Netcentrex Hires David Michaud to Head Americas Market

Netcentrex has appointed David Michaud as the new CEO of its North American subsidiary, replacing Alain Fernando-Santana who has left the company. Theodore Martin remains CEO of the Paris-based parentcompany Netcentrex, SA.Michaud recently he led sales and marketing initiatives for startups in the IP networking business, including Carrius and NexTone Communications. In 1997 he founded and became Chairman and CEOof Taqua Systems, a telecommunications switch developer sold to Tekelec for $85 million in March 2004. From 1992 to 1995 Mr. Michaud served...

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Bill Gates Previews Vista's Entertainment Capabilities

Microsoft's forthcoming services for Windows Live and its Windows Vista OS will help people find and manage entertainment content on the Windows-based Media Center PC or Microsoft TV IPTV Edition-powered set-top boxes, said Bill Gates, speaking at the opening of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gates showed how Microsoft's next-generation Vista operating system will tie into online services, such as video.Some of Microsoft's initiatives include:Windows Vista - Integrated Media Center experienceThe new OS will feature a...

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Sprint Nextel and Cable Partners Hire John Garcia for Quadruple Play

John A. Garcia, senior vice president of Strategic Partners for Sprint Consumer Solutions, has been named president of the nationwide joint venture being launched by Sprint Nextel and its cable partners.Garcia, who assumes the position immediately and will be located in Overland Park, Kan., will focus on delivering the convergence of video entertainment, wireline and wireless data and communications products and services to the approximately 41 million customers currently served by four of the country's largest cable companies as well as to Sprint's...

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Vonage Deploys Sonus Switches

Vonage has selected the Sonus Network architecture to support the growth in its subscriber base. Vonage has deployed Sonus platforms, including the GSX9000, PSX Call Routing Server, SGX Signaling Gateway, and the Sonus Insight Management System, in New York and Los Angeles and is expanding deployment into additional major markets throughout the United States. In future phases of the network expansion, Vonage plans to broaden the network to international locations. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.sonusnet.c...

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Alcatel Acquires Brazil's GMK for Contact Center Solutions

Alcatel has acquired GMK, a leading provider of contact center voice self-service solutions in Brazil. Financial terms were not disclosed. Founded in 1984, GMK is based in Sao Paulo, Brazil and currently employs approximately 100 people. GMK has established a market-leading position in the Brazilian voice self-service and interactive voice response (IVR) market. The company currently serves more than 100 customers with a strong market presence in the financial services and outsourcing sectors. GMK will be merged into Alcatel Telecomunicacoes S.A.,...

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XM Satellite Debuts Coin-Sized Mini-Tuner

XM Satellite and Audiovox today unveiled the XM Passport, a tiny, portable tuner that delivers XM Satellite Radio to an expanding portfolio of XM Ready products, including home stereo and home theater systems, DVD players, mini/micro-shelf systems, car radios, clock radios, boomboxes, and the new Samsung NEXUS XMP3 digital audio player. The XM Passport measures only 1.3 inches wide, 1.65 inches long, 0.44 inches thick. The XM Passport is inserted...

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Motorola Ventures Invests in Coppergate for HPNA Silicon

Motorola Ventures has made an equity investment in CopperGate Communications, a start-up based in Tel Aviv supplying chipset solutions for multimedia home networking. The investment was made as part of a $14.5M round led by new investor Carmel Ventures, with the participation of existing investors Tamir Fishman Ventures and the Challenge Fund. The funding round was first announced in November 2005.http://www.copper-gate.comCopperGate has been a prime contributor to the HPNA V3 specification for high performance multimedia home phoneline networking....

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Thomson Develops Portable MPEG4 PVR for DIRECTV2Go

At the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, Thomson introduced the LYRA X3000 Personal Multimedia Recorder, a handheld multipurpose device that will support secure high-speed video transfers from select DIRECTV digital video recorders. Along with this DIRECTV2Go capability, the pocket-sized LYRA X3000 by RCA allows for the direct recording of up to 40 feature-length films from multiple video sources without using a computer and is ideal for digital subscription...

