Global Crossing Releases 2002 Operational Data

Global Crossing reported operational, network, customer and service data for 2002, saying its financial position had improved since it launched restructuring measures in the wake of its bankruptcy filing last year. Key points include:

• Service revenue of $2,878 million in 2002, $160 million above the operating plan.
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  Global Crossing ended 2002 with $782 million of cash in bank accounts, well above the $611 million targeted in its operating plan.
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  CAPEX spending declined to $89 million in 2002, compared to $3.2 billion in 2001.
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  Global Crossing ended the year with approximately 4,300 employees, compared to approximately 8,000 employees in January 2002.
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  Global Crossing's VoIP network carried 8.2 billion minutes for the year.
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  The amount of traffic running over Global Crossing's IP network, excluding VoIP, grew 200% for 2002.
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  IP traffic volume increased from 10 Gbps to 30 Gbps
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  More than 2,000 new and renewal customer contracts were signed in 2002 totaling nearly $1 billion of total revenue over the lives of the contracts.
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  The company is planning to write-off remaining goodwill and other intangible assets totaling approximately $8 billion.

http://www.globalcrossing.com

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D-Link Ships Multimode A/B/G Wireless Router

D-Link began shipping 802.11a/b/g compliant routers, PC cards and cardbus adapters. The company will also begin shipping a multimode a/b/g access point later this month.
http://www.dlink.com

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sentitO Raises $14 Million for Local Loop, Converged Switching Platform

sentitO Networks, a start-up based in Rockville, Maryland, secured $14 million in new financing for its New End Office - a converged switching solution. sentitO offers an IP-based local loop solution to provide access, switching, and service creation to carriers in a single platform. New investors TELUS Ventures and Core Capital Partners joined the round, which also included previous investors Kodiak Venture Partners, Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, Technology Venture Partners and Inflection Point Ventures. This new financing brings sentitO's total capital investment to $25 million.
http://www.sentito.com

• sentitO's New End Office is comprised of three elements: an environmentally hardened switch that combines line gateway, trunk gateway, SMS, VoDSL gateway, DSLAM, and broadband DLC functionality; a SIP-based proxy for next-generation signaling, including full SS7 services; and a service management system delivering full FCAPS, pre-provisioning capabilities, and integration with third party operational support systems. sentitO said its platform offers an extensive CLASS feature set, complete E911, CALEA, and Emergency Standalone (ESA) capabilities to comply with current and future regulatory requirements. In addition to its built-in CLASS 5 switching capabilities, the system will also provide interfaces to existing CLASS 5 switches.
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  sentitO Networks was founded in September of 2000.
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  sentitO Networks is headed by Terry Wolters, who previously was responsible for worldwide sales and customer support of next-generation switching products at SALIX/Tellabs. Previously, Mr. Wolters served as Vice President of Sales for ECI Telecom.

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Cedar Point Secures $25 Million for its Packet-Cable Voice

Cedar Point Communications, a start-up based in Derry, New Hampshire, secured $25 million in new funding for its PacketCable-based, SAFARI C³ Media Switching System. The Cedar Point equipment is an open, standards based, next generation voice switching system for cable system operators. The new funding was led by STAR Ventures and included the participation of first round investors Charles River Ventures, Battery Ventures, Comcast Interactive Capital and Ascent Ventures. The company has raised $44 million to date.
http://www.cedarpointcom.com

• Cedar Point's SAFARI C³ Media Switching System is a packet cable telephony system that combines attributes of Class 5 voice switches with the elements of distributed VoIP networks. The Cedar Point platform combines a Call Management Server, Media Gateway, Media Gateway Controller, Announcement Server and Signaling Gateway into a single chassis capable of serving up to 100,000 lines.
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  In December 2002, Cedar Point Communications introduced “reverse gateway�? functionality into its single-chassis SAFARI C³ Media Switching System. Reverse gateway functionality enables the handling of both VoIP and circuit switched calls simultaneously on the same packet switch fabric. Al calls, including circuit-to-circuit, circuit-to-packet, packet-to-circuit and packet-to-packet traffic, are handled in the same Cedar Point box. The capability provides a migration strategy for cable operators currently delivering voice services using circuit switched architectures. Cedar Point estimates that there are more than 5 million cable telephony subscribers worldwide currently served by legacy circuit switches.
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  Comcast Interactive Capital made an equity investment in Cedar Point Communications' first round of funding.

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Masergy Secures $31 Million for MPLS VPN Services

Masergy Communications, a provider of private network services, closed its second round of equity funding for $31 million. Masergy has deployed an MPLS network throughout the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK that enables its corporate customers to run multiple applications at different priorities. The new funding came from Meritage Private Equity Funds and Centennial Ventures. In total, Masergy has raised nearly $100 million in funding since it was founded two and a half years ago. The company said it has no debt.
http://www.masergy.com

• In August 2001, Masergy acquired the infrastructure of Zephion Networks, including IP hardware assets deployed in 29 Zephion hubs across the US.

