Friday Bytes: Versa, Nokia, Vodafone, Bluebird

Some equity funding, two technology deployments, and one network build:

Versa Networks has raised $120M in new financing. The pre-IPO equity round was led by BlackRock, while Silicon Valley Bank was also listed as participating. Versa will use the funds to further expand its efforts in the SASE market. The next stop may be an IPO, though I’m sure market conditions will play a role in the timing of such an event.

Nokia’s optical transport technology has been selected by State Grid Corporation of China. SGCC will be deploying Nokia’s gear across Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi, building an OTN-based backbone. SGCC is China’s main electrical utility, serving 1.1B people across 26 of China’s 31 provinces. The network will enable SGCC to better monitor its power production and distribution via IoT sensors.

Vodafone is putting disaggregated cell site gateway routers to work in its network. The DCSG routers are based on the Telecom Infra Project’s open standards, and enable easier upgrade of 4G to 5G. They can support 100Gbps links and can be sourced independently from various vendors. After initial trials over the last few years in Romania and South Africa, they have started rolling out the upgrade on their Turkish network.

And Bluebird Network finished up a bit of network expansion out in the Midwest this week. Their buildout into Salina, Kansas is officially live, adding 13.63 new route miles and a PoP. The regional operator has an expansion project underway that will take a diverse route to Chicago and enable them to expand into Aurora and DeKalb.

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Categories: Financials · SDN · Software · Telecom Equipment · Wireless