Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative 5G Technology

We pick out the cream of the crop in the ever-expanding world of 5G technology.

Trump Tweets on ZTE… And Gives The Chinese Vendor a Lifeline!

US President cites loss of Chinese jobs as key reason for a reprieve... but US jobs were at risk too.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Mobile/Wireless Product or Service

Gigabit LTE, faster fixed wireless, AI and more all shine in this mobile product shortlist.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Outstanding Digital Enablement Vendor

The shortlist for the Outstanding Digital Enablement Vendor category features ten impressive contenders.

DARPA project to examine terahertz for wireless

ComSenTer researchers will build devices and systems as high as 500 GHz.

Sharing in 5.9 GHz band gets renewed focus

The Wi-Fi community is encouraged by efforts at the FCC to free up more unlicensed spectrum by re-examining the 5.9 GHz band.

The top 7 carriers

The first-quarter earnings season is now closed, so it's time to see how the nation's top wireless carriers stacked up against each other in terms of…

Culture and vision are at the heart of BT's job cuts

If you're looking for the reasons behind BT slashing its workforce by 13,000 jobs, start with company culture and vision.

Ericsson widens lead over Nokia in U.S. equipment market: analysts

Ericsson widened its lead over Nokia in the North American mobile infrastructure market during the first quarter, according to the analyst team at Dell'…

AT&T’s LTE network to support out-of-sight flying in drone tests

AT&T confirmed it is working with both the city of San Diego and the commonwealth of Virginia to support major tests of drone technology.

Verizon funds new ‘Visible’ provider offering $40/month unlimited

Visible is a new wireless service provider offering $40-per-month unlimited service, with data throttled at 5 Mbps and video at 480p.

BT's McRae: Machine learning drives automation, AI

There's a lot of buzz about artificial intelligence being a game-changer for the telecom industry, but machine learning is paving the way for now.

AT&T admits to ‘big mistake’ in hiring Michael Cohen

AT&T’s CEO said that hiring President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen as a consultant was a “big mistake.”

Symantec Cops to Internal Investigation, Sends Stock Crashing 35%

The mysterious probe isn’t related to a breach or any security concern about its products.

SDxCentral's Weekly Roundup — May 11, 2018

Oracle spreads AI across the cloud; Nokia makes successful 5G call in France; Cisco completes $270 million purchase of AI company.

NTT DoCoMo Moves Toward 5G by Updating Existing Base Stations

NTT DoCoMo and NEC also trialed data transmission between a 5G base station and a 5G mobile station using a car moving at 189 mph.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative IoT/M2M Strategy (Service Provider)

Providing IoT connectivity for service provider means scalability and flexibility for entrants in this new category.

AT&T CEO Apologizes for Cohen Kerfuffle

AT&T calls the Cohen association a ‘mistake’ as its head lobbyist resigns.

AT&T's Arnoldi: 5G Does More Than Quench the Need for Speed

During her keynote at BCE next week, AT&T's Melissa Arnoldi will address how AT&T's SDN and virtualization strategy will be critical to delivering the capabilities businesses and consumers are anticipating with from 5G.

Tivo's Done With Hardware

Dry those tears.

Machine Learning & AI Take Aim at Network Complexity, Customer Experience

Next week at BCE, we'll look at some of the ways machine learning and AI will help operators make the customer experience better, without driving up the cost of network operations.

Photos: Red Hat Gets Hot & Sweaty

Enterprise container support, partnerships with Microsoft and IBM, and an alarming lack of baked goods and non-dairy coffee whiteners were highlights of Red Hat Summit.

Eurobites: ADVA & Friends Claim Free-Space Optics Breakthrough

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Amdocs reports fiscal Q2; BT to pay £120 million to Phones 4u administrators; ex-boss of Cambridge Analytica hauled before UK MPs.

BT Kicks Off 5G Campaign With Plans for 2019 Launch

UK incumbent says it plans a commercial launch of 5G in the next 18 months and will focus initially on enhanced mobile broadband offerings.

