Monday, June 9, 2008

InnoPath Extends Mobile Device Management to WiMAX

InnoPath Software, which provides Mobile Device Management (MDM) systems to leading global operators, has extended its iMDM mobile device management suite to include support for WiMAX devices. This new support enables WiMAX operators to meet consumer expectations for broadband wireless by provisioning new WiMAX devices as subscribers sign up on the network. The MDM platform then enables Customer Care and Enterprise Care capabilities to provide remote device management that includes firmware and software updates delivered automatically by the network.


InnoPath said it pursuing a network-agnostic MDM evolution strategy, as previously its iMDM was the only MDM server supporting CDMA and GSM from the same platform.


InnoPath's iMDM suite is already deployed by leading Tier-1 CDMA and GSM operators globally and WiMAX is the just the first broadband wireless protocol that the company will support. The company is also applying its proven operational expertise to assist operators through WiMAX deployment issues such as roaming between networks.


Future extensions to InnoPath's leading iMDM Server Suite will include LTE and support for Fixed Mobile Convergence through Converged Device Management


InnoPath also announced that it has joined the WiMAX Forum.http://www.innopath.com

WiChorus Unveils SmartCore Platform for 4G Networks

WiChorus, a start-up based in San Jose, California, unveiled its "SmartCore" platform for managing subscribers and monetizing services on WiMAX and long-term evolution (LTE) networks. WiChorus provides an order of magnitude greater throughput capacity over existing 3G platforms for delivering 4G mobile services on a large scale. In addition to performance, the platform incorporates deep packet inspection and peer-to-peer traffic-management capabilities at line rate for offering managed services.


WiChorus' SmartCore platforms provide the following capabilities:

  • Intelligent ASN Gateway

  • Intelligent Home Agent

  • WiMAX Mobile Internet Gateway


SmartCore platforms are also designed to support LTE Service Gateway, PDN Gateway, and Mobility Management Entity functions as well as Pico and Femto Gateway solutions.




The newest solution, the WiMAX Mobile Internet Gateway, provides all of the WiMAX core functions necessary to deploy Mobile WiMAX networks in a single SmartCore platform, simplifying initial WiMAX deployments.


The WiChorus SmartCore is a chassis-based platform that distributes control and content processing functions across its interconnected blades. Fully distributed carrier-grade software utilizes all the hardware resources across the chassis, on an as needed basis. The product family includes the following:

  • SC 1400 fully redundant carrier-grade platform with 14 slots.

  • SC 600 fully redundant, dense, carrier-grade platform with 6 slots

  • SC 20 and SC 100 appliances


The SmartCore platform also integrates extensive content management, QoS, and security functions on a per-subscriber, per-flow basis. These advanced features allow the SmartCore platform not only to be subscriber-aware, but also to be application-aware, which includes tracking hard-to-identify peer-to-peer applications.


WiChorus said this granular intelligence will provide operators with a comprehensive view of how their networks are being used and powerful tools for controlling and shaping traffic based on content. In addition to traffic control, the SmartCore's network intelligence enables operators to support highly differentiated content-based services, helping them monetize the Internet and deliver a positive ROI on their spectral investment.


Additional carrier-grade features include hot-swappable cards, N:M stateful failover, and redundant components throughout to ensure no single point of failure.


WiChorus noted that its SmartCore products are currently in over 10 active trials around the globe.http://www.wichorus.com
  • WiChorus was founded Rehan Jalil, who previously served as chief architect of WiMAX for Aperto Networks

BT Wins $650 Million Managed Services Contract with Procter & Gamble

BT was awarded a five year contract valued at US$650 million to provide and manage a broad and integrated portfolio of services for Procter & Gamble (P&G) . Under the deal, BT will provide and manage P&G's local and wide area network infrastructure across more than 1,100 locations in more than 82 countries. In addition, BT will migrate these services to an IP/MPLS network. BT will also provide and manage perimeter security and firewall services, conferencing, remote access, voice and IP telephony services, and Internet services to support P&G's IT requirements.
http://www.btplc.com

Calix Expands its Access and Aggregation Portfolios

Calix announced several additions to its access portfolio for both fiber and copper networks. The Calix E5-120 and E5-121 Ethernet Service Platforms (ESPs) -- part of the Calix E-Series multiservice over Ethernet product family -- expand the portfolio of options available to service providers by addressing the growing bandwidth needs of residential and business customers. The Calix E5-400 is a carrier-grade Ethernet Access platform offering 10GE and multiple gigabit Ethernet (GE) aggregation options for FTTP and last-mile copper infrastructure.

