Thursday, March 31, 2011

Websense: LizaMoon Mass SQL-Injection Attack Continues

The number of web pages with malicious links is likely to have topped 1 million, according to Websense, which is tracking the "Lizamoon" SQL Injection attack. Lizamoon inserts a malicious hyperlink onto a website. The user is then directed to a rogue anti-virus site, where he/she is urged to install a fraudulent Windows Stability Center application.



http://www.websense.com

Ericsson Accuses ZTE over Patent Infringement, ZTE Responds in Kind

Ericsson filed an intellectual property infringement lawsuit in Europe against ZTE regarding three patents for mobile and infrastructure technology. ZTE has responded by saying it will file its own patent infringement claims against Ericsson.http://www.ericsson.com http://www.zte.com.cn

Lightower Completes Acquisition of Open Access Inc.

Lightower Fiber Networks, a leading metro fiber network and bandwidth service provider, completed its previously announced acquisition of Open Access Inc., a provider of diverse, cost-effective, customized end-to-end communications solutions, based in Farmingdale, NY.



With the acquisition of Open Access, Lightower expands its network and customer base throughout Long Island and the greater New York City region. This expansion adds backbone fiber to Lightower's already dense Long Island network and also adds access to over 230 commercial buildings and data centers throughout the region.http://www.lightower.com

  • Lightower Fiber Networks is backed by M/C Venture Partners, Pamlico Capital, and Ridgemont Equity Partners. In 2007, M/C Venture Partners and Pamlico Capital together acquired Lightower.


  • In 2008, Lightower acquired DataNet Communications and KeySpan Communications.


  • In 2010, Lightower acquired Veroxity Technology Partners and Lexent Metro Connect.


  • Earlier in 2011, Lightower signed an exclusive network agreement with NSTAR Communications, which further enhanced the reach and density of Lightower’s all-fiber network in downtown Boston and in the surrounding greater Boston area.

Germany's E-plus Builds Off-grid Base Station with NSN

E-Plus, a leading mobile service provider in Germany, has deployed the first base station in Germany that is not connected to the nation's electricity grid.



The base station is powered by a combination of solar and wind power, which are supported by fuel cell and deep cycle batteries. The base station was built by Nokia Siemens Networks' end-to-end Energy Solutions business. The installation uses a solar tracking system, which follows the sun and turns the maximum surface of the solar panels toward it, to increase solar energy production for the site operation. Nokia Siemens Networks' Green Energy Controller manages the solar energy, a wind turbine, a fuel cell system and the deep cycle battery technology, which is mounted in SiteStar cabinets for extended life time. The vendor has also extended its network management platform, NetAct, for network monitoring and optimization to enable energy management of this site.



"With this innovative energy concept, we show how mobile phone transmission sites can become carbon neutral," said Rafal Markiewicz, chief technology officer of E-Plus Group. "This new transmission plant is part of our sustainability strategy. For us, building the first green base station site of this type is an important achievement and underlines our claim to operate the most efficient network in Germany."



"E-Plus' commitment to the environment is closely aligned with our own, and it's great to see that the operator will achieve energy efficiency and zero CO2 emission during this site's operation," added Stefan Ilchmann, responsible for E-Plus business at Nokia Siemens Networks.http://www.nsn.comwww.eplus-gruppe.de/presse

Australia's NBN Co. Suspends Tender in Push for Cost Cutting

Australia's NBN Co abruptly and indefinitely suspended its network construction tender. After four rounds of pricing negotiations with construction companies, NBN Co. said it was unable to secure acceptable terms and prices.



NBN Co Head of Corporate Services, Kevin Brown said: "We have said all along that we are building an NBN, but not at any price. We have thoroughly benchmarked our project against similar engineering and civil works projects in Australia and overseas and we will not proceed on the basis of prices we are currently being offered.



"NBN Co is confident it can secure better value for money by going a different route. We have left the option open to continue negotiations at a later stage."http://www.nbnco.com.au

Data Breach at Epsilon Exposes U.S. Email Addresses

A data breach at Epsilon, which describes itself as the world's largest permission-based email marketer, has comprised the names and email addresses of millions of U.S. consumers. Epsilon began informing its clients of the breach on April 1. Major retailers who have begun informing their customers of the breach include Best Buy, Chase, Citibank, Kroger, TiVo, Walgreen's and others.http://www.epsilon.com

TelePacific Completes Acquisition of Covad Wireless

TelePacific Communications, the largest California-based CLEC serving the SMB market, completed its previously announced acquisition of NextWeb, Inc., dba Covad Wireless, a broadband fixed wireless carrier operating in California, Nevada and the Chicago, Illinois area.



Through its acquisition of NextWeb, TelePacific now controls a WiMAX-featured wireless broadband network, a licensed microwave backhaul network, and a high bandwidth wireless network operating in licensed LMDS spectrum. The new network assets complement TelePacific's existing footprint and allows the company to broaden its product offerings in markets where it is already competitive. Further, the purchase supports TelePacific's strategy of investing in advanced broadband transport technologies.



TelePacific will also gain the benefit of approximately 3,500 profitable broadband fixed wireless business customers in California, Nevada and suburban Chicago.



TelePacific continues to be privately-held and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.http://www.telepacific.com

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

AppliedMicro Enhances its Multi-core PacketPro Processors

AppliedMicro announced the availability of "Diamondback" APM86392 and APM86391, the newest members of its PacketPro™ family of multi-core embedded processing devices. The new processors feature an asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) capability that enables two or more independent subsystems to operate concurrently with effective isolation on a single chip.



AppliedMicro said this feature improves application performance and provides an easier migration to multicore designs with greater flexibility for a wide range of embedded applications in networking, storage, printing, imaging, and multimedia access systems.



Traditional multi-core processors force software engineers to dedicate one of the cores as a master to control the operations of the other slave cores. By harnessing innovative features of the PacketPro family enabled by AppliedMicro's Scalable Lightweight Intelligent Management processor (SLIMpro) subsystem, developers can implement AMP on APM8639x processors without dedicating one of the cores as a master. This enables completely separate and isolated partitions on a single chip, each with independent operating systems, applications, software, processing bandwidth, I/O and cache. Each subsystem is decoupled from other subsystems during software updates, crashes, rebooting, peak performance demands or other events that can interrupt continuous operations.



"In instances of a system fail requiring complete reboot, the PacketPro allows the decoupling of cores without interruption or impact of other subsystems running on the same embedded SoC device," said Jim Johnston, Senior Director of Marketing at AppliedMicro. "Before this, both subsystems would have to be taken down to reboot one operating system due to dependencies from shared cache memory and other resources. AppliedMicro's approach provides each processor with separate and virtualized access to processor resources that one subsystem can continue operation even if any of the other ones becomes inoperative."http://www.apm.com/products/process.html

Xilinx Acquires Omiino

Xilinx has acquired privately-held Omiino, a developer of OTN transponders and muxponders, framers and mappers. Financial terms were not disclosed. The company is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

http://www.omiino.com

John Chambers: Where Cisco is Taking the Network

Cisco is a $40 billion company that for the last decade has seen a virtual explosion in market opportunity but that must now regain the discipline it had in earlier days and re-focus, writes John Chambers in a message to Cisco employees that was posted on the company blog.



Chambers argues that the company's fundamental strategy is right -- extend the network platform to enable collaboration, data center / cloud transformation and video architectures on a global scale. However, he acknowledges that the company has "disappointed our investors and we have confused our employees" and must now earn back the credibility that was lost by the lack of focus.



Chambers does not lay out any concrete steps in the making. He promises bold steps and tough decision ahead to clean out the portfolio "with surgical precision."http://www.cisco.com

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) Update







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http://www.gsmworld.com/

Orckit-Corrigent Lands 3 More Customers for Packet Transport

Orckit Communications announced that three new service providers selected its PTN solution in March 2011 for migration from their legacy SONET/SDH networks to future-proof packet based networks. The initial purchases placed by all three service providers are for immediate deployments. Two providers are based in the Caribbean and Latin America and the third is in Eastern Europe. Customer names and financial terms were not disclosed.



