SDxCentral’s Top 10 Articles — December 2021

Check out our top 10 articles for December 2021 covering the SDxCentral universe of cloud, telecom, security, and networking. Rankings are based on unique visitors aggregated during the month.

Airlines file emergency petition to stop C-band near airports

There’s no resolution yet to the dispute between airline officials and the wireless industry when it comes to the deployment of C-band.

SDxCentral’s Top 10 Articles of 2021

Check out our top 10 articles of 2021 covering the SDxCentral universe of cloud, telecom, security, and networking. Rankings are based on unique visitors aggregated during the year.

Nvidia, Fungible Dispel DPU Misconceptions

Data processing units (DPUs) dominated the silicon conversation in 2021 as countless chipmakers embraced the three-letter acronym. However, the fledgling technology remains mired in misconceptions.

Causes for European telco optimism, despite rising inflation – Omdia

Research firm advocates digital transformation, FTTP and multi-brand strategies to help combat rising prices.

2021: The year Indian telcos got their wishlist

It hardly ever happens that the industry gets so many of the items on its wishlist granted by the government in one go – but 2021 turned out nice.

Discussion about municipal broadband with GWI’s Kerem Durdag

Durdag talked about different methods to finance and operate a municipal broadband project, including revenue bonds and B-Corporation status.

Daily Roundup: Top 5 Optical Deals of 2021

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Google, Microsoft, Intel Top Renewable Energy Charts in 2021

Google, Microsoft, and Intel held onto the top three spots on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) latest Green Power Partnership National Top 100 list.

Top 5 Optical Deals of 2021

Optical vendors including Cisco, Marvell, Lumentum, and Adtran swallowed their rivals and/or suppliers this year to take advantage of an unprecedented investment cycle driven by demand for better broadband infrastructure and higher speed connectivity.

New skills trump traditional expertise in hiring trends – Omdia

New skillsets are increasingly required, but telcos are also adopting new terminology that disguises need for skills such as NFV and SDN.

Top 10 stories from FierceWireless Tech in 2021

6G made more than one appearance on the 2021 list.

Top 10 stories from Fierce Wireless in 2021

Here’s a list of our Top 10 stories from 2021.

Daily Roundup: Dish Missed Every 5G Commitment in 2021

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Can Cloud Vault Shield Against Ransomware?

Data security vendors have begun to extend their on-premises cyber vaults to the cloud, aiming to air-gap critical data from the rest of the customer environment for improved security against ransomware attacks. 

Dish Missed Every 5G Commitment It Made in 2021

Dish Network started and now ends 2021 without a 5G network, despite multiple commitments to the contrary that were eventually scrapped more than halfway through the year.

Wi-Fi proponents notch a win in 6GHz debate

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld FCC rules issued last year that open up a large swath of the 6 GHz band to unlicensed users, including Wi-Fi.

T-Mobile: 5G is winning the war against Wi-Fi

T-Mobile said that 13% fewer of the customers on its most expensive Magenta Max 5G data plan are connecting to Wi-Fi. That, the company said, could signal a shift from Wi-Fi to 5G.

Telcos should scale AI use to reap full benefits – Omdia

New report indicates that telcos will be accelerating their use of AI in 2022.

Asia's 2021: Chip shortages, more trade wars and modest 5G gains

It was a year dominated by chip supply woes and the deepening US-China trade war. Also, 5G gained lots of ground but showed few signs of returns.

5G, capex increase, satellite likely to dominate in India in 2022

2022 is likely to be about the impact of two major happenings of 2021: telecom reforms and the tariff hike announced by all major telcos.

FCC wins 6 GHz court challenge

AT&T had challenged the FCC’s decision, saying it posed potential interference with existing microwave users.

Interview with AT&T’s Jason Inskeep

Interview with Jason Inskeep, director of the 5G Center of Excellence at AT&T Business.

Daily Roundup: Worst Cyberattacks of 2021 (So Far)

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Cloud Value Gap Remains Modernization Challenge, PwC Says

The majority of companies are “all-in” on the cloud but over half have failed to realize the true value of that move, according to a recent PwC survey. However, the value gap is closing as organizations start to evolve from cloud migration toward modernization and innovation.

Worst Cyberattacks of 2021 (So Far)

Cybersecurity practitioners rang in 2021 while fighting fires in the aftermath of the massive SolarWinds hack. And now, with many predicting we won’t know the full scope of the Log4j vulnerability and subsequent cyberattacks for months or even years, it looks like we’ll be in for a similar 2022.

CSPs got it all to prove with private 5G networks – Omdia

Pablo Tomasi sees "5G hype" as a useful icebreaker for CSPs to engage more with enterprises on private networks but warns there’s still much work needed to gain their trust.

Helium aims to be 'largest cellular network' in US

Helium's CEO said the company may well grow into 'the largest cellular network in the US within the next couple of years.' But that doesn't necessarily mean companies like Verizon or T-Mobile should worry.

Gigabit subscriptions set for 'big increase' next year – Omdia

Led by China, analysts expect global gigabit subscriptions to reach 50 million in 2022, up from 24 million at the end of 2020.

A 7 Layers Year in Review: 2021

Fierce’s 2022 predictions for hottest topics in wireless

At Fierce, we have already identified the hottest general topics for telecom in 2022. And we’re planning virtual events associated with them.

C-band triggers chaos in 2021

Some might equate it to the pandemic. Just when you thought all was said and done, the C-band emerged with another whammy.

Fixed wireless steps into the spotlight in 2021

This year fixed wireless access stepped more directly into the spotlight as major carriers emphasized new offerings.

Here’s how fiber, FWA factor into cable’s future in 2022

The firm focus on fiber as we head into 2022 begs one big question: what does the future look like for cable?

Daily Roundup: AWS, Google, Microsoft Measure Cloud Customers' CO2

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Zero-Trust Interest Explodes Amid High-Profile Attacks, New Threats

Zero-trust security spending and software-as-a-service (SaaS) network security revenue skyrocketed in the third quarter of 2021 due to pent-up demand, new security threats, and digitization efforts, according to a Dell’Oro Group report.

Op-Ed: Is the Trade Show Dead?

Industry trade shows were always going to be a 2021 wild card. Would there actually be any live events? Would they remain virtual? Would the hybrid model work? What about all of my travel points? And free drink tickets?

Apple, Google, Meta prepare for the next big 5G battle

Some of the biggest tech companies in the world appear to be preparing to fight each other in the market for augmented and virtual reality headsets. 5G providers likely are likely cheering on the sidelines.

Designing and deploying cloud native open RAN

Heavy Reading's operator survey suggests operators need to pursue a cloud native vRAN implementation to fully realize the benefits of open RAN.

Telefónica embraces Ericsson in shift away from Huawei – report

Telefónica is reportedly shifting from Huawei equipment to Ericsson equipment in Spain, another indication that a US-led campaign against the Chinese vendor is bearing fruit.

LEOsats, FWA and AI: What experts are saying about 2022

It's that time of the year when industry experts take a pass at telling the future.

Omdia: Consumers will spend more on movies in 2022

But overall success will 'be a fine balance between box office, subscriber revenue, and piracy,' writes Omdia analyst Charlotte Jones in her new report.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger's Greatest Hits of 2021

In just shy of a year, Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s favorite son and CEO, managed to turn the faltering chipmaker’s fortunes around in more ways than one.

Verizon’s 5G mmWave Network Has a Tree Problem

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum suffers the same severe limitations today that dogged it when Verizon first deployed the technology in 2018.

5G’s Killer Apps: Fixed Wireless Access, Edge, Private Networks

In the early days of 5G, mobile network operators pushed a futuristic vision for the technology — invoking a world of remote surgery, autonomous vehicles, and virtual reality.

Intel, Lenovo and Google withdraw from CES due to Omicron surge

More major tech players have joined the list of firms pulling out or limiting their presence at Las Vegas tech mega-show CES.

There are reasons for optimism in 2022

It might not feel like it right now, but there are many reasons to hope the world will bounce back strongly next year.

This Olde Website: 2021

This year's trek down memory lane of the WWW takes us to Apple, Arris, Dell, Facebook and – hold onto your Santa hats! – a brief tour of Places Jeff Used to Work.

Is Multi-Cloud SD-WAN’s Final Destination?

SD-WAN is evolving, fueled by a potent cocktail of cloud, edge, and networking technologies that we call multi-cloud.

P50 Pocket foldable phone signals Huawei’s consumer tech defiance

Embattled Chinese tech vendor Huawei has released a set of new products based on the HarmonyOS operating system. 

UK 5G coverage roughly doubled in 2021

Network analysis firm Global Wireless Solutions says that three of the four major operators have doubled their nationwide 5G coverage in the last year.

US tech masters of the universe squabble over the future of the internet

Having stepped down as CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey has criticized claimed ‘Web3’ technology, which has inevitably triggered some of its cheerleaders.

Vodafone and Mavenir complete small cell OpenRAN trial

UK operator Vodafone and software vendor Mavenir say they have successfully tested a small cell OpenRAN mast using containerised software.

2021: The Year Aruba Joined The SD-WAN Leaders Club

It’s been a busy year for Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Aruba Networks as it embraces its newfound footing as a leading SD-WAN vendor.

Orchestration ogler Oracle scoops up Federos

Continuing its recent spending spree, Oracle aims to expand its applications portfolio by adding AI-optimized assurance, analytics, and automation solutions from Federos.

Rural broadband report talks up fiber, funding and supply constraints

Here are five of the most interesting things I found in the NTCA's recent survey and report on broadband availability in rural America.

China Mobile gets green light for blockbuster $9B Shanghai IPO

China Mobile is moving quickly to IPO after approval from the securities regulator, paving the way for one of the telecom industry's biggest-ever floats.

Consumer techies expect big digital things by 2030 – Ericsson

Survey of early AR/VR adopters finds many rubbing their virtual hands together in glee at prospect of various digital experiences in shopping malls by 2030.

Cloudflare, Armis Join CrowdStrike’s XDR Alliance

CrowdStrike added new members — Cloudflare, Armis, and ThreatWarrior — to its extended detection and response (XDR) alliance in a move that CTO Michael Sentonas says defines “the standard for what XDR technology should be.”

AWS, Google, Microsoft Measure Cloud Customers' CO2

Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) all made moves this year to tackle their environmental impacts — including passing the emissions-reduction baton to their cloud customers.

India wants to do 6G

The last few days have seen senior Indian government officials, including the telecom minister, mention 6G on more than one occasion.

Device upgrades to drive 5G growth in 2022 – Omdia

In developed markets, most devices telcos sell in 2022 will have 5G, giving them an opportunity to sell 5G plans if they add more value.

AT&T follows T-Mobile in pulling out of CES

T-Mobile said that its CEO Mike Sievert would no longer be delivering a keynote in-person or virtually at CES.

Wrapping up 2021: 5 predictions for 2022 — Madden

After two years of a roller coaster ride, here are some predictions to ponder for the year ahead.

Apple makes big inroads in Chinese smartphone market

When you think of smartphones in China, you tend to think of Chinese brands such as Huawei, vivo and OPPO.

Who leads the global RAN market? Ericsson, says Mobile Experts

New analysis from Mobile Experts ranks Ericsson as the leading vendor for global RAN market share, with China’s Huawei at number two.

NTCA members serve gigabit speeds to over half their rural subs

Among other things, the report found that on average 75% of members’ serviceable locations were covered by fiber to the home this year.

T-Mobile limits presence at CES but the show goes on

US operator T-Mobile says the vast majority of its team will no longer be attending CES, while Amazon, Meta, Twitter and Pintrest have reportedly pulled out entirely.

2021 was a record year for UK data use – VMO2

UK operator group Virgin Media O2 has published the numbers on the use of its networks this year and revealed we downloaded more than ever.

AT&T agrees to sell Xandr ad unit to Microsoft

US network operator AT&T has agreed to sell its programmatic advertising operation Xandr, launched just 3 years ago, to Microsoft.

Daily Roundup: NTT Taps HPE GreenLake, Microsoft Azure for Hybrid Cloud

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Cisco Topples Diversity, Environmental Targets

Cisco claimed a 120% increase in Black vice presidents and a 90% increase in Black directors, in its latest Purpose Report. The diversity gains usurp Cisco’s original goal, which targeted a 75% increase by 2023.

Some 5G providers step back from CES

'After careful consideration and discussion, T-Mobile has made the difficult decision to significantly limit our in-person participation at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.'

