Monday, December 13, 2010

DragonWave Selected for Xplornet 4G Network in Canada

Barrett Xplore will deploy DragonWave's wireless backhaul technology for its new 4G network in rural Canada. Under the, multimillion-dollar contract, DragonWave will supply its Horizon Compact and Horizon Quantum products.


Barrett Xplore's investment in this new 4G terrestrial network will be approximately $150 million. Construction of the terrestrial network - capable of 40 Mbps download speeds - began in the fall. When complete, that network will deliver speeds up to 100 Mbps and will consist of 1,200 towers strategically located in rural areas. The terrestrial wireless network will be complemented by a new 4G satellite network, which will be based on new High-Throughput Satellite (HTS) architecture, starting with the first satellite - Viasat-1 - scheduled to launch in 2011, followed by a second satellite - Hughes - Jupiter - in early, 2012. These satellites will allow Barrett to provide robust speeds up to 25Mbps.


"Barrett Xplore's mission is to bridge the urban/rural broadband divide in Canada," said Barrett Xplore VP of Strategic Technology Jeff Burlock. "4G will mean that fast, robust, affordable broadband services will be available to all Canadians, regardless of location. The services and benefits of rural broadband cannot be overstated. From telecommuting, to new business growth in rural areas, to distance health and education, rural broadband can change the face of Canada."http://www.dragonwaveinc.com/

ALU's Motive Home Device Manager Reaches 50m Milestone

Alcatel-Lucent's Motive division, which provides broadband device management solutions, has reached a milestone of 50 million devices under management with its Home Device Manager (HDM) product. This is up from 10 million devices under management just 24 months ago. In the same period, Motive has added 25 customers; HDM is now deployed by more than 85 service providers worldwide.


Motive HDM combines robust provisioning, maintenance and support capabilities into a single product. This allows service providers to configure, upgrade and manage a wide range of customer premises equipment (CPE) - including residential gateways, IPTV set-top boxes, VoIP adapters, femtocell access points and other home networking devices - using a single, device-agnostic interface.
http://www.motive.com
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Fujitsu FLASHWAVE and SafeNet Ethernet Encryptor Interoperate

Fujitsu and SafeNet completed interoperability testing of the FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONP) and SafeNet Ethernet Encryptor 10G. The combined solution has met or exceeded the US government's criteria for performance and security.


Already on the Unified Capabilities (UC) Approved Products List (APL), the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet ONP is a new class of optical transport solution, simultaneously supporting Connection-oriented Ethernet (COE), ROADM and SONET/SDH. The SafeNet Ethernet Encryptor 10G is Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 Level 3 certified, having proven its ability to protect highly sensitive computer and telecommunications transmissions over Wide Area Networks.http://us.fujitsu.com/telecom
http://www.safenet-inc.com

Avaya Expands R&D in Ontario

Over the next three years, Avaya has committed to invest $165 million in its global R&D facilities in Ottawa and Belleville, Ontario. The facilities will develop key components of Avaya's solutions for the enterprise and small to medium business markets. The Ontario government will contribute $5 million towards the initiative, which supports 350 skilled R&D positions working on next generation Unified Communications (UC) and collaboration technologies.
http://www.avaya.com

IEEE to Develop New P1905.1 Home Networking Standard

The IEEE has approved the development of a new draft standard, P1905.1TM, for home networking. The aim is to create an abstraction layer for multiple home networking technologies. This would create a common data and control Service Access Point for hybrid home networks that use IEEE 1901 Broadband Over Powerline (BPL), IEEE 802.11 wireless, IEEE 802.3 Ethernet, and the Multimedia over Coax Alliance's MoCA 1.1 technologies. The new abstraction layer would support dynamic interface selection for transmission of packets arriving from any interface (upper protocol layers or underlying network technologies). End-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) is a key goal.


A new IEEE Working Group has been formed and is holding its inaugural meeting in Paris this week.


"As there is not a single networking technology that ideally addresses all of today's applications, platforms, and environments, IEEE P1905.1 represents a fundamental advancement for home networking," said Paul Houzé of France Telecom-Orange, and Chair, IEEE P1905.1 Working Group. "Creating a bridge between the world's most popular wired and wireless technologies will bring much-needed synergy, making home networks easier to use and elevating their overall performance."


IEEE P1905.1 aims to streamline network performance by dynamically managing packets from different wireless or wired interfaces, and maximizing network bandwidth to ensure reliable content delivery across all home networking technologies. The draft standard is being developed with cooperative support from a variety of key stakeholders, including chipmakers, OEMs, and service providers, ensuring broad international, cross-industry adoption. It is expected that this deep level of engagement will aid in reducing market fragmentation and shortening time-to-market product cycles.http://standards.ieee.orghttp://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1905/1/

Frontier: Extending Broadband for Rural Reach








Joy Eldad, Regional VP of Engineering for Frontier Communications, discusses broadband rollouts in the territories recently acquired from Verizon.
http://www.frontiercorp.com
  • In July 2010, Frontier completed its acquisition of Verizon Communications' ( local wireline operations in 14 states. The combined operations will provide voice, High-Speed Internet, wireless Internet data access, satellite video, FiOS and other services to more than 4.0 million residential and business customers in 27 states using the Frontier Communications brand. This transaction positions Frontier as the largest pure rural telecommunications carrier in the United States.

