DragonWave Supplies WiMAX Backhaul for Greece's Cosmoline

Cosmoline has selected DragonWave as its exclusive backhaul provider for a national 4G mobile WiMAX network across Greece. DragonWave's Horizon Compact and Horizon Quantum will deliver native-Ethernet backhaul across approximately 1,000 wireless links.


Cosmoline, which holds a 3.5 GHz Band Fixed Wireless Access License covering all Greek territory, plans to migrate about 130,000 customers of traditional leased-line offerings to next-generation fixed wireless access for data, voice and video services. Deployment began in 2009 across Greece's two largest cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, and is continuing city by city to cover all major cities across the country. Cosmoline aims to convert its business, residential and government users to 4G mobile WiMAX services.
http://www.dragonwaveinc.com
http://www.cosmoline.com

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EXFO Enhances OTN Test Capabilities

EXFO has added new OTN testing capabilities to its Transport Blazer and Power Blazer product lines. The new capabilities support the OTU1f and OTU2f test interfaces which specifically target the transport of Fibre Channel services over OTN. In addition, as the performance of Fibre Channel is very sensitive to network latency, this new software release also offers service providers the ability to measure round-trip delay on OTN circuits.
http://www.EXFO.comhttp://

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Harris Plans New Radio Manufacturing Facility in New York

Harris plans to develop a new state-of-the-art manufacturing and logistics facility in Henrietta, New York for the production of tactical and public safety radio systems by its RF Communications business. The plans call for the purchase of a 573,000-square-foot building from Xerox Corporation. A subsequent, total renovation will allow Harris to consolidate its manufacturing operations into a single site, improving efficiency.


Harris RF Communications supplies secure radio communications and embedded high-grade encryption solutions for military, government and commercial organizations. Its Falcon family of software-defined tactical radio systems encompasses manpack, handheld and vehicular applications. Falcon III is the next generation of radios supporting the U.S. military's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) requirements, as well as network-centric operations worldwide.
http://www.harris.comhttp://

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CENX Carrier Ethernet Exchange Grows to 5M Accessible Locations

CENX, which operates a series of Carrier Ethernet exchanges, announced a new milestone in the development of Carrier Ethernet interconnection with the aggregate of over five million Carrier Ethernet Locations to be accessible through CENX Exchanges. Moreover, based on its sharp customer ramp, CENX expects the number locations to be accessible via CENX exchanges to double by the end of the 2nd quarter, topping 10 million locations.


"CENX has established itself as the industry resource for carriers seeking to extend and scale their Ethernet business service offerings locally, nationally and globally. The exchange "network effect" is truly taking hold. This new milestone is in addition to our recently announced Carrier Ethernet Voice Exchange service, which makes legacy tandems and TDM direct connections obsolete," said Nan Chen, CENX co-founder and Chief Executive Officer."CENX's rapid growth ramp demonstrates that the journey to the predicted $40bn Carrier Ethernet market is well under way."http://www.cenx.comhttp://

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Deutsche Telekom Selects NetCracker to Drive Automation

Deutsche Telekom has chosen NetCracker's Service Inventory, Service Provisioning & Activation, Resource Inventory, and Discovery & Reconciliation modules to automate the fulfillment of fixed network-based Broadband Internet connections as well as next-generation IMS-based multimedia services and to manage their IMS-based infrastructure. Financial terms were not disclosed. NetCracker is a subsidiary of NEC.


NetCracker's solutions and services will form part of Deutsche Telekom's Next Generation Service and Systems Management (NGSSM) transformation, a core element of its enterprise-wide migration to Next Generation Networks (NGN). Deutsche Telekom's strategic initiative is to drive standards-based rationalization and automation of operations to enable significant cost savings, rapid introduction of innovative services, and improved customer experience.
http://www.NetCracker.comhttp://

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Cortina Debuts 2nd Gen Electronic Dispersion Compensation Device

Cortina Systems, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, has begun shipping its second generation 10GE Electronic Dispersion Compensation (EDC) device.


The CS4315 EDC functionality supports two full duplex 10G links. Both transmit and receive paths include Clock and Data Recovery (CDR) circuits. The CS4315 EDC has a wide operating frequency range covering 1GbE, 1G FC, 2G FC, 4G FC, 8G FC, SONET (9.5 -- 11.3G), and 10GbE.