SeaChange, Triller sign merger pact

The $5 billion 'reverse merger' will enable privately owned Triller, a short-video app and content developer, to become a publicly listed company on the Nasdaq as TrillerVerz Corp.

Here's why the telecom industry is taking aim at Big Tech

For the first time ever, the six biggest Internet companies in the world accounted for more traffic in 2021 than all other Internet companies combined, according to Sandvine.

Book excerpt: How Huawei took the telecom world by storm

Jon Pelson's new book, Wireless Wars: China's Dangerous Domination of 5G and How We're Fighting Back, dives into the meteoric rise of Huawei on the global telecommunications stage.

From the digital divide to 6G, top regulatory trends to watch in 2022 – Omdia

The analyst firm points to trends it says will be 'at the heart of regulatory activity' next year, including spectrum licensing, the digital divide and – yes – 6G.

What's the story? Streaming TV providers seek market stability

Light Reading's Jeff Baumgartner explains the challenges that streaming TV providers face in keeping subscribers while achieving profitability.

T-Mobile’s Very Good, Very Bad 2021

T-Mobile US closes out 2021 much like it began: the only wireless carrier in the U.S. running its 5G network on a 5G standalone core. Its mid-band 5G network currently covers 200 million people, and that runs alongside a low-band 5G network covering 308 million people. 

Verizon Bumps 5G Standalone Core to 2022

Verizon’s 5G core won’t be fully deployed and commercially available until 2022 — a delay that affords T-Mobile US continued bragging rights as the only U.S. carrier with 5G services running in standalone (SA) mode. 

Eurobites: Telent acquires Harlequin Group for private-networks push

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telefónica Tech brings security to CAVs; Ericsson eyeing Russia for basestation manufacturing, claims report; BT's speed guarantee found wanting.

Fixed wireless opens new customer engagement avenue — Greenblatt

A critical question now faces the wireless service provider community: Where will new growth come from? FWA is emerging as a central element.

STL brings SDN principles to fiber with programmable FTTX

STL sought to capitalize on a trend toward open networking in the fiber market, rolling out an open programmable FTTX solution.

AT&T, Verizon host open RAN plugfests in 2021

In October and November AT&T and Verizon hosted open RAN plugfests across three labs in the U.S.

Mint Mobile pulls back on unlimited claims after AT&T complaint

The National Advertising Review Board recommended Mint Mobile stop using "unlimited" ad claims, as data speeds are throttled to 2G after a data cap.

BT hires doctors to bolster smart healthcare offering

BT will create a ‘Clinical Advisory Board’ to drive the growth of new connected healthcare technology.

China Mobile could raise almost $9 billion from Shanghai IPO

Having been booted out of the New York Stock Exchange, China Mobile is doing the sensible thing and offering its shares in China.

Three and EE throw weight behind London Underground 4G project

UK Operators Three and EE have teamed up with infrastructure firm BAI Communications to pipe in 4G and later 5G to commuters on the tube.

A Ransomware Retrospective for 2021 With Qualys CEO

Nvidia Challenges Fungible for DPU Dominance

Nvidia today claimed a new record for data processing unit (DPU) performance that saw a pair of BlueField-2 accelerators achieve 41 million IOPS of storage performance. The claim bests Fungible’s own 10 million IOPS record from late last month — at least on paper.

HPE, Dell, and Cisco Push Network-as-a-Service. Will Enterprises Bite?

CEOs of Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and Dell Technologies all touted plans in 2021 to offer almost everything as-a-service in the near future. One of these moves is network-as-a-service (NaaS), which brings network agility and scalability to help organizations deal with the challenges of hybrid workforce, distributed systems, and digital transformation acceleration.

SolarWinds to Log4j: More Risk Management Wake-Up Calls

Cybersecurity practitioners started this year with the struggle of addressing the SolarWinds supply chain attack, and now the Log4j vulnerability is another wake-up call for the need to set up long-term risk-management strategies.

Daily Roundup: HPE, Dell, and Cisco Push Network-as-a-Service. Will Enterprises Bite?

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ZTE's device business poised to fire up growth

ZTE's device business could be the fire that lights up its rebound. The consumer unit grew by 67% in the first half to 12.4 billion yuan (US$1.95 billion).

5G might be costly but competition settings still matter

5G is a big lift, especially for developing countries, needing a denser mix of basestations than 4G, multiple spectrum bands and a much higher power load.

The year in DOCSIS 4.0

With early lab trials, a first wave of interoperability testing and collaborations between key suppliers, DOCSIS 4.0 made significant progress in 2021, even as deployments remain well out on the horizon.

Eurobites: Three, EE get onboard London's tube connectivity plan

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Elisa Estonia chooses Nokia for 5G open RAN; Telefónica tries liquid-cooling for its data centers, central offices; Fastweb speeds up with Infinera.

After a turbulent 2021 Vodafone Idea faces uncertain 2022

It's been a turbulent year for India's third-largest telco, Vodafone Idea, as it fought for survival – but new measures and a tariff hike have helped.

Media, vendors rethinking in-person plans for CES 2022

Some media members and vendors worried about the latest COVID-19 variant are canceling plans to attend CES, casting a cloud over the tech industry's largest US trade show.

5G providers reject mandates for backup power at cell sites

'Planning and managing backup power resources thus requires case-by-case judgments that are not amenable to prescriptive rules,' Verizon told the FCC in a recent filing.

Ericsson's CradlePoint unit buys UK's Quortus – exclusive

Swedish vendor says takeover will provide engineering talent to support the growth of its enterprise connectivity and security business.

Disney+ moves into top tier of US streaming services

New top ten list from Parks Associates reveals significant changes as Disney+ moves into the top three of US OTT services, while HBO Max and Paramount+ also climb in the rankings.

Most pay-TV subs take streaming services too – new survey

In its latest 'State of Cable' survey of 1,000 readers, CableTV.com found that 70% of them still subscribe to cable or satellite TV and that nearly all of them also subscribe to at least one streaming video service.

NTT Taps HPE GreenLake, Microsoft Azure for Hybrid Cloud

Japanese telecom giant NTT West Group tapped Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) GreenLake platform and Microsoft’s Azure public cloud to provide hybrid cloud services to local organizations across western Japan.

AT&T sells Xandr to Microsoft

AT&T, which has been working to exit the media industry and shed related businesses, didn't disclose the sale price of its programmatic advertising business to Microsoft.

U.S. scores top rank for 5G coverage, falls short on speed

outh Korea led the pack on 5G downloads with median speeds of 492 Mbps.

USDA gives rural broadband a $119M boost

The U.S. Department of Agriculture dished out more funding for rural broadband, awarding more than $119 million for projects in 19 states.

Openreach has plugged in full fibre to 100,000 customers in Northern Ireland

BT subsidiary Openreach’s Northern Ireland expansion continues, as it connects it’s 100,000th customer to its 1 Gbps fibre-to-the-premises network.

Orange Business chief exits

Orange Business CEO Helmut Reisinger is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.

Arrcus CEO sees a ‘critical’ need to address transport security

The CEO explained there are two primary catalysts driving the need for security in the transport layer.

Virgin Media O2 wants to pick your telly for you

Converged UK telco Virgin Media O2 has launched a TV and film recommendation engine called ‘What should I Watch?‘

5G-Powered Drones: New Services and Revenue Opportunities

Text: Mobile operators need to offer new lines of services to tap into fresh revenue opportunities and capture new market segments.

Zyxel’s Cost-Effective Connections to Rural/Remote LTE/5G Subs

Zyzel’s CBRS solutions provide efficient, cost-effective broadband connections to rural/remote LTE/5G subs.

Nokia lands all of Elisa Estonia’s 5G RAN work in vendor swap

Finnish kit vendor Nokia has continued its 5G redemption by landing the whole gig at the Estonian subsidiary of Finnish operator Elisa, replacing the incumbent vendor in the process.

TIM’s former CEO accepts €6.9 million to vacate board seat

Luigi Gubitosi, the ex-CEO of Italian operator group TIM, has been given 6.9 million reasons to step down from its board of directors.

VMware’s Long Road to Freedom in 2021

The Dell Technologies-VMware train has been on a wild ride for the past few years.

Fortinet Broadens SD-WAN Service Provider Empire

Even in the final days of 2021, Fortinet is still hustling to expand its service provider empire and strengthen its grip on the SD-WAN market.

Daily Roundup: Shortages Stall Q3 Ethernet Adapter Shipments as Demand Surges

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NTT's Bruce Snell on 'wide sweeping ramifications' of Log4j vulnerability

Snell covers some of the biggest cybersecurity trends of 2021 and has advice for how organizations can better manage and secure their data.

Ex-CEO Gubitosi steps down from TIM board

$7.8 billion severance package frees up seat on board, paving way for successor appointment.

Huawei staff installed malicious code on Aust. network – report

Huawei installed malicious code in Australia's Optus telco network that recorded all communications and transmitted it to China, according to Bloomberg.

Nearly a quarter of LTE operators have launched 5G – GSA

GSA forecasts that more than 200 5G networks will have been deployed by the end of Q1 2022.

The FCC may be facing another nuclear-sized interference problem

NextEra said it uses the 6GHz band for 'plant control communications,' including for its nuclear power plants. That's why it's asking the FCC to immediately halt sales of Wi-Fi devices in the band.

Frndly TV finds its pay-TV niche as subscribers surpass 500K

Subs and profits are hard to come by in the unfriendly world of pay-TV, but Frndly TV has been able to get both with a family-focused, skinny bundle that starts at $6.99 per month.

5G more than holds its own against Wi-Fi in Singapore – report

Opensignal finds 5G is nearly 50% faster than Wi-Fi in the island and provides users with the same multiplayer mobile games experience.

India's 5Gi to be included in 3GPP global standards – report

India’s homegrown 5Gi standard is likely to be included in release 17 of the international 3GPP 5G standards.

Disney, YouTube TV get a deal done after brief blackout

After being blacked out temporarily starting late Friday night, ESPN, ABC, FX and other Disney-owned networks were being restored to the YouTube TV service on Sunday afternoon in the wake of a new distribution deal.

AT&T, Verizon, others fined for 911 outages

An outage 'affected AT&T's ability to deliver 911 calls to 11 PSAPs in multiple states during this event. As a result of the outage, calls were not transmitted to those affected PSAPs,' the FCC said.

Deutsche Telekom preps towers sale – report

Deutsche Telekom is said to want to start a sales process in the first quarter of 2022.

Shortages Stall Q3 Ethernet Adapter Shipments as Demand Surges

Ethernet controller and adapter revenue is on track to grow 27% in 2021 as major cloud service providers upgrade their data center networks. However, the adapter shipments slipped 7% year over year in the third quarter amid supply constraints, a recent Dell’Oro Group report found.

Boost Mobile retail stores start selling Cox prepaid internet

Boost Mobile is initially selling prepaid internet from Cox in Las Vegas and Phoenix as it evaluates a wider launch.

Lumen, AT&T, Verizon, Intrado fined millions over 911 violations

Lumen, Intrado, AT&T and Verizon agreed to make settlement payments totaling more than $6 million.

Verizon gives sneak peek of pre-commercial C-band in LA

Some folks recently received a sneak peek of Verizon’s pre-commercial C-band 5G service in downtown Los Angeles.

Caribe Royale deploys CBRS neutral host network

A Florida resort that has used traditional DAS in the past is now investing in a CBRS neutral host network.

Ericsson, Telstra, Qualcomm set 5G uplink record of 986 Mbps

The parties used 5G dual connectivity and carrier aggregation for the trial on Telstra’s commercial network.

FCC unleashes $1B in RDOF funding but big bidders still waiting

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced it is ready to authorize its largest batch of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support yet.

Intelsat gets the OK for restructure after bankruptcy filing

Struggling US satellite firm Intelsat has been given the go ahead to action its bankruptcy plan, which is designed to halve its debt.

CMA says Cellnex purchase of CK Hutchison towers would create a duopoly

The UK Competition and Markets Authority has said that the proposed deal for Cellnex pick up CK Hutchison’s passive infrastructure risks higher mobile costs.

Greek incumbent OTE Group ploughs billions into fibre

The OTE Group has announced plans to roll out full fibre to 3 million homes and businesses in Greece over the next five years, investing around €3 billion in the process.

MTN replaces South Africa CEO

Africa-based telco group MTN is waving goodbye to the CEO of its South African unit Godfrey Motsa.

Telecom Kit Market Growth Projected to Curtail in 2022

The global telecom infrastructure equipment market posted a 6% year-over-year jump in revenue during the third quarter of 2021, but annual growth is now projected to decline from 8% in 2021 to 2% in 2022, according to Dell’Oro Group.

