Displaying items by tag: Network

Nokia has announced the extension of its long-term strategic relationship with BT into the 5G arena, following its selection as a 5G RAN vendor for the UK operator.

As part of the deal, which will make Nokia BT’s largest equipment provider, Nokia will provide equipment and services at BT radio sites across the UK, helping to evolve BT’s radio access network to 5G and supporting its goal of maintaining the UK’s best network.

BT’s Nokia-powered network, which currently includes Greater London, the Midlands and rural locations, will be extended to also cover multiple other towns and cities across the United Kingdom. This enhanced Nokia footprint will support BT’s commitments to the UK government around the use of High Risk Vendors (HRVs) in UK network infrastructure.   

Nokia will supply its AirScale Single RAN (S-RAN) portfolio for both indoor and outdoor coverage, including 5G RAN, AirScale base stations and Nokia AirScale radio access products. These solutions will enable BT to build on its existing network leadership in the UK to deliver connectivity and capacity benefits to consumers at ultra-low latencies as well as reducing complexity and increasing cost efficiencies. The deal will also see Nokia optimize BT’s 2G and 4G networks and work alongside BT on the development of the OpenRAN ecosystem.

As part of BT’s network transformation, the operator will also utilize Nokia Software’s ng-SDM and NetAct network management platform, supporting the network evolution to 5G. These build upon the existing network architecture and provide an immediate cornerstone and single platform for new 5G-based services. Nokia will also provide its state-of-the-art Cell Site Gateway product providing key backhaul connectivity. 

Nokia will also provide digital design and deployment for a faster time to market as well as optimization and technical support services.

Philip Jansen, CEO, BT Group said,“Digital connectivity is critical to the UK’s economic future, creating jobs and underpinning sustainable growth. That’s why BT is making game-changing investments in full fibre and 5G. In a fast-moving and competitive market, it’s critical we make the right technology choices. With this next stage of our successful relationship with Nokia we will continue to lead the rollout of fixed and mobile networks to deliver stand-out experiences for customers.”

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO, Nokia, said, “I am delighted that BT has extended its partnership with Nokia on 5G RAN, making Nokia BT’s largest infrastructure partner. Our two companies have collaborated for over a quarter of a century in order to deliver best-in-class connectivity to people across the United Kingdom. We are proud to support BT’s 5G network evolution and look forward to working even more closely together in the years to come.”

Network technology experts from around the Middle East participated in the Huawei Middle East IP Club Carnival 2020, to discuss the rapid pace of digital transformation and how connectivity is accelerating in the world around us, completely transforming the way we live and work. The two-day event was held online on July 13 and 14 under the theme ‘Rethink IP: New Connection, New Dimension’.

During the virtual event, Huawei took a step further in campus networking by unveiling CloudCampus 2.0, its latest campus network solution. Standing out with intelligent upgrades in connectivity, experience, and O&M, this future-proof solution helps enterprises of all sizes to build gigabit fully-wireless smart campus networks and accelerate the connectivity of everything in enterprise campuses.

CloudCampus 2.0 addresses the increasing demand of latency-sensitive and bandwidth-hungry applications on campus networks, by guaranteeing quality of key services, enough bandwidth per user, and other requirements so that enterprises can experience seamless connectivity within their campus.

Within the CloudCampus 2.0 range is a full line-up of all-new, high-bandwidth, high-performance wired and wireless network devices, able to accelerate digital transformation for enterprises of any kind.

New CloudCampus 2.0 products include Huawei AirEngine 8760, the industry’s only Wi-Fi 6 AP to support 16 spatial streams and delivery 10.75 Gbps throughput; Huawei's all-new CloudEngine S series multi-GE switches (CloudEngine S5732-H), which provides up to 48 ports capable of GE, 2.5GE, 5GE, and 10GE speeds and allow on-demand rate upgrades through software, and Huawei CloudEngine S12700E, which provides 40-port 25GE line cards with a large buffer of 4 GB and combines these advantages with HQoS to ensure uncompromised experience of key users and applications.

The Huawei Middle East IP Club is an initiative aimed at building an open, cooperative and sharing platform and comprising network technology experts from around the region.

During the interactive Carnival 2020 online event, members had the opportunity to share discussions with global and regional experts on the latest wireless campus technology trends, and how enterprises can build fully wireless, secure workplaces and campus networks based on next generation Wi-Fi 6 technologies to meet future digitalization demands.

Dr. Li Xing, President of the Campus Network Domain, Data Communication Product Line, Huawei said, “The Huawei Middle East IP Club Carnival 2020 is an essential event to share knowledge and experiences, and discuss the most pressing matters in the digitization journey today. Our world is constantly changing as a result of rapid advances in technology, and many businesses still do not understand how to fully utilize connectivity and digitization to their benefit. By bringing together the region’s foremost minds in IP, we are able to create strong platforms for dialogue that will see exciting new pathways opening up for businesses and individuals across the region to take advantage of the best practices.”

