NEC Selects Ikanos for New VDSL Equipment

NEC Magnus Communications has selected Ikanos' Fx 100100 and Fx100100S-4 chipsets to deliver up to 100 Mbps symmetrical data services in new versions of its broadband access products.


NEC Magnus has used Ikanos' VDSL chipsets in its access platforms and customer premises equipment for three years, most recently in systems that deliver up to 100 Mbps downstream and 50 Mbps upstream performance in MTU/MDU applications. With the latest Fx and FxS series chipsets, NEC Magnus can now offer systems providing up to 100 Mbps symmetrical data rates. Moreover, the Fx and FxS chipsets are designed to be backwards-compatible with previously deployed Ikanos Fx and FxS chipsets, in order to accelerate and reduce the cost of equipment upgrades by carriers.


Japanese carriers have been deploying in-building, fiber-fed access platforms in combination with VDSL over existing building wiring to deliver high-speed broadband services in multi-tenant and multi-dwelling buildings.
http://www.ikanos.com/http://www.necmagnus.com

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Disability Groups Call for Telecom Legislation for Access to Broadband Services

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD), the American Foundation for the Blind other disability groups is calling upon Congress to enact legislation mandating disability access to Internet-based communication services.


The groups are urging that any updates to the Telecom Act include disabled access provisions for all services.


Kelby Brick, NAD Director of Law and Advocacy, said: "People with disabilities use communications technologies every day that were not even in existence at the time our nation's communications laws were last amended. The 1996 Telecommunications Act did not contemplate instant messaging, email, video relay, peer-to-peer video or such handheld devices as the Firefly and the Tictalk.


"Although the 1996 Act contained disability provisions for access to telecommunications products and services, it was mainly limited to those used with the public switched telephone network, not the Internet. As a result, people with disabilities will only gain equal access to today's communications infrastructure and services if Congress acts to extend these protections to Internet-enabled products and services."http://www.nad.org

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Nintendo Reports Strong Initial Uptake for WiFi Gaming

Nintendo reported that 45% of people who bought its new "Mario Kart" DS racing game for its Nintendo DS system already have test driven its free Wi-Fi capabilities.


On November 14, Mario Kart DS became the first game to use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Through the end of Sunday, more than 112,000 people in the United States had purchased the game. In the same time frame, nearly 52,000 unique users had logged onto Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to play against people from all over the country.


Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection lets users connect to the service at no additional charge using both home wireless networks and select Wi-Fi hotspots, without any complicated setup procedures.


Three new titles that use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection will be launched in the coming months.
http://www.nintendowifi.com/

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Loral Emerges From Chapter 11

Loral Space & Communications completed its financial reorganization and emerged from the Chapter 11 process. Loral exits chapter 11 with approximately $180 million in cash. During the chapter 11 reorganization, Loral did not require any debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing, and, as of its emergence from chapter 11, has only $126 million of debt in the form of the notes issued by Loral Skynet. Loral Skynet has also issued $200 million of preferred stock to certain creditors of Loral Orion.


Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) is a leading manufacturer of commercial satellites.


Loral Skynet's fleet is positioned to serve areas with high growth potential such as Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the trans-Atlantic market. Skynet has also expanded its services beyond traditional FSS leases with the introduction of new IP-based data services.


Loral's new XTAR joint venture has been awarded contracts for service to the U.S. State Department and the Spanish Ministry of Defense.
http://www.loral.com/

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QUALCOMM Announces Foundry Partnership with Samsung

QUALCOMM announced a new manufacturing partnership with Samsung Electronics focused on advanced CMOS-based foundry processes for CDMA. QUALCOMM and Samsung's new foundry partnership expands on the two companies' existing relationship, and builds upon QUALCOMM's fabless business model of outsourcing foundry operations to partners such as Samsung. The companies will collaborate on current and future technology needs, with plans including the usage of Samsung's 90 nanometer (nm) and sub-90 nm nodes to enable manufacturing of leading-edge system-on-a-chip (SOC) products.
http://www.qualcomm.com
http://www.samsung.com

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CopperGate Secures $14.5 Million for Home Networking Silicon (HPNA)

CopperGate Communications, a start-up based in Tel Aviv, raised approximately $14.5 million in a third round funding for its chipset solutions for multimedia home networking.


