Nokia Siemens Networks Completes Acquisition of Motorola Solutions Assets

Nokia Siemens Networks completed its previously-announced acquisition of Motorola Solutions' Networks assets for US$975 million in cash.


As of April 30 2011, Nokia Siemens Networks has assumed responsibility for supporting customers of Motorola Solutions' GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE products and services. As part of the deal, responsibility for supporting 50 operators across 52 countries, as well as approximately 6900 employees, will transfer to Nokia Siemens Networks. In addition, Nokia Siemens Networks is acquiring a number of research and development facilities including sites in the United States, China, Russia, India and the UK.


NSN said the deal strengthens its position in key regions, particularly North America and Japan, as well as with some of the world's major service providers. Based on revenue, the addition of Motorola Solutions' Networks assets makes Nokia Siemens Networks the third largest wireless infrastructure vendor in the United States and the leading non-Japanese wireless vendor in Japan. In addition, the acquisition reinforces Nokia Siemens Networks' position as the world's second largest wireless infrastructure and services provider.


"The people, customers and technology we've acquired greatly complement our existing business by taking us into new markets and broadening our market share," said Rajeev Suri, chief executive officer, Nokia Siemens Networks. "Our combined knowledge and experience will provide our newly expanded customer base with the means to grow by providing greater value to their subscribers."http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

• Nokia Siemens Networks originally announced plans to acquire Motorola Solutions’ Networks assets on July 19, 2010 for US$1.2 billion in cash. The deal was held up a lengthy regulatory approvals process, and a spat between Motorola and Huawei, which ended earlier this month with a settlement.



• Motorola's networks infrastructure business provides products and services for wireless networks, including GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE. This business is a market leader in WiMAX, with 41 contracts in 21 countries; has a strong global footprint in CDMA with 30 active networks in 22 countries; and a robust GSM installed base, with more than 80 active networks in 66 countries; and traction with LTE early adopters.
  
  
  Motorola retains the iDEN business, substantially all the patents related to its wireless network infrastructure business and other selected assets. NSN gains cross-license to the IPR portfolio. Approximately 7,500 employees are expected to transfer to Nokia Siemens Networks from Motorola's wireless network infrastructure business when the transaction closes, including large research and development sites in the United States, China and India.

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Outage at Amazon Web Services Caused by Network Configuration Error

In the early hours of April 21st, a configuration error during a network upgrade at its US East Region data center led to a cascading series of failures that ultimately brought down the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
The trigger event was a configuration change meant to upgrade the capacity of the facility's primary network.


Instead of temporarily re-routing traffic to a redundant router in the primary network, the configuration change shifted traffic onto a lower capacity, redundant Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) network. The secondary network couldn't handle the traffic level and many EBS nodes in the affected Availability Zone were completely isolated from other EBS nodes in its cluster.


Amazon Web Services has published a lengthy memo on the incident. The company has also issued credits for affected customers and apologized for outage.


Going forward, AWS said it would make it easier for companies to its geographically distributed Availability Zones, which are completely isolated and independent of each other. The company also plans to invest in increasing its visibility, control, and automation to recover volumes in the event of another disaster.http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/

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India's Tulip Telecom Expands Data Center Ambition

New Delhi-based Tulip Telecom Limited (Tulip) announced plans to build what is described as the world's third largest data center in Bengaluru (Karnataka). The company has acquired an existing facility in Bengaluru from SADA IT Parks Private Limited (SADA) and now intends to increase its square footage by 9-fold to approximately 900,000 square feet.



The company anticipates a total investment of Rs 900 crore spread over a period of 3 years.



Tulip Telecom has picked IBM to set-up the new eco-friendly Data Center with state-of-the-art infrastructure. It will be able to house up to 16,000 racks, backed by up to 100 MW in power supply.



The Bengaluru Data Center will serve the hosting, co-location, storage and connectivity needs of large
enterprises and small and medium businesses in the region, while also serving as a disaster recovery
facility for enterprises that are present in other key business centers across India or nearby countries.



Commenting on the acquisition, Sanjay Jain, CEO, Tulip Telecom Ltd. said, "Our new Data Center will help meet the rising customer requirements for Co-location, Managed Hosting & Data Storage and a suite of other complementary services including Managed Security Services and storage requirements of our customers from across the globe. This, we believe will provide further impetus towards strengthening our foothold in the Enterprise Data Services market place."



Tulip Telecom already has four operational data centers (two in Mumbai, and one each in Delhi and Bengaluru) with ISO 20000-1 & ISO 27001 certifications to ensure reliable and high quality service delivery. The company is also a leading provider of MPLS VPN services in India.http://www.tulip.net

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Greenpacket Offers Enhanced Wi-Fi Offload Solution

Greenpacket has enhanced its Intouch Connection Management Platform (ICMP) to enable mobile operators to dynamically offload subscribers from congested cellular networks to Wi-Fi networks using intelligent switching rules based on operator's network management policies and controls.



The new capabilities comply with the 3GPP-defined standard for networking connectivity function, namely the Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF).



Greenpacket said it has fully tested its ICMP with leading Policy Charging and Rules Function (PCRF) systems and that it will work universally with any 3GPP compliant PCRF node on mobile operator's networks.



Kelvin Lee, Senior General Manager of Greenpacket said "As the ANDSF-ICMP is embedded into the subscriber's devices, mobile operators can now collect real-time information about the subscriber's network conditions, including WiFi networks. Without ANDSF, mobile operators would have lost visibility of their subscriber's activity once they switch to Wi-Fi."



Lee added "Operators are riding on the rapid growth of mobile data market and are increasingly aware that enforcing policy control is crucial in managing and optimizing network bandwidth and usage. It is fundamental for Greenpacket to integrate the ANDSF into the ICMP to meet mobile operator's WiFi data offload strategy."



Technical notes:



ANDSF is a module within an Evolved Packet Core of the System Architecture Evolution for 3GPP mobile networks. ANDSF enables consumer-level devices such as notebooks, modems and mobile phones to discover and communicate with non-3GPP networks such as WiFi or WiMAX and enforce network policy controls. Greenpacket's ANDSF in ICM is compliant to the 3GPP TS 24.312, TS 22.278 and TS 23.402 standards.



PCRF, a node that operates at the network core, plays a central role to enforce policies in next-generation networks. In the context of data offloading, the PCRF data offload module functions to provide configurable discoveries and mobility policy to the UE, this dictates the trigger of when offload should happen.http://www.greenpacket.com

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Canada's Rogers Picks Ericsson for LTE

Ericsson has been named sole supplier for Roger's LTE network. Ericsson will deploy all 4G/LTE radio sites with its new multi-standard radio base station, RBS 6000, and upgrade and expand Rogers' existing packet core network into an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network, supporting the new LTE network. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Ericsson noted it has now signed commercial LTE contracts with six of seven of the top ranked operators by 2010 global revenue.
http://www.ericsson.com

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NETGEAR's Q1 Revenue Tops $279 Million, up 32% YoY

NETGEAR reported Q1 net revenue of $278.8 million, as compared to $211.6 million for the first quarter ended March 28, 2010, and as compared to $258.5 million in the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2010. Net income (GAAP) was $21.2 million, or $0.57 per diluted share.


Patrick Lo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NETGEAR, commented, "We are extremely pleased with our first quarter 2011 performance, another quarter of record revenue and profit. We were carrying tremendous momentum out of a very strong fourth quarter, and our new products continue to exceed our expectations and enable us to gain market share. "Our impressive first quarter growth was driven by new products introduced in recent quarters. Particularly encouraging is the market's reception to our products in TV and mobile connectivity, Docsis 3.0 cable gateways, and business network storage. To continue the new product momentum, we introduced another 20 new products in Q1 2011, beefing up our portfolios in the areas of TV connectivity, Docsis 3.0 cable gateways, and security appliances."
http://www.netgear.com

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Verizon Wireless Restores LTE Service -- No Cause Stated

Verizon Wireless restored service on its national LTE network on Thursday morning, roughly 24 hours after the outage began. The company has not yet commented on the cause of the problem nor whether subscribers would be compensated. Verizon Wireless has an estimated 560,000 LTE subscribers, including about 260,000 Thunderbolt smartphones.
http://www.verizonwireless.com

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Calix Reports Q1 Revenue of $71.5 Million

Calix reported Q1 revenue of $71.5 million, an increase of 48.3% compared to $48.2 million for the first quarter of 2010. GAAP net loss for the first quarter of 2011 was $22.8 million, or $(0.55) per basic and diluted share.


