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Frontier Communications and Ziply Fiber to raise funds for fiber optic network buildouts
Frontier Communications and Ziply Fiber have secured more funding for their respective fiber optic network building projects and network upgrades.
On October 4th, Frontier announced that it intends to offer, subject to market conditions and other factors, $1.0 billion aggregate principal amount of second lien secured notes due 2030 (the “Notes”) in a private transaction. This offering comes approximately five months after Frontier emerged from bankruptcy armed with a multi-year plan to upgrade millions of residential and business locations in its footprint. Frontier plans to deploy FTTP to about 600,000 homes this year and, more broadly, to extend FTTP to about 10 million homes by 2025.
According to Jeff Baumgartner of Light Reading, Frontier will deploy XGS-PON and is debating what to do with a remainder of its fiber and copper network. Its footprint includes rural areas that aren’t as economically attractive as the original portions of its upgrade plan. The company has discussed multiple ideas for a so-called “Wave 3” buildout that might include exploring joint ventures, securing private equity or pursuing asset swaps.
About Frontier:
Frontier offers a variety of services to residential and business customers over its fiber-optic and copper networks in 25 states, including video, high-speed Internet, advanced voice, and Frontier Secure® digital protection solutions. Frontier Business™ offers communications solutions to small, medium, and enterprise businesses.
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Ziply Fiber, a company formed last year via the acquisition of Frontier’s operations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, has raised $350 million in fresh funding from bond buyers.
In a prepared statement, Ziply says the new funding will support its ongoing fiber expansion. “It will ensure that we have the resources on hand to keep up the strong pace of construction we’ve set for ourselves as we head into the new year, and to continue to deliver on our goal to providing the best connected experience possible for people in the Northwest.”
At the time of its acquisition from Frontier, Ziply reported that 31% of its homes passed were fiber capable. Ziply fiber expansion goals targeted reaching 80% by 2024. The company reported passing 1.6 million locations when it was formed.
Washington state is the company’s largest market, and Montana is its smallest. Ziply employs more than 1,400 people, according to the statement about the additional funding.
The company says on its website that it is “investing $500 million to bring the best, fastest internet to our neighbors across the region.” And that was before the new $300 million funding offer.
Ziply Fiber currently serves about 500K customers across its four state footprint and has been pushing fiber deeper into its network. The company has been steadily announcing new fiber markets, adding 14 to its growing list in August 2021.
Earlier this year, Ziply Fiber announced it was moving ahead with an FTTP network upgrade that will deliver 1-Gig services to another 14 markets in Washington state and Oregon later this year. That ties into a broader commitment to deploy FTTP to 52 markets in its regions.
Like Frontier, Ziply Fiber is also starting to gear its efforts toward XGS-PON, a standard that paves the way for symmetrical 10Gbit/s services and beyond.
Ziply Fiber uses GPON today but is “fast approaching where everything will be XGS-PON,” Ziply Fiber CEO Harold Zeitz told Light Reading in a recent interview. “We are preparing all of our network for XGS. The only difference will be the ONT [optical network terminal] that goes on the home. Everything else will be XGS-ready.”
References:
Vodafone, Nokia, Cisco, etc. in multi-vendor test of Broadband Network Gateway
Vodafone, together with Benu Networks, Casa Systems, Cisco and Nokia, have successfully tested a system based on a Broadband Forum specification which will make it quicker and easier to deliver faster fixed broadband services to new and existing customers across Europe.
In a world first, the companies applied a new open architecture to the Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) – a critical component for connecting multiple users to the Internet – to enable it to work using separate software and hardware from multiple vendors. This is an important step in opening up the current single-supplier, monolithic broadband gateways to greater technological innovation from a more diverse supply chain.
Called Disaggregated BNG, the technology will change the way broadband networks are built. Using the global TR-459 standard devised by the Broadband Forum, the test allowed the core control functions of the gateway, such as authenticating a user and increasing bandwidth to support streaming services, to be separated and managed efficiently in the cloud whilst ensuring multi-vendor interoperability. Vodafone can then separately upgrade, scale and deploy new features and add more capacity, enabling greater agility and faster time to market when making enhancements across its pan-European broadband network.
Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer for Vodafone, said: “We are already driving a more diverse and open mobile ecosystem with Open RAN, and now we are targeting fixed broadband. As an industry, and with government support, we owe it to people with no or slow internet access to quicken the rollout of new capabilities on fast, fixed broadband.”
Disaggregated BNG will also lower development costs for existing and new ecosystem partners and allow deeper integration with 5G.
Broadband Forum specification – multi-vendor interoperability
The test used Control and User Plane Separation technologies defined by both the Broadband Forum and the global mobile standard 3GPP, which means there will be more opportunity for converged fixed and mobile service delivery. It was conducted between test labs in Belgium (Nokia), Ireland (Casa Systems), India (Cisco) and the United States (Benu Networks).
The Broadband Forum TR-459 specification describes how a traditionally monolithic function is split into two main components – the Control Plane and the User or the Data plane. The Control Plane is the brain of the system and is responsible for managing the interactions with the customer home router, authenticating the user and determining the services and policies that should be applied. The User or Data Plane is then responsible for forwarding the users’ traffic to the correct services and enforcing any required policies such as Quality of Service (QoS).
