FIFA.COM Reports Traffic Spike

FIFA.com, the official website for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, reported huge traffic spikes on its website are tournament play reached the Final 16 stage. On June 23, FIFA.com delivered a total of more than 410 million page views. 126 million of them occurred shortly after the match between England and Slovenia ended between 5pm and 6pm local time in South Africa, when data requests from visitors reached more than one million a second.The numbers were expected to increase even further over the weekend and as the tournament progresses.FIFA.com estimates...

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South Africa's Telkom Sets Sights on Mobile, CEO to Step Down

Citing a continued slide in traditional voice revenue and growing competition, Telkom, South Africa's incumbent operator, reasserted its plan of restructuring into three business units."Our strategy seeking to re-position the Telkom Group is imperative given the tough operating environment. Similar to the strategies of other leading operators in the world, we are focusing on growing other revenue streams -- data centre operation, mobile and Africa...

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Russia's MTS and Comstar to Merge

Comstar-UTS, the leading fixed-line telecommunications company in Moscow, and Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), a leading mobile operator across Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, are planning a merger that will create the largest integrated telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS.Under the deal, 0.825 MTS ordinary shares would be exchanged for one Comstar Ordinary Share. The implied price represents a 13.1% Premium to the three month volume...

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Duke Energy Forms Joint Venture to Grow Communications Business

Duke Energy Corp., Alinda Capital Partners and DukeNet Communications LLC today announced the formation of a joint venture to grow DukeNet. An affiliate of Alinda will acquire 50 percent of the ownership interests in DukeNet from an affiliate of Duke Energy in exchange for $137 million in cash. Duke Energy, through it affiliate, will continue to own the remaining 50 percent in DukeNet.The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2010.DukeNet is one of the largest wholesale fiber-based carriers in the Southeastern U.S. It operates more...

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France's Covage Deploys Ericsson's GPON

Covage, a French network operator, has selected Ericsson to roll out an FTTH infrastructure to local and regional governments and estate owners. Ericsson will provide Covage with active and passive equipment for its fiber-optic networks as well as associated operator support services. The first deployment in Angoulême, France is already underway. Financial terms were not disclosed.Covage is an open access network operator, acting as the single point of contact for local and regional governments and property management agencies. Initially focused...

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Parks Associates Forecasts NAS Revenues to Exceed $4.4B in 2014

DVRs and video downloads will push the storage needs of U.S. broadband households to almost one terabyte by 2014, creating a parallel rise in the market for file backup and storage solutions, according to international research firm Parks Associates.The firm's new report Consumer Storage Opportunities finds almost 50% of households are performing regular backups, including external storage, flash drives, and online backup, up from only 35% in 2006.http://www.parksassociates....

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IPeak Awarded Patent for Packet Protection

IPeak Networks, a start-up based in Ottawa, was awarded a U.S. patent in connection with its "IPQ" (Internet Performance and Quality) packet protection technology designed for video conferencing, telepresence, and virtualized computing markets.Matthew Williams, IPeak Networks founder and chief technology officer, is the author of the patent and inventor of the IPQ technology. IPeak Networks implements the patented methods in a full line of IPQ appliance products for video conferencing and telepresence applications: IPQ VC2, IPQ Presence, and IPQ...

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Public Mobile Launches Service in Montreal

Public Mobile's Montreal network went live on 25-June-2010. The company has no contracts and no credit checks and offers two unlimited voice and texting plans."We want to give the people of Montreal an economical option," said Alek Krstajic, Chief Executive Officer of Public Mobile. Added Krstajic, "For the first time, people in Montreal can have a cell phone with unlimited talk and text at a predictable price. Whether they are calling friends and family locally, or in other parts of Canada, the United States, or overseas, Public Mobile's plans...

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Vopium Raises $16.5 Million for Mobile Alternative Skype

Vopium, a start-up based in Copenhagen, Denmark, has raised US$16.5 million from an Indian investor to support its efforts to launch a mobile alternative to Skype. The Indian investor, Raghuvinder Kataria, along with his own investment company are underwriting the funding.Vopium, which is headed by Tanveer Sharif, was originally intended for immigrants to Denmark who were looking for cheap telephony solutions to get in contact with family and friends...

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Senate Committee Adopts CyberSecurity Legislation

The U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved a major cybersecurity bill that would "fundamentally reshape" the way the federal government protects public and private sector cyber networks. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 (S.3480), which is sponsored by Senators Lieberman, Collins, and Carper, would create a White House Office of Cyberspace Policy to lead federal and private sector...

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