PalmettoNet Deploys Ciena CN 4200 ROADM

PalmettoNet, which operates fiber networks in the Carolinas and Georgia, has deployed Ciena's CN 4200 RS FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform with reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) functionality, along with other products in Ciena's CN 4200 family. PalmettoNet is using Ciena's CN 4200 platform to increase its network capacity and create a more agile optical service infrastructure featuring remotely-programmable wavelengths and service ports, multiservice flexibility and intelligent service provisioning to reduce operational costs.


A carrier's carrier with more than 3,100 fiber route miles, PalmettoNet leases capacity to prominent telecommunications carriers providing interstate, intrastate and interchange services in the Carolinas and Georgia. PalmettoNet selected Ciena's CN 4200 ROADM because it delivers multi-degree optical switching functionality combined with granular sub-wavelength grooming to maximize bandwidth utilization while increasing service flexibility. The platform also automatically adjusts optical power levels at each node to simplify the process and decrease the cost of adding new wavelengths into service.
http://www.ciena.com

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Google Reports Cyberattack in China

Google reported a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on its infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property and a privacy breach of Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.


Google said the attacks, which were detected in mid-December, were widespread and targeted at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors.


In light of these attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered, Google plans to review the feasibility of its business operations in China.http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

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Bharti Airtel Acquires 70% of Bangladesh's Warid

Bharti Airtel agreed to acquire 70% stake in Warid Telecom, Bangladesh, currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dhabi Group. Warid Telecom offers mobile services across all the 64 districts of Bangladesh and has a total customer base of over 2.9 million.


Bharti Airtel will make a fresh investment of US$300 million to rapidly expand the operations of Warid Telecom and will have management and board control of the company. This is the largest investment in Bangladesh by an Indian company. Dhabi Group will continue as a strategic partner retaining 30% shareholding and have their nominees on the Board of the Company.


"Bangladesh, with a population of over 160 million and teledensity of 32% is a very promising market for telecom services. Bharti is keen to work in Bangladesh and contribute to achieving the vision of Digital Bangladesh even sooner than 2021," stated Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel.
http://www.bharti.comhttp://

• As of November 2009. Bharti Airtel had an aggregate of over 118 million customers, including 116.01 million mobile customers.

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Spiceworks Raises $16 Million for IT Management App

Spiceworks, a start-up based in Austin, Texas, raised $16 million in Series C funding round for it IT management solutions.


Spiceworks' free social business application combines systems and network management software with an online community of IT professionals. The company claims more than 850,000 users in 196 countries are using its IT management application. This includes more than 25 percent of all businesses with greater than 100 employees.


The latest funding round was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and included participation from existing Spiceworks investors Austin Ventures and Shasta Ventures.


"Over the past four years Spiceworks has transformed how IT professionals around the world manage technology, get information and advice from their peers, and find the products and services they need," said Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks. "We've also built a successful business by connecting IT pros with advertisers. This funding will allow us to build a broader range of functionality for our users and more quickly achieve our mission of simplifying everything IT for the world's businesses."


As part of the funding round, Spiceworks named Steve Harrick, general partner of IVP, to the Spiceworks board of directors. Other board members include Ravi Mohan, co-founder and managing director, Shasta Ventures; John Hamlin, former Dell senior executive; Scott Abel, CEO of Spiceworks; John Thornton, general partner of Austin Ventures; and Mike Maples Jr., managing general partner of Maples Investments.
http://www.spiceworks.comhttp://

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Cricket Uses Sandvine's Policy Switch in 3G Net

Cricket has implemented Sandvine's policy traffic switch (PTS) platform and service creation solutions in its 3G mobile broadband network. Cricket is using a Sandvine solution to identify its customers whose service has expired and redirect them to a customer service site where they can conveniently extend their service term.


Sandvine's end-to-end network policy control solution detects network conditions that trigger policies within the network to help service providers enhance subscribers' Internet experience.


