What’s up with… Ericsson, NetNumber, Dell’Oro

• Ericsson boasts 5G success but now under independent scrutiny
• NetNumber unveils cloud native platform
• 5G to drive accelerated mobile core market growth, predicts Dell’Oro

A mixed bag for Ericsson and cloud native momentum at NetNumber lead the way in this smorgasbord of news morsels.

• Ericsson has had a busy day: On the plus side it is supplying its dual-mode 5G core platform to Telefónica Deutschland and its 5G radio access network (RAN) gear to Bell Canada. But in a reminder of past discretions, the Swedish vendor also announced that it has started a three-year term of being overseen by an independent monitor as part of its Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the U.S. Department of Justice. That DPA was announced last December to resolve criminal charges related to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
• NetNumber has unveiled TITAN.IUM, a cloud native, containerized platform that provides secure signaling and routing, subscriber data management, AAA (access, authentication & authorization), fraud prevention and IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) control to 2G, 3G and 4G as well as 5G networks. “NetNumber has taken its innovative approach another step forward with a cloud-native platform that is backward compatible to protect the operators’ investment in their core infrastructure, while bringing 5G service and network interoperability to their legacy technologies,” noted Sue Rudd, Director Networks and Service Platforms at research house Strategy Analytics. The new system is NetNumber’s update to TITAN, the multi-protocol centralized signaling and routing controller that is deployed in more than 250 networks worldwide. Network security and the co-existence of multiple generations of mobile network technologies is a key focus for the NetNumber team right now.
• Research house Dell’Oro says the market for mobile core network technology grew in value by 10% year-on-year to be worth $8 billion for the 12 months to the end of March 2020, with growth “expected to accelerate over the next four quarters due to 5G Core deployments.” During that 12-month period, Ericsson and Huawei accounted for more than half of the total market, while Nokia, ZTE, and Cisco combined accounted for more than 25%. 
• In a separate announcement, Dell’Oro says cloud-managed, enterprise-class wireless LAN technology was in demand during the first quarter of this year, with sales of such systems by vendors including Cisco, Extreme, Huawei and Juniper Mist up by 20% year-on-year. 
• VMware has named Carol Carpenter as its new Chief Marketing Officer. She was previously VP of Product Marketing at Google Cloud. Rumours that she proclaimed “We’ve only just begun!” on joining the company are completely unfounded. 
• Having disrupted the mobile markets in France and Italy, Iliad has formed a joint venture with Digicel to launch services in the French West Indies (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy) and French Guiana. 
• ZTE and China Mobile have jointly developed and launched what they claim is China's first 5G medical edge cloud platform, “a new-generation 5G information communication infrastructure for medical industry customers.” 
• In a bid to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Vodafone UK is offering a “rescue” package that gives those SMBs free broadband with unlimited usage and free access to Microsoft 365 Business Standard’s full suite of flexible business tools for the first six months of a 24-month contract.

- The staff, TelecomTV