Carrier Catch-Up: A Look At The Latest Buzz From The Telecom Industry

Government Intervention

The telecommunications industry tangled with the government in May as Congress considered getting involved with blocking Chinese firm ZTE in the United States, and an antitrust panel announced it would be evaluating the proposed tie-up between wireless giants T-Mobile and Sprint. At the same time, Comcast made its potential plan to acquire 21 Century Fox known, and Verizon and CenturyLink deepened their relationships with Amazon Web Services and Cisco, respectfully.

Here's CRN's roundup of news from the industry-leading service providers and other attention-grabbing headlines that happened in the telecom industry in May.

Congress May Try to Ban Chinese Telecom Firms In the U.S.

President Trump in May proposed to save failing Chinese firm ZTE after the telecommunications equipment provider said it would be ceasing operations because its business was impacted due to its to concerns that the Chinese government may use the company's telecom equipment to spy on foreign telecom networks. Trump suggested that rather than close its doors, ZTE could pay a $1.3 billion fine, change its management and board, and provide ’high-level security guarantees.’

Later in the same month, however, Republican Senator Marco Rubio suggested that Congress could put a bill forward to prohibit ZTE, as well as other Chinese telecom companies, from operating in the U.S.

CenturyLink Claims It's First To Land All Cisco Meraki Certs

CenturyLink said it's the first Cisco Alliance Partner to secure all certifications necessary for the Cisco Meraki platform.

According to the Monroe, La.-based company, CenturyLink's services have been tested to ensure the services can deliver high levels of performance against Cisco's certification criteria. The certifications that CenturyLink has completed include Cisco-powered cloud and managed DNA services for the Meraki platform.

Senate Antitrust Panel Sets Hearing For Sprint/T-Mobile

A U.S. Senate Committee with antitrust oversight has announced plans to hold a hearing on the proposed $26.5 billion merger between the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in the country, T-Mobile and Sprint.

The committee hasn't revealed who will be in attendance in terms of witnesses, but T-Mobile's CEO John Legere and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure met with the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission in May to talk about the tie-up. The executives are thought to be likely to testify during the hearing, which will be held on June 27.

Fox To Vote On Disney Bid As Comcast Readies Its Own Offer

Comcast confirmed in May that it is preparing an all-cash offer for most of the media assets of 21st Century Fox in an attempt to best Disney's previous offer to acquire Fox's entertainment arm for $52.4 billion that it made in December for the entertainment giant.

While 21st Century Fox has said that it's aware of Comcast's bid plans, Fox later in the month said it will hold a special meeting on July 10th that will allow its stockholders to vote on the proposed merger with Disney.

Verizon Selects AWS As Its Preferred Public Cloud Provider

Telecom giant Verizon announced that it has chosen Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred public cloud provider.

Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Verizon has been working with AWS since 2015, and the telecom has been running several of its business and consumer applications on Amazon's cloud. The expanded partnership will have Verizon migrating more than 1,000 of its business applications and database backend systems to AWS, several of which also include the migration of production databases to Amazon Aurora—AWS's relational database engine, the two companies said.

Lumina Networks' Series A Funding Includes Investments From Verizon, AT&T

Lumina Networks, an open-source software company that builds SDN Controller solutions and services, closed $10 million in Series A funding. The funding includes $8 million in new financing led by Verizon Ventures. However, other new investors include Dallas-based carrier AT&T and data center service provider Rahi Systems.

Lumina Networks, an independent company that spun off from Brocade in 2017, said it will put the funds towards the development of new products that use the Lumina SDN Controller powered by the open-source platform for customizing and automating networks, OpenDaylight. The financing will also support the company's expansion of business in Europe and Japan.