5G, IoT, NFV - Light Reading's readers had acronyms on the mind in 2017, but their biggest obsession was an eight-letter word.

After years of being locked into proprietary hardware and software, a new openness is pushing enterprise to add layers of automation into their networks. With the addition of machine learning and AI, more and more of the networking process can be trusted to machines.

With the traditional operator business dying, CSPs must adopt new operating models to deliver digital services.

As 2017 comes to an end, Enterprise Cloud News takes a look back at the last 12 months to get a sense of which cloud stories best captured the spirit of this growing market.

Protecting the web-scale content user experience lies in utilizing emerging analytics and automation technologies.

Cable is turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help tackle customer service woes, as well as proactively manage network functions and provide a better customer experience.

PRAGUE, 12/7/2017 - At Light Reading's 2020 Vision Executive Summit in Prague, 'Three Wise Men' - Heavy Reading's Adi Kishore, Light Reading's Iain Morris and Scott Bicheno from Telecoms.com - discuss the ins and outs of service provider video strategies.

A combination of IoT technologies, cloud computing and analytics is helping smart cities create a cashless society. It's also creating new opportunities for businesses.

NTT Communication's Len Padilla reflects on enterprise cloud trends and shares advice for enterprises in varying stages of their cloud migration.

Legacy business services aren't that easily shed when customers resist change but service providers need to find a more aggressive path forward.

A report finds that the number of hyperscale data centers scattered across the globe continued to grow in 2017. By the end of the year, there were nearly 400 of these facilities worldwide.

Former CIO Larry Bonfante dusts off his crystal ball at the end of 2017 to make some predictions for CIOs and cloud computing in 2018.

As more companies migrate to the cloud, CenturyLink's Eric Nowak says businesses are deploying VoIP to enable the use of more collaborative applications such as Skype, Spark and other integrated applications.

NEW YORK, 11/30/2017 - In this interview, Broadband Success Partners' David Strauss reveals the results of an exclusive survey of cable business execs that he conducted for Light Reading.

With video cord-cutting surging again in the third quarter, pay-TV providers are still fighting an uphill battle to stem the tide. How much worse will it get?

Google is disappointed with cloud sales and will replace CEO Diane Greene, according to prediction at The Information.

Routers based on the highly touted FP4 chip start shipping, setting up a race to win the hearts of web-scale players - a race that credibly includes merchant silicon and white boxes.

2018 will be a year when crucial groundwork is laid for 5G.

Stranger things happening in Las Vegas, as Amazon goes to the Upside Down.

Early applications for the low-power networks are a bean-counter's dream. But why so much trash pickup?

This week in our WiC roundup: Women reign in edtech; harassment repercussion laws shift; high hopes for 2018; and more.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson raises $272 million for 5G research; KPN rolls out LTE-M; O2 UK authenticates with Danal.

PRAGUE, 12/6/2017 - Heavy Reading Senior Analyst Steve Bell provides some insights into the use of machine learning and AI by communications service providers.

Eric Schmidt is stepping down as executive chairman of Google parent Alphabet, continuing on as a technical advisor.

PRAGUE, 12/7/2017 - At Light Reading's 2020 Vision Executive Summit in Prague, Boingo CTO Derek Peterson talks about the impact of NFV and IoT on the planning and management of all types of wireless access networks.

NEW YORK, 11/30/2017 - Vertical Systems Research Director Erin Dunne examines the impact of cable's continuing share gains in the Ethernet services market and entrance into the SD-WAN market.

Just in time for the New Year.

In what could herald an even more intense marketing land-grab, the first official 'early drop' non-standalone 5G NR specifications are approved at the 3GPP's RAN 78 meeting in Lisbon.

Financial problems and merger concerns mean India is unlikely to forge ahead quickly in 5G.

Achieving the world's first interoperable 5G New Radio (NR) data connections at 3.5GHz and 28GHz.

As networks extend into the cloud, security and monitoring need to step up their games accordingly, writes Jeff Harris of Ixia.

A report from financial analyst firm Jefferies finds that the combined IaaS and PaaS markets were worth more than$35 billion in the third quarter, with AWS and Azure leading the way. SaaS revenues stood at an additional $33 billion.

Flixbus is using the cloud to connect 250 regional bus companies to provide long-haul service in Europe.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange's Richard to stand trial for embezzlement; OBS provides cloud services for Copernicus project data; EU bodies co-ordinate on cybersecurity.

