Tuesday, August 14, 2007

TI Acquires Integrated Circuit Designs for Low-Power RF

Texas Instruments (TI) has acquired Integrated Circuit Designs (ICD), a privately-held company that specializes in the design of radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits (ICs), for an undisclosed sum.



The deal combines ICD's design expertise with TI's extensive high-performance analog and low-power microcontroller product portfolio. TI described the acquisition as a strategic move to strengthen its low-power RF portfolio. The deal follows the acquisition of Chipcon, a leading provider of short-range, low-power RF transceivers for ZigBee-compliant and proprietary-based wireless systems.



ICD is based in Ellicott City, Maryland, and has 16 employees. http://www.ti.com

SPACEWAY 3 Satellite Features On-Board Routing/Switching for BB Services

Hughes Network Systems' next generation SPACEWAY 3 satellite was successfully launched and placed into geostationary transfer orbit by an Ariane 5 ECA rocket.



The Ka-band SPACEWAY 3 satellite is the world's first commercial satellite featuring an on-board traffic switching and routing capability. This ability to switch and route IP packets on board, enabling single-hop communications between any two satellite terminals and eliminating the need for the traffic to be routed through a central hub earth station.



Hughes said that combined with a 10 Gbps overall capacity, fast packet switching, and dynamic beam forming, its SPACEWAY 3 satellite will usher in a new world of bandwidth-on-demand satellite services with true site-to-site, single-hop networking of high-performance ground terminals.

As a full IP-based system, SPACEWAY supports a large variety of web, data, voice, and video services for both unicast and multicast applications in a standards-compliant fashion. SPACEWAY terminals also implement custom enhancement proxies for application acceleration using TCP and HTTP protocols.



SPACEWAY 3 was built by Boeing and is based on the company's 702 satellite platform.

http://www.hughes.com

http://www.arianespace.com
  • Hughes has built a scalable Network Operations and Control Center (NOCC), installed at its Germantown Maryland headquarters, which anchors control functions for network addressing, registration, network security, admission control and multicasting. The NOCC also provides satellite payload management, capacity planning, terminal management, customer care and network management functions. The SPACEWAY architecture can scale up to two million terminals per satellite and will provide coverage with multiple spot beams across the U.S. including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, as well as in selected areas in Canada, Mexico, and major cities in South America.


  • The SPACEWAY 3 satellite will operate in the globally assigned Ka-band spectrum at 95 degrees West Longitude and will support a range of new high-speed communications services for IP data and multimedia applications to North American enterprise, consumer, and government customers.


  • In March 2007, Arianespace was selected to launch the SPACEWAY 3 communications satellite for Hughes from the Guiana Space Center in August 2007. The launch contract was originally awarded to Sea Launch. However, on January 30, 2007, Sea Launch suffered a failed launch of the NSS-8 spacecraft from its Odyssey Platform in the equatorial Pacific. The Odyssey Launch Platform sustained damage from the event.

SIRIUS' Stiletto 2 Player Adds WiFi to Satellite Radio

SIRIUS Satellite Radio released its Stiletto 2 portable radio, featuring WiFi and the ability to store up to 100 hours of live SIRIUS sports, talk and commercial free music programming. The compact Stiletto 2 is a 4.3 oz portable radio which is capable of receiving live SIRIUS broadcasts via both satellite and WiFi signals. Internal flash memory is used to store SIRIUS content as well as MP3/WMA files for non-live playback.
The WiFi capability permits access to standard SIRIUS Internet Radio (SIR) or, for an additional subscription charge, SIRIUS Internet Radio's premium audio quality offering.



