Vivato Raises $44.5 Million for Wi-Fi Switches

Vivato, a start-up based in San Francisco, raised $44.5 million in third round funding for its Wi-Fi switches. The new funding was led by Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), joined by all of Vivato's previous investors, including Leapfrog Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, Walden International and Intel Communications Fund.
http://www.vivato.net

• In March 2003, Vivato introduced its 2.4 GHz Outdoor Wi-Fi Switch capable of extending outdoor coverage for up to 4 km. The Vivato switch can penetrate exterior and interior walls to provide Wi-Fi coverage throughout an entire structure. Designed to support standard 802.11b Wi-Fi devices, the Vivato 2.4 GHz Outdoor Wi-Fi Switch provides three simultaneous beams of Wi-Fi throughout the coverage area. Its unique PacketSteering technology directs up to 33 Mbps of Wi-Fi capacity to active clients through an electronically controlled phased array antenna that creates high gain beams of Wi-Fi. The U.S. list price for the Vivato 2.4 GHz Outdoor Wi-Fi Switch is $13,995.
• 
  
  In February 2003, Vivato introduced a 2.4 GHz Indoor Wi-Fi Switch that provides an indoor range of up to 300 meters with standard Wi-Fi clients. The Vivato switch is a flat panel unit, which resembles a plasma television screen, operates in the 2.4 GHz frequency band and delivers three simultaneous beams of Wi-Fi. Designed to be wall-mounted, the panel employs Vivato's PacketSteering technology to dynamically shape very narrow beams, about nine degrees each. The list price is $8,995.

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BellSouth Increases its Dividend by 9.5%

BellSouth increased its dividend by $0.21 per common share, a 9.5% increase. Over the last five quarters, BellSouth has increased its quarterly dividend 21%.
http://www.bellsouth.com

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Southampton Photonics Develops High-power Fiber Laser

SPI (Southampton Photonics) and the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton (UK) demonstrated over 600 Watts from a single fiber laser while preserving beam quality. This is believed to be one of the highest powers reported to date with a single fiber gain module. The company anticipates that single-mode output powers well in excess of a kW will be achieved in the not too distant future. The work was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under their High Power Fiber Laser program.
http://www.spioptics.com
http://www.orc.soton.ac.uk

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Alcatel Performs Deep-sea Cable Repairs in the Pacific

Alcatel successfully repaired a fiber communications cable in water depths close to 9,400 meters in the Pacific Ocean about 700 km off the coast of Japan. The Alcatel operated cable ship, C.S Heimdal, completed the fiber optic cable repair on a transpacific cable system connecting Japan to the US. Due to water depths varying from 5,300 to 9,400 meters, Alcatel developed a purpose-built grapnel to avoid the cable breaking under its own weight, while drawing it up from the sea bed for repair.
http://www.alcatel.com

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Equant Signs Four-Year IP VPN Contract with Sweden

Equant was awarded a four-year, $12 million contract to provide an IP VPN-based solution for 100 Swedish embassies and foreign service offices around the world. The government of Sweden also has signed an additional contract of $1.7 million for satellite services.
http://www.equant.com

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EZchip Unveils 10 Gbps Network Processor

EZchip Technologies announced its third-generation 10-Gigabit network processor. The NP-2 is a single chip, full duplex, 7-layer, 10-Gigabit network processor (NPU) that integrates a classification search engine, ingress and egress traffic managers, IPSec and SSL security co-processors, and storage and TCP co-processors. The company said putting all network processing elements in a single chip will enable system designers to reduce chip count, power and cost by as much as 80%. EZchip's new NP-2 uses low-power, high-density DRAM memories for all its lookup tables, data, statistics and control information.
http://www.ezchip.com

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Lattice Semiconductor Announces Low Power 10 Gbps SERDES

Lattice Semiconductor introduced a low-power 10 Gbps SERDES transceiver based on 0.13-micron CMOS technology. The new device is designed for SONET OC-192 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet applications, consumes only 0.8 Watts of power, and supports optical transponder modules such as the 300-pin Multi Source Agreement (MSA) as well as those for 10 Gigabit small form-factor pluggable (XFP) applications. The transceiver meets both SONET and Ethernet jitter requirements. Sampling is underway.
http://www.latticesemi.com

