Portugal Telecom Selects Alcatel-Lucent's HLN Strategy

Portugal Telecom has awarded a three-year agreement to Alcatel-Lucent to extend the capacity of its IP/MPLS network to support existing and new services to its growing customer base. PT will evolve its converged IP/MPLS network based on Alcatel-Lucent's High Leverage Network (HLN) architecture.


The architecture will leverage an all-IP network layered with embedded intelligence and application awareness that improves the end-users experience as well as PT's ability to bring new services to market more efficiently. The platform will also enable Portugal Telecom to implement 100 Gigabit Ethernet, L2/L3 mobile backhaul and IPv6 services.


Specifically, Alcatel-Lucent will enhance PT's use of the 7750 Service Router, managed by the 5620 Service Aware Manager, to become the converged service edge for consumer Internet, IPTV and VoIP services, Carrier Ethernet VPNs services for enterprises and mobile backhaul services. The new, distributed architecture locates the IP service edge functionality at the edge of networks, close to subscribers, providing a significant increase in bandwidth per subscriber.
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
http://www.telecom.p

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HomePlug AV2 Spec to Support Gigabit-class Powerline

The HomePlug Powerline Alliance announced major advancements by its Technical Working Group (TWG) on the HomePlug AV2 specification, which will be fully interoperable with current HomePlug AV and future HomePlug Green PHY and IEEE 1901 products.


Key powerline enhancements the TWG selected for inclusion in the developing HomePlug AV2 specification include:

• MIMO (Multiple-Inputs Multiple-Outputs) offers significant increases in link throughput and range without requiring additional spectrum or transmit power. MIMO allows the data signal to propagate from multiple outputs to multiple inputs implementing advanced transmission coding schemes which will increase capacity and enable more reliable and expanded home coverage. This is similar to the 802.11n and 802.16e which use MIMO solutions with wireless products to extend performance.



• Increased MAC (Medium Access Control) efficiencies that lower overhead and expand throughput.
  
  
• Increased operating spectrum: the specification will expand operations into an additional spectrum, up to an order of magnitude beyond current powerline technology. This increased bandwidth will further improve performance.
  
  
• Extending coverage via repeating and routing technology in networks of three or more nodes

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The HomePlug AV2 specification is expected to deliver a 5x increase in performance over current HomePlug AV solutions at the application layer to offer significant improvements in whole home coverage to guarantee reliable delivery of throughput intensive applications such as multiple streams of 1080p HD video (and emerging 3D and 4K HD) broadband Internet, Internet gaming and security camera video over existing electrical wiring. These advancements are necessary to meet the increasingly demanding Quality of Experience (QoE) requirements of service providers and consumer electronics companies.
http://www.HomePlug.org

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Pacific Crossing Boosts Capacity

Pacific Crossing, which is a division of NTT Communications, has again boosted the capacity of its PC-1 trans-Pacific undersea cable network and expanded its Ethernet service capability.


The newly added capacity will come into service at the end of July. A third upgrade of the PC-1 system is scheduled for later in 2010.


Following its upgrade of the PC-1 system in 2008, which pushed the lit capacity of the cable over the 1Tbps mark, Pacific Crossing has now added additional wavelengths to boost trans-Pacific capacity further to more than 1.3Tbps. The upgrade has been implemented seamlessly on the existing PC-1 infrastructure, with no interruption to customer services and circuits.
http://www.pacificcrossing.com

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Dell'Oro: Ethernet Microwave Market Forecast

The point-to-point microwave equipment market is forecast to grow 30 percent over the next five years to $6.6 billion in 2014, according to a newly published report by Dell'Oro Group.


"Mobile data traffic is expected to nearly double each year in the near future and by 2014, the vast majority of traffic backhauled from cell sites will be data packets and not voice circuits," said Jimmy Yu, Sr. Director of Microwave Transmission research at Dell'Oro Group. "We believe this will drive demand for Ethernet microwave systems that allow mobile operators to scale their backhaul network beyond a few megabits of T1s and E1s to adding a full fast Ethernet. This migration to Ethernet will likely also give operators an opportunity to create a more efficient data backhaul network that takes advantage of statistical multiplexing and quality of service that prioritizes traffic according to its type. We, therefore, expect that combined Packet and Hybrid Microwave, both of which switch and transmit native Ethernet, will become 95 percent of the total radio transceiver shipments by 2014," Yu added.
http://www.delloro.com

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Korea's LG U+ Teams with Microsoft on Cloud Services

LG U+, the new Korean telecommunication service provider formed by the merger of LG Telecom, LG Dacom and LG Powercomm, will partner with Microsoft to offer a broad range of cloud services. By leveraging Microsoft Online Services, LG U+ will be able to deliver enterprise-class solutions and rich user experiences to small and midsize enterprises and consumers through its Smart Workplace offering. Additional services contemplated under the alliance include collaboration on cloud services across three areas, software as a service, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service.
http://www.microsoft.com
http://www.lguplus.com/

