Enterprise Benefits of Network Intrusion Prevention Systems

There has been an exponential increase in the rate of cybercrime over the past several years as enterprises increasingly conduct more of their business activities online. Cybercriminals have developed more sophisticated tools that offer them greater ability to penetrate and compromise the networks of unsuspecting enterprises, with resulting adverse consequences. There are about 130 reported network security breaches yearly. In 2018 alone, the estimated amount of money lost by businesses globally as a result of cybercrime was $600 billion, corresponding to about 0.8 percent of the global GDP.

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Software, Low-Code App Development, Application Development Platform

Are Telcos Ready for a Quantum Leap?

Article | July 3, 2023

Quantum technologies present both an opportunity for telcos to solve difficult problems and provide new services and a security threat that could require extensive IT investment. Are Telcos Ready for a Quantum Leap? When Andrew Lord, Senior Manager, Optical Networks and Quantum Research at BT, first started presenting quantum technologies at customer events six or seven years ago, his was the graveyard shift, he says, entertaining attendees at the end of the day with talk of 'crazy quantum stuff.' "But that is no longer the case," says Lord. "Over the last two years, I've noticed a shift where I now speak before lunch, and customers actively seek us out." Two developments may be causing the shift: Customers’ growing awareness of the threats and opportunities that quantum computing presents, plus a recent spike in investment in quantum technology. In 2022, investors plowed $2.35 billion into quantum technology startups, which include companies in quantum computing, communications and sensing, according to McKinsey. The public sector has also been digging deep into its pockets. Last year, the United States added $1.8 billion to its previous spending on quantum technology, and the EU committed an extra $1.2 billion, the consultancy noted, while China made total investments of $15.3 billion. According to Luke Ibbetson, Head of Group R&D at Vodafone, quantum computing's promise lies in solving a probabilistic equation within a few hours. This task would take a classical computer a million years to accomplish. This breakthrough would enable telcos to address optimization problems related to network planning, optimization, and base station placement. The flip side is that a powerful quantum computer could also break the public-key cryptography that protects today’s IT systems from hackers. As a spokesperson at Deutsche Telekom remarks: “Telcos will have to react to the threat of quantum computers to communication security because their core business model is at risk, which is offering secure digital communications.” The idea of quantum computing posing a security threat is not new. In 1994, Peter Shor, a mathematician working at AT&T Bell Labs, showed how a quantum computer could solve the logarithms used to encrypt data. “His work simultaneously ignited multiple new lines of research in quantum computing, information science, and cryptography,” according to an article by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Shor is currently working. Beyond The Lab What has changed nearly thirty years on is that quantum computing is creeping out of the lab. Sizeable obstacles to large-scale quantum computing, however, remain. Quantum computers are highly sensitive to interference from noise, temperature, movement or electromagnetic fields and, therefore, very difficult and expensive to build and operate, especially at scale: IBM’s latest quantum processor, for example, operates at a very low temperature of approximately 0.02 degrees Kelvin. When Deutsche Telekom’s T-Labs tested telco use cases, it found quantum computing coped well with small problem statements. “However, when the problem size was scaled to real-world problem sizes, the quality of the QComp solution degraded,” according to the spokesperson. The company is now awaiting the next generation of quantum computing platforms to redo the analyses. All of this means, for now, quantum computers are not large and powerful enough to crack Shor’s algorithm. The question is, when will someone succeed? The Global Risk Institute tracks the quantum threat timeline. In its latest annual report, the organization asked 40 quantum experts whether they thought it likely that within the next ten years, a quantum computer would break an encryption scheme like RSA-2048 in under 24 hours. Over half the respondents judged the event to be more than 5% likely, and almost a quarter considered it to be more than 50% likely. Any breakthrough will come from a relatively small number of actors. Today, governments and academic institutions are home to around half of the 163 projects accounted for worldwide by Global Quantum Intelligence, a research and analysis company, according to its CEO, André M. König, with big technology companies and specialized startups accounting for the rest. Q2K Nonetheless, the impact of quantum computing could be widespread, even if relatively few of them are built. The challenge of preparing for a post-quantum future is often called Q2K in reference to the Y2K bug. In the late 1990s, many (but not all) governmental organizations and companies spent millions of dollars on Y2K systems integration to ensure that IT programs written from the 1960s through the 1980s would be able to recognize dates after December 31, 1999, all while being uncertain of the scale or the impact of the risk if they didn’t. ‘Q2K’ differs in that there is no specific deadline, and the dangers of a major security breach are much