Connections Keynote: Using PC Technologies to Win in the Home

Microsoft's vision of the digital home centers on a "home experience server" that works with televisions, stereos, smart phones, notebooks, tablet PCs, watches, PDAs, and even automobiles, said Kevin Eagan, General Manager for Business Development and Marketing at Microsoft's Windows eHome Division, speaking at the Connections 2003 conference in San Jose. The PC-centric vision provides benefits to the industry and to end users, argues Eagan, because a common, centralized platform will make it easier for consumer electronics companies to develop...

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Connections Panel: Standards Build the Foundation for Home Networking

Market researchers are forecasting up to 175 million multimedia network nodes in US homes by 2007, according to panelists speaking at Connections, The Digital Home Conference & Showcase, in San Jose. Connected devices will include PCs, conventional consumer electronic appliances and converged devices. Standards will play a key role in making it all work together. Some of the organizations active in this area include:The Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) Alliance is in its third release of standards defining an open service delivery...

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Connections Keynote: Any Device, Any Time in The Digital Home

"Everything is going digital," said Louis J. Burns, Co-General Manager, Desktop Platforms Group at Intel speaking at Connections, The Digital Home Conference & Showcase, in San Jose. It is clear that digital media has already become the preferred format or music and photos. The same is happening with home video and broadcast entertainment. Home networking is the second global trend revolutionizing the PC and electronics industries, said Burns, and these trends clearly converge. The hottest new product bridging these megatrends is the digital...

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EarthLink Launches Extended Reach DSL to Compete with T1 Service

EarthLink launched Extended Reach DSL targeted at business customers as an alternative to T1 lines. The service is available in 91 cities, and there are no limitations on subscriber distance from a serviceable central office. Extended Reach DSL offers a 99.99% uptime SLA, symmetric speeds, 10 e-mail accounts, eight static IP addresses and unlimited EarthLink dial-up Internet access. The service is priced at $349, $449 and $549 a month for speeds of 384K, 768K and 1.5M respectively. It includes a router with built-in firewall and VPN capabilities,...

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Lucent Offers Professional Services for Cable Operators

Lucent Technologies announced a suite of professional services and a multi-vendor integration lab that will allow cable operators to add voice capabilities to their networks. Lucent Worldwide Services (LWS) will provide network design and consulting, implementation and network security and reliability optimization tools that will help cable operators offer 'Triple Play' voice, data and video services. A multi-vendor integration lab in Holmdel, New Jersey will support softswitch, gateway and integrated Class 5 packet switch vendors. In addition...

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Z-Tel Technologies Reports Revenue and Customer Growth

Z-Tel Technologies, a CLEC based in Tampa, Florida, reported Q1 revenue of $60.3 million, versus $57.3 million for the first quarter of 2002. The company reported EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $2.7 million for the first quarter of 2003, its fourth consecutive quarter of positive EBITDA. Net loss for the first quarter was $3.1 million, or $0.09 per share. As of 31-March-2003, Z-Tel reported approximately 244,000 active retail lines in service, up from just over 200,000 at the end of 2002. The company...

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mPhase to Bundle Lucent's Stinger in its TV-over-DSL Solution

mPhase Technologies signed a reseller agreement that allows it to bundle Lucent's Stinger DSL Access Concentrator into its own TV-over-DSL solution. mPhase said emerging markets, particularly those in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), are areas of high growth for video over DSL because they are not currently served by extensive cable networks. http://www.mPhaseTech....

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TI Outlines DSP Solutions for Streaming Media for Consumer Appliances

Texas Instruments announced the availability of its digital signal processor (DSP) based platform of streaming media products and reference designs. The chips are designed for a myriad of home networking products such as portable handheld devices, streaming media televisions, digital media centers, set-top boxes and residential gateways. Such appliances would enable consumers to manage, store, display and distribute several media formats inside the digital home. The DSPs decode locally, making the content format virtually invisible to the consumer...

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Level 3 to Provide Dark Fiber Services to Internet2

Level 3 Communications was awarded a multi-year, multi-million-dollar IRU agreement to supply intercity dark fiber services to the National Research and Education Fiber Company (Fiberco), a new organization established by Internet2 to purchase and distribute fiber-optic assets to regional advanced networking organizations and research universities throughout the U.S. The Level 3 inter-city fiber network spans 16,000 route miles in the US and approximately 3,600-miles in Europe. http://www.Level3....

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Laurel Networks Expands into Asia

Laurel Networks announced expansion into Asia and the launch of a Global Reseller Partner Program for its multiservice edge routers. The company now has offices in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Laurel's European headquarters is based in the UK, and supports deployments and trials across Europe. http://www.laurelnetworks....

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BT Announces MPLS Network Expansion in the Americas

BT is planning to expand its IP backbone in the Americas with the addition of 14 new MPLS nodes, bringing the total number of nodes to 23. BT said that almost half of its top 2,000 target customers are U.S. headquartered multi-site corporations that have global requirements and extensive operations throughout Europe. New MPLS nodes will include: Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Mexico City, Miami, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Toronto and Washington, DC. Buildout is current underway. http://www.bt.comBT's...

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Comcast Names Motorola Broadband as a Primary Supplier

Comcast awarded a multi-year digital cable agreement to Motorola, naming Motorola as its primary provider of digital cable technology and network support services. Motorola will provide Comcast with a broad spectrum of solutions, including two advanced interactive set-tops from the recently announced DCT6000 line supporting HDTV and PVR. The new Motorola set-tops feature 1394-DTV and DVI interfaces for direct digital connections to consumer High-Definition receivers, as well as integrated DOCSIS functionality. Motorola will also provide Comcast...

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Comcast Reaches 4M Data Subscribers, Reverses Previous Loss of CATV Subscribers

Comcast reported consolidated Q1 revenue of $5.52 billion as compared to $2.667 billion reported in the first quarter of 2002 while consolidated EBITDA more than doubled to $1.638 billion from the $808 million reported in the first quarter of 2002. Changes in EBITDA, depreciation and amortization and interest expense primarily reflect the acquisition of AT&T Broadband in November 2002. Some highlights of the quarter:Comcast added 417,000 high-speed Internet customers in Q1, ending the quarter with over 4 million cable modem subscribers, up...

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