USA Reaches Deals with Canada & Mexico on 700 MHz Sharing along Borders

The FCC announced deals with Industry Canada and Mexico's Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) for sharing commercial wireless broadband spectrum in the 700 MHz band along the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-
Mexican border areas. The arrangement with Industry Canada also calls for sharing
spectrum in the 800 MHz band.


Under the arrangements, licensees on both sides of the borders will have greater access to the 698-758
MHz and 776-788 MHz bands.


The sharing is expected to facilitate the deployment of mobile wireless broadband systems near the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican borders and will provide consumers in these areas with advanced opportunities for 4G high-speed mobile broadband access.


"These arrangements will unleash investment and benefit consumers near the borders by enabling the
rollout of 4G wireless broadband service and advanced systems for critical public safety and emergency
response communications," Chairman Julius Genachowski stated after signing the documents. "I
appreciate the commitment and dedicated efforts of everyone who has been involved in these
discussions to ensure that we are making the most effective use of this valuable spectrum."http://www.fcc.govhttp://transition.fcc.gov/ib/sand/agree/

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Cisco Wins 3-Year Support Deal with du

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du) has awarded a three-year contract to Cisco for network support and optimisation services for existing and future network infrastructure growth.


Cisco Capital (Dubai) arranged financing. The deal provides du with a predictable and optimized Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over three years.
http://www.cisco.com

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Extreme Networks Posts Revenue of $89.8 Million

Extreme Networks reported quarterly net revenue of $89.8 million, as compared to $85.5 million for the same period last year. Quarterly net product revenue was $73.8 million, up 4% YoY, and service revenue was $16.0 million, down 8% YoY. Estimated net loss on a GAAP basis for the quarter was $2.1 million or a loss of $0.02* per diluted share, including the impact of a $2.8 million charge for a previously announced restructuring, net of reversals, and $1.5 million in stock-based compensation.


For the quarter, total net revenue in North America was $40.0 million, revenue in EMEA was $34.9 million, and revenue in APAC was $14.9 million. That compares to year-ago revenue in North America of $36.3 million, revenue in EMEA of $36.8 million, and revenue in APAC of $12.4 million.


"We are pleased with our ability to achieve 10% product revenue growth for fiscal year 2011, and the progress we have made transforming the Company in the areas of sales and marketing focus and product realignment," said Oscar Rodriguez, President & CEO of Extreme Networks. "These changes, along with the recently announced restructuring to reduce our overall cost structure, lay the foundation for continued improvements in fiscal 2012. In FY12, the Company will focus on improving its operating income, and is expecting to significantly improve EPS over FY11. I believe Extreme Networks is positioned well to compete in the marketplace with our new products, marketing campaigns, and cost structure. The Company is focused on executing the new vertical market strategy to offer differentiated solutions to our customers, and improved returns to our investors."http://www.extremenetworks.com

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Verizon Inks Mobile Payment Deal with American Expres

Verizon Wireless will integrate American Express' new "Serve" digital payment and commerce platform on many of its mobile phones and tablets. Serve simplifies the online checkout experience by authenticating a mobile number, then allowing a customer to make a purchase on-screen.

Verizon Wireless customers will be need to establish Serve accounts that will enable them to make payments and redeem offers for goods and services directly from their mobile phones and tablets with just a few clicks using Serve. Merchants who accept Serve mobile payments will enjoy a streamlined option for processing and settlement. The Serve card is currently accepted by the millions of merchants in the United States who accept American Express.

The companies also agreed to collaborate to source, distribute and simplify redemption of online and mobile offers with participating merchants through the use of the Serve account.
http://www.serve.com
http://www.verizonwireless.com

• In June, Verizon Wireless announced plans for a new service that will allow customers to make online purchases from their smartphones, tablets and PCs using numerous payment methods, including charging purchases to their monthly wireless statements or using traditional payment methods through financial institution partners. The service will be powered by Payfone. Payfone is backed by American Express, Verizon Investments, Rogers Ventures, BlackBerry Partners Fund, Opus Capital, and RRE Ventures.
• In November 2010, AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless announced the foundation of Isis -- a national mobile commerce network that aims to fundamentally transform how people shop, pay and save. The venture will leverage near-field communication (NFC) technology to enable point-of-sale transactions via mobile phone. Commercial launch in key geographic markets is expected over the next 18 months.
  
