SERVER VIRTUALIZATION
Businesswire | May 12, 2023
Great Plains Communications (GPC), the leading Midwestern telecommunications provider with a growing, privately owned 16,500+ mile fiber network reaching 13 states, is deploying Ciena's (NYSE: CIEN) Coherent Routing solution and WaveLogic 5 Nano (WL5n) technology. This deployment will increase GPC’s network capacity, reliability, and resiliency to adapt to the continually increasing bandwidth needs of business, carrier, and residential customers.
With the enhanced capabilities made possible by the network upgrade, GPC can: • Support 5G and xHaul services for fiber-to-the-tower (FTTT) customers up to 10Gb/s—10 times the previous capacity • Provide high-performance, scalable 400G Data Center Interconnect (DCI) services to large cloud and data center operators • Ensure the utmost resiliency of Layer 2 VPNs with Segment Routing for the protection of packet services
“We strive to continuously improve our network to meet rising bandwidth demands with greater scalability and agility,” said Tony Thakur, Chief Technology Officer, Great Plains Communications. “GPC is committed to providing a customer experience that meets or exceeds the changing needs and expectations of our customers, whether it’s ultra-fast 5G, cloud computing, or high-bandwidth applications like streaming video and gaming—and Ciena’s coherent routing, switching, and optical technology plays a key role in this.”
“As a leading regional service provider in the Midwest, Great Plains Communications always has an eye to the future—especially when it comes to technology advancements and the growing traffic curve,” remarked Kevin Sheehan, CTO of the Americas, Ciena. “With Ciena’s innovative Coherent Routing solution, GPC can support voracious network demand and shifting traffic patterns, fulfilling the needs of its business and residential customers with new in-demand, high-bandwidth services for 5G, cloud connect, and more.”
Managed by Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) multi-layer domain controller, GPC’s network leverages Ciena’s Coherent Routing solution comprising the 5164 Router and 8110 Coherent Aggregation Router with WL5n 100G–400G coherent pluggables, as well as the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, powered by WaveLogic coherent optics, for optical transport. Installation, turn-up, and test services for the network were provided by Ciena Services to accelerate time to market, and Ciena will perform ongoing maintenance services to ensure the network operates at peak performance.
Additional Information:
• At International Telecoms Week 2023, hear Ciena CTO Steve Alexander speak on Monday, May 15, at 3:05pm (Stage 2) – Subsea fireside chat: What’s the next evolutionary step for subsea cable technology
• GPC will be attending International Telecoms Week 2023 to meet with current and prospective customers
About Great Plains Communications
Great Plains Communications is one of the largest privately-owned digital infrastructure providers in the Midwest and is headquartered in Blair, Nebraska. It has over a century of experience providing business and residential customers in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska and Southeastern Indiana communities with forward-thinking, fiber-based technology services including high-speed internet, Ethernet, video, hosted and traditional voice solutions. The company also takes pride in its progressive approach to accommodating the unique needs of all regional and national telecommunications carriers, LECs, ISPs, wireless carriers and other service providers utilizing superior engineering and custom-build strategies. At the core of its service offering is an extensive, MEF-certified 16,500+ mile regional fiber network that reaches 13 states: Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The network offers community access rings, last-mile and middle-mile solutions, all fully supported by the company’s 24x7x365 Network Operations CenterAbout Ciena Ciena is a global leader in networking systems, services, and software. We build the most adaptive networks in the industry, enabling customers to anticipate and meet ever-increasing digital demands. For three-plus decades, Ciena has brought our humanity to our relentless pursuit of innovation. Prioritizing collaborative relationships with our customers, partners, and communities, we create flexible, open, and sustainable networks that better serve all users—today and into the future.
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VIRTUAL DESKTOP TOOLS, SERVER VIRTUALIZATION
prnewswire | April 05, 2023
Mobile Experts Inc. released a detailed market study today, highlighting the growth of Virtual RAN. In particular, this report estimates the pricing and adoption of vDU and vCU software from 2022 through 2032, showing how vRAN will grow through 5G deployments and accelerate with 5.5G or 6G deployments.
Mobile Experts has collected data from dozens of software and hardware suppliers, as well as 20 different mobile operators, in order to pinpoint the specific opportunities served by virtualization in upcoming mobile networks. Major distinctions between public and private networks are illustrated, along with the impact of COTS semiconductors in the radio and the impact of virtualization in 2G through 4G networks.
This new report complements the recent Mobile Experts report on Open RAN, which highlights the performance, cost, and flexibility implications of Open RAN standards in the market. Together, these two reports provide a complete picture of the changing architecture in mobile networks.
