New Whitepaper: Swimming Upstream -- The Case for Higher Speeds

by Ikanos CommunicationsBusiness and residential subscribers are constantly demanding more bandwidth. With the Internet, where a wealth of content resides on the World Wide Web, most of this demand has historically been in the downstream direction. And that will certainly continue. But what has changed is that users are now accumulating and generating copious amounts of content of their own. Users, carriers and equipment vendors alike have a long history of underestimating the need for speed. The root cause is innocent enough: keeping costs under...

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GigaBeam Raises $8.6 Million for its "Wireless Fiber"

GigaBeam Corporation closed $8.6 million in financing through an offering of the company's 10% Series A redeemable preferred stock and common stock purchase warrants and a placement of its common stock and common stock purchase warrants. Several senior officers and board members, including Louis Slaughter, Chairman and CEO, and Douglas Lockie, President and CTO, participated in the financing.GigaBeam supplies a line of "WiFiber" equipment that operates in the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz radio spectrum bands. This portion of the radio frequency spectrum...

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Level 3 Expands Backbone Support of Comcast Digital Voice Rollout

Level 3 Communications announced that it is now providing Comcast with underlying backbone support for the rollout of its new Digital Voice service/ Level 3 said its backbone support will allow Comcast's IP-based calls to travel along a privately managed network. This will extend the capability of Comcast's existing private, advanced broadband network, allowing the IP-based voice service to enjoy quality that may not be available from non-facilities-based VoIP service providers. http://www.Level3....

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Comcast Extends Digital Voice Contract with AT&T

AT&T announced a new contract with Comcast that extends an existing agreement under which AT&T supports Comcast's new Digital Voice service. The new agreement establishes AT&T Global Wholesale Services as a key supplier of the nationwide transport and termination services for Comcast Digital Voice. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.att....

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Industry Reaction to Ensign Bill

Verizon: "We applaud Senator Ensign for introducing legislation to bring our communications laws into the 21st century. The Ensign bill puts consumers first by enabling people to choose from the expanding array of choices made possible by changes in technology and the marketplace. This bill recognizes that the world has changed and consumer driven markets work better than those managed by the government." Peter B. Davidson, Verizon senior vice president for federal government relations.BellSouth: "The Ensign proposal would bring telecommunications...

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iBasis Carries 1.79 Billion VoIP Minutes in Q2

iBasis reported 1.79 billion minutes of use on its international VoIP network in Q2 , a 61% increase over the 1.11 billion minutes carried in the second quarter 2004, and a 2% increase over the 1.76 billion minutes in the first quarter 2005. Average revenue per minute increased to 5.3 cents per minute in the second quarter 2005, up from 5.0 cents per minutes in the first quarter 2005. Average revenue per minute is based on our reported net revenue divided by the minutes of traffic for the applicable period. Overseas-originated calls accounted for...

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Verizon Sponsors VoIP Research at Columbia University

Verizon Laboratories is partnering with the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University to conduct two research projects on VoIP. One project will be dedicated to exploring security technologies, while the other pertains to research in the area of Presence. Verizon said the results of both of these projects will have a large impact on future services offered by softswitches.The research is being conducted under the direction of VoIP expert, Professor Henning Schulzrinne. A $120,000 Verizon grant has been presented to Schulzrinne by...

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Centillium Supports IMS in Entropia Chipset

Centillium Communications announced 3G-NGN, an advanced software suite for the company's pioneering Entropia III system-on-a-chip (SoC) processor. Entropia's advanced VoIP processor software adapts the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture to support multimedia convergence services aimed at wireline and wireless next generation networks (NGN). Entropia can now support IMS Media Gateway Functions (MGF) for CDMA/3GPP2 or GSM/3GPP applications, along with all wireline requirements. In addition, Entropia supports IMS Media Resource Function Processors...

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Luminous Secures Contract with China NetCom Shandong

China NetCom (CNC) Shandong has chosen the Luminous Networks' "PacketWave" Resilient Packet Ring (RPR, IEEE 802.17) and Pseudo-Wire based platforms for deployment in the cities of Quingdao and Yanzhou. To meet the growing service needs of China's business and residential customers, service providers such as CNC Shandong must rapidly deploy packet-based networks. Rapid growth in residential broadband through Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) access, continues in double digit pace. This demand is driven by services such as IPTV, Internet Access and VoIP....

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Conexant Sees Quarterly Revenue Rise 16% Sequentially

Conexant Systems said quarterly revenues grew 16% sequentially to $197.5 million, compared to previous expectations of $190 million. Conexant also achieved its targeted gross margin and operating-expense improvements during the quarter. As a result, the company reduced its third fiscal quarter net loss by more than 50% sequentially. Gross margins in the third fiscal quarter increased to 38 percent of revenues from 35.3 percent in the prior quarter. The core net loss for the quarter of 2005 was $17.6 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, better than...

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NetCentrex to Acquire NeoTIP for Session Border Controllers

NetCentrex agreed to acquire NeoTIP, a privately-held developer of session border controllers, for an undisclosed sum.NeoTIP, which is based in Lannion, France, offers a range of Session Border Controllers (SBCs) used in carrier networks. The company said claims more than 30,000 ports have been deployed to perform security and protocol translation for telephony and videoconference services in the network of a major European incumbent operator. International customer references include Telecom Brazil and Telecom Chile. NetCentrex said the acquisition...

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Telco Systems Acquires Integral Access

Telco Systems has acquired Integral Access, a developer of the carrier-class multi-service access platforms, for an undisclosed sum.Integral Access offers a "PurePacket" platform, an IP-optimized system for next generation networks. It can be deployed as an access gateway for softswitch based architectures for VoIP and data services or with Class 5 central office switches. The system can be connected to the service provider's network using Ethernet based interfaces using L2 or L3 marking as well as TDM based interfaces such as DS1/E1 and DS3. The...

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Regulators Require France Telecom to Provide Access to Competitors

The European Commission will require France Telecom to provide its competitors with wholesale, nationwide high-speed access to its network for a transitional period of one year. This regulatory measure, proposed by the French national regulatory authority for electronic communications, ARCEP, was authorised by the European Commission. The measure will apply until competing network operators have built a sufficiently wide backbone network and a large enough customer base to enable them to invest further in regional broadband services.The Commission...

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Senator Proposes a Broad Rewrite of the Telecom Act

Senator John Ensign (R-NV) proposed a bill that would eliminate the requirement that video service providers obtain a cable franchise agreement in order to provide video service. The legislation seeks to promote inter-modal competition between telcos and cable operators by making it easier for telcos to launch video services.The proposed Broadband Consumer Choice Act of 2005 would also set federal consumer protection standards, and would assure consumer access to Internet-based phone service."We must not allow government regulations to be an anchor...

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