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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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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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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