Gogo assessing impact of ZTE order

Gogo is still assessing the impact of the Department of Commerce's ZTE order.

CenturyLink Plans to Lay Off 2% of Its Workforce

Union leaders lash out at CenturyLink's CEO Glen Post, but it's likely the layoffs come from former Level 3 executives who are taking over leadership of the company.

NetScout Revenue Sinks 27% in Q4 Fiscal 2018

The company also reported more downward guidance for its upcoming fiscal year, but remains optimistic about its product revenue.

Verizon’s 5G plans begin to sharpen

Verizon announced it would turn on fixed 5G services in 3-5 cities sometime in 2018. Now, the carrier’s deployment plans are getting slightly clearer.

Cable ready to kick the tires on blockchain

The cable operator industry is poised to further embrace blockchain technology this year.

Carbon Black Stock Raises $125 Million in Public Debut

The security company priced its IPO at the high end of its $17-$19 range.

ETSI previews OSM; Google bows open source for cloud—News of Note

Here are the other stories we're following today.

Verizon tops latest speed test with 20 Mbps downloads

Verizon offered the fastest average download speeds across the country, at roughly 20 Mbps, according to a new report.

CenturyLink cuts 1,000 jobs, automation a factor

Citing the merger with Level 3 and the implementation of automation across its network as key factors, CenturyLink is giving its workforce a 2% shave.

Google Cloud Swallows 300 Petabytes of Twitter Storage

Twitter runs multiple Hadoop clusters across tens of thousands of servers for storage and analytics.

Samsung Leverages Reliance Jio's LTE Success for 5G Growth

The South Korean company provided the LTE core and RAN gear for the Indian operator’s greenfield network. The scale of the network is bigger than AT&T and Verizon’s networks combined.

Spectre Next Gen Bug Hit Intel CPUs, Cisco Catches Cryptojacking Threats

Intel classified four of the new flaws as “high risk” and four as “medium,” and it's working on patches.

Arista Predicts 20% Growth for the Remainder of 2018, But Stock Drops

Arista reported excellent earnings for its Q1 2018, but Wall Street, with its insatiable appetite, is concerned the company's growth rates are slowing.

SDxCentral's Weekly Roundup — May 4, 2018

Google releases workflow creation beta; Deutsche Telekom puts 5G technology on German soil; HPE and Red Hat collaborate on containers.

40% of Americans would buy wireless from their cable provider

Results from a new survey indicate that cable companies may enjoy interest from consumers looking for good wireless deals from their current cable providers.

Oracle Cloud Drives The Factory’s Car Marketplace Into the Digital Age

The pre-owned car marketplace app sometimes processes upwards of 20,000 vehicles in a busy weekend.

San Francisco eyes CBRS trial with Nokia

The City and County of San Francisco is working with Nokia and other vendors to evaluate LTE in the CBRS band.

Virtualizing the Customer Premises

Universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) systems are growing rapidly, paving the way for new opportunities, lowered costs and increased performance overall.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Best Deal Maker

Amdocs, GTT and Viavi make our 2018 Leading Lights shortlist for best deal maker.

Will Liberty & Vodafone Strike a Deal? What Will It Mean for Headcount?

The rumor mill is still hot with talk of a European M&A deal of some sort between Liberty Global and Vodafone, and the implications for employment can't be ignored.

Virtualizing the Customer Premises

Universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) systems are growing rapidly, paving the way for new opportunities, lowered costs and increased performance overall.

Slideshow: Dell Goes to the Dogs

Canines conquer computer company's customer confab.

Eurobites: Let's Get Digital, Says Virgin, as It Culls Contact Center Jobs

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: MTN thrives in Ghana and Nigeria; Telia concerned about government snooping; and royal wedding news!!!

WiCipedia: Programmer Motivators, Affordable Childcare & All-Female Panels

This week in our WiC roundup: Chinese women hired to 'calm' programmers; diversity pays off for companies; are all-female panels good for women?; and more.

