Internet Photonics and Jedai Broadband Enter Cable Partnership

Internet Photonics and Jedai Broadband Networks have formed a partnership aimed at cable operators. The alliance combines Internet Photonics' LightStack family of Optical Ethernet multi-service switching and transport products and the Jedai FrontRunner 3200 Access Switch Router family. The Jedai FrontRunner 3200 supports 10/100BaseT, 100BaseFX, T1/E1 and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. At a cable operators' hub, Internet Photonic's LightStack MX or LightStack GSLAM can aggregate or switch the traffic of several FrontRunner 3200 access systems for transport to other hubs or to the headend - even contention-free over the same wavelength carrying video traffic. At the headend, the LightStack GSLAM can switch traffic between hubs, to other headends, to backbone switch/routers, or to another FrontRunner 3200 for T1 termination. Both companies are based in New Jersey.
http://www.internetphotonics.com
http://www.jedai.com

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Nortel Networks Announces New Security Products

Nortel Networks announced new products, product enhancements and a security partner program for enterprise customers. The line-up includes:

• a new Alteon Operating System (AOS) 21.0 software release, currently available for Alteon Application Switch products, that provides Advanced Denial of Service (DoS) Protection, fault-tolerant Web Services enabled by Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) inspection for Web Services-aware traffic management, and intelligent peer-to-peer application management.


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  a new Alteon Secure Socket Layer Virtual Private Network software release designed for companies that utilize SSL VPNs as their primary means of remote access.


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  enhancements to the Nortel Networks Alteon Application Switch portfolio, including products optimized for IP telephony, streaming media, video teleconferencing, resource planning, e-mail, file transfer and financial activities.


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  a new Alteon Switched Firewall product line, which includes two significant enhancements, stealth mode deployment and Alteon Switched Firewall 5114. Stealth mode deployment provides intrinsic, high-performance security that cannot be detected by hackers or malicious users.


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  and a new security certification program for channel partners in North America.

http://www.nortelnetworks.com

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Equipe Adds MPLS LSR Functionality to its E3200 Platform

Equipe Communications released a software upgrade that adds MPLS LSR functionality to the native ATM switching and ATM/MPLS Interworking support of its E3200 platform. Equipe said having all three functionalities in a single platform is the key for making an MPLS core a reality for incumbent Layer 2 service providers. Unlike router-based implementations of MPLS, the Equipe 3200 offers the ability to Interwork ATM and MPLS or switch both in their native formats; provide per-connection traffic guarantees and operational visibility for all traffic types; ensure high-availability of the software, with non-stop routing and forwarding of ATM and MPLS services; and provide the virtual circuit and LSP scalability for a connection-oriented core network.
http://www.equipecom.com

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Canada's SaskTel Selects Lucent for Optical Upgrade

SaskTel, the incumbent service provider in Saskatchewan, Canada, will deploy Lucent Technologies' new optical management system to provide real-time provisioning and virtually instantaneous restoration of its optical backbone. Under the contract, Lucent will supply products from its Metropolis DMX family of access multiplexers and optical amplifiers from its Metropolis Wavelength Extension Solution to build regional transport rings in the province of Saskatchewan. Lucent will also supply the new Navis Optical Management System (OMS). SaskTel is deploying IP video over DSL, along with advanced Ethernet services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.lucent.com

• In May 2003, SaskTel signed a US$5 million contract for the supply of Nortel Networks Multimedia Communications Portfolio and Succession VoIP equipment. SaskTel is expected to be the first service provider worldwide to offer new revenue-generating multimedia and packet voice services using Nortel Networks Succession equipment. SaskTel is evolving its Nortel DMS circuit switched network to the Succession Communication Server 2000 platform. In addition, SaskTel said that it would deploy Nortel Networks Passport Packet Voice Gateways (PVGs) to expand its network reach and Nortel Networks Universal Signaling Point to interface between classic SS7 signaling and next generation IP and ATM packet networks. SaskTel will use the network for SIP-based hosted multimedia and packet voice services for both residential and business customers.
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  SaskTel is using the iMagicTV software platform for delivering interactive television service to its DSL subscribers. SaskTel will offer a triple-play service in which subscribers will receive high speed Internet access on both a television and computer, four email addresses, over twenty digital television stations, thirty CD quality music channels and Saskatchewan AM and FM radio stations.

