Veraz Enhances Softswitch for Transitioning IN to IP

Veraz Networks announced the latest release of its ControlSwitch Interconnect, designed to help service providers migrate Intelligent Network (IN) service platforms as well as PSTN transport and peering signaling to IP. Additionally, advanced Quality of Service (QoS) routing improves revenue assurance through the enforcement of network-wide agreements.



Major enhancements to the ControlSwitch-IC include:

• New Directory Services Element: The element adds application layer capabilities, enabling the transition of IN-based services to IP which improves operational costs and flexibility of the services themselves. For example, large databases containing hundreds of millions of numbers such as screening databases for the National Do Not Call Registry and number mapping databases such as nationwide local number portability and telephone number mapping (ENUM) can be migrated over to IP.



• Advanced QoS-based Routing Module: This module allows service providers to meet custom service level agreements (SLAs) by measuring network quality fluctuations and dynamically enforcing network-wide routing policies. It also improves revenue assurance by being able to charge a premium for meeting priority levels of service.



• New Signaling Element: The element lowers the cost of signaling by enabling the efficient backhaul of PSTN signaling over IP via M3UA, an industry standard signaling transport protocol. The ControlSwitch-IC can now connect directly to standards compliant IP signaling gateways and IP based STPs thus enabling operators to avoid the cost of separate PSTN signaling backhaul networks. Additionally, to simplify the move to direct IP peering between service providers the ControlSwitch-IC now supports industry standard IP signaling that preserves important information from traditional PSTN SS7 signaling that for example, identifies how a video call travels across different carrier networks.

ControlSwtich-IC supports PSTN signaling backhaul over IP based on the Message Transfer Part 3 User Adaptation (M3UA) protocol, an industry standard. SIP-I is a supported industry standard which is used to support direct IP peering between carriers in a way that preserves traditional PSTN signaling.
http://www.veraznetworks.com

Read More

Orange Business Offers "Business Together with Microsoft" Service

Orange Business Services announced a "Business Together with Microsoft" collaborative solution to accelerate the use of unified communications in companies. "Business Together with Microsoft" gives access to a range of tools that companies can use either when mobile or from workstations. Orange Business Services will offer a range of services including consulting and audits, migration to IP, integration, managed IT infrastructure and applications services, and outsourcing.

http://www.orange-business.com

Read More

Thales Offers 10 Gig Ethernet Layer 2 Encryptor

Thales launched its new Datacryptor 10 Gig Ethernet Layer 2 Encryptor, which can be used for secure 10 gigabit backbone WAN links with minimal latency. The company said its Datacryptor 10 Gig encrypts the data without the overheads associated with IPSec security. It uses the strongest security with 256 bit AES allowing government and enterprise to meet the performance and the security requirements.
http://www.thales-esecurity.com

Read More

Nortel Supplies IMS-ready NGN for Kazakhtelecom

JSC Kazakhtelecom, the country's incumbent communications operator, selected Nortel for a nationwide next-generation network (NGN). Under the multimillion dollar contract Nortel supplied project design, equipment and development services, while Russian Jet Infosystems - Nortel's Carrier VoIP Service and Solution Partner - provided installation, deployment, testing and connection services. The infrastructure incorporates two Nortel Communication Server 2000 Compact soft switches in Almaty - Kazakhstan's largest city - and a number of carrier-class Media Gateway 15000 gateways located in ten regional centers. More than 50 exchanges all over the country are already connected to the NGN network.

http://www.nortel.com

http://portal.telecom.kz/

Read More

Vietnam Upgrades Optical Backbone with Nortel

Vietnam Post and Telecommunications (VNPT), the country's dominant carrier, is using a Nortel optical solution to double the capacity of its national, north-south optical backbone from 20 Gbps to 40 Gbps. The expanded capacity will enable VNPT to provide ADSL to more residential and enterprise customers. The Nortel high-capacity transport solution for VNPT comprises the Optical Long Haul 1600 with the Optical Cross Connect DX for DWDM transport, and the Optical Metro 4000 series of multiservice SDH platforms to enable 10 Gbps connectivity into and from cities along the backbone's north-south path. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.nortel.com

• In 1995, Nortel built the original optical backbone – the country's first optical DWDM network at 2.5 Gbps – running from Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City in the south with interconnections into the national network for major cities along the route. In 2003, Nortel upgraded the national backbone to 20 Gbps.

