FCC Commissioners Call for Negotiated Settlement on UNE-p

All five of the FCC Commissioners have signed a letter urging the nation's telecommunications carriers and trade associations to begin a period of "good faith" commercial negotiations on UNE-p resale rates. FCC Commissioners are encouraging the parties to utilize all means at their disposal, including a third-party mediator, to maximize the success of this effort. To provide additional time for these negotiations, the FCC intends to petition the D.C. Circuit for a 45-day extension of the stay of its decision vacating its unbundling rules. ...

Read More

FCC to Collect $273 Million in Fees, Spend $292 Million in Budget

The FCC expects to collect $272,958,000 in regulatory fees for Fiscal Year (FY) 2004. The fees collected to recover the regulatory costs associated with the Commission's enforcement, policy and rulemaking, user information, and international activities. As for its budget for the coming year, the FCC is requesting that Congress authorize spending authority of $292,958,00, requiring a direct appropriation of $20,000,000. This represents an increased spending level of $19,000,000 or 6.9% over the previous fiscal year. The increased spending includes...

Read More

Intoto Raises $11 Million for Security

Intoto, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California raised $11 million in new funding for its integrated security, wireless and voice software platform aimed at network equipment manufacturers. Intoto said it has licensed its iGateway software solutions to over 100 networking and communication equipment vendors. The Intoto software, which runs on a number of embedded microprocessors, SoC communications processors and network processors and is compatible with all major OS/RTOSs, provides functionality such as firewall, VPN, intrusion protection...

Read More

VON Keynote: ITXC Sees Unstoppable Momentum for VoIP

For the next two years, people will continue to purchase VoIP primarily for cost savings rather than for advanced feature sets, predicted Tom Evslin, Chairman and CEO of ITXC, in a keynote at the Spring VON conference in Santa Clara, California. To be really useful, advanced features require deployments at both ends of the call. Evslin figures that once penetration rates reach somewhere around 15% an inflection point will occur and people will start to buy VoIP in order to have the same advanced features as the early adopters. In the mean time,...

Read More

PacketExchange Signs Tellabs for MPLS Backbone

PacketExchange, an independent global carrier with POPs in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, New York, Washington, Palo Alto and Dallas, has chosen the Tellabs 8800 Series of Intelligent Multi-Service Routers (MSRs) to expand its MPLS backbone. The deployment will enhance PacketExchange's ability to deliver future-proof services with specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.tellabs.comhttp://www.packetexchange....

Read More

PacketLight to Focus on Storage Transport

PacketLight Networks, a developer of metro multi-service optical transport and access systems, announced plans to focus on the growing storage transport market. PacketLight offers a range of products for storage over DWDM and SONET/SDH, using the latest GFP/VCAT and FC-BB standards. The company's new product line offers high-speed storage services, such as Fibre Channel, FICON, and ESCON over large distances--without performance degradation--using SONET/SDH and DWDM. PacketLight also named Hezi Lapid as chairman of the board of directors. Lapid...

Read More

Cogent Acquires Carrier1 Network Assets in Germany

Cogent Communications has acquired rights to the dark fiber and other network assets that were once part of Carrier1 International S.A., through a merger with Symposium Omega, Inc., which had raised $19.5 million from investors and acquired rights to this network. Symposium Omega acquired the network from GLH GmbH, a German company that purchased the assets directly from Carrier1 after Carrier1 filed for insolvency in Germany. As a result of the acquisition, Cogent will add 14 German markets to its pan-European network including, Berlin, Hamburg,...

Read More

Microsoft Positions Windows CE for VoIP Phones

Microsoft announced new VoIP features for the upcoming release of Windows CE 5.0. Microsoft also announced a growing list of vendors that are delivering a wide variety of VoIP-based client devices and services -- such as desktop and wireless phones, IP set-top boxes, residential gateways and thin clients -- running the Windows CE operating system. Windows CE 5.0 is Microsoft's real-time embedded operating system designed for 32-bit smart, connected and small-footprint devices such as consumer electronics devices, gateways, industrial controllers,...

Read More

Juniper Powers VPLS Between Hutchinson and KT

Hutchison Global Communications (HGC) and Korea Telecom (KT) are deploying Juniper Networks' M-series routing platforms to launch the world's first production inter-carrier Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) over Metro Ethernet between Hong Kong and Korea. The advanced VPN service, which will make its commercial debut in the first half of this year, harnesses the M-series VPLS capabilities based on the IETF draft standard draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpls-bgp-01.txt. Juniper Networks described the deployment as a global first for inter-city Metro Ethernet...

Read More