Social media censorship is a public concern and needs a public solution

With much of public discussion now taking place on the three main social platforms the time has come to take editorial control away from their owners.

US official overseeing country’s frequency strategy has resigned

David Redl, heading National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), responsible for the US’ strategy on frequency and 5G, abruptly resigned from his post.

The new Emergency Services Network is a predictable mess

The National Audit office has delivered a scathing assessment of the UK’s latest public project failure.

UK and Latin America gave Telefónica a steady Q1

Telefónica’s otherwise flat quarter was bolstered by strong performance in its UK and Latin America South units, which delivered 5.3% and 15.2% organic growth rates, taking the group level growth rate to 3.8%.

How Dell Technologies Aims to Unlock New Revenue for Telcos

Will new networking services and capabilities delivered by 5G lead to greater revenue for network operators? Dell and its telco customers sure hope so.

Symantec CEO Abruptly Resigns Amid Financial Turmoil

The company seemed to be on the verge of a turnaround with its enterprise security business, but that came crashing down this week amid disappointing Q4 earnings, plunging stock prices, and Greg Clark’s departure.

3 Stories That Take Big Data and AI Beyond the Buzz

From monitoring microservices to managing large volumes of data for modern applications to running analytical workloads, these companies are infusing AI and data into their offerings.

F5 Networks sticks a fork in $670M deal to buy NGINX

F5 Networks Thursday announced it had completed its $670 million deal to buy NGINX.

Ericsson and DT manage 100 Gbps over microwave

A trial of wireless backhaul over microwave jointly conducted by Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson has managed to top the 100 Gbps mark.

SAP Prefers AWS, Azure, Google Kubernetes Distros

“We will not offer Kubernetes as a service,” said SAP's Dan Lahl, adding that, “We will work with the hyperscalers to run their Kubernetes deployments.”

Ericsson, Deutsche Telekom achieve 100 Gbps over microwave link

The trial follows an earlier test conducted by the two companies in late 2018 that achieved 40 Gbps over a millimeter wave link.

Digital Realty notches AWS Direct Connect Service Delivery designation

Data center and colocation vendor Digital Realty announced it has achieved AWS Service Delivery Designation for AWS Direct Connect.

North American smartphone market hits 5-year low: report

The slump comes after smartphone shipments hit a record high in the first quarter of 2018, according to research firm Canalys.

Verizon cybersecurity report: Telcos need to decide what to defend

Verizon's 12th Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) says smaller telcos and SMBs need to pick what assets they want to protect the most.

Subdued Cable Spending Hits Arris

Arris is off to a sluggish start, but hopeful that business will pick up as operators bulk up on DOCSIS 3.1 network capacity and start to snap up customer premises equipment.

Cable One Hits Broadband ARPU High

MSO thrives as 10% of its new broadband subs take its new $40 unlimited data option for power users and other data subs shift to higher-priced speed tiers..

Big 5G Event Keynote: Ibrahim Gedeon, Telus

Telus CTO Ibrahim Gedeon shared his views of the industry's progress at the Big 5G Event in Denver on May 8, 2019, and was one of the big hits of the week.

Where Is the 5G Edge? Tomorrow's Apps Depend on the Answer

To build the edge computing capabilities that 5G applications need, carriers need to find out where more processing is needed – and that's not terribly clear at the moment.

5G Potential Is All in the Timing

The move to 5G will also disrupt carriers' timing systems as 5G's timing and clock synchronization requirements are much more strict.

WiCipedia: Coding From Prison, Greedy Work & Woman-Led Companies

This week in our WiC roundup: Women in prison gain coding skills; small startups make the biggest impact; greedy workplaces hurt women; and more.

Eurobites: UK's Public Safety Network Project Is a Car Crash, Says Govt Watchdog

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telefónica's Q1; DT, Ericsson claim microwave breakthrough; Orange invests in fintech company; Telia brings IoT to logistics.

Cloud Bursts: F5 Closes NGINX Acquisition, IBM's Red Hat Buy Clears Hurdle

F5 and NGINX are one. Looks like the same will happen soon for IBM and Red Hat. And Docker gets a new posterior in the captain's chair.

