MetaSwitch Achieves First RUS Listing for Packet Voice Switch

The MetaSwitch VP3500 Next Generation Class 5 Switch has been accepted for listing by the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS).



The RUS listing follows a successful field trial with Yukon Telephone in Whittier, Alaska - the first such trial to include VoIP served natively by a Class 5 switch. The trial network included support for VoIP to Occam Networks Broadband Loop Carrier equipment, as well as traditional POTS lines via GR-303 from AFC's AccessMAX multi-service access platforms. http://www.metaswitch.com

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T-Systems and Telecom Italia Offer Wholesale IP VPNs

T-Systems' carriers' carrier division, International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS) and Telecom Italia Sparkle are partnering to offer a wholesale IP VPN solution. The companies said their jointly developed wholesale IP VPN solution allow carriers to differentiate themselves from competitors by offering their clients a customizable service. The wholesale VPNs are aimed at helping carriers and ISPs to cater to small, medium and large enterprise outsourcing needs, while establishing a base for value-added services such as managed security, IP telephony, hosted applications, e-commerce and content delivery.



TI Sparkle is Telecom Italia's international wholesale business. http://www.telecomitaliasparkle.comhttp://www.t-systems.com/icss

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FCC Eyes Changes to Telco Customer Account Record Exchange

The FCC is considering whether to impose mandatory minimum information sharing requirements on all local and long-distance telephone companies in a bid to increase the accuracy of billing information and decrease consumer complaints.



AT&T, Sprint and MCI have jointly requested changes in The Customer Account Record Exchange (CARE) system, which is the voluntary industry standard for exchanging the customer information necessary to establish and maintain customer accounts, and to execute and confirm customer orders and customer transfers from one long distance carrier to another.



The CARE system was adopted by the industry after the break-up of AT&T. Local phone company would provide CARE data to the appropriate long distance company to ensure seamless provision of service to the customer. However, CARE data are not currently exchanged in a uniform manner and the number of local phone companies has increased significantly. The long distance providers argue that they are often left in the dark as to whether a customer remains on the network, has switched to another local or long distance company or has made changes to name/address records with the local provider. The end result can be customer complaints about double billing, continued billing, cramming, slamming and violations of truth-in-billing-requirements.



The FCC is seeking comment on whether to impose mandatory minimum CARE standards on all local and interexchange carriers. http://www.fcc.gov

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FCC Amends International Settlement Policy

The FCC took another deregulatory step regarding its International Settlement Policy (ISP) by exempted a substantial number of additional routes from the ISP. This action provides U.S. carriers greater commercial flexibility to take advantage of a constantly changing global telecommunications market. The FCC expects the action will translate into lower rates for consumers.



The International Settlement Policy was designed to ensure nondiscriminatory treatment of U.S. carriers by foreign carriers with market power and serves as a framework by which carriers negotiate commercial agreements to exchange traffic between the U.S. and other countries. http://www.fcc.gov

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Nortel Delays 2003 Financial Statements, Restatements Likely

Nortel Networks has delayed the filing of annual financial reports for 2003. Nortel Networks said it is likely that it will need to revise its previously announced unaudited results for 2003 and for certain quarterly reports in 2003. The company also expects to restate its previously filed financial results for one or more earlier periods. An independent financial review is underway.



The delay in filing the annual report may impact some of the company's public debt indentures and certain of their support and credit facilities. The company outlined the expected impacts in a public statement. http://www.nortelnetworks.com

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BT Announces 4 Broadband Innovations

BT unveiled four innovations aimed at transforming its broadband DSL service across the UK.



Flexible Bandwidth: DSL users will be given the power to temporarily boost their bandwidth to up to 2 Mbps for faster downloads of premium content, such as DVD-quality streamed videos or online gaming. Users who continually need to accelerate their broadband speed will be given the option to instantly upgrade to a higher tier DSL service. A trial of these capabilities is scheduled to start next month.



BT Rich Media: working in partnership with Real Networks, BT is launching a platform to drive the management and distribution of digital content. The companies will provide the tools to allow anyone to create and distribute content themselves. The platform is expected to enable thousands of content publishers, from major record labels to local football teams. BT Rich Media will be launched on April 6.



