When will the billions in funding start flowing for broadband?

Tens of billions of dollars have been allocated by federal and state governments to deploy broadband infrastructure across the United States. So when will the money start flowing?

Gary Bolton, president and CEO of the Fiber Broadband Associates, provides a break down.

Filmed at the Fiber Connect 2022 show in Nashville, TN.

DISH activates 5G network covering 20% of U.S.

Dish began offering 5G broadband service to over 20 percent of the U.S. population. This marks a major milestone for Dish's cloud-native 5G Open RAN network.

"This is a big moment for DISH as we connect customers across the country with America's first and only cloud-native Open RAN network," said Dave Mayo, executive vice president of network development, DISH Wireless. "This milestone was achieved through the collaboration, ingenuity and hard work of the DISH team and our numerous partners, including AWS, Cisco, CommScope, Dell, Fujitsu, Intel, JMA, Mavenir, Nokia, Oracle, Palo Alto, Qualcomm, Samsung and VMware. We're the only major network in the world built primarily with American vendors."

In May, DISH's Smart 5G network commercially launched through Project Genesis, offering DISH wireless service in Las Vegas. Since then, DISH has expanded service to more than 120 cities across the country. Project Genesis is available to anyone in a qualifying location. Consumers can visit Genesis5G.com to learn about current service areas and sign up with Project Genesis for unlimited data, voice and text.

Both the Samsung Galaxy S22 and the NetGear 5G hotspot are currently offered to Project Genesis subscribers. DISH already offers the Motorola Edge+ for purchase in Las Vegas and will expand the sale of this device to more markets in the coming months. Plus, additional compatible devices will become available throughout the year.

https://www.dishwireless.com/home

Google Cloud Region opens in Milan with TIM

A new Google Cloud region has opened in Milan, in partnership with TIM. 

The new Milan region (europe-west8) is now part of the Google Cloud global network of 34 regions and 103 zones, bringing Google Cloud services to users in over 200 countries and territories worldwide. It is the first of two regions that are opening in Italy,  the second will launch in Turin in the coming months.

“The partnership between TIM and Google Cloud will accelerate the digitization of companies, public administrations and private citizens. Customers will benefit from innovative, flexible and secure digital solutions thanks to the new Italian Google Cloud regions and TIM's sustainable data centers. In fact, we are inaugurating a strategic infrastructure that will combine the huge economic benefits expected in Lombardy and Piedmont with important advantages for the environment: our network of data centers, designed and built according to eco-sustainability criteria, will allow significant CO2 savings," said Elio Schiavo, Chief Enterprise and Innovative Solutions Officer, TIM.

The new Milan region launches with three cloud zones and Google Cloud standard services including Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk, CloudSQL, and Cloud Identity. 

Like all Google Cloud regions, the Milan region is connected to Google’s secure  backbone, comprising a system of high-capacity fiber optic cables under land and sea around the world. In addition, multiple regions in the same country will offer Google Cloud customers a secondary local site to ensure better disaster recovery or geographical high availability that allows them to meet business continuity requirements. 

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/new-google-cloud-region-in-milan-italy-now-open

EXFO and Intel intro 5G service assurance

EXFO has collaborated with Intel on a service assurance solution for 5G network operators. This solution supports automation for cloud specific assurance regardless of whether faults originate in the network, service layers, or in the cloud-native network infrastructure.

EXFO’s full-stack assurance solution utilizes platform observability by Intel alongside EXFO’s existing adaptive service assurance (ASA) platform to close the visibility gap among cloud-native infrastructure and the network and service layers. In doing so, it provides complete visibility across the entire operational span of operator networks. The solution enables operators to assess the operational state of the underpinning cloud-native infrastructure from the chip-level up, allowing faults to be isolated or correlated across all network domains. Together, the EXFO and Intel technology speeds up the time to resolution and eliminates domain-specific fault denial.

Intel Xeon Scalable Processors, with built-in AI and NFV accelerators, provide the foundation to propel 5G experiences and Intel® Platform Telemetry Insights provide a granular view into the cloud-native infrastructure operations. It enables operators to “see” right into the heart of the foundational platform infrastructure and assess operational metrics, including health, utilization, congestion, power consumption and configuration checks. By adopting CNCF’s OpenTelemetry project, Intel provides a standard implementation for the industry to benefit from infrastructure observability.

