VMware, Cloudian Provide Free Ransomware Protection to Health Care

Cloudian and VMware, along with its cloud provider partners, teamed up to provide free ransomware protection to health care organizations. The offers come as hackers turn up the attacks against researchers and hospitals already hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nutanix Report: Hybrid Cloud Hype Here to Stay

Eighty-six percent of companies consider hybrid cloud to be an ideal operating model, and they cite better agility and flexibility to deliver business requirements, support for remote customers and employees, and stronger data security, according to the latest findings Nutanix’s third annual Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) report.

Cisco exec says ThousandEyes has been great during Covid

Cisco General Manager and SVP Scott Harrell, who heads up the company’s intent-based network group, had high praise this week for the assets that Cisco acquired from ThousandEyes. Cisco closed on ThousandEyes in August, and while it didn't disclose the financial terms, Bloomberg reported that Cisco would pay close to $1 billion.

Crown Castle lays off about 250 employees

Crown Castle laid off hundreds of people this week, but the company said its business continues to perform well.

Verizon’s 5G on mmWave is crushing it, but for how long?

OpenSignal looked at 5G download speeds in five U.S. cities and found that Verizon is crushing it compared to the other big wireless carriers, so far. But some, including T-Mobile’s President of Technology Neville Ray, have questioned the wisdom of leading a 5G strategy with mmWave deployments. Verizon’s early lead with the high-band spectrum could begin to vanish as the other two carriers’ 5G deployments mature.

Accenture nabs Arca to bolster 5G and edge network capabilities

Accenture announced on Friday that it has struck a deal to buy Madrid, Spain-based Arca to beef up its 5G, cloud and edge compute capabilities.

AT&T CFO: Fiber is a three-for-one revenue opportunity

AT&T CFO John Stephens said on a Friday morning investor conference that adding more fiber was about more than just passing additional homes.

Commissioner ‘ecstatic’ as FCC gives 5.9 GHz to wifi

The Federal Communications Commission has set out new rules to repurpose a chunk of the 5.9 GHz spectrum band for wifi.

BuzzFeed reckons it can do a better job with HuffPost than Verizon, let’s see

Meandering US telco group Verizon has finally got rid of a media property it was always ill-suited to own.

Altice accepts defeat in Cogeco takeover saga

Altice USA will not continue to pursue an acquisition of Canada’s Cogeco, having failed to win over its major shareholder before its  C$11.1 billion (US$8.4 billion) offer expired.

UEI has buyers for new Apple TV remote tailored for pay-TV

Charter and Altice USA among the logical candidates for a new Apple TV remote from Universal Electronics optimized for pay-TV service providers.

128 Technology Scores Finther Tecnologica Win

Finther Tecnologica joined forces with SD-WAN vendor 128 Technology today in a bid to enhance its application performance platform.

T-Mobile sues San Francisco to make 5G upgrade go faster

T-Mobile claims San Francisco officials are not moving fast enough to approve its 5G cell site upgrades. The company's lawsuit again highlights the tensions between industry and city regulators.

Daily Roundup: Nvidia Scores Record Q3

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

Apple's key partners join India's PLI scheme

Apple's plans to move production of devices away from China received a boost with partners entering India through the government's Production-Linked Scheme.

Congruex builds through organics – and lots of M&A

The fiber network construction specialist, which counts Level 3 exec Kevin O'Hara as a founder, has been on a buying spree to help meet rising buildout demands among large, midsized and rural players.

Istio Updates Into a Deepening Service Mesh Morass

The Istio community this week unveiled the latest updates to the service mesh platform at a time when the space it was expected to dominate continues to search for direction.

Accenture snaps up Spain's Arca to boost 5G know-how

Addition of engineering services company aimed at enhancing Accenture's 5G network design and management pitch to enterprise clients in Spain, Portugal.

Altice Europe steers steady course in Q3 2020

French operations see return to EBITDA growth in the third quarter after Q2 decline.

AT&T CTO Claims COVID-19 Blurred Consumer-Enterprise Divide

The global pandemic hastened, in some cases overnight, the blurring of personal and professional boundaries, and some of those changes will endure long after the crisis ends, said AT&T CTO Andre Fuetsch.

Japan's operators accused of bait-and-switch with customers

Japan's communications minister attacked the three largest carriers' tariffs, saying despite recent moves 'they're promising mutton but selling dog.'

NEC jumps into UK's open RAN void

Buoyed by its experiences with Rakuten, the Japanese manufacturer is entering a market with few homegrown options.

