Op-Ed: Open RAN Bares Weaknesses at MWC 2022

Open radio access network (RAN) equipment grabbed a bigger slice of the pie in 2021, but that doesn’t mean things are going smoothly.

Money Moves: February 2022

Here are some of the most prominent venture capital and merger and acquisition news items from February. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s VC or M&A activity in our monthly Money Moves section, or if you have any tips on that activity, please send the information to Emma Chervek (echervek@sdxcentral.com).

SSE Is Just SASE Without the SD-WAN Baggage

Security Service Edge (SSE) may be dominating headlines these days but it isn’t exactly a new technology. In fact, many of the vendors peddling the Gartner-coined product category were marketing the same services under another buzzword just a few months earlier: SASE.

EE and BT produce some more fanciful 5G use cases

UK MNO EE and BT have ‘re-imagined’ watching sports, dance, music and theatre via some new VR and AR novelties.

India may give telcos a break on 5G spectrum price

The Indian government is considering lowering the reserve price for 5G spectrum in the auction it is due to hold later this year, it emerged this week.

Telefónica and Repsol form solar JV

When it comes to expanding into adjacent markets, the future is looking bright for Telefónica.

DT reportedly looking to flog its towers

German operator Deutsche Telekom has reportedly started the process of selling its towers business for around €18 billion.

Daily Roundup: Arista Drove Record 2021 Data Center Switch Sales

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SDxCentral 2-Minute Weekly Wrap: Google Gobbles Mandiant to Boost Cyber Response

Cisco Puts MSPs at Heart of NaaS Push

Cisco has no intention of cutting out the middle man — that is, its channel partners — as it transitions more of its portfolio to an as-a-service model. In fact, channel partners, or more specifically managed service providers (MSPs), are at the heart of Cisco’s subscription-service push, executives for the company emphasized during a round-table discussion this week.

Google Expects Momentous 2022 for Cloud-Native 5G Telco

The telecom space embraced public clouds much later than enterprise IT and it will take a few years before the transition to cloud-native infrastructure is complete, according to Amol Phadke, global managing director of Google’s Telecom Industry Tools group.

Scaling open vRAN operations

SPONSORED: Heavy Reading white paper examines how to create a scalable deployment model for disaggregated, open vRAN.

OFC 2022: Heavy Reading's Sterling Perrin coherently talks about pluggables

As OFC 2022 wraps up, Heavy Reading's Sterling Perrin weighs in on IP-over-DWDM and why it's really working this time. We also discuss market components upstart EFFECT Photonics and its noteworthy deal with Viasat.

AT&T notching 37% subscriber penetration rates in fiber markets

Amid its aggressive fiber build, AT&T has also unleashed a plan to turn down and decommission 50% of its legacy copper network by 2025 and to largely lean on fixed wireless to capture DSL subs in those areas.

OFC 2022: Cignal AI's Andrew Schmitt on what's hot in optical

Andrew Schmitt, founder and directing analyst at Cignal AI, helps us wrap up a few key topics from OFC 2022 and talks about what he's looking forward to in the optical networking space.

Telefónica Vivo taps Cisco, NEC for '5G-ready' IP transport

Aim is to support converged mobile and fixed networks. According to conditions attached to recently secured 5G-friendly spectrum, Vivo must launch 5G services no later than July 31.

The 5G takeaways from AT&T's investor day

Among those takeaways: AT&T's midband 5G buildout trails those of Verizon and T-Mobile. AT&T did not mention millimeter wave 5G. And AT&T remains uninterested in fixed wireless.

Is cable going to the dickens?

As we have for the past two years, Light Reading will stage the Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies conference as a free digital event over two half-days next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Complaints begin after AT&T's 3G shutdown

'Wave7 Research believes that the 2/22 AT&T 3G shutdown has caused more trouble than press coverage would indicate, with significant issues for some AT&T MVNOs in particular,' wrote Wave7 analysts in a recent report.

Ukraine has made Huawei even more toxic for European telcos

The Chinese equipment vendor's continued involvement in Russia is awkward for its biggest European customers.

Eurobites: Deutsche Telekom starts tower sale process – report

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: 25G PON in Croatia; Teldat chooses Telefonica Tech's public cloud; EU, UK probe Google/Meta deal on advertising.

NTT DoCoMo hires Beyond Now for SME biz

Former BearingPoint unit picks up more business from long-standing carrier partner NTT.

Cellnex picks up private 5G deal in automotive space

Cellnex has inked another deal to roll out a private 5G network for an enterprise customer, this one marking its entry into the automotive sector.

