JDSU Posts Strongest Results in 5 Years

JDSU reported quarterly revenue of $366.3 million and GAAP net income was $23.2 million, or $0.10 per diluted share. This compares to net revenue of $318.1 million and GAAP net loss of $(17.4) million, or $(0.08) per share, reported for the preceding quarter, and to net revenue of $312.9 million and a GAAP net loss of $(42.1) million, or $(0.20) per share, for the same period a year earlier.



"During the second quarter, JDSU delivered the strongest revenue, gross margin, and net income results in more than five years," said Kevin Kennedy, JDSU's Chief Executive Officer. "Positive earnings per share results show marked improvement from previous quarters, highlighting the impact of our strategy to diversify our business and return to profitability, while continuing to deliver highly innovative products to market."



Some highlights:

• Communications Test and Measurement net revenue of $168.2 million was up 44% from last quarter, and up 15% from the same quarter a year ago. This segment represented 46% of total revenue.



• Optical Communications net revenue of $132.7 million was down 4% from last quarter, and up 21% from the same quarter a year ago, representing 36% of total net revenue.



• Advanced Optical Technologies net revenue of $40.4 million was up 3% from last quarter, and down 2% from the same quarter a year ago. This segment represented 11% of total net revenue.

http://www.jdsu.com

Read More

Cisco Expands Catalyst Switch Portfolio

Cisco has expanded its Catalyst switching portfolio with new models aimed at campus networks. The rollout includes:

• Cisco Catalyst 3750-E and 3560-E Series Switches: Enterprise-class line of 10/100/1000 wiring closet switches with 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and full Power over Ethernet (PoE) configurations.



• Cisco Catalyst 3560 and Catalyst 2960 Compact Switches: Small form-factor switches with Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet and PoE configurations designed for meeting rooms, classrooms and other wiring and space-constrained environments.



• Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 8700W Enhanced AC Power Supply: Helps enable greater PoE density with full redundancy across all chassis ports.



• Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Full Image In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU): Helps ensure business continuity by enabling a full Cisco IOS Software upgrade without downtime.



• Cisco Redundant Power System (RPS) 2300: A redundant power system that provides users with uninterrupted network services in the event of an internal power-supply failure.

http://www.cisco.com/go/catalyst

Read More

New Skies Loses NSS-8 Satellite in Sea Launch Failure

Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket, carrying New Skies' NSS-8 satellite, failed during lauch from the Odyssey Platform in the equatorial Pacific, leading to the total loss of the satellite.
Sea Launch said it was trying to determine the root cause of the lauch failure.



NSS-8 was built by Boeing. The spacecraft was intended to operate at SES NEW SKIES orbital position of 57° East to replace the existing NSS-703 satellite. New Skies said the launch failure of NSS-8 means that NSS-703 will now stay at 57° East in order to continue to serve existing customers until at least 2009. The company has already initiated the construction of NSS-9 for launch in 2009 into the Pacific Ocean Region. NSS-9 is intended to free up NSS-5 which in turn will then be available to relocate to 57° to replace NSS-703.

http://www.boeing.com/special/sea-launch/http://www.newskies.comBecause of its launch site on the Equator, the Zenit-3SL rocket can lift a heavier mass or provide longer life on geostationary orbit. The rocket component are manufactured in Ukraine, Russia and the state of Washington. Sea Launch's home port is Long Beach, California.

Read More

Tropos Signs 500th Wireless Mesh Customer

Tropos Networks has reached the 500 customer milestone for its metro-scale wireless mesh network systems. The company said its Q4CY05 to Q4CY06 node shipments grew by more than 120%.



In 2006, Tropos added more than 200 new customers including:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Rock Hill, South Carolina; Southaven,
Mississippi; Pasadena, California; and Rome, Georgia. The latest customer is Las Vegas, New Mexico.



Tropos expects the vibrant market growth to continue. Citing figures from
Muniwireless, Tropos said the number of planned but not yet deployed municipal Wi-Fi networks grew from 59 in February 2006 to 135 in September 2006. St. Paul, Minnesota; Houston, Texas; Denver, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois and a host of smaller cities have issued RFPs for the construction of metro-scale
Wi-Fi networks where the winners have yet to be announced. Based on
this information, Tropos expects the metro-scale Wi-Fi market to at
least double in 2007.



Tropos also released network utilization statistics reported by the Tropos Insight analysis and control system, along with subscriber satisfaction surveys. Those statistics reveal that in a 10 to 15 square mile city, Tropos typically sees 20% to 25% household penetration (on par with DSL plus cable broadband penetration), 1,550 steady daily users, and an average of 2,640 users per week. These users generally download, in aggregate, more than 100 GBytes per day. In addition, user surveys show that 70% or more of the respondents typically rate the network service as good to excellent, a percentage that compares favorably to cellular telephony.

http://www.tropos.com

Read More

Deutsche Telekom Sees Increased Competition, Continues VDSL Push

Despite increased competition in its home market, Deutsche Telekom intends to establish itself at the top of the international telecommunications market by focusing on the customer, said company executives at a press event in Berlin. This consumer push includes opening 200 new retail stores and adding 1,500 sales employees. Deutsche Telekom is increasing its focus on the broadband opportunity while de-emphasizing conventional fixed line telephony, where line losses continue.



