NEC Develops Phone with Digital TV Receiver

NEC showed a mobile phone equipped with a receiver for terrestrial broadcasts of digital TV. The prototype phone, which is based on NEC's W-CDMA silicon, uses the same antenna for digital TV broadcasting, UHF tuning and OFDM. In Japan, terrestrial digital TV broadcasting service will commence from December 2003 in major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka districts.
http://www.nec.co.jp/press/en/0307/1001.html

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Motorola Invests in Appairent Tech. for UltraWideband

Motorola Ventures, the venture capital arm of Motorola, has made a strategic investment in Appairent Technologies, a developer of wireless multimedia semiconductors based in Rochester, New York. Appairent Technologies was spun out from Eastman Kodak Company in January 2002. The company is working on embedded high-speed radio systems that take advantage of the IEEE 802.15.3 standard and work underway in Task Group 3a to enable wireless multimedia communication in consumer electronic and PC products. The strategic relationship with Motorola centers around the development of an ultrawideband (UWB) product by leveraging Appairent's market leadership position in IEEE 802.15.3 Medium Access Control (MAC) development and Motorola's leading UWB radio platform development. In addition, Appairent Technologies has received an investment from the Monroe Fund, which is managed by the Trillium Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.appairent.com

• In May 2003, Appairent Technologies demonstrated its IEEE 802.15.3 standard Transpairent radio development system technology at an industry conference. The company claims the Transpairent Radio is the first IEEE 802.15.3 compatible radio transceiver system. The device consists of an RF and digital/baseband IC and all the external components needed to implement a standardized IEEE 802.15.3-compatible radio transceiver system. It supports power management features and transmits data up to 100 meters. Applications could include residential gateways, DVD players, TVs, set-top boxes, audio systems and digital still cameras and digital camcorders.



• Dr. Robert F. Heile, the CTO of Appairent Technologies, serves as the Chairman of the newly formed IEEE 802.15.3a Task Group.



• In February, the FCC issued new rules to allow commercial use of UWB radios in 7500MHz of spectrum between 3.1GHz and 10.6GHz. Shortly following this ruling, the IEEE formed a standards committee, 802.15.3a, which is in the process of developing a standard specification for UWB for use in Personal Area Networks (PANs).



• A new WiMedia Alliance has been organized to guarantee interoperability between various manufacturers much the same way that the WiFi Alliance does for 802.11 wireless LAN. http://www.wimedia.org

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Vonage Adds Call Hunting to Broadband Service

Vonage introduced a Call Hunt feature for residential and business subscribers with multiple Vonage lines. Call hunting transfers the caller to another line in the account if the subscriber is on the phone. The call can be routed to another Vonage phone in the same residence or office, or to one on the other side of the globe. Customers can program up to 10 Vonage phone lines and can select the sequence of lines for the call to ring, or "hunt" through.
http://www.vonage.com

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Global Crossing Creditors Insist on Singapore Deal Only

The official committee of unsecured creditors in the Global Crossing Chapter 11 bankruptcy case issued a public statement reaffirming its support for the reorganization plan under which Singapore Technologies Telemedia will acquire a majority stake in the company. The Creditors' Committee said it remains optimistic that the transaction will be approved on a timely basis by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and other federal regulatory authorities. The creditors also insist that only the Singapore bid could deliver a maximum value for the distressed company. The creditors believe that even to consider bids from XO Communications or IDT Corporation would carry multiple execution and timing risks that would inject substantial delay into Global Crossing's efforts to emerge from bankruptcy.

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Verizon Must Rehire Laid Off Workers in New York

A court appointed arbitrator ruled that Verizon Communications must rehire 2,312 workers that it laid-off in December 2002 because the cutbacks were not permitted under the labor agreement between the company and its union, the Communications Workers of America. There are 1,129 employees who were laid off in other states, and those layoffs are pending arbitration in those states.


In response, Verizon said it would abide by the ruling but that the decision does not change the difficult business conditions facing the company -- the same conditions it blames for the layoffs. Verizon also said that the unions will have to balance these job security issues with the changing conditions in the telecommunications industry during the contract negotiations that are currently underway.


The Communications Workers of America hailed the ruling as very welcome news for thousands of workers and their families. The union noted that the existing labor contract stipulates that Verizon can't lay off workers for reasons of "process change" having to do with technology or various business changes, and that layoffs can only take place as a result of special conditions caused by "external events."http://www.verizon.com
http://www.cwa-union.org

• In June 2003, the Communications Workers of America and Verizon began negotiations on a new labor contract. The CWA represents some 60,000 employees at Verizon Communications. In a press statement at the time, CWA President Morton Bahr pointed out that Verizon brought in revenues of $67.6 billion and reported profits of $4.1 billion in 2002, despite the telecom slump. While the U.S. productivity rate grew 5.9% between 2000-2002, in that same period, Verizon's productivity, measured in revenue per employee, grew 14.9%. In addition to the preservation of quality jobs and access to jobs in the new growth areas of the company, the CWA is calling on Verizon for improvements in pensions and a wage increase that accounts for the workers' increased productivity.



• At the end of Q1 2003, Verizon had 227,000 employees , down from 245,000 at the same point last year.

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Singapore's StarHub Selects Thompson for Video Hub

StarHub, Singapore's only cable TV operator, selected Thompson to provide professional equipment and integration services to enable StarHub to convert its nearly 400,000 cable TV subscribers to digital in the year ahead. The $16 million deal includes the installation of a full range of Grass Valley router, router control and modular products from Thomson as well as Nextream encoders and multiplexing technology, also from Thomson. Additionally, StarHub has appointed Thomson Broadcast & Media Solutions as the prime contractor and overall systems integrator of its digital cable Services facility, which will augment StarHub's $600 million broadband network.
http://www.thomson.net

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VocalData Secures $12.5 Million for Hosted IP Telephony Apps

VocalData, a start-up headquartered in Richardson, Texas, secured $12.5 million in Series C funding for its development of hosted IP telephony services. VocalData's flagship VOISS is a feature-rich, standards-based voice application server that enables service providers to supply businesses with IP Centrex, hosted PBX, VoIP VPN, and enhanced services such as conferencing and unified messaging. The company plans to use the new funding to expand existing sales efforts, build up additional international distribution channels, and strengthen customer-engineering support. The new round was led by Austin Ventures and included existing investors Trinity Ventures, Seed Capital Partners L.P., Hickory Ventures, and JP Morgan Partners. VocalData has raised $60 million in funding to date.
http://www.vocaldata.com

• VocalData claims more than 35,000 VOISS lines are currently in service.

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Cypress Samples Highest-Density Sync SRAMs

Cypress Semiconductor began sampling the highest-density synchronous SRAMs produced so far. The 72-Mbit, six-transistor (6T) devices, supporting standard synchronous and NoBL (No Bus Latency) architectures, are designed for high-data-throughput, low-latency applications, including switching, routing, basestations and data storage. Cypress said the new SRAMs deliver data five to seven times faster than competing high-speed DRAMshttp://www.cypress.com

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