AT&T, Verizon under investigation for possible collusion, report says

According to new reports, the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an antitrust investigation into AT&T, Verizon and others about possible collusion…

For big tech and privacy, the honeymoon is over—Industry Voices

With so many data breaches and privacy violations happening, one starts to forget who did what to how many millions of Americans.

Ericsson Hired 500 Engineers for 5G

CEO Borje Ekholm’s cost-cutting measures seem to be working. In the first quarter, the company reined in its losses and improved its gross margin.

GE rallies industries in compromise for CBRS band

General Electric and other members of the Industrial IoT Coalition said they’re willing to accept substantially reduced census-tract licensing.

WISPA, ACA cheer FCC moves in C-Band

Members of the Broadband Access Coalition are praising the FCC’s moves temporarily freeze applications for certain stations in the 3.7-4.2 GHz band.

Gen Z might stem cord-cutting losses

Research firm Cowen believes cord cutting is no longer an issue for MVPDs, and that cable-wireless convergence is inevitable.

Microsoft announces MCU built for IoT security

The internet of things has the potential to be a security nightmare. In response, Microsoft has developed a new chip and OS built for IoT security.

AT&T expands ‘5G Evolution’ to 117 new markets

AT&T announced that its 5G Evolution technology is now in parts of 117 new markets.

Ericsson’s losses narrow, North American business ramping up

Ericsson reported first-quarter results that appeared to cheer investors, sending the company’s Swedish shares up after the news.

If 5G Is Coming, Why Are Operators Touting 4G Upgrades?

Many of the big benefits of 5G, such as low latency and higher speed broadband, may not be that noticeable to consumers, analysts say.

AT&T leads in robocalls with 15.1 calls per customer in March

According to new data from YouMail, AT&T’s customers received an average of 15.1 robocalls during the month of March.

Pivotal Raises $555 Million, Makes New York Stock Exchange Debut

It claims 50 of the  Fortune 500 companies use Pivotal Cloud Foundry software.

Cloud Foundry Remains Committed, Cautious on Kubernetes

The organization plans to focus on Kubernetes, Istio, and Envoy this year, but is not about chasing a shiny ball.

Crown Castle's 5G success means more investments in fiber

Crown Castle is beginning to get the return it expected to gain from its $7.1 billion acquisition of Lightower late last year.

iconectiv Brings Device ID Expertise to the Linux Foundation

iconectiv has already created unique codes for more than 1,000 virtual network functions.

SDxCentral's Weekly Roundup — April 20, 2018

Huawei enhances its storage platform; Orange and Siemens partner on industrial IoT; Equinix completes $804 million acquisition of Metronode.

T-Mobile Touts 18,000 Containers, Supports 10,000 Transactions Per Second

That effort is supported by approximately 1,700 developers, with the carrier pushing around 30 Cloud Foundry updates per day.

Eurobites: Telia Hooks Up With Microsoft for IoT

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Tele2 flashes its green credentials; Nokia teams up with OSIsoft; media bigwig supports Fox/Sky deal.

I'm Back for the Future of Communications

Texas mop, KC smoke, Carolina vinegar – I like all styles of communications, really.

WiCipedia: A Female-Only Island, Gender Quotas & Twitter's Oprah

This week in our WiC roundup: Are quotas the answer to diversity?; women in tech on Twitter get an influx of new followers; is the tech gender gap akin to the lack of men in ballet?; and more.

In DOJ Trial, Where Are the Concerns Over AT&T Privacy Practices?

AT&T isn't being scrutinized for privacy concerns in its ongoing trial with the DOJ. Given recent Facebook revelations, maybe it should be.

Windstream's Brown on Automation: It Pays to Start Small

Windstream's Jeff Brown explains how the operator overcame challenges in testing, scaling and deploying its optical wave service, SDNow.

ZTE in Existential Crisis as It Slams 'Unfair' US Ban, Considers 'Judicial Measures'

ZTE hits back at US Dept. of Commerce's 'denial order' that bans US component firms from selling to the Chinese vendor for seven years, raises prospect of 'judicial measures' and questions its own survival.

Ericsson Takes Giant Leap Toward Profitability

Swedish equipment vendor appears to turn a corner with its best set of quarterly results since the departure of former CEO Hans Vestberg.

Dell's Software Engine, Pivotal, Climbs 5% on Its IPO

The Dell-controlled Cloud Foundry vendor has an implied value of more than $3 billion on its first day of trading as a public company.

TalkTalk Puts Network & IT Convergence to Work

The UK quad-play provider's Colin Whitbread gets closer to the edge, using automation and more.