Read More

UNH-IOL to Host "10 Gig Tech Summit" and 10BASE-T Plugfest

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) announced plans to host a new "10 Gigabit Technology Summit" and the industry's first 10GBASE-T group test, or "plugfest." Although dates have not yet been set in stone, the events are planned for late summer and early fall 2007, respectively.



The 10 Gigabit Technology Summit (10 Gig Tech Summit) will create a data-center-class test network comprising participating companies' 10 Gigabit network devices. Once it has been tested and debugged, the test bed will be used to support testing and demonstration of high-level business and other 10 Gigabit-capable applications such as financial databases, storage arrays and computer clusters.



The 10 Gig Tech Summit will put the market readiness of 10 Gigabit Ethernet to the test. Test plans will encompass multiple flavors of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, including LR/SR/ER optics, LRM optics, CX4 copper, KR and KX4 backplane Ethernet ports. Possible applications for 10 Gigabit networking to be tested include iWARP and RDMA services, iSCSI targets and initiators and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching.



Strict vendor-to-vendor interoperability will be the focus of the test lab's autumn 10GBASE-T plugfest. The UNH-IOL said the group test will be open to all interested participants for a $6K testing fee and free for members of the laboratory's 10 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium (10GEC). More information is online.

http://www.iol.unh.edu

Read More

SonicWALL Unveils Enterprise-Class, 16-Core Network Security Appliance

SonicWALL unveiled its Network Security Appliance (NSA) E7500, a new gateway security appliance that makes deep packet inspection security productive and easy to manage in larger network deployments. The NSA E7500 is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliance that harnesses sixteen processing cores in a single network platform. The scalable multi-core architecture of the NSA E7500 provides gigabit-scale deep packet inspection throughput with multiple layers of protection.
The platform is designed for campus networks, distributed environments and data centers.



The company said granular, application-specific policies enabled by its SonicWALL Application Firewall allow custom access control on multiple levels. Capabilities of SonicWALL Application Firewall include inbound and outbound content control, application level access control, intelligent prevention functionality and digital rights management functionality.

http://www.sonicwall.com

Read More

UTStarcom to Supply GEPON in Goa, India

United Telecom Limited selected UTStarcom to supply its Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network (GEPON) fiber access solution to serve as the foundation for the new Statewide Area Network (SWAN) in the state of Goa in India. The network will be used to provide high-speed fiber connectivity across all state government offices in Goa for running e-Governance applications. The network will be capable of delivering up to one gigabit-per-second 1 Gbps bandwidth to each office and is expected to be extended in the near future to cover the sub-districts and villages to enable the Goa state government to provide better services to its citizens. Financial terms were not disclosed.



UTStarcom's FTTx solution complies with the IEEE802.3ah standard for Ethernet PON (EPON) and includes a BBS1000 Optical Line Termination system (OLT) for deployment at the Central Office (CO) as well as an Optical Network Unit (ONU) for deployment at the customer's premises.
http://www.utstar.com

Read More

Firetide Offers CPE for Extending Outdoor Wireless Mesh Nets Indoors

Firetide introduced a consumer device designed to extend the reach of outdoor wireless networks to the indoors. The Firetide CPE supports the industry's most advanced security to ensure privacy of customer communications and reduce service provider liability.



Firetide's CPE comes in two versions -- indoor and outdoor -- to provide added flexibility in any environment. The indoor variety is designed for large-scale municipal deployments that require reliable access to penetrate through thick walls. The rugged outdoor CPE can be placed on rooftops, in atriums and outdoor hallways. The outdoor CPE is power over Ethernet-enabled.



The Firetide CPE connects to multiple outdoor access points providing users redundancy of coverage and better signal availability, featuring high-power 400 milliwatts radio. The product also allows for efficient power management between high-power outdoor access points and low-power consumer equipment including laptops, mp3 players, and cameras.



The gear will be sold to wireless mesh operators that offer wireless services directly to residents and small home and business offices (SOHO). Using Firetide's mesh management platform, HotView Pro, service providers can configure the CPE to offer guaranteed throughput to end customers, supporting their service level agreements.

http://www.firetide.com/

Read More

Broadcom Announces 10 GigE Transceiver for 10GBASE-KR Backplanes

Broadcom introduced a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) serial transceiver in support of the new IEEE 10GBASE-KR standard for running 10 Gbps serial data over backplane systems.



