ADVA Extends 90 Mbps Ethernet over DS3 or E3 Pairs

ADVA Optical Networking is further enhancing its FSP 150 line of Ethernet access with a new Ethernjack model capable of delivering 90 Mbps Ethernet service over a pair of DS3s or E3s.


The new FSP 150CC-324 delivers a host of features for Ethernet demarcation, extension and aggregation and could be used for out-of-region applications. The FSP 150CC-324 enables Ethernet extension off-net over leased double or single DS3 or E3, empowering clients to extract new value from their legacy systems by adding Ethernet capability to existing Add Drop Multiplexing Systems (ADMs), radios and other transport infrastructure. That means providers may offer new services and develop new revenue streams using existing lines that were not previously Ethernet-capable.


The FSP 150CC-324 can be used to support Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF)-based services, including EPL (Ethernet Private Line), EVPL (Ethernet Virtual Private Line), E-LAN (Ethernet LAN) and E-tree, both on-net and off-net. Four customer-facing Ethernet service ports, a Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) socket for optical handoffs and advanced service definition capabilities make the device capable of supporting multiple customers or multiple services over a single or bonded DS3/E3 Wide Area Network (WAN) uplink. Individual customers and services are separated within the WAN using a sophisticated MEF User Network Interface (UNI) function that includes support for Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) and Ethernet Virtual Circuits (EVCs).


Equipped with ADVA Optical Networking's Etherjack technology, the FSP 150CC-324 enables carriers to deploy profitable Ethernet services by providing an intelligent Ethernet demarcation point that includes an 802.1ag-, Y.1731-, RFC 2544- and 802.3ah-compliant Network Interface Device (NID) for OAM functionality. The device also includes an MEF-certified UNI to provide advanced services definition. In addition to Y.1731, the NID supports Etherjack Service Assurance (ESA) for in-service SLA monitoring critical for carrier-class Ethernet services. With support for hierarchical quality of service (QoS) queuing/shaping, the device provides up to eight classes of service with string priorities and Weighted Round Robin (WRR) scheduling across EVCs.


"The FSP 150CC-324 is another important building block in our intelligent Ethernet access solution," said Ron Martin, chief marketing and strategy officer for ADVA Optical Networking. "In times of economic uncertainty, our customers want solutions that allow them to immediately respond to end-user demand for high-speed data services without time-consuming and CAPEX-intensive network overbuilds. This unit enables our customers to profitably roll-out differentiated Ethernet services on a nationwide basis without performing costly network upgrades."http://www.advaoptical.com

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Xangati Debuts Service Provider Application Mgt App for Customer Care

Xangati, a start-up based in Cupertino, California, released an end-user application suite (EAS) that enables Service Providers and their end customers to see which applications are consuming bandwidth and impacting the performance of their broadband connections. The EAS leverages Xangati's Application Management 2.0 framework to enable a DVR-like playback of an online session. Both the end-user and the Service Provider can see which applications are streaming traffic and how much of the resources were consumed. The EAS is comprised of two complementary applications:

• "The AppMonitor" is available to all subscribers and allows an individual to see their streaming real-time application activity over the Internet and identify issues without outside assistance, probes or software agents -- enabling the service provider to generate new revenue streams by helping customers manage their own Internet service.



• "The Visual Trouble Ticket" portal allows a subscriber to initiate and submit a DVR-style recording of their network and application activity to help a customer support representative (CSR) see and track the problem in real-time. This new concept offers an enhanced support framework over what was previously available and will significantly increase customer satisfaction through faster problem identification and resolution.

Xangati's Application Management 2.0 solution could also be deployed by IT organizations operating large enterprise networks. The appeal of the solution is that it is extensible to every user within the enterprise and all their applications -- whether they are on-premise or in the cloud -- because it can be deployed without costly software agents or hardware probes.
http://www.xangati.com

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BroadLight to Power CIG GPON ONT Product Line

Cambridge Industries Group (CIG) has selected BroadLight's second generation of GPON System on Chips, the BL2345 and BL2348, for its wide portfolio of GPON Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). Founded in June 2005, with R&D and manufacturing based in Shanghai, China, Cambridge Industries Group (CIG) is a leading independent telecom OEM supplier focusing on FTTH/PON (GPON and GEPON) CPE equipment. Its GPON CPE portfolio includes products such as ONT, ONU, MDU, and residential gateways, which are already in mass deployment throughout the world via CIG's multiple system vendor partners.
http://www.broadlight.com

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Adobe Extends Flash for TVs, Set-Top Boxes and Blu-Ray Players

Adobe is extending its Flash platform for delivering HD video and rich applications to Internet-connected televisions, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and other devices in the digital living room. Such digital home devices will support the Flash Video (FLV) file format. Flash technology-based applications will allow users to quickly switch between television programming and Web content outside the Web browser.


