IPtimize Deploys Kagoor for VoIP over Broadband

IPtimize, a managed VoIP services provider serving small- and medium-size enterprises, has deployed Kagoor's VoiceFlow session border controllers to deliver managed VoIP service to enterprises. Kagoor's VoBB solution eliminates IP address issues and provides call monitoring and statistics gathering. The VoiceFlow platform gives IPtimize the flexibility to direct customer traffic to different service platforms, allowing it to meet a variety of call-routing requirements. It also provides IPtimize with hosted Network Address Translation (NAT) and network protection solutions, which include advanced security features, such as topology hiding and protection from denial of service attacks.



Iptimize is based in Denver, Colorado. http://www.iptimize.com

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SEVEN Completes Series C Financing, Postpones IPO

SEVEN, a start-up based in Redwood City, California, announced that it completed its Series C round of financing. The company develops software that enables mobile operators to offer their subscribers secure, low-cost, real-time access to business and personal email and applications from their mobile phones. SEVEN is currently available across major international network standards, and is sold by Cingular Wireless, KDDI Corp., NTT DoCoMo, O2, Orange, The SingTel Group and Sprint.



The company said a "Qualified Institutional Buyer," as well as its existing investors, contributed to the new funding round. UBS Securities acted as exclusive placement agent to SEVEN in this transaction. Terms of this investment have not been disclosed. Previously, SEVEN raised approximately $55 million in its Series A and Series B rounds in 2000 and 2001 respectively.



SEVEN also announced today that it has withdrawn its S.E.C. registration statement relating to its intent to offer shares of common stock to the public market, opting to postpone its offering until a later date. http://www.seven.com/

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Nokia Names New Chief Strategy Officer

Nokia has named Tero Ojanpera as Chief Strategy Officer and Group Executive Board, replacing Matti Alahuhta who is leaving the company to become President and COO of Kone. Tero Ojanpera, currently heads Nokia's corporate R&D unit, the Nokia Research Center, which is key in ensuring the company's overall technological competitive and innovative edge. http://www.nokia.com

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Global Crossing Offers Private Line Hub Service

Global Crossing introduced "OneConnectPrivate Line", a flexible, flat-rate, high-bandwidth "fan out" solution with global reach. The service us a fully private and secure Layer 2 core network solution for enterprises that need dedicated private line global connectivity in a hub-and-spoke model but with the cost savings of a shared VPN network.



Global Crossing OneConnect Private Line service enables a customer to connect to Global Crossing's worldwide network via DS3/E3 to OC48/STM16 access from a single location or hub and to "fan out" connections to other global locations with variable bandwidth options including T1/E1, DS3/E3, OC3/STM1 and OC12/STM4 interfaces. OneConnect service is available today to customers at a flat monthly rate, exclusive of endpoint local access charges.



Target customers include broadcast media, governments, research and educational groups, and other enterprises seeking to expand or consolidate existing hub-and-spoke wide-area networks.



OneConnect runs on Global Crossing's worldwide optical network, interconnected with Global Crossing's MPLS-based IP network.



Separately, Global Crossing announce the geographic expansion of its partner channel program. Since re-launching its partner channel program in March 2004, Global Crossing has increased its master agent force by 58%. The company is reaching out to IP- centric agents who target multi-located medium enterprises. Global Crossing said its partner program offers flexible pricing models and aggressive compensation plans. http://www.globalcrossing.com/

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Broadcom Boosts Wi-Fi Coverage

Broadcom announced two new 54g wireless LAN chipsets with "BroadRange" technology, enabling Wi-Fi users to maintain high speed wireless connections at distances up to 50% greater than previous generation solutions. BroadRange technology uses advanced digital signal processing techniques to improve the receive sensitivity. Broadcom said the technology complies with IEEE 802.11 standards. The company plans to integrate it into a wide range of Wi-Fi products -- from notebook PCs to routers to cell phones.



The first two products include the new BCM4318E, which is the third-generation product in Broadcom's line of single-chip client solutions. The highly-integrated chip can power down to consume as little as 9mW in idle mode. Broadcom has also enhanced its integrated wireless LAN processor with BroadRange technology. The BCM5352E combines high-performance 54g wireless routing, Fast Ethernet switching and a MIPS instruction set processor into a single system-on-a-chip (SoC). It can be paired with Broadcom's BCM2050 radio for delivering wireless and wired performance and security previously available from devices at up to twice the cost. http://www.broadcom.com

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360networks Completes Sale of its Canadian Assets to BCE

360networks completed the sale of its Canadian assets, primarily Group Telecom, to Bell Canada for US$215 million in cash. Bell Canada also purchased selected northern US interconnection assets and related liabilities. 360networks will use the cash proceeds to retire all of its debt, including the debt from its 2002 restructuring, and for working capital purposes.



