Tuesday, October 17, 2006

I.T.U. Celebrates 100 Years of Regulating Wireless Communications

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is celebrating the 100th anniversary of it role in regulating radio communication. Later this month, the ITU will host an event to commemorate the 1906 Berlin Convention at which participating nations signed the International Radiotelegraph Convention. The 1906 Convention aimed at making two-way coast to ship radio communication free from harmful interference. These first regulations laid down rules for spectrum use for the operation of stations to reduce radio interference and establish technical standards for radio equipment.



Today, the ITU Radio Regulations -- a binding international treaty -- apply to frequencies ranging from 9 kHz to 400 GHz, and incorporate over 1,000 pages of information describing how the spectrum may be used and shared by more than 40 services around the globe. These services represent around 1,265,000 frequency assignments for terrestrial stations, 390 000 frequency assignments related to around 380 GSO orbital positions and around 250 non-GSO satellite systems along with another 50,000 assignments related to 3,700 satellite earth stations.

http://www.itu.int

Microsoft and Orange Launch Orange Messenger

Orange and Microsoft launched a new "Orange Messenger by Windows Live" service aimed at linking the 135 million Orange customers worldwide with the 240 million Windows Live Messenger users.



The companies are hoping the new IM implementation will become as widespread as the adoption of e-mail and SMS in everyday life.



"This new phase in our alliance with Microsoft, which builds upon the experience that we have acquired over the past years, opens up new growth opportunities for our fixed and mobile activities," said Didier Lombard, Chairman and CEO, France Telecom.

http://www.francetelecom.comhttp://www.microsoft.com
  • In July 2005, France Telecom/Orange and Microsoft announced the signing of a strategic alliance agreement involving the co-development of multimedia products and services for the combined audiences of both companies.

ZTE to Supply ULH DWDM backbone for GTS Central Europe

GTS Central Europe, a leading regional telecommunication provider, selected China's ZTE Corporation to deploy an ultra long haul DWDM transmission network linking Frankfurt in Germany, Prague in the Czech Republic and Bratislava in Slovakia. The network will use ZTE's ZXWM M900 DWDM equipment with RZ coding and AFEC ULH DWDM transmission technologies to provide 1,000 km transmission spans without electrical regeneration.



ZTE's system can provide up to 160 10 Gbps DWDM (1.6 Tbps) capacity, and be configured with variety of transponder cards. Financial terms were not disclosed.



GTS CE owns five telecommunications operators in the CEE region, including GTS Novera, the second largest fixed line operator in the Czech Republic.

http://www.zte.com.cn

Xelic Intros 40 Gbps SONET/SDH Framer Core

Xelic released a 40 Gbps SONET/SDH Framer Core that performs framing and byte alignment, transport overhead processing, contiguous concatenated pointer processing and path overhead processing for use in a variety of applications such as line cards, routers and test equipment.



The company said it has demonstrated this core in an FPGA implementation by verifying independent transmit and receive functions using industry standard 40 Gbps SONET/SDH test equipment. The system under test was comprised of a 40 Gbps transponder, OIF compliant SERDES and the Xelic Framer Core.

http://www.xelic-inc.com

Mobidia Names Gary Tauss as CEO

Mobidia Technology, a start-up based in Vancouver, has appointed Gary Tauss as president and CEO. Most recently, Tauss was the president and CEO of InfiniRoute Networks, a provider of managed VoIP peering services for wireline and wireless carriers, which was acquired by TNS. Prior to joining InfiniRoute, Tauss was CEO for LongBoard, Inc., a SIP-based, multi-media roaming provider for carriers. Tauss has also served as president and CEO of TollBridge Technologies, which developed voice over broadband systems for cable and DSL networks, and vice president and general manager of Ramp Networks, a small-office router manufacturer that was acquired by Nokia.



Mobidia Technology is developing end-to-end service performance management software that allows wireless operators to control the quality and prioritize the delivery of mobile content.



The system uses a Dynamic Multimedia Protocol (DMP) that is able to monitor, classify and manage each application and data type on the wireless network, along with its real-time requirements. The process enables TCP mediation and admission control, preventing TCP inefficiencies and "bandwidth hogs".

http://www.mobidia.com







Juniper Reports Q3 Revenue of $573.6 Million, up 5%

Juniper Networks reported Q3 net revenue of $573.6 million, compared with $546.4 million for the same quarter last year, an increase of 5 percent. Net revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2006 were $1,707.8 million, compared with $1,488.5 million for the same period last year, an increase of almost 15 percent.



Net cash, cash equivalents and investments increased over $166 million during the third quarter of 2006 to $2.4 billion.



http://www.juniper.net

Juniper's MX960 Targets Carrier Ethernet Market

Juniper Networks introduced its MX960 Ethernet Service Router for Carrier Ethernet services. The new platform features up to 960 Gbps of routing and switching capacity in a single chassis and offers up to twelve 40 Gbps slots. The platform is powered by Juniper's I-chip next-generation processor, which was first introduced on the M120. Key features include fully redundant hardware, separate data and control plane, graceful restart, MPLS traffic engineering fast reroute, and multi-homing VPLS capabilities.



