China Telecom Deploys VPLS with Alcatel

Zhejiang Telecom, the second largest provincial subsidiary of China Telecom, is using Alcatel's 7750 Service Router to offer a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) solution to deliver high-quality Ethernet services for enterprises. Alcatel believes this is the largest VPLS network in China, with more than 200 customers from the medical, transportation, and retail markets. The project was won through and implemented by Alcatel Shanghai Bell. Zhejiang Telecom is using the Alcatel 7750 Service Router (SR) and Alcatel 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM)...

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NTT's 2006 Plan Sees Shift from ADSL to Optical Access

Noting the effect of wireless substitution, the rapid rise of VoIP, and increased competition in both residential and business markets from fixed line competitors, NTT East said it would accelerate efforts to offer optical IP phone services. The company will devote itself "to efficiently building optical access networks as an infrastructure for broadband services...

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Agilent Shows 10 Gbps XENPAK Over 300m of MM Fiber

Agilent Technologies will demonstrate a 10 Gbps XENPAK fiber optic transceiver transmitting network traffic over 300 meters of multimode fiber at next week's OFC/NFOEC 2005. The demonstration will show Agilent's XENPAK fiber optic transceiver module, featuring EDC, transmitting a 10 Gbps data stream error-free over a distance of 300 meters using legacy multimode FDDI grade 62.5/125 micron fiber. The fiber optic cable will be flexed to vary optical signal polarization and stress the EDC's ability to accommodate a variety of incoming signal characteristics....

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Intel Outlines I/O Acceleration Technology

Intel outlined a set of silicon technologies that speed the interaction between network data and server applications by up to 30%. Intel also announced an agreement with Microsoft to support the technology in forthcoming operating systems. The Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (I/OAC) takes a platform approach to address the application performance issues -- such as Web commerce, messaging, storage and server clustering, which are beginning to overwhelm servers' responsiveness.Intel said that while server CPU performance and network bandwidth...

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Microsoft Hires AT&T Wireless Executive to Lead Windows Team

Microsoft named former AT&T Wireless and E*TRADE executive Michael Sievert as corporate vice president for Windows product management. Sievert will be responsible for marketing, product management and product planning for the Windows Client, including the next version of Microsoft Windows, code-named "Longhorn," slated for release in 2006. Sievert comes to Microsoft via AT&T Wireless Services Inc., where he had served as executive vice president and chief marketing officer since 2002. In that post, Sievert was responsible for product management...

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TiVo Granted Eight New Domestic and Foreign Patents

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued new patents to TiVo covering important aspects of DVR software and hardware design. TiVo also announced that it has obtained an exclusive license to an early DVR-related patent and has been granted Japanese and Chinese patents. Today's announcement brings TiVo's patent portfolio to 70 granted patents (domestic and foreign). In addition, TiVo has 106 domestic and foreign patent applications pending. Some of these include:U.S. patent number 6,850,691, entitled Automatic Playback...

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Broadcom Introduces New PCI Express GigE Controller

Broadcom announced the latest chip offering in its NetXtreme II family of Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) converged network interface controllers (C-NICs). The new NetXtreme II C-NIC is the first to support the PCI Express bus architecture and its supports a TCP/IP offload engine (TOE), iSCSI, and Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) on a single-chip platform. Broadcom's C-NIC technology enables network protocol processing to be offloaded from the host to the C-NIC, thereby saving the server's CPU and memory I/O resources to perform their primary tasks. The...

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Tekelec Notes Sales of Class 5 Switch to Two IOCs

Tekelec announced two new customers for its Tekelec 7000 Class 5 Packet Switch: Bloomingdale Telephone Company and Noxapater Telephone Company. Noxapater Telephony Company, an independent operating company (IOC) in northern Mississippi, is deploying the Tekelec 7000 by the end of this year to provide a seamless migration to next-generation architecture while increasing capacity and satisfying local number portability requirements.Bloomingdale Telephone has served the Bloomingdale, Mich., area since 1904 and today provides a diverse suite of services,...

