AT&T Moves 5,000 Outsourced Jobs Back In-House

AT&T announced a milestone in its program to move some 5,000 high-tech jobs that had previously been outsourced back to the payrolls of AT&T's U.S. operating companies. The vast majority of the jobs had been placed offshore by contract vendors.


AT&T said it has met its goal of bringing back on shore and in-house more than 3,000 jobs that previously had been outsourced by BellSouth outside the U.S., and it met its goal of completing this repatriation before the end of 2008. The bulk of these jobs are now located in broadband support centers in North Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and Kentucky, with most of the others scattered across states in the Southeast.


Separately, the company is more than halfway toward its goal of bringing back another 2,000 outsourced jobs to locations in the former SBC territory; states where these jobs have been located include Indiana, Texas, Nevada, Michigan and Arkansas. Most of the jobs provide support for wired broadband customers.


"These are good jobs with good wages and benefits, and we are delighted to have them back in-house and on shore. We applaud our union partners in the Communications Workers of America who worked with us to create competitive cost structures that allow us to meet the demands of this competitive market while still providing good domestic jobs," said Bill Blase, senior executive vice president of Human Resources.
http://www.att.com

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Charter Launches 60 Mbps DOCSIS 3 Service in St. Louis

Charter Communications announced the launch of 60 Mbps Internet service in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Additional markets will follow. Nationwide, the ompany will soon boost its Charter High-Speed Internet Max from 16 Mbps to 20 Mbps. http://www.charter.com

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RAD's Megaplex-4100 Aggregates Ethernet and Legacy over Fiber and Copper

RAD Data Communications introduced an all-in-one cross-generation platform for both legacy and next generation networks.
Version 2.0 of the modular Megaplex-4100, the company's modular central site solution for its widely deployed Multiservice Access Platform (MAP) and copper and fiber Last Mile products, aggregates both next generation Ethernet services over legacy networks and legacy services over packet switched networks (PSNs).


The Megaplex-4100 can terminate Ethernet traffic carried over a wide variety of transport media, including E1/T1, fiber, IDSL, and SHDSL or, using virtual concatenation, STM-1/OC-3 lines. In addition, apart from handling high-speed traffic, the versatile Megaplex-4100 also functions as a cross connect for low-speed data and analog voice.


RAD said the product is designed to meet the requirements of service providers, as well as utility, transportation and government applications. It can be used for separating Ethernet and TDM traffic carried over the same link while providing a variety of different services. For alternative carriers and corporate and campus environments, the device can be used for minimizing the number of trunks that have to be leased from the service provider. Alternative service providers can use the Megaplex-4100 to provision different services to different customers over different infrastructure. In addition, utilities can use it for creating SDH/SONET rings for carrying Ethernet voice and data.
http://www.rad.com

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Broadcom Swings to Loss in Q4 2008

Broadcom reported Q4 net revenue of $1.127 billion, a decrease of 13.2% compared with the $1.298 billion reported for the third quarter of 2008 and an increase of 9.7% compared with the $1.027 billion reported for the fourth quarter of 2007.


There was a Q4 net loss (GAAP) of $159.2 million, or $.32 net loss per share (basic and diluted), compared with GAAP net income of $164.9 million, or $.31 per share (diluted), for the third quarter of 2008, and GAAP net income of $90.3 million, or $.16 per share (diluted), for the fourth quarter of 2007. The Q4 results reflect impairment charges of goodwill and certain tangible assets of its mobile platforms business group, as well as in-process R&D charges associated with its acquisition of the digital TV business of AMD. These charges represented cumulative reductions in net income of $0.40 per share (diluted).


