Texas Attorney General Takes Action Against Vonage over 9-1-1

The state of Texas filed a lawsuit against Vonage, the country's largest Internet-based telephone service provider, for failing to make clear to consumers that the company's current service does not include access to traditional emergency 9-1-1 service. Thestory was widely reported in newspapers across the country.In a press statement, Abbott said the dangers posed by Vonage's failure "to clearly disclose the lack of traditional 9-1-1 access" have resulted in tragedy. Last month, a Houston family that subscribed to Vonage's service tried to call...

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Nominum Secures $16 Million for IP Address Management

Nominum, a start-up based in Redwood City, California, raised $16 million in new funding for its IP address infrastructure solutions for Global 2000 companies. Nominum's Foundation product family includes scalable, reliable and secure DNS and DHCP servers and IP address management (IPAM) systems. The new funding round was led by Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV). Existing Nominum investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners, Presidio Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank and other strategic investors...

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Former FCC Chair Hundt Proposes Regulatory Overhaul

Reed E. Hundt, who served as FCC Chairman from 1993 to 1997, and Gregory L. Rosston, deputy director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and former deputy chief economist of the FCC, published a paper online urging Congress and the Bush Administration to undertake a complete overhaul of the law and policy for communications, and to do so by mid-2005. Key points of the proposal include:A neutral tax policy that does not distort consumer choice orcompetitionAvailability of public property as an input to service at cost.Increased...

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Iridium Satellite Plans Enhancements, Forecasts Availability through 2014

Iridium Satellite announced plans to deploy a group call push-to-talk voice and data service, enabling multi-user communication "nets" from Iridium mobile satphones from anywhere worldwide. It is designed for public and private sector first responders and ideal for crisis applications where rapid deployment, reliability and security are key. Users will require constant and global service from an extremely portable device.The group call push-to-talk communications service will allow one user to talk (or transmit data) to many users simultaneously....

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Nokia Supplies MMS in Saudi Arabia

ALJAWAL, the GSM operator of the Saudi Telecom Company, has selected the Nokia Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) solution. Deliveries have already begun and the service is expected to be launched nationwide during first half 2005 - making it the first MMS service in Saudi Arabia. ALJAWAL currently serves 9.6 million mobile subscribers. http://www.nokia....

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MCI Expands Wi-Fi Coverage with Boingo

MCI is nearly doubling its Wireless Internet Access footprint by expanding its hotspot coverage in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, building on its existing 6,200 global hotspots, including hotels, major airports, restaurants and convention centers in 23 countries. The expanded Wi-Fi network is the result of enhanced coverage agreement through Boingo Wireless. MCI's new hotspots will primarily be located in the U.S., U.K. Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Greece, Singapore and the Philippines. Businesses will have immediate...

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Alcatel to Resell Aruba's Enterprise Mobility Solutions

Aruba Networks announced a worldwide distribution agreement with Alcatel focused on the enterprise mobility market. Under terms of the agreement, Aruba's products and technology will be integrated into Alcatel's CrystalSec security framework for delivering converged enterprise mobility solutions. Alcatel's data networking business and Aruba will deliver a comprehensive set of mobile LAN products that automatically identify and authenticate users as they connect to the network. The joint solution establishes the mobile user's identity and subsequently...

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Loral Files Consensual Plan of Reorganization

Loral Space & Communications filed a new reorganization plan with the bankruptcy court. The Plan, which revises the terms of a plan previously filed on December 5, 2004, reflects an agreement among the company, the Creditors' Committee and the Ad-Hoc Committee of Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) trade creditors on the elements of a consensual plan of reorganization. Some key points include:Loral's two businesses, satellite manufacturing (New SS/L) and satellite services (New Skynet), will emerge intact as separate subsidiaries of reorganized Loral...

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Choice One Selects Juniper/Lucent

Choice One Communications, an integrated communications provider based in Rochester, New York, will upgrade its IP backbone using Juniper Networks' M-series routing platforms. Lucent Technologies will provide integration. Choice One offers facilities-based voice and data telecommunications services, including Internet solutions, to clients in 29 Northeast and Midwest markets. Choice One offers DSL directly to its enterprise customers and through wholesale arrangements to other carriers. The Juniper Networks M-series routing platforms will consolidate...

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Level 3 Withdraws its VoIP Forbearance Petition

On the day before an expected FCC ruling, Level 3 Communications withdrew its VoIP forbearance petition. In the petition, which was filed in December 2003, Level 3 asked the FCC to reaffirm that legacy interconnection fees (access charges) do not apply to a certain class of VoIP traffic. By statute, the agency was required to issue a decision in the matter by March 22, 2005. James Q. Crowe, chief executive officer of Level 3 Communications, said "Level 3 has withdrawn the petition in deference to the Commission. Given the appointment of new leadership...

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Sony Launches IPELA IP Products

Sony Electronics launched a new line of "IPELA" IP communications products for the U.S. market. "IPELA," which Sony derives from the combination of IP and "bella," (Italian for beautiful), will include a line-up of business communications equipment featuring Sony's high-resolution imaging and audio technology. Sony is installing interactive product showrooms in select U.S. cities to support the IPELA product line and is dedicating $10 million in...

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Bahrain's Light Speed Selects NetCentrex for VoIP

Light Speed Communications, which has received an ISP License from Bahrain's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and is aiming to become the first alternative fixed-line telecommunications operator in the country, will deploy NetCentrex' MyCall solution to offer IP-based residential telephony services. Light Speed Communications will initially introduce IP voice and video telephony services and high speed internet access. Further developments will include new converged fixed-mobile services in alliance with a leading regional 3G mobile operator....

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Network Centric Operations Consortium Gains Momentum

The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) has doubled its membership to include 62 companies since its launch six months ago. The mission of the NCOIC is to accelerate interoperability in systems that serve military, homeland security, civil and commercial users. The group will work to identify the enabling technology approaches that enable the network-centric transformation of the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, as well as the Ministries of Defense of allied governments.The NCOIC is Chaired by Dr. Paul Kaminski,...

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TelASIC Raises $26 Million for 3G Silicon

TelASIC Communications, a start-up based in El Segundo, California, raised $26 million in Series D funding for its high-performance analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) and sub-systems for the 3G wireless infrastructure market. TelASIC's offers analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters and proprietary digital pre-distortion (DPD) linearization technology, and a complete RF-to-baseband solution. TelASIC's technology accommodates a wide range of wireless protocols, such as W-CDMA, CDMA2000, WiMAX, and WiBRO, on a single platform,...

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Firetide Announces Deployments of its HotPort Mesh

Firetide announced three Beta customers for their new HotPort high performance mesh network, which is designed especially for high-bandwidth/low latency applications such as video surveillance networks, voice over IP services, and metro-scale Wi-Fi HotZones.. Culver City California is installing Wi-Fi and video surveillance in city offices, St. Augustine's College in Raleigh North Carolina is extending their LAN network between buildings, and the State Fair of Texas is creating an outdoor video surveillance network. The HotPort system includes...

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Visual Networks Helps Enterprises Limit Streaming Media and Video

Visual Networks' flagship Visual UpTime Select application is helping enterprises optimize network performance by identifying authorized users who are utilizing bandwidth-intensive network resources for recreational purposes, such as streaming video or audio of the March Madness college basketball tournaments.UpTime Select identifies over-utilized circuits, monitors application usage and auto-discovers applications that are being utilized at every site in the network. This can be used to pinpoint bandwidth hogs. Enterprises can thereby identify...

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