Network Infrastructure
PR Newswire | January 16, 2024
DISH Wireless, a subsidiary of EchoStar, was awarded a historic $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to establish the Open RAN Center for Integration & Deployment (ORCID). ORCID will allow participants to test and validate their hardware and software solutions (RU, DU and CU) against a complete commercial-grade Open RAN network deployed by DISH.
"The Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID) will serve a critical role in strengthening the global Open RAN ecosystem and building the next generation of wireless networks," said Charlie Ergen, co-founder and chairman, EchoStar. "By leveraging DISH's experience deploying the world's first standalone Open RAN 5G network, ORCID will be uniquely positioned to test and evaluate Open RAN interoperability, performance and security from domestic and international vendors. We appreciate NTIA's recognition of DISH and ORCID's role in driving Open RAN innovation and the Administration's ongoing commitment to U.S. leadership in wireless connectivity."
To date, this grant represents NTIA's largest award under the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (Innovation Fund). ORCID will be housed in DISH's secure Cheyenne, Wyoming campus and will be supported by consortium partners Fujitsu, Mavenir and VMware by Broadcom and technology partners Analog Devices, ARM, Cisco, Dell Technologies, Intel, JMA Wireless, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Samsung.
NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson and Innovation Fund Director Amanda Toman will join EchoStar Co-Founder and Chairman Charlie Ergen, EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan, EVP and Chief Network Officer Marc Rouanne and other stakeholders to announce the grant and tour a DISH 5G Open RAN cell site later today in Las Vegas.
During this event, DISH will outline ORCID's unique advantages, including that it will leverage DISH's experience as the only operator in the United States to commercially deploy a standalone Open RAN 5G network. DISH and its industry partners have validated Open RAN technology at scale across the country; today DISH's network covers over 246 million Americans nationwide.
At ORCID, participants will be able to test and evaluate individual or multiple network elements to ensure Open RAN interoperability, performance and security, and contribute to the development, deployment and adoption of open and interoperable standards-based radio access networks. ORCID's "living laboratory" will drive the Open RAN ecosystem — from lab testing to commercial deployment.
Below are highlights of ORCID:
ORCID will combine both lab and field testing and evaluation activities. ORCID will be able to test elements brought by any qualified vendor against DISH's live, complete and commercial-grade Open RAN stack.
ORCID will use DISH's spectrum holdings, a combination of low-, mid- and high-band frequencies, enabling field testing and evaluation.
ORCID will evaluate Open RAN elements through mixing and matching with those of other vendors, rather than validating a single vendor's stack. DISH's experience in a multi-vendor environment will give ORCID unique insights about the integration of Open RAN into brownfield networks.
ORCID's multi-tenant lab and field testing will occur in DISH's secure Cheyenne, Wyoming facility, which is already compliant with stringent security protocols in light of its satellite functions.
About DISH Wireless
DISH Wireless, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), is changing the way the world communicates with the Boost Wireless Network. In 2020, the company became a nationwide U.S. wireless carrier through the acquisition of Boost Mobile. The company continues to innovate in wireless, building the nation's first virtualized, Open RAN 5G broadband network, and is inclusive of the Boost Infinite, Boost Mobile and Gen Mobile wireless brands.
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Network Infrastructure
PR Newswire | January 15, 2024
DriveNets – a leader in innovative networking solutions – and Acacia today announced the completion of integrating multiple Acacia 400G ZR/ZR+ optical modules with DriveNets' Network Cloud platform. The combined DriveNets-Acacia solution will ensure quick adoption of this innovative disaggregated networking solution and accelerate large-scale network rollouts. DriveNets and Acacia have joint Tier-1 operator customers who will deploy the joint solution.
Last September, DriveNets announced that Network Cloud was the first Disaggregated Distributed Chassis/Backbone Router (DDC/DDBR) to support ZR/ZR+ optics as native transceivers that can be inserted into any Network Cloud-supported white boxes. The combined Acacia-DriveNets solution announced today adds the initial collaboration between the companies, offering several benefits:
The joint solution will deliver significant simplicity and cost savings by collapsing Layer-1 to Layer-3 communications into a single platform.
The use of 400ZR/ZR+ eliminates the need for standalone optical transponders, lowering the number of boxes in the solution, and reducing operational-overhead, floor-space, and power.
DriveNets and Acacia worked together to ensure that the DriveNets NOS (DNOS) supports the 400ZR/ZR+ modules beyond simply plugging them into the box. The collaboration ensures the 400ZR/ZR+ modules can be tunable, configurable, and manageable by DriveNets Network Cloud software.
This integration also goes beyond interoperability validation. DriveNets Network Cloud offers full software support for the Acacia modules, including configuration (channel and power), monitoring, and troubleshooting for Acacia Bright 400ZR+ transceivers with transmit power greater than +1dBm.