BT Communicator: working in partnership with Yahoo!, BT is will roll out an integrated call management application aimed at the mainstream consumer. The application, which will include VoIP capabilities, takes the features and functionality of Yahoo! Messenger and integrates telephony capabilities, such as PC to phone calling, Internet call waiting, directory lookup, etc. All calls made using Yahoo! Messenger with BT Communicator will be billed directly to the customer's home phone bill. The application enables users to manage all their communications - phone calls, emails, instant messaging and text messages - together in one place. BT Communicator will be made available for trial in May.



BT Remote Management System: - enhances network support capability in the broadband home. This will allow troubleshooting and diagnosis of broadband service issues using information from BT, provided from intelligent home network routers in a customer's home. The system will be live later in 2004.



Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, described the initiative as "the second stage of the broadband revolution in the UK."http://www.yahoo.comhttp://www.bt.com

• In February, BT passed two million wholesale broadband connections. The latest million connections have come in little more than eight months.



• In January 2003, Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe and MetaSwitch disclosed the deployment of their VoIP solution for the newly launched BT Broadband Voice Service, which lets broadband users gain access to the BT voice network via an Integrated Access Device (IAD) or Telephony Adapter. The VoIP platform is based on the MetaSwitch VP3500 Next Generation Class 5 Switch. BT has become one of the first major European operators to offer emulated PSTN services using VoIP. Fujitsu has also developed an Operational Support System, which allows the linkage between the components of the platform, the support systems within BT and the bt.com website.

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EchoStar Adds 340,000 Net Subs in Q4

EchoStar Communications added approximately 340,000 net new subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2003, giving it a total subscriber base of 9.425 million at year's end. The company added a total of 1.245 million subscribers for the full year. http://www.dishnetwork.com

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Siemens to OEM ADVA's FSP 1500 Optical System

Siemens has extended an existing OEM contract to include ADVA's Fiber Service Platform (FSP) 1500 product.



ADVA's 1500 enables carriers to deploy Ethernet, storage, and legacy voice services in a variety of configurations over their existing SDH/SONET networks The FSP 1500 is installed at the customer premise site as a network termination device and uses Generic Framing Procedure (GFP) technology to aggregate up to eight LAN, storage, and voice applications on a combined STM-16/OC-48 interface. The applications are then seamlessly transported through the existing SDH. http://www.advaoptical.comhttp://www.siemens.com

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VocalTec Raises $9.8 Million in Private Placement

VocalTec Communications, a supplier of carrier-class packet voice platforms, raised $9.8 million in a private placement with institutional investors. http://www.vocaltec.com

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Interoperability Established between Xilinx FPGAs, Intel Net Processor

Interoperability testing has been completed between Xilinx's Virtex-II Pro FPGAs and the Intel IXP2800 network processor. Both the media and switch fabric (MSF) interfaces were tested on the processor. Various features of the SPI-4.2 solution have been emphasized. The Xilinx SPI-4.2 core features an optimized burst mode configuration for data transfers to the Intel IXP2800 network processor to ensure efficient use of the processor's memory space.



The companies said the interoperability would accelerate the development of Ethernet, Packet-Over-SONET, and ATM applications within the metro access and WAN/LAN equipment provider communityhttp://www.xilinx.comhttp://www.intel.com

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AOL and Covad Announce "Broadband Connect" Relationship

America Online and Covad Communications announced a deal to provide new connectivity options to AOL for Broadband members. Covad's Broadband Connect product is a new class of DSL service without any accompanying content or applications.



Covad's Broadband Connect service provides up to 1.5Mbps (downstream and 256Kbps upstream for $34.95 a month with a 12-month contract. An additional plan offering connection speeds of up to 3.0Mbps downstream and 384Kbps upstream for $39.95 a month with a 12-month contract will also be offered. http://www.covad.comhttp://www.aol.com

• In 2003, AOL added 1.2 million broadband members, bringing its total broadband audience as of December 31 to nearly 3 million members.

