BellSouth and Yahoo! Form Strategic Alliance

BellSouth and Yahoo! entered into a strategic alliance to provide co-branded broadband service to BellSouth FastAccess DSL subscribers throughout BellSouth's nine-state operating region.


Beginning in late 2006, this new co-branded service will be provided, at no additional charge, to all new BellSouth residential broadband subscribers on all tiers of service. BellSouth's existing base of subscribers will have the option to select the co-branded service. The companies have also agreed to market the new BellSouth Yahoo! service on the Yahoo! network and in BellSouth's advertising.
http://www.bellsouth.com
http://www.yahoo.com

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Cingular selects Lucent for IMS

Cingular Wireless awarded a four-year contract to Lucent Technologies to supply a comprehensive IMS-based (IP Multimedia Subsystem) solution that will enable Cingular to rapidly develop and launch a broad range of new personalized voice, video, data and multimedia services. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Cingular will deploy components of Lucent's Accelerate Next Generation Communications Solutions portfolio, which includes the Lucent Session Manager with service broker function, the new Lucent Feature Server with support for mobile roaming using dual-mode devices, Lucent Unified Subscriber Data Server for wireless and wireline customers, Lucent Network Controller, Lucent Network Gateway, Lucent Communication Manager with next generation features, Lucent Active PhoneBook and Lucent MiLife Application Server.


Lucent Worldwide Services (LWS) will assist Cingular in the deployment and integration of the IMS solution. This includes multi-vendor integration and technical support services that will seamlessly connect and maintain a critical link between Cingular's core network and its new applications portal.


"Lucent's IMS-based architecture, combined with our 3G UMTS/HSDPA network, will allow us to offer our customers new and exciting end-user experiences over one of the most advanced, reliable and secure networks in North America," said Kelly Williams, executive director of strategy and planning for Cingular.
http://www.lucent.com
http://www.cingular.com

Using the IMS Architecture for Service Enabling Next Generation Networks

To stave off competition, customer churn, and rebound from the decreasing rates for local and long distance service, service providers are looking to evolve or overlay their current networks to enable new revenue generating converged and next-generation services. The IMS architecture supports a wide range of services enabled by the flexibility of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). It can support multiple application servers providing traditional telephony services and non-telephony services such as instant messaging, push-to-talk, video streaming, multimedia messaging, etc. Here is an overview.

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Global Crossing Partners with China's CPCNet

Global Crossing is interconnecting its MPLS network with CPCNet Hong Kong Limited, a CITIC Pacific company. The deal enables Global Crossing to offer MPLS to 12 cities in mainland China.


In the last 12 months, Global Crossing has expanded its MPLS core network by deploying IP Service Points of Presence (PoPs) in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney and Singapore, in addition to forging a partnership with Sify in India. http://www.globalcrossing.com
http://www.cpcnet-hk.com/

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Broadcom Rolls Out Latest Voice over Cable Chip

Broadcom announced the production of its newest voice over cable modem system-on-a-chip (SoC). The device (BCM3368) incorporates the company's new VoIP on Enhanced RISC (VIPER) processor architecture, enabling primary multi-line voice solutions to be implemented without the costly and complicated dual processor, dual memory architectures used in all prior voice over cable modems. Additionally, the VIPER architecture significantly simplifies the development of VoIP solutions, reduces the development costs of DSP programming and reduces time to market. Broadcom expects the integration and performance gains to reduce the component count on primary multi-line voice over cable modems by over 20%.


Broadcom's BCM3368 is based on eight generations of cable modem technology, three generations of DOCSIS 2.0 technology and three generations of voice over cable technology.
http://www.broadcom.com

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Greenfield Unveils Carrier Ethernet Switch Silicon

Greenfield Networks, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, announced its "Packetry" II Architectural Platform, targeting the rapidly growing Metro Ethernet market driven by Triple Play services and IP Convergence. The Packetry II architectural platform features a combination of cost-effective Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, integrated traffic management capabilities, and advanced metro capabilities, such as scalable tables and buffering, IPv4, IPv6, MPLS, VPLS, QinQ, MAC-in-MAC and hierarchical QoS, traffic policing and shaping.


