Ericsson to build Silicon Valley campus

In wireless infrastructure company news this week, Ericsson is building a major Bay Area campus, and Dragonwave and Allot both announced new contracts.
Ericsson to build Silicon Valley campus
Ericsson’s Silicon Valley campus will include 400,000 square feet of operational space in two buildings at a new development called Santa Clara Square. Roughly 2,000 Ericsson staff will be dedicated to research and development in IP, TV and media, software-defined networking, network function virtualization and mobile innovation.
“Our company has a growing need for software engineers and employees with a technology savvy skill set who can partner, create, learn, sustain and innovate; helping us move toward what Ericsson calls the ‘networked society,'” said Ericsson SVP Bina Chaurasia, chief human resources officer and head of group function human resources. Chaurasia will relocate to the Bay Area in the near future.
Ericsson joins other wireless infrastructure companies, including Nokia and Samsung, in efforts to tap Silicon Valley’s software talent base.
Dragonwave wins Reliance Jio contract in India
Canada’s Dragonwave says it will provide 5,000 Ethernet microwave links for mobile backhaul in support of Reliance Jio’s plan to roll out nationwide LTE networks in India. Dragonwave’s Horizon packet microwave systems provide up to four gigabits per second per link and deliver sub-.1 millisecond latency.
“We believe that the Horizon Compact+ radio brings considerable value in India where backhaul spectrum is both limited and expensive. We look forward to delivering un-paralleled spectral efficiency in our customer’s network,” said Peter Allen, DragonWave’s president and CEO.
Dragonwave’s new contract comes in the midst of a downturn in the microwave equipment market, according to Infonetics. The firm says microwave equipment revenue totaled $1 billion worldwide during the first quarter, down 17% sequentially and down 7% from the year-ago quarter.
“The proliferation of [LTE-Advanced] upgrades and small cells deployments was not enough to stop the microwave equipment market from sliding downward in the first quarter of 2014, a casualty of continuing pricing pressures and inter-technology competition with wireline backhaul alternatives, particularly fiber-based solutions,” noted Richard Webb, directing analyst for mobile backhaul and small cells at Infonetics Research. “The seasonal decline was much more severe than usual, suggesting a deeper malaise in the market.”
Allot service gateway gains traction
Israel’s Allot Communications says it has received five tier-one operator orders this year for its Tera service gateway. The Allot solution includes deep packet inspection, real-time traffic management, video optimization, policy enforcement, application-based charging, security services, value-added services and network analytics. The company says it can manage 15 million active subscribers.
Separately, Allot said that CEO Rami Hadar will retire this quarter and be replaced by Andrei Elefant, currently VP of product management and marketing. “Rami’s contributions to the company cannot be overstated,” said Shraga Katz, chairman of the board of directors. “Rami began his tenure at Allot while it was a small private company and led it to becoming a dual‐listed public company. During his tenure as CEO, Allot turned into a profitable company with revenue growth of more than 300%.”