Microsoft & IBM Partner With Red Hat: Why You Should Care

Not just the usual partnership happy clappy – the deals are a big step to moving containers and Kubernetes into the enterprise.

WiCipedia: Beyond Brotopia, Huggle's All-Female Team & Diversity Ratings

This week in our WiC roundup: What's beyond Brotopia?; blockchain diversity is a priority; all-female teams; and more.

Vanu-HFCL Wins $86M Deal From BSNL

BSNL teams up with Vanu to bring connectivity to rural parts of India.

Protego Scores $2M in Seed Funds to Target Serverless Security

A recent report found 21 percent of open source serverless projects contained at least one critical vulnerability or misconfiguration.

CenturyLink SD-WAN revenues blossom in Q1

While CenturyLink's SD-WAN revenue increased by 45% in the first quarter, MPLS remained a much bigger cash cow.

Details emerge about how AT&T sought information on Trump

AT&T's payments to Michael Cohen highlight how AT&T’s top management sought to navigate Trump’s surprise election.

FCC tees up 2.5 GHz EBS spectrum reforms

The FCC didn’t deliberate long as it voted unanimously to contemplate ways to put mostly fallow 2.5 GHz spectrum to use for things like 5G.

CenturyLink still on the fence about fixed wireless

CenturyLink executives said that the company is still testing fixed wireless technologies.

ZTE Ban May Spell Trouble for Chinese Operators and 5G

Many Chinese service providers are reliant upon ZTE’s optical gear for their transport networks and backhaul. And switching to another vendor is not that easy.

Investors Purge Infinera Stock on Price War Concerns, Ignore Q1 Results

One analyst said Ciena was the source of the current price war in the optical networking space.

Istio and Envoy: Hot Topics Among Enterprise IT and Cloud Execs

With service-mesh technologies, such as Envoy and Istio, web services can effectively talk to each other and become building blocks to create applications.

Struggling BT to Axe 13,000 Jobs, Shutter London HQ

The telecom will cut costs and employees as it attempts to evolve its legacy networks and fend off regulatory impact.

Google Gobbles Up Cloud Migration Startup Velostrata

The software moves workloads between on-premises data centers and the cloud, and allows customers to automate where their data lives.

Industry Voices—Doyle: Server options abound for service providers

Communications servers power deployment of NFV and other virtualized applications in the telecom market. Where do they best fit within the network?

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

The shortlist for the Company of the Year (Public) category features eight impressive contenders.

Altice USA Rolls Out Uber Set-Tops

Altice USA deploys first 100,000 home entertainment hubs in NYC metro area and plans to launch box in former Suddenlink territories throughout the spring and summer.

5G in the USA: A Post-M&A Update

Light Reading maps out 5G and what a T-Mobile and Sprint merger might mean in 5G terms.

Apcela's AppMon Takes Aim at Enterprise Application Performance

AppMon is a software-defined monitoring and network telemetry tool which tracks network and application performance for enterprises, and also integrates with Cisco SD-WAN.

Network Intelligence & Automation in Mergers & Migrations

Light Reading's Editor-in-Chief, Ray Le Maistre, sits down with Sedona Systems CTO Ori Gerstel to discuss how service providers are speeding up their success in various types of network mergers and migrations, enabled by network intelligence and automation via NetFusion.

FCC Nixes Net Neutrality Rules on June 11

Meanwhile, advocates in the Senate continue waging a public fight to keep net neutrality rules in place.

BT's Patterson May Be Running Out of Time

Talk of digital transformation and investment in higher-speed networks fails to impress shareholders after the UK operator unveils plans for 13,000 job cuts.

Eurobites: Western Europe Falls Out of Love With Smartphones

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: TIM does deal with Mediaset; Iskratel helps with Tier 1 network upgrade; Apple abandons Irish data center project; Finnish gamers try out 5G.

Disney Digs Deeper Into Hulu Hole

Or is it a Foxhole?

