VOL 18 ISSUE 5 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018
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WORLDWIDE
Germany 2,400 towers Spain 10,800 towers
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Brazil 1,700 towers
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CABLE
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19 countries 47 cities Tier 1
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Leaders
international network
in 4 of the 6 markets where we are present
87,000 km
of fiber optic cables
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VOL 18 ISSUE 5 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018
Big interview Liquid Telecom CEO Nic Rudnick on completing the One Africa terrestrial fibre network Big interview CenturyLink’s Laurinda Pang on the transformation after the Level 3 acquisition
Business intelligence for the global carrier industry
Highon
fibre Capacity
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Capacity
| 01
CONTENTS Capacity magazine, August/September 2018
VOL 18 ISSUE 5 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018
Big interview Liquid Telecom CEO Nic Rudnik on its One Africa network Big interview CenturyLink’s Laurinda Pang on the transformation after its Level 3 acquisition
NEWS & ANALYSIS
FEATURES
04 AFRICA
34 EUROPE IS BUILDING
06 ETHIOPIA SPOTLIGHT 08 ASIA & ASIA-PACIFIC
Ƥ up – but the market for carriers is ơ
10 OPPORTUNITIES FOR
36 CONNECTING
15 EUROPE
Capacity looks at how global warming is opening the opportunity for new, low-latency subsea routes
FIBRE
Cover image: Adrian Teal, CartoonStock
Business intelligence for the global carrier industry
Highon
fibre
NEW MYANMAR ENTRANTS
16 WHERE WILL EUROPE’S NEXT SUBSEA HUB BE?
ON THE COVER Ahead of the inaugural Metro Connect Europe event (page 34) Capacity speaks to a number of execs about fibre deployments
BENEATH THE ICE
51 20 SDN MARKET LEADERS
17 MIDDLE EAST
Capacity looks at who is leading the Ƥ
18 LATIN AMERICA
58 A NEW FRONTIER FOR 5G
20 MEXICO INVESTMENT
Satellite communications is set to play a key role in the success of 5G
22 NORTH AMERICA
68 MARKET TRENDS
STRATEGIES
PEOPLE & DIARY
Capacity
14 EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW
74 APPOINTMENTS
Eric Schwartz, Equinix
The industry’s latest movers
24 THE BIG INTERVIEW
75 A DAY IN THE LIFE
MEF’s Nan Chen on MEF 3.0 and LSO
42
Pascal Menezes on multi-provider orchestration
44
The big interview: Jerzy Szlozarek, Epsilon
48
Feature: SDN – a wholesale change
51
20 SDN leaders to watch
SATCOMMS special report after page 57
Matthew Whalley, director, Ilex
26 THE BIG INTERVIEW
76 THE INNOVATION
58
Space: a new frontier for 5G
Quantum key encryption in communications
60
5G mobile liftoff at Farnborough show
62
The big interview: Evan Dixon, Viasat
66
The big interview: Meir Moalem, SAS
68
Market trends
30 THE BIG INTERVIEW
REPORT
Laurinda Pang, CenturyLink
Nic Rudnick, CEO of Liquid Telecom, talks about the company’s new pan-African network
41
Mario Martín, Telxius Nic Rudnick, Liquid Telecom
THE BIG INTERVIEW page 26
SDN & NFV special report after page 39
44 THE BIG INTERVIEW Jerzy Szlosarek, Epsilon
62 THE BIG INTERVIEW Evan Dixon, Viasat
66 THE BIG INTERVIEW
SPONSORS 32 TM GLOBAL 46 HUAWEI 64 THE SPHERE
Meir Moalem, SAS Global
Partner with the UK’s largest Ethernet Network
Over 3,000 POPs enabled for 100MB and 1GB
Find out more talktalkbusiness.co.uk/carrier
Capacity
editor’s letter | 03
Check out the new Capacity Media website!
W
Follow Capacity on Twitter: @capacitymedia Follow Capacity on Facebook: www.facebook.com/capacity-media
elcome back to our readers, I hope you’ve all had great summers and managed to recharge your batteries for what will certainly be a very busy 2018/19! Capacity Media has been extremely busy behind the scenes during ‘the break’ and it’s a pleasure to announce that Capacity Media and Capacity Conferences has merged onto a single website under the brand Capacity Media (www.capacitymedia.com). The purpose? As market leaders for wholesale news and events, providing the industry with a consolidated global website where customers can access news, content and events has been a priority. We now provide you with better information, regionally, all in one place. Please do take a minute to create your new username and profile for you to access both the website, newsletters and all MeetMe platforms for events (www.capacitymedia.com/sign-up). Our August/September issue is jam-packed full of interviews from Nic Rudnick, Liquid Telecom’s CEO (pages 26-27) to CenturyLink’s Laurinda Pang (pages 30-31) and also Mario Martin, CEO of Telxius (pages 24-25). Our main features include a closer look at European fibre networks (pages 34-35) and how global waming is opening the opportunity for new, low-latency subsea routes (pages 36-38). The wave of digitalisation is constantly evolving and is showing no signs of slowing down. Software-defined networking (SDN) is the enabler of carrier automation, zero-touch and above Capacity all the simplification and efficiency of networks. The August/September Capacity issue features an SDN & NFV Special Report (pages 39-56), which includes insight from Nan Chen, president, and Pascal Menezes, CTO, into the work going under behind the scenes at the MEF (pages 41-42) and a 20 SDN leaders to watch listing (pages 51-55). In our Satcomms special report (after page 57), we look at satellite communications’ role in the success of 5G and hear from Viasat (page 62) and SAS Global (page 66). We have a busy September ahead with six events (Capacity Africa, North America, Eurasia, Metro Connect Europe, Myanmar Connect, and WAN Singapore) all around the world. I’m pleased that the editorial team will be represented at all of the events, so if you do have any news to share or just want to chat, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us (contact details below).
Follow Capacity on YouTube: www.youtube.com/CapacitymagazineTV
Jason McGee-Abe Editor-in-Chief, Capacity Media
Follow Capacity on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/capacity-media
Management CEO Ros Irving ros.irving@capacitymedia.com
Sales International sales manager Federico Mancini federico.mancini@capacitymedia.com
Events Product director, conferences Vanessa Barbe vanessa.barbe@capacitymedia.com
Editorial Editor-in-chief Jason McGee-Abe jason.mcgee-abe@capacitymedia.com Twitter: @JasonMcGeeAbe
International sales manager Charles Newman charles.newman@capacitymedia.com
ITW event director Ross Webster ross.webster@capacitymedia.com
Production Production and content coordinator Geralyn Samia geralyn.samia@capacitymedia.com
Accounts Administrative assistant Ruby Ward ruby.ward@capacitymedia.com
Design Freelance designer Gavin Brightman
Marketing Head of marketing Lubtcho Dimitrov lubtcho.dimitrov@capacitymedia.com
Editor-at-large Alan Burkitt-Gray alan.burkitt@capacitymedia.com Skype: alanbg Twitter: @alanburkittgray Deputy editor James Pearce james.pearce@capacitymedia.com Twitter: @jamespearce87 Reporter Natalie Bannerman natalie.bannerman@capacitymedia.com Twitter: @nitnat1989
Graphic designer Samantha Heasmer samantha.heasmer@capacitymedia.com
Marketing manager Simon Murray simon.murray@capacitymedia.com Digital content executive Uday Bahadur uday.bahadur@capacitymedia.com
Subscription enquiries Customer services customerservices@euromoneyplc.com tel +44 20 7779 8610 fax +44 20 7779 8602 Printer Stephens and George, UK Next issue October/November Published on 5 October 2018 Directors David Pritchard (Chairman), Andrew Rashbass (CEO), Colin Jones, Sir Patrick Sergeant, Andrew Ballingal, Tristan Hillgarth, Imogen Joss, Tim Collier, Kevin Beatty, Jan Babiak, Lorna Tilbian Freelance writers Gareth Willmer Guy Matthews
How to contact Capacity Capacity magazine is published by TelCap, a division of Euromoney Global Limited TelCap, 8 Bouverie Street London EC4Y 8AX, UK tel +44 20 7779 7227 (switchboard) fax +44 20 7779 7228 www.capacitymedia.com Capacity (ISSN 1471-762X) is published six times a year by TelCap. Annual subscription €250, £210, $340. © TelCap, 2018. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may by reproduced, stored or introduced into any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, manual, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners Although TelCap has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this publication, neither it nor any contributor can accept any legal responsibility whatsoever for consequences that may arise from errors or omissions or any opinions or advice given.
04 | africa
LIQUID AND TELECOM EGYPT DEAL COMPLETES ‘CAPE TO CAIRO’ FIBRE NETWORK
L
iquid Telecom has struck an agreement with Telecom Egypt that will allow the African operator to complete a pan-African terrestrial fibre network, stretching from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. The 60,000km fibre network – referred to as the “One Africa” broadband network – will run from he South African capital, through all the southern, central and eastern African countries, to reach the border between Sudan and Egypt, where it will interconnect with Telecom Egypt’s network. Liquid Telecom, a subsidiary of Econet Wireless Global, has been building a fibre network across southern Africa covering Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It also has a presence in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. Strive Masiyiwa, the founder and chairman of Econet, said it has been his vision to build the Cape to Cairo fibre network, which echoes a famously uncompleted railway attempted by former Cape Colony Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes in the 19th century.
“Completing our vision of building a single network running on land, all the way from Cape to Cairo is a historic moment for the company and for a more connected Africa. This network not only represents a remarkable engineering achievement that has overcome some of the most challenging distances and terrains on the continent, but it is also supporting the rise of Africa’s digital economies,” said Masiyiwa. • See p26-27 to read our Big Interview with Nic Rudnick, CEO of Liquid Telecom
TUNISIE TELECOM UPGRADES IP TRANSIT PORT WITH SPARKLE TO 100G
FOUR FOREIGN FIRMS FIGHT OVER 50% NETONE STAKE
Tunisie Telecom has upgraded its IP transit port at Sparkle’s Sicily Hub in Palermo to 100Gbps. The Tunisian incumbent operator says this is its main trunk to Europe and the upgrade responds to the fast growing demand of advanced IP services and digital content in the country. Sparkle, the international services arm of the TIM group, operates the Sicily Hub, which is connected to all cable landing stations in Sicily and is served by Seabone, Sparkle’s Tier 1-grade global IP transit service. Tunisie Telecom said the new 100Gbps connectivity option responds to the increasing demand of digital content in North Africa. Tunisie Telecom – which has six million customers and offers the largest mobile coverage in the country – owns and operates a nationwide fixed network infrastructure. The new port is Tunisie Telecom’s main trunk to Europe.
Capacity 10-year network dream comes to fruition
NetOne, the Zimbabwean mobile network operator, is reported to have four foreign companies battling it out to acquire a 45-50% stake in the company. According to Zimbabwe Independent report the companies include a US-funded Lebanese consortium, a South African telco, a UAE-based company and investors. The title claims that investors have shown a willingness to clean up NetOne’s balance sheet and invest fresh capital into the state-run telco. In addition to its financial woes, NetOne is also reported to have been affected by a number of corporate governance and corruption issues. The company’s CEO, Lazarus Muchenje, was suspended for alleged gross misconduct after terminating the contracts of nine senior managers, including the COO and CFO, without consulting the board. The scandal was so big that MICTCS’s Supa Mandiwanzira had to intervene. After he was suspended, a special board meeting reinstated the executives on 28 July.
AIRTEL TEAMS UP WITH TELECOM EGYPT FOR GLOBAL SUBSEA CABLE CONNECTIVITY Airtel teams up with Telecom Egypt for global subsea cable connectivity Bharti Airtel has entered into a strategic partnership with Telecom Egypt that will give Airtel indefeasible right of use (IRU) on a number of Telecom Egypt cables. Specifically Airtel will get IRUs on the Middle East North Africa (MENA) and TE North cable systems, in addition to getting large capacities on the SEA-MEWE 5 and AAE1 cables. “The partnership including MENA Cable and TE’s network will be a good addition to our global network portfolio and provide us with a high quality and diversified new route to Western Europe and the rest of the world,” said Ajay Chitkara, director and CEO of Airtel Business. “With the explosion of data usage in emerging markets, including India and Africa, this asset will provide us a scalable and diverse high capacity highway to serve our customers. In particular, it will provide impetus to India’s emergence as a major regional internet hub serving customers across SAARC region, with seamless global connectivity.” As a result of the partnership Airtel now has the right to use fibre pairs on the MENA cable from Egypt to India with access to Saudi Arabia and Oman, as well as pairs from Egypt to Italy. On the TE North cable, Airtel has the right to use a fibre pair from Egypt to France.
Ajay Chitkara: Subsea cable connectivity provides us with a scalable and diverse high capacity highway
august/september 2018
Capacity
06 | analysis: ethiopia
ETHIOPIA IDENTIFIED AS THE ‘NEXT BIG THING’ FOR AFRICAN TELECOMS THE NEW GOVERNMENT OF ETHIOPIA, WHICH CAME INTO POWER IN APRIL, IS POISED TO LIBERALISE THE MARKET, OPENING UP HUGE GROWTH. ANALYSIS BY JAMES PEARCE
E
thiopia has been identified as one of the next big opportunities for telecoms operators looking at foreign investment, with the market set to open up in the coming years. The country still has only one operator – state-owned Ethio Telecom, with over 62 million mobile subscriptions. But this is set to change, according to analysts GlobalData. The Ethiopian government has said it will look to offload around a 30-40% stake in Ethio Telecom, as well as splitting the company in two, with stakes set to be made available to global investors. The move, announced by prime minister Abiy Ahmed in June, is part of a wider programme of economic reforms which will also open up Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopian Power, and the Maritime Transport and Logistics Corporation to outside investment. Reports also say the government will look at granting new licences to operators, which could open up the market significantly. GlobalData says mobile subscriptions in Ethiopia could rise from 62 million this year to over 100 million in 2023. This process has already started to some degree. Ethiopia is one of the few African states to still have a state-owned telecoms monopoly, although Ethio Telecom did open up to local partners in May 2018 by allowing some to provide internet services through its infrastructure. A number of operators have already been linked to a potential move into the country. Vietnamese telco Viettel has enquired about a potential investment into Ethio Telecom, according to reports. “If the Ethiopian government offers the clear and sensitive option for selling of Ethio Telecom’s shares, Viettel will still thoroughly consider this option if it is suitable with Viettel’s investment strategies,” a spokesperson for Viettel told Reuters. Operators with an existing African presence, such as MTN, Safaricom and Orange, have also been linked to moves in Ethiopia. Safaricom is reportedly looking at partnering with Ethio Telecom to launch its M-Pesa payment services in the country. Last year, it acquired a 260m stretch of fibre between Marsabit in Kenya and the
border town of Moyale from Mauritiusbased Bandwidth and Cloud Services, giving it an infrastructure presence on the Ethiopian border. “If confirmed, this is an important positive for Safaricom, and would offer an important upside on M-Pesa revenue growth numbers based on the number of subscribers it registers in the 100 million market,” Standard Investment Bank said in a research note, as reported by The East African. “The upside could be higher depending on the negotiated revenue share – but unlikely to be substantially more than 15% of revenue (unless the uptake is low).” Capacity MTN and Vodacom are two other telecoms groups with a significant African footprint that have also shown an interest in investing in Ethio Telecom, according to several reports. Jonathan Bachrach, telecoms analyst at GlobalData, said: “Ethiopia offers a large subscriber base which has been uncontested and has significant growth potential. Our forecasts indicate the country could add circa 30 million subscribers over the next five years, with the total number of mobile subscriptions rising from 71.2 million in 2018 to 101.1 million in 2023.” However, would-be entrants into the country would still face a number of challenges. Reformist prime minister Ahmed is facing ethnic tensions in the
eastern part of the country, and the government recently shut down the internet there amid scenes of violence. Violence broke out in Ethiopia’s Somali region, Reuters reports, with mobs targeting property owned by ethnic minorities, resulting in four deaths, according to witnesses. Connectivity, according to digital rights group Access Now, was down for around three days – the first time it had been cut since parliament ended a state of emergency in June. The government involvement in telecoms, which will continue even if it opens up, according to previous announcements, means outside investors face a complex entry into the market. In its report Ethiopia – Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband – Statistics and Analyses, the Market Research Hub says: “Although there is considerable investment in telecoms services – some $3.1 billion has been invested in telecom infrastructure and service expansion projects over the last decade – the sector is heavily regulated and the government has complete control over networks, with virtually unlimited access to the call records of all phone users and to logs of internet traffic.” It notes: “Most of the technologies deployed have been provided by ZTE and Huawei, which have often been favoured for offering vendor financing.”
august/september 2018
Capacity
08 | asia & asia-pacific
NEC TO BUILD BAY TO BAY EXPRESS SUBSEA CABLE FOR FACEBOOK, AWS AND CHINA MOBILE
The Bay to Bay Express will run 16,000km from Singapore and Hong Kong to the US
N
EC Corporation has signed an agreement to build the new Bay to Bay Express cable system (BtoBE) for a consortium comprising China Mobile International (CMI), Facebook and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The 16,000km optical high-speed cable
will link Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States and is expected to be completed by Q4 of 2020. Once completed BtoBE will have multiple fibre pairs enabling high-capacity transmission of data across the Pacific Ocean with round trip latency of less than 130ms.
Capacity
“NEC is honoured to be selected by the BtoBE consortium as the turn-key system supplier for this world recordbreaking optical fibre submarine cable system that covers the longest distance without regeneration,” said Toru Kawauchi, general manager of the submarine network division at NEC Corporation. “The BtoBE, landing at three locations spanning across the Pacific Ocean, is designed so that once completed, it can carry at least 18Tbs of capacity per fibre pair. The BtoBE will provide seamless connectivity and network diversity, while serving to complement other Asia-Pacific submarine cables, among others.” BtoBE is the first submarine cable directly linking the United States and Singapore and CMI’s fibre on BtoBE will be linked to its Southeast Asia-Japan 2 submarine cable. In addition, the BtoBE cable system will connect to CMI’s three international data centres in Hong Kong, Singapore and the US.
CHINA MOBILE STARTS GLOBAL DATA CENTRE DEPLOYMENT IN SINGAPORE The international operation of China Mobile has started work on its second data centre outside mainland China. The new Singapore data centre, which follows its Global Network Centre in Hong Kong, is the start of a global plan to deploy data centres, said Li Feng, chairman and CEO of China Mobile International (CMI). “Singapore is the world’s economic,
financial and shipping centre,” said Li. “It is also an important fulcrum of the ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative.” That is China’s plan to build an axis of telecoms and physical transport links from south-east Asia to the West. “CMI Singapore data centre … marks the kick-off of CMI’s global data centre deployment,” said Li, who did not provide details of future planned data
centres. The Singapore unit will have 2,100 racks in 7,330 sq m CMI said it will coordinate with its other overseas data centres, together with its extensive global network resources, to provide high speed connecting services including IPLC, IP transit, voice, roaming, cloud computing and other one-stop communication solutions to global customers and partners.
EPSILON PARTNERS CHINA’S DCCONNECT FOR TWO-WAY INTER-CARRIER SDN NETWORK ORCHESTRATION Epsilon has teamed with Chinese on-demand connectivity provider DCConnect to interconnect softwaredefined networking and offer two-way inter-carrier software-defined network (SDN) orchestration. The partnership marks the first time that two SDN platforms have been interconnected through a bilateral API integration. It means DCConnect, which offers on-demand connectivity to data centres and cloud service providers, can offer customers in China access to Epsilon’s Global Interconnect Fabric through its SD-Cloud Express platform.
Epsilon’s global network consists of more than 100 points of presence (PoPs) in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, supporting more than 600 service providers, CSPs, and internet exchanges. “Our partnership demonstrates two-way network orchestration and how real-time inter-carrier automation can work in an active environment. It is a major milestone for the networking market in China and across the globe,” said Jerzy Szlosarek, CEO at Epsilon. “We expand DCConnect’s on-demand connectivity seamlessly across the world while gaining rapid access to major cities
and cloud service provider on-ramps in China. This is the future of SDN and it is happening now through our partnership with DCConnect.”
Szlosarek: Major milestone for China
august/september 2018
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10 | analysis: asia
MYANMAR CONTINUES TO OFFER OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW ENTRANTS FIVE YEARS AFTER MYANMAR’S TELECOMS SECTOR LIBERALISED, OUTSIDERS ARE STILL INVESTING. JAMES PEARCE LOOKS AT THE OPPORTUNITIES OFFERED IN THE FORMER BURMA
E
ricsson identified the Myanmar telecoms market in 2014 as one of the fastest growing in the world. The liberalisation of the sector saw new entrants and significant growth, with the vendor naming it the fourth fastest growing market globally. To put this in perspective, with a population of around 54 million people the country is the 26th largest in the world, according to the UN, but for the final quarter of 2014, it provided 6% of all new global mobile subscriptions. With 87 million subscribers added globally in the quarter, Myanmar contributed more than five million in October-December 2014. According to figures from the GSMA, SIM penetration has now reach 98% in the country that was better known as Burma until 1989. That means 52.8 million people have access to mobiles – mostly prepaid services. There’s a significant amount of mobile broadband subscriptions too. Even though the market is nearing penetration, it continues to grow – the number of connections increased by 9.15% in the year to Q4 2017. It also continues to be an attractive market for outside investors. Ooredoo and Telenor entered in 2013 following the liberalisation of the telecoms sector in Myanmar, and their arrival shook up the market. More recently, HGC Global Communications made a move by snapping up a majority stake in Myanmar service provider Golden TMH Telecom (GTMH). The deal, should it be backed by regulators, will make HGC one of the first Hong Kong-based telecoms companies to tap into and invest in the growing Myanmar telecoms market. Myat Thuzar Than, Myanmar’s consulgeneral in Hong Kong, said: “The agreement between HGC and GTMH is a breakthrough to the telecommunications industry in Myanmar and also a huge boost for the economic development for the country as well as ASEAN in the long term. We are pleased that the potential and bright prospects of Myanmar are recognised by a leading global carrier and I
Capacity
believe this can bring both companies and the economies a great success.” HGC and GTMH, which was launched in 2014, already work together, having earlier this year launched infrastructure-asa-service (IaaS) solutions for Myanmar enterprises, with both hardware and software as part of the cloud virtual machine hosting service. The agreement marks the first overseas expansion of HGC’s local fixed-line services business after its acquisition by I Squared Capital (IQC) and the deal enables the extension of its coverage in Myanmar. HGC was sold to IQC by CK Hutchison for $1.9 billion in 2017 and was later rebranded as HGC Global Communications. Andrew Kwok, CEO of HGC, said: “HGC has been in collaboration with GTMH since 2014. With our experience and success in Hong Kong and international business, we believe that the investment will bring more opportunities to HGC and GTMH as well as the telecommunications industry of Myanmar.” He added: “The investment once again showcases a successful example of our determination and ambition to extend our business outside Hong Kong as well as to strengthen our position in the region.”
In March 2018 Myanmar welcomed its fourth mobile operator – Mytel, which is part of a joint venture between Vietnam’s Viettel and a subsidiary of the military-run Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). The other operator is state-owned Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), the market leader. Mytel has said it intends to provide coverage to at least 95% of Myanmar’s population and attract five million subscribers by 2020, meaning there is significant opportunities for partners to work with it. Beyond this, SoftBank’s BBIX recently launched a new joint venture in neighbouring Thailand and identified Myanmar as a key market for future expansion. The partnership, with Thailand’s True Internet Data Center, aims to provide carrier neutral and low latency internet exchange peering services in the country. With satellite provider Intelsat already announcing an expansion of its wireless backhaul services in the country earlier this year, it is clear that Myanmar is a country that continues to offer significant investment opportunities to those looking for new growth markets. august/september 2018
Capacity
12 | asia & asia-pacific
PARTIES BID $1.1BN FOR GCX AS RCOM WIRELESS SALE NEARS
Bill Barney: No final bidder for GCX
T
wo parties have bid a reported $1.1 billion for the Global Cloud Xchange (GCX) subsea unit of Reliance Communications plus its enterprise and data centre arms. According to reports from India the two bidders left in the competition are I Squared Capital (ISQ) and a consortium of three other US private equity groups, TPG, Blackstone and Värde. Both have bid the same amount, say reports. Sources close to the process confirmed these reports to Capacity, adding that Russian industrial group Sistema – previously linked with a bid – is no longer involved. The sources, who asked not to be
CHINESE BANK BACKS PAPUA NEW GUINEA SUBSEA CABLE A subsea cable system which will link several locations in Papua New Guinea has received financial backing from the Exim Bank of China, according to the local government. Minister for public enterprises and state investment William Duma said the PNG Kumul domestic cable will be constructed in preparation for the landing of the Coral Sea cable system, which will connect Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to Australia. It will link Port Moresby, Alotau, Popondetta, Lae and Madang, boosting internet capacity nationwide. It will come under the wholesale arm of Kumul Telikom, with Huawei appointed for construction. Duma said: “We would like to thank the people of China, who through the Exim Bank of China have agreed to fund this important domestic project to the tune of US$200 million.”
named, said that if ISQ – which bought HGC Global Communications last year – were to be selected, it would look to merge GCX with HGC. Until last year’s investment in HGC, ISQ has focused on infrastructure projects in energy, utilities and transport. HGC was its first known telecoms investment, after CK Hutchison sold the international and carrier business of Hutchison Telecoms (HK). Capacity contacted both HGC CEO Andrew Kwok and RCom and GCX chief Bill Barney for comment. Kwok did not reply and Barney refused to answer questions about the bids, only saying that “no final bidder has been chosen.” It comes as RCom nears completion of the sale of its wireless unit to unrelated rival Reliance Jio, with the deal expected to close imminently. The $3.77 billion sale was announced in January. Barney said: “We’re in the process of coming out of the long journey of shutting down the wireless business.” After Capacity that RCom “will continue as a public company” and will continue to talk to potential bidders. It is not known how long RCom expects negotiations over GCX to take. One observer suggested September, but some feel that it may take longer, especially as the urgent debt position will be eased thanks to the sale of the consumer business to Jio.
