PMC-Sierra Unveils Third Generation Multiprocessor

PMC-Sierra announced its third generation highly integrated 64-bit MIPS-Powered multiprocessor designed for networking, storage and communications applications such as enterprise routers, storage systems and DSLAMs. The new processor integrates two newly designed 1.8 GHz E11K CPU cores with multiple high-speed memory and I/O interfaces, including dual DDR2, dual PCI Express, quad Gigabit Ethernet ports, and HyperTransport. The dual 64-bit DDR2 memory controllers support frequencies up to DDR2-800, and support 8-bit ECC. The PCI Express interfaces support either dual 4-lane interfaces or a single 8-lane interface. The quad Ethernet interfaces support automatic assignment into 8 queues per port and perform HW checksum assist. The HyperTransport interface runs up to 600 MHz link frequency, providing up to 10 Gbs of full duplex bandwidth. All of the I/O interfaces support Direct Deposit, which allows external peripherals to write directly into the L2 cache, avoiding costly external memory accesses and greatly increases system performance. http://www.pmc-sierra.com/processors/

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USTA to End SUPERCOMM Participation in '05, Plans '06 Trade Show

USTA, which jointly owns the trade show SUPERCOMM with the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), will not host the joint event in 2006 but will host an expanded TELECOM '06 to be held October 7- 11, 2006, at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas.



SUPERCOMM 2005 will be held June 6-9, 2005 (Exhibits June 7-9, 2005) in Chicago's McCormick Place. With the conclusion of SUPERCOMM 2005, USTA and TIA complete a five-year contractual relationship. TIA has informed USTA that it does not intend to purchase USTA's interest in the brand. USTA said it would not speculate as to whether future shows and exhibitions may be held under the SUPERCOMM name. http://www.usta.org/

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Battery Ventures Closes $450 Million Fund

Battery Ventures, a leading venture capital firm investing in information technology companies, closed its seventh fund with $450 million of committed capital. The fund will be invested over a period of approximately three years and is expected to contain a portfolio of 35 to 40 investments ranging in size from $5 million to $25 million each.



Previous investments by Battery Ventures have included Akamai Technologies, Allegiance Telecom, Arbor Networks, Broadbus Technologies, Cbeyond Communications, CipherTrust, FORE Systems, Friendster, HNC Software, Infoseek, LIFFE, Neoteris, Netezza, Nextel, Orion Multisystems, Pixelworks, Qtera, RiverDelta, Sigmatel, Vastera and Witness Systems. http://www.battery.com

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BT Trims Broadband Basic Pricing to £18

BT trimmed the monthly price for its Broadband Basic ADSL service to £17.99 a month, down from £19.99. Usage is capped at 1GB per month. http://www.btplc.com

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Cox Launches its Second VoIP Metro Market

Cox Communications launched its Digital Telephone service in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- its second market to use VoIP. Beginning later this month, Cox will further increase its telephone footprint by launching residential VoIP in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and in west Texas.



In December 2003, Cox launched residential VoIP service in Roanoke, Virginia. The company offers circuit-switched Digital Telephone service in 12 other markets.



Cox said that 58% of its phone customers subscribe to a three-product bundle of telephone, high-speed Internet and video services. However, broadband access is not a prerequisite to becoming a Cox Digital Telephone subscriber since Cox does not utilize the public Internet to deliver calls. Lastly, Cox Digital Telephone provides access to the Enhanced 911 system. The company noted that most broadband telephony providers are not integrated with E-911 networks, so critical address and location information is not delivered to the nearest Public Safety Answering Point. http://www.cox.com

• Cox's VoIP architecture is PacketCable compliant and uses DOCSIS 1.1 CMTSs, media terminal adapters, media gateways and a softswitch. In the Roanoke market, Cox provides back-up powering of the in-home multimedia terminal adapter using an internal battery that supplies several hours of back-up service.



• Cox Communications received the highest honor in the West in J.D. Power and Associates' 2004 Residential Local Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study for overall customer satisfaction. The local telephone service study rated overall customer satisfaction based on six factors: customer service, billing, performance and reliability, company image, cost of service and offerings and promotions.



• Cox ended Q2 2004 with over 2.2 million high-speed Internet customers, representing year-over-year customer growth of 34%. During the quarter, the company added 66,265 Cox Digital Telephone customers, ending the period with over 1.1 million telephone customers, representing year-over-year customer growth of 35%.