The initiative has gained the support of major silicon developers, system OEMs, cable operators and content providers, including Atlantic Records, Broadcom, Comcast, Disney Interactive Media Group, Intel, Netflix, STMicroelectronics, The New York Times Company, NXP Semiconductors and Sigma Designs.



"Adobe Flash Platform for the Digital Home will dramatically change the way we view content on televisions," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "Consumers are looking to access their favorite Flash technology-based videos, applications, services and other rich Web content across screens. We are looking forward to working with partners to create these new experiences and deliver content consistently across devices whether consumers view it on their desktop, mobile phone or television."http://www.adobe.com

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Level 3 Launches Managed Video Network Services

Level 3 Communications is delivering a new managed video network service (MVNS) to Fox Entertainment Group, providing direct fiber connections among 35 Fox locations, including the Fox News Headquarters in New York City.


Level 3's MVNS is a flexible managed video offering for broadcasters, enabling point-to-point and point-to-multipoint broadcast video delivery between customers' locations via Level 3's high-bandwidth fiber-optic network. The service seamlessly integrates IP and data services from Level 3's portfolio and dynamically allocates and prioritizes bandwidth between different services, giving broadcasters maximum flexibility.


Level 3 is delivering a customized MVNS network solution that allows Fox to deliver high-definition TV signals among Fox's various locations throughout the country.
http://www.Level3.com

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Fujitsu and Cisco Develop Video Contribution System

Fujitsu and Cisco have collaborated on the creation of a video contribution system for use over IP or satellite infrastructures. The new IP encoding platform includes the Cisco D9094 MPEG-4 advanced video coding (AVC) encoder, which was developed by Fujitsu to support high-quality high-definition (HD) and standard-definition (SD) video with the lowest latency that can be transmitted at low speeds. The Cisco D9094 encoder, and its standard-definition counterpart, the Cisco D9093 encoder, both include an option for a built-in satellite modulator, ideally suited for DSNG (Digital Satellite News Gathering) applications. The IP system includes the digital content processing technology of the Cisco Digital Content Manager (DCM) for IP forward error-correction and the capability to deliver massive horsepower capable of simultaneously processing hundreds of HD video streams.
http://www.cisco.com
http://www.fujitsu.com/

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Microsoft Positions Smooth Streaming for Online HD Video Delivery

Microsoft released a new Smooth Streaming feature in Internet Information Services (IIS) Media Services, its HTTP-based media delivery platform. The release includes extensions for cost-effectively measuring, monetizing and caching media.


Microsoft's Smooth Streaming adapts the quality of the video stream in real time, based upon the consumer's changing bandwidth and central processing unit conditions. It support high-definition (HD) video (1080p) over HTTP.


Microsoft highlighted growing industry adoption of Smooth Streaming from leading media customers such as electronic retailer HSN, and broadcasters such as NBCOlympics.com, RAI, TV 2 and CTV, as well as media ecosystem partners, including content delivery networks (CDNs), encoding independent software vendors (ISVs) and digital rights management (DRM) service providers, that have announced support for Smooth Streaming.


Microsoft also demonstrated end-to-end delivery of live streams delivered via Akamai Technologies Inc.'s AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Microsoft Silverlight. Live encoding of video streams will be produced with Inlet Technologies' Spinnaker, the first video encoder to support IIS Live Smooth Streaming. Live Smooth Streaming, currently in beta, provides personal video recorder (PVR)-style access and navigation to live video streams. Users can join events in progress, then quickly jump to the beginning or rewind the highlights.


