European Broadcasting Union Selects Net Insight

The European Broadcasting Union will use Net Insight's Nimbra platform for its new international fiber TV and data network. The new fiber transport network, which complements EURvision's existing satellite network, will carry real time critical traffic, including breaking news and sporting events to EBU members and other media customers.



With its new network, EURvision will provide connectivity for TV traffic between the largest media cities in Europe, with trans-Atlantic connections into the USA. The first phase of the network roll-out includes seven cities in Europe and two in the USA, with the objective to connect around twenty cities in later phases. Deployment is underway. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.netinsight.se

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Pioneer Telephone Selects Calix and Adds to Video Customer Base

Oklahoma-based Pioneer Telephone Cooperative, one of the largest telephone cooperatives in the nation with over 56,000 access lines, is using the Calix C7 ultra-broadband loop carrier (UBLC) to deploy switched video services over ultra-broadband DSL. Calix said its list of active video customers now includes Champaign Telephone Company; Genuine Telecom; MBO Corporation; Panhandle Telephone Cooperative, Inc.; Pioneer Telephone Cooperative; Ringgold Telephone Company; Skyline Telephone Membership Corporation; South Slope Cooperative Communications; Valley Communications. in South Dakota; and Winnebago Cooperative Telephone Association. http://www.calix.com

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SBC Offers to Negotiate UNE-P Wholesale Rates

One day after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the FCC's Triennial Review Order with regard to network unbundling rules, issued a public offer to AT&T, MCI and other competitors, inviting the companies "to negotiate commercially reasonable UNE-P wholesale rates ."



SBC Chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre said, "It is time for those of us who believe in free markets to put those commitments to the test in telecommunications."



Whitacre pledged to keep in place the public utility commission approved UNE-P wholesale rules and pricing for 90 days, while offering to immediately begin negotiating commercial UNE-P wholesale rates that all parties can accept.



Separately, Whitacre said: "We've been working under prices that are unrealistic and under rules that have just been declared illegal -- for the third time. But we believe in competition and want to keep the marketplace competitive for our customers as well as for our wholesale competitors who depend on our network to serve their customers. If others believe in competition as we do and continue to keep their focus on the customer, I'm sure we'll be able to forge a deal."http://www.sbc.com

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Octasic Offers 32 and 64 channel Echo Cancellers

Octasic introduced 32 and 64 channel versions of its OCT6100 Series carrier-grade echo cancellation solution. The lower density devices are aimed at enterprise and access equipment, such as IP-PBX's, host-based media processing platforms and IADs.



In addition to full-featured conferencing, the OCT6100 Series echo cancellers include other key features such as noise matching capabilities, tone-detection and announcement playout.



Octasic's OCT6100 Series of devices already included versions with 256, 512, or 672 channels, with 64 or 128 ms tail echo cancellation available for all capacities. The base devices offer standard echo cancellation and VQE features including; high quality noise matching, manual gain control, adaptive level control, acoustic echo control, and ITU-T, G.168 tone detection. http://www.octasic.com

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VoiceCon 2004 Keynote: IP Telephony's in the Enterprise Network

Convergence is actually "an easy business case" and not at all a "career threatening" proposal, said Niraj Patel, Executive VP & CIO, GMAC Commercial Holding Corp., in a keynote presentation on Tuesday at VoiceCon 2004 in Orlando, Florida. Just "don't try it on your old network," he joked... you'll definitely need an MPLS backbone to manage the QoS. GMAC is using a fully meshed MPLS core to reach its 109 offices across the U.S. and worldwide. Already 100% of the company's international voice calls, 20% of its domestic voice calls, and 100% of its corporate video conferences are IP-based. The network operates with four classes of service: video, voice, high priority and low priority. Approximately 500 of the company's 3,500 employees are using IP phones. The rest will be transitioned slowly, as their existing desktop handsets have remaining usefulness. Moving international voice traffic over the existing WAN is saving the company about $163,000 per year and there is an additional savings from the elimination of ISDN video calls. The MPLS connectivity is provided by Masergy, a carrier based in Texas. http://www.convergedigest.com

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VoiceCon 2004 Keynote: Moving Enterprise Telephony to Next Plateau

Although leading edge corporate users have been testing IP telephony implementations for five years, the real market will be about delivering productivity gains to mainstream users, said Don Peterson, CEO of Avaya, speaking at VoiceCon 2004 in Orlando, Florida. Peterson observed that while overall employment levels have fallen in recent years, impacting sales of corporate PBXs, a growth in productivity that has nevertheless ensued. This growth in productivity, he contends, is driven by streamlined business models and enabled by integrated voice/data communications. He said that while the "hard dollar" savings from a consolidated voice/data corporate network are substantial, the "soft dollar" improvements in business applications enhanced by IP telephony are essential to making the business case for large enterprise to migrate their voice networks.

Moving call centers to India or other low-cost locations is another driving factor for IP telephony, one which Peterson said "the industry speaks softly about but everyone knows there's a stampede underway." He gave the example of EDS, which is moving the jobs of some of its 15,000 call center employees to India.

