SMART 2020 Deutschland Study Predicts 25% CO2 Savings from ICT

Germany could reduce its CO2 emissions by 207 megatons by 2020 by employing smart ICT solutions, according to a newly published study by Deutsche Telekom, Huawei, SAP, Siemens and The Boston Consulting Group.


First, the ICT sector can make a direct contribution towards climate protection by reducing its own emissions. By producing 23 Mt of CO2e in 2007, the industry was responsible for around 2 percent of emissions in Germany. With the aid of various "green ICT" measures, the study forecasts that these emissions can be reduced by more than 50 percent -- equivalent to 13 Mt of CO2e in the year 2020.


Second, the identified five core areas in which ICT solutions can help to make significant reductions in emissions: building management (Smart Buildings), logistics (Smart Logistics), electricity generation (Smart Grid), industrial automation (Smart Motors) and dematerialization. The study finds that total annual CO2e emissions in these areas can be reduced by around 194 Mt over the next ten years.
http://www.telekom.dehttp://www.gesi.org

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Starent Shareholders Approve Acquisition by Cisco

Starent Networks' shareholders approved the adoption of the merger agreement with Cisco Systems. As previously announced, under the terms of the merger agreement, Starent shareholders will receive $35.00 in cash for each outstanding Starent share, following the closing of the merger. The merger remains subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions.
http://www.starentnetworks.com

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Wind Mobile Gets Green Light to Launch Service Across Canada

The Government of Canada has varied a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decision thereby paving the way for Globalive's WIND Mobile to become Canada's first national wireless alternative in over a decade.


"This is a new day for wireless in Canada. This holiday season we will start to provide Canadians with the competitive choice that they want and deserve," said Anthony Lacavera, Chairman of Globalive and WIND Mobile. "We thank the Government of Canada for a decision that will serve the best interests of Canadian consumers."


In its decision today, the Government of Canada concluded that Globalive is a Canadian company that meets the Canadian ownership and control requirements under the Telecommunications Act.


In varying the CRTC decision, the Government of Canada said it is not removing, reducing, bending or creating an exception to Canadian ownership and control requirements in the telecommunications and broadcasting industries, but only responding to facts in this particular case.


"For too long, Canadians have suffered from higher prices and an underwhelming customer experience," said Ken Campbell, CEO of WIND Mobile. "We look forward to offering the most unforgettably positive mobile experience in Canada. In return, we're asking Canadians to make a new choice in wireless and sign up on WINDmobile.ca today."http://www.windmobile.ca

• In July 2009, Globalive Wireless awarded Alcatel-Lucent a multi-million dollar, three-year contract to build Globalive Wireless' new nationwide 3G mobile network in Canada. Alcatel-Lucent will supply Globalive with its LTE-ready 3G radio access network offering -- based on its multi-standard radio access solution -- including radio network controllers, node Bs (base stations) and a flexible wireless network management system. For the project, Alcatel-Lucent also will provide a variety of professional services including site acquisition and construction, radio frequency network design and optimization as well as overall network planning and design.



• To address Globalive's mobile backhaul requirements, Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its IP service routers, service aggregation routers and microwave packet radios, which will support the highly reliable, secure and cost-effective transport of 3G traffic and will give Globalive the ability to smoothly transition to LTE to address evolving market demands.



• Globalive Wireless Management Corp. selected DragonWave to provide high-capacity, cost effective next generation wireless backhaul for its high speed packet access network.



• , Globalive was awarded spectrum licenses by Industry Canada after successfully bidding more than CDN $442 million in the government's Advanced Wireless Services auction.

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AT&T Expects to Complete Asset Deal with Verizon Wireless in Q1 2010

AT&T anticipates its pending acquisition of wireless assets from Verizon Wireless to be completed in the first quarter of 2010. In addition, AT&T anticipates its pending sale of former Centennial Communications Corp. wireless assets to Verizon Wireless to be completed in the first quarter of 2010.