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Centillium Revenues up 22% Sequentially, Cites 24 Mbps DSL in Japan

Centillium Communications reported Q2 revenue of $33.9 million, a 22% increase from the $27.8 million of revenues for Q1 2003, and a decrease of 1% from revenues of $34.4 million for Q2 2002. The GAAP net loss for Q2 was $511,000, or $0.01 per share. Centillium said the DSL market in Japan continues to grow, adding approximately 1.2 million new subscribers in Q2, for a total of 8.3 million lines in use at the end of June nationwide. Japan is a key marker for Centillium, where its customers are migrating to silicon systems supporting 24 Mbps ADSL service. The company also noted increased sales to China.
http://www.centillium.com

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MCI Launches Review of Least Cost Routing Operations

MCI hired Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, a law firm based in Washington D.C., to investigate competitor claims surrounding the company's handling of call routing and access fees. MCI said it routes approximately 8% of its traffic to Least Cost Routing (LCR) companies, which it claims are legitimate businesses that provide long-distance and competitive local exchange carriers with an alternative to terminate traffic and reduce access fees. The company denied charges that some secure U.S. government traffic could have been compromised in any way.
http://www.mci.com

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Eutelsat selects Alcatel to build HOT BIRD 7A satellite

Eutelsat selected Alcatel to build a new HOT BIRD 7A communications satellite. The original HOT BIRD 7 satellite was lost during a launch in December 2002. In addition to the original specifications, HOT BIRD 7A's mission has been expanded to provide additional back-up and replacement capacity at Eutelsat's key orbital slot, 13 degrees East. The new satellite will be based on Alcatel Space's Spacebus 3000 B3 platform. Launch is planned for the autumn of 2005.
http://www.alcatel.com

• On 11-December-2002, Arianespace's first Ariane 5 rocket carrying a 10-ton payload for Eutelsat and the French space agency CNES failed soon after launch from Kourou, French Guinea. The Ariane 5 rocket and its Hotbird 7 satellite were purposefully destroyed at an altitude of about 69 kilometers and a distance of 800 kilometers off the coast of French Guiana. HOT BIRD 7, a direct-broadcast television satellite, was designed as an early replacement for an existing Eutelsat broadcasting satellite that will now continue in service. The Ariane 5 rocket was also carrying STENTOR, a telecom technology demonstration satellite for the French space agency.

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Alcatel Returns to Profitability

Alcatel returned to profitability in Q2, with all of its major segments at break-even or better. Reported quarterly sales were EUR 3.149 billion, up 6% compared to the previously quarter but down 26% compared to Q2 2002. Alcatel said its restructuring is on-track and starting to deliver positive results, despite a weak telecom environment overall. Some highlights:

• revenues for Fixed Communications (service providers) increased sequentially by 6.8% to EUR 1.405 billion


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  revenues for Mobile Communications increased sequentially by 4.5% to EUR 834 million


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  revenues for Private Communications (enterprise) increased sequentially by 6.3% to EUR 1.012 billion


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  employee headcount is 72,000, down by 4,000 compared to the end of Q1 and down by 18,000 year-over-year. With its divestitures and on-going restructuring, Alcatel expects to have 60,000 employees by year-end 2003.


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  fixed operating costs were below EUR 1.3 billion, down 6% sequentially and 27% year-over-year


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  gross margin was 35.1%, up 1% sequentially and up 5% year-over-year


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  geographical distribution of sales were W. Europe (42%), other Europe (8%), North America (15%), Asia (17%) and rest-of-world (18%)

Alcatel expects the market in the second half of this year will be close to the second half of 2002, at a constant dollar/EUR exchange rate.
http://www.alcatel.com

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Verizon's DSL Growth Slows and UNE-P Loss Continues, Strong Free Cash Flow

Verizon Communications added 101,000 net DSL customers in Q2, compared to 160,000 net additions in Q1. On the financial front, Verizon reported operating revenues of $16.8 billion for Q2 2003, compared to $16.3 billion in the preceding quarter. The company described the quarter as very solid, especially for strong growth in wireless and long distance services. Key metrics include:

• Verizon Wireless: 1.2 million net retail customer additions, up 10 percent from last year's quarter (1.3 million total net customer additions); record-low churn; strong margins; service revenue up 14.7 percent from last year's quarter; customer total at 34.6 million. Text messaging grew to more than 300 million billed text messages a month, and 1.4 billion in the first half of this year. Usage on the company's Express Network has significantly increased over the preceding quarter. Wireless operations have generated $1.1 billion in free cash flow this year.