The Calix E5-120 and E5-121 Ethernet Service Platforms deliver VDSL2 capability will offering ADSL fallback, enabling them to interoperate with ADSL modems already deployed in service provider networks. Key capabilities include:

  • The E5-121 combo platform supports lifeline and SIP voice services as well as VDSL2 for broadband services
  • The E5-120 and E5-121 are designed for low-density, high-capacity broadband applications; a small 1.5 RU form factor enables providers to use them in space-constrained or hard-to-reach locations

  • The Calix E5-120/121 platforms are available now on a limited basis. Calix expects them to be available generally in Q3 2008.



Key capabilities of the new Calix E5-400 aggregation platform include

  • Standards-based, redundant, non-proprietary 10GE, NxGE, and GE transport and aggregation across the access network.


  • Can be used with other E-Series products and the Calix C7 to create a unified access infrastructure that supports advanced Ethernet services as well as legacy services such as POTS, Specials, DS-3, and OC-3/12/48 SONET


  • A hardened, 1 rack unit (RU) form factor enables flexible deployment from the CO to the network edge.



  • New layers of protection include enhancements to ITU G.8032 Ethernet Automatic Protection Switching (Enhanced EAPS), IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning-Tree Protocol (RSTP), and IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation to ensure network flexibility and redundancy. Enhanced EAPS creates a fault-tolerant topology for VLANs that ensures highly available Ethernet switched rings. RSTP enables redundant links for automatic backup if an active link


  • Support for multiple SFP, XFP, and SFP+ ports and a robust switching fabric, the E5-400 provides flexibility, capacity, and redundancy across copper and fiber Ethernet interfaces.


  • The E-400 is fully managed via the Calix Management System (CMS), which in turn provides a single network view and a common user experience independent of media type, protocol, or service.
http://www.calix.com

Belgacom uses Acme Packet SBC for VoIP Interconnects in GSMA IPX Trial

Acme Packet's Net-Net Session Director session border controllers (SBC) have completed GSM Association (GSMA) IP eXchange (IPX) packet voice interworking trials with Belgacom International Carrier Services (BICS). The IPX is a global multilateral IP interconnect network.


In BICS' recently completed IPX Pre-Commercial Implementation (PCI) carrier trial, Acme Packet's Net-Net SBC was used to meet the IPX technical requirements to exchange packet voice traffic between two mobile operators. Additional IPX trials are being planned for 2008. Multiple IPX carrier and connecting service provider participants will use Acme Packet's SBCs as part of those trials.


In the 2007 PCI testing, Acme Packet's SBC was the only session border controller used in all three trials focused on Bilateral Service Transit and Multilateral Service Hub modes. Telefónica International Wholesale and Telenor Global Services used Acme Packet SBCs for those trials. In 2005 and 2006, Acme Packet Net-Net SBCs were used in proof of IPX concept testing. These tests exchanged supplemental SIP/IMS services such as video share among IPX carriers and mobile operators.

Acme Packet said its Net-Net SBC meets and exceeds all inter-operator functional requirements defined by the GSMA, including:

  • Security - IP Proxy denial-of-service attack self-protection, access control and topology hiding


  • Interoperability - 3GPP IMS SIP standards compliance, SIP header modification and normalization, SIP transport protocol interworking, dynamic IP address and port translation, transcoding and transrating


  • Service quality - session admission control with interfaces to external policy servers, QoS marking/VLAN mapping and QoS reporting


  • Routing - flexible and comprehensive SIP routing using local parameters--incoming network, to, from, time, cost, carrier preference, codec--and external databases queried via ENUM or SIP redirect


  • Accounting - call detail records to support cascaded accounting between operators


  • Regulatory compliance - lawful intercept of call signaling and media


  • High availability - stateful failover ensures no loss of active calls and accounting records
http://www.acmepacket.com

India's Tata Communications Expands in Africa

Tata Communications is expanding the reach of its network into Africa through an arrangement with South Africa's Neotel.

Tata has established a multi-service Point of Presence (PoP) in Johannesburg in association with Neotel. The companies will partner on IP/MPLS-based high-speed internet, VPN, network management and hosting services to customers in South Africa.


The new PoP offers MPLS, Ethernet, IP and International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC) services, connecting through Tata Communications' global network to over 600 cities in 50 countries and onwards to customers in over 200 countries. Tata Communications also owns and operates one of the world's largest private sub-sea cable networks.http://www.tatacommunications.com

ANDA Introduces Multivendor, Carrier Ethernet Element Management System

ANDA Networks introduced a multi-vendor Carrier Ethernet element management system (EMS) powered by Nakina Systems' operating system. ANDA's new EtherView 2.0 management platform scales to over 10,000 nodes while maintaining management visibility across multiple equipment vendors' products. The company said it developed its EtherView 2.0 in order to support all of its EtherTone portfolio platforms, which include EtherEdge, EtherReach and EtherSLAM access equipment, as well as many other typical upstream network devices such as switching and routing platforms from Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Extreme, Foundry, Fujitsu, Juniper, Nortel, and Tellabs as examples. Moreover, by scaling to support large numbers of multi-vendor equipment elements from ANDA and other major Ethernet equipment vendors, service providers benefit from the reduced time-to-market and ease of integrating best-of-breed technologies rapidly into their Operational Support Systems (OSS).http://www.andanetworks.com