On May 8, 2009, the two companies entered into an agreement under which AT&T would acquire properties from Verizon Wireless, including licenses, network assets and 1.5 million subscribers (as of signing) in 79 service areas across 18 states. Verizon Wireless is required to divest these properties as part of the regulatory approvals granted for its purchase of Alltel earlier this year. The transaction primarily represents former Alltel assets, but it also includes assets from Verizon Wireless and the former Rural Cellular Corporation. At the same time, the companies entered into an agreement under which Verizon Wireless would acquire from AT&T wireless properties, including licenses, network assets and nearly 120,000 subscribers (as of signing) in five service areas in Louisiana and Mississippi. The five service areas are Lafayette, La., LA-5 (Beauregard), LA-6 (Iberville), LA-7 (West Feliciana) and MS-8 (Claiborne).
http://www.att.com

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T-Mobile Tests Femtocells from Ubiquisys and Huawei

Deutsche Telekom 's T-Mobile division, Ubiquisys and Huawei Technologies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to conduct femtocell Interoperability Testing (IOT) at T-Mobile's labs over the next 6 months. The tests will involve femtocells from both Ubiquisys and Huawei, which will communicate using the 3GPP's new Iuh standardised open interface. They will be connected to a Huawei Femto Gateway into T-Mobile's core network.


"To reach their full market potential, Femtocells must be more like mobile phones - interchangeable with the network they connect to," said Will Franks, CTO and Founder, Ubiquisys. "As a pioneer in this industry, we designed our Femtocell from day one to connect to multiple Femto Gateways, ready for the introduction of a 3GPP standardized interface. We are delighted to be working with T-Mobile and Huawei to demonstrate the huge potential of femtocell interoperability."


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http://www.telekom.de

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China Mobile Leverages "Green Roof of the World" for Base Station Power

China Mobile has now completed its "Green Roof of the World' , a project begun in 2004 to install solar and wind power generating facilities in at least 1,000 sites on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an average height of 4,000 meters above sea level. Huawei has been a lead supplier for the project, which has included installations on Mount Everest.


By the end of 2008, no less than 683 villages and towns (over 70 % of the total) had wireless connectivity, enabling access to the Internet. By the end of June 2009, 1,156 solar power sites had been built on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, forming the world's largest solar power site group. Nearly 80% of the 1,000 BTS sites in this area are using solar power now.


The installed solar power capacity of China Mobile in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau now totals 10,000 kilowatts, with an annual generation capacity of approximately 20 million kWh.


China Mobile now plans to deploy an additional 1,000 solar power sites. In addition China Mobile is researching wind/solar + mains hybrid power supply systems. It is also piloting new sources of power such as fuel cells, small hydro power, and terrestrial heat.
http://www.huawei.com
http://www.chinamobile.com/en/

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Apple Countersues Nokia

Apple filed a countersuit against Nokia claiming infringement of 13 Apple patents.
http://www.apple.com

• In October, Nokia filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple claiming that the iPhone infringes Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards. The ten patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption. Nokia said the patents are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.

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Cisco Marks its 25th Anniversary

Cisco celebrated the 25th anniversary of its founding.


Cisco was founded on December 10, 1984 by husband and wife Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, two former Stanford University computer scientists whose efforts to enable email between computers on different networks led to the invention of the first multiprotocol router.


Some interesting facts noted by the company:

• A quarter of a century ago there were just 1,000 "hosts" on the Internet, today there are more than 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide.



• In 1984, there were 1,000 Internet devices; today there are over a 1 billion.



• Cisco has grown from two employees with one product in 1984 to more than 63,000 people today in 200 offices worldwide with 50 product lines.



• Cisco has been on the forefront of information technology for 25 years and posted fiscal year 2009 revenue of $36.1 billion.



• Cisco's innovation is demonstrated in the company's more than 7,000 patents issued worldwide to Cisco inventors and 9,000 patent applications currently pending.



• Cisco employees have logged nearly 1 million hours of volunteer service since 2001.



• As a global corporate citizen, Cisco, in the last 10 years, has contributed over $1 billion to education, social inclusion and economic development initiatives globally.

http://www.cisco.com

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Vodafone and Alcatel-Lucent team on Smart Metering in Germany

Vodafone Germany and Alcatel-Lucent are collaborating on a smart meter solution for the German utility market.


In this engagement Alcatel-Lucent, through its German subsidiary, is providing its Smart Metering Management System SMM 8617 as well as its services expertise to integrate all the components of the planned smart metering service into a seamless solution, including the connection to the operational management systems of energy suppliers (Enterprise Resource Planning - ERP and Energy Data Management -- EDM).


Vodafone Germany provides a secure connection between the intelligent meters -- installed in consumer households -- and the Smart Metering Management System. This type of Machine-to-Machine-Communication (M2M) will be realized over a fixed-line DSL connection or a wireless GPRS connection and will be managed over a highly available M2M service platform.