Greenfield's Packetry II family includes the G8000 Family of Packet Processors and G135 Intelligent Multiplexer.


The G8000 family supports wirespeed 36 Mpps packet processing and traffic management functionality and includes three new devices: G8024, G8116, and G8300. G8024 offers 24 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports supporting both copper and fiber connectivity. G8116 supports 16 GbE ports and one 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) interface. G8300 integrates three 10GbE ports, supporting standard XAUI interface. Each G8000 device has twelve 3.125 Gbps SerDes (serializer/deserializer) fabric interfaces for non-blocking scaling in high- density fixed configuration switches and chassis platforms.


The G135 Intelligent multiplexer device extends Packetry II architecture by enabling end-to-end link security and cost-effective Gigabit connectivity for metro access systems. The G135 integrates twelve GbE MACs and supports advanced multituple classification, policing, and class-based queuing to guarantee bandwidth for high priority traffic. The G135 offers IEEE 802.1AE MAC security (draft compliant) SecureEdge technology.


The Packetry II 8000 Family of Ethernet switching products -- G8024, G8116, and G8300 -- are currently sampling. The G135 Intelligent Multiplexer will begin sampling in December 2005.
http://www.greenfieldnetworks.com/

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Lingo Chooses Intrado to Provide VoIP 9-1-1

Primus Telecommunications' Lingo VoIP phone service will use the Intrado V9-1-1(SM) Mobility Service for many of its VoIP subscribers. V9-1-1 Mobility Service will help support Lingo's plans for complying with the FCC's rules that require VoIP service providers to provide E9-1-1 to subscribers by November 28, 2005.

http://www.intrado.com
http://www.lingo.com/

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Fujitsu and Galazar Collaborate on Ethernet/SONET

Fujitsu Microelectronics America (FMA) and Galazar Networks announced a partnership aimed at developing advanced Ethernet over SONET networking components.


The first elements of this collaboration are the CompactNode and MicroNode, which were announced by Galazar in August , and were developed based on the Fujitsu Ethernet over SONET technology. Two companies will collaborate to develop next-generation networking solutions for carrier- services applications.

http://www.galazar.com
http://www.us.fujitsu.com/micro/10gethernet

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Britain's ITV Launches Online Video Service

ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster, launched a free, online service allowing viewers to access local ITV content and commercial services over the Web. The new service features local news, weather, music and what's on guides, as well as locally produced short films, features and entertainmen. There are seven different channels on each service and the ability to view content live, on demand, in a 24 x 7 schedule and via a searchable archive.


ITV Local is using a Television Operating System (TelVOS) developed by Narrowstep. The service will soon enable viewers to contribute and upload their own content through a special encoder developed by Narrowstep for ITV Local. Viewers will also be able to add their own classified advertising for cars, homes, lonely hearts and anything else they wish to sell locally or nationally.


TelVOS is already used by Telewest (UK Cable) for their blueyonder tv service,

http://www.narrowstep.comhttp://itvlocal.tv/

	Unicast vs. Multicast:  The Challenge for Cablecos
The world of television is becoming a confusing place. Technology that has remained stable and consistent for over four decades is suddenly being usurped.  On the one hand, there is an increasingly rapid shift to HD underway. On the other, IPTV is arriving to shake things up. It is therefore not surprising that the world of programming is undergoing a revolution.

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Conexant Introduces ADSL2plus CPE Chipset with VoIP

Conexant Systems introduced an ADSL2plus chipset featuring an integrated two-channel voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) processor and dual high-speed universal serial bus (USB) 2.0 interfaces. The chip is based on the ARM-10 core processor. To further boost processing power, additional hardware engines have been incorporated in the devices. These include Conexant's PRISM Nitro XM technology which significantly increases 802.11g and 802.11a/g performance, and a security engine for computationally intensive tasks such as VPN or wireless LAN encryption.


The new device also has integrated dual, standards-compliant 10/100 Ethernet interfaces, which allows for a combination of Ethernet and HomePlug or HomePNA connectivity. The dual USB 2.0 ports eliminate the need for a bulky peripheral component interface (PCI), which reduces overall system cost and board size.