Daily Roundup: Intel, AppsFlyer Team on Next-Gen Encryption

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Verizon, T-Mobile Shun Public Clouds for Network Infrastructure

T-Mobile US and Verizon share a similar cloud strategy with clear lines drawn between what does and doesn’t belong on public clouds. 

Microsoft, Intel, Juniper Top CDP Environmental Leaders List

Microsoft, Intel, and Juniper Networks all earned A grades for their climate change risk management, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) latest corporate environmental leaders list.

SDxCentral 2-Minute Weekly Wrap: ‘Very Few Will Escape’ Log4j, Threat Researchers Say

Intel's data center crown is slipping fast

The chipmaker's share of the market for data center servers has fallen dramatically in the last few years, according to the latest Omdia data.

MEF adds application, security updates to SD-WAN standard

The updated SD-WAN standard includes new metrics for application performance within and across multiple service provider networks and supports application-based security outlined in MEF 88.

Malaysian telcos call for second 5G network - report

Reports indicate that Telekom Malaysia and YTL Communications are first to provide 5G access in three cities covered by the SWN.

Cable network spending a mixed bag in Q3 – Dell'Oro Group

Revenues in the cable concentrator market dipped year-over-year in Q3 2021, but accelerated on a sequential basis as operators bulked up on network hardware and deployed capacity-enhancing node splits.

China Telecom cloud unit takes on new investors in $628M revamp

Cloud subsidiary Tianyi gains four state-backed investors, boosting capital base and making it the preferred secure cloud partner for military and government.

EU to funnel over €1B into 5G and cloud

Digital strand of Connecting Europe Facility aims to bridge the gap between private and public funding to boost connectivity in the EU.

Verizon shows off C-band speeds amid battle with airlines

Early, limited tests of Verizon's C-band network in Los Angeles showed speeds up to 1 Gbit/s, but airline officials warn of a 'catastrophic failure' in regulations from 5G technology in the C-band.

US, Japan to fund 5G networks in Pacific

The Pacific island states are coming into focus as one of the key battle zones in the US-China tech war.

Making the case for multi-vendor 5G core

'Heavy Reading's Multi-Vendor 5G Core Networks: The Case for a Disaggregated Control Plane' white paper examines operator 5G core strategies.

Eurobites: Tele2 ready to roll 5G in Latvia

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ofcom bans locked handsets; Hyperoptic takes part in smart-home pilot; Telesign goes public.

Fiber management firm Clearfield grew revenue 51% in 2021

Clearfield’s backlog of orders increased 522% to $66.4 million at year-end compared to $10.7 million at the end of its fiscal 2020.

Nokia aims to make G.fast installations easier for fiber players

Nokia unveiled a new solution called Gigabit Connect which is designed to make G.fast deployments in multi-dwelling units (MDUs) easier.

MEF tackles SD-WAN interoperability with new standard

Industry standards group MEF is hard at work on a new SD-WAN standard aimed at enabling interoperability between vendor solutions at the edge.

Verizon Sweeps Cloud Giant Trio Into 5G Edge Service

Verizon today extended its mobile edge compute offering to Google Cloud, making it the only U.S. carrier with edge services slated to ride on all three of the world’s largest hyperscalers. 

Ethernet Switch Revenues Reach New High as Cisco Loses Ground

Global data center Ethernet switch revenue soared 11% year over year to a record high in the third quarter of 2021, Dell’Oro Group reports.

Intel, AppsFlyer Team on Next-Gen Encryption

Data analysis and marketing vendor AppsFlyer announced a long-term partnership with Intel earlier this month in hopes of accelerating the commercial viability of homomorphic encryption.

Google, Cybereason Make Good on Joint XDR Pledge

Google Cloud and Cybereason made good on their joint extended detection and response (XDR) promise this week.

Daily Roundup: Ethernet Switch Revenues Reach New High as Cisco Loses Ground

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.

India clears $10B incentives to lure chip makers

The Programme for Development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystem is aiming for two fabs for displays and ten units for components.

XCOM finally breaks cover with XR 'experience' for soldiers

XCOM said its demonstration uses edge computing and Microsoft HoloLens 2 Mixed Reality headsets, thus allowing users to 'move freely, simultaneously and seamlessly' through a digital reality.

The 'full fiber' vs. 'tech neutral' debate heats up in US

Industry groups and policy advocates alike are sharpening their arguments for which technologies should be involved in closing the US digital divide.

Telecom's lobbying associations shift attention to the states

A record $42 billion is going to be pumped into the US telecommunications industry, but it will be state regulators who decide exactly which network operators get that money.

Las Vegas leavings: Dish's first 5G network tests are in

SRG analysts spent 24 hours in Vegas last week using professional testing equipment from Rohde & Schwarz to test the wireless networks there.

Eurobites: TIM puts its foot down, reaches 5 Gbit/s on live 5G network

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telefónica makes board changes; Ofcom's fiber overview; Höttges contract extended at Deutsche Telekom.

Verizon's mmWave 5G deployment continues to polarize

Verizon's mmWave 5G network is either meeting its 'intended purpose' or faces 'low success' in achieving significant profitability, depending on which study you read.

SCTE will draft 'smart' amplifier standard as DOCSIS 4.0 approaches

New tech standard will define communications protocols for standalone amplifiers and amps built into nodes for DOCSIS networks, including future DOCSIS 4.0 networks.

Misfortune dogs Telecom Italia as earnings outlook dims

Amid speculation about its future ownership structure, the Italian phone incumbent has been forced to downgrade its forecasts.

Lumen's Mark Dehus tracks DDoS threats

Mark Dehus shares highlights from Lumen's Q3 DDoS report, why voice and VoIP services were heavily targeted and his predictions for DDoS trends in Q4.

Rogers tees up for DOCSIS 4.0 with Harmonic’s CableOS

Harmonic notched another win for its CableOS virtual cable modem termination system (vCMTS), signing on Canadian operator Rogers Communications.

Deutsche Telekom aims to push fiber to 2M locations in 2022

German operator Deutsche Telekom (DT) is aiming to deploy fiber even faster in 2022 after covering 1.2 million new households this year.

Trade groups write playbook for spending infrastructure money

The Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) and NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association plan to publish a playbook to assist state governments.

AWS Outage Stresses Telco Cloud Challenges

The cloud has a lot going for it, but it’s not infallible as many people and enterprises realized again last week when Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a prolonged outage that impacted both basic applications and colossal businesses with hundreds of millions of customers.

Daily Roundup: Alkira Ropes Cisco Into Multi-Cloud Menagerie

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.

Sysdig Raises $350M, Rides Cloud Security Wave

Container and cloud security unicorn Sysdig today scored $350 million in a Series G funding round led by Permira. The cash infusion brings the total raised to $744 million and pushes the vendor’s valuation to $2.5 billion.

VMware Berths SD-WAN in Megaport Virtual Edge

VMware is the latest SD-WAN vendor to berth in Megaport’s Virtual Edge (MVE) service, which the companies claim will expedite branch-to-cloud and branch-to-branch communications.

T-Mobile's Neville Ray remains wary of moving around in the cloud

'I'm not at the point yet where I would put that in the hands of a third party,' Ray said of T-Mobile's cloud operations, which the operator currently manages internally.

NEC is out to crash the Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia 5G party

The Japanese firm is determined to serve one fifth of all open RAN business by 2030 and establish itself as a new 5G force.

Eurobites: EE extends 4G coverage through Shared Rural Network scheme

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia supplies FWA kit to Ooredoo; Telekom Srbija bags EIB loan; world's first ever SMS could be yours…

Cloud burst: How the EU's Gaia-X project went awry

The EU's cloud project could still become a world standards setter, but is for now stalled by fights over data sovereignty.

Comcast will keep data caps out of the Northeast in 2022

Comcast has no plans to implement its usage-based broadband policies in its Northeast markets in 2022 'at this time,' but has made no commitment to keep it that way in 2023 and beyond.

Another AWS outage and more cloud worries

The Wednesday morning AWS service interruption in part of the cloud giant's network is making it tougher to complain about work colleagues and see who's at the door.

The changing economics of the Internet of the future

Relying on yesterday's cost structures, routing silicon, operational paradigms, tools and two decades of accumulated complexity has proven to fall short in meeting insatiable bandwidth requirements consistently and at sustainable power consumption.

Harmonic adds Rogers as another CableOS win

Canadian cable op will tap Harmonic's virtual CCAP and DAA gear as part of a plan to support multi-gigabit services, shift to an all-IP services platform, and cut a 'clear path to DOCSIS 4.0.'

Roku says ITC ban won't disrupt ability to import products

ITC ruling finds that certain Roku streaming players, TVs, soundbars and remotes infringe on a UEI patent, but Roku claims design changes 'eliminate any infringement.'

400G coherent pluggable optics: A key to IP and optical integration

IP and optical convergence is not just for hyperscalers. Heavy Reading survey data suggests that communications service providers are evaluating this new transport architecture, and many expect to move quickly toward adoption.

Cybersecurity should not be a bolt-on, Comcast CISO says

Noopur Davis on Comcast's journey into the Secure Development Lifecycle, ensuring security is prioritized at an early stage rather than tacked on at the end.

How children are helping to fuel US wireless growth

According to one survey, 13% of parents with a child aged five to eight reported purchasing them a phone. And 3% of parents with a child aged two or younger reported purchasing them a phone.

Brazil's Claro sets out 5G stall

CEO of América Móvil-owned operator indicates it will only buy 5G phones from next year on.

All Verizon wants for Christmas is a SASE 'easy button'

Each vendor, service provider, customer, etc. has their own take on the definition of the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), which makes it difficult to find a one-stop-shop that provides a full SASE suite, explains Verizon's Vincent Lee.

CommScope gears up for XGS-PON

DOCSIS and advanced HFC technologies will remain key areas for CommScope, but the vendor is set to launch a new XGS-PON platform in the coming months amid a broader, companywide transformation initiative.

Eurobites: Vodafone and Mavenir complete small-cell open RAN call

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: BSO rolls into Bergamo; BT shacks up with Nozomi; TIM/KKR latest; Deutsche Telekom toots rollout trumpet.

Drahi becomes biggest BT shareholder and bothers Boris

The man behind the Altice telecom group has upped his stake in the UK phone incumbent, sparking concern about his future intentions.

Neos Networks eyes a fifth more in sales in UK fiber rush

Small offshoot of energy giant reckons sales will grow a fifth this year as it piles into the business connectivity sector.

YouTube TV warns that Disney channels might go dark

YouTube TV will cut its monthly price by $15 if a distribution deal is not reached by December 17, causing Disney networks like ABC, ESPN and FX to go dark.

Charter to bundle in Peacock… for a while

Cable op will offer Peacock's ad-supported premium tier for no added cost for 12 months to pay-TV subs, and for no added cost for 90 days to broadband subs.

Eurobites: UK lawmakers call for more 'joined-up' digital thinking

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Swiss government ups the broadband ante; South Africa invites spectrum bids; Proximus gets into cyber-insurance.

AT&T signals interest in 5G operations in unlicensed 6GHz band

AT&T showed interest in using the new 5G NR-U standard operating in the unlicensed 6GHz band in a new testing request filed with the FCC.

Lockheed Martin enlists Radisys for its 5G.MIL incursion

Lockheed said Radisys will supply open RAN software technologies in locations where 'wired interconnections are not possible or are cost prohibitive.'

Juniper jumps on O-RAN bandwagon

Jai Thattil joins the podcast to discuss Juniper's efforts to develop RIC technology, and why partnerships with Intel and Rakuten are key to Juniper's open RAN vision.

Don't worry about C-band spectrum delays – analysts

Although the airline industry continues to fret over the possibility that 5G will interfere with aircraft radio altimeters, one analyst firm believes the situation isn't much of a concern.

What conflicts of interest? Vantage offers towers to 1&1

The Vodafone business will lease space on towers to a company that competes directly against Vodafone Germany – go figure.

Samsung and Viettel To Launch 5G Commercial Trial in Da Nang, Vietnam

Samsung Electronics and Viettel today announced that the companies have started 5G commercial trials in Da Nang, the largest city in the Central Vietnam region.

WOW to go on offensive with greenfield FTTP builds

Tied to WOW's broadband-first strategy, company will deploy new FTTP networks to at least 200,000 homes passed – and perhaps up to 400,000 – in 'non-adjacent,' low-competition markets over the next five years.

Telstra wades into electricity retail battle

The Australian operator is diversifying beyond telecom into the hotly contested energy market.