360networks will focus on its US operations, which include a low-cost, long-haul network footprint with strategic metro access and a regional Western regional network with unique reach into rural markets.



Group Telecom will now operate as a division of Bell Canadahttp://www.360.net

• 360networks purchased Group Telecom out of bankruptcy in February 2003.

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World Wide Packets Names New VP of Engineering

World Wide Packets named Brower Dimond as its new Vice President of Engineering, where he will oversee the continuing development and evolution of the company's LightningEdge Ethernet Access solution. Most recently, he was responsible for product engineering at Gluon Networks where he oversaw the design and production of its "Converged Local Exchange". Prior to Gluon, he served as Vice President of Engineering for Ericsson. http://www.worldwidepackets.com

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Millennium Digital Media Deploys BigBand's CMTS

Millennium Digital Media, a cable operator serving approximately 130,000 customers, is deploying the BigBand Cuda CMTS (cable modem termination system) and FastFlow Broadband Provisioning Manager to deliver advanced IP voice and data services. The equipment supports VoIP, commercial and advanced data services based on DOCSIS 2.0. http://www.bigbandnet.comhttp://www.mdm.net

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Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom Selects Cisco for Managed Services

Chunghwa Telecom, the incumbent service provider in Taiwan, selected Cisco Systems to expand the delivery and adoption of IP-based managed network services in Taiwan. Specifically, Chunghwa Telecom will base its new managed network services on Cisco equipment, and Cisco will provide marketing assistance and access to resellers in the region that configure, install and maintain the equipment. The managed network services are targeted towards small and medium sized enterprises. Services will include IP VPNs, managed network security and managed IP telephony. Both parties agree to share market intelligence and conduct joint branded marketing campaigns to promote the service in Taiwan. http://www.cisco.com

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Qwest's OC-192 Network to Remain Core Transport for Internet2's Abilene

Qwest Communications will continue providing optical and SONET network services to Internet2, a university-led research and development consortium that includes more than 300 U.S. universities, research institutions, corporations and government agencies. Under a new agreement, Qwest will continue as the backbone transport provider for the Abilene Network -- Internet2's advanced transcontinental backbone -- through September 2007. The new agreement builds on an original agreement executed in April 1998 and subsequently extended for five years in October 2001.



The Abilene Network will continue using nearly 10,000 route-miles of Qwest's OC-192 network.



The Abilene Network currently connects over three million users, 220 research and education institutions, and 34 state education networks. Abilene supports advanced native services, such as IP multicast and IPv6 and provides a transparent view of network performance through the Abilene Observatory measurement collaboration. http://www.qwest.comhttp://www.internet2.edu

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Freescale Licenses RADVISION Toolkits

RADVISION has licensed both its H.323 and SIP developer platforms to Freescale Semiconductor for the development of a wide variety of chip-based IP communications applications optimized for various Freescale processors. Freescale plans to use the RADVISION toolkit to develop applications that sit on top of and leverage the specialized processing features of various Freescale chipsets including its ColdFire microprocessor core and i.MX21 multimedia applications processor.
The hybrid solution of specialized hardware processors, combined with custom-developed communications applications, provides a video and voice over IP architecture that enables the rapid development of IP communication devices by third parties. http://www.radvision.com

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Atrica Names VP of Global Customer Service

Atrica named Kaushal Agrawal as its vice president of Global Customer Service. Agrawal previously spent six years at Cisco/Stratacom, where he was responsible for product quality for ATM/Frame Relay WAN products and introducing high availability services for most of the Tier 1 carriers worldwide. http://www.atrica.com

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Thomson Joins Microsoft and Time Warner in ContentGuard DRM Venture

Thomson will become a strategic investor in ContentGuard, a closely-held developer of Digital Rights Management (DRM) intellectual property. Microsoft and Time Warner Inc. are also stakeholders in ContentGuard.



Under the deal, Thomson will purchase an aggregate 33% voting stake in ContentGuard from Microsoft, Time Warner and Xerox, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.



The three companies said their partnership would help promote the development of inter-operable DRM systems, accelerate the deployment of consumer devices that support Digital Rights Management, and encourage content owners to launch exciting new distribution channels. The partners plan to continue development of ContentGuard's intellectual property and to promote innovation in electronic content distribution using DRM technologies.



