What’s up with… Nokia & Openreach, Enea, Intel

• Nokia brings 25G PON to the UK
• Enea snaps up AdaptiveMobile
• Intel linked to monster foundry acquisition

The arrival of even faster broadband tech in the UK, an interesting acquisition by Sweden’s Enea and further manoeuvres in the global chip sector top this Friday news bill.  

Just as 10G PON is starting to reshape the fixed broadband market in a meaningful way, so comes along the next leap in access capacity capabilities… BT’s quasi-autonomous fixed access network division Openreach has been testing 25G PON tech from Nokia (based on its Quillion chipset), and, importantly, it’s technology that can be introduced alongside existing GPON and XGS-PON deployments. The Quillion chip “allows us to have a solution that supports three generations of PON technology from a single platform that is already in the Openreach network. Having GPON, XGS-PON and 25GS-PON all on the same fibre means Openreach can efficiently evolve the network capabilities, address new opportunities and connect more consumers, businesses and 5G cell sites,” noted Sandy Motley, President of the Nokia Fixed Networks crew. Openreach isn’t Nokia’s only 25G PON engagement – the vendor has already trumpeted and early deployment in Belgium with Proximus. Nokai’s fixed access unit is on something of a roll currently, as the vendor’s Network Infrastructure division leader Federico Guillén explained earlier this year. (See Fibre now as critical as 5G to operators: Nokia’s Guillén.)

Swedish telecom software vendor Enea has agreed to acquire AdaptiveMobile Security, which develops software and services for messaging and signaling security in mobile core networks, for €45 million. “As the global leader in mobile network security, AdaptiveMobile Security expands our market presence and broadens our offering to operators, creating interesting opportunities in areas such as 5G security,” noted Enea President and CEO, Jan Häglund. The news came as Enea reported revenues of SEK225.8 million (US$26 million) and an operating margin of 27.5% for the first six months of 2021.

As the race to be at the forefront of global chip development and production heats up, exacerbated by the current semiconductor shortage, Intel is reported to be in talks to acquire GobalFoundries, which operates a number of chip foundries around the world, for about $30 billion. The speculation, which has not been confirmed by either party, was first published by the Wall Street Journal. 

Meanwhile, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) has signalled its intent to build new facilities in the US and Japan as it reported a 28% rise in second quarter revenues, reports Reuters.

Just when everything was going well for Google Cloud, Amr Awadallah, its vice president of Developer Relations, has been given his marching orders after what appears to have been a bizarre confession of antisemitism. According to CNBC, Awadallah had penned a 10,000-word manifesto on LinkedIn about his previous hatred of Jews. “I hated the Jewish people, all the Jewish people. Yes, I was anti-Semitic, even though I am a Semite, as this term broadly refers to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, among others.” It didn’t go well. The manifesto had apparently added fuel to a fire that was already raging internally about Awadallah’s management style. So it was announced on Thursday that he was out.