AIRTEL LAUNCHES BANDWIDTH-ONDEMAND PLATFORM FOR B2B Bharti Airtel has launched its bandwidth-ondemand platform for its global business customers to manage its bandwidth requirements in real-time. Airtel says that the platform is a step towards providing flexible and efficient network solutions to its customers and giving them the control they need to build out their businesses. “In today’s fast paced market, agile products and services are imperative to drive greater operational efficiencies, said Ajay Chitkara, director and CEO of Airtel Business. “With bandwidth-on-demand we want to empower our businesses to be able to seamlessly opt for flexible network solutions that will not only help them manage their unpredictable bandwidth requirements but also accelerate the adoption of newer technologies and help them move faster in their cloud and digital journey.” According to the company, the platform delivers quick activation to access, configure and monitor bandwidth whenever they need it. Customers are able to opt for bandwidth on an hourly, daily or monthly basis, giving them greater control on costs and operational efficiency. Time savings of approximately 90% according to Chitkara. The platform will be available at 19 global locations including: Los Angeles, New York, London, Marseilles, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as Airtel’s data centres and cable landing stations in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai in India
HGC ACQUIRES MAJORITY STAKE IN MYANMAR’S GTMH HGC Global Communications (HGC) has snapped up a majority stake in Myanmar service provider Golden TMH Telecom Company Limited (GTMH) as part of a conditional share purchase agreement. The deal, struck on 3 August, means HGC will become the effective majority shareholder of GTMH should it be backed by local regulators. The deal will make HGC one of the first Hong Kong-based telecoms companies to tap into and invest in the growing Myanmar telecoms market, which was opened up to outside investors in 2013. HGC and GTMH, which was launched in 2014, already work together, having launched Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions for Myanmar enterprises, with both hardware and software as part of the cloud virtual machine hosting service,
earlier this year. Andrew Kwok, chief executive officer of HGC said: “The investment once again showcases a successful example of our determination and ambition to extend our business outside Hong Kong as well as to strengthen our position in the region.”
Signing ceremony as HGC takes stake in Myanmar’s GTMH
august/september 2018
Capacity
14 | executive interview: eric schwartz
CLOUD: SECURITY WORRIES AND SKILL SHORTAGES Early adopters are still some way off implementing cloud fully, Equinix’s Eric Schwartz tells Alan Burkitt-Gray. It’s complex, with not enough people and security worries
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loud is growing, but not as fast as people predicted, says Equinix executive Eric Schwartz. “There are security worries, it’s more complicated than expected, some applications just can’t move to the cloud, and there aren’t enough skilled people.” Those who say there are still two or three years to go before it really takes off are the early adopters, he jokes. The others? They accept there is still a long way to go. But Equinix is confident enough of cloud to predict – at its analyst day in June – that revenue will be more than $7 billion in 2022. “It is 20 years since we started up,” says Schwartz, who is president of operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). “Equinix held our analyst day in New York for investors and industry analysts,” he says. “We hold it every two years. It’s a good opportunity to look at the state of the company and where the business is going. In 20 years the company has had
increasingly cloud services are seen as the key to future growth. “We see a very strong growth trajectory and a continuing adoption of cloud,” he says. Does that mean enterprises are adopting cloud? “Clearly, yes. It’s fast, but not as fast as people projected,” he says. Why? Most enterprise users are still early in their take-up – to the extent that those who believe there are still two to three years to go for full adoption are regarded as early adopters. The rest? A longer way to go. “The hyperscalers are a meaningful portion of ourCapacity business – around 10%,” he notes. “We’re still seeing growth from them but also growth from enterprises using these platforms. And the number saying they’re operating with multiple clouds has risen substantially.” He adds: “Cloud brings many advantages but it’s not a universal solution. Multiple cloud is inevitable because of the complexity of what people do.” So why is growth slower than
The hyperscalers are a meaningful portion of our business. We’re still seeing growth from them” Eric Schwartz, VP operations, EMEA, Equinix its ups and downs, but we’ve gone from zero to $5 billion revenue in that time. And now we are celebrating our 20th anniversary.” At that investor day he told analysts that Equinix’s EMEA revenue was $1.3 billion in 2017, 31% of the company’s total revenue. It made $583 million in EBITDA in EMEA, he added. The company is planning to spend $2 billion a year over the next five years. “We’re very bullish about our expansion plans,” says Schwartz. That planned $10 million will be spent worldwide, and Equinix plans considerable expansion in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Content providers have been important to Equinix and “over the last 10 years financial trading has been significant”, but
optimists expected? “Security continues to be a big issue particularly for enterprise,” he says. And that’s especially the case for users of multiple clouds. “You need to engineer security, including connections between clouds.” There’s more complexity in moving applications to the cloud, he adds. “Some have to be re-architected.” But some can’t be redesigned, so have to be retired. Schwartz quotes the example of one of Equinix’s customers, a healthcare specialist in the US, that “had 1,500 applications, each with a different profile”. The company “had to decide which ones to migrate and how. Some couldn’t be migrated and some wouldn’t be, for cost reasons or for performance
reasons.” It “all takes a lot of expertise and work to do this”, he says. The available pool of what he calls “cloud-savvy IT folks” is already well occupied and it's hard to find new people. “There’s a limited capacity.” Security is still seen as a major concern. That healthcare customer “has extensive security requirements”, of course, and it has “data going back 20 years” that needs to be maintained. More, the company “has to build a portal so patients can access it”. He warns: “It’s extraordinarily sensitive and extremely comprehensive.” It’s an advanced user, too. “For them the internet of things happened a long time ago – they connect diagnostic equipment and lab equipment.” Nevertheless, says Schwartz, the opportunity is exciting and Equinix is still working on the project with the customer. Meanwhile Equinix is seeing a redesign of its own networks and data centres to cater for future requirements, especially as subsea cables expand across the world. “We’re moving our sites to where terrestrial networks meet subsea cables,” he says. Equinix even considers Frankfurt to be a termination point for the cable across the Baltic. “The growth of these cables is changing the dynamics of data flows.” While at one time subsea cables terminated at what he calls “huts on the beach”, now they tend to run straight into data centres. “We want to be not only where the cable is landing but also where people want to house their data,” he says. All that makes him enthusiastic about ideas to build an Arctic cable (see pages 36-38) – one that would provide a short link from Europe via northern Finland to Asia and maybe North America. “At the moment the interconnection density in the north of Finland is low. I’m optimistic that this route will make sense,” he says. “Our Helsinki sites would be an attractive location for one end of the Arctic cable.” august/september 2018
europe | 15
HÖTTGES OFFERS TO SHARE DT’S GERMAN FIBRE COSTS WITH RIVAL
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eutsche Telekom boss Tim Höttges has hit out at competitor 1&1 Drillisch over 5G plans but has offered to build a jointly owned fibre
Höttges: “Unfair competition” protest
network with its rival. Höttges criticised 1&1 Drillisch for its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) services because it “wants to be able to access the networks of the three large network operators”, while facilities-based operators have to invest in spectrum. Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Vodafone have invested “billions in infrastructure”, Höttges said in a newspaper interview with the Funke group of newspapers. 1&1 Drillisch, owned by United Internet, says it wants to invest in 5G spectrum, but CEO Ralph Dommermuth has said he wants to have transitional national roaming agreements with all three existing operators. 1&1 Drillisch uses Telefónica infrastructure for its current MVNO service. National roaming would be “at very low prices”, said Höttges in his interview. “That’s unfair competition.”
CapacityIN TURKCELL ‘TO BOOST DIGITAL EXPORTS’ RESPONSE TO CRISIS Turkcell is planning to boost sales of its portfolio of digital apps and services to operators and digital service providers outside Turkey, according to Kaan Terzioğlu, the company CEO. Terzioğlu was speaking in a robust media interview as Turkey is faced with a financial and economic crisis thanks in part to US sanctions that have hit the value of the Turkish lira. “In these difficult times where our economy is being unfairly constrained, we firmly believe that Turkey’s growth will come from the digital economy,” he added. He said he supported the economic measures taken by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The government’s “continued support for the development of
a healthy and strong technology ecosystem will be crucial as we join forces to create the digital economy”, said Terzioğlu. “Turkcell will continue to invest heavily in Turkey’s local resources and in creating the digital solutions that Turkey needs.” Terzioğlu said: “Over the course of the past three years, Turkcell has invested in building its own digital apps and services, reaching 110 million downloads, three million of which are from outside Turkey.” The portfolio includes a communications platform called BiP, a music platform called fizy, a TV platform, a local search engine, a secure login service and a digital payments company, Paycell. • Capacity Eurasia is in Istanbul on 11-12 September
OPEN FIBER BACKED WITH $3.5BN FUNDING Italy’s Open Fiber has been handed a $3.5 billion finance package to roll out ultrafast broadband. The loan is backed by banks, the state lender and the European Investment Bank. The funding deal, which was led by UniCredit, Société Générale and BNP Paribas, is the biggest-ever fibre optic finance deal of its kind in the EMEA region and will help Open Fiber to deploy a fibre-to-the-home network across Italy. Elisabetta Ripa, CEO of Open Fiber, said: “The financial markets have shown great interest in Open Fiber’s business plan, the operation attracting the biggest Italian and foreign banks. It is a clear sign of confidence in the scheme, in the wholesaleonly model and especially in Open Fiber’s people who have done a fantastic job in recent months.” The loan will be repayable over seven years, with the cost of Open Fiber’s plans estimated at around €6.5 billion – the rest is expected to come from key shareholders Enel and state lender CDP. The new funding, which is made up of €350 million from the EIB and €950 million from its shareholders, is due to be available in October. Open Fiber is aiming to connect around 19 million homes and business with FTTH, covering 271 Italian cities and 7,000 municipalities.
ORANGE POLAND SIGNS FIBRE DEAL WITH INEA Orange Polska has agreed with Inea, a Polish regional cable operator, to gain access to its fibre network. Orange Poland will get access to an initial 40,000 fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connections in the Wielkopolska region of western Poland giving it additional reach in the area. “We are consistently investing in the development of our fibre-optic network, and this year we will spend up to PLN800 capacitymedia.com
million ($216 million) for this purpose,” said Tomasz Kowal, director of regional development at Orange Polska. “Cooperation with over 20 operators, such as Inea, helps us reach new customer groups faster without unnecessary duplication of infrastructure. It is definitely a more effective approach.” By the end of 2019, the partnership will encompass 370,000 households including 150,000 in the wholesale internet space.
Elisabetta Ripa: Sign of confidence
16 | analysis: subsea emea
WHERE’S THE NEXT BIG CONNECTIVITY HUB? OPEN REGULATION, INTERCONNECTION PLATFORMS AND INTERNET EXCHANGE CONNECTIONS ARE AMONG THE KEY FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE MAKINGS OF CONNECTIVITY HUBS LIKE MARSEILLE, WRITES NATALIE BANNERMAN FROM THE SUBSEA EMEA CONFERENCE
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arseille is an interconnection hub; its vast number of subsea cable landings, its strategically located data centres and its favourable regulatory environment make it so. It was also the home to Capacity’s Subsea EMEA event. The overarching theme of the conference? Maximising on the opportunities Marseille presents – and, of course, looking at where the next European hub is going to be. Byron Clatterbuck, CEO of Seacom, was on the keynote panel at this year’s conference: “Marseille is the gateway into Europe,” he said. “More and more we see people go through Marseille to connect to the internet cloud.” Fellow panellist Andrew McGrath, SVP of connectivity at Vodafone Carrier Services, said that, while Marseille is a crucial hub from Vodafone’s perspective, “we enjoy competition”. He added: “Diversity and other options are important to us as well.” Apostolos Kakkos, chairman and CEO of Lamda Hellix, thinks that Interxion is directly to thank for turning Marseille into a hub – not just by creating the ideal conditions but by correctly timing its arrival into the world of carrier-neutral data centres. “Lamda Hellix has invested heavily in creating a number of similar ecosystems in Greece,” he said. It was during a panel on interconnectionrich data centres that Ivo Ivanov, chief strategy officer of DE-CIX, offered his opinion on what determines a key interconnection point from the perspective of an internet exchange player. It depends on “the existence of a proper regulatory framework, ideally an open one without a lot of restrictions”, he explained. It also needs “business and political stability in the region, and a properly developed data centre structure, ideally combined with an internet exchange platform”. But Giuseppe Sini, head of international business at Retelit, said it was less clear-cut than that, pointing out the “chicken-andegg problem” that exists when choosing the next interconnection location. “Why do you go to certain locations? Because there are some factors that make it right for landing a subsea cable, but for the environment to be there, it should have the
OTTs are becoming more of the demand driver within the subsea cable space and they’re looking for ownership economics” Santhosh Rao, head of telecommunications, Americas, Natixis
Capacity subsea cable already,” he said. However, Giuseppe Valentino, Sparkle’s vice president for the IP and data line of business, was keen to differentiate between the different types of interconnection environments and the needs for both. “There’s a difference between a cable landing station environment and an edge data centre environment. To me the landing station environment is a geographic location that connects with the submarine cable infrastructure – and then it goes somewhere else because there is no real ecosystem developed,” he said. “The ecosystem within those facilities grow and allow interconnection there, not somewhere else,” he added. “Interconnection in today’s telecom market means direct access to other networks, applications, platforms and content.” The ever-changing concept of the subsea cable consortia was also a big talking point throughout the event. The opinion was that consortium cables are not dying out – but the definition and make up of them has changed since the entrance of OTTs. “I think the question is, what are consortia today?” asked Paul Vasilopoulos, partner at DH Capital. “Before, you’d see the carriers like AT&T, Verizon and BT coming together – and today you still see that but you also have a number of OTTs in the mix. So how do you manage that?” The nature of consortia has changed,” he said. “It’s evolving with the OTTs. That’s what we’re seeing.” His thoughts were echoed by Santhosh
Rao, head of telecommunications for the Americas at the investment bank Natixis. He said the model has evolved and OTTs are no longer customers but owners. “The roles of the various players are evolving,” he said. “Telcos are going from owners of the underlying infrastructure to renters of the network, while OTTs are becoming more of the demand driver within the subsea cable space and they’re looking for ownership economics.” Ivanov was asked about the advantages of connecting directly into the data centre. “That’s an interesting question because I do not see any disadvantages, provided there is a proper environment there. And provided the cross-connect in the data centre from the sea cable landing demarcation point is a reasonable one.” He said there are mistakes from the past that shouldn’t be repeated – such as high pricing, so called “golden cross-connect” charges, not having existing content on-site and very pure regulation in the region. New data suggests that there is a southward trend in data traffic coming from Africa, Asia and the Middle East interconnected with Europe and South America. Ivanov said the best way to tackle this is “through sea cable connectivity landed properly in data centres with well-maintained internet exchanges and interconnection platforms”.
Ivo Ivanov: Need for a combined IX and data centre platform august/september 2018
middle east | 17
VIVA BAHRAIN EXPANDS GLOBAL IP NETWORK TO EUROPE
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IVA Bahrain has expanded its global IP network footprint to Europe with the deployment of new points of presence (PoPs) in London and Frankfurt. Through this network deployment, which is being labelled as Euro Gate, VIVA Bahrain will support the growing demand of its wholesale and enterprise customers across the Gulf and other international markets with high-quality networking services – IP, capacity, voice
Ulaiyan Al Wetaid: Significant expansion
and signalling coupled with lowest possible latency. “The PoPs expansion is a significant and strategic addition to VIVA’s global infrastructure to cater to the heightened demand for optimal connectivity services with high capacities and low latency for companies doing business in the European market,” said Ulaiyan Al Wetaid, VIVA Bahrain CEO. “With this, we will be ensuring our comprehensive suite of network solutions at affordable and competitive offers that are readily available to our existing and growing business customer base to provide them with an enhanced level of service and customer experience.” VIVA customers will have “access to direct and reliable connectivity through its key partnerships with Tier 1 regional and global network carriers”, the company said. Al Wetaid added: “We will continue with our ongoingCapacity investment of strengthening the overall infrastructure to meet the global needs of our business customers across Bahrain and international markets.”
YAHSAT TO TAKE MAJORITY STAKE IN THURAYA Yahsat is to acquire a majority and controlling stake in rival satellite firm Thuraya. Thuraya is the UAE’s first homegrown satellite provider, running two satellites that serve over 160 countries. The deal, which is backed by Yahsat owner Mubadala Investment Company, will offer the company the opportunity to diversify its offering, it said. Yahsat agreed to buy Etisalat’s 28% stake in Thuraya for around $37 million, opening the door for it to own a majority stake in the company. Etisalat was one of the key investors when Thuraya was founded in 1997. “The Thuraya acquisition provides us with an ideal opportunity to grow and diversify our business, bolstering our satellite solutions capabilities on both government and commercial fronts,” said Yahsat CEO Masood Sharif Mahmood. “By integrating the portfolios of the two companies under the leadership of Ali Al Hashemi, we will together be able to offer a comprehensive mobile and fixed satellite services portfolio, further strengthening our value proposition to our customers.” • Our special report on satellite communications starts on page 57
EUTELSAT OFFLOADS SHARE IN 25B SATELLITE
OOREDOO TEAMS WITH BICS IN BATTLE AGAINST FRAUD
Eutelsat has offloaded its share in a Middle East and Africa satellite to Es’hailSat, its launch partner, for $156 million. Eutelsat launched the Eutelsat-25B satellite in August 2013 on an Ariane 5 rocket n partnership with Es’hailSat, the Qatari company’s first launch. The satellite, which was built by SSL, carries Ku-band and Ka-band capacity for television, broadcasting, and connectivity services in the Middle East and North Africa. The satellite generated around €16 million for Eutelsat in its latest financial year, but divestment of the asset is “in line with Eutelsat’s strategy of optimising its portfolio of businesses in the context of its policy of maximising cash generation”, Eutelsat explained in a statement. For Es’hailSat, it means the company now wholly owns the satellite as it is preparing to launch a second one. According to Space News ES’hailSat bought a second satellite from Mitsubishi Electric in 2014, and this is due to launch later this year.
Ooredoo Global Services has selected BICS’s crowdsourced fraud prevention platform, FraudGuard, in a bid to target fraudulent activity on its international network. Qatar-based telco Ooredoo will deploy the BICS solution in order to block activity from known fraud numbers in order to boost mobile customer experience for its subscribers. “We’re very pleased to be expanding our relationship with Ooredoo Group through this new collaboration with Ooredoo Global Services,” said Katia Gonzalez, head of fraud prevention at BICS. Fraudulent activity cost operators over €28 billion in lost revenue last year. FraudGuard aims to tackle this by utilitising a crowdsourced database detailing suspicious activity detected across BICS’ global base of over 1,200 customers. Khalid Al Mansouri, COO, Ooredoo Global Services, said: “Adopting BICS’s proactive FraudGuard solution will allow us to strengthen our existing fraud management solutions and support us in our efforts to overcome the
capacitymedia.com
challenges caused by telecoms fraud.” Gonzalez said: “FraudGuard is powered by operator collaboration and knowledgesharing of suspect network activity, so with its significant subscriber base creating huge volumes of traffic, Ooredoo Group is a brilliant top tier addition to the collective of players working to combat a major threat to their businesses.”
Katia Gonzalez: Combat “major threat”
18 | latin america
SEABORN PICKS TELECOM ARGENTINA LANDING STATION FOR ARBR CABLE
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eaborn Networks and Telecom Argentina have struck an agreement that will see the Argentina and Brazil (ARBR) subsea cable system land at the latter’s cable landing station (CLS) in Las Toninas. ARBR is a new cable system in development which will link Buenos Aires in Argentina to São Paulo in Brazil, co-owned by Seaborn and Argentine investment holding firm Grupo Werthein, which is due to go live in H1 2019. The agreement means the 2,700km cable will land in the CLS in Las Toninas, with Telecom Argentina then providing ARBR with dark fibre on a backhaul route running to Buenos Aires. It will also provide a point of presence space in the Argentine capital. “ARBR represents an ideal combination of local ownership with an independent operator to open up Argentina’s telecommunications market to the world,” said Dario Werthein of Grupo Werthein.
The ARBR system, which is Argentina’s first independent submarine cable system, will be a four-fibre pair system with an initial maximum design capacity of 48Tbps. It will be developed and owned by the Seabras Group – an affiliate of Seaborn – and Werthein. In São Paulo, it will link with Seaborn’s Seabras-1 subsea cable system which runs between New York and Brazil. The combined ARBR and Seabras-1 cables reflect a total project size of more than $575 million and offer one of the most direct links from Argentina to the US. Seaborn named Xtera as the supplier for the ARBR cable in January, with construction due to start later this year. It also picked EdgeConneX for its Buenos Aires Edge Data Center (EDC) as the point of presence (PoP) in Argentina. “The landing station, backhaul and PoP to be provided by Telecom Argentina are perfect complements to our ARBR and Seabras-1 systems, enabling customers on ARBR to benefit from the most modern
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Larry Schwartz: Direct route to New York
and direct route between Buenos Aires and New York,” said Larry Schwartz, chairman and CEO of Seaborn Networks.
MEXICO OPENS UP TENDER PROCESS FOR RED TRONCAL FIBRE NETWORK The Mexican state-owned telecoms operator Telecomm has opened up bids for the development of a new wholesale fibre network in the country. The rules for the tender were published, with the winner expected to invest at least $200 million to access high-speed strands of fibre cable that belongs to Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). Access to a second wholesale network which can directly compete with América Móvil’s offering is a key part of telecoms reforms that aims to open up the Mexican market. Telecomm was awarded access to
CFE’s network in 2015 and was told to develop a three-year development plan. The plan, released by Telecomm, includes offering a public-private partnership with two high-speed strands of CFE’s cable on offer, making up part of a 25,000km network. Interested parties have been given until 10 October 2018 to develop and submit proposals, with submissions to be adjudicated on 24 October, and the contracts then due to be signed by 23 November 2018. The successful partners will tasked with
providing economic, technical, human, administrative and any other resourcs required to design, deploy and run the so-called trunk network – Red Troncal means trunk network in Spanish. The aim of the Red Troncal network is to provide fibre connectivity to more than 80% of Mexico, to within 35km of a point of presence or interconnection point with the trunk network. Targets for potential bidders include providing 30% of coverage in under 18 months; 53.3% coverage within 30 months; and 80% of coverage within 42 months.
COPEL TELECOM DEPLOYS CORIANT 200G SOLUTION TO SCALE FIBRE-OPTIC NETWORK IN BRAZIL Copel Telecom, the Brazilian telecommunications provider, has deployed Coriant’s 200G optical transmission technology to scale its fibre network in Paraná, Brazil. The solution is powered by Coriant CloudWave Optics, allowing Copel Telecom to meet the growing bandwidth demands of its customers in a cost-efficient way, while at the same time, enhancing the high-quality, low latency performance of end-to-end service connectivity. “We
continue to differentiate our services by helping customers take advantage of the digital revolution with fast, stable, and affordable connections,” said Adir Hannouche, chief executive officer at Copel Telecom. “Our long-standing technology collaboration with Coriant has enabled us to keep pace with the capacity demands of end-user applications, and we are proud to announce that our network today is one of the first in Brazil to support 200G transmission.”
The existing fibre network is built on the Coriant hiT 7300 Multi-Haul Transport Platform, and the DWDM infrastructure supports 100G+ performance in most fibre conditions. With the introduction of Coriant CloudWave Optics technology the network now has increased line-side transmission speeds to 200G per wavelength. In addition, the solution enables Copel Telecom to reduce power, footprint and costs as the network scales. august/september 2018
Connecting worlds to a brighter future Capacity
At Angola Cables, we believe that better connections will help build a better future for many people worldwide. 2018 will be the year that SACS, Angola Cables new state-of-the-art submarine cable, will open a new connection between Africa and America that will change the life of millions of people, companies and organizations, and will bring the world together into a brighter future.
We are connecting the world to the future
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20 | analysis: latin america
‘INVEST IN MEXICO’, TELECOMS MINISTER TELLS CONFERENCE THE MEXICAN MARKET IS OPEN FOR INVESTMENT, SAID THE UNDERSECRETARY FOR COMMUNICATIONS DURING HIS KEYNOTE AT MEXICO CONNECT. JAMES PEARCE REPORTS
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exico’s telecoms market is open for outside investment. That was the key message delivered by the Edgar Olivera Jiménez - the Mexican undersecretary of communications - during his keynote at this year’s Mexico Connect conference in June. Olivera, who has overseen a major overhaul of Mexico’s telecoms sector as part of a bid to create more competitiveness, told a packed conference room that telecoms was “on the fast track” for transformation in the country. “In telecoms,” he said at the event, held in Mexico City, “there has been certain obstacles – resistance, institutional resistance, with regulations being debated. This is a reason why telecoms reform is moving more quickly.” “Another reason is because operators are experts. They are investors competing with one another, but they need clear laws that allow them to compete. But telecoms reform is based on technology. Some are dedicated towards robotics, AI, data management. All these applications have to be supported by telecoms – we can’t have applications that manage data if they are not supported by a robust telecoms network which manages data at high speeds.”
