Monday, October 4, 2010

Bermuda's CellularOne Deploys HSPA+ with NSN

CellularOne (Bermuda Digital Communications Ltd.) has selected Nokia Siemens Networks to deploy HSPA+ island-wide. The network will peak download speeds of 21 Mbps and new features such as battery life extension for smartphones. The upgrade builds on CellularOne's existing network which already offers the best 3G coverage island-wide and roaming in over 200 countries. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.nsn.com
http://www.cellularone.bm/

Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 7500 Gains U.S. Gov Approval

Fujitsu's FLASHWAVE 7500 Multiservice Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) has been certified by the U.S. government for performance, security and interoperability requirements and added to the Unified Capabilities (UC) Approved Products List (APL).


The FLASHWAVE 7500 ROADM joins the FLASHWAVE 4100 ES Micro Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONP), the FLASHWAVE 4500 MSPP, and the FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet ONP among other Fujitsu platforms on the APL.


"The U.S. government and Fujitsu enjoy an extensive partnership that spans multiple departments and civilian agencies," said Jeana Cunningham, vice president of federal sales at Fujitsu Network Communications.


The approved version of the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 7500 platform includes a 40 Gbps interface that allows any existing 10 Gbps FLASHWAVE 7500 network to be expanded to support 40 Gbps with the simple addition of interface cards. In addition to native 40 Gbps services, another key feature of the FLASHWAVE 7500 ROADM is a 40G muxponder which allows four 10 Gbps client signals (including 10 Gbps Ethernet and OC-192 SONET) to be multiplexed into a single 40 Gbps wavelength. The platform also supports a 10G Flexponder card, which integrates a SONET Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) to groom OC-3, OC-12, OC-48 and Gigabit Ethernet client signals into a 10 Gbps wavelength.http://us.fujitsu.com/telecom

Qualcomm Cancels FLO TV, Opening 700 MHz Spectrum for Others

Qualcomm confirmed that it will close its FLO TV service by Spring 2011. If the service is discontinued before then, FLO TV will make appropriate refunds.


The company said that it is discussing future use of the network and its spectrum with potential partners. The resources could be used to address mobile data needs.
http://www.qualcomm.comIn 2008, Qualcomm won eight licenses in the FCC's 700 MHz spectrum auction at a total cost of $558.1 million. Specifically, Qualcomm purchased licenses in the E block covering the Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco Economic Area regions. These licenses doubled Qualcomm's 700 MHz spectrum holdings throughout a footprint of more than 68 million people in 28 individual markets for MediaFLO USA's "FLO TV" service (21 of its top 100 markets) at a cost of $554.6 million. In addition, Qualcomm purchased three licenses on the B block at a cost of $3.5 million.

AT&T offers HSPA+ Modem with LTE Software Upgrade Path

AT&T will begin offering a USB modem from LG that works on its HSPA mobile broadband network today and offers an upgrade path for its LTE network in the future.


LG's Adrenaline HSPA+ modem, which will be AT&T's first LTE-upgradeable device, is equipped with an internal antenna, plug and play functionality and multiple OS support. The upgrade for LTE connectivity will be made via a firmware download when the network capabilities become available. It also features Wi-Fi, built-in GPS for enterprise applications, a multi-color LED status indicator and a MicroSD memory card slot supporting cards up to 32 GB of storage.


AT&T also announced its first HSPA+ LaptopConnect device -- the Shockwave from Sierra Wireless. AT&T expects to upgrade its network to HSPA+ by the end of 2010.
http://www.att.com

AT&T Expands its Android Stable with Motorola

AT&T expanded its portfolio of Android devices with the introduction of three new smartphones from Motorola.


All three smartphones are powered by Android 2.1 and the latest version of MOTOBLUR, Motorola's exclusive smartphone experience.


  • The MOTOROLA FLIPOUT will be available for $79.99 with a two service agreement and 2 year smartphone data plan.


  • The MOTOROLA BRAVO will be available for $129.99 with a two service agreement and 2 year smartphone data plan.


