France's Altitude Telecom to Offer Voice-over-WiMAX

Altitude Telecom, a fixed-wireless operator in France, has deployed Cirpack's Class-5 switches to launch telephony services over WiMAX for businesses.


Altitude, which holds a license to operate in the 3.5GHz band throughout France, has deployed 802.16d-compliant WiMAX equipment to offer wireless broadband connectivity to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as to large businesses. Altitude will now use Cirpack's softswitch and gateway products to leverage this wireless infrastructure for VoIP, in addition to its IP VPN and IP MPLS services. http://www.cirpack.com
http://www.altitudetelecom.com

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NetCentrex Builds its Americas Market Team

NetCentrex announced three executive appointments to its North America market team.


Guillaume Widmer, who was NetCentrex' first employee when founder Olivier Hersent spun off France Telecom's VoIP R&D program in 1998, will serve as CTO for the Americas. He was one of the original developers of the NetCentrex CCS softswitch and has defined architectures for some of NetCentrex' biggest customers, including Telefonica Germany, France Telecom, NextGentel, Rostelecom, and TransTelecom.


Jodi Benassi will serve as NetCentrex's VP Sales for North America. She comes to NetCentrex after spending five years at Minerva Networks, where she was Vice President of Sales. Prior to Minerva, Jodi held the position of Western Regional Sales Manager for Sigma Designs.


Brian Mahony will serve as the company's VP of Marketing for North America. Prior to NetCentrex, Brian was Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Tundo Corporation. Other management and consulting experience includes roles at Siemens/Unisphere, Nextel, and Nortel.
http://www.netcentrex.net

• NetCentrex is based in Paris. The company has its North America office in San Jose, California.

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Vonage Signs Partnership With Campus TeleVideo

Vonage announced a partnership under which Campus TeleVideo will resell its broadband telephony service to universities nationwide. These universities include, but are not limited to: UCLA, Penn State University, University of Georgia and Rutgers University. Vonage will offer Campus TeleVideo's subscribers unlimited local and long distance calling throughout the United States and Canada for a flat rate.


Campus TeleVideo specializes in providing turnkey video and data solutions for colleges and universities seeking an alternative to the local cable operator.


http://www.vonage.com
http://www.camptv.com/

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Cingular Signs its 50 Millionth Customer

Cingular announced its 50 millionth mobile customer. The company said it has added more than three million customers since its merger with AT&T Wireless in October 2004.
http://www.cingular.com

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T-Com Selects Juniper/Lucent for IP Net Support

T-COM, the fixed line division of Deutsche Telekom, awarded a two-year contract, Lucent Worldwide Services (LWS) will provide a complete range of maintenance and technical support for Juniper Networks E-, M- and T-series routing platforms. LWS will provide maintenance and second and third level support for the Juniper equipment in T-Com's IP network. LWS will remotely monitor, repair and exchange components of the IP network by providing remote technical support and four-hour and next-business- day options for advanced exchange services, including software updates. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Over the past year, LWS has provided service and maintenance for T-Com's Internet access platform, including Lucent's MAX( TNT systems, which form part of the Universal Gateway product line and has connected T-Com's voice network with their IP network, as well as for several thousand network elements delivered by Lucent in T-Com's optical transport network.
http://www.lucent.com

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Lucent Lands U.S. Army Network Contracts Valued At $36.3 Million

Lucent Technologies announced several contracts, totaling $36.3 million, with the U.S. Army to provide network integration and professional services for a communications infrastructure upgrades at U.S. Army bases in Georgia, Hawaii and Germany. The agreements are in support of the Army's Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program (I3MP), which is focused on upgrading voice and data network infrastructure at Army bases around the world.


In 2003, Lucent announced an earlier group of contracts with the Army valued at $50 million for infrastructure upgrades at Army installations in North America and Asia.
http://www.lucent.com

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Verizon Signs Starz Entertainment for Premium Movie Services

Verizon signed a long-term affiliation agreement with Starz Entertainment Group enabling it to carry East and West Coast feeds of all 13 Starz Entertainment Group movie channels on Verizon FiOS TV when it launches later this year. The programming includes the flagship Starz and Encore brands, Starz On Demand and Starz HDTV. The deal is the first that Verizon has signed with a premium pay-TV provider. Financial terms were not disclosed. Verizon is also negotiating with other premium services.


Verizon will provide Starz On Demand, showcasing more than 100 movies-on-demand per month, and Starz HDTV at no additional charge for Starz subscribers.