FireEye Scores $400M Cash Injection, Buys Respond for $186M

FireEye announced a $400 million investment led by private equity firm Blackstone Group and said it bought security startup Respond Software for $186 million late Thursday. The two deals sent its stock skyrocketing 17% in after-hours trading.

WiCipedia: From military life to startup founder

This week in our WiC roundup: Non-profit Girls in Tech launches a job board; making the transition from situation room to board room; ushering in a new tech agenda in the White House; and more.

Eurobites: Cellnex eyes Telefónica's towers – report

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: More 5G delays in Belgium; little hope for mobile consolidation in Sweden; Virgin Media, O2 merger to be investigated by UK; Presidio buys Arkphire.

VMware Enterprise Blockchain Platform Finally Lands

VMware’s long-awaited enterprise blockchain platform landed this week. The new service lets businesses build networks and deploy decentralized applications.

Chua: Putting AWS Wavelength through its paces on Verizon's 5G

One of the areas of edge computing that has garnered much attention is the collaboration between the world's largest telcos and the hyperscale cloud providers. With the increasing shift to mobile-centric connectivity by both consumers and enterprise, the 5G mobile edge is rising in importance.

Verizon gives a few more clues about Tracfone acquisition

For years, Verizon appeared to bend over backwards to avoid the prepaid segment, where service plans traditionally targeted the cheaper end of the market and customer turnover runs higher.

Verizon and Apple team up again, this time for enterprise

Verizon and Apple on executives on Thursday again took the stage together to promote the new iPhone 12 lineup paired with capabilities of the carrier’s Ultrawideband 5G network, this time with a focus on enterprise.

Arcep rules for Bouygues in fibre spat with SFR

SFR FTTH is overcharging Bouygues Telecom for access to its fibre-to-the-home infrastructure, Arcep has ruled.

Google completes global rollout of RCS for Android

After a decade of false starts Rich Communications Service has hit the mainstream with Google making it available to all Android users.

AT&T can keep ‘best possible’ claims for Wi-Fi, home internet

Comcast was unsuccessful in challenging AT&T’s claims that it provides the “best possible” Wi-Fi and other home internet service to its customers.

Lowenstein: What’s the roadmap for prepaid in the United States?

The prepaid market in the United States has been fairly staid over the past few years. The number of prepaid subscribers as a percentage of total subscribers has stayed about the same, changes in price have tracked fairly closely with postpaid, and there have not been significant share shifts. As of the third quarter of 2020, there are about 74 million prepaid subscribers in the United States, according to New Street Research. Nearly 80% of those subscribers are relatively evenly divided by Tracfone (soon to be Verizon), T-Mobile (mainly Metro) and AT&T (mainly Cricket). Dish (via Boost) has about 13% of the market, with the remaining 7% being ‘Other’ including Verizon’s existing prepaid business.

Vodafone Ireland deploys open RAN tech at 30 sites

Vodafone Ireland is rolling out open radio access network (RAN) sites across northwestern Ireland to deliver new 4G service to 30 locations.

Altice USA taps out on bid to acquire Cogeco

With the clock expiring Wednesday on its $8.4 billion offer to buy Cogeco, Altice USA has tapped out.

MetTel scores $722M contract with Veterans Affairs

MetTel has reeled in a contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that has a potential worth of $722 million over 15 years.

Report: Q3 U.S. broadband adds are the most since Q1 2009

By any accounting measure, broadband subscriber additions in the U.S. were booming in the recent third quarter, fueled in part by more remote workers and online learning.

Nokia bows world's first 25 Gbps symmetrical PON offering

Nokia has laid claim to being the first vendor in the world to launch a commercial end-to-end 25 Gbps symmetrical PON broadband solution.

Ofcom pats Openreach on the back but altnets still moan

Ofcom is pretty pleased with the progress Openreach has made in separating itself from parent company BT but is still receiving complaints from some altnets.

Common sense prevails as Europe hands over review of Virgin/O2 merger to the UK

As previously rumoured, the European Commission has decided to stay out of the Virgin Media merger with O2 UK on the grounds that it’s none of its business.

Vodafone’s OpenRAN plan in Ireland: small but significant

Vodafone is rolling out Open RAN technology to a handful of mobile sites in Ireland in what is a small, but significant, step in the shift to vendor diversity in the telecoms space.

Altice, Globalstar and Viasat forsake C-band auction

Cable company Altice and satellite companies Globalstar and Viasat were among the 74 entities that registered interest in the C-band auction, but they are not among the final 57 qualified bidders.

