Displaying items by tag: solutions
Orange launches 4G network in Sierra Leone
Ericsson and Orange have partnered to launch 4G networks in Sierra Leone in the nation’s capital of Freetown which will be providing its residents with fast and reliable 4G access.
US Cellular signs 5G network modernization deal with European vendor
U.S. Cellular has signed a five-year deal with Nokia in an effort to modernize the company's network by providing its end-to-end 5G technology, software and services solutions.
This will enable U.S. Cellular to deliver innovative services to its customers and expand into new customer and enterprise segments with 5G services and solutions.
The new contract builds upon the 5G trial activities Nokia and U.S. Cellular have been engaged in during the last year. As part of the agreement Nokia will modernize and build out a 5G network for U.S. Cellular across its markets using 5G capabilities compliant with 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standards.
Mike Irizarry, Executive Vice President and CTO, U.S. Cellular, said: "By keeping U.S. Cellular's network on the cutting edge, we can continue to deliver the innovation our customers demand, gain new customers and add new revenue models - all with a 5G-ready network. With Nokia's end-to-end solutions we will have the ability to launch 5G-based services that will provide massive connectivity and enhanced IoT to our customers.
Ricky Corker, President of Customer Operations for the Americas, Nokia, said, "5G will ultimately deliver unprecedented user experiences and business models that require innovative solutions. We're delighted to continue our work with U.S. Cellular to accelerate 5G development and deployment that will not only provide a multi-fold increase in capacity for its customers, but also deliver 5G coverage."
U.S. Cellular will leverage multiple products across Nokia's end-to-end 5G technology, software and professional services portfolio. Nokia's 5G portfolio is based on its commercial AirScale radio platform and a cloud-based network architecture.
5G promises to enable faster speeds, massive connectivity, decade-long battery life for sensors and super-responsive and reliable networks for customers. This will unleash on-demand virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences, driverless vehicles, medical monitoring, advanced industrial automation services, and so much more - all requiring ubiquitous low latency connectivity.
Qualcomm partners with Chinese vendor on 5G end-to-end equipment
ZTE, a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, is demonstrating 5G network services based on an end-to-end sub-6GHz commercial system, in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
The live demonstration verifies ZTE and Qualcomm Technologies’ strong 5G technology capabilities to achieve end-to-end 5G commercialization.
The demonstration over 5G NR radio utilizes a real-world end-to-end 5G NR network built with ZTE’s commercial core network and radio base station equipment, as well as a ZTE 5G smartphone powered by the world’s first commercial 5G mobile platform—the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 855Mobile Platform paired with the Snapdragon X50 5G modem, as well as Qualcomm Technologies’ RF transceiver and RF front-end solutions. Fully compliant with 3GPP R15, the demonstration is based on NSA networking mode, the N78 5G band and harnesses the LTE B1 band as an access anchor.
For this demonstration, ZTE provides a comprehensive end-to-end solution, including the One for All base station platform solution at the wireless side to support 2G/3G/4G/5G on a single site as well as multimode baseband units (BBU) that provide the maximum 2G/3G/4G/5G processing capacity and is the largest number of interfaces in the industry.
Furthermore, the demonstration adopts ZTE’s “Common Core” core network with a full convergence of 2G/3G/4G/5G/fixed networks and UME, a converged network management solution for intelligent operation and maintenance.
"The collaboration between ZTE and Qualcomm Technologies at MWC 2019, on the demonstration of 5G services based on ZTE’s 5G mobile device and system, is a testament to our efforts for 5G commercialization,” said Xu Ziyang, CEO at ZTE. “It indicates a great step towards making 5G a commercial reality.”
“The 5G NSA live demo at MWC, based on the commercial infrastructure from ZTE using Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G modem and RF front-end, gives us a glance of 5G user experiences expected on commercial devices in 2019,” said Frank Meng, chairman of Qualcomm China. “We look forward to continuing working with ZTE and other leading companies across the ecosystem in accelerating the rollout of 5G networks and devices.”