During a panel discussion, ‘How can enterprises accelerate digital transformation based on the next-generation all-wireless campus network,’ the online event witnessed industry leaders sharing use cases and presenting how challenges were overcome in their enterprise campus networks, as well as success stories in campus digital transformation in an ever-changing business scenario. Panelists included Bill Menezes, Director Analyst, Gartner; Eng. Saad AlMasradi AlQahtani, Assistant Deputy Minister, Digital Technologies at Ministry of Health Saudi Arabia; Saud Al Salmi, Network Department Director, Oman Royal Court Affairs; Dr. Li Xing, President of the Campus Network Domain, Data Communication Product Line, Huawei; Dr. Osama Aboul-Magd, Chair of IEEE 802.11ax, Chair of IEEE 802.11 HEW SG, Chair of IEEE 802.11ac, Huawei, and Faisal Malik, CTO, Enterprise Group, Huawei Middle East.

“Wi-Fi6 has been a true enabler for our digital transformation, and has helped us to overcome the challenges of the current situation. We have been able to provide advanced patient-centric healthcare services, from remote collaboration to telemedicine & patient monitoring, eventually easing patients’ lives.” commented Eng. Saad AlMasradi AlQahtani, Assistant Deputy Minister, Digital Technologies at Ministry of Health Saudi Arabia.

“Huawei’s all-wireless campus technology, such as Wi-Fi6 has enabled us to adopt various government services in a wireless environment and has helped us a lot by providing benefits such as much better network coverage, improved capacity & more efficient video broadcasting for 4K and 8K video, ultimately enhancing overall user experience,” added Saud Al Salmi, Network department director, Oman Royal Court Affairs.

Event participants also took a virtual tour of the Huawei Data Communications Network Innovation Lab and the Songshan Lake campus in China, to see how the company leverages cutting-edge network technologies for its own digital transformation.

“Businesses are going digital faster than ever before,” Dr. Li Xing added. “During this process, demand will continue to grow for intelligent IP networks that provide super capacity, intelligent experience, and autonomous driving. Moving forward, we will continue to invest in innovation, and innovate together with our customers and partners, to maintain a lead in intelligent IP networks and help relevant standards mature.”

Nokia today announced the availability of a software based upgrade that will enable its 4G/LTE radios to be migrated seamlessly to 5G/NR.

These features will have a high value to Nokia’s customers as they provide immediate support for approximately one million radios, reaching 3.1 million by the end of the year and over 5 million in 2021. By upgrading existing radio elements via software, Nokia is helping to streamline the process of refarming 4G/LTE spectrum into 5G/NR. The move will also support existing customers and the installed base by offering a seamless and cost-effective upgrade path to 5G/NR.

Most of the 5G/NR deployments to date have been performed with TDD cmWave and TDD mmWave deployment but the next big wave of 5G/NR rollouts will be delivered by refarming existing FDD bands to 5G/NR. TDD spectrum benefits from enlarged coverage and capacity when combined with already deployed FDD network infrastructure and spectrum bands via TDD/FDD Carrier Aggregation.

The ability to upgrade 4G/LTE radios via a software update will significantly smooth out the deployment of 5G/NR FDD, avoiding costly and disruptive site visits. Nokia has a vast customer base of 359 4G/LTE customers with deployed FDD RF units most of which are possible to upgrade. This will provide a new and smoother way for operators to build 5G/NR coverage in lower bands via spectrum refarming. Nokia’s 4G/LTE radios are market leading and outperform all vendors according to independent testing.

Nokia also has Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) already in live networks covering 2G/GSM-3G/WCDMA-4G/LTE and recently introduced DSS for 4G/LTE-5G/NR. This capability completes a DSS solution, covering all access technologies and making the radio frequency refarming to 5G/NR a simple and efficient process.

In a typical case DSS will be introduced to one or few 4G/LTE bands which are then combined with carrier aggregation between other bands running pure 4G/LTE or 5G/NR. Nokia has the market leading DSS solution covering all radio access technologies from 2G/GSM to 5G/NR.

Nokia estimates that this solution will save the telecommunications industry potentially tens of billions of euros in site engineering and re-visit costs as communication service providers are able to upgrade their networks to 5G/NR on FDD with software.  

Chris Nicoll, Principal Analyst at ACG Research, said, "While Open RAN promises software upgradability to ease transitions between ‘Gs’ and add new features, Nokia’s Flexi and AirScale portfolio shows it is ahead of the game by providing a software upgrade to transition over 5 million 4G radios to 5G. Efficient FDD spectrum refarming is critical for fast, broad and deep 5G deployments. With Nokia supplying the majority of the world’s top 4G operators, supporting key advanced features such as DSS helps those operators lead with 5G.”

