Arcwave Raises $8 Million for Cable Wireless

Arcwave, a start-up based in Campbell, California, raised $8 million in new funding for wireless solutions that help cable network operators to extend the reach of their plant. Arcwave's solutions are designed for "plug and play" deployment and leverage the existing Wireless DOCSIS standard. The ARCXtend solution consists of a pole- or strand-mounted hub that communicates with customer premises equipment connected to a standard DOCSIS cable modem. Future products are expected to incorporate WiFi and WiMAX technologies.

New investors Vulcan Capital and Comcast Interactive Capital have joined the company's existing investors. Total funding in the company now stands at $28 million. http://www.arcells.com/

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Kasenna Closes $15 Million for Broadband Video

Kasenna, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, completed a new $15 million round of private equity investment for its broadband IP video solutions. Kasenna recently announced two new major product line extensions -- vFusion and vForge -- along with the acquisition of ViewNow's content resources and studio relationships, new partnerships with SecureMedia, and customer wins that include Charter Cable, PrairieWave Communications, and Iowa Networks.

Key Ventures led the new funding round while another new investor, AsiaTech Management, and previous investors (including US Venture Partners, Alloy Ventures, OM Technology Investments Partnership, Artiman Ventures, CIR Ventures, and The Entrepreneurs' Fund) also joined in the funding. http://www.kasenna.com

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NTT Develops 10 Gbps Packet Classifier

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) has developed a 10 Gbps packet classification and forwarding board featuring its own "Wspeed" chip. The Wspeed chip features 10 Gbps wired-speed packet processing and IPv4 packet flow classification capabilities. In addition to managing firewalls at the network core, the board can also be applied to a range of off-load processing tasks including user policy-based transfer processing at routers, high layer routing, and application of IPSec at high-speed network servers. NTT Network Service Systems Laboratories and NTT Network Innovation Laboratories developed Wspeed. The highly reconfigurable IC can be readily modified, and that features a super-fast packet processing hardware algorithm enabling 10 Gbps wire-speed performance and IPv4 packet flow classification capability. NTT said its solution is especially geared toward countering DDoS attacks. http://www.ntt.co.jp

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NTT DoCoMo Introduces Mobile Wallet Service

NTT DoCoMo will launch the i-mode "FeliCa Service" for mobile wallet applications for handsets equippend with smart-cards. The The company's first such i-mode smart-card handset goes on sale this week. DoCoMo's new service and smart-card handsets may be used for a variety of unprecedented functions, including train travel, debit card (electronic money) and credit card-based withdrawals and transactions, and personal identification. Ten companies will offer the i-mode FeliCa Service initially, allowing users of the new handsets to make purchases at airports, cinemas and convenience stores. http://www.nttdocomo.com

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Allstream Launches Wholesale VoIP in Canada

Allstream launched a VoIP Access solution to help other service providers to connect their self-managed VoIP networks to the PSTN. The wholesale service is aimed at residential and SOHO VoIP rollouts. Allstream said it is the first in Canada to offer full ancillary services, including 911, 711, 411, Local Number Portability (LNP) and Operator services to VoIP service providers. In addition, customers can also add or supplement their offerings by taking advantage of other Allstream services such as Long Distance, Calling Card and Internet. Allstream has the network coverage to provide these services in major markets across Canada.



One of the first early adopters of this service is PRIMUS Canada, which offers one of Canada's leading VoIP phone services, TalkBroadband, to business and residential customers coast-to-coast. http://www.allstream.com

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iPass and Yahoo! BB Mobile Expand Roaming Agreement

iPass has expanded its roaming agreement with Yahoo! BB Mobile by adding a reciprocal roaming agreement for both iPass and Yahoo! BB Mobile users. Yahoo! BB Mobile is a wireless LAN service offered by Softbank BB and Yahoo! Japan. The schedule calls for iPass users to have access to Yahoo! BB Mobile access points beginning in July.



In September 2003, iPass signed a roam-out agreement with Softbank BB to provide Yahoo! BB Mobile users traveling overseas with dial-up and broadband access in more than 150 countries worldwide. This service has already been used by many Yahoo! BB Mobile users. Under the newly signed roam-in agreement expansion, over 600 Japanese Wi-Fi hotspots owned by Softbank BB will become available to iPass customers. The iPass service is used by more than 500,000 unique end-users every month. http://www.ipass.com

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Marconi Sells its Power Business for $375M

Emerson agreed to acquire the outside plant and power systems business of Marconi Corporation PLC for $375 million in cash. The Marconi power business, based in Lorain, Ohio, is a leading provider of DC power products, engineering and installation services, and outside plant products to major telecommunication carriers throughout North America. Its revenues for the year ended March 31, 2004, were approximately $380 million. This acquisition will allow Emerson to strengthen its presence with the regional Bell companies, inter-exchange carriers, wireless and cable companies in North America -- and leverage its global assets. The business recorded sales of approximately £209 million and an operating profit, before goodwill amortisation and exceptional items, of approximately £14 million, in the year ended 31 March 2004. Net assets at 31 March 2004 were £48m before pension liability and goodwill.



