Lucent to Manage Pacific Crossing's Undersea Cables

Lucent Technologies won a four-year managed services agreement worth more than $10 million to operate and manage the U.S.-based network facilities of Pacific Crossing Limited (PCL). PCL owns and operates the PC-1 trans-Pacific fiber optic cable between the U.S. and Japan.

http://www.lucent.comhttp://www.PC1.com

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France Telecom to Launch FTTH Trials in Paris

France Telecom announced plans to launch FTTH trials in six districts in Paris and six cities in the Hauts-de-Seine.



The pilot program include High Definition TV, unlimited telephony and very high speed Internet access. Customers participating in the pilot program will also be offered a wide range of innovative services to test. At the end of this first experimental phase, France Telecom will be able to ramp up its pilot programs to cover other regions in France or abroad by 2007.



France Telecom said the choice of FTTH illustrates its strategy "to offer the best of technology in France and worldwide."http://www.francetelecom.com

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Octasic Enables Colorful Calling Feature

Octasic introduced a "colorful calling" feature for its OCT6100 voice quality processor that enables callers to select desired background music, sound effects or even karaoke and seamlessly replace the actual background sound in their phone conversation.

With the explosive popularity of features like ringback tones, which first gained popularity in Asia and is now catching on worldwide, callers are looking for new ways to further personalize or add a little ‘color' to their calling experience -- in both mobile and fixed calls. This latest service offering requires unique voice processing to remove the background noise while preserving the voice. Octasic's
OCT6100 is a complete solution for delivering this type of voice processing.

Octasic said it worked with Chinese companies such as EjetCom to develop the algorithms necessary for offering "colorful calling" in existing equipment. Maintaining the quality of the voice and naturalness of the call were high priorities in the development of this feature. Due to the nature of the OCT6100 processor this feature can be provided with no impact on the capacity or quality of the existing features of the device such as Echo Cancellation, Tone detection and Automatic Level Control among others.

http://www.octasic.com

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Teknovus and KDDI Seek to Scale EPON to 10 Gbps

Teknovus, a developer of Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) chipsets, and KDDI, one of Japan's leading telecom carriers, unveiled a Next Generation Ethernet Passive Optical Network (NGEPON) roadmap seeking to scale downstream rates to 10 Gbps.



KDDI is already currently deploying EPON technology capable of 1 Gbps as the access technology for IPTV and Triple Play services.



The companies said NGEPON systems will be needed in the future to support hundreds of interactive channels, a rich mix of high-definition content, narrowcasting, and virtual personal video recording capabilities. Bandwidth requirements to support these services likely will exceed 100 Mbps per user thus demanding a solution such as NGEPON.



Mr. Shigeo Morita, Senior Manager of KDDI's Terminal System Development, stated, "KDDI already is deploying 1Gbps EPON in Japan. Our exciting triple-play service offering is attracting customers as fast as we can roll out the service. At the same time, we recognize that Ethernet technology and customer needs will not stand still and we will in the future have the capability to offer even more advanced IPTV and other services to the broader customer base. In this case it is critical that the next generation products be compatible with our installed base to minimize additional cost and maximize revenue. We believe the NGEPON roadmap will meet these objectives. Further, we plan for Teknovus and other semiconductor vendors to supply interoperable NGEPON chipsets to keep costs down and keep our options open."http://www.teknovus.com

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Ubiquity Supplies SIP Application Server to AT&T Services

Ubiquity Software Corporation announced a three-year agreement with AT&T Services. Ubiquity will provide its SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) Application Servers for testing and possible use in delivering new, enhanced broadband services over an integrated VoIP network planned for AT&T customers. Further details were not disclosed.

http://www.ubiquitysoftware.com

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NEC America Introduces GPON Access Equipment

NEC America introduced its SpectralWave GPON access equipment for the U.S. market, featuring the ability to provide bit rates of up to 2.488 Gbps and support both Ethernet and TDM services on a single fiber. It also provides access networking support for multiple services and operation, administration, maintenance and provisioning (OAM&P) functionality.



The NEC SpectralWave GPON solution consists of the AM Series Optical Line Terminal (OLT) and ME Series Optical Network Units (ONU) and Terminals (ONT). It is anticipated that the SpectralWave GPON solution will be generally available early 2Q06.



The non-blocking AM Series OLT platform scales to over 3,000 subscribers per shelf and provides a flexible multi-service access platform with close integration to service delivery systems; thus enabling rapid introduction and cost-efficient delivery of triple-play and converged services.



