Agere Launches Converged Access Network Processors

Agere Systems unveiled a set of "TrueAdvantage" processor chips with advanced traffic management features aimed at next generation access equipment. The new Advanced PayloadPlus 300 (APP300) network processor chip and Link Layer Processor (LLP) chip are new devices that are the first of the family of TrueAdvantage solution elements from Agere aimed at supporting services such as higher quality standard and high-definition IPTV, mission-critical high-speed data, VoIP and multimedia mobile services. The APP300 series targets a diverse range of access...

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Verizon Issues Letter to MCI, Noting Market Forces

Verizon published a letter to MCI's Board of Directors urging them not be influenced by the interests of short-term investors but by the company's long-term strength and viability. The letter lays out reasons why Verizon believes its offer represents the most sensible course for MCI and its stakeholders, including the challenging industry environment it sees confronting MCI and the industry as a whole. This industry assessment includes:continuing overcapacity, particularly in MCI's core long-distance segment;declining unit prices for all communications...

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Peribit Introduces Application Acceleration Technology

Peribit Networks introduced an Application Flow Acceleration (AppFlow) technology that integrates compression and caching, acceleration, application control, and visibility technologies to improve the performance of applications over the WAN. The technology transparently speeds performance of Microsoft Exchange, file services, and web-based applications over point-to-point links. Peribit said its new AppFlow technology provides the acceleration needed for applications that cannot benefit from TCP acceleration until their own protocol limitations...

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MoCA Demonstrates 100 Mbps over In-Home Coaxial Cables

Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) has successfully completed a large-scale field trial of the core technology for providing networking of digital home entertainment throughout a home using existing coax cabling. The large-scale trial, conducted by MoCA's founders in multiple locations, validated the capabilities of the MoCA technology to deliver 100 Mbps of usable throughput under real world conditions throughout the home -- enough for transporting multiple streams of HDTV. MoCA founding members performed multiple tests in over 200 homes and...

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Harmonic Offers 1-Gbps CWDM to Boost Cable-based Services

Harmonic introduced a 1 Gbps system Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) solution to enable cable operators to transport bandwidth-intensive multimedia services and support the largest of business, government and education customers via the same infrastructure that carries the residential video, voice and data triple-play. The FLXLink 1 Gbps CWDM solution has been designed to coexist with Harmonic's current 100 Mbps system. It also uses Harmonic's existing CWDM passive network technology, minimizing cost of ownership for operators and...

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SeaChange Powers First OCAP-based Cable Deployment

CJ CableNet, a South Korean cable operator serving 1.2 million subscribers in seven cable systems across the country, has launched the first OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP)-based on-demand television service using equipment from SeaChange International.The OCAP specification, which was developed under the OpenCable project led by CableLabs, allows retail consumer electronics devices to run any compliant application or service. With OCAP middleware, consumer electronics manufacturers can build digital cable products capable of running interactive...

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Juniper Appoints VP of Cable Products Business

Juniper Networks appointed Andrew J. Audet to the position of vice president, Cable Products Business. Most recently Audet was CEO of Lemur Networks, an OSS provider focused on VoIP in the cable industry. Other executive experience in cable includes the position of president and CEO at Chinook Communications and general manager of Motorola's Cable Data Products Division. http://www.juniper....

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Hitachi Lays Groundwork for Next Gen Hard Disks -- One Terabyte in 3.5-inch Format

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies demonstrated the industry's highest data density at 230 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in2) on perpendicular recording. Hitachi believes 230 Gb/in2, which represents a doubling of today's highest longitudinal recording densities, will be implemented in commercial hard drive products in 2007. When fully realized over the next 5-7 years, perpendicular recording could enable a 10-fold increase in data densities over longitudinal recording, paving the way for new heights in capacity such as a 60 GB one-inch drive or...

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Airpath Selected for Nationwide, Inter-Campus Wi-Fi Roaming

The Broadband Alliance is working to create The Education First Network -- a coast-to-coast, inter-campus Wi-Fi network linking schools and universities. Students and educators of K-12 and higher education campuses with existing Wi-Fi access would be able to seamlessly log into any other member campus' educational wireless network via the Education First Network.The Broadband Alliance has chosen Airpath Wireless to enable management and roaming for the network. Airpath's InterRoam is a hosted, transaction based clearing, settlement and rating...

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Broadbus Announces VOD Server Deployments at Top MSOs

Broadbus Technologies, a start-up based in Boxborough, Massachusetts, announced that it has won more than 25 commercial deployments at 5 top MSOs in North America. The operators include Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter, Adelphia, and Rogers Cable. The company expects to have sold more than 150,000 streams through the end of Q1.The Broadbus B-1 Video Server Platform is capable of up to 20,000 streams of MPEG-2 video at 3.75Mbps in a single 18U chassis, with full support for H.264 and VC-1. In a clustered configuration, greater than 1 million...

