Huawei Wins LTE TDD Contract in Poland

Aero2, a wholesale mobile broadband operator in Poland, has selected Huawei to deploy a commercial LTE TDD network. The contract covers Huawei's end-to-end LTE TDD/EPC (Evolved Packet Core) solution. The network will become operational in early 2011. Huawei said this represents the world's first commercial LTE TDD deployment.


Aero 2 has 900 MHz and 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses.


"This milestone demonstrates that LTE TDD technology is already mature, stable and reliable for large-scale deployment," said Ying Weimin, President of LTE Network, Huawei. "Based on Huawei's LTE unified platform supporting both LTE FDD and LTE TDD, we are confident that the network will contribute to Areo2's success in the mobile broadband era."http://www.huawei.com
http://www.aero2.pl/

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Slovenia's Tusmobil Picks NSN for HSPA+ Running IPv6 and Direct Tunnel

Tusmobil, a mobile operator in Slovenia, has selected Nokia Siemens Networks for migrating to an all-IP, HSPA+ network on the 900 MHz frequency band. The upgrade will use NSN's Flexi Multiradio Base Station, FlexiPacket Microwave and complete IP-backhaul platform.


"This is a landmark project, since it marks the complete shift to an all-IP network including IPv6 and Direct Tunnel for the first time in the world," said Fotios Samelis, account manager from Nokia Siemens Networks.
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com
http://www.tusmobil.si/

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Juniper Releases SRX1400 Data Center Security Gateway

Juniper Networks released its SRX1400 security gateway designed for small to mid-size enterprise, service provider and mobile operator data centers. The SRX1400 delivers security at scale against a variety of attacks and unauthorized access on critical infrastructure, including the internet connection on the Gi interface, roaming exchanges and signaling networks. The platform, which features separate control and data planes, combines carrier-class resiliency with advanced inspection and protection capabilities developed specifically for mobile networks and applications.


Data center, enterprise and service provider security services include: stateful inspection of IPv4, IPv6, Streams Control Transmission Protocol, IPsec VPN, SSL decryption, IP and GTP hardware assisted Quality of Service, dynamic and virtual routing, AppSecure, Network Address Translation and application level gateways for IPv4 and v6, SCTP and GTP protocols.


The SRX1400 is available now and starts at $30K.
http://www.juniper.net

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AT&T U-verse Carries HBO GO, MAX GO Online Programming

AT&T U-verse TV customers now have full access to HBOGO.com and MAXGO.com, the online video portals backed by HBO and Cinemax. The online video destinations feature more than 1,200 hours of streamed programming. Viewers must subscribe to the HBO and/or Cinemax cable offerings in order to get the online access.
http://www.att.com

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Mellanox to Acquire Voltaire for $176 Million

Mellanox Technologies agreed to acquire Voltaire Ltd., a provider of scale-out data center fabrics, for $8.75 per share, or a total equity value of approximately $218 million ($176 million net of cash).


Voltaire offers a family of server and storage fabric switches and advanced management software. These products are included in server and blade offerings from Bull, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, NEC and SGI. Founded in 1997, Voltaire is headquartered in Ra'anana, Israel and Chelmsford, Massachusetts.


Mellanox Technologies is a supplier of end-to-end connectivity solutions for servers and storage that optimize data center performance. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and Yokneam, Israel.

The combined businesses currently have approximately 700 employees and achieved revenues of $217 million for the twelve months ended Sept. 30, 2010.


Mellanox said the deal will enhance its market position as a leading provider of end-to-end connectivity solutions for servers and storage systems. The combination will also help Mellanox achieve meaningful revenue and cost synergies over time, with estimated, annualized cost synergies of at least $10 million by the end of 2012.
Mellanox expects to run the combined business from both companies' current offices located in Israel, the United States and around the world. Further, Mellanox intends to retain both companies' existing product lines and will converge such lines in future product generations to ensure continuity for customers and partners of both companies.
http://www.mellanox.com
http://www.voltaire.com/

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O3b Secures Funding for Global Ka-band Satellite Network

O3b Networks has secured the US$1.2 billion in financing need to advance to the next phase in its global, broadband satellite venture. The total funding now comprises a US$510m Coface-backed Senior Debt Facility provided by HSBC, ING, CA-CIB and Dexia; a US$115m Senior Debt Facility and a US$145m Mezzanine Facility provided by HSBC Principal Investments, DBSA, AFDB, DEG, Proparco, FMO, IFC and EAIF*; and US$410m in equity financing, of which US$230m is new equity investment.