Amadeus Flies With Open Source

The IT solution provider for the travel industry uses Red Hat OpenShift for business agility and to avoid cloud lock-in.

BT to Slash 8% of Jobs in Efficiency Drive

UK operator will cut thousands of jobs in middle management and back-office functions as it looks to boost earnings and prepare for a new round of network spending.

KT prepares to commercialize autonomous vehicles with a 5G platform

KT hosted the inaugural meeting of the '2018 Future Forum' in Seoul last month, and announced the development of the 5GaVP (5G as a Vehicle Platform), a commercial self-driving platform using the innovative 5G technology demonstrated and proven in Pyeongchang.

SK Telecom to Acquire ADT Caps

SK Telecom announced that its Board of Directors held a meeting on May 8th and resolved to acquire 100 percent stake (worth KRW 1.276 trillion) in ADT Caps with Macquarie.

DoCoMo claims 5G first in 28 GHz field trial

DoCoMo says it achieved a 28 GHz wireless data transmission between a 5G base station and a 5G mobile station using a car moving at 305 km/h.

NFL getting into the CBRS game

CBRS may be getting a starring role during NFL games. Or, at least, enabling the stars to communicate.

Cycle Pedals Bare Metal Container Orchestrator as Kubernetes Alternative

The barebones platform is available through Packet's bare metal compute, network, and storage resources.

The Sphere unveils blockchain ecosystem for carriers

The Sphere is using blockchain to tackle commercial inefficiencies, operational challenges and financial threats across the telecom industry.

Headcount: The Latest in Hirings, Firings, and Retirings — May 9, 2018

Orange Business Services names a new CEO; Andy Elder becomes Riverbed’s new chief sales officer; and a former Coriant CEO returns.

New Relic Boasts 34% Revenue Increase in Fiscal Q4 2018

The monitoring company’s four-year-old enterprise business continues to grow based on new innovations, customer wins, and integrations.

BT tunes up white boxes; looks at cloud-native deployments

BT is banking on white boxes to fuel disaggregation on its network while working toward cloud-native and container deployments.

Utilities to FCC: Don’t mess with our spectrum

A trade group is urging federal agencies to make sure that power and electricity providers retain control of interference-free spectrum.

ZTE Shutters Operations in Response to U.S. Trade Ban

The Chinese firm has halted all manufacturing in its factory after being banned from using components made in the U.S. for the next seven years.  

Facebook Hops on the Blockchain Bandwagon

A small team within the company will look at how to incorporate the distributed ledger technology.

Nutanix Adds SDN, Multi-Cloud Management to Software Stack

The company rolled out its first PaaS and SaaS products at its .NEXT conference.

Verizon regains advertising lead in April from AT&T

Verizon outspent its rivals in terms of TV advertising during the month of April, according to advertising measurement company iSpot.

Microsoft requests STA for restoration efforts in Puerto Rico

Microsoft applied for a Special Temporary Authority (STA) to support restoration efforts in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative NFV Product Strategy

The shortlist for the Most Innovative NFV Product Strategy category features 12 impressive contenders.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Outstanding Test & Measurement Vendor

The shortlist for the Outstanding Test & Measurement Vendor category features nine outstanding contenders.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Outstanding Components Vendor

The shortlist for the Outstanding Components Vendor category features five strong contenders.

Telstra's Networks for the Future

The Aussie operator is trying to reinvent itself, and its network-as-a-service is a vital piece of the transformation puzzle.

Telstra's Networks of the Future

The Aussie operator is trying to reinvent itself, and its network-as-a-service is a vital piece of the transformation puzzle.

DT CEO to Fight Vodafone-Liberty Deal

German operator's boss slams Vodafone's takeover deal with Liberty as anticompetitive and indicates he will put up a fight.

Red Hat Pushes Serverless, Locks Horns With Amazon & Google

Red Hat is painting a target on Amazon on Google and streamlining application development, with support for serverless computing.

