Bridge Alliance Launches Flat-rate Data Roaming in Asia

The Bridge Alliance, which brings together leading mobile operators in Asia Pacific. launched its one-flat rate mobile data roaming plan spanning 11 territories in the region.



With ‘Bridge DataRoam', customers have a choice of two capped usage monthly subscription plans - US$30 for 15MB (Bridge DataRoam15) or US$60 for 40MB (Bridge DataRoam40). The one-flat rate is applicable when customers roam on the alliance's 11 member operator networks, namely: Airtel (India), AIS (Thailand), CSL (Hong Kong), CTM (Macau), Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), SK Telecom (Korea), SingTel Mobile (Singapore), SingTel Optus (Australia), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan) and Telkomsel (Indonesia).



Bridge DataRoam15 and Bridge DataRoam40 can be used for both Blackberry and general mobile data roaming, customers can subscribe to either plan depending on their data roaming usage requirement.

http://www.bridgealliance.com

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Orange and Sagem Target Eco-Design

Orange and Sagem Communications have announced an "eco-design" partnership targeting the entire range of liveboxes, TV set-top boxes and landline telephones. The companies will collaborate on designing equipment that consumes less energy, using materials in the products' manufacture and packaging that have a lower impact on the environment, and simplifying product recycling.
http://www.francetelecom.com

http://www.sagem.com

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Vodafone and Nokia Agree on Handset Apps/Services

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator by revenue, and Nokia, the world's largest handset manufacturer, have agreed to launch an integrated suite of Vodafone services combined with Nokia Ovi Services on a range of Nokia handsets. Vodafone and Nokia also agreed that a number of these handsets will be exclusive to Vodafone.



The companies said their services will offer customers a greater choice of communications, Internet services, content and browsing through a range of premium handsets on high speed 3G and 3G broadband networks.



"Web2.0 is all about social networking and enabling people to connect with each other in new ways. Bringing location and context awareness to web2.0 services is the next stage in the web development and Nokia multimedia computers enable people to participate to their favorite internet services on-the-go," said Executive Vice President and General Manager Nokia Multimedia Anssi Vanjoki.

http://www.nokia.com

http://www.vodafone.com

• In August 2007, Nokia introduced "Ovi", its new Internet services brand name for mobile devices. Ovi, meaning "door" in Finnish, will be Nokia's portal enabling consumers to access its gaming and music store services. Also under the Ovi umbrella is Nokia Maps, the company's navigation service, as well as future Internet-based services the coming plans to introduce in the coming months. Nokia also promised to make Ovi "an open door to web communities, enabling people to access their content, communities and contacts from a single place, either directly from a compatible Nokia device or from a PC." The English language version of Ovi is expected to debut in Q4.

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Tellabs Enhances 8800 MSR with Multilink PPP and GFR

Tellabs has enhanced its 8800 MSR with new capabilities that deliver Multilink PPP (ML-PPP) and Generic Framing Procedure (GFP) to enable transport of Ethernet traffic over traditional copper and SONET networks. In addition, service providers worldwide can carry traditional circuit-based traffic over new packet-based networks.



The Tellabs 8800 MSR uses a technology called Structure-Agnostic TDM over Packet (SAToP). Tellabs said SAToP provides relief by disguising traditional traffic to look like packet-based traffic. This enables service providers to carry traditional TDM traffic through packet-based network infrastructure, including Ethernet.
http://www.tellabs.com

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Avaya Selects Broadcom VoIP Silicon

Avaya has selected Broadcom's VoIP silicon for two lines of Avaya one-X Deskphone IP telephones. This includes Avaya's 9600 series for full-featured IP phones for enterprise customers, and the 1600 series for highly functional, cost efficient IP phones.


The Avaya 9600 series one-X Deskphone Edition phones use Broadcom's most advanced VoIP processor, the BCM1103 which features integrated MIPS and digital signal processing (DSP) processors, Gigabit Ethernet switch and Fast Ethernet physical layer devices (PHYs). Several of Avaya's enterprise IP phones also include Broadcom's BCM5482 single-chip Gigabit Ethernet transceiver, which maximizes the functionality of the BCM1103 VoIP processor for phones used on Gigabit Ethernet networks.