The ME Series products include a modular ONU platform with configurable subscriber interface types for Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) and Multi-Tenant Unit (MTU) deployments as well as a variety of ONT types to address a wide spectrum of service scenarios, from single-family Internet access and IPTV to home-office models.



NEC's SpectralWave GPON solution products are fully aligned with the key industry network architecture initiatives and standards, including: FSAN, DSL Forum WT-101 and ETSI TISPAN.



NEC noted that it first began R&D work on PON system more than two decades ago. Its broadband solutions are currently deployed in Japan's highly competitive market, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

http://www.necamerica.com

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TeleCIS Secures $10 Million for WiMAX Chipsets

TeleCIS Wireless, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, secured $10 million in Series C funding for its WiMAX fixed, portable and mobile broadband wireless chipset technology.



The funding will support the upcoming launch of the company's performance leading WiMAX Fixed/Portable subscriber device chip as well as the development of the second TeleCIS chip, a multi-protocol chipset combining 802.16e WiMAX Mobile and 802.11 WiFi protocols in a single chip. This design will deliver WiMAX Mobile, WiFi, MIMO and smart antenna functionality in a single chip.



The company's first chip, TCW 1620, is compliant with the 802.16-2004 WiMAX Fixed standard. The chip is designed for both fixed indoor consumer premises equipment as well as portable subscriber devices such as PC Cards and small form factor portable access products for laptops and PDAs. The chip delivers full nomadic portability within a WiMAX service area and provides broadband wireless consumers freedom from tethered connections.
http://www.telecis.com

• TeleCIS Wireless is headed by Dr. Sam Endy, who previously served as President and CEO of ArrayComm. He previously was VP, Operations at Sprint, where he was responsible for the activation and operation of Sprint's 20,000-mile U.S. fiber network, 42 switching centers, and initiation of international service.



• The founder of TeleCIS Wireless is Dr. Je Woo Kim, previously a professor at Pusan National University in Korea.

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Teknovus Introduces EPON Chip for ONUs

Teknovus announced the availability of its Optical Network Unit (ONU) chip for uses in Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (EPONs).



The new Teknovus TK3713 is fully standards compliant and is designed to interoperate with IEEE 802.3ah compliant ONUs from other suppliers. Single-chip IPTV features include integrated Forward Error Correction (FEC), an ultra-low jitter SerDes, bidirectional encryption, multiple LLIDs per ONU, a line-rate packet-processing engine, and hardware-based SLA enforcement.



The TK3713, a 130nm System-on-Chip (SoC), is the first member of an extensible platform that offers a toolkit for cost-effective development of next-generation home gateway solutions. Included in this platform are firmware and reference designs. Teknovus' technical support facilitates the interconnection of Teknovus chips with those of its partners, including leading semiconductor vendors in the home-gateway market. http://www.teknovus.com

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Parks Associates Predicts On-Demand Internet Content to Approach $9 Billion by 2010

U.S. consumer spending for online entertainment, including on-demand gaming, music and video services, will grow by 260% in the next five years, according to Digital Lifestyles: 2006 Outlook, a new study from Parks Associates. Driven by broadband usage and innovations in digital entertainment platforms and content services, revenues will grow from $2.4 billion in 2006 to nearly $9 billion in 2010.



Some key points of the study:

• The number of worldwide consumer broadband subscribers will grow from 184 million in 2005 to more than 360 million in 2010;



• The number of households worldwide using data networking equipment will grow from approximately 82 million in 2005 to more than 135 million in 2010; and



• Worldwide subscribers to IP multichannel video services (IPTV) will grow from approximately five million in 2005 to nearly 70 million in 2010.

"This year will be a watershed for delivering to consumers an array of new entertainment experiences," said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst, Parks Associates. "Thanks to broadband proliferation and growing cooperation between content producers and other members of the digital entertainment value chain, we'll see significant product and service announcements throughout 2006."http://www.parksassociates.com

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Pacific Crossing Emerges from Chapter 11

Pacific Crossing Ltd, Inc., a former subsidiary of Global Crossing and of the former Asia Global Crossing (now Asia Netcom), has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Over $650 million of existing debt was converted into equity and $25 million in secured debt.



Pacific Crossing Limited owns and operates the PC-1 cable, a 13,076 route-mile submarine fiber optic cable between the United States and Japan. It also owns and operates cable landing stations in Shima, Japan; Ajigaura, Japan; Grover Beach, California; and Mukilteo, Washington.



