Vidyo Secures $25 Million for Videoconferencing

Vidyo, a start-up based in Hackensack, New Jersey, announced a $25 million Series C round of financing to support is personal telepresence solutions.


Vidyo enables multi-point videoconferences on desktop computers and room systems over the Internet and wireless networks Its patented VidyoRouter architecture delivers H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) that eliminates an MCU while delivering high error resilience and low latency.


The new funding brings the total amount of capital raised by the company to $63 million since its founding in 2005. All existing investors, Menlo Ventures, Rho Ventures, Seven-Rosen Funds and Star Ventures, participated in the round, which was led by Four Rivers Group.
http://www.vidyo.com

• Vidyo is headed by Ofer Shapiro (CEO and co-founder), who previously spent eight years at RADVISION where he was responsible for the development of the first IP video conferencing bridge and gatekeeper technology. Ofer was also a contributor and one of the editors of the H.323 standard. Vidyo's other co-founder is Dr. Alex Eleftheriadis (Chief Scientist), who was an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. He holds 12 patents, has served as the Editor of the MPEG-4 Systems specification, and is currently co-editor of the H.264 SVC Conformance specification.

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Telarix Raises $20 Million for OSS/BSS Solutions

Telarix, a privately-held company based in Vienna, Virginia, secured $20 million in venture capital for its business information exchange and interconnect OSS/BSS solutions for content providers, IP service providers and global fixed and mobile operators. The company's software tools enable service providers to gather, analyze, and act upon interconnect business events and service transactions in near real-time.


The new money will be used to support the continued growth of iXLink, a global business information exchange service for the telecom community. Telarix said it now has over 625 members now using the service to automatically exchange business information with their trading partners. iXLink recently added three new services: Price List Receipt with Dial Code Mapping to simplify and automate their purchasing process; a next generation CLI monitoring service which provides mobile, fixed-lined and VoIP carriers the ability to accurately verify Calling Line Identification (CLI) for mobile and landline destinations worldwide; and a Benchmarking service for tracking pricing and quality data related to the international wholesale telecommunication market.


The new funding came from Brown Brothers Harriman Capital Partners III (BBH Capital Partners), a private equity fund sponsored by Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and Edison Venture Fund.
http://www.telarix.com

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Zain Bahrain Measures LTE Download at 70 Mbps with NSN

Zain Bahrain has achieved an LTE download speed of 70 Mbps in a field trial conducted with Nokia Siemens Networks. The trial involved Nokia Siemens Networks' Flexi base stations, installed in separate buildings, as well as its NetAct network management solution.


Zain's network has achieved a minimum latency of 15 milliseconds --- the smallest ever in any public LTE call, according to the companies. The LTE call highlights applications such as multi-video streaming, high-resolution video conferencing, voice over LTE, and LTE terminal mobility within an office environment.

Zain Bahrain anticipates completing its LTE network later this year, proving a showcase for all of Zain Group's operations across the Middle East and Africa.

"Setting standards and raising the bar on excellence have always been a Zain Bahrain prerogative," said Mohammed Zainalabedin, general manager, Zain Bahrain. "This first ever live call is a taste of the excellence our customers can expect when our entire network upgrade is unveiled by the end of this year. It is part of the continuous effort at Zain Bahrain to keep our promise to our customers that we will always deliver a world-class mobile user experience."http://www.nsn.com
http://www.bh.zain.com

• In October 2009, Zain Bahrain selected Nokia Siemens Networks to modernize its radio and core network as well as the prepaid charging system. This begins the transition to a flat, all-IP network supporting Internet High Speed Packet Access (I-HSPA) and Long Term Evolution (LTE). Financial terms were not disclosed. Under the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks will replace the existing legacy core network with the latest Mobile Softswitching (MSS) solution. In addition, charging system will be upgraded to the Nokia Siemens Networks prepaid solution, based on charge@once select. NSN's Flexi Multiradio Base Stations are capable of supporting WCDMA, HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE via a software upgrade. Zain Bahrain will be in a position to launch I-HSPA functionality within the year. In addition, Nokia Siemens Networks will deploy a full end-to-end offering for LTE, providing LTE radio, Evolved Packet Core for LTE, subscriber data management, network management and services.

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Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom Complete UK Merger

Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom completed their UK merger transaction, combining T-Mobile UK and Orange into the UK's leading mobile operator. It will have a combined mobile customer base of around 28.4 million, representing approximately 37 percent of UK mobile subscribers. A new name for the venture has not yet been announced, so the existing brands will be kept in place for now.


In November 2009, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom signed the final agreement to combine their UK operations, T-Mobile and Orange, into a 50:50 joint venture company. The deal was first announced on 8 September 2009.