"The Machine-to-Machine communications market is expanding and smart metering is one of the most promising segments in the future, not alone because of EU rules. We are present in this segment in Germany with strong partners like Alcatel-Lucent and our specialized M2M product portfolio," says Thomas Strehl, Senior Business Development Manager Industry & New Business, Vodafone Germany.
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
http://www.vodafone.com

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ZTE Achieves 130 Mbps with TD-LTE

ZTE has demonstrated downlink speeds of 130 Mbps with its TD-LTE -- this is the theoretical limit of TD-LTE network technology. ZTE conducted the tests using its own system products including EPC, eNodeB, etc in Guangzhou in November.


The company said its SDR Base Stations will offer a smooth, software upgrade path from TD-SCDMA to TD-LTE or to TD-S/TD-LTE dual-mode.


At the present time, there are more than 200,000 sets of ZTE SDR products in operation with various operators throughout the world.


In May 2010, ZTE and China Mobile will jointly deploy a TD-LTE network at the Expo News Center for the World Expo Shanghai 2010. http://www.zte.com.cn

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WiGig's 60 GHz Wireless Spec Supports 7 Gbps In Home Rates

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig), which promotes the use of 60 GHz wireless technology, announced the completion of its unified wireless specification, promising data transfer rates more than 10 times faster than today's wireless LANs while offering backward compatibility with existing Wi‐Fi devices.


The WiGig version 1.0 specification includes the following key elements:

• Supports data transmission rates up to 7 Gbps -- more than ten times faster than the highest 802.11n rate



• Supplements and extends the 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and is backward compatible with the IEEE 802.11 standard



• Physical layer enables both the low power and the high performance WiGig devices, guaranteeing interoperability and communication at gigabit rates



• Protocol adaptation layers are being developed to support specific system interfaces including data buses for PC peripherals and display interfaces for HDTVs, monitors and projectors



• Support for beamforming, enabling robust communication at distances beyond 10 meters



• Widely used advanced security and power management for WiGig devices.

The WiGig Alliance also announced new members, including NVIDIA, AMD, SK Telecom and TMC.


"When we launched the WiGig Alliance in May, we announced our plan to complete the industry's first unified 60 GHz specification by Q4 2009, and we are proud to deliver on this promise to the industry," said Dr. Ali Sadri, president and chairman of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance. "We're rapidly paving the way for the introduction of the next generation of high‐performance wireless products -- PCs, mobile handsets, TVs and displays, Blu‐ray disc players, digital cameras and many more."http://wirelessgigabitalliance.org

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Verizon Adds FiOS TV On-Screen Caller ID

Verizon has added a "Caller ID on TV" to its FiOS TV. Customers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Texas are the first to get the new service, which is being offered at no additional charge. Incoming caller ID information is displayed for several seconds in the corner of their TV screen. They can then decide if they want to pause the program they are watching and answer the call, or continue watching TV and let the call go to their voice mailbox.
http://www.verizon.com

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Corning Cable and Case Western Team on FTTH in Cleveland

Corning Cable Systems will supply product and design assistance to Case Western Reserve University and its partners to offer FTTH Internet access in Cleveland's inner-city neighborhoods. The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at the Mandel School of Applied Social Science at Case estimates that as many as 72% of the households in and around the University in the city of Cleveland have no Internet access.


"We believe that access to the Internet at the international gold standard of one Gigabit/sec, coupled with integrated training and support, can change people's lives for the better," says University Vice President for Information Technology Services, Lev Gonick. "Collaborating with more than 40 community participants, we intend to launch a University-sponsored research program to bring healthcare services, safety and security services, energy use and management support, and science education initiatives to our community in ways that will, potentially, be transformative. And, we will study the outcomes in order to make this program one that can be replicated around the country and around the world."http://www.corning.com/cablesystems

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Apparent Networks: 44 Minute Outage at Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Apparent Network's Cloud Performance Center issued a bulletin confirming Amazon Web Services experienced connectivity loss which caused an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud services outage in a single availability zone in their Northern Virginia Data Center. The outage occurred on December 9, 2009 beginning at approximately 3:34AM EST and lasted until 4:19AM EST or about 44 minutes. Amazon later confirmed the connectivity loss was due to a power failure.


Apparent Networks' Cloud Performance Center offers a free service that tracks performance data on leading cloud service providers such as Amazon, Google and GoGrid.
http://www.appparentnetworks.com/cpc

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Sprint Appoints Matt Carter as President, 4G

Sprint Nextel named Matt Carter, 48, as President - 4G, to oversee its roll-out of fourth-generation broadband wireless services. He currently serves as Vice President - Sprint Prepaid.


