Saturday, February 01, 2020

Friday, January 31, 2020

Verizon courts public safety with 5G

Not one to let its lead in the public safety market slip to rival AT&T, which won the FirstNet contract in 2017, Verizon is courting public safety with the latest and greatest in technologies that use 5G.
           

Amazon Web Services: A knockout performance in Q4

Amazon Web Services continued its winning ways in Thursday's earnings by racking up $9.95 billion in Q4, which beat analysts' expectations. AWS' fourth quarter revenues marked a 34% increase over the same quarter a year ago, and exceeded analyst projections of $9.81 billion, according to FactSet.
           

Thursday, January 30, 2020

NSA Ranks Cloud Security Risks — Is Your Company Safe?

Moving to the cloud can improve a company’s security posture — but cloud services aren’t without risks, and organizations should both understand and address these risks before buying these services and deploying workloads in the cloud. To that end, the National Security Agency (NSA) published new guidance titled “Mitigating Cloud Vulnerabilities.”
           

Orange Re-Ups With Ericsson, Nokia for 5G RAN

Orange, the largest mobile network operator in France, is sticking with familiar partners as it readies 5G deployments. The company today announced it selected Ericsson and Nokia to provide radio access network (RAN) equipment and services for its 5G network.
           

AWS Posts $10B in Q4 Sales, Dominates Public Cloud

Amazon handily beat expectations and posted $87.4 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2019. This included $9.95 billion in Amazon Web Services (AWS) sales, which grew 34% compared to last year. Analysts had expected about 30% growth from AWS during the quarter.
           

Verizon CEO defends mmWave strategy for 5G

Faced once again with persistent questions about its spectrum position for 5G, Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg said the carrier’s spectrum strategy for 5G—using millimeter wave spectrum—is unique, and nobody else has the capability to do it like Verizon.
           

CenturyLink nets 15-year, $470M Social Security contract

CenturyLink's hot streak for government contracts continues as it has landed yet another task order, this time with the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA). The task order, which was awarded by the General Services Administration's Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program, has a minimum value of $470 million over the life of the 15-year contract.
           

A bad day for BT

After missing expectations for third quarter results and suggesting meeting the Huawei cap could cost £500 million, BT investors are being tested today.
           

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

IBM Injects Red Into Its Blue Executive Suite

IBM shook up its executive suite naming current SVP for cloud and cognitive software Arvind Krishna to replace long-tenured President and CEO Ginni Rometty effective April 6. Additionally, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst will take on the role of IBM president, effective the same day as Krishna’s rise. The moves take IBM’s Red Hat integration up a notch as the computing giant elevates key players in that deal to leadership positions.
           

RIP PlayStation Vue

Sony's OTT-TV service is going dark today after an almost five-year run, directing customers to former rival YouTube TV. Meanwhile, Sling TV has jumped into the fray with a set of deals.
           

Daily Roundup: VMware Slashes Jobs

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

Verizon Maintains 5G, Virtualization Spend

Verizon posted rather pedestrian fourth quarter results that wavered a bit on meeting expectations but did report that it will maintain its current investment focus tied to expanding the reach of its 5G network and virtualization efforts through 2020.
           

EU Defers Huawei Security Issue to Member States

In the second blow to U.S. national security interests this week, the European Union (EU) declined to take a stance for or against embattled Chinese telecom vendor Huawei. Instead, the EU will leave lingering national security questions to its member nations to assess and address.
           

How Will 5G Play in Super Bowl

5G is going to play a big role during this year's Super Bowl. But each of the top US wireless network operators is taking a slightly different tack when it comes to the big game.
           

No Vendor Bans in EU's 5G Guidelines

In the face of growing pressure from the US government to ban Huawei, new guidelines allow each EU member state to make its own decisions on which equipment vendors can be part of the 5G supply chain.
           

Could eSIM technology make your smartphone less secure?

Smartphone makers and software vendors are pushing wireless carriers to replace removable SIM cards with embedded chips that tie the subscriber identity module to the device. With embedded SIM, or eSIM, users will not be able to change their SIM cards, but they can easily change carriers, because the eSIM can be remotely provisioned by the carrier. 
           

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Daily Roundup: SDN Kills AT&T Jobs

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

5G, WiFi 6 Set to Battle for Control of Enterprise Private Networks

WiFi dominates connectivity in the enterprise, but mobile network operators are trying to present an alternative and will it into greater prominence with benefits that WiFi can’t match. Private, cellular-based networks will eventually tap into many of the technology leaps featured in 5G, including network slicing and dynamic spectrum sharing, but WiFi 6 — the next evolution in WiFi — is also on pace for widespread adoption in enterprises.
           

Dremio CEO: Open Cloud Data Lake Levels on the Rise

Cloud data warehouses are an improvement from the legacy on-premises versions, but they’re still just data warehouses, according to Tomer Shiran, co-founder and CEO of data lake engine company Dremio. Shiran says the cloud crusades will escalate this year, particularly in the realm of modern open cloud data lakes, as big data adoption continues to explode. 
           

SAP’s Cloud Focus Shows Promise

SAP’s first quarter of operations under its new co-leadership structure produced a modest return, though concerns over growth of its cloud business left investors cold.
           

Windstream SD-WAN Gains Data Analytics Services

Windstream’s managed SD-WAN service got a data analytics booster shot today with the launch of the WE Connect Insights Engine. The new feature is designed to gather and evaluate data from all customer locations, create a historic record, and aggregate that data to deliver greater visibility and reporting capabilities to customers.
           