The financing led by new investor Carmel Ventures, with the participation of existing investors Tamir Fishman Ventures and the Challenge Fund.


CopperGate has been a prime contributor to the HPNA V3 specification for high performance multimedia home phoneline networking. HPNA V3 standard chipsets utilize existing coax cables and telephony wiring in the home for connecting devices such as residential gateways, TV set-top boxes, personal video recorders (PVRs) and PC peripherals.
http://www.copper-gate.com

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Cisco Partners with ZTE in China, Asia-Pac

Cisco Systems will partner with ZTE Corporation to pursue business opportunities in the telecommunications service provider market in China and the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan. The agreement was signed at a ceremony at ZTE's headquarters in Shenzhen, China earlier this month.
http://www.cisco.com
http://www.zte.com.cn

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First Avenue and RCN Build Wireless/Cable Service Alliance

RCN and First Avenue Networks have formed a strategic partnership to capitalize on the metropolitan wireless fiber extension market opportunity.


Under the deal, First Avenue will equip RCN Business Solutions, the wholly owned but separately managed division of RCN Corporation that provides bulk video, high-capacity broadband and voice services to business customers, wireless extensions of their fiber network at up to 155 Mbps. In return, RCN will provide First Avenue the fiber links necessary to deliver carrier-grade backhaul service to its fixed line and mobile carrier customers.


First Avenue's wireless extensions will enable RCN to expand its facilities-based fiber optic broadband and hosting services to more of its target market -- large business customers. Wireless broadband access also provides physically diverse connectivity in the markets RCN serves.


RCN, one of the largest U.S. competitive Multi-Service Operators (MSO), and First Avenue are initiating the business relationship with a trial, which is currently underway in the New York City metropolitan market. The companies will have the opportunity to expand the relationship into RCN's other markets including Philadelphia/Lehigh Valley; Washington, DC; Boston and Chicago.


http://www.firstavenet.com/http://www.rcn.com

• First Avenue Networks holds the most expansive collection of millimeter wave spectrum assets in the United States. The company has approximately 1.5 billion channel pops between its 24 GHz and 39 GHz spectrum licenses.

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Mexico's Protel Selects Juniper/Lucent for MPLS

Protel i-Next, a Mexican full-service, facilities-based telecommunications carrier, is upgrading its national IP/MPLS backbone to better support its VoIP and IP Centrex services. As part of the project, Lucent is supplying Juniper Networks' M-series routing platforms.
http://www.juniper.nethttp://www.lucent.com

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Juniper Networks Appoints New CIO and VP Operations

Juniper Networks announced the appointments of Alan Boehme to the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO), and Kevin Q. Smith to the position of vice president (VP), Operations. Boehme joins Juniper Networks from Best Software, a leading provider of business management applications for small and mid-sized companies.


Smith joins Juniper from Sanmina, where, in his role as senior vice president and general manager, he had full responsibility for his division's product and marketing strategy. Prior to Sanmina, he was the vice president of operations at Force10 Networks and senior vice president, Operations at Redback Networks. Smith also held senior management positions at Cisco, Apple Computer, Boeing Electronics and Texas Instruments. http://www.juniper.net

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Force10 Powers Fifteen of the Top 100 Fastest Supercomputers

Fifteen of the world's 100 fastest supercomputers are using Force10 Networks' TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers, including two of the top 10, according to a list published by Top500.org.


Force10 Networks said the current Top500 list illuminates several transitions occurring within high performance computing environments. Chief among these is a movement of supercomputing technologies from research and education organizations into the enterprise with 53% of the world's largest supercomputers being operated within commercial organizations from a variety of vertical markets. Additionally, nearly 50% of the world's fastest computing networks are connected with Ethernet while Infiniband and other proprietary solutions run a distant second.


