Echostar Reports Slower Growth for DISH

Echostar said its DISH Network added approximately 225,000 net new subscribers for the quarter ended June 30, 2005, compared to approximately 340,000 net new subscribers during the same period in 2004, a decrease of approximately 33.8%. There were approximately 799,000 gross new subscribers for the quarter, compared to approximately 849,000 gross new subscribers during the same period in 2004.


This gives the company approximately 11.455 million DISH Network subscribers compared to approximately 10.125 million subscribers at June 30, 2004, an increase of approximately 13.1%.


The company cited a number of factors for thee decrease in gross new subscribers, including a decline in sales under its co-branding agreement with SBC. During Q2, SBC shifted its DISH Network marketing and sales efforts to focus on limited geographic areas and customer segments, as it deploys its own wireline network for delivering video services.


DISH Network "Subscriber-related revenue" totaled $1.990 billion for the three months ended June 30, 2005, an increase of $329.1 million or 19.8% compared to the same period in 2004.


ARPU was approximately $58.46 during the three months ended June 30, 2005 and approximately $55.59 during the same period in 2004.
http://www.dishnetwork.com

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i3 Networks Offers Fractional SoftSwitch Ownership to CLECs

i3 Networks announced a unique "UNE-3 Fractional Switch Ownership" program that provides CLECs with an alternative to reselling RBOC lines. The UNE-3 solution comprises four key elements:

• fractional ownership of a MetaSwitch VP3510 Class 5 Softswitch and UC9000 Unified Communications platform



• negotiated bulk purchase tariffs with major carrier partners including Level 3, for nationwide Central Office facilities and attractive long-distance rates



• management services including a 24x7 network operations center (based in Dallas, Texas) and ongoing switch maintenance



• financial assistance including a cost-effective leasing program.

For service providers migrating from UNE-P, the total package can offer significant savings and opportunity for incremental business. In addition to traditional POTS services, the MetaSwitch enables carriers to offer Web Self-Care, IP Centrex, Voice over IP, Voicemail and Unified Messaging - all available as part of the base UNE-3(R) package.


Already six CLECs have signed for the service including Navigator Telecommunications of Little Rock, AR and Amerimex Communications of Atlanta, GA. In total, this initial group of fractional switch owners represent over 150,000 access lines, with a shared ownership commitment today of 60,000 ports - which they are free to sell, lease or assign at will. As a result, unlike a traditional leasing arrangement, those purchased ports may be fully bookable, depreciable assets.http://i3net.us/http://www.metaswitch.com

• i3 Networks is a Houston-based voice and data telecommunications company that specializes in helping competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) succeed in their chosen markets.

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India's Hutchison Deploys ECI's XDM for Nationwide Network

Hutchison Essar, one of India's leading mobile operators, has deployed ECI Telecom's optical networking solutions for its wireless backhaul. ECI has supplied its XDM optical multi-service provisioning platform (MSPP), and its BroadGate uSDM-1 miniature SDH multiplexer along with its LightSoft network management system. Financial terms were not disclosed.


The Hutchison Essar network consists of 13 'circles' spanning thousands of kilometers all across India. ECI installed its XDM platforms in each of these circles, deploying new networks in the majority of the circles and upgrading existing networks to SDH in others. The network covers all key regions and metropolitan areas throughout India. Hutchison Essar currently has a significant market share out of the 50 million wireless subscribers in India. This market is growing by approximately 2 million subscribers each month.

http://www.ecitele.com

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Teknovus Completes GEPON Testing at UNH IOL

Teknovus completed third-party IEEE 802.3ah Ethernet-in-the-First-Mile standards compliance testing for two of its Gigabit EPON (GEPON) chipsets. The UNH-IOL compliance analysis covered Optical Line Termination (OLT) and Optical Networking Unit (ONU) chipsets for standards compliance. The UNH-IOL testing cycle evaluated the Teknovus TK3721 system-on-chip OLT and TK3701 system-on-chip ONU chipsets in a number of operating scenarios, including single-ONU and multi-ONU performance, reliability and usability testing. The UNH-IOL EFM Consortium is providing a neutral platform for the creation of an industry-reference EPON test bed to facilitate multi-vendor interoperability testing.
http://www.teknovus.com
http://www.iol.unh.edu

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Cable One Selects Nortel for VoIP

Cable One, which operates 52 mostly rural cable systems serving 715,000 subscribers in 19 states, selected Nortel as its primary VoIP technology and professional services provider. Cable One plans to launch full-featured primary line telephony services in up to 45 markets throughout the midwestern, southern and western U.S.