 “We already provide market- leading LTE radios to hundreds of customers around the world. This is an important solution because it will help our customers, quickly and efficiently upgrade their existing LTE radios so that they are 5G ready saving them time and money.”

Huawei has released its 2019 Sustainability Report which highlights the progress that Huawei has made in supporting network stability and security, reducing emissions, responding to climate change, implementing its TECH4ALL digital inclusion action plan, and supporting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the past year.

Supporting network stability remains a major part of Huawei's social responsibility and mission. During emergencies like earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, and even armed conflicts, Huawei employees remain in the heart of the crisis to restore communications networks and support smooth network operations. In 2019, Huawei maintained network availability during more than 200 major events and natural disasters.

"Over the past year, we faced challenges the likes of which we have never seen. And we stood strong," said Liang Hua, Chairman of Huawei.

"We have worked day and night to patch the holes in this beleaguered business of ours, ensuring business continuity and the timely delivery of products and services to our customers. We have helped roll out networks worth hundreds of billions of dollars in more than 170 countries. Ensuring the stable operations of these networks and providing people with the best available technology is not only our purpose, it is the central tenet of our social responsibility."

Huawei also disclosed its mid- and long-term targets for carbon emissions reduction, circular economy, and renewable energy, as well as its progress in 2019.

Working towards emissions reduction, the energy efficiency of Huawei's main products was improved by up to 22%. In 2019, Huawei used 1.25 billion kWh of clean energy, which is equivalent to reducing 570,000 tons of CO₂.

To contribute to a circular economy, Huawei is committed to maximizing the utilization of resources throughout the product lifecycle. For example, 86% of the products returned to the company were reused, and only 1.24% of its e-waste was landfilled.

Huawei is also working to use more renewables. The photovoltaic (PV) plants built on Huawei campuses have a combined capacity of 19.35 MW, and generated 13.57 million kWh of electricity in 2019. The company is also applying its smart PV solution on a larger scale, such as at the 300 MW PV plant in Argentina's Jujuy Province. This PV plant generates 660 million kWh of electricity annually, which is enough to power 160,000 homes.

Huawei is committed to furthering digital inclusion and making digital technology accessible to all. In 2019, Huawei launched the RuralStar Lite solution, which greatly reduces site construction costs and connects more than 40 million people in remote places.

The solution offers connectivity across all types of terrain such as plains, hilly regions, deserts, and island chains. Huawei has also worked with its partners to build the DigiTruck mobile digital classroom, which has provided digital skills training for nearly 800 Kenyans living in remote regions. In September 2019, Huawei signed an MoU with the UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa. The two parties will work together to take the DigiTruck to more countries and make digital skills accessible to all Africans.

Huawei said in the report that ICT will play a critical role in achieving the UN's SDGs and called on the whole industry to work together to promote socioeconomic development, environmental protection, and the well-being of humanity.

"Huawei believes in openness and collaboration for shared success. We are working with industry partners, such as our suppliers, to build a thriving industry ecosystem," said Tao Jingwen, a board member and Chairman of the CSD Committee of Huawei. "We are fully confident that we can overcome these challenges. We will stay the course and continue creating value for our customers and the broader global community."

Cisco and Rakuten have adopted the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud-native mobile network.

Cisco played a key role in the development and deployment of the cloud-native virtualized architecture which is currently being used by Rakuten Mobile. Cisco has said that its state-of-the-art highly-automated approach has gained great traction amongst some of the world’s leading telecom operators.

According to Jonathan Davidson, SVP and GM, Cisco Mass-Scale Infrastructure, telecom operators across the world have been investing “30 to 40 billion dollars a year in deploying radio access technology and we still have so many parts of the globe that do not have coverage or do not have decent coverage… This is something that can be transformed with this new approach that Rakuten Mobile has pioneered. You could definitely call it profound.”

Davidson has also predicted that it will be widely adopted in Japan. Adding that, “this is just the beginning. Now we need to get to 5G and we need to scale the infrastructure.”

Cisco has not only supplied them with the IP internet protocol (IP) routers which essentially transport traffic from Rakuten’s radio towers and the cloud radio access network (RAN) into the IP core, but the Telco is also providing them with management orchestration software.

Rakuten Mobile’s CTO, Tareq Amin, stated, “Cisco is playing a crucial role in stitching together the carious elements of our new network.”

“The design approach we mapped out with Cisco is enabling us to deliver high-value services at very affordable prices, enabling our customers to really benefit from our cloud innovation. Scaling of such orchestration function is a challenge,” he continued.

Davidson says that he expects Rakuten Mobile’s network to perform at a very high level due to its software-defined architecture which allows for the fine-tuning of its network in real-time.