"As we look into the first quarter of 2009, we believe the current economic slowdown will continue to negatively impact our business as demand continues to decrease and settle into new levels and channel inventory adjusts accordingly," said Scott A. McGregor, Broadcom's President and CEO. The company is planning cost cutting measures, including job cuts.


http://www.broadcom.com

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Infinera Reports Q4 Financials, New Contract with Greece's OCE

Infinera reported Q4 2008 revenue (GAA) of $99.3 million compared to $120.5 million in the third quarter of 2008 and $76.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. GAAP gross margins were 38% in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to 45% in the third quarter of 2008 and 36% in the fourth quarter of 2007. Infinera noted that its top 10 customers accounted for 72% of total revenue, the lowest concentration in the history of the company. The largest customer for the fourth quarter was an internet content provider at 23%. With the seven new customer additions, total customer count for the company is now at 56.


"In the fourth quarter we saw continued customer win momentum, with seven new customers added in the quarter, including OTE," said Jagdeep Singh, president and chief executive officer of Infinera. "This resulted in strong top-line performance; however the common equipment associated with these deployments and additional expected new customer shipments in Q1 put downward pressure on our gross margins in the quarter.


In a separate release, the company announced that OTEGLOBE, the international division of Greek incumbent national carrier OTE, has selected Infinera as its DWDM supplier for its Pan-European Network. Specifically, OTEGLOBE launched its 7,000-km Transbalkan Network (TBN) last year to connect Greece and the Balkans with central Europe and western Europe. The win at OTE represents Infinera's fourth win with Tier 1 incumbent carriers, joining Deutsche Telecom and two other incumbents.
http://www.infinera.com

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Deutsche Telekom Posts Growth Numbers for DSL, Mobiles

Despite slower growth, Deutsche Telekom continues to substantially increase its customer numbers in the DSL and mobile communications.

The company credits its growth to special pricing, bundles and products, such as its Call&Surf all-in packages, the Max mobile flat rates or the community service MyFaves in the United States and products like Entertain, the Apple iPhone 3G or the Android-based T-Mobile G1, for its competitive differentiation. Some highlights:

• With a DSL net add market share of around 45 percent in Germany and almost 1.6 million new customers, T-Home achieved the target it had set itself in 2008.



• In the fourth quarter of 2008, for DSL T-Home 's new customer market share almost reached the 50-percent mark.


• T-Home has consolidated its top position in the German DSL market with 10.6 million existing retail customers and a total market share of around 46 percent.



• T-Home now has some 500,000 customers orders for its Entertain triple-play offer.



• Deutsche Telekom's subsidiaries in Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, Macedonia and Montenegro acquired a total of more than 220,000 IPTV customers by the end of 2008.



• The number of line losses was at the lower end of the guidance of 2.5 to 3 million issued at the beginning of the year. In addition to losses caused by competitive and regulatory factors, this value includes, for the first time in 2008, line losses on technical grounds as a result of the migration of resale customers to the all-IP platform.



• T-Mobile now has 128.3 million customer in all of its markets. This means that the number of customers increased organically by 7.6 million. The contract customer segment accounts for 5 million of this growth with a current customer base of 65.9 million.



• T-Mobile Deutschland added over 950,000 new contract customers for the year.



• T-Mobile USA had a customer base of 32.8 million at the end of the year, including SunCom, which was fully consolidated in February 2008. Organic customer growth -- excluding SunCom -- was thus almost 3 million compared with the end of 2007. Including SunCom, total customer growth was 4.1 million. At the end of the year, broadband 3G mobile services were available to around 107 million people in the United States. This figure is set to almost double following further network expansion in 2009.

http://www.telekom.de

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Dell'Oro: Rapid Rise in 40 Gbps Wavelength Shipments Despite Market

The total worldwide Optical Transport equipment revenue is forecasted to decline 9 percent in 2009 and resume growth in 2010, reaching $14.5 billion in 2013, according to a newly released Optical 5-year forecast report by Dell'Oro Group. Shipments of 40 Gbps wavelengths are forecast to grow at least 50 percent in each of the next five years and contribute nearly one-third of the capacity shipped in DWDM Long Haul systems by 2013. The report also indicates that shipments of 100 Gbps wavelengths are expected in late 2011.


