Tellabs Reports Q1 Revenue of $362 Million

Tellabs' first-quarter 2009 revenue totaled $362 million, down 22% compared with $464 million in the first quarter of 2008. Tellabs earned $7 million or 2 cents per share on a GAAP (U.S. generally accepted accounting principles) basis, compared with $17 million or 4 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.


GAAP gross profit margins were 44.2% in the first quarter of 2009, higher than in any quarter since the third quarter of 2006.

"Tellabs continues to focus on improving profitability - both our customers' and our own - by helping customers generate new revenues, reduce capital expenses and cut operating expenses," said Rob Pullen, Tellabs president and chief executive officer. "


For the first quarter of 2009, broadband segment revenue was $178 million, transport segment revenue was $130 million and services segment revenue was $54 million.


Compared with the first quarter of 2009, Tellabs expects second-quarter revenue to be flat to up by a high-single-digit percentage. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be flat, plus or minus a point or two, as a result of product mix.
http://www.tellabs.com

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Level 3 Reports Post Q1 Revenue of $980 million, 150 Job Cuts

Level 3 Communications reported consolidated revenue of $980 million for the first quarter 2009, compared to consolidated revenue of $1.09 billion for the first quarter 2008. Total Communications Revenue for the first quarter 2009 was $962 million, versus $1.07 billion for the first quarter 2008.The net loss for the first quarter 2009 was $132 million, or ($0.08) per share, which compared to a net loss of $190 million, or ($0.12) per share for the first quarter 2008. Net income for the fourth quarter 2008 was $43 million, or $0.03 per basic share and ($0.03) per diluted share.



"Despite the challenging economic climate and the expected pressure on top line growth, we saw improvement in Adjusted EBITDA," said James Crowe, CEO of Level 3. "We believe the fundamental demand for applications like video over the Internet and wireless data remain solid, and we are well positioned to take advantage of future market growth."


"While we remain cautious, we are seeing trends that point to stabilization in our Core Communications Services revenue base. We expect revenue pressure to continue in the second quarter although at a significantly moderating rate. Our funnel of future sales opportunities remains strong and our quoting and proposal activity has increased, particularly in our Business Markets Group. Customers who were delaying purchases are starting to place orders, and our signed order volume has trended upward. Our churn trends also began to show improvement late in the first quarter.


"We continue our focus on cost improvements and expect to reduce headcount by approximately 150 during the second quarter. This will result in a $6 to $7 million severance charge in the second quarter. Our capital expenditures of $78 million in the first quarter are a good indication of the quarterly trend for the year," said Patel.
http://www.level3.com

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Comcast Launches 50 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 in Boston

Comcast has launched DOCSIS 3.0 service for small- and medium-sized businesses in the Greater Boston area, offering speeds of up to 50 Mbps.


Starting this week, Comcast will offer two new tiers of wideband service - Deluxe at 50 Mbps ($190 per month) and Premium at 22 Mbps ($100 per month) -- to small and medium-sized businesses in more than 300 communities in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.
http://www.comcast.com

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Online Video Surges 11% in March over February

U.S. Internet users viewed 14.5 billion online videos during the March, representing an increase of 11 percent versus February, according to the latest data from the comScore Video Metrix service.


In March, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with 5.9 billion videos viewed (40.9 percent online video market share), with YouTube.com accounting for more than 99 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 437 million videos (3.0 percent), followed by Hulu with 380 million (2.6 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 335 million (2.3 percent). March represented the first time Hulu has cracked the top three in the ranking of videos viewed.


Nearly 150 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 97 videos during the month. Google Sites eclipsed the 100 million online video viewer threshold once again, after first achieving the milestone in December 2008. Fox Interactive ranked second with 55.2 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (42.5 million) and Hulu (41.6 million).


Other notable findings from March 2009 include:

• 77.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.



• The average online video viewer watched 327 minutes of video, or nearly 5.5 hours.



• 99.7 million viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (59.1 videos per viewer).



• 47.4 million viewers watched 349 million videos on MySpace.com (7.4 videos per viewer).



• Hulu accounted for 2.6 percent of videos viewed, but 4.9 percent of all minutes spent watching online video.



• The duration of the average online video was 3.4 minutes.

http://www.comscore.com

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Green Packet and GCT Semiconductor Target Wi-Fi-WiMAX Roaming

GCT Semiconductor, which supplies mobile WiMAX silicon, and Green Packet, adeveloper of next generation mobile broadband and networking solutions, announced a strategic collaboration to offer a seamless solution for wireless devices to roam between WiFi and WiMAX networks.


The solution includes GCT's single-chip supporting both mobile WiMAX IEEE 802.16e Wave 2 and WiFi 802.11 b/g, and Green Packet's Intouch Connection Manager (CM) software. Green Packet's software combines intelligent connection management, seamless connectivity between different network environments, and lifestyle value added services into a single client.