Facebook Hearings Were the TIP of the Data Iceberg

Is Facebook a monopoly? Sure it is. Just a 21st-century monopoly, where data is king.

Comcast, Charter Hint at New MVNO Deals

A new joint operating platform owned by Comcast and Charter will support multiple MNVO partners.

O’Rielly suggests freeing up 200-300 megahertz of C-Band

FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly suggested the FCC should move to make 200, 300 or even 400 megahertz of C-Band spectrum available.

Cisco Teases SD-WAN Security Bundle

An integrated SD-WAN security product would likely involve at least three Cisco technologies: Viptela SD-WAN, Meraki network automation, and Umbrella cloud security.

Cloud Security Alliance: Multinationals scramble to meet GDPR

European Union rules protecting consumers' data go into effect next month, but only a few global companies are likely to meet the deadline.

Tracking Q1 2018 earnings in wireless

Check here for full earnings reports from the wireless industry's biggest public carriers, handset makers, equipment suppliers and others.

Cisco folds Spark into Webex

Spark never really caught fire, so Cisco is going to converge the team collaboration suite into its Webex product that enables online meetings.

Crown Castle raises 2018 outlook, small cell pipeline

Crown Castle reported first-quarter earnings largely in line with Wall Street analyst expectations.

Wireless users are increasingly eschewing Wi-Fi

According to new data from wireless monitoring company OpenSignal, mobile customers aren’t using Wi-Fi as much as they used to.

Report: Growth of 400G to be faster than expected

Increasing demand for 400G data rates and a new technology standard for simpler and more interoperable 400G equipment will fuel rapid growth.

EarthNow emerges out of stealth mode

EarthNow wants to show unfiltered views of Earth using new satellite technology.

As troubles mount, Qualcomm begins round of layoffs

Qualcomm said it has started a round of layoffs, and according to a report from Bloomberg the action will eliminate a total of 1,500 jobs in California.

McAfee CEO Warns Security Breach Fatigue Could Lead to ‘Digital 9-11’

One in four organizations using public cloud has had their data stolen, according to McAfee’s latest cloud security report.

U.S. Leads the World in the Origination of DDoS Attacks, Says CenturyLink Report

CenturyLink tracks botnets and the C2 servers they communicate with to thwart distributed denial of service attacks.

Qualcomm Slashes Up to 1,500 Jobs

Qualcomm has been caught in the crossfire between the U.S. and China, and it's impacting the company's ability to close on its NXP purchase.

Cloud Foundry Scores Alibaba Cloud Deal, Access to China

The integration provides Cloud Foundry with access to the world's No. 3 cloud provider and China-based enterprises.

6 Software-Defined Storage Companies to Watch

While the overall storage market experiences slow growth, software-defined storage is driving significant shifts in revenue. We selected six companies that are pushing the market forward.

IBM's Bouncing Back – Why the Stock Drop?

Even though IBM is turning around its long revenue decline, the stock fell hard on Wednesday.

Indian Telcos to Ramp Up Network Investment in Next 2 Years

India's telcos have announced plans for a dramatic expansion of basestation infrastructure, but the network expansion will not be without challenges.

Can Cable's IoT Dethrone Alexa?

Cable is moving into the Internet of Things (IoT) market, specifically homing in on home automation, using its advantage of existing connectivity and customers.

PCCW's Hughes: Intent-Based Networking Puts the Customer in Control

David Hughes, PCCW Global, explains how intent-based networking simplifies network provisioning and "puts the customer in control of the provisioning process."

Eurobites: Facebook Backs Out of Ireland as GDPR Jeopardy Looms

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Red Hat, Altran join Spanish 5G R&D initiative; Sky powers on; Orange pals up with Siemens for IoT; DT's Open Telekom goes hybrid.

Telecom Italia's AI Tie-Up With Microsoft May Bring Job Cuts

Telecom Italia turns to Microsoft for AI expertise after previously announcing plans to cut 'human operated interactions' by 30%.

AT&T Exec Dishes That He's Not So Hot on Rival-Partner Comcast

The trial pitting the Department of Justice against AT&T is doing a fair job of airing the pay-TV industry's dirty laundry.

The Network Edge: Where Services Go to Thrive

A major re-architecting of the network will be needed to deliver future services, as we'll discuss during the upcoming BCE 2018.

Qualcomm Cuts Jobs as It Seeks Chinese Approval for NXP M&A

Qualcomm says 1,500 job losses are part of a cost-cutting plan announced in January.

Cloud Foundry's IBM Deal Will Help Resolve Container Challenges

The Cloud Foundry platform runs on top of Kubernetes, which itself runs on IBM’s cloud architecture. It provides a level of abstraction for developers working with the container orchestrator.

