Sprint Signs $400 Million IT Services Deal with IBM

Sprint and IBM announced a five-year Information Technology (IT) agreement valued at more than $400 million. Under terms of the agreement, which expands the scope of existing IT work between the companies announced in September 2003, IBM Global Services will provide application development and maintenance support for selected Sprint IT software systems and will work with Sprint to:Establish accelerated software application delivery services to allow Sprint to more quickly deliver new and differentiated products to its customers while decreasing...

Read More

South Korean MSO Selects ARRIS Cadant CMTS

Woori Cable, which serves approximately 110,000 customers in Uijeongbu, South Korea, has deployed the DOCSIS 2.0-qualified ARRIS Cadant C4 Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS). The deployment occurred in conjunction with local partner CommVerge Solutions. http://www.arrisi.c...

Read More

FCC Expands Spectrum Licensing Rules

The FCC expanded the availability of spectrum leasing to more wireless services and devices, further streamlined the processing of spectrum lease applications and notifications, as well as traditional license transfers and assignments, and clarified certain aspects of the original spectrum leasing rules. The changes are aimed at expanding secondary market mechanisms to permit spectrum to flow more freely among users and uses in response to economic demand. Lease filings and transfer/assignment applications that meet new criteria will be eligible...

Read More

FCC Changes Rules to Promote Wireless Broadband, Next-Gen Bluetooth

The FCC adopted several changes to its rules for unlicensed devices to facilitate deployment of rural broadband services by wireless internet service providers (WISPs). The FCC is seeking to foster introduction of smart antenna technology that can operate at higher power levels without causing increased interference. The FCC is also seeking to facilitate deployment of next-generation Bluetooth devices, which operate at data rates up to three times faster than current devices. The new devices will be backward compatible with existing devices...

Read More

NextWave Auction Attracts Winning Bids Totaling $973.5 Million

The auction of NextWave Telecom's spectrum license rights generated approximately $973.5 million in total proceeds. Verizon Wireless placed the winning bid of $930 million for a 10 MHz license principally covering the greater New York City metropolitan area, while MetroPCS placed winning bids totaling $43.5 million for 10 MHz licenses in two markets in Florida (Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater and Sarasota-Bradenton). Of the $973.5 million total, approximately $398 million will be paid to the Federal Communications Commission pursuant to the Global...

Read More

First Avenue Networks to Acquire Teligent Assets

First Avenue Networks agreed to acquire Teligent's 24 GHz spectrum licenses, fixed wireless broadband operations and radio assets in a stock transaction valued at approximately $99 million. Following the acquisition, First Avenue will hold over 700 MHz of spectrum at 24 GHz and 39 GHz in the top 75 U.S. markets. http://www.firstavenet.c...

Read More

FCC Addresses Nextel and 800 MHz Interference Issue

All five FCC commissioners voted to adopt a new band plan for the 800 MHz band to address the growing problem of interference to public safety radio systems used by emergency responders. The plan will require Nextel to give up rights to certain of its licenses in the 800 MHz band and all of its licenses in the 700 MHz band. In exchange, the Commission will modify Nextel's licenses to provide the right to operate on two five-MHz blocks in a different part of the spectrum -- specifically 1910-1915 MHz and 1990-1995 MHz -- conditioned on Nextel...

Read More

NTT Com to Launch Global Voice/Video Unified Solution

NTT Communications (NTT Com) launched an IP-based service package combining voice and video communications (G-V2oIP) under its Arcstar Global IP-VPN brand. The new service rides over the company's MPLS network. Under new service package, NTT Com provides free VoIP-based voice communications on private corporate networks (on-net calling) spanning the globe, outgoing call placement to the public network (off-net calling), a teleconferencing service (including a collaboration function1 that allows conference participants to share screen images),...

Read More

Alcatel Participates in Germany's VIOLA Project

Alcatel will supply its optical and routing equipment to Germany's Project VIOLA (Vertically Integrated Optical test bed for Large Applications), which will provide a multi vendor and multi layer, integrated data and optical network linking major research centers. The VIOLA network will connect a new Supercomputer with more than 8 TeraFlops of computing power (eight trillion operations per second) located in Julich, near Bonn, to several other computing clusters supporting different applications and requirements. Alcatel is part of a multi-party...

Read More

Saudi Telecom Selects Siemens MSPP

Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the largest telecommunications provider in Saudi Arabia, has signed a further contract with Siemens IC Networks for delivery and installation of optical transmission equipment. The deal, which is worth a double-digit million EUR figure, primarily encompasses the newly developed multi-service provisioning platform SURPASS hiT 70xx. A first tranche of the contract has already been ordered for building an SDH-based transmission ring in the eastern province of the country. The new route is planned to go into operation...

Read More

TANDBERG Unveils New MXP Technology

TANDBERG introduced a new technology, based on industry standards, that improves audio and video quality while adding collaboration tools and advanced multiple-site capabilities. Specifically, the new technology delivers:digital audio with CD-quality stereo sound based on he MPEG4 AAC-LD standard ratified by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).SIP-readiness to take advantage of future IP telephony applications and infrastructure, extending the enhanced feature set of IP PBX solutions to video. H.264 support for high-quality video on...

Read More

Cisco to Acquire Parc Tech for Route Optimization Software

Cisco Systems agreed to acquire Parc Technologies, a start-up developing traffic engineering (TE) solutions and software for routing optimization, for approximately $9 million in cash. Parc is a spin off from a renowned center for research into search algorithms based at Imperial College, University of London. Parc's Route Server algorithms address network routing problems involving complex Quality of Service constraints. Parc's technology will be used by Cisco in the planning and optimization of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) TE. Specifically,...

Read More