Equinix Opens Fourth Data Center in the Silicon Valley

Equinix opened its fourth Internet Business Exchange (IBX) center in the Silicon Valley. The new 120,000 square foot center is located in Sunnyvale and will add approximately 1,800 cabinets and increase Equinix's Silicon Valley footprint to more than 500,000 square feet. The center was originally built-out in 2001 at an estimated cost of $80 million and was acquired by Equinix through a long-term lease announced 14 months ago. Equinix is investing $15.0 million in upgrades to the facility.

http://www.equinix.com

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UNH-IOL Advances IPv6 Application Testing with Moonv6

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) has completed a weeklong round of testing on the "Moonv6" network, the world's largest multi-vendor IPv6 network. The event included a public demonstration of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) running on a native IPv6-only connection.



The UNH-IOL test ran mixed applications traffic (voice, video and data) between its network testing lab in Durham, New Hampshire and the U.S. Army's data-communications interlope testing facility, the Joint Interoperability Test Command, in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Engineers at both locations passed data back and forth across firewalls systems via native IPv6 links as well as mixed v4 and v6 links using transition mechanisms such as domain name systems (DNS) mapping. DNS is key in dual-stack migration for knitting IPv4 and v6 networks together during the transition.



Participating vendors included: Agilent, Check Point Software Technologies, Extreme Networks, Fortinet Inc., IBM, Lucent, Nominum, QLogic and Spectracom Corp.

http://www.iol.unh.eduhttp://www.moonv6.org

• The Moonv6 project is a global effort led by the North American IPv6 Task Force (NAv6TF) involving the University of New Hampshire - InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), Internet2, vendors, service providers and regional IPv6 Forum Task Force network pilots worldwide. Taking place across the U.S. at multiple locations, the Moonv6 project is the largest permanently deployed multi-vendor IPv6 network in the world. The U.S. Government's Department of Defense Joint Interoperability Testing Command (JITC) and other government agencies, the Defense Research & Engineering Network (DREN) and the High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) also play significant roles in the Moonv6 demonstrations ensuring DoD interoperability and migration objectives are identified and demonstrated.

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Extreme Leverages MAC-in-MAC to Scale Ethernet to 16 Million Users

Extreme Networks introduced new capabilities based on emerging Ethernet standards that enable its BlackDiamond 12K platform to address the scalability of service provider aggregation networks for business and residential subscribers.



Extreme Networks' "Multidimensional Ethernet" capabilities are comprised of three key dimensions:

• MAC-in-MAC scalability,



• Ethernet Cross Connect technology,


and Hierarchical Quality of Service (QoS).

Iometrix, the lab used to certify Carrier Ethernet products and services for the Metro Ethernet Forum, was commissioned to perform a battery of tests that covered scalability using MAC-in-MAC, the proposed IEEE 802.1ah standard, for provider backbone deployments; Ethernet Cross-Connect technology for directing subscribers to a variety of content networks; and hierarchical per- subscriber, per-application quality of service -- the key components to delivering cost effective and scaleable Carrier Ethernet networks.



"The last hurdle for Ethernet to effectively meet the demands of service provider networks is scalability," said Bob Mandeville, founder and president of Iometrix. "Until Ethernet can effectively scale to support hundreds of thousands of users, it will not be a legitimate solution at the core. This test, the first of its kind, has shown that MAC-in-MAC, and Extreme Networks implementation of Multidimensional Ethernet delivered that scalability."



Extreme Networks said the Iometrix test results demonstrated :

• Extended scalability to millions of distinct service instances with MAC-in-MAC while successfully encapsulating duplicate S-Tags.



• Delivered point-to-point and point-to-multipoint services at wire rate using MAC-in-MAC while guaranteeing subscriber traffic integrity.



• Successfully switched traffic from any selected individual subscriber to specific service instances by mapping C-Tag IDs to S-Tags IDs bi-directionally and at wire rate enabling simple layer 2 connections to content networks.



• Applied bandwidth profiles at both ingress and egress ports and accurately triggered on multiple criteria and at wire rate to prioritize subscriber traffic.



• Dynamically allocated bandwidth among different traffic classes at wire rate.

http://www.extremenetworks.com

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Nortel Appoints Darryl Edwards as EMEA President

Nortel has appointed Darryl Edwards as president of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, replacing Steve Pusey who is leaving the company to join Vodafone Group Plc as its Chief Technology Officer. Edwards has been with Nortel for 14 years. Most recently, Edwards was Nortel president of Northern Europe, Middle East and NETAS, Nortel's joint venture in Turkey. In the past, he has been CEO of Nortel Israel and of Nortel Networks Germany. Prior to joining Nortel, Edwards spent 13 years at GPT. He will continue to be based in Maidenhead, England.

http://www.nortel.com

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Bell Canada Announces Executive Appointments

Bell Canada announced the following changes to its leadership team.