Joe Madden, lead analyst at Mobile Experts, commented that "We consistently predicted in 2013 through 2020 that vRAN would take a long time to reach global acceptance. This report shows the specific outlook over a 10-year timeline, as we can now see a path toward widespread adoption. We expect the biggest growth when new spectrum arrives in the 2028 timeframe. By 2032, vRAN software will be used in more than 30% of new deployments."
Subscribers to Mobile Experts research will receive:
Full access to the 55-page Virtual RAN 2023 report;
49 comprehensive charts and figures;
Cost analysis over the life cycle of a mobile network;
Access to the analysts behind the reports.
About Mobile Experts Inc.:
Mobile Experts provides insightful market analysis for the mobile infrastructure and mobile handset markets. Recent publications focus on ORAN, Macro and Massive MIMO Base Stations, Industrial Private 5G, and more.
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VIRTUAL DESKTOP TOOLS, SERVER VIRTUALIZATION
Speedcast | March 17, 2023
Speedcast, a leading communications and IT services provider, has released a new model of the company’s SIGMA network management platform with new architecture for the award-winning Universal Remote. Hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, the enhanced SIGMA platform makes connectivity path management and network control simpler, faster, and more economical than ever before.
From the intuitive user interface to intelligent and secure network switching, the enhanced SIGMA streamlines the complexities of diverse connectivity paths, making the concept of 100% uptime a reality for customers with critical operations or remote business requirements.
SIGMA’s newly released feature sets enable customers to seamlessly incorporate new technologies and communications paths as they launch, including low-Earth-orbit (LEO) and medium-Earth-orbit (MEO) satellite constellations. Customers can seamlessly layer any connectivity path, including Starlink and OneWeb, to their existing corporate network, optimizing application performance and offering robust edge security.
The SIGMA platform is being implemented as part of a multi-path, multi-orbit connectivity solution for a Europe-based logistics and transport company with a fleet of cable-laying vessels. The ability to support a significantly expanded number of WANs with a full enterprise SD-WAN suite that enables smart load balancing, QoS, WAN switching, and next-generation firewall has driven increased interest in the enhanced SIGMA platform. The network management solution was also recently deployed for a Singapore-based ship management company and a North America-based tanker fleet.
“Demand for highly diverse networks and seamless integration with third-party VSAT services, such as Starlink and OneWeb, has been a major sales driver for us,” said Joe Spytek, CEO at Speedcast. “Our SIGMA Universal Remote brings together the full suite of enablers for extensive multi-path network management.”
An AWS-qualified platform, SIGMA’s new architecture spotlights Speedcast’s innovative approach to network management. It removes complexity and cost for operations and gives users complete transparency and control of their networks. Built-in traffic and policy management provides users with real-time bandwidth monitoring and the ability to control and prioritize data usage for critical applications over crew welfare or other remote site requirements. In addition, the platform includes Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) cloud-native technology for added network security through a Zero Trust approach, which validates users and device access to applications anywhere in the world. The SASE framework helps organizations simplify their IT infrastructure, advance threat prevention, better protect their data, easily connect users and devices wherever they are located, and reduce total costs.
Updates can be pushed over the air to remote sites, saving customers critical time and delivering cost savings with complete remote upgrades. With a growing number of communication paths, satellite orbits, unique constellations, and specialized technologies, the new remotely extensible SIGMA enhancement ensures that customers always have access to the latest network management features for future-proofed operations.
“This is just the beginning,” said Spytek. “Being cloud-native, the SIGMA platform is highly scalable and can speed up our time-to-market to bring customers the edge applications that will make a difference for their remote operations. We’re working to prioritize new features on SIGMA so we can deliver value to customers faster and help them accelerate their operations.”
Speedcast maintains the largest technology-agnostic network in the world, incorporating satellite, LTE, Microwave and L-band to ensure the highest levels of uptime, availability, and performance. Now, as a Starlink and OneWeb authorized reseller and integrator, Speedcast brings together the right solutions and expertise to meet customers’ needs everywhere they operate. Added SIGMA features are slated to bring advanced networking functionality, zero-touch provisioning, enhanced remote staff and crew welfare, and more throughout 2023.
About Speedcast
Speedcast is a leading communications and IT services provider, delivering critical communications services to the Maritime, Energy, Mining, Media, Telecom, Cruise, NGO, Government, and Enterprise sectors. The company leverages its global network platform to provide fully connected systems that harness technologies and applications to transform what remote operations can achieve. With the world’s most comprehensive network, Speedcast enables faster, seamless pole-to-pole coverage from a global hybrid satellite, fiber, cellular, microwave, MPLS, and IP transport network with direct access to public cloud platforms.
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