Peterson estimates there are over 400 million installed corporate TDM voice lines and the transition to hybrid-IP solutions or pure-IP solutions would be a long one. He affirmed Avaya's commitment to the open systems model and noted a number of strategic partnerships with company's such as Motorola, Proxim, Polycom and Extreme Networks. Peterson also claimed that Avaya has made significant gains in market share for IP telephony line ship, especially in the most recent fiscal quarter. http://www.convergedigest.com

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Portugal's Rede Eléctrica Selects ECI's SDH/DWDM

Rede Eléctrica Nacional, Portugal's electric transmission company, selected ECI Telecom to build a national transport backbone with a combination SDH/DWDM and next generation Ethernet capabilities in over 30 sites. The deployment will use ECI's XDM MSPP, which converges intelligent optical networking capabilities with advanced data functionality including ATM and Ethernet Layer 2 over SDH/SONET, CWDM and DWDM. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.ecitele.com

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T-Systems launches WLAN Roaming Platform

T-Systems' carriers' carrier division, International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS) introduced a WLAN Roaming Platform for carriers and wireless ISPs. T-Systems said its open, multiservice-provider platform is fully scalable to support growing wireless transaction volumes. Accounting is generally time based, with a per minute pay per use model. For carriers and WISPs who connect to the WLAN Roaming Platform, ICSS provides clearing and settlement services, defines interface specifications and offers third level support. http://www.t-systems.com/icss

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AT&T Awarded $27 Million Contract from The Sports Authority

AT&T was awarded a $27 million, five-year contract by The Sports Authority Inc. to provide an integrated networking solution that will help the company expand its marketplace presence and enhance profitability. The contract covers an extensive portfolio of local, long-distance, data, video and Internet Protocol services.



The Sports Authority and GART Sports, the two largest U.S. sporting goods retailers, merged last August to create The Sports Authority Inc., a retailer with 385 stores in 45 states. http://www.att.com

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Alcatel Claims Growing Share in DSL Line Shipments Worldwide

Alcatel said its market share in DSL line shipments rose to 40.5% in Q4 2003, based on figures from Dell'Oro Group. The company credited its improved its worldwide position in the DSL market largely due to significant market share gains in Asia Pacific. Year to year, shipments have more than doubled worldwide, and with 15.8 million lines shipped in 2003, Alcatel reached a cumulative number of DSL lines shipped of more than 39.2 million.



Of the installed base of DSL worldwide, Alcatel claims a cumulative market share of 37%. http://www.alcatel.com

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Covad to Acquire GoBeam, Accelerate VoIP Launch

Covad Communications will acquire GoBeam, a privately-owned provider of VoIP, for $48 million in stock. GoBeam, which is based is Pleasanton, California, currently has more than 13,000 VoIP stations (telephones) serving business customers throughout California and in the Chicago, Illinois area. The company offers a full-feature hosted PBX solution with online management tools. GoBeam will retain its own brand and continue to operate its services until mid-year 2004 when the transition to Covad has been completed.

Covad said it plans to eventually offer VoIP to the consumer market through its wholesale partners and direct sales. This accelerated roll out of VoIP services will require additional investment, and Covad is currently evaluating what impact this will have on the company's previous expectation to be cash-flow positive by mid-year 2004. http://www.covad.comhttp://www.gobeam.com

• In February 2004, Covad Communications announced plans to offer VoIP to business customers and consumers in the majority of the country's top Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) by Q4 2004. Covad intends to initially launch three VoIP products targeted at business customers: Basic Voice, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) Voice, and Virtual PBX for Enterprise users needing a virtual Private Branch Exchange. A consumer VoIP offering will follow after the launch of Covad's business VoIP services. All three voice products will include unlimited local calling with the option of either bundled domestic long distance minutes, or unlimited domestic long distance calling. These products will support international and inbound toll-free calling. Local number portability, emergency 911 and directory assistance will be standard features. Pricing was not disclosed. In addition to providing VoIP services directly to its customers and turnkey solutions for wholesale partners, Covad has made and will make investments in its broadband network to support the market entry of its wholesale partners offering their own VoIP products.

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Telecom Ottawa Selects Meriton Networks

Telecom Ottawa has selected Meriton Networks' managed High- Speed Metro (HSM) architecture to extend its network for delivering Gigabit Ethernet services. The deployment includes the complete Meriton product portfolio. At the core of the architecture is the 7200 OADX (Optical Add/Drop Switch), which collapses wavelength transmission and wavelength switching in a single element. The 7200 OADX supports point-to-point and ring topologies as well as meshing for multi-degree applications. Meriton's 3300 OSU (Optical Services Unit) serves as the access component for both CWDM and DWDM. The 3300 OSU has the ability to sub-rate multiplex multiple protocol and bit-rate independent services onto a single lambda.