Orckit's PTN solution is designed to scale up the delivery of residential, business and mobile backhauling services in next-generation telecom networks. Incorporating its CM-4000 product family, Orckit's PTN solution encompasses a series of PTN switches based on MPLS and MPLS-TP technologies that offer a flexible mix of Ethernet and TDM services that facilitate the migration toward a packet based network.http://www.orckit.com

Etisalat Declines Bid for Syrian Mobile License

Etisalat announced that it will not seek a mobile license in Syria, despite having earlier qualified to participate in the bidding process. Etisalat said terms and conditions of the bid would not enable it to achieve its objectives regarding the technology and value it wishes to bring to the market nor for its investors and shareholders.



Ahmed bin Ali, the official spokesperson of Etisalat said "We worked hard on this opportunity especially due to the close relations with us and our sister country Syria, but we hoped that the terms and conditions for the license would have been more attractive."http://www.etisalat.ae

ATIS Task Force Issues Network Convergence Recommendations

ATIS released a set of major recommendations addressing the transition of telecommunications network facilities and technology platforms in a multi-carrier environment. Specifically, the ATIS Consolidation & Convergence Task Force Assessment & Recommendations, March 2011, focuses on the following key steps in this migration: (1) fiber replacing copper; (2) reduction in the number of network centers; and (3) changes in legacy geographic- and service-based policies.



The Task Force was convened by AT&T and Verizon with participants from Alcatel-Lucent, Corning, Ericsson, Intel, Juniper and Qwest.



The CC-TF Assessment & Recommendations document covers: Planning for Consolidation & Convergence; Resiliency, Survivability and Disaster Recovery in a Consolidated & Converged Environment; Interoperability; Environmental Impacts; Applications Services and more.



"Industry's migration of legacy systems to IP-based networks affords it a tremendous opportunity to consolidate facilities, converge networks, and extend or expand IP-enabled innovative services," said Susan Miller, ATIS President and CEO. "Through the CC-TF's efforts to share lessons learned and compile best practices, ATIS is able to offer guidance and assist these efforts by providing the ICT community with recommendations to move these initiatives forward."http://www.atis.org

XO Posts Q4 Revenue of $390.3 million, up 4%

XO Holdings reported total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2010 was $390.3 million, an increase of $14.5 million, or 4%, compared to the year-ago period. Adjusted EBITDA was $59.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared to $43.3 million in the year-ago period. Net loss for the fourth quarter 2010 was $6.5 million compared to $13.3 million net income for the year-ago period. The company said its Q4 net loss was primarily due to a $20.0 million impairment charge related to its LMDS licenses.



Total revenue for 2010 was $1.5 billion, an increase of $8.0 million, or less than 1%, compared to 2009. Adjusted EBITDA (a non-GAAP financial measure) increased 25% to $191.1 million for 2010 compared to $152.6 million for 2009. Net loss for 2010 was $11.8 million compared to $21.8 million net income in 2009.http://www.xo.com

Vodafone Acquires 33% Essar for $5 Billion

Vodafone Group has acquired the 33% stake in Vodafone Essar that was held by Essar. This will result in a total cash payment of US$5 billion to Essar. Final settlement is anticipated to be no later than November 2011. Vodafone Group's noted that its published net debt figure already includes this US$5 billion. Vodafone's stake in Vodafone Essar is now expected to exceed 75%.http://www.vodafone.com

NTT DOCOMO Boosts Investment in India's Tata Teleservices

NTT DOCOMO will make an additional investment in Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) as part of its strategy to expand its business presence and revenue sources in India's rapidly growing mobile market.



DOCOMO plans to newly invest approximately 8 billion Indian rupees, or about 14.6 billion yen (1 rupee = 1.83 yen as of Feb. 28, 2011) based on its current 26% stake in TTSL. Payment of one portion of the funds has been made so far, and the rest of the investment is scheduled to be completed in May.



TTSL is expected to use the capital to expand the coverage as well as strengthen the quality of the 3G network it launched in November 2010, responding to increasing market competition for new customers.http://www.ntt.co.jp

Ofcom Proposes new Wholesale Prices for Openreach

Ofcom proposed reduced fees that Openreach, BT's wholesale access division, can charge communications providers for access to some of its main wholesale telecoms services in areas where it retains significant market power. Specifically:



For a fully unbundled line to a property - where a communications provider takes over the line to provide broadband and telephone services.



The regulated wholesale price today is £89.10 per year. Under Ofcom's proposals this will decrease in real terms by between RPI-1.2% and RPI-4.2% every year.



For a shared unbundled line to a property – where a communications provider uses a proportion of the line only for the provision of broadband.



The regulated wholesale price today is £15.04 per year. Under Ofcom's proposals this will decrease in real terms by between RPI-11.6% and RPI-14.6% every year.



For wholesale line rental – used by communications providers to offer telephone services to consumers using lines rented from Openreach.



The regulated price today is £103.68 per year. Under Ofcom's proposals this will decrease in real terms by between RPI-3.1% and RPI-6.1% every year.http://media.ofcom.org.uk/

UK Regulator to Trims its Budget by 28%

Ofcom, the official telecoms regulator for the U.K., announced plans to reduce its total budget by 28.2 per cent in real terms over four years to 2014/15. The majority of these cuts will be made in year one.



In 2011/12 Ofcom's total budget will be £115.8m. This is a 22.5 per cent real terms year-on-year reduction, some £26.7m. Savings will be made across a wide range of Ofcom's expenditure. Ofcom said it will retain its capability and effectiveness.



Ofcom began a significant review of its spending in early 2010, some months ahead of the Government's spending review which concluded in October. By planning early Ofcom identified and made a number of efficiency savings within the financial year ending 31 March 2011.



This has contributed to a £14.9m saving against Ofcom's budget for 2010/11. Other savings result from the change in responsibilities for the delivery of Digital Participation and delays to the implementation of measures in the Digital Economy act.http://media.ofcom.org.uk

AT&T Markets Mobile Protection

AT&T has begun offering a Mobile Protection Pack, available for $9.99 a month, that combines two existing AT&T services - Mobile Insurance and Enhanced Support - along with a new Mobile Locate app, offered exclusively as part of the protection pack.



Mobile Insurance. Formerly Wireless Phone Insurance, Mobile Insurance provides replacement for approved claims involving loss, theft, accidental damage, liquid damage, or mechanical and electrical failure after the manufacturer's warranty expires. Customers can sign up within 30 days of service activation or device upgrade.



Enhanced Support. Customers can take advantage of direct live support (via phone or web chat) for device setup, plus general "how to" help and ongoing troubleshooting assistance. Customers can also grant the service agent permission to remotely access a capable device and/or customer's computer via a secure connection to help manage account and device needs.



Mobile Locate. Available exclusively within the AT&T Protection Pack, Mobile Locate allows users to remotely locate, lock or sound an alarm on their missing phone via the Mobile Protection Pack website. Compatible phones must be powered-on and be within an AT&T coverage area.http://www.att.com

Near Field Communication Forum Gains Traction

Google has joined The NFC Forum, which advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, as a Principal member. CSR and Intel, formerly Associate Members, have raised their membership status to the Principal level. The NFC Forum has also welcomed 31 additional member from across the ecosystem, including silicon companies, certification labs, software developers and major manufacturers.http://www.nfc-forum.org
  • In December 2010, The NFC Forum announced the publication of four technical specifications that further define the modular architecture and interoperability parameters for NFC devices and protocols. The NFC Forum has now developed and adopted a total of 15 specifications.

IEEE Approves 802.16m Advanced Mobile Broadband Wireless Standard

The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Standards Board has approved IEEE 802.16m, which incorporates advanced communications technologies such as multi-user MIMO, multicarrier operation, and cooperative communications. It supports femto-cells, self-organizing networks, and relays. Major worldwide governmental and industrial organizations, including ARIB, TTA, and the WiMAX Forum, are adopting this standard.

IEEE 802.16m provides the performance improvements necessary to support future advanced services and applications for next generation broadband mobile communications. In October 2010, ITU-R agreed to incorporate this technology into its IMT-Advanced Recommendation specifying systems that support low to high mobility applications, a wide range of data rates in multiple user environments, high-quality multimedia applications, and significant improvements in performance and quality of service.http://www.wirelessman.org/http://www.ieee.org

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

NTT: Restoration Surpasses 90%

NTT provided the following update on its efforts to restore services following the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011.

