Mexico's Alestra Expands its Sonus-based VoIP Network

Alestra, an advanced data and voice telecommunications services operator, majority owned by Mexican leading industrial conglomerate Alfa and 49 percent-owned by AT&T, plans a large-scale expansion of its Sonus-based network. Alestra has been a Sonus customer since 2001. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Alestra is planning to increase teledensity in its markets without installing new traditional last-mile telephone connections. In addition, Alestra is partially relying on Sonus Networks as well as other IP technology partners to help meet recent regulatory requirements mandating network operators to provide Local Number Portability (LNP) during 2008.



The initial phase of the project allows for Alestra to decommission legacy infrastructure for Local Service in major markets such as: Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Tijuana, and Juarez. http://www.sonusnet.com

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Internet2 Demonstrates Dynamic Optical Circuit Interoperability

At this week's SC07 high-performance computing conference in Reno, Internet2 participants are demonstrating interoperability of its Dynamic Circuit (DC) Network with multiple regional and international networks as well as an equipment provider. Dynamic optical circuits provide on-demand or scheduled dedicated point-to-point bandwidth.



The Internet2 Dynamic Circuit (DC) Network, unveiled earlier this year, is a nationwide optical circuit network that provides short term, on-demand access to dedicated bandwidth up to 10 Gbps to serve the most demanding network applications like those involved in high-energy physics research, telemedicine and radio astronomy.



The Internet2 demonstrations will showcase interoperability with ESnet, GEANT2 in Europe, the Great Plains Network (GPN), GRNET in Greece, HEAnet in Ireland, Merit Network, Northern Crossroads (NoX), a Nortel Network based in Ottawa, Canada, the PIONIER network in Poland, and the Phosphorus testbed at the University of Amsterdam via SURFnet's NetherLight GLIF Open Lambda Exchange in Amsterdam.



The interoperability of the Internet2 DC Network with other dynamic circuit networks is enabled by the Inter-Domain Controller (IDC) protocol developed in a collaboration by GEANT2, Internet2, and ESnet and is used widely in this community as the standard for interoperable dynamic circuit networking today. The University of Amsterdam is working to extend the protocol and other collaborators are expected to participate in further development as well.

http://www.internet2.edu

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Qualcomm Tests First 3G Chips Based on 45 nm Technology

Qualcomm completed the first phone call on a 3G chip manufactured with 45 nanometer (nm) process technology. The device was produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Qualcomm recently taped out on its low-power-optimized 45 nm process using advanced immersion lithography and extreme low-k inter-metal dielectric material.



Qualcomm said 45 nm technology will enable chips that feature higher speeds, lower power consumption and enhanced integration, all with reduced die cost by providing more die per wafer.



Qualcomm is preparing to introduce three new 45 nm single-chip solutions designed to enable mass-market smartphones. The QSC7230 for HSPA+ devices, QSC7830 for CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B devices, and multi-mode QSC7630 for both HSPA+ and EV-DO Rev. B are the fifth generation of dual-core solutions from Qualcomm.
http://www.qualcomm.com/

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European Commission Proposes Single European Telecoms Market/Regulator

The European Commission officially adopted proposals for a reform of the EU telecoms rules with the aim of creating a single European telecom market with a consistent set of regulations covering consumers in all 27 EU Member States. The plan calls for a new European Telecom Market Authority to govern national telecoms regulators in ensuring that market rules and consumer regulation are applied consistently, independently and without protectionism. To become law, the Commission proposals will now need to be approved by the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers. The European Commission believes the approval could be attained by the end of 2009.



Specific components of the reform proposal include:

• New consumer rights such as the right to switch telecoms operators within 1 day; the right to transparent and comparable price information; the possibility to call freephone numbers from abroad; and a more effective single European emergency number 112.



• More consumer choice through more competition, especially by giving national telecoms regulators the new remedy of functional separation for dominant telecom operators.



• More security in using communication networks, especially through new instruments to fight against spam, viruses and other cyber attacks.



