Press Release

Verizon Business and Cummins Inc have announced an agreement to implement Verizon’s all-new Neutral Host Network product at Cummins’ Jamestown Engine Plant (JEP) in Lakewood, NY. The deal combines a Neutral Host Network with a Verizon Private 5G Network to cover distinct public-network and private-network use cases onsite at JEP. Cummins views the network’s technological capabilities as integral to enhancing operations across the site and improving the already best-in-class quality of the engines it produces for its customers.

Cummins can use the Neutral Host Network for connecting phones and tablets to the public networks of all major U.S. carriers who opt-in to joining the Neutral Host Network, and the Private 5G Network on Verizon licensed spectrum for business-critical applications that require enhanced onsite security or capability.

The combined network implementation will provide mobile connectivity for the site’s 1 million square feet of industrial space, 1 million square feet of outdoor space, and for its 1,500 employees who work at the site to produce approximately 500 heavy-duty truck engines each day. Ericsson is the sole platform provider to Verizon Business for the network buildout.

The Verizon Neutral Host Network allows employees and visitors to enjoy a strengthened mobile signal on the grounds of the plant, and the Verizon Private 5G Network will help transform the facility to adopt additional industrial use cases now or as needed in the future. These uses include autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for handling and transporting materials, computer vision for defect detection, AR/VR for training and troubleshooting, sensors for machine health monitoring, and proprietary applications governing secure onsite operations.

Cellular connectivity on Private 5G can help improve the performance of mobile AMRs by providing consistent signal strength throughout the site. In addition, the use of machine-health monitoring sensors with the Private 5G network eliminates the need for long runs of Ethernet infrastructure cabling, providing Cummins a substantial cost savings.

Executive and Analyst Statements:

“I am thrilled for the potential that the Neutral host and Private 5G Networks will provide at JEP to expand our communications using wireless technologies,” said Shawn Hricko, Plant Manager at Cummins Jamestown Engine Plant. “These increased capabilities will allow us to implement Industry 4.0 strategies more quickly and more reliably. The improved functionality will enable team members to communicate with one another more effectively, allow us to share more data across equipment and enable our ability to implement mobile Industrial robots (MIRs). Collectively, these improvements will enable us to produce our engines more safely, more efficiently and with improved quality, which is a win for Cummins and our customers who rely on our products on a daily basis.”

“The deployment of a Private 5G Network at our Jamestown facility is very exciting as we evaluate new digital capabilities that will transform our manufacturing operations and help to create a world class workplace for our employees,” said Ron Fleetwood, Executive Director of Cummins IT Business Services. “This is another milestone in our digital manufacturing journey that allows us to validate private cellular for additional sites in the future and to accelerate i4.0 use cases for Jamestown in the near term.”

“Cummins’ technology- and innovation-focused approach to doing business allows them to get the most out of this dynamic Neutral Host and Private 5G combination,” said Jennifer Artley, Senior Vice President of 5G Acceleration, Verizon Business. “All the connectivity bases are covered with this solution, and the efficient architecture makes it cost-effective, easy to maintain, and easy to add onto as operations grow and evolve. Plus, employees and guests onsite can keep their normal cellular connectivity without any headaches or extra steps. It’s a truly holistic solution.”

“By offering Neutral Host and Private 5G network capabilities together, Verizon can deliver a solution that supports both multi-carrier public connectivity and specialized private network use cases on a customer’s campus or worksite. The network types share common elements, so implementation is streamlined and both public and private uses are covered,” said Brian Partridge, Head of Research, 451 Research, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

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T-Mobile and EQT form JV to buy Lumos
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News

AT&T has divested its cybersecurity services group and established a joint venture backed by WillJam Ventures.

This week, AT&T announced it had completed the sale of its cybersecurity division to create a new standalone managed cybersecurity services business, LevelBlue, which will have over 1000 employees across 10 countries. WillJam Ventures is now the majority owner of LevelBlue, while AT&T will have a minority ownership stake.

Reports about the potential sale began circulating in early 2023. There were suggestions  that this would be the latest in a series of divestments in an effort to reduce debt incurred by the acquisitions of DirecTV and TimeWarner, and the fees incurred after the failed acquisition of T-Mobile.