Standardization of Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) enables the Control Plane from one vendor to control the User Plane from a different vendor.
Partner quotes:
“We applaud Vodafone for taking a strong industry leadership role by driving standards-based interoperability between vendors,” said Ajay Manuja, CTO and VP of Engineering at Benu Networks. “Benu has specifically designed our cloud-native, disaggregated SD-Edge platform to be an open system for BNG and 5G convergence, supporting over 25 million broadband-connected homes and businesses.”
“Our goal is to simplify network transformation and make it easy for service providers to be more agile and innovative,” said Jerry Guo, CEO of Casa Systems. “Working with Vodafone, we were able to prove the interoperability and scalability of our standards-based disaggregated BNG solution that allows operators to break away from legacy infrastructures and deploy new services to their customers faster.”
“Cisco is committed to driving solutions to expand broadband penetration worldwide.” said Andy Schutz, Product Management Senior Director for Cisco. “We believe the work being done in the Broadband Forum is fundamental to these efforts, especially in the area of creating greater flexibility and choice of control and user planes from different vendors leveraging the TR-459 standard.”
“As a leading BNG vendor, Nokia is pleased to demonstrate support for a wide range of BNG deployment models including Broadband Forum’s disaggregated BNG architecture,” said Vach Kompella, VP and GM of Nokia’s IP Networks Business Division. “Nokia envisions a significant evolution in BNG architecture with the introduction of CUPS in fixed, wireless and 5G fixed wireless applications which will allow rapid feature introduction, optimal user plane placement and selection, as well as improved operations.”
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Ken Ko, managing director of Broadband Forum, told Fierce Telecom the BNG has traditionally been a “monolithic piece of equipment,” meaning operators might have to purchase a second BNG if they want to scale up or add capacity. This in turn could leave them with control plane capacity they don’t need but paid for anyway.
But with a disaggregated BNG, operators can deploy the control and user planes in a new way, centralizing the former and distributing the latter to reap myriad benefits, he said. For instance, the user plane can be deployed closer to the customer, delivering improved performance for users and giving the operator the option to scale in more flexible increments.
Additionally, by centralizing the control plane, operators not only gain scale benefits, but can also eliminate the need to set up a control plane for each individual BNG that’s rolled out. Ko pointed to improved resilience and streamlined orchestration as two other benefits of the disaggregated BNG.
For its part, Vodafone argued disaggregated BNGs would also enable “greater technological innovation from a more diverse supply chain” by lowering development costs for new and existing ecosystem players. It also highlighted the potential for deeper integration with 5G since the same control and user plane separation technology is also defined by 3GPP specifications.
Ko said the test “is a really important milestone,” adding “just the fact that we’ve got all of these players working together on this test shows that we’re getting to real deployable solutions.”
Vodafone Group
Media Relations
[email protected]
Investor Relations
[email protected]
References:
https://www.vodafone.com/news/press-release/world-first-multi-vendor-test-new-broadband-standard
https://www.fiercetelecom.com/tech/vodafone-trials-disaggregated-broadband-gateway-nokia-cisco
Gartner’s 2021 Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure
Gartner’s 2021 Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure [1.] notes that spending on WAN edge equipment will grow by 2.6% per year through 2025. This is the result of the robust growth of SD-WAN (18.0% CAGR) and the decline of traditional branch office routers (-16.5% CAGR). The past several years have seen a large-scale shift from traditional MPLS-based customer edge routers to SD-WAN technology, according to the report.
Note 1. WAN edge infrastructure enables network connectivity from distributed enterprise locations to access resources in both private and public data centers as well as cloud (as a service). It is typically procured by senior networking leaders within an infrastructure and operations (I&O) organization. This market has evolved from traditional branch routers (often called “customer edge routers” in a Multiprotocol Label Switching [MPLS] implementation), and is undergoing dramatic change, driven by the needs of digital business transformation and the demands of line-of-business managers. The market for branch office wide-area network functionality is shifting from dedicated routing, security and WAN optimization appliances to feature-rich SD-WAN and vCPE platforms. WAN edge infrastructure now incorporates a widening set of network functions, including secure routers, firewalls, SD-WAN, WAN path control and WAN optimization, along with traditional routing functionality.
The increased sales of WAN edge technology in general has been driven by SD-WAN equipment designed to support work-from-home and in-office environments are slightly dampened by the fact that sales of traditional branch office routers are sharply down as a consequence, Gartner stated in its report.
The number of vendors Gartner has designated as Leaders in WAN-edge infrastructure since 2019 has increased as more are judged to have the requisite “completeness of vision” and “ability to execute”. Just two companies were rated “leaders” in 2019, compared to six in 2020 and 2021. The same six companies were ranked as leaders in the past two reports—Fortinet, VMware, Versa, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and Silver Peak—although the Silver Peak was bought out last year by HPE/Aruba last year and has inherited the company’s spot in the new report. Gartner noted that edge network leaders offer versatile products with rich features, and broad name recognition.
SASE architecture is also on the rise, according to Gartner, who predicted that more than 70% of SD-WAN customers would implement SASE by 2024, up 10% from last year’s estimate. The ability to deliver a competitive SASE service affected this year’s ratings, making up a part of vendors’ innovation” score. If a vendor’s offerings include the types of network security features that would qualify its WAN edge products as SASE, the innovation score are slightly higher.
