Saturday, April 11, 2020

Money Moves: March 2020

Here are some of the most prominent venture capital and merger and acquisition news items from the past month. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s VC or M&A activity, or if you have any tips on that activity, please send the information to Sydney Sawaya (ssawaya@sdxcentral.com).
           

Friday, April 10, 2020

Rakuten’s 5G network will be built with containers

Rakuten this week commercially launched its new greenfield 4G network in Japan. But the operator is already working on transitioning its network to 5G. And it plans to use containers, rather than virtual machines, for its network functions virtualization (NFV) infrastructure as well as part of its radio access network (RAN). Some of the vendors it’s collaborating with for containers include Robin.io, Altiostar and Intel.
           

CCA blasts FCC’s rural 5G Fund eligibility maps

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday released a staff report detailing what state-by-state eligibility might look under one option for the agency’s proposed $9 billion rural 5G Fund, but the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) called the approach “extremely concerning.”
           

Thursday, April 09, 2020

Daily Roundup: Cisco Vows No Job Cuts

In case you’ve been stuck in video conference meetings all day, here are today’s top stories from SDxCentral. Also, make sure to subscribe to our daily newsletter to get these stories in your inbox.
           

AWS Adds Direct Storage to ECS, Fargate

Amazon Web Services (AWS) bolstered its Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Fargate services by providing access to its Elastic File System (EFS) platform that extends persistent data storage to containers running in the AWS ecosystem.
           

AI Surges In Response to Pandemic

Interest in artificial intelligence (AI) is surging amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The increasingly pervasive technology takes many forms, and those various applications of AI are driving increased investment in a bid to minimize the impact of the coronavirus and seek out knowledge that could lead to better testing and a vaccine.
           

Liberty Global steps up with $4M COVID-19 assistance fund

Liberty Global is putting $4 million, including $1 million from CEO Mike Fries, into an employee fund to combat the effects of COVID-19. Liberty Global announced its new Liberty Global Response Fund, which is intended to help employees and their families who have been impacted by coronavirus pandemic, on Thursday.
           

Disney+ gets off to a flier

Walt Disney executives might have believed the pieces were falling into place to a blockbuster debut, but perhaps even the biggest optimists would have failed to see this coming.
           

Wednesday, April 08, 2020

SAP Girds for COVID-19 Related Uncertainty

SAP posted an early look at its latest quarterly performance that again showed strong results from its cloud operations but noted that it expects a “significant year-over-year decrease in software licenses revenue” tied to the ongoing COVID-19 virus outbreak. The vendor also lowered its full-year guidance.
           

The Greatest Asset to Open Source is Community

Open source at its core is a reaction to the drawbacks of closed source, according to Kelsey Hightower, staff developer advocate at Google. Hightower shared his take on the open source culture during a fireside chat with D2iQ Founder and CPO Ben Hindman as part of the “Cloud Native Virtual Summit featuring Kubernetes” last week.
           

IBM Touts AI Cure to Secure Supply Woes

While enterprises around the world reel from supply chain shortages as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, IBM says artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help solve challenges now and prevent disruptions like this in the future.
           

Cradlepoint Targets Pandemic Relief With Wireless WAN Platform

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread throughout the United States, IT teams supporting hospitals and relief efforts are faced with a new challenge: how to keep critical medical staff working in pop-up clinics and converted convention centers connected. It’s a challenge Cradlepoint is addressing with the launch of its E300 series wireless WAN routers, which are designed specifically to meet this need.
           

Cisco, Altiostar and WWT team on open vRAN

Cisco, Altiostar and World Wide Technology (WWT) are working together on an open, virtual radio access network (vRAN) blueprint for service provider networks. The joint solution will help carriers deploy cloud-based vRAN systems based on technologies from Cisco and Altiostar and that will be brought to market using the sales and integration capabilities of WWT.
           

Fiber lit buildings blossom across the U.S.—report

There are more than one million commercial buildings and data centers across the U.S. that have on-net access to fiber-based network services, according to Emerging Networks Service (ENS) Fiber Plus research from Vertical Systems Group. While fiber availability increased to 64% for medium and large buildings, small building fiber growth in 2019 accounted for two-thirds of the new fiber-lit sites.
           

