company restricted freedoms, similar to the position of the UK.

Investors buy wholesale fiber firm Deutsche Glasfaser for $2.7B

Investment firms EQT Infrastructures and OMERS bought fiber-to-the-home company (FTTH) Deutsche Glasfaser from another investment company. According to Reuters, EQT and OMERS paid KKR about $2.74 billion plus debt for Deutsche Glasfaser.

Dish gets its day in the sun, becomes No. 4 US wireless carrier

As a result of today’s ruling by Judge Victor Marrero in favor of a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, Dish will enter the U.S. wireless market as the fourth nationwide facilities-based wireless network operator. The Denver-based satellite video provider has committed to deploy a 5G broadband network capable of serving 70% of the U.S. population by June 2023.

IDC: Coronavirus casts a pall on 2020 IT spend

Worldwide IT spending will increase by 5% this year, but with a few caveats, according to a report by International Data Center (IDC). For one, the coronavirus is front and center this year as businesses keep a tight grip on short-term investments.

Federal judge signs off on T-Mobile/Sprint merger

Decision day is finally here, and has landed in T-Mobile and Sprint’s favor, as the companies secured a federal court win Tuesday to combine and become a new and larger U.S. wireless carrier.  

Merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint finally gets the legal green light

The New York Federal District Court has ruled T-Mobile US and Sprint can finally go ahead and merge if they can still be bothered.

The risk reward profile for attending MWC 2020 is deteriorating by the day

Intel is among the latest major exhibitors to pull out of MWC as rapidly diminishing attendance makes the risk of coronavirus infection increasingly hard to justify.

U.S. Cellular boasts LTE-M network for enhanced IoT capabilities

U.S. Cellular has launched an LTE-M network across more than 90% of its cell sites as the carrier aims to expand current IoT capabilities.

Verizon plugs its 5G in London

The US and UK might not be on the best of terms at the moment, but Verizon has opened a London office to demo its 5G goods and draw attention from international customers.

Chinese attendance at MWC will surely be massively diminished

While the world is holding its breath gaping at the worsening coronavirus crisis, China’s leading telecom companies are already putting alternative plans in place.

AWS sues US Government for Trump hatred

Amazon has launched a legal challenge against the Department of Defense’s preference to Microsoft Azure, suggesting the decision is linked back to President Trump’s hostility towards CEO Jeff Bezos.

T-Mobile Scores Court OK to Buy Sprint

Our long national nightmare is almost over. A U.S. District judge today ruled in favor of T-Mobile US’ merger with Sprint. 

Istio Security Bug Found, Quickly Squashed

The Istio community quickly patched a “critical” security bug in its authentication policy that allowed an attacker unauthorized access to information without needing an authorized token.

Equinix Taps Oracle Exadata for Interconnection Services

Oracle said Equinix is a customer, and the colocation giant uses Oracle Exadata Database Machine to help power its global interconnection platform.

Daily Roundup: Judge OKs T-Mobile, Sprint Merger

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Verizon Broadens 5G Lab Footprint to London

Verizon has opened a 5G lab in London  in a bid to further collaborate and develop new applications for 5G. The lab, which is its first such facility outside of the United States, accentuates the stock that operators are putting in new use cases and applications that can theoretically only be delivered by 5G.

Fortinet, Amdocs Team Up to Woo SD-WAN Providers

SD-WAN and firewall vendor Fortinet today announced support for Amdocs’ orchestration platform in a bid to help service providers deploy SD-WAN and security services wherever they’re needed.

IBM X-Force to Business: Configure It Out

Cloud misconfigurations continue to plague businesses, according to IBM Security’s “2020 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index.” The company’s threat hunting team found that of the more than 8.5 billion records breached in 2019, 7 billion of those, or 86%, were due to misconfigured cloud servers and other improperly configured systems. For comparison, the 2018 report saw a 52% decrease from 2017 in records exposed because of misconfigurations.

Cloudflare inks agreement with EdgeMicro for edge deployments

Edge colocation company EdgeMicro has entered into a customer agreement with Cloudflare  that puts Cloudflare's cloud services in more than 30 EdgeMicro markets. With the agreement announced on Monday, Cloudflare is now an anchor tenant in EdgeMicro's existing Austin, Raleigh, N.C. and Tampa Bay, Fla. facilities, along with the additional 30 U.S. sites.

Industry Voices — Dish will need a retail strategy for wireless

If the T-Mobile and Sprint merger is allowed to proceed, Dish Network has plans to become a fourth major wireless provider in the United States. Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen in December committed to deploying 10,000 sites by the end of 2022 as the company builds out a nationwide network to compete with the national carriers.

CBRS auction procedures head to vote

The C-band auction grabbed most of the headlines last week, but there’s another mid-band spectrum opportunity for U.S. carriers that’s nearing the auction phase.

More companies bail on MWC

Additional companies, including Japan’s Sony and NTT DoCoMo, have announced they’ll skip this year’s MWC in Barcelona over coronavirus concerns, as GSMA meanwhile, continues to beef up health precautions.

Amazon wants Trump to testify in JEDI contract dispute—Bloomberg

Amazon is ratcheting up its dispute with the Pentagon over the decision to award the 10-year, $10 billion JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft.

Amdocs, NTT Docomo and CommScope are the latest MWC casualties

Add three more major exhibitors to the growing list of companies deciding not to risk coronavirus infection at the telecoms trade show, and they won’t be the last.

Vantage Data Centers buys Etix as part of its move into Europe

Vantage Data Centers is making a move into Europe by buying Etix Everywhere, and building five new greenfield hyperscale data center campuses.

DT reportedly tells Nokia to raise its 5G game, prompting a non-denial

A report claiming one of Europe’s biggest operator groups has demanded Nokia get its house in order when it comes to 5G has not really been refuted by either of them.

BT uncouples its 5G offering from its Halo

UK operator group BT restricted 5G to customers of its Halo convergent bundle, but just three months later it has reversed that decision.

MWC cancellations snowball as show implements strict coronavirus precautions

At least four more major participants pulled out of MWC 2020 over the weekend, while restrictions on visitors from China have been tightened.

APM & DPI: A Window to Customer Experience

Application performance management—also known as application performance monitoring—was once a relatively under-utilized tool, all but unknown outside of IT operations. All that has changed. According to Gartner Research[1], APM will monitor at least 20% of all business applications by 2021. That is an increase of more than 400% since 2018.

Daily Roundup: Coronavirus Hits MWC

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Funding Blizzard Dumps $479M on Snowflake

Snowflake has conjured another funding blizzard as the San Mateo, Calif.-based company announced a $479 million Series G financing round today on a $12.4 billion valuation. This latest round, co-led by new investors Dragoneer Investment Group and Salesforce Ventures, has more than tripled Snowflake’s previous valuation of $3.95 billion. 

Arm Unveils AI, ML Chips for IoT and Edge

Arm wants to help IoT and other embedded devices to think for themselves. Today the company unveiled two chips designed to eliminate the reliance on cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) by delivering machine learning (ML) capabilities right on the device.

MWC Barcelona Hit by Coronavirus

The mobile industry’s largest and most important annual gathering, MWC Barcelona, is starting to fall apart due to concerns over potential exposure to the coronavirus. The virus was first detected about six weeks ago in Wuhan, China, and has since spread to more than 40,650 people and claimed at least 910 lives, according to the latest figures provided by health officials.