MetTel CTO Ed Fox on clearing up confusion around SASE

Ed Fox explains how MetTel's own approach to SASE has evolved and which components are key to any SASE service, such as Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). In addition, Fox shares how the service provider is working with customers making the shift from copper wire networks to fiber, cellular and VOIP networks.

Spalding returns with $20M for hardened cell towers

Gen. Robert Spalding in 2018 penned documents that raised the prospect of a national 5G network. Now he's the CEO of a company selling cell towers designed to withstand a high-altitude nuclear event.

Eurobites: FTTH deployment rate slows in France

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: 1&1 signs deal with Vantage Towers; Vodafone aims for greater diversity; Zen Internet wins green gong.

The good and the bad of Amazon's private 5G

Top executives from AT&T and Verizon discussed the new private 5G offering from Amazon Web Services and how it might affect their own efforts in the space.

Ciena is simply having a wonderful Christmas time

CEO Gary Smith has come bearing some nice stocking fillers for shareholders and the outlook for next year is rosy.

Where cable is going with the edge

In this fourth and last segment of the sponsored series, we look at a few more key results from a new Heavy Reading study about the cable industry's edge computing strategy and goals.

Liberty Global's helloFiber gets going in Germany

Touting a wide range of broadband products delivering up to 1-Gig, along with phone, mobile and TV add-ons, Liberty Networks Germany is initially targeting more than 7,000 homes and businesses in Brandenburg.

TracFone deal, C-band build an 'amazing holiday gift' for Verizon's new consumer boss

'I have all the tools now,' says Manon Brouillette, the new head of Verizon's consumer group. However, she intends to amplify the strategy in place at Verizon rather than come in with wholesale changes.

The Divide: FBA's Gary Bolton on taking fiber advocacy to the states

This week: Gary Bolton, president of the Fiber Broadband Association, returns to the podcast to discuss how the fiber industry's advocacy efforts are changing as the US implements its $65 billion broadband bill. We also discuss FBA's forthcoming fiber optic technician training program.

Verizon tops mmWave cell site goal for 2021, touts C-band speed tests

Verizon says it has exceeded its year-end target of deploying 14,000 new mmWave cell sites, and has conducted field tests of C-band spectrum that delivered speeds in the range of 1.5 Gbit/s to 3 Gbit/s.

Orange warns of rising cyberattacks on mobile devices

Security Navigator picks up some worrying trends, with a 13% increase in cyberattacks overall.

T-Mobile surpasses 2021 home broadband subscriber goal

Company has exceeded a goal of singing up 500,000 fixed wireless access subscribers and remains focused on expanding that total to 7 million to 8 million in the coming years, CEO Mike Sievert says.

UK security agency joins O-RAN Alliance

Involvement in the group behind open RAN specifications comes after Germany raised security concerns about the new technology.

US cable to rake in nearly $22B in commercial services revenues in 2021

Overall revenue and customer growth slowed during the pandemic and as US cable has nabbed larger pieces of the businesses services market, but there are signs of a rebound, forecasts show.

Aryaka sizes up managed SASE, SD-WAN services

Aryaka CMO Shashi Kiran says one reason the company has updated its SASE and SD-WAN service is to achieve an 'overarching goal of simplicity' and provide more choices for enterprises trying to balance their networking and security needs for a more distributed workforce.

Australian govt. raises $1.5B in latest bout of Asia 5G auctions

The Australian sale comes shortly after Singapore and Hong Kong auctioned spectrum for the new-generation mobile technology.

Moving core to cloud for 'suckers,' tweets BT exec after AWS outage

The UK incumbent's chief architect derides recent public cloud deals after the latest preview of the Internet apocalypse.

Eurobites: Roam 'like at home' until 2032, says EU

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: FiberCop signs up another provider in Italy; TIP gets behind open RAN in the UK; how to find your stolen Volvo.

YouTube TV reaches Comcast Flex devices and XClass TVs

YouTube TV becomes the latest OTT-TV service to launch an app on Comcast's streaming product for broadband-only customers as well as its new line of nationally available smart TVs.

Businesses are accelerating network transformation programs, Charter exec says

Commercial customers are in a 'renew phase' as they move workloads into the cloud, shift to SD-WAN and continue to embrace remote access products and technologies, says Spectrum Enterprise's Bob Schroeder.

Roku and Google bury the hatchet

New multiyear deal will keep YouTube and YouTube TV on the popular streaming platform.

Omdia's Rik Turner on cloud permissions management

During the podcast, Turner discusses how CPM addresses issues such as permission sprawl and orphan accounts, and how organizations can take a more proactive approach to managed cloud access permissions.

Mobile is Charter's 'biggest single opportunity' in 2022, CEO says

With the recent launch of a new, more scalable billing system for mobile, 'We're ready to go faster,' says Charter Chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge.

Headcount: Firings, Hirings, and Retirings — November 2021

Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that happened in November. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s movers and shakers, or if you’ve got a tip about layoffs and restructuring, please send the information to Emma Chervek (echervek@sdxcentral.com) for inclusion in the monthly headcount column.

Juniper Eyes Cloud AI, SASE Security Partnerships, Private Networks

The next big challenge for the cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) market is trust, according to Bob Friday, CTO of Juniper Networks’ AI-driven enterprise business.

AWS Cloud WAN Parries Google, Microsoft

Amazon dove into the wide-area networking space this week with the launch of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud WAN.

Daily Roundup: HPE CEO Waxes HPC, AI Chops

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.

Windstream Enterprise adds site, device analytics to Fortinet SD-WAN

Sites Digest and Device Digest identify a baseline of network behavior and pinpoint any anomalous behavior, says Windstream Enterprise's Mike Frane.

Amazon CTO Bolsters Industrial IoT, Edge

Amazon Web Services (AWS) this week extended its reach into IoT and edge computing with a heavy emphasis on industrial applications, including digital twins, equipment sensors, and vehicles.

T-Mobile debuts new 5G layer cake

T-Mobile execs talked up the carrier's midband 5G network but offered some trash talk on the millimeter wave version of 5G that other executives touted at Qualcomm's summit this week.

BT opens up on open RAN testing

BT officials said the company is testing RAN intelligent controller (Non-RT-RIC) functions including SON (self-organizing network) technology, energy savings, interference mitigation and massive MIMO.

Ditto CEO takes a new angle at the edge

With $9 million in seed funding in hand, Adam Fish's startup uses peer-to-peer and advanced, distributed database systems to connect and sync mobile and IoT devices with limited or no Internet connectivity.

Lumen unveils uCPE for WAN and IT application management

Lumen's uCPE focuses on improving and consolidating the delivery of IT applications and WAN management.

China Telecom loses last-chance saloon US court bid

China Telecom loses its court bid for a stay of execution for its US business, while Didi Global delists from the NYSE just six months after its IPO.

The 5G challenge: Which verticals to leave out

AWS's entry into 5G through its Dish partnership could be the shot in the arm enterprise 5G needs.

CableLabs helps take Wi-Fi 6E to the test

The Wireless Broadband Alliance hooked up with CableLabs and Intel to field-test low-power indoor Wi-Fi 6E. They found that the technology hit speeds of 1.7 Gbit/s down and 1.2 Gbit/s up in 'locations close to the access point.'

Eurobites: BT's Allera has another nibble at net neutrality

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia plans new R&D campus in Oulu; Virgin Media suffers ten-hour TV outage; ETNO dissatisfied with progress on cyber directive.

Trump seeks big funding for new social media app

A Trump in need of cash is hoping fans will invest in his new media venture, fueled by revenge against what he sees as liberal Big Tech.

How an Intel failure sparked a 5G boom for Marvell

The silicon specialist is counting on a bigger share of business with Nokia and predicting a surge in 5G sales.

Indian regulator issues consultation paper on 5G spectrum reserve price

Apart from spectrum pricing, the paper seeks comment on other areas, including valuation methodologies, service rollout obligations and payment terms.

HPE CEO Waxes HPC, AI Chops

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) $1.3 billion bet on high-performance computing (HPC) appears to be paying off. The business segment alone accounted for $1 billion of the company’s $7.35 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021.

US moves to block Nvidia's purchase of ARM

The US Federal Trade Commission is worried Nvidia's proposed $40 billion purchase of ARM would stifle competition in the chipset space.

VMware Adds MDR for Faster Cyberattack Response

VMware Carbon Black added managed detection and response (MDR) for endpoints and workloads to its security services this week.

Daily Roundup: Aqua Acquires Argon, Shifts Cloud Security Further Left

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.

Comcast travels M&A path in Massachusetts

Comcast is expanding its presence in the state as it inks deals to acquire two municipal service providers: BELD Broadband and Russell Municipal Cable TV.

Apple warns suppliers of fading iPhone 13 signals – report

Unnamed sources send ripples through Apple’s supply chain on claims that demand for iPhone 13 models has slowed.

MVNO US Mobile goes full eSIM

eSIM will support new features 'like being able to switch plans instantly, getting live-at-arrival connectivity when traveling abroad, or intelligently shifting between networks,' according to the company.

Picocom throws hat into open RAN silicon ring

Noting the unsuitability of x86 processors, the China-backed chips developer launches its small cells product.

Falcon V connects with Liberty Global and Charter on 'open' DAA

Fresh funding will help fuel development of an open approach for a distributed access architecture that appears to draw some parallels to the technology connection forged between Comcast and Harmonic.

Senators press Sohn, Davidson on how they'll implement broadband bill

With few legislative days left on the calendar, the US Senate Commerce Committee held a confirmation hearing on Wednesday for President Biden's nominees for NTIA head, Alan Davidson, and FCC Commissioner, Gigi Sohn.

Dish Misses Another 5G Marker at AWS re:Invent

The head of Dish Network’s 5G wireless deployment this week joined the keynote stage at AWS re:Invent to talk about, but not show, the capabilities of the repeatedly delayed service.

Beyond 400G: Charting adoption for coherent 800G optics

Heavy Reading survey data suggests that the newest generation of 800G coherent optics will gain broad adoption over the next five years across the metro, long-haul and subsea network segments.

Telecom Italia faces strike amid boardroom disunity

SLC-Cgil union says strike at TIM 'could be called within 10 days.'

ADRF on 5G, open RAN and indoor wireless networks

ADRF has been selling wireless equipment for indoor networks for 20 years. The company's longtime COO sees opportunities and challenges in topics ranging from private wireless to open RAN.

Will DevSecOps Finally Take Off?

After years of lip service, DevSecOps looks poised for prime time.

Cheese! Qualcomm's new Snapdragon aims at photos

A Qualcomm looking to grow past its dwindling relationship with Apple aims at high-end Android customers with its photo punch in its new chip.

Eurobites: Belgium's Telenet begins 5G rollout

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia supplies 400GE kit to Italy's TOP-IX; TIM connects cars in Turin; T-Systems validates vaccination certificates.

NTT DoCoMo, not Rakuten, may be the open RAN leader

Japan's biggest operator says its 10,000 5G basestations use open RAN specifications and is targeting 20,000 by March.

Daily Roundup: AWS CEO Swells Cloud Sphere to Untapped Industries

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.

5G Open Innovation Lab is solving real-world challenges

Join Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief at Light Reading, and Ana Redondo, Network Strategy Lead at 5GOIL founding member at Amdocs, to hear how 5GOIL is addressing real-world challenges with technology solutions.

Aqua Acquires Argon, Shifts Cloud Security Further Left

Cloud security unicorn Aqua Security acquired software supply chain security provider Argon Security to shift further left and extend Aqua’s vision to secure the full software development lifecycle. 

The future of fiber optic innovation: Part III

It's clear that bandwidth demand will continue to increase exponentially. Optical transport capacity must scale to meet this demand, while at the same time the cost-per- bit must decrease, and optical transport equipment must become more space- and power-efficient.

Qualcomm, Plume, Nokia, Google, others signal interest in 6GHz management

An FCC plan to allow private companies to operate Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) systems in the 6GHz band has drawn interest from a wide array of players.

Verizon launches pair of pricey streaming soundbars

Developed with Bang & Olufsen, Verizon's duo of premium soundbars weave in the company's Stream TV app. The baseline version goes for $399.99, and a nine-speaker 'Pro' edition fetches almost $1,000.

NEC takes real-time video analytics to the edge

Japan's NEC said it's on the cusp of launching 'gradual deep learning-based object detection technology' to aid real-time video analytics.

China Mobile, Huawei's top customer, seeks open RAN diversity

A head scientist at the world's biggest operator says open RAN is 'not a matter of if, but when.'

