Monday, July 21, 2003

Sprint Awards $1 billion Contract to Lucent

Sprint awarded a new, multi-year contract valued at up to $1 billion to Lucent Technologies to enhance and upgrade its SprintPCS wireless network in the US. Specifically, Lucent will provide Sprint with its Flexent CDMA Modular Cell 4.0 and other advanced base stations, switching equipment, related software and advanced services. The contract also covers installation and support from Lucent Worldwide Services. The new equipment will enhance Sprint's nationwide 3G1X network, increase coverage and capacity, and enable Sprint to offer more advanced data services based on CDMA2000 1xEV-DV technology in the future.
http://www.lucent.com
http://www.sprint.com

Broadcom Posts Q2 Revenue of $378M, up 15% Sequentially

Broadcom reported Q2 net revenues of $378 million, an increase of 15.4% from the $328 million reported for Q1 2003 and an increase of 46% from the $258 million reported for Q2 2002. It was Broadcom's eighth consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Broadcom noted "strength in revenues" across most of its businesses, both in its core markets for cable set top boxes and modems, servers and enterprise networking solutions, as well as in its emerging markets, including wireless LAN, DSL, DBS and Bluetooth. Including special charges, the GAAP net loss was ($832) million, or $2.87 per share (basic and diluted), compared with a GAAP net loss of $68 million, or $.25 per share (basic and diluted), for the first quarter of 2003. The charges include a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $434 million (mainly for goodwill related to the ServerWorks acquisition), $118 million in settlement costs for the ServerWorks acquisition, and a $221 million charge related to its previously announced employee stock option exchange program. Excluding the charges, pro forma net income for Q2 2003 was $29.6 million, or $.10 per share (diluted).
http://www.broadcom.com

Proxim Announces Revenue Decline, $30 Million Funding

Proxim Corporation announced Q2 revenues of $34.8 million, down from $45 million one year ago and $40 million in the previous quarter. The Q2 net loss was $(48.7) million, compared to $(6.7) million in the same period a year ago. Results included $12.5 million of restructuring charges for the consolidation of excess facilities, fixed asset write-offs, workforce reductions and contract termination costs. Proxim ended the quarter with $7.9 million in cash.


As part of its efforts to reorganize, Proxim has secured funding of at least $30 million and as much as $40 million from Warburg Pincus and Broadview Capital Partners. Funds will be used for ongoing business operations as well as to fund certain one-time restructuring expenses, including the settlement of a lease buyout obligation, and for legal expenses related to the patent infringement litigation with Symbol Technologies. The funding is provided in the form of short term secured exchangeable promissory notes bearing interest at 25% per annum. Proxim will seek immediate stockholder approval to convert these notes into convertible preferred stock, which in turn can be converted into Class A common stock at an initial conversion price of $1.15 per share. Upon the issuance of the Series B convertible preferred stock, Warburg Pincus and Broadview will also be granted warrants to acquire 18,000,000 shares of common stock.
http://www.proxim.com

ARRIS to Acquire Com21

ARRIS certain cable modem termination systems (CMTS) related assets of COM 21, including the stock of its Irish subsidiary, for a purchase price of approximately $2.8 million. The acquired assets include a DOCSIS 2.0 based Layer 3 capable CMTS specifically suited for smaller markets. ARRIS said the acquisition is complementary to its own Cadant C4 CMTS, which is positioned for larger urban markets. The deal requires approval from the bankruptcy courts.
http://www.arrisi.com
  • Earlier this month, Com21 voluntarily filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. The company said that it intended to use the Chapter 11 process to restructure its operations.


  • In May 2003, ARRIS agreed to re-brand and re-sell Com21's DOXcontroller 1000XB cable modem termination system (CMTS) worldwide. The DOXcontroller 1000XB adds a small scale DOCSIS 2.0-based and Layer 3 capable CMTS to the ARRIS portfolio of next generation high speed data products.