Cricket became a Sandvine customer in the third quarter of 2009.
http://www.sandvine.comhttp://

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Swisscom Selects Cisco ASR 9000

Swisscom is deploying the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Router as the edge platform to support the rollout of FTTH services to every household in Switzerland. Swisscom announced FTTH customer trials in April 2009, offering triple-play service bundles, which allow the simultaneous use of up to three HDTV channels, Internet connections of 50 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream, and telephone services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.cisco.com

• The Cisco ASR-9000, which was introduced in November 2008, offers 6.4 terabits per second of total capacity and 400 Gbps capacity per slot, enabling to it accept 16 x 10 GE cards and grow to 320 x 10GE, or 32 x 100 GE per system. Cisco said its ASR 9000 is designed for video services over next-gen access networks in the "zettabyte era." The platform leverages the same 40-core "QuantumFlow" processor that is featured in the smaller capacity Cisco ASR 1000 edge router. It also incorporates the Cisco Advanced Video Services Module (AVSM), which provides terabytes of streaming capacity at the aggregation edge while simultaneously offering content caching, ad insertion, fast channel change and error correction. The platform could also be used for aggregating backhaul traffic in a 3G/4G network.

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Xilinx Releases Biggest, Highest Performance FPGA

Xilinx began the first shipments of its new Virtex-6 LX760 device, the largest FPGA to date. The device offers more than two and a half times the density of the largest Virtex-5 device and is targeted at applications that require intensive computational performance and high logic density. For instance, the single-FPGA could be used to prototype or emulate a greater range of ASIC designs than ever before. In addition to high logic capacity, the LX760 device offers a higher I/O count than competing FPGAs to simplify the challenge of partitioning a large ASIC netlist across multiple FPGAs.


"Shipping the largest FPGA in the market demonstrates Xilinx's ability to deliver leading edge architectures at the 40nm process technology node," said Xilinx Senior Director of Marketing Patrick Dorsey. "As the industry's leading FPGA product, each succeeding family of Virtex FPGAs enables our customers to more rapidly bring new applications to market by delivering new levels of capacity and performance."http://www.xilinx.com

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Global Crossing Adds to Juniper Gear to Managed Network Services Portfolio

Global Crossing is adding Juniper Networks equipment to its Managed Network Services (MNS) portfolio. Specifically, Global Crossing MNS will now support Juniper Networks J Series Services Routers, M Series Multiservice Edge Routers, and SRX Series Services Gateways. Global Crossing also will enhance its MNS with Juniper Networks WXC Series Application Acceleration Platforms for WAN Optimization.


Global Crossing MNS provide and manage the entire array of networking solutions for enterprises. These include design and engineering; equipment procurement; implementation management; equipment installation; operations management; proactive monitoring, and life-cycle management. As part of the Global Crossing MNS offer, the company also supports and sources other industry-leading router manufacturers.


WAN Optimization is used in tandem with MNS to accelerate a wide range of applications that enterprises access and transmit between locations on a daily basis to conduct critical business. WAN Optimization uses a compression and caching technology to eliminate redundant transmissions; as a result it increases the apparent speed at which data is transmitted. It also improves the performance of many application-specific protocols, such as TCP, HTTP, MAPI and CIFS, by optimizing the protocol interaction between end-points and minimizing the natural slowing effects of latency on such applications.
http://www.globalcrossing.com
http://www.juniper.net

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Huawei Delivers 2G GSM/EDGE Rate of 564 Kbps

Huawei has demonstrated downlink dual carrier (DLDC) performance averaging up to 564 Kbps in a recent test for Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE). This record speed is two times faster than that of existing EDGE networks.


