Verizon Wireless Pays $930M for Nextwave Spectrum in NYC

Verizon Wireless paid $930 million for the purchase of the spectrum license for the New York metropolitan area auctioned by NextWave Telecom Inc. on July 8.



The 10 MHz license is in the 1.9 GHz PCS frequency range and covers a population of 20.1 million people for the New York, New York Basic Trading Area ("BTA"). The BTA covers New York City and northern and central New Jersey, as well as Westchester and Rockland counties. http://www.verizonwireless.com

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Vonage to Add 600 Jobs in New Jersey

Vonage announced plans to hire more than 600 employees at its New Jersey headquarters over the next six months. The company said it is hiring in all areas, including customer care, product development, call processing, network engineering, sales and operations. http://www.vonage.com/

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Thai ISP Deploys Free-space Optics in Bangkok

Internet Thailand Public Company Limited (INET) has deployed LightPointe's free-space optics to expedite high-speed MetroLAN Internet services to Bangkok-area businesses. LightPointe's FlightSpectrum provides 100 Mbps building-to-building connections for INET, enabling the ISP to aggregate voice and data traffic from about two dozen buildings throughout downtown Bangkok to the company's 1 Gbps network backbone. For tenants in MetroLAN buildings, INET installs a CPE device that provides access to the Internet at 10 Mbps increments.



LightPointe's FlightSpectrum features the company's multi-beam, multi-path technology for additional resiliency and network redundancy. http://www.lightpointe.com

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FCC Approves Sales of New Skies Satellites to Blackstone

The FCC approved the sale of New Skies Satellites to affiliates of The Blackstone Group, a leading private investment firm. The deal is expected to close this week. http://www.newskies.comhttp://www.blackstone.comThe Blackstone Group, a private investment and advisory firm, agreed to acquire New Skies Satellites N.V. for $956 million in cash, equivalent to approximately $7.96 per fully diluted share.

New Skies, which is based in The Netherlands, has five satellites in orbit, ground facilities around the world and one additional spacecraft under construction. The company also has secured certain rights to make use of additional orbital positions for future growth.

New Skies said the deal a 14% premium over the price of its stock on April 28th, the day before it announced that it was considering its alternatives, and a 27% premium to the average share price during the twelve months leading up to that date.

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Rio Rancho (N.M.) Plans City-wide Wi-Fi Network

Rio Rancho, New Mexico, is planning to deploy a city-wide Wi-Fi network spanning some 103 square miles. Under the 25-year license agreement, the city will grant rights-of-way to Azulstar to install and operate Wi-Fi equipment that will provide a blanket of "cellular Wi-Fi" coverage. The high performance network, which is being funded by private investors, will use hundreds of small Wi-Fi repeater radios attached to buildings, utility poles and city infrastructure.



Azulstar will offer Internet access starting at $19.95/month for unlimited 256kbps service; mobile connections up to 1Mbps and daily passes will also be offered. Proxim Corp. will deliver a pre-WiMAX wireless backbone solution, Meru Networks will provide the access points, and LogiSense will supply operational support systems, such as billing. http://www.azulstar.comAzulstar Networks is a division of Ottawa Wireless.

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Scarlet Expands Network in Benelux with Redback

Scarlet, a telecommunications carrier with about 1.5 million residential and business customers in the Benelux, is expanding the reach and capacity of its broadband network with Redback Networks' SmartEdge platform. The existing Scarlet broadband network is based on Redback SMS 10000 systems. The upgrade provides an order of magnitude increase in scalability while supporting new, advanced services to both consumer customers and DSL-based business users. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.redback.com

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U.S. Carriers Announce MMS Interoperability Pact

U.S. wireless carriers have agreed to provide consumers with MMS (Multi-Media Messaging Services) interoperability. The Inter-Carrier MMS Working Group established a set of guidelines that will allow wireless carriers to phase-in photo and video messaging services over time. Currently, only customers of the same carrier network are capable of exchanging photo and video messaging. The carrier's decision to move forward in a collective fashion on MMS interoperability will permit customers of different networks to now swap multi-media images.



"This is the essence of the wireless industry," said Steve Largent. "Few industries are more competitive than ours, but today we have proven that competitors can and will come together to better serve the consumer."http://www.ctia.org

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FCC to Examine Impact of VoIP, New Services on Numbering System

The FCC will host a symposium n Thursday, Nov. 4 to examine the impact of emerging technologies on the nation's telephone numbering system.



The FCC said that in the face of increased demand for numbers for cell phones, fax machines and new local competitors, it has implemented policies designed to extend the life of the numbering system. By working with state commissions and the telecommunications industry, the FCC substantially increased the estimated life of the system, known as the North American Numbering Plan. But emerging new technologies, such as VoIP, raise new demand for numbers and new challenges. Among those challenges are "portable" VoIP services that use the same number no matter where the customer is located geographically. The symposium is entitled "The Future of Numbering: Will New Technologies, Innovations and Services Affect Number Administration and Optimization." Questions for the panels can be e-mailed in advance or during the symposium to FutureOfNumbering@fcc.gov. http://www.fcc.gov

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Lucent and its Unions Agree to Extend Negotiations One Week

Lucent Technologies, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) agreed to extend their negotiations for a week. Negotiators from the three parties have been meeting regularly since Oct. 7 in Washington, D.C. under the auspices of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. http://www.lucent.com

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MobilePro Achieves ZigBee Development Milestone

MobilePro has completed the design of its first ZigBee wireless semiconductor chip. The chip design for the so-called "RF layer," or "physical layer," is now being converted into a prototype chip at a facility in Taiwan. The first design is a 2.4 GHz ZigBee chip. MobilePro said it already has a second 900 MHz ZigBee chip on the drawing board. http://www.mobileprocorp.com/

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Atheros Licenses PCTEL's Soft Access Point

Atheros Communications will offer PCTEL's Soft Access Point (SoftAP) software for use with products based on its WLAN chipsets. PCTEL's SoftAP software convert a PC using an Atheros based network interface card into a fully functional access point (AP) with routing and firewall capabilities. The solution enables Enterprise as well as small office and home office users to load software onto a central PC, instead of purchasing additional hardware, to wirelessly connect multiple computers or other wireless devices. Availability for Atheros' SoftAP-enabled products is expected in Q1 2005. http://www.atheros.comhttp://www.pctel.com

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Avaya Expects Growth in 2005 Revenue and Margin

Avaya issued financial guidance for fiscal year 2005 and 2006, saying its operating margin goal for fiscal year 2005 is between 8.5 percent and 9 percent on fiscal 2005 revenues that are expected to grow by between 25 percent to 27 percent compared to fiscal year 2004 revenues of $4.055 billion. Operating margin for fiscal year 2004 was 7.6 percent. Avaya said the expected growth in fiscal 2005 revenues will come from its existing businesses and the impact of its acquisition of Spectel, its majority interest in Avaya GobalConnect (formerly Tata Telecom), and assuming a Jan. 1, 2005 close of its pending acquisition of Tenovis.



For fiscal year 2006 the company has an operating margin goal of between 10 percent and 12 percent.



Avaya reiterated its existing balance sheet goals of maintaining a strong net cash position and keeping debt at a level no higher than its debt level prior to the planned acquisition of Tenovis. The company also said its longer-term goals of improving its credit rating to investment grade, opportunistically deleveraging its balance sheet and maintaining a cash position of approximately one billion dollars remain.



The company also said beginning with the first fiscal quarter of 2005 it will report product revenues in a single segment called products and applications. Avaya's services segment reporting will remain unchanged. http://www.avaya.com

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