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ARRIS Posts Q2 Revenue of $280 Million

ARRIS reported Q2 2010 of $280.4 million, up approximately $1.9 million as compared to second quarter 2009 revenues of $278.5 million, and up $13.7 million as compared to first quarter 2010 revenues of $266.7 million. Through the first half of 2010 and 2009, revenues were $547.1 million and $532.0 million, respectively. GAAP net income in the second quarter 2010 was $0.15 per diluted share, as compared to second quarter 2009 GAAP net income of $0.18 per diluted share and the first quarter 2010 GAAP net income of $0.15 per diluted share. Year to date, GAAP net income was $0.30 per diluted share in 2010 as compared to GAAP net income of $0.28 per diluted share in 2009.


"The second quarter closed in line with our expectations and I continue to believe that we are well positioned for long-term growth," said Bob Stanzione, ARRIS Chairman & CEO. "I am particularly encouraged by our progress related to future products that will enable hybrid and full IP video architectures that our customers are now exploring."http://www.arrisi.com

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Meru Networks Reports Rapid Sales Rise

Meru Networks, which supplies enterprise WLAN solutions, reported Q2 2010 revenue of $20.9 million, up 22% from $17.1 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2009. Products and services revenues for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 were $18.0 million, up 47% from the $12.3 million reported in the second quarter of fiscal year 2009.


Net income as reported in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) was $0.9 million for the second quarter of 2010, or $0.05 per fully diluted share, compared to a net loss of $2.3 million, or net loss per share of $6.20, for the same period of fiscal year 2009.


"I am pleased with our second quarter results, which I believe demonstrate the continuing demand we're seeing from our key markets as well as our proven ability to execute," said Ihab Abu-Hakima, president and chief executive officer, Meru Networks.
http://www.merunetworks.com

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GENBAND Adds Automated Cutover to Softswitch

GENBAND introduced a new Automated Cutover capability to its C15 Compact Softswitch that eliminates downtime normally associated with network transitions to IP. The Automated Cutover capability is an embedded software utility that equips services providers to migrate legacy networks to IP without having to shut-down their network or perform time-consuming flash cutovers, which can result in loss of service for end users. It enables service providers to migrate multiple Central Offices on a site-by-site, frame-by-frame and line-by-line basis. During the network migration, inbound and outbound calls continue to route to the appropriate legacy TDM or C15 IP softswitch automatically.
http://www.genband.com

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NetLogic Posts Q2 Revenue of $95 Million

NetLogic Microsystems reported Q2 revenue of $95.0 million, a 10.2 percent sequential increase from $86.3 million for the first quarter of 2010 and a 192 percent increase from $32.5 million for the second quarter of 2009. Second quarter 2010 net loss (GAAP) was $4.8 million or $0.08 per diluted share. By comparison, GAAP net loss was $2.2 million or $0.05 per diluted share for the second quarter of 2009.


"This is a very exciting time for us," said Ron Jankov, president and CEO. "When we announced the merger with RMI last June, we were committed to not only executing on both companies' highly ambitious technology roadmaps, but also to leveraging each company's best-in-class technologies to offer our customers highly valuable and unique system-level solutions for communications networking. "http://www.netlogicmicro.com

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Telefónica gains control of Brazil's Vivo

Telefónicareached an agreement with Portugal Telecom to purchase 50% of Brasilcel held by the Portuguese operator.


The entity to result from the Telesp-Vivo business combination, to which Telefónica will bring its extensive track record in integrating acquisitions and capturing synergies, will be the largest integrated operator in Brazil by all key metrics: by customer numbers (69.2 million to March 2010), revenue/OIBDA (11.8 and 4.1 billion euros in 2009, respectively) 1, and profitability (OIBDA margin 2009: 35%).


Chairman of Telefónica, Cesar Alierta, said of the outcome: "We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Portugal Telecom which benefits both companies shareholders. It is a unique value creation opportunity. Vivo leads the Brazilian mobile telephony market, a market to which Telefónica is strategically committed."http://www.telefonica.com

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Sprint Nextel Adds 111K Subscribers in Q2

Sprint gained a total of approximately 111,000 net subscribers in the quarter. The company cited steady demand for smartphones like HTC EVO 4G and BlackBerry Curve combined with its best ever postpaid churn of 1.85 percent for the positive net postpaid subscriber growth of 136,000 on the CDMA network and 285,000 for the Sprint brand. The company also posted its best ever year-over-year quarterly net postpaid subscriber loss improvement of 763,000. The company achieved its best year-over-year quarterly improvement in postpaid gross subscriber additions in more than five years.