BT picks Google for public cloud transformation

UK incumbent BT has become the latest big name to buddy-up with a hyperscaler to overhaul its operations.

DT expands Open Telekom Cloud into Switzerland

T-Systems, a subsidiary of German MNO Deutsche Telekom, has expanded its Open Telekom Cloud platform into Switzerland, opening new data centres in the region.

US internet giants tighten the screw on Russia

As the scramble to be seen to be doing the right thing over the Ukraine conflict continues, Amazon and Google have made significant announcements.

Arista Drove Record 2021 Data Center Switch Sales

Arista Networks, white-box vendors, and China’s Star-Net Ruijie Communication drove the global data center switch market during the fourth quarter of last year, accounting for 90% of that market’s double-digit growth, according to a Dell’Oro Group report.  

T-Mobile Abandons 10s of Thousands of Sprint Cell Sites

T-Mobile US stands to decommission more cell sites than it activates this year as it wraps up a complicated integration with Sprint’s older network infrastructure.

Op-Ed: MWC 2022 Showed Cloud Giants Are the New 5G Telco Giants

Despite recent rhetoric (cough, cough), in-person trade shows might not be dead. And if the recent 5G telco-focused MWC Barcelona event is any indication, we may want to thank the cloud ecosystem for that.

Daily Roundup: Cisco Exec Solidifies Telco Infrastructure Pathways

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What Will Google Buy Next to Rival Microsoft After Mandiant?

As cloud giants fight over cybersecurity, what might be next in Google’s security shopping cart?

PMC CEO David Somo: MEMs the word

Preciseley Microtechnology Corporation (PMC) President and CEO David Somo took a moment to talk about his company's optical components and which end markets are hot right now.

Google Fiber gets down to business with 2-Gig broadband

New offering, priced at $250 per month, matches the cost of the Google Fiber's original 1-Gig service for businesses, which has been lowered to $100 per month.

OFC 2022: Omdia analysts size up the PON market

Omdia analysts Julie Kunstler and Jaimie Lenderman discuss the growth of fiber access, new operator concerns about power consumption and the glut of fiber funding that's just around the corner.

Preparing for the splinternet

Cogent and Lumen moved to cut Russia off from the Internet. But some analysts warn such actions could 'cause other countries to consider ways to either control those companies or utilize other companies.'

What's the Story? FWA both friend and foe to cable cos

In this episode, Jeff Baumgartner explains why some streaming services now have ad-supported versions; what the future holds for DOCSIS; and whether the FWA market presents new opportunities, competition or both to cable operators.

AT&T launches 5-Gig speeds in all fiber markets

In the wake of initial market launches in January, AT&T says 7 million fiber locations across its 21-state footprint now have access to the telco's symmetrical 2-Gig and 5-Gig tiers.

New playbook guides states on getting grants and funding fiber

The playbook offers states a guide to navigating broadband funding opportunities in the Biden administration's infrastructure bill - and stresses the need to spend funds on future-proof technology.

Brokerage firm warns Google's $5.4B deal with Mandiant may face 'protracted' review

MKM Partners suspects Google's all-cash swoop for cybersecurity specialist will hit some regulatory buffers.

Asia-Pac telcos ready $6B in tower sales

PLTD chairman Manny Pangilinan told a briefing last week that the bids came from global tower companies, some in partnership with local firms, and were all above the target P50 billion (US$960 million) mark.

Service provider views on transport slicing and packet fronthaul

Results from Heavy Reading's Operator Strategies for 5G Transport Market Leadership Survey indicate the need for transport network slicing and packetized fronthaul transport.

Eurobites: Huawei hit by UK resignations as it continues to do business in rogue-state Russia

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ukrainian government considers moving data to safety; ETNO calls for more coordination to defend against increased cyberwarfare risk; Zain, BT in reality check.

Telefónica teams up with Repsol on green energy

Spanish operator to add a further string to its bow with solar panels joint venture.

Google will do the thinking for BT in future

Artificial intelligence developed by US Big Tech will help to run the UK operator in the years ahead.

Cellnex opens three new offices in the UK

Telecoms infrastructure provider Cellnex has opened three new offices in Manchester, Leamington Spa and North Lanarkshire which will host 150 staff.

MTN feeling bullish on solid 2021 results and strong fintech growth

South African operator group MTN delivered its 2021 numbers and they seem to be headed in the right direction.

China enters the LEO space race

Chinese start-up GalaxySpace has boldly gone where many other companies have gone before.

