Telstra Launches DVD Delivery Service by Mail

Telstra introduced a new "fetchmemovies" service that enables Australians to browse through an online catalog of more than 8,000 titles and then have the DVD delivered by the convential postal service. As DVDs are returned, more are mailed out.


Telstra said the DVD rental service helps it build marketing relationships with strategic partners. Telstra will source content from a variety of Australia's largest distributors including Warner Home Video, Fox Home Entertainment, Paramount, Columbia Tristar, Universal, AV Channel, Shock/Kaleidoscope, Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Roadshow. http://www.telstra.com

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Telstra Connects 500,000th broadband customer

Telstra activated its 500,000th ADSL customer. Over 1,000 of Telstra's central office exchanges in Australia have now been ADSL enabled. Telstra has set a target of one million broadband subscribers by the end of 2005 and $1 billion in revenue from broadband by the end of 2006http://www.telstra.com

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BT's ADSL Rollout Reaches 1,000 Central Offices

BT has now equipped over 1,000 of its central office exchanges with ADSL. More than 85% of UK homes and businesses can now get ADSL and this figure is expected to reach 90% by the summer. Since July 2002, BT has relied on a "trigger" scheme whereby a certain number of requests for broadband in a given community causes the company to install the required DSL equipment in the local exchange. More than 700,000 of these service requests have been received since July 2002.


On 23-January-2004, Prime Minister Tony Blair visited his local telephone exchange today to see it being upgraded for high speed broadband internet services. http://www.bt.com

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Time Warner Telecom Acquires Enron Net in Oregon

Time Warner Telecom was the successful bidder to acquire the fiber assets of Enron Broadband Services in the Portland, Oregon area. The asset purchase extends the Time Warner Telecom local fiber network to 158 route miles in Portland and the neighboring communities of Beaverton, Hillsboro, Tigard, and Vancouver, Washington. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.twtelecom.com

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Savvis to Acquire Cable & Wireless America

SAVVIS Communications was the winning bidder in a court-supervised sale of the network assets of Cable & Wireless USA and Cable & Wireless Internet Services (together CWA). Under the deal SAVVIS will acquire substantially all of the CWA assets for $155 million in cash and assume liabilities of approximately $12.4 million, subject to certain regulatory approvals. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix, Arizona approved the proposed sale on 23-Jan-2004.


SAVVIS was chosen as the winner among seven bidders at a two-day auction concluded on 22-Jan-2004, by CWA's financial advisor, The Blackstone Group.


SAVVIS' shareholders Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and Constellation Ventures, a Bear Stearns asset management fund, have committed to finance the purchase price and provide ongoing funding to support the acquired assets. In addition, SAVVIS has entered into a Letter of Intent with Du Pont Fabros Interests pursuant to which SAVVIS will sell its rights to acquire five of the CWA data centers to DuPont for $52 million, and to leaseback those data centers for 15 years.


SAVVIS said its purchase includes substantially all of CWA's assets:

• a Tier 1 IP Network, serving more than 2,000 enterprise customers, with a footprint encompassing 27% of all Internet routes and providing a range of IP network services from public Internet to private lines



• a comprehensive Hosting Service business with more than 1,000 enterprise customers, 15 data centers, a Fortune 500 focus, and a complete range of managed hosting, consulting and infrastructure services.

SAVVIS said the deal would make it one of the world's largest IP/hosting infrastructure providers. The acquired assets will add over 5,000 customers and the combined entity is currently projected to have annualized revenues of approximately $700 million by year end 2004. http://www.cwusa.comhttp://www.savvis.net

• On 08-Dec-2003, CWA announced that it had agreed to an asset sale with Gores Technology Group. As part of the deal, CWA filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Qualifying bidders then had an opportunity to submit higher and better offers for CWA's evaluation through a court-supervised competitive bidding process.

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ATS and Verio Offer IPv6 Capabilities to Government Customers

Advanced Technology Systems, Inc. (ATS) and Verio began offering an IPv6 Gateway Service in the U.S. targeted at federal, state, and local government agencies through the General Services Administration's (GSA) Millennia Lite Contract Vehicle. Additionally, ATS is offering new bundled communications products and services, called ATS PowerHouse Hosting Solutions for government clients.


The IPv6 offering from ATS and Verio currently delivers service on the NTT/VERIO Global IPv6 Backbone network to customers in North America, as well as many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as in Europe, including Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Spain. NTT Com currently provides IPv6 to approximately 500 customers around the globe. http://www.atsva.comhttp://www.verio.com

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Netopia Announces Certification for Wi-Fi Phones

Netopia launched a certification program for Wi-Fi cordless phones. The company said its certification program is open to any Wi-Fi cordless phone manufacturer or developer that uses the 802.11b or 802.11g standards. The certification process seeks to verify Wi-Fi cordless phone interoperability and VoIP transmission with QoS through Netopia's 3-D Reach wireless DSL and broadband gateways. http://www.netopia.com

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ARRIS Cadant CMTS Passes One Million Line Milestone

ARRIS announced that its Cadant C4 cable modem termination system (CMTS) has now over one million live subscriber lines passing through its hardware and software. The Cadant C4 was launched in January 2002. Just under 400 C4s have been sold throughout the world to date. http://www.arrisi.com

• The ARRIS Cadant C4 CMTS is a PacketCable, DOCSIS 1.1 and Euro-DOCSIS 1.1 qualified carrier-grade edge router/CMTS.

