Saturday, February 22, 2020

The Big Trends That Were set to Shape MWC Barcelona

MWC Barcelona was cancelled, but that doesn’t mean we ignored the big trends expected dominate the event. Here are some of those trends that were set to play a big part in the event. And remember to check back with us all week as we cover news that was tied to the event and will now be released through alternate channels.
           

Friday, February 21, 2020

Kubernetes Security Plagued by Human Error, Misconfigs

Container orchestration is hard enough — yes, we’re looking at you Kubernetes — but properly securing container and Kubernetes environments catapults deployment into another universe of complexity. Findings from StackRox’s latest “State of Container and Kubernetes Security Report” indicate that human error and misconfigurations are the primary culprits for Kubernetes security snafus.
           

Zayo brings its fiber footprint to Microsoft’s Airband

Microsoft added an important new partner to its Airband Initiative — Zayo Group will provide backbone fiber connectivity for ISPs that are part of the Airband project and help bring high-speed internet to rural unserved communities across the country. The terms of the deal with Microsoft were not disclosed.
           

Ericsson, Nokia join SoftBank, Loon and more in HAPS Alliance

There’s a new alliance in town, and it’s led by some heavy hitters in telecom, technology and aviation. The HAPS Alliance was formed to promote the use of high-altitude vehicles in the Earth’s stratosphere to eliminate the digital divide and bring connectivity to more people and things worldwide.
           

Former Arris CEO Bruce McClelland gets top job at Ribbon

A familiar name in the cable business will soon be heading up Ribbon Communications. Former Arris executive Bruce McClelland will become CEO of Ribbon beginning March 1. McClelland replaces former Ribbon CEO Fritz Hobbs who left the company when Ribbon merged with ECI Telecom last November.
           

Thursday, February 20, 2020

DigitalOcean Grabs $300M Life Preserver

Cloud platform provider DigitalOcean grabbed a $300 million life preserver that it said will help fund its operations to profitability and move toward generating more than $1 billion in revenues within the next five years.
           

U.S. Cellular Selects Samsung 5G and 4G LTE Network Solutions

Samsung Electronics has announced a commercial agreement with U.S. Cellular for 5G and 4G LTE network solutions. The new agreement establishes terms under which U.S. Cellular can purchase Samsung’s commercially-proven network solutions, including 5G New Radio (NR) technology, to help U.S. Cellular deliver next-generation service.
           

U.S. Cellular Readies 5G Launch on March 6

U.S. Cellular said its initial 5G markets in parts of Iowa and Wisconsin will be commercially available on March 6. The Chicago-based company, which has roughly 5 million customers, previously said it would begin deploying 5G in the second half of 2019 but later pushed those plans back to the first quarter of 2020.
           

T-Mobile and Sprint strike a final deal on price

T-Mobile US parent company Deutsche Telekom and Sprint parent company SoftBank have struck an amended deal for T-Mobile to buy Sprint. The deal is a bit more favorable to Deutsche Telekom, which will now hold approximately 43% of the New T-Mobile shares as opposed to the 42% it previously would have held. SoftBank will hold 24% of the New T-Mobile shares, instead of the 27% it would have held. The remaining approximately 33% of shares will be held by public shareholders.
           

Intelsat declares C-Band Alliance dead

The two biggest members of the C-Band Alliance (CBA) are no longer doing business together after Intelsat told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday that the CBA is essentially dead and the FCC should instead treat Intelsat, SES and Telesat as individual companies.
           

Dish Wireless won’t be a boon for tower companies in 2020

Dish Network’s fourth quarter 2019 earnings call was timed nicely following Judge Victor Marrero’s decision last week in favor of the T-Mobile purchase of Sprint. Dish President and CEO Erik Carlson said on yesterday’s earnings call the decision “for us is a key step forward as we look to acquire Boost Mobile from Sprint and activate the MVNO agreement with T-Mobile.” Dish will pay $1.4 billion for Boost and then operate the MVNO on the new T-Mobile network, comprised of both T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s combined networks.
           

Nokia, Ericsson vie for KDDI’s 5G business

Both Nokia and Ericsson are claiming new breakthroughs related to KDDI’s 5G core network in Japan, with Nokia announcing the completion of a 5G core standalone (SA) network trial—marking a big milestone on the way to “pure” 5G—and Ericsson issuing a release of its own about software agility.
           

CenturyLink built a network-based threat detection system

CenturyLink has created a network-based automated threat detection and response system that it says will help protect its customers' network traffic and block security threats. Called Rapid Threat Defense, the security system was developed by CenturyLink’s threat research unit, Black Lotus Labs.
           