The chipset, which is designed for client-side gateways, is upgradeable to VDSL/VDSL2 technology, allowing manufacturers to maximize their engineering and software investments while migrating to new DSL technologies. It is targeted at products including DSL bridge/routers, wireless DSL routers, and DSL VoIP integrated access devices (IADs). http://www.conexant.com

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BellSouth Licenses Netopia to Manage DSL CPE from Multiple Vendors

BellSouth has licensed Netopia's NBBS server software platform to manage and support broadband customer premises equipment (CPE) deployed on its network and to streamline the deployment of value-added broadband services. Financial terms were not disclosed.


BellSouth selected the Netopia NBBS platform to meet its needs for CPE management compliant with the DSL Forum's TR-069 specifications for centralized remote management.


Netopia's NBBS software supports the TR-069 specification for interoperability with CPE manufactured by multiple vendors. Netopia said its standards-based solution offers the ability to integrate with BellSouth's existing infrastructure and avoids the need for multiple software systems to manage CPE manufactured by different providers.


BellSouth will use NBBS to deliver real-time statistics to help desk agents for efficient and accurate troubleshooting, and as a tool for streamlined DSL installation and configuration of broadband services. Netopia's NBBS software will automatically reconfigure the DSL gateway to enable the BellSouth service and seamlessly update BellSouth's customer relationship management (CRM) and billing systems to reflect the value added broadband services.
http://www.netopia.com

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Motorola's Zafirovski to Replace Bill Owens as Nortel CEO

Mike S. Zafirovski was selected to succeed Bill Owens as Nortel's president and CEO on November 15th, 2005.




Zafirovski (51) most recently served as president and chief operating officer of Motorola (2002 to 2005). He joined Motorola in 2000 as president and CEO of its Personal Communications Sector division. From 1975 to 2000, Zafirovski held a succession of executive positions at General Electric's key divisions: president and CEO, GE Lighting; president, GE Capital Mortgage Corporation; and president and CEO, GE Capital Fleet Services.


Upon leaving Nortel, Bill Owens will continue his engagements around the world in serving on various boards, in promoting good governance, and will continue to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors as well as his philanthropic interests.
http://www.nortel.com

• In April 2004, Nortel Networks named William Owens as its new president and CEO, replacing Frank Dunn, who was dismissed "for cause." At the time,Nortel Networks also fired its former chief financial officer, Douglas Beatty, and former controller, Michael Gollogly, both of whom had been placed on paid leave of absence by Nortel Networks on 15-March-2004. The company has since announced a number of reorganizations and executive changes. Bill Owens had previously served as chairman and CEO of Teledesic LLC, a satellite communications company.



• In September 2005, Nortel announced a corporate reorganization of its product, technology, services, operations and sales structure to better meet the needs of global enterprise and carrier customers in the converged marketplace. The new organization simplifies Nortel's structure into two product groups:
  
  
  * Enterprise Solutions and Packet Networks, which will be led by Steve Slattery. Nortel said that in order to better serve global enterprise customers, it is combining core assets such as Ethernet and enterprise telephony, optical, and wireline data into a unified product group to better leverage core technology and hardware platforms for enterprises while fulfilling the requirements of carrier customers.
  
  
  * Mobility and Converged Core Networks, which will be led by Richard Lowe. This group consolidates the company's mobile businesses and combines them with core network technologies, reinforcing the wireless market as a vital element of current and future revenue growth.

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Movistar Argentina Selects Ericsson for GSM Expansion

Movistar Argentina, a member of the Telefonica Moviles group, selected Ericsson as a sole supplier for its GSM and transmission networks expansion. Ericsson will supply EDGE-ready GSM/GPRS 850MHz and 1900MHz radio access and core network to expand Movistar's nationwide GSM network. Ericsson will also enhance Movistar's access transmission network with MINI-LINK microwave transmission. It includes high capacity radios and smart traffic nodes, together with implementation and professional services. MINI-LINK will help Movistar Argentina to meet demand for mobile voice and data services at lower cost and with increased network control. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.ericsson.com

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Cox Deploys Eagle's HD Set-Top Box

Eagle Broadband has delivered the first orders of its MediaPro IP5000HD high definition IP set-top boxes to Cox Business Services, for their Hospitality Network, which provides in-room guest video and data technology services to the hotel-gaming industry.