Huawei said this EDGE+ technology enables operators to increase network data capacity and bring 3G experiences to 2G users over GSM networks. Advancing EDGE technology significantly improves user experience through faster data rates, better quality of service (QoS) and lower network latency. The increased performance is enabled via a software upgrade to the existing EDGE network.
http://www.huawei.comhttp://

• In November 2009, Ericsson published a whitepaper recommending EDGE Evolution technology as an inexpensive means of delivering mobile data services over existing GSM networks at rates of up to 1 Mbps. The solution adds 3G-like capabilities to GSM, more than doubling end-user bit-rates and reduces latency significantly. Ericsson is the first vendor to offer EDGE Evolution capabilities.
  
  
  Currently, EDGE offers user bit rates up to 250kbps, with end-to-end latency of less than 150ms. The company said EDGE Evolution can deliver peak bit rates of up to 1 Mbps and typical bit rates of 400kbps. These higher average and peak bit-rates are achieved through more advanced modulation, more efficient channel coding and an increased symbol rate. Round-trip latency is reduced to less than 80ms and spectrum efficiency is more than doubled. Latency and perceived delay are improved through reduced Transmission Time Interval (TTI) and additional protocol enhancements.
  
  
  EDGE Evolution can be gradually introduced as software upgrades, taking advantage of the huge GSM installed base. The technology encompasses a number of enhancements that were included in Release 7 of the 3GPP standard.
  
  
  Ericsson said it appears likely that existing GSM networks will remain in operation till 2020 and as such it makes business sense to continue to improve them.

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Amsterdam-based Linxtelecom Deploys ADVA

Amsterdam-based Linxtelecom has selected ADVA Optical Networking's FSP 3000 to enhance speed connectivity across parts of its network. The network delivers transport between data centers separated by international borders and provides local peering with Internet exchanges. Initial deployments have been done in Russia and the Baltic countries.


Linxtelecom provides a range of services including international private lines (IPL), wavelength services, IP transit, MPLS-VPNs and Virtual-Point of Presence (VPoP) solutions via a network spanning Western Europe, the Nordic countries, Russia, the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine and Georgia. Linxtelecom also offers co-location and dedicated server services from its data centers in Tallinn, Estonia and Moscow, with another state-of-the art data center to be launched soon in St. Petersburg.


As data traffic levels in the region continue to rise, providing PoP-to-PoP or end-to-end services via dark fiber has became more difficult since suitable transmission channels are sparse. Linxtelecom decided to deploy ADVA's FSP 3000 based on the platform's ability to flexibly support multiple services with a limited number of cards, its multi-haul capability, carrier-class reliability and ease-of-use.
http://www.advaoptical.com
http://www.linxtelecom.com

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GSMA Predicts Rapid Growth in European Mobile Broadband

The GSMA is predicting that the total mobile broadband subscribers in key European markets will rise from about 22 million at the end of 2009 to over 43 million in 2011. Citing figures from global analyst house CCS Insight, the GSMA is also forecasting that total revenue from mobile broadband access in the major markets will rise from less than EUR 6 billion in 2009 to more than EUR 11 billion in 2011.


"It is clear from this report that with the right network investment, European mobile network operators will see significant growth in Mobile Broadband adoption in the next two years," said Michael O'Hara, Chief Marketing Officer at the GSMA. "HSPA technology will drive this rapid uptake across Europe as mobile operators and their customers continue to benefit from its expanding, vibrant and competitive ecosystem. HSPA technology has a vast number of enabled devices and established roaming capabilities delivering high speed broadband connectivity to users on the move, right across Europe."


Key points contained within the CCS Insight report include:

• In Italy, most access is charged by the minute, while operators elsewhere, particularly in the UK, have largely adopted flat-rate, all-you-can-eat models



• Among Europe's major markets, the highest charging countries for Mobile Broadband are France, where 4GB of data can cost a subscriber almost €85 a month, and Germany, where subscribers can pay €45 for each gigabyte of data



• The least expensive Mobile Broadband in the top five markets can be found in the UK, where competition is fierce, where subscribers can pay less than €17 a month for 3GB of data traffic, and less than €5 for each gigabyte of data



