RealNetworks Reaches One Million Internet Media Subscribers

RealNetworks became the first company to reach one million subscribers for a paid Internet media content subscription service. The company said its RealOne SuperPass, which featured live video of the war in Iraq, became one of the most popular news sources during April. News content delivered grew five fold in the first several days of the conflict. http://www.realnetworks....

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Microsoft Targets Web Services, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for Cars

At the second annual Microsoft European Automotive & Telematics Conference held this week in Munich, Microsoft outlined plans for Web services, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity in cars. The Windows Automotive software platform is already being used in the BMW 7 Series for controlling the GPS-enabled navigation system, electronic and entertainment systems, mobile phones and vehicle diagnostics. The Windows operating system will appear in new cars from Honda, Volvo, Fiat and Citroën. In Japan, Toyota is using Microsoft's Windows Automotive...

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Tekelec and Santera Combine their Next Gen Switching Businesses

Tekelec and Santera Systems agreed to combine their next-generation switching businesses. Tekelec is a developer of telecommunications signaling solutions, packet-telephony infrastructure, network monitoring technology, and value-added applications. Santera Systems offers an integrated voice and data switching platform for delivering Class 4/5 services, PRI offload, packet/cell switching and voice over broadband services. The SanterOne platform features both TDM and packet switching fabrics. The combined company's product portfolio will also...

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Nortel Networks, Redback Networks Settle Lawsuit

Nortel Networks and Redback Networks reached a settlement in their pending lawsuits. The case goes back to December 2001, when Redback sued Nortel Networks seeking to invalidate five patents. As part of the settlement, Nortel Networks and Redback entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement and Redback agreed to pay Nortel an undisclosed fee. http://www.nortelnetworks.com http://www.redback....

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Hutchison Withdraws its Proposed Global Crossing Acquisition

In light of a new probe by the U.S. government's Committee on Foreign Investment, Hutchison Telecommunications decided to withdraw its proposed acquisition of a 30.75% stake in Global Crossing. Singapore Technologies Telemedia will exercise its rights to acquire Hutchison Telecommunications' planned stake in a newly constituted Global Crossing. Specifically, ST Telemedia will increase its original investment from $125 million to a total $250 million for 61.5% ownership interest in the reorganized Global Crossing upon its emergence from Chapter...

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Alcatel Integrates iMagicTV for TV over DSL

Alcatel completed its acquisition of iMagicTV, a developer of software for delivering multi-channel digital television over broadband networks. Alcatel said the acquisition provides it with a ready-to-deploy solution for triple play (TV, Internet and Telephone) broadband services. iMagic also provides back-end service provisioning capabilities. iMagicTV will be marketed under the name Alcatel 5950 Media Manager. The final exchange ratio used to exchange iMagicTV shares for Alcatel ADS shares was 0.158517 which equates to a value of US$1.30 per...

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EC Approves Some Network Sharing for 3G Licensees

The European Commission approved 3G mobile network infrastructure sharing in the UK, ruling that site sharing in itself does not raise competition concerns. More specifically, 3G site sharing between operators does not restrict competition if such agreements are limited to sharing basic network infrastructure such as masts, power supply, racking and cooling. The EC investigation into the infrastructure sharing also found that national roaming between licensed network operators benefits consumers by allowing the operators involved to offer better...

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MCI Adds Windows Messenger to its Converged Communications Service

MCI is adding Microsoft Windows Messenger to its MCI Advantage (formerly known as the WorldCom Connection) converged communications service. Both Windows Messenger and the MCI Advantage support SIP. With the new Windows Messenger capability, MCI Advantage business users can complete and receive voice calls, participate in real-time chat sessions and share information with colleagues directly from their desktop or any SIP enabled device. Users can also take their MCI Advantage service and calling features with them to any location by connecting...

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AOL Blocks 2.37 Billion Spam Messages per Day

America Online blocked 2.37 billion spam emails in one day this week. At this rate, AOL's anti-spam filters are preventing more than 24,000 spam emails from going to each of its members' accounts each year. Only one week ago, AOL announced it was preventing over 1 billion spam emails from getting into its members' email inboxes daily. AOL attributed the surge in its spam blocking to a variety of factors: members systematically reporting more spam; the tightening and strengthening of AOL's spam blocking filters; the continuing surge of spam sent...

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Sprint Expands its Metro Network Presence to 20 Cities

Sprint completed construction of three large metropolitan area network (MAN) rings in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region. The rings connect the Sprint network to several local telecom exchange facilities and a Sprint mobile switching center (MSC) in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. The MSC routes wireless calls for local PCS customers of Sprint. The company has now deployed metro networks in 20 markets and intends to drive its fiber-optic network deeper into the metro areas of 30 U.S. cities before mid- 2004. http://www.sprint....