Tom Alexander, former CEO of Orange UK serves as CEO of the new Joint Venture, and Richard Moat, the former CEO of T-Mobile UK is Chief Financial Officer and Deputy CEO. A Board of Directors has also been formed, on which Tom Alexander and Richard Moat will serve as executive directors. Tim Höttges, CFO of Deutsche Telekom, will lead the board as non-executive chairman for two years. After this time, the leadership will rotate to Gervais Pellissier, Deputy CEO and CFO of France Telecom, for two years.
http://www.telekom.dehttp://www.francetelecom.com

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Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs Describes Single-Carrier 224 Gbps

Researchers from Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs demonstrated a range of technology advances at last month's Optical Fiber Conference (OFC) in San Diego, California, including higher-order modulation techniques, use of multi-stage algorithms and increased spectral efficiencies that enable the transmission of significantly higher bit rates over increasingly longer distances. The optical transmission technologies demonstrated by Bell Labs were presented in a series of juried research papers reviewed in rigorous evaluation process and accepted by the OFC program committee. Alcatel-Lucent highlighted the following items:


Field transmission of optical OFDM1 signals carrying greater than 100 Gbps -- A key step forward in the evolution of new modulation formats over existing fiber infrastructure. Involves transmission of 3x253Gb/s OFDM-Superchannels over 764 km field deployed single mode fibers. Employs ten G.652 fiber spans, provided by Deutsche Telekom AG and makes use of OFDM channels spaced 100GHz apart that cover a bandwidth of 90GHz and result in a configuration compatible with a 100GHz grid.


Next-Generation 400 Gigabit per second transmission -- Generation and detection of a novel spectrally-efficient format occupying a bandwidth of only 60 GHz. Involves 448-Gbps Reduced-Guard-Interval CO-OFDM Signal with 7 bit-per second-Hz channel spectral efficiency and transmission over 2000-km of ULAF and five 80-GHz-Grid optical add-drop multiplexers.


40% increase of single-carrier bit rate, up to 224-Gbps -- An improvement over the highest previous 20 Gbaud (160 Gbps) single-carrier line rate demonstrated in PDM 16-QAM transmission. Single-carrier multilevel modulation at high symbol rates enables a simpler transmitter structure. Involves a 10 × 224-Gb/s WDM Transmission of 28-Gbaud PDM2 16-QAM on a 50-GHz Grid over 1,200 km of fiber.
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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NTT America to Deploy Cisco ASR 9000

NTT America will deploy the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Router to scale its Next-Generation Internet Protocol Network infrastructure for leading capacity, nonstop video, power efficiency, robust IPv6 support and integrated video monitoring intelligence. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Among its criteria in selecting this platform, NTT America also set a requirement for carrier-grade IPv6 capability, as its global IP network has been running both IPv4 and IPv6 worldwide since 2001. The Cisco ASR 9000 supports both IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks for service growth.


The companies noted that global IP traffic is expected to increase fivefold from 2008 to 2013, approaching 56 exabytes per month in 2013, up from approximately 9 exabytes per month in 2008. IP traffic in Asia Pacific will lead this growth worldwide. It is forecast to reach 21 exabytes per month in 2013, accounting for more than one-third of the global traffic. (Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index IP traffic growth forecast 2008--2013.)


The NTT Communications Global IP Network has reached 300 Gbps of available capacity on the transpacific portion of the network, the highest available capacity of any global Tier 1 network, serving growing international customer bases and providing a cost-effective solution to meet the demand for bandwidth speed and capacity. By utilizing three cable systems - PC-1, Tyco Global Network (TGN) and Japan-US (JP-US) -- NTT America provides a short, low-latency path for transpacific Internet traffic, allowing customers fast, reliable and cost-effective access to financial and international markets.
http://www.cisco.com
http://www.nttamerica.com

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AT&T Wins $29 Million MPLS Project with US EPA

AT&T Government Solutions will supply an MPLS-based network for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).


As the primary provider under the WAN 2010 Project will also provide Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Services (MTIPS) to enhance the security of the EPA network. AT&T will use MTIPS to secure the EPA's Internet traffic with services such as Intrusion Detection Services, Intrusion Protection Services, Incident Response, Managed Firewall Services, and Anti-Virus Management. AT&T will also provide Managed Network services such as Project Management Office (PMO), operations, site deployment, network engineering and design, on-site installation, maintenance, training and proactive network management and reporting. AT&T will deliver these services at EPA locations supporting systems and applications for the EPA workforce.


The task order, which was awarded under the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Networx Enterprise contract vehicle, is valued at up to $29 million, if all options are exercised.
http://www.att.com

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