Avaya has also selected Broadcom for its Avaya one-X Deskphone Value Edition (1600 series), which is a low cost family of phones. The high-end model features Broadcom's BCM1104 VoIP processor, which also integrates a Gigabit Ethernet switch and Fast Ethernet PHYs, and runs all control and signal processing tasks on the MIPS processor core rather than employing a costly embedded digital signal processor. Included in the 1600 series lineup are two additional phones that include Broadcom's BCM1190 IP phone chip.

http://www.broadcom.com

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Bell Canada Sees Growth in Wireless, Slower Access Line Loss

Led by Bell Canada's rebounding wireless business, BCE reported net earnings per share (EPS) of $0.50 for Q3, compared to $0.36 for the same period last year. Some highlights for the quarter:



Bell Wireless Segment

• Total Bell Wireless operating revenues grew 8.0% to $1,072 million. Wireless network revenues increased by 8.0% to $974 million.
  
  
• Bell Wireless EBITDA increased 17.2% to $449 million with EBITDA flow-through of 92%. EBITDA margins on network revenues grew to 46.1%, an increase of 3.6 percentage points.
  
  
• Blended ARPU increased by $3 to $56 reflecting a $2 increase in postpaid ARPU to $68 and a $3 increase in prepaid ARPU to $19.
  
  
• Cost of acquisition decreased by 10.6% to $371 per gross activation, reflecting lower handset subsidies and higher gross activations.
  
  
• Blended churn of 1.7% was 0.2 percentage points higher than Q3 of 2006 reflecting an increase in postpaid churn of 0.3 percentage points to 1.4% due to the competitive intensity of the marketplace. Prepaid churn decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 2.7%.
  
  
• The Bell Wireless client base reached 6,021,000.
  
  
• Total gross activations were 445,000, a 15.6% increase from last year. Total net activations were 137,000 this quarter, or 7.0% higher than Q3 of 2006 and significantly higher than the net activations experienced in Q1 and Q2.

Bell Wireline Segment

• Total Bell Wireline operating revenues decreased by 0.2% to $2,641 million this quarter as gains in video and data revenues were offset by decreases in local and access and long distance revenues.
  
  
• Bell Wireline operating income was unchanged at $340 million this quarter as the loss of higher margin voice and data business and higher amortization expense was offset by higher video revenues, cost reductions, lower pension expenses and lower restructuring and other costs.



• Bell Wireline EBITDA declined by 1.6% to $937 million as the ongoing erosion of our residential local access line (NAS) customer base was largely offset by pricing initiatives, cost savings and lower pension expenses.



• Local and access revenues declined by 3.7% to $892 million which reflected an improvement over the 7.8% decline experienced in Q3 2006.



• NAS levels declined by 93,000 this quarter compared to the decline of 59,000 in the same period last year.



• Residential NAS levels declined by 104,000 this quarter, higher than the decline of 90,000 experienced last year with the disconnection of non-paying customers and the footprint expansion of a major cable
  competitor more than offsetting the continuing growth in customer
  winbacks. On a year-to-date basis, the decline in residential NAS
  levels remained relatively stable at 394,000 this year compared with
  386,000 for the comparable period in 2006.



• Business NAS levels increased by 11,000 this quarter.



• Long distance revenues declined by 8.4% to $306 million this quarter which reflected an improvement over the 13.2% decline experienced in Q3 2006.



• Data revenues increased 1.2% to $892 million this quarter due to growth in Internet revenues and higher IP Broadband revenues partly offset by the further erosion of legacy data services.



• High-speed Internet subscribers grew by 8.0% compared to last year with 34,000 net activations in the quarter.



• Video revenues increased by 14.2% to $330 million this quarter due
  largely to an ARPU increase of $6 to $60.



• Total video subscribers increased by 1.8% compared to last year to
  reach 1,820,000.



• Video net activations of 3,000 this quarter were impacted by higher churn of 1.3%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points compared to last year.

http://www.bell.ca

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HP Launches Service Delivery Platform

HP launched its Service Delivery Platform (SDP) 2.0 for telecom operators. The new release incorporates software for governance, management and quality that help service providers take full advantage of the platform's service-oriented architecture (SOA). The aim is to create a unified resource layer through which multiple services communicate with underlying wireless or wired networks, third-party applications and Web 2.0 mash-ups.



HP said its SDP 2.0 enables operators to create converged services that blend telecom, web and IT resources. Examples are music, video and business services that personalize content delivery using:

• network resources that show a customer's active presence on the network or his or her physical location;



• web resources for access to vast stores of information, multimedia content and social communities; and



• IT resources such as billing, network management, and other business and operations support systems (BSS and OSS).

