In today’s industry news roundup: InterDigital appoints new top tech; PON challenger Tibit adds to its bank balance with a Series C round of some big names in the industry; faster growth in public cloud markets; and more!

InterDigital appointed Dr. Rajesh Pankaj as Chief Technology Officer, effective July 5. He replaces Dr. Henry Tirri, who becomes senior advisor. Pankaj joins from Qualcomm where he was senior vice president of engineering and head of corporate research and development. During his 25 years at Qualcomm, Pankaj “oversaw research into 5G, the long-term evolution of 4G (LTE), augmented reality, and other technologies, contributing to a portfolio of state-of-the-art wireless and mobile computing patents. industry,” InterDigital noted in its nomination announcement. “Dr. Pankaj is also a prolific innovator and is an inventor or co-inventor on 230 patents worldwide,” he added.

Start of passive optical network (PON) technology Tibit Communications raised $30 million in a Series C funding round from existing investors Liberty Global (LGI), Swisscom Ventures, Capital Intel, Ciena, Juniper Networks and Solasta Enterprises. Tibit plans to use the money to accelerate the company’s development of a 25 Gbps ASIC to add to its existing 10 Gbps application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and optical line terminal products. pluggable (OLT). Read more.

According to data collected by Synergy Research Group. The largest growth was seen in infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS), which grew 36% year-on-year to $44 billion. To learn more about the different sectors of the public cloud industry, check this version of Synergy Research.

Here is bad news for Ericsson… A Swedish court upheld an earlier ruling that Huawei is prohibited from providing network equipment for use in the country’s 5G networks, reports Reuters. This initial ban, announced in 2020, ultimately led to a not-so-subtle retaliatory move by China because, while Swedish supplier Ericsson is not banned from doing business in China, its large network business d radio access (RAN) with major Chinese network operators has effectively disappeared. overnight. That Huawei remains banned in Sweden does not bode well for a return of Ericsson’s Chinese RAN contracts. (See Ericsson wins China Mobile’s latest 5G contract… and Nokia gets a slice of the pie.)

In better news for Ericsson…The company has partnered with a Chicago-based mobile carrier UScell to conduct 5G tests at altitude using drone technology. “Testing our wireless connections at altitude can set the stage for future drone connectivity in the air, providing command and control capability while enabling easier, more real-time image and data sharing. faster and safer,” said Narothum Saxena, Vice President. technology strategy and architecture at UScellular. “We believe our network can help drones fly optimally if they have connectivity, and with Ericsson’s support, we will continue to drive innovation that can help improve the wireless experience of our customers,” he added. Read more.

Global small cell revenues are expected to surpass $5 billion this year, according to the Dell’Oro Group, which notes that the value of the small cell market grew 15% year-over-year in the first quarter of this year, driven almost exclusively by public 5G deployments. During this three-month period, the main suppliers were Huawei, Ericsson, nokia, ZTE and Samsung. “The fact that small cell investments are still advancing at a rapid pace, even as operators ramp up their 5G macro deployment efforts, shows that small cells are now a critical part of the broader RAN toolkit,” noted Stefan Pongratz, Vice President of Dell’Oro Group. “The shift to 5G and the narrowing of the gap between macro and small cell deployments, especially with upper midband 5G,” helped explain this ramp-up in production,” he said. added.

And finally…. What do you think ? Yesterday at the Amazon re:Mars conference held at the (“renowned for its cleanliness”) Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company showcased its AI-enabled voice assistant Alexa channeling the voices of the dead. The new application technology “imitates” the voices of deceased people. Amazon says Alexa doesn’t need to hear more than 60 seconds of recordings from a person (dead or alive) to be able to fully emulate that voice to interact with Alexa users. Since Amazon routinely collects and archives voice data (and everything else) that crosses its “always on” path, it must have billions of voice recordings in its possession, all ready to be mined and monetized. Perhaps realizing this is a direction that will offend and anger many, Amazon has the brass neck to ask people to note that while having a voice assistant that talks like your old mom or dad (or any other person pushing the daisies) won’t. “eliminate the pain of loss” but “make the memories last”. Such startling cynicism is staggering and in line with what one would expect, but is compounded by Amazon’s press department which adds that in the Covid-19 pandemic, “so many of us have lost someone ‘one we love’. If there was ever an opportunity for criminals to create vocal “deep fakes” and other dodgy and downright dangerous audio recreations, this has to be it. Amazon hasn’t said when the dubious feature will be available, or if it will be at all. “Alexa. Dead stiff.”

– Staff, TelecomTV