clearer cut. However, it is similar in demanding a lot of work on aging systems. “Cryptography is used everywhere,” points out Lory Thorpe, IBM’s Director of Global Solutions and Offerings, Telecommunications. She adds, “Because telco systems have been built over periods of decades, people don’t actually know where cryptography is being used. So, if you start to look at the impact of public key cryptography and digital signatures being compromised, you start to look at how those two things impact open source, how that impacts the core network, the radio network, [and] OSS/BSS, network management, how the network management speaks to the network functions and so on.” This complexity is why some analysts recommend that telcos take action now. “You’re going to find tens of thousands of vulnerabilities that are critical and vulnerable to a quantum attack. So, do you have to worry about it today? Absolutely - even if it’s in 2035,” says König. “Anyone who has ever done [IT implementation projects], and anyone who’s ever worked in cybersecurity [knows], tens of thousands of vulnerabilities that are critical [requires] years and years and years of just traditional integration work. So, even if you’re skeptical about quantum, if you haven’t started today, it is almost too late already.” Don’t Panic! For the past two to three years, Vodafone has been preparing to migrate some of its cryptographic systems to be quantum-safe, according to Ibbetson. He believes there is no need to panic about this. However, telcos must start planning now. König said, "The telecoms industry as a whole is not moving as quickly as some other sectors, notably the banking, pharmaceutical, and automotive industries. In these sectors, post-quantum security planning often involves CEOs at a very strategic level." For this reason, Vodafone joined forces with IBM in September 2022 to establish the GSMA Post-Quantum Telco Network Taskforce. “Even though many industries are preparing to be able to defend against future quantum threats, we didn’t see anything happening particularly in in the telco space, and we wanted to make sure that it was a focus,” says Ibbetson. “Obviously it will turn into an IT-style transformation, but it’s starting now with understanding what it is we need to mobilize that.” AT&T has also been working to pinpoint what needs to be addressed. Last year, the company said it aims to be quantum-ready by 2025, in the sense that it will have done its due diligence and identified a clear path forward. Minding Your PQCs Companies across multiple sectors are looking to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to secure their systems, which will use new algorithms that are much harder to crack than RSA. König contends that PQC needs to become “a standard component of companies’ agile defense posture” and believes the development of PQC systems by software and hardware companies will help keep upgrade costs under control. “From a financial point of view, vendors do a fantastic job bringing this to market and making it very accessible,” says König. Lord, who has been researching quantum technologies at BT for over a decade, is also confident that there is “going to be much more available technology.” As a result, even smaller telcos will be able to invest in securing their systems. “It doesn't need a big boy with lots of money [for] research to do something around PQC. There’s a lot of work going on to ratify the best of those solutions,” says Lord. There are several reasons why eyes are on software based PQC. Firstly, it can be used to secure data that was encrypted in the past, quantum computing advances will make vulnerable in the future. In addition, the quantum-based alternative to PQC for securing network traffic called quantum key distribution (QKD), comes with a huge drawback for wireless operators. QKD is hardware-based and uses quantum mechanics to prevent interception across optical fiber and satellite (i.e., free space optical) networks, making it secure, albeit expensive. But for reasons of physics, it does not work on mobile networks. Setting Standards Given the importance of PQC, a lot of effort is going into standardizing robust algorithms. The political weight of the US and the size of its technology industry mean that the US government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is playing a key role in the technical evaluation of post-quantum standardization algorithms and creating standards. NIST expects to publish the first set of post-quantum cryptography standards in 2024. In the meantime, Dustin Moody, a NIST mathematician, recommends (in answers emailed to inform) that companies “become familiar and do some testing with the algorithms being standardized, and how they will fit in your products and applications. Ensure that you are using current best-practice cryptographic algorithms and security strengths in your existing applications. Have somebody designated to be leading the effort to transition. QKD There is no absolute guarantee, however, that a quantum computer in the future won’t find a way to crack PQC. Therefore, institutions such as government agencies and banks remain interested in using QKD fiber and satellite networks to ensure the highest levels of security for data transmission. The European Commission, for example, is working with the 27 EU Member States and the European Space Agency (ESA) to design, develop and deploy a QKD-based European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI). It will be made up of fiber networks linking strategic sites at national and cross-border levels and a space segment based on satellites. EuroQCI will reinforce the protection of Europe’s governmental institutions, their data centers, hospitals, energy grids, and