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Ixia Adds BGP4+ IP Routing Test

Ixia has added validation for the BGP4+ IP routing protocol to its IxANVL conformance and interoperability test solution. The platform already supports an array of conformance tests for IPv6. The new release also introduces support for the Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) for validating the IEEE 802.3ad standard. LACP is increasingly deployed in data center and next generation Metro Ethernet networks as a method for improving network performance and failover protection. http://www.ixiacom....

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Columbus Communications to Acquire New World Network

Columbus Communications, a Barbados corporation that holds controlling interest in a number of telecommunications providers in the Caribbean, agreed to acquire and New World Network and its 88% share in the Americas Region Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS). ARCOS is a high-capacity undersea fiber cable network connecting the U.S., Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The remain shares in ARCOS are owned by 28 carriers throughout the region.In the last three months, Columbus has acquired a controlling stake in Cable Bahamas...

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Huawei to Resell Tut's Video Content Processors

Huawei Technologies will resell and Tut Systems' family of Astria Content Processor (CP) products to its worldwide base of customers. The solution is targeted at Digital TV and other video services delivered over IP networks. Huawei is a leading supplier of IP DSLAMs, IP routers and optical networks.Tut Systems said its AstriaContent Processor products currently enable more than 100 service providers worldwide to deliver broadcast TV services over their broadband networks. The platforms feature patent-pending "ConstantStream" rate control technology...

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Net2Phone Certifies Motorola VT1000 SIP Endpoint

Net2Phone has certified the Motorola VT1000 voice gateway as a preferred endpoint for the Net2Phone VoiceLine broadband telephony solution for cable operators. Net2Phone and Motorola currently have a joint marketing agreement in place to sell end-to-end PacketCable-based telephony to cable operators. With the expanded relationship, Net2Phone and Motorola now offer a comprehensive SIP-based VoIP platform that supports improved security, QoS and end-to-end reliability for cable operators as they deploy the Net2Phone VoiceLine solution to their customers.Motorola's...

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WilTel Wins Major Government Deal with DoD

WilTel Communications was awarded a contract valued at up to $35 million to provide the Department of Defense with Optical Wave services. WilTel is providing four 2.5 Gbps Optical Waves and one 10 Gbps Optical Wave connecting various military bases within the United States, Hawaii and Japan. http://www.wiltelgov....

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NCTA Keynote: "Cable Puts YOU in Control"

National Cable & Telecommunications Association opened its 54th annual convention in San Francisco under the theme: "Cable Puts YOU in Control."Kyle McSlarrow, the NCTA's President and CEO, asserted that cable's digital broadband technology is the platform for the future. He said the industry must pursue an approach to regulation that encourages competition and investment. In his opening address, McSlarrow outlined the NCTA's core regulatory principles, based on the belief that "like services should be treated alike." Second, these services...

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Juniper Adds PacketCable Multimedia Support to SDX-300

Juniper Networks announced several new product enhancements, features, partnerships and strategic relationships aimed at cable multiple system operators (MSOs). These include: PacketCable Multimedia (PCMM) support for the SDX-300 Service Deployment System to enable end-to-end QoS, dynamic bandwidth management and event-based accounting for multimedia applications. Using PCMM, Juniper's SDX can dynamically adjust bandwidth requirements and QoS levels to support premium multimedia applications like online gaming, telephony and video-enabled services...

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Fujitsu Enhances its FLASHWAVE 7500 ROADM

Fujitsu Network Communications released several major enhancements to its FLASHWAVE 7500 Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM), including a Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) optical switch fabric, full 40-channel C-band tunable narrowband optics, Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) interfaces, multiport and multirate SONET Flexponder interface cards, and an intelligent control plane. The new WSS-based optical core of the FLASHWAVE 7500...

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Verizon Boosts Consumer DSL to 3 Mbps

Verizon has doubled the speed of its current basic DSL plan to 3 Mbps at no additional charge. The service costs $29.95 a month for unlimited DSL Internet access with a maximum connection speed of up to 3 Mbps downstream and 768 Kbps upstream when purchased in an annual service plan or as part of a package of calling services from Verizon. Month-to-month service is also available for $37.95 a month. http://www.verizon....

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Sprint's Cable Voice Initiative Reaches 250,000 Users

Sprint is now delivering outsourced voice services to more than 250,000 residential customers through its range of relationships with cable companies. Sprint also announced new contracts to deliver local and long-distance voice services with three regional cable companies: Massillon Cable TV, Inc.; Wave Broadband; and Blue Ridge Communications.Sprint is also exploring, through market trial and discussion with cable providers, adding wireless service to the bundle, creating a "quadruple play." Sprint and Time Warner Cable have stated that they...