Viasat seizes control of destiny in Europe

By snapping up the remaining 51% stake of a wholesale broadband venture with Eutelsat, Viasat will ramp up its business in EMEA amid plans to launch a high-capacity ViaSat-3 satellite for the region.

Policymakers oblige 5G satellite aspirants

Internet companies ranging from SpaceMobile to Lynk to Telesat are touting newly eased government positions in their quest to launch thousands of satellites into orbit.

US pay-TV gains 31K subs in Q3, thanks to OTT rebound

YouTube TV, Hulu and other virtual MVPDs raked in 1.5 million subs in Q3, but a top industry analyst wonders if OTT-TV providers will be exposed to sports-related, seasonal churn trends.

NB-IoT is still traveling nowhere fast

With patchy coverage, high costs and a roaming headache, the ailing IoT standard desperately needs resuscitation.

Daily Roundup: Kubernetes Complexity Continues to Vex

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

Nvidia Rides High on Ampere, Posts Record Q3

Nvidia, benefiting heavily from the success of its Ampere GPU architecture announced in April, posted strong revenues during its third quarter of fiscal year 2021. Q3 revenues topped $4.73 billion, up 57% year over year and 22% sequentially.

T-Mobile Tech Head Ribs mmWave, Knocks Open RAN

The status of T-Mobile US’ relationship with millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum is complicated. The high-band spectrum is part of its oft-repeated triple layer strategy for 5G, but the operator doesn’t market it as a game-changing technology anywhere close to the extent of its competitors Verizon and AT&T.

IBM's Instana Buy Tackles Cloud-Native Observability

IBM’s acquisition of application performance monitoring (APM) platform Instana, earlier this week, is all about cloud-native observability, IBM’s Robin Hernandez explained in an interview with SDxCentral.

Amazon Adds Network Firewall to AWS Security Tool Chest

Amazon Web Services added a managed network firewall service to its security tool chest and says GE and the U.S. Navy are among the customers using AWS Network Firewall.

EU slow to counter market abuse by big tech – auditors

The EU's auditor says Brussels has been slow to tackle anticompetitive behavior by big tech firms, as Brussels and Washington pursue investigations.

Nvidia posts bumper Q3, but there may be trouble ahead

Buoyed by demand for gaming chips and data center tech, US chipmaker sees record revenue of $4.73bn – yet shares slide 3% on supply chain worries and Mellanox.

How and why FedEx is getting into edge computing, 5G

FedEx is working with Dell and Switch to build mini data centers in its facilities for edge computing. What the company might do with those resources could have implications for 5G.

Indonesia vows to speed up 5G spectrum release

Indonesia wants to speed up its journey to 5G, but lack of spectrum is again the biggest obstacle – so far 1310MHz of a promised 2047MHz for 5G is available.

Kubernetes Complexity Continues to Challenge Vendor Lock-In Concerns

Kubernetes complexity is forcing end-users to decide if they want to manage their container deployments themselves or rely on established platforms from vendors like VMware and Red Hat, which come with a form of lock in that they are trying to avoid.

Bouygues Telecom to fire up 5G on December 1

France-based operator raises 2020 sales guidance after reporting growth in Q3 and first nine months of the year.

Russia's long 5G wait goes on

Government agencies and the military still occupy the spectrum bands that are the most economical for a 5G rollout.

Eurobites: Proximus gets in on the drones act

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson upgrades CETIN's Czech network; Nokia touts 25G PON; Arcep lays down the law on FTTP line rental.

Vodafone to launch open RAN in Ireland next month

The UK-based operator is to launch a 4G service in Ireland using open RAN products provided by Parallel Wireless and hardware partners.

AMT CTO talks catalyst for tower edge data centers

At an investor conference this week, American Tower’s technology chief laid out macro trends the tower company sees related to 5G driving network transformation, including cloud-native networking and edge compute.

Dish may have to relinquish $3.3 billion worth of spectrum

The FCC has ruled that Dish improperly received $3.3 billion in discounts on spectrum licenses, according to Fox Business’ Charlie Gasparino. If true, Dish may have to relinquish $3.3 billion worth of spectrum.