more,” according to the EU. Telecom operators are involved in some of the national programs, including Orange, which is coordinating France’s part of the program called FranceQCI (Quantum Communication Infrastructure). Separately, this month, Toshiba and Orange announced they had successfully demonstrated the viability of deploying QKD on existing commercial networks. Outside the EU, BT has already built and is now operating a commercial metro quantum-encryption network in London. “The London network has three quantum nodes, which are the bearers carrying the quantum traffic for all of the access ingress,” explains Lord. For example, a customer in London's Canary Wharf could link via the network to the nearest quantum-enabled BT exchange. From there, it joins a metro network, which carries the keys from multiple customers “in an aggregated cost-effective way to the egress points,” according to Lord. “It is not trivial because you can mess things up and [get] the wrong keys,” explains Lord. “You really have to be more careful about authentication and key management. And then it's all about how you engineer your quantum resources to handle bigger aggregation.” It also gives BT the opportunity to explore how to integrate quantum systems downstream into its whole network. “What I'm telling the quantum world is that they need to get into the real world because a system that uses quantum is still going to be 90%, non-quantum and all of the usual networking rules and engineering practices apply. You still need to know how to handle fiber. You still need to know how to provision a piece of equipment and integrate it into a network.” SK Telecom is also heavily involved in quantum-related research, with developments including QKD systems for the control and interworking of quantum cryptography communication networks. Japan is another important center of QKD research. A QKD network has existed in Tokyo since 2010, and in 2020, financial services company Nomura Securities Co., Ltd. tested the transmission of data across the Tokyo QKD network. As the EU’s project makes clear, satellite is an important part of the mix. Lord expects satellite-based QKD networks to come on stream as of 2025 and 2026, enabling the purchase of wholesale quantum keys from a dedicated satellite quantum provider. Back in 2017, China already used the satellite to make the first very long-distance transmission of data secured by QKD between Beijing and Vienna, a distance of 7,000km. Securing The Edge There are additional efforts to secure communications with edge devices. BT’s Lord, for example, sees a role for digital fingerprints for IoT devices, phones, cars and smart meters in the form of a physical unclonable function (PUF) silicon chip, which, because of random imperfections in its manufacture, cannot be copied. In the UK, BT is trialing a combination of QKD and PUF to secure the end-to-end journey of a driverless car. The connection to the roadside depends on standard radio with PUF authentication, while transmission from the roadside unit onward, as well as the overall control of the autonomous vehicle network, incorporate QKD, explains Lord. SK Telecom has developed what it describes as a quantum-enhanced cryptographic chip with Korea Computer & Systems (KCS) and ID Quantique. Telefónica Spain has partnered on the development of a quantum-safe 5G SIM card and has integrated quantum technology into its cloud service hosted in its virtual data centers. Given China’s heavy investment in quantum technologies, it is no surprise to see its telecom operators involved in the field. China Telecom, for example, recently invested three billion yuan ($434m) in quantum technology deployment, according to Reuters. Quantum in The Cloud Some of America's biggest technology companies are investing in quantum computing. Today, it is even possible to access quantum computing facilities via the cloud, albeit at on small scale. IBM's cloud access to quantum computers is free for the most basic level, rising to $1.60 per second for the next level. And it is just the beginning. America's big tech companies are racing to build quantum computers at scale. One measure of scale is the size of a quantum processor, which is measured in qubits. While a traditional computer stores information as a 0 or 1, a qubit can represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously. This unique property enables a quantum computer to explore multiple potential solutions to a problem simultaneously; and the greater the stability of its qubits, the more efficient it becomes. IBM has a long history in quantum research and development. In 1998, it unveiled what was then a ground-breaking 2-qubit computer. By 2022, it had produced a 433-qubit processor, and in 2023, it aims to produce a 1,121-qubit processor. Separately, this month, it announced the construction of its first quantum data center in Europe, which it expects to begin offering commercial services as of next year. Google is also firmly in the race to build a large-scale quantum computer. In 2019, a paper in Nature featured Google’s Sycamore processor and the speed with which it undertakes computational tasks. More recent work includes an experimental demonstration of it’s possible to reduce errors by increasing the number of qubits. Microsoft reckons that "a quantum machine capable of solving many of the hardest problems facing humanity will ultimately require at least 1 million stable qubits that can perform 1 quintillion operations while making at most a single error." To this end, it is working on what it calls a new type of qubit, a topological qubit. Amazon announced in 2021 an AWS Center for Quantum Computing on the Caltech campus to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer.

