SingTel Witholds Bid for Pay TV License in Singapore

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has decided not to submit a tender for the second Subscription Television Service (Pay TV) license in Singapore. The company said that after careful evaluation of the framework of the license, it concluded that "there is no viable and sustainable business case for SingTel to make the significant investment required to enter the Pay TV market in the current environment." Among the factors cited for not pursuing the second Pay TV license from the government were the size of the Singapore market, the well-entrenched position of the dominant incumbent, the availability and access to media content and the infrastructure and equipment costs.


Instead of becoming a licensed Pay TV operator, SingTel remains keen to work with content providers to offer their video on-demand (VOD) programming in Singapore over its ADSL network. In 2001-2002, SingTel conducted an eight-month Interactive TV trial that provided participants with high-speed digital video programming as well as broadband Internet access. The company said it does not need a Pay TV license to provide video-on-demand and Interactive TV services.
http://www.singtel.com

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Swedish Start-ups Targets Mobile + Wi-Fi VPN Roaming

Aptilo Networks and ipUnplugged, both start-ups based in Sweden, announced a joint solution that enables automatic login at public hotspots for employees running a VPN client for GPRS, UMTS or CDMA services. Aptilo's technology manages the public hotspots and the public guests to the enterprises, while ipUnplugged's solution manages the corporate Mobile-VPN.
http://www.aptilo.com
http://www.ipunplugged.com

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Samsung Announces 4GB Flash Memory

Samsung Electronics announced the world first 4Gb NAND flash memory, following a growth curve that doubles its density every twelve months: 256Mb in 1999, 512Mb in 2000, 1Gb in 2001, 2Gb in 2002, and 4Gb in 2003. The company said that with the new higher density level, nonvolatile memory is now a viable choice for solid-state data storage, potentially replacing magnetic tapes and low-density hard disk drives. NAND flash will also target mobile applications, such as notebook PCs, tablet PCs, mobile handsets, MP3 players and PDAs.
http://www.samsungsemi.com

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Juniper Opens Technical Center in Bangalore

Juniper Networks opened a new technical center in Bangalore, India and announced the expansion of its Technical Certification Program to give Indian candidates local training and certification for a wider range of Juniper Networks qualifications. The company also plans to appoint a Juniper Networks certified training partner in India to extend the training and certification available to IP professionals.
http://www.juniper.net

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TIA Calls for Health Care Telecom Cabling Guidelines

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is considering developing guidelines for the health care industry relative to providing a universal, generic telecommunications infrastructure. Such guidelines would serve as a supplement to ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.1-2001 (Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard), which specifies a generic cabling systems so that commercial buildings can support multi-vendor and multi-service communications.


New health care telecom guidelines would enable the planning and installation of a structured cabling system for health care facilities. Installation of cabling systems during building construction or renovation is significantly less expensive and less disruptive than after the building is occupied. The guidelines would address both clinical and non-clinical applications, as well as public and enterprise networks. The systems that can be accommodated using structured cabling can include but are not limited to:

• Voice, Data and Video (closed circuit TV, security and broadcast)


• Mobile Applications Nurse Call, Patient Monitoring


• Tracking (professional, patient, asset)


• Diagnostic Imaging, Pharma Applications, Telemedicine


• Bioanalytical Systems, Life Safety, Lighting Control


• Master Clock


• Public Networks, etc.

TIA's TR-42 Engineering Committee on User Premises Telecommunications Infrastructure is inviting interested parties, including users, designers and integrators, to contribute to this proposed project development.
http://www.tiaonline.org/media/press_releases/index.cfm?parelease=03-117

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Emergent Networks Unveils Softswitch

Emergent Networks, a start-up based in Allen, Texas, introduced a vendor- and technology-agnostic switch call control and element management system that supports legacy as well as packet networks. The ENTICE (Emergent Networks Telecommunications Infrastructure Control Environment) bridges H.323, SIP, SS7, ISDN, IP, TDM, and other leading communications protocols. Emergent said its platform's open APIs allow extensive customization for applications such as voicemail, unified messaging, find me/follow me services, and others. Emergent offers the following "pre-packaged" solutions:

• ENTICE Softswitch, providing carrier-grade call control, translations, routing, and element provisioning for a network of H.323, SIP, or H.248-based network elements. An optional SS7 controller provides access to signaling networks worldwide;



• ENTICE Session Controller, allowing full access to communications flows (signaling, media, and media control) necessary to establish media sessions in a packet network;



• ENTICE Enhanced Services Platform, assuring the necessary features, scalability, and reliability necessary for enhanced services in a disparate, converged network. Custom call center solutions also supported;



• ENTICE Tandem Switch/International Gateway, enabling converged international switching (IP, TDM, or any combination) by combining ENTICE's routing, screening, and translation capabilities with Excel Switching's open, programmable hardware; and



• ENTICE Protocol Translator, supporting translation between protocols for all existing networks including SS7, ISDN, H.323, SIP, H.248, and CAS.

