Infinera closed its acquisition of Coriant today, creating one of the world's largest optical networking providers with 600 customers around the world. But talk of a major account challenge mounted by Ciena sent the company's stock tumbling more than 15%.

Cisco announces a stronger, better, faster version of its edge routing platform, the ASR 9000 series and, in doing so, reminds us that there's a lot at stake with the arrival of 5G networks.

One way to look at how much the industry is changing is to spend some time with an executive – and a company – that has stuck to the same formula and industry view for almost 20 years.

Infinera has offered to acquire Coriant for $430 million in cash and stock but the deal is truly complementary, not just a cost-cutting exercise, both companies say.

Ciena's Steve Alexander explains Ciena's strategy for injecting analytics and intelligence into the network, why the company acquired Packet Design and why Ciena is setting its sights on the Indian and Asian markets.

The shortlist for most innovative automation strategy features six very strong entries from some of the world's biggest operators.

The transition to white box networking could be especially painful for Juniper.

As its self-driving network story takes hold, networking vendor Juniper's stock performance earned it a 'sell' rating from at least one big Wall Street analyst.

Apstra, Cohere and Juniper are the shortlisted candidates for the outstanding communications technology vision award.

Boingo Wireless and Comcast Business make the shortlist for our NFV deployment strategy award.

Finnish vendor insists the second half of 2018 will be much better than the first half as customers start to invest in long-awaited 5G networks.

The Swedish vendor seems to have a bigger problem with openness than its Finnish rival.

A group of telecom executives at this week's Paris tradeshow deliver a critical assessment of SDN and NFV.

Results from the Chinese equipment giant show how difficult it will be for Ericsson and Nokia to mount an effective challenge.

In a radical move, the world's biggest maker of Internet switches and routers will start selling its service provider software on a standalone basis.

Spanish operator reveals it has been in discussions with Amazon about a new project to automate its central offices and give them more processing capabilities.

The standards group is working on a function that could help operators to monitor network slicing and application performance.

Spanish operator outlines plans to ramp up investments in artificial intelligence while blasting vendors for continuing to develop 'closed' technologies.

The industry needs to work on persuading operators that virtualizing the radio access network is manageable and beneficial.

This week named Orange's deputy CEO, Laurent Paillassot has pioneered the rollout of NFV technology at Orange Spain.

Automation, interoperability and standardization are among the German operator's demands as it continues to work on its pan-net transformation.

The Norwegian telecom incumbent sheds further light on how automation and AI could help it to slash headcount and reduce costs.

Swedish vendor is set to launch a handful of 'machine intelligence' products at this week's MWC and says 15 major operators are interested in its AI goodies.

France's biggest service provider is preparing to roll out 5G networks despite the uncertainties it faces.

The head of Orange Spain sees no short-term need to blanket his market with 5G networks and wants to 'break' the business model of Ericsson and Huawei.

The standards body has come up with a new architectural framework for a more digital and real-time back office.

Chinese vendor manages sales growth in 2017 despite challenging market conditions and plots a boost to its 5G R&D investments.

Finnish vendor ends 2017 on a relative high note but says conditions will remain tough in 2018 and that margins will be under pressure.

Shares in Swedish vendor sink after results miss analyst estimates and amid disquiet about strategic backtracking and management changes.

India's aggressive new entrant hopes to position itself as digital service provider, not merely a telco.

Trump's 5G plan is an 'outdated' piece of government theorizing, say reports. But might he have stumbled onto something?

French telecom incumbent says existing suppliers should not expect to land all of the 5G business and plays down any likelihood of rapid 5G rollout.

Latest financial setback will chew into operating income and could have implications for profitability targets.

Automation is nothing new. So why is it such a big issue for telcos at the start of this year?

Let's hope that cloudification, network slicing and core network transformation top the agenda at MWC 2018, and not the dreary issue of 5G new radio.

Ribbon, the newly named mash-up of Sonus and Genband, cuts ties with ex-Sonus boss Dolan and names Fritz Hobbs its new president and CEO.

What does 2018 hold in store for the telecom sector? We asked our own editors and analysts, and gathered up a few third-party forecasts as well.

French telecom incumbent says capital expenditure will reach a peak next year before starting to decline in 2019.

Operators may have to look beyond traditional standards bodies and vendors for answers to questions about 5G system architecture.

Deutsche Telekom says that spending on 'transformation' is impeding its efforts to reduce costs outside the US.

Consolidation in India's telecom market over the last year is forcing equipment vendors to adapt.

The latest mobility report from the Swedish equipment supplier predicts there will be 1 billion 5G connections by 2023 but does little to answer the burning telco questions.

While vendors continue touting 5G as an opportunity to provide new revenue-generating services, operators are increasingly focused on it as an efficiency tool.

Chinese service provider expects to have a commercial 5G network comprising 10,000 basestations in the market in 2020.

Deutsche Telekom executive says 5G progress so far is largely about radio – and it shouldn't be.

Shares in vendor giant get a boost as the company forecasts sales growth next quarter.

Research carried out by Light Reading shows the scale of job cuts in the telecom sector during the last two years, as major telcos look to maintain sales with a smaller workforce.

While some telcos appear eager to get started with ONAP, others are worried about the unwieldiness of the platform.