Amdocs exec who heads use-case development says next software release will extract functions from use cases and develop the functions.

Twelve days to go...

If you're going to talk to Heavy Reading Senior Analyst Sterling Perrin about optical disaggregation, be sure to light his touch paper by throwing in a reference to the optical white box phenomenon.

The HbbTV Association has published its Operator Applications Specification, developed to enable set-top box functionality via an app.

In this interview, MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett warns that cable operators may soon feel the effects of price deflation in the commercial services market.

It was only a few years ago that Red Hat cracked the $1 billion mark in annual revenue. Now, with help from the cloud, the company is eyeing $3 billion.

The app delivery vendor pulled back the curtain the teensiest bit on how Adobe is running its application suite on Microsoft Azure.

Claudio Mazzuca, Vice President of Systems & Analytics for EXFO, breaks down EXFO's three-part assurance solution for SD-WAN -- Cloud enabled EXFO Worx, real-time performance analytics engine EXFO Xtract, and recent acquisition, Ontology, which boasts a broad, real-time network topology view to help predict and react to anomalies before they impact services.

Xavier Niel uses his French operator Iliad and his private holding company NJJ to take a majority stake in eir, Ireland's national operator.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodafone tests standalone 5G with Ericsson; Iliad's owner invests in eir; Uber is a transport company; Swisscom's gigabit rollout rolls on.

PRAGUE -- Lauren de la Fuente, vice president of marketing and communications at Boingo Wireless, and Terri Reintjes, director of architecture strategy at Sprint, reflect on how their experience as women in the telecom industry has changed over the last 30 years and where there's still room for improvement.

India's biggest operator has done a reasonable job of countering the challenge from the country's aggressive new entrant.

Latest initiative aimed at speeding up white box deployment by creating an architecture that encompasses entire ecosystem.

The new Tomahawk 3 sports 128 100G ports, aiming to please hyperscale data center operators.

In this interview, WOW Technology Integration VP Torryon Coleman explains the company's network virtualization and DAA strategy and goals.

AWS is reportedly eyeing a $40 million deal for Sqrrl, a big data startup that could help the cloud provider add more security.

Germany's telecom regulator has banned elements of Deutsche Telekom's zero-rated service StreamOn, demanding that it align with the EU's net neutrality and roaming requirements.

Claudio Mazzuca, Vice President of Systems & Analytics Assurance for EXFO, explores why automation is key for providers to survive, profit and deliver next-generation services. He says EXFO is focused on offering real-time test and assurance solutions, ensuring providers have checks and balances in place as they automate service creation and delivery regardless of network type they run on: physical, virtual or hybrid. He also explains how SD-WAN is ripe for automation.

HyTrust launched a software appliance to protect confidential data in the cloud, based on technology it acquired when it bought DataGravity this summer.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: WhatsApp faces French fine; Ofcom tackles the pain of switching; fiber for Hasselt; EU defines Uber.

Robotic process automation could be the next step on the digital transformation journey for Kazakhstan's telecom incumbent.

What's next for net neutrality?

After three years developing an API initiative, wholesale provider Epsilon could be ready to drop its legacy provisioning system.

Oracle is paying $1.2 billion for Aconex, an Australia-based company that specializes in cloud-based applications for the construction industry.

Salesforce Dreamforce is a tech conference as envisioned by the unholy spawn of Walt Disney and Hunter S. Thompson.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia offers cloud-friendly data processing; UK infrastructure czar slams mobile coverage; Deutsche Telekom invests in e-health startup.

Satya Parimi, group VP of data and cloud products at Charter's Spectrum Enterprise, sees a big market for MSO's new hybrid SD-WAN service.

The spec establishes the foundation for global 5G radio but holds off major features until Release 16.

To make the most effective use of artificial intelligence, the CMO and CIO must get hitched.

The Virtual Reality Industry Forum will be presenting the first set of industry guidelines for virtual reality at CES in January.

A photo tour of the net neutrality rally outside the FCC.

Etsy once said the cloud wasn't for them, but now they're taking their IT to Google Cloud, in a pairing-off against mutual competitor Amazon.

IBM's newly announced Q Network will give businesses, government agencies and research universities access to Big Blue's 20 qubit quantum computing system.

This week in our WiC roundup: Where are the women in cryptocurrency?; female CEOs tell tales of being pushed out of tech; international telecom companies make big moves for women; and more.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Sky and BT exchange TV channels; UK military chief warns of Russian subsea skullduggery; Sunrise demos 5G with Huawei.