Telstra's Network of the Future

The Aussie operator is trying to reinvent itself, and its network-as-a-service is a vital piece of the transformation puzzle.

New Service Providers Powered by SDN, AI, Aim for Fast, Simple Service Delivery

PacketFabric and Netrolix represent a wave of new network operators able to leverage SDN and AI technologies to deliver services without long commitments or complicated contracts.

ZTE Ceases Business Operations After US Ban

Chinese vendor's survival now looks at stake after US authorities banned it from buying US components last month.

Liberty Stages European Retreat

On their Q1 earnings call, Liberty Global officials explain their rationale for selling off German, Czech, Hungarian and Romanian cable assets to Vodafone.

The Telecoms.com Podcast: Analyze This

Scott and Jamie are joined by Heavy Reading's Gabriel 'Microphone Abuser' Brown to discuss the T-Mobile/Sprint deal, 5G and more.

WiC Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Female Tech Pioneer of the Year

Heavy hitters in cable, open source and optical networking make up the five women who are shortlisted for the Hedy Lamarr-inspired Female Tech Pioneer of the Year category.

Nutanix Busts Out to Hybrid Cloud

The hyperconverged infrastructure vendor is expanding into software-defined networking, database provisioning and multicloud cost controls and compliance.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative SD-WAN Product Strategy (Vendor)

Cisco, Huawei Technologies, LiveAction, Nuage Networks, VeloCloud by VMWare and Versa Networks emerged as the top contenders for delivering the most innovative SD-WAN product/platform during the past year.

AT&T Confirms Payments to Trump Lawyer's Shell Company

AT&T says that it was looking for 'insights' into the then-new Trump administration.

Why Telcos Need an Elastic Services Platform

ECI's ELASTIC Services Platform takes networking solutions to the next level, allowing service providers to concentrate on launching new services and driving new revenue streams.

Eurobites: Most EU States Still Not Ready for GDPR

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Virgin Media revenue up, but its Welsh workers aren't smiling; Telecom Italia hasn't heard the bad news; Openet and MDS do a deal.

Vodafone Pounces on Liberty Cable Assets in €18.4B Deal

Takeover would threaten Deutsche Telekom's fixed-line dominance in Germany and make Vodafone a much stronger force in other eastern European markets.

Embattled ZTE Files Appeal Over Export Ban

Chinese vendor says export ban will damage a large number of US companies.

Dish Network Slings Up More Losses

Dish Network reports more overall pay-TV subscriber losses in the first quarter despite continued gains by its OTT skinny-bundle service, Sling TV.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Automation Strategy

The shortlist for most innovative automation strategy features six very strong entries from some of the world's biggest operators.

CA Technologies To Cut 800 Jobs As Company Shifts Business Model

The company said that it is consolidating the number of its offices and letting go of employees that don't have the right skill sets.

Customer Hack Leads IBM, Red Hat to Combine Cloud, Container Support

IBM’s Cloud Private management layer can be deployed directly on top of OpenShift. This will also provide IBM’s middleware with access into that new infrastructure.

NetApp Partners With Google, Ups the Ante in its Cloud-Connected Game

Analysts praised the company for its ongoing effort to transition from a traditional storage vendor to a cloud data services company

Off-Premises Cloud Services to Reach $374B in 2022, Says IHS

In 2017 Amazon led the IaaS market with 41 percent of revenue, while Microsoft topped the list for PaaS with 26 percent of revenue, according to IHS Markit.

Dish’s Ergen: Don't expect 'big profits' initially from NB-IoT network

Dish's Charlie Ergen set modest expectations for the company’s initial efforts: "You shouldn’t expect that we would make big profits on that on Day…

ONUG Members Aren’t Very Interested in OpenStack, But They Are Interested in Multi-Cloud

While OpenStack is widely used by service providers, ONUG's enterprise members are dealing with a different ecosystem with different issues, such as thousands of applications.

