IEEE Ratifies 802.11n Standard, New Amendment Adds WLAN Scalability

The IEEE officially ratified the 802.11n standard along with an amendment for enabling greater scaling of WLANs. Wi-Fi devices supporting 802.11n have been on the market for some time and an estimated 1 million 802.11n devices are shipping per day.


More than 400 individuals from equipment and silicon suppliers, service providers, systems integrators, consultant organizations and academic institutions from more than 20 countries participated in a seven-year effort leading to IEEE 802.11n's ratification. Publication of the amendment is scheduled for mid-October.


"This was an extraordinarily wide-ranging technical challenge that required the sustained effort and concentration of a terrific variety of participants. When we started in 2002, many of the technologies addressed in 802.11n were university research topics and had not been implemented," said Bruce Kraemer, Chair of the IEEE Wireless LAN Working Group. "The performance improvements achieved via IEEE 802.11n stand to transform the WLAN user experience, and ratification of the amendment sets the stage for a new wave of application innovation and creation of new market opportunities."http://www.ieee.org

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NTT DOCOMO Bids for Germany's net mobile

NTT DOCOMO will launch a voluntary public tender offer for net mobile AG, an international mobile content distribution platform company based in Düsseldorf, Germany. DOCOMO will offer a cash compensation of EUR 6.35 per share for all outstanding shares of net mobile. The offer price represents a 53.9 percent premium over the three-month average weighted share price prior to this announcement and a 34.2 percent premium over the closing price on September 10, 2009.


net mobile AG is an internationally leading full-service provider for mobile and interactive value added services. Its fully managed service approach encompasses consultation, design, applications, content, billing, transport and technical implementation of multichannel marketing campaigns. http://www.nttdocomo.com

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NSN Supplies VDSL2 for Israel's Bezeq

Nokia Siemens Networks has supplied Israel's Bezeq with its latest Multi Service Access Nodes (MSANs), which are capable of handling both voice and broadband data services on one common platform. This enables the roll out of new advanced services, like High Definition television, video conferencing or remote services, over VDSL2 connections with bandwidths of up to 50Mbps. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.nsn.com

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Ditech and SimulScribe Partner on Voice-to-Text

Ditech Networks will be the exclusive global marketing and sales partner for SimulScribe's voice-to-text (VTT) applications to service providers and enterprises.


The companies said the combination of SimulScribe's VTT products and Ditech Networks' Voice Quality Assurance (VQA), mStage, and toktok products will enable Ditech to offer an extensive suite of voice capabilities to carriers.


Effective immediately, Ditech Networks will begin offering SimulScribe's SimulAuto, SimulHybrid, and ScribeALL products. SimulAuto, available as an Internet-based cloud service or on premises, is a fully automated, real-time API transcription service that runs on voice recognition technology with SimulScribe's proprietary models. SimulHybrid adds human-based correction to SimulScribe's exclusive VTT technology to deliver the highest quality voice transcription. ScribeALL is a real-time, highly accurate platform designed for any file that needs transcription, regardless of the application.
http://www.simulscribe.com
http://www.ditechnetworks.com

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SES To Provide Satellite Broadband in East Africa

Paris-based SES is expanding the reach of its satellite-based broadband service to Africa through a signed agreement with Intersat Africa. The service, which will start in January 2010, will be offered to households, small and medium enterprises as well as schools in Eastern and Central Africa. The service will use satellite capacity from the SES WORLD SKIES' NSS-12 satellite.


ASTRA2Connect will be sold in ten countries in East and Central Africa, including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Newtec, a highly experienced manufacturer of state-of-the-art satellite equipment and a long-term partner for ASTRA2Connect will supply Intersat Africa with the respective satellite broadband user terminals.
http://www.ses.com
http://www.intersatafrica.com

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Motorola Showcases Latest Digital Video Products

At IBC 2009 in Amsterdam, Motorola is showcasing its next-generation encoding platform which has been designed to meet future processing demands of both 1080P/50Hz and 1080P/60Hz resolutions using the MPEG-4 format, as well as providing additional processing horsepower to support emerging services such as 3D television and multi-stream output.


Motorola's is also showing its next-generation APEX1000 all-purpose edge QAM, offering MPEG-4 rate shaping in a single box with SimulCrypt-compliant conditional access.