"Q1 was a record-setting quarter for Calix, and represented a strong start to fiscal year 2011," said Carl Russo, Calix president and CEO. "We executed well across all segments of our business, and reported results that were ahead of expectations. Our integration of Occam Networks is progressing quickly and smoothly, resulting in accelerating innovation across our Unified Access portfolio and deeper relationships with our over 900 customers."http://www.calix.com

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Huawei Sues ZTE for Patent and Trademark Infringement

Huawei filed lawsuits in Germany, France, and Hungary against ZTE for patent and trade mark infringement.


Huawei alleges that ZTE is infringing a series of its patents relating to data card and LTE (Long Term Evolution) technologies and illegally used a Huawei-registered trademark on some of its data card products.


Huawei said it has invited ZTE on numerous occasions to enter into cross-patent licensing negotiations but was equally unsuccessful.


In response, ZTE said it is astonished that Huawei has taken this action because it "respects and adheres to international intellectual property laws and regulations without reservation, and absolutely rejects that there has been any patent and trademark infringement."http://www.huawei.com
http://www.zte.com.cn

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Infinera Posts Revenue of $93 Million

Infinera reported Q1 2011 GAAP revenues of $92.9 million compared to $117.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 and $95.8 million in the first quarter of 2010. GAAP gross margins for the quarter were 46% compared to 49% in the fourth quarter of 2010 and 39% in the first quarter of 2010. GAAP net loss for the quarter was $16.4 million, or $(0.16) per share, compared to net loss of $2.7 million, or $(0.03) per share, in the fourth quarter of 2010 and net loss of $20.0 million, or $(0.21) per share, in the first quarter of 2010.



"Our first quarter results were achieved based on continuing demand for our product portfolio from our existing customers, which reflects continuing steady growth in end-user demand for bandwidth, but we saw slower new footprint activity in Q1 versus a year ago," said Tom Fallon, president and chief executive officer. "Customers continue to show strong interest in our Photonic Integrated Circuit technology and in the field trial demonstrations of the differentiated features of our upcoming new products—our 40G transmission solution with FlexCoherent technology and our next-generation 500Gb/s PIC solution, which will support 100G transmission applications.http://www.infinera.com

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TeliaSonera Launches LTE in Lithuania with Huawei

TeliaSonera has launched the first commercial 4G / LTE service in Lithuania using the 1800 MHz frequency. Service is available in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys under the Omnitel brand.



The initial 4G network in Lithuania is supplied by Huawei and the 4G modems come from ZTE supporting 4G/3G/2G.



"It is a positive trend in European countries to offer technology neutral frequency bands which gives customers faster access to new technology such as fast mobile broadband like 4G. The early deployment of 4G on 1800 MHz in Lithuania is a good example of this. TeliaSonera builds out the mobile networks and modernise the infrastructure in the Nordic and Baltic countries. We have an expansive rollout plan based on the high customer demand for mobile data services," says Claes Nycander, CTO Mobility Services TeliaSonera.



TeliaSonera was the first operator in the world to commercially launch 4G. It now offers LTE in in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania.http://www.teliasonera.com

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STMicroelectronics Expands its Base Station Chip Portfolio

STMicroelectronics introduced a base station IC that integrates the RF frequency synthesizer and down-converter functionality in a single device. The new STW82100B series is aimed at compact, next-generation mobile network base stations and for equipment such as RF (radio-frequency) instrumentation and general wireless-infrastructure applications.



ST's high-quality BiCMOS process has been used to achieve this advanced level of integration, while also meeting all key performance requirements. ST chips implemented in this advanced technology process are already being widely used by major basestation manufacturers.



"This family of products shows the effectiveness of silicon-germanium (SiGe) integration in challenging RF applications and demonstrates, once more, the potential of ST's proprietary BiCMOS technology," said Flavio Benetti, Marketing Director of ST's Networking and Storage Division. "Today, ST is also successfully serving other markets such as optical communications applications with BiCMOS process options offering high-speed transistors operating at up to 230GHz FT / 280GHz FMAX."http://www.st.com

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PMC-Sierra Posts Q1 Revenue of $157 Million, up 3% YoY

PMC-Sierra reported Q1 2011 net revenues of $157.4 million, a year-over-year increase of 3% compared with $152.8 million in the first quarter of 2010, and slightly lower than net revenues of $159.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. There was a GAAP net loss of $7.7 million (GAAP net loss per share of $0.03) compared with GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2010 of $27.0 million (GAAP diluted net income per share of $0.12).



"We have been working diligently with our customers to reduce inventories and we currently anticipate a resumption of growth in the second quarter of 2011, led by our enterprise storage business," said Greg Lang, president and chief executive officer of PMC-Sierra.
http://www.pmc-sierra.com

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Verizon Charts a new Carbon Intensity Metric

Verizon has a carbon intensity metric to quantify its energy efficiency in moving a terabyte of data across its global backbone. The new measurement, which was developed by Verizon's Sustainability Office and tested over the past 12 months, showed an improvement of approximately 15 percent in the company's carbon efficiency, from 2009 to 2010. Verizon is aiming for a further 15 percent improvement in 2011.



The metric is derived by first combining Verizon's total carbon emissions (in metric tons) from the electricity, building fuels and vehicle fuels used to run the company's business. Then, that total is divided by the number of terabytes of data that the company transports across its network. (One terabyte equals about 300 feature-length movies.) Verizon transported 78.6 million terabytes across its global network in 2010 – an increase of about 16 percent, compared with 2009.



Verizon said this metric will help it to better assess the success of its sustainability efforts and where it needs to focus more attention to continue improving.



"We want to make sure our sustainability claims are backed up by solid methodology and numbers that we can share with everyone," said James Gowen, chief sustainability officer for Verizon. "We developed this metric because we are a network company, and our core measure is the amount of information we transport on our network. So this ratio is closely aligned with our business and will allow us to assess how we are becoming more energy efficient even as our business expands."http://www.verizon.com

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Chunghwa Telecom FTTx Nears Half of Broadband Subscribers

More than 48% of Chunghwa Telecom's broadband subscribers in Taiwan are now served by FTTx as the migration away from ADSL continues to gain pace. The carrier now estimates that its FTTx footprint will reach 80% of the island by 2015.



For Q1 2011, Chunghwa Telecom's total consolidated revenue increased by 5.8% year-over-year to NT$52.48 billion, of which 43.5% was from the mobile business, 11.6% was from the internet business, 36.6% was from the domestic fixed business, 7.2% was from the international fixed business, and the remainder was from others.



The company said it maintained its growth trajectory despite Taiwan's tariff reduction that came into effect on April 1, 2010, thanks to an increase in mobile VAS, handset sales and internet services.



For the mobile business, total revenue for the first quarter 2011 amounted to NT$22.84 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 2.8%, mainly due to growth in mobile VAS revenue relating to smartphone promotions and handset sales which offset the decline in mobile voice revenue. The decline of mobile voice revenue was primarily resulting from the shift of pricing right for fixed to mobile calls from mobile to fixed operators.



Chunghwa's internet business revenue increased by 3.6% year-over-year to NT$6.08 billion in the first quarter of 2011, mainly attributable to growth in the number of broadband subscribers and the migration of ADSL subscribers to fiber solutions.



For the first quarter of 2011, domestic fixed revenue totaled NT$19.20 billion, representing an increase of 11.6% year-over-year. Local revenues increased by 24.3% year-over-year, mainly due to the shift in pricing right for fixed to mobile calls.



Broadband access revenue, including ADSL and FTTx, increased by 3% year-over-year to NT$5.23 billion. Although ADSL access revenue decreased as more ADSL subscribers migrated to fiber solutions, the decrease was fully offset by growth in FTTx access revenue.



Total broadband subscribers amounted to 4.4 million as of March 31, 2011.



FTTx subscribers as a percentage of total broadband subscribers increased from 40.4% at the end of March 2010 to 48.1% at the end of March 2011. In the first quarter of 2011, FTTx revenue reached 63.2% of total broadband access revenue.



HiNet broadband subscribers totaled 3.61 million at the end of March 2011, a year-over-year rise of 1.9%.