The company claims scalability up to 100K ports.
http://www.emergent-netsolutions.com

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Pirelli Supplies Undersea Cable linking Kuwait and Iran

Pirelli was awarded a contract for supplying submarine and land fiber optic cables as well as terminal transmission equipment for a network linking Kuwait City and Ganeveh in Iran. The network will use Pirelli cables with G654 fibers and initially operate at 2.5 Gbps. It will be DWDM upgradeable to 4 channels of 10 Gbps. The link will be complete by Q2 2004. Additional branches are also planned for Failakah (Kuwait) and the Kharg (Iran) islands and to an Iranian offshore oil platform. The cable system will be owned by the Ministry of Communications of Kuwait and the Telecommunications Company of Iran. The project is the first for Pirelli in the region.
http://www.pirelli.com

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Arianespace Launches 2 Communications Satellites

Arianespace successfully orbited two geostationary communications satellites: INSAT-3E for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and e-BIRD for Eutelsat. The INSAT-3E satellite, which was built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore, is equipped with 36 C-band and extended C-band transponders for telecommunications and TV transmission services for the Indian sub-continent. The e-BIRD satellite was built by Boeing Space Systems in El Segundo, California, and is equipped with 20 Ku-band transponders for providing high-speed IP links for Europe and Turkey. The mission's third payload, ESA's SMART-1 lunar probe, was successfully injected into an orbit that will take it to the Moon. The launch was carried out by a standard Ariane 5 "Generic" launcher from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
http://www.arianespace.com

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Paradyne Promotes is 'Pizza Box' DSLAM

Paradyne Networks announced a five week promotion for its "pizza box" sized GranDSLAM 4200IP product. A starter kit is priced at $65 per port and includes a GranDSLAM 4200IP and five endpoints.
http://www.paradyne.com

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TeleSym Secures Funding for Wi-Fi Phones

TeleSym, a start-up based in Bellevue, Washington, raised $12.5 million in second round funding for its Wi-Fi phone software. The TeleSym software enables voice calling from mobile computers or PDAs on wireless networks. The company's SymPhone System adds cordless phone capability to every computer on a Wi-Fi network. The funding round was led by the Intel Communications Fund and Siemens Venture Capital, and includes new investor Thomas Weisel Venture Partners. Original investors Bay Partners and Northwest Venture Associates also participated.


The company claims that when calling between SymPhones across the open Internet and Wi-Fi (802.11) LANs, the fidelity is "near-CD-quality," with no perceived latency (delay).
http://www.telesym.com

• TeleSym is headed by Raju Gulabani, who previously served as a Product Unit Manager at Microsoft.

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RealNetworks Signs Two Asian Mobile Operators

RealNetworks will supply its Helix mobile technology to MobileOne Ltd. (M1) of Singapore and PT Indosat Multimedia Mobile (IM3) of Indonesia. The RealNetworks' Helix mobile technology is an open, multi-format mobile platform that enables operators to stream live and on-demand Internet audio and video content to mobile devices enabled with the RealOne Player or other multimedia-enabled applications. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.realnetworks.comIn February, Hong Kong CSL became the first Asian operator to announce plans to stream mobile video services using RealNetworks' Helix technology.

In June, the Vodafone Group PLC, the world's largest group of mobile operators with a presence in 36 countries, announced it had chosen RealNetworks to provide mobile media delivery technology to power audio and video services for it's new Vodafone live!

In August, Sprint and RealNetworks announced the availability of RealOne mobile for Sprint PCS Vision customers.

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Nokia announces Corporate Restructuring

Nokia announced a corporate restructuring aimed at re-focusing its business "on convergence, new mobility markets and growth." The change follows the reorganization of Nokia Mobile Phones into nine business units in the spring of 2002. The new structure consists of four business groups, corporate-wide sales, marketing, logistics, manufacturing and technology units, as well as a corporate strategy, development and research unit. The four business groups are:

• Mobile Phones -- which offers a global range of mobile phones for large consumer segments. The group is headed by Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.



• Multimedia -- which focuses on bringing mobile multimedia to consumers in the form of images, games, music and a range of other attractive content. The group is headed by Anssi Vanjoki.



• Networks -- which offers network technology and related services based on major wireless standards. The group is headed by Sari Baldauf.



• Enterprise Solutions -- which provides a range of terminals and mobile connectivity solutions based on end-to-end mobility architecture. A general manager for the group will be announced later.

The changes will be in effect as of January 1, 2004.
http://www.nokia.com

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