AppliedMicro Introduces Processor for Consumer Media Servers

AppliedMicro introduced a single-core system-on-a-chip (SoC) device for multi-function storage applications and media servers for the connected digital home. The processor enables new levels of performance for NAS systems and media servers at reduced cost and reduced power consumption.


The APM 821xx processor offers up to 1GHz CPU speeds capable of delivering up to 2,000 DMIPS (Dhrystone Millions of Instructions per Second) of compute performance to enable storage platforms that can deliver more than 16 simultaneous streams of high definition video for home networking applications.


A high-degree of integration on the device, including a TCP/IP offload engine for networking applications and on-chip RAID 5 acceleration, reduces system part counts and board space. It so features a 128-bit high-bandwidth bus architecture with integrated PCI-Express, SATA, Gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0 OTG interfaces.
http://www.appliedmicro.com

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GigOptix Seeks $5 Million in Fed Funding for 100G Transceivers

GigOptix is seeking $5 million in government funding for the development its On-Chip Integrated Photonic Polymer Transceiver. This funding request has been requested by U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) in the Fiscal Year 2011 Defense Appropriations bill. This appropriation bill must still receive Defense Appropriations Subcommittee approval.


GigOptix said the funding would help to develop a new family of fully integrated 100G drivers and modulators for use by the U.S. Air Force in its communications systems. The polymer products are expected to lead to faster, smaller and more energy efficient communications systems. http://www.gigoptix.com

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AT&T Mobility Reaches Union Deal in the Southeast

AT&T Mobility announced a tentative agreement with the Communications Workers of America on a collective bargaining agreement for about 11,200 wireless employees covered by the Mobility Southeast labor contract.


The employees are in CWA District 3, which includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.


During the coming days and weeks, the CWA will submit the agreement to its members for a ratification vote. http://www.att.comhttp://

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Aricent Signaling Software Platform to Power Interphase High-Density SS7 Cards

Aricent has released its Network-Proven Telecom Signaling Platform on several high-density Signal System 7 (SS7) plug-in modules from Interphase. The collaboration to provide pre-integrated solutions creates an off-the-shelf signaling solution for Network and Telecommunications Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).


Interphase's portfolio includes appliances, blades and modules in various form-factors for interworking, connectivity and packet processing, in addition to engineering design and contract manufacturing services. The SS7 product line -- based on signaling-optimized iSPAN hardware platforms and the Interphase iWARE Software Development Suite (SDS) -- is now powered by Aricent's software including high-level protocol stacks, application software and rapid application development tools. Interphase SS7 iSPAN modules support the standard telecom server form-factors, including PCI/PCI-X, PCI Express (PCIe), low-profile PCIe cards for rack-mount systems, and AdvancedMC (AMC) modules for AdvancedTCA (ATCA) and MicroTCA (µTCA) systems. These high-density solutions are available with 4 or 8 T1/E1/J1 ports and support up to 248 Low Speed Links or 8 High Speed Links.


Aricent's Signaling Software Platform offers an application programming interface (API) that can be quickly integrated with customer applications. It offers simultaneous support for SS7 and SIGTRAN over Windows, Linux and Solaris platforms. Aricent's Signaling platform incorporates SS7 and SIGTRAN protocol stacks, which have been deployed by nearly 150 customers globally. The solution has enabled a broad array of Telecom nodes such as SMS Router/Gateways, Signaling Gateways, Home Location Registers (HLR), Equipment Identity Registers (EIR) and a full complement of Value Added Service (VAS) applications -- such as Messaging, Missed Call Alert applications, Roaming solutions, Unstructured Supplementary Services, Location Based Services and Ring Back Tone (RBT) services.
http://www.aricent.com
http://www.interphase.com

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Towerstream Acquires Sparkplug's Chicago and Nashville Businesses

Towerstream has acquired Sparkplug Communications' Chicago, Illinois and Nashville, Tennessee business assets. The acquisition expands Towerstream's presence in Chicago, introduces Nashville as the company's 11th market nationally, and will add approximately $1.3 million to the annual revenue base. The Company purchased all customer contracts, network infrastructure, and related assets in a transaction valued at $1.6 million in cash and common stock.