Verilink Acquires Terayon's Miniplex Pair Gain Solution

Verilink agreed to acquire all the fixed assets and intellectual property rights related to Terayon's Miniplex product line for telecom carriers. The Miniplex product line enables carriers to provide multiple POTS connections over a single copper pair. The purchase price was approximately $1,000,000.
http://www.verilink.com

3Com Secures Export Licenses for JV with Huawei

3Com has received the necessary US and UK export license approvals to license and share its technologies developed in the US and the UK with Huawei Technologies in connection with their joint venture which will have principal operations in China. The 3Com-Huawei joint venture plans to provide high-end data networking solutions to enterprise customers worldwide.
http://www.3com.com
  • In March 2003, 3Com and Huawei Technologies said that they would form a joint venture based in Hong Kong with principal operations in Hangzhou, China. Huawei's contribution to the JV will include enterprise networking business assets, including LAN switches, routers, engineering, sales/marketing resources and personnel, and licenses to its related intellectual property. 3Com's contribution to the JV will include $160 million in cash, assets related to its operations in China and Japan, and licenses to its related intellectual property. The name of the joint venture will be 3Com-Huawei in English and Huawei-3Com in Chinese. 3Com said the JV would provide it with modular layer 2 and 3, 10/100/1000 MB switches. The JV and Huawei will also provide 3Com with a full line of enterprise routers.


  • In January 2003, Cisco Systems filed a lawsuit against Huawei Technologies and its subsidiaries Huawei America and FutureWei Technologies alleging unlawful copying of Cisco's intellectual property. In particular, the suit alleges that Huawei unlawfully copied and misappropriated Cisco's IOS software, including source code, copied Cisco documentation and other copyrighted materials, and infringed numerous Cisco patents. Cisco claims that Huawei's operating system contains a number of text strings, file names, and even bugs that are identical to those found in Cisco's IOS source code.

Primal Supports Time Warner Cable's VoIP Primary Line Service

Primal Solutions is supplying IP mediation and rating technology for Time Warner Cable's VoIP cable primary-line residential telephone service in Portland, Maine. The Primal solution collects data from Time Warner Cable's network and turns the network data into call detail records. Primal's solution summarizes the call detail records and sends them to the existing billing system so that phone charges appear on customers' regular Time Warner Cable monthly statement. Primal's Connect IXC also enables Time Warner Cable Digital Phone customers to see the detail of their calls online on a secure web site. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.primal.com
  • In May 2003, Time Warner Cable began delivering VoIP cable primary-line residential telephone service in Portland, Maine using Cisco Systems' IP voice solution. The new "Digital Phone" service is part of a "triple play" bundle of services using standards-based technologies and intelligent networking based on Cisco products, including voice, video and Internet access. The deployment uses the Cisco BTS 10200 Softswitch, uBR7246VXR cable modem termination system, and MGX 8850 voice gateway products. Financial terms were not disclosed.

IP Unity and Gallery IP Offer Messaging for MSOs

IP Unity and Gallery IP Telephony, a provider of cable multimedia softswitching platforms, announced an interoperable messaging, conferencing, and pre-paid calling solutions for cable networks. The joint solution for MSOs provides a unified messaging suite with standard voicemail. Cable subscribers could also chose to integrate voicemail with email, receiving voice messages as WAV files in their email inbox and accessing emails through a telephone using IP Unity's text-to-speech technology. Unlike traditional conferencing applications, IP Unity's conferencing suite utilizes the media server's digital signal mixing and quality monitoring to ensure that only the three strongest signals are carried on the conference bridge. IP Unity and Gallery IP previously completed interoperability testing between IP Unity's Harmony 6000 Media Server platform and Gallery's softswitch. They have subsequently conducted further interoperability testing on each of IP Unity's Unified Messaging, Audio/Web Conferencing and Pre-paid Services applications.
http://www.ip-unity.com
http://www.g-ipt.com.
  • In May 2003, IP Unity announced general availability of its second-generation media server, featuring VoiceXML 2.0 and SIP capabilities. With the addition of VoiceXML 2.0 on the media server platform, developers can create voice and multimedia applications using standard development tools. The new IP Unity Harmony6000 media server adds speech recognition capabilities via software integrated onto a dedicated blade of the server. This enables service providers to offer speech applications that require intensive processing. The newly enhanced Harmony6000 enables the implementation of encryption algorithms and security mechanisms (IPSec, IKE, PKINIT). The IP Unity media server can also can be dynamically partitioned, allowing the media processing resources to be divided between multiple applications and/or multiple organizations.


  • IP Unity also released several enhancements to help carriers integrate its unified messaging suite into existing legacy voicemail systems.