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America Online Offers Premium Virus Protection Service

America Online and Network Associates announced a premium virus protection service for AOL members. The service is provided through a desktop client that is constantly updated on new threats. The virus protection guards against infection from peer-to-peer file sharing, Web site downloads, infected CD-ROMs and disks, multi-media files, and other modes of attack. AOL will charge $2.95 a month for the service. http://www.aol....

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New Edge Networks to Provide Local FR and ATM for WilTel

New Edge Networks signed an agreement to provide local Frame Relay and ATM services to WilTel Communications at competitive price points. New Edge Networks has more than 600 central office locations with multi-services switches in small and midsize cities across the US. To support this agreement, New Edge Networks and WilTel will establish multiple broadband interconnection points across the country. http://www.newedgenetworks.com http://www.wiltelcommunications....

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Network Processing Forum Completes IPv4 Software Agreement

The Network Processing Forum (NPF) released an IPv4 Unicast Forwarding Service Application Programming Interface (API) Implementation Agreement (IA) intended to help enable the development of IPv4 forwarding software solutions from independent software and network processor vendors. The specification will also simplify the task System OEMs face in migrating their existing control-plane software to network processor-based systems. The IPv4 Unicast Forwarding Service API Implementation Agreement is available for free online. http://www.npforum....

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Broadcom Supplies Transceiver Chipset for Foundry's Terabit Switch

Broadcom is supplying a custom three-chip serial backplane transceiver chipset for Foundry Networks' new terabit-capacity enterprise switch and metro/service provider router architecture. The custom serial backplane transceiver chipset was developed using Broadcom's third generation of low-power, mixed-signal CMOS SerDes technology. Broadcom said a key advantage of the technology is multi-rate operation, which allows cores to transmit serial data from 622-Mbps up through 5-Gbps and 10-Gbps over a variety of links including fiber optics, copper...

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TiVo Names an NBC Executive as President

TiVo named Martin J. Yudkovitz as its new president. Yudkovitz previously was Executive Vice President at NBC, where he played leading roles in the creation of CNBC, MSNBC Cable and MSNBC.com. He also led the business side of NBC's two largest television endeavors, the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. TiVo said it plans to focus on aggressively deploying its digital video recorder service through industry partnerships with satellite and cable companies and other licensing opportunities. http://www.tivo.comTiVo has a subscription...

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Zarlink Develops 3.125 Gbps Optical Receiver

Zarlink announced an optical receiver operating at up to 3.125 Gbps. Traditionally, discrete photodiodes and amplifiers, linked by complex circuitry, have been required to reliably detect and pre-amplify high-speed optical pulses. Zarlink said its optical receiver integrates a highly sensitive PIN (positive- intrinsic-negative) photodiode in InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide), a low-noise transimpedance and limiting amplifier in SiGe (silicon germanium), and a photo current monitor. The device could be used for 2.5 Gbps SONET/SDH equipment, as...

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JDS Uniphase Launches New CWDM Solutions

JDS Uniphase introduced a new WaveReady series of optical access products, including a coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) solution aimed at enterprise and metro networking applications. The new CWDM line cards for the WaveReady series include a bi-directional 1310 nm input / 15xx nm output regenerator, a bi-directional 850 nm input / 15xx nm output regenerator, and an 8-channel mux/demux. Other new line cards for WaveReady include a DWDM bi-directional ITU 1310 nm input / 15xx nm output regenerator and an optical protection switch....

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Allegiance Telecom Negotiates with Creditors on Recapitalization Plan

Allegiance Telecom, a facilities-based national CLEC headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is continuing negotiations with its creditors on a recapitalization plan. The creditors have agreed to forbear from accelerating their loans or exercising their remedies until 15-May-2003. In return, Allegiance will make a principal payment of $5 million to the consortium of banks that have loaned the Company approximately $471 million of senior secured credit facilities. Allegiance said it would continue business as usual in the 36 markets it servers across...

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NTT DoCoMo Sells More than 10 Million Camera Phones

NTT DoCoMo has sold more than 10 million camera phones since launching the first model on 01-June-2002. The company currently offers 11 different handset models with integrated cameras. Users between the ages of 20 and 30 account for about 60% of total sales. DoCoMo recently announced new handset models offering higher resolution cameras of up to 1.3 megapixels. http://www.nttdocomo.comAccording to a recent NTT DoCoMo report, Japan now has 78 million mobile phone subscribers, a figure equivalent to 58% of the nation's population. DoCoMo's i-mode...

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TIA Publishes Measurement Standard for Multimode Fiber

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) published a new test procedure standard (TIA-455-220-A) for characterizing the modal structure of a graded index multimode fiber. Differential Mode Delay (DMD) is the transmission delay between different modes of energy propagation in a multimode fiber. DMD contributes to the total dispersion (spreading) of a transmitted pulse and therefore can affect the system throughput. TIA said its new test method is commonly used in production and research facilities and is not easily accomplished in the...

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