Jim Baller Joins Keller and Heckman, Dish Network and Intel Go Open RAN, Mobilite Builds 5G at Tropicana Field

The three name attorneys at the firm of Baller Stokes and Lide have joined the Washington, D.C., office of Keller and Heckman as partners, effective Monday. The resulting telecommunications group at the new firm will be more than three times the size of Baller Stokes and Lide, said Jim Baller, Sean Stokes and Casey Lide in a statement.

The attorneys believe that their new alliance will better position them to provide insightful advice and counsel on novel legal and strategic issues relating to telecommunications, broadband, wireless and related matters.

See “Jim Baller, Champion of Municipal Broadband, Fights the Fight for More Than 25 Years,” Broadband Breakfast’s August 1 profile of Baller as part of its “Champions of Broadband” series on Broadband Breakfast Live Online.

In the statement, Baller and his colleagues said that Keller and Heckman’s telecommunications practice shares many of the perspectives and priorities of their old firm, including the conviction that broadband infrastructure and services will play an ever-increasing, crucial role in the future of American economic competitiveness, equity, and educational opportunity.

The new firm said it is working to develop a series of virtual seminars to be held in early 2021, covering a variety of timely information relating to broadband, wireless, pole attachments, and other FCC developments. The BSL mailing list will continue under the Keller and Heckman name.

Dish Network and Intel aim to build tools for open radio access networks

Dish Network and Intel on Monday announced a partnership to ill integrate Intel’s 5G infrastructure into Dish’s open radio access network 5G deployment. For these deployments, Dish selected the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor, the Intel Ethernet 800 Series network adapter, the Intel vRAN Dedicated Accelerator ACC100 and Intel’s FlexRAN software reference architecture.

Collaboration with Intel will allow DISH to consolidate and optimize multiple workloads for increased network efficiency. Intel therefore plans to transform its network with a full suite of “silicon, software, and tools.”

Dish is working to combine cloud and connectivity technology through several U.S.-based vendors to power next-generation services and enterprise use cases.

Dish and Intel are working to provide a fully virtualized RAN with radio reference designs, fronthaul optimization, hardware-based security, and server blueprints. They are also working on edge applications for enterprises and driving open RAN standards. In future network buildouts they will focus on data optimization and machine learning.

“Intel has been a trusted advisor throughout the design of our O-RAN network, working in concert with [many original equipment manufacturers] hardware providers. We have tested several commercial off-the-shelf designs from a large number of server vendors using Intel’s O-RAN compliant FlexRAN architecture and are pleased by the maturity and power of the solutions, together with the cost benefits of COTS solutions,” said Marc Rouanne, executive vice president and chief network officer for Dish.

“We are excited to partner with Dish to lay the foundation for a truly agile network and have already begun working with our OEM partners who have designed FlexRAN-based servers to enable a variety of new innovative use cases and services,” said Dan Rodriguez, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the company’s network platforms group.

Mobilitie to deploy 5G to Tropicana Field

Mobilitie, the largest privately-held wireless infrastructure firm in the U.S., is deploying network upgrade to support 5G capabilities at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay, Florida.

The company has announced other projects and upgrades, including Los Angeles’ Staples Center and Charlotte’s Spectrum Center.

Mobilitie’s network upgrade will include 15-sector distributed antenna systems and more than 15,000 feet of fiber, 138 remotes and 276 antennas.  The company says that the upgrades will improve network speeds, capacity, and cell reception throughout the venue, creating a robust, connected experience for fans.

Juan Ramirez, vice president of information technology for the Tampa Bay Rays, praised Mobilitie: “Their expertise in deploying innovative network infrastructure has made them a great technology partner, and we are excited about the new network and the future technologies, including 5G, it will provide for the stadium, the team and the fans.”

“With the league hopeful that attendees can soon return to the stands, what better way to welcome fans back than by offering a best-in-class wireless experience. We are making that a reality for Tropicana Field and all those who will soon visit to cheer on their favorite teams,” said Michael Curry, vice president at Mobilitie.