Independent rural UK network builder and broadband ISP GoFibre, which is rolling out a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the North of England and Scottish Borders, has today announced that they’ve started to deploy across the Aberdeenshire towns of Portlethen and Newtonhill. At present the operator is currently being supported by funding of […]

Press release

Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) announced this week that Gulf Bridge International (GBI) has deployed Infinera’s ICE6 800G optical engine across its submarine and terrestrial networks between the Middle East and Europe to increase capacity in preparation for the World Cup, which commences this Sunday. The upgrade to ICE6 doubles GBI’s network capacity and provides connections of up to 800G per wavelength. GBI was able to rapidly and seamlessly integrate this new technology over its existing third-party optical line system by leveraging open optical networking principles. The integration of this technology enables GBI to provide high-speed streaming of the World Cup and offer 400 GbE services to its customers.

Infinera’s ICE6-powered GX Series solution delivers the ultra-high capacity needed to meet increasing bandwidth demand to ensure that GBI’s customers enjoy a high-quality, uninterrupted game-day experience during the world’s largest football competition and beyond. With Infinera’s industry-leading optical engine, GBI can minimize the cost per bit of its submarine and terrestrial networks while also maximizing spectral efficiency and fiber capacity. This is achieved through unique features that include Nyquist subcarriers, forward error correction gain sharing, and photonic integrated circuit-based technology.

“Upgrading our networks with Infinera’s ICE6 solution was easy and seamless, allowing us to leverage our existing optical transport architecture while upgrading our network to meet today’s demand,” said Gavin Rea, Chief Technical Officer at GBI. “With the World Cup quickly approaching, it was critical for us to ensure our network had the terabits of capacity needed to give our customers reliable, high-speed service to deliver the best viewing experience. That’s exactly what we’ll be offering our customers across Europe and the Middle East this week thanks to Infinera.”

“Modernizing GBI’s submarine and terrestrial Smart Network with Infinera’s ICE6 solution is a significant step forward in ensuring GBI remains a leading service provider, offering differentiated services such as 400 GbE to its customers,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Infinera. “GBI operates key routes throughout the Middle East and European markets, and we are pleased to equip them with the highest capacity and most innovative services available.”

About Gulf Bridge International (GBI)  

Founded in 2008, GBI is a global cloud, connectivity, and content enabler that owns and operates a smart and fully managed network. GBI’s multilayer terrestrial and subsea cable meshed network bridges the East to the West through the Middle East, empowers businesses, connects societies, and contributes to the region’s accelerated digital transformation. GBI is a carrier of choice for telecom operators, ISPs and governments throughout the Middle East, Europe and Asia offering capacity and a portfolio of wholesale and enterprise services. GBI’s value propositions and diverse offerings serve as a catalyst to growth, innovation and contribute to the economic development within the region and beyond. For more information visit: https://gbiinc.com/. You can find out more about GBI’s Smart Network here.

About Infinera

Infinera is a global supplier of innovative open optical networking solutions that enable carriers, cloud operators, governments, and enterprises to scale network bandwidth, accelerate service innovation, and automate network operations. Infinera solutions deliver industry-leading economics and performance in long-haul, submarine, data center interconnect, and metro transport applications. To learn more about Infinera, visit www.infinera.com, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and subscribe for updates.

The post GBI deploys Infinera’s ICE6 800G optical engine to boost capacity ahead of the World Cup first appeared on Total Telecom.

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA) has announced the list of winners from their 2022 Gold Awards event, which aims to recognise and celebrate the best alternative broadband networks (altnets) and ISPs from across the United Kingdom. Some providers, such as B4RN, picked up several awards. As usual, the winners were all decided by a […]

Fibre optic builder and UK ISP B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North), which is rolling out a 10Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of England, has been fined £1,400 after an inspector identified a number of safety failings with their deployment in the small Eden Valley village of Kirkoswald (Cumbria). The provider, which […]

Network builder and UK ISP Vorboss, which is currently investing £250m to rollout “London’s only full-coverage fibre network dedicated to business” (they’ve already built over 500km of fibre since 2020), has today officially launched their new 100Gbps product for businesses in the city – at a cost of £2,999 +vat per month. Just to recap. […]

Mobile network operator giffgaff has today announced that it will shortly introduce a range of new SIM-Only “goodybag” plans and, at the same time, it will also boost mobile data allowances across most of their existing plans too. The changes are due to be introduced from 7th December 2022. We should point out that all […]

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2) has confirmed that they’ve just expanded their gigabit-capable fixed line connectivity – via Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology – to cover an additional 4,250 homes in Cheshire East (England). Most of the expansion appears to have taken place in the town of Alsager, which is home to around 12,000 people. Virgin’s […]

Press Release

Nokia and TPG Telecom today announced they have hit a 5G uplink speed of 2 Gigabits per second (Gbps). Using TPG Telecom’s 5G mmWave spectrum, this milestone was achieved during a live demonstration at the Nokia 5G Futures Lab in Sydney, Australia

The new Australian 5G uplink record, which follows on from a number of Australian 5G speed records announced by Nokia earlier in the year, will enable Nokia and its customers such as TPG Telecom to offer ultra-high-performing, low-latency services for Industrial and IoT applications which are heavily reliant on high-speed uplink connectivity. The solution is expected to be fully deployed next year as devices that support this capability become available.

The live demonstration involved a commercially available Nokia AirScale 5G mmWave base station utilising TPG Telecom’s 26 GHz spectrum to connect, over the air, to a 5G device powered by a Snapdragon® X65 5G Modem-RF System featuring fourth-generation Qualcomm® QTM545 mmWave antenna modules. Additionally, Nokia deployed its industry-leading Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology to fully leverage the available spectrum assets. The CA setup included four component carriers of 100 MHz each in the 26 GHz band.

