01/08/06 ~ Converge! Network Digest

Sunday, January 8, 2006

Alcatel Joins Multimedia over Coax Alliance

Sunday, January 08, 2006 TTP

Alcatel has joined the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), an industry group that promotes the distribution of digital video and entertainment through existing coaxial cable in the home. MoCA technology provides the backbone for whole home entertainment networks of multiple wired and wireless products.
http://www.mocalliance.org

Sprint Nextel Suffers Dual Fiber Cuts

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Service Providers

Sprint Nextel's wireless, wireline and long distance service along the West Coast were impacted on Monday by a fiber cut between Phoenix, Arizona and Palm Springs, California. At the time the cut occurred west of Phoenix, Sprint Nextel was conducting emergency maintenance to its fiber optic network near Reno, Nevada. The traffic passing through Reno was being temporarily routed through the network near Phoenix as part of the standard emergency maintenance plan. This resulted in a "dual" fiber cut affecting traffic going to and coming from the west coast and other western parts of the United States.

Mobile phone long distance service on both Nationwide Sprint PCS and Nextel National Network were impacted during the outage. The company said Internet traffic on the Sprint Nextel IP network may also have been delayed.

By 10:00 p.m. EST on 09-Jan-06, all services were restored.

http://www.sprint.com

Telecom NZ Selects Veraz's VoIP for International Deployment

Sunday, January 08, 2006 PacketVoice

Telecom New Zealand International (TNZI) will deploy Veraz Networks' VoIP ControlSwitch softswitch, service delivery platform and I-Gate 4000 family of media gateways in key US and UK cities. The initial deployment, which will be completed in early 2006, will include installations in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and London.

http://www.veraznetworks.com

Motorola Acquires Broadband Innovations for RF Technologies

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Last Mile

Motorola has acquired key cable network technology assets and employees from Broadband Innovations, a start-up based in San Diego, for and undisclosed sum. Broadband Innovations is a developer of radio frequency (RF) and digital technologies and holds patents in signal transmission performance, size, and power consumption for CMTS.

Motorola said the acquisition strengthens its modular cable modem termination system (M-CMTS) and channel bonding solutions.

Modular CMTS is an initiative currently being developed by CableLabs to provide the different functions of a CMTS through separate hardware and software elements. As service providers migrate their multiple networks to a single, IP-based network, the M-CMTS platform will scale services more efficiently by sharing the workload among several components.

Advanced services such as high-speed data, channel bonding, commercial services, and video-over-IP will require each M-CMTS component to process more signals at once. Motorola's acquisition adds key RF technology innovations to the company's extensive next-generation network architecture portfolio, including greater RF channel density, greater channel throughput, more effective channel management, and a highly fault-tolerant RF matrix switch -- all in support of substantial downstream bandwidth.

Many of Broadband Innovations' employees will join the Motorola Connected Home Solutions business, and will continue to be based in San Diego.

http://www.motorola.com

Fonality Raises $5 Million for IP PBXs

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Service Providers

Fonality, a start-up based in Los Angeles, raised $5 million in Series B financing for its IP-PBX systems for small businesses. Fonality's IP-PBX feature set includes telecommuting support, branch office support, voicemail-to-email, click-to-call, VoIP, softphones, support for IP and analog phones, and advanced call center functionality. Pricing starts at $995 for the PBXtra Standard Edition server with unlimited licenses, or $2,935 with ten phones. PBXtra's Call Center Edition, which allows for distributed call centers, is $1,995.

The funding round led by Azure Capital Partners with participation from individual investors. The Series B funds will be used to complete Fonality's management team, accelerate research and development and further invest in channel expansion. Paul Weinstein, general partner of Azure Capital, will join Fonality's board of directors.

http://www.fonality.com

Verizon Sees CAPEX Peak in 2006 for Wireline Spending

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Service Providers

Verizon has already reached a market penetration of 20% for FiOS TV in its first market of Keller, Texas, since the service was launched in late September 2005.

Speaking at a Citigroup conference in Phoenix, Verizon Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that costs to pass a home or business continued to decline in 2005. He noted that he expects 2006 to be the peak year for total wireline capital spending, as the company's capital expenditure mix continues to shift from legacy technologies to fiber and IP.

