Former Enron Broadband CEO Given 27 Month Jail Sentence

Kenneth Rice, a former chief executive officer of Enron Broadband Services (EBS), was sentenced to 27 months in prison and ordered to forfeit approximately $15 million to be used to compensate victims of the Enron fraud.



In 2004, Rice pleaded guilty to the securities fraud charge, and cooperated with the government's investigation into the collapse of Enron. He admitted that while he was at EBS, a unit of the now-defunct Enron Corp., he and others made a series of false statements about the products, services and business performance of EBS in order to mislead investors and others about the success of the company and to inflate artificially the price of Enron stock.



Kevin Hannon, the former chief operating officer of EBS, was sentenced earlier this month to two years in prison, and fined $125,000.



The U.S. Department of Justice noted that criminal charges have been brought against 36 defendants in the Enron case, including 25 former Enron employees. Eighteen of those defendants have pleaded guilty or been found guilty after trial.

http://www.usdoj.gov

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Calix to Resell Aktino Copper Access Platforms

Calix has agreed to resell Aktino's AK4000 and AK3000 copper access platforms, which leverage MIMO (Multiple In, Multiple Out) on DMT (Discrete Multi-Tone) technology to minimizes crosstalk among copper pairs thereby enabling greater reach and bandwidth.



For transport applications, the Aktino and Calix equipment address primarily DSLAM backhaul needs, replacing T1 IMA circuits with higher-bandwidth MIMO on DMT-based systems. For access, the two companies' equipment will provide carrier Ethernet and DS3 over copper to enterprises or to cell sites hosted on Calix platforms and terminated on Aktino equipment.



Aktino's AK3000 is the solution for long-reach DS3 (45 Mbps) services over copper, and its AK4000 delivers 10 to 50 Mbps business-class carrier Ethernet services. Its product family also includes the AK5000, a scalable, shelf-based platform for larger installations.

http://www.aktino.com

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Ellacoya: Web Traffic Overtakes P2P for First Time in 4 Years

After more than four years during which peer-to-peer (P2P) applications have overwhelmingly consumed the largest percentage of bandwidth on the network, HTTP (Web) traffic has overtaken P2P and continues to grow, according to data compiled by Ellacoya Networks, which supplies broadband optimization platforms for service providers.



Presently, as a result of streaming audio and video in Web downloads, HTTP is approximately 46% of all traffic on the network. P2P continues as a strong second place at 37% of total traffic. Newsgroups (9%), non-HTTP video streaming (3%), gaming (2%) and VoIP (1%) are the next widely used applications.



Breaking down application types within HTTP, the data reveals that traditional Web page downloads (i.e. text and images) represent 45% of all Web traffic. Streaming video represents 36% and streaming audio 5% of all HTTP traffic. YouTube alone comprises approximately 20% of all HTTP traffic, or nearly 10% of all traffic on the Internet. http://www.ellacoya.com

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NTT Com Opens New Data Centers in China

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has opened a new data center in Shanghai (East) and plans an August opening of another data center in Tianjin. NTT Com already operates data centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Dalian, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

http://www.ntt.co.jp

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Samsung and Reef Point Partner on FMC for IP-Base Stations

Reef Point, a supplier of fixed-mobile-convergence solutions, announced a distribution agreement with Samsung aimed at helping mobile operators to improve coverage to their mobile subscribers at home and at work.



The agreement brings together Reef Point's IP-Base Station Gateway with Samsung's UbiCell Personal CDMA Base Station.



In addition to providing secured access connectivity over its Universal Convergence Gateway (UCG) platform, Reef Point will provide technical training and customer support services to Samsung and its customers, as well as assistance and co-marketing support.

http://www.samsung.com

http://www.reefpoint.com

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NexTone Names New Chairman, CEO Steps Down

NexTone named David A. Walsh as executive chairman and announced the departure of Malik Khan, the former chairman and CEO, who is stepping down to pursue new opportunities. Yousef Javadi, who joined as president and chief operating officer in 2006, elected to leave concurrent with Mr. Khan's departure.