Meriton also noted that the Telecom Ottawa deployment includes an unamplified span of approximately 100 kilometers for Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM). Since higher-powered lasers became available last year, CWDM spans are now able to reach longer metro and even regional distances. http://www.meriton.comMeriton Networks is headed by Michael Gassewitz, who previously held a variety of key roles at Newbridge Networks, including Assistant Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for the Switching and Routing division.

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Defense Department Selects net.com's SHOUTIP for Secure VoIP

The U.S. Department of Defense has selected net.com's SHOUTIP VoIP solution to provide secure and un-secure voice calls between coalition sites as part of the Kuwait-Iraq Command, Control, Communications and Computers Commercialization (KICC) program. net.com's SHOUTIP with secure voice relay offers support for secure telephone units (STU) as well as future narrow-band data terminal (FNBDT) technology.



As part of the KICC program, remote sites are linked via satellite where bandwidth is at a premium. SHOUTIP's advanced call-packing technology, combined with its secure call relay technology, offers tremendous bandwidth savings compared with competitive secure voice over IP implementations. SHOUTIP can provide a 70% bandwidth savings when transporting a 9.6 kilobit per second secure voice call over an IP network compared with non-relay based implementations. http://www.net.com

• Last month, net.com announced that he U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had approved its forward error correction (FEC) patent (no. 6,675,340) to improve reliability of data packets transmitted over packetized networks, such as voice packets transmitted over an IP network. The patented FEC function allows net.com to offer improved voice reliability and with minimal delay or incremental bandwidth on its SHOUTIP platform. FEC offers exact transmission of encrypted voice data with minimal bandwidth overhead and packet delay. net.com said its patented technology is especially useful for military and government customers who carry secure telephone unit (STU) and future narrowband digital terminal (FNBDT) calls over IP networks.

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BellSouth to Offer Customers Free Access to City Wi-Fi Net

BellSouth selected Charlotte, North Carolina for its first major deployment of public Wi-Fi networking. BellSouth's Internet customers will have free access to Wi-Fi hotspots concentrated in the Center City of Charlotte and surrounding suburbs. BellSouth said the objectives of this Wi-Fi trial are to test business and consumer demand for public Wi-Fi, large-scale deployment of a public Wi-Fi service and technical support of a Wi-Fi network.

BellSouth initially will deploy about 100 hotspots, with the majority being located in the central business district. The first 100 businesses serving as FastAccess HotSpots receive free BellSouth FastAccess Business DSL for one year, equipment and software from Netopia, professional installation and technical support for both the host location and customers as well as marketing as a Wi-Fi-enabled location. The pilot will go live in the second quarter of 2004. Customers will be able to surf at Wi-Fi HotSpots identified through signage, similar to the window emblems showing which credit cards stores accept. http://www.bellsouth.com

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Shandong Netcom Signs $130 Million Contract with Lucent

China's Shandong Netcom awarded a $130 million contract to Lucent Technologies for deployment of its Personal Handyphone System in four cities in Shandong province. The equipment is expected to be operational in early July. The PHS solution from Lucent includes its 5E-XC high-capacity switches for global markets. Lucent Worldwide Services will provide design, engineering and installation support for the project.



Lucent noted that personal handyphone networks are widely deployed in China, where there is a need for low-cost, limited mobility wireless phone services. Since the initial deployment of Lucent's PHS solutions in September 2001, by Shandong Netcom, the subscriber base of PHS networks in these cities has grown to 1.2 million. http://www.lucent.com

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Foundry Selected by University of Illinois

Foundry Networks was selected to provide network infrastructure for a new, state-of the art technology education and research facility at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
The Siebel Center network will support advanced research applications, thousands of multimedia appliances and Gigabit to the desktop for hundreds of network nodes. It will feature advanced network security and manageability functions, including Foundry's hardware-based network monitoring feature. Network equipment includes Foundry's FastIron 1500 Layer 2/3 network switches from the wiring closet to the data center core and Foundry's ServerIron 800 Layer 4-7 switches to provide sophisticated network load balancing and security functions. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.foundrynet.com

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ADC Joins Cisco's Advanced Technology Provider Program

ADC has been chosen as part of Cisco Systems' Advanced Technology Provider program for its optical metro transport and metro DWDM initiatives in the U.S. The ATP designation recognizes ADC for having the ability to deploy and support Cisco Optical Metro DWDM and Optical Metro Transport solutions. http://www.cisco.com

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Verizon Selects CIENA's DN Multiservice Switches

Verizon is deploying CIENA's DN 7100 and DN 7200 multiservice switches to support its Enterprise Advance network expansion initiative. Specifically, Verizon plans to deploy nationwide the DN 7 product family for Fast Packet services (including Frame Relay and ATM) and other multiservice applications. The switches will help Verizon converge access services onto a high-efficiency multiservice backbone across the country while also providing a migration path for MPLS. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.ciena.comSBC Communications has deployed the DN 7100 multiservice switch to provide DSL aggregation across 200 sites nationwide.

The DN multiservice switches were developed by WaveSmith Networks, which CIENA acquired last year.

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