Ciena Reports Quarterly Revenue of $160.0 million

For its fiscal fourth quarter ending October 31, Ciena reported revenue of $160.0 million, representing a 4.9% sequential increase from fiscal third quarter revenue of $152.5 million and an increase of 35.3% over revenue of $118.2 million for the same period a year ago. For the fiscal year ending October 31, 2006, Ciena's unaudited revenue was $564.1 million, representing an increase of 32.0 % over the previous year.



Q4 represents the company's eleventh sequential quarterly increase in revenue.



Ciena's unaudited fiscal fourth quarter net income was $13.1 million, or a net income of $0.14 per diluted share.



Ciena ended the fiscal fourth quarter 2006 with cash and short- and long-term investments of $1.2 billion.

http://www.ciena.com

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Siemens Exec Arrested in Germany

On Tuesday, Thomas Ganswindt, a former executive and board member with Siemens, was arrested by German authorities in connection an expanding bribery scandal potentially involving hundred of millions of EURs over the pas seven years.



Separately, following an internal audit, Siemens executives said that close to EUR 420 million ($556 million) of dubious payments made the company for various consulting services were now subject to further investigation. The allegations are that Siemens used these consulting funds to pay bribes in order to secure some major telecom contracts around the world.

http://www.convergedigest.com

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KPN introduces International Ethernet VPN Service for Enterprises

KPN launched its "EURRings International Ethernet VPN Service", offering corporate customers the ability to connect multiple locations through VPNs based on end-to-end Ethernet connections. The EURRings International Ethernet VPN Service is currently available in the five core countries of the international KPN network - The Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, France and Germany - and offers extended coverage via Ethernet over SDH technology across KPN's high capacity fibre-optic network in 22 European countries.



KPN said its International Ethernet VPN Service facilitates high-speed Ethernet connectivity between two or more locations, whether they are in the same country or spread across Europe. In addition, the new EURRings International Ethernet VPN Service allows organizations to conclude one contract for all their Ethernet services. Benefits include a single point of contact for a fully integrated national & international solution, one international service desk, one delivery platform and one invoice that can be provided in various currencies.

http://www.kpn.com

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IP Unity to Acquire Glenayre Messaging

IP Unity, a supplier of carrier-grade media servers, application servers and real-time multimedia applications, agreed to acquire Glenayre Messaging. Financial terms were not disclosed.



The combined company, to be known as IP Unity Glenayre, will deliver a portfolio of rich media services from a single, IMS enabled carrier grade platform. The merged unified communications framework brings together messaging services and rich media distribution to users across disparate networks and devices.



Applications include voicemail, unified messaging, conferencing, SMS, MMS, text to speech, speech recognition, IVR voice portal, color ringback tones, prepaid billing, video portal, video conferencing, videomail and video gaming all built using open standards based technologies such as VoiceXML.



The companies serve a diverse global customer base of over 2000 deployments for 300 wireline telco, cable, wireless and FMC service providers, large enterprises and public agencies. The two companies said they currently have no customers in common and market their products in largely different geographies and networks.



The new company will have major locations in Atlanta Georgia, Quincy Illinois, Milpitas California, Singapore and Bangalore, India. http://www.ip-unity.comhttp://www.glenayremessaging.com

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BT Fusion Launches FMC for Small Businesses

BT Fusion launched a Wi-Fi fixed and mobile convergence service for business over one mobile device, with seamless two-way handover between Wi-Fi and GSM. In-office Wi-Fi provides access to all fixed and mobile voice messages stored in one place, and call rates are significantly lower than over GSM .



In the office, or at BT Openzone hotspots, for up to 60 minutes customers pay 5p for UK fixed line calls, less than the cost of a text; 15p for calls to BT mobiles, and 25p for calls to other UK mobiles. On the move all calls to both fixed and mobile numbers are capped at 25p for up to 60 minutes.