The demonstration also leveraged Nokia’s 5G Core to provide the speed, intelligence, and security for testing the delivery of new advanced 5G services.

Once deployed, 5G mmWave technology will create new service opportunities for both consumers and industries. For consumers it will allow real-time multi-user 8K ultra-high-definition bi-directional video streaming, and augmented reality content for smartphones or wearable devices for immersive experiences.

For industries it will enable streaming of massive amounts of data directly from embedded IoT sensors and industrial robots over 5G, allowing the real-time control of industrial processes using powerful 5G connected Edge Compute Nodes. This concept of processor offload across 5G was also demonstrated at the event using “Spot” – the 5G connected Robot Dog – developed in conjunction with academics at the University of Technology Sydney.

Dr Robert Joyce, Chief Technology Officer at Nokia Oceania, said: “Super-fast uplink speeds are critical to fully realise the huge benefits of 5G networks, particularly as we look to emerging technologies like augmented intelligence, machine learning, advanced sensors and robotics that are set to transform industries and economies with huge safety, productivity and efficiency outcomes as we move towards the metaverse era. For consumers and industries alike, the future is exciting. Pushing the boundaries of 5G with innovative customers like TPG Telecom in Australia is a big part of this journey forward.”

Giovanni Chiarelli, Chief Technology Officer at TPG Telecom, said: “We are very proud of this achievement and other mobile technology innovations we continue to develop with Nokia. This demonstration is important as it shows the huge potential of 5G mobile technology and gives a glimpse of the high-speed services that will one day be available to customers and businesses right across Australia.”

The post Nokia and TPG hit 5G uplink milestone first appeared on Total Telecom.

News

The underwhelming auction saw only 76% of available spectrum sold, with Telekom Romania notably absent from the bidding

This week, Romanian telecoms regular Ancom has announced the rather disappointing results of its latest 5G spectrum auction, which kicked off back in September.

Telekom Romania was conspicuously absent, further fuelling suspicions that the operator is looking to close shop in the country.

Rumours to this effect have been circulating since at least 2019, with numerous hints at mergers for the Telekom Romania’s mobile, fixed line, and cable TV business. In fact, last year one such rumour indeed materialised, with Telekom Romania’s owner OTE (itself owned by Deutsche Telekom) selling its majority stake in the company’s fixed line business to Orange.

Orange won the lion’s share of the spectrum sold, securing 2×5 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum, as all the available 1.5 GHz spectrum (8×5 MHz), and 16×10 MHz in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band. Overall, Orange paid €264.6 million for the spectrum and was quick to note that it gives them the largest spectrum holdings of any operator in Romania.

“Orange becomes the operator in Romania with the largest spectrum portfolio, which assumes the most obligations to cover the national territory with services,” said a company statement.

Vodafone Romania, meanwhile, was allocated 2×5 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum and 10×10 MHz blocks in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band, paying €264.6 million.

Digi (RCS & RDS) was the smallest winner, receiving four blocks of 2×5MHz of 2.6 GHz FDD spectrum and 5x10MHz blocks in the in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band for €45.5 million.

The winning operators will have various conditions attached to their licences, including covering at least 70% of the country’s population, including most urban areas, motorways, international airports, and railways. They will also need to cover 480 specific locations that Ancom has previously identified as having limited or no mobile coverage.

All of the licences are valid from the start of January 2023 and will last for 25 years, apart from those in the 2.6 GHz band which are valid until April 5th 2029. Payments for the licences will begin on December 8th this year, with the last payments due in November 2028.

Ultimately, only 76% of the spectrum available was sold, raising €432.6 million.

Despite describing this as a “good result” given the difficult economic environment, Ancom are surely disappointed with this result, having previously hoped to raise €700 million from the 5G auction.

Also in the news:
Vestager: Restricting “high-risk” vendors a “matter of urgency” for EU
UKRI selects BT consortium for intelligent drone project
IRIS cable set to link Iceland and Ireland

The post Telekom Romania declines to bid in Romania’s latest 5G spectrum auction first appeared on Total Telecom.

Contributed Article

Communications service providers (CSPs) are striving to transform their businesses to ensure success in the digital world and position themselves to be digital service providers (DSP). They understand the need to evolve their architectures to simplify the delivery of connectivity and to enable the launch of new market offers through a multidimensional open ecosystem. According to an MIT technology review, the global enterprise opportunity enabled by 5G is projected to be $700B by the end of 2030. In order to secure their place in this enterprise market landscape, DSPs need to develop vertical solutions in collaboration with ecosystem partners to serve the DSPs’ B2B2X and B2C markets. This will enable them to rise higher up the value chain and become digital ecosystem providers (DEP).

Cognizant and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have partnered to build an integrated digital services platform called Digital Services Marketplace that comprises a scalable cross-industry marketplace to configure, buy, order, activate, and monetize digital products and advanced connectivity offerings for any industry vertical.

Together, AWS and Cognizant have participated in TM Forum’s Catalyst program for over 3 years to develop a proof-of-concept of this solution. This is a 5G Marketplace innovation project, championed by Verizon and COLT the proof point is that the Digital Services Marketplace solution can enable DSPs to deliver CaaS across the edge and cloud, zero-touch partnering, and Industry 4.0 use cases, all within an Open Digital Architecture.  5G Digital Services Marketplace III won the award for Outstanding Catalyst Business Impact in 2022 and has since gathered a lot of customer interest.

Read more from Cognizant’s 5G innovation on Amazon Web Service (AWS).

The post Monetize Your 5G Investments Using Cognizant’s Digital Services Marketplace on Amazon Web Services (AWS) first appeared on Total Telecom.