Microsoft's Silverlight 3, which is currently in beta, provides features to further improve online media experiences including support for native playback of MP4 formats (H.264/AAC), an extensible decoder pipeline, full-screen HD playback using graphics processing unit acceleration and out-of-browser capabilities.
http://www.microsoft.com
http://iis.net/media

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MobiTV Explores a New Business Model for Mobile Television

MobiTV, in partnership with Sinclair and PBS, unveiled a new business model for mobile television that combines some free content with subscription-based programming. At the National Association of Broadcasters Show (NAB), the companies are showing
mixTV -- combining free Mobile DTV content with a subscription based 7-day window of on-demand programming. The goal is to open multiple new monetization opportunities for broadcasters, mobile network operators and content providers while providing a compelling user experience for consumers. MixTV also supports interactivity, audience measurement and dynamic ad insertion via mobile broadcast, or on-demand content over existing wireless networks.


For the NAB Show demonstration, mixTV will feature a combination of Mobile DTV from PBS (KLVX) and the CW (KVCW), with a seven-day library of all previously broadcast content available on-demand over Mobile WiMAX.
http://www.mobitv.com

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Telenor Pakistan Picks Nokia Siemens Networks

Telenor Pakistan, one of the country's mobile operators, selected Nokia Siemens Networks to expand its network and upgrade its infrastructure. Under this turnkey contract, Nokia Siemens Networks will undertake the site acquisition, construction, network implementation, logistics and project management. It will implement the Flexi Base Station, a pioneering product that is modular, easy to deploy, and energy efficient making it ideal for network expansion at reduced costs. Once implemented, Nokia Siemens Networks will monitor, manage and optimize the network using its NetAct and ServeAtOnce offering to ensure the highest service quality, and also train Telenor Pakistan's team. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

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NSN Appoints Bosco Novak as CMO

Nokia Siemens Networks has appointed Bosco Novak to the position of chief of market operations. Novak, currently head of human resources, will remain a member of the company's executive board. Prior to leading human resources, Novak was senior vice president for the Services business unit within Nokia's Networks business. He has also held a number of customer-focused leadership roles both with Nokia, which he joined in 2000, and Ericsson, where he worked from 1991-1999.


Christoph Caselitz, who has been the company's chief of market operations (CMO) since the start of operations on 1 April 2007, will take on a new role supporting global customer relationships and related CMO strategy. Novak will be succeeded as head of human resources by Hans-Jürgen Bill, head of the company's west south Europe region. Bill currently leads the activities of Nokia Siemens Networks in 30 European countries and has worked with many of the world's largest global operators. He has held this position since the start of Nokia Siemens Networks and has built a strong team and organization. Prior to the start of Nokia Siemens Networks, Hans-Jürgen held a range of diverse roles at Siemens, including leading both operations and the Asia Pacific region for its mobile networks business. Bill will join Nokia Siemens Networks' executive board.
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

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Meru Networks Raises $30 Million for WLAN Solutions

Meru Networks has raised $30 million in a private funding round to support its WLAN solutions.

The new funding was led by a new investor managed by Vision Capital Advisors, LLC, of New York City. Existing investors, including Clearstone Venture Partners, NeoCarta Ventures, BlueStream Ventures, The D. E. Shaw Group, Evercore Partners, Tenaya Capital and Monitor Ventures, also participated in the funding round.


"We are experiencing unprecedented enthusiasm for IEEE 802.11n solutions, and enterprises' rapid adoption of the 802.11n standard presents us with the opportunity to accelerate our WLAN market share growth," said Brett White, Meru's chief financial officer. "CIOs are looking for a wireless solution that is easy to deploy, secure and manage so their organizations can not only run all business-critical applications reliably over their WLANs but can do so with reduced budgets and more efficient utilization of precious networking staff. The latest round of funding will give us the resources to continue our mission of solving application performance problems over wireless while meeting the strong demand we're seeing from the health-care and education markets and Fortune 2000-size companies."http://www.merunetworks.com

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Ciena Expands Ethernet Service Delivery Options

Ciena announced an expansion of its Carrier Ethernet Service Delivery (CESD) portfolio, including multiple new service delivery and aggregation switches, which leverage a common service-aware operating system and unified Ethernet management software. Significantly, new software upgrades for Ciena's CN 5305 Service Aggregation Switch enable it to seamlessly interwork between disparate encapsulation formats such as Q-in-Q, PBB-TE and MPLS/H-VPLS.