Cox's Hospitality Network is using Eagle's MediaPro IP5000HD high definition set-top boxes to enable high quality in-room entertainment services including high definition movies and music-on-demand, high-speed Internet access, an interactive television guide, electronic concierge services, online checkout, and other revenue generating guest services.


Eagle's advanced MediaPro set-top boxes run either third-party middleware software or Eagle's own EZ-Magic middleware. http://www.eaglebroadband.com

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VeriSign Acquires Moreover for RSS Aggregation

VeriSign announced the acquisition of Moreover Technologies, a wholesale aggregator of real-time content for Web sites, search engines and enterprise customers, for approximately $30 million. Currently, Moreover aggregates more than 12,000 news sources and millions of blogs. Moreover has 35 employees with offices in San Francisco and London.


Verisign said that by combining Moreover's content aggregation services with its global feed management infrastructure, it will be able to offer a scalable, real-time content platform.


http://www.verisign.com

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NetworkStreaming Raises $6 Million for SSL Remote Support

NetworkStreaming, a start-up based in Ridgeland, Mississippi, closed $6 million in second round funding for its SSL appliance-based remote support solutions.


NetworkStreaming's SSL appliance enables any remote PC to initiate an on-demand help desk session with full screen-sharing and remote control capabilities. The remote PC do not need to have a pre-installed client and the encrypted session works through corporate firewalls because each session is initiated by the end user.

The company also offers an "AccessDesk" product that lets network managers gain remote access to unattended servers or workstations; and a "PresentationDesk" product for online training and Web-based collaboration.


The new round of funding came from Southern Farm Bureau Life and GulfSouth Capital.
http://www.networkstreaming.com

• NetworkStreaming was founded by Joel Bomgaars in 2003. Bomgaars was working part time as a senior engineer at a local business during college, yet his on-site client travels were wasting time and money. Unable to find a solution on the market, Bomgaars developed his own IT product, enabling him to troubleshoot multiple customers at once by accessing his clients' PCs through the Internet. The company has grown steadily since its inception in 2003, securing more than 1300 customers in all 50 states in the US and 33 countries, in addition to resellers in Canada, South Africa and the U.K.

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Office Depot Launches VoIP with Accessline

Office Depot launched a new "Wireless Office Service" that enables small and medium-sized businesses to centralize all employee phone numbers (whether in-office, cell phones or home office numbers) with one single main number. The service is now available across the U.S. and is being promoted as part of Office Depot's 19th Anniversary sale.


The VoIP-based service is powered by AccessLine Communications, a provider of hosted and managed voice services exclusively for the business marketplace. Accessline built its own AccessLine SoftSwitch, AccessLine Application Platform, and AccessLine Gateway Controller technology.


Office Depot's Wireless Office Service includes:

• A main business phone number with "virtual" extensions that is independent of any physical office phone, seamlessly integrating all employees' cell phones into the office phone system regardless of wireless carrier.



• Voicemail that is independent of a specific phone number, allowing an employee to have one voicemail box for their cell phone, desk phone, and home phone, and to seamlessly transfer voicemails between cell phones from different wireless carriers.



• Automatic scheduling allowing a business to provide callers different greetings and options based on time of day or day of week.

The Office Depot service also features a Disaster Recovery capability. If a business is located in an area where its local phone company service or cell phone service has been disrupted or its main landline number is not functioning, the business phone number can be seamlessly redirected to through Wireless Office Service to a landline phone, cell phone or another phone anywhere in the country.


Pricing for the unlimited Wireless Office Service start at $90.95 a month.
http://www.accessline.com
http://www.officedepot.com

• Accessline is privately-held and based in Bellevue, Washington.



• Accessline is currently serving over 100,000 business users on its network.



• SAVVIS Communications is using the Accessline network for its branded suite of fully-managed, network-based voice application services based on softswitching technology.

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SureWest Reaches 30% Residential DSL Milestone

SureWest Communications, which serves the Sacramento, California region, has reached a 30% DSL penetration rate for its residential customer base in the area served by its incumbent local telephone company. With nearly 27,000 DSL subscribers (24,000 residential) as of September 30, 2005, SureWest provides both high-speed Internet service and a video over DSL service for customers in the communities of Roseville, Citrus Heights, Antelope and Granite Bay, California.


