Laurel Appoints Former Cisco/Juniper Exec as CEO

Laurel Networks named Don Pyle as its new CEO, succeeding company co-founder and CEO Atul Bansal, who has been named president and Chief Operating Officer (COO). Most recently, Pyle was vice president of North American Sales at Juniper Networks. Previously, at Cisco Systems, he managed one of the largest regions in the service provider division. He served in a similar capacity at StrataCom prior to its acquisition by Cisco. http://www.laurelnetworks.com

http://www.laurelnetworks.com

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Broadcom Acquires RAIDCore for RAID Software

Broadcom has acquired RAIDCore, a Nashua, New Hampshire-based start-up focused on the development of RAID and virtualization software, for up to $16.5 million. RAIDCore currently provides an enterprise-class RAID software stack targeted at high volume single and dual processor servers. The software is operating system, I/O bus and hardware independent.


"The volume server market is moving to RAID-on-motherboard and RAID-on- chip solutions," said Thomas Lagatta, Broadcom's Group Vice President, Enterprise Computing. http://www.broadcom.com

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Congress Requests FCC Response On Access Charge Rules

U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) published a scathing letter calling on FCC Chairman Michael Powell to explain whether the agency's access charge rules apply to long-distance calls carried over the Internet. Tauzin noted that more than 15 months had elapsed since AT&T filed a petition asking the FCC whether access charges apply to long-distance voice calls that AT&T transports over its IP backbone. The FCC has not yet answered the petition. The Congressional leader said he was not asking whether the FCC was planning to develop new access rules in the future, but simply whether access charges for VoIP apply today under the FCC's existing rules. He expressed concern that the FCC's "continued failure to clarify the rules governing traffic over AT&T's IP backbone could jeopardize our ability to keep telephone rates in rural areas affordable."http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Letters/01292004_1197.htm

• In January,
  Level 3 Communications filed a petition asking the FCC to
  reaffirm that legacy switched access charges do not apply to
  VoIP. Under current rules, VoIP is generally classified as
  an "information service." As such, it is exempted
  from the access charges imposed on traditional long distance
  telecommunications services. Some industry participants have
  argued that access charges should be imposed on VoIP traffic
  when traffic is exchanged between carriers. Level 3
  maintains that such a move would be ill conceived and not in
  the public interest. However, Level 3's petition would, if
  granted, maintain the current access charge regime for rural
  carriers.
  
  



• In December 2003, FCC held its first public VoIP forum. http://www.convergedigest.com/regulatory/regulatoryarticle.asp?ID=9551
  
  

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Vonage Activates its 100,000th Broadband Telephony Line

Vonage announced the activation of 100,000 total lines on its network, thus doubling its subscriber-base in less than five months since it reached 50,000 lines in service. About 4,000 new lines are being added every week. So far, the company has completed more than 130 million calls across its network. Vonage said call volume continues to grow at an exponential rate. http://www.vonage.com

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Movielink Adds MultiPlay Feature to Download Service

Movielink, the broadband video-on-demand (VOD) service, introduced a "MultiPlay" capability that allows its customers to download selected movies using their broadband connection and to view them repeatedly at reduced rental rates for additional days. The file remains on the local hard disk and the customer can re-rent the desired film for up to 30 days after the initial download. http://www.movielink.com

• Movielink is a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios.



• Movielink has previously announced marketing partnerships with AOL, BellSouth, Time Warner, SBC Yahoo! and TerraLycos.

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Swisscom Eurospot Taps Colubris for Euro Networks

Swisscom EURspot, a subsidiary of the Swisscom Group, selected Colubris Networks' CN3000 and CN300 intelligent access devices for use in the Swisscom EURspot network of Wi-Fi hotspots. Deployment of the Colubris Networks devices began in September 2003, and more than 12,000 devices have been shipped to date. The Colubris Networks products seamlessly integrate into Swisscom EURspot's network architecture and back-end systems, ensuring that users receive a rich, transparent, easy-to-use and reliable Wi-Fi experience.


