Alcatel-Lucent Highlights R&D Innovations

Alcatel-Lucent hosted an "Innovation Days" event at its headquarters in Paris to showcase over 35 technologies being developed at Bell Labs and throughout its business groups.


Among the exhibits, Alcatel-Lucent demonstrated a pre-commercial LTE FDD (frequency division duplex) system with the throughputs and latencies of the first LTE release (Release 8). The test system is being used to validate real-time, seamless inter-cell mobility scenarios. In the demonstrated scenario, the LTE system was attached to an IMS core network emulator, demonstrating how users will be served simultaneously over the air with multiple applications. The demonstration shows how LTE has the bandwidth to support more than 6 simultaneous High definition streams in addition to handling VoIP calls at the same time.


Other R&D exhibits included:

• Active Antenna Arrays - a power-scalable, small-footprint RF solution that scales well for beam-steering and MIMO applications. Bulky and expensive RF chains are miniaturized, cheaply produced, and integrated into the back of each antenna element in a cellular base station antenna array. Metalized plastic components are used in novel light-weight, compact designs that can be assembled on printed circuit boards using standard surface-mount technology.



• Advanced Base Station Transceivers - addresses the need for a transceiver applicable for future wireless telecommunication



• Beyond the Base Station Router - small cells (e.g. picocell, femtocells) for future broadband mobile networks



• Contact Me My Way - a new communication model that enriches the Web 2.0 experience and blends communications in an Internet world and enabling users to manage their communication resources for optimized reachability.



• Crosstalk Cancellation - technology that breathes new life into copper wires. This innovation effectively increases capacity on copper lines by taking advantage of advanced mathematical algorithms and networking techniques that are based on signal processing principles related to those used in noise cancellation and reduces crosstalk between the operators central office and the customers premise.



• Digital Stethoscope- a new technology that combines a stethoscope with a telephone to create a powerful diagnostic tool. The digital stethoscope allows patients to receive expert care even if they are far away from the experts located in a big city hospital.



• Encrypted Traffic Identification - identifies masked application protocols that cannot be classified by existing recognition methods using port information or deep packet inspection (DPI) in IP-based networks.



• Enhanced IPTV Services - technology for instant channel changes without errors. The demonstration shows an exciting fast channel change solution that enables a user to change from one multicast stream (channel) to another without perceiving any delay.



• Geographic Messaging Services Platform - The Alcatel-Lucent 5130 Geographic Messaging Services Platform (GMSP) is an application focused on creating location-driven push messaging as a new medium for marketing and consumer communication.



• HBSR Femtocell - Integrating Femto into the home - where the mobile phone becomes part of the home network - extends and enhances the end user experience. It allows end users to "push" music, pictures, movies stored on their mobile device to their home TV, radio, NAS or PC and to control their multimedia equipment in their home.



• Home Automation - mass deployment of "home service managers" distributes ‘intelligence' into home networks and support specialized applications for security, surveillance, home care, smoke alarm, energy awareness and more. Learn more about this research.



• Home Networking and QoS - addressed the ever increasing complexity of home networks due to the addition of devices, L1/L2 technologies, cabling options, etc.



• Meeting Room Assistant - facilitates easier and natural human interactions and brings real-life connections into social networking.



• Mixed Reality - a new tool where service providers can blend the real and virtual worlds as a creative customer engagement platform to explore and understand customer expectations and preferences.



• Network MIMO - new research shows how mobile service providers can deliver higher data rates by maximizing spectrum usage and improving quality of service (QoS) through synchronized signaling between base stations.



• Nonstop Laptop Guardian - helps enterprises manage and secure mobile laptops and the data they contain 24x7, regardless of the power state of the laptop.



• 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE) - advanced serial 100 Gbps transmission technology for next generation optical transport networks.



• Personal Content Manager (PeCMan) - a collaborative Web 2.0 environment where people and groups can easily share, aggregate and organize their online and off-line content.



• People & Projects - an open collaboration social network platform based on semantic tagging. Contrary to existing social networks, People & Projects (P&P) offers "crowdsourcing" technology, thanks to a Wiki-like code editor, that allows contributors to make changes to page code, preview the changes, and see the changes go live immediately after saving them.