Along with the MX960, Juniper is introducing Dense Port Concentrators (DPC) cards that combine high port density with a distributed architecture and on-board processing. This ensures that performance scales with the addition of interfaces. QoS is delivered at the interface level, enabling providers to offer a variety of Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, such as VLAN/transparent LAN, L2/L3 VPNs, voice over IP and video over IP--over Ethernet, with the ability to provide guaranteed SLAs.



A fully-loaded MX960 provides up to 480 Gigabit Ethernet ports or 48 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet per system.



Other features include line-rate unicast and multicast capabilities to enable efficient video distribution, as well as MPLS and VPLS control plane features.



The new MX960 also uses the JUNOS operating system.



The MX960 is expected to be available for deployment in the first quarter of 2007.



Separately, Juniper announced that Iometrix, an independent testing lab, has certified that the Juniper M- and T-Series routers are able to deliver Carrier Ethernet services based on the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) technical specifications MEF 9 and MEF 14 for scalability and Quality of Service (QoS).

http://www.juniper.net
  • In July 2006, Juniper Networks introduced its next-generation, mid-range, 10 Gigabit-enabled multiservice edge router based on a new "I-chip" ASIC that was developed in-house. The M120 utilizes the same JUNOS software as the company's existing product line. The I-chip provides support for up to 100,000 logical interfaces on a single platform; accommodates growth of the Internet routing table; and adds enhanced, application-specific QOS for delay sensitive traffic such as voice and multiplay networks. The new silicon also delivers improved multicast performance to better support IPTV.






Telstra International Launches Enterprise VoIP with CoS

Telstra International launched its "Global VoIP" service extending the enterprise voice service beyond the Australian market.



Telstra's Global VoIP off-net termination solution comes with three selectable Classes of Service -- premium, enhanced and standard -- that can be applied to each originating extension on the network. The service also features embedded monitoring capabilities based on Fluke/Visual Networks VoIP MRI (management, reporting and integrity) probes. These provide multinational clients with VoIP call visibility, monitoring and reporting functionality bundled within the IP VPN product, including application SLAs with target metrics for MOS and VoIP specific performance measures.

http://www.telstra-asiasales.com

AT&T to Provide Citywide Wi-Fi in Riverside, CA

AT&T will build and operate a citywide Wi-Fi wireless broadband Internet access network in Riverside, California. The agreement represents the largest planned AT&T deployment of citywide Wi-Fi service to date.



AT&T said the project will also be the nation's largest Wi-Fi network that is designed for both public and municipal use, covering the city's 80-plus square miles.



The agreement calls for AT&T to deploy equipment on city light poles and fixtures throughout the coverage area. AT&T will maintain and upgrade the network and all related equipment, as well as handle all customer service operations. Wi-Fi connections will feed into the same AT&T backbone network infrastructure that delivers a full range of broadband services, including DSL broadband and virtual private networks for businesses.



All users will be able to access a free broadband option with speeds expected to range between 200 and 500 Kbps. A range of ad-free, paid subscription options, including day passes and monthly subscriptions will also be available with speeds of up to 1 Mbps. Final details on the service packages and pricing will be announced at the launch of the service.



In addition, the city of Riverside will use a parallel AT&T Wi-Fi system supporting municipal and public-safety communications needs. After testing this system across a three-square-mile area, Riverside will have the option to use this parallel system or the citywide network to support municipal services. This parallel system will run over a separate frequency to enhance communications for city police, fire and public works employees.


http://www.att.com

D-link Announces 802.16-2005-Compliant WiMAX Router

D-Link made its entry into the WiMAX consumer premise equipment (CPE) market with an 802.16-2005 (formerly 802.16e)-compliant WiMAX router designed for service providers looking to offer wireless residential service.



The new router supports wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) and multiple physical layer (PHY) protocols. It supports adaptive modulation -- 64QAM, 16QAM, QPSK -- with up to 5 b/s/Hz spectral efficiency, and 1K fast Fourier transform (FFT) and channel bandwidth up to 20 MHz. Security implementation is based on AES-CCM (advanced encryption standard). Efficient MAC secure data unit (SDU) fragmentation/packing maximizes bandwidth utilization.



Field testing is expected in Q4 and general availability is forecast for Q1 2007.

http://www.dlink.com

Verizon to Spin-Off U.S. Directories into "Idearc"

Verizon's Board of Directors approved the proposed spin-off of the carrier's U.S. print and Internet yellow pages directories company to its stockholders. The spin-off will result in a new public company called Idearc (pronounced EYE'- dee-ark).



Verizon currently expects that a "when issued" public market for Idearc common stock will begin on or about Nov. 2 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol "IAR wi." Following the spin-off, Idearc common stock will trade under the symbol "IAR."http://www22.verizon.com/