Carter joined Sprint in 2006 as Senior Vice President for base management, before taking the position at Boost in 2008. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, Marketing at PNC Financial Services Group; Chief Marketing Officer for Leap Wireless International; and Chief Marketing Office for Security First Network Bank. Carter also held marketing positions at BellSouth Corporation, the Coca-Cola Company, Bristol Meyers Company and Raytheon Company. http://www.sprint.com

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Dell Delivers New Data Center Products, Including 10GbE

Dell introduced new data center management, storage and networking solutions , including solutions that use 10GbE as the underlying fabric.


Dell estimates that customers who adopt an end-to-end 10GbE architecture can decrease networking acquisition costs by approximately 50 percent and cut up to 76 percent of their network costs by using a unified fabric that brings together storage, networking, software and management tools.


Some of the new infrastructure management solutions include:

• Advanced Infrastructure Manager -- enables customers to dynamically allocate workloads in minutes by altering server, networking and storage devices without the need to re-cable, reconfigure or reload software. This allows IT administrators to deploy physical server images as quickly as they deploy virtual servers, to reduce the number of failover servers, and to respond to application demands by shifting work to new systems as needed.



• Dell Business Ready Configurations -- the first such pre-packaged solution includes two PowerEdge M610 blade servers running the Infrastructure Manager, an EqualLogic PS6000 iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solution, two PowerConnect 6220M blade switches and a 24-port Brocade Foundry 424 or Dell PowerConnect 6224 networking switch. The Business Ready Configurations come in both a standard edition and a redundant edition.



• Dell EqualLogic Arrays with 10GbE, Dell EqualLogic PS6500X and Storage Consulting Services



• Dell PowerConnect 8024F Networking Switches -- the company's first 1U 10 GbE switch. It features 24 ports with SFP+ and four combo 10GBase-T ports with full wire speed 10Gb capabilities across all ports. Designed for data center aggregation and network consolidation, the switches are ready for converged Ethernet environments and support dense virtualization deployments, iSCSI storage, such as the Dell EqualLogic family of products, and 10Gb traffic aggregation.



• Qlogic Converged Network Adaptor (CNA) and Mezzanine Card for Dell PowerEdge Servers and Blade Servers -- the dual port CNA allows users to connect their servers to Fibre Channel SANs through a 10 Gb Enhanced Ethernet fabric because of the FCoE functionality.



• Dell PowerConnect B-Series Switches -- through its recently expanded relationship with Brocade, Dell will be delivering its first FCoE switch, security, iSCSI and Converged Enhanced DCB Ethernet.

http://www.dell.com

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NSN Completes Voice calls and SMS Texting over LTE

Nokia Siemens Networks announced the successful completion of voice calls and SMS text messaging over LTE using commercial, 3GPP-standardized user and network equipment. The test, which were carried out by researchers at the company's R&D centers in Germany and Finland, were meant to demonstrate the viability of the One Voice approach to voice over LTE (VoLTE).


The call conducted by Nokia Siemens Networks used a configuration of commercially ready LTE equipment fully 3GPP-compliant from end to end. The call was made from a laptop equipped with the Nokia Siemens Networks Communication Suite "softphone" application and an LG Electronics LTE USB Datacard. The network used for the call included commercial versions of Nokia Siemens Networks' Flexi Multiradio Base Station with 3GPP-compliant software, Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and Fast Track VoLTE solutions.


The EPC provides data connectivity for LTE networks, while the Nokia Siemens Networks Fast Track VoLTE solution provides fully 3GPP-standardized IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) functionality to handle call control for mobile voice traffic in LTE networks. Fast Track VoLTE is fully aligned with the One Voice initiative recently announced by Nokia Siemens Networks and other industry stakeholders.


Apart from fast data transmission rates, NSN said LTE also has important benefits for voice service as it offers the highest spectral efficiency for voice. Also, the delivery of voice over LTE networks means operators will in the future be able to provide all services over the same all-IP network, driving down the expense of operating parallel legacy and LTE networks.


As a next step, Nokia Siemens Networks plans to conduct VoLTE test calls with a fully implemented IMS system. In a separate related development, Nokia Siemens Networks recently conducted a voice call using TD-LTE equipment in Hangzhou, China.
http://www.nsn.com

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Ciena Posts Revenue of $176.3 million, Up 7% Sequentially

Ciena reported revenue of $176.3 million for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, representing a 7% sequential increase from fiscal third quarter 2009 revenue of $164.8 million. For the fiscal year 2009, Ciena reported revenue of $652.6 million. Ciena's reported net loss (GAAP) was $(26.7) million, or $(0.29) per common share for the fiscal fourth quarter ended October 31, 2009. For the fiscal year 2009, Ciena had a net loss of $(581.2) million, or $(6.37) per common share. Ciena's GAAP net loss for the fiscal year 2009 includes a non-cash charge of $455.7 million for impairment of goodwill.