As of March 31, 2011, Chunghwa had 9.78 million mobile subscribers, an increase of 4.5% compared to 9.36 million at the end of Mach 2010.



Chunghwa gained 177 thousand net additions to its 3G subscriber base during the first quarter of 2011, recording 13.7% year-over-year growth and bringing the total to 5.60 million as of March 31, 2011.http://www.cht.com.tw/

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Huawei Delivers 2 x 100GE Router Line Card

Huawei introduced a "200G" line card for its high-end NE5000E router. This 200G line card, consisting of a mother card and daughter card, will be delivered with two types: 2 x 100GE and 20 x 10GE. The mother card is backward compatible with the daughter cards of legacy 100G line cards. In addition, the mother card supports multiple hot-swappable daughter cards for operators to choose from.



When deployed on a Huawei NE5000E high-end router, it additionally enhances the port density to 256 100GE ports or 2560 10GE ports, and improves the forwarding capability of the "2+8" NE5000E cluster system to 50 Tbps.



The new line card leverages Huawei's Solar chipsets, including its high performance forwarding engine chip, switch fabric chip and traffic management chip, as well as next-generation energy-saving technologies such as MIP (Macro Instruction for Packet Processing). Huawei said its 200G line card is able to achieve line-rate forwarding of services and additionally maintain minimum power consumption lower than 2.62 W per GE.



Hu Kewen, President of Huawei's Carrier IP Sub-Product Line, said, "operators' demands for larger-capacity ultra-broadband networks to carry high-value services is the essential drive behind our development of the 200G line card."http://www.huawei.com

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Telehouse NYIIX Consistently Averaging 100 Gbps

TELEHOUSE America's New York International Internet Exchange (NYIIX) has consistently exceeded the 100 Gbps (gigabits per second) daily traffic volume milestone this year. NYIIX is current averaging approximately 127 Gbps, essentially doubling the traffic volume in under 18 months.


NYIIX, which is one of the largest neutral Internet exchange points on the U.S. East coast, serves about 130 active peering members from around the world.


Located in downtown New York City, NYIIX provides fully redundant equipment and fiber connections to the most popular local carrier hotels: 25 Broadway, 60 Hudson St., and 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan, 7 Teleport on Staten Island, and 85 10th Avenue located in the Chelsea District of Manhattan.


"Exceeding 100 gigabits per second of traffic is the result of our continuing ability to increase NYIIX
members along with their increasing traffic volume," says Akio Sugeno, Senior Director of Internet
Engineering and Operations Business Development. "Such an accomplishment proves that NYIIX is one
of the most important IXP's in the United States."http://www.telehouse.com/

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Clearwire Discontinues Backhaul Services from FiberTower

Clearwire has discontinued the majority of the backhaul services provided by FiberTower, effective April 30, 2011, representing approximately $434,000 in monthly service revenue. Upon termination of these services, the customer's early termination charges are expected to be approximately $1.9 million payable immediately. Approximately 16% of the services will be retained, representing approximately $80,000 in monthly revenue.


FiberTower said payment of the early termination charges of approximately $1.5 million associated with service terminated in February has been received by the company.
http://www.fibertower.com

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ZTE Counter Sues Huawei for Patent Infringement

ZTE filed a lawsuit against Huawei Technologies Co. patent infringement over its LTE technologies in China.


ZTE said it will pursue a series of legal actions globally to protect its rights on intellectual properties, ensuring its legitimate rights and interests will not be compromised.
http://www.zte.com.cn

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Equinix Posts Q1 2011 Revenues of $363.0 million

Equinix reported Q1 2011 revenues of $363.0 million, a 5% increase over the previous quarter and a 46% increase over the same quarter last year. Recurring revenues, consisting primarily of colocation, interconnection and managed services were $343.9 million for the first quarter, a 5% increase over the previous quarter and a 45% increase over the same quarter last year. Non-recurring revenues were $19.1 million in the quarter.


"We are extremely pleased with our first quarter results and are well positioned to achieve our 2011 financial objectives. Whether it's cloud computing or mobile and video traffic, Internet growth is propelling demand for Platform Equinix," said Steve Smith, president and CEO of Equinix. "Due to this momentum, we are increasing our expansion investments to provide the capacity required to support greater than $2 billion in revenues, which we expect to achieve in 2013. We have a great opportunity for disciplined investment to meet our customers' need for network-dense, global data center capacity while generating strong returns for our shareholders."http://www.equinix.com

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Russia's MegaFON Deploys HD Voice over GSM

Russia's MegaFon has deploy HD voice on its GSM and UMTS networks in Moscow and Sochi.


Nokia Siemens Networks was responsible for the HD voice implementation. Nokia Siemens Networks' HD voice is based on Adaptive Multi-Rate Wide Band technology* (AMR-WB) that provides service continuation between GSM and UMTS networks, and supports Megafon's network.


"The main advantage of HD Voice communication is the impression of a live, emotional talk between people. HD Voice users can forget about ‘robotic voice': they will hear their relatives, loved ones, friends or business partners exactly like in a live talk – with all nuances, hues and tones of speech," said Igor Akulinin, first deputy director of MegaFon-Moscow. "For MegaFon the HD Voice Project is another example of implementing innovative services which open up new, previously unavailable opportunities for our subscribers."http://www.nsn.com

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ARRIS Posts Q1 Revenues of $267.4 Million

ARRIS reported Q1 2011 revenues of 267.4 million as compared to revenues of $266.7 million for Q1 2010 and as compared to revenues of $266.2 million for Q4 2010. GAAP net income in the first quarter 2011 was $0.09 per diluted share, as compared to first quarter 2010 GAAP net income of $0.15 per diluted share and fourth quarter 2010 GAAP net income of $0.09 per diluted share.


"First quarter financial results came in within our range of guidance," said Bob Stanzione, ARRIS Chairman & CEO. "I am very pleased with the progress we are making with customers for our new higher density C4 line cards which will be shipping in the second quarter. Additionally, the recent announcement of our first customer for our new IP Home Gateway product is an indicator of our traction in the strategy to expand into the video based products market."


Gross margin for the first quarter 2011 was 36.3%, which compares to the first quarter 2010 gross margin of 42.2% and the fourth quarter 2010 gross margin of 36.2%.


Order backlog at the end of the first quarter 2011 was $177.5 million as compared to $195.1 million and $140.4 million at the end of the first quarter 2010 and the fourth quarter 2010, respectively. The Company's book-to-bill ratio in the first quarter 2011 was 1.14 as compared to the first quarter 2010 of 1.19 and the fourth quarter 2010 of 1.08.
http://www.arrisi.com

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ARRIS C4 CMTS Software Upgrades Enables 343 Mbps Subscriber Rates

ARRIS has begun early deployments of its Release 7.4 eXtended Downstream Cable Access Module (XD CAM) field upgrade, effectively doubling the downstream density of the DOCSIS 3.0 C4 CMTS from 16D to 32D without the need for any wiring or hardware changes.


This enables eight-channel bonding and gives cable operators the ability to deliver more bandwidth per subscriber -- up to 343 Mbps for North American DOCSIS (Annex B) and 445 Mbps for European DOCSIS (Annex A).


Specifically, the C4 Release 7.4 software enables operators to upgrade all existing, deployed 16D CAMs to XD CAMs with the purchase of a software license — without removing the module from the chassis. This software-only upgrade process is far less onerous and costly than that of requiring customers to replace current modules with new hardware to achieve similar downstream densities.


Also available in Release 7.4 is support for IPv6 as well as DOCSIS 3.0 multicast traffic. North American cable MSO Comcast recently completed successful testing of a live application of native dual stack (IPv4 and IPv6) CPE support for its customers in the Denver area using the C4 CMTS. Operators will be able to deploy IPv6 with confidence and, by combining Multicast IP Video with DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding, will be able to deliver IP Video in the most efficient way possible.


ARRIS said this keyed feature field upgrade is available for purchase to the entire installed base of C4 DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS' worldwide.