On 10 June 2013, former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed a constitutional amendment that transformed the government’s role in telecommunications and expanded its power to curtail media monopolies. According to figures shared by Olivera, the Mexican market has seen a significant shift since then. The organisation in charge of statistics surveyed Mexican citizens based on their use of technology in 2016/17 – the results showed in homes that have internet there were 7.9m homes prior to the reforms but this has grown by 10m more in a five year period. “17m is around 33% and that is a significant growth,” he added. The growth Mexico has seen in internet speed showed 80% of homes had less than 10Mbps. Nowadays these numbers are the other way – 80% have over 10Mbps. “Not only did we grow quantity, we also grew the quality because the service users receive at home is much better. Some companies now offer 100Mbps and it is exponential growth as different people offer different and better services,” Olivera said. However, Mexico is still facing challenges, with a Competitive Intelligence Unit report in 2017 finding that America
Movil – through subsidiaries Telcel and Telmex – continues to dominate the Mexican market. This is despite government-supported projects such as Altan Redes’ 4G wholesale network, Red Compartida, and the Red Troncal fibre project. He added: “We are seeing greater competition that we never thought we’d see. We saw an increase of 20m users in 5 years of internet connectivity. In mobile, we saw an increase of almost 20m users. 116m subscribers. To surpass the 100% mark is very challenging.” Mexico’s competitiveness “goes hand in hand with these reforms” he told the crowd. But “now the responsibility for keeping the reform on track is in the hands of the investors”. He said there has been great strides but Mexico needs to go further, with 50m users who are not connected. “It was 50m, then it is 25m and the question is how to connect them. We do that by following through on products with your critical eye and experience to improve our country.” Olivera concluded with a plea at the conference: “I hope Mexico Connect is a great event for you – please continue investing in our country.” august/september 2018
Capacity
22 | north america
FCC PUBLISHES RULES FOR THE FIRST US 5G SPECTRUM AUCTIONS
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he Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has established the applications and bidding procedures for its upcoming Spectrum Frontiers auctions. The rules refer to the sale and allocation of Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service licences in the 28GHz and 24GHz bands, which will hopefully speed up the deployment of 5G services in these bands. Licences for the band will be offered through two auctions with separate application and bidding processes for each one. 28GHz UMFUS licences will begin 14 November with the 24GHz will start directly after the first auction ends. At the same time the FCC announced that it would accelerate the process and reduce the costs of attaching new network facilities to utility poles, in order to enable broadband providers to enter new markets and deploy high-speed networks. The process is called “one-touch, make-ready” and enables the new attacher to move existing attachments and performs all other work required to make the pole ready
for a new attachment, rather than spreading the work across multiple parties. “Today, we adopt one-touch make-ready (OTMR) in order to help accelerate broadband deployment and competition across the country,” said Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC.
Pai: “We’re accelerating broadband deployment Capacity and competition”
AT&T SPENDS $1.8BN ON NORTH CAROLINA NETWORK AT&T reports that it has spent more than $1.8 billion on its North Carolina wireless and wired network from 2015-2017. Specifically, the company says that it spent more than $475 million in the Charlotte area; more than $200 million in
Vanessa Harrison: Investing in future
the Triad region and a further $525 million in the Triangle region. During this time AT&T says it made more than 2,100 wireless network upgrades in the state including 13 new sites, plus carrier additions and bandwidth expansions. “We’re investing in the advanced communications networks of the future because, today more than ever, life is about connections,” said Venessa Harrison, president of AT&T North Carolina. She added: “Businesses connect with customers and suppliers; individuals connect with each other, with their elected officials and with information. Connections drive opportunities and innovation and we are investing now to help our customers and communities lead and succeed in the future.” AT&T’s LTE network now covers more than 400 million people in North America and the company is boosting its network speeds and capacity, a move that company says lays the groundwork for the arrival of 5G. At present, the company offers a 1-gigabit connection to 9 million locations across 71 major metro areas with a view to increasing this to 14 million locations across 84 metro areas by mid-2019.
ANTIN COMPLETES FIRSTLIGHT FIBER ACQUISITION FirstLight Fiber, the US fibre-optics infrastructure provider, has announced that Antin Infrastructure Partners has completed the acquisition of the company. “This is an exciting development for FirstLight and enhances our position as a leading fibre provider in the Northeast. We look forward to this new chapter with Antin, and all it promises for our customers and employees,” said Kurt Van Wagenen, president and CEO of FirstLight. The deal was announced in February and supports the company’s growth and expansion plans, which saw FirstLight complete its acquisition of 186 Communications in the northeast US in October 2017. Antin, which is also buying CityFibre in the UK, acquired the company from private equity firm Novacap, Riverside Partners and Oak Hill Capital Partners. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. “We are delighted to be backing FirstLight in the next chapter of the company’s history as it continues to expand its footprint in the northeast,” said Kevin Genieser, senior partner at Antin who has led the transaction.
WINDSTREAM WHOLESALE TO CREATE PHOENIXVEGAS LONG-HAUL ROUTE Windstream Wholesale is to build a long-haul fibre network expansion between Phoenix and Las Vegas. The new route will add approximately 300 miles to Windstream’s existing coast-to-coast long-haul network and provide a new diverse route option for customers out of Phoenix, including unique low-latency routing to and from Reno, Salt Lake City and Silicon Valley. The extension also offers Las Vegas and Reno customers direct low-latency connectivity to markets in the southern US, including: Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami. “Our customers rely on Windstream Wholesale to provide them with unique and diverse network solutions, building redundancy to support a high-level of uptime,” said Joe Scattareggia, executive vice president of wholesale at Windstream Enterprise and Wholesale. “This new route between Phoenix and Las Vegas is part of our continued network growth strategy. By expanding our efficient, diverse, high-bandwidth service capabilities, we’re able to provide our customers more solutions that boost their competitive edge.” august/september 2018
Expand your network with Wave Wholesale Get connectivity access to and across the United States through: Landing stations on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts 22,000+ route miles of metro fiber in major markets 60+ on-net data centers Our 100% fiber network provides redundant, diverse routes that support our full suite of connectivity solutions, including Ethernet Transport, Wavelength, and Dark Fiber.
Capacity
Visit wavewholesale.com or call 1-800-246-2455 for details © 2018 WaveDivision Holdings, LLC
24 |
Telxius sees
nothing but opportunity
Mario Martín, CEO of Telxius, speaks to Natalie Bannerman about the company’s Capacity latest cable projects, developments on the tower side of the business and how it is poised to forge new partnerships with OTTs
ust over six months into his new role and Mario Martín, the CEO of Telxius, has his sights set firmly on his goals for the company: finish existing projects, commercialise said assets and build partnerships with over-the-top providers (OTTs). Telxius, the telecoms infrastructure unit of the Telefónica group, has been hard at work over the last two years doing what Martín describes as “carving out best-in-class assets from Telefónica and consolidating Telxius as a leading infrastructure company”. During that time he says the company has delivered on its “ambitious business plan” as well as incorporating new shareholders, “crystalising Telxius’s value and strengthening our capital structure”. The company itself is divided into two distinct businesses: fibre-optic submarine cables and towers. “On the cable side, we count on approximately 87,000km of submarine cable infrastructure,” says Martín. “Our two most relevant routes are the US-Latin America one and the US-Europe one.” As for the tower side of
the business, Telxius owns and operates close to 17,000 sites across six markets: Spain, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. “We are leaders in four out of those six markets,” boasts Martín.
Cable updates Unlike many with mixed feelings about the entrance of OTTs in the subsea cable space, Martín and Telxius are excited and positive about the change and, he claims, they are poised to capitalise on these new partnership opportunities. “We have extensively developed our relationship with over-the-tops over the last few years. In fact, OTTs have become a key contributor to Telxius’s growth over that time,” he explains. “We are close to establishing long-term partnerships and alliances with some of them – this of course means building trust. Our MAREA cable, a project with Microsoft and Facebook, is an excellent example of those partnerships. We expect to be expanding these types of relationships in the future.” With the ongoing debate on subsea projects that are missing out on the cable
landing station and connecting directly into the data centre, once again Martín sees such infrastructure as new business opportunities. “A cable landing station is a unique asset. We have 27 landing stations across the different markets were we operate. We believe this is a rising trend, with high capacity connections to data centres meaning high capacity direct connections to and from the main companies in the world and this means new business opportunities for Telxius.” Martín says that it’s exactly what they’ve chosen to do in Virginia Beach in the US, where “we decided to land the first two submarine cables – MAREA connecting to Europe and BRUSA connecting to Brazil – and we established expanded connections to Ashburn”.
Virginia Beach Martín adds: “We took the decision to have our cables land in Virginia Beach in the knowledge that we would be very close to Ashburn, which is a massive data centre hub. It was a decision made jointly by our partners, Microsoft and Facebook, august/september 2018
the big interview: mario martín | 25
1996
Investment director, Telefónica Latin America
2001
Deputy general manager of M&A, Telefónica SA
2008
Chief regional officer, Asia (China), Telefónica
2011
Group chief strategic alliances officer, Telefónica
2017
Group COO office director, Telefónica
2018
CEO, Telxius
Equinix on a new cable landing station at Virginia Beach to support the MAREA and BRUSA systems. The partnership sees the two firms extending backhaul capacity on both cables from the landing stations, where both terminate, to the Equinix DC2 International Business Exchange data centre in Ashburn, Virginia. “The partnership with Equinix was done to further enable communications and it complements the expertise Telxius has developed over the years, which will remain critical in the long term. We have PoPs in more than 20 Equinix IBX data centres across the globe and we plan on extending that. Equinix on the other hand has access to the world-class connectivity of our submarine cables.” On the tower side Telxius announced that Sigfox Germany, an internet of things (IoT) solutions provider, partnered with the company to expand the Sigfox network in Germany. “The project connects IoT devices using a low power wide area network (LPWAN). What we’re offering them is access to our tower
5G will mean Capacity more densification, more fibre and more space in the tower”
Mario Martín, CEO, Telxius
and us.” Martín says that both new cables are going according to plan and on a commercial front have exceeded expectations, largely due to timing. “MAREA has come along at a time when many of the other existing cables on that route are close to the end of their lifecycle. In that context, MAREA offers a diverse new route between the US and Europe,” says Martín. The cable offers “the highest capacity ever built, with 160Tbps and probably the best latency on the market”. They “saw clear interest in pre-sale activity before MAREA was put into service”, but that commercial expectations have been further exceeded since the cable was ready for service a few months ago. As for BRUSA, which will link Virginia and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Martín says: “We expect to complete the project by Q4 of 2018 and it is obviously a key part of our global infrastructure. Once again, on pre-sale activity, we are seeing a lot of interest and we’re convinced that once it goes live that demand will accelerate.” Back in May, Telxius collaborated with capacitymedia.com
catalogue in Germany and also access to Telefónica’s German sites, 20,000 throughout the country. From an implementation point of view, it’s progressing very well and they already have presence in close to 350 sites.” Telxius is “very proud of our partnership” with Sigfox and hopes to have agreements with other companies in the future. “We have already started working with some Latin American operators.” Though Telxius’s footprint is firmly rooted in Europe, there has been a trend of growing data from Asia, one which seems to be accelerating and that is affecting Telxius in its region. “We’re definitely having those conversations often. Of course we don’t plan to expand our infrastructure into Asia, but we’re seeing clear interest from Asian operators and players in the infrastructure we have deployed, particularly on MAREA and BRUSA. So I would agree with that view that there has been an increase in data traffic from Asia.”
5G and accelerating data The advent of 5G has its place in Telxius’s plans. Martín is well aware of the key role
the company will play in this new technology. “The growing demand for infrastructure is driven by the fact that all network operators are starting to prepare for requirements of 5G,” he says. But how soon will Telxius begin rolling out its 5G plans? “I think it all depends when we start seeing the real deployments by the operators, and I think that will still take some time. In any case, 5G will mean more densification, more fibre and more space in the tower.”
Dynamic and exciting Operating in such a quick-paced market means that agility and innovation are top of the list for any organisation, but Martín says that any changes to the market were already in motion. “This is a very dynamic and exciting market, but I wouldn’t say it’s changed very significantly over the last five months. We’ve seen announcements coming from new cable deployments and new infrastructure being deployed, supported by various PoPs, but this was something that was already on its way.” But it’s the tower side that has been gaining the most momentum and has the biggest growth potential for the future. “In the markets where we operate a lot of attention being given to the tower business, as well as a significant increase in transactions in this area over the last few months, particularly in Europe. I think it shows how important and critical infrastructure is going to be in the future.” Looking ahead he sets out a number of short- and long-term goals for the company that are the focus of his attention. In the short-term goals Martín wants to complete the new cable infrastructure deployments planned for 2018: MAREA is already in service and BRUSA will be ready shortly. “Additionally we will soon be getting an extension of our network [the SAM-1 cable connecting the US, central America and South America] to the Dominican Republic coming into service by the end of the year,” he says. He adds that the company wants to “deliver on the ambitious ‘build-to-suit’ plan” it has, which means Telxius specifically builds towers according to the tenant’s specifications, something akin to a turnkey solution. Other goals according to Martín include “significantly increasing our tenancy ratio”, while at the same time completing its distributed antenna systems (DAS) projects in several markets. Longer term, as with most growing companies, “the objective is growth, creating new services, attracting new customers and capitalising on the opportunities that 5G will bring”, explains Martín.
26 |
Liquid
Telecom building a
new legacy
We often talk about legacy networks holding us back, but Liquid Telecom is building a new legacy. Jason McGee-Abe spoke to Nic Rudnick about the Cape Capacity Town to Cairo ‘One Africa’ network
I
t’s the last Friday of July and I leave Capacity Towers off Fleet Street in London and head to Liquid Telecom’s offices just around the corner. The Liquid Telecom CEO started his career as a telecoms lawyer and supported Strive Masiywa in the internationally recognised landmark constitutional cases that resulted in the end of the monopoly over fixed and mobile line telecommunication services in Zimbabwe. It was the beginning of a fruitful partnership, which led to Rudnick leaving the legal world and joining Masiyiwa at Econet Wireless. Liquid Telecom began life as the satellite and voice operator Econet Satellite Services, which was founded in 1997. Rebranding to Liquid Telecom in 2004, it went on to launch a high-speed, cross-border fibre network linking southern Africa to the rest of the world in 2009. As we sit in the surroundings of London’s legal district on the 9th floor at New Street Square, I ask Rudnick how he perceives the African marketplace has developed and evolved over the years. “I think Africa is still a continent with huge
opportunities,” he responds. “If you look at when mobile phones started arriving, around 2000, at that point most Africans had never made a phone call let alone had their own telephone. Now the continent has virtually 100% penetration rates, yet there is still enormous opportunity.” Africa doesn’t have the type of legacy networks that one sees on other continents and that provides Liquid Telecom with the opportunity to come in, build new fibre networks and give people access to fast speeds and advanced digital services. Rudnick says:: “There are many African cities where we have fibre networks, FTTB, FTTH, where we routinely provide faster speeds and more services than you can get in central London.” Does the ex-lawyer believe regulators have become more supportive? “It’s an interesting question because as a telecoms operator, you never quite get the impression that the regulators are being supportive. However, a number of them have created good environments that have seen liberalisation and free market policies welcome independent players such as ourselves.” That’s not always the case, Rudnick warns,
as there are some countries where Liquid Telecom hasn’t been able to enter or its had considerable difficulties in doing so. “On the whole, we’ve indeed received a lot of support and I think the business model that we have of wholesale open access fibre networks is one that regulators are generally welcoming and are not over-regulating at the moment.”
Historic 60,000km Africa network Liquid Telecom has recently signed an agreement with Telecom Egypt allowing the African operator to complete a pan-African terrestrial fibre network from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. “We’ve been working on it, expanding our network and we’re really excited that it’s now reached fruition. It’s an historic moment that we can say that there is a single fibre network that you can terrestrially run from Cape Town to Cairo,” he says enthusiastically. The MoU will see Liquid Telecom link its network in Sudan into Telecom Egypt’s network through a new cross border interconnection, completing a 10-year project to offer a 60,000km network running the length of the continent. What’s the august/september 2018
the big interview: nic rudnick | 27
1998
Commercial director, Econet Wireless Internation
2001
Director, Telecom Lesotho
2004
CEO, Liquid Telecommunications Group
2005
CEO, Econet Carrier Services
2006
Director, Liquid Telecom South Africa
2009
Director, Econet Wireless Global
fully operational organisation and the new CEO Reshaad Sha [effective as of 1 June] is tasked with completing that exercise. When you do an acquisition of that size with that amount of people, you always look forward to integrating people in becoming part of one organisation,” he says. “Operational or cultural differences always take a little bit more time to iron out. Liquid Telecom is a very entrepreneurial company and changing mindsets takes time.” His words somewhat reiterate those of xx Rick Calder, who was the front GTT’s CEO cover interview from our last Capacity magazine issue, in stressing the importance of employee engagement and culture change after a sizeable acquisition. As I mention this, Rudnick agrees, adding “aesthetics are some of the easiest things to change”. He stops, pops up quickly and heads over to his desk, saying: “In fact, let me get my laptop to show you this.” He returns to
It’s an historic moment that we can say that there is a singleCapacity fibre network that you can terrestrially run from Cape Town to Cairo” Nic Rudnick, CEO, Liquid Telecom
background to the project, which stretches the entire length of the continent? “It’s something that Strive Masiyiwa articulated a number of years ago – the vision to create a single fibre network from the Cape to Cairo,” he tells Capacity. So when will the One Africa network officially launch? “From a contractual point of view it’s done. In terms of technical capability, that’s imminent as equipment is still being shipped and installed,” Rudnick says. I ask whether it’ll launch in time for Capacity Africa, in Kigali, Rwanda at the beginning of September. “I hope so,” he says. “I know that’s a bit non-committal but if you asked me directly if that’s roughly the time period we have in mind to launch than I’d say yes.”
Integrating $429m buy Neotel From one project to another, I ask whether the integration of Neotel is complete. Liquid Telecom and Royal Bakofen Holdings bought the South African operator from Tata Communications for approximately $429 million in 2016 and it has since been rebranded to Liquid Telecom South Africa. “We’re still busy working on becoming a capacitymedia.com
the round table in his office with a “Blue is the new orange: preparing for the official launch of Neotel” video ready to play on his screen, a behind-the-scenes video to see how Liquid Telecom transformed the Neotel HQ in Johannesburg, South Africa, ahead of the official launch day. “We closed the transaction on the Friday and when people came to work on the Monday the entire building had been repainted.” The CEO tells me later that it was almost 500 painters. “Neotel’s colours were orange and ours are blue. By Monday morning, there was no orange to be seen, chairs were reupholstered, while carpets and desks had been changed. Aesthetically in terms of changing the culture, that is something one can do very quickly.” We then watch the video, which is very impressive. Watch it if you haven’t seen it! I ask him how people responded to the changes. “They said to me that Neotel had this sense of not going anywhere. When people came to work on the Monday people they said that they felt that they had resigned and went to work at a completely new company. The building looked clean, it wasn’t
grubby, and there was a new sense of energy that the company was going places.” Liquid Telecom presently operates in 14 countries but “we have plans to be in at least 20 countries in the foreseeable future,” Rudnick tells me. I enquire what’s in the pipeline and whether the group CEO envisages any completions by the end of the year. “We’re working on an acquisition at the moment,” he tells me. “It’s not as big as Neotel, but still a substantial one which we’re busy with at the moment. I can’t tell you who as it’s not complete yet but it’s a meaningful acquisition that will be the entry point for us into a number of new countries into Africa.” We move to developments in the subsea market. Liquid Telecom’s network provides connectivity onto a number of subsea cable systems landing in Africa. “We’re shareholders in WACS, EASSy, WIOCC, and TEAMS for example, so we’ve got a lot of investment already in the subsea cables surrounding Africa,” Rudnick says. “It’s an area we’re very interested in.” The company has participated in a number of capacity upgrades and is using substantial amounts of that capacity. “We’ll certainly continue to be interested in new subsea cables as they are in the planning stages and as they are built,” the CEO says, revealing that he’s watching the projects linking the continent to South America with particular interest. “I think connecting South America to West Africa is something that I’m watching play out with interest and we’ll see where that gets to both technically and economically,” says Rudnick, stressing: “But there are certainly some interesting projects which I enjoy keeping an eye on.”
Cloud connectivity and digital What about the industry becoming increasingly digitised, softwarisation, and the emergence of more hybrid-cloud models. He responds: “I think that’s exactly what’s happening, we’re at an inflection point in terms of the change that is happening.” Cloud computing is becoming a strong foundation for tech innovation today and Liquid Telecom has helped growing business needs by making critical development tools accessible through Microsoft Azure Stack services for example. “Now that there is reliable connectivity in Africa, we’ll certainly start to move out to the cloud. Up until now if you looked at small-and-medium-sized enterprises in Africa they couldn’t afford to buy servers or to pay software licence fees in order to run advanced applications. The fact that you can now have the same functionality that others have around the world, at an affordable pay-as-yougo, no upfront capex rate, is really going to be phenomenal and a game-changer.” Rudnick says Africa is really at a quantum change in terms of the cloud and it’s the piece that the continent has been missing.
Capacity
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Africa’s Cloud is Liquid. TM
Cloud computing accelerates every aspect of your business but it only works as well as the infrastructure supporting it. As an official Microsoft CSP partner, only Liquid Telecom can combine enterprise-grade Capacity reliability and performance from Microsoft Cloud with an award-winning fibre network. So now you can access tools virtually anywhere on almost any device. Whether you’re working online or off, from your computer, tablet or phone, we have your business covered with Microsoft Cloud. Contact Liquid Telecom today to discover how cloud can transform your business.
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30 |
CenturyLink transforms to a technology company
with a
global connectivity platform CenturyLink’s Laurinda Pang speaks to Natalie Bannerman about the progressCapacity being made after it took over Level 3 and why simplification is the biggest growth opportunity for the combined company
I
t has been roughly nine months since CenturyLink completed its $34 billion acquisition of Level 3 Communications and, judging by its strong Q2 2018 results, the merger has been nothing but positive. The company brought in a net income of $292 million, compared to $69 million for the same quarter of 2017. A sea of executives left, but Laurinda Pang, now president of international and global accounts management, survived the cull, just as she did when she served as senior VP of human resources in Global Crossing before that was acquired by Level 3 in 2014. What progress is being made on the integration of Level 3 and CenturyLink? Pang says: “The integration is going well. We are now into our third quarter of combined operations and are seeing benefits of the combined company and greater opportunities to drive value for our customers.” She adds: “Specifically, we have found that many of CenturyLink and Level 3’s products and services are very complementary. CenturyLink’s hybrid
cloud management capabilities combined with Level 3’s global CloudConnect platform is an example of our ability to provide more comprehensive solutions for our customers because of the acquisition.”
Synergies Back in September 2017, I spoke to Aamir Hussain, CenturyLink’s CTO, ahead of completion of the $34 billion merger. At that point he told me nearly $1 billion worth of synergies had been identified – $125 million in capex and $800 to $850 million in operational expenditure, largely from the network. Now, Pang says that not only is the company maximising on those but it has identified a number of others. “We are capturing significant synergies as expected, but the synergies are not just about savings in network expense and operations,” she says. “We are also finding synergies in how we expand our network more cost effectively, justifying bringing more customer locations on net, and investing in our delivery platforms.” With CenturyLink one the key players
in the North American market, I was curious to know what the biggest drivers of change are for the region. According to Pang it’s better to look at these drivers globally because, as she puts it, “we’re all interconnected in one way or another”. There are a few areas Pang highlights as key market drivers – the first being the internet of things (IoT) and how providers are preparing to support the incoming influx of connected devices. “Every day we take a step closer to the total integration of IoT into our everyday lives. With 21 billion connected devices by 2020, providers must continue to adapt and evolve to support high levels of connectivity delivered across a safe, secure, reliable network.” Next, she says is the growth of over-thetop (OTT) providers and the implications not only for content delivery but also on how we communicate. According to Pang, last year somewhere in the region of 2.5 billion people worldwide have used at least one messaging app that offered an alternative to voice and text. Nevertheless, all these drivers are clear opportunities for CenturyLink and the august/september 2018
the big interview: laurinda pang | 31
1998
Vice president, small business group unit, Global Crossing
2003
Chief of staff, office of the CEO, Global Crossing
2007
Vice president, customer experience re-engineering, Global Crossing
2011
Chief human resources officer, Level 3
2016
Regional president, North America and Asia-Pacific, Level 3
2017
President, international and global accounts management, CenturyLink
the company provides wireless providers with fibre-to-the-tower – giving it the opportunity to migrate wireless providers’ old technology to Ethernet and fibre. “As we look at growth in 4G and 5G, CenturyLink is well positioned for a future that capitalises on this technology,” she says.
Agile business As for customer experience, Pang says: “Carriers are faced with a desire for agile business environments as they try to support the enterprise customer. Wholesale providers want more automated interactions for quoting, ordering, maintenance and repair. This allows our wholesale providers to have an ease of use and more visibility to provide their customers with real-time updates.” Linked to this is the need for TDM migrations. “We will need to migrate customers to
At CenturyLink, we are striving to change the perception of women in Capacity technology from the inside out” Laurinda Pang, president, international and global accounts management, CenturyLink
defined thresholds that are meaningful to our customers’ operating environments,” she says. “As we progress, virtual network functions will be critical to this construct, supporting robust control of customers’ operating environments across premises, network and cloud domains.” Pang is particularly excited about the prospect of software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) and its place within hybrid networking for enterprise customers. “We see it as a critical component to a customer’s over-arching hybrid networking strategy that combines SD-WAN with both private and public networking to meet the growing/evolving demands on the enterprise,” she says. As if the company doesn’t have enough feathers in its hat, CenturyLink also plays heavily in submarine cables as one of the largest operators in the world. The company has assets linking together North America, Europe, South America and the Asia-Pacific. It also partners with top international network providers for customers that need connectivity beyond the CenturyLink International Network. “By delivering private network connectivity, we can help drive enhanced visibility and dynamic network controls – with both our customers and those who use IBM Cloud, or Google Cloud, for instance. Our advantage is our ability to connect thousands of the world’s public data centres and over 100,000 enterprise locations to the world’s leading cloud service providers.”