• Cox first launched telephony service in Orange County, California in 1997.

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Marconi Supplies Virtual Presence System to Florida Court System

The 13th Judicial Circuit of the State of Florida has replaced its analog videoconferencing system and enhanced its closed circuit television (CCTV) network with Marconi's ViPr Virtual Presence System, a high-resolution video telephony and multimedia communications platform. The court project includes 25 ViPr terminals covering several courtrooms, two jails and three remote locations. Judges and support staff are using ViPr for more than 100 video hearings a day.



Marconi's ViPr is a SIP-based multiparty desktop video telephony platform that eliminates the need for a Multi-point Control Unit (MCU) for multiparty calls. http://www.marconi.com

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Broadcom Debuts Gigahertz Quad-Core Broadband Processor

Broadcom introduced a new family of high performance, low power, integrated system-on-a-chip (SoC) processors targeted at data networking and communications applications, as well as security, storage, 3G wireless infrastructure, and high-density computing applications. The new devices integrate up to four 64-bit MIPS central processing unit (CPU) cores onto a single die and are software compatible with Broadcom's existing dual-core and single-core broadband processors. Performance gains for the new processors include up to 10,000 Dhrystone MIPS , 32 billion floating-point operations per second (GFLOPS), 20 million packets per second of L3 forwarding performance, 100 Gbps memory bandwidth, and up to 145 Gbps I/O bandwidth. Networking applications could include routing and switching engines and blade servers for data centers; multi-function (e.g. intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, anti-virus firewall, VPN) security appliances and/or chassis-based service blades; multi-protocol SAN switches, network attached storage (NAS) filers, and RAID arrays; and wireless infrastructure equipment such as radio network controllers (RNCs) and GPRS service and gateway nodes. http://www.broadcom.com

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Qwest Promotes VoIP Integrated Access for Small Businesses

Qwest Communications launched a new "OneFlex" Integrated Access VoIP service aimed at small businesses. The service provides a flat monthly rate for local and on-net voice services on up to 13 lines, and dedicated Internet access up to 1.544 Mbps. Off-net long-distance is charged on a per-minute rate. http://www.qwest.com

• Qwest has extended its "OneFlex" VoIP service to small, medium and enterprise business customers in 10 additional markets throughout its territory. Qwest is also planning an out-of-region business VoIP expansion to other major U.S. cities by the end of the year. These new markets will include: Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; Los Angeles; New York City; Orange County, Calif.; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and Washington, D.C.

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SBC Rolls out Unified Messaging Across Wireline and Wireless Services

SBC Communications introduced a Unified Communications service that provides a common inbox from multiple wireline and wireless sources for voice messages, faxes, and e-mails. Key features include:

• Cingular Wireless integration, so customers can access wireless messages from the same portal as landline, e-mail, and fax messages.



• Integrated message center that allows subscribers to view wireless and wireline voice-mails, e-mail, and fax subject lines all in one inbox.



• Text-to-speech technology reads e-mails over the phone. Users can listen to voice-mails over their computers (which also allows for prioritization of voice-mails). Customers can check fax message headers from the phone, and view and print them through the computer.



• E-mail or pager notification of new voice-mail or faxes.



• 50 MB of online storage for consumers and 100 MB for businesses.



• Up to four shared Unified Communications mailboxes under one account



• Customers can establish as many as 15 distribution lists, each with up to 25 entries for telephone numbers or e-mail addresses.

The new service is available in major cities throughout the SBC service territory. It is offered as a standalone service $10.95 per month (California) or in bundles of SBC residential services, including the All Distance unlimited local and long distance calling bundle for an additional $3 per month. http://www.sbc.com

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Infonet Delivers MPLS VPN for Japan's Nitto Denko

Infonet Services Corporation was awarded a two-year IP VPN contract extension with Nitto Denko, a leading Japanese developer and manufacturer of industrial, electronic and functional products. Infonet is supporting the company's managed IP VPN linking facilities in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. Nitto Denko is migrating from Frame Relay to Infonet MPLS-enabled IP VPN Secure. http://www.infonet.com

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Siemens to Resell Myrio's IP Video Solution

Siemens signed a worldwide OEM agreement to sell and integrate the Myrio IP Video Platform with its SURPASS Home Entertainment platform for triple play services. Financial terms were not disclosed.