4 ways COVID-19 is changing mobile phone usage

It seems like we’ve all been at home forever, and there is no clear end in sight, but we all know that someday we will be able to return to most of our old routines. In addition, we may adopt some new routines that could outlast the stay-at-home orders as people start to use their phones in new ways.
           

VMware takes aim at SASE play with major product enhancements

VMware is aligning various elements of its portfolio to be a major player in the SASE (secure access service edge) sector. Last year Gartner coined the SASE term and positioned it as the unification of enterprise access security initiatives and WAN networking platforms, including SD-WAN.
           

T-Mobile doubled capacity, speeds in days with borrowed spectrum

T-Mobile deployed additional 600 MHz spectrum in two days after getting it on loan from Dish Network and others amid the COVID-19 crisis, according to analysis by Opensignal. This doubled capacity and 4G LTE speeds in major markets, showing a successful example of collaboration within and between the wireless industry and government during the pandemic.
           

Lowenstein: Coronavirus impact on 5G

Wireless networks have performed admirably during this challenging time. Credit is due to senior leadership, and gratitude is due to front-line workers across the ecosystem. There has been agility and outside-the-box thinking from both the private and public sectors, which I hope carries over to the much-anticipated ‘beyond coronavirus’ era.
           

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Rakuten Mobile Delivers Its Virtualized Reality

Rakuten Mobile’s fully virtualized greenfield network running on cloud native and open radio access network (RAN) technology is live. The commercial launch, which was achieved two years after the Japanese government allocated spectrum to the ecommerce juggernaut, marks the world’s first network-wide deployment of its kind.
           

HPE Readies $2B in Loan Relief for Enterprises

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) today committed to make more than $2 billion in financing available to its customers that are strapped for cash amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The move could boost purchases of HPE’s hardware and software in the short term, and thereby lessen the virus’ drag on its 2020 outlook.
           

VMware Claims SD-WAN Dominance Over Cisco

VMware today said it now has more than 15,000 Virtual Cloud Network customers, including 89 of the Fortune 100 and eight of the top 10 telecommunication operators. Specific to SD-WAN, which is one piece of the virtual networking stack, more than 225,000 branch offices have deployed VMware’s SD-WAN, said Tom Gillis, SVP and GM of VMware’s Networking and Security Business Unit. “We are the No. 1 vendor in SD-WAN,” Gillis said.
           

Microsoft-Led KEDA Project Served Into CNCF

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) adopted the Kubernetes-based event-driven autoscaling (KEDA) platform that was developed by Microsoft and Red Hat as a “Sandbox” project within the open source organization. The move adds another serverless-focused component under CNCF’s purview.
           

Traditional mobile backhaul won’t suffice for 5G

The transport infrastructure for 5G is just as important as the other elements of the 5G network, and transport technologies are having to be updated for this next generation of wireless. Shane McClelland, VP of transport products at Ericsson North America, says that the way mobile backhaul has been handled up until now, won’t suffice in the 5G era.
           

AT&T lines up $5.5B loan and touts supply chain

AT&T took a few measures on Tuesday to assure customers and investors that all was relatively well in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. The telco announced it has struck a deal for a $5.5 billion term loan agreement with 12 banks, and that its supply chain was in good order.
           

COVID-19 broadband usage starts to plateau—OpenVault

Broadband usage in areas that have been under quarantine policies due to COVID-19 may have reached their peak, according to OpenVault. OpenVault, which collects cable subscribers' usage behaviors and puts them into data sets, said on Tuesday that rapid growth levels in those areas were starting to taper off.
           

Verizon Business keeps enterprises' connected in face of COVID

Verizon Business has ramped up its efforts to keep its global enterprise customers up and running during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Verizon's network has been up to the task of serving entire work forces conducting business out of their homes, Verizon Business has taken numerous steps to make sure its services still function at a high level.
           