“Network virtualization is an evolutionary path that began in 4G and is now firmly established in 5G. But managing service level agreements across virtual and physical domains is significantly more challenging, especially when the infrastructure is not always owned by the operator. As part of our adaptive service assurance platform, EXFO’s full-stack assurance solution ensures that operators can detect, correlate and resolve faults wherever they originate, significantly reducing time to resolution,” said Philippe Morin, EXFO’s CEO.

“While service assurance in mobile networks is relatively well understood, the added dimension of cloud-native infrastructure provides a new challenge for most operators. Given the ubiquitous adoption of solutions fueled by Intel Xeon processors in the core network, Intel Platform Telemetry Insights with Open Telemetry and EXFO’s ASA platform provides the lens operators need to help deliver full service assurance across their network infrastructure,” said Alex Quach, VP and GM, Intel’s Wireline & Core Network Division.

https://www.exfo.com/en/corporate/news-events/press-releases/?listall=1

Fiber Connect 2022: Why the fiber industry is super hot

Gary Bolton, president and CEO of Fiber Broadband Association, shares his key takeaways from the Fiber Connect 2022 conference and exhibition in Nashville, TN.

With tens of billions in new subsidies promised for broadband rollouts, interest in fiber-to-the-home and middle mile solutions is at an all-time high. Expect new players to join the momentum.

DataStax secures $115 million led by Goldman Sachs

DataStax, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, secured $115 million for its real-time data platform.

The funding comes on the heels of strong first quarter company momentum driven by the growing popularity of Astra DB, which is built on the powerful open source Apache Cassandra™ database. Astra DB simplifies cloud-native application development and delivers pay-as-you-go pricing with the freedom and agility of multi-cloud and open source. With the new funding, DataStax will double down on development of Astra DB, with new capabilities including additional integration with Astra Streaming to enable businesses to easily activate all their real-time data — both data “at rest” in a database and streaming data “in motion.”

The new funding round was led by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs), with participation from RCM Private Markets fund advised by Rokos Capital Management (US) LP, Singapore-based global investor, EDB Investments Pte. Ltd. and DataStax's existing investors including Crosslink Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, OnePrime Capital and other current investors. DataStax will use the funding to accelerate global expansion and development of its Astra DB multi-cloud database and its Astra Streaming streaming service, which are part of the company’s open data stack for building and running real-time applications on any cloud, at massive scale, anywhere in the world, with zero downtime.

"We see the transformative power of real-time applications across industries on a daily basis and among customers such as The Home Depot, Verizon, and Capital One," said Chet Kapoor, chairman and CEO of DataStax. "What's clear is that we're only in the early stages of what's possible with new data-driven experiences that will serve a wide range of human needs, create virtuous cycles between companies and their customers, and move markets. We appreciate that our investors believe in our vision — even in this economy, we were able to raise significant capital at a substantial premium over the round we completed just a year ago."

https://www.DataStax.com

Colombia's Media Commerce picks Ciena

Media Commerce, a telecommunications operator located in Colombia, has deployd Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optical technology, which is designed to support up to 800Gb/s capacity per channel across terrestrial and submarine applications. 

Media Commerce's network proveds connectivity services across more than 300 towns that represent 87% of Colombia's national GDP.

Media Commerce has deployed a programmable infrastructure based on Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical platform with high-capacity WL5e and WaveLogic Ai transponders and a 6500 flexible grid ROADM line system. Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) provides network management, and PinPoint OTDR is utilized to monitor and localize potential trouble spots, reduce the risk of outages and accelerate repair times while creating a simpler and automated operation.

“A new network allows us to offer state-of-the-art 100GbE and 400GbE services and flexible spectrum services to support businesses and private networks across the country. Wholesale companies, content delivery networks, over-the-top providers and various other companies are able to improve and optimize the interconnections of their data centers located not only in Bogotá, but throughout the country,” said Andrés Gallego Garzón, Chief Marketing Officer, Media Commerce.

http://www.ciena.com

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