LevelBlue includes AT&T’s managed service business, cybersecurity consulting business and assets from AT&T’s acquisition of AlienVault in 2018. Robert McCullen, chairman and CEO of LevelBlue and founder of WillJam Ventures said that AT&T will be “an alliance partner” and that the joint venture will “allow us to invest in the people and technology and really focus on our customers from a cyber perspective.”

Existing AT&T Cybersecurity customers include most of the Fortune 1000 companies in the U.S., and many local, state, and federal customers. Given the size and status of many of these customers, an efficient transition process is essential. McCullen said that since the announcement of the divestiture in November 2023, “we’ve been working on that data and migration, and a number of the systems that we already had were already in place”.

Divesting from AT&T grants LevelBlue flexibility to work with other operators and telcos, while being part of AT&T’s network-embedded security strategy. The new company benefits from AT&T’s position as a leading managed security service provider but has the ability to combine leading products and services from other companies.

LevelBlue intends to continue partnerships with vendors such as Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, and Cisco, while evaluating newer vendors that can enhance its offerings for new use cases and various business sizes.

The company will include an internal research team, Blue Labs, which will focus on threat research and new product development, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). “LevelBlue will look to bolster our threat intelligence capabilities. And a lot of that revolves around not just the people but the technology … we already have projects in AI and ML and we’ll continue to invest in that. We’ll also look at mergers and acquisitions as appropriate,” McCullen said.

AT&T said that LevelBlue’s consulting team is composed of former AT&T Security employees who benefit from an average of 15 years of experience in cybersecurity and hold the latest certifications. The cybersecurity consulting team will offer always-on assessment, planning and advisory services.

Rick Welday, executive vice president of AT&T Enterprise Markets hailed the launch of LevelBlue as a “significant milestone” which “simultaneously allows us to stay one step ahead of evolving cyber threats and foster innovation in the cybersecurity space.”

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Also in the news:

Wayve secures $1bn in funding for AI-powered autonomous vehicles
Apple working on own AI data centre chips, reports claim
NTT looks to grab stake in Philippine data centres from PLDT

Network operator CityFibre has this morning revealed that their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network has now grown to cover 3.6 million UK premises (3.3m RFS), which is up slightly from 3.5m (3.2m RFS) in late January 2024. The network is also home to 400,000 customer connections (up 77% year-on-year).

In case anybody has forgotten, the operator currently aspires to reach up to 8 million UK premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and c.£800m of BDUK subsidy) – or around 30% of the UK – by the end of 2025 (here). But that target has been put under strain by recent changes in their commercial builds and redundancies (here), which partly reflected a need to refocus a lot of resources toward their Project Gigabit contracts (here).

The operator is now looking to grow their network coverage by another 1 million premises this year, but they’ve also previously signalled their expectation that a big chunk of this could be delivered through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Looking forward over the next two years, such M&A activity alone could theoretically add up to 1.5-3 million extra premises to their coverage, which recently began with the Lit Fibre acquisition (c.300k extra premises built and planned).

According to today’s results, CityFibre now states that they have a “clear path to over 6m premises of its full 8m target.”

Breaking news.. more to follow..

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Investors include SoftBank, Microsoft, Nvidia, and others 

UK self-driving car startup Wayve has secured $1.05 billion in investments to develop its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered vehicles, led by Japanese bank Softbank and with1notable contributions from Nvidia and Microsoft. 

Founded in 2017, Wayve develops AI foundation models to help enable autonomous driving. Its technology equips vehicles with a ‘robot brain’ that can learn from and interact with real-world environments. Known as ‘embodied AI’, the technology will help self-driving vehicles react to situations that do not follow set patterns or rules, such as unexpected events from pedestrians.  

“AI is revolutionising mobility,” said Kentaro Matsui, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers in a press release. 

“Vehicles can now interpret their surroundings like humans, enabling enhanced decision-making that promises higher safety standards. The potential of this type of technology is transformative; it could eliminate 99% of traffic accidents. SoftBank Group is delighted to be at the forefront of this effort with Wayve,” he continued. 

“By utilizing Microsoft’s supercomputing capabilities and cloud computing technology, copilot-enabled developer platform, enterprise data management applications, and leading AI model commercialization expertise, Wayve can deliver and scale innovative Embodied AI solutions that enable safer and more accessible autonomous driving experiences,” said Dominik Wee, Corporate Vice President of Manufacturing and Mobility at Microsoft. 

