Cable & Wireless Implements MetaSolv for OSS Upgrade

Cable & Wireless has selected MetaSolv for its IP and next-generation OSS transformation. The multi-million dollar agreement provides Cable & Wireless with an integrated next-generation platform for activation, provisioning and configuration management across all service domains. Financial terms were not disclosed.



The agreement includes MetaSolv Activation 5, a next generation activation platform that provides activation across all service domains, and MetaSolv Provisioning 5, a next generation back office provisioning platform that manages internal network build-outs and orchestrates the essential tasks required to deliver ordered services to customers.



The transaction also includes MetaSolv Configuration Management - a newly launched product that offers unique advantages when pre-integrated with MetaSolv Activation 5. MetaSolv Configuration Management is a next generation management platform that centralizes and optimizes network control operations for multi-vendor networks by implementing automated, proactive and consistent configuration management practices.



Cable & Wireless has already deployed the first phase of the project. This phase standardizes two large and disparate MPLS-based IP networks on MetaSolv's next-generation activation platform.



This enterprise-wide deployment has enabled Cable & Wireless to quickly derive significant synergies from their recent acquisition of a large European IP VPN service provider and provides the operator with a market-leading and common platform for the future growth of next-generation services.

http://www.metasolv.com

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Riverbed Rises 57% in IPO

Riverbed Technology completed its initial public offering (IPO), floating 8.7 million shares of its common stock at a price of $9.75 per share. In its opening day, the Riverbed shares (Nasdaq:RVBD) rose 57% to close at $15.30.



Goldman, Sachs & Co. acted as sole book-running manager, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities acted as joint lead managers, and Thomas Weisel Partners LLC acted as co-manager for the offering.

http://www.riverbed.com

• Last month, Riverbed Technology introduced three new "Steelhead" WAN optimization appliances that deliver high scalability and acceleration for up to one million simultaneous connections at 4 Gbps throughput. The latest release of the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS), version 3.0, supports QoS enforcement for all traffic types, including TCP, VoIP, video, and any other forms of UDP.



• Riverbed said it now has over 1,000 customers. For its latest fiscal quarter, the company racked up sales of $18 million

WAN Optimization: Finding the Best Approach

There are critical factors beyond bandwidth limitations that impede performance and productivity. While users complain that the network is painfully slow, network managers insist that the problem must lie outside the network, since utilization is at only a fraction of the total bandwidth available. How can both arguments be correct? Latency is the secret throughput killer. Physics dictate that latency is unavoidable in a wide area network - the information takes some small amount of time to traverse the network connection. But when transport and application protocols are layered on top of typical network latencies, frustration can mount as employees wait for data and applications to load.

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WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance Sets Charter

A newly formed WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA) held its inaugural meeting in Paris and announced its intention to sign the first international WiMAX roaming agreement in December. This roaming agreement will cover all WiMAX services and operate in all WiMAX frequency ranges. The agreement will act as the backbone of a future global WiMAX network and adheres to the 802.16e standards. The importance of global roaming has been proven with GSM. Today there are 25,000 roaming agreements worldwide generating over $25 billion in revenue every year.



The WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA) is a global organization composed exclusively of companies that own spectrum and operate services in the WiMAX bands.



Founding members include Unwired Australia, Network Plus Mauritius, UK Broadband, Irish Broadband, Austar Australia/Liberty Group, Telecom New Zealand, WiMAX Telecom Group, Enertel, and Woosh Telecom.

http://www.wisoa.com

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AT&T To Bring 2,000 Outsourced DSL Tech Support Jobs In-House

AT&T announced plans to add approximately 2,000 previously outsourced technical support jobs to the AT&T payroll. The jobs - which have been outsourced both domestically and overseas - are related to supporting AT&T's DSL customers who self-install their service or have other basic questions about the service.



The company is currently assessing where to locate the jobs, which will be added to the AT&T payroll by the end of 2008.



The DSL jobs are the second group of jobs that the company and the
union have agreed to create in recent months. Previously the company and most regions of the CWA agreed on a contract covering premises technicians who will perform installation work at customer homes for AT&T's new U-verse video service. Hiring of those workers is under way.

http://www.att.com

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Cablevision's Monthly ARPU at $109.01

Cablevision's net revenue for the second quarter of 2006 grew 15.6% to more than $1.4 billion compared to the prior year period, while operating income grew 75.1% to $166.5 million and adjusted operating cash flow increased 17.5% to $469.9 million. Some operational highlights include:

• Quarterly Revenue Generating Unit (RGU) growth of more than 385,000 new video, high-speed data and voice units; the Company's highest second quarter RGU gain ever



• Ninth consecutive quarter of basic video subscriber gains



• Cable Television net revenue growth of 17.9% as compared to the second quarter of 2005



• Average Monthly Revenue per Basic Video Customer ("RPS") of $109.01



• Basic video customers up 35,328 or 1.2% from March 2006 and 95,486 or 3.2% from June 2005; ninth consecutive quarter of basic video subscriber gains



