SUPERCOMM 2005 Attracted 28,000 Attendees

SUPERCOMM, which was held June 6-9 at Chicago's McCormick Place, was attended by nearly 28,000 industry professionals, which reflects an approximate 10% increase over SUPERCOMM 2004, according to audited figures from the organizers. There were 3,317 international attendees from 100 countries, for a 19 percent increase in global participation over SUPERCOMM 2004. Additionally, the event's regional Chicago attendance experienced a double-digit increase, with many buyers coming from the city's Fortune 500 companies and multi-national corporations.
http://www.tiaonline.org

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Cavalier Telephone Deploys MPEG4 IPTV with Tut Systems

Cavalier Telephone, a facilities-based local telephone company based in Virginia, selected Tut Systems' Astria content processor video headend and edge-processing solutions for delivering IPTV services over DSL.


Tut's Astria CP platform will serve as the core video processing system for Cavalier's all-MPEG-4 AVC digital headend. To distribute high-quality video reliably and cost-effectively over a large multi-state region, Cavalier can also deploy Astria CP systems for remote content processing solutions in regional cities. Tut Systems is also providing comprehensive systems integration services, including project management, design, staging, installation and pre-launch testing of the digital headend and remote locations. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.tutsys.com/
http://www.cavtel.com

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Avaya Surpasses Seven Million IP Telephony Line Shipments

Avaya has passed the seven million line milestone for IP telephony shipments. The recipient of the seven millionth line is ING Vysya Bank, one of India's leading private sector banks.


Avaya also noted that its IP line shipments surpassed traditional line shipments this year.


Avaya claims to be the worldwide leader in IP telephony line shipments for first quarter 2005 with a 21% share, maintaining that position for the sixth consecutive quarter, according to figures from Synergy Research Group.


In 2004, IP telephony accounted for 8% of the 423 million total enterprise telephony lines installed worldwide, a figure that is increasing rapidly as companies migrate from traditional telephony systems to gain the benefits of converged voice and data. The overall market for IP lines installed is expected to quadruple by 2007. http://www.avaya.com

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Redback Signs Dynavar Networking, an Integrator

Redback Networks signed a reseller agreement with systems integrator Dynavar Networking, of Bellevue, Washington. The agreement covers the resale of, and associated support services for, Redback's SmartEdge Service Gateway and Router platforms as well as the NetOp Element and Policy Manager suite.
http://www.redback.com

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General Bandwidth Appoints CFO

General Bandwidth named Jan E. Gaulding as its new chief financial officer reporting directly to Charles Vogt, General Bandwidth's president and CEO. Most recently, she was the chief financial officer of Sevin Rosen Funds, a venture capital firm with $1.6 billion under management and investments in over 70 portfolio companies. Prior to Sevin Rosen Funds, Gaulding served as the chief financial officer of ProNet Inc. for 14 years. http://www.genband.com

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Sandvine Chooses Glimmerglass Intelligent Optical Switches

Sandvine will use a Glimmerglass intelligent optical switch for its advanced broadband network optimization product testing operations. The Glimmerglass switches automate much of the testing process by enabling test engineers to instantly change or "re-fiber" a network, virtually eliminating the need for manual fiber connection. In this way, different network configurations can be quickly simulated, saved and then tested quickly and repeatedly. Sandvine purchased a Glimmerglass Intelligent Optical Switch configured with 288 fiber interfaces to help automatically manage fiber connectivity and speed time-to-market for new product introductions.
http://www.glimmerglass.com
http://www.sandvine.com

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NetDevices Secures $25 Million for Unified Services Gateway

NetDevices, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, closed $25 million in Series B financing for its services gateway products for enterprise branch networks.


NetDevices has developed a "Unified Services Gateway" aimed at consolidating and simplifying the multiple network appliances currently being deployed by enterprises at the edge of their networks. NetDevices is using a "OnePass" architecture for packet classification and inspection from which multiple advanced services -- such as firewalls, intrusion detection, VoIP gateway and VPN gateway -- would be based. The company argues that real-time services will be best supported if all these functions are connected together by a system-wide approach to processing and management. OnePass classification and management is more efficient than running multiple boxes and latency is reduced.