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Swissvoice to Launch New Line of IP Phones

Swissvoice selected Texas Instruments' silicon and software for a new line of IP phones. The new Swissvoice phones will run MGCP, H.323 and SIP signaling protocols. The company is targeting IP-Centrex, hosted-PBX and LAN-PBX applications in hospitals, factories and offices. The phones will be shown at CeBIT.
http://www.swissvoice.nethttp://www.ti.com

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Axerra and Ericsson Demonstrate Circuit Emulation Service over IP

Axerra Networks completed interoperability testing between its multiservice IP concentrator and Ericsson's Multi-Service Access Device (MSED) HL950 using Circuit Emulation Service over Packet Switched Network (CESoPSN). CESoPSN, also known as CESoIP, is used to emulate the characteristics of circuit-switched connections while utilizing an IP or Ethernet-based infrastructure. CESoPSN emulates both the payload and timing characteristics of a circuit. The interoperability tests simulated an IP Metro network with multiple HL950s situated at various customer premises. Each HL950 furnished a legacy T1/E1 at the customer side and an Ethernet port on the network side. The HL950s performed service adaptation to emulate leased lines over an IP broadband access network. Axerra's IP concentrator served as the central office gateway to the PSTN.
http://www.axerra.com

• In March 2002, Ericsson agreed to distribute, integrate and support Axerra Networks' Multiservice IP Concentrators as part of the Ericsson Packet Backbone Network (PBN) solutions portfolio. As part of the OEM agreement, the two companies said that they would also explore cooperative technology opportunities to develop integrated MSoIP solutions. One of the services supported by Axerra's MSoIP technology is Circuit Emulation Service over IP, which has been submitted as an Internet Draft to the Pseudo-Wire Emulation Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) working group in the IETF.

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Ample Communications Samples 40 Gbps Frame Processor

Ample Communications, a start-up based in Fremont, California, is now sampling single chip 40 Gbps packet over SONET framer targeted for single port STS-768/STM-256 and four port STS-192/STM-64 SONET/SDH applications. The device combines multiple functional blocks including framer, overhead processor, pointer processor and data link logic. The company said the new "Blackbird Frame Processor" could be used for multi-port 10 Gbps and single 40 Gbps interfaces on gigabit and terabit routers, multi-service switches, aggregation routers and test equipment.
http://www.amplecomm.com

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Wind Selects Marconi's Access Hub for UMTS Trial

Wind, the Italian telecommunications operator, selected Marconi's Access Hub platform for UMTS pilot networks in Rome and Milan. The AXH2500 equipment will aggregate UMTS traffic from Wind's metropolitan network to its SDH national network. Wind is also using Marconi's Access Hub equipment for its ADSL network. The platform combines the functionality of DSLAMs with the ability to aggregate all traffic types.
http://www.marconi.com

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iDial Launches Broadband Telephony Service over SIP Network

iDial Networks introduced a Broadband Telephony service that runs over its newly upgraded SIP VoIP network. iDial will allow clients to have a traditional US based phone number that will ring directly at a customer's Internet connection anywhere in the world, bypassing international PSTN tariffs. The service also includes voicemail, online phone book, caller identification, and a stand-alone conference calling system. iDial will offer broadband telephony as both a retail service and as a wholesale service to other carriers and ISPs.
http://www.idialnetworks.com

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Infineon Acquires MorphICs for its 3G Programmable Signal Chips

Infineon Technologies has acquired MorphICs Technology Inc., a start-up based in Campbell, California developing programmable signal processor semiconductors and software solutions for use in 3G infrastructure and terminals. Financial terms were not disclosed. Infineon said the acquisition would broaden its product range for digital baseband signal processing. MorphICs was founded in 1998 and has 30 employees. The company is currently sampling its basestation signal processor product, which is entering trials in commercial networks, and is developing technology that enables efficient multi-network operation of terminals.
http://www.infineon.com

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IBN to Deploy Cloud of 5,000 Public Wi-Fi Hotspots

Inspired Broadcast Networks, a subsidiary of LLG of the UK, signed a contract with Ericsson calling for the deployment of 5,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots. Together with Ericsson, BT and Intel, IBN will create a network named "The Cloud" planned to expand to 30,000 hotspots over the next three years. IBN will sell wholesale capacity to branded service providers like mobile and broadband operators as well as pay-as-you-go services at the hotspots. The Cloud will use DSL as its primary backhaul from the hotspots.
http://www.ericsson.com

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