Heptagon Raises $22m for Wafer Scale Micro-Optics

Heptagon, a private company based in Zurich, announced $22 million in venture funding for its wafer-scale micro-optics.


The new funding was led by GGV Capital of Menlo Park, California and included the participation of existing investors, including Innovations Kapital of Sweden, Innovacom of France and Nokia Growth Partners.


Heptagon develops optics which are glass-like in quality but manufactured in the same wafer-scale format as the CMOS image sensor, LED and VCSEL technologies. This enables the potential to quickly ramp from several millions to several tens of millions of components per month.
http://www.heptagon.fi

Read More

Cavium Unveils NITROX DPI Family of Layer 7 Content Processors

Cavium Networks introduced its NITROX DPI CN17XX Layer 7 Content Processor Family, offering 4Gbps to 20 Gbps of deterministic performance with low latency and support for an unlimited number of pattern rule-sets and flows. Target applications include application level firewalls, intrusion prevention (IPS), gateway anti-virus, unified threat management and content-based QoS in routers, switches, appliances and services blades for the Enterprise, Datacenter and Service Provider markets. Both silicon products as well as production-ready boards with extensive software support are available.


Cavium said its NITROX DPI CN17XX processor family, which are based on its 3rd generation Deep Packet Inspection technology, delivers deterministic, low-latency without compromising the number of pattern rules or flows. The company's first and second generation Deep Packet Inspection technology is integrated into the OCTEON and OCTEON Plus multi-core family of products and is already shipping in Tier 1 customer systems. Cavium's third generation DPI technology delivers several significant enhancements to reduce latency and increase performance. The high performance and scalability offered by these devices is enabled by the on-chip revolutionary Hyper Finite Automata (HFA) engines.


The NITROX DPI CN17XX processor and board family offers look-aside L7 content processing with PCI-Express connectivity. These processors offer up to 20 Gbps of performance and can be used in conjunction with the OCTEON family and other general purpose processors such as the x86 to increase DPI performance. The same engines are also integrated on Cavium's OCTEON II processor family, enabling seamless software migration from CN17XX family to OCTEON II. For future designs that need even higher performance, the CN17xx family can be used in conjunction with Cavium's high end OCTEON II processor family to deliver up to 40 Gbps performance.


The ability to use the HFA technology as a coprocessor as well as integrated in a CPU, with performance ranging from 4 Gbps -- 40 Gbps provides customers with the most flexible, scalable and highest performing L7 content processing solution in the marketplace. The NITROX DPI CN17XX family includes four different products.
http://www.caviumnetworks.com

Read More

TI Reports Q2 Revenue of $2.46 Billion, Better Trends

Texas Instruments (TI) announced second-quarter revenue of $2.46 billion, net income of $260 million and earnings per share (EPS) of $0.20. TI's revenue declined 27 percent compared with the second quarter of 2008 and increased 18 percent compared with the first quarter of 2009. The decline from a year ago was the result of broad-based declines across all segments. The increase from the prior quarter was primarily due to strength in TI's Analog segment as well as a seasonal increase in calculators. Revenue was up sequentially in all segments.


"After sharp inventory corrections in our markets during the prior two quarters, our revenue levels are beginning to more closely reflect end demand," said TI Chairman, President and CEO Rich Templeton. "As it will likely take some time before the economy strengthens, we have aligned our operations and expenses to be consistent with the weak environment. As a result, we are seeing healthy trends in our profitability.


"Analog was the biggest driver of sequential growth this quarter with all three major businesses contributing. Of particular note, our High-Volume Analog & Logic business is now showing early signs of progress from our efforts over the past couple of years to reinvigorate growth."http://www.ti.com

Read More

Ceragon Posts Revenue of $42 million, Down 24% YoY

Ceragon Networks, which supplies high-capacity Ethernet and TDM wireless backhaul solutions, reported Q2 revenues of $42.2 million, down 24% from $55.2 million for the second quarter of 2008 and 4% from $43.9 million in the first quarter of 2009. Net income (GAAP) was $0.2 million or $0.01 per basic share and diluted share, compared to net income of $15.5 million in the second quarter of 2008, or $0.42 per basic share and $0.40 per diluted share.