NetDevice's platform features a modular operation system and separate traffic, control and management planes to ensure "always available" system access. The system has a hardened forwarding path into which multiple services are inserted and integrated. Specific services can be performed at the correct point in the packet flow.


NetDevices features a stateful Layer 7 firewall, intrusion detection and prevention, and web filtering. It also features a SIP application layer gateway with QoS and built-in support for future VoIP services. The company has a roadmap of future services and hardware modules for the gateway. The gateway is currently shipping.


New investor Castile Ventures led the up-round; existing investors ComVentures, Columbia Capital, Artiman Ventures, and JumpStartUp also participated. This round brings NetDevices' total funding to date to $40 million.
http://www.netdevices.com

• NetDevices was founded in 2003 by Seenu Banda (CEO), Rob Haraga (VP of Engineering), and Jeff Kidd (VP of Hardware Engineering). Prior to founding NetD, Banda was senior director of marketing for mid-range routers, including the 7200 and 7500, at Cisco Systems. Haraga spent 10 years at Cisco, where he led the development and engineering of three generations of router product lines in the 7000 series. Kidd also served at Cisco in senior engineering roles for the Cisco 7000, 7200, 7300, 7500 and 7600 routers, and the Cisco Catalyst 5000 and 6000 multi-layer switching platforms.

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Citrix Acquires NetScaler for $300 Million -- Application Appliances

Citrix Systems has acquired NetScaler, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, for its application networking appliances. The transaction is valued at approximately $300 million in cash and stock and includes the assumption of approximately $23 million in unvested stock options.


NetScaler developed a line of Secure Application Accelerator platforms for enterprises. The platforms combine the features and functions of traditional data center point products - load balancing, caching, compression, SSL acceleration, attack defense, SSL VPN - into a single network appliance. NetScaler accelerates the performance of Web browser-based applications and e-commerce and consumer Web sites by as much as 15 times, according to the company.


NetScaler's customers include Google, Amazon, Dow Jones, Earthlink, E*Trade, MSN and Ticketmaster and the company estimates that up to 75 percent of all Internet users go through a NetScaler system each day.


Citrix said the acquisition strengthens its customer value proposition by improving the performance of any application delivered through the Citrix Access Platform, which seamlessly connects users, devices, and networks to enterprise resources.


"With this acquisition, we are extending our best access experience value to the entire range of Web-based applications, including enterprise, browser-based, XML Web services, and others," said Mark Templeton, president and chief executive officer for Citrix.


NetScaler, which was founded in 1998, has approximately 200 employees, including research and development teams in Silicon Valley and India. B.V. Jagadeesh, previously president and chief executive officer for NetScaler, will now report to Mark Templeton as group vice president and general manager.
http://www.netscaler.com
http://www.citrix.com

• In early 2003, Citrix outlined a strategy to expand its coverage of the overall Access Infrastructure category by penetrating into adjacent high-growth markets such as collaboration and VPN. Since that time, Citrix has completed three acquisitions of best-of-breed companies. In 2004, Citrix acquired Expertcity, now the Online Group, moving the company into the real-time collaboration, desktop access and on-demand assistance market segments. Citrix also acquired Net6, now the Gateways Group, extending Citrix's reach in the SSL VPN (secure socket layer virtual private network) and IP (internet protocol) telephony market segments.

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Cable & Wireless to Acquire Energis

Cable & Wireless confirmed plans to acquire Energis, the number-three fixed line operator in the UK, for £674 million. The deal will create a larger competitor to incumbent BT.


Cable & Wireless said the merger would result in OPEX and CAPEX synergies of £55 million in 2006/7 and £80 million in 2008. An estimated 700 jobs are expected to be lost in the restructuring.


Over 75% of Energis stakeholders have approved the deal. Regulatory approvals are still required.


"The acquisition of Energis is a further step in the development of Cable & Wireless in the UK and will accelerate the strategic transformation that we have undertaken in the last 15 months... The timing of this acquisition allows us to exploit the rapid growth in demand for IP-based services and the opportunities presented by the creation of a regulatory framework designed to facilitate infrastructure-based competition," said C&W CEO Francesco Caio.


