ntl Selects Scientific-Atlanta's MPEG-4 PVR

ntl has selected Scientific- Atlanta's MPEG-4 personal video recorder (PVR) for the launch of its PVR service in the United Kingdom. Financial terms were not disclosed.


The new HD PVR uses MPEG-4 part 10/H.264 compression and includes three video tuners to allow customers to record three shows simultaneously. The unit features a 160 GB hard drive, enabling the device to store up to 80 hours of content.
http://www.saeurope.com/

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Broadcom Posts Revenue of $695 Million, up 14.9% over Q2

Broadcom reported Q3 net revenue of $695.0 million, an increase of 14.9% from the $604.9 million reported for the second quarter of 2005 and an increase of 7.5% from the $646.5 million reported for the third quarter of 2004. Net income computed in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for the third quarter of 2005 was $132.7 million, or $.35 per share (diluted), compared with GAAP net income of $15.1 million, or $.04 per share (diluted), for the second quarter of 2005, and GAAP net income of $43.9 million, or $.13 per share (diluted), for the third quarter of 2004.


"Broadcom's revenue and net income reached record levels in the third quarter, driven by continued broad-based strength within our major target end markets," said Scott McGregor, Broadcom's President and Chief Executive Officer.
http://www.broadcom.com

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Verizon Creates Services Unit for its Back-office Operations

Verizon has created an organization to provide centralized back-office and support services to Verizon's business units and Verizon Wireless. The move is aimed at increasing efficiencies through economies of scale and eliminated duplication of effort.


The new organization, Verizon Services, will include procurement and logistics, real estate, human resources employee services, and financial operations (accounts payable, billing, collections, remittance, payroll and other transaction-based services).


The organization will include approximately 12,000 current employees who will remain at their current work locations.


Verizon said it expects that MCI employees performing these functions will be part of this organization in the future.
http://www.verizon.com

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SBC Adds 528,000 DSL Users in Q3, its Strongest to Date

SBC Communications added 528,000 DSL lines in Q3, its best-ever quarterly increase and 31% better than its net gain of 402,000 in the third quarter a year ago. The company now has 6.5 million DSL lines in service. SBC's now has a 23.7% DSL penetration of primary consumer access lines across its territory, roughly double the rate from two years ago. DSL penetration in SBC's western territory is now 29%. SBC said it continues to view DSL as the key product in it consumer bundles going forward.


Project Lightspeed update: SBC has completed a field trial in San Antonio of high-speed Internet access and IPTV. The trial demonstrated consistent downlink speeds of 20 to 25 Mbps. SBC said it has now secured an initial channel and VOD content line-up for a controlled service launch. Microsoft has delivered IPTV release 1.0 code; other key vendors continue to report progress.


Financially, SBC's Q3 2005 revenues totaled $10.3 billion, up 0.3 percent versus the year-earlier quarter. SBC's third-quarter earnings totaled $1.2 billion, or $0.38 per diluted share, on a reported basis and $1.5 billion, or $0.47 per diluted share, before merger- and hurricane-related costs at Cingular Wireless.


Some highlights from the quarter:

• Wireline revenues totaled $9.4 billion, up 0.4 percent from the third quarter of 2004.



• The third quarter of 2005 was SBC's sixth consecutive quarter of growth in business, consumer and total wireline revenues.



• Wireline consumer revenues grew 3.4 percent, and business revenues increased 2.3 percent, partially offset by expected declines in wholesale revenues due to a reduction in UNE-P access lines.



• SBC generated $3.3 billion in cash from operations in the third quarter and received an additional $1.4 billion in cash from Cingular Wireless.



• Business wireline revenues were $3.321 billion, up 2.3% from a year earlier.



• DSL revenues were $710 million, up from 22.8% from last year.



• Hi-cap data revenues (SONET, DS3s, dedicated Internet) were $1.748 billion, up 7% over last year.



• There was a net increase of 59,000 small business access lines, even as customers migrate to VoIP.

http://www.sbc.com

• In June 2005, SBC Communications launched a limited promotion offering DSL (384Kbps - 1.5 Mbps) for $14.95 a month (other charges apply) with a 12-month term for new residential subscribers who order online. The SBC Yahoo! DSL Pro (1.5Mbps - 3.0Mbps) service is available for $24.99 a month for 12 months if they order online (other monthly charges apply).

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Alcatel and Capgemini Collaborate for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO)

Alcatel and Capgemini Telecom & Media in France agreed to jointly address the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) market. The joint solution will include a set of packaged provisioning and billing services, a broad portfolio of multimedia applications and key next-generation network elements such as HLR/HSS, intelligent GGSN, wireless call servers and media gateways. The companies said their ready-to-use and modular solution would be particularly well adapted to key market segments such as Media & Brand companies.
http://www.alcatel.com
http://www.capgemini.com/tme

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Turk Telekom Selects Avici/Alcatel for IP/MPLS Backbone

Turk Telekom selected Avici Systems' TSR core routers for deployment in its IP/MPLS-based data backbone network. The prime contract was awarded to Alcatel in response to a request to provide an end-to-end solution to Turk Telekom. Alcatel will have turnkey responsibility for network design and planning, integration, deployment, training, service rollout and on-going maintenance. Deployment of new services will begin as early as 2006, with completion of the multi-phased contract by 2007. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.avici.com
http://www.alcatel.com

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Freescale Acquires CommASIC for Ultra-Low Power Wi-Fi

Freescale Semiconductor has acquired CommASIC, a fabless semiconductor company that provides modem processing multimode technologies, including orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based solutions, such as Wi-Fi-certified 802.11 a/b/g. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.