"Today's announcement is further proof of the growth of disaggregated networking solutions and demonstrates that more operators are looking for open solutions that will allow them to mix elements from multiple vendors and avoid being locked to a specific end-to-end vendor solution," said Nir Gasko, Vice President, Global Strategic Alliances for DriveNets. "By collaborating with Acacia, we enable our joint customers to quickly adopt cutting-edge technologies and evolve their networks faster."
"Partnering with DriveNets on this joint solution will allow network operators to deploy Acacia's high-volume standard-based coherent pluggable portfolio in open disaggregated networks with less effort," said Fenghai Liu, Senior Director of Product Line Management for Acacia. "Through this collaboration customers can achieve significant capex and opex savings with router-based coherent optics."
DriveNets Network Cloud is being adopted by more Tier-1 operators around the world. By partnering with world-class providers like Acacia, the company continues to expand its ecosystem to support its customers' desire to mix-and-match hardware and software from multiple vendors.
Learn more about DriveNets here.
About DriveNets
DriveNets is a leader in high-scale disaggregated networking solutions. Founded in 2015, DriveNets modernizes the way service providers, cloud providers and hyperscalers build networks, streamlining network operations, increasing network performance at scale, and improving their economic model. DriveNets' solutions – Network Cloud and Network Cloud-AI – adapt the architectural model of hyperscale cloud to telco-grade networking and support any network use case – from core-to-edge to AI networking – over a shared physical infrastructure of standard white-boxes, radically simplifying the network's operations and offering telco-scale performance and reliability with hyperscale elasticity. DriveNets' solutions are currently deployed in the world's largest networks.
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Data Center Networking
PR Newswire | January 09, 2024
NEXCOM, a leading global supplier of network appliances, announced today the company's diverse lineup of fixed wireless access (FWA) solutions is helping expand application of 5G FWA to new uses, from bridging the digital divide to enabling real-time data processing to power smart cities and revolutionize the future of telemedicine. NEXCOM provides a 5G FWA uCPE range tailored for various sectors and use cases.
Today, 5G FWA uCPE applications are boundless, from delivering reliable connectivity in remote areas to ensuring mission-critical communications in industrial settings and powering smart city technology. 5G FWA uCPE is helping provide reliable, low-latency, and high-bandwidth connections, driving innovation on behalf of diverse industry sectors. 5G FWA has already become a major component in achieving nationwide broadband connectivity in the U.S.
The most common 5G FWA application is delivering connectivity where wireless transmission is used to reach the last mile. However, the future applications of this innovative technology are growing to include eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband) in both FR1 and FR2 frequency ranges, URLLC (Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication), and mMTC (massive Machine Type Communication). In addition, advanced features now include 5G network slicing, 5G TSN (Time-Sensitive Networking), 5G security, and NTN (non-terrestrial networks), which enables 5G FWA technology to be used as a 5G private network in various settings, including smart factories, smart manufacturing, smart cities, and intelligent transportation.
In response, NEXCOM is delivering a comprehensive 5G FWA uCPE product lineup tailored to different sectors and use cases. Each appliance comes with predefined features and expandable space, allowing users to customize available options to meet specific requirements. NEXCOM 5G FWA uCPE is also integrated with a lightweight network OS for easy set-up and control, designed to simplify network configuration.
"The widespread adoption of 5G FWA underscores the importance of understanding the unique requirements of each application and identifying the most suitable equipment to meet those goals," said Peter Yang, President of NEXCOM. "We're helping provide clarity in the market by tailoring NEXCOM products to cater to the diverse application grades and settings for 5G FWA applications in both private and public networks. Based on NEXCOM's guidelines and feature matrix, Telco operators who are currently weighing their options on hand can easily find out the best equipment after checking the reliability of the device for managing traffic and meeting critical low-latency demands, the necessity for mobility and outdoor long-range connectivity, and building a comprehensive, future-proof solution that caters to both present and future requirements."
5G FWA solutions can be categorized into four attribute grades serving different field applications: Consumer Grade, Enterprise Grade, Industrial Grade, and Telecom Grade. Each one focuses on different features and functions, serving different usage scenarios to better utilize the advantages of 5G FWA. NEXCOM's 5G FWA appliances have been classified based on CPU performance as well as wired and wireless connectivity, with detailed explanations provided in the White Paper.
About NEXCOM
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, NEXCOM integrates its diverse capabilities and operates six global businesses, including the Network and Communication Solutions (NCS) unit. NCS focuses on the latest network technology and helps to build reliable network infrastructure, by delivering professional design and manufacturing services for customers all over the world. NCS's network application platform is widely adopted in Cyber Security Appliance, Load Balancer, uCPE, SD-WAN, SASE, Edge Computing, Storage, NVR, and other network applications for businesses of all sizes.
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