Belgacom Tops 100,000 IPTV Subscribers

Belgacom passed the 100,000 mark for its IPTV service at the end of September, ahead of its end-of-the-target. Belgacom is using the Surpass Home Entertainment from Siemens, a turnkey end-to-end solution for IPTV delivered over ADSL.



The net ARPU (average revenue per user) stood at EUR 11.6 for the first nine months of 2006. This figure showed a rise in the third quarter which can obviously be traced to the introduction of additional services such as "Rewatching TV" and special offerings sorted by topic.

http://www.siemens.com/networks

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WiMedia Alliance Finalizes UWB Radio Certification Program

The WiMedia Alliance finalized the Certification Program for its member companies to utilize in testing their products for compliance with the WiMedia UWB Common Radio Platform specification.



WiMedia's Certification Program is comprised of two parts, the first of which is a compliance and interoperability process that tests and "registers" Physical Layer implementations (PHYs) based on the WiMedia Alliance's PHY specification. Once a PHY is registered, the program's second part, WiMedia Platform Certification, supports these eligible PHYs for use in a UWB platform that can be submitted for certification.



In the most recent testing event held in late October, six WiMedia member companies and PHY vendors - Alereon, Inc., Realtek Semiconductor, Staccato Communications, Tzero Technologies, Inc., WiQuest Communications, and Wisair - tested their products against compliance criteria that included the final WiMedia Alliance's PHY specification. This event resulted in the establishment of registered PHYs for these companies' products.



"With the WiMedia Certification Program now in place and the registration of initial PHYs, the key building blocks for the WiMedia UWB Common Radio Platform have been established for vendors to develop products that will eventually obtain WiMedia Platform Certification," said Stephen Wood, president of the WiMedia Alliance. "Our certification program is designed to assure vendors and consumers alike that products certified by WiMedia will work properly in the close proximity to other WiMedia certified devices."http://www.wimedia.org

• WiMedia has held five PHY interoperability testing events over the past 11 months

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BT Selects Motorola for Metro Wi-Fi Deployments

BT selected Motorola to supply Mesh Wi-Fi network infrastructure and services for six of "Wireless City" initiatives across the UK. The contract will see Motorola design, deploy and manage city-wide Wi-Fi networks with BT in, for example, Birmingham and Newcastle. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Motorola will supply solutions from its MOTOwi4 wireless broadband portfolio, which will be deployed across the cities on existing sites such as lampposts. The Motorola solution allows data to be backhauled wirelessly.



BT said Westminster is furthest advanced with its plans and roll out of the street-based network, following a successful pilot. The city council has signed an agreement with Vertex Data Science Ltd, who will work with BT to develop applications running over the wireless broadband network, which will improve the flow of information and services across the city.

BT expect to roll out the first 12 Wireless Cities by the end of March 2007.

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

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AT&T Introduces U-verse in Second Market -- Houston

Houston is the second market where AT&T's U-verse services are now commercially available, following a June launch in San Antonio.




AT&T U-verse TV offers variety of TV packages with more than 300 channels, including digital music, local, and premium movie and sports programming. Over 25 HD channels are available. Three packages of AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet U-verse Enabled service are offered. The top downlink rate currently supported is 6 Mbps.

http://www.att.com/

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Sun, Ericsson, Nokia Form Telecommunications Platform Initiative

Sun Microsystems, Ericsson, Nokia announced the formation of a Telecommunications Platform Initiative to develop the requirements for a standardized, integrated telecommunications technology platform. The aim is to simplify technology integration by enabling design, development and supply chain efficiencies, thereby benefiting the network operator.



The companies said that by collaborating on a series of publicly available requirements documents for the Operations, Administration and Management Layer (OA&M) and Service Layer environments, the Initiative could provide the broader telecommunications industry with new alternatives to improve time to service, time to market and ultimately, time to revenues.

Sun and the members of this Initiative will continue to be actively involved with other standardization and specification bodies such as PICMG and SCOPE.
http://www.sun.com

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Harley-Davidson Awards $10.5 million Networking Contract to AT&T

AT&T has won a three-year, $10.5 million global networking contract from Harley-Davidson. AT&T will deploy an MPLS-based IP VPN integrating 27 Harley-Davidson locations in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific with a full range of voice, data and business continuity services. The contract renews and expands a long-standing relationship between the two companies.

http://www.att.com

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Sonus Delivers National Communications System (NCS) Emergency Call Suite for VoIP

Sonus Networks announced a suite of IP-based voice calling solutions to serve National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) needs as outlined by the National Communications System (NCS), whose Executive Agent is the Department of Homeland Security. The National Communications System aims to ensure a high probability of call completion for government officials during periods of network congestion, including crisis or emergency, attack, recovery and reconstitution.



Sonus Networks, working in collaboration with the NCS and its integration contractor, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), has developed a robust set of next generation network features that meet the requirements outlined by the NCS.