Verizon said its FiOS TV will offer video on demand, hundreds of digital video channels, high-definition programming, music channels, an interactive programming guide and other customer-friendly features. Customers will be able to buy FiOS TV as a stand-alone service or packaged with voice and FiOS high-speed data services, which are already available in some areas.
http://www.verizon.com/http://www.starz.com/

• In February 2005, Verizon announced a long-term agreement with TVN Entertainment for video-on-demand programming and services on its upcoming FiOS TV service. Financial terms were not disclosed. TVN will provide Verizon with a wide range of VOD programming including new studio releases, a library of previous releases, independent movies, family and kids programming, and a broad array of free on-demand and specialty VOD networks. Verizon will also use TVN's advanced services, including TVN's exclusive TVNow rapid-turnaround service that enables subscribers to order news and events, such as the presidential inauguration, within hours of their occurrence. TVN Entertainment Corporation is one of the largest privately held digital content aggregation, management, distribution, and service companies in the U.S. The company currently packages and distributes more than 2000 hours of VOD programming every month. This includes TVN-licensed movie titles, children's and Spanish language content, and genre-themed on demand channels as well as delivering Subscription-Video-On-Demand (SVOD) and network programming for many of the major cable networks.



• In January 2005, Verizon announced plans to use the Microsoft TV platform for the commercial rollout of its FiOS TV service.

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Extreme Networks Reports Quarterly Revenue of $91.9 million

Extreme Networks reported third quarter (FY05) revenue of $91.9 million, up 3.4% from $88.9 million in the year-ago third quarter. The company recorded a net loss of $1.3 million or $0.01 per basic and diluted share in the third fiscal quarter of 2005, compared to a net loss of $1.1 million or $0.01 per diluted share in the third fiscal quarter of 2004. Included in the company's results was a $2.0 million expense related to a technology agreement with IBM. Excluding this item, the Company's profit after tax for the quarter was $0.7 million or $0.01 per share.


"Much of our business remained on a solid growth path during the third quarter," said Gordon Stitt, president and CEO of Extreme Networks. "Our revenues outside of Japan grew by 14 percent compared to the third quarter a year ago. However, continued weakness in our Japanese business combined with longer than expected sales cycles across our business generally led to us not achieving our goal of recording $100 million or more in revenue this quarter."http://www.extremenetworks.com

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ECI Telecom Acquires Optical Technology Business in China

ECI Telecom will acquire the optical activities and technology of Eastern Communications Co. Inc., for an undisclosed amount. The operations of the acquired unit will be merged with ECI's existing joint venture Hangzhou ECI Telecommunications Co., Ltd (HETC).


ECI said the acquisition broadens its current Multi Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP) product line, by adding a compact, affordable product. The acquisition also adds a cost-effective R&D and manufacturing operation in China.
http://www.ecitele.com

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Broadband Services Forum Targets IPTV

The Broadband Services Forum (BSF) has set its sights on IPTV and interactive services, such as gaming and video, as its top priorities, following its first meeting this week. The newly merged BSF fosters collaboration across the broadband value chain including content, service and technology providers.


The BSF meeting also marked the release of a white paper on Content-Aware Networking Services (CANS) by its Technology Working Group. Juniper Networks VP Scott Stevens outlined the action plan for the CANS project. Completion of the CANS project will include a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that will facilitate network-level device authentication and automation of service delivery. The BSF will take these APIs to a standards organization for formal codification.


The keynote "The Promise of IP Television" was delivered by Amy Friedlander, SVP of Programming at SBC. In her presentation, Friedlander shared SBC's services vision, and provided valuable insights into how service providers and their partners can work together to define and monetize new services.


The BSF is preparing to launch a brand campaign and is working with Starmark International. This includes a set of consumer-facing product logos for potential future use by consumer electronics companies to easily communicate broadband compatibility.


In addition, BSF member companies Nortel, Alcatel, Aliant, and Skystream will present a panel discussion, "Broadband Entertainment Vision," at NAB 2005 on Thursday, April 21 in Las Vegas.


The next BSF meeting, hosted by the Welsh Development Agency and BT, will be held May 16-17 at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay in Cardiff, Wales.
http://www.broadbandservicesforum.org

• In November 2004, the Broadband Content Delivery Forum (BCDF) and the Service Creation Community (SCC) agreed to merge to form the Broadband Services Forum.

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ATM Forum and MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance Approve Merger

The ATM Forum and the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance announced that their respective memberships have approved the merger of the two organizations. The merger will consolidate the groups and leverage the strengths of each in addressing next generation, multi-protocol, packet-based networks.