Walker: Telecom industry out of Covid-19 crisis territory

The year 2020 has not been kind to telecom operators. Facing a flat revenue outlook, they started the year with a focus on slimming down their operations and cutting costs. Then COVID-19 hit. Telco revenues dropped 2 % year-over-year (YoY ) in 1Q20, and fell 5.4% in 2Q20. Meanwhile, the rapid shift to working and studying from home benefited telcos’ nimble competitors in the cloud. Revenues in the webscale sector surged by over 20% YoY in 1H20, and the sector recorded an average free cash flow margin of over 20% (2Q20 annualized) despite surging capex.

FCC votes to open 5.9 GHz for Wi-Fi, C-V2X

Given the amount of time devoted to the subject, it’s only fitting that Michael O’Rielly would vote for repurposing the 5.9 GHz band for Wi-Fi during one of his last meetings as an FCC commissioner.

IBM snaps up Instana to continue its hybrid cloud and AI quest

IBM has struck a deal to buy application performance monitoring company Instana, which marked its latest investment in hybrid cloud and AI capabilities. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close over the coming months, weren't disclosed.

Dish names Ting Mobile leader, launches new postpaid plans

Dish bought Ting Mobile from Tucows in August, and this week Dish named Robert Currie to lead the brand.

Apple gets an easy PR win by reducing commission for some app makers

Gadget giant Apple takes 30% of everything spent on its app store, but it’s halving that rate for anyone who earns let than $1 million per year.

Red Hat takes OpenShift to remote work nodes at the edge

Red Hat announced a raft of updates at the virtual KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2020 conference on Monday, which included a remote worker node feature.

Colt shakes up organizational structure as part of 3-year plan

Colt Technology Services is embarking on a new three-year plan, which includes a revamp to its organizational structure. As part of its new strategy, Colt identified four key areas of focus going forward, as well as personnel changes.

Equinix opens doors on new Ashburn, Va. data center

Equinix has enlarged its footprint in the Washington D.C. area with the opening of its 16th International Business Exchange (IBX) data center, DC21.

Ericsson CEO criticises Swedish Huawei ban

Börje Ekholm, CEO of Swedish kit vendor Ericsson, has spoken out against Sweden’s decision to ban Chinese vendors from being used in the country’s 5G networks.

Cross-Channel cable builders get ready for 2021 launch

The companies building a new cable across the English Channel have taken the latest step to ready the system for launch next year.

Iliad raises funding for 5G as mobile business upticks

Iliad has signed a €300 million loan deal with the European Investment Bank (EIB) to fund 5G rollout, shortly after the publication of Q3 numbers that showed a return to growth at its domestic mobile business.

Nokia claims new 5G speed record for a commercial network

On its home turf of Finland, in partnership with Elisa and Qualcomm, Nokia says it hit 8 Gbps by combining two devices.

New report highlights MEC drivers and how carriers will build out the edge

The findings from Heavy Reading's 'Edge Computing in Telco Networks' report show that in this early stage of the MEC market, service providers are relying on a lot of DIY with assists from vendors and platform providers.

Altice USA gives up on Cogeco

Operator says it won't extend a new offer after the deadline on its latest, greatest offer expires.

T-Mobile shuttering former Layer3 TV service

TVision Home, the predecessor to the company's revamped, small-bundle TVision streaming service, will be shut down on December 30.

How telcos installed a RAN triumvirate they now want toppled

In 2016, operators and governments waved through a merger between Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia. Now they complain there are too few suppliers.

Ericsson CEO takes Sweden to task over Huawei ban

Borje Ekholm says Swedish authorities went too far in barring Chinese suppliers from 5G, but it's also in Ericsson's interests to keep China sweet.

Disney gets behind open cache tech for streaming

Envisioning scale that will require video streaming in the hundreds of terabits, Disney is exploring a distribution mesh that ties together CDNs, its own appliances and open caches deployed at network edges.

Dish facing $3.3B in spectrum troubles – reports

According to new reports, Dish Network may not get access to discounted AWS-3 spectrum licenses for its 5G efforts, following an FCC ruling on the matter.

Apple halves small business App Store fees

Facing lawsuits and regulatory pressure in Washington and Brussels, Apple is halving small businesses' commission on the App Store.

Purse strings loosen for 5G startups

EdgeQ raised $51 million. Celona banked $30 million. And they're not alone. 'Yes, there is more funding available for 5G startups than in the past,' said Amar Kapadai of startup Aarna Networks.

Daily Roundup: IBM Ingests Instana

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

Can Dish’s 5G Network Really Serve All Segments?

Dish Network is building a first-of-its-kind 5G network in the U.S. and benefits of that are abundant, according to Stephen Bye, EVP and chief commercial officer at the greenfield operator.