"Our confidence in the long term outlook for our business is supported by a significant increase in new orders during Q2," said Ira Palti, President and CEO of Ceragon. "These new orders continue to reflect improving demand from the expansion of GSM networks in India to accommodate record subscriber growth. Meanwhile, worldwide business conditions remain challenging with long sales cycles as our customers continue to focus on retaining cash. We expect to see gradual improvement during the second half of 2009, led by continued strength from Asia. Longer term, we expect to benefit from improving demand in all regions, particularly for solutions that support the migration of cellular networks to IP-based architecture to accommodate the explosion of mobile data usage."http://www.ceragon.com

Read More

Denmark Prepares to Auction 2.5 GHz Spectrum

Denmark's Ministry for Science, Technology and Innovation (National IT and Telecom Agency) has launched a public consultation on the auction of 2.5GHz spectrum. A total of 205MHz of spectrum will be auctioned: 190MHz in the 2.5GHz band (2500--2690MHz) and 15MHz in the 2010MHz band (2010--2025MHz).


The spectrum, which will be auctioned on a national basis, is suitable for providing 4G wireless broadband services based on standards such as LTE (Long Term Evolution) and WiMAX.


The licenses granted to the winning bidders will allow them to deploy their own choice of technology (provided it does not cause interference to other spectrum users) and offer any type of service.


The auction is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2010 and will be conducted electronically.
http://www.itst.dk

Read More

Qwest Launches 40/20 Mbps VDLS2 Service

Qwest Communications introduced a high-speed Internet service delivering downstream connection speeds of 40 Mbps and upstream speeds of 20 Mbps. The service leverages VDSL2 technology and is available for qualifying residential and small-business customers in Qwest territory.


Qwest has started to roll out these services on a limited basis in certain locations within its fiber-optic-fast Internet footprint, including Denver, Tucson, Salt Lake City, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. In the coming months, Qwest plans to introduce these services to select areas within 23 markets, including markets in New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Pricing is as follows:

• Connection speeds of 40 Mbps downstream with 5 Mbps upstream, starting at $99.99 a month for the first 12 months when combined with a qualifying home phone package.



• Connection speeds of 40 Mbps downstream with 20 Mbps upstream, starting at $109.99 a month for the first 12 months when combined with a qualifying home phone package.



• An introductory rate of $5 more a month for qualified customers with 7 Mbps, 12 Mbps or 20 Mbps speed tiers who upgrade to 5 Mbps upstream speeds.

Qwest noted that its fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) deployment has reached more 2 million potential customers in its local service region.
http://www.qwest.com

Read More

Canada's Globalive Wireless Selects NSN for 3G

Globalive Wireless Management Corp., Canada's newest wireless network, has selected Nokia Siemens Networks to build a greenfield 3G network.

Under the turnkey contract, the network rollout will be based on an advanced and cost-effective Build-Operate-Transfer solution (BOT) which will enable Globalive to offer new, high-quality consumer services quickly. Nokia Siemens Networks will provide Globalive with hardware and software such as the future proof, LTE-compliant Flexi Multimode Base Station, Radio Network Controller, and Network Management and Service Assurance Operating Support Systems, along with a range of services including turnkey site acquisition and construction, network integration and implementation, optimization and managed services.


With this contract, Nokia Siemens Networks now offers its products and services to four wireless service providers in Canada.
http://www.globalive.com
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

Read More

Alvarion and Linkem Build Mobile WiMAX for 2009 World Swimming Championship

Alvarion and Italian telecommunications company Linkem are providing wireless broadband coverage for the 13th annual world swimming championship in Rome from July 17th through August 2nd. Linkem was recently selected by the championship's organizing committee to create a wireless network using WiMAX and Wi-Fi technologies in both the indoor and outdoor areas of Rome's Olympic Village. The network will provide coverage to an area of roughly 70,000 m². About 400,000 visitors, including over 1,800 journalists, from over 180 countries are expected to attend the championship at the Foro Italico stadium and enjoy a true 4G services.


The primary end user devices used for accessing the WiMAX service will include Alvarion's recently launched BreezeMAX USB device and indoor CPE. Alvarion will also enable TV coverage in the Hospitality Village booth through an outdoor CPE and camera on WiMAX feed.
http://www.alvarion.com

Read More

BT to Deliver Microsoft Online Services to Large Enterprises

BT announced an agreement with Microsoft to market and deliver Microsoft Online Services to business customers, giving them access to integrated cloud computing and collaboration services. This will make BT the first telecommunications and network IT services provider to resell the Dedicated Business Productivity Online Suite to enterprise organisations.


BT customers will have access to Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite, including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Live Meeting.


