Kineto Wireless and TI Collaborate on Mobile/Wi-Fi Handsets

Texas Instruments (TI) and Kineto Wireless are collaborating to enable Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology for mobile/Wi-Fi handsets. Specifically, Kineto's UMA client software for handsets is based on TI's leading cellular and mobile Wi-Fi platforms. Companies building devices based on TI's WiLink mobile WLAN platform and OMAP-Vox solutions can now develop UMA-enabled products to meet increasing demand for mobile/Wi-Fi devices based on the 3GPP standard.

http://www.ti.comhttp://www.kinetowireless.com

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Movielink Launches Download-to-Own Service for Major Motion Pictures

Movielink launched a new "download-to-own" service, enabling consumers to buy movie downloads online in addition to renting them for 24 hours. Movielink has deals with the major Hollywood studios, including MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros.



The downloaded films can be viewed on up to three PCs, transferred to a DVD (in Windows Media format) for backup, and streamed around the home via home networking.



The new Movielink service breaks ground in that it will carry major film titles on the same day they are released for DVD distribution.



Pricing starts at $8.99 to purchase a film. Major titles, such as King Kong, are priced at $19.99 and up.



Movielink has divided its Web site into two "stores," with a common home page. The two storefronts function just as the Movielink original "Rental Store" operated, but the license to view a movie obtained from the "Purchase Store" allows for unlimited viewinghttp://www.movielink.com

• Movielink is a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios.

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Aruba Announces 802.11i FIPS Certification

Aruba Networks, is the first vendor certified by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) as having achieved Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 level 2 validation for IEEE 802.11i wireless LAN systems. Aruba said this enables it to provide secure WLANs to the U.S. Federal government using the IEEE 802.11i standard.



Recently approved by NIST, 802.11i is a WLAN security standard that significantly improves the security of WLAN communications when operating in the FIPS-approved Robust Security Network (RSN) mode. New WLAN policies from the Department of Defense (DoD) are expected to mandate that all network infrastructure and clients used by the federal government in unclassified wireless environments must be FIPS 140-2 approved for 802.11i.



Aruba noted the Federal government has to date maintained a moratorium on the use of Wi-Fi technology. The government is now evaluating Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technologies, such as 802.11i.



Aruba's mobility systems integrate wireless intrusion detection and prevention, virtual private networking, stateful user firewalls, advanced cryptographic encryption and on-demand client integrity within a centralized, high-performance platform. For the Federal Market, Aruba's Mobile Edge solution features:

• Programmable encryption to enable seamless transition to AES-CCM/802.11i and AES-CBC 256 bit for both wired and wireless devices
  without requiring hardware upgrades



• Defense-in-depth security that provides integrated multi-layered support that locks the air, the wire, the network and the user




• Scalability and performance to support hundreds of APs and thousands of users on a single system while delivering multiple gigabits of encrypted throughput




• Co-located security and mobility context with security policies that follow each user



• Low cost and non-disruptive transition plan by providing a solution with FIPS 140-2 approved xSec termination to standards-based FIPS 140-2 approved 802.11i

Aruba also provides EAP-offload capability in its FIPS-validated software. With EAP-offload, sensitive authentication and key management transactions are completed within the secure cryptographic boundary of the centralized mobility controller and do not need to be transmitted as clear text or using weak encryption algorithms between the mobility controller and an external RADIUS server.

Alternately, Aruba also secures EAP-capable RADIUS servers by providing RADIUS-over-IPSec functionality as recommended by RFC 3579. http://www.arubanetworks.comhttp://csrc.nist.gov/cryptval/preval.htm

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Shares in Alcatel Rise 5% Following Merger News

Shares in Alcatel rose 5.26% in the first full day of trading following news of its planned acquisition of Lucent Technologies. Shares in Lucent rose nearly 1%.

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

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TANDBERG TV Plans Integration of its 3 Latest Acquisitions

TANDBERG TV announced that Eric Cooney, its President and CEO, will lead the integration process for the three recent acquisitions: N2 Broadband, GoldPocket Interactive, and SkyStream Networks. This move is timed to coincide with the departure of Reggie Bradford, who has been the President of TANDBERG Television Americas since the acquisition of N2 Broadband in February 2005. http://www.tandbergtv.com

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Intel and PIPEX Create WiMAX Carrier for the UK

Intel Capital and PIPEX Communications are jointly funding PIPEX Wireless, a wireless operator which will provide broadband services in major metropolitan areas across the UK. Intel Capital is investing US$25 million in the new company. PIPEX has transferred its entire 3.6GHz UK spectrum license to PIPEX Wireless to deploy services based on WiMAX.