“We see network and security decisions being made at the same time and more often with the same solution,” the latest report said. “This is largely driven by the move to distribute internet access to support cloud applications and change the security perimeter.”
Gartner says Fortinet is a leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its offering is the FortiGate Secure SD-WAN product, which includes physical, virtual appliances and cloud-based services managed with FortiManager orchestrator. Fortinet is based in Sunnyvale, California, U.S., and Gartner estimates that it has more than 34,000 WAN edge customers with more than 10,000 SD-WAN customers. FortiOS v.7.0 combines ZTNA to its broad WAN and network security functionalities to deliver a capable SASE offering. It has a wide global presence, addressing customers across multiple verticals and sizes. We expect the vendor to continue investing in SASE, artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) and 5G functionality.
VMware is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its offering is branded as VMware SD-WAN, and is part of VMware SASE. The offering includes edge appliances (hardware and software), gateways — VMware points of presence (POPs) offering various services — and an orchestrator and its Edge Network Intelligence. VMware provides additional optional security via VMware Cloud Web Security and VMware Secure Access. Based in California, U.S., it has more than 14,000 SD-WAN customers. The vendor operates globally and addresses customers of all sizes, and in all verticals. Gartner expects the vendor to continue investments in this market, including enhancing options for remote workers and building out its SASE offering.
Cisco is also a leader in this Magic Quadrant. It has two branded offerings: Cisco SD-WAN powered by Viptela and Cisco SD-WAN powered by Meraki. Both include hardware and software appliances, and associated orchestration and management. Cisco also provides optional additional security via the Cisco Umbrella Security Internet Gateway (SIG) platform. Cisco is based in California, U.S., and has more than 40,000 WAN edge customers. The vendor operates globally and addresses customers of all sizes, in all verticals. We expect the vendor to continue to invest in this market, particularly in the areas of improved self-healing capabilities, new consumption-based pricing models and integrated security to enable a single-vendor SASE offering.
References:
https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/wan-edge-infrastructure
https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4005922
STL Launches Accellus End-To-End Fiber Broadband And 5G Wireless Solution; India’s PLI scheme explained
India based telecom equipment company STL (Sterlite Technologies Limited) has launched Accellus, its flagship solution for 5G-ready, open and programmable networks. This new product line raises the position of STL as a provider of disruptive solutions for Access and Edge networks. For the past 5 years, STL has been investing in research and development to expand its capabilities in converged networks based on fiber optic broadband and Open RAN.
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India’s PLI Scheme
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents service providers and network equipment vendors, said that the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme will boost local manufacturing, exports and also create employment opportunities. STL plans to take advantage of that initiative. Nokia (through its India subsidiary) said the guidelines were an encouraging initiative by the government towards making India a global manufacturing hub. “Nokia is committed to this vision with our Chennai factory that manufactures telecom equipment from 2G to 5G-making for India and the world.”
“India is already the second largest telecom market globally and this will go a long way in making the country a global hub for telecom innovation,” said SP Kochhar, director general, COAI.
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STL’s Accellus is built on this industry-leading converged optical-radio architecture. The company expects the global adoption of this decision to accelerate at a rate of 250% on an annual basis, stimulating better TCO for customers and gross margin for shareholders. Accellus will allow four main benefits for network builders – scalable and flexible operations, faster time to market, lower TCO and greener networks.
Accellus will lead the industry’s transition from tightly integrated, proprietary products to neutral and programmable converged wireless and optical networking solutions. It offers wireless and fiber-based solutions:
1. 5G multiband radios: Exhaustive portfolio of RAN radios with single and multiband macro radios. Co-developed in partnership with Facebook Connectivity to build total availability for Open RAN-based radios
2. Internal small cells: O-RAN compliant, highly efficient internal 5G small cell solution, with level 1 edge treatment
3. Wi-Fi 6 access solutions: Outdoor Wi-Fi 6 solutions providing carrier-class public connectivity in dense environments
4. Intelligent RAN Controller (RIC): An Open RAN 5G operating system that allows the Open RAN ecosystem to use third-party applications to improve performance and save costs
5. Programmable FTTx (pFTTx): A complete solution that offers programmability and software-defined networks in large-scale FTTH, business and cellular sites (FTTx) networks
Commenting on the launch of Accellus, Philip Leidler, Partner and Consulting Director, STL Partners, said: “One of the goals of the O-RAN alliance was to expand the RAN ecosystem and encourage innovation from a wider base of technology companies worldwide. the message is the last indication that this goal has been achieved. “
Commenting on the launch of Accellus, Chris Rice, CEO of Access Solutions at STL, said: “Disaggregated 5G and FTTx networks based on open standards are becoming more common for both greenfield and brownfield deployments. These networks will require unprecedented scalability and flexibility, possible through an open and programmable architecture. STL’s Accellus will unlock business opportunities for our customers and provide a immersive digital experience worldwide.”
Optical fiber has evolved in its maturity and in its form factors to drive the infrastructure medium for the “wireline” side of the network. It continues to be the preferred medium for high-speed network delivery, Rice said.