• France and Spain will see the fastest growth in Mobile Broadband users, and the advent of new subscribers -- and a fourth operator in France -- will be accompanied by a reduction in average charges



• The most common allowances across Europe are 1GB, 3GB and 5GB a month

http://www.gsmworld.com

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Polaris Wireless Integrates Wi-Fi into its Wireless Location System

Polaris Wireless has integrated Wi-Fi capabilities in its Polaris Wireless Location Signatures (Polaris WLS) solution. The new Wi-Fi support gives Polaris Wireless one more input in pinpointing the precise location of mobile devices. Combined with the company's Wireless Location Signature technology, Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) and other technologies, this enhanced hybrid approach leverages all available methods to ensure that location is determined as quickly and as accurately as possible across the range of environments.


"As a standalone location technology, Wi-Fi can be highly inaccurate and unreliable in providing precise location estimates, particularly for mission-critical and safety-of-life applications. However, Wi-Fi measurements in conjunction with Polaris Wireless WLSTM location solution enhance accuracy, reliability and yield--particularly in dense urban and indoor environments," said Manlio Allegra, CEO of Polaris Wireless.


The Polaris Hybrid solution supports the Open Mobile Alliance's (OMA's) secure user plane standards (SUPL) as well as control plane standards. Combined with Polaris Wireless's patented WLS location technology and other technologies, the Hybrid solution integrates Wi-Fi capabilities available on SUPL V2.0 to provide wireless operators with a single location platform that is able to determine the precise position of mobile devices for emergency calls and location-based services--regardless of device type, radio air interface and environment.


By utilizing Secure User Plane (SUPL) standards in addition to the traditional control plane standards, Polaris WLSTM enhances location intelligence across the operator's wireless network. Polaris Wireless said this approach renders the network transparent to location applications, enabling service providers to support complex migrations from existing 2G and 3G to emerging 4G technologies. The end result is that operators will be able to deliver location applications and solutions with high accuracy in a cost-effective and seamless manner.


http://www.polariswireless.comhttp://

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Calix E7 Ethernet Platform Gains RUS Acceptance

Calix has received Rural Development (RD) Telecommunications acceptance from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the recently-announced E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP). The RUS listing enables CSPs to access RUS loans funded to promote the deployment of broadband services throughout the United States, with a special emphasis on rural development.
http://www.calix.comhttp://

• In November 2009, Calix Networks filed SEC papers for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "CALX." The company, which is based in Petaluma, California, began shipping its first multiservice access products in December 2001. A company prospectus is posted online.

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Telenor Norway Deploys Vantrix Message Optimizer

Telenor Norway has deployed the latest version of Vantrix Message Optimizer. The deployment was secured by Acision as part of Vantrix's participation in the Acision Innovation Network. The solution will enable Telenor to leverage the power of Business Analyzer and Content Filtering, which are value-added modules of Vantrix's Mediadvance platform.


The latest version of Message Optimizer provides Telenor with dynamic transcoding and optimization of multimedia elements to adapt MMS to the characteristics of the receiving devices, amongst a wide variety of content formats and wireless devices.


Vantrix said its Business Analyzer and Content Filtering will give Telenor deep insight into mobile subscriber behavior and messaging usage. In addition, thanks to Vantrix Media Controller, up to 99-percent of viruses are filtered from messages delivered into the network.


"Operators everywhere are faced with the challenge of network interoperability while still needing to manage the optimization and safe delivery of a massive variety of multimedia and wireless device formats," said Robert Fillmore, SVP International Sales for Vantrix.
http://www.vantrix.com
http://www.telenor.com

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Zscaler Hires Former Blue Coat Exec as VP Service Providers

Zscaler, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, has appointed Craig Hicks-Frazer as vice president of service providers. Most recently, Hicks-Frazer was the vice president of service providers at Blue Coat Systems. Prior to that, he held several roles of increasing responsibility at a variety of organizations including Alcatel and Cabletron Systems.