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Software, Low-Code App Development, Application Development Platform

Empowering Industry 4.0 with Artificial Intelligence

Article | August 4, 2023

The next step in industrial technology is about robotics, computers and equipment becoming connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) and enhanced by machine learning algorithms. Industry 4.0 has the potential to be a powerful driver of economic growth, predicted to add between $500 billion- $1.5 trillion in value to the global economy between 2018 and 2022, according to a report by Capgemini.

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Neural Networks

How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Businesses

Article | September 15, 2023

Whilst there are many people that associate AI with sci-fi novels and films, its reputation as an antagonist to fictional dystopic worlds is now becoming a thing of the past, as the technology becomes more and more integrated into our everyday lives. AI technologies have become increasingly more present in our daily lives, not just with Alexa’s in the home, but also throughout businesses everywhere, disrupting a variety of different industries with often tremendous results. The technology has helped to streamline even the most mundane of tasks whilst having a breath-taking impact on a company’s efficiency and productivity

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The advances of AI in healthcare

Article | February 11, 2020

With the Government investing £250 million into the project, the Lab will consider how to use AI for the benefit of patients – whether this be the deployment of existing AI methods, the development of new technologies or the testing of their safety. Amongst other things, the initiative will aim to deliver earlier diagnoses of cancer. It is estimated that in excess of 50,000 extra patients could see their cancer being detected at an early stage, thus boosting survival rates. More specifically, a study has shown that AI is quicker in identifying brain tumour tissue than a pathologist.This would have a positive knock-on effect in other areas, such as enabling money to be saved (that otherwise would have been spent on further treatment) and reducing the workload of staff (at a time when there is a crisis in NHS workforce numbers).

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Spotlight

Dimension Data

Dimension Data believes in the power of technology to transform your organisation, make things work better … and take your business to the next level. We are an ICT services and solutions provider that uses technology expertise to accelerate the business ambitions of our clients.

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NetElastic Combines SD-WAN, Application Visibility on New Enterprise Router

SDxCentral | April 23, 2019

NFV startup NetElastic Systems launched an enterprise branch router that integrates both application visibility and SD-WAN. The EBR 1000A router is based on the company’s existing routing technology, but includes an integrated deep packet inspection engine that provides in-depth application visibility. It also relies on cloud or local-based management for service providers and enterprise end-users to prioritize application traffic across two WAN connections. NetElastic is a three-year old Santa Clara, California-based startup that offers a line of NFV and routing software built specifically for carrier networks and enterprises. This includes a virtual Broadband Network Gateway (vBNG), a virtual router, SD-WAN, virtual Provider Edge (vPE) router, and now its new enterprise router. According to Rich Sabin, director of marketing at NetElastic, the company began its foray into SD-WAN in 2018, “developing a carrier-centric solution suitable for smaller enterprise customers who are more cost conscious.” The company found that the first-generation of SD-WAN was sold directly to customers, but that service providers and carriers can help increase the scalability and profitability of the SD-WAN market. NetElastic also saw the need for an SD-WAN service that could deliver higher internet speeds as enterprises increasingly adopted high-speed broadband. NetElastic says that its SD-WAN can deliver 1 Gb/s running on low-cost white box appliances, and that its branch router can deliver up to 2 Gb/s, or a full gigabit per WAN link. The new router addresses application awareness at the enterprise branch. It monitors all available WAN connections for path performance, capacity, loss, jitter, and latency to route applications to the best path. It can also detect more than 1,000 predefined applications and other customer-defined applications.