The goal of the combined entity, which will be known as the MFA Forum, will be to advance the recognition, acceptance and implementation of packet technologies in the global networking communications industry.


The board of directors of the MFA Forum will include Bernard da Costa, Bell Canada; Joe Kimball, Sprint; Gary Leonard, Riverstone Networks; Andrew Malis, Tellabs; Doug O'Leary, Verizon; John Rutemiller, Marconi; Ananda Sen Gupta, Agilent Technologies; David Sinicrope, Ericsson; Tom Walsh, Lucent Technologies; Rick Wilder, Alcatel.


The ATM Forum and the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance Technical Committees will continue previously established projects, operating as Working Groups under a unified Technical Committee. A joint Interoperability Working Group will oversee the organization's test and interoperability efforts to promote seamless interworking between ATM, MPLS and Frame Relay networks.


"The ATM Forum is entering this new phase having achieved what it set out to do," said Marlis Humphrey of Harris Corporation, chairman of the board, The ATM Forum. "In carrier networks throughout the world, ATM is now an embedded, reliable and secure technology that continues to deliver on the promise of security and flexibility in delivering the Quality of Service guarantees it was designed for. We look forward to the enhanced collaboration and synergies that this merger will bring to developing the interworking standards necessary for the deployment of next generation, converged packet networks."


"As a merged entity, the MFA Forum will represent the industry's technology innovators in MPLS, ATM and Frame Relay," said Andrew G. Malis of Tellabs, president and chairman of the board of the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance. "We look forward to building on the successes the two groups have had over the years and expect our collaborative technical efforts to bear fruit immediately."http://www.atmforum.com/http://www.mplsforum.org/

• In 2003, The Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Forum merged with the Frame Relay Forum (FRF). The MPLS Forum was formed in March 2000. The Frame Relay Forum was incorporated in May 1991.
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• The ATM Forum was founded in 1991 and has developed over 200 interoperability specifications.

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Cablevision Mexico Rolls out VOD with SeaChange

Mexico's largest cable television operator, Cablevision, is rolling out SeaChange's on-demand systems and software to deliver an array of services that will span movies, subscription packages, local and network television shows and high-definition programming. Cablevision is also deploying SeaChange's on-air and online systems. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Alongside its cable television operations, Cablevision runs one of the largest broadcast television operations in Mexico in conjunction with its parent, Grupo Televisa. Cablevision has deployed two SeaChange Broadcast MediaClusters to ingest programming from various sources and to air more than 40 broadcast television channels. Further, SeaChange's Broadcast MediaLibrary online storage system will support the 2005 launch of the Televisa network in High Definition by providing universal media storage for on-air servers, editors and other creation and distribution devices throughout Cablevision.

http://www.schange.com

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Cisco to Acquire Topspin for Server Fabric Switches

Cisco Systems agreed to acquire Topspin Communications, a start-up supplying server fabric switches, for approximately $250 million in cash and options.

Server fabric switches are a new class of server networking equipment designed for grid and utility computing, clustered enterprise applications, and server virtualization. Server fabric switches connect servers together into a grid, and then provide network and storage connectivity to that server grid.

Topspin has developed InfiniBand-based server switching equipment. Several major server vendors have announced support for InfiniBand technology as part of their clustering and/or grid solutions for both their standard and blade server solutions. Specifically, Dell, HP, IBM, NEC and Sun have all announced relationships with Topspin to provide InfiniBand-based server fabric switching as part of their portfolios.

Cisco said Topspin's InfiniBand-based server switching technology would complement its Ethernet-based Catalyst switching platform for internet/intranet infrastructure and its multiprotocol (Fibre Channel, FCIP, iSCSI and FICON) MDS switches for storage area networks.


Upon close of the transaction, Topspin will join Cisco's Data Center, Switching and Wireless Technology Group, led by Senior Vice President Luca Cafiero.

http://www.cisco.com
http://www.topspin.com

• Topspin Communications was founded in April 2000. The company has approximately 135 employees in Mountain View, California and Bangalore, India.



• Topspin was founded by Ross Schibler and Keith Wilkinson. Schibler was a founder of Rapid City Communications (acquired by Bay Networks). Wilkinson previously was Chief Architect for Lucent's Stinger DSLAM program. The company is headed by Krish Ramakrishnan, who joined Topspin from Cisco Systems where he was VP and General Manager of the Content Business Unit, responsible for Cisco's load balancing, caching, and content delivery solutions.



• Topspin raised at least $47.5 million in venture capital. Investors included Advent International and included existing investors Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, and Presidio Venture Partners.

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