• iO: Interactive Optimum digital video customers up 143,499 or 6.7% from March 2006 and 529,265 or 30.4% from June 2005



• Optimum Online high-speed data customers up 84,819 or 4.7% from March 2006 and 371,578 or 24.4% from June 2005



• Optimum Voice customers up 122,234 or 14.1% from March 2006 and 509,185 or 106.4% from June 2005



• Revenue Generating Units up 385,284 or 4.9% from March 2006 and 1,503,577 or 22.3% from June 2005



• Advertising revenue rose 22.6% from March 2006 and declined 1.0% from the prior year period.

http://www.cablevision.com

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Neuf Cegetel to Acquire AOL France for EUR 288 Million

Neuf Cegetel agreed to acquire AOL's French Internet access business, including 500,000 broadband customers, and its AMSE operation, which manages AOL France's customer service operations (500 people), for EUR 288 million.

Under the deal, AOL will provide audience services and manage the online advertising sales for Neuf Cegetel's Internet portal audience on www.neufportail.fr and www.cegetelportail.fr as well as www.aol.fr, which together total 9 million unique visitors monthly.



Neuf Cegetel said the acquisition reinforces its position as the leading alternative provider in its markets: mass market, enterprises and operators. In the mass market, AOL's 500,000 broadband customers should allow Neuf Cegetel to reach 2 million ADSL subscribers before the end of 2006, a year earlier than planned. And, by encouraging AOL's dial-up customers to migrate to broadband access, Neuf Cegetel expects to accelerate the growth of its market share.

By the end of 2006, Neuf Cegetel plans to offer all of AOL's broadband customers additional broadband services, such as Neuf TV DSL TV, mobile telephony and TWIN -- its GSM-WiFi fixed mobile convergence offering.

http://www.groupeneufcegetel.frhttp://www.aol.com

• Earlier this month, Telecom Italia agreed to acquire Time Warner's AOL Germany Internet access business for EUR 675 million ($870 million, Equity Value) in cash. Under the deal, AOL will provide co-branded audience services and content on a joint web portal for all of Telecom Italia's residential Internet access subscribers in Germany and will handle all online advertising sales. As of June 2006, AOL Germany, ranked second and third among German narrowband and broadband access providers, had 1.1 million broadband subscribers and approximately 1.3 million narrowband subscribers.



• Neuf Cegetel operates its own national network infrastructure in France comprising nearly 45,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables. The company has invested heavily in the rollout of its DSL access network with a presence in over 1,000 subscriber exchanges.



• Neuf Cegetel is also the leading unbundled line operator in Europe, with 1.7 million unbundled lines. As of June 2006, it has a presence in all segments of the market, providing a wide range of services to more than 3 million Mass Market customers, including 1.4 million broadband customers. 124,000 corporate sites are connected to its network and 200 telecoms and Internet service providers benefit from its Wholesale services.



• Neuf Cegetel's two key shareholders are the Louis Dreyfus and SFR groups. The company reported pro forma revenues of 2,752 million euros in 2005 on a pro forma basis (EUR 1.826 billion on a historical basis).

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Alcatel OmniPCX to Support Nokia Eseries Business Devices

Alcatel and Nokia announced a collaboration which extends Alcatel's business telephony offering to the mobile workforce by way of the Nokia Eseries, a range of business class devices.



The Intellisync Call Connect for Alcatel, is a Nokia offering designed to integrate Nokia Eseries devices into the Alcatel IP Communication server. With the solution, popular desk phone functionalities are available to the mobile user. For example, employees manage just one business number, and control where and when and on which device they receive their calls. Additionally, the benefits of the office phone, such as call conferencing, call back, and dial by name are delivered with the ease of use of Nokia Eseries, within the enterprise environment. http://www.alcatel.comhttp://www.nokia.com

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Nokia Embeds Microsoft's Live Search Services Into Mobile Search Platform

Nokia plans to integrate Microsoft's Live Search capabilities into its Mobile Search platform, thus enabling consumers access to Live Search directly from their Nokia Nseries multimedia computers and other compatible Nokia S60 devices. Live Search will provide advanced web search results in 14 languages to enable on-the-go access to the information and content consumers want most.



Specifically, the Mobile Search application is expected to be available in select markets in the standard sales packs of the Nokia N80 Internet Edition, Nokia N73, Nokia N93, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6680, and Nokia 6681.



Microsoft will provide advanced search results for web search, as well as access to information such as stock quotes, movie times, and common facts via Encarta Instant Answers. http://www.nokia.comhttp://www.microsoft.com

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JDSU Announces 1-for-8 Reverse Stock Split

The Board of Directors of JDSU approved a 1-for-8 reverse split of its common stock, following approval by the company's stockholders on December 1, 2005. The reverse stock split will be effective at on Monday, October 16, 2006. JDSU's common stock will begin trading on the NASDAQ on a split adjusted basis when the market opens on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, under the temporary trading symbol "JDSUD". The trading symbol will revert to "JDSU" after approximately twenty trading days.



