Thursday, May 29, 2008

Hammerhead Systems Appoints Rob Keil President and CEO

Hammerhead Systems announced the appointment of Rob Keil as President and CEO, replacing Peter Savage, who is leaving the company.


Hammerhead offers a Layer 2.5 solution supporting multiservice MPLS and Carrier Ethernet in a single box. The HSX 6000 provides dense Ethernet aggregation for E-Line, E-LAN and E-Tree Services, MPLS Pseudowire termination, VPLS, Leased Line IP Aggregation, Multilink PPP/Frame Relay/ATM support, Any-to-Any Service Interworking, and a PBB-TE Service Gateway.


Rob Keil co-founded Hammerhead in 2002, raised the Series A, served as VP of Marketing and Business Development and took the HSX 6000 from visionary concept, through development and testing with tier 1 service providers, and into general availability and network deployment. Rob replaces

Prior to founding Hammerhead Systems, Rob was the Vice President of Marketing at optical networking company Zaffire, spent 4 years at Cisco as a Senior Group Manager in product management where he launched the MGX 8800 series, and was a Group Manager, Product Planning at StrataCom.

Hammerhead also announced the appointment of Houman Modarres as VP of Marketing. Houman was most recently VP of Product Management at Hammerhead Systems. Prior to Hammerhead, Houman was Director of the Softswitch and IP Telephony business line at 3Com Corporation. I 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.

Taiwan's Chunghwa Renews TDM Maintenance with Alcatel-Lucent

Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom, has renewed a major maintenance contract with Alcatel-Lucent for a second four-year term. Specifically, Alcatel-Lucent will provide maintenance services on the Alcatel-Lucent 5ESS and S12 switches that make up Chunghwa Telecom's Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) network, which serves some 12 million subscriber lines. The full suite of service support includes technical support, trouble shooting as well as repairs and return (services. This maintenance contract will help Chunghwa Telecom better manage and maintain its 14 million ports in more than 700 switches distributed across the island. These switches have been in operation at Chunghwa Telecom's network for more than a decade. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Telekom Austria Enhances IPTV with Alcatel-Lucent

In time for the European soccer championship (EURO 2008), Telekom Austria is enhancing its aonTV with Time shift TV and HDTV capabilities. aonTV customers will be able to stop live broadcasts, take a break, and then continue to watch the transmission of the program. Telekom Austria selected Alcatel-Lucent for the project.


Alcatel-Lucent noted that it now has over 50 service providers worldwide deploying its Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (TPSDA).http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Blueslice Expands its Home Subscriber Server (HSS) Portfolio

Montreal-based Blueslice Networks introduced a compact version of its Home Subscriber Server platform. The new HSS 1000 product offering, offers all the technical benefits and capabilities of existing HSS 3000 counterpart but is designed for smaller, cost-constrained deployments.


The Home Subscriber Server (HSS) is the central subscriber database in IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks. The Blueslice's HSS 3000 provides control and intelligence within mobile and fixed networks and the management of multiple profiles per subscription.


Blueslice has integrated its HLR and HSS with its ngHLR, SIP-AS, and AAA server. This allows each component to be enabled on the same platform via a simple software license and resolves the issue of migrating subscriber information from legacy HLR to new HSS environments. The Blueslice Home Subscriber Server is compliant to 3GPP IMS specifications, fixed TISPAN specifications, and PCMM for cable devices.http://www.blueslice.com

Ericsson Finalizes Reverse Split 1:5

Ericsson will undertake a reverse split 1:5 of the company's shares. The reverse split has the effect that five shares of series A and five shares of series B, respectively, are consolidated into one share of series A and one share of series B, respectively. The first day of trading in the company's A and B shares after the reverse split is June 2, 2008. The record date for the reverse split is June 4, 2008. http://www.ericsson.com

Sorrento Acquires Redfern Broadband Networks

Sorrento Networks has acquired Redfern Broadband Networks (RBN), a developer of optical networking equipment. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal includes RBN's products, customer contracts, channel partner relationships, test equipment, etc.


RBN's GigaEdge Optical Services Provisioning Platforms (OSPP) aggregate the many different services found at the edge of the network and solve the high-capacity optical upgrade needs of customers. Its portfolio includes the RBNi GigaEdge 8200 CWDM OEO ROADM, which is OSP hardened and deployed in North America, Europe and Asia; the RBNi GigaEdge 2300 Programmable Optical Transport Platform, which is configurable as a xWDM Port Expander or Transponder/Muxponder (GigaEdge 2320) or SONET/SDH Mini-MSPP (GigaEdge 2330); and the RBNi GigaEdge 6000 series passive, OSP hardened CWDM filter modules.s the GigaCraft 1200. RBN is based in NSW, Australia.


Sorrento said the acquisition expands its metro optical access product portfolio. The companies' products are similarly designed to help telecommunications carriers and enterprises increase the bandwidth of their existing networks and lower the cost of providing next-generation broadband services.


In addition, Sorrento will enhance its global reach via acquired channel relationships and service provider customers. RBN's strategic partners include companies such as Embarq and Ericsson, and its customer base includes global leaders such as Alltel, PCCW Hong Kong and Siminn Telecom Iceland.


"Sorrento's focus is to grow our worldwide footprint by providing reliable products that address changing customer requirements, maintaining a low-cost structure and exceeding customer service expectations," said Jim Nevelle, CEO of Sorrento Networks. "By acquiring RBN's assets, we gain new, global customers, valuable channel partnerships in Europe and Asia and complementary optical platforms. The acquisition of RBN's proven optical technology strengthens our competitive edge."http://www.sorrentonet.com/http://www.rbni.com

Cisco Provides Major Network Upgrade for Orange Business Services

Cisco is providing a major network upgrade project to improve and extend Orange Business Services' international IP VPN. The project will help Orange Business Services bring new advanced services to multinational organizations on a global basis, including Cisco Unified Communications and Cisco TelePresence for virtual ‘in-person' meetings.


Orange Business Services already uses the Cisco IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture. This new phase of network development will introduce greater efficiencies through the convergence of multiple legacy networks into one end-to-end IP network and add new capabilities such as multicast VPN and IPv6 over MPLS at the network edge.


"Rich media and Web 2.0 are driving the next wave of business productivity," added Pankaj Patel, senior vice president for the Service Provider Technology Group at Cisco. "With the latest phase in the transformation of Orange Business Services' network, we are working together even more closely to offer an increasingly integrated set of services to Orange Business Services customers."http://www.cisco.com

Verizon Airfone Exec Steps Down

William E. Pallone has retired as president of Verizon Airfone. Since 2000, Pallone has had responsibility for all business operations including engineering, product development, sales and marketing, finance and human resources for the airborne telecommunications company. http://www.verizon.com