Comcast debuts 'Watchwith' interactive livestreams on X1 and Flex

In partnership with Bravo's 'The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,' Watchwith will enable viewers to interact with cast members and participate in polls that unlock exclusive clips from the reality TV series.

Cisco VP: SASE Won’t Kill On-Premises Security

For all the hype secure access service edge (SASE) has received since Gartner coined the term, cloud-based security still isn’t for everyone, wrote Cisco’s Ravi Chandrasekaran in a blog post.

Google Fortifies Cloud Armor With Adaptive Protection

Google fortified its networking security portfolio with a new capability that uses machine learning to block layer 7 distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks. It’s called Cloud Armor Adaptive Protection, and it uses multiple machine learning models to analyze security signals for each web service and detect potential attacks against web apps and services.

Masergy Taps Fortinet, BitGlass in SASE Push

Masergy is chaining multiple products with its own internally-developed tools in an effort to expand beyond managed SD-WAN and establish itself as a secure access service edge (SASE) provider.

SpaceX asks India for regulatory changes for Starlink

Elon Musk's SpaceX wants satellite broadband approved as part of a consultation on broadband penetration, with a view to launching Starlink in India in 2021.

Eurobites: Telecom Italia Konnects with Eutelsat for 'ultrabroadband' boost

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: BT seeks quantum 5G leap, taps Ciena's Blue Planet; Deutsche Telekom tackles 5G-powered soccer-streaming trial; MTS sees revenue rise, despite everything.

John Deere to use CBRS for private 5G networks in its factories

The company, which paid $545,999 for five CBRS priority access licenses in Iowa and Illinois, plans to roll out the technology in its factories in 2022.

IBM Ingests Instana to Bolster Hybrid Cloud Monitoring

IBM is acquiring application performance monitoring and observability provider Instana in a deal that furthers Big Blue’s hybrid cloud focus.

Nokia Software R&D Lab Dives Into HPE GreenLake

Nokia isn’t moving all of its crown jewels to Google Cloud. While that effort is just getting underway for Nokia’s larger businesses, the vendor’s software division is simultaneously moving its research and development (R&D) data centers to HPE GreenLake, the companies announced today.

Palo Alto Networks 5G Security Fuses Firewalls, SDN

Palo Alto Networks today rolled out new 5G security capabilities for enterprises and service providers. Specifically, it added understanding of 5G protocols and network interfaces to its firewalls, and says this, combined with its SDN and distributed cloud security, allows it to secure 5G networks, services, applications, and devices.

Nokia, Qualcomm, Elisa claim 5G speed record across two devices

Partners Elisa, Nokia, and Qualcomm clocked what they said is a 5G record of more than 8 Gbps in combined speeds from two devices on the operator’s commercial network in Finland.

Telia Carrier expands its presence across the 'Silicon Prairie'

Telia Carrier is filling in additional locations in its U.S. footprint while also adding more diversity to its routes. To wit: Telia Carrier has turned up a new latency-optimized Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) route between Denver and Chicago with stops along the way in Des Moines, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska.

AT&T tapped to update NOAA’s network under 10-year EIS award

AT&T has been tapped to help the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) update its networking technologies, with the agency awarding a 10-year Task Order valued at $311 million.

T-Mobile vs. Dish: 2 takes on open RAN

T-Mobile is adding 2.5 GHz sites to its network at a breakneck pace, but it’s not doing it with open Radio Access Network (RAN) gear — and there’s more than one reason for that.

Nokia Deepfield: Carriers need to build more network headroom

Service providers need to continue engineering more headroom on their networks to prep for future uncertainties, according to Nokia Deepfield.

UK reportedly gets to rule on Virgin/O2 merger

Somewhat surprisingly it looks like the European Union is going to do the right thing and stay out of a merger between two UK companies.

Crown Castle CFO: Fiber business a differentiator for Dish deal

Speaking at an investor conference Tuesday, Crown Castle CFO Dan Schlanger cited the tower company’s fiber business as a differentiating factor in signing the first major long-term tower deal that was announced by Dish yesterday.

After shaking up AT&T, Elliott Management divests its stake

Elliott Management shook up AT&T last year when it sent an open letter to AT&T’s board of directors, criticizing everything from soup to nuts about the company.

SoC vendor EdgeQ out of the starter blocks with $51M in funding

Led by former Qualcomm, Intel, and Broadcom employees, system-on-a-chip vendor EdgeQ has emerged from stealth mode with a $51 million funding round in hand.