  • Over 10,000 employees are making an all-out effort to restore damaged facilities


  • More than 90 percent of the affected exchange offices and mobile base station equipment have been restored and services are gradually recovering. There are 307 disrupted base stations (excluding near the Fukushima nuclear power plant), which have not yet been restored due to destroyed or damaged buildings.


  • Going forward, NTT Group is planning to have its exchange offices and base stations almost completely restored (except for certain areas where restoration is physically difficult, such as areas surrounding the nuclear power
    plant and areas with physically damaged roads, tunnels, etc.) by the end of April through, among
    others, renewal of power supplies and equipment and re-installing relay transmission lines, repair of
    relay transmission lines to mobile base stations, and area remedies for mobile phones using large zone
    schemes where a single station covers multiple stations.


  • With regards to the remaining areas, NTT Group will endeavor to prioritize the restoration of services
    in particular areas, such as municipalities and evacuation shelters, and improve the communication
    environment by, among other things, providing even more satellite mobile phones and other
    communication means.


  • Regarding corporate data communication services, approximately 90 percent have been restored to
    date.


  • Submarine cables connecting Japan with the United States and other parts of Asia have been partially damaged, but NTT Group has been using various backup cable routes to maintain uninterrupted services, and there is currently no impact on its overseas communication services.


  • To support the affected people of the disaster, NTT Group is, among other efforts, providing its
    communication services free of charge, safety confirmation information of those affected, and
    company residences as living space for those impacted by the earthquake.


  • NTT Group is working to gather donations from its customers and has decided to donate one billion yen. NTT Group will devote its full strength to support the victims of this disaster and the recovery of the stricken areas.


  • The company deployed about 30 mobile base station trucks, 870 free satellite mobile phones ,1,440 mobile phones and 180 tablet PCs.


  • There are 9 fixed-line service buildings and 68 mobile base stations that have not been restored near the Fukushima nuclear power plant.


Following the earthquake and tsunami, facilities were damaged and commercial power supply was disrupted at
exchange offices. This impacted approximately 1.5 million fixed line circuits, approximately 6,700 mobile base stations, approximately 15,000 corporate data circuits.
http://www.ntt.co.jp

Infonetics: Femtocell Market Start to Take Off

Worldwide revenue from 2G and 3G femtocells sold for use in CDMA, W-CDMA/HSPA, and CDMA2000/EV-DO networks grew 121.5% and the number of units sold for revenue grew 204% in 2010 over 2009 from a small base, according to a recently released report from Infonetics Research.



"Traction is coming to the femtocell market, but slowly: with over 1.37 million units shipped in 2010 for revenue (not including non-revenue shipments for trials and soft launches), the market is now underway, but through 2011 there will still be too few operators active in this space to drive rapid acceleration. We expect this to come in 2012, when femtocell shipments should exceed 5 million worldwide, driven by a diversification from the consumer and enterprise segments to rural and public spaces," predicts Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, microwave, and mobile devices at Infonetics Research.



Some additional highlights:

  • The number of femtocell units sold doubled between 4Q09 and 4Q10

  • Quarter-over-quarter, the number of femtocell units sold increased 21% and revenue grew just 1% in 4Q10 over 3Q10, reflecting the decline in unit prices.


  • Samsung took the #1 spot in femtocell revenue market share in 4Q10, followed closely by Alcatel-Lucent and NEC.


  • As the femtocell market evolves and more operators launch services, strong fluctuations in market share and leaderboard positions are expected.


  • Femtocell average revenue per unit (ARPU) will continue to erode, with the industry focused on the magic number of US$100, expected to be reached in 2011 (some vendors have already achieved this).


  • As of early 2011, no next-generation 4G (WiMAX or LTE) femtocell services have been deployed, but tier 1 mobile operators have expressed the view that LTE and subsequent high-capacity air interfaces are most likely to be deployed through hierarchical cell structures, including femtocells.


Infonetics' quarterly 2G/3G/4G Femtocell Equipment report provides worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts, and analysis for revenue, units, and ARPU of 2G femtocells (CDMA) and 3G femtocells (W-CDMA/HSPA and CDMA2000/EV-DO), and will include 4G femtocells when commercially available. http://www.infonetics.com

Google Picks Kansas City for Fiber Rollout

Google has picked Kansas City, Kansas for its gigabit speed fiber build-out project, which was first announced in February 2010.



Nearly 1,100 communities across the country expressed interest in participating in the Google project and nearly 200,000 individuals submitted comments.



Google has signed a development agreement with Kansas City and will be working with local organizations, businesses and universities, including Kauffman Foundation, KCNext and the University of Kansas Medical Center to help develop the gigabit applications of the future. Google will provide free access to schools and city facilities.



Pricing for the gigabit speed home service has not been disclosed, but Google said it would be "competitive."



Construction is expected to start later this year and the first services are expected to come online in 2012.



"This project represents the future of how we connect to the web, and we want it to start in Kansas City," said Milo Medin, Vice President for Access Services at Google.




http://googleblog.blogspot.com/http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascityks/index.html
  • In December 2010, Google appointed Milo Medin as Vice President, Access Services.
    Google also said that it has delayed the selection of its first fiber community. Nearly 1,100 communities across the country have sought to participate in the Google fiber project, and the company said it needs more time to make its selection. Milo Medin previously served as co-founder of Chief Technology Officer of Excite@Home, a pioneer in residential broadband service, and later at M2Z Networks.

Verizon: Ready to Roll with 100G







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A discussion about the deployment of 100G technology with Verizon's Glenn Wellbrock, Director, Optical Transport Network Architecture & Design.http://www.verizon.com

Verizon Ready to Roll with 100G on U.S. Network

Verizon plans to deploy 100G on selected segments of its U.S. backbone network by the end of the second quarter of 2011, including key routes from Chicago-to-New York, Sacramento-to-Los Angeles and Minneapolis-to-Kansas City.



Verizon's rollout of 100G in the U.S. will use Juniper Networks routers and Ciena's 100G coherent optical transport solution. Verizon also used Juniper and Ciena equipment for its 100G deployment in Europe earlier this year.



Verizon said the move to 100G enables its to increase bandwidth efficiency on its existing fiber infrastructure. By installing new equipment on the network while retaining use of the current fiber system, the company can carry up to 10 times the amount of network traffic carried on a standard route. Optical efficiencies also are gained from carrying traffic on a single 100G wavelength as opposed to 10 wavelengths at 10 Gbps.



"We've already successfully deployed 100G on a portion of our European network, and now we're preparing to expand this technology to our U.S. network," said Ihab Tarazi, vice president of network planning at Verizon. "Advancing to 100G is a significant step in strengthening our global IP network to handle the bandwidth demands of our customers - whether it's large enterprises or the average consumer. Besides greater scalability and network efficiencies, we also expect 100G deployment to improve latency on a route-by-route basis."









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A discussion about the deployment of 100G technology with Verizon's Glenn Wellbrock, Director, Optical Transport Network Architecture & Design.http://www.verizon.com

  • Earlier this month, Verizon activated a 100 Gigabit Ethernet link for an IP backbone on a portion of its European long-haul network between Paris and Frankfurt, a distance of 893 km. The deployment uses Juniper Networks' routers and Ciena's 100G Ethernet coherent optical transport solution.

Monday, March 28, 2011

VSS Monitoring Adds to its Team

VSS Monitoring, which provides monitoring visibility and optimization for network security, has appointed Kevin Jablonski as vice president of business development. Jablonski was formerly vice president of marketing and business development at Gigamon. He previously served with companies such as FORE Systems, Juniper Networks, Hewlett-Packard, and Hughes Communications.


http://www.vssmonitoring.com

NBNCo. Picks IBM for Operations and Support

NBN Co
has appointed IBM as the prime systems integrator of its operational and business support systems. The contract has a three year term and is valued at over $200 million. Using these systems, retail service providers (RSPs) will be able to order new services, report faults or perform service qualification checks via business-to-business interfaces and/or portals designed to allow transparent and flexible management of their own services on the national broadband network. The systems will also allow NBN Co to monitor the performance of its network and bill RSPs for the services they order and operate.



