What’s up with…. Orange, Nokia, LF Edge

• Orange strikes renewable power deal
• Nokia helps Orange get to the fifth generation of optical…
• LF Edge has a new automation project

Sustainability and cutting edge optical networking trials are at the top of the news board in this roundup.

• Orange France has struck a Corporate Renewable Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Boralex, “a pioneer in renewable energy and the leading independent producer of onshore wind power in France.” Boralex will will supply Orange with 67 GWh/year of renewable electricity produced by the 26 wind turbines at the Ally-Mercoeur wind farm (Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region). “This agreement illustrates Orange’s ambitions to control the energy and environmental impacts of its networks, at a time when the volume of data sent over the networks is constantly growing,” notes the operator in this announcement.
• Still with Orange, it says it has achieved “the successful completion of a significant trial testing 5th generation Photonic Service Engine (PSE-V) chipsets over a live transmission on the Orange network” in partnership with Nokia. “Among the direct applications of this technology, there will be possibilities to support the new ultra-high bitrate services on long distance networks and the broadcasting of large-scale live sports events,” adds Orange. Sam Bucci, Senior VP and General Manager of Optical Networks at Nokia, added: “These tests validate our strategy to optimize around the best tradeoff between spectral efficiency, reach, power consumption and overall cost, which today means making 400G Ultra Long Haul and 600G regional a reality.”
• LF Edge, the edge computing-focused unit at open source outfit The Linux Foundation, has added a new project called Secure Device Onboard, which is focused on “zero touch” (automated) onboarding, something that sounds critical if edge computing-based services are going to be in any way efficient. For more details, see this announcement.
• Cisco's chief strategy officer, Anuj Kapur, has decamped to SAP to become its new head of corporate development and strategy. Kapur will be responsible for the SAP-wide growth strategy and support its execution across the entire product and customer life cycle. He will report to CEO Christian Klein.
• BT, famously in a kerfuffle a couple of years ago for calling things ‘fibre. Broadband’ when they were not, has successfully raised a complaint against an advert from O2 that misstated the costs of a bundled offer. Fun fact: What's now called O2 was originally BT's mobile arm. 
• Back to Nokia…. It is providing the router technology for US operator Windstream’s new nationwide core IP network. “Nokia's advanced routers will enable Windstream to support 5G interconnectivity and a tremendous growth in backbone traffic driven by an increase in mobility applications, video streaming, gaming and other high-capacity demands like remote working,” boasts the vendor in this press release.   
• Analytics specialist fonYou Telecom is the latest company to claim it can help mobile operators capitalize on the mountains of data they have at their fingertips but struggle to exploit (in the nicest possible way, of course). The Spanish company says mobile operators are sitting on a “goldmine,” and that it has the capabilities to help the operators tap into that, especially with pre-pay customers. fonYou’s approach is to combine its analytics secret sauce with the processing and AI power of Google Cloud to crunch the data that can help the operators drive more revenues from existing customers, and who wouldn’t want that? Find out more in this press release.

- The staff, TelecomTV