Former CenturyLink exec named head of Spearhead Advisors
Spearhead, an IT and telecoms solutions provider, is has appointed Lisa Miller as president of its new division Spearhead Advisors.
“We are delighted to welcome an executive of Lisa’s strength and experience to launch Spearhead Advisors,” said Faisal Chaudhry, CEO at Spearhead.
“She brings a wealth of knowledge and excellence in the telecom field and has been recognised repeatedly for building teams that achieve ambitious goals in sales, market share, and profitability. As Lisa shapes this new company, her dedication to employee development will be central to its success.”
Prior to joining Spearhead, Miller worked at CenturyLink—now renamed Lumen—where she was president of its $7-plus billion Wholesale, Indirect, and Small & Medium Business units, supervising over 2,400 employees. She began her career in telecom sales at Sprint Communications before moving to Level 3 Communications, later acquired by CenturyLink.
In her new role she will oversee Spearhead Advisors which partners with Lumen to save on cost, time, and the complications of selecting, procuring, and managing third-party IT service needs, adding a project management system to oversee all the details of IT infrastructure.
“I’m honoured to take on this opportunity with Spearhead Advisors,” said Miller. “A guiding principle in my life is to leave things better than you found them, so the challenge to lead a team of professionals to an even stronger position in our industry is very exciting.”
Open Fiber and Fibering partner on Genoa project
Open Fiber has partnered with Milan-based telecoms service provider Fibering, to launch fibre initiative called the Genoa project.
Under the plans for the project, the two aims to connect companies in and around the Genoa area with high-speed broadband.
Specifically, Fibering will deliver dedicated fibre connections using the Open Fiber’s Fibre-to-the-Home network to business and public organisations in the metropolitan area of Genoa.
According to the two, 50 companies have already signed up to the project, purchasing integrated symmetrical and dedicated connectivity solutions ranging from 1Gbps to 10Gbps in speed with the option to scale this up to 100Gbps in the future.
The news forms part of Open Fiber’s €60 million investment in Liguria and has already connected 180,000 premises to its connectivity network.
Infinera, TIP and Telefónica Expand DCSG deployments in Peru
Infinera confirms that Telefónica Peru will commercially deploy TIP-developed Disaggregated Cell Site Gateways (DCSG) solution using Infinera’s DRX-30 hardware and Converged Network Operating System (CNOS).
“The DCSG solution deployed is comprised of open and disaggregated hardware and software from Infinera, enabling Telefónica to prepare its nationwide transport network for upcoming new services, which will help increase the agility in the introduction of new functionalities and drive operational efficiencies,” said Victor López, network architect at Telefónica and co-chair of the Open Optical Packet Transport group at TIP.
The deployment of TIP’s DCSG solution in Peru is intended to support 4G and 5G mobile connectivity and fixed access services across Telefónica’s global footprint.
“Infinera is excited to work alongside TIP to develop open, disaggregated solutions to support the delivery of high-capacity mobile transport solutions for the 5G era,” said Mikko Hannula, Vice President, Engineering & Product Management at Infinera.
“The expansion of the DCSG network deployment with Telefónica Peru further validates the commercial viability of DCSG for large-scale commercial rollouts in diverse and competitive markets.”
Telefónica Peru will deploy multiple DCSG elements starting with Infinera’s DRX-30 hardware solution and includes configurations that support 300G and 600G through its unique stacking capability. These capabilities are enabled by Infinera’s CNOS software, which provides modular resiliency and pay-as-you-grow node expansion.
Cellnex enters advanced talks for €9bn acquisition of CK Hutchinson tower business
Cellnex Telecom has reportedly entered ‘advanced talks’ to acquire CK Hutchison’s European wireless tower business.
According to people close to the matter and as reported in Bloomberg, should the deal go ahead will mark one of the biggest infrastructure deals in Europe.
The deal is rumoured to valued at €9 billion, although no definitive agreement has been set and terms such as price and structure may still change.
Cellnex recently agreed to pay Iliad SA €804 million ($950 million) to acquire towers in Poland.
The news also follows CK Hutchinson’s previous announcement that it is to set up a company to run the group’s 28,500 towers.
At the time, company said that the new telecommunication infrastructure company, CK Hutchison Networks, will be a separately managed wholly owned subsidiary of CK Hutchison Telecom, a newly set up telecoms holding company.
VMware collaborates with Samsung to support CSPs on 5G
VMware and Samsung have formed an alliance to help Communication Service Providers (CSPs) meet the requirements of 5G networks.
In addition, the two aim to accelerate the roll-out of 5G by optimising Samsung’s portfolio of telco offerings from Core to Edge to RAN for both containerised network functions (CNFs) and virtualised network functions (VNFs) with VMware Telco Cloud Platform.
“With innovative and open 5G networks beginning to transform the landscape, Samsung sees value in delivering carrier-grade solutions with VMware that help CSPs easily embrace cloud native technology and efficiently deliver our network functions and services across their 5G networks with automation,” said Wonil Roh, senior vice president and head of product strategy, networks business at Samsung Electronics.
The Samsung and VMware collaboration aims to accelerate the innovation cycle through improved end-to-end network design and the agility required for 5G networks.
With VMware Telco Cloud Platform, CSPs can deploy a cloud native, software-defined 5G network that will accelerate the delivery of services and applications across distributed telco clouds with operational consistency, integrated lifecycle management and multi-layer automation, while maintaining carrier-grade performance, scalability and reliability.
“The infrastructure supporting 5G will depend on virtualised and containerised network functions delivered from software-defined telco and edge cloud platforms,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager of telco and edge cloud business unit, VMware.
“We are thrilled to be working with Samsung to deliver carrier-grade solutions that leverage the VMware Telco Cloud portfolio to help CSPs seize this 5G moment and transform into leading technology innovators.”