PIPEX Wireless anticipates the roll-out of its network to begin in London and Manchester in 2007, and target the top eight population centers by 2008. http://www.intel.com

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Convedia Announces eXtended Media Processing (eXMP), Extends Media Server Line with New Platforms

Convedia has extended its line of media servers with two new products - the CMS-3000 and CMS-9000 Media Servers, both based on a new eXtended Media Processing (eXMP) technology, which is a modular, portable technology that represents the evolution of Convedia's carrier-class media processing expertise and is designed for a range of media processing needs.



Convedia said its eXMP media processing software architecture will provide a common foundation for a growing family of software media server, ATCA/blade server, and purpose-built hardware media server products. These could extend from small enterprise customer point solutions running on third-party platforms such as ATCA- and Linux-based servers, up to the largest carrier-class IMS multi-service deployments running on purpose built hardware. eXMP technology is hardware and processor independent, and is optimized to run on dual/multi-core general purpose CPU- or DSP-based platforms.



eXMP technology can be deployed as a Linux based software-only product running on general purpose computing platforms, on blade processor products based on ATCA or BladeCenter form-factors, integrated inside third party routers, switches and gateways or pre-integrated with Convedia purpose-built media server hardware with dedicated DSP resources.



Convedia' new CMS-9000, a carrier-class IP media server, incorporates a family of new modular media processing cards. The CMS-9000 media processing cards are backwards compatible with existing CMS-6000 deployments, allowing existing customers to benefit from Convedia's latest hardware advancements while fully protecting their investment in CMS-6000 systems.



The CMS-3000 Media Server, targeted at enterprise customers and smaller service providers, provides Convedia's media processing in a 1RU network appliance.



Both products are backward compatible with Convedia's management and control interfaces, and both meet or exceed RoHS environmental standards for telecommunication equipment. The new products are also designed to accommodate future expansion cards, allowing modular capacity upgrades based on application requirements.



Convedia said the convergence of the telecommunications industry around the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture has dictated a new level of sophistication for IP media processing solutions. The processing of XML-based scripts for IVR applications, storing and retrieving multimedia files for messaging applications, the growing use of low bitrate audio codecs, high complexity video codecs, and sophisticated VoIP security, including media encryption, require increasingly powerful and flexible IP media processing platforms. http://www.convedia.com

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Axerra Positions Pseudo-Wires for Wireless Backhaul

Axerra Networks announced the availability of a full-service
Pseudo-Wire backhaul solution positioned as an alternative to TDM access for mobile wireless operators, including those providing CDMA and EV-DO as well as GSM and UMTS services.



The Axerra AXN Pseudo-Wire solution combines circuit emulation, Frame Relay/HDLC/PPP, and Ethernet Pseudo-Wires in a single platform that has both n x T1 and Ethernet connections at the BTS to enable backhaul of every generation of wireless service, including CDMA plus 1RTT plus 1xEV-DO, and even CDMA 2000 or 4G, all over a single packet RAN. The solution also uniquely incorporates ATM with IMA, enabling GSM plus GPRS plus UMTS. Axerra said the resulting unified, high-capacity RAN reduces OpEx while enhancing the user experience for high-speed data services.



Axerra's AXN Pseudo-Wire Gateways and Access Devices are currently installed and carrying revenue-generating traffic for operators on four continents.

http://www.axerra.com

Using Pseudo-Wires for Mobile Wireless Backhaul over Carrier Ethernet

The continued evolution of mobile wireless services is toward technologies that are intrinsically packet-oriented, such as HSDPA and HSUPA, and indicative that packet access networks, rather than TDM-based T1s and E1s, are the logical transport for backhaul in the RAN. A number of new technologies that are cost-effective and provide flexible, high-capacity backhaul transport are emerging as the frontrunners for next-generation packet access networks. These new technologies include Carrier Ethernet (also known as Metro Ethernet or Optical Ethernet), xDSL, cable HFC, EPON/GPON, and broadband packet radio (including WiMAX. Pseudo-Wire solutions not only enables mobile wireless operators to use new packet access networks, it also gives operators a choice among multiple packet network technologies in the RAN, including Carrier Ethernet, xDSL, cable HFC, and even broadband packet radio.)

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Brocade and Ciena Team on Networked Storage

Brocade Communications Systems and Ciena will provide fully-tested Storage Area Network (SAN) solution over Metro and Wide Area Networks (MANs/WANs). The alliance combines Brocade's 4 Gbps SAN directors and switches with Ciena's CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform or CN 2000 Storage Extension Platform.