Broadcom said today's blade servers and advanced telecom computing architecture (ATCA) equipment can only support single-channel, low bandwidth capabilities (using 1000BASE-X or 1000BASE-KX standards), or four-channel, low bandwidth per channel capabilities (using the 10GBASE-KX4 standard). In order to enable higher bandwidth applications (such as virtualization, security and encryption, and multimedia), 10Gbps data must now be driven across the backplane. Broadcom said it is the first silicon vendor to address this market requirement with its new serial transceiver that supports the new IEEE 802.3ap standard (10GBASE-KR) for backplane systems.



The Broadcom BCM8071 serial 10GBASE-KR to XAUI backplane transceiver is designed in a low power, 90 nanometer CMOS process. Sampling is underway.
http://www.broadcom.com

Read More

QUALCOMM Announces $3.0 Billion Stock Repurchase Program

QUALCOMM's Board of Directors approved a new $3.0 billion stock repurchase program to replace its previous $2.5 billion stock repurchase program, which had $865 million of remaining availability.



"We are pleased to expand our stock repurchase program," said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, CEO of QUALCOMM. "Strong operating cash flows are driving our development of new products and technologies and enabling us to return capital to stockholders through stock repurchases and dividends."http://www.qualcomm.com

Read More

Microsoft Cites Momentum for Office Communications Server 2007

Microsoft reported that over the past eight weeks more than 50,000 people have downloaded the beta version of Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007.



In addition, in the two months since Microsoft published the interoperability specification, networking companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Mitel Networks, NEC, Nortel Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications, and gateway providers AudioCodes, Dialogic and Quintum Technologies have stated their support for the interoperability specification for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.



"As the traditional business telecommunications model evolves, businesses are seeking guidance for the best way to leverage their existing assets as they deploy unified communications," said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president, Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. "This broad industry support will give business the assurance that Microsoft's unified communications software will work with the applications and networks they have today."http://www.microsoft.com

Read More

Alcatel-Lucent Unveils OmniAccess SafeGuard Platform

Alcatel-Lucent introduced a new security product family to help enterprises to manage user access and restrict application use while on the network, characterize traffic patterns, identify intrusions based on pre- configured heuristics, and protect users and the network against known or unknown attacks.



The company said its new OmniAccess SafeGuard handles network admission control (NAC), guest access, identity based network access, malware control, and compliance with new regulations such as HIPAA, SoX, and PCI, all the while preserving LAN performance with speeds of up to 10Gbps.



The Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess SafeGuard (OAG) 1000 and 2400 appliances are deployed between the network edge and the aggregation/core layer, and managed by the OmniVista SafeGuard Manager, providing extensive management control including access policy configuration, user traffic visualization, device configuration and management. The OAG 1000 has eight Gigabit Ethernet ports with two additional operational ports; the OAG 2400 has 20 Gigabit Ethernet ports, with four additional operational ports for traffic mirroring and high availability synchronization.



The OmniAccess SafeGuard 1000 and 2400 are available immediately from Alcatel-Lucent resellers. Pricing starts at $18,495 U.S. list.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Read More

Transition Networks Introduces Passive Optical CWDM

Transition Networks introduced its new passive optical Course Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) solution. Transition's passive optical CWDM devices utilize thin-film filter technology and are available in various wavelength combinations based on the entire wavelength spectrum (1270nm - 1610nm in 20nm increments) defined by the ITU G.694.2 CWDM standard. These CWDM devices are available in two main configurations: Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (Mux/Demux) modules and Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (OADM) modules. Each module is a pluggable device that slides into a one rack unit (1RU) chassis that can hold 2 modules and mount into a 19" equipment rack.



Transition's Mux/Demux devices are available in 4, 5, 8 and 9-channel configurations with the capability of expanding up to 16 channels. These modules passively multiplex the optical signal outputs from 4 or more electronic devices, send them over a single optical fiber and then de- multiplex the signals into separate, distinct signals for input into electronic devices at the other end of the fiber optic link.



Modules can also be configured with a wideband 1310nm port to accommodate existing, non-CWDM single mode ports on switches and media converters. In addition, certain models are available with an expansion port, providing a means to add additional wavelengths or channels to an existing mux/demux by daisy-chaining the modules together.

http://www.transition.com

Read More