NBN Co Head of Network Operations, Steve Christian said: "As a wholesale network provider, NBN Co sells products to service providers who resell them to households and businesses. To do this efficiently and cost effectively, we need robust and highly-automated systems with extensive RSP self-management capabilities."



Implementation work has already started, and will be completed in four releases.http://www.nbnco.com.au

ZTE Scores an LTE TDD/FDD Win in Europe

Hi3G, which plans to build LTE TDD/FDD dual-mode networks in Sweden and Denmark, has selected ZTE as its LTE infrastructure partner. The delivered base stations will be based on ZTE's Uni-RAN SDR (Software Defined Radio) technology, which enables Hi3G to support all viable mobile standards and frequency bands, housing both the upgraded 3G network and the two versions of LTE: TDD and FDD. The SDR technology also makes it possible for Hi3G to perform future upgrades of its infrastructure without acquiring new base stations. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Peder Ramel, CEO at Hi3G, said, "We have chosen ZTE for additional 3G 900/2100 rollout and for LTE mobile broadband networks in Sweden and Denmark because of the possibility to house three different mobile standards in the same physical infrastructure and the low cost of ownership. Furthermore, ZTE advanced LTE dual-mode solutions and quick consignment responses really meet our requirements."



Hi3G will utilize its spectrum resources by rolling out Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) versions of LTE. The main benefit of the TDD version is that it can make full use of TDD spectrums to maximize data throughput and enhance user experience. Hi3G has acquired 50MHz of TDD spectrum in Sweden and 25 MHz of TDD spectrum in Denmark.



Hi3G expects to develop its Swedish and Danish networks for mobile broadband during 2011.http://www.zte.com.cn

Verizon Wireless Releases LTE Modem from Novatel

Verizon Wireless has begun marketing an LTE modem made by Novatel Wireless.



The Verizon USB551L 4G LTE modem is a high-performing USB modem. Customers who travel outside of a 4G LTE coverage area, will stay connected on the Verizon Wireless 3G network. It is priced at $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement on a 4G Mobile Broadband plan
http://www.verizonwireless.com

Discera Releases New MEMS Programmable Oscillators

Discera announced the availability of its high performance DSC21XX I2C and DSC22XX SPI application programmable MEMS oscillators. The devices are available in single and dual-output configurations with fully programmable output frequencies and drive strength. They feature 300 femtosecond RMS phase jitter and 10 ppm frequency stability.



"With this new line of ultra-flexible low-jitter oscillators, we make another leap forward in reducing development and lead times across the electronics industry," said Discera CEO Bruce Diamond, "The DSC21XX and DSC22XX oscillators use MEMS technology to deliver better performance than fixed frequency oscillators with an unprecedented level of flexibility and reliability."http://www.discera.com

Australia's NBNCo. Readies First Mainland Sites

Australia's National Broadband Network will soon enter its trial phase as the first mainland sites come online, according to NBNCo's Mike Quigley, who provided an update at the Commsday Summit in Sydney. Negotiations with Telstra are on track. A powerpoint presentation is online.



http://bit.ly/dMj0kmhttp://www.nbnco.com.au

Alcatel-Lucent Supplies Mobile Network Intelligence in China

Alcatel-Lucent cited growing traction for its 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) platform in China, including deployments with Jiangsu Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile, and Ningxia Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom.



The Alcatel-Lucent 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) provides the operators with in-depth knowledge of how their subscriber devices, applications and 3G networks are performing in real time.



The Alcatel-Lucent 9900 WNG will provide Jiangsu Mobile and Ningxia Telecom with valuable intelligence into the This includes detailed understanding of the complex relationship between application traffic, network performance and subscriber experience.



"The 9900 WNG makes it possible for carriers to monitor and engineer their wireless data network with the level of granularity needed to understand how subscribers, applications and network elements interact and their impact on every area, including the radio access network. As such, it fully aligns with our High Leverage Network vision and network transformation strategy," said Rajeev Singh-Molares, president of Alcatel-Lucent's activities in Asia-Pacific.http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Cisco to Acquire newScale for Self-Service Portal Software

Cisco agreed to acquire privately-held newScale, a developer of software that delivers a service catalog and self-service portal for IT organizations to select and quickly deploy cloud services within their businesses. Financial terms were not disclosed.



newScale is based in San Mateo, California. Its software helps IT organizations and service providers offer a self-service "storefront" for both desktop and data center services - across physical, virtual and cloud environments. The newScale team will report into Cisco's Advanced Services organization.



"Cloud computing represents a major shift in the evolution of the Internet, and as more customers migrate from traditional IT infrastructures, the need for rapid self-provisioning and efficient management becomes increasingly critical," said Parvesh Sethi, senior vice president of Cisco Services. "With the acquisition of newScale, Cisco will be able to accelerate the deployment of cloud services through a service catalog and self-service portal that allows customers to easily manage their IT infrastructures."

http://www.cisco.com http://www.newscale.com/

Altera Targets Optical Interconnect Programmable Devices

Altera outlined plans for optically interconnected programmable devices to serve as chip-to-chip and chip-to-backplane bridges.



The company is leveraging its knowledge of system interconnect technologies to enable direct optical interfaces in future device packages and break through the bandwidth and signal integrity barriers inherent in copper technology. The idea is to embed optical interface technology into an FPGA. Specifically, an FPGA could be integrated with optics, such as a transmitter optical sub-assembly (TOSA) and transceiver optical sub-assembly (ROSA), providing direct optical signal transmitting and receiving without the need for a discrete optical module.
This could potentially reduce system power requirements by 70 percent to 80 percent while increasing port density and bandwidth.



"Altera has a strong history of delivering industry-leading technologies for today's design challenges, while at the same time developing breakthrough technologies that unlock new possibilities for the future," said Bradley Howe, vice president of IC engineering at Altera. "These direct optical interfaces have the potential to future-proof backplanes and deliver the vast quantity of available bandwidth long sought by application and content developers."
http://www.altera.com/optical

BT Connects First 50 SuperFast Broadband Customers in Cornwall

BT has activated its first 50 customers for its Super-fast broadband in Cornwall. The rollout is part of the £132 million super-fast broadband scheme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The company said about six months after the signing of the contract, its Openreach local network business has already installed more than 150 kilometres of optical fibre cable – equivalent to more than the length of Cornwall.http://www.btplc.com

Hong Kong's New World Deploys Juniper's Metro Ethernet

New World Telecom has selected Juniper Networks to provide the foundation for its next-generation of Metro Ethernet services. The deployment includes MX960 and MX480 3D Universal Edge Routers. Modular Port Concentrators (MPC), Juniper's advanced line modules based on the Junos Trio chipset that will enable New World Telecom to mix-and-match interfaces to create customized, service-specific chassis configurations. Nokia Siemens Networks serves as technology partner.ging the point-to-point, any-to-any connection network.



Over the last 15 years, New World Telecommunications has established a strong presence in the Hong Kong market for its Metro Ethernet and International Ethernet Private Line services.



"Backhaul is a very important segment of our Metro Ethernet market and Hong Kong's mobile operators are already planning their network migration to LTE," said Johnny Cheung, Executive Vice President, Networks and IT of New World Telecom. "Our next-generation of Metro Ethernet provides high bandwidth and clocking synchronization features compliant for LTE build outs, and Juniper's MX Series proved to be highly efficient and the highest http://www.juniper.net

Verizon Wireless Releases Samsung's LTE Hotspot

Verizon Wireless began selling the Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot in its retail stories and online.



The device enables customers to share 4G LTE internet connection with up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices at the same time. Customers can expect download speeds of 5 to 12 Mbps and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps in Verizon's 4G Mobile Broadband coverage areas. It is backward compatible with the Verizon Wireless 3G network.



It is priced at $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement on a 4G Mobile Broadband plan. The 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot will be available in stores on March 31.



Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE mobile broadband data packages starts at $50 monthly for 5GB.
http://www.verizonwireless.com

FiberTower Implements Packet Microwave Backhaul with DragonWave

FiberTower, which provide alternative backhaul services in markets across the U.S., is deploying DragonWave's Horizon Compact to support its microwave-based packet backhaul services.



FiberTower maintains an extensive footprint in 24 GHz and 39 GHz radio spectrum bands, carrier-class fiber and microwave networks in major markets nationwide to serve the needs of the major wireless carriers.