The deal has caught the attention of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said in a government press release that “the fact that a homegrown, British business has secured the biggest investment yet in a UK AI company is a testament to our leadership in this industry.” 

The news of the investment comes as the UK’s Automated Vehicles Bill, which will regulate the use of automated vehicles in the UK is in the final stages processing, having sailed though both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.  

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Also in the news:

Mobile network operator giffgaff has recently launched a temporary new 40GB (data) contract deal for just £12 a month on an 18-month term – available to both new and existing customers, which also comes with free UK texts, calls and 5GB of inclusive EU roaming allowance.

The catch is that this new plan will only be available to order until 14th July 2024. After their launch offer ends, the contract plan goes back to 27GB for £12. Giffgaff is a virtual mobile operator (MVNO) on O2’s (VMO2) national UK infrastructure.

Johannesburg, South Africa, 7th May 2024 – CMC Networks, a global Tier 1 service provider, has launched its CMC Cloud solution to deliver high-performance edge computing across Africa. CMC Cloud is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution designed to bring workloads closer to the end user and improve the performance of applications and services, without the need to invest in physical hardware.

CMC Cloud provides a decentralised edge infrastructure to reduce latency and bandwidth use, helping to enhance the performance and reliability of digital services across Africa. This is essential for real-time applications using transactional data, video streaming, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The IaaS model provides businesses with access to virtual servers, storage, and networking infrastructure on a flexible, scalable and agile basis.

“CMC Cloud has been purpose-built for the African continent. We understand local needs and challenges across markets, and our new IaaS offering is providing tailored solutions to address the specific requirements of African businesses,” said Marisa Trisolino, CEO at CMC Networks. “We want to remove the barriers to cloud adoption, simplifying and accelerating the growth of Africa’s digital economy. CMC Cloud is making this a reality with a flexible, scalable and cost-efficient model.”

CMC Networks makes it simple for both local and international businesses to enter and expand across African markets by overcoming data sovereignty laws which can otherwise limit cloud adoption. It offers cloud services that store and process data within country borders, helping organisations to comply with country-specific legal and regulatory requirements regarding data storage and privacy. These privacy and security measures are crucial for sectors such as finance, healthcare, and public services with sensitive data handling protocols.

“CMC Cloud, on top of our vast network footprint and ‘application-first’ AI core routing capabilities, delivers a holistic approach to digital transformation,” said Geoff Dornan, CTO at CMC Networks. “Customers can easily adjust computing resources to meet changing business demands while optimising performance with smooth and responsive access to applications and data. The flexibility of CMC Cloud helps in scaling resources in accordance with demand, making it a cost-effective solution for start-ups, SMEs, and large enterprises alike. With CMC Cloud, we’re making it easier than ever for businesses to thrive in today’s digital economy.”

CMC Cloud provides various compute, storage and networking solutions including Virtual Machines, memory, block storage, object storage, IP addresses, Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), IP Premier Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), Distributed Denial of Service Protection as a Service (DDoSPaaS), Carrier Ethernet, MPLS and Multi Cloud Connect. CMC Networks’ Flex-Edge packages software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN), SDN, network functions virtualisation (NFV) and security into one solution, without physical presence required in-country. CMC Networks has the largest pan-African network, servicing 51 out of 54 countries in Africa and 12 countries in the Middle East.

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About CMC Networks

CMC Networks is a global Tier 1 service provider that enables and accelerates digital transformation in the most challenging markets in the world. Headquartered in South Africa and providing services for over 30 years, it combines network reach across six continents with innovation in AI, cloud-on ramp, cybersecurity, EDGE Cloud, SDN, virtualisation, and a range of services to solve local enterprise challenges with world-class solutions.

CMC provides data communications to Carriers, Governments, Multinationals, and various non-profit organisations, operating more than 110 Service Locations providing a cost-effective, scalable, and resilient network.

CMC Networks has the largest pan-African network servicing 51 out of 54 countries in Africa and 11 countries in the Middle East, plus regional hubs in key interconnect locations across Europe, UK, the Americas, and Asia Pacific.

https://www.cmcnetworks.com/

News

Leaders gathered at Broadband Communities Summit 2024 to discuss how to successfully gather local support for constructing a publicly owned network.