"Each time we upgrade a C4's capacity and density, we lower its total cost of ownership," said ARRIS Broadband Communications Systems President Bruce McClelland. "The XD CAM is a highly cost effective way to double downstream capacity by simply loading new software, without significant service disruption or configuration changes, and noticeably improves the customer's broadband user experience."http://www.arrisi.com/get/XDCAM

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Alcatel-Lucent Releases OpenPlug App Development Tools Free-for-All

Alcatel-Lucent released its OpenPlug Studio (formerly OpenPlug ELIPS Studio) as a free resource to application developers. OpenPlug Studio is a development toolkit that allows developers to efficiently create native applications for smart phones, tablets and other web-connected devices from a single code base using well-known web development technologies such as JavaScript, ActionScript and XML.


Alcatel-Lucent also launched a Certified OpenPlug Solutions Provider Program focused on application development and developer training. Initial members include Exuvis, Nexworld and On3. They will teach developers how to use the OpenPlug tools, while also building mobile applications for businesses that run on any platform or device and leverage service providers' network-based APIs (application programming interfaces).


"One of the things we set out to do when we created the Open API Platform was address the entire API and app ecosystem," said Laura Merling, senior vice president of Alcatel-Lucent's Application Enablement Strategy and Platform. "Making OpenPlug Studio free puts one of the industry's most powerful tools into the hands of more developers. And building a formal partner program further supports the need across all industries to provide the education and tools to meet the demands of the connected business."http://www.alcatel-lucent.comhttp://developer.openplug.com

• In September 2010, Alcatel-Lucent acquired OpenPlug, a software developer specializing in tools for mobile applications, for an undisclosed sum. The deal extends Alcatel-Lucent's Application Enablement strategy, which is focused on combining the trusted and secure network capabilities of service providers with the speed and innovation of the Web to provide a richer end-user experience. By building a robust application-enablement system, Alcatel-Lucent said it is aiming to transform service provider infrastructure by unlocking network resources and functionality and thereby creating new revenue share models. OpenPlug, which is based in Sophia Antipolis, France, provides tools for converting application code into software that runs natively on any leading mobile device operating system, including Apple's iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Linux. The company's ELIPS Studio is essentially an open software environment that lets developers create an application once and then deploy to multiple mobile phone OSes.

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Nokia Transfers Symbian to Accenture, Cuts Jobs

Nokia will outsource its Symbian software activities to Accenture. The decision will also transfer about 3,000 employees to Accenture. At the same time, Accenture would provide mobility software services to Nokia for future smartphones.


Under the deal, Accenture will provide Symbian-based software development and support services. Transitioning employees, located in China, Finland, India, United Kingdom and the United States, will initially work on Symbian software activities for Nokia. Over time, Accenture and Nokia will seek opportunities to retrain and redeploy transitioned employees.


This collaboration also includes plans for Accenture to provide mobility software, business and operational services around the Windows Phone platform to Nokia and other ecosystem participants.


In addition to the Symbian employee transfer to Accenture, Nokia announced further steps to reduce its Devices & Services expenses. Nokia plans to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 employees by the end of 2012, with the majority of reductions in Denmark, Finland and the UK. The company will consolidate its research and product development sites so that each site has a clear role and mission. Nokia expects the expansion of some sites and the contraction or closure of others.


"At Nokia, we have new clarity around our path forward, which is focused on our leadership across smart devices, mobile phones and future disruptions," said Stephen Elop, Nokia president and CEO. "However, with this new focus, we also will face reductions in our workforce. This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia."http://www.nokia.com
http://www.accenture.com

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Verizon Wireless Suffers National LTE Outage

Verizon Wireless experienced a widespread disruption on its national LTE network. The problem was widely noted by Twitter users, who complained that their Thunderbolt handsets had defaulted to 1x speed. Voice service continued as normal of the CDMA network.


As of 4pm ET on Wednesday afternoon, Verizon Wireless stated that it had determined the cause of the problem and that is was working with major vendors to restore connections.

http://twitter.com/#!/VerizonWireless

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Ericsson Posts Strong Q1 Driven by Base Station Sales

Ericsson's overall sales in Q1 2011 rose to SEK 53.0 billion, up 17% year-over-year and down -16% sequentially. Sales for comparable units, adjusted for currency exchange rate effects and hedging, increased 25% year-over-year.


"Group sales in the quarter increased by 17% year-over-year driven by continued strong demand for mobile broadband and especially for the multi-standard radio base station RBS 6000," says Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson.


The increase in Group sales was driven by segment Networks where revenues grew 35% year-over-year with an EBITA margin of 20%. The strong demand for mobile broadband resulted in five out of ten regions showing growth year-over-year. Countries with especially strong growth were the US, India, Japan, Korea and Russia. China had continued good momentum for 2G.


Global Services sales decreased -4% year-over-year primarily due to currency exchange rate effects. In local currencies Professional Services grew 3%. EBITA margin decreased to 7% in the quarter mainly due to lower profitability in Network Rollout. Managed Services was flat compared to the first quarter 2010, but grew 11% year-over-year in local currencies driven by a number of new smaller contracts.


Segment Multimedia sales were flat year-over-year while EBITA margin dropped to -7%, mainly due to product mix. Our joint ventures showed mixed performance. Sony Ericsson contributed with a profit before tax of SEK 0.1 b. while ST-Ericsson's loss amounted to SEK -0.6 b.
http://www.ericsson.com

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Stoke Partners with Zhilabs on Mobile Data Offload

Stoke has collaborated with Zhilabs to create an integrated mobile data offload and traffic optimization solution that provides operators with the ability to manage explosive demand for mobile data. The combined capability delivers fine-grained visibility and control of traffic, enabling operators to apply management policies to reduce costs, improve use of network resources and a greatly improved customer experience.



Zhilabs is a start-up offering a "FlowSight" product that is able to collect massive data at wirespeed, directly from the packet data network and from any OSS/BSS source, correlate it, apply advanced analytics in real-time. The company has offices in Barcelona and Shanghai.



The companies said their solution enables operators to resolve specific traffic conditions and make optimization, offload and traffic re-direction decisions using the control point created by the Iu-PS breakout and management capabilities of Stoke's 3GPP-standard Mobile Data Offload gateway.



"Stoke's enhanced Mobile Data Offload solution provides subscriber RAN location information through an API to adjacent management and optimization applications," said Michael Homeier, VP of Product Management at Stoke.



"Zhilabs is able to leverage this data to view network conditions from end-to-end. This allows operators to invoke extremely precise control measures to relieve pressure on network elements, including breaking out selected sessions before the core and re-directing to nearby content sources, optimization services, or to the Internet."http://www.stoke.com http://www.zhilabs.com

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ZTE Sees 50% Boost in HSUPA Uplink Interference Cancellation

ZTE believes it can deliver a 50% increase in uplink capacity with a new generation of dual-mode SDR (Software Defined Radio) products that leverage HSUPA-based uplink interference cancellation technology. The company said this technology also provides a significant increase of both the number of voice users and average cell throughput, with users benefiting across various radio conditions. The upgraded SDR product solution is expected to be commercially available later in 2011.




ZTE's SDR technology is used in Indoor Macro, Outdoor Macro, Distributed Outdoor Micro base stations, radio controllers and unified-management systems.



"Consumers are increasingly using mobile data services to upload content such as photos and videos to the cloud. This can create challenges for operators in maintaining uplink capacity and a good user experience for their subscribers," said Zhang Jianguo, General Manager of ZTE's UMTS products. "By using uplink interference cancellation, the SDR product can mitigate signal interference and increase operators' cell uplink capacity by up to 50%, which enables them to use their spectrum resources much more efficiently."http://www.zte.com.cn

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Applied Micro Posts Revenue of $58.6 Million

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation reported quarterly net revenues of $58.6 million, down 6.1% sequentially and up 1.7% year over year. GAAP net loss was $4.0 million or $0.06 per share.



"We executed to plan and continue to build upon our leadership position in the OTN market. With our increased pace of product introductions, we are confident of expanding our market share in all our key focus markets," said Dr. Paramesh Gopi, President and Chief Executive Officer.



Bob Gargus, Chief Financial Officer commented, "Lead times continue to be challenging and going forward are further challenged by the supply chain issues from the Japan earthquake. Overall we did a good job of meeting our revenue estimates and managing inventories to better serve our customers. Looking forward it appears that overall market demand, for the next 2 or so quarters, is consistent with our expectations."
http://www.apm.com

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Equinix Plans Data Center Expansion in NY, Chicago, Frankfurt

Citing strong market demand for data center service, Equinix announced plans to open its eighth International Business Exchange data center in the New York metropolitan area and expand its data centers in Chicago, Ill., and Frankfurt, Germany.