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China Unicom Signals Intent to Be Among First With 5G

SDxCentral | April 23, 2019

China Unicom is gearing up to become the first Chinese carrier to launch commercial 5G services for consumers next month and firmly position China as one of the frontrunners that will drive the next generation of mobile technology. China seemed to have lost momentum compared to rival regions, after carriers in South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States moved ahead with their respective commercial 5G launches. China Unicom is now clearly putting its foot on the gas, placing 5G front and center at the carrier’s partner conference in Shanghai this week with a raft of announcements ranging from the launch of smartphone devices through to availability of its 5G network. For example, the Chinese carrier launched a “5G pioneer program” to enable “friendly” 5G users to sign up to trial consumer 5G services; unveiled the “5Gn” logo for future networks and services; confirmed full 5G coverage for trials in seven cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Xiongan) and partial coverage in 33 cities; and signaled the readiness of 5G smartphones from Huawei, ZTE, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Nubia. Qualcomm Technologies also confirmed it is supporting China Unicom’s 5G rollout in collaboration with the smartphone vendors, although the U.S. chipset company additionally mentioned OnePlus in its release but excluded Huawei. China Unicom also made reference to two 5G alliances: one it referred to as the China Unicom 5G Application Innovation Alliance, which it said was launched at the conference with 32 partners in the fields of new media, industrial Internet, connected cars, healthcare, education, and tourism; and a second it called the 5G International Cooperation Alliance with the aim of exploring international 5G roaming. BT, NTT, Orange, and Telefonica were name checked here, although few other details were provided. Furthermore, China Unicom flagged the signing of a memorandum of strategic cooperation with Intel for the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022 with a focus on smart applications for the venue. China Unicom and Nokia have also partnered on a cooperative 4G and 5G network running on a cloud-based radio access network (cRAN) in the Xiongan. The network, which the vendors have dubbed the “world’s largest field trial,” will target use cases for 5G and demonstrate how networks can separate software and hardware to more rapidly deploy 5G.

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Verizon’s 5G Future Tied to Spectrum, Technology Advances

SDxCentral | April 23, 2019

Verizon today said the foundation for 5G is being built now, but many of the most transformational aspects of the technology such as mobile edge computing, dynamic spectrum sharing, devices, and refarmed low-band spectrum to support 5G won’t arrive until 2020 or later. “5G has been a huge focus for us,” Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said on the company’s latest earnings call. With its standards-based mobile 5G network now available in select neighborhoods of Chicago and Minneapolis, and plans to reach 30 cities by the end of the year, the operator will “continue to deploy infrastructure in more cities, prioritizing cities that have made it easy to build there,” he said. “Our initial launches are performing as expected,” and more features and enhancements will become available through software, Vestberg said. “We’re now two years into the implementation of our next-generation intelligent edge network, which we expect to be largely completed by 2021. We’re realizing significant efficiencies and cost savings from our network transformation initiatives.” Capital spending during the first quarter of 2019 was down 6.5% year-over-year to $4.3 billion, and the company is maintaining a full-year capex guidance range of between $17 billion and $18 billion. “Our capital expenditures continue to support the growth in data and video traffic on our industry leading 4G LTE network, the launch and continued buildout of our 5G ultra wideband network, the upgrade to our intelligent edge network, and significant fiber deployment,” CFO Matthew Ellis said during the earnings call. “We have maintained our disciplined approach to capital allocation, focused on investing in our networks,” and “we’re well positioned to deliver on all of our capital allocation goals in the years ahead,” Vestberg said.

Read More

NetElastic Combines SD-WAN, Application Visibility on New Enterprise Router

SDxCentral | April 23, 2019

NFV startup NetElastic Systems launched an enterprise branch router that integrates both application visibility and SD-WAN. The EBR 1000A router is based on the company’s existing routing technology, but includes an integrated deep packet inspection engine that provides in-depth application visibility. It also relies on cloud or local-based management for service providers and enterprise end-users to prioritize application traffic across two WAN connections. NetElastic is a three-year old Santa Clara, California-based startup that offers a line of NFV and routing software built specifically for carrier networks and enterprises. This includes a virtual Broadband Network Gateway (vBNG), a virtual router, SD-WAN, virtual Provider Edge (vPE) router, and now its new enterprise router. According to Rich Sabin, director of marketing at NetElastic, the company began its foray into SD-WAN in 2018, “developing a carrier-centric solution suitable for smaller enterprise customers who are more cost conscious.” The company found that the first-generation of SD-WAN was sold directly to customers, but that service providers and carriers can help increase the scalability and profitability of the SD-WAN market. NetElastic also saw the need for an SD-WAN service that could deliver higher internet speeds as enterprises increasingly adopted high-speed broadband. NetElastic says that its SD-WAN can deliver 1 Gb/s running on low-cost white box appliances, and that its branch router can deliver up to 2 Gb/s, or a full gigabit per WAN link. The new router addresses application awareness at the enterprise branch. It monitors all available WAN connections for path performance, capacity, loss, jitter, and latency to route applications to the best path. It can also detect more than 1,000 predefined applications and other customer-defined applications.