"This unique partnership brings together content, technology and media services to deploy more rapidly DRM-enabled business models," said Frank Dangeard, Chairman and CEO of Thomson.



"The development of web services and new content distribution systems requires a complete ecosystem of participants. Thomson's investment alongside Time Warner and Microsoft shows that media, software, devices and services companies are committed to developing the infrastructure for web services to flourish", said Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft . http://www.thomson.net

• ContentGuard was spun-out from Xerox's renowned Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).



• In April 2004, Time Warner acquired most of Xerox's stake in ContentGuard.



• In October, Microsoft unveiled its new MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player designed to bring premium MSN content, PC-stored digital media and e-mail to TV. MSN TV 2 is a broadband-home-network-enabled device manufactured by Thomson under the RCA brand. The device is powered by an Intel 733 MHz Celeron processor and the Windows CE operating system. The MSN TV2 device enables the TV to play Windows Media-compatible music, video and photos on their televisions from the Web or shared from files on their networked PCs. MSN will package content, including hundreds of news, sports and entertainment video clips, updated daily from leading content providers.

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Service Availability Forum Releases New Version of Application Interface Specification

The Service Availability Forum (SA Forum) announced the release of the Application Interface Specification (AIS) B.01.01, an interface specification for high availability middleware. The AIS is an interface for highly available applications that allows application developers to write application software that is portable across different vendors' implementations of high availability middleware.



AIS B.01.01 is free to download from the SA Forum site. http://www.saforum.org

• The Service Availability Forum (SA Forum), a consortium of industry-leading communications and computing companies, develops and promotes open interface specifications that enable the industry to build high availability network infrastructure products, systems and services.

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Optical Solutions Wins GPON Contract in North Dakota

Optical Solutions' FiberPath 500 GPON platform was selected by BEK Communications of North Dakota for a multi-year plant replacement in portions of the cooperative's six-county service area. BEK serves 7,000 access lines and 18 telephone exchanges in rural south-central North Dakota. Optical Solutions' FiberPath 500 is capable of delivering IPTV, 100-plus Mbps data speeds and multiple telephone lines. http://www.opticalsolutions.com

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IEEE Forms Study Group for Enhancing PoE 802.3af standard

The IEEE has formed a new 802.3 Study Group to discuss the enhancement of the IEEE PoE 802.3af standard. The purpose of the enhanced PoE standard, dubbed "PoEplus," would be to deliver higher power levels to devices that require more than the 13 Watts currently specified in the 802.3af standard, ratified in June 2003. All new modifications would need to be compatible with the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard and backwards compatible with existing IEEE 802.3af PoE equipment.



The ratification of the 802.3af standard has accelerated the deployment of numerous network devices, such as WLAN access points, IP phones and network security cameras.



PowerDsine said it is seeing an increase in the types of Ethernet end-devices that could benefit from safe and reliable PoE powering, but many emerging devices require more power.



Twenty-two companies participated and voted for the creation of the Study Group. http://www.powerdsine.comhttp://www.ieee802.org/3/cfi/request_1104.html

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Marconi Wins £15 Million Managed Services Contract from Energis

Energis awarded a three-year multi-vendor Network Managed Services (NMS) contract valued at £15 million to Marconi. The NMS contract will cover a range of technologies across Energis' network, including a significant estate of multi-vendor assets, giving Marconi responsibility for transmission, routing, access and customer premise equipment (CPE) technologies. http://www.marconi.com

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Alcatel to provide Telefónica Móviles with 3G Video

Telefónica Móviles selected Alcatel to deploy and integrate a video gateway solution into the operator's 3G/UMTS network in Spain. Alcatel's solution handles mobile (H324M) and fixed (H323 or SIP) video protocols, thus making possible video-communications between any mobile and fixed terminal and even between fixed terminals with different video protocols.
Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.alcatel.com

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Kazaa Integrates Skype Internet Calling into P2P

The newly released Kazaa v3.0 peer-to-peer file sharing program includes the integration of Skype, which allows users to make free online calls. v3.0 also offers advanced search capabilities and a free weblog trial through an affiliate program with TypePad, a hosted weblogging service that gives users tools to share and publish information -- like travel logs, journals and digital scrapbooks.



Sharman Networks, the distributor of the popular Kazaa software, said its application shows that P2P is moving beyond file sharing to become a simple and reliable tool for communicating. http://www.kazaa.com

• Sharman claims over 300 million downloads of the Kazaa application to date.

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