DragonWave products are installed in FiberTower's networks in Ohio and Texas.



"Our customers include nine US wireless carriers, and increasingly they are demanding pure packet backhaul to ensure optimal performance for their service offerings. DragonWave offers a family of solutions that is clearly head of the class—in terms of both scalability and flexibility—for pure packet backhaul," said Dave Jones, Senior Vice President of Network Services with FiberTower. "Furthermore, the DragonWave solution is engineered with valuable attributes that enable us to enter new markets quickly and cost-effectively. One of the things that impressed us during our trial of the Horizon Compact, for example, was its innovative, zero-footprint configuration."http://www.dragonwaveinc.com http://www.fibertower.com

Level 3: Mobile Backhaul Progression







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Amanda Tierney, VP, Wholesale Market Management, Level 3 Communicationshttp://www.level3.com

Sunday, March 27, 2011

NetScout to Acquire Psytechnics for UC Assurance

NetScout Systems will acquire privately held Psytechnics, which offers performance management technology for unified communications services. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Psytechnics, which is based in Ipswich, United Kingdom, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, offers a range of active and passive software solutions for both Enterprises and Service Providers markets. These software solutions are used to demonstrably improve the performance of real-time communications, including the most advanced unified communications applications and networks designs. Its Experience Manager is a software suite that delivers user QoE-based service management for IP voice, video conferencing and Telepresence services. Real-time, objective call analysis details the actual user experience and streamlines both pro-active and reactive processes to remediate. The company claims more than 300 equipment and service provider customers worldwide for its active test solutions. Psytechnics has been backed by leading institutional investors DFJ Esprit, Gimv and New Venture Partners.



NetScout said the acquisition will strengthen its Unified Service Delivery Management strategy by providing more comprehensive management of the quality of IP Voice, Video and Telepresence service delivery along with all other application and data services. The Psytechnics team will be integrated into NetScout's ongoing operations.




"Addressing the quality and reliability of Voice, Video and Telepresence services continues to be a top concern for IT organizations. To proactively manage these services, the IT organization needs application-specific details as well as IP transmission characteristics for voice and video traffic to understand what impacts user service quality and address performance issues," said Anil Singhal, president and CEO of NetScout. "With the acquisition of Psytechnics, NetScout will gain critical technology and expertise that will help us continue to build on our foundation strategy of Packet-Flow intelligence and accelerate our innovation to address our customers' growing Unified Communications footprint."http://www.netscout.com http://www.psytechnics.com

Sipera Simplifies VoIP Security for Payment Card Privacy Compliance

Sipera Systems said its VoIP security solutions provide compliance with new guidance issued by the industry council for payment card privacy. Earlier this month, the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) issued new guidance to protect credit card and payment card information in telephone-based transactions, including VoIP. The guidance advises businesses that handle credit cards to ensure the privacy and encryption of VoIP communications carrying cardholder data, and to control archiving and monitoring of these communications in compliance with PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) rules.



Sipera's security appliance solution provides comprehensive application-layer security for VoIP, enabling an enterprise to implement these important security controls simply and easily.



"Many in the security community have recently focused on VoIP and Unified Communications application security as essential for safeguarding financial transactions of all kinds," said Adam Boone, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management for Sipera Systems. "The new guidance regarding payment card privacy is a critical development in this area, because VoIP communications are widespread and are now a favored target of hackers and fraudsters."http://www.sipera.com

Broadcom Pumps its StrataXGS Switch for 10G Mobile Backhaul

Broadcom introduced its latest StrataXGS Ethernet switching chip optimized for high-capacity mobile backhaul platforms. The StrataXGS BCM56440 switch, which is implemented in 40nm CMOS, integrates the functionality of up to seven off-the-shelf application-specific standard parts (ASSPs), eliminating the need for power-hungry network processing units (NPUs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).



Key areas of integration include switching, traffic management, timing (both IEEE 1588v2 and IEEE 802.1as packet-based clock synchronization), circuit emulation services, and memory.



The switching capability includes an embedded deep buffer an hierarchical Quality of Service (QoS). It handles L2 switching, L3 routing, metro VPN tunneling and access control lists. Connectivity protocols include VPLS, VPWS, MPLS-TP, PBB and PBB-TE tunneling. In addition, the switch supports Ethernet and MPLS OAM in hardware to enable a complete host CPU offload.



The timing capabilities include 1588v2 support for boundary clock, ordinary clock and transparent clock. It also supports synchronous Ethernet clock synchronization on all ports.

http://www.broadcom.com

Best Buy Connect Launches with Clearwire

Best Buy launched its 4G "Best Buy Connect" mobile broadband service via a wholesale relationship with Clearwire. The Best Buy Connect service will be sold at the company's retail stores across the U.S. Service activation, billing, hardware and connection support will come from Best Buy.



Initially, Best Buy Connect will offer unlimited 4G service for $45 per month with a month-to-month or two-year contract. With the purchase of a two-year contract, customers can waive the $35 activation fee and receive up to an additional $150 off select hardware devices.



The 3G version of Best Buy Connect launched in July 2010. http://www.bestbuy.com/bestbuyconnect

Telecom Italia to Deploy 7,000 LTE Base Stations from NSN

Telecom Italia will deploy 7,000 base stations (BTS) from Nokia Siemens Networks in several Italian regions, including Veneto, Trentino Alto Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Emilia Romagna, Marche and Umbria. The companies have already tested LTE in some areas of Turin. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Nokia Siemens Networks will undertake the radio network modernization in some Italian regions in the 900-1800 and 2100 MHz frequency bands, supplying its future-proof single Radio Access Network*** Flexi Multiradio Base Stations. These base stations allow smooth implementation of LTE in the 2.6 GHz and 800 MHz bands.

"This network modernization will enable exceptional voice quality and data speeds in addition to optimizing the performance and supporting the strong increase of smartphones," said Massimo Mazzocchini, head of Telecom Italia customer team at Nokia Siemens Networks. "This technology will be able to offer a throughput of more than 140 Mbps per cell with a latency of only 10 milliseconds, demonstrating the true value of a modern network for driving the growth of Italy's economy."http://www.nsn.com

Mobile Apps & Data Center Symbiosis







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http://www.equinix.com

Tabula Raises $108 Million for 3D Logic Silicon

Tabula, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, announced $108 million in Series D funding for its 3PLD ABAX programmable logic products.



The company's 3D programmable logic devices are positioned as the next generation beyond FPGAs. The Tabula silicon architecture leverages a "Spacetime" technology that reconfigures on the fly at multi-GHz rates, executing each portion of a design in an automatically defined sequence of steps. Tabula said this enables complex designs using only a small fraction of the resources that would be required by an inherently 2D FPGA. It also delivers significantly higher logic density, memory density and DSP performance. Tabula recently completed the roll-out of its 40nm ABAX family of 3PLDs supported by the Stylus development software.



The financing was led by Crosslink Capital and DAG Ventures. Existing investors, Balderton Capital, Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Integral Capital, and NEA also participated in this round.



"The programmable logic market is seeing tremendous growth driven by the build out of the telecommunications infrastructure. This infrastructure build is necessary to keep pace with the global demand for more bandwidth to support smartphone usage for accessing data and video online." said Dennis Segers, CEO of Tabula. "This funding represents a resounding validation of our breakthrough Spacetime 3D programmable logic technology and a vote of confidence for the Tabula team in its ability to bring about both technological innovation as well as business innovation to customers. We will continue to build on our customer momentum by increasing volume shipments of our ABAX 3PLD product family. With the disruption our Spacetime architecture is bringing to the market, we will take programmable devices where they have never gone before and intend on becoming a global semiconductor market leader."
http://www.tabula.com

  • Tabula is headed by Dennis Segers, who previously served as president, CEO, and director of Matrix Semiconductor. Matrix pioneered the design and development of three-dimensional integrated circuits and was acquired by SanDisk in January 2006. The Tabula technical team is headed by Steve Teig, who previously was CTO of Cadence Design Systems. Steve joined Cadence through its acquisition of Simplex Solutions (NSDQ: SPLX), where he was also CTO.