  • The MOTOROLA FLIPSIDE will be available for $99.99 with a two service agreement and 2 year smartphone data plan.


All three devices feature Wi-Fi connectivity.
http://www.att.com

ETRI Collaborates with Metaswitch on MPLS-TP for P-OTS

South Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) is working with Metaswitch to build Carrier Ethernet / Packet-Optical Transport System (P-OTS) systems that use MPLS Transport Profile (MPLS-TP).


ETRI and Metaswitch have been working together since 2004, principally in the area of optical switching systems, using Metaswitch's MPLS and IP Routing network software products.


Metaswitch said this new initiative extends the partnership into the packet-optical arena, enabling ETRI to develop MPLS-TP systems that support both packet and optical networks, to provide unified transport capabilities across both wireless backhaul and backbone networks, with resilience and manageability, while providing familiar QoS, protection and restoration, and OAM capabilities.


"4G/LTE is going to require a major overhaul of Korean wireless networks, forcing a migration to MPLS-TP Carrier Ethernet / P-OTS systems," said Dr. Tae Whan Yoo, Director in ETRI's Optical Internet Department. "We've been very happy with the relationship with Metaswitch, and extending it to include MPLS-TP will help us drive that migration over the next few years."http://www.metaswitch.com
http://www.etri.re.kr

Cisco Updates Enterprise Portfolio

Cisco announced a number of new product releases in its Borderless Network portfolio (enterprise switching, routing, security and wireless), including a high-density Catalyst switch, an Adaptive Security Appliance firewall, a compact ASR 1000 Series router, and new entry-level 802.11n wireless access points. Additionally, Cisco announced the Application Velocity Network Service, a new network service that accelerates application performance physically and virtually.


Highlights of the announcements include:


The Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series switch -- a modular platform with 848 Gbps of system bandwidth and a density of 384 Power over Ethernet Plus (PoEP)-capable ports. Using the new Supervisor Engine 7-E, the Catalyst 4500E can serve as an aggregation switch with 100 ports at 10G. It supports hardware-accelerated Borderless Network Services like Cisco Medianet, Cisco EnergyWise, and Cisco TrustSec, and is now powered by Cisco IOS XE Software, enabling the delivery of third-party services. Cisco said the Catalyst 4500E delivers access resiliency with sub-10-millisecond supervisor failover.


The Cisco ASA 5585-X Adaptive Security Appliance -- a two-rack-unit box offering 20 Gbps of multiprotocol throughput and 35Gbps of large packet throughput, 10,000 VPN connections, 350,000 connections per second and 8 million total connections.


The Cisco ASR 1001 router -- a 1 RU compact edge routing solution offering up to 5Gbps performance throughput with services turned on.



The Cisco Aironet 1040 Series Access Point -- offering an entry-level price, reduced operational complexity and a competitive feature set.
http://www.cisco.com

Level 3 Boosts Managed Services with Integration Partner

Level 3 Communications is enhancing its managed services capabilities through a new agreement with Presidio Networked Solutions, a leading integrator that leverages equipment from ADTRAN, Cisco, Fortinet, and Riverbed Technology. Level 3's Managed Services combines in-house and partner capabilities. In particular, Level 3 expects this partnership will boost its dedicated Internet access (DIA) and IPVPN services. Leveraging Presidio's expertise, Level 3 is streamlining its fulfillment, provisioning, management and repair of customer premise equipment (CPE)-based services, including managed router, firewall, and wide area network (WAN) optimization. Additional options available with these services include intrusion detection service/intrusion prevention service (IDS/IPS) and secure access.
http://www.level3.com

Ethernet Alliance Completes 40/100G Interoperability Event

Sixteen Ethernet Alliance members gathered last month at Ixia's iSimCity in Santa Clara, California for an interoperability plugfest for products designed to support IEEE Std. 802.3baTM-2010, 40 and 100 Gbps Ethernet. This included test equipment, switches, routers, NICs, transceivers and cabling. The plugfest was assisted by the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL).