Senior women company is prepared and well placed to meet each of them head on. “When faced with the challenge of connecting, protecting, and optimising the performance of 21 billion devices or providing content on demand, when and where customers want it, we can deliver network-level value added solutions that solve the communications challenges our customers face, now and into the future,” says Pang. CenturyLink is the second largest communications provider to enterprise customers in the US. In addition it has an entire wholesale division providing access to its global network to cable operators and satellite broadcasters, global carriers, and fixed and wireless service providers. What are the different demands that wholesale and enterprise customers have? Pang says that three things spring to mind: wireless, customer experience and timedivision multiplexing (TDM) migrations. Wireless is a “wholesale problem” but it is an opportunity for CenturyLink because “we are not a wireless provider”. Instead capacitymedia.com
newer technologies, such as Ethernet, metro wave and broadband”. CenturyLink’s network covers more than 350 metropolitan areas, containing approximately 130,000 on-net buildings, including 10,000 buildings in EMEA and Latin America. Pang says that fibre is the most effective way to connect its customers. As a result, the company will continue to invest in this area to bring thousands of additional buildings onto its network as well as to “support the build-out of the next generation of wireless technology, cloud connectivity and high performance enterprise networking”. The company has also dipped its toe into software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV). (See our SDN & NFV special report starting on page 39.) For the last seven years, Pang says that CenturyLink has automated tens of thousands of transactions each month that previously required human intervention. “We offer customers the ability to dynamically manage their capacity on demand, scheduled in advance or based on pre-
As I scan the leadership bios on the CenturyLink website, I see that Pang is one of only three women named in a senior leadership position, three out of a total of 14. I ask Pang what her thoughts are on women in telecoms and if enough is happening to get more women in these top management roles. She pulls no punches. “The lack of women in tech is more than a pipeline problem. It is an identity crisis systemic in norms that do not promote a more inclusive tech culture among women,” she says. “I do not think enough is being done. It takes each one of us to get involved, find our voices and advocate for inclusion. At CenturyLink, we are striving to change the perception of women in technology from the inside out.” Pang concludes, saying: “The products, assets and skillsets CenturyLink now possesses enable us to shoulder much of the burden of the transformation for our customers. We see our own company transforming from being a telecoms company into being a technology company with a high-performance digital global connectivity platform.”
32 | SPONSORED STATEMENT
CONVERGING THE ASEAN REGION AND THE WORLD THROUGH CONNECTIVITY AND CONTENT LOCALISATION AMAR HUZAIMI, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TM GLOBAL, TALKS ABOUT THE COMPANY’S PLANS TO PROPEL MALAYSIA AS THE REGIONAL GATEWAY INTERCONNECTING THE WORLD AND THE ASEAN REGION, WHILE ACCELERATING DIGITAL OPPORTUNITIES IN DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS efforts here have been about promoting Malaysia’s transition into a dynamic AMAR HUZAIMI MD DERIS digital economy by enabling local Capacity service providers to develop and Group Corporate and Amar Huzaimi is the Regulatory, as well as Executive Vice President of enhance their networks. General Manager of Group TM GLOBAL, the global and The world-class High Speed Chief Executive Officer wholesale business arm of Broadband (HSBB) network (GCEO)’s office. Prior to his Telekom Malaysia Berhad infrastructure supports not only most of current role, he was the Vice (TM). He has vast experience its services and solutions but also other President of TM GLOBAL in the corporate world and industry players through TM GLOBAL’s Carrier Sales, responsible for telecommunication industry service offerings, expanding further securing inter-carrier given his previous roles as the consumer broadband market. The transactions, domestic and TM’s Deputy Chief Internal customer base of the local operators that internationally. Audit, General Manager of subscribe to TM GLOBAL’s High Speed Broadband Access solution has grown by 13.5% from 2016. With a new government in place, TM GLOBAL is boosting its Meanwhile, its domestic connectivity services include TM Next efforts to propel Malaysia as the regional internet hub and digital Generation Backhaul™ (TM NGBH™), created for the benefit gateway for South-East Asia. TM GLOBAL is positioning itself of local mobile operators’ Long Term Evolution (LTE) rollouts. as a trusted accelerator, helping to make business easier for its It has enriched the TM NGBH™ service portfolio with the customers, and aiming to be more effective and efficient in utilising introduction of front-haul solutions such as Smart Centralised its resources and assets, in line with the industry requirements. Radio Access Network (C-RAN) and In-Building Coverage (IBC) It remains a priority for TM GLOBAL to develop its terrestrial to aid the development of smart cities. and international network, to enhance the experience of its Key to its strategy for smart cities is allowing the sharing of customers, and to push forward with its collaboration with infrastructure to save space and reduce cost, not only for the partners from adjacent verticals. TM GLOBAL is also expanding operators but also the property owners. This means that other its capability in providing services beyond connectivity to operators do not have to incur additional capital expenditure accelerate its customers’ business and coverage to the digital (CAPEX), and the duplication of infrastructure can be avoided. world, making innovations possible. Moreover, the property owners just need to deal with a single TM GLOBAL plays a prominent role in positioning Malaysia party with no hassle. as the ideal gateway for the world into ASEAN region, as well IBC, for example, offers a way to optimise the reach of mobile as for organisations in the region looking outwards. To achieve telephony signals in closed environments such as office and residential this, TM GLOBAL has been developing a multi-services hub buildings, shopping malls, subway systems and commercial centres. ecosystem, embodied by its submarine cable systems, new data For instance, the solution will enable retail outlets in a shopping mall centres capacity, and strengthened by its strategically located to introduce machine-to-machine advertising, creating more avenues Points-of-Presence (PoPs) in the ASEAN region and beyond. for advertisements with personal touch. Smart C-RAN, on the other hand, is more towards “outside-theCreating value for the domestic industry building” solution for a greener, smarter, safer and more connected Let’s take a look at what TM GLOBAL has been doing to city. TM GLOBAL has been engaging with several mobile network accelerate business growth in its home market of Malaysia. Its operators to provide a common infrastructure for the provision of
capacity
august/september 2018
| 33
Smart C-RAN services in various areas. This is the basis of a digital ecosystem that offers better LTE coverage, widespread WiFi access and fully integrated CCTV-based surveillance. Smart C-RAN is an investment for the future, allowing for huge capacity requirements and coping with space constraints, while preserving the aesthetic values of smart urban areas. Smart C-RAN and IBC are evidence of TM’s commitment to lay a foundation to support the digital economy. TM GLOBAL is proud of its contribution not only in increasing Malaysia’s HSBB penetration but also in establishing sound values for the industry. On top of this, together with its vast experience in the rolling out of HSBB and the deployment of TM NGBH™ for mobile operators and other telecommunication services, TM GLOBAL is offering its in-house expertise and resources in the form of consultancy services to both domestic and international players, especially in the emerging markets.
Pacific and the North American regions. The completion of MCT and NuGate adds to its total of 20 submarine cables with fibre-routes in excess of 190,000 km throughout the globe. In addition, as part of its global reach, TM has recently established its Dubai office in the form of the Telekom Malaysia Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (TM DMCC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of TM. Telecommunication players in Gulf states like the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman can start engaging with TM GLOBAL for access to its products and services or working together to explore potential areas of collaboration. To complete the chain, TM now has world class data centre infrastructure. TM has nine (9) data centres in Malaysia, and one (1) in Hong Kong. Its main data centres are the Tier-III certified state-of-the-art Twin Core Data Centre solutions: Iskandar Puteri Core Data Centre (IPDC), launched in 2017 and the soon-to-belaunched Klang Valley Data Centre (KVDC) in Cyberjaya. Malaysia as the gateway for South-East Asia All of these developments make TM GLOBAL fit to realise its TM GLOBAL is truly well positioned to propel Malaysia as a mission to facilitate access to popular content. Major international regional Internet hub and digital gateway for South-East Asia. It is content players can easily co-locate at its data centres, and this committed to be a trusted accelerator in connecting the rest of the relationship helps to make life easier for service providers across the world to the ASEAN region, interchangeably. TM GLOBAL has ASEAN region, knowing that they can connect to international positioned Malaysia as the hub connecting the rest of the world content providers located within TM’s data centres without having with the ASEAN region, especially Indonesia and Indochina, to negotiate separate contracts with them. via its extensive global connectivity, network infrastructure and TM GLOBAL will continue focusing on both domestic and collective expertise. international wholesale business, offering a comprehensive It has set up a new international PoP in Marseille, France, for Capacity suite of cutting-edge communication services and solutions in service providers who need connectivity into Europe, giving it a connectivity and beyond. It is a trusted partner in delivering total of 30 PoPs around the world, with nine (9) PoPs operating seamless integrated solutions to accelerate customers’ connectivity in Malaysia and another five (5) across ASEAN in Singapore, and coverage to the digital world. Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. With extensive global connectivity, network infrastructure and Moreover, the completion of its new submarine cable systems, collective expertise, TM GLOBAL aims to serve as a gateway not namely Malaysia-Cambodia-Thailand (MCT) and Nusantara just into Malaysia but for the wider region. It also hopes that with all Gateway (NuGate), also strengthened its position as an the above efforts, strengthened by collaborations with both domestic experienced investor in domestic, regional and global submarine and international players, it will be able to effectively play its role in cable development, with stakes in several routes across the Asiaboosting the economic prospects of the whole ASEAN region. MCT To Indochina • Capacity can be upgraded up to 30Tbps. • Length: over 1,300 km.
BBG To South Asia & Middle East
To Myanmar
To L Laos To Thailand T
To Hong Kong
To Cambo Cambodia
SEA-ME-WE-3 To Europe, Middle East & Asia SAT-WASC-SAFE To Africa, South Asia & Europe
Kota Bharu
SKR1M
Penang K. Terengganu
Kota Kinabalu Labuan
FLAG To Europe & Asia APCN2 To Asia Pacific
Ip poh p h Ipoh
Malaysia SEA-ME-WE-5 To Europe, Middle East & South Asia
Miri
Kuantan
Bintulu
Shah Alam AAG To Asia Pacific & USA
Seremban
SEA-ME-WE-4 To Europe, Middle East & South Asia DMCS To Indonesia
Melaka
Mersing Johor Bahru
SEA-ME-WE-3 To Europe, Middle East & South Asia
Kuching
CAHAYA MALAYSIA To Asia Pacific
Sungai Rengit
BDM To Indonesia
Singapore To Indonesia a
BRIGHT To Indonesia
LEGEND
NuGate To Indonesia • Capacity can support up to 6.4Tbps. • Length: 1,080 km.
capacitymedia.com
MDSCS
Trunk Cables
International Cable Landing Stations
TM PoP
Domestic Cable Landing Stations Trunk Nodes
Earth Station International Submarine Cable System
34 |
Europe is
building fibre,
but they do things differently there Capacity
INVESTMENT IN METRO FIBRE IS BUILDING UP, AS DELEGATES TO SEPTEMBER’S METRO CONNECT EUROPE WILL DISCOVER. BUT DON’T EXPECT EUROPE TO BE LIKE THE US METRO MARKET, CONFERENCE SPEAKERS TELL ǧ
I
f you’re planning to come to Capacity Media’s Metro Connect Europe conference in Amsterdam in September, here’s a word of warning: the European market for metro fibre is very different from the US market. Capacity has been running the US version of Metro Connect in Miami Beach for years, and will continue to do so. But in January 2018 speakers, delegates and sponsors said it was time for a European event as well. Europe is “two years behind the US� in the metro fibre market, says Jennifer Fritzsche, a managing director at Wells Fargo Securities in Chicago, and a regular speaker at the Miami Beach event. Marc Ganzi, founder and CEO of investment company Digital Bridge, makes the point in a different way. “The US is pretty fibre rich already, but Europe is pretty fibre light,� he says. It’s not only that, many of those who are speaking at the Amsterdam event on 12-13 September told me. Markets are different from country to country across Europe. Ganzi warns potential US investors that they “should understand that in Europe every business is different�. Countries across Europe are different from one another. “Compare the regulations in the Netherlands with those
in France. Every country enjoys its sovereignty. You cannot take the same paintbrush as you have in other parts of the world.� The business differs in many ways from country to country. There’s a different range of competitors, with the old incumbent having a powerful position in some countries but not in others, and there are few European-wide enterprises to be anchor tenants for a fibre provider. Each country has its own range of supermarkets, media companies, energy providers and other chains. Fibre penetration varies enormously from country to country, with the result that average home internet speeds range from 30-40Mbps in Denmark and Sweden to 20Mbps in Spain and even less in the UK. I asked to speak to Anthony Whelan, director of the electronic communications networks and services directorate in the European Commission’s DG Connect division, to get a better view of the EU’s strategy to stimulate fibre. He wasn’t able to talk for this feature, but delegates will be able to hear his views at the Amsterdam conference. At last January’s US conference it was clear that the imminence of 5G mobile is becoming a major driver of metro fibre,
with all four major mobile operators recognising that small cells, connected by fibre, will be vital for successful services. US mobile operators typically outsource their towers and fibres to independent companies. In Europe, mobile companies tend to run their own infrastructure, so there is less of an opportunity for fibre companies.
Spectrum licences The Netherlands hasn’t even awarded 5G spectrum licences yet, sighs Alex Goldblum, CEO of Eurofiber, which has extensive fibre networks there and in Belgium. However, Eurofiber is connecting small cells for three of the Netherlands’ mobile operators: Tele2, T-Mobile and VodafoneZiggo, with only incumbent KPN using its own fibre. These are 4G LTE cells, says Goldblum, that can be upgraded to 5G when the time arrives, and Eurofiber also connects bus stops, bridges, canal locks and traffic lights, he says. “This reduces capex for each individual connection,� and it is part of a digitisation process across a number of Dutch cities. “Amsterdam is doing a lot, Eindhoven is advanced and Utrecht is advanced,� he says. “They are going beyond enterprise august/september 2018
Image: Adobe Stock
feature: metro connect | 35
– this is a real digitisation programme.” How do the North American and European metro fibre businesses compare? “Lots of European implementations are masterful,” says veteran telecoms entrepreneur Hunter Newby, pointing to Germany’s GasLine, which is owned by 10 natural gas transmission and distribution companies, which have used their own rights of way along pipelines. “Every company from outside Germany uses GasLine. Germany doesn’t even realise how important that is. It should be a case study applied to every country in Europe. GasLine is very, very important, with neutral dark fibre at reasonable rates. We can learn from Germany,” says Newby, who was the founder and CEO of Allied Fiber and is an investor and partner in several other businesses. Italy is different again, where TIM – the former Telecom Italia – and Fastweb, owned by Swisscom, are working together. Vincenzo Lobianco, CTIO of the regulator, AGCom, says: “Flashfiber is a joint initiative between TIM and Fastweb for FTTH in certain cities. It sells to TIM and Fastweb but could be in the wholesale market.” He adds: “In Italy we have an interesting situation with competition in the metro fibre market.” Open Fiber, owned by electricity company Enel, is building its own fibre networks, though in late July the deputy prime minister, Luigi di Maio, suggested it could merge with TIM’s infrastructure division. Unlike many countries Italy never had a significant cable TV infrastructure, which means, says Lobianco, “we have had to cover the gap between copper and fibre and we had to start from scratch”. But TIM’s cabinets are close to customers, so if they’re connected to fibre, the copper last mile, or last 150m on average, is short enough to “carry 100Mbps without any problem in most cases”, he notes. Vincent Teissier, managing director of Cogent Communications in France, knows the metro fibre market in Europe as a buyer. “We need fibre to connect our data centres, and there are corporate opportunities in Europe for our US customer base,” he says. “The market is well developed and there are a lot of different fibre providers. Usually it isn’t difficult to find a metro fibre.” He mentions companies such as Stokab, which uses Stockholm’s utility ducts, and BT’s last-mile copper and fibre subsidiary Openreach, among potential capacitymedia.com
to modernise and upgrade the infrastructure. There’s a lot of movement in the market.” Carriers are having to double and triple their bandwidth, he says, agreeing with Fritzsche. “The good news for us is that there are more options. We do depend on there being a very healthy market to chose from many providers.” He’s coming to Metro Connect Europe “to interconnect with as many providers as possible, national and regional”, he says. Consolidation ahead “Piecing together the right dark fibre What can Europe learn from the US? providers is very important and strategic for “Scale, scale, scale,” says Newby. “But it us. We depend on a handful of facilitiesneeds to be scale with the right corporate based operators to help our growth.” structure. If a company such as GasLine But in Europe, says Ganzi, “the were to be acquired by a financial operator business model for metro fibre and small the rules would change.” He admires other cells is not there yet”. There are not yet European fibre companies such as plans for “thousands of nodes as in the Eurofiber and euNetworks. “And there are US”, he warns. “The biggest area in so many niche players.” There will be Europe is fibre to the home (FTTH) consolidation, he agrees, “for scale”. – and that has turned into a holy war in This has already started, notes Europe. Fibre is needed more to the home Fritzsche. “It seems every week there are than to the enterprise.” In Europe it’s new European fibre deals with high being done by the incumbents, says multiples,” she says. Europe is a very Ganzi, and “private equity backed different type of market, with a dense competitors looking to take market share urban population. “The metro fibre in the from the incumbents”. cities is important, but a lot of the US is Goldblum emphasises that potential investors need to Capacity consider each country as a separate market. “Spain is advanced in FTTH. The Netherlands is advanced in fibre to the business. Germany is just Jennifer Fritzsche, managing director, Wells Fargo Securities starting fibre deployment. Each where the buffalo roam,” she jokes. She country has a distinct approach.” In time, compares a metro fibre infrastructure in a this will have an impact on the capacity city with the cardiovascular system. “You needed by core networks. Eurofiber need the veins to carry the blood,” focuses on fibre to the business. “Most Fritzsche says. alternative operators do both home and There are more greenfield installations business, but we focus on just business.” in Europe, she adds, but they need to be He agrees that the “North American future-proof. Networks were installed market is slightly ahead” of Europe, not with 400 fibres not long ago; now she’s only because mobile operators are seeing 1,700 fibres as the norm. “Watch planning small cells earlier than their the data centres,” she adds. Data centre European counterparts, but because fibre owners expect Europe to be a big, big companies have a different focus: in the market. “It wouldn’t surprise me to see US carriers “tend to talk only about large them thinking outside the box.” enterprise and federal government”, and What are the main differences between less about medium-sized enterprise and North America and Europe for the metro local and regional government. fibre business? Europe’s data protection In Europe utilities are more involved in rules, says Fritzsche. They’re an added fibre, he adds – echoing Newby’s point complication for fibre providers and data about Germany’s GasLine. It’s a centre companies. “And even before that, characteristic feature of the European you’re different little countries and that market, says Goldblum, “but only in makes it more complicated.” certain markets”, he adds. “It depends on Epsilon CEO Jerzy Szlosarek agrees that the incumbents” in each country, he “the whole data-centre interconnection notes. And the incumbents – like market” is driving investment and everything else in Europe – are different upgrades in Europe. “There’s a huge push from country to country.
providers. There’s a fibre-sharing agreement in France, he notes, “and every German town has a utility with its own fibre network”, he adds. “The reality is the barriers to entry aren’t high,” says Teissier. “After 20 years of deregulation in Europe you have the people and skills to generate this new commerce. Different countries in Europe have different regulations, and that creates challenges but also opportunities.”
Every week there are new European fibre deals with high multiples. Europe is a very different type of market”
36 |
Connecting thebeneath
ice
AS CARRIERS LOOK FOR NEW ROUTES WITH LOWER LATENCIES, NATALIE BANNERMAN REPORTS Capacity THAT THE IDEA OF CABLES THROUGH THE ARCTIC TO CONNECT WEST TO EAST IS BEING REVISITED. QUINTILLION’S FIBER SYSTEM AND ARCTIC CONNECT ARE LEADING THE WAY IN THE REGION
G
lobal warming has meant that the once impossible task of laying a cable in the harsh, wintery landscape of the Arctic has now became feasible. Because of its central geographic location between Europe, Asia and the US, it is the perfect place to build cables connecting the various regions with the lowest possible latency. The warming oceans and the everincreasing demand for capacity is forcing telcos back into the meeting rooms to make these projects happen. “The number of subsea cable projects are increasing all over the world due to increasing need for broadband and higher capacity,” says Joseph Westerlund, sales manager at the submarine telecoms and special cables unit of Nexans, a provider of cabling and connectivity solutions. “As the Arctic sea ice declines due to global warming, it opens new opportunities to build shorter fibre links between continents. Such northern cable routes would allow the reinforcement of the existing subsea network and the reduction of the lag in transmission
between different parts of the world, such as China and Europe, for instance.” Anchorage-based private cable operator Quintillion is taking on the challenge with the construction of its Quintillion Fiber System, a 15,000km cable linking Europe and Asia to the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic – more specifically, Japan to Alaska, then on to Canada and London, with a connecting branch to Quintillion’s existing system in the US. “We started in 2014, with a series of surveys that mapped the sea floor and told us where to bury the cables so we could protect them for the life of the cables, which is at least 25 years,” says Kristina Woolston, Quintillion’s vice president of external relations. In addition to the subsea side of the network, Quintillion’s footprint also includes 249 miles of new terrestrial fibre connecting Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to the company’s existing terrestrial network in Fairbanks.
Hostile conditions As the one of the subsea leaders in the area, Quintillion has become something
of an expert at deploying networks in hostile Arctic conditions, but that doesn’t mean the project hasn’t come with its share of challenges. Woolston says: “As we look to extend the network towards Europe, the longer icy season is going to be significant for us. That will be a long and challenging build. You can’t predict the weather, can’t predict the ice.” This sentiment is echoed by Javier Héctor Lloret, senior strategic sourcing manager of submarine cables at BICS. As a communications enabler, BICS has investments in more than 20 submarine cables, to serve its footprint of more than 120 points of presence worldwide. “Undertaking subsea cabling projects in the Arctic presents two unique challenges. Firstly, ice masses can cause damage near the shore section of a submarine cable if it’s not properly protected,” he explains. But he says that this can be solved by horizontal directional drilling where the cable route is directly bored from the landing point to an exit at a suitable water depth. “Burying the cable deep beneath the sea floor minimises the risks present in august/september 2018
feature: arctic cable | 37
aggressive shore environments. These include ice masses which score the sea floor and could easily damage a cable buried at a shallower depth.” Woolston says that during the Quintillion’s build in 2017, the company checked every inch of its burial along the route and “laid down concrete to reinforce the installation and further protect the branch unit”. The second challenge, according to Lloret, is the window of time during which cables can be laid and maintained in the Arctic region. “If a cable is cut or damaged during the non-navigable season, it wouldn’t be possible to repair it until the ice melts again. A cable cut that happens during the non-navigable season could potentially require a very long time to be repaired on these routes.” No matter how big the challenge, according to Woolston, the Alaskan community is in need of the system. She points out that, until the first phase was built, all connectivity was offered over microwave and satellite. “These communities were ready,” explains Woolston. “They’d never had broadband for the most part. It’s a challenge to recruit, maintain and train the local community. Many even struggle with keeping good teachers here because they don’t have the ability to engage with them. Our communities don’t have colleges, and even rely on outside experts to provide medical support and services. We rely on outside services more than many other places.”
Image: Adobe Stock
Digital bridges Adding his thoughts on Arctic cables Westerlund says: “Connecting remote areas in the Arctic to broadband is also an important tool in building digital bridges between people and communities, enabling improved health, educational services and empowering local business.” The demand, according to Woolston, is there and once build the system will create unprecedented opportunities for businesses and the like in the region. “It’s a great opportunity for small businesses to optimise their offering with global connectivity. It won’t happen overnight, but we’ve heard from businesses locally that they’re so excited. There are infrastructure possibilities that would not have happened were it not for fibre in these communities.” Woolston is particularly keen on future opportunities capacitymedia.com
with OTTs in the area once completed and “through a lot of engagement”. On the question of whether or not the cable will connect at a cable landing station or directly into a data centre, Woolston says that it will most likely be a data centre as the project progresses and that Quintillion is considering the potential of an Arctic data centre of its
west coast of the US to China, Japan, the Bering Strait, Norway, Germany and Finland. Once built, the $700 million cable will offer capacity of between 10 to 44Tbs per fibre pair, with a total of six to eight fibre pairs and branching units to connect various landing points along its route. The cable is to be built by Cinia, a Finnish designer, builder and operator of intelligent network solutions. Ari-Jussi Knaapila, president and CEO of Cinia, was keen to Suvi Lindén, chair, NxtVn Finland, and former clarify that minister of communications for Finland the project has yet to be given the own. Phase two of the project, to Asia, is green light and at this stage he would right on course with construction due to rather describe it as an initiative. begin in 2019 and an estimated He explains: “I would say it’s probably completion set for 2020. a bit too early to call it a project, because Capacity “That phase does not have the same a project normally has a plan, a budget, a limitation and timing,” explains schedule, an objective and so on. I would Woolston. “We don’t have to worry about rather call it an initiative because there is the ice as much, so we can be more a lot of interest. A lot of pre-planning has flexible at utilising the entire calendar.” been done but there hasn’t been any As for Europe, she says that the company decisions made for the final investment is “moving equally as aggressively to or even the first phase.” phase three, a major path for our The project has received particularly network”, though no dates have yet been strong support from the Finnish given. government which undoubtedly sees a Following in similar steps to number of economic benefits for the Quintillion is the Arctic Connect country should the cable be built. project, an 18,000km system still in Sharing her thoughts on the development stages that will connect the governmental involvement in the project,
We’re now working on creating the best conditions for this Arctic cable because the connectivity is one of the most important things”
38 | feature: arctic cable
Suvi Lindén, the former Finnish minister of communications and current chair of NxtVn Finland, says that although the cable has been talked about for a number of years, the timing and the business model wasn’t right – but now they are. “The cable is of big interest to Finland because the cable has the shortest route from Asia to Europe through Finland. The Finnish government sees great opportunities.”