KKR still wants TIM, but reportedly drops price

KKR is apparently still interested in acquiring TIM, but has reportedly shaved around a fifth off its original offer price.

We’re the next big thing after 5G – Lynk

We caught up with satellite base-station company Lynk at MWC, who told us they’ve now signed with 8 MNOs and that within 10 years they’ll be providing the fastest speeds in mobile broadband via satellite.

How Operators Can Support Sustainable Development Goals

Operators should align individual approaches to the U.N.’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) with that of the broader telecom industry while maintaining a narrow focus to ensure meaningful results are achieved, GSMA Sustainability Director Nadia Chelache said at MWC Barcelona 2022.

Fortinet, Orange Champion Telco Managed SASE

Fortinet drew a line in the sand for how it believes secure access service edge (SASE) will be delivered this week after announcing a strategic partnership with Orange Business Services. The collaboration will see Orange deploy Fortinet’s full security and networking stack across its global infrastructure and network backbone.

Cisco Exec Solidifies Telco Infrastructure Pathways

Cisco doesn’t participate in mobile phones or radio access network (RAN) infrastructure, the most lucrative sectors of the wireless industry, but it touches almost everything else, according to Jonathan Davidson, EVP and GM of Cisco’s Mass-Scale Infrastructure Group.

Telefónica Taps Zscaler for SSE Expansion

Spain-based telecommunications giant Telefónica expanded its managed security portfolio through a new security service edge (SSE) platform offered in collaboration with Zscaler.

Can Palo Alto Networks Stymie Software Supply Chain Attacks?

Palo Alto Networks today rolled out an update to its software supply chain platform targeted at combating the surge in attacks such as the the SolarWinds hack and those exploiting Log4j vulnerabilities. The Prisma Cloud Supply Chain Security product wraps several of the vendor’s existing security features, including code repository scanning, threat modeling visualization, and pipeline configuration analysis, into a single software supply chain security platform.

Daily Roundup: Can Palo Alto Networks Stymie Software Supply Chain Attacks?

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Spectrum Mobile 'profitable as a standalone business,' Charter CEO says

Charter's targeted use of CBRS for offload will help to reduce MVNO costs. It's not a must-do, 'but it's an upside,' says company Chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge.

T-Mobile moves to renegotiate MVNO deals

The company is working on new MVNO deals with Boost Mobile owner Dish Network; Google, which offers mobile services through Google Fi; and cable company Altice, which operates Optimum Mobile.

Infinera's Rob Shore: Optical engine revving at OFC

Rob Shore, Infinera's SVP of marketing, discusses three announcements covering Infinera's most recent technology and market moves in optical transport, pluggable optics and a partnership that will unlock private networking and edge computing deployments for a major US service provider.

Orange Business Services teams up with Fortinet on cloud-based SASE service

Fortinet is Orange's first vendor partner in the SASE space, but the service provider expects to add more managed SASE options in the future.

RIL strengthens local tech capabilities for India's 5G race

RIL has recently also developed a compact 5G as a service solution called 'Jio 5G Hyperlite Stack,' which it plans to offer to enterprises and businesses.

Geopolitics invades the 5G race to space

A number of satellite companies are touting US-based suppliers and vendors, which is noteworthy considering Russia recently said it would stop supplying rockets to the US.

GF's new platform takes aim at exploding data volumes, power consumption

Anthony Yu, VP of computing and wired infrastructure at GlobalFoundries (GF), joins the Light Reading podcast on the show floor at OFC to discuss his company's GF Fotonix announcement, the partners involved and the timing of the markets it is addressing with silicon photonics.

Nokia, CommScope, Cisco, others raise equipment prices

'Following twenty years of average macro basestation price declines in the 5% to 10% range, we are now modeling RAN prices to increase,' warned Stefan Pongratz of Dell'Oro Group.

Fresh Veon liquidity concerns as lenders 'review' relationship – report

Banks providing $1.25 billion revolving credit facility get nervy about EU sanctions on Russian oligarchs associated with Group.

Rakuten Mobile's new boss sets out 'fast-paced' growth plan

Tareq Amin says the burden of capex will start to ease in the summer, allowing the Japanese operator to focus on customer acquisition.

ZTE trumpets strong 2021 on back of 5G sales

The China-based vendor continues its recovery following its near collapse in 2018.

Startup uses AI to help operators accelerate sales and ARPU

Actifai, which already has a foothold at Breezeline, Hargray, Cogeco and Cincinnati Bell, says initial deployments have generated a lift in ARPU in the range of 10% to 15%.