Nortel said its architecture would enable Cable One to consolidate switching resources to minimize capital, operating and engineering costs commonly associated with rural market network expansion. Cable One's network will feature PacketCable-qualified Nortel Communication Server (CS) 2000-Compact softswitches. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.nortel.com

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Cisco Conducts Virtual Opening of NASDAQ

Cisco Systems conducted a first-of-its-kind virtual opening of NASDAQ from its headquarters in San Jose, California.


Cisco and NASDAQ re-created the MarketSite studio in New York, including a replica blue video wall and electronic podium, to mirror the NASDAQ opening and closing bell ceremonies. Using a high-speed, dual-path private IP network, data was routed from NASDAQ's New York MarketSite to Cisco's Silicon Valley virtual MarketSite, where display servers processed and formatted real-time ticker and price quote information. Data was displayed on a video wall consisting of 32 monitors. The ceremony was simultaneously broadcast live on the NASDAQ Tower in New York.


John Chambers rang the opening bellhttp://www.cisco.com

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Azure and Narus Team on IP Monitoring and Revenue Assurance

Azure Solutions, a developer of telecom revenue-assurance solutions, has signed a reseller agreement with Narus, a provider of unified IP Management and Security. The agreement brings together both companies' combined IP and revenue-assurance expertise to enable them to provide operators with the capability to bill for usage and identify fraud effectively on their next-generation telecom networks.


The Narus IP Platform captures and analyzes IP traffic in real time across an entire IP network. Combining this with Azure's interconnect, data-integrity (Certo) and fraud-detection capability, operators can now extract information from IP networks to validate billing records and identify fraud on voice and data services.


The companies said their partnership would help operators maximize revenue through the introduction of differential billing for next-generation products and services, as well as the detection of revenue leakage due to fraud and third-party services on their networks. The partnership also complements Azure's next-generation revenue-assurance product portfolio, following the recent launches of Azure Inter-Party Management and the next-generation Azure Fraud Control System.
http://www.narus.com
http://www.azuresolutions.com/

• In June 2005, Azure Solutions, a spin-out from BT, raised $15 million in new venture funding for its revenue-assurance solutions. Azure enables service providers to reduce losses and safeguard profits from malicious and unintentional revenue leakage. The company estimates that global operator revenue losses are currently at 10.7% of turnover. This equates to over one hundred billion dollars of lost revenue and this figure is likely to increase with the emergence of next-generation telecoms services and technology. The company's existing customers include tier 1 operators such as BT, KPN, Vodafone, Telenor and Verizon.



• In July, Narus introduced a VoIP traffic assessment tool based on its unified IP Management and Security platform to help global carriers understand and address the impact of VoIP traffic on their business. The Narus IP Platform provides a total network view of all IP data in a carrier's network, including VoIP traffic. The system offers extensible capabilities to secure, analyze, monitor and mediate any traffic in an IP network, including H.323, SIP, and proprietary VoIP protocols including Skype.

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T-Com Targets Fixed/Mobile Convergence with Alcatel

T-Com, the fixed-network unit of Deutsche Telekom, is developing a new Switch&Profit service that will enable calls to be forwarded between the fixed line and mobile networks. The service is based on the Alcatel 8690 Open Services Platform (OSP).


For T-Com's subscribers, the Switch&Profit service offers a number of convenience and cost savings advantages. When a subscriber is at home or in the office, fixed line calls placed to their mobile phones will automatically be forwarded to their fixed line. When a subscriber leaves their home or office, they can disable the forwarding feature with a simple toll-free call to T-Com. For each forwarded minute, T-Com credits their telephone bills 2.59 EUR cents. This corresponds to up to 1.5 free minutes of calling time and applies to their fixed Home lines. Callers pay the same connection charges as they would for a call to the cellular network.


