02/25/03 ~ Converge! Network Digest

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

TI Reaches 20 million DSL Port Milestone

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Texas Instruments (TI) has shipped over 20 million DSL ports to date. The company said its DSL silicon is being used in equipment deployed by over 100 service providers in 45 countries.
http://www.ti.com

PolarSat Raises $9 Million to Enter Market for VSAT Equipment

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

PolarSat, a start-up based near Montreal, Canada, raised $9 million from three major investor for its plans to enter the market for satellite communications equipment. The company has purchased the assets and product lines the former broadband division of NSI Global Inc. and hopes to hire up to 85 of the 130 former NSI employees by year's end. PolarSat will be chiefly involved in the Very Small Aperture Terminal segment of business. Investors include Telenor Satellite Networks AS, Infinium (which provides VSAT services in India), and Agilis Communication Technologies Pte. Ltd. (a subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Electronics Ltd).

Photuris Raises $40 million for Metro Optical Systems

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Photuris, a start-up based in Piscataway, New Jersey, raised $40 million in series C funding for its metro regional optical transport systems. The Photuris platform, which was introduced in September, features a "Versicolor" capability that integrates four functions on a single optical line card: WDM demux/mux at the system input/output; fully flexible, reconfigurable OADM wavelength switching (any wavelength to any port, independent of any other wavelength); per-wavelength power balancing; and real-time per-wavelength optical power monitoring. The Photuris system also features "ADM-on-a-Wavelength" line cards that deliver SONET ADM terminal functionality, enabling transceivers to be added to hot-pluggable ports as services are activated. The platform could serve as a reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer for ring applications needing single wavelength granularity. Photuris said its architecture could provide CAPEX savings of 40% for full-mesh topologies, 35% for single-hub hybrid topologies and 23% for dual-hub hybrid topologies. The new funding came from Columbia Capital, Artiman Ventures and private investors. The company's total private capital raised to date is $105 million. Photuris also announced the appointment of Charles Childers as its new CEO, replacing Michael Pisterzi, who stepped down last month to pursue personal interests.
http://www.photuris.com

Mahi Networks Launches Network Modeling Tools and Service

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Mahi Networks, a start-up based in Petaluma, California, released a Network Optimization Analysis System to help carriers quantify performance gains before they deploy new metro core aggregation equipment. Mahi's Net OASys offering combines software modeling tools with network consulting from its team of former carrier network planners and engineers. The system can calculate the costs and projected savings over a range of network applications including Optical Node Interconnection, SONET Ring Aggregation, Metro Ethernet Transport, and Automated Transport Networking using GMPLS signaling.
http://www.mahinetworks.com

Mahi is developing a packet-aware optical transport switch for aggregating, switching and grooming large SONET interoffice facilities. The platform will support Gigabit Ethernet and MPLS-based services.

In June 2002, Mahi Networks closed $75 million in new funding.

SnowShore Introduces Media Firewall for Securing Multimedia Communications

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

SnowShore Networks introduced a media firewall that works in conjunction with session border control applications to secure communications services between carrier and enterprise IP networks. A1-MF provides standard media-level border control services including wire-speed network address translation, firewall traversal and QOS marking, as well as real-time media transcoding. SnowShore said its product architecture enables independent scaling of network processor, protocol processor, and media processor resources to prevent performance bottlenecks. Availability is expected in Q2. Separately, SnowShore announced a joint partnership with NextTone Communications, a provider of session border controller technologies, to power its Multi-protocol Session Controller.
http://www.snowshore.com

Lucent Outsources Mobility Software to India's HSS

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Hughes Software Systems Limited (HSS), a communications software developer in India, announced a multi-year outsourcing relationship with Lucent Technologies covering the software development and maintenance support for selected wireless products. Under the contract, HSS will set up a dedicated development facility in Nuremberg, Germany and expand its existing operations in Bangalore, India. HSS is a subsidiary of Hughes Electronics Corporation.
http://www.hssworld.com

Japan Expands SuperSINET Research Network with Cisco

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Japan's National Institute of Informatics has completed the international expansion of its Ultra High-Speed Research Network "SuperSINET" by deploying Cisco 12000 Series routers with 10 Gbps MPLS trunks. The expansion links academic research institutes/organizations in Japan and overseas.
http://www.nii.ac.jp/index.htmlhttp://www.cisco.com

AT&T Awarded Contract to Implement National Do-Not Call Registry

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

AT&T Government Solutions was awarded a $3.5 million contract by the Federal Trade Commission to develop and implement a national registry containing phone numbers of consumers who do not wish to be contacted by telemarketers. By summer, consumers should be able to input their phone numbers into the registry either by phone or via a website. Telemarketers will be required to download the database of 'do not call' numbers every quarter and discontinue telemarketing to these numbers.
http://www.att.com

Boingo Wi-Fi Network Grows to 1,200 Hotspots

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Boingo Wireless announced three more Wi-Fi network partnerships: Azure Wireless (Melbourne, Australia), Cafe.com (Los Angeles); and Deep Blue Wireless (Menlo Park, California). Boingo Wireless now has 25 network partners, giving it access to 1,200 airports hot spots worldwide.
http://www.boingo.com