Public Safety Agencies Don't See a Clear Path to 5G

5G technology offers promise and potential to public safety agencies, but a long road ahead looms for implementation, according to panelists at the Big 5G Event.

How BT Is Applying AI to Support Its Programmable Network

AI and machine learning are already key components in the closed-loop control of BT's programmable network.

BT's Workforce: It's Not Shrinking as Fast as You Might Think

The UK incumbent remains one of Europe's most bloated telecom operators, and that is unlikely to change under current cost-cutting plans.

The FCC unanimously concludes China Mobile can’t be trusted

The Federal Communications Commission was never going to let China Mobile set up in the US market and now it’s official.

Hiya study ranks robocall detection

In a study of carrier spam detection solution providers, Hiya garnered a detection score of 85 compared with 48 for First Orion and 26 for TNS.

Sprint Makes Big, Bold 5G Promises

“We hype it up, everybody is talking about it, but how is [5G] going to really transform the future," said Sprint’s Mishka Dehghan, during her keynote at the Big 5G Event.

NTIA’s Redl resigns as top telecom adviser

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) chief David Redl abruptly resigned on Thursday, leaving some to question how the move will…

US drives solid Deutsche Telekom numbers but German 5G auction is a drag

German operator group Deutsche Telekom has reported solid Q1 revenue growth, driven largely by T-Mobile US.

BT reports flat full year numbers but feels bullish about fibre

UK telecoms group BT revealed flat revenue growth on its full year 2018 report, but its new CEO said all the right things about investment.

FCC denies China Mobile USA application

As expected, the FCC today voted to deny China Mobile's application to provide telecom services between the U.S. and foreign destinations.

Cisco drops AMP into SD-WAN console

Cisco has added its Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) for Networks into its SD-WAN console to further beef up WAN security.

CenturyLink counts 28 towers on its road map for fixed wireless

CenturyLink CTO Andrew Dugan said the company plans to play a supporting role to carriers in their 5G rollouts. But it's also pursuing its own fixed…

Verizon Virtualizes Baseband Functions Using Intel, Nokia vRAN Gear

This trial decoupled hardware and software, which provides more flexibility in where computing operations can take place within the network and enables multi-access edge compute (MEC) and network slicing.

Industry Voices—Raynovich: Urgency grows for new CenturyLink plan

Despite hitting its profit target, CenturyLink could be headed toward a major restructuring in order to appease restless investors.

5G Americas Attracts, Builds Consensus for Expanding Wireless Ecosystem

Discussions about the potential services and use cases to be enabled by 5G is an important effort, says Chris Pearson, president of 5G Americas.

India operators submit 5G trial proposals

The country's telecom ministry plans to hold a 5G auction early next year.

SAP embraces AWS, Azure and Google Cloud with new platform

SAP announced its Embrace project, which seeks to put SAP S/4HANA into the cloud via collaborations with Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud.

MEF Pushes the Carrier Industry Toward Digital Transformation

MEF’s Dan Pitt on how the forum is accelerating the availability of automated, multi-technology services through the abstraction of lifecycle service orchestration.

BT says EE’s 5G launch imminent, revises fiber targets

U.K. wireless operator EE will launch 5G across major cities in the coming months.

When FWA starts to make sense

Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) attracts a huge range of opinions, but at Light Reading’s Big 5G Event, Starry put forward an interesting case.

The edge takes centre stage (again)

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the edge was one of the most prominent topics and the same can be said in Denver at Light Reading’s Big 5G Event.

Verizon Report: 71% of Breaches Financially Motivated

“Why don’t we skip all the hard hacking and just, you know, ask for the money?” This is essentially the theme of this year’s report.

Citic Telecom Adds VMware-Velocloud SD-WAN to Hybrid Networking Platform

This platform, TrueConnect Hybrid, provides customers with a full-stack of networking and internet services and resources including SD-WAN.

SAP Wants to Squeeze Complexity Out of Cloud Migration

Embrace is a platform that places a framework around an enterprise’s move to SAP’s S/4HANA in the cloud.

5G Was Rushed to Market – It Shows

The global wireless industry rushed a barebones version of the 5G standard out the door so it could get to market more quickly. Today's 5G certainly reflects that haste.

