Qwest Raises its Bid for MCI

Qwest Communications made a new offer to acquire MCI. The new bid includes $13.50 in cash (excluding MCI's March 15 dividend payment of $0.40 per share) and 3.373 Qwest shares (subject to adjustment under a collar which fixes the value of the Qwest shares at $14.00 provided Qwest's share price is between $3.32 and $4.15) per MCI share. Qwest's previous proposal was $10.10 in cash (excluding MCI's March 15 dividend payment of $0.40 per share) and 3.735 Qwest shares (subject to adjustment under a collar which fixes the value of the Qwest shares at...

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Verilink Launches VoIP Partner Program

Verilink launched a new channel program designed to establish and develop a core group of partners with specialization in the selling and support of its VoIP products, including the 8000 Series and 3000 Series VoIP integrated access devices (IADs).Charter partners in the authorized Telephony Partner Program include AllenCOM, Alliance Datacom, Digital Connections, Graybar, ICOMM , NetDigital, and Phillips Communications. Interlink Communication Systems and Tech Data, master distributors for Verilink products, will participate in the program supporting...

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Infineon Introduces ADSL2+ Chip

Infineon Technologies introduced a low-power, low-cost ADSL2+ chip supporting data rates of up to 25 Mbps. The new "GEMINAX PRO" ADSL2+ chipset is designed for high-density, DSL central office applications. Infineon said power consumption is about 30% lower than conventional chips, and a correspondingly lower amount of heat is produced. This will enable higher densities -- approximately one third more ADSL2+ connections -- without requiring additional cabinet space or cooling. The GEMINAX PRO chipset consists of a 16-channel ADSL2+ Digital Front...

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Texas CLEC Deploys MetaSwitch's Distributed Softswitch Architecture

1stel, a Texas-based CLEC, has adopted the MetaSwitch distributed network architecture for carrier-class VoIP. Following the deployment of an initial system in February of last year, 1stel now has three MetaSwitches serving subscribers across the state. Particularly important to 1stel's network expansion plans was Metaswitch's ability to deliver all the major next generation protocols (SIP, H.248 and MGCP) in a distributed configuration, with highly scalable, collocatable media and signaling gateways controlled by a central call agent. Financial...

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OIF to Conduct Ten-Week Worldwide Interoperability Demo

AT&T, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, NTT Laboratories, Telecom Italia and Verizon will host the Optical Internetworking Forum's (OIF's) second Worldwide Interoperability Demonstration. The carrier hosts will provide test facilities, engineering staff and real-world network connectivity continuously from mid-April through mid-June. A public demonstration of the testing will take place at SUPERCOMM 2005, June 7-9, in Chicago. This year's OIF Worldwide Interoperability Demonstration will highlight solutions for support of Ethernet...

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Telstra Launches Global VoIP Solution

Telstra introduced a global VoIP offering aimed at multinational corporations. Telstra's T-VoIP service runs over the company's global IP VPN platform. Companies are able to interconnect geographically dispersed PBXs over a VPN at rates ranging from 128 Kbps through 155 Mbps. In a converged scenario, voice and data traffic share the same local access loop. http://www.telstra-usa....

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AT&T Plans Network Disaster Recovery Exercise

AT&T will conduct a Network Disaster Recovery (NDR) exercise on April 5th at its headquarters in Bedminster, New Jersey. Twenty-three self-contained equipment trucks and AT&T's Global Network Operations Center will be used to test and evaluate how well the company can respond to a natural or man-made disaster.AT&T said it has invested more than $300 million in its Network Disaster Recovery program over the past ten years. Since 1990, the NDR team has been activated 12 times in response to disasters, including restoring service after...

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BellSouth Offers IP VPN Class of Service Options

BellSouth introduced Network VPN Class of Service, a feature that enables enterprise customers to assign higher levels of priority to critical data traffic traveling on BellSouth's managed IP-VPN network. The service ensures traffic prioritization from the customer premises all the way through BellSouth's core MPLS network, ensuring hierarchical routing of data. Customers can designate traffic into four different classes: real-time, interactive, priority business and best effort. BellSouth's Managed Network VPN offers site-to-site connectivity,...

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Nortel Names Gary Kunis as CTO

Nortel Networks named Gary Kunis as CTO. Until 2002, Kunis was the Chief Science Officer at Cisco Systems. Earlier in his career, Kunis was involved in the design, implementation and operation of large scale data and telecommunications networks for several U.S. government agency programs, including the Department of Defense, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, NASA, as well as for civilian agencies while working for the Boeing Company.In addition, Nortel...

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SBC Outlines IP Video Architecture for Project Lightspeed

SBC awarded a $195 million, multi-year contract to Scientific-Atlanta to provide IP-based video equipment for Project Lightspeed in its 13-state service area. Scientific-Atlanta will supply IP video equipment for an IP video operations center (VOC), two national IP video super hub offices (SHO) and 41 IP video hub offices (VHO). Scientific-Atlanta will provide encoders, satellite dishes, video routers, and professional services as part of the contract....

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China's State Council Selects Alcatel NGN

China's State Council Information Office (SCIO) selected Alcatel's Next Generation Network (NGN) solution to upgrade and optimize its communication network. Alcatel Shanghai Bell will provide the Alcatel 5020 Softswitch to build a nation-wide next-generation network for SCIO, covering more than 50 branches in major cities and provinces including Beijing, Shanghai, Xinjiang and Tibet. The new network will be deployed in conjunction with the Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise, an integrated communications platform that enables traditional voice telephone...

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European Commission Recommends Leased Line Price Ceilings

In a bid to boost competition, the European Commission is recommending that its Member States adopt price ceilings for wholesale leased lines that reflect the real cost of supplying them. A report from the Commission recommends "best current practices" in wholesale leased line pricing and provides competitive market benchmark prices for the entire EU. The report finds that the EU single market is distorted by substantial variations in leased line prices. For a 2 Mbps line, 5 km long, the price in the most expensive Member State is seven times...

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NetCentrex Reports 2004 Revenue of EUR 26M, up 30%

NetCentrex, a supplier of softswitching solutions, revenue growth of more than 30% for 2004, with consolidated results totaling over EUR26 Million (US$34 Million). In addition, orders grew more than 80% between 2003 and 2004. The company said the growth came from new markets such as Eastern and Central Europe, as well as an acceleration of triple play deployments in Western Europe, where its customers are activating more than 4,000 VoIP lines per day. A list of new customers includes Eircom (the incumbent in Ireland), Tiscali, Telefonica Deutschland,...

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Taiwan's Chunghwa Reaches 3.1 Million DSL Subscribers

Chunghwa Telecom, the incumbent operator in Taiwan, had 3.1 million ADSL users as of 31-Dec 31, 2004, a 26.6% YoY increase. Including dial-up, the total number of Internet subscribers was about 3.8 million. The company is expecting another 650,000 of net new ADSL subscribers in 2005. Overall, Chunghwa Telecom reported total revenues for year 2004 was NT$185.2 billion (US$, a 1.5% YoY increase. Of this, 38.9% was from fixed-line services, 38.2% from wireless services and 21.2% from Internet and data services. Internet and data revenue for year...

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