HPE’s Aruba to sell CBRS private network solution

St. Luke’s Health System of Boise, Idaho, has Wi-Fi throughout its facilities, but it does not want to rely on it for mission critical calls between doctors and nurses. The non-profit is evaluating CBRS “as an additional lane of clean spectrum for staff-operated smartphone connectivity,” according to its IT director Doug Lyon. This is exactly the type of opportunity HPE’s Aruba hopes to take advantage of by adding CBRS to its portfolio through a partnership with private wireless startup Celona. 

AT&T taps Cisco for its move to the disaggregated IP edge

AT&T has taken its disaggregation efforts to the converged IP edge by working with Broadcom, UfiSpace and Cisco. The telco had previously teased the use of white boxes at the edge before announcing on Monday that the open, disaggregated IP edge routing platform was now live in its production environment.

COVID halves premium consumers willing to pay for 5G – Ericsson

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically reduced the premium consumers are willing to pay for 5G services, according to Ericsson.

The LoRaWAN renaissance continues as Here and Actility launch IoT tracking platform

A major new IoT logistics platform is using ultra low-power LoRaWAN wireless technology, in another blow to rivals such as NB-IoT.

Vantage Towers boasts €1 billion-plus war chest for M&A

Vodafone’s newly spun-out towers business is looking for acquisitions to drive growth, focusing on macro towers sites and adjacent opportunities, and has earmarked a sizeable sum for the purpose.

Chua: Cato Networks goes from dark horse to $1B unicorn

Cato Networks, an Israeli-based startup in the SASE and SD-WAN space, announced today that it raised an additional $130 million for a total of $332 million raised to date.

Huawei loses its Honor after state bailout

Embattled Chinese telecoms vendor Huawei has sold its standalone Honor smartphone sub-brand to a consortium founded by a state-owned enterprise.

Driving New Telco Opportunities with 5G-enabled Services

In the first post in this series, I explored the rise of 5G Telco networks and how they open the door to unprecedented possibilities and new capabilities for enterprises. In this latest post, I will explore how 5G technologies enable new Telco solutions that go far beyond connectivity.

Why full duplex technology is suddenly hot in 5G

By simultaneously sending and receiving wireless signals over the same spectrum frequency, full duplex technology may dramatically improve spectral efficiency.

Podcast: Frost & Sullivan's rosy outlook for SD-WAN market

Frost & Sullivan's Roopa Honnachari explains how COVID-19 has impacted growth in the SD-WAN and cloud services markets, plus her forecasts for growth over the next few years.

Podcast: What's the story with satellite broadband?

This week: Jeff Baumgartner on the state of satellite broadband and what differentiates existing competitors.

T-Mobile's network chief pours cool, but not cold, water on O-RAN

'O-RAN for me is interesting at this point in time, but there's a host of unanswered questions around IP, around R&D, around system integration,' said T-Mobile's Neville Ray.

Verizon does more with Android TV

Fetching $69.99, telco's upgraded 'Stream TV' device features Verizon's user interface and connects users to a multitude of apps, including Disney+, Netflix, YouTube TV and Hulu.

Daily Roundup: Nokia Warns of COVID-19 Related Traffic Spike

In case you’ve been stuck in video conference 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.

Vantage Towers talks up prospects ahead of IPO

Vodafone's tower business spin-off sees a clear path for growth; sets aside $1.2 billion of leverage capacity 'to fund larger opportunities.'

5G revenue to reach $31 trillion by 2030 – report

5G's global consumer market will be worth $31 trillion in cumulative revenue by 2030, $3.7 trillion to providers, predict Ericsson and Omdia.

VMware Pops Project Antrea Into Its Container Networking

VMware shined light on its newly enhanced Container Networking platform that has gained the open source Antrea networking product that provides developers with the ability to connect containers directly to each other. The halo was part of VMware’s broader NSX update.

Cato Captures $130M in VC funding

This brings total funding to $332 million for the Israel-based secure access service edge (SASE) provider. In addition, Cato claims the company is valued at $1 billion.

AT&T Pulls Cisco Into IP Edge Routing Deployment

AT&T this week expanded its use of open, disaggregated IP routing technology to deploy an edge routing platform with an assist from Broadcom, Cisco, and UfiSpace. The new IP edge routing platform uses the same Broadcom Jericho2-based hardware designs that AT&T procured from UfiSpace for its IP/MPLS core.

