Xelerated Raises $17 Million for its Network Processor

Xelerated, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California and Stockholm, Sweden, raised $17 million in series C funding for its high-end network processors. Xelerated's network processors, based on a patented data-flow architecture, are aimed at enterprise backbone and metro Ethernet applications.


The company cited Tier-1 customer engagements in the high-volume, high-growth metropolitan Ethernet market. Xelerated's next generation chip, the X11, has taped-out and first samples will be shipped to customers in July.


The funding round was led by new investors Accel Partners and Amadeus Capital Partners. Xelerated's existing investors Atlas Venture and Alta Partners also participated in the round. http://www.xelerated.com

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PMC-Sierra Reports Q1 Revenue of $66.1 Million

PMC-Sierra reported Q1 net revenue of $66.1 million, an increase of seven percent compared with $61.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2004, and a decrease of 16 percent on a year-over-year basis. Net income in the first quarter of 2005 on a non-GAAP basis was $3.9 million (non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.02) compared with non-GAAP net income of $1.9 million (non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.01) in the fourth quarter of 2004. GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2005 was $3.3 million (GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.02).


"In the first quarter of 2005, we experienced improving trends in Asian geographies and a recovery in enterprise networking, wireless infrastructure, routing and laser printing as well as growth in new storage-related products," said Bob Bailey, president and chief executive officer of PMC-Sierra.
http://www.pmc-sierra.com

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SIPquest Raises US$6 Million for SIP Applications

SIPquest, a start-up based in Ottawa, raised US$6 million in venture funding for its SIP-based telephony applications. In addition to VoIP modules, SIPquest's application and component suite also includes IP-based audio conferencing, video conferencing, data conferencing, application sharing, instant messaging, presence, a multimedia collaboration agent, voice mail, auto attendant, a SIP to H.323 signaling converter, an extensible SIP server and mobile WiFi roaming and collaboration capabilities.


The new funding round was led by current investors Covington Capital and Skypoint Capital. http://www.sipquest.com

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Cable & Wireless Outlines Next Generation Network Plan

Cable and Wireless will invest £190 million over the next three years to transform its UK core network and associated IT systems and processes. The company said it had become clear that significant benefits can be achieved by adopting an NGN architecture.


Key elements of the network transformation plan include:

• the convergence of five separate service platforms onto a single integrated IP service platform;



• Reduction of backbone nodes by 50 percent and rationalisation of metro-edge and metro-access nodes;



• Installation of ten new softswitches to replace the existing seventy legacy voice switches (subject to the timing of traffic switching away from legacy products).

Cable and Wireless said the anticipated capital expenditure for its UK business (excluding Bulldog) had originally been expected to be approximately £160 million per annum over the next three years. The capital expenditure required for Cable & Wireless' NGN is anticipated to amount to £190 million over the next three years, with some £80 million being spent in 2005/06. A large proportion of the NGN expenditure will replace legacy expenditure that would otherwise have been required to maintain the efficiency of the current network, as a result over the three year period a net increase in capital expenditure of approximately £35 million is associated with NGN.

"The migration to Next Generation Networks will be a catalyst to change the dynamics of the UK telecoms market. Increased functionality, customisation and reduced unit costs will be the rewards for operators with the scale and resources to take advantage of this technology shift. We are also encouraged by the ongoing OFCOM review and its emphasis on infrastructure based competition in the UK," said Francesco Caio, CEO of Cable and Wireless.
http://www.cw.comIn September 2004, Cable & Wireless announced its intention to pursue the broadband market in the U.K. via local unbundling from BT. In a webcast presentation, Cable & Wireless said its initial plans include:

• a target to unbundle up to 400 exchanges by the second half of 2005 which will give Cable & Wireless access to approximately 30% of sites in the UK



• local loop unbundling capital investment is expected to be £40-50 million in the year to 31 March 2005. An additional £15 - 35 million will be required in the year to 31 March 2006, subject to the speed of subscriber growth
  investment will also include operational funding, which is expected to be approximately £30 million in the year to 31 March 2005 and at a similar level in the following year, subject to the speed of subscriber growth



• annual revenue is expected to be approximately £250 million within 4 years.

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CPCNet Hong Kong Launches MPLS-based Managed SSL VPN

CPCNet Hong Kong has launched a managed VPN service based on Juniper Networks Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and MPLS technologies.
CPCNet is using Juniper Networks M-series multi-service edge routing platforms and NetScreen RA500 secure access appliances.


CPCNet is a wholly owned subsidiary of CITIC Pacific and provides connections to over 50 major cities in mainland China and Asia.
http://www.juniper.nethttp://www.CPCNet-hk.com

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Sprint Reports Double-digit Growth in Wireless

Sprint added 1.3 million total net wireless subscribers in Q1 2005, a 34% increase from the first quarter of 2004, giving it a total of 26 million. The subscriber gains included 518,000 from direct retail channels and nearly 800,000 from wholesale partners and Sprint PCS Affiliates. Wireless data services contributing $6.00, or nearly 10%, to ARPU. There were 8.0 million data subscribers, including more than 6.7 million Sprint PCS Vision subscribers. Sprint continues to build out the EV-DO network.