"Our fiscal fourth quarter revenue growth was driven by our CN 4200 family, continued strong performance from our carrier Ethernet service delivery portfolio and sequential growth from core switching platforms," said Gary Smith, Ciena's CEO and president. ""Through the challenging environment of fiscal 2009, we've managed the business to balance operating performance with a disciplined approach to strategic investment. As a result of our focus on that commitment, we're pleased to have achieved our goal of positive cash flow from operations for the fiscal year."http://www.ciena.com

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Obopay Launches "Send Money" iPhone App

Obopay, a start-up based in Redwood City, California, released a free Mobile Payments application for the iPhone that lets users to send money to anyone with a U.S. phone number. The recipient can receive money free of charge, but must set up a bank account to automatically deposit the funds. The cost of sending money starts at $0.25 per transaction.


Obopay leverages Apple's iPhone OS platform and alerting capabilities to let senders know that their payment was successfully sent and received. Obopay offers a companion MasterCard prepaid card.


Obopay has established partnerships with companies such as Nokia, MasterCard, AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
http://www.obopay.com

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DISH Reaches its 4 Millionth Satellite TV Customer

DISH Network has passed the 14 million customer milestone. In Q3, DISH added more net subscribers than any company in the multichannel video distribution business.
http://www.dishnetwork.com

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EXFO Releases GigE Test Interface for VoIP/IMS Networks

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering released an MCM Gigabit Ethernet Interface test module for VoIP and IMS networks. A single module can emulate up to 256 000 unique IMS/VoIP subscribers and 64 000 voice/video streams while performing quality analysis on every stream in real time.


The MCM Gigabit Ethernet Interface Series can be housed in EXFO's InterWatch R14 and QualityAssurer QA-604 platforms, and is backward-compatible with existing software options. With the MCM Gigabit Ethernet Interface Series, a single 2U QA-604 platform can support 512 000 emulated IMS/VoIP subscribers and 128 000 voice/video streams while the 9U R14 platform can support 1.2 million emulated IMS/VoIP subscribers and 320 000 voice/video streams.
http://www.exfo.com

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AT&T Wins $120-Million Contract Extension with Post Office

AT&T Government Solutions has been awarded a $120-million contract extension to support U. S. Postal Service facilities across the country. Under the four-year deal, AT&T will provide Managed Network Services such as IP address management, design and engineering, onsite installation, router, firewall, and Interactive Voice Response. The AT&T global MPLS-enabled network will continue to serve as the backbone.


AT&T also provides BlackBerry 8800 series handsets and voice and data services to U.S. Postal Service employees nationwide via an AT&T wireless solution.
http://www.att.com

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The Economic Times: BSNL Cancels Huge Order with Huawei

India's Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has canceled an equipment purchase order with Huawei Technologies covering 20 million GSM lines, according to a post from The Economic Times of India. The report cites a dispute concerning conditions of the contract. BSNL reportedly may solicit new bids for up to 93 million GSM lines.

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Microsoft Licenses its exFAT Flash Memory Technology

Microsoft has begun licensing its Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) technology, a new file system that delivers a significant leap forward in terms of the size of files that can be stored on a broad range of consumer electronic devices, and the speed with which they can be accessed.


exFAT is an updated version of the FAT system. In specific terms, the exFAT file system does the following:

• Enables future growth in media capacities, increasing support from 32 GB up to 256 TB



• Handles more than 4,000 RAW images, 100 high-definition (HD) movies, or 60 hours of HD recording in a single directory



• Speeds up file saves of Secure Digital Extended Capacity (SDXC) cards to achieve their full 300MBps speed using modern storage allocation techniques



• Supports interoperability with future desktop operating systems



• Provides an extensible format, including OEM-definable parameters to customize the file system for specific device characteristics

exFAT is already supported in Windows 7.


Microsoft noted that companies already adopting exFAT include Sony, Canon and Sanyo.
http://www.microsoft.com

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Juniper Interview: A Vision for the New Network

An interview with Kim Perdikou, Executive VP and GM, Infrastructure Products Group, Juniper Networkshttp://www.juniper.net

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