Connectivity hub Though one of those opportunities would of course be economic, Lindén is more excited about the possibility of building a connectivity hub akin to the likes of Marseille, Frankfurt or London. “We would want to see some of the data land and be stored in Finland and these days Finland could offer a lot of talent and knowledge on data analytics and these kinds of unique services,” explains Lindén. “The opportunity to offload a number of ICT services and create data centre campuses is an attractive proposition because there are ideal conditions to store data here – cool weather, low electricity prices, stability and security. On the business side we would like to see that some of the Asian companies would come and land in Finland.” Knaapila adds: “At the same time the entire global telecommunications market as a whole would benefit because there would be a new, faster route connecting northern Europe to northern Asia much faster than existing routes.” Cinia estimates that the new northern connection between Europe and Asia would bring a 25-40% decrease in latency compared to the traditional southern route. Just like Quintillion and its Alaskan fibre system, Arctic Connect must also prepare to navigate extremely cold environments that create a number of different issues. But Lindén says there are a few benefits that come from building in this area – and that’s the smaller risk of human damage caused to the cable. “Once the cable is built and the weather freezes over again there’s actually a lower risk of it being damaged because nothing can get to it. So in way there’s a higher risk when there’s no ice,” says Lindén.
Cable damage “Navigation activity is fairly low in those areas, so the risk of navigation-related damage to a cable is also very low – or zero in the non-navigable season, says Lloret. “However, this only applies to shallow water depths. The whole of the cable route, including deep waters, is also subject to the same risks as any other
submarine cable.” Interestingly Knaapila says that in his opinion it’s the Russian side of the projected Arctic Connect cable that poses the biggest challenge. “I would say the biggest challenge is permitting [construction] from the Russian side, Capacity because we’re talking about mainly using the Russian EEZ [exclusive economic zone] regions,” he explains. “We need to make sure we have people at the highest levels in Russia giving it the thumbs up to ensure it’s not seen a security threat and only the business cable that it is.”
Terrestrial links In keeping with Lindén’s hope that Finland will become a hub because of the Arctic Connect cable, she says that the Finnish government plans on adding a terrestrial fibre route and building out its infrastructure in the country to support this initiative. “We’re now working on creating the best conditions for this Arctic cable because the connectivity is one of the most important things. We have a real opportunity to create hubs at these landing points,” she says. Knaapila agrees, saying that “the building of data centres in the Arctic region is one of the more exciting opportunities to come from this cable”. He adds: “We’re actively looking for Russian companies to participate and investigate what kind of requirements are needed on the Russian coastline.” Data demands in telecoms is growing at a rate of approximately 30-40% a year, says Knaapila, and the growing data increase coming from Asia only adds to the business case of the cable, says Lindén. “Business viability is the most
important thing to first consider with this cable and part of that is the fact that there are lots of data transfer from Asia to Europe,” she says. In the future Lindén hopes that OTTs in particular will be drawn to buy capacity on the route. Given the close proximity to each other and the need for the Arctic Connect initiative to learn from the Quintillion project it seem obvious that some kind of partnership or collaboration between the two might happen.
Critical infrastructure “We know the team, and we are in the same circles,” says Woolston. “Our network has been designated by the US government as critical infrastructure. As part of that, we have some requirements that deal with national security and who our partners are, and so it is important to us to maintain within the guidelines, understanding we’ll be building an international connection,” she says, adding: “We can’t say we wouldn’t engage with them but for now we’re moving independently.” Lindén, however, seems to think that the two are further along in their negotiations, with even the potential of working together jointly on the next phase of Quintillion’s Fiber System. “From what I understand they were involved in some very interesting conversations in Hokkaido during the broadband summit in June. I think there’s a lot of possibilities to operate collaboratively on Quintillion’s phase two, which goes to Japan and China, with Arctic Connect. Working together in this area makes the most sense, because having more cables in the Arctic area is a common goal for both.” august/september 2018
special report
SDN & NFV August/September 2018
CONTENTS 41 Transformation Nan Chen on the $250bn market for services over automated networks
42 Service orchestration MEF is coordinating the release of APIs, writes CTO Pascal Menezes
44 The big interview Capacity
Epsilon is on its journey into SDN. CEO Jerzy Szlosarek gives his view on the implications for the future
46 All things are connected Huawei chairman Liang Hua on the Operations Transformation Forum
48 Wholesale transformation SDN remains a principal topic of conversation. But what has been its impact on wholesale?
51 20 SDN leaders Capacity lists our 20 leaders in SDN for 2018. We pick key figures from nominations and editorial selection
Sponsored by:
capacitymedia.com
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BOOKINGS OPEN | 17 SEPTEMBER 2018
23-26 June 2019 | Hyatt Regency & Marriott Marquis | Atlanta, GA ITWTeam@capacitymedia.com | www.itw2019.com
executive statement: nan chen | 41
FULL STEAM AHEAD FOR MEF 3.0 & LSO It’s “full steam ahead” for $250bn assured services over automated networks globally. A consensus is building that service providers must become more cloud-like, automated and interconnected, writes MEF president Nan Chen
E
arlier this year at ITW, I highlighted the fact that the industry transition to assured services orchestrated across automated networks is accelerating due to an increase in collaboration efforts among service providers, technology vendors and other industry players. I am happy to report from our vantage point at MEF that we have seen transformational momentum continue to build throughout the past 12 months. We see this reflected in the enthusiastic embrace of MEF 3.0 by top service and technology companies worldwide, progress across all major aspects of MEF 3.0 development work, and a massive increase in MEF 3.0-related proof of concept (PoC) activity. We have more than 50 companies participating in 20 PoC demonstrations at the MEF18 networking event in Los Angeles, (which takes place from 29 October to 2 November).
Urgency for transformation Aamir Hussain, EVP and CTO of CenturyLink, recently said: “Our industry is going through a massive transformation where customers are learning from an Amazon-like buying experience and a Netflix-like watching experience.” Customers want simplicity and agility, and they are looking for service providers to help them navigate through their own transformation. With each passing day, we see a consensus building that service providers must become more cloud-like, automated and interconnected to deliver the dynamic performance and security required to thrive in the digital economy. MEF introduced the MEF 3.0 global services framework last November to define, deliver and certify assured services orchestrated across a global ecosystem of automated networks. Major areas of work include capacitymedia.com
standardised, orchestrated services; open lifecycle service orchestration (LSO) APIs; and service, technology and professional certification. The planned MEF 3.0 service family includes dynamic Carrier Ethernet, optical transport, IP, SD-WAN, security-as-aservice, and other virtualised services that will be orchestrated over programmable networks using LSO APIs. These services promise to provide an on-demand experience with unprecedented user- and applicationCapacity directed control over network resources and service capabilities. MEF enhanced the family of current MEF 3.0 CE services by publishing a specification, MEF 62, that defines a new managed access e-line service with a specific set of management and class of service capabilities designed to accelerate service provisioning and simplify management of services that traverse multiple operators. MEF approved our first optical transport services specification, MEF 63, for subscriber services that support Ethernet and fibre channel client protocols as well as SONET/SDH client protocols for legacy WAN services. This paves the way for service providers to automate multi-vendor service offerings. MEF published MEF 61, the subscriber IP service attributes technical specification, as the first in a planned series of IP specs to describe subscriber and operator IP services. This is an important step toward our goal of enabling orchestrated IP services. In a landmark development, we are moving close to publishing the industry’s first standard for defining an SD-WAN service and associated service attributes by the end of this year. Meanwhile, numerous MEF members have been involved in a multi-vendor SD-WAN implementation project with the goal of addressing the challenge of orchestrating services over multiple SD-WAN deployments, and they will have a proof
of concept demonstration related to this work at MEF18. MEF’s LSO reference architecture guides development of standardized LSO APIs for end-to-end service orchestration across multiple providers and over multiple network technology domains. We have work related to multiple interface reference points, but I just want to touch on LSO API development associated with two key reference points.
Inter-provider LSO APIs All eyes have been focused on development of inter-provider LSO Sonata APIs that deal with business and operations interactions between connectivity providers. As MEF’s CTO Pascal Menezes has shared in a companion article (page 42) focused on LSO Sonata, MEF is on track to release a set of LSO Sonata APIs related to serviceability, product inventory, quoting, ordering, trouble ticketing, and commercial billing and settlement. MEF has released two specifications that advance intra-provider orchestration of MEF 3.0 services over multiple network technology domains: MEF 59, the network resource management: information model, and MEF 60, the network resource provisioning: interface profile specification. As a result, the LSO Presto API for automated network resource provisioning is now available for standardised use with a mix of network technologies.
Certification In July, MEF recognised the first three companies in the world to achieve MEF 3.0 certification: Ciena, H3C and CMC Telecom of Vietnam. Meanwhile, we have expanded our professional certification programme to include MEF-SDN/NFV, MEF Carrier Ethernet certified professional, and MEF network foundations certifications. We look forward to sharing more progress in the coming months.
42 | opinion: orchestration
Multi-provider service orchestration across automated networks MEF is coordinating the release of a series of APIs for its Sonata LSO, writes the organisation’s chief technology officer, Pascal Menezes
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hile some can argue that the internet is good enough to provide basic connectivity between site to site and site to cloud, most large enterprises still rely on managed private network services as their connectivity fabric of choice. These include MPLS and Carrier Ethernet. However, enterprises want their managed network services to become more cloud-like, so that they can self-provision their connectivity needs while gaining visibility of performance guarantees. MEF recently launched the MEF 3.0 global service framework to help service providers transform their network services to meet these enterprise customer needs. The MEF 3.0 framework comprises of four key areas to facilitate delivery of assured, automated services that can span multiple network technology domains and multiple service provider domains. For assuring services, MEF 3.0 is focused on defining the common language for optical transport, Carrier Ethernet and IP services. MEF is also defining virtualised services such as SD-WAN, along with up-and-coming security-as-a-service (SECaaS) and other higher-layer application services. For automation, MEF has defined the foundational lifecycle service orchestration (LSO) reference architecture and is defining a given set of open APIs at the various MEF LSO reference points. The LSO Sonata reference point is the management interface reference point that supports the business and operations interactions – such as ordering, billing and trouble management – between two connectivity service providers. For example, retail service provider business applications may use LSO Sonata ordering API to place an order with a wholesale partner for a MEF-defined service. MEF will soon release a series of Sonata LSO APIs.
Billing and settlement The commercial billing and settlement API allows for an agreement between a retail service provider and a wholesale partner for commercial activities related to a given set of defined MEF services. This includes a commercial relation Capacity between entities, going from the definition of a customer, the differences between price and cost, and the concept of margin. A commercial agreement may use distributed ledger technology – such as blockchain – as an automated method for commercial settlements for services such as bandwidth on demand. Serviceability The serviceability API allows a retail service provider to determine during either the pre-sales or service-fulfillment phases if sufficient physical and logical resources are on hand to provision a given service on behalf of a specific customer in a specified geographical location. The retail service provider’s operational support system can request a number of actions and/or information from a wholesale partner’s system: • Validate an address associated with a service delivery location; • Retrieve sites based on a filtering criteria or ID; • Determine if a service (including service configuration parameter) can be delivered to a specific customer site within a wholesale partner’s domain. Inventory The product inventory API allows a retail provider to retrieve product inventory instances that have been specifically ordered from the wholesale partner. Each product instance that is retrieved from the wholesale partner’s inventory system has a generic set
OPINION
Pascal Menezes CTO MEF
of product attributes and a set of productspecific attributes that are used to extend a product’s instance. Ordering The ordering API allows for a retail service provider to place an order to a given wholesale business partner, including specific service attributes. A buyer can create, change, disconnect, query, amend in-flight and cancel an order. Trouble ticketing The trouble ticketing API allows the ability for a retail service provider system to create and manage trouble tickets with a given wholesale business partner related to a given set of products. The following are some example scenarios: • Create a new trouble ticket; • Retrieve existing trouble tickets; • Partially modify an open trouble ticket; • Close an open trouble ticket; • Cancel an open trouble ticket; • Carry out trouble ticket-related notifications. Quotes The quote API allows a retail service provider system to get quotes from different wholesale business partners. A buyer can make a request to create, retrieve, cancel or get quote notifications from a given wholesale business partner. Once the wholesale partner and retail service provider have agreed to a negotiated amount, the wholesale provider is expected to update the quote based on the agreement. Other APIs that MEF will soon be working on at the LSO Sonata reference point are use cases such as SLA reporting, contracting, catalogue, invoicing, contact management and implementation feedback. august/september 2018
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To
Infiny and
beyond Epsilon is some way down its journey into SDN, but the future means more points of presence, more orchestration and more partnerships, CEO Jerzy Szlosarek tells James Pearce Capacity
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he global software-defined networking (SDN) market is expected to grow to approximately $61 billion by 2023, at a compound annual growth rate of around 39% between 2017 and 2023, according to Markets and Markets’ global forecast. Some carriers are just starting down the software-defined path, but others have been walking it awhile. One company already on its way is Epsilon, according to co-founder Jerzy Szlosarek, CEO for the past three years. “SDN – and we prefer the term network orchestration or network automation – is what is really driving innovation in our space,” says Szlosarek as I talk to him on the phone to Singapore. “In the last few years there has been a big growth in cloud connectivity. That’s been a way for network providers to interconnect to cloud providers using network orchestration and API technology to make a programmable interface. That way you can connect a network to a cloud provider and have a seamless experience
from building a network and unlocking cloud for applications.” The benefits are simple and obvious, says Szlosarek. Typically, carriers would have established an NNI (network-to-network interface) and a series of commercial costs through partner relationship managers who manage traffic between those two networks. “Network A would buy network services on network B and an NNI determines that.” But this is all changing. Now, networks are interconnecting through APIs. Carriers are using software to link up. Network A can look at the service capability of network B, configure what is needed, and activate services automatically. If that sounds easier, it’s because it is – but the carrier community isn’t quite there yet, and that brings some complexity with it. Szlosarek explains: “Today it is very complex because there hasn’t been enough work on standards, so everyone has created their own APIs and their own software interworking. This is very cumbersome.” That’s not to say all is lost with the future of SDN. He points to a number of inter-carrier trials – mentioning the likes
of Colt and Verizon, which last year launched a joint SDN trial – and the work of MEF on standardisation. MEF is creating a set of APIs that means carriers will no longer have to customise or develop their own unique software code as part of the softwarisation process. This, part of MEF 3.0, was launched in October 2017, meaning “the industry isn’t quite there yet”, according to Szlosarek.
The journey Epsilon enacts SDN through its Infiny platform, an on-demand connectivity platform that provides enterprises and service providers with “a suite of highperformance connectivity and communications services at the click of a button”, according to the company. Infiny, launched in 2017 at Capacity Middle East, connects into more than 100 points of presence (PoPs) in 170 countries. That wasn’t the start of Epsilon’s development of SDN, however. Szlosarek explains: “We started our journey around two or three years ago. The vision for the company was around where we saw the august/september 2018
the big interview: jerzy szlosarek | 45
1999
Systems engineer, long haul and optical switching, Ciena
2001
Network engineering manager, Dynegy
2003
Chief technical officer, Epsilon
2012
Chief operating officer, Epsilon
2015
CEO, Epsilon
defining, delivering and certifying agile, assured, and orchestrated communication services across a global ecosystem of automated networks. A major part of this was lifecycle services orchestration APIs for network provisioning, which sounds a lot like what Szlosarek has been saying. “We attend the MEF meetings and we have been partaking in the MEF 3.0 meetings,” he says. “The committee discussed the standards and MEF’s vision for its APIs. We are committing feedback to the MEF but we’re already down our journey. I’m quite comfortable doing customisation but the future for this industry is about standards. It’s an evolution for us but it is an exciting one.” The need to change how carrier networks interact has been driven by the same things that has driven the core changes in the wider telecoms industry over recent years: the way end users, be they consumers or enterprises, consume content, data and services. “Fifteen years ago, many wouldn’t have
Today SDN is very complex because Capacity there hasn’t been enough work on standards” Jerzy Szlosarek, CEO, Epsilon
industry going.” That meant “a major restructure” – including significant investment in areas not familiar with the traditional telecoms model. “We’ve had to invest in dev capabilities, putting in DevOps people, understanding APIs and how the cloud marketplace moves, understanding how the technology and emerging providers of the future are consuming networks – that’s been a major change.” In 2018, “we’re starting to see some real, live, commercial cases where customers are happy to interface through the portal, through the APIs, and through the automation”. He warns: “It is a complex transition as carriers have legacies they want to protect. It is a mindset. We’re well down the path but we’ve still got a lot to achieve, and we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.” That work involves Epsilon’s involvement with MEF, including helping out the standards body on its work to develop intercarrier APIs. I was in Orlando when MEF launched its MEF 3.0 Transformational Global Services Framework, with the aim of capacitymedia.com
imagined that the world would have moved to WhatsApp and Skype,” Szlosarek explains. “Today we’re almost allergic to making calls that cost money. “If we look at where we’re headed, it is all about advanced services: AI, automated vehicles, creating applications that enhance our lives. The more that happens, the more the network has to change to support this kind of model. Enterprises have moved their workload into the cloud, and telecoms operators are now actively moving connectivity and networks into the cloud, which adds a lot more complexity. The nature of the tech will change. It will be more virtualised and software-driven, and that means transactions on a technical level will also change.” He adds: “You’ll still need the face-toface human element because dealing with commercial, complex and large interconnect agreements will still be needed. The speeds and delivery of deployment, delivery of quality of service and experience, and the amount of services that we’ll be managing in these new technical frameworks will be automated.” For
Epsilon, the future focus is very much on growing its presence, and that involves three key components. The first, says Szlosarek, is about orchestrating as much of its network as it possibly can, including linking up with cloud providers and other parts of the ecosystem, in order to boost the value of Infiny. “Today we’re in around 100 PoPs and we will be adding more, pushing connectivity closer to the edge.” The initial focus is on North America, where Epsilon is “putting most of our investment”. In June, Epsilon and China’s DCConnect announced a two-way, intercarrier network service that will be provisioned across each other’s networks using an API-to-API interface between their separate SDN architectures. This means Epsilon can enable DCConnect’s customer base to interact with 600 Epsilon service provider partners worldwide. It also allows Epsilon’s partners to interconnect in several major cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Epsilon also linked up with SoftBank’s internet exchange arm, BBIX, to offer on-demand connectivity in Japan. “We’ve made IX an integral part of our proposition,” he explains. “We talk about the cloud-centric network that is automating and virtualising most of the network. What we’ve been doing and actively pursuing is working with multiple IXs worldwide and having them on board with Infiny.” He explains that “BBIX have been in the market a number of years and have grown well”, adding: “They’ve been offering solutions for mobile providers to partner with content providers.” In addition, “our Asia-Pac network has been growing. We’ve added more PoPs and more sites. We completed our Japan build so we now have infrastructure connecting Japan to the US, to Hong Kong, to Singapore. Part of that is to work with BBIX to have them in our Infiny platform.” Epsilon has been “opening up to new geographies and making it easier for companies who don’t have presence in established markets to connect to new locations”, he says. “Many of our European or American partners may not be aware of BBIX and the internet exchanges in Asia.” So what comes next? He says there will be “six or seven” new points of presence this year, with Africa on the horizon. Expect to see “a physical presence” from Epsilon in Johannesburg soon, says Szlosarek. He concludes: “Infiny partners drive traffic from local markets and that is a fundamental difference for Epsilon compared with other operators in the market. We’re very focused on unlocking the value of partnering.”
46 | SPONSORED STATEMENT
ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED IN THE NEW INTELLIGENT WORLD OF SERVICES HUAWEI WILL BE HOSTING ITS ANNUAL OPERATIONS TRANSFORMATION FORUM ON AND Ͱ SEPTEMBER ͮͬͭʹ IN MUNICH. LIANG HUA, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMPANY’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS, INTRODUCES THE ISSUES THAT WILL BE DISCUSSED The vision and goals of operations transformation are to realise successful business stories. Huawei continues to build an the digital ROADS (Real-time, On-demand, All-online, DIY, open platform for all industries, working alongside them to and Social) experience for the end user, to realise business agility gradually but robustly achieve digital transformation and to allow rapid innovation in digital services, development and ultimately bring digital services to every person, home and go-to-market strategy, and also to realise automation, self-healing, organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world. self-optimising and autonomy of ICT infrastructure management Hong Kong through digital technology. A new intelligent world is coming, in which all things can sense, At last year’s forum, OTF 2017, in Hong Kong, China, Huawei Capacity invited customers, partners and academics to share a number of and all things are connected. topics, including: The Huawei GIV – Global Industry Vision – predicts that by • developing video services and expanding B2B business with 2025 the number of personal smart devices will reach 40 billion, cloud services for growth; while the total number of global connections will reach 100 • realising agile operations by cloudification to build a solid billion, to create a digital economy worth $23 trillion. foundation for digital business; and Huawei believes that, in the 5G era, operators will play an • building experience-oriented network to optimise network increasingly important role in areas such as smart cities, smart value. homes and smart healthcare. To achieve this, in addition to Delegates in Hong Kong also discussed how to accelerate leveraging upcoming 5G technology, operators should also realise overall transformation through open ecosystem collaboration. the ROADS experience, business agility and network intelligence They heard from HKT, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, NTT through operational transformation. DoCoMo and SoftBank, plus DBS, GSMA, and MIT about the Many operators have made good progress in achieving their remarkable progress in achieving their transformation goals. transformation goals, but most still have many unanswered Huawei recommended three key ingredients for telecoms questions and challenges to overcome. They will be joining this companies to achieve successful digital transformation. year’s Operations Transformation Forum (OTF) and sharing • Firstly, digital mastermind, a comprehensive set of prescriptive their best practices from the past year, since last year’s OTF in methods for transformation, building on the work of the Open Hong Kong. ROADS community. In addition, there will be inspirational speakers from operators • Secondly, the need to create an industry reference model, which and influential organisations such as Deutsche Telekom, KPN, allows best-in-class solutions to be incorporated into future Orange, BT, Turkcell, Safaricom, HKT, BBVA and GSMA. They solution. will join the OTF to share their viewpoints. The forum focuses on the new business scenarios that will place • And, last but not least, the need to prioritise transformation activities to ensure that real value is regularly delivered throughout new demands on operators. the transformation. In the 5G era, how should operators leverage digital operations Ryan Ding, executive director of the board and CEO to combine the connectivity capabilities of massive numbers of of Huawei’s carrier business group, gave a speech titled users and devices with new operations capabilities to efficiently “Transforming towards digital business – embrace, act, meet end users’ needs and hence seize the new opportunities that accelerate”. become available? He pointed out that the industry has a consensus for digital These topics will all be discussed during OTF 2018, which continues to focus on digital operations transformation, including transformation, and that it is reformulating digital business practice. Enterprise IT and connectivity services, video services 5G and the latest topics such as sharing news of transformation and internet of things (IoT) services allow operators to give full practices and presenting business solutions presentation. play to their network advantages and can be effectively enhanced Those in Munich will hear about the world’s first Digital Transformation Practice Center (DTPC) experience. These topics with digital technologies. He said that Huawei will build multi-layer enabler platforms are going to be discussed in-depth during the two-day event – see and infrastructure to align with industry development trends and panel contribute to industry growth and business success. In addition, customers will be sharing details of many
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august/september 2018
Operations Transformation Forum 2018, Munich The keynote consists of three sessions 1: Digital service enabling new growth 2: Digital infrastructure implementation efficiency improvement 3: Agile way of working and talent skill improvement Roundtables and tracks include: Roundtable 1: Monetising 5G by agile operations Exploring the most suitable 5G services, business, network and operations with insight and practice by business and technical feasibility study. Roundtable 2: Build a successful premium home broadband business Sharing global best practices of home broadband businesses, exploring how to achieve optimal network investment, improving operational efficiency through digital technology and reshaping the home network experience. Track 1: Crafting digital for new growth Sharing digital transformation with reports of successful practices in business, operation and network, discussing how to build digital business agility for diversified business scenarios toward 5G era, realising service automatic provisioning, selfhealing and self-optimisation, and finally accelerating innovation and growth.
capacitymedia.com
LEADING SPEAKERS FROM ACROSS THE INDUSTRY SHARE EXPERIENCES
Track 2: AUTIN, intelligence to modernise operations towards 5G Sharing industry insights on 5G operations, cloud operations challenges, and the successful practices of automation and intelligence as well as security standards of cloud services. Discussing how to prepare and work together towards for 5G operations. CEM Elite Club The CEM Elite Club will meet in a salon that brings together like-minded customer-experience management (CEM) industry experts to discuss how to achieve digital customer experience with operators, industry organisations, and ecosystem partners. Exhibition hall The exhibition at OTF 2018 will offer demonstrations of operations transformation in services solution and practice from the point of view of the customer. One demonstration will be of digital services to enable new business. It includes digital business consulting, design, provisioning, CEM and intelligent operations aspects to demonstrate digital operation transformation value for future The second is digital infrastructure to enhance efficiency, using planning, construction, operation, optimization and marketing for customer business success.