Snowflake Shovels On Platform Updates, Ushers In Data Cloud

Snowflake unleashed an avalanche of enhancements to its cloud data platform including an engineering tool called Snowpark, an expansion of Snowflake Data Marketplace, new data governance technology, and support for unstructured data. 

Ekinops SD-WAN Appliance Addresses WFH

Optical transport vendor Ekinops is taking on remote work-related performance challenges with its SD-WAN Home Office Connect platform.

Tanium Teams Up With IBM Cloud, Adds Risk Scoring

Endpoint security unicorn Tanium announced a hybrid cloud partnership with IBM and a new risk scoring product at its Converge conference this week. The news caps a busy year for the startup, which raised $167.2 million this year alone in two funding rounds that brought its total raised to $1 billion and sent its valuation soaring above $9 billion.

Big telcos speed up pace of job cuts in pandemic

Lockdowns are helping the world's biggest telcos to lighten the workforce load as they try to safeguard profits.

T-Mobile's TVision competitive, not disruptive – analysts

Pay-TV packages from T-Mobile's new streaming service, which have caught some heat from programmers, generate a gross profit margin of about 30%, according to an economic analysis by Evercore ISI.

Huawei offloads Honor handset unit

The Chinese equipment maker has confirmed the sale of its mid- to low-end device unit.

Eurobites: Huawei urges UK to rethink 5G ban now that Trump is toast

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telecom Italia and Google launch AI Academy; Nokia deploys Internet gateway in Iraq; Wifinity acquires PCCW Global Networks.

Iliad in bullish mood after Q3 revenue growth

Group maintains a fast pace of rollouts in France and Italy, with a corresponding impact on EBITDAal minus capex.

Cato Claims Unicorn Status in Wake of $130M Funding Round

Secure access service edge (SASE) vendor Cato Networks claimed unicorn status with a valuation of more than $1 billion after raking in $130 million in its largest funding round to date. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round with participation from Coatue, and long-time investors Greylock, Aspect Ventures, Acrew Capital, Singtel Innov8, and Cato CEO and founder Shlomo Kramer also made contributions.

Bouygues Telecom taps IBM to boost enterprise 5G biz

Partnership to create Open 5G Lab to support the development of 5G use cases for different vertical sectors.

EdgeQ Snags $51M in Funding for 5G, AI Modem

5G and artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker EdgeQ emerged from stealth mode today with a $51 million funding round led by Threshold Ventures, Fusion Fund, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

Nokia Warns Traffic May Spike Again Amid COVID-19 Surge

The global pandemic and widespread lockdown measures resulted in a 30% to 50% spike in network traffic in just a few weeks earlier this year, according to Nokia Deepfield’s latest Network Intelligence Report. Many network operators in Europe and North America experienced a year’s worth of traffic growth in a matter of weeks.

Clyburn named to Biden FCC transition team

Former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is one of the members of President-elect Joe Biden’s FCC Review Team, which was announced on Monday.

Communications Workers challenge Verizon’s purchase of Tracfone

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is taking issue with Verizon’s proposed acquisition of Tracfone. The trade union says Tracfone is one of the largest providers of Lifeline services in the United States, and it fears those services could be jeopardized if Tracfone is acquired by Verizon. CWA also says the prospect of the acquisition raises significant antitrust concerns, which could negatively affect consumer prices and workers’ wages in the wireless industry.

Huawei hopes Biden will give UK different instructions on 5G

Banned Chinese vendor Huawei hopes the UK might be allowed to let it back into its 5G network once Trump is no longer US President.

NTT tunes up Ciena's 800G for data center interconnect in Japan

Thanks to working with Ciena, NTT Communications is laying claim to being the first telecoms provider in Japan to deploy 800G in its network.

Cisco buys Kubernetes start-up Banzai Cloud

Cisco is continuing to build its cloud-native war chest with a deal to buy Kubernetes startup Banzai Cloud.

Verizon to go big in C-band auction: analysts

With just a few weeks before the C-band auction is due to start on December 8, expectations for Verizon to go “big” during the event are as high as ever.

Dish inks long-term deal with Crown Castle for up to 20K towers

Dish Network on Monday made traction on its plans for a nationwide 5G network by inking its first major infrastructure agreement, in a long-term deal with Crown Castle to lease space on up to 20,000 towers.

IBM snags SAP consulting partner TruQua

In yet another move to bolster its hybrid cloud roster, IBM has bought SAP partner TruQua Enterprise.

100,000 CBRS access points have been deployed

If the world were a Utopia, all spectrum would be available under a sharing scheme so that none of it ever had to lay fallow and wasted. (And we’d all be working to solve global warming.) Sigh. 