Wade Oosterman is appointed President of Bell Mobility and Bell Distribution Inc. (BDI), as well as Chief Brand Officer of Bell Canada, effective immediately.



Stephane Boisvert, former Senior Vice-President, Global Client Solutions Sales of Sun Microsystems Inc., is appointed President of Bell Canada's Enterprise business, replacing Isabelle Courville, which has decided to step down.
http://www.bell.ca

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Vonage Adds 256,000 VoIP Lines in Q2

Vonage reported Q2 revenue of $143 million, up 141% from $59 million in the year-ago quarter. Net loss for the quarter was $74 million, down 14% from $85 million in the prior quarter.



Vonage added 1,005,000 net subscriber lines during the twelve months ended June 30, 2006, including approximately 256,000 during the second quarter, the second highest level of net additions in the Company's history. Vonage ended the second quarter with over 1,853,000 total subscriber lines, an increase of 16% from the prior quarter and 119% above the year-ago level.



Total marketing costs were $90 million in the second quarter 2006, 46% above the year-ago quarter amount of $62 million, and 2% above the prior quarter 2006 amount of $88 million. Marketing costs per gross subscriber line addition were $239 for the second quarter 2006. The comparable amount for the year-ago quarter was $236. Customer premise equipment ("CPE") subsidy, a measure representing the net cost of a Vonage-enabled device per gross subscriber line addition, was down $3.32 to $24.68 for the second quarter 2006 from $28.00 in the year-ago quarter.



The company hopes to end 2006 with 2.3 to 2.45 million subscriber lines.

http://www.vonage.com

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Verizon Reaches 6.1 million Broadband Customers, including 375,000 for FiOS Internet

Verizon reported Q2 revenue of $22.7 billion, up 25.6 percent from second quarter 2005. Reported quarterly earnings were $1.6 billion, or 55 cents per diluted share, compared with $2.1 billion, or 75 cents per share, in the second quarter 2005 -- including 9 cents per share in special items for severance and related pension and benefits charges, and for employee relocations and merger integration costs.



Some highlights for the quarter:


Verizon Wireless

• Added 1.8 million net customers in the second quarter 2006, for a total of 54.8 million customers nationwide, representing a 15.8 percent increase in total customers from the end of the second quarter last year. During the past 12 months, the company added nearly 7.5 million net customers.



• All of the net additions in the quarter and almost all of those in the past 12 months were retail customers -- that is, businesses and consumers directly served and managed by Verizon Wireless and who buy Verizon Wireless- branded service, rather than customers of the company's resellers.



• Total churn was a record-low 1.13 percent, and churn among the company's retail postpaid customers was 0.87 percent, another record.



• Verizon Wireless revenues grew 18.0 percent year-over-year to $9.3 billion in the second quarter 2006, driven by continued strong customer growth and demand for data services.



• Wireless data revenues topped $1.0 billion for the first time in a quarter. Wireless data revenues accounted for nearly 12.9 percent of total wireless service revenues.

Wireline

• There were 440,000 net new broadband connections, which include both DSL and the FiOS fiber-based access service.



• FiOS Internet customers accounted for 111,000 of the new broadband additions and now make up 375,000 of the company's 6.1 million total wireline broadband connections, which have increased 47.9 percent compared with the second quarter 2005. FiOS data services are becoming increasingly available for sale in 16 states, as Verizon's FTTP network passed a total of 4.5 million premises by mid-July 2006 and is on target to pass 6 million premises by year- end.



• Penetration of FiOS Internet service now stands at 12 percent across all markets. In markets where Verizon has been selling FiOS data services for at least a year, the average penetration rate was 15 percent at the one-year mark, well on the way toward achieving the company's goal of 30 percent penetration in five years.



• Earnings dilution from FiOS data and video deployment was 7 cents per share in the second quarter 2006 and is expected in the range of 28 cents per share to 30 cents per share for the full year.



• Verizon now has 485,000 customers who receive a Verizon DIRECTV bundle, adding a company-record 70,000 net new customers in the quarter.



• Total switched access lines in service -- not including wireline broadband connections -- were 47.0 million at the end of the second quarter 2006, a 7.4 percent decline compared with the second quarter
  2005.