Walsh, a partner at One Equity Partners (OEP), the private equity division of JPMorgan Chase & Co., has been a director on NexTone's board since 2005.

http://www.nextone.com

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NetXen 10GbE Support Windows and Linux

NetXen announced a firmware upgrade enabling its 10GbE Multifunction Network Adapters to support both Microsoft TCP Chimney Offload and Linux Sockets Acceleration.



The Microsoft TCP Chimney Offload architecture is a key performance driver for Windows Server 2003. It offloads TCP processing from the host CPU to NetXen's Intelligent NIC, enabling higher performance and greater CPU efficiency for processing network traffic. Linux Sockets Acceleration (LSA) delivers similar performance and efficiency benefits for Linux-based systems.

http://www.netxen.com

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Integra5 Partners with SeaChange

Integra5 and SeaChange announced a marketing alliance to offer carriers an open, scalable infrastructure to deliver a wide variety of converged IMS/SIP applications: SMS/MMS to TV and PC, personalized content alerts; core services (Click to Call, Call Management, Presence and Location); Caller ID (TV/PC); Call Notifications; Customer Care Notifications; RSS Alerts; Video Conferencing/Voicemail and Targeted Advertising.



Full interoperability has been confirmed between SeaChange's TV Platform and Integra5's i5 Converged Services Platform (i5 CSP). The combined solution enables North American IPTV operators to deliver an expanded portfolio of converged quad-play applications and services across TVs, PCs and other devices. http://www.integra5.com

http://www.schange.com

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Cisco Certifies BT, Sprint for Telepresence

BT and Sprint are the first two global service providers to achieve a Cisco Certified TelePresence Connection certification. The certification confirms the carriers' global network is compatible with Cisco's life-like virtual meeting solution.

http://www.cisco.com

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London Stock Exchange and Yipes Offer Ethernet-Based Extranet

Yipes Enterprise Services has been approved by the London Stock Exchange to provide worldwide, low-latency access to the exchange's "Infolect" market data service. This enables traders to receive Infolect market data over a next-generation, Ethernet-based network.



Yipes FinancialConnect! Extranet addresses the need for faster and more scalable networks to support the rapid growth of electronic trading, delivering services over a secure, global, fiber-based network. Yipes' customers can instantly scale bandwidth from 1 Mbps to 1 Gbps in 1 Mbps increments, as business conditions merit.

http://www.yipes.com

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ECI Doubles the Capacity, Extends Reach of its Multi-Degree ROADM

ECI Telecom has significantly enhanced its XDM Multi-Service Transport Platform (MSTP) with new capabilities to help carriers upgrade and expand their optical infrastructure in the metro/regional space to support the constantly increasing demand for bandwidth.



The new capabilities include doubling the total channel capacity from 40 to 80 wavelengths. This enables the XDM platform to scale to a total throughput of 800 Gbps per single fiber pair. ECI Telecom has also extended the overall reach to 2,000 Km, primarily by introducing a new set of very long reach transponders, and very high power fiber amplifiers.



ECI said these upgrades provide its XDM with the reach and capacity usually offered by long-haul DWDM. The improved capacity and reach provide greater savings by eliminating the need for multiple systems, higher reliability by eliminating inter-system cabling, improved service agility for on-demand expansion and content sharing across regions as multi-degree ROADMs allow simple provisioning, and overall higher Quality of Experience (QoE).



