Thursday, August 14, 2003

StarBand Seeks Emergence from Chapter 11 by Year's End

StarBand, a provider of two-way satellite Internet services, filed its reorganization plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The company is seeking an emergence from Chapter 11 status before the end of the year. Starband said its capital structure has significantly improved with the conversion of approximately $113 million of bank debt to equity. In addition, approximately $90 million of debt to Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. will convert to equity and a $14 million post-emergence note. Further, StarBand and Gilat have entered into a new technology and hardware supply agreement including $7 million in additional financing. Since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 31-May-2002, Starband has expanded a new nationwide sales channel now comprised of over 2,400 independent dealers, and launched its fourth generation CPE and service. The new StarBand 480 Pro service offers downloading at up to 1 Mbps and uploads at 100 kbps.
http://www.starband.com

Xtera Raises $30 Million for its Raman-based DWDM

Xtera Communications, a start-up based in Allen, Texas, closed on $30 million of new financing for its Raman based DWDM system. The Xtera system designed to lower the cost of long-haul optical transmission. Xtera's existing investors provided the majority of the financing.
http://www.xtera.com
  • In February 2002, Xtera Communications unveiled a long-haul DWDM platform capable of supporting up to 240 wavelengths at 10 Gbps. The Nu-Wave system uses Raman amplification over a 100 nm spectrum to transmit up to 1500 km without electrical regeneration. Xtera is targeting system capacity of 2.4 terabits in three 7-foot by 12-inch deep bays, and believes that its product will offer long distance carriers a less expensive alternative to current DWDM platforms. The company also says that any in-line amplifier (ILA) site can be converted, in-service, to an optical add drop multiplexer (OADM) with no distance trade-off.


  • Xtera was founded by Dr. Mohammed N. Islam, a tenured professor in Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

RCN Launches ESPN Broadband Service for Cable Modem Customers

RCN, which serves more than one million cable TV customers, began offering ESPN Broadband for its cable modem customers. The ESPN Broadband service provides video on-demand sports programming, including game highlights and behind-the-scenes coverage. RCN's cable modem service provides download speeds of up to 3 Mbps.
http://www.rcn.com

McDonalds to Equip 360 Locations in Taiwan with Wi-Fi

McDonald's Corporation of Taiwan will equip all 360 of its locations on the island with Wi-Fi service. City Network said it was selected to be the sole supplier of the wireless accesspoints and related equipment. Taiwan's Easy-Up Corporation will be providing key engineering and technical assistancehttp://www.easy-up.net

Forum Leaders Agree to Greater Coordination of Standards Efforts

The leaders of 37 standards organizations agreed to more closely cooperate and coordinate their efforts in order to improve interoperability and reduce duplicative work in the standards making process. The agreement was a result of last month's ITU Informal Forum Summit in San Francisco, which was attended by more than 50 leaders of 37 standards making groups. The event was organized and hosted by Houlin Zhao, Director of the ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, to allow the heads of standards groups to come together and discuss proposals for better collaboration. Zhao highlighted the need for standards organizations to avoid duplication of work and more efficiently use limited resources in the interests of industry and consumers. The Summit's goal was twofold: 1) to find formal ways to improve cooperative efforts, and 2) to create an informal environment in which individual forum leaders could work directly with each other to find ongoing ways for their groups to collaborate.


A final output document from the Summit defined a common mission statement, outlined goals for ongoing cooperative activities, and defined areas of interest which participants will examine for overlap and synergies. The document can be seen online.


The attending organizations included 3GPP, ATM Forum, Broadband Content Delivery Forum, DSL Forum, IEEE- ISTO, IPv6 Forum, Metro Ethernet Forum, MPLS and Frame Relay Alliance, Multi-service Switching Forum, OIF, OMG, TeleManagement Forum, and UMTS Forum.


The first Informal Forum Summit was held in December 2001, and was attended by 18 organizations. ITU-T Director Houlin Zhao said that the current state of the telecommunications industry has increased the desire of industry and forums to improve their ties and efficiency, resulting in the doubling of participating groups at the second Summit.
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/forum/072003/output.htmlhttp://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/forum/
  • Earlier this month, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the TeleManagement Forum announced an agreement that will allow TM Forum standards to be published by ITU as ITU-T Recommendations. The TM Forum's work has long been complementary to that of ITU-T's Study Group 4. The partnership means that the ITU and the TM Forum can avoid duplication of work and get standards to market in a far more efficient manner.

Telstra Launches Enterprise IP Telephony service in Australia

Telstra began offering an IP Telephony service aimed at businesses and government agencies. The carrier said its service provides the ability to combine existing handsets and PBX equipment with the latest generation of IP technology. Advanced features of the Telstra IP Telephony service includes a unified messaging mailbox for email and voice-mail, online phone directory information with click and call capability, and Web-based configuration for call forwarding and call waiting. Australia's Westpac Banking Corporation plans to undertake a major migration to IP telephony involving more than 30,000 handsets at 1,000 locations by December 2004.http://telstra.com

SingTel Partners with China Telecom on Business Services

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) secured an agreement with China Telecom to provide corporate communications services between China and the rest of the world. The services, which include International Frame Relay, ATM and IP-VPNs, will be delivered via SingTel's globally managed network called ConnectPlus and China Telecom's domestic infrastructure. SingTel's ConnectPlus network covers 25 cities in 18 countries and territories around the world. The carriers have been exchanging international VoIP traffic since July 1999.
http://www.singtel.com

SingTel Signs Wi-Fi Roaming Deal with GRIC

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) announced a W-Fi roaming agreement with GRIC Communications, provides its customers with access at more than 2,000 locations in 14 countries. As part of the partnership, SingTel will also open its 200 over wireless surf zones in Singapore to the GRIC TierOne Network. GRIC now has some 300 service providers in its roaming alliance.
http://www.singtel.com
  • In July, AT&T announced a Wi-Fi roaming agreement with GRIC. The GRIC network offers 185 access locations in 41 airports; 1,400 access locations in 860 hotels; and 19 access locations in 15 convention centers. Of a total of 2,132 access locations, nearly 1,600 are wireless locations in 14 countries, and more than 500 are hotel Ethernet locations.