Windstream’s SD-WAN customer base tops 2,700

As Windstream continues to battle against former spinoff Uniti Group, which it says it is pursuing through a combination of litigation and negotiation, the company managed to end 2019 by scoring some strong SD-WAN numbers and meeting its goal to extend its fiber reach.
           

Clearfield is bringing its fiber expertise to 5G

Clearfield is bringing its fiber expertise to the 5G world. The company, which competes with CommScope and Corning, is probably best-known for its fiber-optic cabinets and connectors that it sells to both incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers for their fiber-to-the-home deployments.
           

Find Your Edge: 5G Networks

The industry really can’t stop talking about the edge. In the interest of not starting a classic “edge” conversation with a definition, let’s focus very specifically about its role as a new business model for 5G. From a Telco perspective, 5G enables a whole range of new applications and services that will open the doors to new revenue streams and provide a path to differentiation. 
           

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Why TIA Calls Supply Chain Security the ‘Most Critical Global Telecom Issue’

Supply chain attacks are on the rise. The National Security Agency (NSA) ranked these indirect attacks as one of the top security threats, and a recent Accenture report linked them to 40% of all breaches. There’s a good reason for this. It’s generally easier for attackers to go after the weakest link, which usually isn’t the enterprise — this is the company they want to attack — it’s often a smaller supplier or partner that doesn’t have the same level of security investment and staffing in place. And attackers like low-hanging fruit.
           

Cisco IoT Platform Gains Machine Learning

Cisco today introduced machine learning capabilities and tighter integration between service providers and vendors in its IoT management platform. Cisco IoT Control Center now includes machine learning models to identify anomalies and resolve problems before they impact IoT services. The feature also enables service providers to alert customers of errant or otherwise unused devices, and therefore implement greater control over connected devices.
           

Daily Roundup: Cisco Fuses IoT, ML

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.
           

Dish Firm on 5G Costs

Dish Network is on the verge of its most dramatic transformation yet, and the opportunity to become a viable nationwide mobile network operator was not lost on company executives and analysts during its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings call.
           

Environmental Sustainability Spotlight Shines on ICT

For every text message, video download, email, or chat sent, there’s a power-hungry server running around the clock in a data center making it happen. And those data centers are pumping out an increasing amount of carbon emissions. Environmental sustainability across the information and communications technology (ICT) sector was set to be one of several topics up for debate at the now cancelled MWC Barcelona event, reflecting the industry’s awareness of the leading role it has in stimulating fundamental changes in consumption and production systems as reform can no longer be seen as optional.  
           

The Role AI Must Play in 5G

With all the excitement swirling around artificial intelligence (AI) as of late, you might be wondering: is there anything AI can’t do? It’s a question that’s unlikely to be answered anytime soon, especially as everyone hops aboard the hype train in search of the AI miracle cure.
           

5G Hasn't Met CIO Expectations (Yet)

CIOs and IT professionals have varying levels of interest in the perceived, but still largely unproven, benefits of 5G. Some are more excited and anxious than others. However, before 5G enables an ascension of enterprise use cases and applications in a wireless context, the onus is on vendors and operators to deliver viable and more effective services.
           

SAP Re-Vamps Org Structure, Exits 2 Board Members

SAP continued to aggressively push its operational transformation with the latest move around a revamping of its organizational structure and showing a pair of board members the door. The moves come on the heels of a change in leadership at the company and growing momentum around its cloud initiatives.
           

Microsoft Connects Cloud, Data Center, IoT Security

Microsoft today made available Microsoft Threat Protection — nearly 18 months after first announcing the threat-hunting service — and its Azure Sentinel connector for IoT. The products use artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline threat hunting and improve security across customers’ clouds, data centers, endpoints, and IoT devices.
           

MWC Barcelona: What Might Have Been

In this column I was hoping to get myself — and our great readers — pumped up for the annual MWC Barcelona mega-event. You know, the place where you and 100,000 of your closest friends gather each year to talk about all-things mobile and also why you can’t find a place to eat dinner before midnight.
           

Ergen defends lower cost of Dish 5G network architecture

Dish Networks Chairman Charlie Ergen on Wednesday countered some views that the projected $10 billion cost to build its new 5G network is too low, stressing the company’s automation and cloud-native, software-focused network approach will make construction and operation much less expensive.
           