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IEEE Forms Wi-Fi Performance Study Group

The IEEE has formed a new Wireless Performance Prediction (WPP) study group to help standardize the metrics and methods which describe Wi-Fi's performance. Organizations participating in the WPP study group include Azimuth Systems, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, regulatory agencies FDA and NIST, and independent testing organizations such as the University of New Hampshire's Interoperability Labs (UNH-IOL) and Iometrix. http://www.azimuthsystems.com

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Ixia Introduces Power over Ethernet Test Solution

Ixia introduced a Power over Ethernet (PoE) test solution for validating power-enabled equipment. Ixia's new hardware conforms to the IEEE 802.3af standard for PoE via emulation of the powered device (PD). It is designed to operate in conjunction with Ixia's line of Ethernet network interface modules, which provide data traffic generation and analysis, to verify that data is not impacted by varied power load conditions. Each Ixia PoE test module is capable of emulating four independent and isolated PDs with up to 16 watts dissipated per PoE port. Each PoE port can simulate a range of valid or invalid signatures during detection, classification, or maintenance of power.



The new PoE test module works in conjunction with Ixia's line of copper-based Ethernet load modules and occupies only one slot within the IXIA 1600T and IXIA 400T chassis. http://www.ixiacom.com

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Juniper's E-series Completes OSMINE

Juniper Networks' E-series routing platform completed the Telcordia OSMINE Services process for the Telcordia TIRKS system. TIRKS is part of an integrated solution that supports the total network provisioning process for special service circuits, message trunks and carrier circuits. TIRKS is used by RBOCs to plan, assign, provision and inventory telephone networks. http://www.juniper.net

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FCC Approves Globalstar License Transfer

The FCC formally approved a request to have control of Globalstar's operating licenses and regulatory authorizations transferred to a new Globalstar operating company that is majority-owned by Thermo Capital Partners.



Globalstar offers satellite telecommunications services, for both voice and data. http://www.globalstar.com

• In early December 2003, Thermo agreed to acquire Globalstar's operating and marketing assets, subject to certain conditions including approval for the transfer of control of these FCC licenses and authorizations.

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Comdial Launches SIP-based Enterprise Systems

Comdial Corporation launched a new portfolio of integrated VoIP applications, platforms, software and endpoints under its new "CONVERSip" brand. The product set includes:

• CONVERSip MP5000 Media Platform: an evolutionary enterprise platform for offices with 40-400 employees. It provides unified messaging, workgroup call center and call recording capabilities.



• CONVERSip MP1000 Media Platform: an all-in-one communications platform for small offices with 4-40 employees including voice mail, unified messaging and auto-attendant. It is based on SIP and features an 8 port gateway, network interface, pre-installed applications, web-based administration and IP multimedia endpoints.



• CONVERSip EP300 Voice IP Endpoint: a SIP desktop phone for both CONVERSip Media Platforms. The EP300 has up to 24 programmable buttons that speed routine calling functions such as retrieving voice mail, dialing extensions and handling calls.



• CONVERSip EP200 Multimedia IP Endpoint: Extends any Windows XP PC to a fully functional business softphone with the added advantage of multimedia collaboration.

http://www.comdial.com

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Cox Selects Internet Photonics for VOD in Omaha

Cox Communications will deploy Internet Photonics' LightStack MX, LightStack NCS, and LightHandler platforms for a VOD rollout in Omaha, Nebraska. The LightStack MX is a DWDM multiplexing transport platform and the LightHandler is an optical add/drop multiplexing and amplification system that supports up to 40 wavelengths. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.internetphotonics.com

• In February 2004, CIENA agreed to acquire privately held Internet Photonics, a supplier of carrier-grade optical Ethernet transport and switching solutions, for approximately $150 million in stock (24.4 million CIEN shares). Internet Photonics' Ethernet transport solution has gained momentum with North American cable MSOs, including deployments with six of top ten cable operators in the U.S. Carriers could also use Internet Photonics' solutions to deploy Ethernet private-line services. Internet Photonics is based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey and Marlborough, Massachusetts.

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Taqua Announces 3 More Rural ILEC Customers

Taqua announced three more incumbent service provider (ILECs) customers for its iX7000 Class 5 packet switch: Cassadaga Telephone (serving western New York), Searsboro Telephone (serving the communities of Searsboro and Killduff, Iowa), and South Canaan Telephone (Pennsylvania). http://www.taqua.com

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AT&T to Provide Priority Calling for Key Officials during Emergencies

AT&T Government Solutions was awarded a follow-on 10 year, $61.3 million contract by the National Communications System to provide priority calling services for key government and industry officials during emergencies. The contract, called Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS), was first awarded to AT&T in 1993. http://www.att.com

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