Cisco Updates its Data Center Portfolio

Cisco rolled out a series of updates and enhancements across its Data Center Business Advantage portfolio, including the Cisco Nexus 7000 family and Nexus 5000 Series, the new ultra-low latency platform Cisco Nexus 3000, Cisco MDS storage switches, the Cisco Unified Computing System, the Cisco Data Center Network Manager, and Cisco NX-OS, the comprehensive data center operating system that spans the Cisco data center portfolio.



Cisco said its vision continues to be on the tight integration of its Unified Fabric, Unified Computing, and Unified Network Services into a holistic data center fabric. The goal is "wire once", allowing multiple data centers and cloud services to be connected across a common intelligent fabric.



Some highlights:



New Cisco Nexus 5548UP, Nexus 5596UP switches -- Unified Port (UP) capability on all ports for these 48- and 96-port data center switches enable information technology managers to designate any port to be 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel (2/4/8 gigabits) or Fibre Channel over Ethernet. These switches support Layer 2/3, provide support for IEEE 802.1Qbh, and are FabricPath-ready.



New Cisco Nexus 3000 Series Switches -- offering low latency (less than 1usec port to port), in a high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch for specific markets, such as high-frequency trading applications, where low latency is the No. 1 requirement. The one-rack-unit switch supports Layer 2/3 wire-rate switching and a wide range of routing protocols within the Cisco NX-OS operating system.



Fabric Extender Technology (FEX) -- enables customers to build a single, modular fabric that extends from Cisco Nexus switches to Cisco Unified Computing System servers to adapters and to virtual machines. The design flexibility, reduced cabling infrastructure, and simplified management have resulted in equipment and operational savings of up to 50 percent for the more than 5,000 customers who have deployed the Cisco FEX architecture. Today Cisco introduced three additions to its fabric extension portfolio, all based on the IEEE 802.1Qbh emerging standard: Adapter FEX, VM-FEX (virtual machine) and FEX Support for Nexus 7000.



Director-Class Multi-hop Fibre Channel over Ethernet -- Cisco is introducing end-to-end data center convergence from server to storage by delivering new director-class, multi-hop Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capability for the Nexus 7000 data center switch platform and the MDS 9500 storage switching platform, adding to existing FCoE functionality on the Nexus 5000 switch platform. Cisco provides Unified Fabric support to both the access and core network layers, supporting all storage traffic (Fibre Channel, FCoE, iSCSI, and NAS) over simplified infrastructure based on lossless 10-Gigabit Ethernet.



End-to-End Management With Cisco Data Center Network Manager -- enables SAN, LAN, and server teams to cohesively manage converged end-to-end data center networks up to 150,000 ports, and offers tight integration with VMware vCenter for provisioning, performance, and trouble-shooting.



Scaling the Internet and Enabling Cloud Services with LISP and MPLS on the Nexus 700 -- The Nexus 7000 supports MPLS for Layer 3 VPNs to help enable a highly secure, cloud-ready network infrastructure, and an industry first: Location/ID Separation Protocol. LISP is an IP routing and addressing architecture initiated by Cisco. IT managers can take advantage of LISP to enable highly agile networks for workload mobility; cloud enablement; the transition to IPv6; and scalable multi-tenancy.



Additions for the Cisco Catalyst 6500 series -- including a new Application Control Engine ACE30 module for dynamic workload scaling with Cisco Overlay Transport Virtualization which provides 54 percent higher performance for application delivery; a new ES40 module with 40 gigabit line-rate performance for high-performance Data Center Interconnect, and a new ASA Service module offering embedded firewall and security services.



New MDS 9000 Storage Media Encryption fabric service -- offers highly secure media encryption for disks as well as tapes to meet security requirements for regulatory compliance, and requires no SAN reconfiguration.



Nexus 1010 provides an NX-OS based appliance platform for hosting virtual services -- this platform now supports two additional services: the Cisco Virtual Security Gateway which provides VM-level segmentation in a multi-tenant virtualized data center, and the Cisco Data Center Network Management Center.



Cisco noted that it now has more than 4,000 Unified Computing System (UCS) customers.
http://www.cisco.com

Procera Cites Deployments by ISPs

Procera Networks announced growing deployments of its PacketLogic intelligent policy enforcement platform as the central intelligence point and service enabler by small to mid-size Internet service providers (ISPs) who are deploying broadband services in rural areas under the national Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP).



Examples include Arvig Communication Systems, also known as ACS, which is the leading local multi-service communications provider serving residential & business customers throughout northwestern Minnesota. In 2010 ACS was awarded funding through the BIP and, as an existing Procera customer, found the PacketLogic traffic management system instrumental in helping to project their future infrastructure requirements.http://www.proceranetworks.com

Arista's 64-Port 10/40G Switch Leverages Broadcom's Trident+

Arista Networks introduced a 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switching system that delivers 1.28 Tbps of switching performance at under 2 watts per 10GbE interface – a new industry benchmark for Ethernet switching energy efficiency, according to the company.



The Arista 7050 offers dynamically allocated deep packet buffers and support for Data Center Bridging, making it suitable for interconnecting storage devices and big data applications such as Hadoop. As these applications scale the Arista 7050 can connect up to 18,000 10GbE attached servers through a single Arista Leaf/Spine network architecture.



The Arista 7050-64 is the first Arista switch to utilize the latest Broadcom Trident+ switching silicon.



In a compact 1RU form factor with reversible cooling options, the Arista 7050-64 supports 48 wirespeed 10GbE SFP+ interfaces while providing increased uplink density with 4x40Gb QSFP connectors that can work as either 40GbE or 4x10GbE providing a total of 64 10GbE ports in one switch.



Pricing for the Arista 7050-64 switch starts at $29,995. http://www.aristanetworks.com/en/products/7050

Sprint States Opposition to AT&T + T-Mobile USA

Sprint officially announced its opposition to AT&T's proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA, which would create a competitor that would be almost three times the size of Sprint in terms of wireless revenue.



"Sprint urges the United States government to block this anti-competitive acquisition," said Vonya McCann, senior vice president, Government Affairs. "This transaction will harm consumers and harm competition at a time when this country can least afford it. As the first national carrier to roll out 4G services and handsets and the carrier that brought simple unlimited pricing to the marketplace, Sprint stands ready to compete in a truly dynamic marketplace. So on behalf of our customers, our industry and our country, Sprint will fight this attempt by AT&T to undo the progress of the past 25 years and create a new Ma Bell duopoly."http://www.sprint.com

Bell Labs Opens Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications in Australia

Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs and University of Melbourne, in partnership with the Victorian State Government, today officially launched the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET).



CEET will be devoted to innovation in energy-efficient networks and technologies with the ultimate goal of reducing the impact of telecommunications on the environment. The facility will have a staff of researchers and technology experts that will build to a team of 22 over the next three years.



"We've established a leading research program in network energy efficiency that has generated technology breakthroughs like those at the heart the recently announced lightRadio solution," said Jeong Kim, President of Bell Labs. "We look forward to contributing our expertise to help CEET reach its potential."



"Today, telecommunications networks in Australia use about one percent of our energy supply and with increasing demands for bandwidth, this is expected to grow dramatically - unless we find ways to make our networks more efficient," said Rod Tucker, University of Melbourne Laureate Professor.http://www.ceet.unimelb.edu.au/

Australia Debates Uniform Pricing for Fibre & Wireless

Legislative proposals are being debated that would require Australia's NBNCo to charge the same prices for bits delivered over fibre, wireless and satellite, according The Australian newspaper. Rural areas are likely to be served wirelessly or via satellite, so the bills would ensure equal pricing for access across the country.http://bit.ly/gIyQx2

Qatar Establishes National Broadband Network Company (Q.NBN)

A new company - Qatar National Broadband Network Company (Q.NBN) - has been established by the government of Qatar with a mandate to accelerate the rollout of a nationwide, open, and accessible high-speed broadband Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network.



Q.NBN will focus solely on the deployment of a passive network infrastructure, efficiently leveraging existing and
new infrastructure in Qatar. The company aims to cover in excess of 95 percent of the population by 2015.



This government-led initiative was developed in consultation with existing network operators, Qtel and Vodafone, and will support the development of their broadband service offerings to government, enterprises, and consumers. The government support will help ensure rapid deployment and seamless access in a competitive manner.