Swisscom EURspot has contracted more than 1,900 proprietary hotspots in France, Italy, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal. As the region's leading Wi-Fi hotspot service provider, it offers the entire spectrum of services for PWLAN hotspots - installation, operations and billing. It also offers roaming services in conjunction with Swisscom Mobile and Telia Homerun, adding another 850 hotspots in Europe.


Colubris Networks said it now has more than 400 service provider and enterprise customers, including Telecom Italia, NTT-ME, McGill University, STSN, Connexion by Boeing, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, and three of the world's largest hotel chains. http://www.colubris.com

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T-Mobile and Comcast Announce Wi-Fi Alliance

Comcast Cable and T-Mobile USA entered into a marketing alliance to offer the T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi Internet service to Comcast's nearly five million cable modem Internet customers. The program initially provides discounted Wi-Fi trial passes for Comcast customers.


There are currently more than 4,000 T-Mobile HotSpot locations across the U.S. http://www.t-mobile.com/http://www.comcast.com

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Peleton Unveils Multi-wavelength Laser Source

Peleton, a start-up based in Ottawa, Canada unveiled a multi-wavelength laser source (MWLS) technology that is capable of generating wavelength channels in all the L, C and S bands. Peleton's MWLS subsystem technology simultaneously generates multiple optical wavelengths from a DFB laser seed, delivering a DWDM light source. It can lock to specific channel spacings, such as 100GHz, 50GHz or 25GHz. The subsystem will scale to generate high channel counts in the 40 to 80 channel range. Potential applications include test and measurement, optical networking and optical sensing. Early versions of the product are currently undergoing trials at multiple customer locations.


Peleton said that to date, the only way to create the equivalent multi-wavelength environment has been by deploying bulky banks of fixed-wavelength lasers. http://www.peleton.com

• Peleton was founded in 1996 and raised $21 million in venture funding in 2000. Palo Alto investment firm Tallwood Venture Capital is a lead investor in the company, and Tallwood managing partner Dado Banatao is chairman of Peleton's board of directors.

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PMC-Sierra Demonstrates 6.25 Gigabit SERDES

PMC Sierra is demonstrating its new QuadPHY 6G SERDES transceiver technology and evaluation platform at this week's DesignCon in Santa Clara, California. The new CMOS device, which is compliant with Optical Internetworking Forum's (OIF) 6 Gbps long-reach specification, can be used for high-speed backplanes in next generation Ethernet switches, networked storage systems, performance computers and service provider equipment. The QuadPHY 6G multiplexes and demultiplexes eight 3.125 Gbps serial links into four 6.25 Gbps serial links.


PMC Sierra said the QuadPHY would enable companies to upgrade their current backplanes to support higher data rates while maintaining backward compatibility with installed line cardshttp://www.pmc-sierra.com/serdes

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Extreme Offers Fixed 48-Port Switch with 10 Gig Uplinks

Extreme Networks unveiled its Summit 400-48, a Layer 3, fixed-configuration switching platform with 101 Mpps throughput and 48 10/100/1000 ports. It also features optional 2-port, 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplink, 8 queues of QoS on every port, and 802.1x security. The switch fabric is rated at 160 Gbps. The switch has a suggested list price of US$9,995. http://www.extremenetworks.com

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Level 3 Extends Dial-Up Contract with EarthLink

EarthLink extended a contract under which Level 3 Communications will continue to be a key provider of wholesale dial-up services to the Atlanta-based ISP through mid-2005.


EarthLink, which has approximately four million dial-up subscribers and more than five million customers overall, began using Level 3's softswitch-based managed modem services more than four years ago. Level 3 also supplies EarthLink with private line, IP transit and colocation services that help support its broadband business. EarthLink is one of the leading broadband Internet service providers, counting more than one million subscribers of its cable and DSL high-speed Internet services. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Level 3's (3)Connect Modem wholesale service is available on a per-port basis for a flat monthly fee or on a metered basis based on the total number of hours used. The monthly charge includes local dial-in numbers, complete network coverage for a specific region, modems to collect the incoming traffic, and managed routers. http://www.level3.com

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Optical Internetworking Forum Provides Update

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) reported progress on key issues following its latest quarterly meeting in San Diego last week. Key developments include:

• the creation of a new Physical Layer User Working Group to bring equipment manufacturers and system vendors together in a collective environment to provide technical advice and perspective to the Physical and Link Layer (PLL) Working Group. The new group will develop requirements and guidelines for components, modules, subsystems, and communication links used in networking equipment, providing common direction to the PLL vendor community and other OIF working groups.