Cisco’s John Stewart Calls on Security Sector to ‘Stop the Madness’

Cybercrime will be a $6 trillion business by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2016.

Adtran’s Tier 1 vectoring woes continue in Q1

Adtran continued to see the impact of slower decisions for its vectoring solutions continue into the first quarter.

TDS sees value in the FCC’s A-CAM proposal

TDS Telecom says that the FCC’s A-CAM proposal would enable it to more effectively build out a larger rural BDS customer base.

Construction Firm Replaces MPLS With CloudGenix App-Centric SD-WAN

Shawmut Design and Construction wanted to break up with its MPLS, move its infrastructure to the cloud, and reduce network costs while improving its network efficiency.

Qualcomm’s Vision Intelligence IoT Platform Features an AI Engine

The chip company’s IoT strategy includes pushing processing to the edge, instead of the cloud.

BT Merges Business & Wholesale Arms, Hints at Future Layoffs

UK incumbent bids farewell to Business and Public Sector CEO Graham Sutherland as it embarks on its latest restructuring.

Zinc Helps 'Deskless Workers' Find Their Voice

Zinc's collaboration service is designed for field service technicians, home healthcare workers, retail workers – people who don't spend their workday staring at screens.

Eurobites: Interoute Lands Major Dark Fiber Deal

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodacom offers Azure in South Africa; Facebook gets less presumptuous; EU gets tough on data; Elisa Q1 profits up.

Don't Panic: CenturyLink's McBride on Automation's Impact on Operations

Kevin McBride explains how CenturyLink's operations teams are adapting to the operator's efforts to move toward a data-driven network.

Women of Wall Street CEO Offers Discrimination Solutions

Blind hiring, raising awareness, encouraging dialogue and ending binding arbitration agreements are a few ways the industry can thwart gender discrimination, says former Wall Street executive Karen MacFarlane.

Huawei's First 5G Smartphones Will Arrive in Q3 2019

Timed to arrive as the first domestic 5G networks come online.

AT&T: Skillsets Still a Barrier to IoT Market

One of the biggest challenges AT&T's channel partners face in implementing new IoT services for their customers is an internal knowledge gap, said AT&T's Randall Porter.

Orange Hails AI Progress in 5G With IBM, Nokia

French service provider unveils details of AI research with Nokia and IBM as part of Europe's 5G-PPP initiative.

Pay-for-Play Is a Sticking Point in Congress

...in the net neutrality debate. Why, what were you thinking?

Verizon: Lack of Interoperability, Consistency Slows Automation

Verizon executive Vickie Lonker thinks both vendors and network service providers can do a better job to move forward faster.

Alibaba Goes for Cloud Foundry Gold

The Chinese cloud giant is supporting Cloud Foundry on its infrastructure and joining its Foundation as a gold member.

No More Meltdowns: Cisco and Microsoft Will Use Intel’s Silicon-Level Security

An integration with Cisco Tetration will combine platform telemetry with machine learning algorithms to improve threat detection.

FCC's Clyburn is stepping down

Mignon Clyburn is going to be leaving her post as FCC commissioner after nine years.

Google Kaniko Tool Wrenches on Container Privilege Concern

The open source tool allows for the building of a container image without providing privileged root access.

Winners and Losers After ZTE Is Banned From Buying U.S. Components

Ciena stands to be a winner because it competes with ZTE. Infinera and Nokia might benefit as well.

Microsoft’s Smith Calls for Digital Geneva Convention, Launches Cybersecurity Tech Accord

War and the battlefield themes dominated the opening keynotes at the annual RSA Conference 2018, just a day after a joint U.S. and U.K. alert warned that Russians are targeting American and British organizations’ network infrastructure devices,...

FCC BDAC adviser arrested for fraud

One of the FCC's BDAC advisers was arrested for crafting a multimillion-dollar investment fraud scheme.

Broadband Forum debuts USP standard

The Broadband Forum has put out its new User Services Platform (USP) standard.

Mirantis Launches Moonshot Based on Netflix-Developed Spinnaker

The new platform allows the company to get into the application space and diversify operations away from the increasingly competitive infrastructure space around OpenStack and Kubernetes.

Incompas calls out dangers of paid prioritization

Incompas made its case known to the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology that paid prioritization is not good for consumers.

Cisco Extends Its Intent-based Networking to IoT

Cisco expects the ratio of IT people to devices to increase from 1 to 1,000 to 1 to 100,000 in just a couple of years.

