T-Mobile routing outage prevents access to voice and data for US customers
T-Mobile’s major US outage caused by a routing failure blocked access to both voice calls and the internet for many US customers across the country over a day earlier this month. The failure highlighted operators’ dependence on WiFi, for T-Mobile recommended subscribers make use of messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Facetime over fixed broadband lines at home, or wherever hot spots were available. Service-tracking site Down Detector reported more than 100,000 outages across the country on the afternoon of the day the problem occurred.
Bell and Rogers march in tandem towards nationwide 5G coverage in Canada
Canadian telco Bell has announced commercial availability of its 5G service in Montréal, Greater Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, with plans to expand to most of the remaining cities in the country by the end of 2020. This follows the operator’s selection of Ericsson 5G RAN technology to support its nationwide 5G mobile and fixed wireless access (FWA) deployment. It also follows a similar announcement from rival Rogers, which is rolling out 5G over a comparable footprint in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, again with plans to reach 20 more markets by the end of the year.
Nokia expands alliance with Chinese cloud giants
As Nokia chases more business in the webscale world, to compensate for its challenges in its core telco space, it has extended its relationship with China’s Tencent and Baidu. It will provide software-defined data center interconnect (DCI) solutions to connect data centers in China, and potentially round the world, for the two companies. This gives Nokia a boost in China, where it failed to secure RAN deals in the latest round of 5G awards.
When Nokia unveiled its petabit-class core router products in 2018, powered by its own processors, it was clearly after the webscale business to add to its operator revenues, and currently, only Cisco can outdo those processors. It has been fleshing out the portfolio for the cloud majors in areas such as DCI. “Our leading DCI product portfolio, and technology innovations in photonics and SDN controllers, are key” to the play for webscale business, said the company.
FirstNet signs off $218m for core network upgrades and portable assets
FirstNet, the USA’s dedicated public safety communications network, which is being built by AT&T through a public-private partnership, has signed off $218m for investments in the first phase of a 5G core deployment, and to expand the fleet of deployable assets.
FirstNet Authority board chair Edward Horowitz said: “The Board’s actions set the network on a path to 5G and will boost on-demand coverage for public safety. We look forward to delivering on these advancements for public safety and working to identify our next network investment opportunities.” Currently, FirstNet runs a nationwide LTE packet core infrastructure designed specifically for public safety.
FirstNet’s deployable asset fleet is used to deliver added coverage and capacity on-demand during emergencies and at large events. The fleet already has 73 land-based deployables, including satellite cell-on-light trucks (SatCOLTs), and three cell-on-wings (or flying COWs), and the FirstNet One blimp.
M1 and Airbus trial 5G for UAVs
Singaporean operator M1 and Europe’s Airbus are trialing safety and efficacy of 5G for operating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in normal operating conditions. The trial will run on M1’s 5G standalone network at the Singapore Maritime Drone Estate, collecting data to assess performance and coverage of mobile networks in the operating areas. Both 4G and 5G will be evaluated as options to enhance geo-location positioning during all phases of unmanned aircraft systems flight using network-based data. M1 has claimed 5G will be more precise than current GNSS technologies.
China Unicom gives Nokia 10% of its 5G core work
China Unicom, the country’s third largest mobile operator on about 320m subscribers (just behind China Telecom), has chosen Nokia to support deployment of its 5G Standalone Core network. Nokia said this expands its existing 4G working relationship with the Chinese carrier. This will amount to around 10% of China Unicom’s 5G core network, including unified data management, session management and user plane functions, according to the vendor. The product will also support the 4G serving gateway and packet data network gateway in China Unicom’s network.
UK plans world’s first LTE ground-to-air network for emergency services
The UK’s leading mobile operator, BT/EE, is working with Nokia on the world’s first LTE ground-to-air network, which will provide broadband coverage to air-based emergency services and complement the Emergency Services Network (ESN), which EE is rolling out. The network will support devices sensors, aircraft and helicopters between 500 and 10,000 feet in the air. It will initially be trialled at seven sites in London and north Wales and, after proof of concept, is planned to be deployed at 80 cell sites throughout the UK acquired by the government.
DT and Orange work together on IPX enhancements
The global carrier divisions of Deutsche Telekom and Orange are working together on proofs of concept (PoCs) to enhance IPX services. They are focused on key performance indicators and IPX HUB break-outs. The KPI PoC aims to establish and validate end-to-end performance indicators using blockchain technology, to make it safer and simpler for IPX providers to share a common network monitoring database. The second PoC relates to optimising system architecture for regional peering. If IPX could share and enable direct interconnection instead of home routing, IoT data traffic could be accelerated.