“What network infrastructure is needed for 5G to become a reality and deliver expected Performance?”
Answer: “Upgrade the network backhaul and core IP infrastructure for the expected growth in bandwidth that 5G Applications will enable. The necessity of wireline 5G upgrades sometimes does not get the attention it deserves; this includes IP equipment (e.g. cell site routers) and the necessary fiber upgrades to the cell sites.
Perform the network planning for the new cell site builds required to get the coverage and capacity required for ubiquitous 5G at the speeds users expect. For 5G to pay off for Telcos, there have to be new capabilities and services to sell that deserve higher price points from consumers and business users.
Ensure that operational automation is available to keep operating costs reasonable, especially as the number of cell sites grows. CAPEX is typically only 20 to 25% of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a RAN, meaning that operating costs are 3X to 4X what CAPEX is. The RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) is an example in ORAN / Open RAN that helps Telcos fulfil this need in an open way. It is essentially the operating system for Open RAN. It provides a platform for third-party applications to deliver these operational benefits and automation.”
How Is STL Helping Industry Stakeholders to Explain to Government Officials the Importance of Fiber for 5G or High-Speed Broadband?
Answer: “Network speed in the RAN air interface is essentially meaningless without the ability to ensure that the connected IP network can backhaul the required bandwidth. This fact necessitates additional fiber deployments to the existing cell sites (where it does not exist) and to new cells sites.”
In conclusion, Rice opined, “Our (STLs) newest business unit, the Access Solutions BU, focuses on fiber broadband and 5G wireless products. These products are based on open networking principles and give STL the opportunity to participate in the disruption that is occurring in the open networking markets, like ORAN and Open RAN initiatives. While Access Solutions BU is new, it has an R&D and innovation heritage of almost four years. During that time, a top talent team has been put in place, fundamental technology and innovation have been developed and matured, and now a well-defined product roadmap has been put in place as the BU launches many new products in its Accellus product line.”
References:
https://telecomtalk.info/5g-ecosystem-in-india-to-pli-scheme/468656/
BICS tests 5G Standalone roaming in trial with Proximus despite no standard(s)
Brussels based BICS [1.] today announced the successful conclusion of one of the first 5G Standalone (SA) roaming trials in the world, taking place within the BICS 5G Lab. The new innovation platform enabled data sessions and outbound roaming of test subscribers from Proximus to BICS’ test network environment. The 5G SA Lab’s successful results confirm a network operator’s readiness for an accelerated 5G roll-out.
Note 1. BICS is a leading international communications enabler, one of the key global voice carriers and the leading provider of mobile data services worldwide.
The BICS 5G Lab was announced earlier this year, and provides a test environment for operators and enterprises to test their readiness for next-gen services deployment of 5G Standalone, independently of the 4G core network. It follows BICS’ previous initiatives in promotion of 5G adoption, including the recent addition of borderless 5G connectivity to its SIM for Things solution earlier this year.
The trial successfully enabled a 5G data session for outbound roamers and demonstrated roaming interoperability between two 5G network providers – a critical element for the communications ecosystem to be able to meet the international needs of roaming devices and end users. It also established connectivity between the visited and home network via secured gateways (SEPP), hosted on BICS’ IPX network.
Mikaël Schachne, VP Mobility and IoT, BICS says: “BICS is perfectly positioned at the heart of the communications system to facilitate 5G Standalone readiness, ensuring operators and enterprises are fully prepared for roll-out. The insights BICS provides, harnessed from our unparalleled expertise in carrying over half the world’s data roaming traffic, can help businesses to accelerate their 5G strategies and provide first-class offerings to their customers.”
Geert Standaert, Chief Technology Officer, Proximus says: “5G represents a revolution of mobile communications and will accelerate the advent of the Internet of Things. The conclusion of this trial marks a major advancement in Proximus’ 5G Standalone rollout, which will bring unprecedented advantages to both end users and businesses.”
The scope for 5G SA use cases is expanding exponentially, from smart transport to industry 4.0 and beyond, with the pandemic having accelerated the demand for wireless technologies. As the world’s travel industries and businesses begin to re-open, operators and enterprises are set to experience a sharp increase in demand for international roaming across their 5G networks. This trial is a milestone in BICS’ commitment to enabling the international readiness for 5G adoption necessary to meet and capitalize on this growth opportunity.
Orange has said it is also ready to work with early 5G SA adopters on trials and proofs of concept for 5G roaming. In the absence of any standards or implementation specs, there are many different implementations of 5G SA core network and no standard for 5G SA roaming.
All network operators must sign new 5G bilateral roaming agreements and establish interconnections with peers. This can be bilateral, but, like today, the complicated management and rollout of roaming agreements will be simplified using IPX and roaming hub providers. Signaling interworking will require a SEPP, which ensures end-to-end confidentiality and integrity between source and destination networks. All signaling traffic across operator networks will transit via these security proxies. Authentication between operators’ SEPP is required to prevent unauthorized communication between networks. Operators will benefit from connecting to a 5G-compliant IPX hub as it offers adapted levels of security from all the other operators connected to the hub.
