AOptix Wins $11.4 Million DARPA Grant for Free Space Optical

AOptix Technologies has been awarded a $11.4 million contract to deliver wireless air and ground optical terminals for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Free Space Optical Experimental Network Experiment (FOENEX) program. Under subcontract to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL), AOptix will build and flight-validate their Free Space Optical (FSO) terminals at up to 10Gbps and 200 kilometers on various aircraft...

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Motorola Spin-Offs Make Market Debut

The two divisions of Motorola made their market debuts on Friday with the launch of "when issued" shares. The official split occurs on January 4.Motorola Mobility Holdings (MMI) is the company's smartphone division. It closed at $25 on Friday.Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI) is the company's division that includes public safety radios, handheld scanners and telecom gear. It closed at $40.51. Both companies will continue to use the Motorola brand.h...

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A1 Telekom Austria Pushes DSL Capacity with ALU

A1 Telekom Austria is now reaching 40% of all Austrian households and commercial businesses through its nationwide GigaNet, which uses FTTC (Fiber-to-the-curb) and FTTEx (Fiber-to-the-exchange, also known as VDSL@CO), to deliver high-speed Internet service.The carrier now its pushing the envelope of its copper access network by demonstrating next-gen technologies such as VDSL Vectoring and the so-called "Phantom Mode". In the course of the demo,...

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Swisscom Partners with IWB on Open Access FTTH in Basel

Swisscom and IWB (Industrielle Werke Basel), the local utilities operator, announced a plan to bring FTTH connections to all households and businesses in Basel by the end of 2017. Under the joint venture, Swisscom will assume 60% and IWB 40% of a total investment of around CHF 170 million. The fibre-optic cables that have already been installed by Swisscom and IWB in Basel will be included in the joint venture between the two companies. This will...

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ST Intros New Set-top-box Decoder/Demodulators

STMicroelectronics unveiled two new System-on-Chip ICs that allow standard-definition (SD) or high-definition (HD) equipment to share the same printed-circuit-board (PCB) design. The new devices are based on the widely used STi7167 and STi5267, respectively. Targeting free-to-air, cable and terrestrial STBs, as well as hybrid products with added support for IPTV, each device combines the STB decoder with DVB-C cable and DVB-T terrestrial demodulators, plus optional Ethernet support. Each device supports targeted functions for cost-optimized STBs...

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AT&T Boosts Dividend by 2.4%

AT&T announced a 2.4 percent increase in the company's quarterly dividend and a 300 million share repurchase authorization, representing about 5 percent of outstanding shares. The quarterly dividend rate has risen from $0.42 to $0.43 a share on a quarterly basis, which would be an increase from $1.68 to $1.72 a share on an annualized basis. http://www.att....

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Mitsubishi Electric to Launch WCDMA Power Amplifiers

Mitsubishi Electric will launch five new gallium arsenic (GaAs) power amplifiers for WCDMA devices. Mitsubishi Electric said it has achieved an industry-leading power added efficiency (PAE) of 45 percent, enabling lower power consumption and heat emission in data terminals. The design incorporates GaAs bipolar field effect transistor (BiFET) technology for high PAE and high level of integration. http://www.MitsubishiElectric....

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Nortel Completes Sale of Ottawa Campus

Nortel Networks completed the sale of its Ottawa Carling Campus to Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) for a cash purchase price of CDN$208 million. Nortel will continue to occupy parts of the campus while continuing work on its global restructuring, including work under the transition services agreements with the various buyers of Nortel's sold businesses. The purchaser has exercised early termination rights to a lease held by Ciena, the purchaser of Nortel's Optical Networking and Carrier Ethernet (MEN) business. This shortens...

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