SingTel Launches Islandwide Metro Ethernet Service

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) introduced an island wide Metro Ethernet service provides for point-to-point as well as point-to-multipoint connectivity at dedicated and granular speeds of up to 100 Mbps. Speed upgrades are available in incremental steps of 2 Mbps or 10 Mbps depending on the range. The Layer 2 service allows customers to retain full control of their IP layer while ensuring protocol transparency.


SingTel has been offering Ethernet-based services since 2000 as part of its Meg@POP IP VPN solution.
http://www.singtel.com

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Broadcom's 7th Generation GigE Controllers Add PCI Express

Broadcom introduced its seventh generation NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet controllers featuring an advanced PCI Express host interface -- an industry first. Broadcom is offering three models of its new Gigabit Ethernet controller designed specifically for use in server, desktop and mobile PCs. The devices provide an integrated 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet MAC, PCI Express bus interface, on-chip buffer memory, and integrated PHY in a single-chip solution for LAN on motherboard (LOM) and network interface card (NIC) applications.


The PCI bus architecture has been ubiquitously deployed as a system I/O interconnect technology. PCI Express is an advanced version of the current PCI bus that provides a standards-based, high-speed, low pin count, chip-to-chip interface for computing platforms. Rather than utilizing a shared, parallel bus structure such as with PCI or AGP, PCI Express provides a new architecture whereby each link is a serial communications channel comprised of two differential wire pairs that provide 2.5 Gbps of throughput in each direction. Broadcom said PCI Express would allow the LAN connection architectures to scale with the end-users' throughput requirements.


Separately, Broadcom announced the shipment of its 12 million NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) controller portshttp://www.broadcom.com

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T-Com Launches Ethernet over SDH with Lucent

Deutsche Telekom's T-Com division launched its new "DDV-M Ethernet100" service, offering speeds of 10, 50 or 100 Mbps for connecting corporate LANs across its national SDH network. The new service, which is transported on T-Com´s SDH2000+ backbone, is based on Lucent Technologies' Metropolis AM multiplexer fitted with TransLAN technology for Ethernet over SDH. Quality assurance for T-Com's new service is provided by Lucent's OSS software. Lucent is also the main supplier for the core optical transport network of Deutsche Telekom.
http://www.lucent.com

• T-Com's "DDV-M Ethernet100" service was first announced at CeBIT 2003.

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China Netcom Selects Alvarion's 3.5GHz Broadband Wireless

China Netcom has selected Alvarion's 3.5GHz Broadband Wireless solution for deployment in 8 cities in Sichuan province, as well as the city of Wuxi, the industrial center of Jiangsu province, and in the city of Ningpo of Zhejiang province. Alvarion is working in partnership with Beijing International Switching System Corporation Ltd. (BISC), a joint venture between Siemens AG and Chinese enterprises. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.alvarion.com
http://www.bisc.com.cn

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Foundry Supplies 10GigE for Sandia Lab's Red Storm Supercomputer

Foundry Networks is supplying its 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) switches to provide the core networking fabric for the Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative's (ASCI) Red Storm supercomputer at Sandia National Laboratories. The project will provide 3D, full-physics simulations in support of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. Red Storm is a highly balanced Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) supercomputer with about 10,000 processors, a peak performance of 40 trillion calculations per second (teraflops), and 10 terabytes of memory. The machine is scheduled to become operational in fiscal year 2004. Red Storm will use more than 100 ports of 10GbE on its BigIron MG8 backbone to connect the Red Storm system to resources such as a new "Visualization Cluster" for 3D modeling. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.foundrynetworks.com

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EarthLink Reaches 953,000 Broadband Customers

EarthLink added 71,000 net subscribers this past quarter (excluding the previously announced removal of 152,000 wholesale Charter cable modem customers due to the restructuring of that relationship in July 2003). The company ended the third quarter with approximately 5.0 million paying subscribers, up 128,000, or 2.7% from a year ago. During the quarter, Earthlink achieved growth of 112,000 net broadband subscribers, excluding the adjustment (for removing the Charter subscribers). The company
ended the quarter with 953,000 broadband customers, up 40% from a year ago. Total narrowband subscribers declined 3.4% from a year ago to approximately 3.8 million.
http://www.earthlink.net