Read More

China Unicom Signals Intent to Be Among First With 5G

SDxCentral | April 23, 2019

China Unicom is gearing up to become the first Chinese carrier to launch commercial 5G services for consumers next month and firmly position China as one of the frontrunners that will drive the next generation of mobile technology. China seemed to have lost momentum compared to rival regions, after carriers in South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States moved ahead with their respective commercial 5G launches. China Unicom is now clearly putting its foot on the gas, placing 5G front and center at the carrier’s partner conference in Shanghai this week with a raft of announcements ranging from the launch of smartphone devices through to availability of its 5G network. For example, the Chinese carrier launched a “5G pioneer program” to enable “friendly” 5G users to sign up to trial consumer 5G services; unveiled the “5Gn” logo for future networks and services; confirmed full 5G coverage for trials in seven cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Xiongan) and partial coverage in 33 cities; and signaled the readiness of 5G smartphones from Huawei, ZTE, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Nubia. Qualcomm Technologies also confirmed it is supporting China Unicom’s 5G rollout in collaboration with the smartphone vendors, although the U.S. chipset company additionally mentioned OnePlus in its release but excluded Huawei. China Unicom also made reference to two 5G alliances: one it referred to as the China Unicom 5G Application Innovation Alliance, which it said was launched at the conference with 32 partners in the fields of new media, industrial Internet, connected cars, healthcare, education, and tourism; and a second it called the 5G International Cooperation Alliance with the aim of exploring international 5G roaming. BT, NTT, Orange, and Telefonica were name checked here, although few other details were provided. Furthermore, China Unicom flagged the signing of a memorandum of strategic cooperation with Intel for the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022 with a focus on smart applications for the venue. China Unicom and Nokia have also partnered on a cooperative 4G and 5G network running on a cloud-based radio access network (cRAN) in the Xiongan. The network, which the vendors have dubbed the “world’s largest field trial,” will target use cases for 5G and demonstrate how networks can separate software and hardware to more rapidly deploy 5G.

Read More

Verizon’s 5G Future Tied to Spectrum, Technology Advances

SDxCentral | April 23, 2019

Verizon today said the foundation for 5G is being built now, but many of the most transformational aspects of the technology such as mobile edge computing, dynamic spectrum sharing, devices, and refarmed low-band spectrum to support 5G won’t arrive until 2020 or later. “5G has been a huge focus for us,” Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said on the company’s latest earnings call. With its standards-based mobile 5G network now available in select neighborhoods of Chicago and Minneapolis, and plans to reach 30 cities by the end of the year, the operator will “continue to deploy infrastructure in more cities, prioritizing cities that have made it easy to build there,” he said. “Our initial launches are performing as expected,” and more features and enhancements will become available through software, Vestberg said. “We’re now two years into the implementation of our next-generation intelligent edge network, which we expect to be largely completed by 2021. We’re realizing significant efficiencies and cost savings from our network transformation initiatives.” Capital spending during the first quarter of 2019 was down 6.5% year-over-year to $4.3 billion, and the company is maintaining a full-year capex guidance range of between $17 billion and $18 billion. “Our capital expenditures continue to support the growth in data and video traffic on our industry leading 4G LTE network, the launch and continued buildout of our 5G ultra wideband network, the upgrade to our intelligent edge network, and significant fiber deployment,” CFO Matthew Ellis said during the earnings call. “We have maintained our disciplined approach to capital allocation, focused on investing in our networks,” and “we’re well positioned to deliver on all of our capital allocation goals in the years ahead,” Vestberg said.

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