Tiscali TV Combines IP and Digital Terrestrial TV

TISCALI TV has made its commercial debut in Italy. The service combines IP and DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) television programming. It is initially available in the Cagliari, Milan and Rome areas and will be free until 31-March-2008. Tiscali plans to gradually expanded across Italy over the coming year.



Tiscali also announced a video programming deal with Sky Italia, the Italian digital pay TV service. Tiscali TV users will be able to activate Sky packages on Tiscali's TV platform, experiencing an even richer TV offering together with linear and on-demand channels.

http://www.tiscali.com

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European Commission Approves Amsterdam's Municipal Fiber Network

The European Commission has approved the investment by the municipality of Amsterdam and other shareholders to be build an FTTH network. After a year of investigation and deliberation, the Commission concluded that the municipality participates in the project on the same terms as would a market investor. Therefore the Commission has concluded that no state aid is involved.



Under EU state aid rules, investments by public authorities in companies carrying out economic activities can be considered free of aid, if they are made on terms that a private investor operating under market conditions would have accepted (the market economy investor principle).



The City of Amsterdam is investing in a company building a FTTH network connecting 37,000 households within its city limits. The total equity investment in the project is EUR 18 million. The Amsterdam municipality owns one third of the shares, two private investors, ING Real Estate and Reggefiber together another third, while five housing corporations own the remaining third. The wholesale operator of the new fibre network was selected through a tender procedure and will provide open, non-discriminatory access to retail operators which offer TV, broadband and telephony services.

http://www.europa.eu

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Motorola Ships 50 millionth SURFboard modem

Motorola announced a company milestone -- the shipment of its 50 millionth SURFboard modem. In the coming months, the SURFboard cable modems (model SB5101) and wireless cable modem gateways (model SBG900) will feature a 50 millionth celebratory icon on products sold in leading North America electronic stores.

http://www.motorola.com

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Singapore Outlines Vision for Open Access Broadband 2015

The government of Singapore outlined its vision for an open access Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) offering pervasive ultra-high speed connectivity by 2015. The plan calls for a minimum speed of 100 Mbps in the downlink and 50 Mbps in the uplink per end-user connection and scalability to 1 Gbps and above. Singapore is also calling for a separation between network layer operations (the Layer 1 physical network), the bandwidth service operators (Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity), and the retail services that ride on top.



The Next Gen NBN is expected to be available nationwide by 2015, although the first services, such as high-definition video conferencing, telemedicine, Grid Computing-on-Demand, security and immersive learning applications, should be running on the Next Gen NBN from about 2010.



Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority is issuing a Request-For-Proposal (RFP) open to all interested parties to submit their bid to design, build and operate the passive infrastructure layer of the Next Gen NBN.



Under this RFP, a Network Company, or NetCo, will be selected to design, build and operate this passive infrastructure that will carry the traffic for Next Generation Services. The deployment of active electronics such as switches and routers to manage the flow of traffic on the passive infrastructure will be done by what is called the Operating Company or OpCo, which will also be the entity that offers wholesale broadband access to downstream Retail Service Providers, or RSPs. The latter are the companies that provide Next Generation Services to end-users.



"A Next Generation Broadband Network will contribute to Singapore's continued economic success. It is also critical for the Next Gen NBN to provide effective open access to downstream operators. This will create a more vibrant and competitive broadband market. As a policy, we have therefore decided to adopt separation between the different levels of the Next Gen NBN to achieve effective open access. The RFP to construct the network will therefore provide for structural separation of the passive network operator from the downstream operators. If necessary, the Government is also prepared to consider legislation to achieve such effective open access for downstream operators in the next generation broadband market," said Dr Lee Boon Yang.



http://www.ida.gov.sg

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Beceem's Chipsets Pass Qualification for Sprint's Mobile WiMAX

Beceem Communications' chipsets completed initial interoperability testing for Sprint's mobile WiMAX requirements. Beceem said the milestone shows the commercial readiness of WiMAX equipment and chipsets in preparation for the timely launch of Sprint's Xohm Mobile Broadband Service, which is expected to begin during the 2nd quarter of 2008.

http://www.beceem.com

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Yipes and KPN Team on Global Ethernet

Yipes Enterprise Services and KPN International are collaborating on global Ethernet network-to-network interfaces (E-NNIs). The bi-directional E-NNIs provide KPN customers end-to-end Ethernet services between Europe and the U.S. while enabling Yipes' customers to access the KPN network in Europe.



With this new agreement, Yipes now has 10 bi-directional E-NNI agreements with providers around the world. Global E-NNIs support Yipes' Ethernet services expansion strategy, which will be further enhanced by the pending acquisition of Yipes by Reliance Communications of India.

http://www.kpn.com

http://www.yipes.com

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BroadLight Appoints Raanan Gewirtzman as its New CEO

BroadLight, which supplies GPON semiconductors and software, has appointed Raanan Gewirtzman as its new CEO, replacing Andrew Vought, who has resigned after four years for personal reasons. Raanan joined the company in 2003 and has been responsible for BroadLight's product development and operations.

http://www.broadlight.com

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Harris Selects RMI's XLR for Data Plane Processing in Warfighter

Harris Chas selected RMI's XLR Processor as the foundation for its data plane processing function being developed for the Warfighter Information Network -- Tactical (WIN-T) Program. The development project awarded to RMI consists of custom board development for data plane processing along with associated software that leverages RMI's XLR500 Series processor's architecture, performance and scalability.



