Background: Despite only a “vision” with no definition or specs from ITU-R of fifth generation wireless networks (5G),  mobile vendors and wireless network operators continue to keep talking about 5G ready products and deployment — even if they’re not really even sure what 5G is yet.   In the last year, we have seen carriers announce “4.5G” and… Read more →

The latest IHS Infonetics Service Provider Capex, Revenue, and Capex by Equipment Type report notes that worldwide telecom service provider capital expenditures (CAPEX) grew 2.9%  year-over-year in 2014, to US$352 billion. CAPEX REPORT HIGHLIGHTS: In 2014, expenditures for every type of equipment except TDM voice slowly grew or stayed flat from the year prior. Europe posted… Read more →

CenturyLink will tap dark fiber in 17 states to expand gigabit broadband, benefiting approximately 500,000 small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The fiber-to-the-premises expansion will enable CenturyLink to broaden service options for SMBs and will involve the introduction of cloud-based business services from Microsoft such as Office 365. CenturyLink’s symmetrical gigabit fiber service will now reach… Read more →

Nokia Corp. said that its mainstay network business delivered “unsatisfactory profits” during the first quarter. Nokia’s network division saw its quarterly revenue rise 15% over the year to €2.67 billion ($2.94 billion), the unit’s underlying operating profit for the first quarter fell to €85 million from €216 million, Nokia said in a statement. The network division’s… Read more →

By David Dixon of FBR Captial Markets &Co.  (edited by Alan J Weissberger): Note:  As everyone knows, Verizon acquired all of Verizon WIreless from Vodafone and has sold off a good part of its wireline business to Frontier Communications.   Hence, it’s more of a wireless carrier than ever before! http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/us-verizon-comms-divestiture-idUSKBN0L92UG20150205 David Dixon’s Commentary: First,… Read more →

Infonetics Research, now part of IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), conducted in-depth surveys with businesses in the U.S. and Canada about the enterprise LAN Software Defined Networking (SDN) market and found that 72% of respondents plan to have campus LAN SDN in live production by the end of 2017. Infonetics interviewed IT purchase-decision makers at medium… Read more →

Posted on behalf of David Dixon, FBR Capital Markets Sprint CEO Marcello Claure has undertaken a strategic review of Sprint’s competitive positioning according to our vendor checks. Claure is an entrepreneur who seeks to move quickly to reposition the company. While he is not a network engineer, he understands that the network is a strategic… Read more →

Infonetics Research, now part of IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), forecasts that bare metal switches (which decouple hardware from software and offer greater agility and cost savings over traditional data center switches) will make up just under a quarter of all data center ports shipped worldwide in 2019, up from 11 percent in 2014.   Infonetics’ fourth… Read more →

Introduction: Google’s keynote talk on this topic at last Thursday’s Light Reading New IP conference was very profound.  Google and its eight partners (identified below) in this OpenConfig initiative want to specify a vendor neutral type of provisioning & configuration system that will work with any type or brand of network equipment.  It’s called OpenConfig.  In… Read more →

NOTE:  An update to this article is at:   https://techblog.comsoc.org/2015/06/20/cuba-to-expand-internet-access-and-lower-price-of-wifi-connections Introduction: Recognizing the urgent need to improve its infrastructure and bolster the private sector economy, Castro & company felt the need to engage the U.S. in dialog to get U.S. companies to invest in the island, especially in telecommunications and information infrastructure.   We were… Read more →