Eurobites: Cellnex targets automotive market with Segula tie-up

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Lumen pulls the plug on Russia; Vodafone brings HBO Max to more European markets; Proximus does Belgium proud by Ukrainian refugees.

Red Hat wants to be the default platform for Open RAN

Open-source enterprise software vendor Red Hat reckons it’s perfectly positioned to be the default platform for the move towards OpenRAN.

The public will punish telcos that don’t commit to net zero – GenCell

Green power firm GenCell spoke to us at MWC about what it sees as the need for telcos to adopt renewable energy, and warned of repercussions for any that do not commit to net zero targets.

Orange Spain and Masmovil in talks to create €20bn JV

After feeding off scraps of speculation about M&A in Spain for more than a year, Orange and Masmovil on Tuesday finally served up something substantial.

English mobile masts are putting on weight

Mobile operators in England will soon be able to increase the height and girth of many of their mobile masts without having to apply for planning permission.

Daily Roundup: Intel Debuts Memory Optimized FPGAs

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Google Gobbles Mandiant to Boost Cyber Response

Google today announced it was acquiring cyber defense and response vendor Mandiant for $23 per share in an all-cash deal valued at around $5.4 billion. Mandiant will join Google Cloud to advance its security offerings upon the closing of the transaction. 

AT&T Takes Zero Trust, Managed SASE to the Edge

In the era of distributed work, organizations are challenged with how to secure the network edge. AT&T aims to assuage these concerns with a number of zero-trust consulting and managed secure access service edge (SASE) offerings.

Gender Diversity Builds Better IT Businesses, Gartner Says

The unequal balance of employees based on gender, known as the gender gap, should be approached by IT organizations not just from a social or ethical lens, but as a business imperative, according to Gartner.

Ericsson Faces Crisis of Trust

Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm admitted to a continued pattern of “hugely embarrassing” and “unacceptable misconduct,” less than 24 hours after his counterpart at rival Nokia rallied the telecom industry to view connectivity as the critical path to a more sustainable world.

Apple ditches mmWave 5G with newest iPhone

Less than two years ago, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg touted the benefits of mmWave 5G during the unveiling of Apple's iPhone 12. But the newest iPhone doesn't support mmWave at all.

Netflix has no plans for ad-supported tiers, but 'never say never,' CFO says

The streaming giant doesn't harbor 'religion against advertising' but remains content with its 'scalable subscription model,' company CFO Spencer Neumann says.

Rogers puts more weight behind enterprise IoT

Following an initial debut of smart building IoT services in 2020, the Canadian operator's business services unit is going bigger, launching IoT products with an array of tech and service partners.

What's the Story? Iain Morris escapes robot dogs to bring MWC recap

Iain Morris shares his take on Mobile World Congress, discusses themes that emerged at the event such as the metaverse and explains why he's still waiting on a drink from a 5G-powered barman.

Amdocs declines to announce Russia sanctions

The provider of B/OSS software lists three major Russian clients in its last annual filing with US authorities and also does business in Ukraine.

5G struggles to get into cheap US phones

Almost none of the phones that Verizon sold at the end of last year in the $250-or-less category support 5G. Instead, most of the cheap phones that Verizon sold featured only 4G connections.

Huawei carries on in Russia as other Chinese firms wait and see

The exit of western brands from Russia might seem like a golden opportunity for Chinese firms, but it is not that straightforward.

Eurobites: Second KKR bid for Telecom Italia on the cards – report

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Sparkle launches global IoT service; Deutsche Telekom digs Netcracker suite; more fiber for eastern England.

How Western sanctions will hurt Russian telecom and tech

Operators have been cut off from the only viable non-Chinese suppliers, and the Chinese ones have problems of their own.

Orange and Másmovíl unveil Spanish merger plan

Proposed deal is expected to close in Q2 2023, but European Union approval is far from assured.

EE deploys 200 new small cells across UK

UK operator EE has built 200 new small cells across its network to boost 4G coverage in Leeds, London and Manchester, with hundreds more promised over the next 18 months.

Vodafone NZ owners look to make money from towers

The telecoms industry’s latest towers transaction is underway in New Zealand, where investors have confirmed the sale of Vodafone’s masts is going ahead.

Telecoms industry walks a tightrope over Ukraine

As the rest of the world scrambles for the correct response to the Ukraine crisis, telcos and tech companies have come under the spotlight.

