Cable & Wireless Pursues Local Loop Unbundling in U.K.

Cable & Wireless announced its intention to pursue the broadband market in the U.K. via local unbundling from BT. In a webcast presentation, Cable & Wireless said its initial plans include:

• a target to unbundle up to 400 exchanges by the second half of 2005 which will give Cable & Wireless access to approximately 30% of sites in the UK



• local loop unbundling capital investment is expected to be £40-50 million in the year to 31 March 2005. An additional £15 - 35 million will be required in the year to 31 March 2006, subject to the speed of subscriber growth



• investment will also include operational funding, which is expected to be approximately £30 million in the year to 31 March 2005 and at a similar level in the following year, subject to the speed of subscriber growth



• annual revenue is expected to be approximately £250 million within 4 years.

"Cable & Wireless is uniquely positioned to take advantage of LLU in the UK given the reach of its national network, the second largest in the country. LLU enables Cable & Wireless to establish full ownership of its customers as their sole telecommunications provider reducing reliance on the incumbent. LLU allows us to establish a strong presence in the access network and to unlock the value of our fixed network. Over time this will translate to stronger margins," said Francesco Caio, Chief Executive Officer of Cable & Wireless. http://www.cw.com

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Airespace Signs IBM Partnership for Wi-Fi

Airespace announced a partnership with IBM targeting corporate Wi-Fi services. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.airespace.com

• Airespace previously announced global OEM agreements with Alcatel, NEC, and Nortel. In addition, Airespace has also established partnerships with D-Link .



• In July 2004, Airespace secured $20 million in mezzanine funding, bringing the total investment in the company to $58 million. Airespace's primary investors include Battery Ventures, Fidelity Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Storm Ventures, Hotung Capital, and KTB Ventures.

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Vonage Offers Virtual Numbers for Mexico City

Vonage began offering virtual numbers with Mexico City-based phone numbers. Virtual Phone Numbers are secondary numbers that ring to the primary Vonage line. Mexico City-based virtual numbers make it less expensive for people in Mexico to call the Vonage customer in the U.S. or Canada. Vonage is charging an additional $4.99 USD/$7.99 CAD per month for the Mexico City number. http://www.vonage.com

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AMCC's Rickey to Retire in 2005

David M. Rickey, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of AMCC, announced plans to retire in August 2005. The Board of Directors has commenced a search for his successor.



Rickey served as AMCC's Vice President of Operations from August 1993 until May 1995 when he left to become the Vice President of Operations at NextGen. He re-joined AMCC as President and Chief Executive Officer in February 1996.



Under Rickey, AMCC completed its initial public offering, two follow-on offerings and a number of acquisitions. http://www.amcc.com

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Vitesse Announces $90 Million Private Offering

Vitesse Semiconductor intends to offer approximately $90 million aggregate principal amount of Convertible Subordinated Debentures due 2024 in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers. The company said it intends to use up to $20 million of the net proceeds of this offering to fund a concurrent repurchase of shares of its common stock, and the remainder of the net proceeds for general corporate purposes. http://www.vitesse.com

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AirBee Seeks Patents for ZigBee Coding Scheme

AirBee Wireless, a start-up based in Rockville, Maryland, filed a U.S. patent application for a ZigBee compliant software stack for short-range wireless voice, data and video communications.



The application describes "a method and system for a power optimal coding scheme used in data transmission," and it is the first of several AirBee patent filings planned for the coming months. The company said its new coding scheme "provides for the transmission and reception of asynchronous data using a first in first out driven serial port."http://www.airbeewireless.com

• AirBee is a member of the ZigBee Alliance which is developing an open global standard for intelligent wireless products. AirBee Wireless is a publicly-traded company.

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Nortel Expects Q3 Revenues to be Lower than Q2

Nortel Networks expects its revenues in Q3 2004 to be lower than its previously announced preliminary unaudited revenues for Q2 2004. On a full year basis, the company now expects that its 2004 revenue percentage growth over 2003 will be in the mid single digits and that the overall communications equipment market will grow faster than that.



Nortel also provided an update on on-going civil litigation. In June 2004, the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York consolidated the 27 class action complaints that had been filed against Nortel Networks, and certain former officers. On September 10, 2004, a consolidated class action complaint was filed alleging that the named defendants (Nortel Networks, certain current directors and certain former officers) violated U.S. securities laws, including by making materially false and misleading statements.



Bill Owens, president and chief executive officer, Nortel Networks, said, "As we work through this challenging transition period, completing our restatement activity and implementing the new strategic plan for the Company, I am confident that Nortel Networks will be positioned to compete strongly in all of our markets with the right products and services as we move into 2005."http://www.nortelnetworks.com

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CableLabs and NCTA Plan CableNET '05 Event

CableLabs and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) have issued a request for proposals (RFP) for participation in CableNET '05 to be held at The 2005 National Show, NCTA's 54th Annual Convention & International Exposition, scheduled for April 3-6, 2005, at The Moscone Center in San Francisco.



CableNET highlights the value of broadband services by offering a hands-on experience with many of the technologies that cable operators may provide in the next several years. http://www.cablelabs.com

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Netopia to Restate Past Financials, Auditors Resign

Netopia will restate its financial statements for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2002 and for each subsequent fiscal quarter and fiscal year through March 31, 2004, and also will revise previously released preliminary financial results for the third fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2004. Netopia also announced that KPMG LLP has resigned as its auditors.