References:
BICS advances 5G Standalone roaming with conclusion of trial with Proximus
https://internationalcarriers.orange.com/en/news/get-ready-for-5g-roaming.html
https://www.juniperresearch.com/blog/august-2021/the-5g-roaming-landscape
India’s DoT preparing for another mega spectrum sale
India’s telecom department has set the stage for another mega spectrum sale by sending a reference to the sector regulator, seeking fresh base prices for the gamut of airwave bands, including key frequencies like 700 MHz, 3.3-3.6 GHz and the coveted millimeter waves such as 26 GHz and 28 GHz that support 5G technology (but have not been agreed upon in revision 6 of ITU-R M.1036 Frequency Arrangements for Terrestrial IMT).
India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also sought fresh base prices for 4G airwave bands such as 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2300 MHz, two people aware of the matter said. But with the time usually taken for the consultation process, sources say it may be tough to meet government’s auction timeline of January-February, 2022.
The reference comes at a time when the government has acknowledged that high spectrum pricing is a prime reason behind the acute financial stress in the debt-laden telecom industry, and is also open to price rationalization in public interest.
In its reference, the department has sought recommendations from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the terms of reference for the next auction and the quantum of airwaves proposed to be auctioned, one of the persons cited told ET.
“We have received a detailed reference from DoT about 2-3 days back, seeking our recommendations on spectrum matters and pricing…there are a number of spectrum bands involved, and the Authority is currently examining the reference and will respond to the government,” Trai secretary V Raghunandan told ET. He, though, declined to share details.
Sector analysts expect the potential annual cash flow relief stemming from the four-year moratorium allowed on statutory payouts to give Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio the financial headroom to participate aggressively in the next spectrum auction. They, though, don’t expect Vodafone Idea (Vi) to participate as strongly if it’s unable to close its much delayed Rs 25,000-crore fundraise.
Another official said that Trai will need to seek additional details from the DoT, before proceeding with its analysis and starting the consultation process.
After a DoT reference, Trai conducts a process which includes a four-week period for stakeholders to submit their views after a consultation paper is floated, followed by two weeks for counter comments. Then Trai holds open-house discussions before arriving at its recommendations. The whole process usually takes about four-five to months at least.
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On March 1, India concluded its first spectrum auction of 2021. India’s Department of Telecom (DoT), through a Notice Inviting Applications (NIA) issued in January 2021, had put up spectrum for auction in multiple bands, including 700, 800, 900, 1800, 2100, 2300 and 2500 MHz bands. These frequencies cut across 2G, 3G and 4G service bands and included both FDD (paired) and TDD (unpaired) bands.
The auction was a qualified success. It netted the Government $10.6 billion and was almost double initial estimates. However, barely 37% of the total spectrum put up for auction had takers, while the 700 MHz band saw no bids at all.
The main takeaway from this auction is that the focus of India’s telcos is currently on 4G, not 5G. With several licenses coming up for renewal, it was imperative that telcos bid on expiring spectrum to renew but also to consolidate with new holdings. The biggest bidders were Reliance Jio ($7.8 billion), Bharti Airtel ($2.55 billion), followed by VodafoneIDEA a distant third with bids worth $272 million.
There was heavier than expected bidding in the 800 MHz band as well as the 2300 MHz band. All of the three operators bidding have taken different approaches to this auction. The common theme for both Jio and Airtel’s auction strategies was to shore up existing spectrum, acquire new frequencies to consolidate holdings per circle and boost capacity, and lay the groundwork for an eventual 5G network launch.
For its part, Vodafone IDEA (VIL) has taken a very frugal, optimization strategy to spectrum. Their public position has been that they have abundant spectrum and therefore are not hard-pressed to bid aggressively. This is true, with VIL holding ample spectrum, but there is no doubt that they would have had very limited means due to a stressed balance sheet.
Reference:
IBM and Airspan Networks launch 5G Open RAN testbeds in Europe
IBM and Airspan Networks are launching a 5G-enabled Open RAN testbed across the IBM Watson IoT Center in Munich, Germany and IBM’s Global Industry Solution Center (GISC) in Nice, France. The facility will showcase long-distance control using 5G-enabled edge computing. The goal of developing this testbed is to help clients across Europe innovate and develop multi-vendor solutions designed to address different customer use case requirements, based on open, interoperable standards, while optimizing performance. IBM Global Business Services and Airspan plan to work together to accelerate the adoption of Open RAN technology and its ecosystem incorporating IBM’s leading global hybrid cloud and AI orchestration services. IBM Global Business Services, a leading systems integrator in the telco industry, is focused on processes, methodologies, and edge experience to deliver value and transformational projects with emerging technologies.
Marisa Viveros, VP of Strategy and Offerings, Telecom, Media and Entertainment Industry at IBM, said: “Open approaches and standards-based technologies are vital to help unleash the full potential of 5G and edge computing. That’s why, in collaboration with Airspan, we hope to work to advance emerging use cases that harness Open RAN and bring new value to telecom clients. The planned expansion of the Open RAN testbed will allow us to demonstrate these capabilities as we accelerate 5G and edge computing innovation.”
The main goal of the new testbed is to help the European telecoms industry accelerate the development of multi-vendor solutions to address specific customer needs.