• Personalization & Ad Targeting- enables service providers to deliver added-value personalized services such as targeted advertising by automatically learning users' dynamic profiles.



• Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) -demonstration includes 10x10G Photonic Integrated Circuits and the integrated 100G coherent Photonic Integrated Circuits as well as future scalability to 10x40G and 10x100G.



• SIP Firewall (Self-learning SIP Anomaly Detection Algorithm and Architecture) - how to secure SIP level integrity for all SIP based business, in particular NGN and IMS deployments.



• Smart Metering -allows operators to educate and financially incent consumers to be more aware of their energy usage.



• Smart Surgery Suite & Collaboration System - the Bell Labs system concept is to provide a multitude of high quality video links and audio links for the surgery in order to provide communication needed for the surgery without unneeded distractions.



• Thermal Management - novel cooling technologies enabling a reduced carbon foot print while enhancing product functionality.



• 3D IPTV - Auto-stereoscopic 3D displays will be one of the technologies which will initiate a new era for digital television. This te



• tikitag - a web 2.0 application that allows consumers to connect everyday objects with web based information sources and applications.



• Talking Beyond Hearing - a novel communication technology based on soundless production of human speech. A 'silent speech interface' will enable cellular phone users to communicate anytime and anywhere without bothering nearby individuals through audio emissions.



• Unlimited Mobile TV with DVB-SH - a mobile television broadcasting solution based on the open DVB-SH standard that combines both mobile terrestrial and satellite broadcast delivery systems while complementing existing 3G/UMTS networks.



• Video MicroProjector- an ultra-compact optical projector that will serve consumer demands for a high-quality viewing experience from mobile devices. It uses state-of-the-art laser light sources to achieve high brightness, low power consumption, and compactness to fit inside a cell phone.



• Wireless Network Guardian-it monitors the behavior of every device, server, and application as it relates to the real-time capacity utilization of every element in the wireless network. When excessive behaviors occur (which could be anomalously high bandwidth, or high signaling, or high radio frequency (RF) airtime usage with little data transmission), or when IP-induced network faults occur, WNG will identify the root cause and help identify actions to remedy the situation.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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PureWave Raises $12 Million for 4G Basestations

PureWave Networks, a start-up based in Mountain View, California. secured $12 million in Series B funding for its development of 4G wireless base stations.


PureWave said its goal is to transform the economics of WiMAX and LTE, through a combination of advanced technology, an innovative product offering and the most cost-effective products. The company is developing small form-factor WiMAX base stations, which combine the power, performance and sophisticated features of a traditional macro base station, with the small footprint and competitive pricing of pico base stations. The products will leverage advanced beamforming technology that optimizes spectral efficiency, data throughput and range. The small form-factor WiMAX base stations are designed for all outdoor installation, are tower, pole or wall mountable and require no indoor shelter.


Two new venture funds -- ATA Ventures and Leapfrog Ventures - have joined Pure Wave's existing investors, which include Allegis Capital and Benhamou Global Ventures, in successfully completing the funding round.http://www.pwnets.com

• Pure Wave is headed by Gideon Ben-Efraim , who has served as a Chairman of the company from September 2006 and as CEO since January 2007. Prior to joining PureWave Networks, Gideon was CEO and founder of Go Networks from inception in 2003 until its merger with Nextwave Wireless, Inc. (WAVE) in December 2006. Gideon also served as Netro's founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman for 9 years since the inception in November 1994 and led the IPO of the company in 1999.



• Pure Wave's technical team is led by Dan Picker (CTO), who previously spent nearly 12 years at Nokia, where he was globally responsible for all software and hardware platform development for their CDMA phones. He was also co-responsible for the design and development of Nokia's highly regarded CDMA Integration Test Platform, a flexible multi-base station network emulator, four generations of which have been globally deployed.

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KPN International Deploys 40G with Huawei

KPN International has completed phase one of the upgrade to 40 Gbps across its European fiber network with the activation of a Paris - London - Amsterdam link. Other key European destinations scheduled for completion this quarter. KPN International has achieved these new service and performance levels by deploying Optical Transport Network (OTN) technologies from Huawei Technologies. KPN International is also leveraging the 208 km Ulysses sea cable between the Netherlands and the UK.http://www.huawei.com

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NSN Completes Downlink Dual Carrier Call -- 592 Kbps

Nokia Siemens Networks completed the world's first Downlink Dual Carrier EDGE end-to-end call with mobile devices. Downlink Dual Carrier is a software-based solution, that can double data speeds to 592 kbps on existing EDGE-capable GSM networks, providing a user experience that is akin to 3G.