T-Mobile Venture Fund Invests in deCarta for LBS

T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom AG. has made a $6 million equity investment in deCarta, a developer of software and services for the Location-Based Services (LBS) industry. T-Mobile Venture Fund joins deCarta's existing premiere investors Cardinal Venture Capital, Mobius Venture Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.


deCarta's geospatial software platform gives mobile LBS application developers and mobile operators the ability to quickly build and deploy applications that integrate a wide variety of map and data sources to provide complex local search, navigation, mapping, social networking and spatial search functions.


deCarta is privately held and headquartered in San Jose, California with international offices in the UK and China.http://www.decarta.com
  • deCarta is headed by J. Kim Fennell, who previously was CEO of Pinnacle Systems. He previously served as CEO of StorageWay, a VC-financed data storage service provider. Earlier, Fennell was a corporate vice president at Lucent Technologies with responsibility for the Communications Applications Group, a $2 billion Business Unit focused on CRM, and Messaging. He then helped spin-off Avaya from Lucent in 2000 as part of the Avaya executive team.

Motorola to Include Recently Auctioned LTE Spectrum Bands in First Commercial Release

When Motorola releases its first commercial products for Long-Term Evolution (LTE) next year it will include products for the 700MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum bands. Motorola also announced that its LTE solution will support the future LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD) variant to meet the need of operators with a TDD spectrum holding. Motorola is engaged in LTE trials with operators in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region.

Motorola's LTE base station solution is comprised of its common platform site controller unit that will be shared between WiMAX 802.16e and LTE plus a variety of radio head solutions to meet specific customer requirements. The portfolio includes frame based-mounted radios, remote radio heads and tower top radios to support a wide variety of LTE deployment scenarios across newly available spectrum as well as existing GSM, UMTS and CDMA spectrum. Motorola's flexible eNode B architecture allows many spectrum bands to be supported with limited development investment.


"We believe deploying LTE in the 700 MHz band is mandatory to meet the needs of wireless carriers in the U.S. market as well as a number of other countries globally," said Darren McQueen, Motorola vice president, Wireless Broadband Access Technologies. "In addition, there is a clear demand for LTE in 2.6GHz spectrum band to meet the needs of GSM carriers that have already secured the spectrum in the global market."
"Leveraging our WiMAX TDD infrastructure, we have designed a common LTE platform that is capable of both LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and TDD, offering global operators the simplicity and economies of scale across markets," McQueen said.
http://www.motorola.com/experiencelte

iamba and Wintegra Partners on GPON Solutions for MDU

iamba Networks and Wintegra are collaborating on the development of a GPON solution for Multiple Dwelling Units (MDUs). Specifically, iamba's iSN1000D GPON SoC will be tightly integrated with Wintegra's WinArrow2 product family creating a high-end solution for GPON MDU application for VDSL2 end users. The companies said their solution delivers QoS on both the downstream and upstream, full compliance with the DSL Forum technical spec, WT-156 and full programmability and future proofing through the Wintegra WinArrow2 NPU architecture. Additional benefits of the jointly developed product include covering a range of port densities from as few as 8 ports and up to 48 ports, WinArrow's rich software offering, including extensive set of data path and control path stacks, and iamba's end-to-end GPON software offering, including OMCI management stack.
http://www.iamba.com/http://www.wintegra.com

Cisco to Acquire DiviTech for Video Management Software

Cisco agreed to acquired Denmark-based DiviTech A/S, a provider of digital-service management (DSM) solutions for media broadcasters, cable operators and IPTV service providers. Financial terms were not disclosed.


DiviTech's DSM technology includes a software application that will allow service provider customers to centrally provision and easily deliver localized content, such as local and regional news and on-demand video and services, within a specific geography.


Cisco said the acquisition will further enhance its video-delivery strategy. Cisco plans to integrate DiviTech's DSM product with the Cisco ROSA network- and element-management solution to create an end-to-end platform that offers all layers of digital video management (element, network and service) in a single modular product.


DiviTech was founded in 1999 by former technical consultants at Denmark's largest cable TV network operated by TeleDanmark, the former state-owned Danish Telecom.http://www.cisco.comhttp://www.divitech.net

ADVA Heads CELTIC's 100GET Initiative for 100 Gbps Metro Ethernet

ADVA Optical Networking is heading a group of university and enterprise partners in developing standards-based, carrier-class metropolitan Ethernet transport networks designed for speeds of 100 Gbps. The metro-focused group is one of four in the "100GET" (GET=Gigabit Ethernet Transport) innovation initiative that is scheduled to continue until 2010 and receive total public and private investment of more than EUR 200 million.


