Japan Reaches 9.9 Million DSL Lines

More than 320,000 new DSL accounts were added in Japan during November, according to the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications. The figures represent a slight decrease over the pace of DSL activations in October 2003, when some 360,000 new DSL accounts were added. About 340,000 DSL activations were added in September.


As of 30-Nov-2003, there were some 9,911,306 DSL lines in service, compared to 5,117,867 at the end of November 2002.


In the NTT West territory there are 4,385,551 DSL lines, of which 1,623,763 DSL lines are provided by the incumbents (NTT West and NTT East) and 2,761,788 lines are provided by other carriers.


In the NTT East territory there are 5,525,755 DSL lines, of which 2,021,945 lines are provided by the incumbents (NTT West and NTT East) and provided 3,503,810 lines by other carriers.
http://www.soumu.go.jp/joho_tsusin/eng/Statistics/dsl/index.html

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ARRIS Sees Stronger Cash Position

ARRIS announced that due to its strengthening cash position and balance sheet, it is terminating its bank credit facility. This action will save approximately $900,000 annually in fees and other costs. The termination will require that the company write off approximately $2.3 million in non-cash unamortized fees related to the establishment of the facility.


In addition, ARRIS is discontinuing the sale of its Digicon "S" series and Digicon "T" Series model connectors due to the unfavorable outcome of a patent infringement lawsuit. The products accounted for approximately $13 million of annual revenues. ARRIS said it does not expect the decision will have a material effect on its overall financial results for the current quarter or future periods.
http://www.arrisi.com

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DIRECTV Latin America Files Chapter 11 ReOrg Plan

DIRECTV Latin America filed a proposed Plan of Reorganization and Disclosure Statement with the its U.S. bankruptcy court. The plan reflects an agreement reached between DIRECTV Latin America, its majority owner, Hughes Electronics Corporation, and the official committee of unsecured creditors Under the plan, Hughes will receive more than 80% percent of the reorganized company's equity upon its emergence from Chapter 11 in consideration of its allowed claim for debtor-in-possession financing, as well as for assets to be contributed to the reorganized company and certain other claims. The company hopes to emerge from the Chapter 11 process in early 2004.


In its five year business plan, DIRECTV Latin America projects that its region-wide subscriber base will increase from approximately 1.5 million subscribers at the end of 2003 to 3 million at the end of 2008. The business plan also projects that the company will begin to generate positive cash flow in 2005.
http://www.directvla.com

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Convergys Acquires Wireless Billing Contracts from ALLTEL

Convergys Corporation is acquiring certain billing and customer care assets from ALLTEL Communications Inc., a subsidiary of ALLTEL, for $37 million. The price represents approximately one time the anticipated 2004 revenue for the contracts. Additional earn-out payments are possible based on future performance.


As part of the acquisition, Convergys will begin providing billing services to more than 10.5 million additional wireless and wireline subscribers, and will add several new corporations to its list of billing and customer care clients including Cingular, Centennial Communications, and Commonwealth Telephone.


Dave Dougherty, Executive Vice President, Global Information Management, Convergys, said the "strategic acquisition provides us with additional wireless and wireline market share, important new clients, and fuels the growth of our Professional Services business."http://www.convergys.com

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Avvio Networks Announces New 10 Gigabit Products

Avvio Networks, a start-up based in Lowell, Massachusetts, began shipping an OC192 multiplexer with G.709 encoding and widely tunable DWDM transmitter. The device is a quad OC48 to OC192 multiplexer offering LR DWDM on the line side and SR, IR an LR interfaces on the client side at 1310nm or 1550nm. It is also available with 1310nm, 1550nm or DWDM interfaces on the line side. In addition, Avvio Networks is readying a 10 Gbps repeater for shipment.
http://www.avvionetworks.com

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SBC Uses Cash Flow to Increase Dividend by 10.6%

The Board of Directors of SBC Communications approved a 10.6% increase in the company's quarterly dividend, from 28.25 cents a share to 31.25 cents a share, or 12 cents a share on an annual basis, from $1.13 to $1.25 a share. The board also authorized the buyback of 350 million common shares representing approximately 10% of SBC shares outstanding.


SBC Chairman and CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr. described the actions as "a balanced approach that will allow us both to fund important growth initiatives over the next few years and return value directly to our shareowners." He said using the company's solid cash flows for these purpose reflected its conservative financial management.
http://www.sbc.com

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Velio Sells its High Speed IO Technology to Rambus

Rambus agreed to acquire certain high speed signaling assets from Velio, a start-up based in Milpitas, California. The deal, which was valued at under $13 million, includes related Velio's patent portfolio, the existing Velio licensing business, and a number of Velio personnel. Rambus said that by adding Velio's high-speed signaling technologies to its serial interface offerings, it would accelerate its ability to deliver advanced chip-to-chip interface solutions.


Velio, which is now solely focused on its switch fabric and SerDes products, said it will become a customer of Rambus. The Velio product family includes its Zeus STS-1 Grooming Switches, which feature densities up to 180 Gbps (72x72 STS-48) streams; Quad 1.0-3.2 Gbps SerDes devices, featuring redundancy for storage and Ethernet networks, and an Octal 1.0-3.2 Gbps Serial Repeater/Retimer, for Ethernet and Fibre Channel applications.
http://www.velio.com
http://www.rambus.com

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T-Systems Launches Global MPLS-based Voice Services

T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom's IT and network integration business, has extended its global voice services reach throughout North America using Level 3's network. T-Systems will rollout a carrier-grade, MPLS-based voice and data service between Europe, Asia and the United States. The service is targeted at large enterprises with global operations. T-Systems can offload voice traffic from enterprise customers to Level 3 through a standard IP- port. The traffic is carried through Level 3's softswitch-based interconnections.
http://www.t-systems.com

• In October 2003, T-Systems International selected Lucent Technologies to increase the capacity of the North American element of its international backbone ("Telekom Global Net") from 2.5 Gbps to a full coverage 10 Gbps network. Specifically, Lucent will provide T-Systems with its LambdaUnite MultiService Switch (MSS), a next generation optical transport system and switch, with an element capacity of 320 Gbps. Further capacity expansion to a multiple 10 Gbps or even 40 Gbps meshed network is possible.



• In June 2003, T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom's IT and network integration business, opened a new headquarters for the Americas in New York City. The carrier is targeting network solutions for the North American operations of multinational corporations that already do business with T-Systems in Europe.

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