CNN Launches Paid Broadband Video Service

CNN launched a paid, broadband Internet news service offering live and on-demand content without commercials. A free video news service with commercials remains available on the company's website.CNN Pipeline offers up to four simultaneous news streams. Ad ownloadable player uses Windows Media 9 encoding and requires approximately 750 kbps of bandwidth. A Web-based player needs about 450 kbps.The service costs $0.99 per day, $2.95 per month or $24.95 per year. http://www.cnn....

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Norwegian Broadcasting Offers Interactive Mobile TV App

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation launched a trial, interactive mobile TV service that allows users to vote, chat and communicate with a television presenter while watching their favorite show. Ericsson and NRK launched a downloadable client for the existing interactive TV format, Svisj. http://www.ericsson....

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Korean Broadcasters Launch Terrestrial DMB

Major Korean broadcasters, including KBS, MBC, SBS and YTN, launched free terrestrial digital media broadcasting (DMB) to specially-equipped mobile phones. The mobile TV offerings, which are initially is available in the Seoul area, are generating a luke warm response from service providers, according to the Korea Herald, because of an uncertain business model for the network operators. A growing number of DMB-enabled mobile handsets could change the outlook by next year. http://www.kbs.co.krhttp://www.koreaherald.comIn May 2005, SK Telecom...

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NTT DoCoMo Invests in ACCESS CO. for Mobile Browsers

NTT DoCoMo is increasing its equity stake in ACCESS CO., a Tokyo-based developer of software for mobile phones, from 7.12% to 11.66%. DoCoMo and ACCESS have been strengthening their partnership to develop mobile phone browsers and ACCESS's browser is widely used in DoCoMo's 3G FOMA handsets. http://www.nttdocomo....

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NTT DoCoMo Invests in Aplix for Mobile Middleware

NTT DoCoMo has acquired 15,000 newly allocated shares, or 14.98%, of software company Aplix Corporation, a Tokyo-based developer of embedded software, for mobile phones and PCs. DoCoMo and Aplix already enjoy a close working relationship in the development of DoJa/Java platforms, which have enabled an increasing number of Java products to be adapted to 3G FOMA handsets. http://www.nttdocomo....

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Investors Bid $12 Billion for TDC

A group of international investors managed by APAX Partners, The Blackstone Group and Kravis Kohlberg Roberts made a $12 billion cash offer to acquire TDC, the incumbent carrier in Denmark. TDC's Board of Directors has recommended shareholders to accept the offer.TDC, which was fully privatized in 1998, has 13 million fixed line and mobile customers in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe. TDC is the largest alternative provider of Internet, data and telephone services in Switzerland and operates under the trademark sunrise. In Germany, TDC owns the...

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HP to Acquire Trustgenix for Federated Identity Mgt

HP agreed to acquire Trustgenix, a provider of federated identity management solutions, for an undisclosed sum. Trustgenix, which is based in Santa Clara, California is HP's original equipment manufacturing partner for HP OpenView Select Federation, which uses industry-standard federation protocols to link multiple accounts with different providers on the Internet so that secure user authentication occurs only once. When a user navigates to different sites belonging to the same federation, Select Federation recognizes the user and is able to provide...

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HP Unveils OpenCall Media Platform for IMS

HP unveiled a new version of its OpenCall Media Platform to help telecom carriers deliver blended voice, data and multimedia services across wireless, wireline and broadband networks.The new OpenCall Media Platform Media Resource Function (MRF) provides a foundation for advanced multimedia and interactive services in emerging Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks.Current and planned capabilities include audio and voice services (interactive voice response, voicemail, conferencing) as well as a wide range of multimedia, collaborative...

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SunCom Selects Ericsson for IMS, UMA, Softswitch

SunCom Wireless, a mobile carrier serving the southeastern U.S., has selected Ericsson's Mobile Softswitch solution for its next generation core network. Additionally, the two companies will conduct IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) trials to prepare the operator's network for next generation capabilities.SunCom has begun to deploy Ericsson's Mobile Softswitch solution to carry voice and data traffic in 3GPP Release 4- compliant network architecture. After just two months of installation, the softswitch started full...