Stiletto 2, with a MSRP of $349.99, will include the radio, a single user-replaceable battery operating for 4 hours (live satellite), 10 hours (WiFi), and 20 hours (Non-live).

http://www.sirius.com

Ditech Posts Revenue of $14 Million, Down 35% YoY

Ditech Networks reported quarterly revenue of $14.0 million, a decrease of $7.6 million, or 35%, from revenues of $21.6 million in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year and a decrease of $5.2 million, or 27%, from revenues of $19.2 million in the preceding quarter. GAAP net loss for the quarter was $1.0 million, a decrease compared to the GAAP net income of $1.5 million in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year and a decrease compared to the GAAP net income of $0.7 million in the preceding quarter.



"We're disappointed in the results of the current period, and we've embarked on a number of changes," said Ed Harper, Ditech's Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO. "First, we will be looking to make any changes necessary to focus the company on closing its current opportunities. We'll also be focused on reducing non-essential spending while maintaining the critical mass and expertise to grow the business. Finally, we are moving ahead diligently in our search for a new CEO to lead the company forward on a long- term basis."http://www.ditechnetworks.com/

Ditech Appoints Chairman Edwin Harper as Interim CEO

Ditech Networks, a supplier of voice processing systems for communications networks, named Edwin L. Harper as interim CEO, replacing Tim Montgomery, who announced his retirement plans in May 2007. Harper already serves as Ditech Networks' Chairman of the Board.
Harper has also previously served as President and CEO of several companies, including Colorado Memory Systems, a computer storage company. http://www.ditechnetworks.com

Spirent to Resell EdenTree Lab Automation Tools

Spirent Communications resell EdenTree Technologies' lab automation solutions to network equipment manufacturers, service provider and enterprise customers worldwide. The partnership matches a test tool architecture with a software-controlled lab switching infrastructure solution and an intuitive GUI for managing and scheduling topologies.

EdenTree Lab Manager is a software platform for managing, scheduling, configuring, and tracking network lab resources. It provides a GUI and API for managing an automated physical layer and power switching infrastructure to which test equipment and devices under test are connected. The result is a software-controlled lab environment with a drag-and-drop user interface that allows test, QA, customer support, and development engineers to easily and remotely design, schedule and automate test configurations.

http://www.spirentcom.com

http://www.edentreetech.com

Hopi Telecom Selects Occam for Network Overhaul

Hopi Telecommunications (HTI), a new telco based in Arizona that is wholly-owned by the Hopi Tribe, has chosen Occam Networks' Broadband Loop Carrier (BLC) equipment to overhaul their network. Occam blades HTI will deploy include the BLC 6150-01 and BLC 6151-01 Lifeline POTS blades, BLC 6246 and BLC 6252-02 ADSL2Plus with Lifeline POTS blades, and the BLC Emergency Standalone (ESA) blade.

http://www.occamnetworks.com

Dell'Oro Releases Edge Router Market Share Numbers

Dell'Oro Group released a report highlighting the shifts in market share rankings for the worldwide edge router market. According to the report, Cisco maintained the number one ranking for the edge router market, while Alcatel-Lucent moved past Juniper into the number two position, and Huawei slipped past Redback to claim the number four spot.



Worldwide Service Provider Edge Router Market Leaders (Revenue)



Vendor 2Q07 Rank Y/Y Growth


Cisco 1 30%


Alcatel-Lucent 2 85%


Juniper 3 23%


Huawei 4 95%


Redback 5 -3%

http://www.DellOro.com

Ixia Announces Stock Repurchase Program

Ixia's Board of Directors approved a stock repurchase program that authorizes the company to repurchase up to $50 million of the Company's common stock.

http://www.ixiacom.com

LCC Wins $11 Million Contracts for Advanced Services in WiMAX and EV-DO

LCC International, which provides network engineering and advanced consulting services, announced $11 million in contracts for WiMAX and EV-DO advanced network services from large North American wireless operators. LCC will provide WiMAX services and solutions that include technology evaluations, in-lab testing, as well as design and continuous wave testing. LCC will also provide its technical and engineering expertise to deliver EV-DO Optimization services.



LCC also said it is seeing an increase in demand for fixed network engineering and spectrum management services.
http://www.lcc.com