"Our ability to quickly close this transaction will enable us to begin recognizing revenues generated from the acquired customer base," stated Jeff Thompson, President and Chief Executive Officer. "We have designed a plan to quickly integrate Sparkplug's ten Points of Presence (PoPs) in Chicago into our existing network. We plan to leverage our expanded market coverage to increase our scale and accelerate growth of our high margin recurring business."http://www.towerstream.com

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General Telecom Expands its Least Cost Routing Engine

General Telecom announced new and expanded least cost routing (LCR) capabilities for its RouteNGN route engine, helping service providers to its customers to roll out VOIP offerings quickly and profitably. Combining a modular approach with open source optimize their VoIP offerings.



RouteNGN can operate in the cloud, as a secure Software-as-a-Service (Saas) solution; onsite; or as a hybrid solution.


Among the features of the General Telecom RouteNGN high-capacity, least cost routing tool:

• Open development. Carriers can freely create custom tools that integrate with the RouteNGN via its application programming interface (API) to connect with existing BSS/OSS systems to leverage investment in existing hardware and avoid the financial and time constraints of proprietary software. The RouteNGN API is published on GitHub, a prominent hosted repository service for software projects such as Ruby on Rails and the Linux kernel.



• Migrate TDM to VoIP across existing network devices, at lower OPEX. Using trunk group tagging, clients can route and blend both VoIP and TDM network traffic, reducing manual processes that require separate business rules for TDM and VoIP networks. By routing at the network edge, RouteNGN can increase port utilization by 20 to 60 percent. General Telecom's RouteNGN integrates with major equipment vendors, including Acme Packet, BroadSoft , Cisco Systems, Dialogic, Huawei, Genband, Metaswitch and Sonus.



• Next generation networking (NGN) capacity. To meet network demands of premium NGN applications, such as reverse 911 or click-to-call which can generate 500 calls per second (cps) or more, RouteNGN easily scales to 1000 cps or more.

"Over the past year we've worked closely with our customer and partner base to extract pure signal feedback on the network management equipment and services that will enable them to move quickly from concept to cash flow," said Steve Smith, executive vice president of sales and marketing for General Telecom. "With these extended capabilities that are available now, RouteNGN is the fiber that ties a network together."http://www.gentel.net

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Motorola Shows TD-LTE USB Dongle

Motorola demonstrated the world's first TD-LTE USB dongle at the "TD-LTE Showcase Network Opening Ceremony," which was held the Shanghai Expo site last week.


Delegates at the ceremony experienced applications that run over a TD-LTE network via USB dongles, including high-definition video wall (simultaneous 24 video streams), remote monitoring and high-speed Internet browsing applications.


"We are very excited to support China Mobile in bringing the world's first TD-LTE USB dongle demonstration enabled by our TD-LTE system," said Dr. Mohammad Akhtar, corporate vice president and general manager, Motorola Networks business in Asia Pacific. "A healthy devices ecosystem has always been critical to the development, commercialization and success of wireless network technologies. We are working closely with partners to drive this ecosystem as demonstrated by the advancement announced today. TD-LTE is now a commercial reality and we are very pleased to see that industry players are joining forces to accelerate TD-LTE globalization."


Motorola said it expects interest in TD-LTE will continue to grow because of the low cost of TDD spectrum that is particularly attractive to emerging and developing markets; operators' continuing need for more capacity and spectrum; and the ability to hand-off between TD-LTE and LTE FDD networks.

In effect, this ability to roam between LTE FDD and TD-LTE means operators can use TD-LTE networks to augment their FDD LTE network for more capacity or other applications such as video broadcasting, while operators choosing to use TD-LTE as their "main" network can still offer their subscribers the ability to roam to other operators' FDD LTE networks in different countries.