“Through critical collaboration with leaders like IBM and testing in these labs, which could help accelerate the development of Open RAN and 5G solutions and the open architecture ecosystem, we believe Airspan can continue to be at the forefront of innovation and industry disruption through end-to-end Open RAN solutions,” commented Airspan Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Henrik Smith-Petersen.
Airspan will contribute its Open RAN AirVelocity 2700 indoor radio unit and virtualized Open RAN Centralized Unit (vCU) and Distributed Unit (vDU) OpenRANGE software as part of the collaboration.
IBM, for its part, will provide its Global Business Services technology integration services, Cloud Pak for Network Automation, and Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps, to help customers to more efficiently manage and orchestrate their edge cloud implementations and applications.
This year, IBM announced the Open RAN Center of Excellence in Spain to accelerate the progress of Open RAN and standards-based technologies in Europe. In May 2021, Airspan announced the opening of a 5G Innovation Lab in the UK as a showcase and demonstration facility for partners, customers and government institutions, to focus on the development of Open RAN software, 5G sub 6 GHz and mmWave indoor and outdoor equipment, and private network use cases.
IBM Global Business Services and Airspan are working toward definitive agreements detailing joint plans to accelerate the adoption of Open RAN technology and its ecosystem incorporating IBM’s leading global hybrid cloud and AI orchestration services. Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.
Earlier this year, Airspan also announced plans to open a 5G Innovation Lab at its offices in Slough, UK. The lab will feature a full end-to-end 5G Open RAN solution and will be used to advance the development of the technology in addition to acting as a showcase and demonstration facility for partners, customers, and government institutions.
The UK has increased its support for Open RAN development following its decision to ban Huawei from national networks, a previously major vendor.
“We’re investing £450 million to explore how 5G can boost the economy while also building confidence and competition in this revolutionary technology,” said Matt Warman, UK Minister for Digital Infrastructure.
“Airspan’s new lab of telecoms innovators will develop cutting-edge 5G networks and help create jobs and a more secure and diverse UK telecoms supply chain.”
References:
IBM and Airspan Networks target increased European adoption of 5G-enabled Open RAN
Equinix Partners with Nokia to Increase 5G and Edge Ecosystem Innovation
Equinix, Inc., the world’s digital infrastructure company™ [1.], today announced it has deployed a first-of-its-kind, fully functional 5G and Edge Technology Development Center which includes a fully operational, 5G NSA (non-standalone) network from Nokia to test and validate various 5G services and use cases. Equinix is investing in helping service providers and network operators bring innovative concepts to market by providing an agile production framework for assessing, incubating and testing 5G and edge solutions for end-to-end secure applications.
Note 1. Equinix’s business is Internet connection and data centers. The company is the leader in global colocation data center market share, with 229 data centers in 27 countries on five continents. The data center industry is a multibillion-dollar industry. According to Gartner, end-user spending on data center infrastructure for 2020 was $188 billion, a 10.3% decrease from 2019’s spending.
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The 5G and Edge Technology Development Center—located at the Equinix DA11 International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center in Dallas—brings together select ecosystem participants to develop end-to-end edge solutions by providing a production-ready interconnection sandbox environment from the radio network to the cloud. Mobile network operators (MNOs), cloud platforms, technology vendors and enterprises come together at Equinix to test, demonstrate and accelerate complex 5G and edge scenarios—key activities that will make 5G deployments available to enterprises in the future. Equinix Fabric™ directly, securely and dynamically connects distributed infrastructure and digital ecosystems on Platform Equinix®. Customers can establish data center-to-data center network connections on demand between any two Equinix Fabric locations within a metro or globally via software-defined interconnection.
“As we look to a future where 5G is ubiquitous, the way that IP traffic moves between networks around the world will change completely, and interconnected data centers will play a crucial role in this new 5G-dominated future,” said Sean Hemphill, VP Webscale Business at Nokia. “Equinix’s approach to digital infrastructure enables access to a large ecosystem of end users and service providers. Nokia IP solutions underpin Equinix Fabric, providing seamless interconnection between its global data centers. We’re pleased that Equinix Fabric will bring the power of interconnection to help customers test real-world 5G and edge deployments.”
The Dallas-based 5G and Edge Technology Development Center will initially focus on the following use cases:
- Mobile Hybrid Multicloud Connectivity: Assessing strategies for ensuring that 5G user traffic can reach multiple clouds and hybrid edge computing resources, effectively and efficiently.
- Network Slicing: Aiming to facilitate private wireless enterprise networks supporting secure, predictable, end-to-end quality of experience.
- Distributed Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Investigating the optimization of AI/ML applications and infrastructure distributed across the edge, directly connected to 5G, and interconnected to clouds for enabling data-dense capabilities, such as scene and video analytics.
- Enablement and Orchestration of Infrastructure: Exploring optimal deployment strategies for 5G RAN, fronthaul, core and edge computing infrastructure and functions management across domains.
- Augmented and Virtual Reality: Validating a uniform experience, consistent quality and anywhere usage with high mobility and high motion.
- Gaming: Demonstrating responsive hosted-gaming, low-latency peripherals leveraging the metro edge for delivery.
Equinix is actively standing up novel 5G use cases. The first use case is Secure Edge from Exium, which enables highly secure, seamless multi-access edge compute functionality with tightly integrated security and network functions from the cloud, to edge locations, to the devices themselves. With Exium deployed at Equinix data centers, customers get close to on-prem performance with the benefits of cloud aggregation and also manage enterprise-grade traffic breakout in real time.