"The Qatar National Broadband Network represents a bold step forward in Qatar's drive to be a leading knowledge economy. Ubiquitous access to a high-speed network is essential to business development, economic growth, innovation and enhanced government services for our citizens. This network will do more than connect Qatar to the world; it will truly help enrich the lives of those who live here," said Dr. Hessa Al-Jaber, Secretary General, ictQATAR.
http://www.ict.gov.qa

Verizon Wireless Launches New Certification for 3G/4G Chipsets

Verizon Wireless announced two new efforts designed to help chipset providers and device manufacturers develop and build handsets and other devices for use on the company's leading 3G and 4G LTE networks.





Verizon Wireless currently requires all baseband chipsets to go through a common certification process. The company is launching a new certification process that aims to eliminate redundant testing among chip vendors, device vendors and Verizon Wireless, leading to a faster approval cycle for the chipsets. The program simplifies device certification requirements, while ensuring uniform quality across chipsets used in devices launched across Verizon Wireless' networks.



Certification applies to all new chipsets; existing chipsets may be granted certification based on meeting certain criteria and "grandfathered" into the program at the discretion of Verizon Wireless.



In addition, Verizon Wireless has chosen COMPRION to be the official test equipment provider for LTE-USIM and CDMA-CSIM interface testing of handsets. COMPRION, based in Paderborn, Germany, is a leading manufacturer of test equipment for handset testing.



The tests done using COMPRION equipment are based on established ETSI, 3GPP and 3GPP specifications and are augmented with Verizon Wireless-specific requirements. COMPRION SIMfony, the validated conformance test system for combined handset testing is known for its usability and efficiency, and will be used to test both LTE and Multi-Mode handsets. http://www.verizonwireless.com http://www.comprion.com

Symmetricom Builds Momentum for 4G Packet Synchronization

Symmetricom has launched a "SyncWorld" Ecosystem Program to support precise timing and synchronization requirements for 4G/LTE deployments that ensure seamless integration for service provider networks. Initial members include leading network equipment suppliers and silicon developers.



The program requires interoperability testing between Symmetricom and the program members to ensure delivery of precise timing and synchronization services across the network. .



"Time to market demands of service providers requires everyone to pre-define interoperability parameters to ensure deployment of tested and proven solutions," said Manish Gupta, vice president of marketing at Symmetricom. "We look forward to working closely with our partners to test and integrate precise timing and synchronization solutions and support the rapid deployment of 4G/LTE networks."


Service providers benefit from receiving documented test results and joint deployment guidelines developed forhttp://www.symmetricom.com/syncworld/

Spread Network Further Trims its Low Latency

Spread Networks, the new a privately owned telecommunications provider that has built a low latency Ethernet wave network connecting New York and Chicago, has further trimmed its low latency benchmark.



The current SLA clocks at 15.75 milliseconds roundtrip, but Spread Networks is lowering
the SLA to 14.75 milliseconds, with measured performance of 14.6 milliseconds.

The latency is identical from Chicago to all four of Spread's New Jersey endpoints.


Spread Networks' low latency wave service is a fully managed and secure point-to-point Ethernet service designed
for enterprise customers that value low latency connectivity between the nation's largest financial centers in New
York and Chicago. The wave service complements Spread Networks' flagship 13.33 millisecond roundtrip dark
fiber network service.http://www.spreadnetworks.com

Saturday, March 26, 2011

R.I.P. -- Paul Baran, Pioneer of Packet Switching

Paul Baran, a pioneer in packet switching, early proponent of the ArpaNet, and serial networking entrepreneur, passed away on Saturday at his home in Palo Alto, California. He was 84. Baran is remembered for his influential work at the RAND Corporation in the 1960s which set the stage for the distributed routing design of the Internet. He went on to provide key technical roles at a number of networking companies, including Packet Technologies, StrataCom, Metricom, Ricochet, Com21 and Plater Networks. Recognitions of his work included the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and an induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.htmlhttp://www.engineer.ucla.edu/newsroom/featured-news/archive/2011/in-memoriam-paul-baran-ms-201959

Thursday, March 24, 2011

NSN to Participate in China Mobile's TD-LTE Trial

Nokia Siemens Networks confirmed that it has been selected to participate in China Mobile's large scale TD-LTE trial. Specifically, Nokia Siemens Networks will offer its commercial 2.3GHz/2.6GHz TD-LTE equipment, professional services and management software to conduct the major field trial in Hangzhou.



Nokia Siemens Networks has already completed both 2.3 and 2.6GHz outdoor, and 2.3GHz indoor, single-system testing with TD-LTE. The company is one of the first global vendors to be selected for the large-scale TD-LTE field trials with China Mobile. In addition, Nokia Siemens Networks has conducted interoperability tests of its TD-LTE equipment with a number of TD-LTE devices of major suppliers. As stated by MIIT, Nokia Siemens Networks will cooperate with China Mobile to accelerate network construction, equipment installation, and network optimization according to the overall requirements and plan of the large-scale TD-LTE trial in Hangzou.http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

AT&T Deploys Distributed Antenna for Resort Coverage

AT&T has deployed a distributed antenna system (DAS) from TE Connectivity to provide coverage at The Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The installation includes 75 remote antenna units (RAUs) which are fed by a base station deployed by AT&T's Antenna Solutions Group, providing on-site network capacity for AT&T customers using the 850 and 1900 MHz frequency bands.


TE Connectivity is a preferred partner of AT&T's Antenna Solutions Group, which is using DAS to enhance mobile coverage at major resorts, stadiums, hotels, and other premium properties around the United States.
http://www.te.com

NTT Makes Progress in Restoring Services in Quake Zone

Thanks to the efforts of thousands of employees and construction workers, NTT has restored service approximately 90 percent of the exchange offices damaged in the March 11th earthquake, leaving 93 exchange offices and approximately 155 thousand circuits waiting to be restored.


The March 23rd status of disaster relief efforts being made by NTT Group companies is as follows:


The earthquake and tsunamis disrupted commercial power supply and caused equipment failure in approximately 1,000 exchange offices. NTT East responded by deploying emergency batteries, emergency power generators and mobile power-supply vehicles to supply power. However, some exchange offices remained inoperable, resulting in the disruption of a total of approximately 1,470 thousand circuits in telephone subscriber lines, ISDN and FLET'S Hikari (FTTH) services as of 6:00 a.m., March 13 (JST). NTT East, with the help of other NTT group companies and construction companies, comprised some 5,000 people in total, to make an all-out effort to restore these services.



The 93 exchange offices yet to be restored include those with physical damage, flooding or disruption of connection to backbone transmission lines in areas severely impacted by the earthquake and/or tsunamis, and those located in the off-limits area surrounding the malfunctioning nuclear power plant. For these reasons, the recovery of most of these exchange offices is expected to require a significant amount of time.


NTT East has installed 2,076 special public telephones in 615 locations available for use free of charge (as of noon, March 23 (JST)).


For NTT Docomo, 6,720 base stations were disrupted. Recovery efforts have reduced the figure to approximately 840 as of 1:00 p.m. on March 23 (JST).


NTT Communications lost approximately 15,000 IP-VPN and e-VLAN circuits and so far all but 2,300 have been restored.


The company also noted some damage to submarine cables and backup routes were put into service. As for NTT Com's data centers, no damages were confirmed.
http://www.ntt.co.jp

Etisalat Deploys Verimatrix for IPTV in UAE

Etisalat has deployed the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS™) for IPTV solution on it's IP-based pay-TV service in the United Arab Emirates. The service will be delivered over an FTTH network.


Verimatrix is also a major partner in the visionary Etisalat Entertainment Network project that will offer a suite of end-to-end IP-based digital entertainment service offerings, on a wholesale basis, to OpCos, ISPs, and content owners located within the reach of the Etisalat network or those who connect to the Internet.


The deployment of Verimatrix for Etisalat's TV in the UAE and the Digital Entertainment Network regionally and globally was led by regional systems integrator Al-Falak, a leading provider of technology-based solutions to the Middle East.
>http://www.verimatrix.com

GSA Tracks Growing Carrier LTE Commitments -- 17 Live Networks

The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) reports that almost 200 operators are now investing in LTE. The report confirms 140 firm operator commitments to deploy commercial LTE systems in 56 countries. The number of committed operators is 118% higher than one year ago. A further 56 pre-commitment trials have been identified. Taken together, the report confirms 196 operators in 75 countries are currently investing in LTE. The report covers both LTE FDD and LTE TDD modes.