Automation, M&A Lead to 1,000+ Job Losses at CenturyLink

CenturyLink confirms plans to cut 2% of its workforce, blaming the merger and automation for the move.

BT Plans to Cut up to 6,600 Jobs – Report

UK operator will cut up to 6% of jobs according to reports as it looks to get its business back on track for investors.

Radware Reports Third Consecutive Quarter of Double Digit Growth

The company’s recent transition to a SaaS subscription model proves favorable as it reported an 11 percent increase in revenue year over year, along with several deals in the first quarter of 2018.

ONF pushes vendors into open source

Backed by its operator membership, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is continuing its effort to herd traditional telco vendors into the world of open…

Sprint: Millimeter wave spectrum is ‘important part of our strategy'

Sprint’s executives said that the carrier is interested in adding millimeter wave spectrum to its network.

Google Secures 5 Partners for Its Cloud Security Command Center

The five container-focused partners include Aqua Security, Capsule8, Stackrox, Sysdig Secure, and Twistlock.

Equinix Interconnection Revenues Jump 16% in First Quarter 2018

The data center giant also added private, direct connections to Microsoft Azure cloud services in Miami and Paris.

Cloud Provider RapidScale Offers Citrix NetScaler SD-WAN

The partnership between a cloud provider and an SD-WAN vendor allows Citrix’s technology to run on a RapidScale’s global backbone.

Rancher Labs Ties Future to Building a Car Around Kubernetes

The company launched general availability of its Kubernetes-based platform that breaks from its past reliance on Docker.

EWA, pdvWireless pitch new game plan for 900 MHz spectrum

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance and pdvWireless are asking the FCC to consider rule changes in the 900 MHz band.

Sprint Shuffles Top Management Ahead of T-Mobile Acquisition

CEO Marcelo Claure will become executive chairman of Sprint. He expects to spend a lot of time in Washington, D.C., getting regulators to approve the T-Mobile merger.

Enabling Automation With Intent-Based Orchestration & Networking

At BCE, find out how intent-based networking could be a boon to service providers' goals of simplifying their complex networks.

Telia Carrier Expands Into Mexico

Wholesale operator finds friendlier regulatory environment and growing demand for backbone services.

The Trendiest Telcos Don't Wear SOCs

You've already heard of the zero-touch network, and even the zero-person NOC. But what about the NOCless, SOCless telco?

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Security Strategy

Five companies made the finals in this competitive category of Leading Lights 2018.

Consolidated Communications Goes Cross-Country With SD-WAN

The service provider is deploying VMware's VeloCloud SD-WAN service across its 24-state market.

WiC Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Inspiring Woman in Comms

Four worthy women from the worlds of cable, the enterprise, data centers and B/OSS make our shortlist for the year's Most Inspiring Woman in Comms.

Eurobites: Cambridge Analytica Shuts Up Shop

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange backs voice-enabled AI specialist; Spotify hits bum note in first earnings report; France-IX exchange gets it on with Epsilon.

What's Left of Cisco's Love Affair With Cable?

Remember the good times.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Company of the Year (Private)

The Company of the Year (Private) title is awarded to the privately held firm that stands out from its competitors, innovates constantly, makes investors proud, and makes employees happy. Let's have a look at the finalists.

Virtual Routers Now a Reality

Advances in NFV have made it a technology that is now used by CSPs across the globe.

DT Poised for 5G Launch as Huawei Antennas Go Up in Berlin

German operator puts up 5G antennas in Berlin and now looks all set for a commercial 5G launch in the German capital.

India Approves In-Flight Connectivity, WiFi Boost

Indian authorities have approved plans for in-flight connectivity services, an expansion of WiFi hotspots and the establishment of a telecom ombudsman.

Sprint names Combes as new CEO

After just four months on the job, Michel Combes has been promoted as CEO at Sprint.

FCC kicks off 3.7-4.2 GHz comment period

The FCC is seeking comment for an upcoming report on the 3.7-4.2 GHz band.

