USTA Renews Call for Regulatory Reform

The FCC and the state public utilities commissions continue to apply 19th century rules to the 21st century communications industry, said Walter B. McCormick, President of the U.S. Telecommunications Association, speaking at the opening of his organization's annual conference. McCormick observed that even as competition has grown, the scope of economic regulations have increased -- a situation that he argues is more befitting of the old Soviet Union central planning committees. The USTA is promoting a vision of a competitive communications marketplace...

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Global Crossing Becomes Carrier of Choice for Vonage

Global Crossing was awarded a multi-year contract by Vonage to provide IP transit, co-location service, and domestic and international voice termination services. The partnership will make Global Crossing Vonage's preferred provider of long distance voice termination. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.globalcrossing.com http://www.vonage....

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Metalink Breaks 100,000 VDSL Ports Milestone in North America

Metalink has reached the 100,000 ports shipment mark for its VDSL chipset in North-America. The company said the growth in demand for shipments represents acceleration in deployment of QAM VDSL in North America, primarily in Canada, for supporting triple-play services. Metalink's QAM VDSL chipsets support the ITU, ETSI, Chinese, and ANSI band allocation plans. http://www.metalinkBB....

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Kasenna Adds Windows Media 9 to its VOD Server

Kasenna announced support for Microsoft Windows Media 9 Series in its MediaBase XMP products for commercial-grade VOD deployments. The MediaBase XMP platform already supports MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and upcoming the upcoming H.264 format. Kasenna is also working with Optibase's MGW 5100 TV streaming platform, Orca Interactive's RiGHTv middleware and Samsung's Windows CE-based set-top boxes -- to support Windows Media 9 Series streaming and Windows Media DRM technology. http://www.kasenna....

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Harris Debuts New Microwave Radio Architecture

Harris Corporation unveiled an entirely new microwave radio architecture for providing SDH and PDH in a single platform for mobile, private network, government, and access service providers. Key technological advances of the Harris TRuepoint include its ability to migrate from 4 to 180 Mbps on one radio, and its ability to support all operating frequency bands from 6 to 38 GHz and network interfaces for E rates, T rates, STM1, OC3, 10baseT, and 100baseT. Internal network multiplexing capabilities support circuit grooming and add/drop multiplexing...

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Nortel Networks Unveils Optical Edge Platform

Nortel Networks introduced a new optical edge platform designed to converge multiple services, architectures and layers from new or existing networks onto a single platform. Nortel Networks said its new Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 may help service providers to reduce capital and operating costs by as much as 40% by reducing the number of elements in their multiservice network. Specifically, the platform can deliver combined Layer 0, 1 and 2 services and selectable bit rates. It features flex reach optics and support for emerging optical broadband...

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Alcatel and HP Team with Service Providers on SMB Solutions

Alcatel and HP announced plans to jointly develop and market a suite of advanced, integrated IT and communication products specifically designed for small and medium businesses (SMBs). The "Ready Office" program would enable service providers to offer a single point of contact for service and support to SMBs. France Telecom will be the first telecom service provider to join the Alcatel and HP initiative. Alcatel and HP also agreed to leverage their extensive network of indirect distribution channels. http://www.alcatel.com http://www.hp....

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Sylantro Raises $15 Million for its IP Centrex, BCE Leads the Round

Sylantro Systems, a developer of IP Centrex and hosted communications applications, closed a $15 million Series D funding round, bringing the company's total funding to date to over $92 million. Sylantro's hosted communications and IP Centrex applications allow service providers to offer a range of high-value PBX replacement services. BCE Capital, the venture capital subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises, led the investment, with participation from Sylantro's existing investor group including Accel Partners, Azure Capital Partners, Bank of America,...

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OpVista Raises $10 Million for its Optical Transport for MSOs

OpVista, a start-up based in Irvine, California, secured $10 million in C round venture funding for its optical transport systems for the convergence of video, voice, and data services in the cable industry. OpVista's flagship MetroVista optical transport system is scalable from one to 800 Gbps on a single fiber for up to 1000km without dispersion compensation, signal regeneration or fiber plant re-engineering. The new funding was led by Excelsior Venture Partners and included earlier investors Incubic, Sevin Rosen Funds, WK Technologies, and...

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Vonage Launches National TV Ads Depicting Consumer Revolt

Vonage launched a new multi-million dollar television advertising campaign portraying a consumer revolution against the traditional, big phone companies, and an ultimate switch to broadband telephone service with Vonage. The advertising spots seek to tap into consumer resentment of hidden charges and fees in their phone bills. The campaign, which consists of 30, 60, and 120 second spots, opens with a man who declares, "I didn't want to be controversial, but I just couldn't take it anymore." A voice-over follows: "Like all great movements, it...

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SBC's Bill Daley Says Market is Teaming with Competition

Consumers are now readily substituting wireless for wireline service and enjoy an unprecedented choice of options, said William Daley, President of SBC Communications, at the USTA Telecom 03 conference in Las Vegas. Daley argued that in this flourishing market of consumer choice, where one could easily switch between cable or DSL broadband providers, it is imperative for the FCC to implement rational policy decisions. Daley said he has been surprised by the harshness of the policy debates in the telecom industry -- an interesting observation...

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Barton Foresees No Congressional Action on Telecom in 2004

As the nation enters the presidential election cycle, Congress most likely will not consider any major new telecommunications legislation, said Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas), speaking at USTA Telecom 03 in Las Vegas. Barton, who sits on the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said it is obvious that we need to revisit the Telecom Act of 1996. Whereas many people anticipated that the Telecom Act would lead to extensive facilities-based competition, Barton said FCC policies had instead led to the mess of UNE-p. Barton suggested that...

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Verizon Selects Cisco 12000 Series Routers for National IP VPN Network

Verizon Communications selected the Cisco 12000 Series Router platform in its national IP VPN network. The platform, which will be used to deliver Layer 3 IP/MPLS VPN services, will be deployed as Verizon's Local Access Transport Area (LATA) core router as well as one of the service edge router platforms for Verizon's Enterprise Advance initiative. The initiative, launched by Verizon last November, provides a national enterprise networking strategy based on a common IP backbone. Cisco said that by deploying its IP Services Engine (ISE) technology,...

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Bill Gates Says Software Key to Telecom Future

Software is the key to enabling a new generation of telecommunication, said Bill Gates in a keynote address at ITU Telecom World 2003. Voicing optimism about the future of telecommunications, Gates previewed software-based services that he said would empower customers to connect to information and services, when and where they want. Gates elaborated on the need for industry standards and industry ecosystems. Microsoft and Vodafone jointly announced an initiative to develop enabling technology specifications for mobile Web services. The two companies...

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Meru Adds Over-the-Air QoS and Lossless Handoffs to WLANs

Meru Networks, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, introduced a WLAN system designed to address key technical problems associated with carrying land-line quality voice over the shared wireless medium. Notably, as more than 3 active users join a WLAN access point, the performance of the hotspot rapidly degrades due to over-the-air contention. For companies or campuses planning to support Wi-Fi voice , the issue of contention severely limits the scalability of the service. In addition, IP streams are often interrupted or lost when moving...

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