Liang Hua Chairman HUAWEI
Laxmi Akkaraju CSO GSMA
Kaan TerzioÄ&#x;lu CEO TURKCELL
Bouke Hoving CTIO KPN
Tang Qibing President of Global Technical Services HUAWEI
Derek White Global Head of Customer Solutions BBVA
Jean-Claude Geha SVP IDU & Chairman of Pan-Net
Fotis Karonis 5G Executive Sponsor BT GROUP
Trevor Cheung COO OPEN ROADS COMMUNITY
Ian Seward General Manager SFIA FOUNDATION
Bruce Xun Vice President, Global Technical Services HUAWEI
Capacity
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM
Roberto Kung Senior Vice President, Quality Operations & Performance ORANGE GROUP
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A WHOLESALE CHANGE Software-defined networking remains a principal topic of telecoms conversation. But what has been its impact so far on the business of wholesale telecoms? Guy Matthews reports
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he wholesale telecoms sector is not immune from the change sweeping the market for ICT services. Carrier networks cannot afford to be bottlenecks of legacy practices while, all around them, from start-up tech unicorns to content providers, scale up to exploit new services in areas like the cloud, IoT and big data. The power of software is integral to all this change, and carriers must embrace software-defined networking (SDN) to stay relevant. There are signs that SDN is starting to transform the wholesale ecosystem, and they are long overdue, argues Carl Roberts, chief commercial officer of carrier Epsilon. “I see SDN as the gateway to the future and really freeing networking from a legacy mindset,” he says. “It is creating new opportunities in our business and removing the limits on what a networking business can be.” Others see a sector in the early and tentative stages of this process. “Are we seeing a significant change? In pockets, yes,” says Ravi Palepu, global head of telco services at consulting firm Virtusa. “Most wholesalers have been on an SDN journey for at least a year or two now. But use cases are not across the board.” There are “some areas of the carrier business where we’re seeing more activity than others, such as the data centre or in on-demand networks”, he says. “Enterprises now want their network services on demand. But they are not always getting that with other types of service, for example security.” The challenge, says Palepu, is that too many wholesalers are still carrying so much legacy baggage. “You can’t just switch to a virtual stack just like that. It’s very difficult, and has to be gradual,” he explains. “Customers don’t always have
the appetite to wait years though.”
Transmission impossible
While change is slow for some, there are others in the carrier market who are already offering the ability to fully orchestrate SDN according to the needs of service provider customers. To do so they are taking the painful step of Capacity moving on from older transmission technologies like TDM and ADSL. “SDN offers a way for carriers to tap into the gains of new transmission technologies through virtualisation, putting the software on top of their own core distribution and access capabilities,” claims Steve Williams, product manager at Vodafone UK. “This shift will offer new possibilities for service providers and a new market for carriers.” It’s too early, says Williams, to say precisely how SDN will impact the relationship between carriers and their customers. “However, we can expect SDN to give service providers far greater control of their carrier network, with API-driven interactions enabling them to rapidly or automatically increase bandwidth to support the services they’re providing to end-users,” he says. “This should create a smoother relationship between carriers and their customers, as it becomes easier to procure and adjust their services.” SDN gives carriers flexibility and agility, says David Noguer Bau, Juniper Networks’ service provider director. “It’s helping them make sure traffic is going where they want it to go, optimising paths, reducing manual operations. Unless there was a strong business-related driver for this, no one would make the move.” But Noguer Bau warns that it is still early days, with a very limited number of things that SDN can do for carriers. “SDN for routing is straightforward,” he
says. “But if you limit it to that layer, then there is only so much you can do. You can change routes, but you cannot change capacity to a great extent.” At Wave2Wave, Duncan Ellis, director for EMEA, agrees that, as things stand, SDN solves only part of the problem, being unsuited to addressing issues in the physical layer. “This is where, in the vast majority of cases, network management remains a manual, rather than software-driven, process,” says Ellis. “Consequently, none of the benefits of SDN apply. Here, to add or remove a new network connection, an engineer is required to manipulate fibres by hand. This process is slow, expensive and highly susceptible to human error.” An emerging alternative, says Ellis, comes from robotic optical management engines which can be programmed to physically change the connectivity of the network. “In essence, robots – and the physical network automation they deliver – are the final piece in the jigsaw for SDN,” he claims. “With them, it’s possible to configure and manage the optimal network across the entire stack, all from one SDN controller.” On the plus side, Mike O’Malley, vice president of carrier strategy and business development for cybersecurity vendor Radware, argues that SDN is giving the wholesale industry much more agility to respond to the market quickly with custom solutions to better meet customer needs and better compete against web scale companies. “It also opens the possibility to leverage the great amount of inherent data in the network for big data analytics to gather insights and programmatically improve the function of the network via SDN,” he says. “Security is a great example of this, august/september 2018
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SDN is actually making networking a vibrant and exciting segment of the ICT ecosystem” Carl Roberts, chief commercial officer, Epsilon
where carriers are harnessing security information throughout their networks.” At Colt, Fahim Sabir says it is the area of on-demand networking where SDN’s true potential lies. “It’s this that opens the benefits of SDN to customers,” says Sabir, the company’s director of network-ondemand. “The cloud revolution is starting to drive end customers in the direction of wanting a flexible, cloud-like, experience with their network.” The real gains come, he says, when an on-demand service can span multiple carriers to increase its reach: “In order to achieve this, carriers must open their networks up to other carriers via APIs to offer these on-demand services.” Colt is the leader within MEF in the area of lifecycle services orchestration focused on the definition of these APIs, he claims, and the company has demonstrated them in action in proofs of concept with both AT&T and Verizon. Powerful use-cases will emerge, he says, when there is ubiquity in on-demand networking at all layers and when this is combined with inter-carrier APIs. There are many who see the interconnection of SDN platforms as the next big step in the evolution of networking, with the power of the API able to give a uniform experience to all customers in the chain. “SDN is actually making networking a vibrant and exciting segment of the ICT ecosystem,” enthuses Roberts at Epsilon. “With our DevOps team, we’re able to push networking to new places with new programmability and automation that supports new business models and partnerships.” He adds: “We’re working with service providers across the world to explore how we can use our API stack to expand their scope and grow their offerings. At the same time, we are growing our reach in new capacitymedia.com
markets and supporting new users via our partners. That’s a massive change from talking about voice minutes 10 years ago.” Under this model, he says, carriers will be free to explore, innovate and collaborate with their partners and go far beyond traditional wholesale. “I’m excited about SDN because it fundamentally changes what is possible in networking Capacity and makes connectivity exciting again,” says Roberts. “The legacy model that the industry has had for decades is over. We’re inventing the future of connectivity every day.” Carriers’ customers into new pricing during a surge in traffic from a DDoS attack.
“Akamai can help by mitigating threats at the access layer of the internet rather than at the core, potentially preventing large amounts of traffic aggregating in the core,” says Coley. Ultimately, cutting off threats as quickly and cleanly as possible clearly offers a huge upside for carriers. “Defending earlier protects the network and performance,” says Verizon’s Field. “Think forward to being able to use machine learning and AI to make these decisions, and we have some real potential to implement self-defence through automation on a carriergrade scale.”
A wholesale revolution in the wide area While SDN is being deployed by carriers to change core networks and support transformation within data centres, its close cousin SD-WAN is making similar waves in the wide area network, connecting an organisation’s geographically distributed locations in a new and software-enabled way. SD-WAN and SDN have a common history, both centring on the separation of the control plane and the data plane and both supportive of the integration of virtual network functions (VNFs). Brendan Gunn, director of global Ethernet and IP services at US carrier Verizon, says that SD-WAN is creating every bit as profound a change within carriers businesses as SDN. “SD-WAN is revolutionising our industry, for example by making what we sell much more easily managed by customers,” says Gunn. “Even though we at Verizon are still in the midst of the SD-WAN journey, it’s already clear that there has been a major change in how we relate to customers,
and in the types of discussions we’re having with them. There’s a lot more emphasis in flexibility and dynamic services, and a lot more talk that goes beyond issues of price and access and up into the OSI stack, and that’s been exciting.” But Nick Johnson, CEO of Evolving Networks, a UK-based ISP, fears that too many carriers are stuck in the SD-WAN slow lane. “While there is an acceptance within the wholesale carrier industry that SD-WAN is happening, it seems that most wholesale telecoms providers are waiting to see what type of traction is achieved before making significant investments in their infrastructure,” he says. “We would say that the wholesale market is being understandably slow to embrace SD-WAN as anything more than a buzzword. This represents a risk, as we have seen large carriers trying to sell traditional leased lines as ‘SD ready’ when they are anything but.”
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SDN Market Leaders S
oftware-defined networking is the enabler of carrier automation, zero-touch and above all the simplification and efficiency of networks. Thought leadership, innovation and research in this technology is becoming increasingly relevant, as industry players of all standings realise the impact SDN can have on their businesses. A mixture of nominations and editorial selection, Capacity lists our 20 leaders in SDN for 2018. As always, these lists are subjective and there are plenty of names that could have been included, but we’ve selected key industry figures from across the board who are pushing the conversation forward, resulting in what we believe to be a nice mix for all. capacitymedia.com
Compiled by Natalie Bannerman
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VENDORS
Sunil Khandekar Nuage Networks founder and CEO
Erik Ekudden Ericsson chief technology officer
Khandekar founded Nuage Networks, then a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, where he came up with a very simple idea that is prophetic today. He envisioned SDN to connect users to applications independent of where the application was hosted and the user’s location. While technology vendors created SDN solutions exclusively for data centres, Khandekar led Nuage Networks to extend SDN principles beyond the boundaries of the data centre. Today, Nuage Networks offers an end-to-end multi-cloud solution extending connectivity within the data centre or public clouds to branch offices from a single point of visibility and control, with notable customers such as BT, Vodafone, Telefónica and China Mobile.
Ekudden was named as CTO for Ericsson back in May 2017, at which time his focus was on building the network platform of the future to enable new business models. Since assuming the role, the company has won the award for best NFV/SDN solution at the 2018 5G MENA awards. Ericsson won the title for introducing a preintegrated, pre-tested, system verified solution as a better approach to telco cloud to reduce deployment cost and time to market while simultaneously reducing risk. Ekudden over saw these milestones and most recently, Wind Tre deployed Network Functions Virtualisation Infrastructure to virtualise its core network.
Capacity Vanessa Little VMware director - global NFV ecosystem architecture
Margaret Chiosi Huawei VP of open ecosystem
David Ward Cisco VP, chief architect & chief technology officer of engineering
In her role at VMware, Little leads the team that creates the innovative NFV solutions and go to market strategies that use VMware technologies and the vast ecosystem of partners. In addition, she is also responsible for developing the standard for NFV solutions with VMware NFV ecosystem laboratories, creating carrier-grade architectures. With over 25 years’ experience, Little is active in showcasing and championing women in tech fields, and is a member of Women of Openstack and Women in Comms. She is also active in many open source communities such as the Technical Steering Committee of Open Source Mano, which she chairs.
Formerly a network architect with AT&T, Chiosi has been described as ‘leading light’ during her 17-year tenure with the company and was directly responsible for helping AT&T move into open source development. Now with Huawei in the US, she is tasked with developing open source and standards into the fixed network product line which includes IoT devices. During her more than 35 years in the industry, Chiosi was a founding member of the ETSI ISG NFV and Linux Foundation OPNFV including being president of OPNFV, ONF ONOS Alternate Board member, and she is a member of ODL user group.
Ward has been chief architect and CTO of engineering at Cisco since 2012 after serving as CTO and chief architect of Juniper Networks’ platform systems division. For Cisco Ward is tasked with defining the strategy, design and development of the division’s transport and mobility equipment, as well as core, edge and access routers and operating system. It was under Ward’s leadership that Cisco launched its Application Centric Infrastructure, the SDN solution that creates application agility and data centre automation. Other offerings include Cisco’s DNA Center, SD-Access, SD-WAN and SD-Branch specifically designed to meet the needs of network managers. august/september 2018
20 sdn market leaders | 53
CARRIERS
Rajiv Datta Colt chief operating officer
Paul Gampe PCCW Global chief technology officer
Datta was appointed as COO for Colt back in 2017, tasked with bringing together Colt’s operational and technological capabilities, customer experience strategy, and product and innovation teams under one organisational framework. Prior to that as CTO Datta was responsible for Colt’s network technology strategy and the creation of Colt’s next generation of products and services, including the evolution of its SDN-based network. Earlier this year Colt collaborated with Verizon to demonstrate two-way inter-carrier SDN orchestration. During the demonstration, the two companies were able to make real-time bandwidth changes in each other’s networks through an Equinix interconnect.
Gampe has lead the company’s technical transformation turning it into a true software-defined digital service provider, enabling PCCW Global to become the first tier 1 network service provider to offer SDN via Console Connect’s network automation software and powerful social networking interface. Paul’s leadership and wealth of experience in the software development sector has helped accelerate the development and rollout of the PCCW Global’s software-defined network capabilities, which, according the company makes them the only global Tier 1 IP operator to have delivered a true automated software-defined interconnect platform to its customers.
Capacity Luciano Salata Neutrona Networks president and COO
Juan Carlos García López Telefónica director of technology and architecture, global CTIO
Arash Ashouriha Deutsche Telekom senior vice president group technology architecture & innovation and deputy CTO
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Salata is the co-founder and president of Neutrona Networks. Under his leadership Neutrona has been successfully migrating into a regional SDN leader for Latin America. Neutrona is the only Latin American network to provide multiple subsea cable systems and terrestrial fibre rings that are monitored and managed with a home-grown SDN solution that redefines traffic engineering across a physically diverse multi-cable network. The carrier submitted a patent application for this system to the US Patent and Trade Office in 2015. The company first launched its SDN service in 2015, and Salata has been working ever since to develop enhanced capabilities to better serve the region.
López has been with Telefónica since 1990 working his way up from researcher in the R&D unit all the way to his current position. His current focus is on end-to-end (E2E) digitalisation of processes and end-to-end virtualisation of the network, making SDN/NFV as well as zero touch and carrier automation key areas of development for the company. Telefonica’s E2E digitisation and virtualisation strategy involves virtualisation at both the front-end and back-end of the business. Under López’s leadership the company has already begun implementing things like SDN-enabled service chaining and real-time ‘next best actions’ and to rapidly resolve customer requests and issues.
At the 2017 SDN/NFV World Congress, Ashouriha took to the stage as a key speaker where he proclaimed that “brutal automation is the only way to succeed.” With that he also announced the company’s vision of zero-touch network management with little no to human involvement, and over at Deutsche Telekom Ashouriha is spearheading this movement. Ashouriha is in charge of the strategic development and architectural evolution of the technology domains including OSS alongside technology innovation management, patent management and standardisation. He is also responsible for technology vendor portfolio management.
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DISRUPTORS
Anna Claiborne PacketFabric SVP, software engineering and co-founder
Mark Casey Apcela founder and CEO
Claiborne is credited as the mastermind behind the technology that enables PacketFabric to disrupt the way connectivity is bought and provisioned. As PacketFabric’s co-founder and SVP, software engineering, Claiborne is responsible for bringing together the latest in SDN and carrier-class technologies to achieve what they describe as a completely automated and highly scalable platform that redefines how companies procure, consume, and manage their network connectivity services. Combining an automated SDN-based network architecture and the latest in optical and packet switching technology, Claiborne designed a platform that enables real-time connectivity services between colocation facilities at terabit-scale.
Casey positioned Apcela in the financial services and trading markets with its Alpha Platform and TradingHUB technologies. He now aims to do the same thing in SDN with the company’s AppHUB Platform. The orchestrated application delivery platform integrates a global, high-performance backbone with SDN in the data centre, SD-WAN at customer premise and at the edge with configured and managed virtual network functions (VNFs). Apcela’s SDN delivery is simple, network-as-a-service offering managed from a single, pane of glass. The combined components delivers intent- and outcome-based networking from Layer 1 to 7.
Capacity Tim Hoffman Megaport chief technology officer
Lakshmi Sharma Google Cloud head of product management, networking
Jerzy Szlosarek Epsilon CEO
Hoffman was named as CTO of Megaport in October 2017. Since then, he has been responsible for managing product, procurement, network operations, network architecture and software development. Megaport has been transformative in the way the industry approaches connectivity thanks to its next-generation software-defined network. During his time with Megaport Hoffman helped usher in the Megaport Cloud Router, a virtual router service that enables customers to rapidly and privately connect at Layer 3 without having to own routers or physical infrastructure. The solution is fully integrated into the Megaport software-defined network.
Recognised as an SDN expert, Sharma has over twenty years’ experience in developing large-scale enterprise and carrier-grade systems that demand high scalability, security, and reliability. Over her long-standing career, she has worked for the likes of Juniper Networks, Cisco, RIFT.io, Brocade and Target. For Google Sharma oversees such products as Andromeda, a SDN stack that underpins all of the Google Cloud Platform. Andromeda is truly the crown jewel in Google’s SDN offerings and acts as orchestration point for provisioning, configuring, and managing of virtual networks and in-network packet processing.
Jerzy Szlosarek makes it onto our list because of his vision in creating simple, on-demand solutions for complex networking challenges. Under his leadership, Epsilon launched their flagship SDN platform Infiny by Epsilon in 2017 and continues to work towards broader SDN adoption across the industry. Over the past year, he has led Epsilon’s push for SDN by establishing strategic partnerships with service providers in major locations around the world. It rapidly grew its global interconnect fabric with new points of presence (PoPs) and continues to launch new initiatives around intercarrier automation, federated APIs and delivering 100G on-demand. august/september 2018
20 sdn market leaders | 55
THOUGHT LEADERS
Pascal Menezes MEF chief technology officer
Luis Jorge Romero ETSI director general
The work of the MEF and in particular its new global services framework, MEF 3.0, has been transformative in its impact on telecoms. The framework moves beyond carrier Ethernet to look at automated and virtualised services by providing a suite of lifecycle service orchestration APIs that offer an on-demand, cloud-centric service. At the heart of that work is Pascal Menezes, MEF’s first-ever CTO. In his position Menezes works in the areas of cloud scale architectures, real-time media networks, software-defined networks, network function virtualisation and lifecycle service orchestration. Since his appointment in March 2016, he has been instrumental in the development of a number of new standards and frameworks.
Since his appointment as ETSI director general in 2011, Luis Jorge Romero has led the steady charge on the much-needed development of technology specifications across the industry. These include the oneM2M global standards initiative for machine-to-machine communications and the internet of things (IoT). Back in 2014, Romero was directly involved with the collaboration between ETSI and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), on a project for SDN support of NFV. As a result of partnerships like these among others, specifications such as the ETSI NFV Architecture Framework, have been developed.
Capacity Frank D’Agostino Consultant
Nick McKeown Stanford University professor
Ken Duell AT&T assistant vice president, new technology product development & engineering
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D’Agostino has been described by Cisco as a recognised expert in SDN, virtualisation and cloud. with more than 30 years’ experience. Before becoming a consultant, D’Agostino served as senior director at Cisco Systems where he lead the business development technical marketing, and production management for Application Centric Infrastructure, SDN, InterCloud Fabric, and Nexus 9000/3000. Prior to that he served as vice president of world-wide technical operations at Nicira Networks, where he is credited with building the industry’s first SDN technical organisation, with responsibilities including technical go to market and customer engagements.
Very rarely do we come across a person who could lay claim to actually inventing SDN, but McKeown can justify this title. Along with Scott Shenker and Martin Casado, McKeown helped start the SDN movement we know today. The three came together to co-found Nicira Networks, an early developer of network virtualisation, acquired by VMWare for $1.26 billion in July 2012. The PhD work of Casado, a student of McKeown and which McKeowen was an advisor for, gave birth to OpenFlow, the communications protocol and enabler of SDN. McKeown also co-founded the Open Networking Foundation (ONF).
AT&T has always been a carrier at the forefront of adopting new nnovations such as DevOps and open source collaboration. SDN is no exception. One of the prominent voices leading the organisation in SDN is Ken Duell an industry veteran with more than 20 years’ with the company. A regular attendee at the likes of the Symposium on SDN Research and keynote speaker at NFV World Congress, Duell is tasked with the design and development of AT&T’s Layer 2 and Layer 3 edge router platforms. Last year he said confirmed that AT&T had virtualised 34% of its network functions at the end of 2006 with a goal of 55% VNFs by 2017 and 75% by 2020.
The SDN NFV World Congress will be returning to The Hague in October for its 7th edition. 8-12 OCTOBER 2018
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SATCOMMS August/September 2018
CONTENTS 58 A new frontier for 5G New satellite services will be essential to 5G if operators of the new mobile generation are to achieve complete coverage
60 Satellites to give 5G liftoff
Capacity
Capacity went along to this year’s Farnborough airshow to hear about the role space will play in next generation communications
62 Space force The battle to be the market leader in satellite communications is hotting up, says Viasat’s Evan Dixon
66 The big interview How much does a global nanosatellite network cost? Not as much as you think, says Meir Moalem, CEO of Sky and Space Global
68 Market trends Telecoms services will be the biggest users of the 7,000 small satellites in operation by 2027
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58 |
Space: a new
frontier for Capacity
5G
New satellite services will be essential to the success of 5G, if operators of the new mobile generation are to achieve complete coverage. Gareth Willmer talks to the space people
W
hile much of the industry is focused on the rollout of 5G mobile networks, there is an opportunity for satellite providers – if they want to ensure that space plays a key part in the next generation of mobile. From satellite operators’ perspective, there are key features that they believe will make their services more integral in new models. Talk is of 5G offering up to 1,000 times the capacity and much higher connection density than today’s 4G networks. But that will need hundreds of thousands of small cells on lamp posts and other street furniture in cities and suburban areas. Supplying all that looks a Herculean task – but may provide a big opportunity for satellite providers to step in to help. They say they have a key part to play because mobile operators by themselves will be unable to do everything everywhere. As the market becomes more oriented towards globetrotting internet-of-things
(IoT) services, connected vehicles and mission-critical devices that need to work everywhere, there could be further opportunities for satellite operators. Ammar Khan, a principal engineer at Inmarsat, says there is a realisation that 5G for the society of the future “needs to be delivered holistically across the globe – not just in cities”. To construct something of the magnitude that terrestrial operators anticipate is going to be a “huge infrastructure cost”. So satellite operators such as Inmarsat can come to the aid of mobile carriers to fill in coverage gaps, believes Khan. He offers an example of using technology to track a potentially mission-critical asset. “If you look at the journey of an asset, it goes from a factory into urban areas, then rural areas, then into a ship, to a dock, on to a plane. All of that is about providing a multimodal service,” he says. Khan says there is, nonetheless, a
challenge to get the satellite and mobile industry working together for 5G, with stronger cooperation needed through industry bodies. One problem with previous generations of technology – such as 3G – he says, is satellite and mobile operators each had their own bespoke services, with competitive tension putting up a barrier to working together to break down today’s digital divide. They also need to cooperate to find better ways to integrate their interfaces, he adds. “The digital divide is going to be worse than with 3G if we don’t work together,” he adds. But although this cooperation will be a gradual process and won’t happen overnight, the ball is rolling in terms of engaging operators, says Khan. There is collaboration through industry bodies, but Inmarsat is also striking deals with carriers on types of services that 5G might propel. These include one deal to provide satellite connectivity for Vodafone’s IoT platform, august/september 2018
feature: satcomms | 59
and another with Deutsche Telekom that led to the construction of the European Aviation Network (EAN), an integrated S-band satellite and LTE service for passenger aircraft. This demonstrates how the two industries can work together to deliver specific services, indicating ways to collaborate and building confidence in cooperating on services for the 5G future, says Khan. Deutsche Telekom is confident that the EAN can be effectively extended to the 5G era, an upgrade that is being evaluated. “We are in a strong and unique position to leverage the existing network by introducing 5G technology and even further increase the performance of our EAN solution,” says David Fox, Deutsche Telekom’s VP of in-flight services and connectivity. The company says it is also open to exploiting other potential synergies with satellite in future. “5G is neutral to access technology and has various options to use different parts of the spectrum,” says Antje Williams, executive programme manager for 5G at Deutsche Telekom. “It is in our common interest to provide customers the benefits of 5G networks.” Another carrier, Telenor, believes satellites will play a key role in certain circumstances, such as connecting 5G to ships and providing connectivity for rapid response vehicles. “Satellite technology is essential in situations where you need connectivity and do not have other infrastructure to provide this,” says Patrick Waldemar, vice president of Telenor Research. Telenor has just been selected as coordinator for the 5G Verticals Innovation Infrastructure (5G-VINNI) project, a Europe-wide industry initiative to accelerate 5G uptake that comprises 23 partners, including telecoms operators, vendors and satellite providers. This includes Telenor’s own satellite division and SES Techcom, part of Luxembourg satellite operator SES. “We certainly welcome collaboration like the one in 5G-VINNI between SES and Telenor Satellite,” says Waldemar.
Getting involved SES itself, which will work on this project with operators to help develop end-to-end 5G capabilities in a range of areas, is actively seeking to get involved in the 5G market through a multi-pronged approach. Eric Watko, SES Networks’ EVP for product, marketing and strategy, explains that this goes hand in hand with the company’s transition from being a capacity capacitymedia.com
provider to offering full-on managed services to terrestrial network operators, in which it handles the procurement, operation and maintenance of the network from the cell site to the packet core. Taking this sort of approach “drives you to be much more proactive with some of these standards and capabilities”, says Watko. “Then you’re positioned to take advantage of those new capabilities and new services.” SES is thus making sure it is fully involved in industry bodies, such as MEF, 5G-PPP and Sat5G, so it can play a key part in the 5G conversation for the future. The impulse for SES’s transition came partly from the capabilities it brought in after its 2016 eal for 100% of previously part-owned O3b Networks, an operator of medium-Earth-orbit (MEO) satellites, says Watko: “We incorporated that mentality, service delivery model and capability.” Another provider, Intelsat, is also eager to be integrated into the 5G ecosystem, believing this is something essential for fulfilling the technology’s potential. “Moving from 2G to 3G, and from 3G to 4G, these have been steps,” says JeanPhilippe Gillet, vice president and general manager of broadband at Intelsat. “The way we see 5G, it’s going to be not just one additional step, butCapacity a major transformation of the way we are looking at connecting people [and] connecting objects, and the way we are going to distribute content.”
changed. The economics have altered, with fresh competition in the market created by fleets of satellites in lower orbits, cheaper devices and high-throughput satellites.