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Cradle Technologies Raises $21.5 Million for Digital Convergence Silicon

Cradle Technologies, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, completed an oversubscribed $21.5 million round of venture funding to support its development of programmable Soft-Silicon solutions for digital convergence. Cradle's Enhanced Communications Engines target the network-centric Internet digital convergence markets while its Media Processing Engines target media-centric digital convergence markets. The chips contain multiple RISC and DSP processors, offering a programmable solution for combining secure data, voice, image and video services. The new funding round added new investors NeoCarta Ventures, Prodea, and East Gate Capital to a number of existing investors that also participated in the round including Smart Technology Ventures, Charter Ventures, Mingly Capital, Winston Partners and others.
http://www.cradle.com

• Cradle Technologies is headed by Arthur Chang, who previously was an Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR) with several Silicon Valley venture capital firms, including Allegis Capital and Charter Ventures. Prior to that, Chang was CTO of Parallan Computer (now Snap Appliance), and VP of Systems Engineering for PLX Technologies.

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Marvell Introduces Multi-Service Fabric for Core Switches/Routers

Marvell introduced a multi-service fabric targeted at enterprise core switches and metro edge routers. Marvell's new two-chip architecture, which consists of a fabric access processor and a fabric switch element, is designed for extreme scalability in the number of ports it supports, enabling switching systems to expand up to thousands of Gigabit Ethernet ports. The Prestera multi-service fabric also features the ability to scale in port speeds, from Gigabit to 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps and beyond, without changes to the backplane, chassis design or fabric architecture. Marvell achieves this capability using Dune Networks' technology combined with its own 3.125Ghz SERDES technology.


Marvell's Prestera-FX multi-service fabric chipset also features per-flow queuing schemes, where hundreds of thousands of flows are policed, queued and scheduled separately, enabling broad SLA support. The Prestera-FX fabric access processor performs ingress and egress functions to the switching fabric and integrates the complete traffic management functionality and the scheduler. The fabric access processor seamlessly connects to the Marvell Prestera-EX and Prestera-MX packet processors, enabling the connection of Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
http://www.marvell.com

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Domain Name System Celebrates Its 20th Birthday

The first use of the Domain Name System (DNS) took place on 23-June-1983 at the University of Southern California School of Engineering's Information Sciences Institute (ISI). Dr. Paul Mockapetris and the late Dr. Jonathan Postel are credited with developing DNS. All Internet users depend on DNS every time they access a web URL or send an e-mail message, because the system translates words into the numbers needed to locate Internet resources. Dr. Mockapetris, who is chief scientist and chairman of Nomimum, predicts a dramatic increase in the number of ways in which the DNS is used over the next five years. Mockapetris is now working towards the next generation of the DNS to accommodate the growth of IP computing and future applications, such as IP telephony and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, that will depend on the system.
http://www.nominum.com

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Centillium ADSL2 / ADSL2plus Chipset for CPE

Centillium Communications announced an ADSL2/ADSL2plus-compatible chipset for Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), which it claims can deliver data rates up to 50 Mbps or extend the reach of ADSL up to 22,000 feet. The Palladia 220 is a router-on-a-chip solution integrating Centillium's eXtremeDSLMAX technology. The chipset features a 200MHz RISC processor and hardware accelerators for packet processing, a high-speed PCI/Cardbus interface, 10/100 Ethernet, USB and a number of serial interfaces. The Palladia 220 includes a newly designed analog front-end to accommodate the extended spectrum operation enabled by the eXtremeDSLMAX technology. It also features high-resolution analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters and an exceptionally low-noise floor. It complements Centillium's recently announced Maximus central office chipset.
http://www.centillium.com

• In May 2003, Centillium Communications unveiled its "Maximus" 12-channel, central office (CO) chipset compliant with the ITU-T G.992.1 (G.dmt), G.992.2 (G.lite), G.992.3 (G.adsl2) and G.992.5 (G.adsl2plus) standards. The company claims its eXtremeDSLMAX technology is able to deliver up to 50 Mbps of downstream bandwidth for short loops, or reach customers at distances up to 22,000 feet from the central office, while maintaining full backward compatibility with over 30 million deployed ADSL modems. ADSL2plus standard offers downstream data rates of up 24 Mbps over short-to-medium length loops. Centillium's Maximus delivers up to 50 Mbps by leveraging a "quad stream" feature that uses frequency spectrum from 138 Khz to 3.75 MHz. The Maximus chipset supports upstream rates of up to 3 Mbps using frequency spectrum from 25 Khz to 276 Khz.