In the process of promoting 5G commercialization, ZTE has been actively working with industry partners on the verification of key technologies and solutions, as well as network deployments. ZTE is also leading in test progress and performance. Backed up with 5G tests and cooperation with more than 30 operators around the world, ZTE is ready for the upcoming 5G commercialization and rollouts.
Nokia to expand its transport portfolio in effort to support operators 5G investment
In advance of Mobile World Congress, Nokia today announces a raft of enhancements to its Anyhaul transport portfolio that help operators prepare their networks for 5G by delivering throughput speeds of up to 25 Gbps to base stations.
The launches span microwave, optical, IP and broadband technologies within a carrier Software Defined Networking (SDN) transport architecture. This simplifies the integration of transport with cloud-based radio access and core networks, thereby enabling an automated end-to-end 5G network slicing and service provisioning system.
Nokia Anyhaul is the industry's most extensive range of transport solutions. These solutions can be rapidly and dynamically provisioned to support the massive connectivity, extreme low latency and very high throughput demands of 5G services.
Programmability and automation dynamically create transport network slices to quickly and cost-effectively match diverse application and user needs with end-to-end service delivery guarantees.
The Nokia Anyhaul portfolio enables operators to deploy the optimal mix of transport technologies to create a flexible fabric that matches their unique network and business needs.
The new Nokia 1830 Versatile WDM Module (VWM) Translation Line Unit (TLU)-200 provides high density wavelength translation at 10 Gbps and 25 Gbps speeds. Purpose-built for Cloud RAN and Edge Cloud requirements, it simplifies operations and improves reliability of fronthaul connectivity for 4G Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI)/Open Base Station Architecture Initiative (OBSAI) and 5G eCPRI data.
A new, compact interconnect router, the Nokia 7250 IXR-e, is purpose-built to support 5G and edge cloud requirements at or near base stations with 1/10/25/100 GE interfaces. The 7250 IXR-e features a compact architecture with efficient cooling and optimized space efficiency for minimal installation costs. It complements the previously released 7250 IXR-R6, which also supports 5G requirements and 1/10/25/100 GE interfaces.
A proof of concept of Nokia Broadband Anyhaul 25G Passive Optical Network (PON) demonstrates the viability of building on existing fiber infrastructure to offer 25 Gbps speeds. Co-existing with 2.5G and 10G PON technologies, 25G PON enables more radio access sites to be connected on the same fiber to reduce costs.
Nokia has successfully trialed 25G PON proof of concept with T-1 operators in North America and Japan in January 2019.
Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group, said: "Mobile backhaul has always been done with a variety of transport technologies to balance the needs of performance, time, and economics. This will continue with 5G, and for this reason, operators will need an assortment of transport technologies-microwave, optical, IP and PON-that suit their unique requirements in 5G fronthaul and backhaul. The rollout of 5G has just started this year and if our predictions are correct, demand for 5G backhaul transport systems (not including fiber) will begin ramping in a year's time and surpass $1 billion of annual sales in the following two years."
Phil Twist, VP of Networks Marketing and Communications, at Nokia said: "Our Anyhaul portfolio is a key element of the Nokia 5G Future X architecture, which equips our customers to take advantage of the promise of this next generation of network technology. Nokia Anyhaul has been deployed globally and is now being selected in countries such as the US, Japan, China, and South Korea where we are helping the fast-movers transform to 5G. The expertise and invaluable best practices we gain will further simplify and reduce risk for other operators as they move to 5G."
Nokia launches new IoT solutions aimed at helping operators win new business
In advance of Mobile World Congress, Nokia today launched off-the-shelf Internet of Things (IoT) packages to help operators win new business in vertical IoT markets.
In addition to enabling operators to achieve a fast time to market, the packages simplify the set-up and operations of enterprise IoT services.
Built on the Nokia Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) infrastructure that provides the necessary global IoT connectivity and services support, the applications include IoT sensors, user applications and business models suited to specific sectors. Nokia WING's managed service approach also offers a pay-as-you-grow business model, giving operators the flexibility to quickly scale up IoT services as required.
The new market-ready solutions for WING eliminate the challenges facing operators developing their own IoT services.
