Displaying items by tag: Germany

A top German IT watchdog has refuted claims that Huawei could be using their equipment to spy for Beijing.

Head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schoenbohm has spoken skeptically of the boycott, after the agency examined Huawei equipment and was unable to uncover any ‘reliable findings’ to support espionage claims.

BSI experts - who oversee computer and communications security for Germany -believe the lack of evidence is not enough to warrant a global ban.

"For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof," Schoenbohm pointed out.

 Chinese phone giant Huawei has faced international scrutiny over the past year, with Western countries growing increasingly wary of the Chinese phone maker’s involvement in telecommunication infrastructure. Pressure from the United States secret service to boycott Huawei equipment has led to a number of countries, including Japan and Australia, to exclude the phone giant in their rollout of 5G networks.

New Zealand’s largest carrier Spark had had plans to use the Huawei’s 5G equipment for their launch in July 2020, but was denied by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). 
His comments follow the announcement that rival Chinese phone maker ZTE will cease to maintain mobile operator O2’s network in Germany – a subsidiary of Spain’s Telefonica – as of next year, amidst security fears.

BSI experts insist Huawei has nothing to hide, after the agency visited Huawei labs in Bonn, set up so customers can inspect products, including the source code of software.

Huawei models remain the most popular in Germany, with three of their main networks using the Chinese equipment.

The Chinese telecom company will cease to maintain mobile operator O2’s network in Germany – a subsidiary of Spain’s Telefonica – as of next year.

At the 2017 Global Antenna Technology & Industry Forum recently held in Munich, Huawei partnered with Telefónica Deutschland to launch the world's first 5G-oriented antenna deployment solution. During the evolution to 5G, this solution can resolve the challenge of insufficient antenna installation space for the deployment of both high-band 4T4R over Sub 3 GHz and Massive MIMO.

"Based on many years of technical accumulation in wireless networks and an in-depth understanding of MBB network, Huawei cooperates with Telefónica Deutschland to release the world's first 5G-oriented antenna deployment solution,” said Mr. Joyee Zhang, President of Huawei Wireless Network Antenna Business Unit. “This innovative solution can help operators to overcome the obstacles of 5G network deployment and potentially further help to achieve new business success.”

Insufficient antenna installation space has emerged as an evident issue of network deployment during the evolution from 4G to 4.5G/5G. As 700 MHz, 1400 MHz and other new spectrums are distributed, full bands 4T4R has emerged as a mainstream configuration. Simple overlay can hardly meet deployment requirements.

Additionally, operators are expected to reserve antenna installation space for Massive MIMO to implement a smooth evolution. As a result, a single antenna that integrates all Sub 3 GHz bands and reserves space for Massive MIMO is set to be a typical antenna solution for 5G.

Huawei and Telefónica Deutschland jointly released a 5G-oriented antenna deployment solution, which incorporates both a 14-port multi-band antenna and a TDD 3.5 GHz Massive MIMO antenna to meet Telefónica's requirements for an easy network evolution towards 5G.

Mr. Jaime Lluch, Radio Access Network Director in Telefónica Deutschland indicated that, "Telefónica is a top global telecom operator committed to deliver an optimal network experience. We believe that during the future-oriented network evolution of MBB, antenna installation space severely hinders the progress of network deployment. Telefónica Deutschland and Huawei's 5G-oriented antenna deployment solution can address the challenge of insufficient space, while ensuring excellent network performance and capacity.”

Vodafone Germany said it plans to invest €2 billion in its fixed infrastructure as it moves to deliver gigabit fiber broadband to 13.7 million customers. The company said it aims to finish the investment by 2021 and will focus on three segments in cooperation with partner companies in Germany.

The network expansion and upgrade plays into Vodafone Germany’s aim to become a “leading converged communications operator” in the country. The operator said its enterprise-focused unit will bring fiber connectivity to 100,000 companies across 2,000 business parks at a cost of around €1.4 billion to €1.6 billion.

Vodafone Germany’s consumer operation, it said, will fork out €200 million to €400 million to expand its fiber network to reach 1 million homes in rural areas. The overall scheme will include €200 million invested into upgrading existing cable infrastructure to deliver gigabit speeds to Vodafone Germany’s cable base of 12.6 million.

Vodafone Germany CEO Hannes Ametsrejter said he was “excited to announce this transformation investment plan for Germany, which will bring gigabit broadband services to millions of consumers and business.”

Ametsrejter added, “The project is consistent with our strategic goal to become a leading converged communications operator in Germany, enabled by a best-in-class gigabit network infrastructure.”

The company’s fixed unit contributed 40 percent of service revenue in Germany in the opening quarter of its financial year, contributing €1 billion in quarterly earnings, according to Vodafone’s Q1 fiscal financial statement covering the three months to end June.

The investment is Vodafone’s largest since its £19 billion ‘Project Spring’ investment, a two-year strategy to improve its mobile infrastructure. The operator’s presence in Germany’s broadband market grew when in 2013 it acquired the country’s largest cable operator Kabel Deutschland for €7.7 billion.