TiVo to Hew Its Products and Licensing Businesses Into Two

But many big questions remain unanswered as company aims to complete the separation by mid-2020.

5G Was Rushed to Market — It Shows

The global wireless industry rushed a barebones version of the 5G standard out the door so it could get to market more quickly. Today's 5G certainly reflects that haste.

Disney Direct-to-Consumer Losses Mount in Q1

Deeper investments in ESPN+ and costs tied to the coming Disney+ OTT service attributed to a widening Q1 operating loss of $393 million at Disney's international and direct-to-consumer unit.

Sprint Eyes IoT Uses as 5G Launch Approaches

Ahead of its 5G launch, Sprint's Mishka Dehghan discussed the carrier's Curiosity IoT platform and highlights smart city applications that will take advantage of 5G's technical capabilities.

Eurobites: BT Maintains Dividend Despite Revenue Slip

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom powers on in Q1; Sky invests in You.i.TV for cross-platform app development; back-of-the-net for BT Sport!

Data Center Firms, Mobile Operators Pour Cold Water on Edge Computing

Edge computing, particularly in the 5G world, faces a series of serious obstacles, according to several in the mobile network and data center industries.

Orange drops €515 million on yet another cybersecurity acquisition

French telecoms group Orange is buying Dutch cybersecurity services outfit SecureLink as it looks to become a major security player.

Verizon reports milestone on path to virtualization

Verizon completed a trial in California where it achieved full virtualization of baseband functions—the heaviest portion of computing on the radio access…

Huawei takes its crisis PR roadshow to the Big 5G Event

On today’s panel Huawei’s Chief Security Officer Andy Purdy said he’s been with Huawei for seven years and he’s never been told to “agree with anything.”

Nutanix Kicks Off .Next With More Multi-Cloud

It also announced a product that integrates secondary storage with the Nutanix platform providing a single management console for primary and secondary storage operations.

Merger of Vodafone Australia and TPG blocked

The Australian competition authority has decided that the telco merger of Vodafone and TPG amounts to excessive consolidation and has blocked it.

Fiber provider Zayo is bought by 2 investment firms, plans to go private

Zayo shareholders would receive $35 per share in a cash transaction that includes the assumption of $5.9 billion of Zayo’s net debt obligations.

It’s Red Hat, but not as we know it

Software vendor Red Hat is celebrating the launch of Enterprise Linux 8 and the approval of its acquisition by IBM with a change of wardrobe.

Sprint prepares for 5G commercial launches

Sprint isn’t revealing exactly when it will happen, but it’s busy getting ready to launch commercial 5G service in four markets “in the coming weeks.”

Altiostar's vRAN Push Attracts $114M From Rakuten, Qualcomm, Tech Machindra

According to IDC Research Director Rajesh Ghai, Altiostar has "obviously come to the market to disrupt the existing players.” This includes Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, and ZTE.

SAP HANA Expansion Bets Big on Public Cloud

“We are dancing again. You have seen our young management in development. I hope in the next six years in moving to the cloud that only a few customers will be using the ECC system on prem," said SAP's Hasso Plattner.

FCC Commissioner O’Rielly condemns government-led wholesale 5G proposal

O'Rielly said the “convoluted” proposal “borders on the preposterous.”

Synchronoss teams with Amazon

Synchronoss Technologies announced that it has teamed with Amazon to deliver a better way for mobile operators to offer Amazon services to their customers—and…

Google’s Pixel coming to Sprint, T-Mobile

The expansion comes as Pixel phone sales have slumped.

5G: Build it, and the use cases will come (hopefully)

There’s a definite lack of imagination in the wireless industry in terms of use cases for 5G.

Sprint Echoes Desperate Desire to Merge With T-Mobile

Sprint continued to play the victim and struck a defeated tone during its fiscal year 2018 fourth quarter earnings call with analysts.

Orange Boosts Security Credentials With $576M SecureLink Buy

SecureLink expands Orange’s cybersecurity reach across Europe and the Nordics.