RMI said its XLR was chosen for the project because it met the application's performance goals within a very constrained power and thermal environment, while providing the ability to port a substantial amount of legacy software written in C-Programming language.

http://www.RazaMicro.com

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France Telecom Affiliates to Deploy NetCracker

France Telecom group has certified and selected NetCracker as the Next Generation Inventory (NGI) Group Core Component (GCC) standard for its strategic NExT program. The NetCracker solution is expected to be deployed into France Telecom affiliates worldwide. Financial terms were not disclosed.



NetCracker's technology helps service providers to deliver and manage convergent and content-rich offerings. NetCracker's portfolio includes solutions focused on specific verticals, such as Triple Play, and pre-integrated product modules. The core modules include Service Inventory, Resource Inventory, Service Provisioning & Activation, Discovery & Reconciliation, Design & Planning, Customer Impact Analysis, Outside Plant, Order Management, Asset Management, and Telecom Cost Management.



NetCracker also announced the successful implementation of NGI WiFi hot-spots inventory, FTTH inventory, and VoIP services inventory for Orange in France, as well as transmission network inventory and ADSL inventory in emerging market affiliates of France Telecom group.



In late 2005, NetCracker was selected as France Telecom group's GCC NGI vendor. NGI incorporates NetCracker's Framework, Physical and Logical Resource Inventory, Service Inventory, and Discovery & Reconciliation modules. Optional modules include Outside Plant, Asset Management, and Telecom Cost Management. These have since been deployed at several France Telecom group properties, supporting mobile, fixed, and IT services. After successful completion of these projects in November 2006, NetCracker was named France Telecom group's official Next Generation Inventory supplier for its NExT program.

http://www.netcracker.com

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SEC Opens Investigation into Westell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened a private investigation into trading of Westell's securities. Westell, which is headquartered in Aurora, Illinois, a supplier of broadband access products and conferencing solutions for carriers, service providers and enterprises.

http://www.westell.com

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Hong Kong's Wharf T&T Selects Alcatel-Lucent's IP/MPLS

Wharf T&T, a leading Telecom & IT service provider in Hong Kong, will deploy Alcatel-Lucent's IP/MPLS solution to expand its metro Ethernet network as part of its IP network transformation project. Wharf T&T first adopted Alcatel-Lucent's IP/MPLS solution in 2005 to offer Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to business customers.



Alcatel-Lucent will provide Wharf T&T with a state-of-art IP/MPLS solution based on its 7750 Service Router and 7250 Service Access Switch, all managed by the 5620 Service Aware Manager. In addition, Alcatel-Lucent is providing a range of professional and network integration services for Wharf T&T, including project management. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

http://www.wharftt.com

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Alcatel-Lucent 7342 ISAM FTTU Gains RUS Acceptance

The Alcatel-Lucent 7342 ISAM FTTU (Fiber to the User) solution has been granted both "Rural Development Acceptance" and "Buy American" status by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development agency for deployment under the Rural Development Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program.



USDA acceptance means that communities of up to 20,000 inhabitants can now install Alcatel-Lucent's 7342 ISAM FTTU solution using funding obtained under the USDA Rural Development funding programs. Alcatel-Lucent's 7342 ISAM FTTU solution will be listed in the "ae -- Access Equipment" category, FTTH Systems.

http://www.alcatel.com

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Bell Labs Collaborates with French National Research Institute (INRIA)

Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs and INRIA, France's Institut National de Recherche en Informatique, have signed a Joint Research agreement that commits the two organizations to partner in developing advanced technologies for the next generation Internet.



Bell Labs and INRIA have committed researchers and resources to jointly research and develop critical technologies to realize the challenge of "self organizing networks". This joint research will cover four critical areas - semantic networking, high manageability, self-optimizing mobile cellular networks, and ad-hoc extended mobile networks - and will focus on generating results through new technologies, intellectual property, and milestone publications that pave the way for the telecommunications.

"The number of sensors and communication devices is bringing Internet complexity to a new dimension" said Jeong Kim, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs. "This type of challenge needs experts from many disciplines such as math, physical sciences and computer sciences and requires close collaboration between industry and academic institutions. This Joint Research Lab is a natural next step from our collaboration with INRIA which started 10 years ago."http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

http://www.inria.fr

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ITU Promotes Communications in Fight Against Global Warming

At the ongoing UN Conference on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is presenting the case that
ICT can play a vital role in combating climate change. They can be used
for remote monitoring of climate change and gathering important
scientific data - for instance, using telemetry or remote sensing by
satellite. Furthermore, smart technologies can usher in a whole new
generation of energy-efficient products, notably in next-generation
networks.



ITU pointed out that the proliferation of ICT products in homes and
offices, and their deployment throughout the world, places an
increasingly heavy burden on energy consumption.



In addition, the move to "always-on" services, like broadband or mobile phones on standby, has greatly increased energy consumption compared with fixed-line telephones, which do not require an independent power source.



However, the ITU underlined an active commitment to promote the use of ICT as a positive force to reduce greenhouse emissions and to find ways to mitigate the effects of climate change.

http://www.itu.int

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