CableLabs Completes Certification Wave 25, More DOCSIS 2.0 Modems

CableLabs certified another 12 DOCSIS 2.0 cable modems from Ambit, Arris, Castlenet, Com21, Hitron, LinkSys, Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, Terayon, and Thomson. CableLabs also announced that eight companies gained certified status for DOCSIS 1.1 products and one gained DOCSIS 1.1 qualified status for headend equipment. http://www.cablelabs....

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MetaSwitch VP3500 Completes CALEA Review with FBI

MetaSwitch has completed an extensive review with the FBI demonstrating that its VP3500 Next Generation Class 5 Switch meets CALEA requirements for circuit switching equipment. Metaswitch said the CALEA functionality is incorporated on-board its MetaSwitch VP3500 platform, rather than requiring service providers to deploy additional external equipment to meet CALEA requirements. In particular, the MetaSwitch CALEA capability meets the J-STD-025A standard for circuit switching equipment. CALEA, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement...

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Ariane 5 Successfully Launches Two Communications Satellites

An Ariane 5 rocket orbited two communications satellites: Insat 3A for ISRO, the Indian space agency, and Galaxy XII for PanAmSat. The flight marked the eleventh successful launch of the Ariane 5 "Generic" launcher. The Insat 3A satellite is fitted with 18 C-band and extended C-band transponders and 6 Ku-band transponders. It will provide telecommunications and TV transmission services for the Indian sub-continent, while also carrying out a meteorological observation mission. The Galaxy XII satellite will provide C-band links between the continental...

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House Subcommittee Advances Funding Bill for Federal Spectrum Reallocation

The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet approved for full Committee consideration The Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act (H.R.1320). The proposed legislation provides funds to federal agencies that incur costs for the reallocation of frequencies from federal use to commercial use. The bands of eligible frequencies for this purpose includes the 1710-1755 megahertz band and any other frequencies reallocated from federal use to commercial use after 01-January-1995 that is assigned...

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Ronald T. LeMay Leaves Sprint

Ronald T. LeMay, Sprint's president and chief operating officer, has left the company. LeMay, who joined Sprint in 1985, has entered into a separation agreement with Sprint and will provide consulting services to the company for one year. http://www.sprint.comOn 19-March-2003, Gary D. Forsee was named CEO of Sprint, replacing Bill Esrey, who will continue in his role as Sprint's chairman during a transition period. Forsee previously served as vice chairman of BellSouth Corporation where he had responsibility for the company's domestic operations....

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Verizon Signs 1 Million Small/Medium-Sized Businesses for Long Distance

Verizon is now providing more than 1 million small and medium-sized businesses with long distance service. Verizon ranks as the nation's third-largest long-distance provider. http://www.verizon....

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Net6 Secures $6 Million for its “Transformation Gateways�?

Net6, a start-up based in San Jose, California, secured $8.5 million in second round funding for its network-based application transformation gateways, which deliver business applications to wired and wireless user devices. The company's network-based appliance transforms application data to match the type of access client device, such as screen-based IP desk telephones, wireless PDAs, two-way pagers, and web-enabled cellular phones. The new funding was led by BA Venture Partners and included first round investors Sierra Venture Partners and...

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Capella Photonics Raises $7M for Optical Subsystems

Capella Photonics, a start-up based in San Jose, California, raised $7 million in Series B funding for its forthcoming line of optical subsystems targeted at metro and long-haul networks. Products specifics have not yet been disclosed. Major investors include Bay Partners, Vanguard Ventures, and BCE Capital, a unit of Bell Canada Enterprises. http://www.capellaphotonics.comCapella Photonics was founded in December 2000 by Dr. Joseph Davis. Previously, Davis was co-founder and interim COO of Iolon, a Seagate spin-off that focused on optical switches...

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Sonus Networks Reports Quarterly Revenue of $16 Million

Sonus Networks reported Q1 revenue of $16.0 million compared with $12.7 million in Q4 2002 and $21.2 million in Q1 2002. Net loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2003 was $4.4 million or $0.02 per share compared with a net loss for Q4 2002 of $12.8 million or $0.07 per share. The company characterized the quarter as "good progress" towards its business objectives. Sonus also announced that NuVox, an integrated communications provider serving the Midwestern and Southeastern states, selected its platform to develop a VoIP network that will carry...

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Andrew and Lucent Sign RF Power Amplifier Deal

Andrew Corporation announced a new multiyear agreement to supply RF power amplifiers to Lucent Technologies. The deal replaces an existing arrangement originally entered into by Lucent and Celiant Corporation, which Andrew acquired in June 2002. As in the agreement with Celiant, Lucent will award Andrew a percentage of its requirements for its RF power amplifier business on an annual basis through September 2006. http://www.andrew....

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Boingo Wireless Joins Intel's Centrino Campaign

Boingo Wireless and Intel will begin a co-marketing campaign aimed at business W-Fi services. The companies will collaborate on a new signage program that will inform users they are in a Boingo hot spot that has been tested and verified to work together with Intel Centrino mobile technology. Boingo Wireless has currently signed 1,200 locations for its hotspot network. http://www.boingo....