Focusing on 5G speed is missing the point – Verizon

5G has been promising a lot, such is the industry’s inability to keep a handle on hype, but the winners and losers of tomorrow’s connected world might well be those who are able to think a bit differently.

We’re in last place but we’re actually leading 5G race – T-Mobile US

T-Mobile US is currently in last place for the 5G race, but if you listen to the magenta tinged spin, its actually in first place.

The private power of the edge

One of conundrums which has been quietly emerging over the last couple of months concerns how to maintain privacy when attempting to improve customer experience, but the power of the edge might save the day.

Cohesity Buys Imanis Data, Adds NoSQL and Hadoop Workload Protection to Platform

The goal of the acquisition and the new product capabilities “is to address the problem of mass data fragmentation,” said Cohesity’s Raj Dutt.

Open Projects cuts a new trail for open source and standards

A new organization is seeking to merge industry open source efforts and standards under one roof.

Sprint’s latest quarterly postpaid losses: 189K

Sprint reported a loss of 189,000 in postpaid phone customers during its fiscal 2018 fourth quarter compared with the year-ago quarter of 55,000 net phone…

TM Forum's Phoenix Tree project aims to liberate OSS/BSS data

The TM Forum's Phoenix Tree project aims to help carriers more easily leverage the growing mountains of data stored in their siloed BSS/OSS systems.…

Red Hat is Whole-Number Serious With Latest OpenShift, RHEL Updates

OpenShift 4, RHEL 8 launches come as the company is about to gobbled up by IBM.

Huawei Urges US to Adopt German Approach to Security

Under-fire Chinese vendor wants the US to introduce a regime for the testing of 5G products from all vendors as it fights efforts to have it banned from international markets.

Starry Subs Devour 350GB of Data Per Month, Gravitate to OTT Video

Millimeter wave-powered provider of fixed wireless broadband has been able to achieve 20% service penetration in apartment buildings within 60 to 90 days of launch, COO says.

Zayo Acquired in $14.3B Cash Deal

Investment firms Digital Colony and the EQT Infrastructure IV fund buy network and fiber services firm, take it private.

Leading Lights Winners On Fire!

We invited our 2019 Leading Lights awards winners to share their thoughts with the Light Reading video crew. Here's what they had to say:

Telus CTO: 5G is Letting Us Down

Ibrahim Gedeon of Canada's Telus says there needs to be less focus on speed and more attention paid to real transformation.

CenturyLink CTO: Edge Compute and Fiber Will Supercharge 5G

Ample fiber infrastructure and edge computing resources will play a key role in getting 5G services ready to go, says CenturyLink CTO Andrew Dugan.

Red Hat Sharpens OpenShift to Slash Kubernetes Hassles

Red Hat aims to reduce friction deploying containerized applications, the important building blocks of virtualized networks.

Comcast Ups Zelesko to CTO, Stirling to Group Chief Product Officer at Sky

Recent promotions are among other significant executive moves within Comcast's technology and product organizations.

'Fractured' US 5G Market Thirsts for Mid-Band Spectrum

The country's 5G leadership position could be at risk unless mid-band spectrum is made available to its operators.

Eurobites: Orange Buys SecureLink for €515M

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: US consortium lands Ireland's National Broadband Plan gig; Telefónica sells 11 data centers; UK broadband speeds creep up.

AT&T's Phillips: HOPE Hinders Tall Poppy Syndrome

Shay Phillips says women can change misperception in the workplace by identifying a career advocate with an open-door policy.

Customers Flee Ahead of Sprint's Imminent 5G Launch

Sprint said it will launch mobile 5G service in four major US cities in the next few weeks, but, in the meantime, tens of thousands of customers are discontinuing their Sprint service.

Huawei trolls the US by talking up Canadian 5G ambitions

Huawei has issued a press release talking up its great relationship with US neighbor and close ally Canada, especially when it comes to 5G.

Colt launches On Demand services in U.S.

Colt Technology Services announced on Tuesday that its On Demand services are now available in the U.S., Hong Kong, Portugal, and Austria.

Telus, MobiledgeX Trial Mobile Edge Network in Canada

MobiledgeX first announced its platform in February when it launched its first public edge network at six Deutsche Telekom sites in Germany.