  
  Together, these operators provide wireless services to more than 200 million U.S. consumers.
  
  
  "While mobile payments will be at the core of our offering, it is only the start. We plan to create a mobile wallet that ultimately eliminates the need for consumers to carry cash, credit and debit cards, reward cards, coupons, tickets and transit passes," stated Michael Abbott, Chief Executive Officer of Isis.
  
  
  Initial financial partners include Discover, which operates a payment network currently accepted at more than seven million merchant locations nationwide, and Barclays PLC, which is expected to be the first issuer on the network.
  
  
  The companies said the Isis mobile commerce network will be available to all merchants, banks, and mobile carriers.

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euNetworks Cuts Latency on London to Frankfurt Route

euNetworks Group has optimised the London to Frankfurt low latency route on its dedicated finance network. The company said it is now linking key Finance Exchanges and Multilateral Trading Facilities (MTFs) in London to Frankfurt with a lowest one way latency of 4.29 milliseconds. Additionally, following optimisation from Slough, west of London, to Frankfurt, one way latency on this route is now 4.56 milliseconds.
http://www.eunetworks.com

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Level 3 Connects London Stock Exchange

Level 3 Communications now offers connectivity to its colocation facility at London Stock Exchange Group's Data Center in the City of London. The new point-of-presence (PoP) offers connectivity into Level 3's global network.
http://www.Level3.com

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Microsoft GFS Datacenter Tour

This video traces Microsoft's data centers since 1989 through today's high-efficient Gen 4 designs. Microsoft currently delivers over 200 cloud services to more than a billion customers and 20 million businesses in over 70 countries.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MSGFSTeam

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Infinera and SEACOM Test 500 Gbps PICs

Infinera and SEACOM, a leading pan-African telecommunications provider, has completed testing of five 100 Gigabit per second (100 Gbps) coherent optical signals transmitted over 1732 km. The 500 Gbps trial ran over and was looped back across SEACOM's newly built 930 km Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) fiber route which links the SEACOM Mtunzini cable landing station in KwaZulu Natal to the Teraco data center in Johannesburg.


The trial used Infinera's 500 Gbps Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), each of which integrates five 100 Gbps coherent channels onto a single chip. The PICs were used for both transmitting and receiving the five 100 Gbps signals during the trial, the first time the PICs have been used to transmit and provide real time coherent processing for all 500 Gbps simultaneously on a production network. The trial also demonstrated Infinera's FlexCoherent functionality by switching between QPSK and BPSK modulation.


Infinera said it plans to deliver the 500 Gbps PICs as part of a system which integrates 5 Terabit per second (Tbps) OTN switching and 100 Gbps coherent optical transmission in early 2012. http://www.infinera.com

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Windstream Acquisition of Paetec Brings Greater Size, Business Reach

Windstream agreed to acquire PAETEC Holding Corp. for approximately $2.3 billion.


PAETEC is a competitive local exchange carrier and provides telecommunications services primarily to business customers in 46 states and the District of Columbia. The company operates seven data centers in the U.S. and owns approximately 36,700 route miles of fiber in portions of 39 states and the District of Columbia. It has approximately 5,000 employees, including about 875 in the Rochester, N.Y. area. The company was founded in 1998.


Windstream, headquartered in Little Rock, Ark., is an S&P 500 company with operations in 29 states and the District of Columbia and about $4 billion in annual revenues. Windstream provides IP-based voice and data services, MPLS networking, data center and managed hosting services and communication systems to businesses and government agencies. The company also delivers broadband, digital phone and high-definition TV services to residential customers primarily located in rural areas and operates a local and long-haul fiber network spanning approximately 60,000 route miles.


The new combined company will serve business customers in 46 states and the District of Columbia and maintain approximately 100,000 fiber route miles across the country. Windstream will offer data center services across the United States and have improved capability to serve multi-location business customers. It would have had $6.1 billion in total revenue and about $2.4 billion in adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization, which excludes non-cash pension expense, restructuring charges and stock-based compensation expense, on a pro forma basis for the last 12 months ended March 31, 2011. Business and broadband revenues would have comprised approximately 70 percent of total revenue.