Zscaler offers a multi-tenant SaaS security solution.
http://www.zscaler.comhttp://

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Ericsson Acquires Consulting and Systems Integration Company in Italy

Ericsson agreed to acquire Pride Spa, an Italian consulting and systems integration company with about 1,000 experts in the field. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Ericsson now has 40,000 services professionals around the world.


Jan Frykhammar, CFO and head of Ericsson's Global Services unit, said "We are taking another important step to increase our capabilities in the growing services business. Consulting and systems integration are key areas in a more complex telecom environment when end-user services become more advanced and fixed and mobile networks converge. The acquisition brings 1,000 highly skilled employees to further strengthening our offering in the systems integration and consultancy field."


Over the past five years, Ericsson has acquired five companies in the field of systems integration and consulting:

• Audilog, France, September 2004, 60 employees



• Teleca OSS, Sweden, July 2005, 40 employees



• TUSC, Australia, November 2005, 84 employees



• HyC, Spain, December 2007, 110 employees



• Bizitek, Turkey, May 2009, 115 employees.
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http://www.ericsson.com
http://www.pride.it

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NTT DOCOMO Implements Stoke Mobile Broadband Gateway for LTE

NTT DOCOMO has selected Stoke's mobile broadband gateway for its LTE service. Specifically, DOCOMO will deploy the SSX-3000 in this LTE network to aggregate eNodeB radio transmission base stations that support various mobile data such as voice, data, and video.


Functional verification of the Stoke SSX-3000 as well as its proposal and sale to DOCOMO was handled by Net One Systems, Stoke's distributor in Japan.


Stoke's SSX-3000, via Net One Systems, is already used as a network platform for DOCOMO's femtocell service.


"We are extremely pleased to extend our relationship with DOCOMO for their LTE network with the adoption of SSX-3000," said Vikash Varma, President and CEO of Stoke. "The selection of our technology for their mobile data platform provides validation of the need for the innovative technology offered by Stoke."


Stokes' SSX-3000 is a high density gateway ATCA-based platform designed to provide stateful management of tens of thousands of secure subscriber sessions over multiple access types. It scales to deliver 16 Gbps throughput and up to 240k active IPSec sessions. It performs L4-L7 traffic classification, encryption & decryption, policy enforcement, QoS and accounting at line rates.
http://www.stoke.com

• In September 2009, Stoke released a software upgrade that enables its mobile broadband gateway to support initial 4G/LTE deployments, while enhancing the profit potential of their current 3G networks. Specifically, the new StokeOS software and SSX-3000 platform now address the requirements of high availability, reduced operational expense, high performance and end-to-end security in eNodeB aggregation.



• The new features in StokeOS 4.5 support deployments of all-IP backhaul architectures and allow carriers to leverage lower-cost open IP transport networks at the earliest stages of 4G/LTE. Capabilities in this software version include intra-device resilience, redundancy within individual Stoke SSX-3000 devices to reduce cost, power, and overall footprint, and support both for femtocells and LTE eNodeB base stations.



• Stoke is based in Santa Clara, California.

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AT&T Provides HD Video Transport for The Switch

The Switch, which provides video images and sound to the broadcast industry, awarded a multi-year contract to AT&T to deliver broadcast video with live and on-demand high definition programming across more than 20 states.


The Switch, which is owned and operated by Beers Enterprises, Inc. (BEI), is the leading video switching center in the New York metropolitan area. The company also provides advanced video switching services from its facilities in Los Angeles, Miami, Washington D.C. and from international locations, Toronto Canada, and London, England.


Under the agreement, AT&T will provide High Definition Video Transport service (HDVT) across more than 130 metropolitan areas across the AT&T 22 state national footprint. The Switch will use (HDVT) circuits to transmit HD and Standard Definition content from its video switching locations in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, London and Toronto.


The first use of AT&T HDVT circuits by The Switch was for the live transmission of the Michael Jackson Memorial Service, July 7, 2009 from The Staples Center in Los Angeles.http://http://

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