• A "New Deal" for radio spectrum to spur investment into new infrastructures and to ensure "broadband access for everyone". In rural areas of the EU, only 72% of the population on average have broadband access. The Commission seeks to overcome this "digital divide" by better managing radio spectrum and by making spectrum available for wireless broadband services in regions where building a new fibre infrastructure is too costly. The switchover from analogue to digital TV will free a substantial amount of radio spectrum (the so-called "digital dividend") that can be used for this purpose.



• Better regulation in telecoms by deregulating those markets where EU-driven market-opening has already led to competition ; this will allow the Commission and national regulators to focus on the main bottlenecks, such as the broadband market.



• More independent watchdogs to guarantee fair regulation in the interest of consumers. Too often, telecoms regulators are still close to the dominant operator that continues to be partly owned by the national government in many countries. The EU Telecoms Reform wants to strengthen the independence of national telecoms watchdogs from operators and governments alike.



• Continued policy of Functional Separation, which requires an incumbent operator to separate its network infrastructure from the units offering services using this infrastructure. Although operationally separate business entities are created, overall ownership remains unchanged; functional separation is therefore an instrument that needs to be distinguished from structural separation which the EC is currently introducing in the energy sector.



• A new European Telecom Market Authority will be established to ensure that important communication services (such as internet broadband access, data roaming, mobile phone usage on planes and ships and cross-border business services) are regulated more consistently across the 27 EU Member States. The European Telecom Market Authority will more effectively combine the functions of the current European Regulators Group (ERG) and of the current European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).

"From today onwards, a single market without borders for Europe's telecoms operators and consumers is no longer only a dream," said José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission. "Telecoms is a field where our single market can bring about very concrete results for every citizen in terms of more choice and lower prices, whether for mobile phones or for broadband internet connections. At the same time, a single market with 500 million consumers opens new opportunities for telecoms operators -- if Europe helps to ensure effective competition and consistent rules of the game. This is why we act today. A more European regulatory approach is particularly justified in telecoms. After all airwaves know no borders. And the internet protocol has no nationality."



Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner said: "Today's telecoms reform proposals put Europe's citizens centre stage. In the past, Europe has made substantial progress by opening telecoms markets to new players and by progressively ensuring more competition. However, dominant telecoms operators, often still protected by government authorities, remain in control of critical market segments, especially of the broadband market. This restricts consumers' freedom of choice. 10% of EU citizens still have no broadband access at all. This is why new consumer rights, a new dose of competition, an effective system of independent telecoms regulators, new investment into competitive infrastructures and more space for new wireless services are needed to put Europe's digital economy on track."http://www.europa.euhttp://ec.europa.eu/ecomm

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Fulcrum and Luxtera to Demo 40 Gbps Datacenter Ethernet Switch

Fulcrum Microsystems and Luxtera have developed a low-latency, 40-Gigabit Ethernet switch/router reference design for datacenter backbone applications. The reference design is composed of a card developed by Luxtera using its nanophotonic "Blazar" 40-Gigabit optical active cable that fits into the Fulcrum "Reno" low-latency, 10-Gigabit Ethernet router platform for datacenter applications.



Luxtera's Blazar is a 40-Gigabit optical active cable (OAC) that leverages the company's CMOS photonics technology. Blazar binds four 10-Gigabit Ethernet channels into one 40 Gbps high-density QSFP connector and has a reach of up to 300 meters.



Fulcrum's "Reno" reference design is a 1RU switch/router system that uses Fulcrum's FocalPoint low-latency switch, or Fulcrum's low-latency router to offer 24 full-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. With the Luxtera mezzanine card, Reno is configured to feature three 40 Gbps QSFP ports and 12 CX4 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports, all running at full line rate with less than 300 nanoseconds of latency for L3 routing.

http://www.luxtera.com

http://www.fulcrummicro.com

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Nortel, Northwestern University Build Digital Media Optical Network

Nortel and Northwestern University have developed a global test bed for digital media-optimized networking in order to evaluate new technologies for high-bandwidth applications like high-definition (HD) movies, immersive HD video conferencing, telemedicine, collaborative aeronautic design and other very-high bandwidth operations.