Changing economics
The cost of satellite networking has come down dramatically over recent years, says Vinay Patel, senior director, international, at Hughes Network Systems. This is aided by the buildout of high-throughput satellites (HTSs) and networking systems, with capacities typically at several hundred gigabits a second. “These employ spot beams that can be targeted to specific areas, delivering very high-capacity density, much like cellular architectures. This yields positive economics,” says Patel. Intelsat agrees that HTSs have dramatically reduced the cost per bit. In addition, says the company’s Gillet, advances in technology have made it considerably easier to access HTS capacity on the move through smaller, easier-to-install and more powerful antennas – ideal for services such as connected cars. He points to flat-panel satellite antennas that can be embedded in the roofs of vehicles. There has also been major publicity for the new wave of satellite providers emerging with a specific focus on bridging the digital divide – such as OneWeb, which plans to start launching its satellites from the end of 2018. Vikas Grover, CIO at OneWeb, says cost reductions are being achieved through advances in microprocessors and solar panels, in the design of satellite technologies, reducing the size so many can be Eric Watko, EVP product, marketing & strategy, SES Networks launched at once, and in manufacturing at scale using efficient design techniques. There is a need to remove some of the “Without space, and without OneWeb, complexity of satellite, says Gillet. “It’s really 5G cannot be fully integrated into business about being part of the standard. If you look and society the way it is currently imagined,” at the way 3G was developed, it is really not he says. “OneWeb’s low-Earth-orbit satellite satellite-friendly,” he says. constellation will be the only network Gearing up towards this, Intelsat has put capable of providing high-speed, low-latency building blocks in place such as IntelsatOne internet access everywhere on the planet and Mobile Reach Solar 3G/4G, an end-to-end extending existing networks into areas managed service for mobile operators to help beyond the reach of terrestrial infrastructure. them expand their networks into lowThis makes us pivotal to the success of 5G, revenue regions. The company has also but also to the idea of convergence between sought to take a proactive approach to the terrestrial and space networks.” use of C-band spectrum in the US, by Patel at Hughes adds that “satellite has a proposing a solution along with SES and critical role to play in the communications Eutelsat for satellite companies and mobile infrastructure, especially when it comes to operators to work together. connecting the unconnected”. In the next There is still, however, a need to overcome few years, we will see just how much the 5G the traditional image of satellite as a high-cost industry looks up towards the stars for industry – something that providers say has inspiration.
We’re well positioned to take advantage of new capabilities and new services”
60 | analysis: satellites
SATELLITES ARE SET TO GIVE 5G LIFTOFF CAPACITY’S JAMES PEARCE WENT TO THIS YEAR’S FARNBOROUGH AIRSHOW TO HEAR ABOUT THE ROLE THE SPACE INDUSTRY WILL PLAY IN NEXT GENERATION OF COMMUNICATIONS
T
he European Space Agency last year partnered with a number of European companies from the space industry to launch a project developing the role of satellites in 5G communications. The ESA, an international intergovernmental organisation established by the Convention on the establishment of a European Space Agency, said a panEuropean approach to 5G trials is vital for Europe to achieve leadership in the next-gen technology. The aim of the project is to drive the role of satcomms in these trials. I sat in on a panel recently hosted by the ESA at the Farnborough Airshow, in the UK town of Farnborough. Normally, the airshow is more about jet planes and military flights than telecoms, so it was fascinating to hear about 5G from satellite companies. Magali Vaissiere, director of telecommunications and integrated applications at the ESA, opened by explaining: “5G promises to deliver a huge amount of bandwidth at any time.” He added: “We continue to work with countries (governments) to drive coverage. We believe that space communications will play a vital role in deployment of 5G and
the rollout of digital services.” Since the launch of the Artes project, the ESA has been involved in the launch of SKYWAN 5G, which is a mesh VSAT network solution launched by ND Satcom, a subsidiary of Astrium. It is a bi-directional MF-TDMA and DVB unit that supports voice, video and data applications in the most bandwidthefficient manner possible. Vaissiere was joined on the panel by Kieran Arnold, director of ubiquitous connectivity at the UK’s Satellite Applications Catapult. The Catapult is a UK-based technology and innovation company created by Innovate UK to drive economic growth through the exploitation of space. Earlier this year, the Catapult announced a Capacity partnership with Juniper Networks to construct a secure, end-toend network infrastructure in support of their 5G testbed. The testbed, which opened in April, aims to creates a secure, network infrastructure to foster the innovative use of 5G, providing ubiquitous connectivity across terrestrial and satellite communication. Explaining the role of the testbed, Arnold said: “Communication infrastructure services underpin the
A panel at Farnborough Airshow discussing the role of satellites in 5G deployments
development of many next generation innovations and satellite connectivity is a critical element. The two cannot develop independently from one another. 5G underpins the overall agenda for better connecting digital infrastructure to data sharing devices across the country and hence is a key part of UK Government digital strategy.” Arnold, who formerly worked for Orange Labs and Orange Business Services, said the relationship between terrestrial providers and satellite firms will be vital to deployments of 5G communications services. “The terrestrial operators understand the challenges of providing ultra-low latencies and enough capacity for 5G better than anyone. We talk with them about services, we talk about the technology, and we talk about the value of collaboration with satellite providers. With everything, you want a return investment, but for terrestrial providers there is an opportunity, because they aren’t necessarily increasing subscribers in high density metro areas, but there is a huge demand in low coverage areas that are harder to reach.” The panel also welcomed several satellite providers, with Eric Béranger – the CEO of OneWeb – and Ignacio Sanchis, CCO, Hispasat, also speaking. OneWeb, which is set to launch a significant number of micro satellites to support future deployments, said the internet of things was a key driver for its plans. “IoT means billions of devices which are connected all over the world. To deliver this, 5G needs absolute ubiquity. This means connectivity in the territories, at sea, in the air, it means everywhere. If you look at what we’re doing with OneWeb, this is a key focus, along with offering low latency services. “We are working to develop 5G because without it that will be very difficult to achieve. We will launch our first satellite by the end of the year and launch our services by 2020. “With connectivity absolutely everywhere, we will be able to perform all activities we’d normally perform in an office everywhere we go. So 5G is such a key enabler to the social and economic development of both rich and poor nations.” august/september 2018
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62 |
Space
Force
The battle to be the market leader in satellite communications is hotting up. Evan Dixon, Viasat’s head of Europe, talks to James Pearce about the rise of satcoms, inflight connectivity and an industry having ‘an identity crisis’
W
ith connected, automated vehicles coming down the road very soon, and demand for ubiquitous connectivity growing, the telecoms industry is facing a challenge – how do you connect those areas where fibre does not reach? People have suggested numerous solutions: point-to-point microwave connections, 5G balloons and small cells are just some of the more interesting ideas that have been floated over the last few years. Another growing – but certainly not new – sector is satellite. Emerging data use cases, such as mobility, cellular backhaul and broadband connectivity, will propel the next wave of satcom growth. A report by Northern Sky Research (NSR) on satellite capacity supply and demand says satellite capacity revenues will grow by an annual 6.8% over the next decade. “The history of satellite communications shows that costs were pretty high for the kind of service that was being delivered,” explains Evan Dixon, CEO of European broadband
Capacity
retail at Viasat. By that, he means it was seen as slow, expensive and often came with data caps, meaning it wasn’t a good option when compared with terrestrial solutions. “Where we’ve moved is that our satellite technology now has a significant cost advantage over terrestrial delivery methods outside of urban areas,” he says – meaning not just rural areas but also “outside the perimeter of what you’d class as major cities”. I ask how this is possible, and Dixon says that Viasat can “deliver internet to somebody’s home at a cost less than passing fibre by their home. That’s our sweet spot.” In the past, it cost so much just to build and launch a satellite (the ViaSat-2 system, just two years old, cost the company around $625 million) that the services offered did not always match up with the necessary costs. ViaSat-2 is a 300GB satellite, but the next generation of satellites – due to launch in 2020 – will offer more than 1Tb of capacity, but cost a similar price to develop and launch. So who is Viasat? The US-based company was founded in 1986, offering high-speed broadband services to the commercial,
government, military, maritime and aviation sectors. It launched ViaSat-1 in 2011 and ViaSat-2 in 2017, and it has plans to launch its third series in 2020. ViaSat-1, launched in October 2011 aboard a Proton rocket, held the Guinness record for the world’s highest capacity communications satellite. It has a total capacity in excess of 140Gbps, more than all the satellites combined then covering North America. The company’s mission, says Dixon, is to become “world’s first truly global ISP, in that we provide internet services in people’s homes, in the air, no matter what continent you’re on”. That means that investments will be put into making sure “connectivity is available no matter the location or situation”. This plan will come into full fruition with the launch of the ViaSat-3 constellation of three satellites in 2020. The first will cover the Americas and the second EMEA and most of India, with the third completing Viasat’s global coverage by covering Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. “Once all three of those are in the sky, the vision becomes a reality and it will give us august/september 2018
the big interview: evan dixon | 63
2007
Marketing manager, Yahoo
2008
Senior manager, bundles and wholesale broadband, DirecTV
2011
Director broadband strategy and business development, DirecTV
2015
Director broadband strategy, AT&T
2015
Deputy CEO and CMO, Viasat/Eutelsat JV
2018
CEO, European broadband retail, Viasat Inc
claiming boldly that “Viasat has led the way”. He says: “This really started when we announced ViaSat-3 because we were putting a satellite in the sky with 1Tbps. It’s more than 10 times what any other satellite had put up in the year, with speeds similar to fibre, offering unlimited packages. Many of our rivals were planning to put far inferior satellites up at a similar cost, but they went back to the drawing board.” It’s a bold claim, but Dixon says the company wants the satellite industry to thrive overall as it helps to drive down costs and offer better economies of scale. “That’s been an unintended consequence of ViaSat-3. Some of those M&A rumours stem from people having difficulties seeing where other companies fit into an industry that is advancing this quickly.” The satellite industry involves a lot of cooperation and Viasat has a long-running joint venture with Eutelsat that covers
The more consumers who fly on flights enabled by Viasat, the more they Capacity will expect that from other airlines” Evan Dixon, deputy CEO and CMO, Viasat Europe
complete blanket coverage of the globe for mobility and from a residential standpoint,” adds Dixon.
Europe through its KaSat satellite. But it is also fiercely competitive and it has been locked in a long-running dispute with Inmarsat.
Identity crisis
In-flight internet
We are speaking at an interesting time for the satellite industry. With 5G on the horizon, plans for more satellite launches are being discussed, and a number of new entrants are involved in those talks. The likes of OneWeb and Sky and Space Global are all hoping to take advantage of the demand for more satellite services, but, according to Dixon, the industry itself is facing “a bit of an identity crisis”. The identity crisis includes a raft of speculation about mergers and acquisitions. Inmarsat recently stated it is not for sale, rejecting a second offer from EchoStar Global, which had reportedly bid around $4.25 billion to buy the UK-based satellite operator. Last year, OneWeb’s bid to buy Intelsat fell apart. And Yahsat recently bought rival Middle-Eastern operator Thuraya. All of these movements, he explains, are down to an acceleration in technological developments in the aerospace industry,
The dispute harks back to the launch of Inmarsat’s European Aviation Network (EAN) – a joint venture with Deutsche Telekom started last year that provides connectivity for passengers on aircraft. The EAN combines high capacity satellite coverage with a complementary 4G ground-based network to provide high-speed connectivity across 30 European nations competing with Viasat’s own airline offering. Earlier this year a Belgian court revoked approval for the EAN in the country after Viasat challenged the legality of its authorisation. Viasat and Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat challenged Inmarsat’s use of a European Commission S-band spectrum licence, arguing that what should be a predominantly satellite system supported by ground towers is in fact the opposite – a terrestrial connectivity system that uses a satellite component to justify its existence. Inmarsat disagrees.
capacitymedia.com
In fact, when I sat down with Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce for an interview last year, he was scathing in his dismissal of Viasat’s appeal to regulators. At the time, Pearce told me: “The motivations of our rivals are to stop us or slow us down. We find I strange that when asked about competing with the EAN they dismissed it completely. I say ‘bring it on’ – competition is good. They are trying to stop it because they fear it.” I ask Dixon about the dispute, and he says it’s not to do with fear, but fairness. Viasat’s argument is that the spectrum was granted for a “different purpose” to what it is being used for. And so it is approaching each of the regulators in each relevant European country to explain what it believes is a breach of the terms of the spectrum licence. “We want people to understand that the terrestrial portion for planes was only supposed to be used as a complementary source, but instead it is being used as the vast majority of the capacity that is being delivered to these airlines,” he says. “We’ll continue to fight that battle but it’s not getting in the way. It’s not stopping us from presenting our story to airlines, and it’s clear some airlines are waiting to see the outcome of this EAN dispute before making a decision about their in-flight airline future.” There have been some positive reactions – the Belgian court is one example – but so far, there has been nothing big enough to stop Deutsche Telekom and Inmarsat’s launch. “We don’t plan to drop the fight,” says Dixon. “As recently as a few weeks ago we were in a courtroom over this. It’s not a fight we want to drop because we think it is so egregious in the way it was being filed. The more the authorities hear this story, which is as black as white – they are as appalled as we are. That’s what we’ve found.” In-flight connectivity is a significant area of growth for the satellite industry and, for Viasat, this is no different. It has deals with numerous airlines including Virgin, Jet Blue and United Airlines, with El Al the latest to announce a partnership. “In flight Wifi has been a very exciting part of our business and growth has exploded. More and more customers expect to be connected at all times, even in the air,” he explains. The reason for this is simple: previous experiences of in-flight connectivity was, in Dixon’s own words, “abhorrent” because users could not stream or connect to a VPN due to a lack of capacity. “We have changed people’s expectations of what they want from an internet service when they are in the air. They can have the same experience as they have in their home,” he says. “The more consumers who fly on flights enabled by Viasat, the more they will expect that from other airlines, and we feel we are very well positioned to take advantage of that.”
THE SOLUTION THE INDUSTRY HAS BEEN WAITING FOR. Over the past two years, our team has been developing The Sphere from the ground up to solve some of the most challenging problems the telecommunications industry is facing. The blockchain-powered global telecommunications ecosystem with an exchange platform at its core enables unlimited, multi-party chain trading and routing in real time, allowing carriers and operators to buy, sell and resell without limitations. Additionally, the financial module tracks and audits every traded and routed call, delivering real-time billing and financial reconciliation across the entire trade chain. Here are a few details on the various technologies and innovations built into The Sphere:
Blockchain-Powered Trading, Routing and Financial Settlements
Live Anti-Fraud Engine Capacity
The Sphere not only enables users to offer or purchase services, but empowers the creation of new services. Routing plans are completely customizable and can be made from the trading floor by securing routes privately or publicly. In addition, nThe Sphere’s proprietary routing engine ensures that each call, across every level of the trade chain, follows users’ particular sets of routing rules and preferences, allowing carriers to create routes specific to their needs. nIn just a matter of milliseconds, The Sphere determines the credit worthiness or financial holdings of the call originator to provide security and ondemand payment disbursement options to each party throughout the trade chain.
The Sphere’s neural network data analytics and machine learning algorithms enable live detection, alerting and active prevention of fraudulent and abusive traffic at the moment of the call setup request. With The Sphere’s sophisticated routing network, all data associated with each call is analyzed throughout the call lifecycle, then transmitted and interpreted in real time to mitigate any fraudulent activity. The Sphere constantly learns and evolves to foresee new and unknown threat patterns before they appear, protecting operators, carriers and service providers from financial losses, commercial disputes and service disruptions. Our engine recognizes International and Domestic Revenue Share Fraud, Premium Rate Services, Number/Call Hijacking, Outbound Missed Call Campaigns, Inbound Missed Call Responses, Reverse FAS and more.
Live QoS and Bid-On-Live Engine
The Sphere’s Seamless Global Network
The Sphere’s proprietary Live QoS Engine uses neural network data analytics and machine learning algorithms to examine a flurry of traffic data. To determine best possible routing, the engine considers live and aggregated traffic pattern data, a range of KPIs, and a combination of live and aggregated media flow statistics. In combination with historical trade, route and network performance data, this information allows the engine to make real-time routing recommendations and process automated routing decisions (if the user so chooses) — all while preventing negative impact to performance and quality, now and in the future.
The Sphere’s globally distributed, high-performance hybrid network incorporated with our proprietary distributed switching and routing engine, enables harmonious operations between global regions. This combination delivers unparalleled stability, redundancy and unlimited scalability and flexibility. Our intelligent network determines the optimal edge-to-edge call routing, regionally, within The Sphere’s global network, thus minimizing quality deterioration, reducing transfer latency and optimizing overall performance.
FAQ ABOUT THE SPHERE & % # $ / The Sphere is a blockchain-powered global telecommunications ecosystem with an exchange platform at its core. The telecom industry has reached a critical juncture and needs a unified platform that optimizes network operations, streamlines commercial processes and secures financial transactions. Powered by disruptive blockchain technologies, advanced neural network systems and a cutting-edge, globally distributed hybrid infrastructure, The Sphere, is the solution the industry has been waiting for.
Which types of organizations "!! & &" # $ / Tier 1, 2, and 3 carriers, operators, resellers and wholesale providers. The Sphere helps carriers of all sizes - small, regional and global companies. The ecosystem helps larger carriers address decades-old challenges, such as rampant fraud and quality of service concerns. The Sphere is also perfect for small to mid-sized companies that aren’t able to compete with big carriers because of the amount of investment they have to incur. By lowering the barriers to entry for smaller providers, the platform levels the playing field.
") " % # $ )"$ / A seller publicly or privately creates and issues an offer to the trading floor or designated client. That offer, with all its unique specifications and preferences, is hashed and encrypted, representing a transaction block. Once a buyer accepts the offer, the buyer’s cryptographic hash is added to the seller’s block, creating a chain between the seller’s offer and the buyer’s acceptance.
The buyer is able to use these chains to create a new routing table (service/product) and offer them as new services to the trading floor, or privately within The Sphere Ecosystem. This process can continue unlimited times with unlimited parties, and once the trade blockchain contains the actual Call Originator into and Call Terminator out of The Sphere, the trade chain is completed and activated.
What are some of the major Capacity ! ,&% " # $ / The Sphere solves challenges that have plagued the wholesale community for decades, including declining margins, fraud, lack of access to markets and quality of service concerns. It also allows carriers to go to market faster and take advantage of business opportunities that they didn’t have before.The ecosystem removes a lot of the overhead involved in carrier transactions and increases efficiencies, reducing waste and fraud, as well as ensuring that routes are configured correctly from the beginning.
Has The Sphere had a proof " "! #&/ ! ) & '! / Yes. The Sphere has been in technical development for over two years and is far beyond the concept stage. We completed Beta testing over a year ago and are nearing completion of our pre-production stage. We initially introduced The Sphere to the wholesale community this year at ITW, and the ecosystem will be ready for full deployment in October 2018.
What is The Sphere’s ! &)"$ / $ $ &% " " !&% " $ % ! / The Sphere’s distributed, global network is comprised of hybrid structure, cloud and bare metal. We have nodes located in Ireland, Amsterdam and Tokyo and will have a new node in Brazil very soon. We architected The Sphere’s environment to facilitate quick deployments, giving us full elasticity on a global level. Each location maintains all of the ecosystem’s code and routing, so we can rapidly deploy a new region in about 7 minutes. Our highly responsive and flexible platform, allows us to instantly deploy based on where our customers need to be.
How is The Sphere different from other telecom carrier #"$& %/ We created the ecosystem and portal from the ground up based on our team’s collective decades of technical expertise. Nothing is third party or white labeled. The entire system, including all algorithms, is built, designed, implemented and managed by The Sphere. Typically, an organization might say “here is my switch/functionality� and people just have to learn how to use it. With The Sphere, we took a much different approach. We architected our platform and data models to the carrier/person that is using it.
") ! ,! "'& "$ "'& # $ / Visit TheSphere.IO for more information and fill out the “Contact Us� form to get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.
66 |
Welcome to the
new
space economy of
low-cost nano-satellites
How much does it cost to build and run a global nano-satellite network? Capacity Not as much as you think, Meir Moalem, CEO of Sky and Space Global, tells Alan Burkitt-Gray
A
n ambitious company plans to have a 200-satellite wholesale data and voice network in service around the equator by the end of 2020. Sky and Space Global (SAS) is close to finalising the design of the tiny satellites, following last year’s successful launch of three prototypes, called 3 Diamonds. GomSpace, a Swedish/Danish company, built the 3 Diamonds and will build SAS’s production satellites. “We’re at the critical design review stage,” says Meir Moalem, CEO of SAS. They will be launched in batches of 20-25 a time every two to three months from the beginning of 2019. If the launches are successful, the satellites, each around 700-750km above the surface, would act as an orbiting network of cell towers. They would mainly serve the equatorial belt, which means the band between 15° north of the equator and 15° south. That means Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia are well within the coverage belt, as is a good chunk of central America, though not Mexico. In
Africa, Zimbabwe is too far south, but the service will reach Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Somalia, and as far south as Tanzania and northern Angola. But SAS has a number of challenges ahead of it. It has a contract with Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit to launch its satellites, using a rocket carried on a Boeing 747-400 – but “Virgin Orbit still needs to do its maiden flight”, admits Moalem. So Moalem and his team have put together a back-up plan. A 10 July announcement says SAS and China Great Wall Industry Corporation will “explore the provision of nano-satellite launch services”. If the requirements are met, SAS and Great Wall “will start formal negotiations for a launch contract”. Moalem appears confident. “We’ve signed with the other launch provider as contingency but also for flexibility,” he says. The community is growing, he adds, listing three potential rivals that are able to launch them: Firefly Aerospace, Rocket Lab and Vector Space Systems. So what sort of services will SAS provide through its 200 satellites? Mostly
machine-to-machine (M2M) and internet of things (IoT), says Moalem, where small amounts of data need to be transmitted, along with text and other messages. Users will have a terminal, with an 8cm diameter satellite antenna on top, that will create a local WiFi hot-spot, connecting smartphones and other devices. Users will need a voice-over-IP app called Chatellite to make phone calls, he adds. “Bandwidth is almost zero. We’re extremely efficient, using a very advanced compression algorithm.” How much bandwidth? Give me a number, I ask over the phone to him in Tel Aviv. “I won’t,” he says, before relenting: “In order to provide a good quality of call you need 4kbps. We can use 2.5kbps to do a good quality call. I’m not saying that’s what we’re doing.” Traffic will be routed satellite to satellite before reaching its destination. “Our satellites will be a mesh of routers in the sky.” SAS has already demonstrated voice calling with its 3 Diamonds prototypes, “and we have demonstrated connections to the PSTN” – the public-service telephone network, the regular phone system. That august/september 2018
the big interview: meir moalem | 67
1986
Officer, Israeli Air Force
1998
Space systems projects, Israeli Air Force
2011
CEO, MultiModis
2012
COO and founder, Rockcycle Optimization
2015
CEO and founder Sky and Space Global
opportunities in Israel. They introduced Moalem and his colleagues to Burleson Energy, then “a junior oil and gas exploration company”. Between March and May 2016 Burleson had changed its business, changed its name to SAS, created and acquired a UK subsidiary of the same name and carried out an initial public offering (IPO) on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) that raised A$4.5 million – then worth around US $3.5 million, now a bit less. The investors “said we could do an IPO on the ASX on day one”, recalled Moalem last year. “I wasn’t an expert. I know a lot more now.” Now, says Moalem on the phone, the company has raised a total of A$35 million ($26 million) “and we need around A$100 million”, not necessarily all from the capital markets. “Once we start delivering commercial services”, there will be revenue from sales and presales as well as debt, “whatever is the right solution”. Seems small by historical standards, I say. After all, Iridium is spending $3 billion on replacing its 20-year-old fleet of 66 low-orbit active satellites. “That’s
Our satellites Capacity will be a mesh of routers in the sky”
Meir Moalem, CEO, Sky and Space Global
break-out to complete normal fixed and mobile calls means SAS must be installing some billing software, I say. Moalem confirms that SAS is working with a significant billing company. Which one? He won’t reveal the details. “Does its name start with an A and end with an S?” A roar of laughter comes down the phone at my sly reference to Amdocs, the Israel-based, US-listed telecoms software company.