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  Long Distance: there were 1.4 million net additional long-distance lines in the quarter. Total long-distance lines now number 14.6 million, a 36.1% year-over-year increase.


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  DSL: added 101,000 net DSL subscribers, giving it a total of 1.9 million DSL lines. About 67% of Verizon's 56.8 million access lines are qualified to receive DSL service. During the quarter, Verizon eliminated outbound telemarketing promotions for DSL. This was done to address high churn levels and improve profitability. In mid-May, Verizon cut its DSL prices and launched a promotion with MSN8. Since then, Verizon said it has regained momentum in adding DSL customers. It now expects DSL growth rates to be much higher for the rest of the year.


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  Bundling: nearly 24% of Verizon consumers now subscribe to a package of Verizon services, including either local service plus enhanced calling features or local service plus broadband, long distance or wireless services.


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  Data Services: generated $1.8 billion in Q2, down slightly from the year-earlier period, with increased demand for high-speed services such as ATM, Frame Relay, SONET and DSL, offset by a lessened demand for low-speed services.


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  Access Line Loss: Verizon was serving 56.8 million access lines at the end of Q2, down 3.7% compared to the same period last year. The loss includes access line loss due to WorldCom disconnects -- without these WorldCom losses the decline would be 3.4% Business line loss was higher than consumer line loss. Factors affecting this loss are technology substitution and UNE-P competitors.


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  UNE-P lines: Verizon lost 518,000 lines to UNE-P competitors in Q2, compared to a 386,000 line loss in Q1 2003. Total resale and UNE-P lines now number 4,999,000, up by 36% from 3,678,00 at this time last year. The UNE-P increase was attributed to long distance company competitors (AT&T) in a handful of states. Verizon warned that unless regulators changed policies or pricing, UNE-P line losses were likely to continue in those states. The company cited New Jersey (AT&T's home state) as the state with UNE-P rates furthest out of balance.


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  The MCI saga: Verizon has been pursuing two lines regarding the WorldCom bankruptcy. First, Verizon reached a settlement with MCI to be reimbursed for some of the money it is owed for access charges. Second, Verizon believes that WorldCom must be punished and not allowed "to enjoy the fruits of its fraud."


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  Video Content: Regarding the recent SBC + EchoStar and Qwest + DirecTV and EchoStar deals, Verizon sees this trend as positive for the ILECs overall. Verizon does not plan to do such deal but might consider a video partner over the next 6 to 9 months. Long term, Verizon will look to a video solution that leverages its network, possibly an FTTP solution.


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  Labor negotiations: Currently underway. Contracts are expiring in the next few days.


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  FCC Triennial Review: Verizon eagerly awaits the final release of the FCC's triennial review so that it can factor the details into its business activities.


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  Diluted earnings per share (EPS): $0.12 in fully diluted EPS, compared with a loss of $0.78 per share in Q2 2002


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  Net debt at the end of Q2 was $48.1 billion, down by $3.7 billion since year-end 2002.


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  CAPEX to revenue ration is now 15.2%

Verizon reiterated 2003 guidance of $2.70 to $2.80 in adjusted EPS, 0-2% comparable revenue growth, and $12.5 billion to $13.5 billion in capital expenditures. Also, Verizon is now targeting a further $3 billion to $4 billion reduction in net debt -- from a range of $49 billion to $51 billion, to $46 billion to $47 billion -- based on continued strong operational performance, and the use of proceeds from non-strategic asset sales.
http://www.verizon.com

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Telefónica Reaches 1.9 Million ADSL Subscribers

The Telefónica Group reported growth in semi-annual revenues, EBITDA and operating profits, which grew 5.2%, 10.7% and 22.8%, respectively. Strong free cash flow from operations and reduced CAPEX and OPEX was used to cut the company's net debt by EUR 2.5 billion to EUR 19.9 billion. By geographical region, Spain now accounts for 62% of the Group's overall revenues, compared to 55% a year ago. ADSL connections across the whole Telefónica Group totaled 1.9 million at the end of June 2003, up 88% over a year ago. Spain accounted for 1.3 million of the ADSL total.
http://www.telefonica.com