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Lockheed Martin/Northrop Selected for Next-Gen Satellite System

A Lockheed Martin /Northrop Grumman team was awarded one of two industry contracts valued at approximately $472 million to enter the Risk Reduction and System Definition phase of the U.S. Air Force's Transformational Communications MILSATCOM (TCM) Space Segment. The two competing teams will conduct risk reduction demonstrations and system trade studies over a 27-month period. A single contractor is expected to be chosen in 2006 to build the next generation military satellite system.


The Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman team also includes Rockwell Collins, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, L-3 Communications, Stratogis, Cisco, C&H Associates, and ViaSat. Lockheed Martin Space Systems (Sunnyvale, CA) will serve as the prime contractor and systems integrator for the TCM Space Segment. Northrop Grumman will provide the satellites' transformational payloads, end-to-end communication systems engineering, and payload ground processing.


Lockheed Martin said TCM represents the next step toward transitioning the Department of Defense wideband and protected communications satellite architecture into a single network comprised of multiple satellite, ground, and user segment components. The system will network mobile warfighters, sensors, weapons, communications command and control nodes located on UAVs, piloted aircraft, on the ground, in the air, at sea or in space. TCM is one of several elements that make up the Transformational Communications architecture that the national security space community has developed over the last two years. http://www.lmco.com

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Boeing Team Selected for Next-Gen Military Satellite System

Boeing was awarded a $472 million contract by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center tp develop a system design and demonstrate critical technologies for a secure, high-capacity global communications network serving the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and the intelligence community.


The Transformational Communications MILSATCOM Space Segment incorporates laser communications, next-generation processors and routers, internet protocol, information assurance, network management, and other advanced technologies into an architecture that is compatible with future and legacy space and ground network systems.


The contract, which extends through 2006, supports the government's network-centric operations vision. A single contractor will be chosen in 2006 and the next generation satellite system is slated for launch in 2011. The system is being designed to provide survivable, strategic communications services as well as new capabilities such as communications on the move for tactical users, and enhanced airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance connectivity.


Boeing and its industry team members are contributing innovations on other transformational DoD systems such as Future Combat Systems, Joint Tactical Radio System, and Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight Terminals. http://www.boeing.com

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French ISP Selects IBM/Cirpack for Consumer VoIP

Free, a subsidiary of the Iliad Group, the second largest French ISP, is using a joint solution from IBM and Cirpack to deliver a consumer VoIP service over unbundled DSL lines. The residential VoIP is provided as an add-on to the company's ADSL service in the areas where Free has deployed its own DSL infrastructure. The service is available in about 20 metropolitan areas in France (Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, Aix, Nice, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rennes, Caen, Rouen, Lille, Nancy, Strasbourg, and to be added soon Dijon, Besançon, Montpellier).


Subscribers pay EUR 29 per month for a 2Mbps ADSL line including free phone services (including national PSTN termination) and free TV Channels. http://www.cirpack.comhttp://www.free.fr/

• In October 2003, CIRPACK and IBM Global Services announced a partnership focusing on next generation telecom voice solutions in ETSI compliant countries: Europe, Middle East, Africa, and most Asian and Latin American countries. IBM Global Services will provide the support services and systems integration expertise for CIRPACK SoftSwitch solutions enabling telecom operators to deploy new voice services while maintaining legacy services.



• CIRPACK's softswitch platform can host a range of high-density network interfaces (IP, ATM, TDM) and supports multiple local signaling protocol variants simultaneously (ISDN, SS7, VoIP, VoATM). It can be configured to manage voice transit services (Class-4) as well as subscriber services (Class- 5), handling up to 5 millions BHCA (Busy Hour Call Attempts), and 180,000 simultaneous voice channels over any type of legacy and packet networks.

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Data Connection Enhances MeetingServer Web Conferencing

Data Connection released a new version of its MeetingServer web conferencing solution, which enables service providers to host their own self-branded web conferencing service, rather than reselling the services of a third-party provider. MeetingServer uses a reservationless scheduling model, where participants are invited to the meeting using a click-to-invite function. The latest release includes voting and polling functions and high-performance presentation up/download. It can be integrated with audio bridges, and the user interface is fully customizable to allow rebranding. Service provider licensing the product include BT. It is also OEMed by equipment vendors and conferencing providers including Latitude Communications (now owned by Cisco), Spectel and Documentum. http://www.dataconnection.com

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