VoicePulse Enhances Broadband Telephone Service

VoicePulse, which offers a broadband telephone service, began offering phone numbers in the popular (212) New York City area code to anyone in the U.S. with a broadband connection. The service includes traditional features such as Caller-ID, call waiting, call forwarding and voicemail. In addition, advanced features such as telemarketer blocking and anonymous call rejection automatically reduce unwanted phone calls. VoicePulse is charging $34.99/month for unlimited local, regional and US long distance calling. VoicePulse also offers a $25.99/month plan with unlimited local, regional and 600 US long distance minutes.
http://www.voicepulse.com

NextNet Wireless Secures Funding for its NLOS Systems

NextNet Wireless, a start-up based in Minneapolis, raised an additional round of funding to support its non-line-of-sight (NLOS) broadband wireless access systems. NextNet NLOS broadband wireless system uses OFDM to deliver IP compatible broadband applications, including VoIP and video streaming, inside a cell radius of up to 30 km. NextNet has deployments worldwide. COM Holdings, LLC, a private company controlled by Craig O. McCaw, led the round, with existing NextNet investors DCM-Doll Capital Management, Green Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners, Joseph Costello and others participating. Terms and size of the funding round were not disclosed.
http://www.nextnetwireless.com

Cyprus Plans National Scale Video-over DSL Network

The Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CYTA) will use Inovia Broadband Access' Hi-FOCuS Multi-Service Access Gateway (MSAG) in its triple-play network. Inovia Broadband Access is a division of ECI Telecom. Under the multi-year contract, ECI expects to deliver tens of thousands of DSL lines to enable the delivery of voice, data and video services to subscribers throughout Cyprus. Hi-FOCuS is a high-density, high-end access gateway that handles thousands of subscriber lines of any type - ADSL, SDSL, VDSL, POTS, and ISDN - with advanced functionalities including multi-level multicast, integrated voice gateway, FTTx and other functions. ECI said CYTA's broadband access network represents one of Europe's first national-scale triple play service networks.
http://www.ecitele.com
  • In June 2003, UTStarcom announced a contract to supply its AN-2000 Broadband Multi-Service Access Network (MSAN) to the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority to support a rollout of a "Fiber-to-the-Cabinet" (FTTCab) network. The selection was UTStarcom's first contract in Europe.

Tellabs Cites Progress on Path to Profitable Growth

Tellabs reported Q2 revenues of $234 million, up 5% over the previous quarter. There was a net loss of $111 million or $0.27 per share for quarter. During Q2, Tellabs recorded restructuring and other charges of $80 million including: $15 million for severance costs related to previously announced workforce reductions; $15 million for fixed-asset write-downs related to the workforce reduction and consolidation of operations; $3 million for facilities closure and miscellaneous licenses; $33 million related to excess and obsolete inventory; and $21 million related to inventory purchase commitments deemed to be excess. Included in the net charge is a $6 million reversal of previously recorded restructuring costs. Tellabs cited "real progress" on its path to profitable growth, as revenues increased and costs decreased during the quarter.
http://www.tellabs.com
  • On 18-June-2003, Tellabs closed its acquisition of Vivace Networks.

Earthlink Adds 102,000 Broadband Subscribers in Q2

Earthlink ended Q2 with approximately 5.04 million paying subscribers, up 180,000, or 3.7 percent, from a year ago. The company added 102,000 broadband subscribers during the quarter, ending with 993,000 broadband customers, up 64% from a year ago. Total narrowband subscribers declined 5% from a year ago to approximately 3.9 million. PeoplePC Online, the company's value-priced narrowband service, added approximately 78,000 subscribers to end the second quarter with 197,000 subscribers.


Financially, Earthlink reported Q2 revenues of $352.3 million, an increase of 5.0 percent from the same period a year ago. There was a net loss of $14.5 million compared to a loss of $34.9 million from a year ago. Net earnings (before acquisition-related amortization and accretion dividends) were $11.4 million compared to a loss of $10.8 million from a year ago. The ISP said it continues to drive down on-going costs while adding value to its Internet service.
http://www.earthlink.net

Earthlink Adds Software Acceleration to Dial-up Service

Earthlink is adding Web acceleration to its unlimited, dial-up Internet access service. The acceleration provides speeds up to five times faster than regular dial-up. The software compresses the size of Web pages and page elements sent to members' browsers. EarthLink first introduced the acceleration tool in March with its EarthLink Plus dial-up service.
http://www.earthlink.net