“Applications and artificial intelligence are moving to the edge, whether we’re ready or not,” said Farooq Muzaffar, COO, Exium. “As enterprises embrace digital transformation, automation and intelligence at the edge, it’s crucial to have a partner like Equinix. The 5G and Edge Technology Development Center has been an incredible resource for us and our customers as we incubate, develop and deploy secure edge AI services with 5G access.”
The Equinix 2020-21 Global Tech Trends Survey—which surveyed 2,600 IT decision makers—uncovered a crucial need for infrastructure technology exploration in this area. While most respondents agreed that the biggest impact of 5G is the ability it gives businesses to take advantage of new technologies, more than a third worried about the need to re-architect infrastructure to take advantage of 5G capabilities.
“As companies develop new 5G technologies and services, they need a real-world environment to test and bring their concepts to life,” said Justin Dustzadeh, CTO, Equinix. “With Equinix’s rich ecosystem of service providers, partners and clouds, the 5G and Edge Technology Development Center is an ideal place to fully test their concepts in a real way, enabling them to bring new capabilities to market, accelerate adoption and deliver new revenue streams faster.”
Jim Poole, VP Business Development, Equinix added, “We’re excited to invite private enterprises, commercial organizations and researchers across industries to Dallas to test, validate and accelerate complex 5G deployments and interoperability scenarios.”
Equinix Fabric, an automated interconnection service, connects customers to more than 10,000 clouds, networks, and third-party platforms. Customers can connect a pair of Equinix Fabric locations within a metro or globally via software-defined interconnection.
The continued testing and validation phase for 5G edge computing among various vendors and operators underscores the relatively nascent nature of the technology. Equinix CEO Charles Meyers earlier this year shared muted enthusiasm for edge computing.
“I think it’s going to play out over a longer period of time than people currently anticipate,” Meyers said at the Citi 2021 Global TMT West Conference.
The expanded effort with Nokia also follows Equinix’s edge strategy, which Meyers described at the time as a largely partner-driven approach wherein other companies provide “far edge real estate” that will require and benefit from interconnection and access back into Equinix’s services.
Additional Resources
- Equinix 5G and Edge Tech Development Center Drives Innovation [blog]
- 5G is changing the game – right now. Is your infrastructure ready? [whitepaper]
- Learn more about Equinix Fabric™ [website]
- Equinix 2020-21 Global Tech Trends Survey [ebook]
- Equinix Expands Dallas Infomart Campus with New $142M Data Center and 5G Proof of Concept Center [press release]
About Equinix:
Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) is the world’s digital infrastructure company, enabling digital leaders to harness a trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers their success. Equinix enables today’s businesses to access all the right places, partners, and possibilities they need to accelerate advantage. With Equinix, they can scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences, and multiply their value.
References:
https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/equinix-rouses-5g-edge-sandbox-with-nokia/2021/09/
Tata Communications: Bandwidth on Demand/ pay-as-you-go for Ethernet services
Tata Communications today launched the ‘Bandwidth-on-Demand’ (BoD) Ethernet network services for various industry sectors including IT/ITeS, BFSI, eCommerce, and the Media. The new feature enables enterprises to self-provision additional bandwidth capacity on a pay-as-you-go model to address their short-term bandwidth needs through a self-service customer portal, the company said in a statement. “With this feature, Tata Communications powers enterprises to move closer to achieving their digital-first ambitions.”
Editor’s Note: BoD or “liquid bandwidth” was the original premise of Ethernet MAN/WAN services in 2001-2002 when it was first deployed. The premise was FTTB/FTTP which would provide sufficient bandwidth for customers to scale speeds up (or down). The key capability needed was a usage and rate based charging system which evidently is now in place (2o years later!).
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The BoD feature also helps customers dynamically manage scalable and resilient data center (DC) connectivity. The Ethernet network is built upon the strong foundation of Tata Communications DC ecosystem infrastructure, providing seamless connectivity and maximum coverage across the DC clusters in India with multiple diverse routes.
“The pay-as-you-go network feature will empower enterprises who are increasingly facing fluctuating short-term bandwidth needs to manage their application’s performance. Control at the hands of the customers to adjust their bandwidth dynamically in near real-time, will provide them such agility and flexibility,” said Kapil Kumar Jain, Vice President – Core and Next Gen Connectivity Services, Tata Communications.
- IT, ITES and the Service sectors get the flexibility which increases capacity to handle cloud backups and data replication services
- BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) during scheduled data migrations and back-ups.
- eCommerce and retail which benefits by managing network performance during annual or periodic ‘big’ sales days campaigns.
- Media services to enhance their workflows for efficient event-based remote production.
References:
China (led by Huawei) in bid to take over Africa’s telecom networks
Telecommunications networks funded and built by China are taking over Africa’s cyberspace, a dependence that analysts suggest puts Beijing in a position to exert political influence in some of the continent’s countries.
Bulelani Jili, a doctoral candidate at Harvard University’s Department of African and African American Studies, said that “Huawei is working and partnering with many governments across the continent, and it is those governments that are using quality technology to undermine democratic values.”