JDSU said the reverse stock split is intended to enhance investors' visibility into the company's profitability on a per share basis. The company also believes that a higher share price could broaden JDSU's appeal to investors, in addition to reducing per share transaction fees and certain administrative costs.



The reverse split will reduce the number of shares of the Company's common stock outstanding from approximately 1.7 billion to approximately 211 million.

http://www.jdsu.com

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TI to Repurchase Additional $5 Billion in Stock, Increase Dividend

The Board of Directors of Texas Instruments (TI) has authorized the company to repurchase an additional $5 billion of its common stock.
TI plans to repurchase shares at times and prices considered appropriate by the company. When combined with other previously announced buyback plans, the total outstanding share repurchase authorization is now $6.8 billion.



Including today's announcement, the Board has authorized the repurchase of $15 billion of stock since September 2004. Over this period, the company has reduced the number of its shares outstanding by over 200 million shares, or more than 10 percent.



Additionally, the company plans to raise its quarterly cash dividend 33 percent. TI's new quarterly dividend rate will be $0.04 per quarter, resulting in annual dividend payments of $0.16 per share. http://www.ti.com

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Mobile Phone Companies Commit to Environmental Action Plan

A group of mobile manufacturers, network operators, suppliers, recyclers, consumer and environmental organisations, led by Nokia, has committed to improve the environmental performance of mobile phones and to do more to raise consumer awareness and participation in take-back and recycling. Key points of the initiative include:

• Reducing energy consumption of mobile phones. One idea is to equip phones with reminders to unplug chargers once the battery is recharged. Nokia plans to have these alerts in new phones by the middle of next year.



• Eliminating the use of specific materials of concern. For example, Nokia no longer use Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR) on new printed wiring boards used to make mobile phones.



• Improving the amount of phones collected through take-back schemes and recycled. Over the next two years the group will look at the range of existing recycling schemes operated around the world and identify which work most successfully and why.



• Giving consumers more environmental information about products.

The group was created as part of a European Commission pilot project looking at how different industries could work with stakeholder groups to reduce the environmental impact of their products throughout their lifecycle.



Nokia proposed the mobile phone sector to the Commission. Other members of the voluntary group were Motorola, Panasonic Mobile Communications, France Telecom/Orange, Vodafone, TeliaSonera AB, Intel, Epson, Spansion and Umicore, and environmental experts from the WWF, the Finnish Environmental Institute, the UK's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC).

http://www.nokia.com

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Ikanos Debuts VDSL2 Residential Gateway

Ikanos Communications introduced a fully integrated VDSL2 residential gateway reference platform for universal customer premises equipment (CPE) to support triple play applications. The VDSL2 residential gateway design integrates the Ikanos' Fusiv processor with its Fx100100S-5 chipset into a single solution that delivers 100 Mbps symmetrical throughput. Capabilities include VDSL2, ADSL2+, VoIP, Wireless Local Area Networking (WLAN), Ethernet switching, data routing, NAT and firewall.



Ikanos said its platform is designed to deliver the flexibility that carriers need to serve a variety of consumers, from those wanting high-value triple play services to those needing only broadband Internet access.



Netopia is using the design in a residential gateway supporting service assurance for triple play roll-outs.

http://www.ikanos.com

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Verizon Marks One Year Anniversary of FiOS TV

Verizon marked the first anniversary of its fiber-optic FiOS TV service this week. The service was launched Keller, Texas, on Sept. 22, 2005, and now serves more than 80 communities in North Texas, California, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York.



Verizon expects to begin providing FiOS TV service in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey in the coming months, and it will expand deployment in the states where FiOS TV already is available. Verizon this week also announced it will offer FiOS TV in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 2007.



FiOS TV delivers more than 200 all-digital channels in its Premier Package plus access to thousands of on-demand programs and advanced interactive features.



In addition to increasing the number of HD channels and on-demand titles, FiOS TV plans next year to more than triple the 17 channels currently in its international channel lineup. Twenty-seven Spanish-language channels are also available in other programming packages.



Additional new capabilities include FiOS TV Widgets (introduced in June), which provides local weather and traffic information and Home Media DVR (launched in August), which is a multi-room digital video recorder that enables viewing of recorded programs on set-top boxes throughout the home without requiring customers to set up a complex home network or buy extra equipment.



The company did not disclose the total number of FiOS TV customers.

http://www.verizon.com

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Iridium Satellite Names ex-Telcordia Exec as CEO

Iridium Satellite named Matthew J. Desch, 48, as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, replacing Dan Colussy. Desch was most recently CEO of New Jersey-based Telcordia Technologies, Inc., a supplier of software and services to the telecommunications industry. Desch was instrumental in moving Telcordia into new wireless and international markets, and spinning off the company to private equity from SAIC, Inc. Prior to Telcordia, Desch spent 13 years at Nortel Networks, leaving in 2000 as President, Global Service Providers and responsible for Nortel's business in Europe and Asia.

http://www.iridium.com

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