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Pirelli Introduces ADSL Modular Access Gateway

Pirelli Cables and Systems introduced an ADSL Modular Access Gateway featuring a built-in Smartcard reader and the ability for users to plug-in additional hardware modules for expanding the functionality of the gateway. Expansion modules include a 4-port Ethernet switch and a Wi-Fi access port. A programmable smart-card can be used to customize the Pirelli gateway for each individual user. The Smartcard can store basic information such as passwords and user preferences. It could also be used in lieu of a CD to automate installations, for network-defined services, or for broadband applications in which no PC is present.
http://www.pirelli.com

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SOFTBANK Invests in Korea's Bellwave

SOFTBANK has invested US$13 million in Bellwave, a Korean manufacturer, acquiring a 17% stake in the company. Bellwave specializes in GSM mobile phones and CDMA wireless data modules. The company markets its products mainly in China and Korea. Additional international investors in Bellwave include Texas Instruments and Citicorp.
http://www.bellwave.co.krhttp://www.softbank.co.jp

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Nortel Networks Supplies Metro DWDM for BT's SAN Service

BT's broadband point-to-point data networking division, Short-Haul Data Services (SHDS), will use Nortel Networks' metro DWDM equipment for its Wavestream Connect service. BT SHDS Wavestream Connect service offers dedicated optical fibre links with Nortel Networks OPTera Metro 5200 equipment at either end of a fiber link into which enterprises directly connect their LAN, WAN and SAN equipment. In addition to SAN connectivity, SHDS Wavestream Connect service is defined for the interconnection of Ethernet LAN, ATM, SDH and video services at scalable rates up to and including 2.5 Gbps. The BT Wavestream Connect Service is already being deployed for a large financial institution with Nortel Networks equipment. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.nortelnetworks.com
http://www.bt.com

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MetaSwitch Enters RUS Field Trial with Yukon Telephone

Yukon Telephone, an incumbent telephone provider in Alaska, is testing MetaSwitch's VP3500 Next Generation Class 5 Switch as a first step towards an all-IP network. The testing is a Rural Utilities Service (RUS) field trial. Upon successful completion of the trial, MetaSwitch would be placed on the RUS approved vendor list, allowing other rural service providers to deploy the MetaSwitch VP3500 in their RUS funded network upgrades.
http://www.metaswitch.com
http://www.yukontel.com

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Alvarion Unveils 900 MHz Carrier Access System

Alvarion introduced a new BreezeACCESS 900 system, operating in the unlicensed 902-928 MHz frequency bands and designed for service to areas previously inaccessible for wireless coverage due to heavy foliage. Supporting data rates up to 3 Mbps, the BreezeACCESS 900 uses Hybrid Digital Modulation to penetrate foliage. The platform is currently in several pilot deployments.
http://www.alvarion.com

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Convergys Debuts Infinys Solution for Customer Management

Convergys Corporation unveiled its "Infinys" solution for helping carriers to automate and integrate their order fulfillment, customer service management, and billing functions across multiple product and service offerings. "Infinys" integrates Convergys' Geneva rating and billing engine and Convergys' Cygent customer order management capability. Additional Infinys capabilities are delivered through the integration of optional components for customer care and Web self-care, mediation, settlement, provisioning, inventory management, and service activation functions.