"The economy of most major countries is in a recession, and the consensus belief is that this recession may last through 2009," said Jimmy Yu, Director of Optical Transport research at Dell'Oro Group. "While the near term outlook is for the total optical market to contract 9 percent due to factors such as the economic downturn, there continues to be an opportunity for technologies that will help service providers reduce their capital expense while still expanding their network capacity. We think that 40 Gigabit is one of those technologies as the price per bit of a 40 Gbps wavelength starts to be lower than that of a 10 Gigabit wavelength in a DWDM Long Haul system," added Mr. Yu.
http://www.DellOro.com

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ZTE and RadiSys Partner on Color Ring Back Tones

ZTE and RadiSys announced an integrated solution for color ring back tones that is already deployed and generating revenues for leading service providers in China. Color Ring Back Tone (CRBT) is a network-based service that plays a fragment of music, advertisement, or message predefined by the called party. When a caller makes a phone call to a called party with CRBT service, rather than hearing a generic ringing tone, the caller hears the personalized audio clip. CRBT services are similar to the popularity and appeal of today's downloadable ringtones for mobile devices; however, an important difference is that CRBT is delivered as a network-based service. The joint solution integrates RadiSys Convedia media servers with ZTE's Unified Service Platform.
http://www.zte.com.cnhttp://www.radisys.com

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Ceragon Awarded a $3.5m Follow on Order in Indochina

Ceragon Networks announced follow-on orders for its advanced FibeAir all-indoor trunk solution from a leading mobile operator in one of Indochina's emerging markets. Contributing over $3.5 million in revenue in Q4, these orders follow previous successful deployment during 2008 and further expand the carrier's network.

http://www.ceragon.com

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Level 3 Vyxx to Deliver Broadcast Feeds for Super Bowl XLIII

Level 3 Communications' Vyxx division will provide live standard and high-definition (HD) television broadcast video services for Super Bowl XLIII to multiple major broadcasters. This is the 20th consecutive year that the National Football League (NFL) has relied on Level 3 Vyvx services to deliver the live event broadcast.


For the Super Bowl, Level 3 Vyvx services will deliver a specialized solution that includes HD acquisition, encoding and transmission of the video broadcast signal from the game. In total, over 2,800 hours of video content will be acquired, encoded and transported across the Level 3 Vyvx services platform for Super Bowl coverage. The Super Bowl caps an NFL season during which Level 3 Vyvx services provided video transmission for every NFL regular season and playoff game, delivering more than 5,600 total feeds.
http://www.Level3.com

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EXFO Releases Integrated IMS-HSS Emulator

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering released an integrated Home Subscriber Servers (HSS) emulator for Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks. The HSS, the master database in IMS architectures, plays a critical role in the authentication and authorization of subscribers. Without proper access to the HSS, subscribers cannot access network services, resulting in significant network downtime, customer churn and loss of revenue.


EXFO's said its new hssFlex can wrap around an IMS network to provide end-to-end testing, or simply characterize single network elements such as application servers or call session controllers. Key test features include the ability to simulate real-world interactions like subscribers updating their services, subscriber services being terminated due to non-payment of bills, and characterization of the impact of denial of service (DOS) attacks on the IMS network. Like EXFO's other IMS test suites, the hssFlex complies with industry standards, but also provides the flexibility to simulate proprietary and non-complaint IMS traffic.
http://www.exfo.com/

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Verizon Business Wins GSA Contract Worth Up to $120.8 Million

Verizon Business will provide a range of local voice and data services to federal agencies in five Mid-Atlantic states under a new agreement, valued at as much as $120.8 million, with the U.S. General Services Administration. The agreement, known as the Mid-Atlantic Local Services Acquisition (LSA) contract, covers three years and four renewable option years. Under terms of the deal, the GSA and other federal agencies in the Mid-Atlantic region -- which covers Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia -- can immediately buy local voice and data services. They include Centrex, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) services, network-based voice messaging, private line data services, and related managed

http://www.verizonbusiness.com/

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PMC-Sierra Reports Q4 Revenue of $120.8 Million