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General Bandwidth Raises $18 Million in New Funding

General Bandwidth raised $18 million in new financing for its VoIP equipment. General Bandwidth supplies its G6 Universal Media Gateway platform, which is a carrier class VoIP services platform with the capability to simultaneously support multiple service architectures including legacy Class 5 switches, SIP-based feature servers, and next generation softswitches. The platform is currently being used by more than 40 customers.Oak Investment Partners led the new round with participation from Sevin Rosen, Venrock Associates, Invesco, Thomas Weisel...

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Cox Selects Nortel for Circuit Switch to VoIP Migration

Cox Communications and Nortel outlined plans for evolving Cox's existing circuit-switched telephony networks to a hybrid TDM/VoIP model. Key points of the plan, which builds on a relationship first announced in 2003, include:Cox currently serves 1.2 million residential and 100,000 business telephony lines in 17 markets across the U.S. It first launched local phone service in Orange County, California in 1997.Cox is currently using two dozen circuit switches to provide these primary line services.Cox is already using VoIP to carry long distance...

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Allied Telesyn Offers Integrated ADSL Router / VPN Appliance

Allied Telesyn introduced a one-box solution that combines the functionality of a security appliance with the advanced QoS and routing protocol support of a business-class ADSL router. The new AR440S Router, which is designed for businesses seeking multiple redundant WAN paths, features built-in ADSL, one Async/Console, five 10/100 LAN ports and an optional PIC slot (T1/EI PRI, ISDN, Sync, Async, Ethernet and VoIP interfaces).The IPv6 ready AR440S offers integrated hardware encryption, IPsec VPN support, Stateful Inspection Firewall, options for...

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Calix Ships FTTP OLT Line Cards

Calix announced the availability of standards-based broadband passive optical network (BPON) optical line terminal (OLT) line cards for its Calix C7 multiservice platform. Service providers are able to integrate support for FTTP BPON in the same Calix C7 platform that delivers ADSL2+. A fully loaded Calix C7 supports twenty dual-port, G.983-compliant cards for a total of 40 BPON OLT ports driving 1,280 ONTs in an 8-RU form factor. As many as five compact, high capacity C7s can be housed in a single seven-foot equipment rack, yielding 200 OLT ports...

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Advanced Switching Interconnect Spec Targets Next Gen Backplanes

The Advanced Switching Interconnect Special Interest Group (ASI SIG) released a version 1.1 specification for the Advanced Switching Interconnect (ASI). ASI technology, based on PCI Express, enables the standardization of proprietary backplane architectures. Common physical-link and data-link layers with the PCI Express standard enable the ASI technology to exploit a vast ecosystem of products currently available in the market. The new specification release incorporates a variety of new technical features and benefits such as a generic encapsulation...

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Malaysian Service Provider Selects Juniper for VPLS

TIME dotCom Berhad, a Malaysian communications solutions provider, has deployed Juniper Networks M-series multi-service edge routing platforms to support its new value-added Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). TIME dotCom has deployed the M-series in its Metro Back Bone Network (MBBN) project, creating Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) based on Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). It is the first Internet service provider in Malaysia to offer a complete range of MPLS-based VPN services, including layer 2 VPN, layer 3 VPN and VPLS (multipoint-to-multipoint)...

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Corning Chosen for Australian FTTH Network

Corning has been selected as the exclusive passive equipment supplier for a greenfield fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployment in western Australia. Broadcast Engineering Services (BES) will deploy Corning's Evolant Solution for Access Networks with NexCor optical fiber. BES has signed agreements with real estate developers to install greenfield FTTH networks throughout this region. Currently, three developments - Somerly, Brighton and Vale are slated for deployment, with a total of 2,000 homes to be passed by early 2006. Corning said this marks the...

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SBC Offers $19.95 DSL Promotion

SBC Communications announced a DSL promotion of $19.95 per month for 12 months for new customers that sign up online. The price -- lower than any other similar offers by leading U.S. providers -- requires a one-year term commitment and SBC local phone service. Customers who do not order over the Web can receive SBC Yahoo! DSL Express for $19.95 a month when they commit to a one-year term and subscribe to the popular SBC unlimited local and long distance calling plan, All Distance, for $48.95 a month. http://www.sbc.comSBC currently has more...

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