• Verizon gets in with the gamers
• Google Cloud’s new transatlantic cable
• ETSI unveils OSM 8.0

Verizon’s engagement with FaZe Clan and Google Cloud’s mammoth new transatlantic cable are the cherries and icing on today’s news cake. 

• Verizon has struck a deal to become the official 5G and 4G network sponsor of esports giant FaZe Clan. As part of the relationship, Verizon and FaZe Clan will “create live events and original content showcasing the impact Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband network can have on gaming content and the transformational experience it enables for fans, players, and creators.” Telcos see gaming as fertile ground for their 5G and telco edge-enabled services, so this move makes sense from a branding perspective, and as you can see from the image above Verizon's name is already being used in FaZe Clan marketing.
• Google Cloud is laying an additional private transatlantic subsea cable to connect the US, the UK and Spain. Grace Hopper (famous computer scientist & admiral) will provide approximately 340-350 Tbps of capacity over 16 fibre pairs and is projected to be finished in 2022. Google says it’s one of the first cables to connect the US and UK since 2003 at the end of the great fibre overbuild.
• ETSI has unveiled Open Source MANO (OSM) Release EIGHT, which “adds ultra-scalable service assurance capabilities, support for new resilience schemes, and facilitates the visual operation for large-scale network deployments from Cloud to Edge.” According to ETSI, the latest release of the orchestration solution is designed to “manage service assurance in large production deployments,” and, while method-agnostic, it “makes the use of SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) monitoring particularly easy, considering its vast popularity in commercial VNFs (Virtual Network Functions).”
• Etisalat has expanded its relationship with cloud native mobile core technology specialist Affirmed Networks by selecting and deploying the Microsoft-owned vendor’s orchestration and automation platform. “This platform will accelerate the automation of Etisalat’s existing and upcoming digital services and infrastructure and pave the way for a smooth, quick rollout of 5G and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) services,” stated the vendor.