Deutsche Telekom confirmed that it is continuing the rollout of its new VDSL network in 50 cities. However, the company warned that demand for its T-Home service will develop more slowly than originally anticipated. As a result, Deutsche Telekom anticipates that the adjusted EBITDA of the strategic business area Broadband/Fixed Network will be reduced by EUR 0.8 billion in 2007, compared to the previous internal planning.



In mobile communications, Deutsche Telekom now has over 100 million customers, with the fastest growth occurring at T-Mobile USA, which added over 900,000 subscribers in Q4.

"Service and a service mentality are key components to advance our business, in particular in Germany. Step by step, we intend to make Deutsche Telekom the standard for service in the industry," stated René Obermann, Deutsche Telekom's CEO.




http://www.telekom.de

Read More

UK Ministry of Defence Deploys Juniper Routers

BT will provide routers and security solutions for the U.K.'s Defence Fixed Telecommunications Service (DFTS) project, which connects 240,000 users at over 1,500 sites across the UK and overseas. DFTS has consolidated all existing defense networks to deliver unified voice, data, LAN interconnectivity and WAN services for the Royal Navy, British Army, the Royal Air Force and MoD Centre. The new network is now live, with the first services being delivered in September 2006. Financial terms were not disclosed.



The new network based on Juniper routers, including M-series multiservice routing platforms and J-series service routers. BT has also deployed NetScreen-5200 high-performance integrated firewall/IPSec VPN security systems to provide network protection and defence. The M-series platforms provides the DFTS network with advanced IP/MPLS edge routing, enabling future multiple services--including VPNs, network-based security, real-time voice and video, bandwidth-on-demand, rich multicast and IPv6 services--to be delivered over the single network. The supporting J-series service routers deliver data connectivity to remote and branch offices, and are ready for the rollout of VoIP services as required.

http://www.juniper.net

Read More

Amedia Ships MIPX home gateway for Motorola Trial

Amedia has begun shipments to Motorola for trials of the jointly developed MIPX home gateway. The MIPX product is an IP home gateway intended to provide expanded support for data, IPTV, HD TV, and Digital Video Recorders using Motorola's existing Multi-Service Access Platform for exclusive distribution by Motorola under the Motorola brand. In Q4 2006, Amedia successfully passed the IPTV Gateway System Verification Testing Acceptance Test -- a major engineering milestone in the Strategic Alliance Agreement between the companies. To date, Amedia has shipped over $475,000 worth of equipment to Motorola for use in both Alpha lab testing and Beta field testing programs.

http://www.amedia.com

Read More

Zarlink and Marvell Demo Synchronous Ethernet solution

Zarlink Semiconductor and Marvell have developed a synchronous Ethernet solution for supporting real-time services over packet-based networks.



The companies said network synchronization is a key issue for carriers in the drive towards network convergence. For example, economical cellular backhaul over IP networks requires synchronization to allow legacy applications such as voice and fax to function properly. As high-growth applications such as YouTube and AOL Video gain popularity, these applications need to co-exist alongside critical time-sensitive services on IP backhaul networks. To guarantee performance, carriers must currently operate a number of different networks and deploy costly external mechanisms to ensure synchronization.



Zarlink and Marvell are offering a solution the focuses on "synchronous Ethernet," allowing carriers to support real-time services over asynchronous Ethernet networks. In synchronous Ethernet operation, each piece of network equipment must have synchronized timing capabilities.



To meet this requirement, the companies have successfully completed interoperability testing demonstrating that Zarlink's ZL 30120 analog/digital PLL can synchronize a Marvell 88E1145 Ethernet physical layer device to a telecom networking timing reference, while generating a very low jitter (picoseconds) Ethernet clock. This will enable developers of Ethernet switching and routing platforms to provide complete end-to-end solutions for next-generation IP networks.



An application note on Zarlink-Marvell synchronous Ethernet interoperability testing is available on the company's website.

http://assets.zarlink.com/AN/ZLAN_211_AppNote_Jan07.pdfhttp://timing.zarlink.com/

Read More

PCCW Selects Harmonic for its MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)Service

PCCW, the incumbent operator in Hong Kong and currently the world's largest IPTV operator with 700,000 subscribers, is deploying Harmonic's new DiviCom Electra 5400 standard definition (SD) MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoders for its entire "now TV" channel lineup. This expansion enables PCCW to add services and extend its reach in Hong Kong. Harmonic's Electra 5000 MPEG-2 encoders were also recently implemented at PCCW as part of a channel expansion. The implementation at PCCW also includes Harmonic's NMX Digital Service Manager for service operations and scheduling. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Harmonic said the bandwidth improvements available with H.264 also enable PCCW to significantly increase the number of subscribers that can access the service over the DSL network in comparison to MPEG-2.