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NETGEAR Supplies Skype WiFi Mobile Phone

NETGEAR unveiled a Wi-Fi mobile telephone optimized for Skype. The Skype WiFi phone will connect to Skype over a wireless Internet access point in a home, office, cafe, open public hotspot, or any open municipal wireless access point being deployed worldwide. The NETGEAR phone is pre-loaded with Skype's software. All a user needs to do after turning on the phone is enter a Skype username and password. The Skype software pulls up the user's full contact list, displays the connection status on the phone screen, and allows the consumer to connect...

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Akimbo Teams with Thomson and Movielink

Akimbo has formed a partnership with Thomson and Movielink to offer an Internet-based VOD service featuring premium Hollywood content.Akimbo and Thomson will offer a co-branded Akimbo Player through national retail channels by early spring. The new Akimbo Player will offer recently released films and classic movies supplied by Movielink in addition to 8,000 titles already available on the Akimbo Service.The new RCA Akimbo Player, priced at $199...

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BellSouth Tests SES AMERICOM's IP-PRIME Video Distribution

BellSouth will trial SES AMERICOM's IP-PRIME centralized, satellite-centric video distribution solution for its upcoming IPTV service. Specifically, SES AMERICOM will provide BellSouth with video aggregation, encoding, monitoring, and transport over the IP-PRIME platform, which is based at the SES AMERICOM IPTV Broadcast Center in Vernon Valley, New Jersey. The IPTV solution will be delivered over the AMC-9 satellite. The open architecture of IP-PRIME enables plug-and-play integration with a broad range of infrastructure platforms, including Microsoft...

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HomePNA Alliance Cites Membership Gains

The HomePNA alliance announced the addition of Entone, Tatung, Amino, and TII Networks as new members and the appointment of Scientific- Atlanta to the Board of Directors. HomePNA 3.0 technology, which was standardized by the ITU in May 2005, is a technology option for in-home distribution of new triple-play services such as IPTV. The technology works over both phonelines and coax cables.http://www.homepna....

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MobiTV Goes WiFi, 12 Channels at 24 fps

MobiTV is launching Wi-Fi enabled MobiTV Service for the Palm T|X handheld. MobiTV promises to deliver broadcast quality television at 24 frames per second, offering more than a dozen channels including ABC News Now, Bloomberg, C-SPAN, Comedy Time, ESPN 3GTV, Fashion TV, Fox News, Fox Sports, MAXX Sports, NanoTV, The Weather Channel and ToonWorld TV, with more channels to be added over time. Subscribers will be able to connect to MobiTV over home and corporate WiFi networks as well as the over 30,000 Wi-Fi hotspots available in the US."This launch...

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TI Ships Hollywood Mobile Digital TV Chip

Texas Instruments began shipping initial "Hollywood" DTV single-chip solutions for mobile phones to handset manufacturers worldwide. The Hollywood chips integrate the mobile TV tuner and demodulator into one device. The first mobile phones with TI's Hollywood chips are expected to hit the market in late 2006. The DTV1000 supports DVB-H operating at 470-750 MHz (UHF) and 1.670-1.675 GHz (L-band) frequency ranges, while the DTV1001 supports ISDB-T one-segment operating at 470-770 MHz frequency range. The chip can support multiple concurrent television...

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Marvell's Orion Processor Targets Multi-room HDTV

Marvell is previewing its "Orion" chip family for new media vault platforms that allow users to access rich multimedia and data content throughout the home using wired or wireless connections. Marvell said its Orion product family provides a scalable storage, networking and smart media processing architecture for standalone home storage appliances; integrated storage appliances, such as access points and digital video recorders; and next generation broadband service provider product.http://www.marvell....

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