The additional equity is being provided by a group of existing shareholders that includes Google, North Bridge Venture Partners and Allen & Company, with SES, Liberty Global and HSBC Principal Investments taking the leading role. New investors include the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Sofina and Satya Capital. With this final round of funding, SES will become the largest minority shareholder of O3b Networks and will provide in-kind services, including commercial and engineering expertise.


O3b stands for the "Other 3 billion", a reference to nearly half of the world's population that is not adequately served with broadband internet access.


O3b's satellites will be placed in orbit 8,000 kilometers from the earth, four times closer to the planet than regular geostationary satellites, for low latency.


Thales Alenia Space is currently constructing O3b's first eight medium earth orbit Ka-band satellites. Arianespace has been chosen as the launch partner. ViaSat will provide the teleport and trunking product customer terminals.


O3b anticipates first commercial services in the first half of 2013.
http://www.o3bnetworks.com

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PMC-Sierra Intros High Density Dual Channel 6Gb/s SERDES

PMC-Sierra introduced its "SynthePHY" family of integrated dual channel 6Gb/s SERDES and programmable clock synthesizers for wireless infrastructure radio designs. The SynthePHY products offer 30 clock outputs that can be programmed over a wide frequency band, ranging from 3MHz to 1.6GHz and meet the phase noise performance required by multi-carrier GSM, WCDMA and LTE systems.


PMC-Sierra said its SynthePHY replaces up to four components by integrating dual 6Gb/s SERDES, jitter cleaner, on-chip voltage controlled oscillator, clock synthesizer and 30 programmable clock drivers (Fig. 1). It requires only 2200mW to operate all functions at their maximum rates. The high integration and low power of SynthePHY make it suitable for rack-mounted radios, as well as remote radio units where size and power are highly constrained.
http://www.pmc-sierra.com

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Level 3: Comcast Raises Toll Booth for Internet Video

Level 3 Communications is accusing Comcast of "raising a toll booth" for Internet movies. Last week, Comcast informed Level 3 that it will begin charging a recurring fee to Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content. Level 3 said it has agreed to this unilateral demand under duress, only because it was a "take it or leave it" demand from Comcast.


Comcast did not immediately respond to Level 3's accusation, but the recent Netflix deal, under which Level 3 will act as its primary content delivery network, is likely to lead to a surge of new traffic from Level 3 to Comcast. According to media reports, this could be lead to a 5:1 traffic ratio and Level 3's own policy has been to negotiate a settlement fee when peering exchanges are out of balance.


In a press statement, Thomas Stortz, Chief Legal Officer of Level 3, said:

"On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that, for the first time, it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content. By taking this action, Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content which competes with its own cable TV and Xfinity delivered content. This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access markets as the nation's largest cable provider.
"

"On November 22, after being informed by Comcast that its demand for payment was "take it or leave it," Level 3 agreed to the terms, under protest, in order to ensure customers did not experience any disruptions.


"While the network neutrality debate in Washington has focused on what actions a broadband access provider might take to filter, prioritize or manage content requested by its subscribers, Comcast's decision goes well beyond this. With this action, Comcast is preventing competing content from ever being delivered to Comcast's subscribers at all, unless Comcast's unilaterally-determined toll is paid -- even though Comcast's subscribers requested the content. With this action, Comcast demonstrates the risk of a ‘closed' Internet, where a retail broadband Internet access provider decides whether and how their subscribers interact with content.
http://www.level3.com

• Earlier in November, Level 3 Communications confirmed that it was selected to serve as the primary content delivery network (CDN) provider for Netflix. Financial terms were not disclosed. As a result of the deal, Level 3 announced further investment in its CDN capacity. Level 3 will double its storage capacity and add 2.9 Terabits per second (Tbps) of globally available CDN capacity. This is in addition to the 1.65 Tbps that was deployed in the third quarter of 2010. In addition to supporting Netflix for streaming movies and TV shows, Level 3 will store the entire Netflix streaming library of more than 20,000 titles. Over the course of November and December, the two companies will move the library to storage with Level 3 in preparation for serving traffic beginning Jan. 1, 2011.

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New Video: Service Provider Content Delivery Networks

Should Service Providers develop and deploy their own content delivery networks? Here's a two-minute look at how Service Providers can leverage on-net CDNs to break the cycle of broadband commoditization. Presented by Alcatel-Lucent's Lindsay Newell.


http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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