The XDM existing feature set already supports SDH/SONET and Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF)-certified Ethernet/MPLS switching.

http://www.ecitele.com

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Microsoft Launches MSN Mobile Portal

Microsoft launched a completely redesigned and reengineered portal for mobile phone users. Now available in the U.S., MSN Mobile provides customers with one-stop access to e-mail, news, sports, entertainment, local movie listings, maps and directions, as well as Windows Live services such as Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Spaces, and Live Search.

http://mobile.msn.com/

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Extreme and Nortel Demo Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) Interoperability

Extreme Networks and Nortel will host an interoperability demonstration of Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) at the NXTcomm tradeshow in Chicago this week. The live demonstration will showcase Ethernet connections over a PBT trunk between the companies' booths.
http://www.nortel.com

http://www.extremenetworks.com

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Allot Unveils DPI-based Service Gateway with Two 10 GigE Links

Allot Communications introduced a Service Gateway platform for broadband service control and optimization based on Layer-7 deep packet inspection (DPI). It is based on an AdvancedTCA-compliant chassis with modular, hot-swappable DPI blades. A single platform provides four 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, that manage two 10 Gigabit Ethernet lines, supporting more than 20 Gbps of traffic.



Within the Service Gateway, the application and subscriber information for each traffic flow is identified by a single DPI process that can then dispatch the flow to an array of additional services and actions. These actions may include traffic prioritization and Quality of Service (QoS) optimization, filtering (including Parental Control), blocking security threats (Clean Line and Denial of Service prevention) or collecting records for real-time charging or offline usage-based charging.



Allot said it aims to enable the integration of valued-added applications into the Service Gateway, where they can be governed by a unified policy management system and protected by built-in redundancy on all functions in the gateway. The ability of the value-added services to leverage the gateway's common DPI process and single point of integration with the operator's OSS and subscriber management environment should reduce the complexity and cost of new service deployment.



Initial customer trials of the Allot Service Gateway are slated to begin in the next 60-90 days.

http://www.allot.com

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Ciena Announces CN 4200 RS for High-Density Metro/Regional

Ciena introduced its CN 4200 RS FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform designed for service aggregation and wavelength routing, such as high-density metro offices, data centers and head-ends.

The new CN 4200 RS offers the ability to aggregate and distribute thousands of on-demand programmable services from a single box. It offers four times the capacity of the original four slot CN 4200 while sharing the same hardware architecture, software and management system to maximize investment protection. The CN 4200 RS chassis features 16 line card slots and up to 96 ports per chassis with scalability to more than 5000 ports in a single node.



Ciena said that by increasing capacity and lowering cost per port, the CN 4200 RS expands the addressable market for the CN 4200 family in terms of network locations and applications with the capacity and features optimized to support video distribution, broadband aggregation, wireless backhaul, managed business services and other applications.



It also represents the Company's standard for delivering its dynamic wavelength routing, featuring a hybrid ROADM solution with sub-wavelength grooming to maximize wavelength efficiency. In addition, the recently-announced FlexSelect 40G Shelf can be integrated with the CN 4200 RS for delivering in-service upgrades of granular 40G wavelengths to existing 10G networks.



Ciena confirmed that the CN 4200 RS has already been selected for deployment by a major European operator as well as multiple existing CN 4200 customers.



Ciena's CN 4200 family of platforms now includes the CN 4200 MC for edge-optimized optical services from the customer premises, the CN 4200 for aggregating services onto rings, and the new CN 4200 RS for aggregation, grooming and routing of traffic at major network aggregation points. The platforms offer universal line cards with individual user-programmable ports to deliver TDM, Ethernet and storage services at any speed on any available port, and ITU G.709 OTN for service transparency. Ciena's CN 4200 family also supports remote service provisioning and management through Ciena's ON-Center Network and Service Management Suite.

http://www.ciena.com

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Orange TV over ADSL Builds HD Channel Line-up

Orange has added its fifth HD channel to its TV-over-ADSL service. National Geographic Channel HD joins Arte, Luxe TV, NRJ12 and TF1 in the HD line-up.



As of 31-Mar-2007, Orange had 745,000 TV-over-ADSL customers in France and 768,000 for all of Europe.