Applications include 10G SFP+, enterprise and telecom backplanes, and single-mode fiber links.
http://www.cortina-systems.com

• In June 2009, Cortina Systems, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, introduced its next generation optical transport processor platform designed for efficient multiplexing and transparent transport of a broad spectrum of 10G class clients including Ethernet, SONET/SDH, and storage over 10G or 40G optical transport networks. The platform offers analog integration, optical transport networking, and advanced forward error correction (FEC) technology. Cortina said its design allows for denser and more flexible line cards for metro and long-haul dense wavelength-division-multiplexing applications, Ethernet switch and router platforms, and submarine ultra long-haul systems. Key features include aggregation of four fully independent synchronous or asynchronous 10Gs tributaries to a 40G signal; super forward error correction ("Super FEC"); transport, mapping, and performance monitoring; and networking support for various client signals.

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Sprint Signs Four MVNO Partners

Sprint announced four Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) partners: Long Distance Consolidated Billing Company (LDCB), NPG Cable, Call One and Baja Broadband.


Sprint's turnkey wholesale service provides the back-office solution for companies interested in offering wireless services under their own brand. These post-paid wireless services operate on the Sprint network but with private label of the MVNO partner.


Sprint's new solution allows the MVNO o fully customize their wireless offering, including pricing, marketing, sales strategy, and distribution channels.
http://www.sprint.com/wholesale/mvno.shtmlhttp://

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NOAA to Implement Luxtera's 40G Active Cabling in Data Center

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) selected Luxtera's
"Blazer" 40G Active Optical Cable (AOC) to interconnect its multi-room data center, which is used to build environmental simulation models as well as predict short-term weather and climate forecasts. The AOC provides various interconnects within the data center at a much lower cost and longer reach than traditional multimode fiber VCSEL interconnects.


Luxtera's Silicon CMOS Photonics technology utilizes an integrated opto-electronic chip with a directly attached fiber and a micro-packaged laser. The AOC can span distances from one to 4,000 meters.
http://www.luxtera.comhttp://

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AirWalk Develops LTE Picocell with Mindspeed and Aricent

AirWalk Communications, which offers IP-based CDMA cellular radio network equipment, announced its first LTE picocell. The product was developed in collaboration with Mindspeed Technologies and Aricent. A proof-of-concept will be demonstrated at next week's CTIA Wireless 2010 conference in Las Vegas.


The LTE picocell incorporates Mindspeed's Transcede wireless baseband processor and associated components. It combines the latest RISC processor technology with a high-performance DSP processing array in a single chip, providing a complete low-cost/high-value processing capability. Aricent supplies the software solution, including selected elements from the Aricent LTE eNodeB stack portfolio.
http://www.airwalkcom.com
http://www.aricent.com

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Avago Wins ITC Ruling in Parallel Fiber Optics Case

The International Trade Commission issued the Initial Determination in favor of Avago Technologies and uploading its patents in parallel fiber optics. The ruling, issued on 12-March-2010, found that Emcore Corporation infringes Avago's intellectual property by importing and selling certain optoelectronics products used in optical communication systems. The case involves Avago's U.S. Patent Numbers 5,359,447 and 5,761,229.
http://www.avagotech.com

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FCC Delivers it National Broadband Plan

James E. Carroll
Editor-in-Chief
The FCC delivered its National Broadband Plan to Congress, setting in motion the most significant reforms to the nation's telecommunications market in the broadband era. The plan was mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009 and produced by an FCC task force. The full plan will be released to the public on Tuesday.

The National Broadband Plan seeks to influence the broadband ecosystem in four ways: establish new competition policies, promote more efficient management of resources that the government already regulates (spectrum, poles, rights-of-way), reform current universal service mechanisms, and encourage government use of broadband in public education, health care and its own operations.


Major components include a review of wholesale competition rules for fixed and mobile broadband, freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum for licensed broadband mobile services, freeing up additional spectrum for unlicensed use, updating rules for wireless backhaul spectrum, and setting new rules to ensure a competitive video set-top box market.


The FCC will seek to establish a "Connect America Fund" (CAF) to support the provision of broadband with at least 4 Mbps actual download speeds and shift up to $15.5 billion over the next decade from the existing Universal Service Fund (USF). While the transition to CAF is underway, the USF contribution base would have to be broadened to ensure that it is sustainable over time. Reforms to intercarrier compensation rules would eliminate per-minute charges over the next 10 years while enabling cost recovery through the CAF.