Ciena and Brocade's 4G Fibre Channel (FC) Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) solutions are already deployed in networks operated by an international financial institution and a North American retailer, representing the industry's first 4 Gbps Fibre Channel SANs multiplexed over the WAN. http://www.brocade.comhttp://www.ciena.com

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SkyPilot Surpasses 200th Customer and 10,000 Unit Milestones

SkyPilot Networks has reached a number of significant milestones, including the shipment of its 10,000th unit and securing its 200th customer. The company, which now has deployments in 40 countries, said demand for broadband wireless mesh backhaul networks is being driven by a combination of service providers, municipalities and public safety agencies.
http://www.skypilot.com

Redefining Broadband Wireless Economics through Synchronous Mesh Networking

Mesh networking provides a completely new way of looking at wireless networking economics. Mesh networks can address the two major areas of cost for traditional point-to-multipoint topologies. First, mesh networks can use wire Wireless backhaul to minimize the expense of leased facilities and eliminate trenching. Second, mesh base stations are a fraction of the cost of macro-cell base stations, which makes extending coverage out to suburban and rural areas incremental and profitable.

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Cortina and Cisco Develop 100 Gbps Chip-to-Chip Interconnects

Cortina Systems and Cisco Systems announced the Interlaken protocol specification: a new technology for high-speed chip-to-chip packet transfers designed to deliver 100 Gbps+ of interchip bandwidth.



The companies said their jointly developed Interlaken protocol builds upon the logical structure of the prevalent SPI4.2, or System Packet Interface Level 4, technology now widely used in networking equipment. It preserves the capabilities of SPI-4.2 with multiple logical channels and back-pressure information, while eliminating its bandwidth ceiling and drastically curtailing its associated pin-count cost. With Interlaken's 90 percent chip-to-chip signal trace improvement, performance is increased while both board and chip design costs are reduced.



Furthermore, Interlaken works with any number of serial lanes uses a highly efficient encoding mechanism with much less overhead than XAUI's 8B/10B. Cortina and Cisco are making the Interlaken specification available with royalty-free licensing to interested parties developing the next generation of gigabit-speed routers and switches.



"Network equipment designs have hit a wall where chip-to-chip interfaces in the data plane are a gating factor limiting the density and overall bandwidth of network equipment," said Mark Gustlin, a technical leader in the Service Provider Routing Technology Group at Cisco Systems.

http://www.cortina-systems.comhttp://www.cisco.com

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TDS Telecom Deploys Calix C7

TDS Telecom, the seventh largest independent U.S. telco, has deployed the Calix C7 multiservice access platform (MSAP) to deliver FTTP and high-speed copper services to business and residential subscribers. Already widely deployed within TDS Metrocom, the Calix C7 will now allow TDS Telecom to support the full range of emerging access media -- FTTP, ADSL2+, and Gigabit Ethernet -- while continuing to support legacy telco services such as POTS, specials, DS1, and DS3.



TDS has deployed the Calix C7 in CLEC applications to provide Fast Ethernet, DS1, and DS3 services to businesses and communications-intensive residential customers in five states.



The Calix C7 offers 200 Gbps of backplane capacity, 480 fiber or copper interfaces, and full support for IP-based voice, data, and video services into an extremely compact, fully redundant, rear-access configuration. http://www.calix.comhttp://www.tdstelecom.com

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Freescale Targets Home Media Servers

Freescale Semiconductor introduced a reference design for home media servers with advanced network attached storage (NAS) capabilities. The Media Server-in-a-Box reference platform is based on Freescale's MPC8349E PowerQUICC II Pro communications processor containing a PowerPC core and standards-compliant Media Server software from Mediabolic, a developer of entertainment networking software. The Mediabolic software makes personal content available over a network for streamed playback on a variety of connected entertainment devices throughout the home.

http://www.freescale.com

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Mobile Surpasses Fixed Lines in U.S. Market, UNEs Drop

As of June 2005, there were approximately 144.1 million ILEC switched access lines, 34.1 million CLEC switched access lines, and 191.3 million mobile telephony lines in service in the U.S., according to the latest data released by the FCC. Some other highlights of the report:

• Of the 34.1 million CLEC end-user switched access lines, 4.6 million lines were provided over coaxial cable connections. The 4.6 million lines represent about 50% of the 9.1 million end-user switched access lines that CLECs reported providing over their own local loop facilities.



• Mobile telephony service providers reported 191.3 million subscribers at the end of June 2005, which is 10 million more than six months earlier. About 6% of these subscribers were billed by mobile telephony service resellers.



• At least one CLEC was serving customers in 83% of the nation's Zip Codes at the end of June 2005. About 98% of United States households resided in those Zip Codes. Moreover, multiple carriers reported providing local telephone service in the major population centers of the country.



• The 34.1 million lines reported by CLECs is about 19.1% of the 178.2 million total end-user switched access lines reported for the end of June 2005.



• CLECs reported 16.7 million (or 14%) of the 117.2 million lines that served residential end users and 17.4 million (or 29%) of the 61.0 million lines that served business, institutional, and government customers.



• CLECs reported providing about 27% of their end-user switched access lines over their own local loop facilities, about 56% by using unbundled network elements (UNEs) that they leased from other carriers, and about 17% through resale arrangements with unaffiliated carriers.