The Ethernet Alliance said plugfest participants were able to demonstrate effectively the interoperability of their products. Cables tested either met or exceeded IEEE Std. 802.3ba, and bit error ratio tests (BERT) were used in the transceiver and cable tests to verify link-level error-free operation within the requirements of IEEE Std. 802.3ba. Basic layer 3 traffic was used to verify system-level error-free operation.

Ixia provided 40 and 100 Gbps test ports, Cisco provided 40 and 100 Gbps switch and router ports, Mellanox provided 40 Gbps NICs, and development boards from Altera and Vitesse were used for transceiver testing.


Participating companies were Altera, Amphenol, CommScope, Cisco, FCI, Finisar, Ixia, Leviton, Mellanox Technologies, Opnext, Panduit, Siemon, Vitesse Semiconductor, and Volex Grouphttp://www.ethernetalliance.org

Alcatel-Lucent Employs Wind River/Freescale in Wireless Base Station Project

Alcatel-Lucent will use Wind River Linux, optimized for the Freescale QorIQ P4080 multi-core processor, to develop and support the common platform for present and future generations of its wireless network products, including both time division duplex and frequency division duplex variants of 4G or LTE base stations. This includes the recently released Linux kernel version 2.6.34. The latest revision of PREEMPT RT was used to advance pre-emption capabilities and create a Linux kernel that is more deterministic, with reduced latency for a real-time response.


"Wind River is able to provide customized, accelerated access to optimized multi-core hardware and software solutions to help Alcatel-Lucent achieve faster time-to-market for its 4G solutions," stated Mike Langlois, general manager for networking and telecommunications at Wind River.
http://www.windriver.com

2010 Cyber Security Report

A majority of network security professionals in a variety of industries across the U.S. are concerned that their company is not adequately equipped to protect itself from cyber attacks, according to a 2010 Cyber Security survey published by Narus, in collaboration with Converge! Network Digest and Government Security News. The overwhelming majority of respondents (93 percent) believe cyber attacks are on the rise and approximately 88 percent think the government is not equipped to protect itself.


Some key findings:

  • Respondents cited viruses and malware (67 percent) and DoS attacks (50 percent) as significant threats to organizations today.


  • Respondents (nearly 74 percent) expect their service provider to provide protection against cyber attacks.


  • The clear majority of respondents (90 percent) believe the best way to protect against cyber attacks is with a solution that detects, analyzes and mitigates unwanted, unwarranted or malicious traffic in real time.


  • Many fear critical networks face significant threats and are concerned that an overwhelming majority (95 percent) believe those attacks are increasing in sophistication, as compared with attacks from a year or two ago.


  • Although malicious activity on the Web has undoubtedly prompted most -- if not all -- organizations to put some sort of network security in place, more than 73 percent of respondents feel the onus of security should fall to their respective carriers or service providers.


Narus, which supplies real-time traffic intelligence and analytics technologies, said that as more networks become compromised, it is evident that standard approaches using signature- and policy-based software and hardware such as malware/anti-virus, firewalls, IDS/IPSs, and SEMs alone or in combination are critical but insufficient. Rather, a multi-tiered system based on vulnerability analysis and risk assessment of the data contained in the network -- enabling complete network and data visibility in distributed, heterogeneous networks and real-time processing and policy enforcement -- will emerge as a more desirable and complete
solution.


Narus is calling on cyber security vendors to cooperate with each and form an interoperable "cyber security ecosystem" that enables the best of forensics, visualization, data mining and storage.


"Narus sponsored this survey to uncover what's important to the people most affected by malicious cyber activity -- the network and security professionals," said Greg Oslan, CEO and president of Narus. "Armed with these results, Narus can bolster its campaign to arm the world's most critical networks with cyber protection -- a solution that will provide the ability to see clearly and act swiftly."



The full 2010 Cyber Security Report is available for download
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http://www.convergedigest.com/cybersecurityreport2010.html