Masergy goes bigger and bolder into SASE arena

Masergy has rounded up various vendor partners, its network and its SD-WAN expertise to beef up its SASE capabilities. While some vendors, such as Cato Networks and Palo Alto Networks, are building their own secure access service edge (SASE) platforms themselves, others, including, Masergy, are taking a best-of-breed approach.

Vodafone holds Portugal to ransom on 5G, teases on towers

Vodafone CEO Nick Read on Monday indicated that his company will continue to fight against what it perceives to be unfair 5G licensing conditions in Portugal: there is more work to come for the lawyers.

UK House of Lords to investigate online freedom of expression

It’s seldom clear what purpose the House of Lords serves, but in launching an inquiry into threats to online freedom of expression it has justified its existence for the time being.

Huawei gets a smartphone lifeline as Qualcomm given permission to supply chips

Qualcomm has told Reuters it has received licenses from the US authorities to supply Huawei with a bunch of products.

Video streaming: networks and the game of bandwidth

This article discusses the explosive growth and the impact of video streaming on today’s IP networks and how operators are leveraging granular-level, real-time traffic insights to enhance delivery of video content, manage their network capacity and develop new revenue streams. Learn more.

Broadband everywhere, for everyone? Tom Wheeler on President-elect Biden's telecom ambitions

Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler points out a few things that the Trump administration has ignored and holds out hope that the next president will get serious about broadband.

Daily Roundup: Cisco Banks Banzai Cloud

In case you’ve been stuck in video conference 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.

AMD Takes Data Center GPU Fight to Nvidia

AMD unveiled its Instinct MI100 GPU today in a bid to accelerate scientific research in high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. The chipmaker claims the GPU is capable of 11.5 teraFLOPs of performance in floating-point 64 tasks.

Regulators say Apple tracking code breaks EU law

Apple faces new complaints before German and Spanish regulators that its online tracking code in iOS devices breaks European Union data privacy law.

Podcast: MNJ VP on pushing UCaaS past the plateau

In addition to examining the evolution of UCaaS, Niernberg explains how a managed approach to SASE assists enterprises in navigating the crowded market of so many security and SD-WAN vendors.

Vodafone cutbacks lift outlook as virus hurts

The European telco giant is restructuring amid the pandemic as it tries to protect profitability in a low-growth market.

Masergy beefs up SD-WAN security with Fortinet cloud firewalls

In addition to the firewalls protecting network traffic at a packet level, Masergy is providing customers with Fortinet's secure web gateway (SWG) service for IP traffic protection at the application level in the cloud and on-premises.

China Telecom gets cracking on 5G standalone

One of China's big three service providers hits the SA milestone on its path to a cloud-network revamp.

HBO Max gains access to Amazon Fire TV devices

WarnerMedia is still in discussions to get the new supersized streaming service distributed on Roku players and Roku TVs.

Dish's 5G gets real: Company inks massive Crown Castle tower deal

The work of physically installing radios on top of cell towers is often the most expensive part of any wireless network buildout. Dish Network said it will use 20,000 Crown Castle towers for 5G.

Europe's Breton threatens big tech with bans, fines

EU's internal market commissioner talks tough ahead of releasing draft 'ex-ante' rules designed to keep large online platform providers in check.

Cisco announces intent to acquire Hungary's Banzai Cloud

The company's second cloud-native acquisition in as many months shows it is looking to add to its development resources for cloud applications and programming.

Minim to combine with Zoom Telephonics, rebrand

Minim, a Wi-Fi and security software company run by former Dyn execs, is pairing with Zoom Telephonics, a supplier of cable modems, gateways and other CPE products sold under the Motorola brand.

Cisco Buys Another Kubernetes Startup Banzai Cloud

Cisco reached a deal to buy Kubernetes-focused startup Banzai Cloud, which marks its second cloud-native-focused acquisition in two months.

Nvidia Amplifies A100, InfiniBand, Launches DGX Station

Less than a year after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang hefted 50 pounds of GPU from his oven, the chipmaker is back with an even more capable chip designed for larger and more complex artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models.

VMware Stuffs Security Into SmartNICs

VMware plans to run its distributed firewalls in smartNICs in a move that will allow enterprises to attach security to sensitive applications.

Eurobites: Telecom Italia builds cloud platform with Atos

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange gets its tax back; OBS digitizes Tricolor's contact center; Virgin Media launches basic broadband plan for UK welfare claimants.