These include the need for specialized expertise, the complexities of combining fragmented IoT connectivity infrastructure and the risk and effort of setting up and working with multiple service providers globally. Nokia works with best-in-class partners on Nokia WING vertical applications portfolio and continues to develop the IoT ecosystem.
The four new solutions announced today by Nokia include:
- Smart Agriculture as-a-Service: Sensors capture environmental, soil and crop data that is then analyzed to provide insights that help farmers manage crops more effectively, potentially saving costs on irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers.
- Livestock Management as-a-Service: Tracking devices and biosensors monitor animal health and welfare to provide ranchers with early alerts if abnormalities are detected, protecting valuable livestock and improving yields.
- Logistics as-a-Service: IoT sensors enable tracking of the global movement and condition of goods through the complete supply chain to help enterprises instantly identify incidents and even predict future events to optimize delivery and logistics process efficiency.
- Asset Management as-a-Service: Connecting products anywhere in the world enables their status and performance to be monitored centrally, helping enterprises provide a better service to their business and consumer customers.
Nokia is trialing Agriculture as-a-Service with an African operator and working with a leading services and consulting firm on Asset Management as-a-Service to help them offer more advanced services.
Brian Partridge, Vice President, 451 Research, said: "Nokia addresses a wide spectrum of challenges through its WING IoT infrastructure-as-a-service so its early traction with customers isn't a surprise. Most telecom operators desire a more prominent role in the IoT value chain that builds upon secure and reliable domestic or global connectivity. Nokia's announced plans to offer end-to-end vertical applications on top of the WING global infrastructure is a logical next step. We believe that this approach benefits Nokia's WING telecom customers and the enterprises they serve in addition to vertical application partners who can benefit from WING's market scale and go-to market channels."
Ankur Bhan, Global Head of WING Business at Nokia, said: "The IoT is a growing opportunity for operators to win new enterprise customers and significant additional revenue in a diverse range of vertical markets. With minimal upfront investment, an operator can now quickly get a service to market and generate IoT revenues. We expect these vertical solutions to encourage more operators to connect to Nokia WING, expanding its global footprint and broadening the range of capabilities and services that will become available. We already have several more vertically-focused as-a-Service packages in the development pipeline."
Ericsson launches critical communications broadband portfolio for service providers
Ericsson has launched its critical communications broadband portfolio for service providers. This will enable service providers to meet the business-critical and mission-critical needs of industries and public safety agencies as digitalization and modernization of land mobile radio communications increases.
When communication is disrupted by minutes, seconds, or even milliseconds, it can have huge consequences for business operations, or serious implications for public safety. The need for fast and reliable communication is therefore paramount.
Such critical communications are used in many areas: from first responders and nationwide emergency services to workforce safety in enterprises. There is a growing demand for business and mission-critical broadband for such use cases. Service providers need to deliver the highest level of availability, reliability and security to meet this demand.
To meet critical communications users’ needs, Ericsson has developed a new portfolio comprising three offerings: critical network capabilities; critical broadband applications;\ and flexible deployments for both local private networks, and nationwide mission-critical LTE networks.
Per Narvinger, Head of Product Area Networks, Ericsson, says: “We see growth opportunities for service providers and government operators by addressing new segments with LTE/5G networks. Our critical broadband portfolio will enable our customers to effectively secure the critical communication needs of sectors such as public safety, energy and utilities, transportation, and manufacturing.”
Critical network capabilities
This offering includes advanced features for critical network performance and covers the following: high network availability; multi-network operation with spectrum sharing techniques; and coverage and capacity for critical applications. It also includes network security capabilities that ensure network services are maintained even when the infrastructure is under attack. Finally, quality of service, priority and preemption all guarantee latency performance and capacity requirements during high load and congestion.
The critical network capabilities include new features that simplify the rollout of broadcasting services across nationwide areas. Another new feature enables radio access sites to operate in fallback mode, should the network connection fail. This offering also includes deployable systems that allow temporary coverage for disaster recovery and operations in rural areas without existing coverage.
Critical broadband applications
This offering covers Ericsson Group-Radio that provides mission-critical push-to-talk, data and video services. This will enable, for example, blue light personnel such as the police to be more effective in performing community services that require advanced mobile broadband.