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C-COR to Resell Alloptic's FTTP Solutions to MSOs

C-COR.net announced an exclusive deal under which it will market FTTP solutions that incorporate Alloptic's PON technology to cable television MSOs in the U.S. and certain other countries, as well as other selected domestic and international market segments. C-COR is a supplier of optical, digital video transport, and RF telecommunication products for MSOs.
http://www.alloptic.com
http://www.c-cor.net

• In September, OFS and Alloptic demonstrated a Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) solution with a reach of 16 km, about 60% further than conventional EPON solutions. The demonstration, which combined voice, video, and data in a triple play service, consisted of Alloptic EdgeGEAR 2000 Chassis connected to Alloptic HomeGEAR Ultra over 16 km of the Access ADVANTAGE cabling system.

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Telcordia and CIENA Partner on OSS for Automated Optical Networks

Telcordia Technologies and CIENA announced a partnership to develop Next Generation operating system solutions for automated optical networks. The companies recently completed interoperability testing between the Telcordia Activator and CIENA's CoreDirector for compliance to the TMF 814 standard specifications. The integration is aimed at providing a migration to dynamic, self-aware carrier networks featuring automated provisioning, protection and bandwidth management. The companies intend to extend this collaboration to include joint customer trials.
http://www.ciena.com
http://www.telcordia.com

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Poland's Border Guards Deploy Cisco IP Telephony net

The Polish Border Guard is deploying a Cisco based IP telephony network that is described as one of the largest IP telephony deployments in Europe. The network, which connects some 300 border passes, checkpoints and posts along Poland's 3,449 km-long state border, will consist of more than 6,500 Cisco IP phones. The network will also use Cisco CallManager IP PBXs, Cisco IP Interactive Voice Response systems and other technologies such as PIX Firewalls and Cisco VPN 3015 Concentrators. Routing is via Cisco 3600 and 3700 Series Multiservice Platforms with Survivable Remote Site Telephony. The future EU border checkpoints will each be equipped with long-range Ethernet connections featuring Catalyst 2950 Switches with Cisco 575 LRE Customer Premise Equipment devices. The Polish Border Guard currently uses a low-end legacy analog telecommunication system. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.cisco.com

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Asia Netcom Expands to Equinix Centers in the U.S. and Japan

Asia Netcom will begin offering its IP and connectivity services within Equinix's neutral Internet hubs in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Tokyo, Japan. Services include IP Transit, IP VPN, ATM/Frame Relay, International Private Line and co-location services to all major Asia markets including China.
http://www.equinix.com
http://www.asianetcom.com

• In August 2003, Asia Netcom and China Netcom agreed to interconnect their IP VPN infrastructure to enable seamless services across their networks. China Netcom is the largest shareholder in Asia Netcom, whose other major stakeholders include Newbridge Capital and Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund. The IP VPN interconnection agreement is complemented with a new Internet peering agreement between Asia Netcom and China Netcom. The peering agreement enables one-hop access to Chinese online content by delivering Internet traffic from Asia Netcom's global IP backbone directly into China Netcom's national Internet infrastructure. Asia Netcom and China Netcom recently completed the interconnection of Asia Netcom's regional fiber network with the national fiber backbone of China Netcom. This provides direct Layer 1 interconnection of Asia Netcom's SDH network to China Netcom's national fiber backbone as well as local loops in 80 major cities across China.

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LVL7 Systems Raises $15.8 Million for IP Source Code

LVL7 Systems, a start-up based in Morrisville, North Carolina, secured $15.8 million in second round funding. The company develops merchant IP software for Layer 2, 3 and 4 enterprise, access, wireless and metro Ethernet products. The funding was led by Carlyle Venture Partners and included previous investors Gabriel Ventures Partners, H.I.G. Ventures and Research Triangle Ventures.
http://www.LVL7.com

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Saudi Aramco to Deploy Alcatel 7670 RSP

Saudi Aramco, the world leader in crude oil production, will deploy the Alcatel 7670 Routing Switch Platform (RSP) for its backbone network. The equipment will be used to provide Saudi Aramco data centers with the enhanced performance needed to preserve existing data, video and voice services, while introducing new IP services. Saudi Aramco's data network serves more than 35,000 corporate users both in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and internationally. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.alcatel.com

• Earlier this month, Alcatel announced a US$6 million contract to supply DSL equipment for 38 locations across Saudi Arabia. The installations will use the Alcatel 7300 Advanced Services Access Manager (ASAM) and the Alcatel 5620 Network Manager.