Samsung designs 5G from ground up with virtualization in mind

The 5G network is being designed with virtualization in mind—not just in the core but all the way into the radio, according to Samsung's Alok Shah.

The battle lines are being drawn in T-Mobile/Sprint merger

The brewing fight over T-Mobile’s proposed merger with Sprint is getting clearer, with sides forming in support of—and opposed to—the transaction.

Intel and Packet Give Open Source, Commercial Software Projects Free Infrastructure Access

Developing software on Optane hardware reduces transaction costs for latency-sensitive workloads and increases scale per server.

Apcela Launches Network Telemetry and Monitoring Agent

The agent AppMon's sensors are pervasively deployed in a host environment to generate precise granular performance measurement, impairment detection, and anomaly detection.

Barefoot Networks Sees Programmable Switching Potential for 5G

By making switching smarter, operators can lower latency and increase bandwidth.

BT's McRae: Service models and automation are transformational

NFV is unimpressive for most of what BT is trying to do with its networks, but common service models and automation are truly transformational.

Microsoft Touts 10x Increase in Kubernetes Usage on Azure Cloud

The latest round of Azure Kubernetes Service updates include the new name and general availability in the coming weeks.

CBRS Alliance launches OnGo certification program

The CBRS Alliance is launching the OnGo brand and a new OnGo certification program to support the 3.5 GHz ecosystem in the U.S.

Arista Networks Enters Campus Switching Market

Arista is also working with HPE’s Aruba and VMware as part of its foray into the campus. This is an area where Cisco dominates.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Telecoms Product

The shortlist for the Most Innovative Telecoms Product (Optical/IP/Carrier Ethernet/FTTH) category features 12 impressive contenders.

Telco Foe, New York AG Resigns

Allegations of physical assault led New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to resign Monday night.

Red Hat Beefs Up OpenShift Automation, Based on CoreOS Acquisition

Red Hat is enhancing automation for 'Day 2' operations on its OpenShift cloud platform, based on technology acquired with CoreOS in January.

MacNeil Brings Wholesale Swagger Back to FiberLight

Veteran telecom exec will 'rebalance' the company to give more emphasis to the market for content, mobile backhaul and DCI.

Red Hat Partners With Microsoft & IBM for Hybrid Cloud Power

Partnerships with two of the biggest public cloud providers strengthen Red Hat's hybrid cloud portfolio.

CBRS LTE Gets Branded as 'OnGo'

...as the industry waits for a final FCC decision on 3.5GHz spectrum usage.

Eurobites: MegaFon Forms Joint Venture for Blockchain & More

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telefónica automates the network; Nokia and SFR trumpet 5G New Radio breakthrough; Proximus launches NB-IoT network for smart meters.

Collaboration Is Key Ingredient in Predictive Analytics & Network Automation

Every network operators business case is different but what remains true is that combining the disciplines needed to get value from data requires a very collaborative organization.

Comcast Seeks $60B Loan for New Fox Bid – Report

Cable giant may try to scupper the deal between Fox and Disney with new financing facilities but has apparently indicated it will make a bid only if AT&T's planned takeover of Time Warner gets regulatory approval.

Telecom Italia Names Genish CEO After Boardroom Battle

After Vivendi loses control of the Telecom Italia board to US hedge fund Elliott, Amos Genish is confirmed as CEO.

Freedom From Lock-In Drives Cloud Foundry

Cloud Foundry users demand flexibility and interoperability, even where Cloud Foundry isn't the answer.

Masergy Picks Bitglass Cloud Security Tech for Managed CASB Service

The managed security service provider tested Netskope’s and McAfee Skyhigh’s technology before choosing Bitglass.

T-Mobile has highest CEO-to-worker pay ratio

How much is a good CEO worth? Due to new legislation, companies must now report the ratio of the CEO's pay to median employee pay.

Matt Grob, a top Qualcomm executive, departs company

Qualcomm’s Matt Grob has left the company. Grob was Qualcomm’s EVP of technology and was a member of Qualcomm’s executive committee.