CommASIC's chips are aimed at mobile and consumer devices that require maximum energy efficiency for long battery life. CommASIC is based in San Diego with office in Taipei and has 30 employees.


Freescale said the acquisition gives it a base architecture and system expertise that can be leveraged across any OFDM-based technology such as wireless-LAN, WiMax and Digital Video Broadcast (DVB).
http://www.freescale.com
http://www.commasic.com

• In November 2004, CommASIC introduced its line of energy-efficient 802.11a/b/g baseband processors designed specifically for VOIP handsets, wireless PDAs, digital cameras and other high volume portable consumer applications. The company said its processors set a new industry benchmark for power consumption, drawing only 50 mA during active receive mode at 54 Mbps. Samples of both chips have been beta tested with several key Asian OEM/ODMs.

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Nokia Sees 2005 World Market for Mobile Devices at 780 Million Units

Nokia is forecasting that the overall, worldwide mobile device market for the full year 2005 will reach approximately 780 million units, compared with a previous estimate of 760 million units, and up from an estimated 643 million units in 2004. Industry volumes in the fourth quarter 2005 are expected to reflect the usual holiday seasonality and grow compared with the third quarter 2005. The company is predicting that its mobile device volume growth will exceed overall market growth in the fourth quarter, with Nokia's market share expected to increase both year on year and sequentially.


Nokia attributes the industry volume growth to an expanding mobile subscriber base in developing markets. In more developed markets, replacement and upgrade sales continue to be driven by the availability of new features, services and cameras.


In mobile infrastructure, Nokia now expects the overall market in 2005 to show slight to moderate growth compared with 2004 in EUR terms. Operators in developing countries are at various stages of acceleration in their capacity upgrades to meet rising subscriber growth, while in advanced markets, there is ongoing targeted investment in capacity and network optimization. Nokia expects its own networks sales to be down year on year when compared to the exceptionally strong sales generated by operator year-end spending in the fourth quarter of 2004, but also due to the fact that a significant amount of operators' current investment is taking place in markets were Networks has not historically had a major presence, such as the Middle East and Africa.
http://www.nokia.com

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Level 3 Sees Drop in Revenue, IP Traffic exceeds 3.2 petabytes per day

Level 3 Communications reported Q3 revenue of $799 million , compared to $910 million for Q2 2005. Communications revenue was $364 million in the third quarter, versus $371 million for the previous quarter. Information services revenue was $415 million, compared to $520 million for the previous quarter.


The net loss for Q3 2005 was $204 million, or $0.29 per share, compared to a net loss of $188 million or $0.27 per share for the previous quarter.


Significantly, the company noted that its transport, IP and VoIP combined revenue increased by 8 percent, versus second quarter 2005. Communications services revenue excluding termination revenue increased by $4 million, versus the second quarter, primarily due to increases in transport and infrastructure revenue and voice revenue, offset partially by expected declines in managed modem, DSL aggregation and legacy low-speed IP managed services.


IP backbone traffic now exceeds 3.2 petabytes per day.


"Level 3's third quarter performance reflects several positive industry dynamics including continuing strong demand for wholesale communications services and the continuing moderation of price compression," said James Q. Crowe, CEO of Level 3. "We are pleased with the growth in our transport, IP and Voice over IP services during the quarter, and we believe our results point to the improving fundamentals of our business."http://www.level3.com/

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Musiwave Licenses Alcatel's PacketVideo Server

Musiwave, a provider of turnkey music entertainment services to mobile and broadband operators, mobile handset makers and media companies, will now support Alcatel's PacketVideo Network Solutions. Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel's pvServer can be deployed as part of an end-to-end mobile music service provided by Musiwave or to develop new products with specific features. The offering gives Musiwave more flexibility with regards to carrier customer's network architecture, and will be available as part of an integrated music offering via both mobile and fixed line Internet.


Alcatel's pvServer is a 3GPP standard compliant multimedia server, providing streaming, downloading and progressive streaming services to wireless devices.
http://www.musiwave.net/http://www.alcatel.com

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Foundry Post Q3 Revenue of $107 Million

Foundry Networks posted Q3 revenue of $107.1 million, up from $96.6 million in the second quarter of 2005, and $102.5 million in the third quarter of 2004. Net income was $16.3 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2005, compared to net income of $9.6 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2005, and a net loss of $3.6 million, or $0.03 loss per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2004. Included in the company's results for the third quarter of 2005 was a $2.6 million expense related to a patent cross-license agreement with IBM Corporation.


Foundry's U.S. Federal Government revenue was seasonally strong, representing 22% of the company's total revenue in the third quarter compared to 15% in the second quarter.
http://www.foundrynetworks.com

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Alcatel Creates Mobile Broadcast Business Unit

Alcatel has created a new internal venture dedicated to Mobile TV. Olivier Coste has been named President of this new activity. Coste has been Senior Vice President Strategy and Business Development for Alcatel's Space activities since the beginning of 2004, monitoring large programs as Galileo. Previously, he held senior positions within Alcatel's components and enterprise activities.


Alcatel said that while significant consumer appetite for Mobile TV is growing, current mobile networks are limited in the number of users that can simultaneously receive mobile TV in a given cell. The new unit will develop technologies, build the necessary ecosystem and promote a solution to this challenge.
http://www.alcatel.com

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