Flexible deployments for private networks
New business models are emerging for industries. From owning and operating their own networks, critical industries are now procuring private networks and services that leverage service providers’ existing network assets and operations – without compromising required local control.
Ericsson’s flexible deployments for private networks range from network slicing to fully dedicated networks, enabling service providers to offer scalable, critical broadband network solutions and services for critical industries.
Ericsson also offers managed services for private networks, with solutions based on AI and automation that predict and prevent events while reducing OPEX. These solutions enable service providers to reduce time-to-market and onboard new industries, while securing critical service level agreements.
Critical broadband will enable industries to increase efficiency through the following: enhancing workforce productivity and safety; massive onboarding of devices and sensors; real-time location of assets and equipment; and data collection to boost equipment and personnel performance and avoid downtime.
Japanese operator deploys new ultra-broadband solution from Nokia
KDDI, a leading telecommunications operator in Japan, is deploying Nokia's G.fast solution to apartments and multi-dwelling units (MDU) buildings to deliver ultra-broadband services to customers.
Reducing the need to install new fiber, Nokia's technology will enable KDDI to use existing copper lines in MDU buildings to deliver 830Mbps combined uplink and downlink speeds to customers.
To support customers' ultra-broadband needs, Japanese operators are using fiber where possible along with new technologies like G.fast for a large number of MDU locations where copper is already installed.
Developed by Nokia Bell Labs, G.fast uses vectoring technology to effectively reduce cross-talk interference that typically impacts data speeds over copper networks.
Providing support for Japan's VDSL2 specifications, Nokia's G.fast solution will minimize the impact to existing VDSL systems and enable operators to quickly upgrade their high-speed internet service to gigabit class through a simple CPE (customer premises equipment) replacement.
KDDI has been deploying Nokia's G.fast solution and has started its rollout of 'au Hikari MDU Type G'.
Teresa Mastrangelo, principal analyst at Broadband Trends said: "G.fast continues to be a preferred choice for operators seeking to deliver gigabit broadband services to MDUs as it eliminates many of the issues found with FTTH deployments such as building types and access. However, in Japan, deploying G.fast can be just as challenging as fiber due to the unique VDSL ecosystem and standards in place.
As one of the few vendors capable of supporting both the global and local Japanese VDSL standard, Nokia has been able to help KDDI capitalize on the benefits of G.fast and seamlessly scale and migrate their network with minimal disruption. This win is another great example for how G.fast technology is being used to quickly address customers need for greater broadband speeds."
Shigenari Saito, Administrative Officer, General Manager, Network Technology Development Division, Technology Sector, at KDDI said:
"KDDI already provides 10Gbps service for our 'au Hikari' FTTH customers, but the speed we can provide has been limited to 100Mbps service for MDUs where fiber is difficult to deploy. Nokia's G.fast solution enables us to connect existing 100Mbps users and new G.fast users under the same DPU (distribution point unit). This gives us the flexibility and economical path to meet the customer's demands for higher speed. Our decision to deploy Nokia G.fast is based on our long-term relationship and Nokia continues to be our long-term partner for delivering technology innovations."
Sandra Motley, president of Nokia's Fixed Networks Business Group, said: "Operators looking to quickly roll out new ultra-broadband services are increasingly adopting multi-technology strategies that allow them to maximize the use of both fiber and copper technologies. This is particularly true in some cases like inside an apartment building, where more traditional Fiber-to-the-Home solutions can be very challenging to deploy. We are excited to be working with KDDI to deploy our G.fast solution to deliver fiber-like speeds that will enhance the way customers experience their broadband services."
Oracle’s new cloud centre will accelerate digital transformation in the Middle East
Oracle, in collaboration with Redington, a leading distributor and an Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) partner operating across Middle East and Africa launched a dedicated Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) in Dubai to enable knowledge share and ready availability of Oracle Cloud to help Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)members develop and implement transformative cloud projects across the Middle East.