Seventeen operators have commercially launched LTE networks, in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Norway, Poland, Sweden, USA, and Uzbekistan.



GSA has raised its market outlook and now anticipates that at least 73 LTE networks will be in commercial service by end 2012.



The regional breakdown of 140 firm operator commitments to deploy is as follows:

  • Americas = 29 networks


  • Europe = 64 networks


  • MEA = 14 networks


  • APAC/Oceania = 33 networks


In addition, GSA notes that a total of 98 LTE-capable user devices were confirmed launched in the market by 35 suppliers.http://www.gsacom.com

IDT's RapidIO Switch Enables Texas Instruments' Wireless Basestation

Texas Instruments has selected Integrated Device Technology's (IDT's) CPS-1616 RapidIO Gen2 switch for its new TMDXEVM6616 evaluation module (EVM) for wireless base stations.



RapidIO delivers the efficiency and software scalability for clustering large numbers of digital signal processors (DSPs) and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) on boards and over backplanes for wireless systems.



The IDT CPS-1616 belongs to IDT's extensive portfolio of RapidIO Gen2 switches, supporting up to 20 Gbps per link for use as a chip-to-chip, board-to-board, and chassis-to-chassis interconnect. RapidIO enables OEMs in the 4G wireless and industrial markets to design embedded systems with clusters of DSPs that communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion while also providing high reliability, very low 100ns cut through latency, and simplified system memory maps.http://www.idt.com/go/S-RIO

Symmetricom Delivers Precise Timing for Packet Backhaul

Symmetricom introduced its "TimeProvider" 1500 (TP1500) packet-based primary reference source (PRS) clock, which can be used in Carrier Ethernet packet backhaul networks as a complement to a traditional cesium clock or a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) antenna installation.



Symmetricom's TP1500 combines the rubidium QUANTUM miniature atomic clock (MAC) and its "PackeTime" technology to deliver primary reference level synchronization in areas where GNSS coverage or antenna deployment is challenged, and supports migration from TDM to Ethernet-based networks. The TP1500 adheres to the IEEE 1588-2008 protocol specification, and leverages the capabilities of its TimeProvider 5000 Grandmaster to provide packet-based PRS services for the radio access network (RAN). The TP1500 product is part of Symmetricom's TimeProvider suite of products that are based on the IEEE 1588-2008 standard.



"The TP1500 is the industry's first packet-based primary reference source solution to enhance traditional synchronization sources," said Manish Gupta, vice president of marketing at Symmetricom. "The TP1500 is another example of Symmetricom's innovative approach to solving customers' challenges, providing a unique packet-based solution that is immune to the interference and antenna deployment challenges of traditional GNSS sources."http://www.symmetricom.com

cPacket Puts Timestamping Code into Public Domain

CPacket Networks is placing in the public domain a new solution for accurate timestamping of high speed network traffic in real-time.



cPacket provides accurate real-time information by timestamping the applications data on the fly directly "at the wire," before queuing, buffering, or aggregations can alter its timing behavior.



CPacket said its new software enables users and application developers to seamlessly integrate such real-time timestamping into existing solutions, or into open source tools like Tcpdump, Wireshark, and n2disk. When used with hardware timestamping directly at the wire, this software enables any application to take full advantage of the most accurate inline timestamping in a standard format (including pcap, libcap, etc.). The standard format and seamless integration means no changes to the user's application software are required.



cPacket makes this new software and driver available free of charge in the public domain to customers, application developers, other solution vendors, universities and the open source community.http://www.cpacket.com

TE Connectivity Wins $400 Million Contract with Australian NBN

TE Connectivity (formerly Tyco Electronics) has been named a supplier of network connectivity products for the Australian government's National Broadband Network (NBN) program. Specifically, NBN Co has awarded a five-year, $400 million contract to TE Connectivity with an initial purchase commitment of $100 million. This contract award follows TE Connectivity's and ADC's supply to date of more than $4 million of passive optical equipment into NBN Co's First Release sites, which are currently well under construction. TE Connectivity acquired ADC in December, 2010.



"We are thrilled to have been selected again as an NBN Co partner and we look forward to continuing our strong relationship. This is a very important program for NBN Co and for the citizens of Australia. We are proud to be part of the team that will bring high-speed broadband services to Australia," said Alan Clarke, president of TE Connectivity's Network Solutions segment. http://www.te.com

XKL Launches Enterprise DWDM Systems

XKL is introducing two "DarkStar" DWDM products that provide enterprises with a compact optical transport system for lighting dark fiber. XKL's DXM10-4 and DXM10-2 systems offer two or four port configurations, thereby lowering the barriers for dark fiber.



"Dark fiber is only as important as a company's ability to use it. Our DXM10-4 and DXM10-2 provide a plug and play solution for lighting dark fiber, without the capital expenditure commonly associated with the cost of large bandwidth project commitments," states Len Bosack, CEO of XKL. "We have designed a solution that fits the needs of smaller projects with enterprises, carriers, ISP's and more. These lower port count systems offer flexible network extension opportunities for using dark fiber assets, that up until now have not been available in a system-engineered component."http://www.xkl.com

China Mobile to Test ALU's lightRadio in TD-LTE Trial

China Mobile has selected Alcatel-Lucent to participate in a TD-LTE trial network covering Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiamen. The trial will help China Mobile to provide a wide range of high speed mobile broadband services to its subscribers, such as high definition video, 3D gaming, FTP transmission and high speed Internet.



This qualification follows successful completion of various interoperability tests which started from January 2010 as required by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT) and China Mobile. Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, Alcatel-Lucent's flagship company in China is one of the first suppliers to have successfully achieved this key milestone and will be deploying its end-to-end LTE solution for China Mobile's large-scale 4G TD-LTE trial in the city of Shanghai.



Rajeev Singh-Molares, president of Alcatel-Lucent's activities in Asia-Pacific said: "This is a major accomplishment for Alcatel-Lucent and clearly reinforces our leading position in China and our global leadership in LTE. We are committed to provide China Mobile with the most advanced LTE solution for the world's largest TD-LTE trial and to demonstrate the maturity and cost-effectiveness of our solution for TD-LTE which is emerging as the 4G standard for TDD spectrum globally. The successful interoperability tests with terminal suppliers further demonstrate our commitment to create an open TD-LTE ecosystem that will participate in the broader global LTE value chain."



Alcatel-Lucent is a key partner of China Mobile on TD-LTE and next generation wireless networks initiatives and evolution programs. During the 2010 Shanghai World Expo Alcatel-Lucent supported China Mobile in the first large-scale TD-LTE trial network deployment delivering advanced mobile services including ultra high speed Internet access and High Definition TV (HDTV). Most recently, at Mobile World Congress, Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile demonstrated with Audi, a variety of in-vehicle high-value applications that worked seamlessly on a converged Time Division Duplex (TDD) and Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) network ensuring seamless global coverageand the ability to benefit from a common LTE ecosystem across both modes. Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile are partnering to develop next-generation radio access network based on Alcatel-Lucent's lightRadio, a groundbreaking innovation to prepare wireless networks to handle the explosive growth in demand for wireless broadband services while making the networks more eco friendly.http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

DragonWave Adds Two More Customers for Wireless Backhaul

DragonWave announced two rural carriers who've used stimulus funds to backhaul their 3G/4G wireless networks using its high capacity packet microwave equipment: KeyOn Communications, which serves rural Nevada, and Northeast Wireless, which is building greenfield networks in rural Maine and Oregon.



KeyOn is using DragonWave's Horizon Compact and Horizon Duo to anchor the "middle mile" network components for KeyOn's stimulus-funded 4G wireless network service rollout to rural homes, businesses and critical community facilities such as healthcare providers. The carrier has received a $10.2 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) award to provide 4G, last-mile wireless broadband access and VoIP services in qualified rural communities throughout Nevada.



Northeast Wireless Networks has selected DragonWave's Horizon Compact and Horizon Quantum to enable 3G and 4G services in under-served markets.http://www.dragonwaveinc.com/