Target applications include netbooks, smartphones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), etc.
http://www.greenpacket.com
http://www.gctsemi.com

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Juniper Networks and IBM Extend Alliance

Juniper Networks and IBM announced plans to broadden their relationship. Specifically in the data center, IBM has included Juniper Networks switching, routing and security products into their data center network portfolio with IBM serving in the role of systems integrator.


The two companies have recently demonstrated how enterprises can seamlessly extend their private data center clouds. The demonstration between Silicon Valley and Ireland showed a use case where customers could take advantage of remote servers in a secure public cloud to ensure high priority applications are given preference over the lower priority ones when computing resources become constrained. IBM and Juniper are installing these advanced networking capabilities into IBM's nine worldwide Cloud Labs for customer engagements. Once installed in the nine worldwide Cloud Labs, IBM and Juniper will be able to seamlessly move client computing workloads between private and publicly managed cloud environments, enabling customers to reliably deliver on service level agreements.


For the past year, IBM and Juniper have been working together on the Stratus Project, Juniper's initiative to create a single data center fabric that will deliver a quantum jump in scale, performance and simplicity, with the flexibility to support fully converged and virtualized data center environments. The Stratus Project will address the modern mega data center's pain points and endeavors to enable cloud computing to fulfill its maximum potential.


Furthermore, the companies are jointly researching cloud computing security models to highlight how customers can mitigate attacks on corporate data and computer systems.
http://www.juniper.nethttp://www.ibm.com

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IBM to Resell Brocade Enterprise IP Networking Portfolio

IBM has agreed to rebrand and sell the Brocade enterprise IP networking family of products through the IBM global sales force and authorized IBM Business Partners. The OEM deal extends the existing relationship between Brocade and IBM for storage area networking (SAN) products. Initially, IBM plans to sell the following Brocade IP networking product families under the OEM agreement, with additional products to be added over time. IBM will offer multiple models in each product family:

Brocade NetIron MLX Series as IBM m-series Ethernet routers

Brocade NetIron CES 2000 Series as IBM c-series Ethernet switches

Brocade FastIron SX Series as IBM s-series Ethernet switches

Brocade FastIron GS Series as IBM g-series Ethernet switches

The products were initially developed by Foundry Networks, which Brocade recently acquired.


"This agreement supports IBM's view of networking as an integral component of our dynamic infrastructure initiative, which helps customers manage the convergence of business and IT infrastructures," said Barry Rudolph, vice president, IBM System Storage. "IBM is focused on providing its customers with the best networking choices and options, which is why we're pleased to expand our relationship with Brocade."


IBM currently rebrands and sells a broad portfolio of Brocade data center networking products and technologies, including the multiprotocol Brocade DCX Backbone along with Fibre Channel directors, standalone and embedded switches, host bus adapters, and related software.
http://visit www.smarternetworks.com
http://www.brocade.com

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Bytemobile Releases Unison Mobile Internet Platform

Bytemobile announced the general availability of its new Unison Mobile Internet Platform for processing all data traffic for Bytemobile applications deployed in mobile networks. The latest Unison release includes Bytemobile's new Media Optimization, Widget Bar and MobileMatch applications.


Key features ofthe Bytemobile product portfolio on the Unison platform include:


Optimization and Services Node (OSN)

• The OSN Web Optimization application reduces network data volumes to increase capacity for growth in internet traffic and users, enabling operators to manage their operating and capital costs and enhance the user experience with significant download speedup.



• The WebGate Service, an optional application of the OSN, provides a single service control point within the network for all data traffic, which enables operators to deliver innovative new services such as parental controls, fair-use policies and captive portal applications to their customers while controlling data flow through intelligent service selection.



• The MobileMatch Service, an optional application of the OSN, supports the selection and delivery of the most relevant value-added services for individual consumers, using real-time analysis of both contextual and behavioral data.

Web Fidelity Suite

• The Web Fidelity Suite Content Adaptation application dynamically and transparently transcodes web, Flash and multimedia content for interactive use on all mobile devices, while retaining the functionality and integrity of the original PC experience.



• The Widget Bar application provides operators with a direct communication channel to the mobile user, empowering them to deliver portal content to all off-portal pages and to influence and simplify the browsing experience by suggesting useful and relevant content, applications and widgets.



• The Ad Insertion application enables operators to serve highly relevant advertisements to consumers, thereby opening substantial new revenue streams while enhancing the customization and personalization of the user's mobile browsing experience.