Whatever happened to AT&T’s Digital Life?

AT&T was reported last August to be shopping AT&T Digital Life, but some analysts believe AT&T is moving away from the business.

Fhoosh Accelerator Kits Help Deploy Super-Fast Encryption Tech Even Faster

The kits are based on the company’s software, which encrypts data up to 15 times faster than standard encryption.

Juniper to ramp up SD-WAN deployments with service providers

When it comes to SD-WAN, Juniper Networks has trailed the field, but it expects to get on the revenue scoreboard with deployments later this year.

Cisco acquires an AI company but loses a software executive

Cisco feathered its artificial intelligence nest with Tuesday's announcement that it was buying privately held Accompany for $270 million.

T-Mobile raises customer growth goals for 2018

T-Mobile’s first-quarter performance largely exceeded analysts’ expectations for the period.

Virtustream Makes Security Risk Management SaaS-Y With Viewtrust

The company acquired the software when it scooped up SEIM vendor Viewtrust in 2014.

Tower execs cheer bigger, heavier MIMO antennas

Tower company executives are hoping for additional revenues from bigger, heavier MIMO antennas.

Investors Give Juniper More Time to Improve Earnings

Juniper has been quelling concerns about cloud providers' transition from MX to PTX routers. The company now says a lot of that transition is behind it, and the math starts to work in its favor in 2019.

T-Mobile’s John Legere Caters to Trump’s China Fears With 5G Ambitions

Company execs are already in Washington, D.C., meeting with the DOJ and the FCC about the Sprint merger.

CNCF, Oracle Boost Serverless Standardization Efforts

The CloudEvents draft specification provides a common platform for developers to describe serverless events. This will allow for greater portability across platforms, such as AWS Lambda and Google Cloud Functions.

An Influx of Microservices Creates New Requirements for APM, Report Says

A Dimensional Research report found that 73 percent of enterprises using microservices had application performance issues. Startups LightStep and Instana are working on APM tools to address the complexity and dynamism of these environments.

Open Source, Operators Key to ONF's New Optical Disaggregation Plan

The ODTN project has some overlap with OpenConfig and TIP, but differs from the AT&T-led OpenROADM project.

Cisco's IoT, Collaboration Head Rowan Trollope Exits to Join Cloud Startup as CEO

The news of Trollope's departure comes as Cisco announced its intent to acquire AI startup Accompany. Cisco appointed Accompany's CEO and founder Amy Chang as SVP of its Collaboration group.

NYU Wireless founder expects big appetite for mmWave spectrum

The founding director of NYU Wireless is optimistic the millimeter wave auctions this fall will attract plenty of interest.

Sprint Posts Upside Surprise as It Swaps CEOs

As Michel Combes gets ready to take over as new CEO.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Business Cloud Service

AT&T, Comcast, Orange and Telenet each bring something different to innovating in cloud services.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Cable/Video Product or Service

Cisco, Comcast, Evolution Digital, Harmonic, Huawei and Nokia make up this year's group of six Leading Lights finalists for standout cable/video products or services.

Pentagon Blocks Huawei & ZTE Phone Sales on Military Bases

It is getting increasingly hard to buy a Huawei-made smartphone in the US.

Combes in as Sprint CEO, Claure Gets Booted Upstairs

Major changes at the top at Sprint, as the company waits to see if it will be allowed to merge with T-Mobile.

The Future of 5G Fronthaul, Midhaul & Backhaul at BCE

5G requires a huge change in how network operators build their networks to accommodate wireless data. At BCE, the use of CRANs and the challenges they present will take center stage.

Arris Reports Ruckus-Raising Results

Despite lower CPE sales, Arris racks up higher revenues in Q1, thanks to stronger sales for its DOCSIS 3.1-enabled CCAP and Ruckus enterprise networking products.

ONF Cracks Open Optical Networking

Latest initiative, ODTN Project, takes aim at integrated optical networking gear with disaggregation, open source software.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Edge Computing Strategy

The envelope please...