During Q1, total voice revenues decreased 10% from the year-ago period. Consumer voice revenues declined 20% while business voice revenues, including wholesale and affiliates, declined by 8%. Sequentially, consumer decreased 4% while business declined 1%.


Data revenues decreased 9% from the first quarter of 2004, but increased 2% sequentially on improving private line revenues. Dedicated IP revenue grew more than 9% from the year-ago period and nearly 8% sequentially, partially reflecting Sprint's efforts to drive traffic to more advanced networks. Sprint's overall reported IP revenues were impacted by the sale of wholesale Dial IP service in the fourth quarter of 2004.


At quarter's end, Sprint served more than 250,000 cable subscribers with wireline service.


For the quarter, Sprint reported diluted earnings per share of 31 cents compared to 16 cents in the first quarter of 2004.


In the quarter, Sprint's total business revenues showed a small decline when compared to the first quarter of 2004. Consumer revenues outside of Sprint's Local territories increased 8% year over year, while consumer revenues within Local territories declined 1% from the year-ago period.
http://www.sprint.com

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Tellabs Reports Revenue of $436 million

Tellabs reported first-quarter 2005 revenue of $436 million, up 65% from $264 million in the first quarter of 2004 -- including a full quarter of AFC product revenue of $128 million. Excluding AFC product revenue, Tellabs' revenue grew 17% year over year.


Tellabs earned $0.7 million or less than one cent per share in the first quarter of 2005 on a GAAP basis. Tellabs earned $26 million or 6 cents per share on a non-GAAP basis.

Transport - Revenue from transport systems totaled $158 million, up 16% from $136 million in the first quarter of 2004.

Access - Revenue from access products totaled $128 million. (AFC product revenue).

Managed Access - Revenue from managed access systems was $93 million, up 34% from $69 million in the first quarter of 2004.

Broadband Data - Revenue from broadband data products was $7 million, up 69% from $4 million in the first quarter of 2004.

Voice Quality Enhancement - Revenue from voice-quality enhancement and other systems amounted to $15 million, down 34% from $23 million in the first quarter of 2004.

Services - Services revenue was $35 million, up 11% from $32 million in the first quarter of 2004.
http://www.tellabs.com

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MCI Tightens SLAs for Managed Network Performance

MCI tightened service level agreements (SLAs) for its end-to-end Managed Network Services with the introduction of an enhanced five-point guarantee.


MCI has improved its restoration SLA to guarantee a 3.5 hour time to repair in the U.S., a four-hour time to repair for third-party managed networks in the U.S. and key global business centers, and a six-hour time to repair for remote regions of the world. MCI is one of the first to offer a standard set of SLAs covering third- party networks. Showcasing its role as a network integrator, MCI guarantees it can deliver the same or better performance than third-party providers.


Other enhancements to MCI's five-point service level agreements include:

• 100 percent site availability guarantee for redundant (dual-router, dual-circuit) networks,



• Guarantees based on actual-time-to-repair versus a mean-time-to-repair,



• Third-party SLAs that match, or even beat, the provider of origin.

The new SLAs are available to all new Managed Network Services customers utilizing IP, Frame Relay, Private IP, ATM and Private Line beginning in May.
http://www.mci.com

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Broadcom Offers Single-Chip Server I/O Controller With All I/Os

Broadcom introduced a HyperTransport technology-based server I/O controller that features all of the major industry standard I/O interfaces on a single chip. This includes 1 GHz HyperTransport technology, PCI Express, PCI-X, HyperTransport tunnel, and integrated dual Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports. The solution enables server OEMs to integrate dual-port GbE controllers, PCI Express and PCI-X into the volume 2-way server market segment.
http://www.broadcom.com

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Zarlink and Wavesat Carry E1/T1 Service over WiMAX

Zarlink Semiconductor has demonstrated the transmission of circuit-switched traffic over a WiMAX connection using circuit emulation services over packet (CESoP). The tests used Wavesat's WiMAX chip and Zarlink's CeSoP processor. Zarlink said that by using its CESoP technology in both the base station and subscriber WiMAX equipment, circuit-switched traffic together with associated timing and signaling information can be converted into Ethernet packets and seamlessly carried across the WiMax network. http://cesop.zarlink.com/http://www.wavesat.com

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VeriSign Working With Microsoft on Roaming Wireless Security

VeriSign is working with Microsoft to promote roaming wireless security for enterprises. The two companies intend to develop a Wi-Fi security reference architecture and solution based on Microsoft Network Access Protection (NAP) and VeriSign Unified Authentication technologies.


The collaboration will integrate VeriSign Unified Authentication and Microsoft Windows clients to provide the foundation for strong user authentication in an enterprise Wi-Fi network. VeriSign's Unified Authentication platform will simplify management of user and device credentials for X.509 certificates, smart cards and One Time Password (OTP) tokens in the Window environment by tightly integrating with Active Directory and Microsoft Internet Authentication Servers.


