Turin to Acquire Carrier Access for $93 Million

Turin Networks agreed to acquire Carrier Access Corporation for approximately $92.7 million in cash.



The Carrier Access product portfolio includes solutions that span the wireless backhaul network from the cell-site to the network edge, as well as converged access technologies that enable service providers and enterprise customers to deliver carrier-quality IP voice and data services. The company has facilities in Boulder, Colorado and Shanghai, China. It claims a base of over 100 customers which includes major Tier 1 wireless and wireline carriers, cable operators, enterprises and government agencies.



Turin Networks is a provider of metro transport and switching solutions for wireline, wireless, MSO and private networks. Its "iConnect"-based solutions facilitate migration to end-to-end Carrier Ethernet over any media for all types of network operators. Turin is headquartered in Petaluma, California with R&D facilities in Petaluma, Dallas and Boston.



Under the terms of the agreement, stockholders will receive $2.60 for each outstanding share of Carrier Access' common stock, subject to adjustment. This represents a premium of 14.7% over Carrier Access' 20 day average stock price of $2.27 through December 14th, 2007.



The transaction is subject to the approval of Carrier Access stockholders and certain other customary closing conditions.

http://www.turinnetworks.com

http://www.carrieraccess.com

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ECI Adds ASON Capabilities to its Multi-Service Provisioning Platform

ECI Telecom has added Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON) capabilities to its XDM Multi-Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP) family of products.



Advanced control plane architecture offers new protection schemes to assure service continuation. The ITU ASON architecture, along with the GMPLS common signaling and routing protocol, enables the introduction of an extra layer of virtual management plane for differentiated service support based on Class of Service (CoS).



ECI said differential services can be implemented in existing and new transport networks by adding a control plane card to the XDM platform and using its unified LightSoft end-to-end network management system. Successful dealing with multiple network failures is enabled by full auto discovery package, new protection schemes and automatic prioritized restoration.


http://www.ecitele.com

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Mexico's Iusacell Deploys Starent Platform

Iusacell, a mobile operator in Mexico, is using Starent Networks' ST16 Multimedia Core Platform to deliver multimedia applications, such as streaming video, over its CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev A network.



Starent's ST16 delivers throughput, call transaction rates and packet processing, along with subscriber and network intelligence. For the Iusacell deployment, Starent Networks will provide the Packet Data Serving Node (PDSN) and Home Agent (HA) network elements along with geographic redundancy, Intelligent Traffic Control and Enhanced Lawful Intercept.

http://www.starentnetworks.com

http://www.iusacell.com

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Germany's NeckarCom Launches VoIP over WiMAX with Motorola

NeckarCom Telekommunikation GmbH

has launched its commercial VoIP service following the successful implementation earlier this year of a WiMAX network in the Ulm region of Germany by Motorola. NeckarCom has integrate all of its current standard voice services across the WiMAX network and is offering a new combined voice and data solution.



NeckarCom's integrated voice and data service was the first 802.16e WiMAX-based offering in Germany and is based on Motorola's WiMAX technology.



NeckarCom is a subsidiary of EnBW Regional AG, part of the third-largest energy supply company in Germany.

http://www.motorola.com

http://www.neckarcom.de/

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Qualcomm Acquires SoftMax for Noise Reduction

Qualcomm has acquired San Diego-based SoftMax Inc.,

a developer of noise reduction technology for mobile devices, for an undisclosed sum.
SoftMax offers voice algorithms for signal separation, echo cancellation and signal processing. The technology, which is currently in wireless devices on the market, can separate a speaker's voice from various background noises. The result is a dramatic improvement in voice quality, providing significant differentiation for the end product. The company said it has several key partnerships and implementations with industry-leading handset and Bluetooth headset OEMs using dual-microphone designs.