• the OIF's Architecture Working Group and the Signaling Working Group have merged into a single entity. The combined Architecture and Signaling Working Group will continue to focus on network architectures and signaling protocols for optical internetworking and will be chaired by Jim Jones, Alcatel.



• the PLL Working Group announced a new project to address tunable laser technology. The Small Form Factor Integratable Tunable Laser Assembly Multi Source Agreement (MSA) will reflect the industry's push to reduce size and power.

http://www.oiforum.com

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TeliaSonera to Add Gigabit Ethernet to DSL Network

Ericsson will supply Ethernet DSL broadband access equipment and related services to TeliaSonera. The contract includes delivery of Ericsson's Ethernet DSL Access solution, based on the ADSL2/2+ standard and Gigabit Ethernet technology. TeliaSonera plans to introduce Gigabit Ethernet technology into its DSL network. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.ericsson.com

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Cedar Point and Motorola Collaborate on PacketCable Voice

Cedar Point Communications and Motorola Broadband Communications Sector announced a strategic collaboration agreement to advance the deployment of packet-based cable telephony services. Specifically, Motorola will support the combined end-to-end voice- over-cable solution that includes Cedar Point's SAFARI C(3) integrated switching system, the Motorola Broadband Services Router (BSR) 64000 CMTS, Motorola SURFboard multi-terminal adapters (MTA), and the Motorola Advanced Provisioning System (MAPS). The companies have completed interoperability testing of the solution and will collaborate in marketing, sales and support.


Cedar Point's SAFARI C(3) combines all of the elements of distributed softswitching architecture into a single packet-based unit. The platform is based on CableLabs PacketCable specifications. http://www.cedarpointcom.comhttp://www.motorola.com

• In January 2004, Motorola announced that Comcast Cable had chosen its Broadband Services Router BSR 64000 as part of the company's continued expansion of high-speed data and future PacketCable-based voice services. Financial terms were not disclosed. The Motorola BSR 64000 CMTS is a carrier-class broadband services router and CMTS designed for large-scale deployment of DOCSIS 1.1/2.0 and PacketCable based services and applications. It includes MPLS and VPN capabilities for delivering commercial services.

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Boingo Signs Roaming Agreement with inter-touch

Boingo Wireless signed a network roaming agreement with inter-touch, which operates a Wi-Fi hot spot network in ten countries. Its main venues are hotels. Boingo's under-contract roaming network now includes 5,600 Wi-Fi hotspots in 28 countries. http://www.boingo.comhttp://www.inter-touch.com

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Vyvx Provides HDTV over MPLS Backhaul for SuperBowl

Vyvx provided an HDTV over MPLS backhaul solution for the first time at Sunday's Super Bowl XXXVIII. Specifically, Vyvx carried two diverse and redundant HDTV compressed feeds from Reliant Stadium in Houston over its fiber-optic network at 40.5 Mbps and 270 Mbps. In addition to the HDTV backhaul, Vyvx delivered standard- definition backhauls of the Super Bowl to broadcasters over its 45 Mbps network.


Going forward, Vyvx will offer HDTV-over-MPLS as a new "HD VenueNet" transport service for live high-definition television. HD VenueNet utilizes the same booking procedures as the company's traditional VenueNet service, and the HD VenueNet box that network production trucks access is consolidated with the current VenueNet box, located within the sports venue. HD VenueNet's initial deployment includes 17 professional sports venues in seven states. In addition to HD VenueNet, Vyvx can provide an alternative HD solution over the 45 Mbps video network from more than 50 of its VenueNet locations across the country.


"We developed HD VenueNet working hand-in-hand with our broadcast customers to understand their specific needs, and delivered a solution that offers up to 270 Mbps transport from the venue of origination to the broadcasters' production facilities -- including local loops -- providing more than three times the bandwidth currently available via satellite," said Derek Smith, vice president and general manager of Vyvx.


Vyvx is a division of WilTel Communications Group. http://www.vyvx.com

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