NXP Semiconductor Pursues SiGe Chips for RF/Microwave

By the end of 2010, NXP Semiconductors will offer more than 50 products based on the latest SiGe (silicon-germanium) process technology.



The company said SiGe provides high power gain and excellent dynamic range, making it well suited for high-frequency applications in the wireless, broadband communications, networking, and multimedia markets. NXP currently has about a dozen silicon germanium based products in the market, and has developed and shipped more than 25 million RF products using its QUBiC4 technology.


NXP offers three variants of the QUBiC4 technology: QUBiC4+, a silicon-based process for applications up to 5GHz such as medium power amplifiers; QUBiC4X, a 0.25µm SiGe:C process introduced about 6 years ago, typically used for applications up to 30GHz and very low noise applications such as GPS; and the most recent 0.25µm QUBiC4Xi SiGe:C process, offering on Ft in excess of 200GHz, which is particularly suited for applications above 30GHz and those requiring minimum noise figure, such as VSAT and radar.
http://www.nxp.com

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SiGe Semiconductor Offers Wi-Fi Front End IC for Mobiles

SiGe Semiconductor introduced an RF switch/LNA Front End IC (FEIC) designed to enhance the performance and functionality of converged Bluetooth/Wi-Fi chipsets for embedded applications, such as smartphones, netbooks, personal media players and digital cameras.


SiGe developed the SE2601T to enhance Bluetooth/Wi-Fi chipsets utilizing an integrated CMOS power amplifier (PA). The company said its design improves the connectivity range of the Wi-Fi solution by placing a high-performance LNA between the antenna and the RF receiver that is part of chipsets from leading vendors such as CSR, Marvell, Broadcom and Atheros. Often the LNA function is omitted in embedded applications such as smartphones due to physical space constraints on the Wi-Fi solution, thus degrading connectivity performance. This LNA significantly increases the sensitivity of the Wi-Fi receiving system -- critical in embedded applications where physically small antennas are limited in their contribution to signal quality.
http://www.sige.com

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RADWIN's Wireless Backhaul Delivers 100 Mbps Full-Duplex Releases

RADWIN announced that its 2000 C-Series wireless backhaul platform now supports 200 Mbps net aggregate throughput (100 Mbps full duplex). The solution supports up to 16 E1s/T1s + Ethernet while operating at a range of up to 120km. The platform leverages MIMO and OFDM technologies together with unique proprietary protocols to ensure robustness and resiliency in operation in the sub-6 GHz bands. RADWIN said its C-Series products operate in the most challenging conditions, including non-line-of-sight, interference zones and extreme temperatures.
http://www.radwin.comhttp://

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JDSU Boosts Mobile Service Assurance Portfolio

JDSU introduced a set of enhancements for its mobile service assurance portfolio, which was recently acquired from Agilent. These enhancements address voice and data service quality challenges faced by mobile operators as the volume of high-bandwidth traffic continues to grow. The service assurance solution enhancements include:


Managing IP data growth with 100 percent improvement in Gn data monitoring. This is fundamental for performance and scalability, and is available as a simple software upgrade for existing customers.


Managing the growth of the control plane -- the complicated transactions that set up mobile voice and data calls -- with a cutting-edge 4th generation IP Probe. The new probe enables far-better performance with much less hardware, saves up to 80 percent in operating and capital expenses and reduces power consumption by 37 percent.


Enhanced Customer Troubleshooting (ECT). ECT allows operators to quickly troubleshoot high-value customers by name and store control plane data for up to a year.


Obtaining the cell ID from network core monitoring. This capability locates problems for deeper troubleshooting with other tools such as JDSU's Drive Test Systems and Systems Analyzer Real Time (SART), helping to avoid speculative and expensive "truck rolls" to network locations where problems do not exist.