To date, Verizon has passed 3 million homes or businesses in 16 states with its fiber deployment. The company previously announced that it would pass an additional 3 million in 2006, and the total of 6 million premises passed equates to approximately 20% of the homes and businesses in Verizon's landline service territory. Seidenberg said he anticipates deployment rates at 2006 levels in the future. Verizon's goal, previously announced, is to pass approximately 60% of the homes and businesses in its landline service territory with fiber.

Regarding the company's recently completed merger with MCI, Inc., Seidenberg said costs savings targets will be ahead of previous expectations.

Verizon now estimates that the transaction will yield a net present value of $8.0 billion in incremental revenues and operational savings, including investments in network and systems to achieve these savings -- an increase of $1.0 billion from the $7.0 billion announced in February 2005.

The costs to achieve these synergies are now estimated to be approximately $1.0 billion in expense and from $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion in capital through the end of 2008. Previous estimates were expenses of approximately $1.0 billion to $1.5 billion and capital of $2.0 billion.

An archived webcast of the presentation is available on the company's investor relations website.

http://www.verizon.com

BTI Photonic Raises $12 Million for metro edge optical system

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Optical

BTI Photonic Systems, a start-up based in Ottawa, Canada, raised a US$12.25 million in Series C financing for its optical networking solutions designed for the build-out of new broadband services at the metro edge.

BTI Photonic Systems has developed a WDM "Netstender" platform. The metro edge optical system, which is based on a photonic layer architecture, consolidates key transport capabilities: DWDM/CWDM, Optical Multiplexing, Amplification, Dispersion Compensation and Wavelength Translation.

BTI said its Netstender addresses the issues of fiber relief, reach extension, 10G, 1G, and metro Ethernet service overlay enabling carriers to deliver new high-speed services while reducing their costs and increasing their overall market footprint.

The new funding was led by BDC Venture Capital with GrowthWorks Canadian Fund as a new investor and follow-on participation from existing investors Vengrowth Capital, Lucent Venture Partners, Kodiak Venture Partners and BCE Capital.

http://www.btiphotonics.com

Brooktrout Offers Fax over IP (FoIP) Software

Sunday, January 08, 2006 PacketVoice

Brooktrout Technology announced a real-time Fax over IP (FoIP) software-only fax solution that works with applications from companies including Arcosoft, AVM Informatique, Cascom, FaxBack, FaxCore, SoftLinx, Systems Solutions, and RTE. The SR140 supports SIP and H.323 call control and T.38 media processing protocols. It uses host-based processing instead of specialized DSPs.

http://www.brooktrout.com/products/sr140

Vodafone and Sony NetServices Launch Radio DJ

Sunday, January 08, 2006 BroadbandWireless

Vodafone and Sony NetServices announced the global roll-out of the Vodafone Radio DJ music service, offering interactive, personalized radio channels streamed to both 3G mobile phones and personal computers.

Vodafone Radio DJ provides access to hundreds of thousands of songs from the largest record companies and many smaller independent labels. The key feature of Vodafone Radio DJ is its personalization system, which enables customers to "train" the pre-programmed radio channels to their own personal tastes by pressing a button to indicate "like" or "dislike" while listening to a song. If a customer presses 'dislike', the music skips to the next song.

The Vodafone Radio DJ service consists of three elements:

Pre-defined channels. Customers can select a radio channel based on mood or genre.

Personal Channels. By rating songs on the existing radio channels, the customer can create a number of new, personal channels corresponding to their desired genres, moods or specific themes.

Collections. Vodafone Radio DJ also presents programmed collections of songs to the customer on mobile phone or PC. These collections will be created by local music experts around a theme (eg. Christmas Hits, or the Best New Hip-Hop), be updated regularly, and will comprise about 15 songs.

Songs purchased on either mobile phone or PC will be available to download on both devices, with a separate high quality stereo copy being delivered individually to each. Personal settings and personal channels created on the mobile phone will also be accessible from the PC.