Motorola is revealing its new eco-friendly range of IPTV set-tops and accessories, along with its KreaTV open application platform, which enables familiar web applications and user generated content on the TV. Also on display will be the latest transport gateway that delivers interactive on-demand cable TV and IP-based media services around the home.
http://www.motorola.com

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Nokia has Acquired Plum for Location Services

Nokia has acquired certain assets of Plum Ventures, Inc, a privately held company which employed approximately 10 people with main offices in Boston, Massachusetts. Plum will complement Nokia's Social Location services. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Plum operates a cloud-based social media sharing and messaging service for private groups. Plum-powered groups are suited for families, co-workers, neighborhoods, sports, schools, faith and any other existing social group.


The acquired Plum assets will become part of Nokia's Services unit.
http://www.nokia.com
http://www.plum.com

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Court Backs Microsoft in Finding Patent Infringement Award Excessive

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of Microsoft in a decision concerning a $358 million damages award that the software maker was ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent for violating one of its patents. Microsoft had argued that the $358 million award was excessively large and that the court had used a mistaken formula for calculating the damages it owed. A new trial will be held to decide the amount of damages owed.
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov

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Virgin Media Picks Cisco for Digital Video Network

Virgin Media (UK) has selected Cisco to support its IPTV distribution platform and help upgrade its legacy digital TV infrastructure. Specifically, Virgin Media will deploy Cisco Digital Video Headend technology in all of its regional and central headends to enable growth in standard-definition and advanced high-definition TV (HDTV) services. Deployed across Virgin Media's national fibre optic network, Cisco IP core and edge network technologies will provide high-speed distribution between the central and regional headends and support delivery to Virgin Media's high-speed access network. On completion, the new TV platform will be capable of delivering advanced services to more than 12.6 million UK homes.


Virgin Media's upgraded TV distribution platform will be extensively based on Cisco technology, including Cisco's IP Next-Generation Network core and edge routing and switching, digital video headend solutions, and system management and monitoring. Cisco will also manage the project, including installation, full system integration, the priming of third-party elements and support provided by the Cisco Advanced Video Services Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.cisco.com

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10G-EPON Standard Ratified

The 10 Gbps Ethernet Passive Optical Network (10G-EPON) standard has been ratified by the IEEE P802.3av Task Force.


IEEE Std. 802.3av-2009, also known as Physical Layer Specifications and Management Parameters for 10 Gbps Passive Optical Networks, describes Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) telecommunications systems using symmetric and asymmetric line-rate operations. The symmetric option operates at 10 Gb/s in both the downstream and upstream directions. The asymmetric option, which reflects the fact that IP video services create bandwidth pressure mostly in the downstream direction, uses 10 Gbps downstream and 1 Gbps upstream.


IEEE Std. 802.3ah 1 Gbps EPON (1G-EPON) systems have been deployed to more than 30 million subscribers worldwide and support diverse services, including IPTV, VoIP, and cellular backhaul. The new 802.3av enables seamless upgrades via the simultaneous operation of 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps symmetric and asymmetric EPON systems on the same outside plant. This allows operators to introduce 10G- EPON without replacing any existing 1G-EPON customer equipment and minimizes the operational impact of upgrading a large, in-service FTTH network.


Initial deployments of the 10G-EPON equipment are expected in 2010.


The following companies have expressed their support for the approved standard: Alloptic, Anritsu Company, ARRIS, B-DeltaCom, Bright House Networks, Cambridge Industries Group, China Mobile Communications Corporation, China Telecom -- STTRI, China Unicom -- Beijing, Corecess, Cortina Systems, CyOptics, Dasan Networks, Dongwon, Enablence Technologies, ETRI, FiberHome, Fujitsu, H3C, Hisense Broadband, Hitachi, Huawei Technologies, Kawasaki Microelectronics, KDDI R&D, KT, Ligent Photonics, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, NTT Corporation, OF Networks, OneChip Photonics, PMC-Sierra, Shanghai Luster Teraband Photonics Co., Sumitomo Electric, Teknovus, Telekom Malaysia R&D, Ubiquoss, Vitesse Semiconductor, and ZTE. The China Communications Standards Association (CCSA), the Ethernet Alliance, the Optical Access (FTTx) Industry Alliance (OAIA) of China, and the Taiwan Optical Communication Industry Alliance also endorse the 10G-EPON standard.
http://www.ieee.org

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