Pacific Crossing said it currently has over 120 Gbps of capacity available for sale and immediate delivery, and 460 Gbps available in upgrade capacity.

http://www.PC1.com

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Hawaii's Pacific LightNet Migrates from Nortel DMS to Metaswitch

Pacific LightNet (PLNI), which owns and operates Hawaii's largest inter-island fiber-optic network, is replacing its Nortel DMS digital switches with a softswitched network from Metaswitch. The deployment includes the Metaswitch VP3510 Class 4/5 Softswitch and the UC9000 Unified Communications System, a suite of extensible applications built on IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standards including Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The deployment will be the first implementation of an IMS service delivery architecture in Hawaii.



PLNI is also deploying DWDM on its inter-island fiber trunks, increasing bandwidth to allow 400 Gbps of connectivity. Metaswitch allows PLNI to leverage this increased network bandwidth and end-to-end Gigabit Ethernet architecture, by moving to an all-IP infrastructure and providing next-generation advanced services to its customers, including hosted PBX functionality for businesses and enhanced PC-based calling features for residential consumers.

http://www.metaswitch.com

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Convergys Reaffirms 2006 EPS Guidance Despite Sprint Nextel Billing Decision

Convergys confirmed that it had been notified by Sprint Nextel of plans to end the Convergys billing relationship over time by migrating subscribers off the legacy Precedent 2000(R) system.



In a statement, Convergys said it remains comfortable with 2006 earnings guidance of at least $1.07 per share, despite the Sprint Nextel decision.



In 2005 Convergys' Information Management Group (IMG) generated approximately $100 million in revenue from Sprint Nextel at profitability levels comparable to the average of the IMG business. http://www.convergys.com

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Agilent Supplies EPON Triple-Play Test Solution to Fiberxon

Agilent Technologies has supplied its N2X multiservices test solution to Fiberxon to validate Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) system performance while delivering real-world triple-play services.



The Agilent N2X N5604A Tri-rate Ethernet EPON Test Card and dedicated software was used to verify Fiberxon's EPON system performance, providing dynamic bandwidth, Multi-Point Control Protocol (MPCP) message interchange, Ethernet Operations and Administration and Maintenance (OAM) flows across EPON, as well as end-to-end system performance.



Using unique triggering and filtering capabilities, the N2X was used to isolate issues at either the Optical Network Unit (ONU) or the Optical Line Terminal (OLT). N2X was also configured to emulate end-to-end triple-play services while simultaneously measuring the QoS.



Key capabilities of Agilent's N2X EPON Solution include the following functions:

• Simulate realistic triple-play services by generating subscriber and network traffic from end to end.



• Verify dynamic bandwidth algorithm behavior across the EPON by monitoring the MPCP and Ethernet OAM flows in each direction.



• Isolate performance problems to the ONU or OLT, providing faster time to insight.



• Debug vendor-specific settings of subscriber box capability settings by examining the Ethernet OAM flows directly with "on-EPON" monitor capability, a key enabler for interoperability testing.



• Exercise EPON OLT features, using the Agilent N2X IPTV channel zapping and DHCP protocol emulation software.



• Measure control protocol and message timing to ensure compliance to the IEEE 802.3ah specification.

http://www.agilent.com

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Sprint Selects Amdocs for Wireless Billing and Customer Care

Sprint awarded an 8-year agreement to Amdocs to provide a single billing and customer care platform for its more than 46.5 million wireless subscribers. Since 2000, Nextel had used Amdocs for its billing and customer care system. Sprint began using Convergys in 1996 for its customer care and billing services.



The new Amdocs' platform will provide Sprint Nextel customer care representatives real-time access to account information for all subscribers on both the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network and the National Nextel Network. Sprint Nextel expects to begin converting customers to one platform in 2006. Conversion to the Amdocs platform will commence once Sprint Nextel and Amdocs enter into a definitive service agreement, and expects that the conversion will be complete in 2007.

http://www.amdocs.com

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Cox Extends Deployment of BigBand Broadband Provisioning Manager

Cox Communications, the fourth largest U.S. cable operator, awarded a five-year contract to BigBand Networks to extend its use of BigBand's FastFlow BPM (Broadband Provisioning Manager) to provision Cox High Speed Internet (CHSI) and VoIP-based Cox Digital Telephone services and features. Financial terms were not disclosed.



BigBand's FastFlow BPM (Broadband Provisioning Manager) uses a distributed framework to support both voice and Internet access over a single server. Its distributed framework is highly scalable, adapting as the number of IP-based services, content providers, networked devices, and subscribing customer base grows.