Qualcomm said SoftMax's multi-microphone noise suppression and echo cancellation expertise will broaden the audio and voice capabilities of its product portfolio. The technology can be integrated into devices such as mobile handsets, Bluetooth headsets, VoIP phones and notebook PCs.

http://www.qualcomm.com

http://www.softmax.comSoftMax was founded in 1998 by scientists from The Salk Institute and The University of California, San Diego

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AT&T U-verse TV Expands HD Channel Lineup

AT&T announced the addition of eight HD channels to its U-verse TV

channel lineup, bringing the HD lineup to more than 40 HD channels in most markets. HD service is available for $10 a month with any U-verse TV programming package. All U-verse TV packages include HD-ready equipment, and most include an HD-capable DVR.

http://www.att.com

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Atheros Debuts Single-Chip 802.11n for Home Gateways

Atheros Communications introduced two single-chip 802.11n solutions designed for the carrier gateway market. The new dual-band, 2.4GHz/5GHz, AR9220 and single-band, 2.4GHz AR9223 PCI designs are part of the Atheros XSPAN family of draft 802.11n solutions. Routers based on these new XSPAN PCI solutions will deliver 10 times the throughput and nearly twice the range of legacy 802.11g and 802.11a/g networks.



The AR9220 dual-band, 2x2 MIMO, PCI design is designed for high-end, multiplay gateways and set-top boxes supporting IPTV, HD video streaming, VoIP calls and multi-player online gaming on the 5GHz channel-while using the 2.4GHz band for simple data networking. This solution provides leading 802.11a/g/n performance, supporting up to 300 Mbps physical data rates and 200 Mbps of actual user throughput on both the uplink and the downlink.



The AR9223 single-band, 2x2 MIMO PCI design is aimed at basic home gateways with up to 300 Mbps physical data rates. The single-band option offers carriers a natural migration path from 11g to 11n in the 2.4GHz band, and is suited for applications less sensitive to bandwidth limitations and interference, such as web surfing, VoIP calls, audio streaming and wireless printing.



The PCI interface allows for direct integration on DSL motherboards, easing carrier manufacturers' design cycles to accelerate time-to-market. The chips also feature advanced power efficiencies for greener gateways that reduce energy consumption.



Atheros said it has targeted the performance and price points that carriers need to broadly deploy home gateways capable of supporting data, voice and video on a single wireless network.

http://www.atheros.com/

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McAfee Renews VPN Contract with AT&T

McAfee awarded a multimillion dollar, three-year contract to AT&T to provide long distance voice, enhanced toll-free and Virtual Private Network (VPN) services for McAfee's 30 domestic and global sites. The deal builds renews and expands a long-standing relationship between the two companies that spans more than four years.

http://www.att.com

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Sprint Readies IPv6 MPLS Trial

Sprint announced that it is ready to deploy IPv6 and is nearing initial beta testing of IPv6 MPLS VPNs on its Peerless IP (PIP) network, which provides a platform that is physically and logically isolated from the public Internet. Customer trials are expected to begin in January 2008, with general availability in the second quarter of 2008.



IPv6 will greatly expand IP addressing space, thereby accommodating the rapidly growing number of Internet devices and applications. IPv6 is also expected to make significant improvements in areas such as routing and auto configuration resulting in better functionality and enhanced security.



Sprint offers a variety of IP-based services and will continue to expand them in parallel with IPv6 evolution. These services will include Dedicated IP, MPLS VPN, Managed Network Services, and Consulting services. Federal agencies are expected to be the first to benefit from IPv6, as support for IPv6 is a requirement per the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The primary IPv6 vehicle for Sprint federal customers is the Networx Enterprise contract. Sprint will add IPv6 services to the Federal Networx Enterprise contract as they become available for IPv6 planning and transition support.



"Since 1997, Sprint has been actively involved in the standardization, testing, and deployment of IPv6," said Iyad Tarazi, VP of network development at Sprint. "As an early adopter of IPv6 in an experimental capacity, we've been testing IPv6 applications with our customers for more than a decade, and our involvement has provided Sprint the expertise that is needed to develop solutions for the emerging addressing constraints and for the general market."http://www.sprint.com

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One Minute Video: What is VPLS?

One Minute Video presented by Ananth Nagarajan, Juniper Networks -- What is VPLS?



Jargon Buster

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