Emerson Network Power provides a full spectrum of reliable power solutions, including inbound power, connectivity, power supplies, power systems and precision cooling for telecommunications networks, data centers, health care and industrial facilities worldwide.



Marconi said that proceeds from the sale will be used to pay down debt. Following the close of this transaction, Marconi's outstanding debt will be reduced to approximately US$104 million. The company's Board confirmed its strategy to continue to pay down its remaining Senior Notes. http://www.marconi.comhttp://www.emersonnetworkpower.com

• Earlier this year, Advanced Fibre Communications (AFC) acquired Marconi's North American Access (NAA) business for $240 million in cash. Marconi NAA's major products included a fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) platform and DLCs. The acquisition would also provide AFC with a greater ability to penetrate major RBOC accounts. Notably, Marconi's fiber-to-the-curb platform is deployed extensively at BellSouth, which has been pursuing a fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) architecture since 1995.

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Lucent and Novatel Wireless Selected by KPN to Supply 3G Cards

Lucent Technologies and Novatel Wireless were selected to supply KPN in the Netherlands and E-Plus in Germany with the Merlin U530 Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) PC Card Modems -- jointly developed by Lucent and Novatel Wireless. http://www.lucent.comhttp://www.novatelwireless.com

• Earlier this month, Lucent Technologies and Novatel Wireless announced an agreement with Orange to supply 3G UMTS PC card modems for network rollouts in the UK and France, and with TMN, the leading mobile operator in Portugal.

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StarBand Launches Self-Pointing Mobile Satellite Service

StarBand announced the launch of a "self-pointing," satellite-based high-speed Internet service for RVs, trucks, police cars and other emergency services vehicles. StarBand's satellite footprint covers all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The mobile solution offers uses C-COM's self-pointing iNetVu 750 antenna system, which deploys the antenna once the vehicle is stationary and then automatically locks onto the satellite. The service offers download speed of 500 kbps and upload speeds at 100 kbps. The gear is priced at around $6,000.00 while the monthly service fee starts at $54.99. http://www.starband.comhttp://www.c-comsat.com

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Cisco to Provide Networking Curriculum to Chinese Colleges

Cisco Systems will provide its "Cisco Networking Academy" program, including all the electronic courses, supplementary teaching materials, program support, professional certifications and instructor training, to 35 national Model Software Colleges in China. The programs covered under a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Cisco Systems and China's Ministry of Education add up to a total value of US$37.7 million.



Cisco said that approximately 10,000 Networking Academy sites currently operate in all 50 of the United States and in 150 countries around the world. More than 400,000 students from high schools, universities, colleges, technical schools, organizations and other training groups take the courses globally. As of April 2004, the number of Cisco Networking Academy sites has reached 198 in China, with 17,370 students enrolled, 20,520 graduated, and 15 courses offered with 1,050 hours of electronic course materials. http://www.cisco.com

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AMCC Samples Network Processor and Traffic Manager

AMCC began sampling an integrated network processor and traffic manager to Tier One OEMs. The two devices serve as the cornerstone of AMCC's "MISSION" multi-service switching solution for switches and core/edge routers, delivering extremely fine-grained control of subscriber traffic without impacting the ability to perform complex ATM and packet internetworking at media speeds.



AMCC noted that Gartner has ranked it No. 1 worldwide in network processor marketshare for 2003. http://www.amcc.com

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BroadLight Secures Additional Funding for its FTTP

BroadLight, a start-up offering components for FTTP solutions, has received additional series C financing from Azure Capital Partners and several existing investors, bringing the total round to U.S. $17.9 million. BroadLight had previously closed this round on March 15th with an investment by Siemens Venture Capital and prior investments by Israel Seed Partners, Delta Ventures and two strategic investors.



BroadLight has secured a market share lead in the North American BPON market. The company recently named Andrew Vought as CEO; Tony Maher as Chairman and opened new U.S. headquarters in Mountain View, California. http://www.broadlight.comIn June 2004, BroadLight introduced a broadband passive optical network (BPON) controller for central office (CO) equipment. The new device, which complements BroadLight's existing XN230 BPON controller for optical network terminal (ONT) devices at the customer end point, is based on BroadLight's existing FPGA but adds features and functionality, including:

• Extended BPON (1.25 Gbps downstream and 622 Mbps upstream).
  
• Dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) which enables higher upstream bandwidth utilization.
  
• Enhanced Utopia interface (Utopia 2 or 3 in a bus mode) for higher performance, cost and footprint reduction in a multi port CO BPON line card.
  
• The new controller also includes the following embedded functionalities: SERDES, BPON framing and media access, a TDMA controller, cell transmission, queue management, traffic security, privacy, and out-of-band management.

The BPON controller is currently sampling and will be priced at under $50 in volume quantities for the 622 Mbps downstream and 155 Mbps upstream configuration, and slightly more for the extended BPON 1.25 Gbps downstream and 622 Mbps upstream configuration.

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