Henan Mobile Offer Personalized RingBack Tones Based on TelcoBridges

Henan Mobile, a provincial subsidiary of China Mobile, has deployed a Personalized RingBack Tone (PRBT) system, supporting more than
4,000 E1s, using TelcoBridges' telecom platform in a solution supplied by Kingdom Telecom of Beijing.

Henan Mobile's "Color Ring" service replaces normal ring tones with a variety of personalized voice recordings, songs, or sound effects that are selected by the called party. PRBTs, which require a subscriber account, are not constrained by network technologies or handset dependencies.


TelcoBridges said that next to SMS, RingBack Tones is the second most profitable value added service that carriers offer to customers.http://www.telcobridges.com

Read More

China Telecom and Sprint Establish Global MPLS Interconnect Agreements

China Telecom and Sprint announced multiple, redundant network-to-network interconnection (NNI) agreements in the Asia-Pacific region. This relationship allows Sprint to extend its existing capabilities and footprint in China by giving Sprint customers access to the full range of capabilities inherent in China Telecom's Next Convergence Network (CN2) with coverage in more than 200 cities and 600 routers across the country.


Sprint noted that its Global MPLS capabilities now reach 137 countries worldwide.http://www.sprint.com

Read More

THUS Chooses Ixia to Provide Remote Service Verification of L3 VPNs

THUS plc, a UK-focused business telecommunications company, has deployed Ixia's IxRave IP service verification platform to provide service verification of its enterprise layer 3 VPN (L3 VPN) networks and services. THUS is using the Ixia platform to verify that end-customers are receiving services that perform as expected, both at initial provisioning and on a continuing basis.


Ixia said its IxRave also permits THUS to remotely perform end-to-end application testing to verify its customers' QoS and QoE (quality of experience). Inexpensive probes and virtual endpoints downloaded from the web enable THUS to quickly identify issues throughout a network and determine if a fault is in the network (edge and core) or in the access segment (edge to customer desktop).http://www.ixiacom.com

Read More

Redback Expands R&D in Vancouver B.C.

Redback Networks, an Ericsson company, will double the size of the company's research and development campus in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. The expanded facility can accommodate up to 350 employees. In 2008, Redback is planning to hire up to 60 additional engineering employees in Vancouver. Redback's Vancouver campus is responsible for the development of NetOp policy and management software used by the company's SmartEdge family of network routing products. Redback also has software and hardware development projects for SmartEdge and SMS in Vancouver.


The Vancouver expansion comes on the heels of Redback's San Jose campus expansion in December 2007, as well as Ericsson's creation of a new Product Area Packet Networks unit based in Silicon Valley. The new product area was created to help Ericsson address a $14.2 billion router market in fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure.http://www.redback.com

Read More

Pacific Crossing Completes Upgrade with Fujitsu

Fujitsu and Pacific Crossing completed an upgrade project that more than doubles the capacity of the 21,000-kilometer PC-1 trans-Pacific fiber optic submarine cable network.

The project, which began in September 2007, involved the installation of Fujitsu's FLASHWAVE S650 submarine wavelength divisional multiplexer equipment in Pacific Crossing's cable landing stations, and the upgrade of the overall capacity to 1.98Tbps, of which 1.01Tbps is available on the two Trans-Pacific segments. The six-month contract was completed without any disruption to existing network traffic. http://www.fujitsu.comhttp://www.pc1.com

• In January 2007, Pacific Crossing raised $50 million in new financing to pay off its remaining debt and finance new projects. The company also announced the appointment of Robert Boss as CEO and Robert Annunziata as Chairman. Boss previously was president of Japan Telecom America. Annunziata has served in a numerous executive positions throughout the telecom industry, including as CEO of Global Crossing during most of 1999.



• In January 2006, Pacific Crossing Ltd, Inc., a former subsidiary of Global Crossing and of the former Asia Global Crossing (now Asia Netcom), emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Over $650 million of existing debt was converted into equity and $25 million in secured debt.

Read More

Sea Launch Successfully Launches DIRECTV 11

Sea Launch successfully delivered the DIRECTV 11 broadcast satellite to orbit from its ocean-based platform on the Equator, marking its 4th successful launch of a DIRECTV satellite. DIRECTV 11 is one of three recent Boeing 702-model spacecraft built for DIRECTV and is among the largest and most powerful Ka-band satellites built to date.


Earlier Sea Launch missions for DIRECTV include Spaceway 1 (April 26, 2005), DIRECTV 7S (May 4, 2004) and DIRECTV 1R (October 9, 1999).http://www.sea-launch.com

Read More

Motorola Selected for Mobile WiMAX Trial in Thailand

United Information Highway has deployed a Mobile WiMAX trial in Thailand in collaboration with Motorola. UIH acquired a WiMAX trial licence last year from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), and conducted trials in Bangkok and Phuket to assess WiMAX traffic channeling capabilities in the respective areas. UIH is studying to use Motorola's mobile WiMAX technology to provide low-cost broadband services to corporate users and travelers.


Motorola noted that it is currently involved in 19 WiMAX contracts and 77 engagements in 44 countries worldwide.

http://www.motorola.com

Read More

Comcast Hits 7 Billion Views On Demand

Comcast announced a VOD milestone -- the cable operator has delivered more than 7 billion VOD views and 1 billion hours watched since 2003. Each month, Comcast's On Demand programming is now being used more than 275 million times for a total of 130 million hours.