Shock Ericsson report concludes 5G is great

5G kit vendor Ericsson has released a report implying it’s a really good idea to buy loads of the stuff it sells.

Enterprise Services Poised to Drive Big Money From 5G

Network operators and infrastructure vendors are reimagining their role in a 5G-powered future and are hopeful that new pathways and models will emerge from which they can gain more revenue.

Vodafone Germany tries to placate regulators via wholesale cable deal with Telefónica

Telefónica Deutschland will be able to sell services that run on the combined Vodafone and Unitymedia cable network in Germany, as a remedy measure taken by Vodafone to satisfy EU’s competition concern over its proposed acquisition of Liberty Global.

Marvell buys Aquantia for $452M in cash

After approval from both boards of directors, chip vendor Marvell Technology Group announced it's buying Aquantia for $452 million in cash.

T-Mobile Austria Goes Magenta, Preps for 5G

Magenta Telekom launches in Austria following T-Mobile’s merger with UPC Austria and readies for commercial 5G services.

Iliad flogs a bunch of towers to reduce debt pile

French telecoms conglomerate Iliad is selling most of its tower assets in France and Italy to Cellnex for €2 billion.

Oracle Won’t Stop Fight Over JEDI Contract Despite Being Eliminated

The Pentagon recently named Amazon and Microsoft as the finalists for the much-debated $10 billion winner-take-all cloud contract.

Ericsson's ConsumerLab report outlines consumer expectations for 5G

Ericsson says its latest ConsumerLab report on 5G has found key opportunities for wireless carriers in offering 5G services.

SAP Touts Qualtrics, Apple ML Integration

SAP said it has now rolled out 10 new products that combine its operational data (O-data) with experience data (X-data) gleaned from Qualtrics.

Cloud providers' growth rate moderates in Q1: report

With most of the large cloud providers' first quarter earnings reports in the books, the growth rate has moderated just a tad, according to a report.

T-Mobile, Sprint promise job creation if merger is approved

T-Mobile and Sprint are working all angles in hopes of making their proposed merger more to regulators.

Vodafone inks broadband deal with Telefónica Deutschland

Vodafone announced on Tuesday that it has signed an agreement to let rival Telefónica Deutschland access its broadband network in Germany.

Exabeam Scores $75M Series E, Claims 72% Win Rate Against IBM, Splunk

“We’re kicking ass in the market continuing to displace the legacy vendors,” says Exabeam CEO Nir Polak, who also names McAfee, RSA, LogRhythm, and Micro Focus as the competition.

Ericsson Boasts of High Consumer Expectations, Pricing Window for 5G

Never mind that network operators are still struggling to make the case for 5G, the majority of users surveyed by Ericsson say they’d be willing to pay a 20% premium for 5G services.

T-Mobile's Ewaldsson: 5G Spectrum – the More Bands the Better

A broad range of spectrum bands is critical to helping T-Mobile deliver on a good 5G experience, and millimeter wave takes another knock.

Red Hat Tackles Telco Cloud With Linux Upgrade

Updated tools for hands-free operations and modern applications are designed to help operators cloudify their networks.

Service Providers Look to Enterprises for 5G ROI

Network operators are looking for 5G to do what 4G can't for enterprise customers — and that will justify the investment.

Managing the 5G Hype Is Critical to Carriers

Preparing and educating customers about the true capabilities about 5G can help mobile service providers avoid unrealistic expectations, execs at Light Reading's Big 5G Event insist.

AT&T & Bell Canada: Know What to Send to the Edge

Not every workload needs to go to the edge. Operators need to consider which workloads make the most sense to transition.

Verizon Eyes 80%+ Latency Reduction on Edge Platform

The US telco expects to support a sub-10-millisecond service on its edge platform by the end of this year.

US Pay-TV Subs Erode at Record Pace in Q1

Traditional providers lost a record 1.42 million subs in Q1 while subscriber growth among OTT-TV providers slowed considerably, according to MoffettNathanson's latest 'Cord-Cutting Monitor.'

5G Man Saves the Day

Meet the next-gen mobile sector's very own superhero, 5G Man...