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Best Buy to Offer Monet's 3G Data Service

Best Buy will be the first national electronics retailer to offer Monet Broadband's CDMA2000 1xEV-DO wireless broadband service as a consumer offering. Best Buy will sell a Monet Broadband PC card modem for $29.95 after a $40.00 mail-in rebate. The 3G data service will have a flat rate of $19.95 per month for unlimited service in the first two months and $39.95 for subsequent months service. Download speeds are generally ten times faster than dial-up with multi-megabit peaks. Monet uses licensed spectrum in the PCS band (1.9 GHz). The company serves 5 markets in the upper Midwest.
http://www.monetmobile.com

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Avaya Reports Financial Turn Around, Revenue up 4.3% Sequentially

Avaya reported quarterly revenue of $1.1 billion, up 4.3% sequentially. Net income was $66 million or earnings of 15 cents per diluted share. Avaya noted its cash balance increased for the fifth straight quarter to $1.192 billion, giving the company a positive net cash position, for the first time since its inception, of $239 million.


Don Peterson, chairman and CEO of Avaya, said the company in a substantially different position from where it was 12 months ago. He said the company is now profitable, has a strengthened financial position, and is a market leader in IP telephony.


Separately, Avaya announced a contract to provide Grupo Santander, Spain's largest financial service group, with a converged communications network to support Santander's new financial campus in Madrid. The new Avaya network will centralize nearly all of Santander's IP telephony services as well as provide internal telephony, new services for employees and the possibility to network with other vendor PBXs within the bank.


Avaya also announced that it is supplying its IP communications solution for the Cologne stadium (RheinEnergie Stadion) in Germany. The deal was completed in partnership with Deutsche Telekom T-Com.
http://www.avaya.com

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SureWest Reaches 10,000 Subscriber Milestone for Sacramento Triple-play

SureWest Communications has reached the 10,000 subscriber milestone for its triple-play bundling of digital television, high-speed Internet and telephony service over fiberoptics in the Sacramento, California region. The company is adding about 200 subscribers a week. SureWest launched triple-play service in July of 2002 by acquiring FTTH assets in a bankruptcy acquisition. The company's Sacramento service packages over 260 channels of digital television (featuring video-on-demand and pay-per-view), 10 Mbps high-speed Internet, and local and long distance phone.
http://www.surewest.com

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AFC Reports Revenue of $85.2 Million, Looks to FTTP

AFC reported Q3 revenue of $85.2 million compared with $83.0 million in the preceding quarter and $91.8 for the same period last year. Net income for the third quarter of 2003 was $9.3 million, or $0.11 per share.


AFC reported a record for DSL shipments during the quarter, with some 50,000 ports shipped. The company expects that access networks will be a key focus for carrier investment in the future as service providers continue to roll out DSL and begin the migration to Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP).
http://www.afc.com

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SBC Says Service Bundling Reverses UNE-p Loss

SBC Communications attributed its service bundling strategy with reversing the loss in UNE-p access lines in its western territory, however the UNE-p losses continue in the Midwest, where the company has just gained approval to offer long distance service. Growth for DSL remained strong in Q3, with a record 365,000 net adds during the quarter. Overall, SBC's quarterly revenue declined to $10.2 billion, compared to $10.6 billion in the year-ago period. Operating expenses totaled $8.6 billion for the third quarter, compared with $8.5 billion in the year-earlier period. EPS was $0.37, compared with $0.51 in the period last year. The company said it had two main strategic goals: stabilize the wireline access trends and put Cingular Wireless back on a sustainable growth trend. Some highlights of the quarter:

• 365,000 net new DSL lines in Q3 bringing total high-speed Internet lines to 3.1 million. Q3 was the company's best-ever DSL net-add quarter and its seventh straight quarter of sequential growth in DSL net adds. In Q2, SBC added 304,000 net DSL lines. SBC's in-service DSL customer mix is 73% consumer, 17% business and 10% wholesale. The percentage of wholesale DSL customers has declined significantly from 18% at this time last year. SBC's DSL penetration in its California territory is now 13.4% and overall penetration is approaching 10%. DSL ARPU is holding steady at $40. SBC said half of its DSL locations are able to get between 4 to 6 Mbps.