One of the largest automotive suppliers in the world, ZF Friedrichshafen, known as ZF, said it will adopt a selection of SAP software solutions to help transform its global IT landscape. The implementation and integration of the solutions will help provide the company with a single source to connect with suppliers, customers and business networks.

SAP’s software, including SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW/4HANA, will provide ZF with the foundation for new digital business models. The software was selected by ZF to support its ambitious growth strategy, using cutting-edge technology to enable processes and the organization to scale. Through the implementation of the solutions, ZF will further extend its existing IT system landscape to the world of cloud.

Following its merger with automotive supplier TRW, ZF’s implementation of these solutions will help drive synergies across all corporate departments, allow for the fast adoption of global business processes, and drive digitalization, speed and agility.

The SAP S/4HANA Finance solution, for instance, provides comprehensive financial management and accounting functionality on one standardized platform, enabling ZF to pursue its growth strategy while focusing on new opportunities.

In addition, the solution can help the company better manage regulatory requirements such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as well as help optimize financial processes to provide a single source of truth for corporate management.

The company will also implement the SAP S/4HANA Sourcing and Procurement solution, the SAP HANA platform, the SAP Extended Warehouse Management application and governance, risk and compliance solutions such as the SAP Enterprise Threat Detection application.

“SAP allows us to protect and simplify our existing assets while building the future business platform for tomorrow’s growth,” said Jürgen Sturm, CIO of ZF Friedrichshafen AG. “New capabilities can be provided to the business based on latest technologies offering great business value. By combining various cloud solutions with a strategic digital core we will unleash new business potentials and will become more agile in their implementation.”

Germany’s leading telecom provider Deutsche Telekom went live with a 5G connection on its commercial network in central Berlin on Sept. 1, at over 2Gbps and a low latency of 3 milliseconds over a 3.7 gigahertz spectrum link. Powered by Huawei user equipment using 3GPP specifications for 5G New Radio (NR), the deployment on commercial sites is the first in Europe.

“5G New Radio will be critical for meeting our customers’ ever-increasing connectivity requirements that are steadily growing with more and more network connections,” said Claudia Nemat, Deutsche Telekom Board member for Technology and Innovation. “Our achievement demonstrates the feasibility of our plans to deliver a superior, new customer experience.”

Deutsche Telekom and Huawei are “long term partners” said Huimin Zhu, Vice President, 5G, Huawei, highlighting the success of the test using 5G NR equipment. The test marks the capabilities of 5G NR equipment to meet operators’ requirements for addressing new business opportunities for end users, he said.

“Huawei is confident that the partnership with Deutsche Telekom can fully prepare the commercial launch of 5G NR services in Europe by 2020 thanks to 3GPP standardization efforts,” said Zhu.

The implementation in a live real-world setting in central Berlin using Huawei equipment and software is based on pre-standard 5G that closely tracks the 3GPP global standard for so-called ‘Non-Standalone New Radio’, Zhu explained.

“With the Non-Standalone 5G NR mode for the enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) use-case, it is meant that the connection is anchored in LTE while 5G NR carriers are used to boost data-rates and reduce latency,” Zhu said. “Therefore, 5G new radio will be deployed with the evolution of 4G LTE as the baseline for wide-area broadband coverage. The specifications enabling that system will be complete by December 2017 as part of the first drop of 3GPP Release 15.”

5G New Radio has characteristics that make it ideal to meet the sub 6Ghz mid-band needs for 5G applications that will require mobility support, wide-area coverage, as well as multi-gigabit throughput speeds and millisecond low latency.

“With this real-world achievement, Deutsche Telekom is making its first important step towards a 5G network launch,” said Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, Chief Technology Officer at Deutsche Telekom. “When the standard is defined, we will trial it in 2018 to prepare the ground for a wider deployment of commercial sites and the offering of devices for the mass market as they become available.”

Germany’s Deutsche Telekom has defended its record on expanding broadband services, after the country’s digital focus became a hot topic leading up to the federal election campaign. Deutsche Telekom has focused on upgrading its copper network with new VDSL techniques, and some have criticized the company for not investing more in full fiber networks (FTTH).

In response to the criticism, Deutsche Telekom highlighted figures from the EU Commission that say Germany is one of the leading European nations with coverage of more than 80 percent for super-fast connections (next generation access with more than 30Mbps. The company said it relies on VDSL because it’s the fastest way to connect rural areas.

Very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) is very fast broadband. It uses your copper phone line more efficiently so you get a faster connection than ADSL broadband. 

“It is simply impossible to install glass fibers right up to the houses,” the company said in a blog post on its website. “There are neither the civil engineering capabilities nor the financial resources for this. And, by the way, no demand.”

Also, that’s not to say that Deutsche Telekom isn’t implementing fiber. Since 2010, the company said it has added an average of 25,00km per year. With over 455,000 km, Deutsche Telekom has “by far the largest fiber-optic network in Germany,” the company said. By comparison, Vodafone comes to less than 60,000km.

Deutsche Telekom said has committed to provide 80 percent of households with at least 50 megabits per second. “This is what we do, and this includes raisin-picking per se,” the company said. “There is no self-obligation from other companies, especially from the cable network operators.”