Windstream has received $1.1 billion in committed financing in connection with the acquisition, which financing would be required if Windstream refinances the assumed debt. Windstream also will assume or refinance PAETEC's net debt of approximately $1.4 billion at the time of closing. PAETEC stockholders are expected to own approximately 13 percent of the combined company upon closing of the transaction.


"This transaction significantly advances our strategy to drive top-line revenue growth by expanding our focus on business and broadband services," said Jeff Gardner, president and CEO of Windstream. "The combined company will have a nationwide network with a deep fiber footprint to offer enhanced capabilities in strategic growth areas, including IP-based services, data centers, cloud computing and managed services. Financially, we improve our growth profile and lower the payout ratio on our strong dividend, offering investors a unique combination of growth and yield." http://www.windstream.com http://www.paetec.com

• In December 2010, PAETEC acquired privately-owned Cavalier Telephone for $460 million, making it one of the largest competitive local communication service providers in the United States. The acquisition includes Cavalier's wholly owned subsidiary, Intellifiber Networks, which operates a high capacity fiber network spanning approximately 16,600 route miles and representing over $2 billion of investment by companies Cavalier acquired over the last decade. The expansive 11,947 route-mile intercity network spans the Midwest and Eastern U.S., as well as 4,681 route miles throughout several existing PAETEC metro areas, allowing for broad connectivity options for customers. With this deal complete, PAETEC now has over 10,600 metro fiber-route miles, over 36,700 total fiber-route miles, and 1,178 collocations to support connectivity to enterprise businesses nationwide.



• In June 2010, Windstream acquired Iowa Telecommunications Services, Inc. in a transaction valued at approximately $1.2 billion. As of March 31, 2010, Iowa Telecom provided service to approximately 249,000 access lines, 96,000 high-speed Internet customers and 27,500 digital TV customers in Iowa and Minnesota.



• In July 2006, Alltel completed the spin off its wireline business, which was merged with VALOR Communications Group to create Windstream, a major wireline operator focused on the rural U.S. market.



• In 2007, Windstream acquired CT Communications (NASDAQ: CTCI) for $585 million, adding approximately 158,000 access lines and 29,000 broadband customers. CT Communications served residential and business customers located primarily in North Carolina.

Windstream is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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Telstra Files its Structural Separation Plan

Telstra officially filed a Structural Separation Undertaking (SSU) and Migration Plan with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), paving the way for the decommission of the Telstra copper network and eventual migration of traffic onto the new fibre infrastructure of Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN).


The Structural Separation Undertaking (SSU) has two components:

• it commits Telstra to structural separation by 1 July 2018. This will occur through the progressive disconnection of fixed voice and broadband services on Telstra's copper and HFC networks, and subsequent migration of these services onto the NBN;



• it sets out the various measures which Telstra will put in place to provide for transparency and equivalence in the supply of regulated services to its wholesale customers during the transition to the NBN.

A public consultation is expected soon. http://www.telstra.com

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Inmarsat Picks Launch Partner for Global Xpress

Inmarsat has selected International Launch Services (ILS) for the launch of three Inmarsat-5 satellites for its forthcoming Global Xpress network, which promises global, mobile broadband speeds of up to 50 Mbps for users in the government, maritime, enterprise, energy and aeronautical sectors. Inmarsat is investing an estimated amount of US$1.2 billion in the Global Xpress program, which includes launch costs.

The Inmarsat-5 satellites are based on the state-of-the-art 702HP Ka-band satellites currently being built by Boeing.


The launches, scheduled for 2013-14, will use the ILS Proton launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. ILS successfully launched Inmarsat's most recent satellite, the third Inmarsat-4, from Baikonur in August 2008.


