Qorvo announced a radio chip and software that it says significantly expands the ability of consumers to control their home devices with spoken commands. The GP712 radio chip supports multiple communication protocols in a single-chip design suited to connected home apps. It was announced earlier this year by GreenPeak Technologies, which is now Qorvo’s Low Power Wireless business.
When integrated into virtual personal assistants (VPAs), the GP712 enables the VPA to respond to voice commands and communicate directly with millions of smart home devices that use ZigBee and Thread protocols. Previously, a separate gateway was required to connect the VPA speaker with the ZigBee and Thread sentrollers.
“This new capability allows designers to create more capable voice-controlled smart home assistants that directly support a wider variety of devices and standards. It enhances the user experience, advances the Internet of Things (IoT) and brings us closer to the fully networked home,” Cees Links, GM of Qorvo’s Low Power Wireless business, says.
Ciena introduced an open, distributed network functions virtualization (D-NFV) solution “designed to rollout new applications and network services at cloud speed,” according to a statement put out by the company. Attendees at this week’s MEF16 event in Baltimore can check out the solution that Ciena says allows network operators to quickly and reliably roll-out new virtual network services, such as SD-WAN, IP routing, firewalls, and encryption, from their preferred virtual network function (VNF) vendor.
At MEF16, Ciena is offering a proof-of-concept demonstration of its D-NFV solution in a multi-vendor network that includes Ciena’s Blue Orbit Ecosystem partner RAD, and Ciena BizConnect partner CenturyLink.
“It is well known that network operators want to offset the threats from OTT players and declining network connectivity service revenues. D-NFV supports the worldwide operator #1 NFV use case of enterprise vCPE that provides the carrier goal of service agility,” Michael Howard, Sr., research director and advisor, carrier networks at IHS Markit, says. We believe that operators will want to examine the flexible mix-and-match openness of Ciena’s D-NFV solution that is designed to meet specific needs of individual service providers.”
The D-NFV solution is said to allow for distributed virtualization by using Blue Planet orchestration, new carrier-grade D-NFV infrastructure (D-NFVI) software with a zero-touch deployment model, and a new 3906mvi including its pluggable x86 NFV server module. The D-NFVI software also can operate on third party COTS servers, Ciena says.
“While many vendors on the market today offer various components of a D-NFV solution, Ciena is pioneering a complete solution that is both field-proven and innovative. Our open, D-NFV solution gives service providers the hardware, software, and professional services they need to offer distributed network services and expedites time to revenue, lowers overall costs, and eliminates vendor lock-in,” Steve Alexander, SVP and CTO at Ciena, says.
Adtran announced the availability of its 10G-PON SD-Access portfolio of residential and business gateways powered by its Mosaic OS. The gateways are natively integrated into the Adtran Mosaic Cloud architecture, extending SDN control to the customer edge and supporting service orchestration across the entire access network.
“Service providers have historically faced a common problem with ONTs being closed and proprietary. Native SDN control allows for greatly simplified interoperability, breaking service providers out of the vendor lock-in that exists in traditional PON systems,” Julie Kunstler, principal analyst at Ovum, says. “A direct cloud to subscriber edge, software-defined management architecture, like Adtran’s, removes the need for lengthy multi-vendor integration cycles and enables the service provider to rapidly evolve its service offerings by taking advantage of emerging technologies.”
The Adtran SDX 600 residential and business 10 Gigabit gateways support NG-PON2 and XGS-PON. When these SD-Access solutions are deployed at a customer site and paired with a unifying next-generation OS and cloud platform, such as Mosaic, service providers can create a powerful user-driven service delivery platform, the vendors says, and this approach to user-driven service delivery enables cable operators and telcos to operate at web-scale, supporting expanded service flexibility and velocity for voice, data, video, and smart home applications.