 “Any time you do something that has never been done before, there are going to be a lot of challenges that you have to uncover. It always come back to the team and making sure the team is aligned to a joint vision and a joint mission. Tareq is a phenomenal visionary who has got companies that have traditionally been competitors to collaborate and partner in new ways to really achieve something that has not been achieved before,” said Davidson.

In terms of the technology’s performance, there are technical and operational advantages that come to play. In fact, Cisco expects other operators to follow suit and deploy cloud-based RAN.

CommScope has announced RUCKUS Analytics, a new cloud service that delivers network intelligence and simplifies service assurance, enabling organizations with complex networks to proactively improve their users’ experience.

Infinera and Corning Incorporated have announced an industry-leading achievement of delivering an 800 gigabits per second (800G) single wavelength with Infinera’s sixth-generation Infinite Capacity Engine (ICE6) technology across 800 kilometers (km) on Corning’s TXF® optical fiber.

The success of Infinera and Corning’s 800G trial demonstrates the benefits of an industry leading coherent 800G solution with superior fiber designed to help meet growing bandwidth demands for network operators from metro to subsea network applications.

The demonstration leveraged Infinera’s ICE6 technology in a Groove (GX) Series platform transmitting 800G using 64QAM with probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS). This record-breaking achievement was accomplished using Corning’s state-of-the-art TXF fiber, an ITU-T G.654.E compliant, ultra-low-loss, silica-core fiber with large effective area.

This demonstration highlighted the advanced features of Infinera’s vertically integrated ICE6 technology, including Nyquist subcarriers, per-subcarrier long-codeword PCS, and per-subcarrier dynamic bandwidth allocation.

“This demonstration proves that 800G transmission using Infinera’s industry-leading technology enables a wide variety of network applications and is further enhanced by Corning’s innovative TXF fiber,” said Parthi Kandappan, Chief Technology Officer at Infinera.

“This achievement is made possible by Infinera’s high degree of vertical integration including our in-house digital signal processor design, photonic integrated circuit design and manufacturing, and holistic in-house packaging.”

“We are pleased to work with Infinera to demonstrate how our combined leading-edge technologies can maximize capacity and reach,” said Jeanne Propst, division vice president, product line management, Optical Fiber and Cable, Corning Incorporated.

“Our TXF fiber, with its high-data-rate capabilities and exceptional reach, helps network operators stay ahead of growing bandwidth demands while lowering their overall network costs.”

ICE6 combines Infinera’s sixth-generation photonic integrated circuit with its in-house-developed 7-nanometer dual-channel 800G per-wave FlexCoherent® digital signal processor.

Nokia announced the launch of new end-to-end slicing network functionality for 4G and 5G New Radio (NR) – the first vendor to offer this capability. The solution will support connectivity from 4G and 5G devices over the sliced network to applications running in private and public clouds and will be available this summer. 

Nokia’s new solution enables operators to start building their network slicing business today with LTE and 5G NR. The slicing capability can be deployed via a software upgrade into existing LTE and 5G non-standalone (NSA) networks and subsequently 5G standalone (SA) networks. The slicing continuity between LTE and 5G NR allows operators to maximize their network coverage for new mobile connectivity services.

The solution provides sliced mobile broadband connectivity from device to radio, transport, core, all the way to applications in private and public networks and the cloud. The user and service-aware slicing functionality has been introduced to Nokia radio access products for the first time and is also supported in Nokia transport and core products with control, management and assurance systems. Solution supports all 4G and 5G devices and works in a multi-vendor environment.

Nokia’s slicing solution is being developed in collaboration with leading operators A1 and Telia. It delivers new value and business opportunities for enterprises, as well as for the Internet of Things, fixed wireless access, applications and content related services. It enables new mobile end-to-end services with logical connections, security, quality and traffic management with a seamless service continuity across 4G and 5G networks. Private wireless slicing also opens up new network functionalities for different applications, such as surveillance and automation.

Nokia is already trialing live 4G/5G slicing use cases with customers powered by a unique Software Defined Network (SDN) radio slice controller as well as a transport slice controller. The trial includes a Nokia cloud packet core slice orchestrator to support network deployment automation as well as an SD-WAN software solution providing a managed 4G/5G network slice to private and public cloud services. Nokia assurance systems are used to verify per slice KPIs as a part of Nokia’s E2E service orchestration.

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks, Nokia, said, “Working closely with our customers to develop new technologies and business opportunities is hugely important to Nokia. 4G/5G slicing enables multiple new use cases which operators can start building now to create new revenue streams.”

A special report by Telecom Review 5G technical investigative team

As many operators around the globe have or are preparing to deploy and launch 5G networks and devices, the 3.5 GHz band has emerged as the de-facto band for most deployments, which has created economies of scale for devices and network equipment.

Optical solutions and automation software enable IMEWE to meet expanding capacity requirements of the consortia.