• data revenues increased 5.5% to $2.6 billion, led by a 52% increase in DSL revenue. Hi-cap data services grew slightly.



• SBC lost 228,000 non-ISDN business access lines in Q3 compared to a loss of 231,000 lines in Q2.



• SBC lost 607,000 consumer access lines in Q3, compared to a loss of 708,000 access lines in Q2. The losses were greatest in the Midwest, where the company had yet to introduced LD service.



• SBC noted positive wholesale trends for Resale and UNE-p lines. In Q2, SBC lost 321,000 lines to UNE-p competitors, compared to a line loss of 375,000. Significantly, in its southwestern territory, SBC gained back 51,000 lines from UNE-p competitors in Q3, compared to a gain of 45,000 lines in this territory for Q2. SBC said the ability to bundle LD service is decisive in stopping UNE-p competitors.



• Cingular Wireless added 745,000 net subscribers in the quarter. The company said Cingular's GSM/GPRS conversion is ahead of schedule and a 100% conversion is expected by end of the year. Subscriber ARPU is essentially flat.



• Service bundling continues as a major trend: 36% of customers have bundles with one or more key services -- LD, DSL and wireless. The company expects that the launch of SBC DISH satellite TV service early next year will strengthen its position in the consumer market, enabling it to offer an integrated package of wireless, wireline, broadband and video service.



• CAPEX spending has been $3.2 billion for the year to date, compared with $5.0 billion at this point last year.

http://www.sbc.com

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AT&T Cites 280 Swift IP VPN Contracts with Financial Firms

AT&T has been awarded over 280 contracts to date by SWIFT (Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) members for managed IP VPN service. SWIFT is the industry-owned cooperative that supplies secure messaging services to 7,500 financial institutions in nearly 200 countries. Financial institutions are using AT&T's managed network IP VPN network as the transport layer for the SWIFTNet messaging platform and to support SWIFTNet FIN and other applications. Additionally, remote access services enable connection to the network using dial-up connectivity.
http://www.att.com
http://www.swift.com

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AT&T Sees Decline in LD and Data, Growth in Local Access and Wholesale

AT&T reported Q3 revenue of $6.3 billion, a decline of 6.2% from the same period last year, due to pricing pressure, weakness in retail long distance (LD) and data demand, and weak overall telecommunications spending. The declines were partially offset by growth in wholesale volumes, local voice and IP&E-services revenue. In its quarterly report, AT&T also noted that the liability on its balance sheet relating to costs incurred in 2001 and 2002 pertaining to access and other connection expenses was understated by $125 million. The company said two employees, one lower-level and one mid-level management employee, "circumvented its internal controls process" and that personnel changes have since been made.

Some highlights of Q3 2003:

• income from continuing operations was $458 million, or earnings per diluted share of $0.58, for Q3 2003.



• long distance voice revenue declined 10.5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, driven by continued pricing pressure, partially offset by volume growth. Volumes grew nearly 15% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, driven by strong wholesale growth, which more than offset the decline in retail volumes.



• local voice revenue grew approximately 38% and local access lines totaled over 4.3 million at the end of the current period, representing an increase of almost 97,000 lines from Q2 2003.



• IP&E-services revenue grew 13%, while data service revenues declined 6.5%



• the managed component of total data services and IP&E-services revenue grew about 10% from the prior year third quarter and now comprises approximately 33%.



• Operating income totaled $417 million. Operating margin was 6.6%, compared with 12.7% in the prior year



• revenue for AT&T Consumer Services was $2.4 billion, a decline of 16% versus the prior year third quarter, driven by lower LD revenue as a result of the continued impact of competition, wireless and Internet substitution, and customer migration to lower priced products and calling plans. Bundled revenue grew by 77% percent compared to the prior year third quarter, and now represents over 22% of AT&T Consumer Services' total revenue.



• Free cash flow was $2.0 billion for the third quarter, which included $0.6 billion of tax refunds.

http://www.att.com

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