The primary goal of the project is to develop a 100 Gbps muxponder prototype for the metro area. Further plans call for ADVA Optical Networking's systems to enable a 100 Gbps demonstrator at Berlin's Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich Hertz Institute, as well as in the OCTET (Open Environment for Advanced Carrier Ethernet Technologies) field testbed from Deutsche Telekom. Additional field trials are planned.http://www.advaoptical.comhttp://www.celtic-initiative.org
  • Partners in the CELTIC 100GET project include ADVA Optical Networking, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Deutsche Telekom, and Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute. As of January 2008, there were30 project partners from Germany, France, and Sweden. CELTIC is a EUREKA cluster programme, which initiates and runs privately and publicly funded R&D projects in the field of telecommunications.

Fujitsu Debuts FLASHWAVE CDS Packet Optical Networking Platform

Fujitsu Network Communications introduced its compact FLASHWAVE CDS Packet Optical Networking Platform designed to address a wide range of aggregation and transport applications, including mobile backhaul services, Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) transport, and Ethernet business services.


The FLASHWAVE CDS platform delivers high-density, connection-oriented Ethernet, SONET, and TDM circuit emulation services in a compact, modular platform. It delivers private-line-quality Ethernet transport for business services as well as existing, revenue-bearing SONET-based services and be used as enterprise customer premises equipment (CPE) and in multi-tenant/multi-floor office buildings and outside plant cabinets.


The system is a modular two-slot, 2RU (3.5" high) unit that incorporates any number of low-cost, pluggable multi-service interfaces units, including: low-speed packet (100 Mbps and Gigabit Ethernet), high-speed packet (Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet), SONET/OTU1 (OC-3, OC-12, OC-48 and Gigabit Ethernet), and packet/TDM combinations (Gigabit Ethernet and DS1/DS3). This flexibility allows nodes to deliver packet services, SONET/EoS services, or any combination of packet and TDM services.


The product builds on the company's existing FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform, which combines SONET, connection-oriented Ethernet, and ROADM.


Fujitsu said that with over 400,000 network elements deployed across North America, its FLASHWAVE CDS system can connect to a large installed base of Fujitsu optical transport platforms. A typical FLASHWAVE 7500 ROADM application would use the SONET/OTU1 interfaces in the FLASHWAVE CDS system to provide OC 3, OC 12, OC 48, and Gigabit Ethernet services from a metro ROADM network to large enterprise customers. In addition, the substantial Ethernet aggregation and transport capabilities of the FLASHWAVE CDS system integrate well with the impressive packet features of the award-winning FLASHWAVE 9500 platform announced last year.http://us.fujitsu.com/telecom

ARRIS joins MoCA

ARRIS has joined the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), which is an open, industry driven initiative promoting
distribution of digital video and entertainment through existing coaxial cable in the home.
http://www.mocalliance.org

Dell'Oro: Price Stabilization Lifts GSM Market

The GSM market benefited from a stabilization of equipment prices in Q1 2008, according a newly published Mobility Infrastructure Quarterly Report from Dell'Oro Group. Although GSM was not the largest contributor to the growth of the total mobility infrastructure market during the first quarter of 2008, it grew nearly 10 percent over the year ago quarter. Driving the growth of the GSM market was the second largest number ever of base station shipments, exceeded only by the previous quarter. The report also shows that the strong growth in GSM revenue offset the declines in the CDMA market, which took a notable plunge during the first quarter.


The Dell'Oro Group Mobility Infrastructure Quarterly Report covers manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, transceiver or RF carrier shipments, and unit shipments for base station controllers, base transceiver stations, and mobile switching centers for GSM/GPRS/EDGE, CDMA, and WCDMA.


"For the first time, Asia Pacific represented over half of all GSM revenue," stated Scott Siegler, Analyst of Mobility Infrastructure research at Dell'Oro Group. "Business in this highly price-sensitive region has resulted in double-digit quarter-to-quarter price reductions for the previous three quarters. Over these past several quarters, ASP's were pushed downward as vendors sold equipment at exceptionally steep discounts in order to establish and expand their footprint in the region. This quarter, in contrast, vendors became more selective in the deals they were accepting, balancing the economics of the sale with their gain in market share. For the first time in four quarters we have seen ASP's begin to stabilize," Siegler continued.















1. What were the main
trends for GSM in Q1 2008?


2. How did WCDMA
perform in Q1 2008?


3. How
did WCDMA perform in other regions?


4. How did the CDMA
market perform in Q1 2008t?


5. What impact does
China's telecom reform have on the WCDMA market?


6. Timelines for WiMAX
and LTE?




http://www.delloro.com