Openreach adopts Nokia’s 10Gbps FTTP broadband kit for the UK The Finnish telecom equipment manufacturer Nokia has announced that Openreach will deploy its next-generation fiber solutions. This will help meet Openreach’s target to bring ultra-fast and reliable broadband access to 20 million homes across the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s. Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said, “This new digital platform will help our economy to bounce back more quickly from the COVID-19 pandemic – enabling people to continue work from home, and millions of businesses to operate seamlessly online for decades to come.” This supplier agreement also marks a shift away from reliance on Huawei equipment for the UK’s largest broadband networks. Read more at https://tinyurl.com/yb6cj6jn Google and Apple’s joint COVID-19 contact tracing API now available to health authorities Apple and Google have released the first public version of their jointly developed API for COVID-19 tracing apps. This software will enable public health authorities to…
The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), a non-profit industry organization representing mobile industry suppliers worldwide, has expanded its membership by welcoming nine new companies from the global 4G and 5G mobile ecosystem. The GSA said that it has so far accepted Approve-IT as a new ordinary member together with eight new associate members, including the French telecom regulator ARCEP and the Singaporean regulator IMDA. In March 2020, the association also extended its Executive Committee by adding ZTE as an executive member along with Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung. Joe Barrett, the President of the GSA, said, “The global mobile industry is not only highly competitive, it’s also highly collaborative. 5G doesn’t belong to one company or country; there is a whole ecosystem of regulators, vendors and operators who are working together to drive global harmonization of spectrum, innovation in networks and devices, and new use cases for 5G…
Six global carriers form a group for MEC, 5G interoperability Verizon, Vodafone, America Movil, KT Corporation, Rogers Communications, and Telstra have joined forces to form the first-of-its-kind cooperation, the 5G Future Forum. The world’s leading telecoms and technology service providers will work together to develop interoperable 5G specifications and mobile edge computing across key geographic regions, including the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe. According to the statement from the carriers, they will “develop public and private marketplaces to enhance developer and customer access to 5G, and will share global best practices in technology deployment.” Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/u3vdooh Google acquires no-code app development platform AppSheet Google has announced the acquisition of AppSheet, a no-code enterprise app development platform that allows developers without extensive programming knowledge to collect rich data, fill up apps with AI, or automatically move data. This works by extracting data from a spreadsheet, database or form, and using the…
Google Cloud partners with Fortinet, McAfee, Palo Alto and other vendors to bolster its security Google has announced new strategic partnerships with security vendors Fortinet, McAfee and Palo Alto Networks. Together with Fortinet, Google Cloud will provide a new reference architecture to connect facilities to Google Cloud with secure SD-WAN solutions, which makes Fortinet’s FortiWeb Cloud WAF available as-a-service on the platform. MacAfee will integrate its MVISION container security software on Google Cloud. The jointly developed Palo Alto Networks and Google solutions will help secure customers’ multi-cloud environments and will enhance threat detection capabilities. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/rx68bt5 UK plans to ban sales of locked mobile phones Ofcom, the UK’s telecoms regulator, has announced plans to ban the sale of locked mobile handsets to make it easier for consumers to switch networks. Virgin Mobile, O2, Sky, Three and some smaller carriers already offer unlocked phones, but the regulator wants other companies, including…
The latest report by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) indicates that the 50th commercial 5G network has now been launched, following the activation of 5G services in China. All the three state-backed telecom operators, China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom have launched next-gen networks and have already registered more than 9 million 5G subscribers. The GSA 5G Market Snapshot marks this deployment as the 50th commercial roll out of a 5G network. Joe Barrett, the President of the GSA, said, “I think that we have all been surprised by how quickly 5G has taken off, with deployments and commitments from across the globe gathering pace. This latest milestone, combined with commercial launches in the world’s largest mobile market, is set to lead to an explosion in 5G users and also have a knock-on impact on driving both use cases and innovation.” By the end of October 2019, the…
The Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo Inc. and a multinational cyber security and defense company Trend Micro Inc. have announced the launch of a service designed to protect Internet of Things (IoT) devices running on Docomo’s mobile network. The new Cloud Platform Network Security Service from Docomo, which uses Trend Micro’s security platform, will enable the “first-of-its-kind protection” for IoT networks. The provided user-friendly security shield will mainly target Docomo’s customers who are building infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) environments. Akihiko Omikawa, Executive vice president at Trend Micro, said, “The promise and potential of 5G has the world waiting but let me issue a warning for the need for extra protection. Smarter endpoints mean a greater cyber risk to manage. We’re delighted and proud that our technology meets the needs of this global mobile phone leader. Together our joint solution delivers cloud infrastructure capabilities integrated with IoT-ready security customized for modern data centers.”…
NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), the ICT solutions and international communications business within the NTT Group, is promoting the expansion and development of its European data center platform with the launch of their Amsterdam 1 Data Center (AMS1). The group’s first data center in the Netherlands has been opened by NTT Com’s subsidiary E-Shelter, which provides secure environments for housing and connectivity of IT and network systems. Tetsuya Shoji, President and CEO of NTT Com, said in his official opening speech: “I am delighted to open our latest state-of-the-art data center campus located in Amsterdam, one of the key internet hubs in Europe”. The carrier-neutral E-Shelter’s AMS1 data center will have a capacity of up to 40 MW IT load spread over a 16,000 square meter campus and, as NTT’s 21st data center in Europe, will leverage more than 400 MVA power capacity across the continent, with plans…
A consortium of nine technology companies – Intel, Cisco, Dell EMC, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Facebook, Google, Alibaba and Huawei – has been formed in order to create and launch a new standard, called Compute Express Link (CXL). This project will accelerate ever-expanding data workloads, such as high-performance computing, artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), rich media services, and cloud applications. Jim Pappas, director of technology initiatives at Intel, said in a statement: “CXL is an important milestone for data-centric computing and will be a foundational standard for an open, dynamic accelerator ecosystem. Like USB and PCI Express, which Intel also cofounded, we can look forward to a new wave of industry innovation and customer value delivered through the CXL standard.” The new cluster of tech giants, described as “the biggest group of influencers driving a modern interconnect standard”, also affirmed the CXL Specification 1.0, which enables…
The global organization representing the interests of mobile network operators, GSMA, has called for European governments to “safeguard network security and competition” in the telecommunications infrastructure industry. The association has issued a warning to Europe to refrain from activities that would obstruct the use of certain equipment necessary for 5G mobile network development. According to the GSMA, “Actions that disrupt the equipment supply for the various segments of the network (access, transport and core) will increase costs to European operators, businesses and citizens; delay 5G deployment by years across Europe and potentially also jeopardise the functioning of existing 4G networks upon which 5G is intended to be built.” Although no specific company names are mentioned in the statement, the GSMA initiative highlights the industry’s significant endeavor to prevent the application of additional sanctions, similar to those announced by the United States and Australian governments on Chinese vendors Huawei…
The secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Zhao Houlin, explained at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, that infrastructure, investment, innovation and inclusion, or the “4 I’s”. Those pillars for information and communication technology (ICT) will be an obligation to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), especially for the next ten years. Infrastructure are essential to hold any economy based on communication and high tech. The future of digital economy in sustainable cities, will largely be based on the capacity to construct strong equipments for those infrastructures, not only to connect people but also objects. Strong investments are fundamental for the development of ICT. In order to see progress on SDG, innovation in the domain of finance will be needed and a mix between public and private investors is one of the solutions. Opportunity is only possible with innovation, thus small companies that base their growth and survival…