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China Telecom Selects Cisco CRS-1 Carrier Routing System

China Telecom will adopt the Cisco CRS-1 Carrier Routing System to integrate the supercore network nodes of ChinaNet, the largest IP service network in China. Financial terms were not disclosed.Traffic processed by the Cisco CRS-1 will then transit the previous multi-router structure of ChinaNet's core network nodes in eight cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Xi'an, Chengdu, Wuhan and Nanjin. After integration, ChinaNet will significantly enhance the network capacity and improve management efficiency, enabling China Telecom to strengthen...

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Juniper Routers Selected for China Next Generation Internet (CNGI)

Juniper Networks' M- and T-series routing platforms have been selected for the core of the China Next Generation Internet (CNGI) project. The CNGI project was launched in 2003 by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and its charter is to create a next-generation national IPv6 backbone covering 20 cities and 39 massive network points of presence (GigaPOPs) to provide pervasive advanced IP services. Financial terms were not disclosed."As one of the world's most ambitious IPv6 projects, all of China's major service providers...

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Alcatel Claims #2 Position in IP Edge Aggregation Routing

Alcatel has overtaken to Juniper to claim the #2 position in market share for IP edge aggregation routing in Q3, according to a new report from Synergy Research Group that was released by the company. According to Synergy, Alcatel secured 23.6% of the IP edge aggregation routing market in Q3 2005, compared to Cisco at 45.9% and Juniper at 19.7%. In Q2, Synergy Research Group found that Cisco held 60.4% and Juniper 20.7% of this same IP edge aggregation market worldwide.Alcatel noted that more than 90 wireline and wireless service providers in...

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RIM's BlackBerry Service Faces Possible Shut-Down in Patent Dispute

In a long-running patent dispute, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that a settlement agreement between Research In Motion Limited (RIM) and NTP was not an enforceable agreement. The ruling raises the possibility that RIM's popular Blackberry mobile e-mail service could be shut down in the U.S.RIM said it will file a request that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear its appeal in the patent case. While further review by the Supreme Court is generally uncommon, RIM continues to believe this case raises significant national...

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Verizon Begins FiOS Deployment in Washington State

Verizon announced plans to rollout FTTP to its local telephone customers in Washington state, including the cities of Bellevue, Bothell, Everett, Kenmore, Kirkland, Redmond, and adjacent areas in the two counties. Washington becomes the 16th state in which Verizon will deploy its all-fiber network. Verizon expects to install more than 2.7 million feet of fiber-optic cabling throughout the region in 2006, passing about 60,000 homes and small businesses with fiber. http://www.verizon....

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TiVo Builds DVR Application for Intel Viiv

TiVo confirmed that it is building an application that will enable it to work with Intel Viiv technology. The new application will further extend TiVo's "TiVoToGo" features, allowing existing TiVo subscribers to securely transfer their favorite television programs from their TiVo Series2 DVR to an Intel Viiv technology based PC using only the remote control. The application will also allow any content downloaded from a TiVo DVR to an Intel Viiv technology enabled device to be securely played back on certain compliant media adapters, which will...

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Intel Announces Content Partners for "Viiv" Digital Home Systems

Intel is aiming to accelerate the trend towards on-demand, Internet-based entertainment by working closely with video content distributors, the music industry and gaming companies on a worldwide basis. Specifically, Intel is working with more than 40 content providers for its forthcoming "Viiv" PC platform for digital home entertainment. Intel plans to verify that these content services and applications run on the new Viiv platform, which will encompass consumer devices and networked media devices, portable media players, digital media adapters,...

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Nokia Tests Fixed-Mobile Convergence in Philippines

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Nokia have set up a Next Generation Network Laboratory to develop and test end-to-end Fixed- Mobile Convergence services prior to their commercial launch. The Next Generation Network Laboratory can leverage PLDT's current fixed and mobile networks to create converged services for PLDT Group customers. Nokia has been the main GSM network supplier to PLDT's Smart Communications division since 1998. Nokia's solution includes a Unified Core and converged access networks as well as Nokia multimedia...

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Farmers Telephone Extreme's Ethernet to Link Central Offices

Farmers Telephone Cooperative (FTC), which serves over 60,000 customers in rural South Carolina, selected Extreme Networks' Metro Ethernet network infrastructure for linking 17 FTC central offices. FTC chose Extreme Networks BlackDiamond modular switching platform. The new network has to be capable of supporting emerging IPTV services using wire speed Layer 2 Ethernet with non-stop forwarding, traffic prioritization and device redundancy. The new equipment will aggregate thousands of ADSL connections to the customer premises. http://www.extre...

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