The test bed, which is being demonstrated at this week's SC07 conference in Reno, links to Amsterdam, Chicago, Barcelona and Ottawa. The work is spearheaded by Northwestern University's International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR), a communications research body in which Nortel is a partner. Other contributing partners of this work include CANARIE, Canada's advanced Internet development organization, Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC), the i2CAT Foundation, the advanced networking organization of Catalonia, Spain, and Inocybe Canada. Together, they are demonstrating how optical multicast technologies in conjunction with dynamic bandwidth allocation techniques greatly improve the user experience for digital media services.



The network is based on Nortel's Optical Multiservice Edge (OME) 6500, and uses its optical multicast capabilities to deliver high-bandwidth services like video more efficiently and economically. The OME 6500 is an optical convergence optical platform that transports TDM, data, and advanced wavelength services. It also includes Nortel's Dynamic Allocation Resource Controller (DRAC), a software suite that acts as the guide for video traffic on the network. It enables applications such as video and grid computing, for example, to find and use additional bandwidth available on the network. Nortel said this enables massive data flows for specific periods of time, and also automates the provisioning, maintenance, and repair of the network.


http://www.nortel.com

http://www.icair.org/

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Korean National Supercomputing Center Selects Force10 Switch/Routers

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), Korea's national supercomputing center, has deployed Force10 Networks' TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers and the S2410 data center switch to build a massively parallel processing (MPP) supercomputer with a peak performance of 250 Teraflops or 250 trillion calculations per second. The supercomputer has four Force10 TeraScale E1200s at its core supporting 240 Ten Gigabit Ethernet ports to interconnect more than 3,000 nodes.



Additionally, the Force10 S2410 provides the high 10 Gigabit Ethernet density KISTI needs to interconnect servers in its visualization system.



In 2005, KISTI deployed the Force10 TeraScale E600 and TeraScale E300 in an international grid network to connect the country with scientists and researchers worldwide via the Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development (GLORIAD).

http://www.force10networks.com

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Open Grid Forum Sees Adoption of its HPC Specification

The Open Grid Forum (OGF) said its High Performance Computing (HPC) Basic Profile specification will be adopted in product releases planned by several commercial providers including Microsoft, Altair, and Platform Computing.



The HPC Basic Profile will enable users of Microsoft's Window's HPC Server 2008, Altair's PBS Professional, and Platform LSF products to achieve interoperability and manage resources across multi-site, multi-vendor grids. The Profile will also be implemented in open source software running some of the world's largest production grids in North America, Europe, and Asia.



The Open Grid Forum (OGF) was formed in June 2006 with the merger of the Global Grid Forum (GGF) and the Enterprise Grid Alliance (EGA).

http://www.ogf.org

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Voltaire Delivers , 96-port20 Gbps InfiniBand Switch

Voltaire introduced a new 20 Gbps, 96-port InfiniBand switching platform for high-performance unified fabrics in the data center. The Grid Director ISR 2004 delivers nanosecond latencies to enable high-performance applications to run on distributed server, network and storage resources. Voltaire said the switch could be combined with its recently introduced 10 Gigabit Ethernet line board and 4 Gigabits/second Fibre Channel storage router to enable a unified fabric in the data center. Unified fabrics provide seamless, high performance networking services between InfiniBand fabrics, Fibre Channel SANs and Ethernet LANs over a single high performance fabric with multiple virtual interfaces replacing actual physical adapters.

http://www.voltaire.com

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Occam Posts Q3 Revenues of $15.7 Million

Occam Networks reported Q3 revenue of $15.7 million, representing a decrease of 19 percent over the second quarter of 2007, and a 25 percent decrease over the same third quarter of 2006. Revenues for the first nine months of 2007 were $53.9 million, a 17 percent increase over the same nine months for 2006. Net loss for the third quarter of 2007 was $4.9 million as compared to $946,000 for the second quarter of 2007 and net income of $1.6 million for the third quarter of 2006.