AT&T Employees Pay Price for SDN

AT&T’s six-year effort to virtualize its core network functions with SDN and other technologies is poised to lead to dramatic job losses this year. The company today said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in labor-related costs in 2020.
           

STL's Innovative Retractable Cable Solution

Global bandwidth consumption is growing at an exponential pace and operators are rapidly deploying FTTH networks to support this demand. STL's innovative Retractable Cable solution, with its unique design, construction and application, enables operators to roll out networks faster and more efficiently. To know more explore the video.
           

What's ahead for Sprint and T-Mobile's MVNOs?

Before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) approved T-Mobile's $26 billion purchase of Sprint, the two companies were full of promises about how their merger would encourage, not stifle, competition. Along with pledges to maintain their various prepaid brands, the companies said they would encourage MVNOs to use their networks.
           

Google, CommScope, Federated and Sony get SAS certified

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that Google, CommScope, Federated Wireless and Sony have been certified to operate as Spectrum Access System (SAS) administrators in the 3.5 GHz band, paving the way for full commercial operations in the Citizens Broadband Radio Services (CBRS) band.
           

Monday, January 27, 2020

4K Gets Into the Game at Super Bowl LIV

Fox Sports will upconvert its 1080p/HDR broadcast of Sunday's big game to 4K/UHD and stream it for free via a handful of OTT platforms. Several US pay-TV distributors will also provide access to the 4K feed.
           

FCC Greenlights Shared Spectrum in CBRS Band

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved full-scale commercial deployment of a shared spectrum platform in the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band. The effort, which eventually gathered interest and buy-in from the multiple federal agencies and 159 members of the CBRS Alliance, including a who’s who of technology and telecom, got underway in 2013.
           

Apstra Adds Time Travel to Intent-Based Networking

Intent-based networking pioneer Apstra’s latest product release, Apstra AOS 3.2, adds an operating system capability called Intent Time Voyager. This new feature allows network administrators to essentially time travel — or restore the network to a previous configuration.
           

Huawei 5G Equipment Barred From UK Core Networks

The United Kingdom has given its operators approval to use a limited set of equipment from China-based vendor Huawei to help construct their 5G and 4G LTE networks. The decision comes as the United States continue to bar the use of Huawei equipment in domestic networks.
           

CenturyLink eyes the next federal giveaway: RDOF

CenturyLink has benefited the most from the Connect America Fund (CAF) II, an FCC program that has awarded Universal Service Funds to telecom operators to build broadband in unserved and underserved areas of the United States, especially rural areas. According to a new report from MoffettNathanson Research, CenturyLink has received $506 million per year since 2015 in CAF II awards, which will total more than $3 billion over the six-year period from 2015 to 2020.
           

Verizon’s SA rollout will be multi-year effort

While the standalone (SA) version of 5G New Radio (NR) offers the ability to do snazzy new things like network slicing, it’s going to take time for U.S. operators to get to that stage, with Verizon’s VP or Technology Heidi Hemmer saying it will be a multi-year effort.
           

Sprint sheds subscribers as churn climbs

Sprint shed 115,000 postpaid phone subscribers in the third quarter as customers continue to leave the nation’s struggling fourth-largest carrier, though at a slower pace than Wall Street expected, while Sprint awaits an outcome in its pending merger with T-Mobile.
           

BGP Security: Gain visibility into how your networks are routed

Today, the internet is synonymous with business outcomes. Your banking, your healthcare, your entertainment, your shopping and much more all relies on the Internet. But did you know the Internet is fundamentally dependent on routing based on Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)?  BGP is mature and robust to support routing of Internet traffic, but operations of network routing can be complex to maintain and exposed to numerous security threats.  Without a steadfast focus to preserve healthy routing, the business that run across the Internet could be disrupted. Simply search for “BGP hijacks” on Google and you will find many cases that have impacted major businesses. Network operators are acutely aware, but the casual consumer or enterprise just expect service providers to keep the Internet working. 
           

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Sprint Looks Back on Another Ugly Quarter

The losses continued to pile up for Sprint during its fiscal year 2019 third quarter as uncertainty looms over the outcome of its long and hard-fought attempt to merge with T-Mobile US. It’s now been more than six months since company executives held an earnings call to answer questions from analysts and investors.
           

Fortinet Wins an SD-WAN Whopper

Fortinet signed a whopper of an SD-WAN deal to fortify Burger King’s Brazilian franchise with its Secure SD-WAN platform. The meat of the deal calls for Fortinet to deliver a hybrid-WAN deployment to all of Burger King Brazil’s Burger King and Popeyes locations in the country.
           

Altiostar, NEC Link to Crack 5G vRAN Market

Altiostar Networks, NEC, and its subsidiary Netcracker Technology are pooling their resources to crack the 5G open virtual radio access network (vRAN) market. That market is currently dominated by traditional RAN vendors like Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE.
           

Cisco Converges IT, OT With IoT Security Architecture

Cisco rolled out an IoT security architecture today that it says provides visibility and security across IT and operational technology (OT) environments. The architecture uses existing IT security products and services including Cisco Talos’ threat intelligence as well as a new industrial IoT network security product called Cyber Vision and its Edge Intelligence data extraction tool.
           

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