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sentitO Networks' SIP Switch Deployed by Spain's OneNet

HiTec Networks and OneNet, a pan-European network service provider, have chosen sentitO Networks' New End Office (NEO) to provide SIP-based voice and data services to residential, resort, and enterprise customers of Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, the Canary Islands, Madrid, Marbella, and Malaga. The SIP-based voice and data services will also be resold by Spantel, EURfone and Intrasat, all of which have signed multi-year agreements with HiTec and OneNet. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.sentito.com http://www.hitecnetworks.comsentitO's...

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Marconi and Riverstone Networks Announce Metro Ethernet Partnership

Marconi's Broadband Routing and Switching group and Riverstone Networks have formed a partnership focused on metro Ethernet solutions. The partnership combines Riverstone's IP-based metropolitan routers and carrier-class features with Marconi's multiservice switch-routers, optical transport and broadband access solutions, and its softswitch. Initially, the companies are collaborating on solutions for carriers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Recently, Marconi and Riverstone provided Jersey Telecom, a UK-based telecommunications...

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AT&T Announces Organizational Streamlining

AT&T announced further management streamlining as part of its corporate restructuring following the spin-off of AT&T Broadband in November 2002 and the earlier spin-off of AT&T Wireless in July 2001. Key points include:elevating the customer care teams in AT&T Business and AT&T Consumer and building a new customer care organization directly supported by the head of each business unit;bringing the Billing Operations team into the Customer Service organization;centralizing all of AT&T's major retail channels under a unified...

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Embratel Outsources its Entire IT Infrastructure to IBM

Embratel, the incumbent telecommunications provider in Brazil, will outsource its entire IP infrastructure, ranging from e-mail to billing, to IBM. IBM's services will include Embratel's central and internal data processing operations, which currently encompass main frame computers, over 224 mid-range systems and 27,000 PCs, workstations and notebooks. During the first year, the services will continue to be operated within Embratel's facilities. From the second year on, the central site will move to IBM's Service Megacenter in Hortolandia, in...

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EC Calls for Equal Treatment of Cable Broadband Services in France

The European Commission is calling on the French government to ensure the equal treatment for cable networks in the provision of telecommunications services in France. Noting that cable network operators in France account for less than 0.2 % of access to fixed telephony services, less than 15% of high-speed Internet access and less than 4% of Internet access markets as a whole, the EC is asking for the removal of restrictions on the provision of telecommunications services on cable networks. The Commission maintains that France has not complied...

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Murdoch's NEWS Corp. to Acquire 34% of Hughes Electronics for $6.6 Billion

News Corporation announced plans to acquire GM's 19.9% stake in Hughes Electronics and a further 14.1% of Hughes from public shareholders and GM's pension and other benefit plans, for $6.6 billion in cash and stock. The Hughes assets include DIRECTV, which has more than 11 million subscribers in the U.S.; an 81% equity holding in satellite operator PanAmSat; and Hughes Network Systems, the leading provider of broadband satellite network solutions. At closing, News Corp.'s 34% ownership interest will be transferred to Fox Entertainment Group,...

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Verizon Looks Toward Broadband Fixed Wireless

Verizon Communications believes broadband fixed wireless (BFW) technologies are nearly ready to move from trial to commercial deployment, said Brian Whitton, Executive Director, Network Platform Evaluation and Access Technology, Verizon Communications. Speaking in a keynote address at the Broadband Wireless World 2003 conference in San Jose, California, Whitton said BFW will provide a new access option to residential customers not easily or economically served by ADSL. He expects BFW to have the greatest impact in rural areas across the Verizon...

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CIENA to Acquire WaveSmith Networks for $158 million

CIENA will acquire WaveSmith Networks, a start-up based in Acton, Massachusetts, for its multiservice edge switching systems. The WaveSmith platform is designed for central office switching and applications such as DSL aggregation. CIENA was an investor in WaveSmith's third round of financing in October 2002, at which time it also entered into an agreement to resell WaveSmith's equipment worldwide. Under the terms of the acquisition, all shares of WaveSmith stock will be exchanged for approximately 36 million shares of CIENA common stock. WaveSmith's...

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Procket Networks Unveils Router Platform, Reports 20 Deployments/Trials

Procket Networks, a start-up based in Milpitas, California, announced commercial availability of its PRO/8801 router, its first product in a series. The Procket platforms are based on a customized chipset that includes a fully programmable 40 Gbps network processor and a Terabit Switch Engine. The scalable chipset can be used in platforms that range from 80 Gbps to 960 Gbps. The first PRO/8801 router features 80 Gbps of total capacity and can support up to 40 high speed interfaces in a chassis that takes up 1/8 of a rack. The PRO/8812 router,...

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Caspian Introduces its Apeiro Flow-based Router

Caspian Networks, a start-up based in San Jose, California, announced the general availability of its Apeiro flow-based router designed for delivering "ATM-equivalent" QoS using IP. Caspian Networks' core innovation is to examine each packet entering the router, identify flows, and then store to memory the flow's relevant routing information as well as its QoS, loss, delay and jitter characteristics. Subsequent packets in the flow are switched based on the "flow state" data already in memory. By tracking potentially tens of millions of microflows...

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