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XM Satellite Radio Adds 540,000 Net Subscribers in Q1

XM Satellite Radio added more than 540,000 new net subscribers during Q1, giving it a total of 3.77 million subscribers. This subscriber gain represents a 68% increase in new net subscribers compared to the first quarter of 2004, when XM recorded 321,675 new net subscribers. http://www.xmradio.c...

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Scientific-Atlanta Adds DVD Burner to Set-top Box

Scientific-Atlanta expanded its Explorer 8300 digital video recorder (DVR) platform with a new MCP- 100 Media Center DVR featuring a built-in DVD burner. The product will combine a multi-tuner DVR, optional high definition DVR, DOCSIS (DSG) and Multi-Room DVR capability, with a built-in DVD player and burner. The product is being designed to respect key content protection flags including "copy freely," "copy once," and "copy never" tags. http://www.scientificatlanta....

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BigBand unveils CMTS Supporting Quadruple Downstream Rates

BigBand Networks introduced a modular CMTS architecture for IP services over cable networks. The company said enhancements to the established BigBand Cuda CMTS and BigBand BME (Broadband Multimedia-Service Edge) platforms will enable quadruple downstream capacities in accordance with the developing CableLabs M-CMTS standard.The modular CMTS approach provides an open upgrade path for currently deployed BigBand Cuda platforms and their utilized components. This architecture decouples the DOCSIS MAC (media access control) processing from the physical...

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Digeo Announces Moxi Mini

Digeo unveiled a lower cost "Moxi Mini" set top box (STB) that offers dual-mode functionality both as a stand alone digital receiver and as a client delivering digital video recording (DVR) and media center functionality when a Moxi II Media Center is added to the home. The low cost Moxi Mini provides two deployment options for cable operators:As a stand-alone digital receiver capable of running OCAP applications and a light version of the Moxi Menu and guide, including On Demand;As a Moxi Mate media center extension, bringing DVR, Moxi Photo,...

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Ciena and Broadwing Settle Patent Infringement Litigation

Ciena and Broadwing reached an amicable settlement of their patent infringement litigation. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Ciena and Broadwing have agreed to dismiss all claims. In addition, Broadwing will pay to Ciena $35.0 million in three equal annual installments. $33.0 million of Broadwing's total payment may be used as credits toward the purchase of Ciena equipment and services at market prices over the next three and one-half years, in order to help continue to maintain, build and enhance the Broadwing network. Ciena will recognize...

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Motorola Appoints President for Asia-Pacific Region

Motorola has promoted Simon Leung to president for its Asia-Pacific Region. He previously was senior vice-president, Networks Asia-Pacific for Motorola. The company has over 20,000 employees in the Asia Pacific region. http://www.motorola....

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ARRIS and Axerra Partner on Cable Solutions

ARRIS and Axerra Networks announced a working solution that gives cable operators and Multiple System Operators (MSOs) the ability to serve the corporate market for voice and data services over hybrid fiber/coax (HFC). In addition, the solution enables MSOs to penetrate the wireless backhaul market by providing an alternative to T1 leased lines in the Radio Access Network.The solution combines the capabilities of Axerra's family of AXN Pseudo-Wire Gateways and Access Devices with the DOCSIS and EUR-DOCSIS capabilities provided by the ARRIS Cadant...

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Insight Selects Cedar Point for Cable VoIP

Insight Communications, the 9th largest cable operator in the U.S. with approximately 1.3 million customers in the midWest, selected Cedar Point's SAFARI C(Cubed) Media Switching System for primary line VoIP cable telephony services. Insight currently delivers circuit switched telephone services to approximately 60,000 customers in portions of Louisville and Lexington, Ky., Evansville, Ind., and Columbus, Ohio. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.cedarpointcom....

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ARRIS Shows 1.28 Gbps Wideband Data and Channel Bonding

ARRIS is demonstrating Wideband Data and Channel Bonding capabilities of its Cadant C4 CMTS with speeds up to 1.28 Gbps at this week's NCTA National Show in San Francisco. The C4 will feature live 2x12 Cable Access Modules and demonstrate wideband data speeds of up to 1.28 Gbps, hitless RF sparing and Control Complex fail-over.ARRIS is also showing IP Video over DOCSIS utilizing its Keystone D5 Digital Multimedia Termination System (DMTS) and a variety of set-top clients. Among other applications, the Keystone D5's RF QAM channel-bonding capabilities...

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