Open Source: What Is It Good For?

The role of open source in the telecoms sector still divides opinion – and that's why we're debating it at BCE in Austin.

Virtualization Is Kicking Juniper in the Berries

The transition to white box networking could be especially painful for Juniper.

WiC Panel: Combatting Sexual Harassment in Denver

Executive Producer Janet Leahy, President of Arrow Solutions Kathy Boelter, CEO of Women of Wall Street Karen Ashworth Macfarlane and the Founder and CEO of Corporate Cowgirl Up Wendy Bohling join WiC Director Sarah Thomas in Denver to discuss ways to combat sexual harassment in the workplace, help women advance and level the playing field.

Eurobites: Nokia in Talks to Sell Digital Health Biz Back to Its Founder

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Tele2 launches MVNO in Russia; Orange gets some Israeli cybersecurity help; Swisscom's core business down.

T-Mobile, Sprint Combo Could Threaten German Digitization

If a merger between T-Mobile and Sprint falls short of its targets, it could add to the pressure on Deutsche Telekom in Germany.

Ground-Breaking Tech in Tel Aviv: LR's Israel Tour 2018

On Light Reading's annual trip to Tel Aviv, Editor-in-Chief Ray Le Maistre visited with companies preparing operators for the transformation from legacy to next-gen technologies like 5G, NFV and IoT.

T-Mobile executives change tune on fixed wireless

T-Mobile executives said that the company’s planned merger with Sprint would allow it to offer internet service to homes, offices and other locations.

Sprint still on track with VoLTE

Sprint says it's on track to commercially roll out VoLTE later this year.

Dell’s Jeff Clarke Debuts Super-Fast, Super-Smart Storage at Dell Technologies World

The new NVMe-based storage array has built-in machine learning that uses predictive analytics and pattern recognition to improve storage performance.

Dell’s Jeff Clark Debuts Super-Fast, Super-Smart Storage at Dell Technologies World

The new NVMe-based storage array has built-in machine learning that uses predictive analytics and pattern recognition to improve storage performance.

OPNFV's Fraser release focuses on cloud native integration

OPNFV is building on the foundation it has laid for integrating cloud-native into NFV with its sixth software release, which is called "Fraser."

Schoolar: Open RAN can give operators choice, if they want it

Carriers say they want more vendor choice. However, buying patterns don’t always support this.

Verizon moves toward white box edge routers

Verizon has taken the first step toward "true" white boxes that will eventually rely on merchant silicon instead of vendor-specific ASICs.

T-Mobile/Sprint odds and ends

Here are a few of the tidbits emerging from the pending T-Mobile/Sprint transaction.

Cisco Tucks Kubernetes Support Into CloudCenter, AppDynamics

Enterprises are balking at moving Kubernetes into production environments because of too many choices. It "makes them basically an open source aggregator."

OPNFV’s 6th Release Brings Testing Capabilities That Orange Is Already Using

ONAP had started to run tests for various components it was developing. But it wanted to store test results and run tests more often. Meanwhile, OPNFV had already solved that problem.

Paysafe Finds Solace in Full Mesh Connectivity From Cato SD-WAN

The online payments company said it is paying half of what it paid to have six sites outfitted with MPLS to deploy Cato SD-WAN on 14 sites at a higher bandwidth. 

Red Hat Frames CoreOS’ Picture of Managing Kubernetes Native Apps

The open source Operator Framework moves closer to automating the deployment and management of Kubernetes clusters.

Is vRAN a Natural Fit For a Linux Foundation Project?

Groups like the ORAN Forum, Cisco’s Open vRAN initiative, and TIP’s OpenRAN Group are all working to virtualize the RAN. The Linux Foundation has kept its distance, so far.

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger Preaches One Love, One NSX

During his Dell Technologies World keynote, Gelsinger detailed the company’s “vision for the future of networking.” That future looks like NSX.