Vodafone Radio DJ will be launched in six European countries in the coming months, namely UK, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It is intended it will then be rolled out to more than 20 countries worldwide over the following twelve months.

http://www.sony-europe.com/http://www.vodafone.com

iBasis Hires Nextel Exec to Lead Retail Business

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Financial

iBasis has hired Timothy Enright as senior vice president to drive growth of the company's Retail business, which includes prepaid calling cards sold through distributors and the Pingo prepaid service, which is sold online at www.pingo.com. Prior to joining iBasis, Enright developed Nextel's wireless phone business as area vice president for New England, achieving annual revenue of $750 million and a three-year growth rate in subscribers of 75%. He was named Nextel's #1 area vice president for 2002 and 2003. Enright has also played leadership roles in the wireless businesses of Sprint PCS and CellularOne in New York and New England. He received a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Massachusetts. http://www.ibasis.com

UK's Fibernet Group Deploys Acme Packet

Sunday, January 08, 2006 PacketVoice

Fibernet Group plc, a provider of customized network services for other carriers and large organizations in the UK and Germany, is deploying Acme Packet's Net-Net session border controllers (SBCs) for a forthcoming carrier interconnect service, now in beta. In delivering these services, Acme Packet's Net-Net session border controllers have been installed at interconnection and peering points in Fibernet's London network where they connect to their carrier customers. They perform a critical role in securing the networks, maximizing service reach and assuring Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance.

The security functions of the Acme Packet SBC include denial-of-service (DoS) protection, access control and network topology hiding. To maximize service reach, the session border controllers translate between private overlapping IP address spaces of Fibernet's carrier customers. An adaptive NAT traversal feature enables calls to cross existing data firewalls at the subscriber premise from a secure network element managed by Fibernet, maximizing the numbers of potential subscribers supported by Fibernet's services. Enterprise H.323 IP PBXs and carrier H.323 gatekeepers can interoperate with SIP services through Acme Packet's SIP-H.323 protocol interworking feature. Lastly, the admission control, QoS marking/mapping and QoS reporting features are imperative for Fibernet's compliance with its SLAs.
http://www.acmepacket.com

SEGA Deploys Force10 for Online Gaming Data Center

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Packet Systems

SEGA has deployed Force10 Networks' TeraScale E-Series in its gaming data center to provide a reliable, high performance foundation for its online interactive worlds. The Force10 TeraScale E-Series is being used as the core router in SEGA's online gaming network to delivers the robust Layer 3 functionality required to bring hundreds of thousands of gamers in geographically diverse locations together in an online world. of an offline game in an interactive online world.

In 2004, SEGA moved from individual network infrastructures for each game to a consolidated network that could scale as new subscribers joined the online worlds without compromising the users' experience. The Force10 TeraScale E-Series enables SEGA to connect several hundred servers to a single system, simplifying network topologies and reducing both capital and operational costs. Additionally, SEGA is leveraging the robust BGP capabilities of the TeraScale E-Series to peer with its Internet service provider.
http://www.force10networks.com

NTT Leasing Invests in Glimmerglass for Optical Switches

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Optical

NTT Leasing, the venture investment arm of NTT, has expanded its investment in Glimmerglass, a start-up based in Hayward, California, for the second time within the past six months. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Glimmerglass supplies products for next generation optical networks. Its optical switch is a fiber-to-fiber cross-connect for dozens or hundreds of fibers. The switch can be used to connect DWDM and 1310nm wavelengths between optical fibers. Each Glimmerglass intelligent optical switch delivers low loss, fiber-to-fiber connections without regenerating optical signals so that customers can more cost-effectively manage 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 40 Gbps SONET/SDH, uncompressed HD or IP video and even wideband radio spectrum. http://www.glimmerglass.com

TI Sells its Sensors Business to Bain for $3 Billion

Sunday, January 08, 2006 Silicon

Texas Instruments agreed to sell its Sensors & Controls business to affiliates of Bain Capital, LLC, a leading global private equity investment firm, for $3.0 billion in cash.

Sensors & Controls, which is headquartered in Attleboro, Mass., supplies engineered sensors and controls to the appliance, climate control, industrial, automotive, lighting, and aircraft markets. With revenue exceeding $1 billion annually, Sensors & Controls has about 5,400 employees in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The sale will not include the radio frequency identification (RFID) systems operations, which will remain with TI.

http://www.ti.com