What’s up with… Telefónica, Verizon, Huawei

• Telefónica to fund cybersecurity startups
• Spanish giant also adds TIP-inspired tech to Peruvian network
• Verizon offers managed Kubernetes at the edge
• Huawei’s new smartphone poses lots of questions

A new startup investment initiative and further disaggregated network system deployments from Telefónica, and the evolution of Verizon’s edge services strategy, elad the way in this industry news roundup.

Telefónica’s Tech division has launched Telefónica Tech Ventures, a “vehicle for investments in the cybersecurity field.” It has been founded by ElevenPaths, the operator’s cybersecurity unit that is part of Telefónica Tech, and Telefónica Innovation Ventures (TIV), the company’s venture capital arm. Telefónica Tech Ventures launches with nine startups that have already received support from TIV and from the Spanish operator’s Wayra startup support program: It then plans to invest in up to 15 additional cybersecurity startups, with cash injections of up to €6 million in each one. The new vehicle is looking for startups with “high disruptive potential in areas such as threat intelligence, cloud security, data protection and the application of automations and artificial intelligence in defence of any organisation, regardless of its size and the nature of the asset to be protected.” The news comes shortly after Telefónica announced the creation of cybersecurity and cloud academies. For more on Telefónica Tech Ventures, read this announcement.

Still with the Spanish giant… Telefónica continues to be one of the frontrunners in the deployment of disaggregated network systems. As well as being a cheerleader for Open RAN, it has also been working to get disaggregated cell site gateways (DCSGs) into its networks, and, following initial deployments of such systems in Germany last year, has collaborated with the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and Infinera to deploy DCSG technology into its network in Peru. Read more.

And there’s more… Europcar Mobility Group is strengthening its partnership with Telefónica and Geotab as part of its ongoing Connected Cars program. The car rental giant already had 44,000 connected cars in 2019 and aims to connect all of its fleet by 2023, as part of its ‘Connect’ roadmap. See this press release for more details. 

Verizon has taken its cloud native, distributed edge computing strategy to the next stage with the launch of VNS Application Edge, a Kubernetes-based managed platform-as-a-service offering that allows enterprise users to deploy their applications in multi-cloud environments and at the edge of Verizon’s network. The operator says it has developed the service, enabled by the partitioning of white box hardware resources, in collaboration with Kubernetes management system specialist Rafay Systems. Read more, and also check out our Edge channel and the sessions from our still-fresh Edgenomics Summit.

Hey Google! Huawei has announced its latest Mate 40 Pro and Pro Plus ‘flagship‘ smartphones. Reviews so far have mostly followed the usual track – hardware great, camera excellent, screen up with the best, general aesthetics and attention to detail also excellent. The real questions, however, will centre around the phone’s life without Google apps and services. How is it going to infill with new software? And how will its new OS and processor stand up? Given the Android privacy problems and the antitrust actions heading Google’s way, it may be that a Google-free phone is just what many potential customers are looking for in future.

Israeli component vendor Ethernity Networks is the latest company to develop technology for disaggregated radio access networks. It has developed a product that, it says, aggregates traffic and provides virtual routing functions in a 5G distributed unit (DU). It says the solution is “based on the company’s existing ACE-NIC100 FPGA SmartNIC, which offers Ethernity’s exclusive Router-on-FPGA-NIC feature.” Read more.

Ribbon Communications has added two new managed as-a-service offerings to Ribbon Call Trust, its solution designed to validate a caller’s identity, intent, and reputation. The new offerings, STIR/SHAKEN-as-a-Service and Reputation Scoring, are both enabled by Ribbon’s Identity Hub, a cloud-native platform designed to deliver a suite of managed services for identity assurance. Read more.

Samsung Electronics and Deutsche Telekom have jointly developed a solution package for hybrid teaching. ‘Samsung Neues Lernen’ comprises hardware and software, with connectivity provided on demand by the German telco. The solution package enables both face-to-face and distance learning (‘hybrid schooling’) in one application. Read more.

Germany regional operator NetCologne has deployed G.fast technology from Nokia to extend its fiber broadband network’s reach into multi-tenant buildings and offer downstream speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s. Read more.

Internet-connected, or IoT, devices now make up roughly 33% of infected devices, up from about 16% in 2019, according to the latest Nokia Threat Intelligence Report. The volume of attacks on IoT devices is rising “at an alarming rate due to poor security protections and cybercriminals’ use of automated tools to exploit these vulnerabilities,” notes Nokia. Read more.

AT&T and Cisco have extended their collaboration in the managed IoT device market. The partners already manage millions of devices across multiple industry verticals and are now working on how to manage IoT connectivity in a way that helps to “mitigate security risks, identify anomalies in data usage as well as optimize traffic classification reporting to enhance billing clarity.” Read more.

Lumen Technologies, formerly known as CenturyLink, has unveiled a self-service portal that allows enterprises to simplify the way they buy their networking, edge cloud and security solutions. Read more.

UK wholesale fixed broadband network operator CityFibre has had a busy few days. It announced plans for a £117 million investment in fibre infrastructure in Nottingham, with the goal of reaching almost every home and business in the city, and started network construction in the Scottish city of Dundee and in Swindon. For more on its plans in Nottingham, read this press release. 

- The staff, TelecomTV