The Russians Are Targeting Internet Routers for Cyberattacks, Says Joint U.S., U.K. Alert

Cisco, itself, recently issued a warning about its Smart Install client, saying it was vulnerable to cyber attacks by nation-state actors.

Kubernetes Scores Native Support in Docker EE Alongside Swarm

The company claims its platform is the only one that can run both Swarm and Kubernetes in the same cluster.

CenturyLink says botnet attacks jumped in 2017

CenturyLink says that botnets are becoming a real-life cyberthreat to governments, businesses and consumers.

End Users Either Accelerate NFV or Drop It, Says Report

The time for researching NFV is over for some end-users who are either moving forward to the trial phase or dropping the technology, at least for the time being.

Scality Raises $152M, Talks Multi-Cloud Integration With Cisco and HPE

The SD-storage vendor will invest the funding in its multi-cloud controller software, which it plans to launch commercially later this year.

VMware AppDefense Secures Containers, Integrates With Aqua

The security product exposes an API to accept workload context from container orchestration systems.

Mirantis Has Seen the Future (Again) & This Time It's Spinnaker

Turn around bright eyes: After pivoting to Kubernetes, Mirantis is pivoting to Spinnaker.

The Telecoms.com Podcast: Mind Your Language

Legislation, automation, defamation – it's a ball of conversational confusion on this week's Telecoms.com podcast.

5G Won't Solve Everything, Warns Huawei Boss

Chinese vendor's chairman downplays 5G technology, saying it is not materially different from 4G.

ZTE Labeled Security Risk by UK Government

A UK warning that ZTE could pose a security risk in service provider networks comes at the same time US authorities ban the sale of components by US firms to the Chinese vendor.

Windstream Makes 'Waves' Within SDNow

Windstream's Jeff Brown says operators' efforts to further automate the WAN are driven by a need to compete with OTT providers.

Eurobites: Google's Nest Eyes Nokia's Withings

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Lycamobile strikes WiFi deal; French government trials home-grown WhatsApp; Com Hem profits down.

No Stopping Netflix

The Netflix juggernaut keeps on chugging.

BDAC Blowback – Ex-Chair Arrested

It doesn't help the optics when your former committee chair now faces jail time.

Verizon Closes the Loop on Virtual Services

New service bundles let customers more easily access virtual services to speed their own transformations, and will lead to self-service soon.

UK Dinosaurs Decide AI Does Not Threaten Extinction

UK authorities are not even considering the possibility that artificial intelligence could lead to mass unemployment. That is deeply worrying.

Acacia Hit Worst by ZTE Components Ban

Optical components specialist Acacia suffered a 36% share price dip following news of the ban on US companies selling components to Chinese systems vendor ZTE.

Google Pushes for More 4G CBRS Tests in Texas, as 3.5GHz Spectrum Decision Nears

Google continues on the 3.5GHz trail, as the FCC is expected to hand in a decision on the spectrum usage soon.

Could the AV1 Codec Crush HEVC?

There's a new codec on the video block and, with promises of at least 30% greater bit-rate efficiency, it might be more than just a contender to the still up-and-coming HEVC.

Pai Critic Clyburn Leaving FCC Early

Democrat and Ajit Pai critic stepping down ahead of her term's end.

At IBM, Cloud Helps Keep Turnaround Going

IBM revenue grew for the second consecutive quarter, driven in part by cloud growth, following 22 consecutive quarters of revenue decline. But Wall Street still wasn't happy.

Google, Verizon battle NCTA on OTMR

Google Fiber and Verizon have come to loggerheads with the NCTA’s one-touch-make-ready (OTMR) plan to accelerate the make-ready process.

Tracking wireline Q1 2018 telecom earnings

The first-quarter 2018 earnings reporting season has begun, and FierceTelecom is tracking how key players in the wireline telecom industry performed.

Cisco Ramps Up RSA Conference Security Services Roll Out

It added new email security services, visibility and malware protection features, and managed security offerings through IT services company ConnectWise.

Ovum: US Pay-TV Crashing but May Not Burn

In a new study, LR's sister firm projects that US pay-TV providers will continue losing subscribers over the next four years but should cope by evolving their businesses.

US Govt. Bans Domestic Component Sales to ZTE

As part of an ongoing dispute, the US Department of Commerce bans component sales to ZTE.

Cox Talks Smart City Co-Creation

Because co-creation just sounds more exciting than collaboration.

DirecTV Now Inches Toward Cloud DVR Debut

Nine months and counting to birth this baby.

Symantec Shares Its Own Internal Threat Detection Tools for Targeted Attacks

This technology uncovered last year’s Dragonfly 2.0 attacks targeting energy companies to gain access to the power grid.