Equinix is investing approximately $140 million in its newest New York metro area IBX data center. The new facility is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2012 and will primarily support the growth of Equinix's extensive financial ecosystem. The first phase will add approximately 156,000 gross square feet of space and 2,200 cabinet equivalents to Platform Equinix in the New York area, with room for additional expansions that would bring the total capacity to approximately 380,000 gross square feet of space and 7,100 cabinet equivalents.



The company is also investing approximately $30 million to expand its Chicago-3 IBX (CH3) and approximately $70 million to further expand its Frankfurt-2 IBX (FR2). The CH3 expansion will add approximately 19,000 square feet of colocation space and 600 cabinet equivalents, and is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2011. The FR2 expansion, which is the third phase of expansions in this data center, will add approximately 102,000 gross square feet of space and 1,900 cabinet equivalents when completed in 2012. The initial build-out of this expansion, which will add approximately 480 cabinets, is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2011.http://www.equinix.com

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CenturyLink to Acquire SAVVIS for Data Center Business

CenturyLink will acquire Savvis in a cash and stock merger valued at $40 per share, or a total of approximately $2.5 billion, plus net debt of approximately $0.7 billion which will be assumed or refinanced at close.


SAVVIS, which is based in St. Louis, provides managed services, colocation and network services for enterprise customers. It has 2,500 global clients, most under long term contract. Its managed hosting business is growing at around 25% per year. The company has 2,450 employees and 31 data centers.

CenturyLink said the deal gives it greater scale for delivering managed hosting and colocation services. Together, CenturyLink and Savvis will operate 48 data centers located in North America, Europe, and Asia with more than 1.9 million square feet of gross floor space; a national 207,000 route mile fiber network; a 190,000 mile global access network; and have a customer list that includes a majority of the Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies.

"The transaction creates a premier managed hosting and colocation provider with global scale in a high growth sector, and is expected to be accretive to revenue growth and cash flow per share," said Glen F. Post, III, CenturyLink chief executive officer and president. "Today, businesses are shifting the way they manage their information technology services and infrastructure, and this transaction helps us meet these needs by offering Savvis' leading products and services coupled with CenturyLink's network.

Savvis stockholders will receive $30 per share in cash and $10 in shares of CenturyLink common stock, representing an 11% premium over Savvis' closing stock price as of the close of trading on April 26, 2011 and a premium of 53% compared to Savvis' stock price at the beginning of the year.

At the closing of the transaction, CenturyLink will employ approximately 50,000 people based on the total number of CenturyLink and Savvis employees as of April 26, 2011.http://www.centurylink.com http://www.savvis.net

• In 2004, Savvis acquired the assets of Cable & Wireless USA, which included 3,000 enterprise customers, 15 data centers, and significant consulting experience from Exodus Communications, a Tier 1 backbone.


• In 2005, to reflect Savvis' expansion from network services to global IT services, the name was changed from Savvis Communications to Savvis, Inc.


• In 2007, Savvis opened a new data center opened in Singapore.
  
• In 2008, Savvis opened a new data center in London.
  
• In 2010, Savvis acquired Canadian managed IT and colocation provider Fusepoint Inc. which included three data centers in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

Recent Data Center Consolidation Deals
April 2011	CenturyLink to Acquire SAVVIS
April 2011	Equinix Acquires ALOG Data Centers of Brazil
Feb 2011	Time Warner Cable Acquires NaviSite and its 10 Data Centers
Jan 2011	Verizon Acquires Terremark
Oct 2010	Neutral Tandem Acquires Tinet
Nov 2010	Windstream Acquires Hosted Solutions
June 2010	Cincinnati Bell Acquires CyrusOne Data Centers for $525 Million
May 2010	Equinix Acquires Switch and Data

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Corning's Telecom Sales Up 30% YOY

Corning reported overall Q1 20011 sales of $1.9 billion, increasing 9% sequentially and 24% year over year.
Earnings per share were $0.47, a 2% sequential increase, but a 10% decline year over year.



Telecommunications segment sales were $474 million, a 7% sequential increase and 30% year-over-year improvement. Sequential sales for the quarter increased across most of the segment's major product areas with significant demand for the company's fiber-to-the-home solutions. Corning noted that its optical fiber volume in March was higher than any other month in its history.http://www.corning.com

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Wi-Fi Alliance See Growth in New Consumer Connectivity

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced a milestone in its certification program -- the 10,000th device to gain Wi-Fi certification is an LED-LCD TV with Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi Protected Setup capabilities. The certification program was introduced in 2000. While it took eight years to reach the 5,000-certification milestone, more than 2,000 certifications were given in 2010 alone.



"We are incredibly proud of the real impact and value of our Wi-Fi CERTIFIED program," said Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance. "Wi-Fi technology was in its infancy just ten years ago. Today Wi-Fi is increasingly enabling new products, new applications and new markets that extend our connectivity and enrich our experience. Wi-Fi certification will remain a fundamental part of our connected experience since we continue to develop numerous new capabilities and applications for Wi-Fi."http://www.wi-fi.org

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Sony Apologizes for PlayStation Network Intrusion

Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation, formally apologized for the hacker intrusion on the Sony Playstation Network last month, including the compromise of credit card data from tens of millions of subscribers.

"This criminal act against our network had a significant impact not only on our consumers, but our entire industry. These illegal attacks obviously highlight the widespread problem with cyber-security. We take the security of our consumers' information very seriously and are committed to helping our consumers protect their personal data. In addition, the organization has worked around the clock to bring these services back online, and are doing so only after we had verified increased levels of security across our networks."



The company enumerated the following steps that it has taken since the cyber-attack on its data center in San Diego: SNEI turned off the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, engaged multiple expert information security firms over the course of several days and conducted an audit of the system. Since then, SNEI and its third-party consultants have conducted security tests and implemented additional layers of data encryption. The company is also creating the position of Chief Information Security Officer, directly reporting to Shinji Hasejima, Chief Information Officer of Sony Corporation.http://www.sony.com

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CloudPassage Raises Funding for Cloud Security

CloudPassage, a start-up based in San Francisco, completed a Series A round of financing for is cloud server security and compliance solution.



CloudPassage said its key innovation is its Halo architecture, which automates multiple server security functions and transparently handles the highly fluid and scalable characteristics of public IaaS environments. The technology automatically secures cloud servers when they burst or are cloned. Halo combines an ultra-lightweight guest VM software component with an elastic compute grid optimized for security operations, an architecture that has opened up significant new security capabilities to companies leveraging IaaS.



The funding round was led by Benchmark Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.CloudPassage.com

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Tellabs Posts Q1 Revenue of $322 million, Down 15% YoY on North American Sales

Tellabs reported Q1 2011 revenue of $322 million, down 15% from $379 million in the first quarter of 2010.
Tellabs recorded a net loss (GAAP) of $24 million or 7 cents per share in the first quarter of
2011, compared with net earnings of $46 million or 12 cents per share in the first quarter of 2010.


For the first quarter of 2011, Broadband segment revenue was $173 million, Transport segment revenue
was $99 million and Services segment revenue was $50 million.


"While international revenue grew 40% from a year ago, lower revenue in North America drove Tellabs'
first-quarter results," said Rob Pullen, Tellabs president and chief executive officer. "Going forward, we
will continue to invest in the smart mobile Internet through increased R&D spending to position Tellabs
for long-term growth."http://www.tellabs.com

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Altera Posts Q1 Sales of $535.8 million, up 33% YoY

Altera reported Q1 sales of $535.8 million, down 4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 and up 33 percent from the first quarter of 2010. New product sales increased 13 percent sequentially. First quarter net income was $224.1 million, $0.68 per diluted share, compared with net income of $231.6 million, $0.72 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2010 and $153.2 million, $0.50 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2010.


"Despite the anticipated slow down in first quarter sales following a remarkable 2010 growth year, we experienced double-digit sequential growth in our 40-nm based devices, as these products are now entering the best part of their growth phase," said John Daane, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board. "Our initial 28-nm Stratix V devices, the first high-end FPGAs at this advanced node, are now shipping--giving us additional capabilities to accelerate the displacement of ASICs and ASSPs." http://www.altera.com

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Deutsche Telekom and NSN Show 800 MHz LTE for Rural Reach

Deutsche Telekom and Nokia Siemens Networks have jointly demonstrated LTE in in the 800 MHz spectrum as a means of reaching rural schools in Germany. DT has established an LTE connection with the G.-E.-Lessing-Gymnasium "European Grammar School" in Doebeln village. The "Flying Classroom" enables students to engage remotely with peers and teachers in partner schools using video conferencing and Smartboards.