Colt executive draws attention to the pitfalls of automating operations and provides an update on the UK operator's progress so far.

The UK operator is training staff to use data modeling languages so that it can address the lack of conformity it sees from virtualization system vendors.

Swedish vendor is rolling out artificial intelligence and predictive maintenance technologies in its service delivery business, which suffered hefty cuts in the recent third quarter.

Swedish equipment maker draws attention to gains at its networks division but continues to face a huge turnaround challenge.

As telcos try to emulate their Internet rivals, the industry looks set to set lose many of its current employees.

US operator emphasizes the need for progress in key virtualization areas to meet emerging customer demands.

The last thing the shrinking communications networking industry would seem to need is more working groups or associations, yet new ones are sprouting.

French telecom incumbent is ready to embark on a more widespread rollout of NFV using technology from a handful of suppliers.

A new TIP working group will look at using machine learning and AI to improve network management.

Chinese operator is poised to migrate to 'thousands' of edge data centers as it makes preparations for the launch of 5G.

DT exec Klaus Martiny thinks ONAP and ETSI could be quite a mix.

Telcos are increasingly focused on automating their networks, but complexity represents a major challenge, said industry executives in The Hague this week.

German incumbent says its new goal is to build networks that can be managed without human intervention.

Nomination comes after former chairman Leif Johansson said he would not seek re-election under apparent shareholder pressure.

Bristol-based SDN startup also gets access to BT's labs.

Finnish vendor is to supply its SDN-based virtualized services platform to China's second-largest property insurance company.

Nokia's diversification into high-growth enterprise markets is starting to pay off, says the company's global services boss.

Growing interest in the potential of edge computing has yet to be matched by commercial activity on the telco side. In the meantime, the Internet companies are coming.

The emergence of different groups addressing the edge computing challenge has fueled concern about interoperability and whether a unified approach to edge computing will take shape.

Finnish vendor will meet with French government officials on October 2 to discuss job plans.

India's biggest service provider is looking to South Korean technology expertise to cope with the challenge from Reliance Jio.

Following a DevOps-driven overhaul this year, the Dublin-based software company believes economic and market realities will play into its hands.

South Korean mobile operator claims to have cut latency on 4G networks to just two milliseconds, raising questions about the need for 5G.

With its roaming business in decline, Syniverse hopes investment in new digital offerings will return it to profitability.

Chinese vendor recruits US regulatory official to lead dealings with US government in a market that continues to restrict its activities.

The latest figures from China's second-biggest equipment vendor show it gained momentum despite a slowdown in the market for network equipment.

For telcos, automation puts an awkward spotlight on employee value. Investors will be watching.

The world's seventh-biggest telco by customer numbers has made a new digital platform the very centerpiece of its strategy.

The difficulty of shifting customers onto new all-IP systems could see the German operator miss a target for broadband revenue growth.

The Spanish telco is opening new data center facilities and taking Unica further into its network operations.

Spanish operator says it is working on aligning OSM efforts with those of ONAP and acknowledges the latter has a broader remit.

Nokia's plan to develop a standalone software company shows early signs of promise.

Finnish vendor smashes analyst expectations on profit performance but warns investors that its network sales will decline at a steeper rate than previously expected.

The recent market entry of RJio is putting other operators under pressure to make investments in new software and virtualization technologies.

Chinese equipment supplier has recovered strongly from its clash with US authorities.

Merging players have been forced to give regulatory authorities more time to review their deal amid concern about the impact the move could have on competition.

Swedish vendor accelerates cost-cutting activities and says conditions will be worse than previously feared as its operating margin turns negative.

South Korean telco has taken the wraps off a new MANO platform, but will it reduce complexity or add to it?

With Vodafone's head of network virtualization, David Amzallag, now departed, who's in charge of the operator's Ocean virtualization strategy? An import from Netcracker, Light Reading believes…

Deutsche Telekom's pan-net transformation is slowly moving ahead, even if it still has a long way to go.

Ericsson may have scaled back its ambitions for new opportunities outside the telecom market while it works on a turnaround at its main networks business, but it hasn't abandoned them altogether.

Swedish vendor will upgrade Vodafone's 4G networks in southern England and provide 5G radio technology to the UK telco.

A startup backed by Orange and Facebook could pose a threat to Ericsson and Nokia in the mobile core.

Comcast is looking to a private cloud based on Cloud Foundry to turn around record bad customer satisfaction scores.

Operators want 5G and they want it now, but they don't know how much it will cost or whether it will make them any money.

The FP4 chip and a new routing platform target big telcos and web-scale giants.

Uwe Janssen urges operators and their customers to address confusion surrounding the definition of network slicing and gives short shrift to equipment incumbents.

Thanks largely to a startup called Phluido, a new working group within Facebook's TIP is looking to standardize the virtualization of the radio access network.

Hossein Moiin becomes the latest industry executive to air concern about Europe's 5G lag.

An 11-employee startup could displace Ericsson in the RAN, says France's biggest telco.

Social networking giant faces a backlash on its open source commitment and says it will start a new group with a RAND licensing model.

PCCW, VEON, Juniper, Red Hat and Accenture are among ONAP's new members, but it still doesn't have as many supporters as the Open Source MANO initiative.