"Selecting a launch services provider is a critical part of realising our Global Xpress vision," said Andrew Sukawaty, Chairman and CEO of Inmarsat. "Our agreement with ILS shows that we are well on track with our aggressive programme for Global Xpress, with service planned to start in 2013. We have partnered with ILS and Khrunichev for previous launches, and look forward to a successful campaign for Inmarsat-5." http://www.inmarsatgx.com http://www.ilslaunch.com

• The Inmarsat-5 satellites are expected to carry 89 Ka-band beams and will operate in geosynchronous orbit with flexible global coverage. The satellites will use two solar wings to generate approximately 15 kilowatts of power at the start of service and approximately 13.8 kilowatts at the end of their 15-year design life. The first available terminals planned at launch date are 60cm, although Inmarsat expects small designs later.

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Vitesse Appoints CFO

Vitesse Semiconductor announced the appointment of Martin S. McDermut as senior vice president, finance and chief financial officer, replacing Rich Yonker who has served as chief financial officer since 2006. McDermut was previously the managing director of Avant Advisory Group, a financial advisory and management consulting firm to entrepreneurial and middle market companies. He has also served as chief financial officer for publicly traded companies including Iris International Inc. and Superconductor Technologies Inc. http://www.vitesse.com

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Huawei Appoints a High Profile Security Officer

Huawei appointed John Suffolk as its Global Cyber Security Officer. Mr. Suffolk will be based at the Huawei global headquarters in Shenzhen and will report directly to Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei. He will be in charge of developing, managing and supervising Huawei's cyber security assurance strategy and system, which will be adopted by all business units across the company's global offices.


Suffolk comes to Huawei from his position as Chief Information Officer of the U.K. government, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of its Transformational Government Strategies, the Technology Strategy, and the Information Assurance Strategy. Prior to that, he was the Director General of the UK Criminal Justice Transformation Program. http://www.huawei.com

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mimoOn Partners with TI for Small Cell LTE Base Stations

mimoOn, which offers LTE software licensing for Software Defined Radio (SDR) platforms, is working with Texas Instruments for 3GPP compliant LTE PHY software. TI will offer complete PHY software for LTE Release 8 and 9 for its' KeyStone multicore architecture, with a specific focus on its newest TMS320TCI6612 and TMS320TCI6614 System-on-Chips (SoCs). These SoCs are especially designed for small cell base stations in the enterprise, pico and metro markets. http://www.mimoOn.de

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GSA Notes Rapid Growth in LTE Ecosystem

The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) confirms that 45 manufacturers have announced 161 LTE-enabled user devices, representing 155% growth in the number of products reported by GSA in early February 2011.


Alan Hadden, President of GSA, said: "The majority of LTE user devices are focused on the 700 MHz band where LTE networks are developing fastest. As LTE rollouts accelerate in other regions, particularly in Europe and Asia Pacific, where operators will primarily be using 2600 MHz, 1800 MHz and digital dividend spectrum, we expect manufacturers will follow to support them with products for those markets."


The breakdown of LTE devices by form factor is as follows:


Modules = 29

Tablets = 8

Notebooks/netbooks = 10

PC Cards = 2

Smartphones = 8

Routers including personal hotspots = 63

USB modems/dongles = 41http://www.gsacom.com

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Vodafone Wins 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz Spectrum in Spain

Vodafone Spain was the successful bidder on a total of 60 MHz of spectrum in Spain's auction. Specifically,Vodafone Spain bid successfully for a total of 20 MHz (2x10 MHz) in the 800 MHz band and 40 MHz (2x20MHz) in 2.6 GHz band for a total consideration of €518 million (£454 million1). The 800 MHz ‘digital dividend' spectrum will become available in 2014 after the switchover from analogue to all-digital TV broadcasting in Spain. The 2.6 GHz spectrum band is immediately available for use.


Additionally, Vodafone Spain received approval from the Spanish government to re-farm spectrum in the 900 MHz frequency band currently used for 2G services. The Company has already begun to deploy versatile single Radio Access Network (RAN) base stations designed to handle 2G, 3G and LTE technologies on a common shared platform.
http://www.vodafone.com

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Huawei Opens R&D Center in New Jersey

Huawei announced the opening of its Northeast regional headquarters office in Bridgewater, New Jersey. In addition to sales, services, and operations to deliver on the company's customer-centric promise; the Bridgewater, NJ facility is also the North American Research & Development (R&D) hub for wireless technologies. The opening event was attended by New Jersey Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno.