Where's the subscriber floor for US pay-TV?

Some 53 million sports- and news-viewing TV households are seen as the 'bedrock floor' of US pay-TV. That still leaves about 30 million pay-TV homes at risk for further erosion, according to a new study.

Why subscription media services don't have to accept churn as a fact of life

Four tips for overcoming involuntary churn and improving customer lifetime value.

SDxCentral’s Top 10 Articles — November 2021

Check out our top 10 articles for November 2021 covering the SDxCentral universe of cloud, telecom, security, and networking. Rankings are based on unique visitors aggregated during the month.

Frontier quietly looks to expand CBRS fixed wireless biz

'In some cases, we use fixed wireless technology to deliver broadband to a small portion of our customer base in rural communities,' the company acknowledged in response to questions.

Dell, AWS Seal Cyber Vault Against Ransomware

Dell Technologies and Amazon Web Services (AWS) teamed up to offer an air-gapped cyber vault designed to secure, isolate, and recover data from a ransomware attack. This is Dell’s first move to bring its Cyber Recovery Vault to the public cloud, and the vendor plans to expand this capability to Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and other public cloud providers within the next year.  

Telefónica could trim almost 2,000 jobs

UGT union said a new voluntary redundancy plan could end up affecting 1,950 people.

Eurobites: BT ignores takeover rumors, unveils vision for the future

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: World Mobile does a Loon; Proximus in talks over Telesign; Vodafone Portugal fires up 5G.

Circular Economy a ‘Triple Win’ for Environment, Supply Chains, Finances

The circular economy is steadily climbing its way up the corporate buzzword ladder. Gartner analyst Sarah Watt posits this model as a “triple win” through its environmental, financial, and supply chain benefits — but successful adoption of a circular economy hinges on a shift to a fundamentally new way of thinking.

Neos Networks hits 550 target of unbundled BT exchanges

UK business broadband provider aims to up the number to 700 next year.

AT&T exec says company is hitting “game speed” with fiber build

Despite some supply chain issues earlier this year, AT&T leadership believes the momentum surrounding the company’s fiber build is stronger than ever and that 2022 will be a pivotal year for the company’s wireline business.

GTT will use Palo Alto Networks to power its SASE

GTT Communications will use Palo Alto Networks technology to power the company’s Secured Access Service Edge (SASE) platform. GTT said its new SASE platform, which will use Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access technology, will provide enterprise customers with a new set of security features in a single, cloud-delivered platform.  

Cogent CEO offers insights on VPNs, remote work trends

Because of the pandemic, Cogent’s corporate business has suffered six consecutive quarters of negative growth. The company serves slightly over 1,800 skyscrapers in North America with dedicated internet access and virtual private network (VPN) services. It has just under 1 billion square feet of multi-tenant office space in the U.S. and Canada. So Cogent has an inside view of work-from-home and work-from-office trends.

New Senate bill takes aim at USF contribution base

Two prominent U.S. Senators sought to ensure the long-term viability of the government’s Universal Service Fund (USF), introducing a new bill which would initiate an overhaul of the broadband subsidy program’s funding mechanism.

Amazon, Dish peddle 5G products for the enterprise

Amazon kicked off its annual AWS re:Invent trade show with a new AWS Private 5G product. Meanwhile, AWS customer Dish Network touted its own 5G plans.

AWS Muscles Into Private 5G, Spoils Carriers’ Role

Wireless carrier executives no doubt felt a sense of debilitating deja vu today when Amazon Web Services (AWS) made its intentions in private enterprise networks known. AWS Private 5G, a new managed service from the cloud giant, was likely long expected but also existentially feared by most.

Optical transport market bobs and weaves with supply chain challenges

The downward trend in optical transport revenue this year is a result of lower sales in China; in the rest of the world, demand for optical equipment is on the rise and continues to exceed supply.

AWS CEO Swells Cloud Sphere to Untapped Industries

Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky today balanced his first keynote at AWS re:Invent as the company’s new leader by showcasing the company’s technical prowess and continued momentum while underlining the massive, still largely untapped opportunity that awaits the cloud in every industry.

Amazon Arms EC2 With Graviton3 CPUs, Trainium AI Accelerators

Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky blew the lid off the cloud provider’s latest custom silicon today, announcing the first instances powered by the cloud provider’s next-generation Graviton3 data center CPUs and Trainium artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators.

GTT Gets SASE With Palo Alto Networks

GTT Communications, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection, pushed ahead on its services-first strategy this week, tapping Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Access to power its managed secure access service edge (SASE) offering.

Atlantic Broadband gets ready to throw some elbows

The operator plans to splash out $82 million to extend fiber-fueled services into parts of New Hampshire and West Virginia and compete with the likes of Comcast, Frontier and Consolidated Communications.

AT&T's networking chief downplays C-band delay in 5G

'In the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't be overly concerned about this from an investor perspective,' said AT&T's Jeff McElfresh, the executive in charge of selling 5G and fiber Internet connections.

Musk: SpaceX at 'risk of bankruptcy' if flight frequency, production goals aren't met

In a companywide email, Elon Musk reportedly said the production crisis involving the 'Raptor' engines for the heavy-duty Starship rocket could place SpaceX in hot water.

Amazon, Dish peddle dueling 5G products

Amazon kicked off its annual AWS re:Invent trade show with a new AWS Private 5G product. Meanwhile, AWS customer Dish Network touted its own 5G plans.

Cable Next-Gen Business Services returns

Light Reading's longest-running conference will be fully digital again next week as it tackles the damage wrought to the commercial market by COVID-19 and assesses cable's post-pandemic business prospects.

India advises people not to subscribe to Starlink

Government authorities say the company owned by Elon Musk has not acquired the necessary licenses.

Cisco APIClarity Eases Dev-Sec Tensions Over Shifting Left

The practice of shifting left, or integrating security earlier in the application development process, is steadily gaining momentum. Yet there remains considerable friction amongst developer and security teams when it comes to API security, something Cisco‘s VP of Emerging Technologies and Incubation Vijoy Pandey blames on a lack of visibility. That’s where the vendor’s open source APIClarity project comes in.

Hit the road, Jack: A Twitter retrospective

The resignation of Twitter's Jack Dorsey robs tech of an idealistic eccentric, with Parag Agrawal now stuck sorting the platform's monetization woes.

Ho ho ho – telco Xmas list asks Europe to scrap net neutrality

The region's big players have written a hopeful letter asking for mergers to be approved, spectrum to be cheaper and big tech to pay up.

Eurobites: Turkey gets 25G PON in time for Christmas

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: FiberCop signs up another operator; Vodafone Spain renews with Netcracker; Telefónica Tech goes underwater.

5G fixed wireless: How far can it go?

The latest studies continue to insist on the attractiveness of the service despite unimpressive adoption so far.

Aviatrix Wades Into Multi-Cloud Security Waters

Multi-cloud networking vendor Aviatrix dipped its toes into cloud security waters today and launched ThreatIQ with ThreatGuard.

What cable wants from the edge

In this third segment of a four-part sponsored series, we look at more key results from a new Heavy Reading study about the cable industry's edge computing driving factors and implementation plans.

Embracing Chaos: Securing Clouds by Breaking Them

Sometimes we need to break things first to secure them. This is the idea behind chaos engineering.

New Ericsson report hikes forecasts for 5G subscribers

Even Ericsson has been surprised by the rapid growth in 5G despite the pandemic and component supply problems.

FCC greenlights Consolidated’s investment deal with Searchlight

Consolidated Communications secured a key approval for a multi-million investment deal it struck with Searchlight Capital Partners last year, as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) signed off on the transaction.

Network Automation Drives Short-Term Benefits and More

Network operators may reduce network operations costs by up to 65% using automation at the IP domain layer. Analysys Mason partnered with Nokia to conduct in depth operator interviews to reach this conclusion. In this article, we discuss our recommendations for operators looking to improve their operational efficiency, reduce costs, or considering future network-slicing based operations. This article is the third in a series that complement a webinar and published report where the research is explained in greater detail.Operators should automate the network management processes for their IP services Our study found there are clear benefits to operations from network automation at the domain layer. Our model estimates that a large, regional operator can avoid up to a 65% of costs across service fulfilment, network lifecycle management and network and service assurance processes. Our previous blogs outlined the scale of these benefits across each process category. Operators can achieve these cost avoidance benefits by reducing labour time needed to complete repetitive manual processes. Network automation further reduces the human element, and the frequency of human error and other errors such as order fallout that require repeated work. Network automation will also benefit the operators’ agility, enabling the operator to react faster to customer demand – reducing the time-to-revenue – resolve network issues and faults quicker, and improve the mean-time-to-repair. Further benefits come from equipment efficiency (capex) and customer satisfaction (churn), among others; these benefits prove tricky to quantify and differ drastically by operator.Operators may look to implement network automation in a staggered approach to realise the immediate benefits The benefits from network automation will develop over time, as operators implement the automation and refine the processes. Operators may pick and choose where automation is deployed first, based on the expected benefits and ease of implementation. Our interviews suggested most operators start with specific use cases: one such operator focused on automated troubleshooting and triage as part of automating the network and service assurance processes. In Figure 1, we demonstrate how an operator may realise these benefits over a three-year period as they gradually implement network automation. 

Daily Roundup: Is Open RAN Too Little, Too Late for 5G?

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Trend Micro Claims It Secures 2.5 Trillion Cloud Events Daily

Trend Micro today said it secures 2.5 trillion cloud events daily, which the cloud security giant says sets an industry record.

Why Alan Davidson is a new power player in 5G

'Spectrum use has never been more critical for both federal and commercial users,' argued Alan Davidson, President Biden's new pick to head the NTIA.

Charter warns that pole access disputes could slow RDOF deployments

Charter tells FCC that 'timely and non-discriminatory access' to utility poles is critical for RDOF buildouts. Meanwhile, Charter and an electrical coop don't see eye-to-eye on a pole-related issue that has surfaced in Kentucky.

NAB voices 'serious concerns' about Gigi Sohn's involvement with Locast

NAB is troubled by Sohn's involvement as one of three directors of Locast, a streamer of local TV broadcast signals that shut down earlier this year in the wake of a legal battle with ABC, CBS, Fox and NBCU.

Telcos to nearly double fiber footprint by 2027 – report

Wall Street firm projects that telcos will pass nearly twice as many homes with fiber lines over the next five years, while the number of telco FTTH subs will more than double to 35 million.

McAfee Enterprise and FireEye Fuse XDR to Amazon Inspector

The newly combined security giant McAfee Enterprise and FireEye joined forces with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to add extended detection and response (XDR) capabilities to the vulnerability management service Amazon Inspector. 

Fortinet Augments AWS With Cloud Consulting Services

Fortinet kicked off Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) annual re:Invent today by catapulting a spate of services into the public cloud provider’s marketplace designed to ease multi-and hybrid-cloud adoption.

UK on Meta-Giphy: Let's call the whole thing off

The UK's CMA looks poised to block Meta's $400 million purchase of Giphy. Does this signal the end of Zuckerberg's run buying social media companies?

US cable steers (mostly) clear of Black Friday mobile promos

Comcast put forth an Xfinity Mobile promotion, 'but the fine print reveals that it is far less aggressive than meets the eye,' says MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett.

Dangerous liaisons for HPE in China

The IT company's Chinese joint venture has become one of the latest additions to the notorious Entity List.

US years ahead in LEO broadband, but 6G battle looms

China appears to be years behind in satellite technology as the US continues to launch new constellations.

Eurobites: Telcos still not happy about being US tech giants' beasts of burden

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom tests hybrid 5G; Telefónica chosen by SMCP for SD-WAN and more; A1 Telekom Austria and the BBC snuggle up.

Ooredoo strikes five-year strategic deal with Nokia

Finnish vendor highlights 5G rollout as part of multi-country partnership; Qatari operator emphasizes enhanced customer experiences.

India panel urges social media crackdown – reports

Pressure is mounting on Facebook and Twitter, with local authorities saying they should be held accountable for user content on their platforms.

The US-China tech war is only getting started

More Chinese companies have been added to the US trade blacklist as China pushes 'indigenous innovation.'

Telecom Italia CEO quits as KKR circles

Luigi Gubitosi is the latest CEO to throw in the towel at the Italian incumbent. TIM sets up a committee to study the KKR offer.

Wrong number! India's Jio denies bidding for the UK's BT

The owner of India's largest telco has been linked with a possible takeover of the UK phone incumbent.