Most recently, the NCS enlisted the support of Sonus to develop two new features to round out its NS/EP services product functionality: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Resource Priority Header (RPH) and Office Wide Call Queuing (OWCQ), which together identify and allocate resource priority to calls from authorized federal, state, local, and critical industry personnel who have NS/EP missions.



Sonus Networks said it is the first to develop this set of next generation NS/EP features. The company recently hosted a demonstration in their Richardson, Texas, laboratories for NCS, CSC, other NCS contractors, and a group of leading U.S. carriers. The Richardson lab is Sonus' largest customer integration and testing facility.



To ensure that NS/EP communications are being addressed across various network types, the NCS has implemented the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) and Wireless Priority Service (WPS). Sonus' NS/EP product portfolio is designed to meet the needs of each of these two services.

http://www.sonusnet.comhttp://www.ncs.gov

• President John F. Kennedy established the National Communications System (NCS) by a Presidential Memorandum on August 21, 1963 in response to inter-government communications problems experience during the Cuban missile crisis. The NCS mandate included linking, improving, and extending the communications facilities and components of various Federal agencies, focusing on interconnectivity and survivability.

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AT&T Promises to Invest up to $620 million in Michigan Broadband

AT&T announced plans to invest up to $620 million in Michigan over the next three years to bring next-generation video and broadband services to local consumers.



AT&T also announced its intent to hire 2,000 employees across Michigan over the next three years to upgrade its fiber-optic network and install its next-generation video products in consumers' homes. Approximately 1,200 of these high tech jobs are expected to be in place by the end of 2007.



The announcement comes as the Michigan Senate Technology and Energy Committee debates a bill that would make it easier for new entrants into the video delivery business. The Michigan House of Representatives already passed House Bill 6456 with a bipartisan 80-21 vote on Nov. 14.

http://www.att.com

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Tandberg Offers Video Solutions for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

TANDBERG introduced a visual communication portfolio that seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.



The company's SharePoint portfolio is comprised of TANDBERG Movi for PC videoconferencing; TANDBERG Management Suite (TMS) for videoconference scheduling and management; and the TANDBERG Content Server for video streaming and archiving. TANDBERG integration is enabled through Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 Features, Web Parts and Web Services.



TANDBERG is also releasing the source code that allows customers to further integrate, customize and automate TANDBERG solutions within existing applications or portals.

http://www.tandberg.net

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FCC Issues First Set of AWS Spectrum Licenses

The FCC formally granted 550 of the 1,087 licenses won in the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) Auction completed September 18, 2006. These licenses represent $12.2 billion of the $13.7 billion in total net high bids from Auction No. 66. This $12.2 billion in auction revenue will nearly double the approximately $14 billion in total revenue transferred to the U.S. Treasury from all previous FCC auctions combined. http://www.fcc.gov

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Alcatel and Lucent Complete Merger

Alcatel and Lucent Technologies completed their merger, creating a global communication solutions provider with pro-forma annual revenues of EUR 18.6 billion. The new company, Alcatel-Lucent, will be traded on EURnext Paris and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) from December 1st, 2006 under a new common ticker (ALU).



Alcatel-Lucent offers an extensive portfolio spanning IPTV, broadband access, carrier IP, IMS and next-generation networks, and 3G spread spectrum (UMTS and CDMA). It also enjoys strong customer relationships with the 100 largest telecommunications operators and counts more than 250,000 enterprise and government customers worldwide.



Patricia Russo, who will serve as CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, said: "Through this merger, we are bringing together two top-ranking companies to form an undisputed leader in the industry, a company poised to enrich people's lives by transforming the way the world communicates. Alcatel-Lucent is a strong and enduring ally that service providers, governments and enterprises can count on to help them unlock new market and revenue opportunities. This combination represents a strategic fit of vision, geography, solutions and people, leveraging the best of both companies to deliver meaningful communications solutions that are personalized, simple to adopt and available globally. Both Alcatel and Lucent embraced a common culture of innovation and excellence that will help ensure the success of our merger."



Financial terms: As a result of the merger, each outstanding share of Lucent common stock has been converted into the right to receive 0.1952 of an Alcatel ADS. In connection with the merger, Alcatel has issued approximately 878 million shares, which is equivalent to the total number of ADS to be issued to the holders of Lucent common stock. Following the completion of the merger, approximately 2.31 billion ordinary shares of Alcatel-Lucent are outstanding.



Some highlights of the new company:

• 79,000 employees worldwide, after completion of the pending Thales transaction.



• Approximately 23,000 of the 79,000 total number of employees at Alcatel-Lucent are in R&D, including global Bell Labs which will remain headquartered in New Jersey, USA.



• More than 18,000 employees working in services worldwide.



• The company expects to reduce its combined worldwide workforce by approximately 9,000 employees.



• There will be five Business Groups: the Wireline Business Group, the Wireless Business Group and the Convergence Business Group (addressing the needs of the carrier market), the Enterprise Business Group and the Service Business Group. Each Business Group will have a decentralized regional organization that will provide strong local support to customers.

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

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