Huawei noted that it now has nearly 1,500 U.S. employees, with over 110 employees in New Jersey.
http://www.huawei.com

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Telefónica España Wins 70 MHz in Spectrum Auction

Telefónica Spain was the winning bidder on five blocks of frequencies (70 MHz total) in the spectrum auction conducted by Spain's Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade. This includes 2x10 MHz in the 800 MHz band, which the company plans to use for a nationwide LTE network. Additionally, Telefónica has secured 2x5 MHz in the 900 MHz band and 2x20 MHz in the 2.6 GHz band, enabling other broadband wireless services.


Telefónica bid 668 million euros, payable in two installments, September 2011 (53%) and June 2012 (47%). The spectrum licenses extends to December 31, 2030.


Telefónica España said it looks forward to launching LTE in September 2011. http://www.telefonica.com http://www.mityc.es/telecomunicaciones/es-ES/Paginas/index.aspx

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Palo Alto Networks Appoints CEO, Notes $200 Million Run Rate

Palo Alto Networks, which supplies next-generation firewalls, has appointed Mark D. McLaughlin as president and CEO. McLaughlin previously served as president and CEO of VeriSign.


Palo Alto Networks also released several financial metrics , including that it has achieved a bookings run rate well above the US$200 million mark and that its cashflow from operations has been positive for five consecutive quarters. The company also noted that it has doubled its employee count over the past year and that to accommodate this growth, it has recently moved into a larger headquarters located in Santa Clara, California. http://www.paloaltonetworks.com

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CA Technologies Acquires Watchmouse for SaaS-based Monitoring

CA Technologies agreed to acquire privately-held Watchmouse B.V., which provides SaaS-based monitoring for cloud, mobile and traditional Web applications. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.


WatchMouse uses a globally-distributed infrastructure of more than 60 monitoring stations in more than 40 countries. It replicates real-user transactions from these locations to provide rich, up-to-the-minute insight into application performance and availability.


"As companies extend more applications to their customers through the Web and smartphones, the performance of those applications is having a greater impact on revenue, customer loyalty and brand value," said David Dobson, executive vice president, CA Technologies. "By adding WatchMouse to our industry-leading portfolio of solutions for managing and monitoring IT, we are enabling these companies to better safeguard the performance of these customer-facing applications—so they can better safeguard the performance of their business."


CA said the WatchMouse solution will be sold as an add-on capability to the full-featured CA APM solution. Existing CA APM customers can further extend the value of the solution and gain even deeper visibility into end-to-end transaction performance, regardless of where their applications are running—in the data center, outside the firewall, in the cloud or from a MSP. For customer applications that do not require a comprehensive APM solution, WatchMouse provides a fast, easy and cost-effective way to understand the health, availability and end-user experience.
http://www.ca.com

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Leading Carriers Submit USF/ICC Plan to FCC

A coalition of six of the leading carriers in the U.S., submitted a proposal to the FCC for reforming the Universal Service Fund (USF) and the Intercarrier Compensation (ICC) system. Members of the group include AT&T, CenturyLink, FairPoint, Frontier, Verizon and Windstream -- which collectively serve the vast majority of U.S. wireline customers, including those residing in high-cost rural areas, which are the primary focus of USF support.


The big telcos said the key aim of their proposal is to speed broadband deployment to more than 4 million Americans living in rural areas. They also announced an agreement with three organizations that represent small carriers on a framework for complementary reform. Joining the companies in support of reform are the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies and Western Telecommunications Alliance.


Core components of the proposal, called America's Broadband Connectivity Plan, include:


Focusing the Universal Service Fund on Broadband Deployment


Consistent with the National Broadband Plan, a new Connect America Fund (CAF) would transition the USF over five years to an exclusive focus on broadband deployment. Key features of the plan:

• Connect virtually all Americans to broadband access within 5 years.


• Do so without growing the $4.5 billion high-cost USF..


• Target support to broadband deployment in areas where there is no business case for companies to provide service..


• Promote efficiency by targeting support more precisely to identified high-cost areas, and supporting only one provider in each area.