Comcast's On Demand service has grown to feature a library of over 10,000 titles per month.http://www.comcast.com

Read More

NextPoint Introduces UCX Platform for Enterprise Communications

NextPoint introduced its Unified Communications Exchange (UCX) solution for large enterprises. The platform is based on the NextPoint Multi-Protocol Session Exchange (MSX), an IP-based session routing engine that directs real-time sessions over network interconnects. The UCX provides the following capabilities:

• Interoperability - the ability to provide end-to-end integration between different vendors' voice products, delivering unified services across IP-PBXs and IP-Centrex; audio, video and web conferencing; voice mail, fax mail and unified messaging systems; and Instant Messaging platforms. With the ability to support Presence, the UCX can integrate traditionally disparate systems to provide the foundation for seamless collaboration.



• Scalability - current enterprise communications systems typically allow for up to 2,000-3,000 simultaneous calls before reaching capacity and impacting operations. NextPoint said its UCX can scale to 40,000 simultaneous calls, without complicated augmentations or upgrades.



• Migration -- many enterprises are operating with both legacy H.323 and next-generation SIP systems. NextPoint's UCX supports both protocols, enabling a graceful transition to SIP.



• Instant messaging -- the UCX's instant messaging feature supports SIMPLE (Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions), which enables instant messaging to move beyond traditional text-based services to incorporate the integration of voice and video communications.



• Routing - the UCX reduces the effort necessary to implement routing updates into each device throughout the enterprise by centralizing routing control in a single location.



• Availability -- NextPoint's UCX is highly available, and system failover is undetectable.



• Intelligence and insight -- When coupled with NextPoint's QoS and dynamic policy management system -- the Real-Time Session Manager (RSM) -- the UCX provides enterprises with real-time intelligence and insight for all communications traffic running on an IP-based network.

NextPoint's UCX includes other business-critical functionality such as transport layer security (TLS), traffic management and stateful SIP dialog processing, Tel-URI support for SIP-based public and private numbering, and Network Address Translation (NAT) enhancements.


The UCX will be available in Q2 2008.



http://www.nextpointnetworks.com

The Converged Edge for Fixed and Mobile Networks by Sridhar Ramachandran and Natasha Tamaskar Current trends affecting service providers' networks include the consolidation of fixed and mobile network assets and the increasing sophistication of mobile devices. Fixed and mobile operators have many differences, both in access networks—mobile operators focus on radio spectrum management and often rely on fixed operators' facilities for backhaul and interconnects—and in network architectures. Fixed and mobile networks require different technologies and deployment architectures. However, operators now realize that IP can enable consolidation of fixed and mobile networks, leading to new service possibilities and the need for end-to-end IP services across the converg

Read More

Trans-Pacific Express Cable Activation Expected in July

The U.S.-mainland China portion of the Trans-Pacific Express (TPE) submarine cable is now expected to enter service in July, a month in advance of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. TPE is the first next-generation, high-capacity undersea system to link the United States with mainland China, Taiwan and South Korea. Verizon Business teamed up with charter TPE Consortium team members - China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, Korea Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) - to expedite the longest leg of the 18,000-kilometer cable system. TPE will initially provide capacity of up to 1.28 Tbps and will have design capacity of up to 5.12 Tbpshttp://www.verizon.com

Read More

Cisco's John Chambers and Al Gore Host Green Telepresence Keynote

Al Gore, Cisco CEO John Chambers and Cisco chief marketing officer Sue Bostrom, hosted a virtual panel discussion on technology innovation and its impact on climate change. Utilizing a Cisco TelePresence implementation, the panel discussion was moderated from London by ITN correspondent Lawrence McGinty, with Sue Bostrom onstage at the VoiceCon trade show in Orlando, John Chambers joining virtually from Cisco headquarters in San Jose, and Al Gore from Nashville. The discussion was also displayed live to international audiences in London, Paris, Dubai, and Warsaw.


By using Cisco TelePresence and avoiding unnecessary travel, Mr Gore, Mr Chambers and their staff will avoid approximately 4.2 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions based on current calculations performed by DOMANI, a sustainability management consulting firm, and the University of California, San Diego.


"No one company or innovation will have enough impact to reverse global climate change," Gore said. "However, the technology industry has a strategic opportunity to lead the charge in helping businesses lower their carbon footprint by embracing IT innovations."


Cisco noted that it has so far deployed more than 185 Cisco TelePresence rooms in more than 25 countries and over 85 cities worldwide. With usage averaging around 5 hours per day per room, compared to traditional video conferencing which is typically used less that 30 minutes per day per endpoint, Cisco estimates it has saved $100 million dollars in travel costs since deploying the technology in October 2006.


An archive of the webcast is online.http://www.cisco.com

Read More

FCC to Require Better Broadband Data Collection

The FCC adopted an order that will increase the precision and quality of broadband subscribership data collected every six months from broadband services providers. Improvements include collecting detailed subscribership information on a local level and more detailed information about the speed of broadband service. Specifically, the Order will:

• Expand the number of broadband reporting speed tiers to capture more precise information about upload and download broadband speeds in the marketplace


• Require broadband providers to report numbers of broadband subscribers by Census Tract, broken down by speed tier and technology type


• Improve the accuracy of information the Commission gathers about mobile wireless broadband deployment

Read More

FCC Bans Exclusive Telecom Contracts in Apartment Building

Citing a need for competition, the FCC banned carriers from entering into exclusive contracts to provide telecommunications services in residential apartment buildings, and prohibited enforcement of existing contracts that contain exclusivity provisions.


In 2007, the Commission banned exclusive deals for video services in residential apartment buildings, and in 2000, the Commission prohibited exclusive contracts for telecommunications services in commercial multi-tenant environments.http://www.fcc.gov

Read More