T-Mobile Talks Up Its Quad Play Opportunity & Network Savings by Buying Sprint

The 'un-carrier' expects to make money with its Sprint roaming deal and the combined firm won't have to spend some $8 billion in capex because of complementary network coverage.

Juniper Reports 11% Revenue Drop, but No Surprises

As its self-driving network story takes hold, networking vendor Juniper's stock performance earned it a 'sell' rating from at least one big Wall Street analyst.

Cisco Acquires AI Firm for $270M – CEO to Head Collaboration

Accompany CEO Amy Chang replaces Rowan Trollope, who's leaving to become CEO of another company.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Outstanding Transformation Strategy, Service Provider

Colt, Intelsat and Reliance Jio are the finalists for transformation strategy in 2018, for three very different efforts.

Headcount: Ciena Makes Cuts in Global Support Group

Ciena has cut some staff from its support unit, but the company said it already warned of a multi-year transformation in that group.

CenturyLink's Feger: Why Automation Shouldn't Be an Afterthought

BCE keynoter James Feger says it's key to not only consider the operational changes that need to occur to support virtualization, but also build in automation along the way.

OPNFV Goes Cloud-Native With Fraser

Sixth software release also continues hardening of NFVi, testing and other functions to further commercialize NFV.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Outstanding Communications Technology Vision

Apstra, Cohere and Juniper are the shortlisted candidates for the outstanding communications technology vision award.

Operators Begin Initial Forays Into Machine Learning

Although most communications service providers (CSPs) in this focus group are planning to deploy machine learning by the end of this year, widespread adoption will hit barriers with service providers until machine learning applicability is proven.

Ovum Viewpoint: What's Next for WhatsApp as CEO & Co-Founder Jan Koum Resigns

WhatsApp CEO and co-founder Jan Koum has resigned following reports that he has clashed with parent company Facebook over strategy plans. This spells bad news for Facebook, says Pamela Clark-Dickson from research and consulting house Ovum.

Headcount: Ciena Cuts 75 From Global Support Group

Ciena has cut 75 staff from its support unit, but the company said it already warned of a multi-year transformation in that group.

Top 5 Drivers for Multicloud

Organizations are going to multiple public cloud providers, as well as on-premises private cloud, to meet business needs, says Kip Compton, vice president of Cisco Cloud Platform and Solutions Group.

Cisco Pushes Kubernetes to Brownfield

Adds Kubernetes support to AppDynamics and CloudCenter to integrate orchestration of legacy and containerized applications.

Eurobites: Three UK Preps for 5G With Backbone Deal

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Facebook uses delaying tactics in data privacy case; former Autonomy exec convicted of fraud; paper planes fly as Russians protest blocking of Telegram app.

VMware Takes on Cisco & Juniper With Network Vision

VMware fits recently acquired VeloCloud into a networking strategy that makes the data center one nexus for applications and data among many, stretching from the edge to the cloud.

Cisco Dumps Video Software Biz, Ends NDS Era

Private equity firm Permira is acquiring Cisco's Service Provider Video Software Solutions (SPVSS), formerly NDS, seemingly for a fraction of the $5 billion Cisco paid for it in 2012.

DOJ Makes Last Stand Against AT&T

The government has a fallback position if its strategy to block the AT&T acquisition of Time Warner doesn't succeed outright.

Signs of Fatigue Even as RJio Posts Strong Q4 Numbers

India's newest network operator has reported profits for its fiscal fourth quarter, but there are signs of a slowdown.

Dornan: Is eSIM a threat to telco operators?—Industry Voices

The adoption of consumer eSIM services/devices remains low, despite major hype.

Michael Dell Says Robopocalypse Is Fake News, Future Is Software Defined

Michael Dell told Dell Technologies World attendees to use software, data, AI, and IoT to remain relevant.