In support of its Infinys launch for wireline service providers, Convergys is announcing strategic alliances with Syndesis, Granite Systems, and Cramer Systems. The partnerships provide for Infinys integration with:

• Syndesis NetProvision, which automates provisioning, activation, and maintenance for the new network - across multiple vendors, network technologies, and network layers; and, Syndesis NetDiscover, which automates network discovery and identifies and classifies inconsistencies between providers' BSS/OSS and the actual end-to-end services and networks they manage, facilitating stranded asset and revenue recovery.
• 
  
  Granite Systems' Xng System, a service resource management solution built on the J2EE environment. The Xng System enables carriers to manage inventories of network resources and capacity, define network configurations, order and schedule resources, automate provisioning and engineering workflows,
  and provide a database of record to other Operational Support Systems (OSSs).
• 
  
  Cramer Systems' Cramer4, which is a network inventory management solution for telecom service providers in wireline, wireless, and data sectors. Cramer4 automates and actively manages inventory-centered processes such as service fulfillment and network implementation.

http://www.convergys.com

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Cox Business Services Offers Software-based VPN Service

Cox Business Services, a commercial affiliate of Cox Communications, is now offering a software-based VPN service in 17 markets across the US. Cox's VPN establishes a remote teleworker connection delivered over Cox's hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network. Corporate and satellite offices in the Cox managed VPN are served on either the company's fiber based network or HFC. The service scales to support up to 1000 tunnels and 200 Mbps of throughput. Cox is using NetScreen Technologies' platform for the service.
http://www.coxbusiness.com
http://www.netscreen.com

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Quantum Bridge Cites FTTP Customer in Kansas

Sunflower Broadband, an independent cable operator in Kansas, is deploying Quantum Bridge's combined Optical Line Terminal (OLT) and Optical Network Terminal (ONT) solutions. Quantum Bridge's switch is deployed at Sunflower Broadband's master headend facility in Lawrence. Optical services are delivered to multiple customer endpoints over Full Service Access Network (FSAN) compliant PON technology. Applications include 10/100 Mbps pipes for Intranet and Internet access over 802.1Q VLANs, as well as private line DS1 service. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.quantumbridge.com
http://www.sunflowerbroadband.com

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Marconi Enhances North American Fiber Access Portfolio

Marconi announced a series of enhancements to its North American access portfolio, including a four-port ADSL plug-in card for its DISC*S MX Broadband Fiber-to-the-Curb (FTTC) solution. The DSL enhancement enables the delivery of full-rate DSL to all subscribers served from the FTTC network. Marconi has also doubled, with plans to quadruple, the telephony capacity of the DISC*S common telephony processing shelf. The company said its FTTC solution was already at or near cost parity with traditional network construction options. Marconi estimates it has shipped over four million lines of Deep Fiber capacity, passing nearly one million homes across North America.


Marconi is also enhancing its FTTH portfolio with a temperature-hardened version of the Optical Network Termination (ONT) device, enabling carriers to terminate the outside plant fiber facility on the outside of the customer building. Marconi has deployed its FTTH solution, called the FTH-1000 system, in a network owned by the City of Palo Alto, Californiahttp://www.marconi.com

• On 29-May-03, 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 have 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, ongoing internal studies, and on the resolution of related regulatory issues.

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Windows Mobile 2003 Supports 300 kbps Video Content

Microsoft has added Windows Media Player 9 support to its new Windows Mobile 2003 OS, enabling better digital media capabilities on PocketPC devices. In addition, enhanced support for Wi-Fi within the Windows Mobile software supports broadband video content at up to 300 kbps. Microsoft said its new Mobile OS also provides Improved Web streaming and fast streaming support (effectively eliminating buffering delays) for users connected to Windows 2003 server.
http://www.microsoft.com

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BigBand Networks Raises $15 Million

BigBand Networks, a start-up based in Redwood City, California raised $15 million in fourth round funding to support its broadband multimedia platform. BigBand's platform, which has been shipping for six quarters, is used for switching/routing video feeds for digital broadcast television, HDTV, transport of high quality video, ad insertion, VOD and iTV. The company claims 20 broadband network operators as customers, including seven of the top ten North American cable operators. The new funding was led by Meritech Capital Partners. Prior investors also participated in the round, including AOL Time Warner Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Evergreen Investments, Pilot House Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. BigBand Networks has raised $75 million to date.
http://www.bigbandnet.com

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Proficient Networks Offers Inbound Traffic Management to Data Centers

