Industry Responds to FCC Triennial Review Order

Noting that it took the FCC two years to produce the order, Verizon Communications said it needed time to fully consider the implications. Tom Tauke, senior vice president-Public Policy and External Affairs for Verizon, said "the world is changing so fast that the order may already be outdated." AT&T commended the FCC majority "for keeping its promises to consumers." Robert Quinn, AT&T Vice President for Federal Regulatory Affairs, said the order "will allow AT&T to continue to serve our existing local customers and to follow through...

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FCC Commissioners Remain Split over Unbundling Decision

Six months after their contentious 3-to-2 vote on the landmark Triennial Review proceeding, FCC commissioners remained divided over key points of the ruling.Chairman Michael Powell said he was pleased that the majority made a number of changes to the final UNE-P order that respond to his concern, but that he remains convinced that many of the decisions represent poor public policy and flout the law. In a 17-page dissent, Powell writes that trying to preserve UNE-P switching as a favored means of competition without any meaningful considering of...

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F5 Networks and NetScaler Settle Patent Dispute

F5 Networks and NetScaler settled their patent dispute surrounding F5 Networks' "Cookie Persistence" patent, which enables key capabilities for traffic management and load balancing products. As part of the settlement, F5 and NetScaler will enter into a cross-license agreement where NetScaler will license the F5 Cookie Persistence patent and F5 will license a NetScaler patent. NetScaler will also pay F5 an undisclosed licensing fee. http://www.netscaler.com http://www.f5....

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CIENA Reports Quarterly Revenue of $68.5 Million

CIENA reported quarterly revenue of $68.5 million for the period ending 31-July-03, an increase of 37% from the same period a year ago. CIENA's reported net loss for the period was $88.9 million, or a net loss of $0.20 per share (GAAP). During the quarter, CIENA added seven new customers, including two incumbent carriers. CIENA said its strategic plan is to evolve into a comprehensive network solutions provider, and that to thrive in today's telecom environment, it must get bigger, not smaller. Rather than simply cost-cut its way back to sustainable...

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FCC Releases 576-Page Triennial Review Order

Six months and one day after voting 3-to-2 to adopt a new set of network unbundling rules for incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), the FCC released the final rules for its Triennial Review Order. The 576-page document provides rules and regulations to clarify the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and address local phone and broadband competition issues, including previous Unbundled Network Elements (UNE) rules that had been overturned last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals.Significantly, the order eliminates most unbundling requirements for...

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CIENA to Acquire Akara for SANs over SONET

CIENA agreed to acquire Akara Corporation, a start-up developing SAN over SONET/SDH solutions, for an aggregate consideration of $45 million consisting of $31 million in cash and $14 million in shares of CIENA common stock. Akara's OUSP 2000 product family multiplexes data center protocols such as Fibre Channel, FICON, ESCON and Gigabit Ethernet in their native formats onto any SONET/SDH (DS3, OC-3/12/48, STM-1/4/16), DWDM or dark fiber network. Akara is based in Ottawa, Canada. http://www.ciena.com http://www.akara.comIn June 2003, Akara introduced...

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Siemens to Build 5th Global R&D center for Mobile Phones in Brazil

Siemens AG plans to invest more than US$110 million over the next five years to build its fifth global R&D center for Mobile Phones in Manaus, Brazil. Siemens already has R&D facilities for mobile phones in Germany, Denmark, China and the U.S. http://www.siemens....

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Bankruptcy Court Confirms MFN/AboveNet Plan of Reorganization

The U.S. bankruptcy court overseeing Metromedia Fiber Network's (MFN's) Chapter 11 case has confirmed the company's plan of reorganization, clearing the way for the company to emerge from bankruptcy protection in early September. MFN recently changed its brand name to AboveNet. Upon emergence from Chapter 11, the company expects to have approximately $70 million in senior bank debt and $73 million in cash by the end of the year. http://www.mfn.comIn June 1999, Metromedia Fiber Network agreed to acquire AboveNet Communications in a stock swap...

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MPLS/Frame Relay Alliance Approves TDM-over-MPLS

The MPLS/Frame Relay Alliance has approved a new Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)-over-MPLS Implementation Agreement (IA) that enables the delivery of n* 64kps (DS0), T1, E1, E3, T3 or other such private line services over an MPLS network. The new IA may be applied in the design of carrier or Provider Edge (PE) routers, multi-service edge switches and dedicated gateway equipment. The emulation method defines how the PE will map, encapsulate and tunnel TDM private line traffic over MPLS LSPs. Specifically, it defines the emulation of TDM circuits...

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