Thomson Acquires Cirpack for its Softswitches

Thomson has acquired Cirpack, a privately-held developer of class-5 softswitching solutions based near Paris. Financial terms were not disclosed.Cirpack claims 45 telco and ISP customers in 15 countries. The customer list includes Free, a subsidiary of the Iliad Group and the second largest French ISP, which is using a joint solution from IBM and Cirpack to deliver a consumer VoIP service over unbundled DSL lines. The residential VoIP is provided as an add-on to the company's ADSL service in the areas where Free has deployed its own DSL infrastructure....

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Verizon Online Partners with Movielink on Downloads

Movielink and Verizon launched a co-branded movie downloading service providing Verizon Online's consumer DSL and FiOS Internet Service customers access to Movielink's extensive film library. Movielink is a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios. Movielink content offerings are drawn from the current releases and vast libraries of those studios as well as from those of Walt Disney Pictures, Miramax, Artisan and others, on a non-exclusive basis....

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Alcatel Selects Motive for Triple Play Digital Home Management

Alcatel signed a joint marketing and development agreement with Motive focused on the remote management of home networking devices that deliver Triple Play services. Motive's software is widely used by Internet service providers for installation and customer support. As part of this relationship, the companies will enhance their existing products by jointly developing, marketing and selling a single software solution for automating the deployment, configuration and support of advanced home networking devices called residential gateways, regardless...

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University of Tokyo Establishes 7.2 Gbps Transcontinental Download Rate

The University of Tokyo, Chelsio Communications, a supplier of 10-Gigabit Ethernet server adapters and protocol acceleration technology, and an international team of engineers established the world's longest 10 Gigabit per second link ever recorded for the transmission of Internet data by connecting two AMD Opteron processor-based servers over three continents, spanning 17 time zones and reaching more than half way around the world. Each server was equipped with a Chelsio 10 Gigabit Ethernet Protocol Engine with TCP/IP offload technology. A transfer...

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Fujitsu Unveils WiMax Chipset

Fujitsu Microelectronics America (FMA) unveiled its highly integrated WiMAX system-on-chip that complies with the IEEE802.16-2004 standard. and is designed for both base station and subscriber station implementation in licensed or license-exempt bands below 11GHz.Fujitsu's chipset uses an OFDM 256 (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) PHY that supports channels from 1.75MHz up to 20MHz, and can operate in TDD or FDD modes, with support for all available channel bandwidths. A programmable frequency selection generates the sample clock for...

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ZTE and Fujitsu Collaborate on WiMAX

China's ZTE Corp. has selected Fujitsu's WiMAX SoC solution for its WiMAX-certifiable equipment. The two companies have been collaborating to develop base station and subscriber station equipment that complies with the 802.16-2004 fixed WiMAX specifications. Fujitsu and ZTE will complete the full bring-up and implementation of ZTE's WiMAX compliant systems. http://us.fujitsu.com/micro/WiMAXhttp://www.zte.com.cn/...

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Netflix Tops 3 Million DVD-by-mail Subscribers

Netflix ended the first quarter of 2005 with approximately 3,018,000 total subscribers to its DVD-by-mail service, representing 56 percent year-over-year growth from 1,932,000 total subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2004 and 16 percent sequential growth from 2,610,000 subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2004.Of the 3,018,000 total subscribers at quarter end, 96 percent or 2,887,000 were paid subscribers. The other 4 percent, or 131,000, were free subscribers. Paid subscribers represented 95 percent of total subscribers...

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Broadcom Posts Revenue of $550 Million

Broadcom reported Q1 net revenue of $550.3 million, an increase of 2.0% from the $539.4 million reported for the fourth quarter of 2004 and a decrease of 4.0% from the $573.4 million reported for the first quarter of 2004. Net income (GAAP) for Q1 2005 was $69.2 million, or $.19 per share (diluted), compared with GAAP net income of $71.1 million, or $.20 per share (diluted), for the fourth quarter of 2004, and GAAP net income of $39.9 million, or $.12 per share (diluted), for the first quarter of 2004."We were pleased with our progress in the first...

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Qwest Increases its Acquisition Offer for MCI

Qwest Communications issued a new bid to acquire MCI, offering $16.00 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. MCI's Board of Directors said it would review the revised proposal.Qwest's previous proposal contained $13.50 in cash (excluding MCI's March 15 dividend payment of $0.40 per share) and 3.373 Qwest shares (subject to adjustment...

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Time Warner and Comcast to Acquire Adelphia

Time Warner and Comcast finalized a deal to acquire Adelphia Communications for $12.7 billion in cash and 16 percent of the common stock of Time Warner's cable subsidiary, Time Warner Cable Inc. The transaction is subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court where Adelphia bankruptcy proceeding is pending.Adelphia, which ranks as the fifth largest MSO in the U.S., serves approximately 5.2 million basic subscribers in 31 states.Under the deal, Adelphia's stakeholders will receive $9.2 billion in cash and 16 percent of Time Warner Cable's common...

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AT&T's Q1 Revenue Declines 12% on Pricing Pressure, Lower Traffic

Citing continued pricing pressure and decreases in LD traffic, AT&T reported consolidated Q1 revenue of $7.0 billion, which included $5.3 billion from AT&T Business and $1.7 billion from AT&T Consumer. Consolidated revenue declined 12.2 percent versus the first quarter of 2004, primarily due to continued declines in LD voice and data revenue. Net income was $529 million, or earnings per diluted share of $0.66. "AT&T continues to take targeted, strategic actions to elevate our operational and financial strength in advance of our...

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BellSouth Reports Lower Earnings

For the first quarter of 2005, BellSouth's consolidated reported revenue from continuing operations totaled $5.09 billion, an increase of 2.3 percent compared to the same quarter in 2004. First quarter 2005 earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations were 37 cents compared to 63 cents in first quarter 2004. First quarter 2004 results included 16 cents from the gain on the sale of operations in Denmark. Some highlights of the quarterly report:BellSouth reported 253,000 DSL net customer additions and 455,000 long distance net customer additions...

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Congress Considers IP-Enabled Video Services

As part of an on-going series of public hearings about how to update the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications heard testimony on how IP-enabled video services could transform the market. Some highlights of the testimony.Verizon CommunicationsVerizon could be delayed in bringing FiOS TV to market by outmoded laws and a cumbersome, redundant local franchising process, said Verizon Retail Markets President Robert Ingalls. He argued in favor of a national broadband policy...

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