BT is initially offering two dual-mode Wi-Fi mobile handsets: the Nokia 6136 and the Motorola A910. Samsung's P200 will be added to the range next month. Up to 6 Fusion Bluetooth handsets can be linked (paired) to BT Business Hub with up to 3 making calls simultaneously. Or up to 10 Fusion Wi-Fi handsets can be linked to the BT Business Hub with 5 making calls simultaneously The range for handsets connections between the Hub and handsets is up to 25 meters,



When combined with BT Business One Plan, BT's triple-play package for mobile, fixed and broadband, prices start from £15 a month including the handset.

http://www.btplc.com

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AT&T + BellSouth Merger Off the Agenda for FCC' s Dec 20 Meeting

Consideration of the AT&T + BellSouth merger will not be a part of the FCC's next open meeting on December 20th. No date has been set for voting on the proposed merger.




http://www.fcc.gov

• Earlier this month, the General Counsel of the FCC cleared Commissioner Robert McDowell from any conflict of interest concern that might otherwise have prevented him from voting on the AT&T/BellSouth merger proceeding.



• In October, the FCC postponed a vote on the AT&T + BellSouth merger, as the Democrat commissioners sought concessions from the companies, while the two Republican commissioners sought a quick approval of the transaction.

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DSL Installed Base Reaches 173 Million

DSL's subscriber base worldwide has exceeded 173 million while global broadband subscribers reached more than 263 million in the 12 months to 30 September 2006. DSL's market share now stands at 65.6% market share, rising to 82% in the European Union.





According to the DSL Forum and industry analyst Point Topic, each week 1.25 million people sign up to broadband.



Globally, the largest broadband market in the world is the USA with more than 55.5 million subscribers, followed by China at 48.5 million. Japan in third place has almost 26 million. Together, they account for almost half of all broadband connections across the world.





Some other key findings:



Sixteen countries now have over two million DSL subscribers, together representing just under half of all broadband customers using this technology.







"As the global reach of broadband into people's lives continues to grow, the range of access technologies used to deliver its benefits is also expanding to capitalise on the various available infrastructures. Even though DSL is the predominant delivery technology in the world, the DSL Forum is working to extend the benefits of our own specifications to be equally applicable for other network technologies and to address the service delivery needs of the ever-growing range of multimedia devices and applications that depend on broadband for their success."http://www.dslforum.org

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Hawaiian Telcom Selects Alcatel-Lucent for Triple Play

Hawaiian Telcom, the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in Hawaii, has selected Alcatel-Lucent's Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture to replace its existing infrastructure and to provide the scalability, reliability and speeds necessary to deliver new services.



The deployment will feature the ISAM product family, including the Alcatel 7330 ISAM FTTN and the Alcatel 7342 ISAM FTTU. The rollout will also include the 7750 Service Router (SR) and Alcatel 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS) to address its service routing requirements. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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

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Nokia Siemens Networks Merger Delayed Till Later in Q1 2007

Due to the current investigations of Siemens, the scope of which includes its carrier-related business, the planned merger between Nokia and Siemens is now expected to close sometime in Q1 2007, instead of January 2007 as originally planned.



Nokia and Siemens said they intend to adjust their agreements in order to have Siemens conduct an appropriate compliance review prior to closing of the transaction. This adjustment is an addition to the previously agreed closing conditions. Nokia plans to participate actively in the review.



Closing will be subject to an agreement between Nokia and Siemens on the results and consequences of a Siemens compliance review.


http://www.siemens.comhttp://www.nokia.com

• On June 19, 2006, Nokia and Siemens announced plans to combine Nokia's Networks business group and Siemens' carrier-related operations for fixed and mobile networks to form a new company called Nokia Siemens Networks. The new company had 2005 calendar year pro forma revenues of EUR 15.8 billion.

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Cablevision Reaches Two Million Broadband Customers

Cablevision Systems has surpassed the 2 million-customer milestone for its Optimum Online high-speed Internet service. The service now has a 44 percent take rate of the homes passed.



Earlier this year, Cablevision raised the speed of its core Optimum Online service, from up to 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, to new speeds of up to 15 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream, at no additional charge. The company also deployed its first premium tier high-speed Internet product, Optimum Online Boost, which offers customers downstream speeds of up to 30 Mbps, 5 Mbps upstream.



Cablevision also offers a special order high-speed Internet service, Optimum Online Ultra, which delivers symmetrical 50 Mbps connections for about $200 per month.

http://www.cablevision.com

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