Actelis Wins Major EFM over Copper Deployment with Cbeyond

Cbeyond, a leading provider of IT and business communications to SMBs operating in 13 U.S. markets, has selected Actelis' Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) over copper solutions for major deployment. Actelis' EFMplus-powered products, including its ML600 Ethernet access devices and ML2300 Ethernet aggregation switches. The platform will enable Cbeyond to speeds of up to 100Mbps per customer over dry copper leased from the ILEC. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"Partnering with Actelis will help Cbeyond deliver advanced business-class services to help small business customers across the U.S. boost productivity and grow," said Brett Burgett, senior director network engineering and architecture at Cbeyond.


"Actelis is honored to be partnering with Cbeyond in our shared vision of delivering superior Ethernet solutions to the nation's small-to-medium-size businesses," said Joe Manuele, executive vice president of worldwide sales and customer service at Actelis. "Actelis' proven ability to accelerate broadband deployment and supply the best broadband rates and coverage of any EFM over copper solution gives Cbeyond a significant advantage."http://www.actelis.com
http://www.cbeyond.net

Broadcom Shows 40nm Quad-Port 10G Controller

Broadcom introduced its latest generation of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) converged controllers designed for high-volume, converged local-area-network-on-motherboard (LOM) and converged network adapter applications.

The new 40 nanometer (nm) controller family represents the industry's first offering of quad-port converged controllers, delivering up to twice the port density of existing products. The smaller footprint enables extremely low power per port. Broadcom also supports the latest PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 specification.
http://www.broadcom.com

Broadcom Boosts Financial Guidance for Q4

Broadcom increased its financial guidance for the Q4 2010 to the top end of the prior range of approximately $1.9 billion. Product Gross Margin (GAAP) is expected to be down slightly sequentially due to warranty and excess & obsolete charges. The company held its Analysts Day on Tuesday.


"Our increased revenue guidance reflects stronger than expected demand for products in our Mobile and Wireless markets versus our initial expectations entering the quarter," said Scott McGregor, President and Chief Executive Officer of Broadcom.
http://www.broadcom.com

AppliedMicro Debuts 100G OTN Muxponder

AppliedMicro introduced a 100G Muxponder (multiplexing transponder) solution for Optical Transport Networks (OTN) featuring an integrated framer/mapper PHY and the company's "SoftSilicon" flexibility . The 100G Muxponder can multiplex any combination of 10G and 40G client signals into a 100G OTN signal (OTU4).


The solution unifies AppliedMicro's TPO404 OTU4 multiplexer and PQ60T 10-40G mapper/framer with a common Application Programming Interface (API) that enables efficient integration and maintenance efforts for equipment vendors. AppliedMicro's 100G Muxponder supports any combination of signals from 10G and 40G Ethernet to legacy OC192/OC768 SONET/SDH, as well as 8G and 10G Fibre Channel. It also provides interoperability with all major forward error correction (FEC) schemes in long-haul optical network architectures. The company is offering reference platforms for 100G blades and systems. Pin-outs and data sheets are now available.
http://www.apm.com
  • In November, AppliedMicro introduced a family of 100 Gbps optical network processors for the Packet-Optical Transport System (P-OTS) and IP-over-DWDM transport markets. Leveraging SoftSilicon programmable technology developed by TPack, the new devices support the recently-adopted 100GE (IEEE ) and OTU4 (ITU-T) interface standards. The first two new devices in the family, TPOT414 and TPOT424, are 100G transponders for metro/core OTN and packet networks. The devices interface directly to CFP or MSA-168 type optical modules for standalone transponder applications or for line cards in larger systems. AppliedMicro said its SoftSilicon technology enables the same device to be configured to run as an 100GE-OTU4 transponder or as an OTU4-OTU4 transponder. The soft approach also enables flexibility as specs are updated.


  • Earlier this year, AppliedMicro acquired TPACK A/S, a developer of programmable chip solutions for packet transport networks, for $32 million in cash plus up to $5 million in cash earn-outs depending on performance milestones over the next eighteen months. TPACK, which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, developed a "SOFTSILICON" solution implemented in Altera FPGA devices. The SOFTSILICON products are used in 10, 40 and 100 Gbps OTN switching and routing network equipment.

Altera Acquires Avalon for 100G OTN

Altera has acquired Avalon Microelectronics, a developer of Optical Transport Network (OTN) technology, for an undisclosed sum. Altera plans to integrated this intellectual property use in its FPGA and ASIC products supporting data rates at 1.2G, 2.5G and 10G, as well as 40G and 100G.


"As FPGAs increasingly replace ASICs and ASSPs in the heart of many systems, Altera is delivering more system-level technologies and solutions to our customers," said Don Faria, senior vice president, Communication and Broadcast Business Division, at Altera. "Avalon has been a key partner for many years and is the sole IP supplier for the 100G OTN solutions implemented in our FPGAs. With its strong system expertise in transmission applications and detailed FPGA knowledge, Avalon has established itself as a key provider to numerous top-tier communications infrastructure OEMs. We are excited to have Avalon join the Altera family.
http://www.altera.com