• ILECs reported providing about 12% fewer UNE loops with switching (referred to as the UNE-Platform) to unaffiliated carriers at the end of June 2005 than they reported six months earlier (14.6 million compared to 16.5 million) and about 2% more UNE loops without switching (4.3 million compared to 4.2 million).



• ILECs were the presubscribed interstate long distance carrier for about 49% of the switched access lines they provided to end users. For CLECs, the percentage was 74%.

http://www.fcc.gov

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Verizon to Sell Caribbean and Latin American Operations for $3.7 Billion

Verizon Communications will sell its Caribbean and Latin American telecommunications operations in three separate transactions to América Móvil, a wireless service provider throughout Latin America, and a company owned jointly by Teléfonos de México, (Telmex) and América Móvil, for approximately $3.7 billion.



The deal includes telecom interests in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Verizon owns 100% of Verizon Dominicana, a 52% in Telecomunicaciones de Puerto Rico, Inc. (Puerto Rico Telephone), and a 28.5% interest in Compañia Anónima Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela (CANTV).



Telmex and América Móvil will pay $676.6 million for the interest in CANTV.



The three properties serve a combined total of more than 15 million wireless, wireline and broadband customers in the three countries and have approximately 17,000 employees.

http://www.verizon.com

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Ericsson Acquires Marconi Federal

Ericsson has acquired Marconi Communications Federal, a supplier of mission-critical networking and telecommunications solutions and services to the U.S. government.



The new Ericsson Federal will have headquarters in Columbia, Md., and offices in Vienna, Va., Chambersburg, Pa., and San Diego. It will be led by Ralph Havens, who formerly was president of Marconi Communications Federal. Doug Smith will continue as Vice President and General Manager of Ericsson's existing Government Solutions unit. http://www.ericsson.com

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Nokia Rolls Out Mobility Hosting Solution

Nokia introduced a Mobility Hosting solution that helps mobile service providers roll out new services for subscribers while keeping investments in check. The hosting models enables operators to share initial start-up costs.



Nokia expects the market for mobile hosting to grow sharply in the coming years as operator competition intensifies. Research group Ovum forecasts the size of the hosting market to double to 1.35 billion EURs by 2009 from around 670 million in 2005.



Nokia already offers managed services to mobile operators.



Separately, Nokia announced it had won a push to talk (PoC) hosting trial agreement with Mobitel Slovenia. In 2005, Nokia won push to talk hosting agreements with mobilkom austria and 3 Scandinavia, and Nokia is currently in hosting solution talks with a number of service providers across the globe.

http://www.nokia.com

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Juniper Rebuilds its Marketing Team

Juniper Networks announced a number of changes to its marketing team.

• Steven Wastie, formerly vice president, Emerging Technologies, Juniper Networks EMEA, assumes the position of vice president, Enterprise Marketing.



• Shailesh Shukla, formerly vice president, Strategy and Business Development at Redback Networks, has been appointed vice president, Service Provider Marketing and Partnerships.



• Sam Ezekiel, formerly senior director, Marketing and general manager for the Access Router and Wireless Mobile Router Businesses at Cisco Systems, has been appointed vice president, Managed Services Marketing.

All three report to Jeff Lindholm, chief marketing officer (CMO).
http://www.juniper.net

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Lucent Outlines Plans for Separate Subsidiary for U.S. Government Work

In order to satisfy national security concerns regarding its proposed merger with Alcatel, Lucent Technologies outlines its plans to create a separate subsidiary for sensitive research and development. The unit will have a separate, independent board to be approved by the U.S. government.



The company to noted that while most of the research and development work done by Bell Labs today is commercial, it does some classified work for the U.S. government. To ensure the appropriate level of protection for that type of work, certain sensitive contracts Bell Labs and Lucent have with U.S. government agencies will be transferred to a separate, independent subsidiary. This subsidiary will be separately managed by a board that will be composed of three independent U.S. citizens acceptable to the U.S. government.



Lucent has nominated William Perry, former Secretary of Defense, James Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence and Kenneth Minihan, former director of the National Security Agency to the independent subsidiary's board.



Bell Labs President Jeong Kim, a former nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, will continue to lead Bell Labs, which will remain based in New Jersey.

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

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Ruckus Wireless Hires Former Cisco/Airespace Exec

Ruckus Wireless has hired Steve Martin, former vice president of engineering for Airespace (acquired by Cisco in 2005), to head up its engineering organization. With more than 15 years of experience in the networking industry building companies such as Airespace, US Robotics and 3Com Corporation, Martin will help Ruckus scale its research and development efforts to meet the growing demand for its products and technologies. Martin will focus his initial efforts in several key areas including carrier-class remote WLAN management, advanced voice over Wi-Fi and the application of Ruckus's patent-pending breakthroughs to the new 802.11n standards.

http://www.ruckuswireless.com

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