NDS to Go Private with Support from News Corp., Permira

NDS announced plans to become a privately-held company. News Corporation and the Permira Newcos will acquire all issued and outstanding NDS Series A ordinary shares, including those represented by American Depositary Shares traded on NASDAQ, for the previously announced per share consideration of $63 in cash.


The consummation of the transaction would result in NDS ceasing to be a public company, and the Permira Newcos and News Corporation owning approximately 51% and 49% of NDS, respectively. Approximately 67% of the NDS Series B ordinary shares held by News Corporation would be cancelled in exchange for $63 per share in a mix of cash of approximately $1.52 billion and a $242 million vendor note. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year or early 2009.


"With the convergence of broadband and broadcast technology, new frontiers lie ahead for NDS. NDS needs to have the strategic agility and flexibility to enter into any type of value enhancing transactions. The current ownership structure was imposing certain limitations. Therefore News Corporation has decided to reduce its ownership position in NDS so that NDS can capitalize on these new opportunities with a more independent structure and the expertise of Permira," commented Abe Peled, Chairman and CEO of NDS.http://www.nds.com

Read More

JAJAH's IP Telephony to Use Intel's Remote Wake

JAJAH's Internet telephony application will utilize Intel's newly-announced Remote Wake technology.


This energy efficient capability turns the home PC into an 'always available' communications hub for the first time, with Intel Remote Wake technology enabling the home PC to "wake up" from energy efficient sleep mode to accept phone calls.


With JAJAH's telephony support, the computer has direct access to JAJAH's IP-telephony network, enabling the PC to both make and receive high quality, low cost phone calls. Select Intel Motherboards with support for Intel Remote Wake technology will be available next month.http://www.jajah.com

Read More

Ipanema Names Former Cisco Exec as President of Worldwide Operations

Ipanema Technologies, which specializes in application traffic management systems for wide area networks, has appointed Reza Mahdavi as President of Worldwide Operations. Mahdavi joins Ipanema after 14 years at Cisco, initially as head of global and strategic partners, then president of emerging and developing countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and, most recently, as vice president of corporate affairs in San Jose, California.


Ipanema's WAN optimization system is designed for large companies with complex networks. The software based solution provides visibility of application flows over the network. This intelligence enables dynamic optimization of WAN resources, including optimization of IP/MPLS services. The optimization is transparent to the application. Furthermore, Ipanema enables Application SLAs and tools to enforce the framework.

Ipanema, which is based in France, has partnerships with BT, France Telecom/Orange Business Services, C&W, Tata Communications and Swisscom.http://www.ipanematech.com

Read More

Ofcom: UK Consumers Paying Less but Getting More

In 2007, people in the UK spent an average of 7 hours and 9 minutes a day using an array of communications services (TV, Internet, mobiles, landlines or radio) -- up by 6 minutes from 2002. However, people paying are less for these services, according to Ofcom's latest annual report into the UK's £51 billion communications industry.


Mobile and Internet use has increased by the greatest amount. Between 2002 and 2007, time spent talking and texting on mobiles doubled, up from 5 minutes to 10 minutes each day. Meanwhile, time spent on PCs and lap-tops has grown fourfold between 2002 and 2007 - from 6 minutes to 24 minutes per person every day.


Despite this growth in use and take up, spending is down. Overall average household spend on communications services was £93.63 a month in 2007, a fall of £1.53 (1.6 per cent) on the average spend in 2006 and a fall of £4.31 (4.4 per cent) since 2004.


http://www.ofcom.org.uk

Read More

Xelerated Raises $23 Million for Carrier Ethernet Silicon

Xelerated, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California and Stockholm, Sweden, raised $23 million in series C funding for its high-end Carrier Ethernet ASSP-based chipsets, closed a $13 million funding round.


Xelerated recently announced its HX300 family of network processors and the industry's first programmable Ethernet switches to the fiber access market. This new family of products feature integrated traffic management and fully-programmable Ethernet switches, bringing superior levels of integration and flexibility to the Carrier Ethernet market.


The new funding round was led by the Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund (the Sixth AP Fund) and was supported by all of Xelerated's existing investors: Accel Partners, Alta Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners and Atlas Ventures. The new funding will be used to further develop Xelerated's unique network processor and Ethernet switching family as well as extend sales and support internationally.http://www.xelerated.com

• In June, Xelerated announced its next-generation HX300 family of high performance network processors with integrated traffic management and fully-programmable Ethernet switches. The new silicon, which is designed for fiber access platforms, offers a combination of switching and processing functionality, enabling service-aware applications that readily adapt to changes in network conditions and optimize performance. It could be used in fixed-port, stackable and chassis- based networking systems that can be configured in mesh, ring, star, dual star and stackable topologies. The HX300 integrates 100-Gigabit, 40-Gigabit, 10-Gigabit and 1-Gigabit Ethernet ports. The HX300 is binary software-compatible with custom and Metro Ethernet Applications (MEA) that have already been developed for Xelerated's X10 and X11 NPU families.
  
  
  
• The HX300 leverages Xelerated's Dataflow packet processing architecture, which scales to 100 Gbps full duplex. The advanced standards-based egress traffic management and the tight integration of the Xelerated Dataflow Architecture enables the HX300 family to support a QoS-aware distributed traffic management model for either chassis-based switching systems or meshed configurations. Triple play services are enabled by a flexible queue allocation and programmable hierarchy that enforces per-flow, per-subscriber, per-class Service Level Agreements and bandwidth guarantees.