Merger will 'attack' the duopoly of KPN and VodafoneZiggo, says Deutsche Telekom.

Cloud revenues rose 44% but Wall Street wasn't satisfied.

The Federal Communications Commission ended net neutrality in a 3-2 party line vote.

Chairman Ajit Pai grants his own holiday wish.

As the VNF onboarding specialist adds to its executive team with a Silicon Valley appointment, 2018 is looking like a breakthrough year for the not-so-young startup.

With the closing of its $800 million purchase of Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch, Arris has created a new enterprise networks unit to focus on the growing wireless LAN and Ethernet switching markets.

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.

Expects the deal to close by June 2018.

SD-WAN is taking off but it's being used for managing the combination of MPLS and broadband, as companies seek more bandwidth to the cloud.

Ericsson has dislodged either Huawei or Nokia as one of Deutsche Telekom's two main RAN vendors in Germany.

Kubernetes 1.9 gets Windows support in beta and further refinements for the present-day multicloud environment.

The Trump Administration is looking to revamp the IT infrastructure of the federal government, and the White House is now planning to rely more on cloud computing.

Three UK needed a more scalable technology and it needed to distribute it more widely across the country, so it turned to a combination of Nokia, MYCOM OSI and Astellia.

ETSI gives birth to its Zero Touch Network and Service Management group and issues a telco-authored white paper on 'the necessity and benefit of automating network and service operation in next-generation networks.'

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: CityFibre expands in Aberdeen; Ericsson sees bright future for microwave in backhaul; broadband over... wet string?

Un-carrier aims for un-cable.

The gigabit powerline-riding tech gets a rural workout.

Gartner's latest analysis of how artificial intelligence will impact the workplace has the technology creating 2.3 million jobs by 2020, but at the same time eliminating 1.8 million positions.

New feature lets enterprise customers determine how apps are prioritized then applies that automatically to use bandwidth efficiently.

And it's made Chicago its first Kinetic Edge city.

China's biggest operator teams up with BT to launch a mobile service for Chinese consumers living in or traveling to the UK.

PRAGUE, 12/13/2017 - Following his 5G-focused presentation at Light Reading's 2020 Vision Executive Summit in Prague, Heavy Reading analyst Gabriel Brown gives a down-to-earth overview on where the industry is right now in terms of bringing early 5G technology and services to market.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange Digital Ventures invests in mobile marketing automation startup; Bharti Airtel staying put in Africa; Dixons Carphone profits down.

Intel Capital and others are investing $7 million in GenXComm, which says it has the 5G full duplex technology for, er, Gen Y.

Juniper is providing software to help enterprise networks automatically react to changing security conditions, as well as visualize threat reports from multiple sources.

CEO Bruce McClelland explains what comes next after the Ruckus acquisition.

Contrail is growing into a platform, one that's key to Juniper's multicloud strategy.

Network operator launches automated provisioning of data center customers based on ONAP open source software.

Artificial intelligence technology is one of the hottest areas in telecom, but it also holds great potential in the media and entertainment space.

Amazon Web Services is opening its second cloud region in China in partnership with Ningxia Western Cloud Data Technology.

Gremlin launches with $8.75 million funding, and a 'chaos engineering' service to make cloud applications more reliable.

So much for the new IPTV platform.

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.

A Cisco study finds that people like Internet of Things devices, but they don't trust companies with all that data.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Proximus seeks fiber experts; BT offers Symantec endpoint protection tech; Ericsson has seen the future, and it's wacky.

Telcoin is hoping to raise funds from an initial coin offering as it seeks telco partners that will use its cryptocurrency as part of their mobile money services.

Optical equipment maker bolsters its international presence and product portfolio with major deal.

Combination of two companies would be able to generate euro 3.5 billion in cybersecurity, IoT and payments markets, says Atos.

(Sponsored.) Even in non-line-of-sight conditions, fixed wireless access can provide reliable high-speed broadband, as tests have now shown.

Verizon has been testing with Ericsson and Samsung for months now.

Qualcomm's Kathy Herring Hayashi addresses advancements in AI and its impact on job opportunities, how women in communications can both identify and become mentors, and offers her advice for young women considering a career in STEM.

Microsoft outlined its quantum computing strategy at Ignite earlier this year, and Redmond has now released a development kit and a new programming language called Q#.

Could the FCC Chairman be taking such a radical position on net neutrality just to force Congress's hand and broker a compromise?