"LTE offers a wide range of possible uses via ultra high-speed broadband and this Flying Classroom shows the wonders of LTE technology in enabling a new level of e-Education," said Guido Menzel, senior vice president, Fixed Mobile Engineering at Telekom Deutschland GmbH.


In 2010, Nokia Siemens Networks supplied LTE hardware and software with extensive services to the operator to ensure rapid, high-quality rollout of its LTE network in Germany.
http://www.nsn.com

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Broadcom Hits Q1 Revenue of $1.82 Billion, up 24%

Broadcom reported Q1 net revenue of $1.82 billion, a decrease in net revenue of 6.6% compared with Q4 2010 and an increase of 24.2% compared with the $1.46 billion reported for Q1 2010. Net income (GAAP) was $228 million, or $.40 per share (diluted).


"Broadcom reported solid results for the first quarter, with revenue above the mid-point of guidance and better-than-expected profitability," said Scott A. McGregor, Broadcom's President and Chief Executive Officer. "In addition, momentum continues to build around our innovative solutions. Following a record year in 2010, we had record design wins in the first quarter, which speaks to the continued underlying strength of our integrated solutions for the Home, Hand and Infrastructure markets."http://www.broadcom.com

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Equinix Acquires ALOG Data Centers of Brazil

Equinix has acquired ALOG Data Centers of Brazil S.A. in an all cash transaction valued at approximately $83 million—approximately $68 million as part of the acquisition and approximately $15 million to provide additional capital to fund future data center expansions.



ALOG serves approximately 1,000 customers across its two data centers in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In June 2011, ALOG plans to open the first phase of its third data center, which will be located in Tamboré (a suburb of Sao Paulo). The Tamboré data center will provide approximately 400 cabinet equivalents, with the ability to expand to as much as another 1,200 cabinet equivalents.



Equinix now has a footprint of 95 data centers across 37 global markets. This is the company's first entrance into the South American market.



The deal was completed with financial backing from Riverwood Capital. Equinix will hold the controlling interest and sit on the board of directors for ALOG; Riverwood will hold a significant minority stake; and current members of ALOG's management team will hold approximately 10 percent ownership of the company, with Sidney Breyer remaining as CEO. Beginning three years following the close of the transaction, Equinix has the right, and in certain circumstances may be required, to acquire 100 percent of ALOG.http://www.equinix.com http://www.alog.com.br/

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Force10 Outlines its Open Cloud Framework

Force10 Networks introduced its Open Cloud Networking (OCN) vision for cloud and conventional data centers built on open architectures, open automation, and open ecosystems.


Force10's OCN framework represents a new way to build, scale and manage data centers powered by a new family of centralized and distributed core switches, a top of rack (ToR) open cloud switch and automation software. The solutions address cloud, conventional, virtualized, and non-virtualized data centers.



Three key elements of the OCN architecture include:



Open Architecture – OCN enables standards-based open architectures that are interoperable with competitors offering customers a choice in how they build their core and top-of-rack elements in the data center. New building blocks for these open architectures include:

• The new Z9000 distributed core switch, which enables highly scalable, leaf-and-spine data center architectures, is one of the smallest and least expensive core switches ever offered. Designed in a 2RU form factor, it delivers 128 10 GbE ports for 2.5 Tbps of switching capacity in 1/10 the space and with 1/20 the power consumption at 1/5 the price of competing products. The Z9000 switch will list for $175,000 and will be available for customer shipments in July 2011.



• The new Z9512 is a centralized, chassis-based switch that delivers 9.6 Tbps of switching capacity in half a rack. For more conventional data center cores, Force10's new Z9512 is a chassis-based switch that offers 480 line-rate, non-blocking 10GbE ports, 96 line-rate, non-blocking 40 GbE ports, and 48 line-rate, non-blocking 100 GbE ports in a 19RU form factor. At 9.6 Tbps switching capacity and an initial 400 Gbps per-slot switching capacity (four times the slot capacity of other switches), sub-5 microsecond latency and an 8-Gigabyte packet buffer for each of its 12 line cards, the Z9512 delivers industry-leading performance in a centralized core switch. It could be used for centralized data center cores, aggregation of flat Layer 2 topologies, or aggregation of hierarchical Layer 3 topologies as well as for multi-service deployments incorporating Gigabit Ethernet, 10 GbE, 40 GbE, and 100 GbE. The Z9512 switch will be available in the second half of 2011 and pricing will be configuration dependent.



• The S7000 Open Cloud Switch is a next-generation ToR device that incorporates 3-in-1 ToR convergence of switching, storage, and application processing capabilities. The switch has the ability to run third-party applications directly. It supports both Ethernet and storage traffic. It supports Data Center Bridging (DCB) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The S7000 can be configured as an FCoE transit switch or FCOE gateway. The S7000 Open Cloud Switch will be available in the second half of 2011.
  



• New FTOS advanced software features including TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links), DCB (Data Center Bridging), EVB (Ethernet Virtual Bridging), and VEPA (Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregation).

Open Automation 2.0In Q3, Force10 plans to open the "ScriptStore", an online resource and forums that will allow users to purchase automation scripts and share techniques for automating Force10 products. In addition, Force10 has enhanced the Open Automation Framework with port profile support, EVB/VEPA, and HyperLinks.

Open Ecosystems – partners in the compute, storage, applications and orchestration domains to ensure standards-based interoperability for its OCN solutions.



"Automation at the network level helps customers reduce costs and manual errors in the data center," said Arpit Joshipura, chief marketing officer at Force10. "Open Automation 2.0 and the DevExchange demonstrates Force10's ongoing commitment to enabling higher levels of automation in network management for our customers."
http://www.force10networks.com

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SoftLayers Opens Silicon Valley Data Center

SoftLayer Technologies opened a new data center in San Jose, California. The new facility has capacity for more than 12,000 servers in three data center pods. SoftLayer is featuring a dual-path network structure, including redundant network interface cards (NICs) in every server, enabling customers to select up to 2G of connectivity for any SJC01 server. The facility is SoftLayer's first data center in California. It is fully connected to SoftLayer's data centers located in Dallas, Houston, Seattle, and the Washington D.C. area, and to the company's network Points of Presence in seven additional U.S. cities.http://www.softlayer.com/facilities/san-jose-details/

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Hackers Penetrate Sony's PlayStation Network

Hackers have penetrated Sony's PlayStation Network and potentially access to personal information and credit card data of tens of millions of accounts. Sony's PlayStation Network enables users of the PlayStation 3 console to join online games, download content and watch streaming movies from Netflix.



In a blog posting, Sony said the intrusion occurred between April 19 and April 19. Data compromised includes: name, address, country, email, birthdate, login, password and online profile/ID. It is also possible that the intruder(s) stole the users' credit card number, expiration date, purchase history, billing address and answers to security challenge questions.



Sony has temporarily turned off its PlayStation Network and Qtriocity services. It has also hired an outside security firm to conduct a forensic analysis of the attack.http://www.sony.com http://blog.us.playstation.com/

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CableLabs Tests DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON

Earlier this month, CableLabs hosted the second DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (DPoE) interoperability testing event, focusing on on the DPoE v1.0 specifications. In addition to providing provisioning requirements for Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) equipment, version 1.0 of the DPoE specifications defines requirements and functionality to support Metro Ethernet services such as Ethernet Private Line (EPL).



The second DPoE interop event attracted five new suppliers while overall participation increased thirty percent. Suppliers participating in the event included Adva, Arris, Atheros, Broadcom, Ciena, CommScope, CTDI, Finisar, Huawei, MRV, Sumitomo, Telco Systems, and ZTE.