The service currently offer 51 French and international channels, including all DTT channels, and access to partner bundles ("Canal+ le bouquet" and "Canalsat"). Options include digital recording and High Definition TV with time control or multi-screen capability to watch different programs on 2 TV sets.



The Orange VOD catalog currently includes some 2,000 titles.

http://www.orange.com

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Huawei Selects Kasenna as VOD Partner for China

Huawei Technologies has selected Kasenna's PortalTV product suite and its MediaBase XMP VOD server as the core component of a fully integrated video-on-demand service to be rolled out to cable customers initially in China and then internationally. The first joint customer is Chongqing Cable, which plans to deliver video-on-demand to 500,000 cable customers in mainland China.



Kasenna's PortalTV combines a web services-based IPTV middleware called LivingRoom 2.0 which gives operators flexibility to make more rapid programming changes, and MediaBase 8.2, a widely deployed video server software.



MediaBase XMP is Kasenna's flagship video delivery software that manages the video content for delivery, turning affordable off-the-shelf Linux/Intel servers from leading server vendors into scalable high-performance video-delivery platforms.

http://www.kasenna.com

http://www.huawei.com

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Microsoft Showcases "Mediaroom IPTV"

Microsoft has rebranded its IPTV software platform as "Microsoft Mediaroom", and added several new multimedia capabilities, including in-home personal music and photo sharing, dynamic MultiView (multiple picture-in-picture) capabilities, Multimedia Application Environment for development of interactive services and advanced applications, and digital terrestrial television (DTT) support.



A Microsoft Mediaroom Application Development toolkit has also been released to help service providers and third-party developers create TV-based applications that run on the platform.



Microsoft IPTV already supports enhanced digital video recording, video on demand, high-definition television and instant channel zapping. New capabilities of Microsoft Mediaroom include:

• Personal media sharing. This enables consumers to listen to digital music and view digital photographs stored on PCs elsewhere in the home on the television.



• Multimedia Application Environment. The environment offers richer support for Web services and applications, enabling service providers to deploy advanced features such as dynamic video-on-demand portals, casual games and interactive TV services.



• Enhanced MultiView capabilities. These allow consumers to see multiple channels, programs and camera angles on one screen.

The launch of Microsoft Mediaroom also marks the general availability of DTT capabilities on the platform, allowing service providers in regions with DTT programming to offer fully integrated, seamless IPTV services.



Microsoft said it now has 17 service provider customers for the IPTV platform.



http://www.microsoft.com

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Crossbeam Systems Appoints Pete Fiore as New CEO

Crossbeam Systems, a start-up offering enterprise- and carrier-class Unified Threat Management (UTM) solutions, named Pete Fiore as its new president and CEO, replacing Peter George, who led the company since 2001.



Fiore joins Crossbeam from IBM where he was a member of the company's extended senior leadership team. While at IBM, Fiore led the integration of Ascential Software Corporation into IBM and established a new business segment, generating more than $500 million in annual revenue. Previously, he served as president of Ascential Software, where he led the company through its transition to an independent public company with nearly $300 million in annual revenue and an eventual $1.1 billion acquisition by IBM.

http://www.crossbeamsystems.com/

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Terayon's CherryPicker Delivers MPEG-4 AVC HD/SD Rate Shaping

Terayon Communication Systems introduced the newest member of its CherryPicker Application Platform (CAP) line for managing and localizing video streams.



The new Terayon CAP-1000 features a software application for rate shaping of real-time, broadcast quality MPEG-4 AVC SD and HD streams. This enables grooming, dejittering and seamless localized ad insertion, supporting initiatives like Switched Digital Video, VOD Playlist Advertising, and Bulk Encryption. As with its gold standard DM 6400 CherryPicker platform, users activate applications on the CAP-1000 by purchasing software license keys.



To maximize flexibility, Terayon has abstracted the hardware elements of the CAP-1000 from the software layer, enabling delivery of features such as session-based encryption, digital watermarking, FEC, motion graphics overlay, video scaling, and even third party applications via future software releases.