HP SDP 2.0 provides service-level controls, identity management and security mechanisms. The platform is fully supported by HP consulting and integration services. Developers have the ability to provide identity management, virtualized control over user profile information, and SOA mechanisms to share context information such as location, preferences and web community affiliations.



The HP SDP 2.0 enhancements include:

• HP Third Party Framework -- takes advantage of HP SOA Systinet and HP SOA Manager along with HP Select Access to provide lifecycle governance and security, including network abstraction, third-party developer access and control, and OSS/BSS integration.



• Virtual Identity and Profile (VIP) Broker -- uses SOA to provide virtualized, single-point access and control to customer information stored in disparate services silos. The VIP Broker enables real-time personalization and the ability to gather real-time business intelligence and context data that can support new business models based on advertising or location-specific content bundles. For example, a service provider might be able to offer a specific bundle of games, screen savers and music to 60,000 people attending a concert.



• Enterprise Service Bus -- creates the bridge between network and IT resources including operational and billing systems.



• OSS Adapters -- provide a 360-degree view of network, network management, service management and quality of service. From a single console, administrators can monitor and control hardware, software and applications to ensure conformance to service-level agreements.



• Service enablers -- such as HP OpenCall software to bridge current telecom environments, to IMS and IPTV



• Testing tools -- delivered through a combination of HP Performance and Quality Center products, including Service Test and Service Test Management, methodologies and best practices.

http://www.hp.com/go/sdp

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Veraz Posts Q3 Revenue of $32 Million

Veraz Networks reported Q3 revenue of $32.2 million, which represents a year-over-year increase of 23% from the third quarter of last year. Third quarter IP product revenues were $19.4 million, an increase of 68% over the third quarter of 2006. Net income was $0.3 million, including $0.5 million in stock-based compensation expense, as compared to the third quarter of last year with a net loss of $3.4 million, including $0.5 million in stock-based compensation expense.



"In Q3, the majority of our IP product revenue came from the initial Next Generation Networks (NGN) deployments for five customers, which was a much higher portion of our revenue mix than what we have seen in prior quarters. Typically, revenues from initial NGN deployments generate lower than normal gross margins and this impact was seen in the decline in Q3 IP product gross margins," commented Al Wood, chief financial officer.



"In Q2 FY07, we raised our guidance from $120 million in revenue and a $4 million loss to $123 - $126 million in revenues and $3 - $6 million in net income. As we are now in the fourth quarter of FY07, we are updating our FY07 guidance to revenues of $124 -126 million, and net income of $2 - 4 million."http://www.veraznetworks.com

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T-Mobile USA to Cut Early Termination Fees

T-Mobile USA will introduce a more flexible policy for customers entering into contracts for mobile service. Under the company's new guidelines, early termination fees (ETFs) will decline during the course of a customer's contract with T-Mobile.



T-Mobile expects to introduce the more flexible ETF policy in the first half of 2008.

http://www.t-mobile.com

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Cisco Posts Quarterly Sales of $9.6B, up 17% YoY

Cisco reported first quarter net sales of $9.6 billion, net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis of $2.2 billion or $0.35 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $2.5 billion or $0.40 per share.



"We believe the migration to the second phase of the Internet and the proliferation of networked Web 2.0 technologies will help drive dramatic gains in productivity and innovation across all industries. If this market transition continues to unfold as we expect, it has the potential to power Cisco's and the industry's growth for many years to come," said John Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco.



Some highlights for the quarter include:

• Routing revenue was up 18% YoY


• Switching revenue was up 8% YoY


• Advanced Technology revenue was up 27% YoY


• Unified Communications, including WebEX, had growth over 70% YoY


• Storage revenue growth was over 20% YoY



• In Europe, orders were up 20%, while U.S. order growth was 13% YoY



• Total gross margin (GAAP) was 65.6%



• Headcount was 63,050 compared with 51,840 a year earlier



• Cash flows from operations were $3.1 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2008, compared with $2.3 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2007, and compared with $2.7 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007.



• Cash and cash equivalents, and investments were $24.7 billion at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2008, compared with $22.3 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007.



• During the first quarter of fiscal 2008, Cisco repurchased 96 million shares of common stock at an average price of $31.28 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $3.0 billion.



• As of October 27, 2007, Cisco had repurchased and retired 2.3 billion shares of Cisco common stock at an average price of $19.89 per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $46.2 billion since the inception of the stock repurchase program.

http://www.cisco.com

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