Avaya and HP Form Alliance for Converged Enterprise Networking

Avaya and HP announced a joint marketing agreement to bring together products for voice and data communications to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Specifically, the companies are building a common channel in which to distribute a bundled communications solution. In addition, Avaya has certified and recommends the HP ProLiant ML310, ML330 and DL320 servers as preferred platforms to run Avaya IP Office software.
http://www.avaya.com
http://www.hp.com
  • In May 2003, IBM and Avaya expanced their alliance targetting voice enabled solutions for corporate clients. The companies will combine resources, systems and offerings to deliver best-in-class, complete voice services solutions on multi-vendor platforms in the US. Specifically, Avaya Global Services will deliver maintenance and management services for IP telephony, traditional voice-enabled PBX systems and voice messaging systems to IBM's clients. IBM Global Services is the world's largest information technology services and consulting provider.

Microsoft, Bell Canada and SBC Join Internet Home Alliance

The Internet Home Alliance announced the addition of eight new members, including Microsoft, Bell Canada, SupportSoft and SBC Communications. The Internet Home Alliance is a cross-industry group founded in 2000 and dedicated to promoting the home technology market. Existing members include Best Buy, Cisco Systems, General Motors, HP, IBM, Invensys, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Corporation of America), Sears, Sun Microsystems and Whirlpool.
http://www.internethomealliance.com

UTStarcom Invests $25 Million to Expand R&D in India

UTStarcom announced plans to invest US$25 million in its Development Center at Bangalore in India. The expansion will double the employee count to 150 engineers. The Bangalore Development Center, which was established by Mascon Global in 2001, came into UTStarcom Corporation with the May 2003 acquisition of CommWorks, the carrier division of 3Com. This is the second R&D center UTStarcom has in India since the construction of its facility in Gurgaon in 2002. UTStarcom invested $25 million in its global R&D facility at Gurgaon last year.
http://www.utstar.com

Airespace Raises $22 Million for Wireless Platform

Airespace, a start-up based in San Jose, California, secured $22 million in series C funding for its development of wireless networking platforms that support business-critical applications. The company's AireWave Director Software provides dynamic RF intelligence for network optimization, "air tight" security, seamless mobility, and support for real-time applications, such as voice. The company's WLAN products began shipping in April and the company has already announced significant customer sales and a major OEM agreement with NEC. Fidelity Ventures led the new funding round. Existing investors Battery Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Storm Ventures, Hotung Capital, and KTB Ventures completed the oversubscribed round.
http://www.airespace.com
  • Airespace is headed by Brett D. Galloway, who previously acted as interim chief executive officer at Packeteer. He has also served as Packeteer's Vice President of Engineering and Chief Operating Officer.

Spirent Enhances Router Testing with New MPLS and IPv6 Suites

Spirent Communications released TeraRouting Tester 3.0, a test solution that provides fully automated functional and performance tests for MPLS IPv4 and IPv6 routing protocols on its SmartBits test platform. Spirent's TRT 3.0 scales to emulate hundreds of routing peers simultaneously with bi-directional traffic generation. Multiple protocols can be supported concurrently on every port and all aspects of the protocols can be modified to test the nuances and interaction of different networking technologies. Spirent's TRT 3.0 supports Ethernet, POS and ATM interfaces on its SmartBitsTest System and on its new high-density GE TeraMetrics XD modules. With the new release, Spirent said its router testing solutions now include all available implementations of MPLS and IPv6.
http://www.spirentcom.com

Westell Introduces Dynamic Multi-Hybrid (DMH) ADSL Modem

Westell unveiled a Dynamic Multi-Hybrid (DMH) technology that it claims improves DSL performance by as much as five times on DSL lines with bridged taps. The company estimates that approximately 75% of telephone lines have some form of bridged tap, which can impair DSL service quality and download speed. Westell said its new ADSL model with DMH technology almost completely eliminates the effects of bridged taps enabling significant improvement in downstream data rates and permits more access lines to deliver DSL service. Westell calculates a 300% improvement in the downstream rate over that of a conventional modem with a typical 250-500 ft. bridged tap. This improvement in signal quality enables service providers to successfully provision DSL services at distances further from the central office than previously obtainable. Westell's WireSpeed modem with DMH technology is a single ended modem solution working with standard ADSL central office DSLAMs.
http://www.westell.com