The Myrio IP Video Platform consists of two core products, Myrio TotalManage, the back-office subscriber and content-management application, and Myrio Interactive, the full-featured end-user application. The Java-based platform enables the carrier to add new features, such as multiple language support, client Personal Video Recorder (cPVR), and web browser enhancements. http://www.myrio.com

• In June 2004, Siemens announced that Belgacom was the first carrier to begin testing its SURPASS Home Entertainment solution. For the TV-centric online project, Siemens was working with Myrio for the middleware to enable the application, nCube for the Video on Demand server, Verimatrix for content protection system, and Tandberg Television for the video broadcast equipment.

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NETGEAR Ships Double Stream 108 Mbps Wireless Router

NETGEAR began shipping a new Dual-Band Wireless Router that supports two separate wireless streams at up to 108 Mbps. The Double-108 Wireless Router (list $129) provides an 802.11b/g stream as well as a simultaneous 802.11a "fast lane" in the 5 GHz band free from congestion and interference. The wireless router uses Atheros' Super A/G technology, which supports rates of up to 108 Mbps over both the 802.11b/g and 802.11a streams, while maintaining backwards-compatibility with both wireless standards. The Netgear product is also the first to ship with Atheros' Extended Range technology, promising up to three times the range of basic 802.11g technology. NETGEAR is also shipping a new Double-108 Mbps Wireless PC Card (list $79).



The companies said the dual band approach is especially suited for high quality video streaming because the often-crowded 802.11 b/g band is hindered by interference from microwave ovens, cordless telephones and neighbors' wireless setup. Since 802.11a provides 13 non-overlapping channels, which will increase to 24 channels in 2005 with new unlicensed channels becoming available, versus just three channels for 802.11b/g, users will be less likely to compete with their neighbors' wireless networks for bandwidth. http://www.netgear.comhttp://www.atheros.com

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Wavesat Raises $8 Million for WiMAX Chipsets

Wavesat, a privately-held company based in Montreal, Canada, raised $8 million for its OFDM Broadband Wireless (BW) silicon designs. Wavesat is developing WiMAX chipsets and Subscriber Unit MAC software. The company plans to offer a Base Station and Subscriber Unit reference design starting in Fall 2004 with a clear evolution towards 802.16e. Investors include Taiwan-based Pac-Link Management Corp., Skypoint Capital Corporation, BDC Venture Capital, Innovatech Montreal, Monet Capital and Sunsino Ventures Group. http://www.wavesat.com

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Softbank BB Selects UTStarcom for GigE PON

Softbank BB began offering a new Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service in Tokyo. UTStarcom has received initial purchase orders valued in excess of $60 million for its Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network (GEPON) solution. UTStarcom expects to recognize revenue for the contract in the second half of 2005.



UTStarcom's GEPON product family includes a BBS1000 Optical Line Termination system (OLT) for deployment at the Central Office (CO) as well as an Optical Network Unit (ONU) for deployment at the customer's premises. The OLT provides a direct optical interface to the IP core, while the ONU terminates the PON at the customer's premises. Together, the two units complete the end-to-end optical last mile, providing up to one gigabit per second of bandwidth to residential and business customers. The platform provides Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching and routing functionality in support of Triple Play services. http://www.utstar.comhttp://www.softbank.co.jp

• As of 30-Aug-2004, Japan had 1,601,432 FTTH lines in service, according to the country's Ministry of Home Management, Public Affairs,
  Posts and Telecommunications, up from 960,926 FTTH users at the start of 2004. For comparison, as of 30-Aug-2004, DSL users in Japan numbered 12,549.066.



• As of 30-Aug-2004, Yahoo! BB had approximately 4,426,000 broadband lines in service and 4,183,000 VoIP accounts. The company had 3,610 switching centers in service.



• Last month, UTStarcom was awarded a new contract valued at approximately $20 million to supply its NetRing 10000 STM-64 multiservice optical transport product to the SOFTBANK Group. SOFTBANK intends to deploy the equipment in the construction of a new network with Japan Telecom. UTStarcom NetRing platform provides aggregation, grooming, cross-connect, and transport functionality to deliver high-density, highly efficient STM-1 to STM-64, PDH (E1/DS1, E3/DS3), Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and ATM services in SDH-based carrier networks.

