Wednesday Bytes: Nokia, Orange, Google, Indus Towers

Two bits of vendor news, some cloud interconnection, and a big tower merger in South Asia:

Nokia has introduced AirFrame, an edge cloud infrastructure solution. With mobile providers looking to move more computing power out to the edge and even as far as the tower, there will be a need for special gear optimized for such conditions. At least that’s Nokia’s bet with this ultra-compact server powered by its ReefShark chipset. They plan to start shipping in Q3 of this year.

Orange is upgrading its Open Transit Internet service with some help from Cisco. Cisco’s Network Convergence System will help Orange reduce the number of chassis it has to manage as it prepares for 400G speeds in order to handle traffic growth. Orange’s OTI hits 100 countries via 50 PoPs around the world, but especially in EMEA.

Google has unveiled its new Cloud Partner Interconnect service. Some 23 partners are launching direct connectivity to the platform globally, and is also expanding its private connectivity to Google’s Dedicated Interconnect cloud service to Stockholm, Sydney, and Munich. Google’s new service aims to supply semi-dedicated connectivity of partial circuits from 50Mbps to 10Gbps. The idea is to better support hybrid cloud environments by standardizing the connectivity they depend on.

And the world is getting a new #2 in the tower space, at least in terms of raw towers owned.  Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel are merging, bringing a combined 163,000 towers to bear across India.  The new company will be called Indus Towers Limited, and after closing will be 33.7-37.2% owned by Bharti Airtel and 26.7-29.4% owned by Vodafone.  The whole infrastructure business in India is evolving rapidly right now.

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Categories: Interconnection · Mergers and Acquisitions · Telecom Equipment · Towers