Ciena's Carrier Ethernet Service Delivery (CESD) portfolio is a family of service delivery and aggregation platforms that address a wide range of application, service, market and access technology requirements. Ciena features zero-touch, automated device configuration and service provisioning with wire-speed Layer 2 switching, high-capacity switching fabrics and all GbE and 10 GbE ports. The product line-up includes:

• CN 3960 Service Delivery Switch: delivering cost-effective, high-capacity 10 GbE user ports, it supports the most demanding service requirements, including high-bandwidth business services, wholesale and wireless backhaul applications.



• CN 3940 Service Delivery Switch: providing dense Gigabit Ethernet service delivery or aggregation, it combines high port density and advanced switching features in a compact one rack unit size to maximize its Ethernet service delivery efficiency.



• CN 5140 Service Aggregation Switch: featuring flexible deployment options, the aggregator can fit into outdoor cabinets and operate over an extended temperature range, offering a compact, ETSI form-factor with front access to all user and network ports as well as power and system interfaces.



• CN 5305 Service Aggregation Switch: enhanced with optional MPLS/H-VPLS software for seamless multiprotocol aggregation and switching and simplified IP/MPLS router handoff.

http://www.ciena.com

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Verizon Expands FiOS Remote DVR Management

Verizon has expanded the remote DVR management capabilities for its FiOS TV service to include a larger range of wireless handsets.

The company also now offers Web-based remote DVR management service to all FiOS TV DVR customers. The service allows customers to remotely review, change or add recording requests, delete recorded programs, browse and search TV and video-on-demand listings, set parental controls, and more.
http://www.verizon.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Launches Eco-Attitude Awareness Campaign

Alcatel-Lucent is launching an eco-sustainability awareness campaign -- "Let's Be Eco-Friendly" -- to encourage its employees to avoid printing documents, separate trash for recycling, save water, turn down thermostats, use teleconferencing to avoid travel, and reduce commuting by car whenever possible. As an example, the 2008 Financial and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) annual reports will be available online, with paper copies only available on request. The paper saved would be enough to create a stack as tall as a 40-story building.


The company's eco-sustainability program focuses on three areas: the company's products and solutions, applications for other businesses and, its own operations.

• In February, Alcatel-Lucent announced it had demonstrated in China that dynamic power enhancements to its GSM/EDGE mobile networking portfolio can reduce power consumption by up to 27 percent, offering dramatic energy and cost savings for mobile operators.



• The company also has deployed some 300 solar-powered base stations and has established a unique alternate energy lab and pilot site at its Villarceaux, France facility.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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Sensory Pushes Pattern Matching to 50 Gbps on new Intel XEON

Sensory Networks announced that is "HyperScan" pattern matching engine has set a new industry benchmark for software-only performance by delivering up to 50Gbps of L3 -- L7 pattern matching using complete security signature sets from industry leading vendors.


A wide variety of applications, such as Intrusion detection/prevention, Firewall, Deep Packet Inspection, Unified Threat Management and Traffic management, uses pattern matching technology. Sensory's HyperScan is a portable software library with several specialized content inspection scanning engines. Each engine is unique and tailored for different tasks to deliver optimal content scanning performance for particular parts of signatures, expressions and applications. Also, a compilation stage partitions, optimizes and transforms the existing signature database for use in multiple engines simultaneously; this allows performance to scale while consuming only a small memory footprint. The software engine is written in C++ and operates with a variety of operating systems.


"Our HyperScan is optimized for delivering performance across the Intel architecture, scaling from the Intel Atom processor up to the latest multi-core Intel Xeon processors." said Sab Gosal, CEO for Sensory Networks. "The algorithms implemented in HyperScan go far beyond the DFA and NFA implementations typically used in the industry for pattern matching, avoiding the state-blowout and performance problems each suffer. Using these advanced algorithms couple with an intimate knowledge of CPU architectures, HyperScan delivers throughput performance that in not only scalable, but also solves our customer's performance bottlenecks".
http://www.sensorynetworks.com

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Fujitsu and Cisco Expand Alliance for Unified Communications in Japan

Fujitsu and Cisco have expanded their strategic alliance to deliver unified communications in the Japanese market. The companies have agreed to work together to develop unified communications solutions and collaborate on services and marketing activities.