IDC: Coronavirus will drag down China's ICT market by 10% in Q1

IDC has put a several numbers behind the impact of the coronavirus on China's ICT market, but the effect will largely be limited to the first quarter. IDC said the coronavirus will have a greater impact on China's ICT market, compared to the Chinese economy overall. The coronavirus will also have a bigger effect in China than the SARS virus outbreak in Asia in 2003.
           

Ciena stakes its claim in 5G networks with new transport routers

Ciena is well-known as an optical transport vendor that provides backhaul for wireless networks. The company wants to stake its claim in the 5G ecosystem, which will require deep fiber cloud RAN architectures. Today, Ciena announced new 5G-optimized routers to meet the low-latency, high-performance demands of fronthaul, midhaul and backhaul transport.
           

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Cohesity Goes ROBO on Data Management

Cohesity took its remote office, branch office (ROBO) service DataPlatform Virtual Edition to the edge today with the launch of its new hardware-based appliance to manage data in ROBO locations. 
           

Huawei Fails to Reverse Federal Ban

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Huawei nearly a year ago that challenged the constitutionality of a law that bans the U.S. government, its contractors, and suppliers from purchasing the Chinese vendor’s equipment and services.
           

Intel Slashes Jobs Despite Record Quarter

Intel confirmed today that “less than 1%” of its global workforce had been laid off as the chipmaker refocuses on growth opportunities in 2020. The news comes in stark contrast to Intel’s earnings which reached record levels last month.
           

Loon applies for 71-76, 81-86 GHz market trial in Puerto Rico

Exactly what Loon is up to remains confidential, but the Alphabet company submitted filings last week seeking permission to conduct a market trial in the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz bands using High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) as relay transmission points in Puerto Rico. The purpose: to deliver broadband service to maritime vessels.
           

Apple revenue to take coronavirus hit

Apple on Monday said it won’t meet its expected revenue forecasts for the current quarter because of impact from the coronavirus outbreak, which it said has restricted iPhone production and lowered device demand in China.
           

Qualcomm launches Snapdragon X60

Given that most operators have fragmented spectrum assets, having the ability to flexibly aggregate across various spectrum band combinations is a big value proposition, one that Qualcomm Technologies is addressing in its new Snapdragon X60 Modem-RF System for 5G devices.
           

Coronavirus’ impact will be bigger than a cancelled trade show

Like many of you, I was saddened by last week’s decision by the GSMA to cancel the 2020 Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona because of concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, which the World Health Organization has now named COVID-19. MWC always generates a lot of interesting news and excitement for the wireless industry. Nevertheless, as the COVID-19 news became more dire, it made sense for the GSMA to cancel the event.
           

Monday, February 17, 2020

Orange Teams Up With Dell, Ekinops on uCPE, VNFs

Orange Business Services today announced a collaboration with Dell Technologies and software vendor Ekinops to develop a new line of universal CPE appliances and NFV services. Dell with build the appliances in a variety of form factors, and they will run multiple virtualized network functions (VNFs) using Ekinops software.
           

5G IoT Worth $8B to Operators

IoT delivered by 5G is poised to drive $8 billion in revenue for operators by 2024, according to a new study from Juniper Research. That represents a 1,424% increase from the $525 million IoT is projected to contribute to operator revenue this year.
           

ExtraHop Extends Network Detection and Response to IoT

ExtraHop extended its cloud-native network detection and response platform to IoT devices. It’s a capability that becomes increasingly important as operators roll out 5G networks and enterprises connect billions of new devices to these corporate networks.
           

Cisco: 5G Will Power a Fraction of Mobile Connections By 2023

5G is here and the technology is growing, but it will still only support less than 11% of the world’s mobile connections by 2023, according to a new report from Cisco. Nonetheless, the vendor appears to be predicting a more dramatic increase in 5G connections during 2022 because last year it expected 5G connections to represent just 3% of total mobile connections by 2022.
           

Google VMs Add AMD EPYC Processor

Google added AMD’s second-generation EPYC processors to its virtual machine (VM)-hosting option list that is targeted at general purpose and high-memory bandwidth workloads. It also builds on hosting options added during the second half of last year.
           

iconectiv Enables Consumers to Trust Calls, Text Messages and RC

Americans were inundated with more than 58 billion robocalls in 2019—22 percent more than in 2018, USA Today reports. That’s conditioned people to let calls from unfamiliar or unidentified numbers drop into voicemail 76 percent of the time–assuming that their voicemail is even set up and isn’t already full.
           

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Archive