Motorola is committed to both FDD-LTE and TD-LTE, as well as WiMAX.
http://www.motorola.com

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NSN Tests 100G Short-haul from EU's HECTO Project

Nokia Siemens Networks has begun field testing a 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) transceiver developed by the EU-funded HECTO (high-speed electro-optical components for integrated transmitter and receiver in optical communications) project.


The HECTO project focused on developing a method to cut the number of transceivers for 100G network links of less than 40 kilometers by 75%. With HECTO, operators can provide short-haul 100GbE using only one transceiver on a single wavelength, rather than four transceivers at four separate wavelengths. This alone can reduce the complexity of 100GbE transmission providing a cost-effective way to upgrade optical networks.


"100GbE is the next big step in the networking world, bringing the additional capacity that will be needed for new bandwidth-hungry applications and the widespread adoption of smart devices," says Rainer H. Derksen, senior research scientist at Nokia Siemens Networks. "The HECTO approach is ideal for short-haul transmission because it does not require the complex transceivers needed for longer distance network links. At the same time, it meets the increased capacity demands in the metro and access portions of the network. This landmark project fits well with our vision of using innovation to help operators upgrade to 100GbE without major network investments."


In the HECTO project, NSN partnered with component vendors, academic institutions and non-profit research institutes from Denmark, Germany, Greece and Sweden.
http://www.nsn.com
http://www.hecto.eu

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NSN Establishes TD-LTE Open Lab in Hangzhou

Nokia Siemens Networks has inaugurated a TD-LTE Open Lab at its Hangzhou R&D facility. The facility will provide an end-to-end testing environment for verifying the compatibility of terminals and devices with the company's TD-LTE network products and solutions. The lab will also provide consultancy and testing services to device manufacturers. Nokia Siemens Networks' TD-LTE R&D center in Hangzhou is fully integrated into the company's global network of LTE Centers of Competence.
http://www.nsn.com

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T-Mobile and 3 UK Build Europe's Largest Shared 3G Network

T-Mobile UK and 3 UK are on course to complete their joint network infrastructure program by the end of 2010.


In December 2007, T-Mobile UK and 3 UK pooled their 3G network infrastructure in a 50:50 joint venture company, Mobile Broadband Network Ltd. (MBNL). The network sharing requires fewer masts, consumes less energy and provides customers with greater mobile broadband coverage.


MBNL has already consolidated more than 7,000 sites out of a total of over 12,500 T-Mobile UK and 3 UK mast sites due to be brought together by October this year. When completed, the integration program will also mean more than 3,000 redundant sites will have been switched off.


Reinforcing the network's capacity, a new contract worth over £400 million has been agreed between MBNL, on behalf of T-Mobile UK and 3 UK, and Nokia Siemens Networks. This will include the provision of 3G radio network infrastructure, mobile network planning, implementation, optimization and maintenance. The provision of equipment and services is already underway.
http://www.nsn.com

• Earlier this month, 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.



• In November 2008, Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL), the 50:50 joint venture formed by 3UK and T-Mobile UK to manage the integration of both operators' 3G radio access networks (RAN), has awarded Ericsson a four-year managed services contract for the operation and maintenance of the consolidated network. Under the deal, Ericsson has responsibility for the operation and performance management of both parent companies' 3G networks and T-Mobile's 2G RAN infrastructure. Around 80 employees from T-Mobile were transferred to Ericsson.



• In October 2008, BT announced a five-year managed network solutions agreement with T-Mobile and 3 UK, through their joint venture company, Mobile Broadband Network Ltd (MBNL). Specifically, BT will provide Ethernet backhaul connecting 7,500 base station sites on their consolidated 3G infrastructure. The network services contract supersedes the original contracts that BT had in place with both T-Mobile and 3 UK. BT's next-generation Ethernet service is currently being rolled out across the UK. The service will deliver improved access and backhaul service delivery to MBNL.



• In August 2008, Nokia Siemens Networks announced that it had been selected as technology partner for Mobile Broadband Network Ltd. (MBNL), the network collaboration joint-venture between T-Mobile UK and 3 UK.

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