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Broadvox Cuts Monthly VoIP Service to $19.95

Broadvox lowered the price of its Unlimited Residential Plus calling plan to $19.95 per month from $29.95 per month. Broadvox Direct offers more than 25 standard features such as call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, voicemail and three-way calling. The company operates is its own facilities-based VoIP network. http://www.BroadvoxDirect.com

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Verizon Online Offers Annual DSL Service Plan

Verizon announced a new annual DSL service plan that provides 1.5 Mbps downstream and 384 kbps upstream for $29.95 a month. Other customers will pay $34.95 a month for this service. Verizon is also offering a premium service for 3 Mbps downstream and 768 Kbps upstream for $39.95 a month with the annual service plan.



Previously, only customers who purchased DSL as part of a package of local and long-distance calling services received the lowest prices -- $29.95 a month for basic service and $39.95 for a higher-speed optionhttp://www.verizon.net

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Spirent Supplies IPv6 for DoD's Joint Interoperability Test Command

Spirent Communications supplied its IPv6 test solution to the Department of Defense's Joint Interoperability Test Command for use in the Joint User Interoperability Exercise (JUICE) and Joint Rapid Architecture Exercise (JRAE).



During a dual stack IPv4 and IPv6 interoperability test, the JITC used Spirent's SmartBits SmartFlow QoS automation application to generate traffic and analyze the capability of network devices to handle both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic. The JITC also employed Spirent's SmartBits SmartFlow in a QoS test. In this case, Spirent's SmartBits Test System generated traffic and quantified the priority given to certain types of traffic, such as voice and video. Spirent's SmartBits TeraRouting Tester was applied by the JITC during a BGP4+ convergence test to verify that the devices being tested could recognize a change in routing topology and reroute packets accordingly. http://www.spirentcom.com

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Wave7 Offers Extended Reach Optics for FTTP

Wave7 Optics introduced a new "Last Mile Core" (LMC) OLT (optical line terminal) unit that can reach subscribers up to 18 km distant when deployed in a "central office" type location and subscribers up to 88 km distant when deployed remotely -- an improvement from the 10 and 70 km limits in the previous version of the LMC. Wave7 Optics' OLT can be deployed remotely from the central office in a distributed architecture or as the centerpiece in a more classical PON approach.



The new OLT also adds compatibility to the IEEE 802.3 ah standard and "Layer 2" capabilities for commercial applications, such as VLAN-based services. The OLT can provide up to 500 Mbps of capacity per subscriber in a Layer 3 point-to-multipoint implementation using Ethernet and IP.



Separately, Wave 7 also announced two new customers. Ringgold Telephone has selected its Last Mile Link (LML) system for new housing developments in northwest Georgia. The initial FTTP network will deliver a 38 Mbps connection to each subscriber for a triple play package of TDM voice, digital IP television and data services. Japan's is deploying Wave7's Last Mile Link (LML) optical broadband system in a new network serving the city of Taki-Cho (Shimane Prefecture). Subscribers will be offered an individualized package of services on an "a la carte" basis. http://www.w7optics.com

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Critical Telecom Debuts Ethernet Remote DLSAM for Triple Play

Critical Telecom, a start-up based in Ottawa, Canada, introduced a scalable Ethernet Remote DSLAM with ADSL2+ interfaces and designed for Triple Play services over Fiber to the Node (FTTN) networks.



The new Gemini Ethernet Remote DSLAM provides integrated GigE backhaul (with two GigE ports) in an environmentally-hardened, compact unit that can be deployed inside of remote cabinets. The unit can be installed without the need for local power or for building out a new cabinet or pedestal. A single units offers 24 ports of non-blocking ADSL2+ services. Multiple units can be combines inside a single, fiber-fed cabinet to offer up 192 ports of ADSL2+. Critical Telecom predicts this scalability will enable its design to address the "sweet-spot" in new access network upgrades.



Critical Telecom's remote DSLAM also includes an integrated processing engine with the power to provide enhance Layer 2 functionality and advanced IP feature sets. This would enable the BRAS intelligence to be distributed to the network edge when and where required. It also supports multiple PVCs per ADSL port, PVC to VLAN mapping capabilities, full multicasting capabilities for IPTV, remote software upgrades and loop diagnostics.



http://www.criticaltelecom.com

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