Is Neuromorphic Computing the Key to Faster, Greener AI?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an increasingly compute intensive process. Depending on the model, it can take a cluster of thousands of GPUs days, weeks, or even longer to train. But what if it didn’t have to? What if we built computers that worked more like our brains?

What's the story? The $22 billion Andromeda spectrum auction

On this episode, we talk with Light Reading's Mike Dano about all things spectrum auctions, including the 'Andromeda' auction, which just wrapped up with $22 billion in bids. We also get into broadband mapping and how spectrum could be used to tackle the digital divide.

Eurobites: Private equity rivals consider joint bid for TIM – sources

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Proximus helps out with electric vehicle charging; Tele2 connects the electric road; BT moves into new global HQ.

Is Open RAN Too Little, Too Late for 5G?

If there’s one mobile network technology more overhyped today than 5G, open radio access network (RAN) architecture has to be it.

Salt hails strong Q3 amid fiber network concerns

Switzerland-based operator reports strong Q3 revenue growth, but fiber ambitions face a setback after Swisscom ruling.

Ericsson's $6.2B Vonage deal has befuddled investors – no wonder

Vonage's relevance to 5G is questionable and shareholders will be asking if the cash would have been better spent elsewhere.

Behind China's huge 5G numbers: Fast rollout and low prices

China's 5G rollout remains a story of government-mandated deployment and rock-bottom fees.

RAN momentum checked by supply chain squeezes – Dell’Oro

Analyst firm expects 2022 RAN spend to grow only 3% year-on-year, after two years of double-digit increases.

Reliance Jio lost 19M users in September

The Indian telco giant's customer base is shrinking as rural subscribers and customers treating it as a second SIM quit service.

Eurobites: Nokia and Yadro combine on basestations in Russia

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: ETSI secures smartphones; CityFibre shows some 800Gbit/s backbone; Atos and OVHcloud extend partnership in France.

Orange CEO quits after fraud conviction

The 'affaire Tapie' has finally forced Orange's Président Directeur Général to step down after 11 years.

Vodafone sticks a wind turbine on a mobile mast

The UK operator is pioneering an innovative solution to the problem of running power to mobile sites in the countryside.

Brightspeed execs talk strategy for $2B makeover of Lumen assets

A trio of former Verizon executives is looking to take lessons learned from the operator’s Fios rollout to build an even better network under the Brightspeed name, as part of Apollo Global Management’s $2 billion effort to transform ILEC assets it purchased from Lumen Technologies.

VMware posts revenue jump from subscriptions, SaaS

VMware posted an 11% year-over-year jump in revenue to $3.19 billion for the third quarter of its 2022 fiscal year, driven by strong growth in subscription and software-as-a-service sales numbers, the company announced Tuesday afternoon.

Naver Cloud completes application for Private 5G frequency: The 5G network will be used in Naver's second office building, etc.

Naver Cloud announced on the 24th that it has completed a frequency application for the ‘Private 5G frequency allocation for 5G mobile communication’ announced by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT).

Daily Roundup: Armis Ranked Fastest Growing Cybersecurity Software Company

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AT&T, Verizon to temporarily turn down 5G power to address FAA worries

'We will ... adopt these precautionary measures to allow for additional time for continued analysis,' the two companies wrote of their plans to reduce the power of their 5G networks.

Streamers bump Black Friday bargains to spur sagging sub growth

AMC+, Disney+, Paramount+, Discovery+ and many others push Black Friday discounts to get larger subscriber numbers in the plus column.

After missing 4G and 5G, HAPS supporters now target 6G

Japan's SoftBank hopes to raise money for 'capital expenditures, research and development, business operations and other areas' in its High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) business.

Can VMware Win at Cloud-Native Apps?

VMware has long since won the software-defined data center war with analysts estimating upwards of 80% of virtualized workloads run on the vendor’s software. But can the virtualization giant also win at cloud-native applications? On the company’s third-quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call this week, VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram said the answer is yes.

Nutanix Builds Airbnb-Style Hybrid Cloud Platform

Nutanix wants to be the Airbnb of hybrid cloud. To this end, the software vendor is working to strengthen its ecosystem partnerships with Red Hat and Citrix and extend its cloud stack from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Microsoft Azure and other public clouds. 

Fab news with new $17B Texas Samsung chip plant

With a new fab to open in late 2024, Samsung takes its total US investment to $47 billion, and pockets generous subsidies after a fierce bidding war.

Nokia caught in telco schism over open RAN

The Finnish equipment vendor rejects the charge its software works only with its own hardware and finds an ally in BT.

Samsung Unveils $17B Texas Chip Fab

Samsung Electronics this week announced a $17 billion semiconductor fab destined for Taylor, Texas, ending months of rumors regarding the foundry operators U.S. expansion plans.

Spectrum-sharing task force chair: 'It really doesn't have to be a spectrum fight'

As the commercial 5G industry and the US military begin working to share spectrum in the lower 3GHz band, the head of the National Spectrum Coalition task force on the issue remains hopeful.

The future of fiber optic innovation: Part II

The next 50 years of optical communications will most likely be dedicated to addressing key fundamental challenges to make the optical expansion more efficient and practical, and to make these predictions even riskier (and more fun).

Fraud could drag down Biden's broadband ambitions – report

'There are many more EBB-enrolled households that claimed they have a dependent child at certain CEP schools than students who are actually enrolled in those schools,' warned the FCC's inspector general.

EU acts to tackle might of 'gatekeeper' platforms

The Digital Markets Act takes a further step towards the goal of ending 'unfair practices of big online platforms.'

Eurobites: Orange's Richard found guilty in Tapie case

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telenor divests Open Universe, FTTH assets; Vivendi has no plans to exit TIM; ADVA recommends Adtran bid to shareholders.

Was Vonage Ericsson’s Best Play for Enterprise?

Now that the dust has settled on Ericsson’s seemingly out-of-nowhere $6.2 billion acquisition of Vonage, it’s worth considering other potential companies Ericsson could have targeted. Could that $6.2 billion in cash have been better spent on other enterprise companies, software vendors, or equipment manufacturers more directly involved in mobile network infrastructure?

Swiss carriers outpace UK, US on 5G speeds – RootMetrics

Swisscom in pole position on speed and availability, according to the latest report.

FCC report flags fraud in Emergency Broadband Benefit program

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking steps to verify that households participating in its Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program are in fact eligible for support, after the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) flagged several instances of obvious fraud.

Orange looks to add fixed line assets in Belgium with VOO deal

Orange revealed its Belgian subsidiary has entered into exclusive talks to purchase a majority stake in cable operator VOO from Nethys, as part of a bid to strengthen its convergence strategy in the country.

Closing in on Telecom’s Open Future

With the proliferation of global 5G availability, a new era of telecommunications is being brought into existence. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) have a once in a decade opportunity to go beyond connectivity and deliver a host of new services to enterprises across every industry. While 5G is the focal point for this new chapter in telecom’s history, the network transformation taking place to enable its application is equally important — perhaps even more so.New territory means new complexity To capitalize on the potential of 5G, the telecom industry must overcome deep technical and strategic challenges including:

Daily Roundup: Ericsson’s $6.2B Vonage Acquisition Mystifies Analysts

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Comcast may move Hulu content to Peacock

Comcast's NBCUniversal unit is reportedly weighing whether to pull much of its content from Hulu and make it exclusive to Peacock to boost that streaming service.

Armis Ranked Fastest Growing Cybersecurity Software Company

IoT security vendor Armis is one of the fastest growing companies in North America — and the fastest growing cybersecurity software company — according to Deloitte’s annual North America Technology Fast 500, which ranks the continent’s fastest-growing companies in the technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, fintech, and energy tech sectors.

'Dangerous' Cisco Bug Douses Firewalls, Opens Gates

A bug discovered this week in Cisco’s Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) and Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) firewalls could lead to denial-of -ervice (DoS) attacks, warned Positive Technologies threat researchers.

Dish Network officially teams up with Rakuten

Dish Network said it will use Rakuten Symphony's observability framework to collect telemetry data from its network functions in order to support the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Wireless industry report says 5G FWA could connect 43% of rural US

A new industry report from Accenture, commissioned by CTIA, the wireless industry association, makes the case for serving the rural US with fixed wireless, noting that with billions available for broadband, it's 'key to acknowledge that 5G FWA is a future-proof technology.'

Xiaomi profits collapse as fortunes reverse

The Chinese smartphone maker faces a components crunch, domestic competition and souring technology investments.

Telefónica turns to Wipro for 5GC automation in Germany, Brazil

If all goes to plan, Spanish group will then roll out Indian tech's firm CI/CD/CT solution to Spain and the UK.

Doom for Zoom boom, as CEO looks to enterprises

Zoom beat expectations but still saw its slowest growth since 2018.

IBC cancels December show in Amsterdam

IBC 2021, a big annual media tech event usually held in Amsterdam in September, becomes the latest trade show to succumb to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Charter's Spectrum Enterprise goes on the offensive

Enterprise services unit of Charter boots up new brand identity and a campaign focused on fulfilling 'unreasonable' requests of large businesses and stealing away share from incumbent service providers.

How and why T-Mobile sidestepped mmWave 5G

Only about half of the phones T-Mobile sells support mmWave 5G, according to Counterpoint Technology Market Research. As a result, T-Mobile counts 3.5 million non-mmWave 5G customers.

Eurobites: Telefónica does some blue-skies thinking on broadband

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Kcom uses ADVA's optical transport; Enea lands private network gig in Taiwan; Brits love drones, says BT research.

Rare earths shortage roiling supply chain

Soaring rare earth prices are disrupting the global supply chain and another source of geopolitical tension between China and the US.

Red Hat Stakes SASE Claim With OpenShift Orchestration

Red Hat wants a piece of the secure access service edge (SASE) pie, but probably not in the way you think.

Orange Belgium starts talks on VOO, enfin

The Belgian operator has been interested in buying the Nethys-owned cableco since at least 2018.

Germany reckons open RAN is risky business

One of Germany's government agencies has released a report arguing that open RAN is far less secure than traditional network infrastructure.

Bluepeak wants to turn flyover states into fiber country

The central U.S. appears to have caught the eye of equity investors, with Bluepeak becoming the latest privately-funded fiber company to plot a major expansion there.

FCC calls for industry input on Affordable Connectivity program

A sprawling infrastructure bill passed by Congress earlier this month grabbed headlines for setting aside $65 billion for broadband. Now, it seems the hard work of getting that money out the door has begun.

Cable One preps network for DOCSIS 4.0 as it eyes 10G future

Cable One is laying the groundwork for DOCSIS 4.0, completing a series of network upgrades it hopes will smooth its eventual deployment of the technology and, ultimately, its path to 10 Gbps.

Daily Roundup: Half-Baked Business Models Hamper 5G’s Potential

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Ericsson’s $6.2B Vonage Acquisition Mystifies Analysts

Analysts today are mostly perplexed by Ericsson’s agreement to acquire Vonage for $6.2 billion, particularly with respect to how the deal reinforces the radio access network (RAN) vendor’s push into the wireless enterprise market.

Ericsson shells out $6.2B for Vonage

CEO Börje Ekholm optimistic about creating a new and lucrative 5G API market in the enterprise space through its biggest ever acquisition.

AST SpaceMobile warns of possible launch delays

AST SpaceMobile had hoped to launch its third satellite on a SpaceX rocket sometime early next year. But the company warned it might need 'additional time for ... testing and final launch preparation.'

Fixed wireless, LEO satellite broadband best suited for unserved and underserved areas – study

Performance data from Comlinkdata/Tutela indicate that T-Mobile Home Broadband and Starlink are as good as VDSL, stomp on DSL, but generally fall short of terrestrial HFC and fiber services.

EU slaps anti-dumping tariffs on China optical cable firms

The European Commission has finally made a judgement against Chinese vendors for anti-competitive behavior.

Why CISOs Need IaC Security (Hint: Developers Aren’t Slowing Down)

Infrastructure as code (IaC) can be a boon to developers that want to create applications fast without manually configuring resources for these apps. It uses code to automatically manage and provision things like servers, storage, databases, networks, and logs, and this saves time and money by removing the manual component.

India's Airtel hikes prepaid tariffs by 25%

In a widely anticipated move, India's second-largest service provider, Bharti Airtel, has announced it is raising prepaid tariffs for all plans by 20-25%.

Eurobites: Telenor explores Thai merger

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Intracom tests PtMP with 5G service providers; Telia's 5G drives timber project; WhatsApp tweaks privacy policy.