Sprint posted second quarter consolidated net operating revenues of approximately $8.0 billion, a net loss of $760 million and a diluted loss per share of 25 cents, which includes a non-cash $302 million (10-cent-per-share charge) increase in valuation allowance on deferred tax assets resulting from net operating loss carryforwards generated during the second quarter, for a pro forma diluted loss per share of 15 cents. The company generated $709 million of Free Cash Flow* in the quarter, and maintained a strong liquidity position with approximately $4.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter after retiring all 2010 note maturities of $750 million in the quarter.


"Our intense focus for the past ten quarters on improving the customer experience, strengthening our brands, and generating cash are paying off," said Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel CEO. "With strong cash flow, stable OIBDA and widespread third-party recognition for the improvements we're making in the customer experience, which in turn strengthens our brands, we feel we can confidently improve our subscriber forecasts for the second half of 2010 and deliver positive total net wireless subscriber additions for the remainder of the year."


Sprint 4G is now available in 43 markets serving approximately 51 million people. Its partner, Clearwire, expects coverage to reach up to 120 million people by the end of 2010 including deployments in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
http://www.sprint.com

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Comcast Report Q2 Revenue of $9.5 Billion

Comcast's revenue increased 6.1% in Q2 2010 to $9.5 billion, while Operating Cash Flow increased 5.7% to $3.7 billion and Operating Income increased 10.9% to $2.1 billion. This growth was due to solid operating results in the Cable and Programming segments, partially offset by $22 million of NBC Universal-related transaction costs.


"We delivered healthy operating and financial results in the second quarter, reflecting overall customer growth, double-digit increases in high-speed internet and voice revenue, an improving advertising market and continued momentum in Business Services. We are very focused on profitable growth. At the same time, we continue to make significant progress deploying All-Digital and DOCSIS 3.0," stated Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Comcast.


Capital Expenditures for the second quarter of 2010 increased 1.5% to $1.1 billion, or 11.9% of total revenue, reflecting increased investments in Comcast Business Services and product enhancement initiatives. For the six months ended June 30, 2010, capital expenditures decreased 9.6% to $2.1 billion, or 11.0% of total revenue.


As of June 30, 2010, Comcast's Video, High-Speed Internet and Comcast Digital Voice customers totaled 47.8 million, an increase of 3.4% over the prior year.
http://www.comcast.com

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NTT and Mitsubishi Electric Develop Advanced Encryption Scheme

NTT and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. have developed a new advanced encryption scheme that uses a mathematical approach called the "dual pairing vector spaces. The companies said their new encryption scheme will play an important role in achieving secure environments for cloud computing and other advanced network services. The two companies now plan to study how to efficiently implement and utilize this scheme for various applications.
http://www.ntt.co.jp

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Alcatel-Lucent Tests 100GE Performance with Isocore and Ixia

Isocore has tested and verified the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router's (SR) 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GE) performance using Ixia's K2 100 GE test solution. The tests validate the Service Router's ability to handle high-touch service connections at 100 Gbps line-rate speeds. The companies said the test results also demonstrate the viability of 100 GE for broad deployment throughout carrier networks, extending beyond the IP core and into the service edge and metro, where services meet the network.



This test is the first 100 GE demonstration of line-rate, loss-less transmission using a diverse mix of service traffic types with thousands of queues and service attributes, which are critical for service assurance. Ixia's K2 and IxNetwork were used to emulate the Ethernet and IP traffic seen on business VPN services offered to corporate customers who have stringent performance and service level agreement (SLA) expectations.


Specifically, Isocore and Ixia tested configurations that emulated large-scale connection and service attributes in service provider networks which offer high-touch IP and Ethernet VPN services. Isocore used Ixia's K2 100 GE test solution to transmit, capture and perform real-time analysis with full line-rate 100 GE Internet mix (IMIX) traffic in conjunction with layer 3 Virtual Private Networks (L3VPN), layer 2 VPNs, QinQ double tagging at the customer edge, and Ethernet Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS).


The test emulated both customer edge (CE) and provider edge (PE) routers with OSPF (Open Shortest Path First), LDP (Label Distribution Protocol) and MP-iBGP (multiprotocol-Interior Border Gateway Protocol) sessions. The Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR was configured with 8,000 IP-VPNs, 4,000 Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) links, and 20,000 layer 2 VPNs. The 7750 SR maintained comprehensive quality of service (QoS) on each flow while operating at 100 Gbps line rate.


Ixia noted that its Higher Speed Ethernet (HSE) solutions are the only full-production test products available today that validate IEEE 802.3ba standards-based network elements. Ixia's K2 modules generate and analyze 40 GE and 100 GE BERT and layer 2-7 line-rate traffic, with up to one million distinct flows. K2 modules are compatible with Ixia's testing applications, which allowed Isocore to initially develop its configurations using 10 GE interfaces and then to quickly adapt as needed to support Alcatel-Lucent's 100 Gbps service routing interfaces.
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
http://www.ixiacom.com

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