The company also expressed the need for cooperation because “no company can expand Germany alone.” Telekom cooperates with local fibre operators such as NetCologne, Ewe Tel and Innogy. 

With its broadband expansion in fixed-line and mobile communications, Deutsche Telekom is “creating the prerequisite for the next communications standard 5G,” it said, which will enable the Internet of Things (IoT) and autonomous cars.

Ericsson sued smartphone maker Wiko, in the regional courts of Düsseldorf and Mannheim in Germany, for infringement of patents essential for 2G, 3G and 4G cellular technology, as well as implementation patents. Wiko is a French smartphone manufacturing company majority-owned by Chinese technology group Tinno Mobile and its phones are manufactured in China.

Wiko has been infringing Ericsson’s intellectual property rights for six years without any license or compensation, Ericsson claims. The Swedish telecom vendor has “tried to establish a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) license agreement with Wiko since May 2013, but has not succeeded,” it said. Ericsson has now decided to exercise its legal rights to enforce its patents against Wiko’s infringing products.

“Global sharing of technology and open standards are the force behind the smartphone revolution and have allowed new entrants, such as Wiko, to quickly build successful businesses,” said Gustav Brismark, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Ericsson.

“This ICT eco-system only works, however, if all market players respect the basic rules of FRAND licensing,” he added. “It is unfair for Wiko to benefit from our substantial R&D investment without paying a reasonable license fee for our patented technology. Our ambition has always been to reach a mutually fair and reasonable license agreement with Wiko, just as we do with all of our licensees.”

Ericsson has a large intellectual property portfolio, which includes more than 42,000 granted patents worldwide. Ericsson’s patent portfolio covers 2G, 3G and 4G/LTE technologies, and the company plays a key role in the global organizations that are developing standards for 5G technologies.

The European Commission has endorsed under EU state aid rules three German virtual access products that will allow the use of so-called vectoring technology in state funded high speed broadband networks. This will boost connectivity in rural areas, whilst maintaining competition in the Single Market.

In June 2015, the European Commission approved a €3 billion German state aid scheme to promote investment in high speed broadband infrastructure, especially for rural areas where private investment is lacking. In its decision, the Commission allowed the use of the so-called vectoring technology, provided Germany offered virtual access products to replace the physical access lost due to the use of vectoring.

Vectoring technology allows increased broadband speed over the existing copper network beyond the highest levels normally achieved via very high speed digital subscriber lines (VDSL). This is achieved at comparably low costs. However, as a side-effect, competitors are no longer able to gain physical access to individual copper lines leading to the customers, and are therefore prevented from providing their own high speed internet products to them.

The introduction of an adequate virtual unbundled local access (VULA) product can compensate the negative effects of vectoring. A VULA product requires the network operator to transport competitors' data traffic at conditions similar to those the competitors would have had with physical access to the copper lines. This preserves the possibility for competitors to make own diversified high speed internet offers to their customers even when vectoring is used by the network operator.

In September 2016, Germany notified to the Commission three VULA products proposed by Deutsche Telekom, DNS:Net and NetCologne for their respective broadband roll-out projects under the national next generation access (NGA) scheme.

The Commission said it has thoroughly examined the three proposed VULA products, to assess whether they would adequately compensate the negative effects of vectoring and ensure open access to the network, as required by the 2013 Broadband State Aid Guidelines.

After several amendments to the notified products, the Commission found that the proposed VULA products offered by the three companies fulfill the requirements of providing adequate virtual access to the network.

In particular, the VULA products cover the stretch of copper network leading to final customers. This is in line with the Commission's June 2015 decision, considering that in the relevant rural areas vectoring technology removes physical access to the copper network at this point in the network.

On this basis, the Commission concluded that the three proposed VULA products fulfill the requirements set out in its approval decision of June 2015. This in turn allows vectoring technology to start being used in state-funded high speed broadband networks in Germany.

German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom posted quarterly results showing core profits up 9 percent thanks to strength in the United States and modest increases in its home market. The company moved up its 2017 outlook for core profit to around €22.3 billion ($26.4) from a previous 22.2 €billion.

T-Mobile US, the third largest mobile operator in the United States, contributed to Deutsche Telekom’s rise in profits, as it maintains a 64 percent stake in the company. T-Mobile recently said it added over a million customers for the 17th quarter in a row, boosting confidence for Deutsche Telekom.

The US operator is reportedly seeking a merger with the fourth ranked mobile operator in the country, Sprint Corp., in a deal that could dramatically alter the US telecommunications market into three huge players, including AT&T and Verizon. However, Sprint’s majority owner, Japan’s SoftBank, is also considering a merger with cable communications provider Charter, Reuters recently reported.

T-Mobile’s possible tie-up with Sprint has seen Deutsche Telekom’s stock rise and fall, gaining up to 12 percent in May when the speculation began, but then tumbling down 4.4 percent in the year to date after no deal emerged. Overall, the company’s revenue increased to €18.89 billion, topping the high end of forecasts by 10 analysts polled by Reuters.