By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Engagement is key with any successful public broadband network hoping to get off the ground, according to Chris Walker, the senior executive director of Infrastructure Strategy Noa Net, a non-profit public broadband organization owned by public utilities that operates in the Pacific Northwest.

Walker joined the stage with panelists from a range of public and private backgrounds at a workshop titled “How to Build a Public Network,” moderated by Gigi Sohn, the executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband, at Broadband Communities Summit 2024 in Houston.

The panel, which kicked off Broadband Communities Summit 2024 in Houston, discussed strategies that can be implemented when embarking on the journey towards building a community-owned network project.

Kerem Durdag, the CEO of Maine-based Great Works Internet, said providers need to realize it’s alright to make money, but it’s also alright to have a social contract defining how a given project will benefit the community.

Bill Badran, the broadband services supervisor from the Holland Board of Public Works in Holland, Michigan, said it takes a lot of steps and warned those embarking on a journey to open publicly-owned open access networks to expect pain points.

“Really take the time to educate,” he said, and added that time needs to be taken to find key leaders to support a proposed project beyond typical city councilors.

“Always have that discussion about equity, about inclusion,” Badran said.

Walker emphasized collaboration with stakeholders in a community.

“Leverage your neighbors, they’ll help you become successful,” he said.

Laura Lewis, the owner of LRB Public Finance Advisors, which provides financial consulting services to municipalities, encouraged those hoping to build community-owned networks not to take no for an answer if it’s the kneejerk response to such a suggestion.

“There is always a way to get these things done,” she said, and referenced a wealth of tools for local governments that are often available at the state and federal level.

Walker encouraged public officials to treat publicly owned networks as businesses.

Even though you may be a public agency running a broadband network you are competing for customers, he said.

The biggest challenge is expectations, added Durdag, who pointed out that much of the nation is living in areas that see extreme weather. He said, due to these challenges, publicly owned networks must be built for the long term.

Badran said a main hurdle to overcome was opposition from private companies who opposed a publicly owned open access network in his community.

“It’s amazing to see that that’s the challenge,” he said. “Because the biggest opportunity is, when you look at it, not only that you can be part of a community to provide affordable connectivity, but you’re also providing an economic development environment.”

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Fiber Extension: Delivers fiber-equivalent gigabit broadband speeds leveraging Gfast technology over copper and coaxial cable
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA): Provides fiber-equivalent gigabit broadband via 4G/5G millimeter wave technology
Home Broadband: Enables WiFi 6/6E/7 in-home coverage at gigabit broadband speeds
Industrial IoT: Delivers networking connectivity leveraging 4G/5G wireless and WiFi technologies

DAEMON, a European project coordinated by IMDEA Networks Institute that started in January 2021, has just come to an end, achieving significant milestones in the advancement of mobile communication technology. The project has paved the road to effective 6G networks, with clear benefits to society at large in terms of faster and more ubiquitous mobile communication infrastructures that can support new services.

The primary objective of this project was to demonstrate how AI can be practically integrated into production-level mobile network architectures and help automate the management of beyond-5G and 6G systems. The results have been a success since “the AI-native architectural model proposed by DAEMON has been adopted by the 5G PPP and 6G IA Architecture Working Groups, from where it has the potential to be further pushed into main standardization bodies like 3GPP”, states Marco Fiore, IMDEA Networks Research Professor and the DAEMON Project Coordinator. He continues: “Also, the project has generated two pilots that are now deployed in the production network of Telefónica, five solutions that have been included in the European Commission Innovation Radar initiative, nine patents, and over 100 scientific papers. Together, all these constitute the significant legacy of DAEMON”.

IMDEA Networks researchers, particularly from the Network Data Science group, have contributed to the research activities on customizing loss functions for networking-tailored AI, introducing concepts that are highly innovative for the Machine Learning community as well, such as that of loss meta-learning. In addition, they have demonstrated how AI models can be directly embedded in programmable network hardware for the classification of traffic flows with delays in the order of tens of nanoseconds.

Challenges

The project tackled several challenges including:

– Understanding the limits of AI for mobile networks: they carried out a systematic, critical analysis of which network management tasks can be appropriately solved with AI models rather than other techniques and provided a solid set of guidelines for the utilization of machine learning for next-generation mobile network automation.

-Designing network management solutions empowered by highly customized AI techniques: based on the guidelines above, they developed and implemented a range of algorithms adapted to the unique requirements and constraints of mobile network environments that advanced the state of the art in automation for a precise set of core network management tasks.