"Significant progress has been made since the first interop event. This interop featured several combinations of equipment from multiple suppliers to create a DPoE Network that supports Metro Ethernet services. For these network services, all devices were provisioned using the same back-office systems normally used to provision DOCSIS equipment," said Curtis Knittle, Director of Digital Video Services at CableLabs. The next interoperability event for DPoE products is scheduled to begin on August 22, 2011.http://www.cablelabs.com

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Google Acquire TalkBin for Mobile Business Interaction

Google has acquired TalkBin, a newly formed start-up that is developing "a better way for consumers to connect with their local businesses in a more personal way." The company will work with Google's mobile and local teams.
http://www.google.com
http://www.talkbin.com

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Freescale Improves Base Station RF Power Transistors

Freescale Semiconductor introduced two LDMOS RF power transistors that allow wireless base station amplifiers to cover all channels in an entire allocated frequency band.


Freescale said the surge in mobile data traffic is driving a trend to extend amplifier systems to cover entire wireless frequency bands. Whereas most of today's amplifier systems operate with instantaneous (video) bandwidth limitations of 20 to 40 MHz and require a separate power amplifier for each channel, its new RF power LDMOS transistors deliver a combination of high linearity, high efficiency, wide instantaneous bandwidth and high power that extend the instantaneous signal bandwidth to an industry-leading 160 MHz.


"The need for RF power transistors to deliver exceptional linearity and efficiency over a full wireless band is no longer simply desirable; it is essential," said Ritu Favre, vice president and general manager of Freescale's RF Division. "The devices we are introducing today are the first in a family of broadband RF power transistors that includes all current and emerging wireless bands. Each device will be designed to combine all of the attributes – high efficiency and linearity and high output power – required to allow carriers to meet the challenges of the future."http://www.freescale.com

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Zain Iraq Picks Nokia Siemens Networks

Zain Iraq will consolidate all its mobile subscriber data using the Nokia Siemens Networks' One-NDS platform. The data is currently distributed across the network. The single database enables real-time data access across multiple applications.


Nokia Siemens Networks said its open One-NDS platform allows greater reliability, availability and security of services to more than 12 million Zain Iraq subscribers. Besides simplification of service creation and reduction in costs, the centralized subscriber data system is ready for handling converged services, utilizing different kinds of mobile and fixed access methods along with LTE.
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

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Fiberhome Selects Mindspeed's Crosspoint Switch for OTN

Fiberhome Telecommunications Technologies has selected Mindspeed's large crosspoint switch for use within its next-generation OTN product line.


"Fiberhome chose to use the Mindspeed's crosspoint in our OTN system because it solved both our signal-integrity and switching requirements in a highly-integrated device," said Yang Ming, vice general manager of optical networks products division at Fiberhome. "The Mindspeed crosspoints enable our OTN equipment to deliver superior flexibility, intelligent electronic/optical management and terabits per second (Tbps)-class switching capabilities."http://www.mindspeed.com

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AT&T Offers Remote Mobility Zone for Emergency Response

AT&T introduced a Remote Mobility Zone solution that enables organizations to set up their own cell sites during a disaster. This might include emergency responders who need to quickly establish base station coverage following a natural disaster.


AT&T's "Fly-away" solution packs a small cell site into a suitcase and can extend connectivity up to one half of a mile in any direction.


"In the pivotal first minutes of a natural or man-made disaster, AT&T Remote Mobility Zone provides a solution to help maintain critical mobile communications," said Chris Hill, vice president, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions. "With AT&T Remote Mobility Zone, users can set up a cell site in less than 30 minutes."


AT&T said its Remote Mobility Zone is also well suited for organizations that operate in remote locations where AT&T holds licensed spectrum, but in which wireless coverage may not be available. AT&T Mobility Vanguard Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, can install permanent cell sites for customers that work in these areas, providing mobile voice and data service.
http://www.att.com

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Netflix Reaches 23.6 million Subscribers

Netflix added 3.59 million new customer in Q1 2011 to reach a total base of 23.6 million worldwide. The figure was slightly below some forecasts. The number of new additions was nearly double the number added in Q1
of 2010. However, the company said net adds are going to get tougher going forward, especially compared to its recent high growth quarters.


In response to data caps recently introduced by Canadian ISPs, Netflix has changed the default streaming setting for
Canadian Netflix members to an encoding that consumes only 9 gigabytes for 30 hours of viewing versus
30 -70 gigabytes for 30 hours of viewing under its standard encoding.
http://www.netflix.com

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Big Switch Raises Funding for OpenFlow Network Virtualization

Big Switch Networks, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, raised $13.75 million in Series A financing to build a new platform for virtualization and cloud architecture in enterprise networks.



Big Switch is pursuing a virtualized network architecture based in OpenFlow, a new network protocol pioneered at Stanford University that enables the path of network packets through a series of switches to be determined by software running on a separate server. This network control plane would managed virtualized switching elements in the network. Virtualized programmable network could open the door to various high-performance applications in campus or enterprise networks.

Big Switch is headed by Guido Appenzeller (Co-Founder and CEO), who previously was a Consulting Professor at Stanford University and Head of the Clean Slate Lab where he managed the OpenFlow standards effort and led the team that developed the OpenFlow reference implementation.



The funding was led by Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. With this infusion of capital, four new directors joined Big Switch Networks Co-Founders Guido Appenzeller, CEO, and Kyle Forster, VP of Sales and Marketing, on the board:

• Mark Leslie, Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Former CEO of Veritas



• Bill Meehan, Raccoon Partners Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Director Emeritus at McKinsey and Co. and Leader of the Firm's West Coast and Private Equity Practices



• Shirish Sathaye, Partner at Khosla Ventures and Former VP of Engineering and CTO of FORE Systems and Alteon WebSystems



• Mike Volpi, Partner at Index Ventures and Former Head of M&A, Chief Strategy Officer and SVP/GM of the Routing Technology Group at Cisco.

"Enterprise networking is exciting again. We're seeing new customer problems that aren't well addressed with traditional networking technologies and changes in the large IT suppliers that are creating opportunities for startups like Big Switch Networks," said Mike Volpi, Partner at Index Ventures and Former SVP/GM of the Routing Technology Group at Cisco.



Big Switch Networks also announced that it has joined the newly formed ONF, a nonprofit group focused on promoting OpenFlow and other Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies as a way to speed innovation in the networking industry.



OpenFlow is a standard protocol that enables networks to evolve more rapidly by giving owners and operators better control over their networks and the ability to optimize network behavior.http://www.bigswitch.com http://www.openflow.org/

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Verizon Wireless Offers BoxTone Mobile Management

Verizon Wireless is offering its enterprise customers BoxTone's mobile management platform to secure, manage, monitor and support the leading mobile devices, users, applications and services.
Qualifying enterprises may be eligible to add BoxTone's software license cost directly to their Verizon Wireless bills.



In addition to traditional Mobile Device Management (MDM), such as initial activation, provisioning, configuration and change tasks for each device, BoxTone takes the process further and delivers a unified mobile management platform that provides the enterprise a single point of control to address the full mobile lifecycle. The supported smartphone and tablet devices include BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile/Phone 7. Mobile messaging platforms are also supported, including BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft ActiveSync and Good Technology.http://www.boxtone.com

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NetLogic Packs 64 Cores in Communications Processor

NetLogic Microsystems introduced its XLP864 multi-core processor featuring 64 NXCPUs cores -- double the number of its XLP832 processor. The device is capable of delivering 80 Gbps throughput and 120 million packets-per-second (Mpps) of intelligent application performance for next-generation 3G/4G mobile wireless infrastructure, metro Ethernet, security, storage, enterprise, edge and core infrastructure network applications.



The new processor features quad-issue, quad-threaded and superscalar out-of-order execution capabilities operating at up to 2.0 GHz. The XLP cores are quad-threaded to minimize application bottlenecks due to memory latency, thereby greatly improving performance for network data plane processing applications. Furthermore, the NXCPUs are equipped with a tri-level cache architecture with over 25 Mbytes of fully coherent on-chip cache which delivers 40 Terabits/sec of extremely high-speed on-chip memory bandwidth.