The company said its DSL penetration increased from just over 7% in its residential telephone service area in January 2001 to the more than 30% today.


As part of its broadband growth strategy, SureWest also has built a fiber- to-the-premise (FTTP) network to nearby areas, including parts of Sacramento, Land Park, Natomas, Lincoln and Elk Grove.
http://www.surewest.com/

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ADVA Acquires Covaro for Ethernet Demarcation Devices

ADVA Optical Networking agreed to acquire Covaro Networks, a start-up offering Ethernet demarcation products, for approximately $24 million in stock and cash.


Covaro, which is based in Richardson, Texas, developed a line of products that enable service providers to offer intelligent Ethernet services over fiber, copper, SONET/SDH, DS3/DS1 and E3/E1. Covaro's "Etherjack" technology allows carriers (or enterprises) to transport and manage Ethernet services using traditional management methods for T1/T3 services. The system provides an Ethernet demarcation point, which allows in-service performance monitoring, and out-of service fault isolation and diagnosis for Ethernet services. The product line includes:

• CC-16000 -- aggregation platform works with Covaro's Ethernet extension customer premise devices to extend the reach of Ethernet over copper, fiber, SONET/SDH or TDM (DS3/E3, DS1/E1). The CC-16000 is deployed at the first aggregation point in a carrier or enterprise network such as: central offices, co-location spaces, outdoor cabinets, MTUs or enterprise headquarters.



• CC-624 -- a customer premise demarcation device extends the reach of Ethernet services over existing SONET/SDH OC-3 or STM-1 infrastructure and is ideally suited to provide a wide range of Ethernet services both in-region and out-of-region. Smaller and less expensive than MSPP or micro-MSPP equipment, the CC-624 can aggregate and transport Ethernet services over SONET/SDH networks without the expense of both MSPP and Ethernet switching equipment.



• CC-411 -- an Ethernet extension device utilizes fiber to transport optical Ethernet (100FX/LX/SX/ZX/BX) up to 80 km or further depending on the SFP device utilized.



• CC-410 -- an Etherjack demarcation device for existing Ethernet transport systems or services. It provides both a network interface device (NID) and a user network interface (UNI) aligned with 802.3ah (EFM) and MEF standards.



• CC-301 - provides the ability to map Ethernet over DS3s and serves as the demarcation point at the customer site. It is designed to take advantage of available DS3 transport systems or leased DS3 facilities to deliver Ethernet services either on or off net. The platform leverages Covaro's "Etherjack" technology, which provides remote monitoring and diagnostics for Ethernet services. In addition, Covaro said multiple CC-301s could be used in a back-to-back configuration or combined with its Covaro's CC-16000 aggregation platform.



• CC-101 -- uses available copper facilities and bonding technology to deliver intelligent Ethernet services up to 18,000ft.

ADVA said Covaro will provide a strong complement to its Fiber Service Platform (FSP), expanding the features and functionalities of ADVA's Ethernet access solution.

Under the deal, a price component of US$15 million will be paid in 2,024,190 to-be-issued shares of ADVA common stock via a capital increase. Thirty-five percent of these shares will be tradable immediately upon issuance, and the remaining new shares will be subject to various lock-up provisions. A second price component of approximately US$4 million will be paid in cash. Furthermore, an earn-out of up to US$5 million may be paid in cash based on achievement of specific sales and gross margin targets in Q4 2005 and FY 2006 for products developed by Covaro.
http://www.covaro.com
http://www.advaoptical.com

• In February 2004, Covaro Networks raised $25.3 million in Series B funding for its Ethernet services management system. The new funding round was lead by Centennial Ventures -- a new Covaro investor with offices in Denver, Colo., and Austin and Houston, Texas. Participation also came from existing investors CenterPoint Ventures, InterWest Partners and Sevin Rosen Funds. This comes in addition to first-round funding that netted the company $16.7 million.



• Covaro is headed by Joe Bass. Prior to joining Covaro, Bass was VP and general manager of the wavelength routing business unit at Cisco Systems Inc. He joined Cisco in 1999 with the acquisition of Monterey Networks, where he served as president and CEO.

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