AI, ML pushing cloud services market to $374B by 2022

Cloud service providers are looking to grow their market share by offering specialized compute integrations, according to a new report.

Nokia increases IoT value with purchase of AI company SpaceTime

Nokia announced it acquired SpaceTime Insight, a startup that provides predictive analytics based on machine learning algorithms.

Verizon, AT&T show surprise increase in network spending in Q1

Both Verizon and AT&T spent more on their networks in the first quarter than some Wall Street analysts had expected.

Samsung applies new RF planning tools to mmWave

Samsung developed its own RF planning tools to evaluate propagation characteristics of millimeter wave spectrum.

Telefónica blends SD-WAN infrastructure with data center architecture

Spain's Telefónica is working on interoperability between its SD-WAN service with its virtualized data centers.

Aqua Security Sprinkles Support Over CRI-O Kubernetes Runtime Platform

CRI-O was launched as a lighter alternative to using Docker as the runtime for Kubernetes.

HPE Says Software Is Nimble Storage’s ‘Secret Sauce’

Nimble platforms now support Storage Class Memory (SCM) and NVMe for super-fast, low-latency flash storage.

Nokia Snaps Up IoT Energy Startup SpaceTime

SpaceTime’s CEO Rob Schilling, a former general manager at SAP, will join Nokia’s IoT unit.

Telefónica Extends Its Nokia Nuage SD-WAN Infrastructure to Include SDDC

The service provider is using a single platform from Nokia's Nuage to enable end-to-end automation between its WAN overlay service and its data center overlay service.

Windstream peels back curtain on its fixed wireless deployments

Windstream is in the process of deploying Radwin’s fixed wireless equipment in two states covering thousands of potential customers.

Apple presses for more unlicensed spectrum

Apple is urging regulators to include more unlicensed spectrum bands in their plans for bands above 95 GHz.

T-Mobile eyes spectrum above 95 GHz for 5G backhaul

T-Mobile said adoption of rules for spectrum above 95 GHz will facilitate backhaul for 5G.

Mesosphere Scores $125M in Funding to Target IoT, Geo Expansion

The latest funding round pushes the company's total haul to nearly a quarter-billion dollars since its founding in 2013.

Telcos Push to End the Great Unbundling

Regulatory rate-setting is so 2016.

America: A Tale of at Least Two 5Gs

City kitty, country mouse or some other creature? The early 5G strategies in the US will either favor short-range speed or long-range coverage, but likely both on the same network.

Interconnections & the Escape From New York

Exchange and interconnection companies point to avoiding 'pinch points' and creating greater diversity than traditional carrier hotels.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative Gigabit/FTTx Service

With more rapid and aggressive gigabit deployments to residential customers over the past 12 months, Most Innovative Gigabit/FTTx Service was a competitive Leading Lights category.

Samsung Gets FCC Go-Ahead to Bring Verizon 5G to Sactown

Samsung says its 28GHz 5G system is ready for commercial use in the US.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative IoT/M2M Strategy (Vendor)

Amazon Web Services, Huawei Technologies, Nokia, Nordic Semiconductor and Verimatrix are transforming how we live and work.

Leading Lights 2018 Finalists: Most Innovative SD-WAN Service

AT&T, Telus, GTT and more made the shortlist for 'Most Innovative SD-WAN Service,' awarded to the company that has launched the most innovative SD-WAN service for enterprise and/or small or midsized corporate users during the past year.

Mobile Merger Changes Cable Calculus

The Sprint/T-Mobile deal complicates the cable MVNO universe.

Remember the Headend

Because the headend, not the outside plant, is where cable operators can really begin the distributed network transformation.

Where Does VR Go From Here?

SVA's Jason Thibeault discusses the state of VR technology and business cases, the market hurdles and the direction he sees the industry heading.

Mesosphere Scores $125M in Hot Multicloud Orchestration Market

$125 million will help Mesosphere stay cool as the multicloud orchestration market gets hotter and more competitive.