Open RAN

Satellites and Enterprise Focus at MWC23

At this year’s Mobile World Congress show, two major themes emerged as significant to us: satellites, Managed Service Providers and a pivot to Enterprise markets. First, Samsung, Qualcomm, and MediaTek introduced satellite phone capabilities, following last year’s announcements by Apple and Starlink/T-Mobile USA’s entry to the satellite markets. Yes, there… Read More »Satellites and Enterprise Focus at MWC23

MWC 2022 Recap

Hyperscalers, Open RAN, Private 5G and chip announcements were top news at the MWC show in Barcelona last week.  Based on disclosures at the show, Open RAN looks to go commercial in 2023 and 2024, hyperscalers are obtaining contracts to carry an increasing amount of telecom-related workloads, Rakuten Symphony is… Read More »MWC 2022 Recap

Nokia Highlights its RAN, Cloud and Broadband Progress

Nokia’s Global Analyst Forum this week highlighted two main trends.  First, the company says it has caught up to rivals in its 5G radio development.  Furthermore, the company expects its wireless systems to become increasingly technologically differentiated from competitors.  Second, the company emphasizes its message that it is the “green… Read More »Nokia Highlights its RAN, Cloud and Broadband Progress

Mavenir Hightlights is RAN Progress at its Analyst Meeting

Mavenir held its annual analyst event this week and highlighted some important information highlighting its progress in transitioning to a maturing ecosystem player in the telecom equipment industry.  The company highlighted its recent Koch Brothers $500M investment; existing investors include Intel/Nvidia and Siris Capital, who remain majority equity holders.  The… Read More »Mavenir Hightlights is RAN Progress at its Analyst Meeting

Rakuten Acquires Altiostar; and Announces European Customer, 1&1

​Today, Rakuten announced that has acquired the rest of Open RAN startup, Altiostar.  It already owned 67% of the pioneering vendor, and paid another $370 million to acquire the rest, at a valuation just over $1 billion.  The company is adding Altiostar to its Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP) capabilities now… Read More »Rakuten Acquires Altiostar; and Announces European Customer, 1&1

The Party-Crashers of MWC21

This week’s MWC Barcelona 2021 had several themes; the most important was that several outsiders to the telecom industry were ever-present.  The new entrants – the party-crashers – included Starlink, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Compute, and NVidia.  These new players are forcing change either through economics, new technology,… Read More »The Party-Crashers of MWC21

Cisco Live Event Features Observability, Network-as-a-Service, SASE

Cisco’s customer event, Cisco Live (virtual), is underway, and the company made many announcements.  We are emphasizing what we think are the most relevant, which include Observability capabilities, Network as a Service (NaaS), and SASE.  Here is a rundown of what we learned about today. Core portfolio (includes Campus Ethernet… Read More »Cisco Live Event Features Observability, Network-as-a-Service, SASE