DSL Growth Continues to Accelerate Worldwide, Tops 64 Million

The total number of DSL subscribers around the world reached 63.84 million at year end 2003, according to new figures released by the DSL Forum and Point Topic, representing a gain of 9.26 million in the three months -- the biggest ever growth in numbers of subscribers in any quarter. China (even excluding Hong Kong) now has the most DSL lines in service, overtaking Japan, the U.S. and South Korea. North America added more than three million new DSL subscribers during 2003, 2.66 million of them in the USA, making it the third leading growth country...

Read More

AMCC to Acquire 3ware for SATA RAID

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC) agreed to acquire 3ware, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California for approximately $150 million in cash. 3ware develops high capacity Serial ATA (SATA) storage solutions for emerging storage applications such as disk-to-disk backup, near-line storage, network-attached storage (NAS), video, and high-performance computing. 3ware currently employs approximately 70 people. http://www.amcc....

Read More

Ex-WorldCom CEO Indicted on Fraud Charges

Bernard Ebbers, the former WorldCom CEO, was formally indicted on federal charges of fraud, conspiracy and making false statements about the financial health of WorldCom. The high-profile indictment announced by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in New Y...

Read More

Reaction to Court Decision

SBC Communications welcomed the decision, describing it as "a victory for consumers." SBC also said the decision was "a victory for those who support markets free of rules that have repeatedly been judged illegal and which have eliminated jobs, shrunk investment and hurt fair competition." Qwest Communications applauded the decision, saying the court's action would "soon free customers of mandates that force them to subsidize the operations of Qwest's competitors." AT&T warned that "the right of all Americans to choose their local telephone...

Read More

Federal Court Overturns FCC's Triennial Review Order on UNE-p

A three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the FCC's Triennial Review Order with regard to network unbundling rules. The FCC rules, which were announced in February 2003 but actually issued in August 2003, empowered state public utility commissions as the decision makers on issues regarding UNE-P unbundling and local competition. The Court of Appeals said the FCC erred by not providing unified, federal guidelines and by pushing many FCC decisions to the states. The court also upheld the Triennial Review Order's exemption...

Read More

Cinergy to offer Broadband over Power Lines in Ohio

Cinergy Broadband and Current Communications Group will begin offering broadband over power line (BPL) services in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area. A subsequent expansion is planned for Northern Kentucky and Indiana. A trial, consisting of 100 residential customers and several business customers in the Hyde Park area of Cincinnati, has already been conducted. The new broadband services, which will be marketed under the brand Current Communications, will consist of high-speed internet and will eventually be bundled with VoIP. Consumers can access...

Read More

Telefonica Puerto Rico Select Nortel for Convergence

Puerto Rico and TLD (Telefonica Larga Distancia) selected Nortel Networks to converge their local, long-distance and data services onto a next generation VoIP network. The agreement includes Nortel Networks Succession Communication Server (CS) 2000, a superclass softswitch. Also included are Nortel Networks Passport Packet Voice Gateway (PVG), designed to help switch voice calls more cost-effectively; Nortel Networks Preside network management systems; and professional services ranging from network design to network operation and maintenance. ...

Read More

Venture Firms to Acquire Dominion Telecom

Elantic Networks, a new company backed by MC Venture Partners, Bank of America Capital Investors and BB&T Capital Partners, has agreed to acquire Dominion Telecom for an undisclosed sum. After closing, the Dominion Telecom name will be changed to Elantic Networks. Dominion Telecom provides wholesale fiber bandwidth and carrier services to long-distance, international, wireless carriers, competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and large enterprises across its extensive fiber optic network. Elantic Networks has entered into an agreement...

Read More

STMicroelectronics Reaches DSL Milestone: 76 Million Total Ports Shipped

STMicroelectronics has shipped a total of 76 million DSL ports to the worldwide market since 1998, representing a 35% share of the total xDSL market, according to the company. The total includes 43 million central office (CO) and 33 million customer premises (CPE) ports. ST shipped 25.1 million ports in 2003, which signifies a large number of the total market shipments that year. http://www.st....

Read More

SupportSoft Boosts BellSouth Customer Advantage with Knowledge-Enabled Self-Service

BellSouth has deployed the SupportSoft Knowledge Center Suite, enabling its customer service representatives to streamline resolution of billing issues for more than one million BellSouth broadband subscribers. The SupportSoft Knowledge Center Suite leverages patented personalization technology to automatically present only the most relevant answers to questions based on the customer's account type. Financial terms were not disclosed. BellSouth already uses the SupportSoft Service Automation Suite to automate both self-service and assisted technical...

Read More

SpectraLink and Alcatel Forge OEM Agreement

Alcatel signed an OEM agreement to sell SpectraLink's Wi-Fi-based Wireless Telephones along with its OmniPCX family of IP-PBXs. Two models of wireless telephones will be offered: the Alcatel Mobile IP Touch 300 and 600. SpectraLink Voice Priority (SVP), a QoS mechanism, is employed on the wireless LAN to ensure voice quality with minimal impact on data throughput. http://www.spectralink....

Read More

Nortel to OEM SpectraLink's VoIP Wireless Telephones

Nortel Networks signed an OEM agreement sell SpectraLink's NetLink Wireless Telephones as components of its enterprise VoIP product suite. Specifically, SpectraLink will manufacture wireless handsets that will be incorporated into Nortel's Succession Internet Telephone portfolio for enterprises. SpectraLink has developed support for Nortel's Unistim VoIP protocol, giving the wireless handsets most of the features and capabilities of Nortel's IP desktop telephones. Two handset models will be available: the 2210 is targeted at general enterprise...

Read More