PMC-Sierra reported Q4 2008 net revenue of $120.8 million, compared with $123.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 and $139.4 million reported in the third quarter of 2008. Revenues in the fourth quarter of 2008 declined two percent year over year and 13 percent sequentially. Net income was $13.7 million (GAAP diluted net income per share of $0.06). This compares with a GAAP net loss of $5.1 million (GAAP loss per share of $0.02) in the fourth quarter of 2007 and GAAP net income of $5.7 million (GAAP income per share of $0.03) in the third quarter of 2008.


"In 2008, our company's financial performance improved as total revenue increased 17 percent year over year, and our operating margin was 22 percent compared to 14 percent the prior year," said Greg Lang, president and chief executive officer of PMC-Sierra. "While we were impacted by the global macro-economic slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008, we are pleased with the year-over-year progress we have made in revenue and operating income."http://www.pmc-sierra.com

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Juniper Posts Preliminary Revenue of $923.5 Million, up 14% YoY

Juniper Networks reported preliminary net revenue for Q$ 2008 of $923.5 million, up 14% on a year-over-year basis. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2008, Juniper's revenue increased 26% on a year-over-year basis to $3.57 billion. Juniper posted GAAP net income of $132.5 million, or $0.25 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income of $169.0 million, or $0.32 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2008.


"Even in this tough economy, we managed to grow year-over-year quarterly revenue by 14% and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share by 19%. We continue to play offense and grow market share while at the same time taking action to responsibly manage our cost structure. The long-term growth fundamentals of high performance networking remain strong and by strengthening our product portfolio and focusing on the customer, Juniper is positioned for accelerated growth once market conditions improve," stated Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer of Juniper Networks.


Juniper's operating margin for the fourth quarter of 2008 increased to 20.6% on a GAAP basis from 18.2% in the same quarter a year ago. Non-GAAP operating margin for the fourth quarter of 2008 increased to 24.5% from 23.5% in the fourth quarter of 2007. For the fiscal year 2008, Juniper's operating margin increased to 19.5% on a GAAP basis from 14.4% for the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP operating margin for the fiscal year 2008, increased to 24.2% from 21.3% in the fiscal year 2007. Juniper said the improvement was achieved through continued cost discipline and improved operating efficiency.

http://www.juniper.net

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Google Introduces Internet Measurement Lab

Google unveiled its Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open platform that researchers can use to deploy Internet measurement tools.

Over the course of early 2009, Google will provide researchers with 36 servers in 12 locations in the U.S. and Europe. All data collected via M-Lab will be made publicly available for other researchers to build on.


Google said its M-Lab is intended to be a truly community-based effort. The idea for M-Lab was developed with the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and academic researchers.


three tools running on servers near Google's headquarters are available to help users attempt to diagnose common problems that might impair their broadband speed, as well as determine whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled by their ISPs.
http://www.measurementlab.nethttp://www.google.com

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European Commission Drops Telecom Cases Against Five Countries

The European Commission closed five infringement proceedings against EU Member States (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Luxembourg and Cyprus) after they took steps at national level to correct the problems.

The cases against Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia concerned the adoption of the single European emergency number (112), which has now become available in those countries. Thcase against Luxembourg concerned the reorganization of the Media and Communications department which ensures structural separation of regulatory and management functions, as requested in the EU Telecoms rules. The case against Cyprus related to rights of way (e.g. the possibility for public authorities to grant a telecoms provider the right to install facilities such as ducts, cables and masts in public places). This too has also been closed since measures were taken by the Cypriot authorities to ensure a timely provision of rights of way for the roll-out of fixed networkshttp:www.europa.eu

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