The companies said the following elements will be implemented in this new unified communications alliance agreement.


1. Migration from legacy systems to more effective Unified Communications solutions. Fujitsu and Cisco will implement collaborative go-to-market strategies to support the delivery of combined unified communications solutions. Fujitsu and Cisco will provide unified communications and mobile groupware solutions that help mobile users check their e-mail and their schedules from mobile terminals. The two companies will also promote linking unified communications tools to business and industry-specific applications, and develop products for connecting to various carriers' IP telephony services to support migration from existing telephony networks to more effective unified communications solutions. These solutions will be delivered by Fujitsu with Cisco Services support.


2. Development and release of comprehensive unified communications solutions. Fujitsu and Cisco will work together to share product road maps and collaborate to support Fujitsu's development of solutions that meet the needs of the Japanese market. As part of this collaboration, Fujitsu and Cisco have combined the Fujitsu VJ-110 series access unit with Cisco Unified Communications Manager.


The Fujitsu VJ-110 connects diverse mobile terminals (e.g. smart phone, PHS cordless phones) in Japan with Cisco Unified Communications Manager. Fujitsu will also develop middleware to help customers to link existing customer relationship management (CRM) applications to Cisco Unified Communications Manager to deploy next-generation call centers. Using Cisco Unified Communications technology, Fujitsu will integrate customer communications with Microsoft Exchange Server, and IBM Notes/Domino. Fujitsu will also provide software for linking Fujitsu's TeamWARE groupware and Cisco Unified Communications Manager (available from July 2009) with various business and industry-specific applications.


3. Strengthened support and services framework for unified communications in business. The two companies will work together to increase the adoption of unified communications in Japan. Together, the companies will deliver solutions that respond to customer needs for collaboration, that help increase the efficiency of the customers' business and speed delivery of solutions to the Japanese market. To improve customer support, Fujitsu will also train 300 unified communications technical support personnel in the first year, mainly made up of system engineers. This will create one of the largest UC service organizations in Japan.

Since 2004, Fujitsu and Cisco have built a strategic alliance in the networking field including routers and switches, such as the collaboration towards the joint development of the Cisco IOS XR operating system for high-end routers.
http://www.cisco.com
http://www.fujitsu.com

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OIF Tests Optical Transport + Control Plane Technologies

The Optical Internetworking Forum, in partnership with seven of the world's largest carriers, has kicked off a three month interoperability test that will tackle diverse transport technologies, including OTN, PBB-TE, T-MPLS/MPLS-TP and SONET/SDH as well as multi-domain service restoration technology. The interoperability test is hosted by global telecom carriers; China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom Group, KDDI R&D Labs, NTT, Telecom Italia and Verizon. Carrier sites linked via virtual connections, forming a global test network topology.



The OIF said its 4th global interoperability demonstration will also highlight control plane mechanisms, namely the User Network Interface (UNI) 2.0 and the complementary External Network-to-Network Interface (E-NNI) 2.0 signaling implementation agreements. The E-NNI 2.0 IA, approved by OIF members this month, enables carriers to deliver services over legacy or emerging network technologies and is the service activation interface that allows these diverse network domains to interwork.


Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) services, which take advantage of native Ethernet multiplexing to improve sharing of transport resources, will take center stage during this test. Most Carriers' Ethernet-over-Transport services are currently delivered as Ethernet Private Line (EPL), but EVPL is growing since it provides more efficient transport and simplifies network operations. Control plane for EVPL is a significant technical step in providing more than simple bandwidth pipe - the control plane now understands how individual customer flows are mapped within the Ethernet signal, and controls the transport resources to meet these service needs. Control plane-based service restoration is also being tested so that service can be restored after a data plane failure. Restoration is a key step toward mesh network topologies, which can provide high availability without 100% resource redundancy.


"This test marks an important step forward in the ongoing development of global telecommunications internetworking," said Hans-Martin Foisel, Deutsche Telekom, and OIF president and Carrier Working Group chair. "The elements of the test are a direct response to the needs of the carriers who drive the direction of and capital investment in worldwide optical networks."http://www.oiforum.com

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