"JDSU's mobile assurance enhancements will help support operators facing the 40-100-fold increase in data traffic expected with the deployment of LTE networks, bringing dramatic improvements in performance, scalability and IP monitoring, as well as new applications that enable quick and personalized troubleshooting," said Tom Smith, senior vice president in JDSU's Communications Test and Measurement business segment.
http://www.jdsu.com

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Ciena Supplies PBB-TE Wireless Backhaul in South Africa

iBurst, a wireless broadband service provider in South Africa, has deployed Ciena's Carrier Ethernet Service Delivery (CESD) platforms for supporting wireless backhaul for 3G and 4G wireless networks.

Specifically, iBurst has replaced its existing Layer 2 infrastructure with Ciena's wireless backhaul solution, which leverages connection-oriented Ethernet, to provide higher performance service levels in its radio cell collection network.
The deployment uses PBB-TE to provide predictable path management and replaces a Spanning Tree-based architecture.

After evaluating several options, iBurst selected Ciena's solution for its enhanced implementation of Provider Backbone Bridging -- Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE) technology, which provides the reliability, scalability and efficiency the service provider required to support its transport network.

The Ciena CESD platforms, including the CN 5305 Service Aggregation Switch and LE 311v Service Delivery Switch, operate seamlessly within iBurst's Layer 2 environment and manage the switchover of dual microwave radio links without delays or failures.

In addition to the wireless backhaul platforms, iBurst has also deployed Ciena's CN 4200® FlexSelect® Advanced Services Platform to connect its primary and back-up data centers. The initial deployment includes multiple GbE and 2G Fibre Channel connections over DWDM carrying traffic from iBurst's Internet, VoIP, Metro Ethernet and network monitoring services. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ciena worked with its South African systems integration partner, Telecom 180, to trial and deploy the Carrier Ethernet and optical transport platforms with iBurst.
http://www.ciena.com

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BT Reduces Costs as Revenue Decline 2%

For its recently concluded FY 2010, BT's revenues fell 2% to £20,911 million, ahead of expectations, largely due to the early delivery of around £100 million of revenue, primarily due to significant contract milestones in BT Global Services, without which revenue was down 3%. During the year, BT's total underlying operating costs and capital expenditure were reduced by £1,752 million, a reduction of 9%, ahead of its goal of cutting at least £1.5 billion.



Total labour costs, on an underlying basis, decreased by 16%, reflecting reductions in direct and indirect labour and lower pensions charges. Capital expenditure reduced by £555m to £2,533m, in line with our outlook of around £2.5bn. Free cash flow more than doubled to an inflow of £1,933m, compared with £737m last year, reflecting improved profitability and working capital and lower capital expenditure. Adjusted EPS increased by 16% to 18.6p due to the improved operating profit, partially offset by the higher net finance expense. Reported EPS was 13.3p


BT Retail revenue declined by 4% in the quarter and the year largely due to a continued reduction in our calls and lines revenue, driven by the challenging market conditions, particularly in the business market. Annual consumer ARPU increased to £309, up £8 over the previous quarter.

BT's retail market share of the DSL and LLU installed base remained at 35%. Net additions were 123,000 in the quarter, the highest in two years, and BT's retail market share was 44%, having now remained above 40% for five consecutive quarters.


BT Wholesale revenue declined by 5% in the quarter and 4% in the year largely as a result of the impact of low margin transit revenue declines of £51m in the quarter and £156m for the year, primarily due to mobile termination rate reductions, which has no impact on EBITDA.


Future Plans and Fibre Rollout


BT announced an additional investment of around £200m within our EBITDA outlook for 2010/11: mainly in the areas of enhancing our TV offering, introducing other new consumer propositions, fibre roll out and building on opportunities in BT Global Services, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. Depending on "favourable" investment conditions, BT will extend its current fibre roll out to around two-thirds of UK premises by 2015 for an incremental cost of around £1bn, while maintaining annual capital expenditure levels at around £2.6bn. The roll-out is already under way with four million homes due to have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2010.