Verizon to gain around 20M new mobile customers any day now

Reuters reported that the FCC's four commissioners will approve Verizon's purchase of América Móvil's TracFone shortly. The prepaid provider counts a total of around 20 million customers.

Telecom Italia faces $12.2B privatization bid from KKR

Shareholder Vivendi is said to oppose the offer, rating it too low.

Ericsson, Nokia line up new CTOs in North America

Michael Murphy in August moved over to Nokia's fierce rival, Ericsson, and is now that vendor's North American CTO. Murphy is being replaced by David Eckard, VP of strategy and technology for North America at Nokia.

Half-Baked Business Models Hamper 5G’s Potential

5G might not be a complete flop, but it’s sure in jeopardy of falling flat. Consider how far 5G has come and yet how little it’s achieved or inspired. Where are the killer apps? What’s the business model? These challenges persist and show little sign of waning anytime soon. 

DoD lets Google, Oracle bid on JEDI replacement contract

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) opened the door for Google and Oracle to bid on a multi-billion-dollar cloud contract alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft, after conducting a market review which determined all four are capable of meeting its requirements.

Nokia, Bell Canada claim first 25G trial in North America

Nokia and Bell Canada teamed up to test next-generation fiber technology in the operator’s Advanced Technical Lab in Montreal, marking the first trial of 25G PON in North America.

Hulu to raise live TV pricing as it bundles in Disney+ and ESPN+

Move aims to soften the blow of a $5 price to the Hulu + Live TV service, but will likewise enable Disney to give its full slate of premium streaming services a jolt.

Daily Roundup: Kyndryl, VMware Blaze Post-Spin Trail Together

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How cable views the edge

In this second segment of a four-part series, we look at more key results from a new Heavy Reading study about the cable industry's edge computing views and approach.

John Malone sizes up the threat to cable posed by fiber overbuilders

'The biggest threat has always been the stupid guy with a lot of money coming into your business,' the cable industry legend tells CNBC's David Faber. The big question is what kind of return investors are willing to accept, Malone says.

SASE, XDR Ignite Palo Alto Networks’ Q1 Revenues

Palo Alto Networks capped off its Ignite virtual event this week by posting first-quarter fiscal 2022 revenues of $1.25 billion, which grew 32% on the strength of the company’s secure access service edge (SASE) and extended detection and response (XDR) portfolios.

Hyperscalers Surpass 700 Data Centers Globally

The world’s largest hyperscalers now own 700 data centers combined, and the United States accounts for 49% of the global capacity of those facilities, according to a new report from Synergy Research Group.

Driving Change With 400G Coherent Pluggable Optics

Heavy Reading survey data suggests that coherent pluggable optics are relevant in a wide range of use cases and will create a healthy and competitive ecosystem for a new era in transport networking.

What's the Story?: Altice USA flip flops on fiber

Light Reading's Alan Breznick explains why Altice USA did a 180 on its broadband growth strategy.

Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile stay the course with holiday promotions

Although there are a few new elements in play, including possible smartphone shortages and a competitive discount from Dish, Black Friday looks relatively calm this year on the wireless front.

Cable One plots path to DOCSIS 4.0

As part of a broader focus on '10G,' the cable operator said it is upgrading its return path to enable symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds and an overall plant upgrade to 1.8GHz.

AT&T spent $9B on midband spectrum for 5G – analysts

If the predictions are accurate, AT&T's bill for 5G spectrum this year might total $36.7 billion. That's just under half of the $85 billion AT&T spent to acquire Time Warner in 2018.

Telenor eyes a tie-up to make biggest Thai carrier

On the heels of a similar deal in Malaysia, Telenor eyes knocking together Thailand's second and third place operators to make a new behemoth.

Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone send each other tower partnership signals

Höttges and Read both talk this week about deconsolidation of tower assets and industrial partnerships.

Alibaba Cloud returns to black as group profit sinks

Another torrid quarter for China's Alibaba as earnings plummet amid a slowdown in consumer demand – although its cloud division is on the up and up.

Kyndryl, VMware Blaze Post-Spin Trail Together

Kyndryl and VMware celebrated their respective spinoffs from IBM and Dell Technologies this week by joining forces to address app modernization and multi-cloud challenges.

Telefónica in line for massive tax rebate

The Spanish giant took on the law, and it seems to have won – so far.

Eurobites: UK telcos face new security rules

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia and Orange get super coherent; Sky leaves its routers exposed; Liberty Global boss sounds off about UK broadband.

TIP creates fixed broadband project group

The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) this week launched a fixed broadband project group, dubbed FiBr, to help operators build and operate their fixed line networks.   Representatives from Vodafone and Telefónica are chairing the new group.

OpenVault warns more broadband users hitting speed limits

OpenVault flagged a sharp increase in the number of broadband users bumping up against the speed limits imposed on lower-tier service plans and warned a poorer customer experience could be the result if operators don’t proactively tackle the issue.

FCC’s Rosenworcel talks net neutrality, maps, spectrum

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel backed net neutrality, Universal Service Fund reform and a unified government approach to spectrum issues, addressing these and other topics during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee this week.

Verizon CFO says Fios expansion offers cost, green benefits

Verizon may not be pursuing a massive expansion of its fiber footprint like some competitors, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t see value in the smaller scale work it’s doing with Fios.

Cisco CEO: Customers 'super-frustrated' about supply issues

Cisco Systems saw revenue jump across its networking equipment-related businesses during its fiscal first quarter of 2021. But like other technology companies, it’s facing a near-term future in which healthy demand is going to out-pace meager supply, due to shortages of chips and other materials.

Pandemic's effects on economy 'are still real,' Charter CEO says

Charter is still growing, albeit more slowly, as company comes to grips with 'anomalies' that have slowed down market activity, Tom Rutledge tells CNBC's David Faber.

Nokia nabs deal to build Iraqi broadband backbone

Iraq, with 25,000 Internet users in 2002, but now there's more than 30 million of them. Orange got burned along the way, but Nokia's bedding itself in nicely.

Casa Systems flexes its MAC

Billed as a pathway to the future '10G' network, supplier says its new Flexible MAC Architecture (FMA) platform is in trials with tier 1 operators in multiple regions.

Europe's $200B telcos are still pleading for open RAN handouts

Policymakers appear to have ignored the earlier call for open RAN support and they would be wise to reject the latest.

Cisco CEO: We Have Room to Improve in Security

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins acknowledged his company’s declining security business compared to rivals Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet on the vendor’s first-quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call.

India to use USOF to provide 4G coverage in 7k+ villages

The Indian government approved the use of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to provide 4G connectivity in 7,287 villages at the cost of around INR64.66 billion ($872 million).

Ice turns on 5G in Norway

Norwegian operator steps up pace of 5G rollout and introduces new business plan and commercial strategy with the NiceMobil sub-brand.

Nvidia Brushes Off Arm Regulator Hurdles, Posts Record Q3

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress assuaged analysis anxieties this week over the chipmaker’s troubled $40-billion acquisition of Arm Holdings.

Multiple forces fueling broadband's 'Great Deceleration' – analyst

Competition, depressed household formation, government stimulus dollars and the saturation of broadband penetration are all affecting the rate of broadband subscriber growth, says MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett.

Daily Roundup: Nokia Makes Good on SaaS Push for 5G Operators

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BlastWave shoots out of stealth mode with VPN alternative

BlastWave launched its flagship product, a zero-trust network access tool that has a passwordless multi-factor authentication component.

Ericsson: Actually, open RAN is more expensive

'Ericsson's own estimates have indicated that open RAN is more expensive than integrated RAN given the need for more equipment to accomplish what purpose-built solutions can deliver,' the vendor told the FCC.

Nvidia revenue +50%, but FTC throws shade at its Arm buy

Nvidia adeptly navigates a chip shortage Jensen Huang thinks will last to 2023, but the FTC is the latest regulator to cast doubt on its Arm buy.

Cisco dancing on stronger order book, but Q1 revs miss a beat

Component shortages and supply chain constraints, along with lowered Q2 guidance, cast shadow over US tech giant.

Eurobites: Connectivia signs up to FiberCop's Italian job

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange CFO sees mergers ahead; MTN bails out of Yemen; Telefónica hits the smart road.

How COVID-19 derailed edge computing

Prior to the pandemic, EdgeMicro, Vapor IO, MobiledgeX, Alef and others had grand plans to support edge computing across the country and world. But COVID-19 Internet traffic spikes changed those plans.

Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 Warns Cloud Attacks, Ransomware on the Rise

Palo Alto Networks’ threat intelligence team Unit 42 noticed a significant uptick in cloud attacks over the past three years and anticipates more than 80% of cyberattack cases will have a cloud aspect by the end of next year.

Rogers Communications CEO Natale exits after board battle

Canadian operator Rogers Communications named former CFO Tony Staffieri as interim chief of the company, effective immediately, following the abrupt departure of CEO Joe Natale.

Adtran, ADVA chase $13.7B TAM, target growth in U.S., Europe

Telecom vendors Adtran and ADVA already felt like they had a compelling case for a tie-up when the former announced plans to acquire the latter in August. But the companies now believe their total addressable market (TAM) could be nearly double the $7.1 billion figure previously touted thanks to an influx of government funding for new broadband rollouts.

Apollo taps former Verizon execs to lead $2B fiber charge

Investment firm Apollo Global Management unveiled a plan to deploy fiber to 3 million locations across the 20-state ILEC footprint it acquired from Lumen Technologies earlier this year and installed a team of former Verizon executives to oversee the rollout.

China telecom operators join the metaverse race

China is in the grip of metaverse fever, with hundreds of new businesses being formed and regulators stepping in to combat soaring stock prices.

Nokia Makes Good on SaaS Push for 5G Operators

Nokia continues to make good on a key objective to make its software for network operators available as a service. The vendor today revealed a trio of software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and said it’s targeting a SaaS addressable market of a cumulative $3.1 billion through 2025.

Daily Roundup: Qualcomm CEO: Network, Industrial Transformation Ties Us to the Cloud

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The C-band delay in 5G is impressively stupid

The FAA is having 'very productive discussions' with AT&T and Verizon over possible 5G interference with aircraft altimeters. But aren't those discussions a little late?

Lumen, Radware combat DDoS attackers flying under the radar

Lumen's Q3 DDoS Report revealed that bad actors are launching DDoS attacks with more frequency, at larger volumes and with increased complexity.

Palo Alto Networks’ Nir Zuk: Stop Whacking Moles, Embrace Zero Trust

Of all the cybersecurity buzz words, few are as nebulous as zero trust. Every vendor is talking about it, and every vendor has a different opinion about what it means, Palo Alto Networks’ founder and CTO Nir Zuk opined during his Ignite keynote this week.

Roku downgraded to 'Sell' over revenue growth worries

Revenue and earnings estimates for Roku 'are just too damn high,' says MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson.

Rosenworcel mostly avoids specifics during FCC nomination hearing

In her FCC confirmation hearing, Jessica Rosenworcel discussed a number of hot-button issues like net neutrality, USF reform and 5G in the 12GHz band. But she didn't offer much in the way of specifics.

Arista's 400G Switches Target Hyperscalers, Enterprises

Arista Networks expanded its X-series switch family to support 400-Gb/s adoption by cloud, hyperscale, and enterprise customers.

TIP Boasts 35 Open RAN Trials Among 29 Operators

Meta’s Telecom Infra Project (TIP) has helped facilitate 35 trials and deployments of open radio access network (RAN) technology among 29 different operators across 20 countries.

The future of fiber optic innovation: Part I

Optical fiber has taken us on a 50-year journey, enabling communication capabilities that we never imagined possible. Now looking forward ten, 20, and even a full 50 years, we examine what the future holds for optical fiber communications.

Open RAN cranked up the hype with RIC, a renamed, real-time SON

A feature of open RAN is the ability to manage networks through real-time automation, but its value is questionable.

Bouygues Telecom nears 50% FTTH customer milestone

French operator says it is on track to meet targets set out under Ambition 2026 strategy.

Fortinet Fortifies Microsoft Azure vWAN With SD-WAN, Firewalls

Fortinet teamed up with Microsoft to drive its SD-WAN and next-generation firewalls into the Azure Virtual WAN (vWAN) today. The security vendor claims the integration will enable customers to extend consistent security policies across their WAN whether they’re connecting to an on-premises data center, a workload running in Azure, or between clouds.

Eurobites: Openreach fiber frenzy reaches 6M premises

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: TIM may renegotiate DAZN contract; Ooredoo and Snap combine on augmented reality; Orange IoT tech helps Safran finds its tools.