NGMN highlight the 5G services required to build a ‘connected future’
The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance - which drives and guides the development of all future mobile broadband technology with a focus on 5G - has published its three deliverables on 5G Extreme Requirements entitled “Operators’ views on fundamental trade-offs”, “RAN Solutions”, and “End-to-End considerations”, respectively.
Compiled by the Alliance’s 5G Extreme Requirements task force, the papers aim to highlight what implications and trade-offs related to the delivery of new 5G services are relevant for mobile network operators.
Ilaria Thibault, task force lead and Principal Researcher at Vodafone commented: “We are very excited to reveal the findings of the outcome of the Extreme Requirements task force, which was to really strike at the heart of what needs to be assessed before the world embarks on advanced 5G services.
This work quantifies and analyses the coverage impact of delivering new extreme 5G services (Ultra-reliable and Low-latency – URLLC) for the radio access network with a theoretical analysis, system-level simulations, and field trials. End-to-end deployment guidelines for meeting extreme requirements at a service level are also provided. Among these guidelines, techniques such as path redundancy and new transport-layer protocols are discussed to improve end-to-end latency and reliability.
For latency-critical services, interworking between the Non-3GPP processing delays and 3GPP processing delays has been assessed.”
CEO of the NGMN Alliance Peter Meissner added: “Our task force has highlighted several key challenges that are crucial to the future of 5G’s connectivity path - and how the industry needs to adequately deal with these. Consequently, this year’s NGMN Conference & Exhibition will see us run a special session where operators are set to share results from their 5G tests, trials and first user experience. Our aim is to uncover the new use cases of 5G and how they will be leveraged in the next few years.”
Ericsson partners with Russian operator on broadband experiences at WC
Ericsson and Russian service provider MTS have teamed up to provide a superior mobile broadband experience for hundreds of thousands of football fans attending the upcoming global soccer tournament in Russia, through Europe’s largest deployment of Massive MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) to date.
Whether in the stadiums, in fan zones, selected transportation hot spots, or at some of Russia’s most famous landmarks, fans will be able to enjoy higher data speeds in seven of the 11 tournament cities.
In Moscow alone, the deployment covers two stadiums and fan zones, Sheremetyevo airport, Red Square, Tverskaya Street and Gorky Central Park.
Saint Petersburg coverage includes stadium and fan zones, Dvortsovaya Square, and Moskovsky railway station. The other covered cities are Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Niznny Novgorod, Samara and Rostov-on-Don. Ericsson installed AIR 6468 for MTS at more than 40 sites across the seven cities.
Ericsson AIR 6468 is the industry’s first New Radio (NR)-capable radio designed for compatibility with the 5G New Radio standard while also supporting LTE. It features 64 transmit and 64 receive antennas enabling it to support our 5G plug-ins for both Massive MIMO and Multi-User MIMO.
Through the intelligent reuse of system resources, Massive MIMO improves capacity by transmitting data to multiple user devices using the same time and frequency resources with coordinated beam forming and beam steering.
Massive MIMO is making it easier for operators to evolve their networks for a 5G future. This includes Ericsson’s 5G Plug-ins, which are based on many of the breakthrough capabilities in our award-winning 5G Radio Test Bed and 5G Radio Prototypes, currently deployed in operator field trials.
Andrei Ushatsky, Vice President, Technology and IT, MTS, says: "This launch is one of Europe's largest Massive MIMO deployments, covering seven Russian cities, and is a major contribution by MTS in the preparation of the country's infrastructure for the global sporting event of the year. Our Massive MIMO technology, using Ericsson equipment, significantly increases network capacity, allowing tens of thousands of fans together in one place to enjoy high-speed mobile internet without any loss in speed or quality.”
Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President, Head of Europe and Latin America, Ericsson, says: “Hundreds of thousands of football-loving fans are about to experience ultra-high data speeds thanks to our Massive MIMO deployment for MTS across seven tournament cities. Data-demanding mobile connectivity is going to play a huge part in their tournament experiences, so we are delighted to team up with MTS to ensure they enjoy a mobile experience like never before, whether they are at the game, in a fan zone, or at other selected areas.”
More than 1.5 million international fans are expected in Russia across the month-long tournament, which gets underway on June 14 and ends on July 15.