Nokia Siemens Networks' Dual Carrier EDGE solution, which will be available as a software upgrade is the first step in evolving EDGE. Dual Carrier is based on the 3GPP release 7 standard.


Nokia Siemens Networks said it already has additional plans to introduce in its networks the next substantial step, the so called EGPRS 2B, to further double the end user experience in up- and downlink performance. This will result in downlink speeds of up to 1.2 Mbps and will double uplink speed to up to 473 kbps, thus quadrupling of the capabilities of current EDGE networks.


The company noted that its GSM/EDGE BSS is operational in more than 280 operator networks in 127 countries offering services to more than 1.5 billion subscribers.http://www.nsn.com

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Nokia and RIM Renew Patent License Agreement

Nokia and Research In Motion (RIM) have renewed their multi year patent license agreement. The agreement covers the worldwide use of standards essential patents for GSM, WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies. The financial terms of the agreement consist of an up-front payment and on-going royalties payable to Nokia.
http://www.nokia.com

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Tata Teleservices Offers Managed PBX based on Nortel

Tata Teleservices has launched Managed PBX services for small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India in collaboration with Nortel and LG-Nortel. The service provides a single interface solution for all SMB communications requirements, including digital ISDN connectivity, voicemail services, interactive voice response and Mobile Extension Services. The managed PBX service pricing is based on the number of connections and users




Tata Teleservices Limited, the first operator in India to launch CDMA services, is rapidly scaling up its world-class Next Generation network on IP switches and MPLS network for offering world-class managed services to enterprise customers. The TTSL service is built on the LG-Nortel ARIA range of PBX solutions. The ARIA range blends IP/ISDN telephony with traditional TDM technology.http://www.tataindicom.com/http://www.nortel.com

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Meraki Releases Solar-Powered WiFi mesh

San Francisco-based Meraki has begun shipping a self-powered WiFi mesh device for extending coverage in outdoor areas such as business districts, resorts, rural areas, parks, golf courses, etc.

Meraki Solar is completely energy independent. Each unit is powered by its own solar panel and solar-charged lithium iron phosphate battery. Battery charging is monitored and managed via Meraki's web-based management Dashboard, the same management tool included with all Meraki devices. The units can be mounted on roofs, walls, poles and anywhere that receives sun exposure.


Meraki Solar is priced from $848-$1,497 depending on size of solar panel required.http://www.meraki.com/solar

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Verizon Declares Quarterly Dividend

Verizon Communications declared a quarterly dividend of 46 cents per outstanding share, unchanged from the previous quarter. The dividend is payable on Feb. 2, 2009, to Verizon Communications shareowners of record at the close of business on Jan. 9, 2009.


In September 2008, Verizon's Board had increased the dividend 7 percent to its current level, beginning with dividends paid last month. Through the first three quarters of 2008, the company paid dividends totaling nearly $3.7 billion. Verizon has approximately 2.4 million shareowners and approximately 2.8 billion shares of common stock outstanding.http://www.verizon.com

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Arianespace to Launch ViaSat-1 Ka-beam Satellite

Arianespace was selected to launch ViaSat-1, a high-capacity Ka-band spot beam satellite, during the first half of 2011 from the Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. ViaSat-1 will deliver broadband Internet media services to consumers and businesses over North America. It will have a capacity estimated at 100 Gbps, which is expected to be (at launch) the highest capacity satellite in the world. The satellite is being built by Space Systems/Loral in Palo Alto, California.

http://www.arianespace.com

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Microsoft Hires Yahoo Exec, Dr. Qi Lu, to Run Online Services

Microsoft has hired Dr. Qi Lu to serve as president of its Online Services Group, overseeing Microsoft's efforts in search and online advertising and all the company's online information and communications services. Dr. Lu will report to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.