-Designing an end-to-end NI-native architecture: they outlined the very first AI-native mobile network architecture model that, stemming from current standardization trends, enables the coordination of the many and varied AI instances deployed in the network.

High scientific production and the future of research

The research carried out in DAEMON has definitely been groundbreaking in nature. The solutions produced have been implemented and demonstrated in relevant production-grade network environments. At the same time, the innovative and high-quality research output of the project is attested by the many (over 30) publications at top-tier conferences and journals including ACM SIGCOMM, ACM MobiCom, IEEE INFOCOM, ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking, or IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, among others.

While the DAEMON project has concluded, the journey of research continues with ORIGAMI, a follow-up European project initiated in January 2024. The quest for mobile networks with lower latency, higher throughput, and greater reliability progresses, promising improvements in various sectors and societal activities.

DAEMON has left an indelible mark on the evolution of mobile networks, and the future looks even more promising with projects like ORIGAMI driving innovation forward.

Private LTE networks are a well-established market and have been around for more than a decade, albeit as a niche segment of the wider cellular infrastructure industry –Infrastructure Networks’ (iNET) 700 MHz LTE network in the Permian Basin, Tampnet’s offshore 4G infrastructure in the North Sea, Rio Tinto’s private LTE network for its Western Australia mining operations and other initial installations date back to the early 2010s. However, private cellular networks or Non-Public Networks (NPNs) based on 3GPP-defined 5G specifications are just beginning to move beyond Proof-of-Concept (PoC) trials and small-scale deployments to production-grade implementations of standalone 5G networks, which are laying the foundation for Industry 4.0 and advanced application scenarios.

Compared to LTE technology, private 5G networks can address far more demanding performance requirements in terms of throughput, latency, reliability, availability and connection density. In particular, 5G’s Ultra-Reliable, Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) and Massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC) capabilities, along with a future-proof transition path to 6G networks in the 2030s, have positioned it as a viable alternative to physically wired connections for industrial-grade communications between machines, robots and control systems. Furthermore, despite its relatively higher cost of ownership, 5G’s wider coverage radius per radio node, scalability, determinism, security features and mobility support have stirred strong interest in its potential as a replacement for interference-prone unlicensed wireless technologies in Industrial IoT (IIoT) environments, where the number of connected sensors and other endpoints is expected to increase significantly over the coming years.

As end user organizations in the United States, Germany, France, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries ramp up their digitization and automation initiatives, some private 5G installations have progressed to a stage where practical and tangible benefits – particularly efficiency gains, cost savings and worker safety – are becoming increasingly evident. Among other examples, Tesla’s private 5G implementation on the shop floor of its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg plant has helped in overcoming up to 90 percent of overcycle issues in the factory’s GA (General Assembly) shop; aluminum die-castings supplier IKD has replaced 6 miles of cables connecting 600 pieces of machinery with a private 5G network; the East-West Gate (EWG) Intermodal Terminal’s private 5G network has increased productivity from 23-25 containers per hour to 32-35 per hour and reduced the facility’s personnel-related operating expenses by 40 percent; NEC Corporation has improved production efficiency by 30 percent through the introduction of a local 5G-enabled autonomous transport system for intralogistics at its Kakegawa factory; JD Logistics has reduced the likelihood of connection timeouts by an impressive 70 percent since migrating AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) communications from unlicensed Wi-Fi systems to private 5G networks at its logistics parks; and Wagyu beef producer Ushino Nakayama has achieved labor cost savings of more than 10 percent using local 5G-connected patrol robots and image analytics.

SNS Telecom & IT’s “Private 5G Networks: 2024 – 2030 – Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts” report predicts that annual investments in private 5G networks for vertical industries will grow at a CAGR of approximately 42% between 2024 and 2027, eventually accounting for nearly $3.5 Billion by the end of 2027. Although much of this growth will be driven by highly localized 5G networks covering geographically limited areas for Industry 4.0 applications in manufacturing and process industries, sub-1 GHz wide area critical communications networks for public safety, utilities and railway communications are also anticipated to begin their transition from LTE, GSM-R and other legacy narrowband technologies to 5G towards the latter half of the forecast period, as 5G Advanced – 5G’s next evolutionarily phase – becomes a commercial reality.