Furthermore, the plan recommends that the United States adopt six goals for the next decade:


1. At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 Mbps and actual upload speeds of at least 50 Mbps.


2. The U.S. should lead in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.


3. Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.


4. Every American community should have affordable access to at least 1 Gbps service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.


5. To ensure the safety of the American people, every first responder should have access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable broadband public safety network.


6. To ensure America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.


Money raised from future auctions of the 500 MHz in new spectrum would make the plan revenue neutral for the government's budget. Improvements in government efficiency would also drive cost savings.

"The National Broadband Plan is a 21st century roadmap to spur economic growth and
investment, create jobs, educate our children, protect our citizens, and engage in our democracy,"
said Chairman Julius Genachowski. "It's an action plan, and action is necessary to meet the
challenges of global competitiveness, and harness the power of broadband to help address so
many vital national issues."http://www.fcc.gov

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AT&T Looks to Quick Messaging Devices

AT&T is looking to a fresh line-up of lower cost Quick Messaging devices to bring smartphone-like experiences to a wider mass-market. AT&T's new line-up adds four new Quick Messaging Devices from Samsung and Pantech with enhanced messaging, video and photo sharing, and contacts management.


"Quick Messaging Devices are very important for us - it's a category that we defined for the industry and that we continue to lead in value, quality and innovation," said David Christopher, chief marketing officer of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.


New services for these Quick Messaging devices include:


AT&T Address Book - Syncs contacts to an online address book so customers can access and manage their mobile contacts from their handset - or their PC. Synchronization occurs automatically when any change is made, so contact information is always backed up. From the online interface, customers can import contacts from other Web-based address books, such as personal e-mail accounts, as well as send text messages to their contacts' mobile numbers. There is no additional charge to use AT&T Address Book.


Next Generation Messaging - Brings an advanced messaging experience designed by AT&T to the quick messaging phones category. The familiar text messaging experience is enhanced with group messaging and "reply all" functionality for up to 10 contacts, a threaded conversations format, a consolidated inbox, and enhanced multi-media display.


AT&T Mobile Share - Helps customers quickly transfer photos and videos captured on their mobile phone to other destinations and allows customers to manage that content across the mobile and PC screens. Customers can share videos and pictures in full resolution, up to 10MB, with their home computer, social networking sites, other people and a personal Internet-based storage locker from AT&T - all from their wireless handset.


AT&T Mobile Share is available for $10 per month for 50 media transfers; customers can also pay per use, at $.35 per transfer. The service includes online storage of 250MB. Customers can purchase an additional 10GB of storage for $5 per month. Standard data charges apply for browsing the online media locker from the mobile handset.
http://www.att.com

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Australia's NBN Opens Proof-of-Concept Test Centre

The Australian government's National Broadband Network took another step forward with the opening of a Proof-of-Concept Test Centre in Tasmania and the announcement of the first retail service providers which will offer high speed broadband in Tasmania. The Test Centre will provide retail service providers with access to a live environment to test their services as part of the roll out of the National Broadband Network.


The NBN will be an open access network and NBN Tasmania will work with any and all qualified retail service providers to provide access to the network and connected customers. The first retail service providers to offer services: Primus, Internode, and iiNet.


"NBN Tasmania remains on track to deliver the first high speed broadband services from July and the new Test Centre will assist in those preparations," Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2010/022

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Ruckus Wireless Introduces Sub-$500 Enterprise-class 802.11n AP

Ruckus Wireless introduced its new "ZoneFlex" 7300 series of midrange access points -- an enterprise-class 802.11n access point that includes both single-band (7343) and dual band (7363) products, priced at US $499 and $599 respectively.


The single-band version offer maximum 802.11n capacity of 300Mbps, while the dual-band offers 600 Mbps. Both versions integrate the company's BeamFlex technology, a patented software-controlled multi-antenna array that forms and directs Wi-Fi signals over the best performing signal paths in real time, on a per packet basis. As RF environments change, Ruckus ZoneFlex APs are able to automatically select better signal paths to increase performance and minimize packet loss, thereby ensuring good, consistent user experience. In contrast, access points with omni-directional antennas have difficulty coping with obstacles and interference and must resort to dropping their data rate. This degrades performance for all users sharing an access point.
http://www.ruckuswireless.com

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