Read More

Pando to Leverage Intel's "Remote Wake" for P2P Content Delivery

Pando Networks, which specializes in commercial P2P content delivery services, will leverage Intel's newly announced Remote Wake technology for its P2Pcontent delivery service. Intel's Remote Wake technology makes the personal computer an always available extension to content distribution networks.


Pando Networks said the combination of secure content delivery services and Intel Remote Wake will offer content providers and consumers more choice in how they can access, purchase, and download digital media content to the home PC, even when consumers are not at home. Beyond added convenience, Intel Remote Wake technology will benefit consumers by reducing the energy consumption associated with keeping the home PC always on. Select Intel Motherboards with support for Intel Remote Wake technology will be available next month.


"Intel and Pando have a common vision to enable technology building blocks that deliver more energy efficiency options for consumers and content providers. Intel is fortunate to be collaborating with Pando Networks on their latest content delivery service release, which supports Intel Remote Wake technology. Together, our technologies enable added convenience and energy efficiency for consumers who prefer 'automatically' downloaded media from content providers," stated Joe Van De Water, Director of Consumer Product Marketing for Intel.http://www.PandoNetworks.comhttp://www.intel.com

• P2P content delivery can boost delivery speeds by up to 235% across US cable networks and up to 898% across international broadband networks, according to Pando Networks, which offers a managed P2P content delivery service. The data was gathered in a recent P4P field test by Pando from more than 3,000 ISPs worldwide. As part of the test that began February 21st, Pando Networks delivered video content to more than 1 million people across global broadband networks including AT&T, Bell Canada, Bezeq International, BT, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Orange, Sasktel, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Time Warner, Tiscali, and Verizon.



• In March 2008, Verizon announced that it will begin using a peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfer system from Pando Networks to aid with the distribution of large media files to its broadband users. When deployed, the new system will move material authorized by the content owners -- such as movies, TV programs, software or large data bases -- faster for consumers and more efficiently for network operators, including Verizon. Significantly, Verizon said it no longer regarded P2P as a "dark-alley distribution system for unauthorized file sharing.

Read More

Nortel Acquires Pingtel for Unified Communications

Nortel has acquired Pingtel, a developer of software-based unified communications solutions, for an undisclosed sum. The assets were acquired from Bluesocket Inc, an enterprise mobility solutions provider. Pingtel employees will be integrated into Nortel's Billerica, Massachusetts facilities.


The deal brings Pingtel's existing original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationship with Nortel in-house. Pingtel will also add new software capabilities to Nortel's enterprise unified communications portfolio, as well as additional research and development capabilities.


Over a year ago, Nortel joined the open source community established by SIPfoundry as an active contributor to the sipXecs open source project (led by Pingtel Corp), providing more than 300 new applications and features to date. Nortel said the acquisition of Pingtel will further accelerate the development of a global open source ecosystem and reinforce Nortel's direction and leadership in the development of interoperable and open unified communications solutions.


"This acquisition is another building block in Nortel's vision to be a software-centric company and the leading provider of unified communications solutions," said David Downing, general manager, Enterprise and SMB Communications Systems, Nortel.http://www.nortel.com

Read More

Intel Releases xHCI Draft Spec for USB 3.0 Architecture

Intel released the Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) draft specification revision 0.9 in support of the USB 3.0 architecture, also known as SuperSpeed USB. The xHCI draft specification provides a standardized method for USB 3.0 host controllers to communicate with the USB 3.0 software stack.


xHCI describes the registers and data structures used to interface between system software and the hardware, and are developed to be compatible with the USB 3.0 specification being developed by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group.


Intel is making the draft spec available under RAND-Z (royalty free) licensing terms to all USB 3.0 Promoter Group and contributor companies that sign an xHCI contributor agreement.


The future of computing and consumer devices is increasingly visual and bandwidth intensive," said Phil Eisler, AMD corporate vice president and general manager of the Chipset Business Unit. "Lifestyles filled with HD media and digital audio demand quick and universal data transfer. USB 3.0 is an answer to the future bandwidth need of the PC platform. AMD believes strongly in open industry standards, and therefore is supporting a common xHCI specification."http://www.intel.comhttp://www.usb.org

• SuperSpeed USB will be backward-compatible with earlier USB implementations. The personal USB interconnect is targeting to deliver over 10 times the speed of today's connection, or roughly 4.8 Gbps. It will also be optimized for lower power and improved protocol efficiency.

Read More

OIF Pursues DP-QPSK for 100 Gbps Long Haul DWDM

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has identified Dual-Polarization - Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (DP-QPSK) as a modulation technique for integrated photonic components. With a number of possible modulation techniques available to use at 100G. The OIF said identifying a specific modulation technique gives the industry a starting point to design hardware and reduce development risk.


"We have selected an implementation approach supported by a critical mass of photonic component vendors and users," said David Stauffer of IBM, and the PLL Working Group chair. "100G is an important development for the industry and network element vendors have already begun work. The goal of the project is to accelerate the adoption of 100G in long distance DWDM transmission."


The OIF is pursuing a 100G Long Distance DWDM Transmission Project that will specify an Implementation Agreement (IA) for Integrated Receive and Transmit photonic component(s) for Dual-Polarization - Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (DP-QPSK). The IAs will define partitioning of photonics sub-components, the electrical and the optical interface. The objective of these IAs is to create a foundation for Multi-Source Agreements for transmit and receive photonic components.


In other news from its Q3 meeting in Montreal, the OIF has developed and published a guideline document for Signaling Protocol Interworking of ASON/GMPLS Network Domains. The Guideline Document is available onilne.http://www.oiforum.comhttp://www.oiforum.com/public/documents/OIF-G-Sig-IW-01.0.pdf

Read More