In the current list, the top 10 fastest supercomputers all exceeded 20 Teraflops per second or 20 trillion calculations per second, and the entry point for the top 100 moved from 2.026 Teraflops one year ago to 3.98 Teraflops in the current iteration. The total combined performance of all 500 systems on the list is now 2.30 petaflops, compared to 1.127 petaflops just one year ago.
http://www.force10networks.com
http://www.top500.org

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Brightcove Signs AOL for Internet Video Publishing, Raises $16 Million

Brightcove, a start-up based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, signed a video content distribution partnership with AOL. Brightcove is building an open Internet TV service that would help video producers to monetize their content. Brightcove is currently available in an invitation-only commercial preview, which is being used by a variety of publishers ranging from independent producers to large cable broadcasters. Using the open online service, publishers are able to reach consumers through a wide range of broadband channels on the Internet while generating revenue from advertising and pay media sales they control. Brightcove expects to launch in 2006.


Brightcove and AOL will market a co-branded version of the Brightcove service as the self-service platform for publishing video on AOL.com. Through the syndication to AOL, publishers will be able to generate revenue from the advertising and pay media sales of their content on AOL.com and other video gateways on the AOL network of web properties.


Brightcove said the partnership with AOL is the first in a series of commercial agreements related to content publishing and distribution for its service.


Separately, Brightcove closed $16.2 million in venture funding led by AOL and included IAC/InterActiveCorp, The Hearst Corporation, and Allen & Company, as well as existing investors Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners. The investments complete a Series B financing round that will fuel the company's growth and the launch of its products and services.


Brightcove also announced the appointment of Barry Diller, Chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Chairman of Expedia, Inc., to the Brightcove Board of Directors. http://www.brightcove.com

• Brightcove is headed by Jeremy Allaire, who previously was technologist and entrepreneur-in-residence for Cambridge, MA-based venture capital firm General Catalyst, where he worked on companies and investments in broadband media, mobile content, e-commerce software and digital identity. Before General Catalyst, Jeremy was Chief Technology Officer of Macromedia, where he helped define and launch the Macromedia MX platform for Rich Internet Applications.

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U.S. Senate Schedules Telecom Hearings

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee announced an aggressive schedule of telecom related hearings starting in January. The hearing are seen as a prelude to possible congressional action on revising the Telecom Act next year. Nomination hearings were also scheduled for open FCC Commissioner seats.

Senate Commerce Committee  Telecom Hearings
December 13 10:00 AM (Tuesday)	Nomination hearings for Michael Copps and Deborah Taylor Tate to be FCC Commissioners
January 24 10:00 AM Tuesday	Video Franchising
January 24 2:30 PM Tuesday	Video Content
January 26 10:00 AM Thursday	Full committee hearing on Competition and Convergence
January 31 10:00 AM Tuesday,	Broadcast and Audio Flag -
February 7 10:00 AM Tuesday,	Net Neutrality
February 14 10:00 AM Tuesday,	State and Local Issues and Municipal Networks
February 14 10:00 AM Tuesday	State and Local Issues and Municipal Networks
February 28 10:00 AM Tuesday	USF Contributions
February 28 2:30 PM Tuesday	USF Contributions
March 2 10:00 AM Thursday	Wireless Issues/Spectrum Reform -
March 7 10:00 AM Tuesday	Rural Telecommunications -
March 14 10:00 AM Tuesday	VoIP
March 14 2:30 PM Tuesday	Wall Street's Perspective on Telecommunications -

http://www.senate.gov

• In July 2005, 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 bill contained provisions covering Net Neutrality, Access to Content, IP Mobility, diversity of programming, municipally-owned networks and other regulatory topics.

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Verizon to Launch FiOS TV in Herndon, Virginia

Verizon FiOS TV launches this week in Herndon, Virginia. This marks the first availability of the Verizon service outside of Texas.ttp://www.verizon.net/fiostv

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