Motorola Outlines Home Digital Media Strategy

At the Cable-Tec Expo, Motorola outlined a unified hardware and software strategy that will enable digital cable customers to move and share digital media throughout their homes.Motorola's software strategy for whole-home media takes advantage of the Ucentric Digital Home Platform, a software suite that enables digital media to be shared by any connected device in the home. Because of the growing momentum for the open cable applications platform...

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Alcatel Lands ADSL2+ Contract from Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom

Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's incumbent carrier, has named Alcatel as sole supplier for 870,000 ADSL2plus lines. The deal is one of the world's largest single ADSL2plus orders to date. Financial terms were not disclosed.The deployment will include the Alcatel 7302 Intelligent Services Access Manager (ISAM) and the Alcatel 7324 Remote Unit, as well as ADSL2plus modems. The equipment delivery will begin in September 2005. http://www.alcatel....

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Telewest Upgrades Head-Ends with Cisco's GigE

Telewest, the UK cable broadband communications and media group, is upgrading 14 regional head-ends and 64 hub sites to Gigabit Ethernet, using Cisco 7609 Series routers at its regional head-ends and hub sites, with integrated DWDM pluggable optics. The upgrade provides a highly-resilient dual 10Gbps capacity network to support its distributed TVOD service deployment. The Cisco 7609 Series routers with Supervisor Engine 720 comprises the multiservice edge platform for TVOD services, Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs and Cable Modem Termination Systems...

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Vodafone D2 and The Cloud Form WLAN Partnership

Vodafone Germany and The Cloud formed a strategic WLAN partnership that enables Vodafone customers will be able to use around 1,000 WLAN hotspots in Germany, in addition to the Vodafone 3G network. The Cloud plans to establish a nationwide network of 10,000 hotspots over the next four years, which will provide wireless Internet at key public access points. http://www.vodafone.com http://www.thecloud.net/ The Cloud currently has almost 6,000 hotspots in the UK, Germany and the Nordic countries. In the UK, The Cloud is market leader with over...

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Ciena Supplies Optical Ethernet to Japan's Largest Cable Operator

Jupiter Telecommunications (J:COM), the largest cable service operator in Japan based on the number of customers served, is adopting Ciena's optical Ethernet platforms for the transport of Video on Demand (VOD) services, specifically for its "J:COM On Demand" digital service offering. The deployment is a result of Ciena's relationship with its authorized business partner, NETMARKS, a Japanese network solution provider, and represents Ciena's first announced customer win with a major international cable operator for video applications. The Ciena...

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Harmonic Offers Variable Bit-Rate Encoding Platform for MPEG-2

Harmonic introduced a new IP-based DiviCom Electra compression platform for standard definition (SD) MPEG-2. The scalable, one rack-unit (1-RU) system can be configured with up to four high-performance VBR encoders. When combined with Harmonic's versatile DiviTrackIP statistical multiplexing solution, Electra enables service providers to maximize the service carrying capacity of their video networks while dramatically reducing operational complexity.http://www.harmonicinc....

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Telstra Launches Asia Express In Collaboration with telx

Telstra announced an "Asia Express" offering that automates and simplifies the global bandwidth procurement process. Asia Express is Telstra's indirect channel solution for connectivity from the US to Hong Kong at aggressively-priced, monthly flat rates with no term commitment. Bandwidths from E1 to STM 4 international private lines are provided. Starting July 1, Clear channel E1 to DS3 activation will take less than a week to install.tel(x), the leading interconnection provider at 60 Hudson Street, New York City, and Telstra have entered into...

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Farmers Telephone Chooses Occam to Deliver MPEG-4-based IPTV

Farmers Telephone Cooperative (FTC), the third-largest telephone cooperative in the U.S., has selected Occam Networks' BLC 6000 System to deliver Triple Play services to its 60,000 subscribers in eastern South Carolina. The video portion of the network will utilize MPEG-4 Encoding, making it one of the first commercial deployments of MPEG-4 in North America.FTC is in the process of upgrading its existing access network to a complete Ethernet- and IP-based network that provides its subscribers with services equal to those available to subscribers...

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BroadWare Raises Funding for Video Surveillance

BroadWare Technologies, a start-up based in Cupertino, California, secured a new round of funding for its video surveillance. BroadWare's solutions are built on an open systems platform that facilitates the integration of multiple technologies from diverse vendors within a single system. A migration from analog to digital video surveillance solutions is enabling images to be managed, analyzed, and distributed over the IT infrastructure in important new ways. The BroadWare Media Platform is a suite of server-based technologies for management, distribution...

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Avaya and Research In Motion Extend SIP to BlackBerry on WLAN

Avaya and Research In Motion announced plans to extend Avaya secure enterprise communications applications to the BlackBerry platform over WLANs using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This will enable broad compatibility between the BlackBerry 7270 and Avaya's family of IP-enabled communications solutions utilizing SIP-based IP telephony. Future development will focus on integrating Avaya communications applications more tightly with the business process applications that are supported on BlackBerry, such as sales force automation tools, to...