BT said that by integrating Microsoft's product suite into its 21CN global, software-driven customer network, it will be able to provide customers with a fully-hosted managed service, ensuring higher quality of service levels and guaranteed network performance.
By embedding the Business Productivity Online Suite into BT's multi-protocol layer switching networks, customers will have access to a fully hosted service, including power, performance management, maintenance and software upgrades. BT will deliver a full integration with its Global Onevoice service later in the year, leveraging the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) capabilities within its leading voice Virtual Private Network platform.
http://www.bt.com

Read More

PMC-Sierra Debuts OTN Access Solution Supporting Carrier Ethernet, SONET/SDH

PMC-Sierra introduced an innovative multi-service silicon solution that enables the convergence of high-bandwidth data, video and voice services over Optical Transport Network (ITU-T G.709 OTN) based metro infrastructures. To date, development of OTN, which is seen as the eventual replacement technology for SONET/SDH, has mainly focused on core applications. PMC-Sierra's new HyPHY Family aims to enable low-power, cost-effective service gateways with simultaneous protocol support for Carrier Ethernet, video, Storage Area Network (SAN), OTN and SONET/SDH at the network edge.


Specifically, PMC-Sierra's new HyPHY 20G delivers high capacity framing, mapping and multiplexing of Carrier Ethernet, SAN, OTN, transparent bit services such as video, and SONET/SDH to allow Carriers to reduce the number of network elements, while incrementally adding bandwidth or changing service mix per node without forklift upgrades. The platform provides client-agnostic, rate-agile Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) and 10 Gigabit pluggable (XFP or SFP+) interfaces and a set of flexible system interfaces for networking to a variety of switch fabric architectures. HyPHY 10G provides a lower density option for optical platforms. The HyPHY family integrates high-performance mixed-signal analog and media access control, along with numerous features, including:

• True per-port rate and protocol flexibility: Independent, rate-agile SERDES for direct connect to SFP, SFP+ and XFP optical modules, reducing cost, power and footprint;



• Multi-Service Muxponder: Single chip add-drop for both OTN and SONET/SDH;



• Efficient Fiber Utilization: First to market with integrated support for sub-ODU1 mapping of GE or other low speed client services; and



• Carrier Ethernet: First to market with integrated support for Timing over Packet (IEEE 1588 and SynchE) and Ethernet Link OAM required in mobile backhaul.



• The PM5420 HyPHY 20G and PM5426 HyPHY 10G devices are sampling now to select customers in 40mm x 40mm 1517 ball FCBGA packages.

http://www.pmc-sierra.com

Read More

Avaya to Acquire Nortel's Enterprise Business for $475 Million

Avaya agreed to acquire Nortel's enterprise solutions business for US$475 million. The deal includes substantially all of the assets of Nortel Enterprise Solutions business globally as well as the shares of Nortel Government Solutions Incorporated (NGS) and DiamondWare, Ltd.


Avaya described the acquisition as significant step in strengthening its leadership in business communications and positioning the company to effectively deliver industry leading enterprise communications solutions to customers around the globe.


"The addition of Nortel Enterprise Solutions will increase Avaya's global scale, expand our channel partner network, and strengthen our world-class portfolio of products and services," said Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO, Avaya. "This is a strategic opportunity to acquire talent and complementary assets that position the combined company for growth and success. We are committed to protecting the communications investments of the customers of Avaya and Nortel, and to effectively executing the integration of Nortel Enterprise Solutions and Avaya."


Nortel's CEO Mike Zafirovski described the deal is the best path forward to maximize the value in Nortel while preserving jobs.


Bell Canada, which is the largest reseller of Avaya and Nortel equipment to Canadian business, said it was pleased with the proposed transaction.


The transaction is subject to a competitive bidding process and requires the approval of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Avaya expects that hearings before those courts to approve bidding procedures will be held within the next couple of weeks, followed by an auction, with hearings for approval of the ultimate sale to be held thereafter.


In EMEA, Avaya has entered into an agreement with the Joint Administrators, on behalf of the EMEA entities for which they have been appointed and the transaction is subject to information and consultation with employee representatives and approval of the courts in France and Israel. The transaction is also subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of necessary regulatory approvals.





http://www.avaya.com
http://www.nortel.com/news

• In June 2009, Nokia Siemens Networks agreed to acquire Nortel's key wireless assets for $650 million. The deal brings together the assets of the two companies in the field of mobile radio access, especially in CDMA, where Nortel is a leading supplier. The acquisition of Nortel's profitable CDMA business would significantly improve Nokia Siemens Networks' presence in North America and make it a leading supplier of wireless infrastructure products in the region.

Read More