Small Cell Forum enables mix-and-match small cell components

The Small Cell Forum (SCF) today published new specifications to enable small cells to be constructed piece-by-piece using components from different vendors. And it also published new APIs to assist in the management of smart antennas and for small cells to “listen” to each other.
           

SASE vendor Cato Networks reels in $77M in funding

Cato Networks has added $77 million to its war chest as it takes on the large telcos and other service providers in the SD-WAN sector. With the latest round of funding, Tel Aviv, Israel-based Cato Networks has raised a total of $200 million.
           

Monday, April 06, 2020

AT&T Hints at COVID-19 Related Job Cuts

Telecom giant AT&T scored a new $5.5 billion loan but hinted at possible operational cuts that could include more job losses as it sets itself up to ride out the current COVID-19 related economic uncertainty.
           

Cloud Foundry Changes Captains, Keeps Sites on Kubernetes

The Cloud Foundry Foundation (CFF) has changed leadership with CTO Chip Childers taking over the executive director position from Abby Kearns. The move also comes with an increased focus by CFF on integrating the Kubernetes ecosystem into the Cloud Foundry stable of curated platforms.
           

Cato Networks SASE Play Attracts $77M Funding Round

Secure access service edge vendor (SASE) Cato Networks today announced it had secured $77 million in its latest and largest funding round to date. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Aspect Ventures, Greylock Partners, Singtel Innov8, U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), and the company’s founder and CEO Shlomo Kramer, who has contributed to the past two rounds.
           

Networks could see home internet traffic stay high after crisis

A few months ago, when the first news came out of China about the coronavirus crisis, who could have imagined all the dominoes that were about to fall? Whole industries such as airlines, restaurants and retail have practically ground to a halt in many places around the world. Conversely, demand in the telecommunications industry has spiked with so many people working and learning from home. And these societal shifts may continue even after this crisis has passed.
           

GSMA: No link between 5G and coronavirus

U.K. operators and government officials condemned acts of violence by those wrongfully linking 5G to COVID-19 after vandals set fire to the very infrastructure that is keeping people connected during the pandemic.
           

Everstream pockets $342.5 million in debt financing

In order to help fuel its fiber ambitions in the Midwest, Everstream announced on Monday it has secured $342.5 million in debt financing from nine banks. Cleveland-based Everstream will use the financing to accelerate its 2020 growth strategy, which includes expanding to five new markets while adding more fiber in the existing markets it serves.
           

As bankruptcy looms, Frontier laments lack of fiber

As Frontier Communications charts a course to a bankruptcy filing next week, the company regrets not spending more on fiber network upgrades. In a regulatory filing on March 27, Frontier Communications outlined a restructuring plan that included filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 15. Frontier, which is saddled by a $17.5 billion debt load, also said its restructuring would include reducing its debt load by $11 billion.
           

Covid-19 shutdown is wreaking havoc on 5G deployments

Wireless networks have never been more important than they are today as millions of Americans honor stay-at-home orders by working and studying at home. But there are some signs that these critical Covid-19 measures are putting strains on local governments and that in turn is causing delays in 5G infrastructure permits.
           

Sunday, April 05, 2020

Daily Roundup: Cisco Buys Backhaul Vendor

In case you’ve been stuck in video conference meetings all day, here are today’s top stories from SDxCentral. Also, make sure to subscribe to our daily newsletter to get these stories in your inbox.
           

Cisco Snatches Fluidmesh for On-the-Move IoT Backhaul

Cisco today announced plans to acquire Fluidmesh Networks, a wireless backhaul vendor specializing in high speed and widely distributed environments, including mass transit, industrial IoT, ports, mines, and factories. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Cisco said it expects the acquisition to close before the end of the year, bolstering its IoT business. 
           

IBM CEO Throws Down Hybrid-Cloud Challenge

IBM’s big leadership change went into effect today, with Arvind Krishna taking over the computing giant as CEO and throwing down a hybrid-cloud challenge for the organization. That challenge will rely heavily on IBM’s Red Hat business unit, which also received a new leader.
           

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