Netopia said the known restatements principally involve the appropriateness and/or timing of revenue recognition relating to two software license transactions with a single software reseller customer. Further details are online. http://www.netopia.com

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Point Topic: Global Broadband Reaches 123 Million Lines, up 55% Y-O-Y

The number of broadband lines worldwide surpassed the 123 million mark as of 30-June-2004, according to the latest figures from Point Topic, a London-based market research firm. The 123 million line count represents a 55% increase over the same period a year earlier.



Point Topic said DSL lines increased by over 30 million, or 66%, to 78 million. Cable modem and other broadband lines increased by nearly 13 million, or 39%, to 45 million. Notably, fiber-to-the-building (FTTP or FTTX) accounted for 9 million lines as of 30 June, or 7.3%. Other technologies, mainly fixed wireless access and satellite, accounted for less than 0.3% of the total.



In terms of broadband penetration per 100 population, South Korea leads at 24.4, followed by Hong Kong at 21. Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Taiwan and Switzerland have also reached the 15 lines per 100 population penetrationhttp://www.point-topic.co.uk

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Cisco Launches "Linksys-to-Cisco" Trade-Up Program

Cisco Systems announced a "Linksys to Cisco Trade-Up Program" that offers rebates to small businesses in the U.S. when they purchase select Linksys business products. Linksys is a division of Cisco Systems. The rebate pays up to 100% cash back when qualifying purchasers are ready to migrate to Cisco routing, switching and wireless solutions. Cisco said small businesses can start off building their network with Linksys products and when their business has grown to require more advanced features and more enhanced integration services; they can trade-up their eligible Linksys product to an eligible Cisco product under this program.



"As part of our small and medium business strategy, this trade-up program helps Cisco to broaden our value proposition to the small business marketplace," said Peter Alexander, VP world wide commercial marketing. "The program will also enable Linksys customers to become more informed of Cisco offerings and the business benefits that Cisco networks can provide."http://www.cisco.comhttp://www.linksys.com

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Vietnam Datacommunication Selects Cisco for IP Backbone

Datacommunication Company (VDC), a subsidiary of Vietnam Post & Telecom (VNPT), selected Cisco Systems for an IP backbone upgrade enabling it to offer a full range of services, including IP/MPLS VPNs, business-class broadband, and IP telephony to its corporate customers. VDC plans to deliver its IP/MPLS VPN service in the next few months, to be followed by a range of services such as IP telephony and managed network services.



The project includes Cisco 12410 routers at the core, Cisco 7600 Series routers at the edge, Cisco 7200 Series access routers, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series multilayer switches, Cisco access servers and VoIP gateways, Cisco 7300 Series routers, Cisco security devices, including the Cisco PIX 525 firewall, and Cisco Aironet 1100 Series WLAN access points. These products complement other Cisco equipment in VDC's network that are used to deliver long-distance VoIP, wireless LAN access, network security, and high-speed Internet access. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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Metro Exchange Service Opens at NYC's Eighth Avenue Carrier Hotel

Equinix and NYC Connect launched a metro exchange peering service featuring BT, TDS Internet Services, Yahoo! and T-Systems as initial customers. The new service offers an interconnection fabric between NYC Connect, which operates a carrier neutral "Meet Me Room" at 111 Eighth Avenue, and Equinix's Internet hub in New Jersey.



NYC Connect's "Meet Me Room" facility makes it possible for its more than 30 carriers, ISPs and other network service providers to interconnect and access more than 100 telecommunications, Internet and technology companies located within the building.



Companies peering at Equinix's Newark IBX include Cablevision, ICG Communications, SBC Internet Services and Telecom Italia.



As a part of the agreement, Equinix will be the exclusive provider of peering services for the interconnection of networks within NYC Connect's "Meet Me Room."http://www.equinix.comhttp://www.NYC-Connect.com

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Juniper Networks to Open R&D Center in Beijing

Juniper Networks plans to open an R&D center in Beijing, China, by the end of the year. The facility will focus on network and security solutions for small and medium businesses in the world market. The Beijing center will leverage the Chinese roots of NetScreen Technologies, which was acquired by Juniper Networks last April. The company opened a similar center in Bangalore, India, last year.



Juniper Networks currently has sales offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and Asia Pacific regional headquarters in Hong Kong. http://www.juniper.net

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AT&T Offers "Five Nines" IP Service Availability

AT&T will guarantee "five nines" IP service availability for the first time from its core network to customer premises equipment with a new service level agreement (SLA) for its customers. Highlights of AT&T's new performance standards, which are effective mid-October, include:

• the industry's first end-to-end service availability metric of 99.999%;



• a Time to Repair metric that establishes an absolute time commitment to repair a specific outage rather than the industry standard of "Mean Time to Repair;"



• taising the bar in packet delivery and latency-considered the best measure of network performance-by slashing its current latency metrics, for example, by more than 50 percent in some geographies like Asia-Pacific;



• Real financial remedies, such as a full day's credit for as little as a four-minute outage.

AT&T said its new global performance metrics are designed to address customers' primary objective of superior performance, rather than financial credits for sub-par performance. Customers can track packet loss and latency via a web portal. http://www.att.com/business

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