Telus tests best paths to put copper out to pasture

What happens when an operator’s copper network reaches the end of its life? That’s the question Canadian player Telus is trying to answer, trialing different options for what to do with its legacy network assets upon their retirement.

Vodafone zeroes in on broadband opportunities in Germany

Vodafone laid out a plan to pursue commercial gains in Germany, setting its sights on opportunities to increase fixed and mobile convergence and enhance its network and customer experience there.

Alan Davidson, an unknown in telecom, could become critical

While people have focused on President Biden’s nominations of Jessica Rosenworcel to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Gigi Sohn as an FCC commissioner, Biden also nominated Alan Davidson to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and there haven’t been a lot of headlines about that nomination.

T-Mobile aims for 300M by 2023 with 2.5 GHz

T-Mobile this week is celebrating the milestone of reaching 200 million people with its 2.5 GHz spectrum six weeks ahead of schedule. The next big goal is to cover 300 million people with 2.5 GHz by the end of 2023, but is it really going to take that long?

Lumen says 34% of the largest DDoS attacks in Q3 targeted telcos

A new cybersecurity report from Lumen Technologies identified the telecommunications industry as the leading target for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in Q3 2021 and warned such threats are becoming increasingly complex.

Joe Natale out, Tony Staffieri in as Rogers CEO

Staffieri's appointment as as interim president and CEO – with a possible path to permanence – arrives amid a family feud at the Canadian operator and soon after Edward Rogers was reinstated as board chairman.

STC pumps $400M into data center expansion

Phase 3 of DC construction program gets underway; framed as part of kingdom's Vision 2030 to be 'premier' digital hub in MENA region.

Daily Roundup: Intel Bug Exposes Encryption Keys

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.

Qualcomm CEO: Network, Industrial Transformation Ties Us to the Cloud

Qualcomm today articulated a strategy to push its chipset platform into IoT, networking, edge computing, and automotive — positioning itself for a sevenfold addressable market jump during the next decade. The silicon giant said it expects that total opportunity to grow from about $100 billion today to $700 billion in the next 10 years.

Here's how AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are fighting SIM swaps

After Princeton University research showed glaring holes in mobile operators' SIM swapping systems, the FCC opened a proceeding into the issue. Here's how the nation's big carriers are responding.

Will the metaverse lead cable's '10G Challenge'?

The cable industry will award more than $300,000 for ideas supporting apps and services that need speeds of at least 1-Gig. Holographs and light field displays aside, will something related to the so-called metaverse be among them?

Andromeda auction for midband 5G ends with $21.9B in bids

The auction, dubbed the 'Andromeda auction' by Light Reading because it sounds cool, clocked in at around $0.70 per MHz-POP. That's less than the $0.945 per MHz-POP for the C-band auction.

HPE Aruba Central Breach Exposed ‘Limited’ Customer Data

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) disclosed that attackers exposed a “limited subset” of Aruba Central customer data.

Prickly Deutsche Telekom boss wants hyperscaler deals curbed

US tech giants are buying the companies that telcos use to 'digitize' their core infrastructure, and the CEO of Europe's largest telco is not happy.

Iliad boasts of Q3 growth prowess

The now delisted France-based group claims it has an organic growth profile 'unlike any other telco in Europe.'

Is Telco Sustainability Just an Afterthought?

The biggest sustainability challenge telecom operators face is a philosophical one: persuading shareholders and stakeholders that environmental sustainability matters, according to MTN Consulting analyst Matt Walker.

Huawei looks at licensing to get around US bans

As DC cracks down further, Huawei looks at licensing smartphone designs to Xnova and TD Tech, which may have better luck getting access to silicon.

Vodafone CEO likes H1, but moans about low returns

Nick Read laments what he sees as over competitive European markets; indicates (again) that time is right for consolidation.

Qualcomm hopes to lead 5G pivot into metaverse

Qualcomm, one of the primary companies driving the development of 5G technologies, believes the metaverse 'has the potential to be the next computing platform.'

Snowflake Piles Python Into Snowpark, Realizes Data Cloud

Snowflake rolled native support for Python into its Snowpark engineering tool in a move the company claims will improve data governance and security. The update was one of several capabilities added to the cloud-focused data platform at today’s Snowday event.

Vecima's DAA biz expands as supply chain challenges loom

Sales of 'Entra' DAA products reached a record in Vecima's fiscal Q1, and would've been even higher if not for delays in schedules and delivery times.

Palo Alto Networks Cozies Up to CNAPP at Ignite

Palo Alto Networks kicked off its annual Ignite conference with new capabilities across its secure access services edge (SASE) and cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP). It also added a managed detection and response partner program based on its extended detection and response (XDR).

Eurobites: UK complaints down, but it's still bad news for TalkTalk and Virgin

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson's intelligent automation; ADVA researches SDM in optical networks; BT's asbestos problem.

Ericsson Pitches Sweeping RAN Automation Platform

Ericsson today revealed a service management and orchestration (SMO) platform that will be available for mobile network operator trials in mid-2022. 

Analysts question American Tower’s $10B CoreSite deal

American Tower on Monday expanded its edge efforts in announcing a $10.1 billion deal to purchase CoreSite including cloud on-ramps, interconnections and 25 data centers in eight U.S. markets – but some analysts are questioning if it’s the right move.

Consolidated spotlights Wi-Fi experience with Fidium Fiber debut

Consolidated Communications launched a fresh “Fidium Fiber” brand for consumers in its New England footprint, pairing its residential connectivity with a new app which offers users more control over their in-home broadband experience.

The Altimeter Games: More news of the weird from D.C. — Entner

The U.S. airline industry signed onto a letter expressing its great concern about the 5G C-Band rollout affecting “safe and efficient aviation operations in the United States.” The letter is signed by IATA, NACA, The Boeing Company, the Air Line Pilots Association International and many more companies and associations from the aeronautics field.

Lumos eyes Mid-Atlantic expansion, targets 80K passings in 2022

Fresh off its separation from Segra, regional fiber provider Lumos Networks is plotting an ambitious expansion of its residential service and the rollout of a new multi-gig service tier designed to keep it one step ahead of the competition.

American Tower gains an edge with $10B CoreSite purchase

American Tower is ramping up its edge ambitions with plans to buy CoreSite for $10.1 billion.

T-Mobile: 2.5 GHz 5G now covers 200M people

T-Mobile today announced it now covers 200 million people with Ultra Capacity 5G, the moniker for its 2.5 GHz coverage, which is six weeks ahead of schedule.

Frontier prepares to pounce on federal broadband funding

Frontier Communications is gearing up to capitalize on broadband funding opportunities created by the recent passage of a sprawling U.S. infrastructure bill, with CFO Scott Beasley pointing to the federal dollars as a key part of its fiber expansion plan. But one thing that's not part of its strategy is the launch of its own MVNO offer, the executive said. 

Network Automation Reduces Labour Time, Error Rates and Costs

Many operators have begun their network automation journeys but are at different stages and have taken different approaches. Different operators serving diverse customer bases and geographies, and at different scales of operations have varying needs for automating tools to suit their situation. We interviewed multiple operators, and their responses illustrate the patchwork progress of automation, with some operators focusing their efforts on network assurance and others dedicating their resources to service fulfilment. This article explores how the operators we interviewed use network automation to drive benefits in each category. In our previous blog we have shown that operators can get significant benefits through network automation at the domain controller. This automation significantly reduces the manual labour times and prevalence of errors from order fallout and human errors throughout an operator’s service fulfilment, network lifecycle management, and network and service assurance processes. Our study (1) quantifies the benefits of network automation to operators. Standardisation and error minimisation are some of the greatest advantages that automation can bring  Our operator interviews reported significant benefits, with up to 86% cost avoidance, from the automation of service fulfilment processes with the use of templates and standard scenarios for service fulfilment. This automation significantly reduced the manual labour times and prevalence of errors from order fallout and human errors throughout service fulfilment processes. These benefits were particularly prevalent for service modifications, which typically required network operations staff to manually delete the service and provision a new service with the modified configuration.  Further, operators revealed that automated service deletion resulted in the more efficient use of network equipment that corresponded to additional capex savings. One operator reported that 20% of its network ports continued to host discontinued, deleted services. By automating service deletion, the operator was able to more efficiently use its existing network equipment to host its active services, reducing the need to deploy new equipment. The operator also shared that this automation removed the need to conduct manual audits of network equipment to identify the discontinued services, saving further time and resources.Zero touch provisioning capabilities are key for automating network lifecycle management Network lifecycle management covers the provisioning and upgrade of network equipment and can be highly automated. Operators reported a range of solutions driving benefits, up to 65% cost avoidance, in these operations from automated network discovery processes to pre-check and post-check audits for software upgrades. Zero touch provisioning capabilities through the domain controller are a key driver for these solutions. All operators interviewed shared that equipment backup processes have already been automated since this includes highly repetitive tasks with sometimes daily configuration backups being made.Labour intensive manual network and service assurance processes can be very highly automated Labour intensive manual correlation processes for custom alarm correlation can be highly automated. Operators reported large benefits, up to a 71% reduction in labour time, from the automation of network and service assurance processes by enabling employees to easily correlate faults and alarms, identify issues, and implement the resolution significantly faster. Automation benefits custom alarm correlation two-fold; firstly, automatic correlation successfully captures most alarms reducing the number of cases that need to be manually correlated, secondly automatic grouping and assessments make the manual correlation easier and quicker to complete. Further benefits to network and service assurance occur by enabling staff to troubleshoot and triage issues quicker. This blog has explored how standardised and automated processes can reduce cost and labour time within each of the three categories discussed. The next, and final, blog in this series will lay out the key recommendations from our study. Analysys Mason and Nokia will be running an on-demand webinar presenting the study, its results, and Nokia’s Network Services Platform (NSP) solutions. Larry Goldman

T-Mobile’s Mid-Band 5G Network Surpasses 200M People Covered

T-Mobile US is running up the score with mid-band 5G deployments as the operator today hit its year-end target of 200 million people covered at least six weeks early. The carrier pushed mid-band 5G coverage to 185 million people in late October and expanded its footprint to an additional 5 million people a week later.

Intel Bug Exposes Encryption Keys

Got a laptop or appliance running one of Intel’s low-power CPUs? A BIOS update might be in order. A vulnerability affecting multiple Intel processor families was disclosed today by researchers at Positive Technologies.

Gluware in 'full-blown growth mode' with $43M in funding, says CEO

Light Reading recently caught up with Jeff Gray, CEO of Gluware, to discuss updates to the company's automation platform for enterprise customers and to hear more about how Gluware plans to put its new funding to use.

Consolidated boots up 'Fidium Fiber' brand as network upgrades expand

Launched in parts of northern New England, the new brand offering features symmetrical 1-Gig service starting at $70 per year paired with a whole-home Wi-Fi platform powered by Plume.

Telenor does AI deal with Google despite its big-tech fears

The Norwegian incumbent becomes the latest Tier 1 operator in Europe to partner with a Silicon Valley giant on AI.

Daily Roundup: Open RAN Fails Smell Test as Chinese Equipment Alternative

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.

Another key exec exits China chip leader SMIC

It's not getting any easier for China's chip champion SMIC following the loss of its second top executive in two months.

American Tower talks up edge while dumping cash on core data centers

American Tower said it will spend $10.1 billion to buy CoreSite Realty, one of the nation's biggest operators of data centers. The company said it hopes to eventually leverage the purchase for edge computing.

T-Mobile is winning the race to 100MHz for midband 5G

T-Mobile soon expects to provide up to 200 million Americans with average 5G speeds of 400 Mbit/s. AT&T and Verizon, meanwhile, are stuck waiting for the White House to mediate interagency squabbling.

Xilinx Challenges Nvidia's Lock on HPC Market

Xilinx unveiled its most powerful data center accelerator yet at Supercomputing 2021 today. The chipmaker claims the FPGA can accelerate streaming data, high input/output (I/O) math, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads while consuming less power and space than competing GPUs from Nvidia.

How cable aims to leverage the edge

In this first segment of a new four-part series, we look at some key results from a new Heavy Reading study about the cable industry's edge computing strategy and efforts.

Drahi said to be eyeing a bigger slice of BT

Report suggests any stake-building plan is likely to involve Deutsche Telekom as well as Drahi's Altice.

Conexon Connect gets $435M in latest RDOF round to serve fiber through rural co-ops

In the FCC's largest round of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) yet, which saw electric cooperatives as the walkaway winners, over $435 million was designated for Conexon Connect, a fiber ISP providing service through local co-ops.