Ericsson boss sued as major shareholder calls for changes

The fallout from Ericsson’s alleged dodgy dealings has taken a new turn, with CEO Börje Ekholm named in a class action lawsuit, and one of its biggest shareholders agitating for change.

UK and Japan promise more telecoms collaboration

The UK and Japan have announced their intention to work together more closely on solving telecoms supply chain issues and developing new technologies such as 6G and OpenRAN.

Verizon Spurs Mid-Band 5G to 175M People This Year

Verizon this week put the early snafus surrounding C-band spectrum in the rear view with a pledge to spur mid-band 5G deployments at a pace that will allow it to reach 175 million people by the end of this year. 

Intel Debuts Memory Optimized FPGAs

As the cloud becomes more disaggregated and compute is pushed further out to the edge where data can be processed closer to the user, Intel believes FPGAs are ideally suited to accelerate latency-sensitive workloads like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

Nutanix CEO on Public Cloud Providers: Both Partners and Competitors

As Nutanix continues to battle for hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) market dominance with VMware, it also competes with legacy storage players and public cloud providers. On the other hand, Nutanix partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to build its hybrid, multi-cloud platform, CEO Rajiv Ramaswami said.

Daily Roundup: VMware, Red Hat Lead 'Fierce' 5G Cloud-Native Platform Race

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Open RAN security is a collaborative endeavor

Heavy Reading survey says open RAN security will rely on an active community of suppliers, developers, testers and security experts working constantly to identify threats and maintain protection.

Samsung's Galaxy source code stolen by hackers

'Currently, we do not anticipate any impact to our business or customers. We have implemented measures to prevent further such incidents,' Samsung said in a statement.

Fixed wireless an 'inferior product,' Comcast CEO says

Cable operator isn't taking FWA for granted, but Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts likens it to the kind of lower-priced, lower-speed offerings it has long seen from DSL.

Cybersecurity threats more advanced and automated in 2021, Fortinet reports

Threats during 2H 2021 were more destructive and unpredictable, according to the FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report. Bad actors are also taking advantage of a broader attack surface with a more distributed workforce.

Apple TV+ is first app to use Comcast's global technology platform

Following the launch of Apple TV+ by Sky in parts of Europe late last year, Comcast is bringing Apple's premium streaming service to X1, Xfinity Flex and its new family of XClass TVs.

mmWave 5G advocates try to refocus their sales pitch at MWC

A session at last week's big trade show featured speakers from Nokia, Qualcomm, Verizon, Telstra and other companies, and focused on the economic business case supporting mmWave transmissions.

Eurobites: UK tweaks mast planning rules to boost mobile coverage

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: BT spreads the small-cell love in the UK; Proximus welcomes Ada; Turk Telekom turns to Mavenir.

Netflix pulls plug in Russia

Streaming giant's decision to temporarily cut off access comes as Russia's invasion of Ukraine intensifies, and arrives days after Netflix refused to carry 20 Russian free-to-air propaganda channels.

Ciena halts Russia sales but sees no major impact

Sales are booming, but optical equipment vendor watches share price fall as component shortages put margins under pressure.

Telstra, OneWeb cue LEOsat partnership for Australia and Pacific

The companies say they are exploring new solutions for connectivity in Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

Dish rings up smartphone makers

Two new Motorola phones support Dish's Band 70. No other network operator in the world uses that specific band, thus implying direct support of Dish by handset makers.

MWC takes leave of reality as visitors pile back

The mobile industry's giant shindig was back with 61,000 visitors, even if the big news stories had nothing to do with it.

EE rolls out 200 4G small cells using Nokia kit

UK operator announces new batch of outdoor installations using licensed-assisted access. 5G small cells coming 'soon.'

Cox appeal of $1B music copyright verdict will ripple across broadband industry

Cable operator's battle to reverse or vacate a $1 billion verdict stemming from copyright claims made by major music labels heads to the oral argument stage this week. The result could affect ISPs far and wide.

AT&T cuts price on 5G unlimited data

AT&T's new 'Value Plus Plan' offers unlimited 5G connections and is cheaper than the carrier's other unlimited offerings. It's also cheaper than similar plans from Verizon and T-Mobile.

BICS CEO calls on telcos to support Ukraine

Matteo Gatta issues an 'urgent plea,' as the industry takes measures to help people stay connected.

How Dish's cloud journey has already reshaped its business

The deployment so far, in partnership with Nokia, Mavenir and AWS, had already yielded lessons in how the new architecture can drastically change a telco operations and business.