BT also announced a commercial partnership with OnLive, a Silicon Valley based cloud gaming business, to provide online gaming services in the UK. In conjunction with this commercial partnership, we have taken a 2.6% shareholding in OnLive Inc. Based on the last audited accounts of OnLive Inc., at 31 March 2009, the proportionate value of gross assets that are the subject of this transaction is US$0.5m.
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Telefónica Reaches 273 million accesses, Up 4.6% year-on-year

In its quarterly financial report, Telefónica said results fell within its expectations with higher
revenue growth (+1.7% year-on-year) and positive trends in all markets, particularly Europe. Telefónica's net
profit rose 2% to 1,656 million euros. Revenue growth has picked up and risen 1.7% in reported terms (-2.1% for full year 2009) putting net revenue at 13,932 million euros. In organic terms growth was 0.9% compared to the
same period in 2009 (+2.4%, stripping out regulatory impacts), with Latin America and Europe
contributing the most to this organic growth (2.1pp and 0.4pp, respectively).


As of 31-March-2010, Telefónica was serving 273 million accesses worldwide (+4.6%, 2.6 percentage points
more than at 31 December 2009).


The number of adds grew 16.9% year-on-year which, combined with customer loyalty initiatives, saw net adds nearly multiplying by 2.6 times the figure of the same period in 2009. Excluding accesses at Hansenet and Medi Telecom in both periods, net adds in the first quarter of 2010 totaled 4.3 million accesses in organic terms.


By regions, of particular note is the increase in the number of Telefónica Europa (+6.7% year-on-year organic growth) and Telefónica Latinoamérica (+8.1% year-on-year) customers. By segments, we would highlight the growth in wireless accesses (+8.7%), fixed broadband (+8.7% in organic terms) and pay-TV (+9.3% in organic terms).


The broadband businesses (wholesale+retail) totaled 35 million accesses at 31 March. The retail fixed broadband business increased 25.2% (+8.7% year-on-year in organic terms) while the mobile broadband business advanced 97.5%.


Telefónica Group wireless accesses advanced 4.4 million in the first quarter to 206 million. The contract segment increased to 2.3 million accesses, contributing 53% to total net adds in the 3
quarter and accounting for 30% of total wireless accesses at 31 March.


Also worth highlighting is the performance of wireless net adds in Spain (189,000 accesses in the quarter vs. 10,000 in the same period in 2009) and Latin America (+3.7M Accesses).


Mobile broadband accesses increased to 16 million in the quarter.


In Spain 89% of retail broadband accesses are bundled as part of either a dual or triple service package, while in Latin America 57% of broadband accesses are bundled as part of a dual or triple package.


Pay TV accesses stood at 2.6 million at 31 March 2010 (+9.3% year-on-year in organic terms). It is also worth mentioning that the company now has pay TV operations up and running in Spain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina.
http://www.telefonica.es

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SingTel Sees Strong Growth

Singapore Telecommunications
reported strong growth across its operating units as net profit for its fourth quarter of FY 2010, ended 31-March-2010, rose 12 percent to S$1.02 billion. The Group's revenue grew 25 per cent to S$4.47 billion. Revenue from Singapore recorded double-digit increase of 13 per cent to S$1.64 billion, with strong performance in Mobile and IT & Engineering. In Australia, revenue rose 6 per cent to A$2.23 billion, reflecting strong results in Mobile.


Looking ahead, SingTel cited global macro-economic trends. As the global economic recovery gathers pace, the economies of Singapore, Australia and the region are expected to improve in 2010. The latest 2010 Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) forecast for Singapore is a growth of 7.0 to 9.0 per cent, following a contraction of 2.0 per cent in 2009. In Australia, the GDP growth is expected to accelerate to around 3.5 per cent for the year ending June 2011, from 2.3 per cent in the prior year. India and Indonesia are expected to register GDP growth of 6 to 8 per cent.
http://www.singtel.com

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