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Scientific-Atlanta Unveils Digital Content Manager

Scientific-Atlanta unveiled a new Digital Content Manager designed to help cable operators faced with a dramatic increase in both the number and complexity of MPEG video streams processed.Scientific-Atlanta's Digital Content Manager (DCM) is a new high-density, networked MPEG processing platform with the processing power necessary to deliver digital simulcast, switched digital broadcast, more HD and on-demand digital channels, and expanded ad insertion opportunities.The company said the platform offers approximately 20x the MPEG processing capability...

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Ericsson Teams with Napster for Mobile Music

Ericsson and Napster announced a global partnership to offer a fully integrated, digital music service available for mobile operators. The service will carry the universally known Napster brand and combine elements of Napster's popular PC offering and Ericsson's personalized music service. The business model accommodates mobile operator participation in all revenue streams. The service is scheduled to go live in Europe during the next 12 months and will initially be offered to operators in selected markets in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and North...

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Ericsson Expands WCDMA Portfolio

Ericsson is expanding its WCDMA portfolio into the frequency bands of 850MHz, 1800MHz (1700MHz for Japan) and 1.7/2.1GHz for the USA. 850MHz will be available this year, while the others will be ready by the middle of 2006. To enhance capacity and coverage potential in the future, Ericsson's WCDMA solutions will also support the 900MHz and 2.5GHz frequency bands. Ericsson said the availability of wider support for frequency bands will lead to a larger deployment of WCDMA, so operators will benefit from the large economies of scale of equipment...

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Xten Softphone Used for PC-to-PC VoIP in Yahoo! Messenger

Yahoo! has licensed Xten's eyeBeam software development kit (SDK) to deliver SIP-based PC-to-PC VoIP in the new Yahoo! Messenger Beta. http://www.xten....

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Meru Raises $12 Million for VoIP Mobility

Meru Networks, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, secured $12 million in Series C funding for its VoIP mobility technology. With its unique Cellular WLAN architecture, Meru's system delivers the over-the-air QoS, scalability, predictable performance and ease of deployment required for large, enterprise-class WLANs. The new funding round was led by BlueStream Ventures, Clearstone Venture Partners and NeoCarta Ventures. Meru Networks has now raised $42.7 million in total funding to date. The company said it has achieved significant customer...

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NY Public Service Commission Rejects Cablevision's Verizon Petition

The New York Public Service Commission rejected a petition from Cablevision and the Cable Telecommunications Association of New York that sought to stop Verizon's FTTP rollout until it obtained local franchise agreements for offering cable-TV services.Verizon described the decision as a victory for New York consumers. "The cable-TV industry, led by Cablevision, failed in this transparent attempt to deny New Yorkers faster, better broadband services and the promise of future choice for TV programming," said Paul A. Crotty, president of Verizon New...

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India's BSNL Selects UTStarcom's NetRing

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), the incumbent and largest telecommunications services provider in India, selected UTStarcom's NetRing 2500 STM-16 optical transport solution. UTStarcom already supplies its AN-2000 IP DSLAM and Total Control 1000 Multiservice Access to BSNL. Financial terms were not disclosed.UTStarcom's NetRing product line provides aggregation, grooming, cross-connect, and transport functionality to deliver high-density, highly efficient STM-1 to STM-64, PDH (E1/DS1, E3/DS3), Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and ATM services...

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BT's Bluephone Converges Fixed Line and Mobile Service

BT launched its Project Bluephone -- an intelligent mobile service that automatically switches from the mobile network to a broadband-based VoIP connection when the BT Fusion handset is in Bluetooth range of its BT Home Hub. Handoffs from the mobile network to the broadband line would happen seamlessly -- even in mid-call. BT is using use Vodafone's mobile network. The service is currently in testing with some 400 users and a wider rollout is expected...

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Cable Industry Affirms the Importance of Local Franchise Agreements

Local governments should maintain their control over how and where video services are provided, said Karen Alexander, President of the New Jersey Cable Telecommunications Association (NJCTA), speaking before the New Jersey League of Municipalities. Alexander warned that legislation being proposed by Verizon would deny local oversight and make it impossible for municipal officials to protect public safety and local aesthetics -- contrary to the important principle of home rule and need for local government to manage activities in neighborhood streets...

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Equinix Expands in Silicon Valley, Raises 2005 Guidance

After opening its third Silicon Valley data center earlier this year, Equinix last week announced that it has acquired a fourth Silicon Valley center. The new 120,000 square foot Silicon Valley center was acquired through a long-term lease commencing in October 2005. It will add approximately 1,800 cabinets and increase Equinix's Silicon Valley footprint to more than 500,000 square feet. The center will be interconnected to Equinix's three other Silicon Valley centers through redundant dark fiber links managed by Equinix, enabling new customers...

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