"By adding H.264-based services to their lineup, PCCW can further enhance the service by lowering bandwidth requirements for TV programming and thus support on-demand services and additional TV sets," said Patrick Harshman, President and CEO of Harmonic Inc.

http://www.harmonicinc.com

http://www.pccw.com

Read More

Convergin Launches IPTV-Ready Service Control and Interaction SCIM Solution

Convergin introduced its Accolade WCS Service Capability Interaction Management (SCIM) product for integrating IPTV and telecom services into converged networks.



As a SCIM platform, the Accolade WCS coordinates and unifies the orchestration and interaction of services from various application servers. With its new IPTV capabilities, Accolade WCS now extends the service orchestration to incorporate headend servers alongside SIP application servers and other service platforms. Thus, video services such as Video on Demand (VoD) and broadcast media streaming, can be delivered in coordination with voice and data services over an access network (e.g. 2G/3G, fixed, cable, Wi-Fi) and a variety of session/call control and switching technologies. Unified service interaction and control throughout an operator's entire service offering generates a greater quality of experience (QoE) for the end-user combining media, telephony and other communication and value added services.



Convergin's Accolade platform also allows SIP and IMS platforms to issue SIP queries towards legacy wireline AIN/INAP services, enabling operators' SS7 services to be delivered to the SS7/TDM switches as well as to next generation softswitches and IMS/SIP CSCFs. Convergin said its SCIM platform not only enable SIP access to existing legacy SCP-based services, but can also control the access to those services from various switching platforms and service providers.

http://www.convergin.com

Read More

Global Crossing Supports Belgacom International Carrier Services

Global Crossing was awarded a contract to support the consolidation of Belgacom ICS' existing infrastructure in continental Europe and the UK through the provision of network infrastructure, creating the foundation for a 40-Gbps capable European backbone. Specifically, Global Crossing will provide 3,000 km of dark fiber and associated colocation space connecting 36 major points of presence in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Germany, as well as wavelengths on routes that are geographically dispersed from Belgacom ICS' network.



This follows the formation in 2005 of a joint venture between the Belgian and Swiss incumbents, Belgacom SA and Swisscom Fixnet AG, to combine their international carrier businesses. Belgacom ICS is headquartered in Brussels and has offices in Bern, New York, Singapore and Dubai.

http://www.globalcrossing.com

http://www.belgacom.com

Read More

Global Crossing Supports Global Caribbean Network

Global Crossing announced an agreement to interconnect its network with Global Caribbean Network (GCN), a subsea cable operator headquartered in Guadeloupe, French West Indies, to enhance global IP connectivity to the Caribbean region. GCN will interconnect its voice and data traffic services arriving from the Caribbean to Global Crossing's IP network in St. Croix, via 10-Gigabit wavelengths, enabling GCN to extend its services to North America, Europe and Asia.



GCN is a subsidiary of Groupe Loret, an enterprise conglomerate responsible for different businesses in various segments, including real estate, communications, automotive, and air transportation, among others. GCN began offering its commercial services in the Caribbean in October 2006 through the official launch of the first phase of its GCN-1 system, which connects Guadeloupe, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, San Juan and St. Croix. It is currently expanding its reach further south in the Caribbean to Dominica, Martinique, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad as part of the second and third phases of the project, in 2007.

http://www.globalcrossing.com

http://www.globalcaribbean.net

Read More

Skype Licenses HelloSoft's Internet-Telephony for SmartPhones

Skype has licensed HelloSoft's Internet-Telephony technology, which will be incorporated into Skype's communication software. The HelloSoft technology enables the Skype service from smartphones and Pocket PCs connected to the Internet.



"Our technology will support today's mobile and wireless generation as they use Skype on the go. We are excited to be working with Skype to enhance the performance of Skype for Windows Mobile," said Krishna Yarlagadda, HelloSoft's President and CEO.

http://www.hellosoft.com

Read More

AT&T Introduces Pay-Per-Use Push To Talk Service

Cingular Wireless introduced a Push To Talk (PTT) service that is available on a pay-per-use basis. Customers using one of several wireless phones can now use the company's PTT service, as needed, for $.15 per minute. Unique icons on the phone indicate whether other PTT customers are available before making a PTT call. The service also supports the ability to a convert a PTT call to a regular wireless voice call. Calls with up to 30 participants can be converted, creating a mobile conference call. Customers can also send a voice message to one person or a whole group.



Cingular launched its first PTT service over a year ago on a contractual basis. Since launching service, AT&T's wireless unit has sold more than two million PTT capable phones.

http://www.att.com

Read More

Personeta Receives Cisco Funding for FMC

Personeta, a start-up developing of converged service creation and application solutions for communications service providers, announced an equity investment from Cisco. The company said it plans to use the funding to further its development of solutions and components based on its TappS NSC product for next- generation, converged service delivery -- particularly in the areas of fixed- mobile convergence (FMC) and multimedia solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.personeta.com/

• Personeta's TappS NSC is an application server and a next-generation service platform. It provides a high level of programmability with a broad set of Java APIs.

Read More