The CAP-1000's design offers high availability features, including redundant and hot-swappable power supplies, hot-swappable fan trays (with temporary redundancy as needed), and field-replaceable input/output and processing blades, all in a space- and power-saving 1RU (rack unit) enclosure.

http://www.terayon.com

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Atheros Appoints Head of President and General Manager to Lead

Atheros Communications announced the appointment of Ben Naskar to the newly created position of vice president and general manager of the company's Wireless Networking Business Unit, reporting to company CEO Craig Barrett.



Atheros' Wireless Networking Business Unit is chartered to leverage and enhance the company's strong position in the wireless LAN market.



Naskar was most recently vice president and general manager of PMC Sierra's Communications Products Division where he was responsible for four lines of business: customer premises equipment (CPE), wireline, wireless and optical fiber. Prior to PMC, Naskar was chief executive officer and president of Magfusion, a private company focused on RF MEMS. He has also held key positions with several leading semiconductor companies, including Analog Devices, National Semiconductor and Advanced Micro Devices.

http://www.atheros.com

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Brightcove Signs Fox Entertainment Group

Brightcove signed a deal with Fox Entertainment Group (FEG) to make its wide range of Internet TV services available to all FEG properties. Using Brightcove, each Fox network and studio has the ability to program and host ad-supported Internet video channels and highly-targeted consumer media campaigns. Financial terms were not disclosed.



The first FEG properties to utilize Brightcove to launch an Internet video initiative will be FX Networks, SPEED and Fox Broadcasting Company. Each network will manage its own monetization strategy through the Brightcove Internet TV service.

http://www.brightcove.com

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Bay Microsystems introduces ABEx Processors for Storage over WAN

Bay Microsystems introduced its "ABEx" (Agile Bandwidth Exchange) family of Global Virtualization platforms designed to address the growing needs of Global Enterprise Customers for Infiniband storage over wide area networks. These advanced platforms are designed to link disparate data and compute centers for customers in the web portal, financial, entertainment, scientific, medical, government, and research market segments which need fast and reliable global access to high-value data.



Based on its newest network processor, Chesapeake, the new ABEx40XX family delivers up to 40G of capacity in a single slot. The family supports both single slot and multi-slot configurations. The platforms enable Infiniband Routing over wide area networks, the family provides virtualized connectivity to distributed storage and computing resources and supports a multitude of the industry's highest performance interfaces, including Infiniband, for Data Center connectivity, and Ethernet, IP/MPLS, SONET/SDH, and ATM, for connection over a wide area network.



Bay Microsystems said that in recent network deployments, its ABEx platform has enabled vast amounts of secure and reliable transfers of massive databases over distances of thousands of kilometers. Recently, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory announced the transmission of over 60 terabytes of InfiniBand data across a distance of 4500 km in only 32 hours utilizing the ABEx platform. This is believed to be the largest amount of Infiniband data ever transferred per unit time over a wide area network.



The initial version is scheduled to be generally available in the 2nd half of calendar year 2007.

http://www.baymicrosystems.com

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Motorola Debuts Open Software for its IPTV STBs in North America

Motorola introduced a set-top software solution using an open IP platform on its VIP 1200 series, which is a compact, interactive IP set-top that supports HD and SD video.



The "KreaTV" application platform uses the Linux Operating system to help support multiple entertainment and video service applications on Motorola's VIP set-top series. It can be integrated with leading North American middleware and conditional access applications.



Motorola's "KreaTV" offers interactive features such as programming guides, viewer voting tools, and advanced gaming in conjunction with third-party middleware and software providers. It can also be used to help introduce features like multi-room DVR, video on-demand (VOD) and interactive teleconferencing.

http://www.motorola.com

• In 2006, Motorola acquired Kreatel Communications, a supplier of Linux-based set-top boxes based in Sweden.

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