NetLogic said its new processor also offers a low-latency Enhanced Fast Messaging Network capability that enables high-bandwidth communication among the 64 NXCPUs and to support billions of in-flight messages and packet descriptors between all on-chip elements. To complement the 64 NXCPUs, the XLP864 processor offers over 80 fully-autonomous processing engines that provide independent and complete offload of certain network functions from the NXCPUs, including:

• 80 Gbps fully-autonomous Security Acceleration Engine supporting networking, wireless and storage encryption/decryption/authentication protocols



• 80 Gbps Network Acceleration Engines for Ingress/Egress Packet Parsing and Management



• 256 Gbps RAID-5/RAID-6 Acceleration



• 20 Gbps Compression/Decompression



• Packet Ordering



• Storage De-Duplication Acceleration



• TCP Segmentation Offload



• IEEE 1588 Hardware Time Stamping

"We are pleased to raise the bar once again and be on the forefront of technical leadership with our new XLP864 processor, which will deliver unprecedented performance and functionality for our customers' next-generation systems," said Chris O'Reilly, vice president of marketing at NetLogic Microsystems. "This comes at an ideal time as the communications industry struggles to keep pace with the dramatic increase in bandwidth and traffic complexity. We believe our XLP multi-core processor is the best solution to capitalize on this trend."

http://www.netlogicmicro.com

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Mellanox Samples its Next Gen Data Center Silicon

Mellanox Technologies began sampling its next-generation switch silicon -- "SwitchX" with Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) technology, providing scalability for up to 36-ports of FDR 56 Gbps InfiniBand or 40 Gigabit Ethernet. The switching fabric is aimed at convergence of LAN, SAN and IPC (Inter Processor Communications) service architectures.



The chip delivers more than 4 Tbps of non-blocking switching throughput while enabling new levels of protocol flexibility in the data center for server-to-server, server-to-storage or storage-to-storage connectivity.



SwitchX can operate as an InfiniBand switch or Ethernet switch (including Data Center Bridging - DCB) with extremely low-latency and power. It also includes integrated convergence technology for Fibre Channel NPIV gateways. It also allows flexible partitioning of the network into multiple management domains to support multi-tenancy and the delivery of an extensive array of network services over a common infrastructure.



"The new class of data centers requires lossless, high density, low power switching capabilities that removes bottlenecks, supports convergence and maximizes efficiency for the best return-on-investment," said Eyal Waldman, chairman, president, and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. "SwitchX delivers on these requirements with best-in-class features and performance over both InfiniBand and Ethernet protocols for maximum flexibility. We are proud to provide the industry's first 56Gb/s FDR InfiniBand and the highest density Ethernet switch, both in the same IC with SwitchX."



The new SwitchX silicon leverages TSMC's 40nm process technology.http://www.mellanox.com

• Mellanox Technologies recently completed its acquisition of Voltaire Ltd., a provider of scale-out data center fabrics, for $8.75 per share, or a total equity value of approximately $218 million ($176 million net of cash). Voltaire developed a family of server and storage fabric switches and advanced management software. These products are included in server and blade offerings from Bull, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, NEC and SGI. Founded in 1997, Voltaire is headquartered in Ra'anana, Israel and Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
  
  
  
  Mellanox Technologies is a supplier of end-to-end connectivity solutions for servers and storage that optimize data center performance. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and Yokneam, Israel. The combined businesses currently have approximately 700 employees and achieved revenues of $217 million for the twelve months ended Sept. 30, 2010.

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Broadcom Completes $313 Million Acquisition of Provigent

Broadcom completed its previously announced acquisition of Provigent, a supplier of mixed signal semiconductors for microwave backhaul systems. Broadcom paid approximately $313 million, net of cash assumed, to acquire all of the outstanding shares of capital stock and other rights of Provigent.


Provigent's System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions address the backhaul bottleneck, including high capacity modem, baseband, networking and RF chain components. The company is based in Israel and it has offices in Santa Clara, California.



Broadcom said the addition of Provigent's engineering expertise in microwave radio products will expand its portfolio to more thoroughly address the $5B microwave backhaul equipment business.
http://www.broadcom.com

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Greening the Data Center

Vantage Data Center's Jim Trout discusses market demand, investor concerns, energy efficiency and LEED status for new data center construction.http://www.vantagedatacenters.com/

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Smart Data Centers -- New World of Green

David Gottfried, founder of the U.S. Green Building Council, reflects on data centers, energy consumptions and social values on Earth Day 2011.http://www.convergedigest.com

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Verizon Wireless Launches LTE in 6 More Cities

Verizon Wireless activated its commercial LTE network in six more metropolitan areas, as well as expanding the 4G LTE network in Charlotte, N.C. The areas where the 4G LTE network will now be available include Clarksville, Tenn.-Hopkinsville, Ky.; Cleveland, Tenn.; Columbia and Hilton Head, S.C.; Wilmington, N.C.; and the Greater Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.


David Small, chief technical officer for Verizon Wireless, noted, "As of today, we will offer consumers and businesses in 45 metropolitan areas the most advanced 4G wireless network on the planet, while continuing to offer the nation's most reliable 3G network coast to coast. We plan to aggressively light up 4G in new cities and bring our blazingly fast 4G LTE network to more than 100 additional cities in the next nine months."http://www.verizonwireless.com

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LightSquared Signs Another LTE Roaming Deal

LightSquared announced an LTE roaming agreement with SI Wireless, a partnership of rural independent telephone companies, delivering 3G-CDMA/EVDO technology to rural parts of Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. The deal will provide subscribers of SI Wireless with a nationwide 4G-LTE footprint as well as satellite coverage in rural areas where there is no terrestrial network. It will also expand LightSquared's data coverage to additional rural communities in the SI Wireless coverage area.
http://www.LightSquared.com

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Level 3 Adds Wireless Backup Option

Level 3 Communications announced a new wireless backup solution that provides a reliable alternative to traditional IP network backup.


Enhancing its managed router capabilities, Level 3's wireless backup access is now available across the U.S. for the company's dedicated Internet access (DIA), virtual private network (VPN) and converged business network services.


Level 3 said its new wireless backup solution complements an already robust IP network with multiple diverse paths, offering Level 3 customers a comprehensive approach to service continuity and data recovery in the event of an emergency.
http://www.Level3.com

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Nokia Posts Solid Q1, Signs with Microsoft

Nokia reported Q1 net sales of EUR 10.399 billion, up from EUR 9.522 billion in Q1 2010, and an operating profit of EUR 439 million, compared to EUR 488 million last year.
Nokia also finalized its strategic agreement with Microsoft.


"In the first quarter, we shifted from defining our strategy to executing our strategy. On this front, I am pleased to report that we signed our definitive agreement with Microsoft and already our product design and engineering work is well under way," stated Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO.


Some highlights from the quarterly report:


Nokia net sales were EUR 10.4 billion in Q1 2011, up 9% year-on-year and down 18% sequentially (up 4% and down
18% at constant currency).


Devices & Services net sales of EUR 7.1 billion in Q1 2011, up 6% year-on-year and down 17% sequentially (up
1% and down 16% at constant currency).


Services net sales of EUR 211 million in Q1 2011, up 43% year-on-year and 5% sequentially; billings of EUR 338
million, up 48% year-on-year and down 4% sequentially.


Nokia total mobile device volumes of 108.5 million units in Q1 2011, up 1% year-on-year and down 12%
sequentially.


Nokia converged mobile device (smartphone and mobile computer) volumes of 24.2 million units in Q1 2011, up
13% year-on-year and down 14% sequentially.


Nokia mobile device ASP (including services revenue) of EUR 65 in Q1 2011, up from EUR 62 in Q1 2010 and down
from EUR 69 in Q4 2010.


Devices & Services gross margin of 29.1% in Q1 2011, down from 32.4% in Q1 2010 and 29.2% in Q4 2010.


Devices & Services non-IFRS operating margin of 9.8% in Q1 2011, down from 12.1% in Q1 2010 and 11.3% in
Q4 2010.


NAVTEQ net sales of EUR 232 million in Q1 2011, up 23% year-on-year and down 25% sequentially (up 20% and
down 26% at constant currency).


Nokia Siemens Networks net sales of EUR 3.2 billion in Q1 2011, up 17% year-on-year and down 20%
sequentially (up 15% and down 21% at constant currency).


Nokia Siemens Networks non-IFRS operating margin of 0.1% in Q1 2011, down from 0.6% in Q1 2010 and 3.7%
in Q4 2010.


Nokia operating cash flow of negative EUR 173 million and cash generated from operations of EUR 182 million in
Q1 2011.


Total cash and other liquid assets of EUR 11.1 billion and net cash and other liquid assets of EUR 6.4 billion at the end of Q1 2011.
http://www.nokia.com

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