Eurobites: Vodafone Strikes Wholesale Deal With Telefónica Deutschland

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Liberty Global revenue down in Q1; Deutsche Telekom rebrands in Austria; France Télécom suicides trial underway.

Here Are Verizon's 5 Most Congested Markets

Here are the cities where Verizon's network speeds are showing the biggest slowdown during peak usage times.

Is Nokia Losing the 5G Race?

The Finnish vendor's 5G-related difficulties and weak performance have unsettled investors, but Ericsson and Huawei also have questions to answer.

Cisco takes SD-WAN into colocation facilities

Cisco announced on Monday new SD-WAN on-ramps that were designed to tie branch offices to private data centers by going through colocation facilities.

Cisco’s early bet on RAN virtualization propels Altiostar

Cisco's former CEO John Chambers envisioned the disaggregation of the RAN and was involved in Cisco's investment in Altiostar in 2011.

Cisco Routes SD-WAN Through Colocation Facilities for Regional Distributed Offices

The capabilities will allow customers to “tie each branch to enterprise data center databases, SaaS applications, and multi-cloud services while meeting SLAs and application QoE expectations," says Cisco's Anand Oswal.

Telenor and Axiata mull merger in Asia

Telenor and Axiata announced today that they were in discussions to create a combined company that would serve South Asia.

Nutanix, VMware Battle for HCI Revenue, Market Share

With 47.8% market share and $206 million in revenue, Nutanix remains the No. 1 HCI software vendor, according to Gartner’s numbers. But VMware is closing the gap.

CenturyLink strengthens partnership with GCP

CenturyLink announced today that it has enlarged the scope of its partnership with Google Cloud Project to help drive customers' digital transformations.

AT&T touts FirstNet progress, more than 600K connections

AT&T has expanded FirstNet coverage and capacity in over 600 markets across the U.S.

Verizon taps into Infinera's software for network automation

Verizon is leveraging new automation technology from Infinera as one of the first steps toward building out its Intelligent Edge Network.

Apple tweaks iPhone design for better indoor coverage: report

Apple is using a new modified-PI antenna structure for the latest line of iPhones.

With new 5G revenues come security concerns: survey

According to a new survey, there’s widespread industry consensus that security challenges will escalate with the advent of 5G networks.

Vodafone Makes 5G’s Case for IoT

The latest IoT Barometer from Vodafone finds that 52% of IoT adopters are considering using 5G connectivity.

Marek’s Take: Solving the 5G pricing conundrum

Operators need to think beyond speed-based pricing and data buckets for 5G to succeed.

Light Reading Hall of Fame 2019

We've added four names to the Hall of Fame this year. Find out who they are...

Leading Lights 2019: The Winners

Find out which companies have taken home the 2019 Leading Lights Awards trophies.

Why Vodafone Idea Sought IBM's Help

The tie-up between the Indian operator and the US IT giant is designed to bolster customer experience and lower costs in the competitive Indian market.

Philo Charts OTT Course

In a NAB Show fireside chat, Philo CTO Ben Chambers discusses the evolution, business model, technical platform and future plans of the popular streaming video services.

Leading Lights 2019 Finalists: Company of the Year (Public)

Four companies have made the 2019 shortlist for this coveted award.

Telenor, Axiata in Merger Talks to Create $13B Asian Giant

Norwegian and Malaysian operators kick off discussions about merging their Asian assets to produce a company with around 300 million customers.

MobiTV's Bill Routt: Amazon to Stoke Pay-TV Partnerships With Fire TV

MobiTV's president and COO says Amazon is 'really engaging' with plans to optimize and customize its streaming platform for the pay-TV operator market.

Your 5G Icon Is Virtually Meaningless

The GSMA recently recommended that phones show a 5G icon even when they can't find 5G NR coverage. Thus, it's clear that the relative simplicity of today's mostly ubiquitous '4G LTE' status icon is not going to carry over into the 5G future.

DOCSIS 3.1 Still Rules the Cable Roost

In our latest poll about cable's next-gen options, DOCSIS 3.1 barely nudged out DAA and FTTH as the industry's biggest tech priority for 2019.