Verizon, Cisco, Juniper create single platform for edge routers

Verizon is using its software-defined networking technology, along with help from Cisco and Juniper Network, to put all of its existing edge routers for…

Virtualization could be key to T-Mobile/Sprint network plans

While there are no specifics just yet, look for virtualization to play a key role going forward as Sprint and T-Mobile combine their nationwide networks over…

A merged Sprint/T-Mobile will affect Crown Castle the most

Sprint and T-Mobile laid out a network merger plan that analysts believe will affect most of the nation’s major tower companies, mostly Crown Castle.

Analysts weigh the chances of T-Mobile/Sprint approval

Most analysts aren’t giving very good odds to Sprint and T-Mobile.

Verizon Grabs Software Control from Cisco, Juniper Routers

The company is using SDN technology to combine service edge routers for Ethernet and IP-based services. Software control will come from a single common compute platform based on x86 architecture.

ONUG Open SD-WAN Exchange Takes a Step Closer to Vendor Interoperability

The Open SD-WAN Exchange (OSE) plans to launch its service level API, which helps SD-WAN vendors talk, at the upcoming ONUG Spring 2018 conference.

Microsoft Beats AWS in Cloud Revenues for the First Quarter of 2018

Microsoft reported cloud revenues of $6 billion, while AWS reported revenues of $5.4 billion for the quarter.

John Legere’s big problem is one of timing

Time is definitely working against T-Mobile's John Legere.

Entner: Putting some context behind the T-Mobile, Sprint merger

Ultimately, the fate of this merger depends on jobs.

ETSI still figuring out role with open source

SAN JOSE, California—Members of the standards world are still trying to figure out how to work with one another.

Facebook wants further study around Project Soli waiver request

Facebook wants the FCC to study some items related to Google’s request to operate its Project Soli radars at higher power levels in the 60 GHz band.

Here’s who Xfinity Mobile is stealing customers from … and why

Which of the existing nationwide carriers will suffer the most from Comcast’s entry into the space? The answer is somewhat surprising.

AT&T files for STA to show 5G during U.S. Open in June

AT&T filed to get Special Temporary Authority to test and demonstrate 5G 4K video at the 118th U.S. Open in June.

Can the 'New' T-Mobile Make America's Networks Great Again?

A US 5G lead, more jobs and cheaper services all sound good, if not bigly, but is it all just promises right now?

Verizon Takes a Big Step Towards a Smarter, Simpler Edge

The network operator is using Cisco and Juniper boxes, but will decouple the control planes to bring business and consumer services into one edge device.

Eurobites: Telecom Italia's Genish Sets Record Straight Over Elliott

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: German cable operators could face change in network access rules; Jan Frykhammar joins Openet board; Timotheus Höttges on that merger.

T-Mobile & Sprint: Marriage Made in Hell

Consumers, industry employees and equipment vendors must all hope that regulators block a T-Mobile merger with Sprint.

Matrixx Founder Creates Her Own Culture

When Jennifer Kyriakakis didn't like the culture of the large company that acquired the business she was working for, she broke away and created her own with a focus on innovation.

Connect & Compute – Balance at the Edge

How much will it cost to add intelligence to the network edge?

What VR Video Needs to Be Real

In this interview, SES's Thomas Wrede discusses what the satellite operator has learned from its trials of VR video with SP customers.

Can AR/VR Make Real Money for SPs?

In a Big Communications Event panel, AR and VR experts will examine whether immersive media experiences offer realistic new revenue opportunities for service providers.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative NFV Deployment Strategy

Boingo Wireless and Comcast Business make the shortlist for our NFV deployment strategy award.

Massive MIMO to play role in T-Mobile/Sprint 5G

Massive MIMO will help T-Mobile and Sprint get ready for 5G while their proposed transaction gets scrutinized by regulators.

It’s official: T-Mobile and Sprint announce plans to merge

As expected, T-Mobile and Sprint announced plans Sunday to merge in an all-stock transaction.

T-Mobile to Swallow Sprint and Form 5G Powerhouse

The combined company will be worth roughly $146 billion. T-Mobile CEO John Legere will lead the new firm and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure will serve on the board.