Real Networks Launches its Own Digital Music Service

Real Networks launched its "RealOne RHAPSODY" digital music subscription service offering consumers unlimited streaming access to its library of 330,000 tracks from major and independent music labels. The service is priced at $9.95 per month for on-demand, streaming access to the content. The service also allows subscribers to burn certain songs to CD for $0.79 per song. The library of songs that can be burned to CD includes more than 200,000 tracks. http://www.realnetworks.comLast month, RealNetworks announced that it had entered into a definitive...

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Broadband Subscribers up 136% in Europe

High-speed residential Internet subscribers in Europe increased 136% from April 2002 to April 2003, according to a report from Nielsen//NetRatings. The UK experienced the largest increase of any European country during this period: 235%. Currently, 28% of European Internet users are connected at high speed, versus just 14% one year ago. This compares to 35% in the United States, and much higher rates in certain Asian markets, including 82% in Hong Kong.The study also found that broadband users are spending significantly more time online, using...

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Agere Packs 8 ARM Cores into a Single Chip

Agere Systems has integrated eight ARM966E-S processor cores into a single chip thereby offering four times the processing performance of current generation technology. Agere designed and verified each ARM core on the 0.16 micron device as a subsystem, which was integrated into a customer's proprietary ASIC architecture. The company said the primary technical challenge for the design team to solve was working out how the eight cores talk to each other across the device. http://www.agere....

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Sunrise Adds Gigabit Ethernet to its Test Platform

Sunrise Telecom introduced a multi-port Ethernet test module for its STT (Scalable Test Toolkit) platform, which provides key measurements for SONET/SDH and DWDM metro networks. The STT Ethernet Module can test up to 8 Ethernet/Fast Ethernet and 2 Gigabit Ethernet links simultaneously, aiding the roll out of metro Ethernet services. http://www.sunrisetelecom....

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BRECIS Wins $15 Million Order for VoIP in Indonesia

BRECIS Communications was awarded a $15 million contract with Syspol Co. Ltd. of South Korea to provide the processor platform for a broadband gateway that will be deployed in Indonesia. PT TELKOM, the nation's incumbent operator, is planning to rollout an HFC network that will serve over one million homes and offices in Indonesia. A single broadband connection would be used to provide telephony, high speed Internet access, multi-channel CATV, and other services. The BRECIS processors will be used inside of Syspol access devices at each customer...

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3Com Issues Revenue Warning

3Com anticipates revenues for the quarter ending 30-May-2003 will be in the range of $165 million to $175 million, excluding revenues from CommWorks which will be accounted for as discontinued operations. This compares with quarterly revenue of $245 million (including CommWorks) for the prior quarter.Excluding CommWorks, gross margins are expected to be in the mid thirty percent range and adversely impacted by the decline in sales. Connectivity sales are expected to decline by 15 to 20% compared to the prior quarter. Enterprise Networking sales...

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Cingular Ties Yahoo! Messenger into its Mobile Service

Cingular Wireless is extending its PC-to-mobile messaging services by allowing users of Yahoo! Messenger to send instant messages to Cingular Wireless customers' phones. The two-way text messaging works only with Yahoo! Messenger. http://www.cingular.comT-Mobile USA has a similar partnership with America Online's Instant Messenger (AI...

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Korea Telecom Trials Navini's Beam-forming Wireless to Extend Wi-Fi Coverage

KT (Korea Telecom) launched a 2.3 GHz "portable" broadband wireless trial this month in Seoul using equipment from Navini Networks. KT already operates the largest public Wi-Fi network in the world (over 8,000 hot-spots, growing to 16,000 by year's end). KT will test the extension of those hot spots using Navini Ripwave equipment. The field trial uses spectrum defined by the Korean government as high-speed wireless Internet service called PI (Portable Internet). Navini uses phased-array smart antennas with beamforming capabilities and multi-carrier...

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Qwest Sees Improvement in Retail Consumer Access Line Losses

Citing signs of improvement in its core businesses, Qwest Communications reported Q1 net income of $150 million or $0.09 per diluted share. Revenue for Q1 was $3.63 billion, a 9.4% decrease from the same period last year. The decline was attributed to competitive pressures in local voice and wireless services, as well as strategic de-emphasis of certain lines of business, including CPE resale and out-of-region consumer and wholesale long-distance. Some of the key operational and financial highlights for the quarter include:in DSL, Qwest ended...

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BT Sells Voice Detection Patents to Korea's LG Electronics

BT announced its largest intellectual property sale to date. The deal involves the sale of BTexact's voice activity detector (VAD) patents to Korea's LG Electronics. The technology can be used to detect the presence or absence of voice to prolong battery life in mobile devices, increase the capacity of the networks and to solve other problems encountered in mobile communications. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.btexact.com http://www.lge....

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Marconi Posts 2002/03 Preliminary Statement

Marconi announced financial results for the three months and twelve months ended 31 March 2003. The company said "very tough market conditions" continue but that its financial condition is improving in spite of lower sales volume. Some key points include:the company has emerged from bankruptcy protection and the new listing of Marconi Corporation plc is trading on the London marketgross external debt has been reduced to £808m (pro forma) from £3.9bn sales for the quarter ending 31-Mar-03 were £426 million gross margins for the quarter were 24.4%,...

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BellSouth, SBC and Verizon Agree on Specs for FTTP

BellSouth, SBC Communications and Verizon agreed on a common set of specifications for fiber to the premises (FTTP) local access networks. The common technical requirements will be based on existing technical standards. The three service providers today issued a letter to telecom equipment manufacturers, alerting them that the providers will soon be seeking proposals for equipment based on the common requirements. The companies will independently finalize their FTTP deployment plans for 2004 and beyond based on the evaluation of these proposals,...

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