As Cisco transforms from hardware sales to recurring software and services revenue, enterprises need to get used to different spending patterns.

A recent report from IDC finds that IoT spending will increase more than 14% between 2017 and 2018 to reach $772 billion by the end of next year, with the manufacturing, utilities and transportation industries spending the most.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson trials LAA with SingTel; WiFi Internet boost in Lagos; VEON exec heads to Digicel; BT's new legal eagle.

iPhone maker will snap up music-recognition service in a $400 million takeover this week, say reports.

Rolling out an NB-IoT network in Las Vegas has taught T-Mobile lessons it can use as it moves toward national coverage next year.

As content and service providers turn more to streaming video, they should weigh the tax implications of their new services.

Start the 12-month countdown.

The OTT giant is exploring the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to create more personalized trailers to drive subscribers to new shows.

Why Comcast would still come out a winner even if it split a deal for Fox with Disney.

For its latest acquisition, Cisco is buying Cmpute.io, a small cloud optimization specialist that looks to help cut the cost of managing multiple clouds.

An emerging cellular technology could speed the autonomous vehicle toward reality.

Gluttony. Lust. And five others. What's not to like?

When classic deep packet inspection isn't enough.

This week in our WiC roundup: Big names in fashion take over coding programs; Netflix leads race for innovation; how #metoo scandals affect tech and telecom; and more.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation is looking to Salesforce to streamline the process of fulfilling dreams for children with life-threatening medical conditions.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Vodafone abandons Maltese merger; Sheffield sticks the knife into Uber; Turk Telekom's TV ambitions.

Web-scale players are enthused about the optical white box, but carriers have other priorities, as Sterling Perrin reported at 2020 Vision in Prague.

CFO says acquisition to boost the software business could be a possibility in 2018.

T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint are using NB-IoT, LTE-M and LoRa respectively, and each can claim its technology is showing signs of maturity.

Multicloud cybersecurity is a key market for Juniper and it plans to evolve organically or with M&A to be in the vanguard, says the vendor's CEO Rami Rahim.

Dell Technologies posted a smaller loss during its 2018 financial third quarter as the company continues to adjust to life as a private company, and expands into new areas such as hyperconverged.

Light Reading founder Steve Saunders grills Cisco's Roland Acra on how he's bringing automation to life inside the data center.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange bullish on fiber rollout; O2 takes 4G to the Highlands; Vodafone starts analog switch-off in Germany.

Bring on the bots... and the super bots.

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

Juniper is advancing its intent-based networking strategy with automated tools for monitoring network health, testing configuration changes and maintaining peering arrangements between networks.

The biggest innovations will come from out of the blue, and telcos need to cultivate a way to find those gems early, Heavy Reading Analyst Steve Bell explains at the Vision 2020 Executive Summit.

The most recent Thought Leadership Council survey finds that business/operations support system (B/OSS) transformation will be an important focus for service providers in the coming years.

Despite the hefty investment requirements, operators may be reluctant to move away from offering TV services.

With the release of PCF 2.0, Pivotal is focusing more on serverless computing and containers, as well as a new marketplace for developers that includes tools from GitHub, Splunk, New Relic, Apigee and IBM.

The advanced gateway is packed with gigabit connectivity, advanced WiFi tech and IoT radios, but no LoRa support this time around.

Finisar should move now to solidify a leadership role in the 400G generation, analyst Michael Genovese reasons.

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

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Apple blocks the MiPad; BT pushes 360-degree sports action; Ericsson demos LAA with T-Mobile; Andromeda mastermind collared.

Real-time analytics across legacy and virtualized networks? Yes, please.

Networks of the future are software-based, running on equipment built on merchant silicon, Arista says. That doesn't describe Cisco and other incumbents.

Routers are dead, but routing continues to be important, Arista says.

Howard Watson, the CEO of BT's Technology, Service and Operations division, says automation is very high on BT's 'to do' list but the operator knows it can't just do away with manual processes immediately.

The two companies are introducing separate, competitive automated video and language recognition services fueled by machine learning.

All eyes are on Dish's wireless future.

Juniper and Telefonica lay out major automation project to create a 'self-driving network.'

Intel and Hyper each aimed to improve VMs by adding the lightweight nature of containers. Now they're joining forces under the auspices of the OpenStack Foundation.

Panel at Future of Cable Business Services event says putting the customer in charge requires automation to create simple but powerful interfaces.