Cox currently uses BigBand's FastFlow to provision other offerings to broadband Internet, voice and commercial data subscribers. Cox has been a BigBand Cuda customer since 2000, using the platform for CHSI service and several VoIP-based Cox Digital Telephone launches. Cox has also utilized the BigBand BMR for advanced digital video technologies across the country, such as grooming, RateShaping, HDTV, digital advertising insertion, and Gigabit Ethernet transport of video.

http://www.bigbandnet.com

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Spotwave Raises $10 Million for In-Building Wireless

Spotwave, a start-up based in Ottawa, Canada, closed an expansion round of USD$10 million for its indoor wireless coverage products. Spotwave's intelligent solutions address a range of in-building environments from large enterprise locations to small and home offices.



The funding led by the company's existing investors and Motorola Ventures. Existing investors include Newbury Ventures, VenGrowth Private Equity Partners, Primaxis Technology Ventures, Skypoint Capital, VentureLink Fund, The GrowthWorks Canadian Fund, and RBQ Limited. Spotwave management and staff are also active participants in this close.

http://www.spotwave.com/

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GoogleTalk Joins XMPP Federation

The Google Talk Service has joined the public XMPP network, allowing Google Talk users to chat with users on other XMPP services and vice versa.http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2006/01/xmpp-federation.html

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NDS Provides Content Protection for Telekom Austria's IPTV

Telekom Austria has selected NDS' Synamedia an VideoGuard content protection system for its IP television offering and Video on Demand (VOD) service.



Other IPTV customers for NDS include BBTV in Japan, Sistema in Russia, CYTA in Cyprus, Viasat in Sweden, Auna in Spain and SuperSun in Hong Kong.

http://www.nds.com/

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Juniper Exec Joins New Enterprise Associates

Krishna "Kittu" Kolluri has joined New Enterprise Associates (NEA) as General Partner. Kolluri previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Juniper Networks' Security Products Group. He joined Juniper Networks through the company's acquisition of NetScreen Technologies in April 2004. Prior to this, Mr. Kolluri was General Manager of Secure Access Products at NetScreen, a position he assumed following NetScreen's acquisition of Neoteris in November 2003.

http://www.nea.com

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Siemens Joins the Multimedia over Coax Alliance

Siemens Home and Office Communications Devices , which supplies DSL customer premises equipment (CPE), has joined the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA-TM).



MoCA develops and promotes the standard for the transport of digital entertainment over coax.



finhttp://www.siemens.com/gigaset

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Motorola to Acquire Kreatel for Linux-based STBx and Middleware

Motorola agreed to acquire Kreatel Communications, a developer of IPTV set-tops, for an undisclosed sum. Kreatel's Linux-based solution extends into the application and middleware layers, allowing it to be used with a broad set of middleware solutions. Kreatel's customer base includes such major service providers as Telefonica (Spain), TeliaSonera (Sweden), and KPN (The Netherlands).



Motorola said Kreatel's flexible set-top platform is a natural complement to its end-to-end digital video solution.

Kreatel is headquartered in Linkoping, Sweden. The company's management team and employees will remain based in Linkoping, Sweden, and be integrated into the Motorola Connected Home Solutions business.

http://www.motorola.comhttp://www.kreatel.com

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Mangrove Names Colin Doherty as CEO

Mangrove Systems named Colin Doherty as its new President and CEO, replacing company founder Jonathan Reeves, who will assume the position of Chairman of the Board. Doherty has more than sixteen years combined experience at NMS Communications and Nortel Networks building their Optical and Carrier businesses in Latin America, North America and Europe.

http://www.mangrovesystems.com/

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Sonus VoIP Traffic Hits 17 Billion Minutes/Month

The amount of voice traffic being carried over Sonus Networks' equipment by its customers exceeded 17 billion minutes per month at the end of 2005, a 70% increase compared to December 2004, according to the company.

http://www.sonusnet.com/

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Converged Access Closes $8 Million in New Funding

Converged Access, a start-up based in Billerica, Mass., closed an $8 million Series C Round of funding for its intelligent application performance control for converged VoIP, data and video applications.



Converged Access offers a QoSWorks traffic management system that provides granular performance guarantees to applications. The system manages long-lived session applications like FTP downloads, database back-ups, and large web page downloads, which can expand their throughput by increasing the window size, taking additional bandwidth capacity. This can crowd out short-lived session transaction-based applications, as well as real-time traffic. Converged Access offers a series of appliances that can be transparently deployed as part of an existing IP network. No change in configuration is required to the existing routing and switching architecture.



SpaceVest Capital led the new funding round. All existing investors participated in the round, including Ashford Capital Management, Flagship Ventures, MC Venture Partners, North Atlantic Capital and SI Ventures.
http://www.convergedaccess.com

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