Lu most recently served as executive vice president of Engineering for the Search and Advertising Technology Group at Yahoo!, where he was responsible for development efforts around Yahoo!'s Web search and monetization platforms. Dr. Lu left Yahoo! in August 2008 after 10 years of service.http://www.microsoft.com

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Nokia Again Trims Forecast

Citing weakening consumer spending worldwide, Nokia again trimmed its forecasts for 2009. A previous warning had been issued on 14-November-2008. While noting the extremely limited visibility, Nokia expects 2009 industry mobile device volumes to decline 5% or more from 2008 levels. Nokia said the mobile device market slowdown has continued more rapidly than previously expected due to a global consumer pull-back in spending, currency volatility, and decreased availability of credit.


The company held its annual Nokia Capital Markets Day and issued guidance for all its major sectors. Some highlights:

• Nokia now estimates that fourth quarter 2008 industry mobile device volumes will be lower than the previous estimate of approximately 330 million units, which would result in full year 2008 industry mobile device volumes below the earlier estimate of 1.24 billion units.



• Nokia believes there is insufficient visibility in the marketplace to confirm its prior estimate for its fourth quarter 2008 mobile device market share, which was expected to be at the same level or slightly up from an estimated 38% in the third quarter 2008.



• Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks continue to expect the mobile infrastructure, fixed infrastructure and related services market to be flat in euro terms in 2008, compared to 2007.



• Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks continued cost synergy target for Nokia Siemens Networks is to achieve substantially all of the EUR 2.0 billion of targeted annual cost synergies by the end of 2008.



• Nokia expects that the mobile device market will continue to be negatively impacted by the effects of a slowdown in consumer spending. Nokia also expects that operator and retail distribution channels will go through a period of destocking, resulting in lower sales volumes by manufacturers (sell-in) than purchase volumes by consumers (sell-through) for the industry in the first half of 2009.



• Nokia expects the four billion mobile subscriptions mark to be reached in the first quarter 2009.



• Nokia targets an increase in its market share in mobile devices in 2009 compared to 2008, including increased share in smartphones.



• Nokia has adjusted its Internet services market focus to the areas of music, maps, media, messaging and gaming. Nokia estimates these targeted portions of the Internet services market will be approximately EUR 40 billion in 2011. In December 2007, Nokia estimated that the total Internet services market would be approximately EUR 100 billion in 2010.



• Nokia targets Services & Software net sales of EUR 2 billion or more in 2011.



• Nokia targets its Services & Software business to have 300 million unique services users by 2012.



• Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks preliminary estimate is that the mobile infrastructure, fixed infrastructure and related services market will decline 5% or more in euro terms in 2009, from 2008 levels.



• Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks target for Nokia Siemens Networks market share to remain constant in 2009, compared to 2008.

A 344 page presentation, along with hours of archived video from the Nokia Capital Markets Day, is posted on the company's Investor Relations webpage.http://www.nokia.com

• On 14-November-2008, Nokia issued financial guidance for its fourth quarter 2008 and full year 2009, saying that the global economic slowdown, combined with unprecedented currency volatility, has resulted in a sharp pull back in global consumer spending including for mobile devices. Nokia said the mobile device market has also been negatively impacted by the more limited availability of credit, which has limited the purchasing ability of some of its trade customers.
  
  
  As a result, Nokia now expects that the industry mobile device volumes will be lower in the fourth quarter 2008 than previously anticipated at approximately 330 million mobile devices. This is sequentially up from the estimated 310 million in the third quarter of 2008. This would result in a current estimate of industry mobile volume of 1.24 billion in 2008, instead of the earlier estimated 1.26 billion units, up from 1.14 billion units Nokia estimated for 2007. Nokia said it continues to expect its mobile device market share in the fourth quarter 2008 to be at the same level or slightly up, sequentially.

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AT&T Announces 12,000 Job Cuts

Citing economic pressures, a changing business mix and the need for a more streamlined organizational structure, AT&T announced a planned reduction of approximately 12,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of the company's total workforce. The job cuts will occur in December and throughout 2009. The company will take a charge of approximately $600 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 to pay severance to affected employees.


AT&T will also cut its 2009 capital expenditures from 2008 levels. Capital plans for 2009 are being finalized now and specific guidance will be provided when the company releases its fourth quarter results in late January.


AT&T noted that it continues to add jobs in other parts of the business -- such as wireless, video and broadband -- to meet customer demand.http://www.att.com

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