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Telecom Italia acquires Germany's HanseNet

Telecom Italia will acquire HanseNet Telekommunikation GmbH, a broadband operator with approximately 80,000 subscribers in the Hamburg area. HanseNet is a facilities based operator that uses unbundled local loop elements for local access. The deal was valued at EUR 250 million.
http://www.telecomitalia.it

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Airspan Introduces Major Improvements in its Wireless DSL

Airspan Networks announced increases in performance, capacity and operational range for its non-line-of-sight broadband wireless platform, which operates in frequencies between 1.9 and 4.0 GHz. Specific improvements include an improved link budget of up to 165dB using high gain subscriber antennas; higher capacity CPE units supporting 2.3 Mbps downstream and 1.5 Mbps upstream of IP and four 64 kbps PCM voice lines; and better latency of 1ms for 64 kbps for voice Lines and less than 12ms for IP traffic. A new compact Base Station delivers 170 Mbps IP traffic and/or 480 erlangs of voice traffic in a contiguous cellular deployment.
http://www.airspan.com

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MIPI Alliance to Define Open Standards for Mobile Application Processors

The Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance, a new industry initiative backed by ARM, Nokia, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments, announced its charter to define and promote open standards for interfaces to mobile application processors. The MIPI Alliance is intended to complement existing standards bodies such as the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and 3GPP. While these organizations focus on services and air interfaces, respectively, the MIPI Alliance is focused on microprocessors, peripherals and software interfaces. The alliance arose in response to the broad interest in the OMAPI standard launched by ST and TI in December 2002.
http://www.mipi.org

• In December 2002, STMicroelectronics (ST) and Texas Instruments (TI) agreed to jointly define and promote an open standard for wireless application processor interfaces. The new Open Mobile Application Processor Interfaces (OMAPI) Standard is aimed at promoting faster and broader deployment of multimedia-enhanced mobile devices and applications. The standard will be comprised of a set of software interfaces to the operating system and a set of hardware interfaces defining common application peripherals.

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France Telecom Stabilizes Local Competitive Threat

France Telecom said the impact of the opening of the local telecommunications market to competition, which affected its telecommunication revenues in 2002, has substantially subsided. The quarterly decline in revenues from fixed line telephony in France slowed to 2.0% in Q2 2003 compared to a decrease of 4.8% in Q1 2003 and a decrease of 7.5% in Q4 2002. France Telecom's market share in local traffic in June 2003 amounted to 77.8% compared to 79.1% in March 2003, representing a decrease of 1.3 points over the second quarter compared to a decrease of 1.8 points in Q1 2003. Some other highlights of its quarterly report:

• Revenues from ADSL broadband Internet access (excluding revenues from Wanadoo clients) increased 75% compared to Q2 2002 due to the rapid development of ADSL in France.


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  The number of broadband Internet access connections (including Wanadoo's ADSL access in France) nearly tripled, reaching 2,037,000 for Q2 2003 compared to 695,000 for the year-earlier period. Growth continued at a steady rate, with 260,000 new ADSL connections in Q2 2003.


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  France Telecom aims to have 3 million ADSL connections by the end of 2003.


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  The company reported consolidated Q2 revenue of EUR 11.5 billion, a 3.3% decrease compared to Q2 2002 on a historical basis. On a comparable basis, excluding the negative effect of exchange rates and the exit from its Dutch cable operations, France Telecom's quarterly revenues continued to improve, with a 4.4% increase in Q2-2003, after a 3.3% increase in Q1 2003 and 2.9% in Q4 2002.


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  Revenues from Orange and Wanadoo recorded sustained growth in Q2 2003 comparable to that achieved during the preceding quarters.


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  Orange had a total of 45.6 million mobile customers globally at the end of Q2.


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  CAPEX for Q2 was EUR 1.1 billion, or 10% of quarterly revenues, compared to approximately EUR 1.7 billion EURs for Q2 2002 on a comparable basis, representing a decrease of approximately 34% and a savings of approximately EUR 578 million. Approximately 80% of CAPEX was allocated to growth sectors (compared to 20% for maintenance, renewal and operations). Spending on ADSL increased relative to Q2 2002.

http://www.francetelecom.com

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