Media Fidelity Suite

• The Media Fidelity Suite Media Optimization application enables operators to manage the impact of escalating video traffic on their network operations and dramatically increase quality of service to users through data reduction and control of effective bandwidth utilization.

http://www.bytemobile.com

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ADVA Selects Xelerated's Network Processor to Extend Carrier Ethernet

ADVA Optical Networking is using Xelerated's X11 network processor unit (NPU) in the ADVA FSP 3000 Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) system, which enables service providers to extend Carrier Ethernet services into fiber access and aggregation networks.
The X11's architecture guarantees deterministic, low latency packet behavior, regardless of packet size, traffic pattern or number of instructions used per packet.
http://www.xelerated.com

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Fujitsu Supplies FLASHWAVE 9500 to South Dakota's SDN

SDN Communications, a regional fiber optic networking provider owned by 18 South Dakota independent telephone companies, has selected the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONP) for its statewide network. SDN is using the platform for high-capacity, SONET and Ethernet transport and cross-connecting between interexchange carriers and its member companies.

SDN will continue to use the Fujitsu NETSMART 1500 Element Management System (EMS) to manage its network of Fujitsu network elements, and reduce the time and complexity of day-to-day operations and maintenance tasks. This software allows SDN to use features such as end-to-end SONET/SDH and Ethernet service provisioning, real-time fault isolation and resolution, and distributed network element software updates to reduce operating expenses. Financial terms were not disclosed.


The FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet ONP provides the modular integration of Ethernet, ROADM, and SONET transport technologies into a single addressable optical networking class element. The platform's pluggable ROADM option and universal switch fabric allow both SONET/SDH and Ethernet traffic to be transported in its native format to create a universal optical infrastructure. Integrated connection-oriented Ethernet transport technology delivers private-line quality packet aggregation and connectivity services with the proven operational robustness of optical networking, including transport-class software and database management, management interface functionality, and precision fault sectionalization.
http://www.sdncommunications.com
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/telecom/newsroom.html

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DigitalBridge Signs WiMAX Distribution Agreement with NRTC

DigitalBridge Communications Corp. (DBC), a private operator of WiMAX 4G broadband networks in underserved regions, has signed a distribution agreement with the not-for-profit National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC).


The agreement gives NRTC members the opportunity to expand next-generation broadband service to underserved and unserved areas in rural America. NRTC has also made a significant investment in DigitalBridge, the terms of which are not being disclosed. With the investment in DBC, NRTC acquires a seat on the company's board of directors.


"The Administration and Congress have made the expansion of broadband a national priority, and it's a goal that we embrace," said Bob Phillips, NRTC President and Chief Executive Officer. "Our nearly 1,500 members have a commitment to improving the quality of life in the communities they serve and have demonstrated the ability to deliver advanced technologies to their consumer members. It was an NRTC investment that delivered DIRECTV satellite television service to rural America in places where there was no cable or other alternative to ‘rabbit-ears' on top of the TV or an antennae on the roof. It was NRTC that provided the urgently-needed funding to get the WildBlue satellite Internet service off the ground."


"Broadband is now a utility -- like electricity and phone service. Expanding the availability of high-speed Internet access is key to closing the digital divide, creating jobs and spurring economic development in rural America," said Phillips. "WiMAX can also provide a solution for electric cooperative members who are implementing smart grid technologies that rely on enhanced communications capabilities," he added.
http://www.digitalbridgecommunications.com
http://www.nrtc.coop

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Nokia Realigns Services Group, Cuts 450 Jobs

Nokia announced a realignment of its Services unit with the goal of creating a more simplified user experience and deeper and greater opportunities for third parties. Further, Nokia will focus investments on fewer initiatives and increase the use of common enablers across certain services. As part of the announced changes, all mobile games will now become available through the Ovi Store, in addition to through their existing channels. Nokia also announced plans to streamline its internal IT and Compatibility & Industry Collaboration activities in the Corporate Development Office unit, resulting in the elimination of about 450 positions.
http://www.nokia.com

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Cablevision Introduces 101 Mbps Internet Service

Cablevision Systems, which passes 5 million homes in the New York metropolitan area, introduced a 101 Mbps downstream Internet access service over its DOCSIS 3.0 infrastructure. The service, which delivers upstream speeds of up to 15 Mbps, will be offered across the company's entire service area starting May 11. The new level of Internet service will be available for $99.95 per month and includes up to 15 email addresses with 1GB of storage each.


Cablevision now claims to offer the fastest residential Internet service in the U.S. The basic level of Optimum Online delivers speeds of up to 15 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream.


Cablevision also announced that it was doubling the downstream speed of its Optimum WiFi wireless Internet service, to up to 3.0 Mbps -- beating the downstream capacity of many cellular data services.


Cablevision noted that its Optimum Online has achieved a broadband market share in Cablevision's service area of more than 75 percent, and is the most highly-penetrated high-speed Internet service in the country, used by more than 52 percent of the homes passed by Cablevision's fiber optic network.
http://www.cablevision.com

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