NETGEAR Chooses Atheros 802.11a/b/g WLAN Chipset

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

NETGEAR will use Athero's 802.11a/b/g WLAN chipset in its next-generation wireless networking products. In March 2003, NETGEAR plans to ship a Dual-Band 802.11a/g PC Card, providing compatibility with all of the currently deployed IEEE standard WLAN protocols at the fastest speeds. NETGEAR will soon follow with a Dual-Band 802.11a/g Access Point and a Dual-Band 802.11a/g Router. All the products are designed to work in a tri-mode environment.
http://www.netgear.com
http://www.atheros.com

Wi-Fi Alliance Announces Certification Plans for 802.11g

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Wi-Fi Alliance certification testing of IEEE 802.11g products will begin after the IEEE has approved the final standard. The Wi-Fi Alliance said it intends to certify all mandatory features of the 802.11g standard, including backward interoperability with Wi-Fi certified 802.11b products, and simultaneous operation of IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g devices in a mixed network. Optional elements of the standard to be certified include support for the 54 Mbps data rate in addition to other selected optional IEEE 802.11g features that will optimize performance and network utilization.
http://www.wi-fi.org

Mexico's TELCEL Deploys ATM Network with Nortel Switches

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

TELCEL, the leading wireless operator in Mexico with 20 million subscribers, has deployed a new ATM network connecting its central switching stations in Mexico City and surrounding areas. The installation uses Nortel Networks Passport 7000 and Passport 15000 Multiservice Switches and Passport Packet Voice Gateways. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.nortelnetworks.com

QUALCOMM and China Unicom Establish Joint Venture for CDMA

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

QUALCOMM and China Unicom have established a joint venture -- Unicom-BREW Wireless Technologies Ltd. -- to foster the development of BREW-based CDMA wireless data applications in China. Unicom-BREW's ownership is evenly split between the two companies. Specific investment numbers were not disclosed. China Unicom has selected QUALCOMM's BREW solution in order to provide its customers with over-the-air downloadable games, position location, and specialty business applications.
http://www.chinaunicom.com.cnhttp://www.qualcomm.com

In January 2002, China Unicom launched its nationwide CDMA mobile network. In the first year of operations, the company said it has signed 7 million subscribers.

Corning Optical Fiber Selected for Nationwide Network Build in India

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Tata Teleservices Limited (TTL), a leading telecommunications carrier in India, and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), the country's largest international telephony service provider, selected Corning's optical fiber for a major portion of their new network build. The fiber optic cable will contain up to 20,000 kilometers of Corning's LEAF fiber and 100,000 kilometers of Corning SMF-28 fiber. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.corning.com/opticalfiber

MFN Launches Database Management Service

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Metromedia Fiber Network (MFN) announced its new database administration, management and monitoring bundled service that reduces the complexity of running production databases. The service bundles technical infrastructure with 24x7 administration, management of one server with up to two database instances, system monitoring and simulated data transactions, call center support with customer escalation procedures, and reporting via the MFN mySite Portal.
http://www.mfn.com

Avaya Upgrades Networks at Raytheon for Convergence

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Avaya has upgraded networks at three Raytheon facilities by converging the voice and data onto a single unified, packet-based network. The projects, valued at $4.2 million, will serve Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems division in El Segundo and Pt. Mugu, California, and its Integrated Defense Systems division in Andover, Massachusetts. The networks at the California facilities serve 6,000 employees and are based on an Avaya S8700 Media Server. Employees will have the ability to use Avaya voice mail and "meet me" conferencing to improve productivity, as well as an Avaya Extension to Cellular solution that can seamlessly forward network calls to a cell phone if an employee is away from the office. At the Massachusetts facility, the upgrade added IP telephony support to an Avaya DEFINITY Enterprise Communications Server used by some 3,800 employees. Raytheon's network will include both traditional and IP desk phones, as well as IP Softphones.
http://www.avaya.com

Microsoft Releases Peer-to-Peer SDK and IPv6 Enhancements

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Microsoft released a beta Windows XP Peer-to-Peer Software Development Kit (SDK) and enhancements to the IPv6 networking stack. The company said developers could leverage IPv6 and peer-to-peer infrastructure to create decentralized applications and services. The SDK includes updated Windows XP application programming interfaces (APIs) for scalable peer-to-peer name resolution, efficient multipoint communication, creation and management of persistent peer-to-peer groups, and distributed data management. Enhancements to IPv6 include support for Network Address Translation (NAT) traversal and an IPv6 firewall to help protect IPv6-enabled machines. The Windows XP Peer-to-Peer SDK beta uses IPv6 for all peer-to-peer application communication. The related Windows XP Peer-to-Peer Networking Update supports automatic tunneling technology, enabling IPv6 communication over existing IPv4 networks and NAT devices.
http://www.microsoft.com