For T-Com, the Switch and Profit service allows them to recapture some of the traffic that would otherwise be lost to the mobile operator.
http://www.alcatel.com

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Ericsson Supplies ADSL 2+ to Greece's Vivodi Telecom

Greek wireline operator Vivodi Telecom selected Ericsson to deliver 10,000 ADSL 2+ lines using its Ethernet DSL Access solution. Vivodi Telecom is preparing to launch a telco triple play offering.
The order includes an end-to-end broadband access solution, with a
network management system, project management and installation,
integration and commissioning services. Financial terms were not disclosed. The entire order will be delivered to Vivodi Telecom during 2005, with expansion options for 2006.
http://www.ericsson.com

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Deutsche Telekom Acquires Austria's tele.ring

Deutsche Telekom confirmed plans to acquire tele.ring, Austria's fourth largest mobile carrier, for EUR 1.3 billion.


tele.ring has approximately 968,000 customers and a market share of around 13%. Seventy-seven percent of its customers are contract subscribers and the average revenue per user (ARPU) of all tele.ring customers is EUR 39, which is EUR 4 higher than the Austrian market average.


Together, tele.ring and T-Mobile Austria will serve about 3 million customers.
http://www.telekom.de

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Tut Systems Cites Progress in MPEG-4 AVC Sales

Oklahoma-based Bixby Telephone selected Tut Systems' Astria content processor video headend solution for delivering advanced digital TV services over its broadband network. The platform will serve as the core video processing system for Bixby's all-MPEG-4 AVC digital headend. Tut Systems is also providing comprehensive systems integration services, including design, project management, staging and pre-launch testing of the digital headend. Bixby Telephone plans to commercially launch its Digital TV service in the first quarter of 2006.


Tut Systems said the deal marks its 10th MPEG-4 AVC customer deployment.
http://www.tutsys.com/

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Cortina Raises $30 Million for High-Speed Port Processors

Cortina Systems, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, secured $30 million in a Series C financing for its high-speed digital and analog silicon technology.


Cortina specializes in multi-service, multi-rate port processors that allow equipment vendors to support different types of Ethernet and SONET networks with a far smaller array of converged line cards. The port processors can be programmed to support different rates and protocols. The company said it is already shipping product to large network equipment suppliers.


New investors Canaan Partners and JAFCO Ventures led the new round, which also included all of Cortina's existing venture capital investors.



http://www.cortina-systems.com

• In February 2005, Cortina Systems has acquired Azanda Network Devices. Cortina will offer its customers Azanda's traffic management and ATM SAR (Segmentation And Reassembly) products. Cortina's multiple product lines support SONET/SDH, POS/GFP, as well as RPR and Ethernet and are tailored to Routing, Transport and Enterprise applications. Azanda, by contrast, has concentrated on ATM-to-IP protocol conversion, a particularly complex engineering problem.



• In April 2004, Cortina Systems raised $20 million in new venture funding for its analog and digital integrated circuits for the networking and communications equipment.



• Cortina Systems is headed by Amir Nayyerhabibi, who previously was co-founder and Vice President of Engineering at StratumOne Communications, which was acquired by Cisco in 1999. He also managed the development of 12416 and 12410 Cisco GSR Router programs.

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Taiwan Proceeds with Privatization of Chunghwa Telecom

Taiwan' Ministry of Transportation and Communications raised NT$16.29 billion (US510 million) through the sale of 289.43 million shares of Chunghwa Telecom, the island's incumbent operator, representing a 3% stake in the company.


A further 14% stake in the company was sold in New York through the sale of 135.1 million American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) priced at US$18.98, raising a further US$2.56 billion. Each CHT ADS share represents ten common shares of CHT.


The sale reduced the government stake in the Chunghwa Telecom from 65% to 48%.


The share sale went ahead despite opposition from the company's labor union, which also deems the sale of ADRs to overseas investors to be illegal.


http://www.cht.com.tw

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