• Total wireline operating revenues were $12.8 billion in the second quarter 2006, an increase of 35.3 percent compared with the second quarter 2005 on an adjusted basis (non-GAAP) excluding revenues from operations sold in 2005. On the same adjusted basis, total wireline operating expenses were $11.6 billion in the second quarter 2006, a 40.1 percent increase compared with the second quarter 2005.

Verizon Business

• The company is ahead of plan to achieve its 2006 target of $550 million in synergies from the MCI merger. By the end of the second quarter, approximately $200 million in synergies were realized, at a rate that will continue to ramp up through the remainder of the year.



• Verizon Business operating revenues increased 1.6 percent over Q1, on a pro-forma basis, to $5.1 billion in the second quarter 2006.



• Verizon's total debt at the end of the second quarter 2006 was $42.4 billion, compared with $38.3 billion at the end of 2005. The increase was primarily due to the addition of MCI's debt as a result of the merger.

http://www.verizon.com

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AT&T Expands its Metro Switched Ethernet Service Coverage

AT&T is expanding the reach of its "OPT-E-MAN" managed metropolitan optical transport service to cover 22 additional U.S. cities. This expansion brings the number of metropolitan areas where OPT-E-MAN is available to 41.



AT&T OPT-E-MAN is a fully managed, switched Ethernet network service that provides customers with a highly efficient solution for communicating across multiple locations within a metropolitan area. The service can be configured in a variety of ways, including point to point, point to multipoint and multipoint to multipoint. The service also is scalable from 5 Mbps to 1 Gbps.



The added metropolitan areas are in Ohio -- Columbus, Dayton, Akron/Cuyahoga Falls/Canton, Toledo, Youngstown; Indiana -- South Bend; Illinois -- Springfield, Rockford, Campaign/Urbana; Michigan -- Grand Rapids; Oklahoma -- Oklahoma City, Tulsa; Texas -- El Paso, Corpus Christi, Amarillo, Laredo; Kansas -- Topeka; and California -- Modesto/Stockton/Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo and Redding.



OPT-E-MAN's original service areas include San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Green Bay, Appleton, Madison, Eau Claire and all major metropolitan areas in Connecticut.

http://www.att.com

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NETGEAR Introduces ADSL2+-VoIP-Wireless Gateway

NETGEAR announced worldwide availability of its Integrated ADSL2+ Modem and Wireless Router with Voice. The new DG834GV combines an ADSL2+ Modem, Router, 10/100 Wired LAN Switch, 802.11g Wireless Access Point, VoIP, and SPI Double Firewall. In addition, VPN pass-through enables safe connections to a user's business network from their home and office, while Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) and Denial of Service (DoS) attack prevention avert possible threats by scanning all incoming traffic.
http://www.netgear.com

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EarthLink Selected to Build out Pasadena Network

The City of Pasadena, California selected EarthLink to build, own and operate a 23 square mile citywide municipal wireless network.



EarthLink will offer a symmetrical, 1 Mbps solution for customers and will work with the City to develop a digital inclusion program to offer certain qualifying residents discounted Internet access.



The City of Pasadena will be an anchor tenant on the network.



As part of its commitment to open access, EarthLink will enable multiple, competing providers to offer their services to consumers and businesses over its network.



EarthLink will deploy Tropos Networks' MetroMesh Wi-Fi routers on light poles. In addition, EarthLink will deploy Motorola's MOTOwi4 portfolio of products, including its Canopy high-speed backhaul and Wi-Fi mesh network equipment.

http://www.earthlink.net

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Centillium Reports Q2 Revenue of $18.3 Million

Centillium Communications, a supplier of DSL silicon, reported Q2 revenue of $18.3 million, compared with $20.3 million during the first quarter of 2006 and $18.6 million for the second quarter of 2005. GAAP results were a net loss of $1.6 million, or ($0.04) per share, for the second quarter of 2006, compared with a net loss of $313,000, or ($0.01) per share, for the first quarter of 2006 and a net loss of $3.7 million, or ($0.10) per share, for the second quarter of 2005.



"Although during the second quarter our net revenues were as expected, our ADSL revenues from Japan declined by 30% to $8.4 million, compared with $12.0 million in the previous quarter. We expect a continued decline in our Japan ADSL revenues in the coming quarters," said Faraj Aalaei, co-founder and CEO of Centillium. "Our second quarter 2006 revenues, as a percentage of net revenues by region, were approximately 51 percent from Japan, 23 percent from Asia, excluding Japan, 14 percent from the U.S. and 12 percent from Europe. Also, our second quarter 2006 revenues, as a percentage of net revenues by market, were 73 percent from DSL, 22 percent from VoIP and 5 percent from Optical."



During Q2, Centillium announced a VDSL2 system-on-a-chip product family.

http://www.centillium.com

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