Proficient Networks, a start-up based in San Francisco, released a new version of its Network Policy Engine (NPE) for providing inbound WAN traffic control to an enterprise data center. The company said inbound bandwidth optimization is critical for applications such as disaster recovery, storage, database transactions and customer relationship management (CRM). Proficient's Network Policy Engine (NPE) appliance directs routers to avoid end-to-end network congestion, while controlling inbound traffic based on lowest cost per bit from multiple service providers. The new Pathfinder 2.2 software allows two Proficient NPEs to "tune" to each other across the WAN. Proficient said its solution requires no alterations to router forwarding behavior, or application configuration.
http://www.proficient.net

• In September 2002, Proficient Networks raised $12.5 million in a Series B-round of financing for its network optimization software. Proficient offers a Network Policy Engine that helps companies manage multiple Internet links. The Proficient Network Policy Engine applies performance-based routing policy while intelligently distributing the remaining traffic to minimize overall costs. The new funding was co-led by Horizon Ventures and BV Capital. Other participants in the round included previous investors, Canaan Partners and El Dorado Ventures.



• Proficient Networks is headed by Chris Vargas, who previously was president of F-Secure, a global provider of centrally managed security solutions. Prior to F-Secure, Vargas spent eight years at Cisco Systems, where he was director of marketing.

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Toronto's FCI Deploys Catena's Broadband Loop Carrier

FCI Broadband, a local and long-distance carrier serving the Toronto metropolitan area, is using Catena's CN1000 Broadband Loop Carrier (BLC) to deliver lifeline voice and high-speed Internet access services to its subscribers. Catena's CN1000 provides Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) and ADSL on every line. FCI Broadband can software-provision broadband service to any subscriber, as service orders are received. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.catena.com
http://www.fcibroadband.com

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Internet Photonics Adds Support for SONET and Fibre Channel/FICON

Internet Photonics has added SONET and Fibre Channel/FICON interfaces to its LightStack MXA, which is a CWDM solution that integrates multiservice support, an optical ADM and "3R" (retime, repeat, regenerate) functions. The LightStack MXA now accepts three types of service modules:

• SONET/SDH -- four optical ports that can be provisioned for OC-3, OC-12 or OC-48




• Gigabit Enhancement -- four optical ports that can be provisioned for Gigabit Ethernet or Fibre Channel / FICON




• Optical ADM -- provides passive add/drop of up to six wavelengths, including support for existing SONET/SDH devices

The Lightstack MXA platform, which measures 1.5 rack units in height, accepts any mix of SONET/SDH, optical Ethernet and Fibre Channel/FICON services on a ring, as well as point-to-point links. The new modules can be provisioned remotely and service rates can be changed on-the-fly.
http://www.internetphotonics.com

• In March 2003, Internet Photonics introduced a new LightStack Gigabit Services Line Access Multiplexer (GSLAM) designed to aggregate, switch and multiplex multiple services (including managed services) in major cable headends or service provider POPs. The new GLSAM platform, which complements existing LightStack products for remote hub sites or premises, scales to handle 64 Gigabit Ethernet connections. The platform uses Internet Photonics' “SONET WrapAround�? capability in order to preserve existing traffic on a ring without interrupting the service. Optical Ethernet services are inserted onto the fiber using different wavelengths so as not to disrupt the existing traffic. The LightStack also features a VirtualWire capability by which eight GbE services, each with its own circuit-like sub-channel, are multiplexed onto a single 10 Gbps wavelength. Internet Photonics said the LightStack GSLAM is already deployed in a “top five�? cable operator network and is in trials with another operator.



• In July 2002, Internet Photonics closed $31 million in third round venture financing for its optical Ethernet platform. The new funding was led by ComVentures and included TeleSoft Partners as well as previous investors Sprout Group and New Venture Partners LLC. Internet Photonics has raised $63M since its inception in October of 2000.



• Internet Photonics is headed by Gregory Koss, who was previously CEO of Sonoma Systems, a developer of ATM access equipment that was acquired by Nortel Networks in 2000. Its technical team is led by Dr. Martin Nuss, who was previously the Director of the Optical Data Networks Research Department at Lucent Technologies.

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