SAS takes flight It’s a good time to turn to what one might call SAS’s somewhat unconventional background. It’s an Australian-owned, UK-based, Israeli-staffed company. Moalem is former officer in the Israeli Air Force, who then worked in the country’s space programme to build sensing satellites. His colleagues as founders of SAS include the CTO, Meidad Pariente, who worked on Israel’s Amos satellite programme, and Yonatan Shrama, with a cybersecurity background. The SAS project started, Moalem told me last year, when he met a group of Australian investors looking for capacitymedia.com
exactly the essence of a new space economy,” he says, “a significant reduction in capex and opex”. GomSpace is just such a creature of this new age of nano-satellites. It is a Swedishregistered company whose operations are concentrated in Aalborg, a city in the northern tip of Denmark that is best known for a powerful alcoholic spirit called Aquavit. GomSpace’s shares are listed on Nasdaq’s European market, First North. SAS plans to manage its new satellite fleet from somewhere in the London area. “We’re shopping around for a ground-station facility,” he says. It will run three shifts to ensure round-the-clock coverage, employing 20-25 people. But London is outside the coverage area, I note. There will be a VPN, just as there is to control the 3 Diamonds prototypes from Alaska, he explains. “The ground station will be in the UK, within 50 miles of London. The only thing on the equator will be a remote antenna. The entire operations of the company will be run from the UK.” But the company will keep its listing in Australia, he adds. “The ASX has been
very good to us.” The London base means that SAS uses spectrum licensed from Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator. It also means that the company exhibited on the UK government-backed pavilion at the CommunicAsia event in Singapore in June. SAS will be almost entirely a wholesaleonly company. “We are approaching telecoms providers and mobile network operators,” says Moalem. The only exceptions will be very large organisations that might be direct customers. SAS announced in May that it had run successful tests with Globalsat using its 3 Diamonds satellites. These confirmed “the ability to deliver a commercial narrowband communication offering in Central and South America”, said SAS at the time. The two companies are now negotiating an agreement to “enable the provision of M2M and IoT connectivity services to the region, providing a much-needed service to this underserviced region”. The announcement quoted Globalsat’s CEO, Alberto Palacios: “We believe that when the Sky and Space 200-satellite constellation is complete and operational it will be a game-changing technology that can transform narrowband satellite communications. Globalsat is ready to advance our relationship with SAS to agree on a commercial arrangement, which will see us deliver mobile connectivity and IoT services to Latin and Central America.” Moalem agrees there is no supply chain yet for the sort of cheap terminals SAS will need in a successful market. “Our goal is that in three or four years you will be able to buy terminals anywhere in the world. We will have to provide terminals for the first year or so, but our business is not based on selling terminals.” Where next? Let’s assume that the next two and a half years go according to Moalem’s plans and that by the end of 2020 Virgin Orbit or China Great Wall have launched more than 200 nano-satellites into orbit – they’ll be called Pearl, by the way. Beyond 2020, “we’re keeping an open mind”, he says. Will SAS look at expanding service outside that ±15° equatorial coverage belt? “It is something that we’re thinking about. With all modesty we should first succeed in the huge challenge we have.” Moalem is already talking to “potential customers beyond 15°”, he says. The company has made no secret of the fact that it is holding discussions with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) and it demonstrated its technology at a CTU conference in Guyana in mid-July. “At the end of the day we are a commercial business and if it makes commercial sense we will do it,” says Moalem.
68 | market trends: satellites
TELECOMS TO BE BIGGEST SMALL SATELLITE CUSTOMER
T
elecoms services will be the biggest users of small satellites over the next decade, with 59% of the $23 billion North American market likely to be devoted to this sector. These figures come from Euroconsult’s latest report on small satellites, which says that 73% of the global demand will come from North America and Asia in 2027 – by which time there will be more than 7,000 small satellites in operation. Euroconsult defines small satellites as weighing less than 500kg, but the market research consultancy says that, of the 330 satellites in this range that were launched last year, 295 were in fact under 10kg. This virtually tripled the market size for small satellites. At the start of 2017 there were 857 such satellites in operation, so the industry saw a 38% increase in 12 months only. The industry launched 1,187 small satellites between 2008 and 2017, in 201 launches, says Euroconsult. Last year “was a record year for the industry”, says Euroconsult, as in 2017 more than twice as many small satellites went into orbit as large satellites – more than 500kg. But in weight terms small satellites were tiny: though there were 330 of them in 2017, they accounted for only 1% of the total mass launched. Telecoms will dominate the small
satellite market worldwide, says Euroconsult: fully half of the 7,038 satellites it expects to be launched by 2027 will be used by the telecoms industry. That’s even higher for the North American market, where the telecoms share will be 59% in market terms and 65% in numbers of satellites. The majority will be from OneWeb and SpaceX’s broadband satellites, says Euroconsult. Information satellites, totalling 124, are solely commercial, and include HawkEye for traffic and spectrum monitoring, and other machine-tomachine cubesat projects. Together, telecom and Earth observation will account for 86% of the future North American market, at $13.7 billion and $3.9 billion respectively. Due to the low price of information satellites, weighing 10kg or less, this application appears at 0.6% of the total market value, Capacitysecurity satellites while the 90 forecasted would represent 11%, with a unit cost approaching $28 million. A separate report, from Markets and Markets, says that the satellite communications equipment market – most of which is satellite antennas – was $20.2 billion in 2017 and will be $30.2 billion by 2022, a compound annual growth rate of 8.46%. Markets and Markets agrees with
Euroconsult in its finding that the telecoms and IT segment captures the largest market share. Based on end-use, the maritime segment is the largest, providing commercial and naval vessels with the ability to maintain contact at all times, and providing internet access and TV reception. The Asia Pacific market will have the highest annual growth, thanks to the increased use of satellite antennas in vehicles in the region. Efforts by the Indian Space Research Organization and China National Space Administration have helped contribute to significant growth in the region. A third analyst company, Northern Sky Research (NSR), contrasts capacity revenues from traditional fixed satellite services (FSS) with high-throughput satellites (HTSs), which have been developed to provide broadband services. HTSs are both in stationary – geosynchronous – orbits, which puts them 35,800km above the equator, and in lower orbits. All FSS satellites are in geosynchronous orbit, which creates an inevitable round-trip latency of 540ms because of the speed of light. HTS capacity revenues will overtake FSS revenues by 2022-23, says NSR. The whole satellite services market will rise from around $13 billion this year to nearly double that in 2027.
New launches A total of 330 small satellites (under 500kg) were launched in 2017, a record year for the industry. Source: Euroconsult
Smallsats
< 10 Kg 295
11 to 50 Kg 16 51 to 250 Kg 14 251 to 500 Kg 5
Satellites 500 Kg
Source: BMI Research –Megatrends Survey 2018 august/september 2018
| 69
Half of new small satellites to serve telecoms There will be 7,038 small satellites launched for the world market by 2027, with 50% of them devoted to telecoms; only 1,187 were launched 2008-17. Source: Euroconsult ϰй /ŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ
2% Security
4% Telecom 7% Science & Explo
50% Telecom
13% Technology 45% ĂƌƚŚ ŽďƐĞƌǀĂƟŽŶ
2008 - 2017 1,187
2018 - 2027 7,038
38% Technology 21% ĂƌƚŚ ŽďƐĞƌǀĂƟŽŶ
North American market to top $23bn In 2018-27 in North America, 65% of the 5,081 small satellites in the market will be for telecoms. The total North American market will be worth $23 billion, of which 59% will be telecoms. Source: Euroconsult 1% Science & Explo Ϯй /ŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ 8% Technology
6% Technology 7% Science & Explo
2% Security
ϭй /ŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ
Capacity
11% Security 2018 - 2027 5,081
21% ĂƌƚŚ ŽďƐĞƌǀĂƟŽŶ
2018 - 2027 $23.2bn
65% Telecom
59% Telecom
17% ĂƌƚŚ ŽďƐĞƌǀĂƟŽŶ
Asia growth The Asia Pacific market for satellite antennas and other equipment will be growing fastest by 2022, but European and North American markets will still be bigger. Source: Markets and Markets
High throughput, high growth Capacity revenues from fixed satellite services (dark blue) are declining steadily, while high throughput satellites (light blue) are rapidly overtaking. Source: Northern Sky Research 30,000
>ĂƟŶ ŵĞƌŝĐĂ
25,000
Middle East and Africa
$ millions
CARG (2017 - 2022)
20,000
Europe North America
15,000 10,000
>ĂƟŶ ŵĞƌŝĐĂ 5,000 0 Market size by 2022
capacitymedia.com
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 FSS Revenues HTS (GEO & Non-GEO) Revenue
26 70 ||
EUROPE 2018 23 - 25 October, London
T
he European carrier industry is a dynamic market, internationally recognised as a hotbed for investment from global wholesale telecommunications companies. The global and regional European carrier market is experiencing
change through innovative developments such as 5G, SDN, blockchain and network security. Industry leaders weighed in at last years’ Capacity Europe on which services and technologies they see changing the wholesale landscape in the next 5 years.
5G and SDN adoption in the next few years will drive key milestone in technology, media and telecommunications”
Cybersecurity and OTT are at both times challenges and opportunities for the wholesale markets and will continue to change the wholesale landscape in the next five years.’
George Sloan, VP, AT&T
HEAR MORE ON SDN AT CAPACITY EUROPE 2018:
Capacity
TUESDAY 23 OCOTBER 2:00PM EMBRASING VERSATILITY – REALISING THE TRUE POTENTIAL OF SDN IMPLEMENTATION
Blockchain-based settlement capabilities facilitating smart contracts for virtualized components, and instances, in a software defined environment with more variable services driven by new content form in a world of ever-increasing bandwidth”
Michael Wheeler, EVP of Global IP Network Business Unit, NTT COMMUNICATIONS
HEAR MORE ON NETWORK SECURITY AT CAPACITY EUROPE 2018: THURSDAY 25 OCTOBER 9:30AM - 12:30PM THE NETWORK SECURITY SUMMIT AT CAPACITY EUROPE 2018
At the core of nearly all innovation is bandwidth, and fibre is bandwidth’s enabling infrastructure” Dan Caruso, Chairman & CEO, ZAYO
Marc Halbfinger, CEO, PCCW GLOBAL HEAR MORE ON BLOCKCHAIN AT CAPACITY EUROPE 2018:
HEAR MORE ON INNOVATION AT CAPACITY EUROPE 2018:
WEDNESDAY 24 OCTOBER 11:15AM BACKING BLOCKCHAIN TO DRIVE DIGITAL EFFICIENCY
TUESDAY 23 OCOTBER 11:30AM THE BIG CARRIER DEBATE (THE SEQUEL) – GETTING TO GRIPS WITH THE INNOVATIVE FUTURE OF WHOLESALE
HEAR FROM THE GLOBAL CARRIER C-SUITE SPEAKING AT CAPACITY EUROPE 2018 Dr Rolf Nafziger SVP DEUTSCHE TELEKOM AG
Gina Nomellini CMO GTT
Pierre-Louis de Guillebon, CEO ORANGE INTERNATIONAL CARRIERS
Marc Halbfinger CEO PCCW GLOBAL
Juan Carlos Bernal CEO International Wholesale Business TELEFONICA
Alexandre Pébereau CEO TOFANE GLOBAL
Phil Mottram Chief Revenue Officer ZAYO GROUP
Eric Cevis SVO & Group President VERIZON PARTNER SOLUTIONS
august/september 2018
capacity europe 2018 | 71
SPONSORED BY
CALL FOR PAPERS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CAPACITY INNOVATION SERIES The global carrier industry is experiencing profound change Are you interested in positioning your organisation as an as the market adopts and rolls out new technologies such as innovative industry leader at the largest carrier event in Europe? AI, VR, IoT and blockchain, to name but a few. The Capacity Innovation Series will offer key industry figures driving these Get in touch with Frances at frances.booth@capacitymedia.com revolutionary technologies a platform to present and share Capacity to share your interest and receive details on how to apply. All their innovative achievements with the global carrier applications will be reviewed by Capacity Media and a panel of industry. The initiative will consist of presentations in the external judges who will be announced shortly. conference room taking place at 3:00pm on Day 2, To find out more about the event, please visit Wednesday 24 October. www.capacitymedia.com/events/capacity-europe
CAPACITY EUROPE 2018 SPONSORS HOST SPONSORS
S I LV E R S P O N S O R S
A S S O C I AT E S P O N S O R S
capacitymedia.com
GOLD SPONSORS
WHICH EVENTS WILL YOU BE ATTENDING? REGIONAL SERIES
NORTH AMERICA 2018
AFRICA 2018 5 & 6 September 2018, Kigali
EURASIA 2018 11 & 12 September 2018, Istanbul
5 & 6 September 2018, Denver
CENTRAL AMERICA & ANDEAN 2018
MESSAGING
EUROPE 2018
& SMS WORLD
23 - 25 October 2018, London
3 & 4 October 2018, Bogotรก
27 & 28 November 2018, London
ASIA 2018
INDIA & SAARC 2019
CARIBBEAN 2019
5 & 6 December 2018, Hong Kong
12 & 13 February 2019, New Delhi
12 & 13 February 2019
MIDDLE EAST 2019
LATAM 2019
RUSSIA & CIS 2019
5 - 7 March 2019, Dubai
March 2019, Brazil
April 2019, Moscow
EUROPE EAST 2019 July 2019
Capacity
CONNECT & SUBSEA SERIES METRO CONNECT EUROPE
12 & 13 September 2018 Amsterdam
METRO CONNECT USA
29 - 31 January 2019 Miami
MYANMAR CONNECT
18 & 19 September 2018 Yangon
SUBSEA MIDDLE EAST
4 March 2019 Dubai
SUBSEA AMERICAS
3&4 December 2018 Fort Lauderdale
MEXICO CONNECT
June 2019 Mexico City
(part of Capacity Middle East)
SUBSEA EMEA
July 2019 Marseille
WAN SUMMIT SERIES
11 & 12 SEPTEMBER 2018, SINGAPORE
17 & 18 OCTOBER 2018, LONDON
APRIL 2019, NEW YORK
JUNE 2019, FRANKFURT
www.capacityconferences.com @CapacityMedia
@CapacityMedia
@CapacityMedia
Cliff Tam VP - Carrier Data, International Business HGC GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS
Henry Cheng VP - Corporate Business, International Business HGC GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS
5 & 6 December 2018, Hong Kong
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH HGC – PROUD SUPPORTERS OF CAPACITY ASIA 2018
What are your key developments for 2018? HGC has been a pioneer in providing higher value service and connectivity Capacity expansion in emerging markets, especially in China, Asian and ASEAN HGC collaborates with Blueface to launch UC Anywhere Service economies. Some examples include: • HGC collaborates with Blueface, a leading Unified Communications-ashelped extended customers’ service coverage across the globe to capture a-Service Provider, to launch UC Anywhere Service. This one-stop UC new and potential customers. solution enables corporations to communicate efficiently while extending business reach. Evolution to new strategic and services model • On 3 August 2018 a conditional share purchase agreement was signed, HGC again made steady progress in its long-term strategic goal of between a fellow subsidiary of HGC and the shareholders of Golden becoming a provider of a broad range of digital, cloud, IT, data centre and TMH Telecom Company Limited (GTMH), a leading communications telecommunications services for network operators, corporate customers, and network service provider in Myanmar. HGC acts as a pioneer in OTT players and residential customers. As well as providing managed and capturing untapped telecom business in South East Asia, helping to connectivity services, HGC is now developing more additional services, pave a gateway for local businesses to the international economy to such as value-added services, data centres and cloud infrastructure. meet the recent trend of globalisation and digitalisation. • HGC rolled out carrier-grade cloud services in Myanmar, which is a growing market in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. This enables local carriers to adopt and roll out a global cloud platform that is suited to the local environment. • HGC partnered with Anam, a fast growing independent SMS Firewall vendor, to provide a full SMS firewall suite to safeguard mobile network carrier security in Vietnam. • HGC and China Telecom successfully deployed the first carrier-to-carrier interconnection along the newly-built Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. This is part of our continuous carrier-to-carrier network enhancement to create new routes that meet end-customers’ needs.
What are your strategic priorities for 2018? OTT collaboration strategy HGC’s strategy is to become the service provider of choice for OTTs as they expand globally. HGC solutions for OTT companies, such as its BDX platform, IPX services, Application and Content Provider (ACP) solutions, and its Network Extension service, meet the distinctive needs of OTT companies for scalability, flexibility and rapid-time-to-market. HGC’s OTT content expansion solution benefited OTT players in all kinds of business areas, including social media and communications, online games, digital contents (virtual gifting with live broadcast, video and music services subscriptions), online advertising (media, social and other advertisings) and others (Cloud, AI, payment related services), which
A conditional share purchase agreement was signed on 3 August 2018 between a fellow subsidiary of HGC and the shareholders of GTMH
What are you hoping to achieve at Capacity Asia 2018? Capacity Asia acts as a crucial telecoms hub. It unites 850+ regional wholesale, content and cloud experts, from senior management representatives from the industry. HGC will network with different companies in the industry, discuss the most pressing trends in the evolving wholesale community, and share our views on the future business opportunity.
If you would like to see more information about HGC and all the other speakers and sponsors at Capacity Asia this year please visit:
www.capacitymedia.com/events/capacity-asia
74 | appointments
Gary Millward AIRX System integrator AIRX Technologies has named former BT Global Services global account director Gary Millward as its new head of global sales and business development. “Gary’s success in system integrator sales, coupled with his deep technical knowledge, makes him a significant addition to AIRX,” said founder and managing director Piyush Srivastava. Millward brings more than 25 years of sales and business development experience, most notably as global account director at BT Global Services, where he looked after the management of BT’s global system integrator partners. He joins AIRX’s executive leadership team as the company was acquired by global ICT service provider Neeco Group.
Frehiwot Tamiru Ethio Telecom Board member Frehiwot Tamiru has been appointed by the Ethiopian government as CEO of monopoly operator Ethio Telecom, replacing Andualem Admassie. She was deputy CEO of its predecessor, Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, but later moved on to run her own IT company, Doxa IT Technology. The appointment is the latest in a series of changes to Ethio Telecom since the election of a new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, in April. He wants to introduce a measure of competition into the monopoly market, though using Ethio Telecom’s infrastructure. Ahmed appointed Admassie to the Ethio Telecom board before promoting her to the CEO role. COO Esayas Dagnew was recently removed from his position and replaced by CTO Amare Assefa.
Brendon Riley Telstra InfraCo
Sharad Mehrotra Telenor Myanmar Sharad Mehrotra is the new CEO of Telenor Myanmar. Mehrotra started working for Telenor 10 years ago as part of the core management team launching operations in India. In 2015 he served as CEO of Telenor India, which is now being acquired by Bharti Airtel. He has also served in Thailand and Myanmar, having served as the first CMO after Telenor began operating there in 2013. He takes over from Lars Erik Tellman, who has been appointed to a senior position in Telenor’s emerging Asia cluster. “From his earlier stint as CMO and part of the company’s first management team, Sharad knows the market and culture very well,” said Petter-Børre Furberg, Telenor EVP and head of emerging Asia, and also chairman of the Telenor Myanmar board.
Brendon Riley has been named as the CEO of Telstra InfraCo, the Telstra group’s standalone infrastructure business unit. In his new role he use the InfraCo assets to drive growth in the wholesale market, while creating future strategic optionality for these highly valuable assets. CEO Andy Penn said: “As technology innovation is increasingly relying on connectivity, the role of telecommunications infrastructure is becoming more important.” Riley was formerly the group executive of Telstra Enterprise. He joined the company in 2011 as COO responsible for all of Telstra’s operating environment. It was during his tenure that Telstra deployed its 4G LTE mobile network. Prior to joining Telstra Riley spent more than 25 years with IBM.
Capacity
Michel Combes F5 Networks Michel Combes, CEO of Sprint, has been appointed to the board of directors for F5 Networks, bringing his 30 years of experience in the telecoms and tech sectors. “I joined F5 because I see a tremendous opportunity to further accelerate the serviceprovider business through even greater strategic clarity and focus, and I’m thrilled to be here,” said Combes. Combes has joined its board after serving in a number of senior leadership roles, including CEO and COO at Altice, as well as chairman and chief executive officer of SFR. He was earlier CEO of Alcatel-Lucent and CEO of Vodafone Europe.
Stephane Duproz Liquid Telecom Liquid Telecom has appointed Stephane Duproz as the new COO of Africa Data Centres (ADC). In his new role Duproz will oversee the commercial and operational development of ADC’s four data centres – in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Cape Town and Harare. He will also aim to grow ADC’s customer base of local and international cloud providers, carriers and enterprises, as well as leading the expansion of ADC’s network of data centres. He has over 20 years’ experience in the data centre sector, including a 14-year stint at Telecity Group. After his time with Telecity and before joining Liquid he served as group director for Europe at Global Switch.
Mehmet Akcin Türk Telekom International Mehmet Toros, group CEO of Türk Telekom International (TTI) has a new adviser, Mehmet Akcin who will support TTI’s further growth by creating new business opportunities with OTTs, driving additional revenue through subsea capacity and transforming the sales teams. “We are excited to have Mehmet Akcin, one of the most well-known telecommunications industry veterans, in our team,” said Toros. The TTI network now includes 19 countries in central and eastern Europe, Turkey, Middle East and the Caucasus. Akcin enters the role with 15 years’ experience working in Seattle and Silicon Valley. He has most recently served as the senior director for global infrastructure planning and acquisitions at Yahoo.
Kenny Koo HTHKH Kenny Koo is the new executive director and CEO of Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings (HTHKH). He replaces Cliff Woo Chiu-man who has been promoted to co-deputy chairman and non-executive director of the company. Koo will also be president director at Hutchinson 3 Indonesia. Koo joined the company in 2006 and became the director of enterprise and then into the role of head of international business of mobile operations in 2014. Since then he has led the company’s corporate market and international services, business and development aspects of the mobile business until 2015.
Tell us your move
Capacity is keen to hear from readers about new roles and appointments in the industry. Send details to james.pearce@capacitymedia.com, with a high-resolution picture
august/september 2018
Capacity
76 | innovation report: quantum key distribution
Quantums are weird, but they could be the key to protecting your data Einstein thought it was spooky, but carriers and equipment companies are using a property of quantum physics to send encryption keys down fibre. BT and Telefónica have already demonstrated it on live networks, writes Alan Burkitt-Gray
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hy should carriers and datacentre owners be interested in something as far-fetched as quantum key cryptography? First, because it’s not far-fetched after all, and second, your old encryption methods are soon going to be as insecure as a 1930s Enigma machine. That means confidential data you store in encrypted form today will be readable by anyone with the right computing power in a few years. Andrew Shields is assistant managing director of Toshiba’s labs in Cambridge and chairs the quantum key group at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Data that’s being stored using RSA encryption won’t be secure “in maybe 10-15 years. If you want to keep information secure you won’t be able to use RSA because that will be broken.” A decade or so, isn’t that plenty of time? “No, you need to start securing the data now,” says Shields. That’s why companies such as BT, Telefónica and Toshiba are actively working on quantum key distribution (QKD). Telefónica has already carried out a field trial over regular metro fibre in Madrid, and now wants to explore practical uses of the highly secure technology. BT has also worked with Toshiba on sending highly secure data along fibre. Telefónica worked with equipment developed by Huawei in Munich. QKD uses one of the weirder features of quantum physics. First described by Albert Einstein in 1935, quantum entanglement means that pairs of particles – photons of light in this case – are related even if they are separated by a great distance. It was, Einstein is reputed to have said, “spooky action at a distance”. Most people working in telecoms research haven’t needed even to think about it for years. “I had to get out my ancient university textbooks,” says
Andrew Lord, head of optical research at BT, who studied physics at Oxford. Telefónica board member Juan-Ignacio Cirac, a physicist who is a pioneer of quantum computing, says: “We can make a random bit sequence to appear at one place and simultaneously at another one, without making it passCapacity in between. It is sort of magic, but something that quantum physics predicts. It is a way of exchanging secure keys that we have to make the most of, since it cannot be hacked.” That’s central to all forms of modern cryptography. But QKD will work better than RSA, say its advocates, and faster, and in a way that will reveal if the key information has been intercepted. The problem with crypto is that once you have the key you can decode the message, so you have to keep the key immensely secure so it can’t be broken. That’s what happened 75 years ago in the UK, when Alan Turing, Tommy Flowers and others developed computers to crack wartime codes. Three-quarters of a century later and computers are immensely more powerful, says Lord – who works in BT’s labs, the direct successor to the UK’s Post Office Research Lab where Flowers built the world’s first stored-program electronic computer in 1943. Quantum computing in the next few years could be so powerful that today’s encrypted data is as secret as a message in lemon juice in mirror writing. The answer: use quantum physics as a better way to distribute the keys. That means sending the keys as individual photons of light, one at a time, along a fibre. “We’ve demonstrated a key rate of 10Mbps,” says Shields. Using 512-bit keys, that means you can send out a new key 30,000 times a second. “Or you can use the electronic equivalent of a one-time pad,” he says (check any good spy
novel for what that means). “The key can be as big as the data.” Diego Lopez, Telefónica’s head of technology exploration and standards, told me: “We demonstrated that we can integrate quantum key cryptography into our normal network services to enhance secure transmission.” That’s a big challenge, because one photon doesn’t have much energy. It’s hard to stop it being swamped by the signal. But there’s a benefit in sending keys a quantum at a time. If someone intercepts it, the recipient gets nothing: you can’t break a photon into two. For the Madrid trial, Telefónica’s own staff installed the equipment. “The fibre and all the elements were commercial. There was nothing special about them. We used a half-rack of commercial servers.” BT and Toshiba ran their trial on real fibre networks, too. According to Lopez, the range of QKD is “limited to 200-300km” at the moment, “but at least this means you can run QKD services in metro environments. This is something that we are working on.” There are still some challenges, worries Lord. The beginning and end of each encrypted link are potentially insecure. “We need to ensure there are no shortcuts,” he says. “These things have to be integrated into regular equipment.” The ETSI group that Shields chairs is working on standards for QKD. All are sure that QKD will be vital as we move into the world of network functions virtualisation (NFV). “If you have virtualised functions you need to be sure you have the right ones and that the link is secure,” says Lord. For Telefónica the next step is trials with “several potential users: we want to interconnect data centres to data centres, and data centres to customers”, says Lopez. august/september 2018
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