Huawei, the world’s leading seller of 5G network equipment is seen by the U.S. and other countries as a pawn of the Chinese government, which could use the company for spying, an accusation Huawei denies, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington, reported in May that worldwide, “the majority of [Huawei’s] deals (57%) are in countries that are middle-income and partly free or not free.”
The CSIS report added that Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and e-government services are handling sensitive data, services that “could provide Chinese authorities with intelligence and even coercive leverage.”
The “intelligence and even coercive leverage” language stems from China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which stipulated that any organization and Chinese citizen should “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work.” The law does not limit these activities to China.
Goals and needs
The African Union has set the goal of connecting every individual, business and government on the continent by 2030, an expansion that is supported by the World Bank Group.
Africa needs 1,000 megawatts (MW) of new facility capacity or about 700 new data center facilities to meet growing demand in the continent, according to the Africa Data Centers Association.
The scale of need for data centers to meet population growth “is astoundingly significant,” Guy Zibi, principal analyst at Xalam Analytics, who is tracking the African data center boom, told the website DataCenterKnowledge.
On June 22nd, the West African nation of Senegal opened a national data center just outside Dakar, the capital. Financed by the Export-Import Bank of China, the center was built with equipment and technical backing from Huawei. Senegal’s status declined from free to partly free in the Freedom in the World 2020 report from Freedom House.
In July 2020, Cameroon completed a government data center on the outskirts of Yaounde, the capital. It was funded by the Export-Import Bank of China, built by the Beijing-controlled China Shenyang International Economic & Technical Cooperation Corporation and equipped with Huawei gear. Freedom House in 2020 rated Cameroon as not free.
In April 2019, Kenya and Huawei signed a deal for a data center, a smart city and surveillance project, according to DataCenterDynamics. The site also reported Huawei was working with the government of Zambia on a $75 million data center. Freedom House rated Kenya as partly free in 2020.
Huawei’s e-government services include elections, document digitization, national ID systems and tax services, according to the CSIS report.
While the digitization of government records may allow greater surveillance, it can also mean more effective tax collection and less corruption, according to a March 2021 post on a tech site of the Brookings Institution a Washington think tank.
“As the continent recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, its leaders face a choice between harnessing emerging technology to improve government effectiveness, increase transparency and foster inclusion, or as a tool of repression, division and conflict,” said the TechStream post.
China’s expansion
China has a history of financing and supplying telecom and information and computer technology (ICT) throughout Africa, according to an April 2021 report from the Atlantic Council’s African Center.
Over the past two decades, Huawei has built about 50% of Africa’s 3G networks and 70% of its 4G networks, according to the report.
The expansion began in 1999, when China launched its Go Out policy, which pushed Chinese companies to invest abroad and strengthen China’s global business presence.
By 2018, China had expanded to at least 40 African nations, according to Africa Times.
Cobus van Staden, a senior China-Africa researcher at the Johannesburg-based think tank South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), outlined why Chinese firms succeed in Africa.
“First is that the continent has very high demand for digital connectivity, at all levels, from network building to consumer handset sales,” he told VOA in an email.
Second, Chinese companies have easy access to large banks closely tied to Beijing. This, according to van Staden, means Chinese companies have the funding to roll out infrastructure quickly in a variety of environments.
Iginio Gagliardone, an associate professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has done extensive research on the rise of China’s presence in Africa and is the author of China, Africa and the Future of the Internet.
He said that the relationship Chinese companies have with state-affiliated banks means the companies can lower their prices and maintain a competitive advantage over other bidders.
“The Export-Import Bank [of China] has been able to offer large loans, as part of deals with African governments, with the condition that these loans will be used to deploy technology using a Chinese company,” he said in a phone interview with VOA Mandarin.
Chinese state banks provide such generous financing to Huawei’s customers that most commercial banks cannot match the terms, “making Huawei equipment cheaper to deploy at any price,” according to a 2020 report by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank.
A third factor, according to van Staden, is that there has been relatively little attention paid to Africa as an emerging tech market. “There aren’t many credible competitors to Chinese companies on the scene,” he added.
Known player
Because Chinese enterprises are known players in Africa’s telecommunications infrastructure, countries transitioning to 5G often remain with the companies they know, according to analysts.
“Although the Trump administration’s policies successfully curbed Chinese expansion in Western countries, they did not address the growing presence of Chinese technology infrastructure on the African continent,” according to the Atlantic Council’s report. “In African markets, a lack of local champions and infrastructure financing and construction capacity constraints have created a dependence on Chinese-financed projects.”
Van Staden said that the dependence raises the question of possible political influence.
“Research has shown that Chinese companies are responsive to local regulations and governance. In both authoritarian and democratic countries, Chinese contractors have tended to follow local laws and to provide the systems these governments wanted, be these open and inclusive, or centrally controlled,” he said.
“There isn’t proof that China is ‘exporting’ its own domestic system or pressuring countries to emulate it,” he continued. “The issue is less that China is using data networks to influence local politics, and more that its position as a network provider is just one aspect of a much broader trade and investment presence. China’s role as a major trade, financing and development partner to many African countries naturally makes these countries less willing to cross any of Beijing’s ‘red lines.’ ”
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