In addition, VeriSign is also supporting Microsoft's alignment with the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) to create an all-inclusive, multi-vendor, end- to-end solution that protects corporate assets.



http://www.verisign.com/http://www.microsoft.com

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Verizon Awards FTTP Contract to Motorola

Verizon awarded Motorola a five-year contract to supply equipment for its FTTP networks. Motorola will provide Verizon with advanced electronic equipment that will be installed in Verizon central offices, as well as at customer locations, as the company deploys FTTP. This equipment includes high-density, multi-protocol Optical Line Terminals (Motorola AXS2200 OLT), intelligent Optical Network Terminals (Motorola residential and business ONTs) and video-optimized Optical Amplifiers (Motorola EDFAs).


Financial terms were not disclosed.


In a separate multi-year contract announced in October 2004, Verizon selected Motorola to help build the video network infrastructure portion of FTTP, providing head-end technology, digital set- tops and integration services.

http://www.motorola.com
http://www.verizon.com/

• In February 2004, AFC signed a definitive agreement to provide its FiberDirect solution for Verizon's FTTP initiative. Under the terms of the agreement -- which extends through 2008 -- AFC's FiberDirect solution will provide Verizon with the central office and premises electronics, or "active" elements. In November 2004, Tellabs closed its $1.5 billion acquisition of AFC.

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RealNetworks Reaches One Million Music Subscriptions

RealNetworks has reached the one million subscriber milestone for its premium subscription music services, including subscribers from its new relationship with Comcast. Under its agreement with Comcast, RealNetworks sells premium music services on a wholesale basis to Comcast. Comcast then makes those services available to its broadband subscribers at no additional charge provided they register to receive Comcast Rhapsody Radio Plus. Although Rhapsody Radio Plus is available to all Comcast broadband subscribers, RealNetworks only counts as subscribers those Comcast customers who register for the Rhapsody Radio Plus service.


RealNetworks also announced today that total revenue for the first quarter of 2005 was approximately $76.6 million. This compares to the company's previous first quarter revenue guidance of $73 million to $74.5 million, and represents an approximately 27% increase from $60.4 million in total revenue for the first quarter of 2004. This result also represents a record quarter of revenue for RealNetworks.


Full financial results are expected on May 4.

http://www.realnetworks.com/

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HP Servers to support Internet2's HOPI Testbed

The Internet2's national Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) testbed will deploy HP's ProLiant DL360 G4 servers to provide monitoring and control plane capabilities. Over the next six months, the HP servers will be deployed into the HOPI nodes located in Seattle, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles and in Washington D.C.


Once deployed, the HP servers will be used to monitor and measure the performance of the HOPI circuits by collecting error reporting data as well as network performance measurement data allowing for event correlation and performance results of varying network experiments. In addition, the servers will create a platform for control plane activities which enable engineers to experiment with dynamic provisioning capabilities, a key component of the HOPI testbed. By controlling the topology of the network, the servers will work to instruct the various pieces of equipment in the network on which connections to build, when, and for how long. The control plane servers will take the user entered request for greater network capacity, confirm the availability of those resources, communicate the instructions necessary for configuring the network to the various network devices and then remove that configuration after the usage is complete. In the future, as bandwidth-intensive applications become more prevalent, this type of on-demand provisioning will enable users to quickly bring up a dedicated optical circuit to send large data transfers without disrupting traffic on the backbone network.


HP is an Internet2 corporate sponsor.
http://www.internet2.edu/
http://www.hp.com

• The Internet2 Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) will serve as a national network testbed infrastructure that allows researchers to experiment with new optical technologies, including dynamically provisioned wavelengths, circuit switched environments, and new transport protocols. The HOPI testbed will utilize facilities from Internet2's Abilene Network, the National Lambda Rail (NLR) network, the MANLAN exchange point, and regional optical networks. Each HOPI node will consist of an Ethernet switch with 10GigE capabilities, a fiber cross connect switch, and servers to control HOPI's network infrastructure and measure network performance, all designed to model future optical infrastructures.



• Force10 Networks is supplying its Force10 E-Series family of switch/routers for Internet2's Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) project.

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Verizon Recruits Home Developers for FTTH

Verizon has launched an Enhanced Communities project aimed at signing-up the developers of single-family residential communities to promote its FTTH initiative. Verizon offers developers the opportunity to market voice service, FiOS high-speed Internet Service at up to 30 megabits per second, and FiOS TV service over the fiber cables. Verizon's digital TV package is under development now, for introduction to the market later this year.


More than a dozen such marketing agreements have already been signed, including Pulte Homes, Pardee Homes and KB Home, as well as partnering with several large developments in Southern California and Northern Virginia.


The Enhanced Communities Group has recruited a dedicated sales team from an existing Verizon sales team.
http://www.verizon.com

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