The Scottish operator Thus had also been in the bidding for Energis.
http://www.cw.comIn April 2005, 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.


In 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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Comcast Enhances Broadband Security with McAfee

Comcast, the leading U.S. broadband provider with 7.7 million High-Speed Internet customers, is expanding its online security solution. For no additional charge, customers can receive the following products:

• McAfee VirusScan



• McAfee Personal Firewall Plus



• McAfee Privacy Service

Comcast is also providing a free browser toolbar that features spyware detection and removal, a pop-up blocker, as well as integrated search functionality. Early this Fall, Comcast plans to introduce an anti-phishing security solution within the Comcast Toolbar, which will help further protect customers from the growing threat of identity theft.
http://www.comcast.net

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Peleton releases Laser Generating 96 Wavelengths

Peleton, a start-up based in Ottawa, Canada, announced commercial availability of its multi-wavelength laser source (TM3050C).


The compact, flat-spectrum, high-power laser source generates 96 wavelengths simultaneously on a single output fiber. All of the wavelengths produced by the device are internally locked to the IUT-T grid at a variety of channel spacings. The Peleton multi-wavelength technology is capable of providing wavelength channels in all the L, C and S bands, and it offers locking to specific channel spacings, such as 100GHz or 50GHz. The high scalability and small form factor make it suitable for the optical test and measurement sector.


"The TM3050C is a unique solution not only for verification and testing of optical subsystems, such as amplifiers, optical channel monitors, optical switches and ROADMs, but also for DWDM system verification, dynamic network simulations, multi-wavelength sensing applications and optically steered phased arrays," said Velko Tzolov, vice-president, marketing and sales, Peleton. "We are seeing a growing demand for 50GHz capabilities driven by equipment vendors and service providers that are beginning to think about the future of their networks."


In addition to the laser, Peleton is also offering a 96-channel optical channel controller, which provides accurate attenuation and blocking of individual channels.
http://www.peleton.com

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AT&T Builds 130-site MPLS VPN for Tata

AT&T has rolled a 130-site MPLS-based global network for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global information technology consulting services organization. AT&T will provide an MPLS-based IP VPN integrating more than 130 TCS locations across North America, South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific -- including more than ten Global Delivery Centers that will be connected over the new network. The Asia- Pacific portion of the network includes Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia; Hangzhou in China; Yokohama in Japan; and Mumbai and Chennai in India. VSNL will provide the network links within and from India.


The first phase of deployment covers 27 sites -- ten locations in North America; seven across Europe, Middle East and Africa; seven in Asia Pacific; and three in Central and Latin America. The second phase will cover another 100 TCS locations across the globe and will extend application support for many of the TCS offshore development teams.
http://www.att.com

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MCI Signs DSL Partners in China, Israel, Thailand

MCI is expanding Internet DSL access services in Asia Pac and into the Middle East through its agreements with several regional providers, including Pacific Internet Ltd for connectivity in Thailand, the Philippines, and Hong Kong; China NetCom for the People's Republic of China and Golden Lines for connectivity in Israel.


MCI now offers DSL service in 14 countries across the world and IP access in 65 countries spanning six continents including North America, Latin America, Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa.
http://www.mci.com

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Speakeasy Deploys Juniper Routers for Bonded T1 Service

Speakeasy, an independent broadband services company, has deployed Juniper Networks E- and M-series routing platforms to introduce a new, market leading Bonded T1 service and to support its entire portfolio of broadband services.


Speakeasy operates a private, national fiber optic network -- based on Juniper Networks routing platforms -- to provide high bandwidth, low latency connections with an unparalleled degree of security protection.


Speakeasy's new Bonded T1 service enables business customers to combine multiple T1s and add or remove circuits as their bandwidth needs change.


Additionally, Speakeasy is using Juniper's E-series routers to support its VoIP service, and to aggregate traffic, apply Quality of Service policies and provide simple online customer management tools. The M-series are deployed in Speakeasy's central sites. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.juniper.nethttp://www.speakeasy.net

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