"It was a challenging quarter for Occam on many fronts," said Bob Howard-Anderson, president and CEO of Occam Networks. "The market proved challenging, as customers delayed purchasing decisions and shifted their investment decisions from copper to fiber access lines. We are pleased that we concluded our restatement and are now current in all of our required SEC filings."
http://www.occamnetworks.com

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Siemens Releases Outdoor AP and Latest WLAN Software

Siemens Communications released a new HiPath Wireless Outdoor Access Point (OAP) and V5 of the HiPath Wireless Convergence Software supporting Voice over WLAN and mobility-enabled FMC applications.



The Siemens HiPath Wireless OAP is designed for outdoor and industrial environments and supports Wireless Distribution Service (WDS) technology, which enables the OAP to operate without a wired Ethernet network connection. Siemens said its access point is resistant to both freshwater and saltwater, fog, humidity, dust, and dirt and has a broad operating temperature range.

The release of HiPath Wireless Convergence Software V5 offers three key elements:

• WDS, which enables the OAP and existing HiPath Wireless access points to operate without a wired Ethernet network connection - delivering wireless backhaul capabilities.



• Opportunistic Key Caching (OKC), a secure, fast-roaming technique that allows access points to share authentication credentials to accelerate client roaming and prevent delays in voice calls.



• 802.1x AP authentication, which provides secure wired network integration through access point authentication.

The Siemens HiPath Wireless OAP and V5 of the HiPath Wireless Convergence Software are the seventh and eighth major releases to the HiPath Wireless portfolio in 24 months.

The Siemens HiPath Wireless OAP is available now in two models - the 2650, which has an internal antenna, and the 2660, with an external antenna. HiPath Wireless Convergence Software V5 supports the HiPath Wireless portfolio of WLAN controllers, access points and management software.

http://www.usa.siemens.com

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Hammerhead Bridges MPLS and PBB-TE Networks

Hammerhead Systems introduced its Carrier Ethernet Multicast Framework, an advanced control plane capability designed to bridge MPLS and emerging PBB-TE based networks by enabling E-LAN and E-Tree services for PBB-TE networks, and at the same time enabling multicast E-Tree services for MPLS. This enables seamless multipoint-to-multipoint and multicast PBB-TE networks alongside their existing MPLS and VPLS networks.



Specifically, Hammerhead's Carrier Ethernet Multicast Framework enables a service provider to deploy E-LAN and E-Tree services across their existing MPLS networks and extend them to their metro networks with PBB-TE using four Hammerhead innovations that serve as building-block technologies: 1) VPLS with hierarchical Multi-Class QoS; 2) the PBB-TE Service Gateway software feature, which has been extended to support multicast and multipoint services across MPLS and PBB-TE networks; 3) a new E-LAN software building block applied to PBB-TE networks; and 4) a new E-Tree software building block applied to both MPLS and PBB-TE networks.



Hammerhead said its Carrier Ethernet Multicast Framework would help address key deficiencies of PBT-TE by adding multipoint and multicast for E-LAN and E-Tree applications. Significantly, it would also address carrier concerns about having to choose either MPLS or PBT as a next gen architecture instead of choosing both.



Hammerhead also announced collaboration with Soapstone Networks to use its Provider Network Controller (PNC) for control plane provisioning and joint marketing to support service providers automating the provisioning of their point-to-point and multipoint PBB-TE networks.



http://www.hammerheadsystems.com

• In July 2007, Hammerhead Systems secured $18 million Series D round of funding for its traffic aggregation and switching platform. Hammerhead said its HSX 6000 answers the need for traffic aggregation in a market in which Ethernet services are taking off and in which legacy services are also continuing to grow. Its single box solution offers dense Ethernet aggregation for both E-Line and E-LAN services, MPLS Pseudowire termination, VPLS, Leased Line IP Aggregation, Frame Relay and ATM/IMA support, and Any-to-Any Service Inter-working. The new funding round was led by Foundation Capital and joined by all existing investors including Mayfield Fund, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Pequot Ventures, Silver Creek Ventures and Apex Venture Partners. Hammerhead Systems has raised $98 million in total capital to date.

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