Automated developer tools become part of CoreOS's Kubernetes package, Tectonic, as a way of encouraging open services in the cloud.

India's regulator has backed net neutrality just as US authorities turn away from it.

The AC922 is the first commercial server to use IBM's Power9 processor and is designed specifically for artificial intelligence applications. These same systems form the basis of the new 'Summit' and 'Sierra' supercomputers for the US Energy Department.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson extends UK managed services deal; Vodafone cozies up to SoftBank, chooses Huawei's OpenStack offering; ETSI forms augmented reality group.

RAD's VP of Marketing and Business Development, Ilan Tevet, sits down with Light Reading's Editor-At-Large, Carol Wilson, to discuss the recent developments in vCPE and SD-WAN, along with how RAD's Flexible vCPE-Toolbox with its vCPE-OS for any server allows operators to deploy white boxes at the network's edge today. In addition, this talk also discusses the MEF17 silver award winning PoC.

With no sign of 'constructive dialogue' from its takeover target Qualcomm, Broadcom has turned tough.

LONDON, 12/4/2017 - There are skill shortages in many emerging technology areas, making it more important to attract and train women, notes Carolyn Dawson.

Cable companies' success in the business services market may be a dangerous thing.

A shimmy into the UK's soccer market by Amazon could hasten the need for a strategy rethink at BT.

SD-WAN supplier Silver Peak has racked up over 600 enterprise production customers despite an increasingly competitive SD-WAN market.

Irrational scaremongering about net neutrality is rife, and the real problems are being ignored.

SD-WAN is one software-defined technologies that could have big implications for enterprises of all sizes. However, it's important to remember that there are some essential best practices to ensure that SD-WAN can save the business money.

Orange Business Services is launching a new initiative to invite enterprise customers to develop customized Cisco Spark applications at Orange Labs.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Blackberry loses patents case to Nokia; Telecom Italia looks at fixed-line network; Tele2 goes with Infobip for enterprise messaging.

Amazon was late to Kubernetes, but now it wants to take the hassle out of managing Kubernetes on the Amazon Web Services cloud.

In this edition, Alan Breznick and Mari Silbey dissect the cable business services market, Mari gives her take on the Arris acquisition of Ruckus Wireless and Craig Matsumoto looks at the phantom M&A action involving Nokia and Juniper.

Social networking giant says it will recruit 800 London-based employees next year as it opens a new facility in central London.

For decades, supercomputer and high-performance systems were out-of-reach for mostly everyone, expect big government agencies and research universities with deep pockets. However, the cloud is changing all that.

Expanded Equinix Cloud Exchange gives enterprises almost on-demand access to cloud players and interconnections that are part of its ecosystem.

European fiber network operator and cloud service provider is up for sale, but who's got the money and the will for such a deal? You might want to look east...

Connected vehicles with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems are accelerating the race towards the autonomous vehicle and Intelligent Transport Systems.

Hello convergence.

As the latest update to its SDN platform, Verizon's Virtual Network Services - One provides enterprise customers with a new option for more centralized contracting and billing for hardware, software and management services.

Diane Bryant, who headed Intel's highly visible Data Center Group, has left to become COO at Google Cloud under Diane Greene.

Amazon Web Services pitches DeepLens as a tool to help developers teach themselves machine learning.

At its re:Invent show in Las Vegas this week, Amazon Web Services is looking to expand its cloud security portfolio with a new featured dubbed GuardDuty.

This week in our WiC roundup: Watch your words to avoid the chopping block; Valley-ites expand to less tech-centric locales; LinkedIn works to close the STEM gap early; and more.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Altice sells off Swiss data center unit; MegaFon raises forecast, but warns of challenges ahead; MTS goes with Microsoft's Azure for cloud services.

iPhone maker will stop using Dialog Semiconductor and start designing its own power management chips, says report.

ORLANDO, 12/1/2017 - Wholesaler Epsilon developed its own system for delivering connectivity to CPaaS players and others, but longer term, the industry needs a plan, says Mark Daley, director of digital strategy and business development.

Fixed 5G will be good for Verizon and friends, but it surely doesn't appear to be anything like a wireless revolution. Yet!

The EU Court of Justice has ruled that time-shifting video in the cloud is defined as 'communication to the public' and requires the prior permission of the rights holder.

Cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) systems are gaining traction in the market, and may surpass dedicated short range communications (DSRC) systems in traffic safety applications across the world.