• "Broadband" is defined as a minimum of 4 mbps downstream and 768 kbps upstream (supporting robust education, health care and other applications).

Rationalizing an Outdated Intercarrier Compensation System


The proposal seeks to modernize intercarrier compensation to provide certainty, stability and a healthy foundation for growth to meet the needs of consumers.

• Transition terminating intercarrier compensation to a low, uniform default rate of $0.0007 per minute over a five- to eight-year timeframe.



• Eliminate, through new rules and lower access rates, costly arbitragescams that exploit today's outdated rules at the expense of broadband companies and consumers, as well as FCC resources, as the Commission chases after these fast-proliferating schemes.

"After years of debating and discussing how to update the universal service and intercarrier compensation programs for the broadband era, a workable framework has emerged," said Hank Hultquist, vice president, AT&T Federal Regulatory. "To truly bring broadband services to all Americans, the rules of the road for the black rotary phone desperately needed to be updated for today's competitive, high-speed communications networks. We look forward to continuing to work with policymakers, Congress and others to ensure we accomplish this important goal this year."


"This plan recommends significant federal regulatory reforms to achieve the goal of connecting more Americans to broadband," said Melissa Newman, vice president, CenturyLink Federal Regulatory Affairs. "The policy changes offered in this proposal also are necessary for bringing long-term stability and predictability to the nation's universal service program. We look forward to working with the FCC as it develops an order that ultimately will provide consumers with the support they need to connect to broadband and its many opportunities."


"This proposal modernizes the USF and ICC mechanisms as our industry migrates toward a broadband-oriented future," said Mike Rhoda, senior vice president, Windstream Government Affairs. "Importantly, the proposal provides an adequate transition period for carriers to move from the current structure to one that will meet the changing needs of telecommunications consumers and help close the rural-rural divide that has persisted under the existing flawed framework." http://www.windstream.com http://news.windstream.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1313"After years of debating and discussing how to update the universal service and intercarrier compensation programs for the broadband era, a workable framework has emerged," said Hank Hultquist, vice president, AT&T Federal Regulatory. "To truly bring broadband services to all Americans, the rules of the road for the black rotary phone desperately needed to be updated for today's competitive, high-speed communications networks. We look forward to continuing to work with policymakers, Congress and others to ensure we accomplish this important goal this year."

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South Korea Internet Users Suffer Cyber Attack

Hackers have stolen personal account information from 35 million South Korean Internet users of the popular Nate portal and social network Cyworld, operated by SK Communications, according to the country's Communications Commission. The attack is believed to have originated from IP addresses registered in China. The incident is described as Korea's largest cyber attack to date. http://www.kcc.go.kr/user.do

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NetLogic Records Sales of $103.7 million

NetLogic Microsystems reported Q2 revenue of $103.7 million, a 5.1% sequential increase from $98.7 million for the
first quarter of 2011 and a 9.1% increase from $95.0 million for the second quarter of 2010. Net loss (GAAP) was $35.2 million or $0.51 per diluted share. By comparison, GAAP net loss was $4.8 million or $0.08 per diluted share for the second quarter of 2010.


"With continued positive trends in the wireless infrastructure market, we are seeing healthy demand for our products", said Ron Jankov, president and CEO. "Our multi-core processors posted record revenue in Q2 and we are also beginning early stage volume ramps of our NL10k and NL11k knowledge-based processors, optimized for handling IPv6 traffic. Our product development continues at an accelerated pace across our multi-core, knowledge-based processor, physical layer and digital front-end processor families, which we believe is driving a sizeable expansion of our TAM and significant growth opportunities over the next several years."http://www.netlogicmicro.com

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AppliedMicro Posts Quarterly Revenue of $60.8 million, up 4% sequentially

AppliedMicro reported Q1 2012 net revenues of $60.8 million, up 4% sequentially and up 0.1%. There was a GAAP net loss was $6.9 million or $0.11 per share compared to net loss of $4.0 million or $0.06 per share for the preceding quarter.


"Although we achieved our revenue targets for the quarter we did experience unfavorable product mix primarily with anticipated "turns" revenue for the quarter. Despite the hit to our gross margins we continue to see a high level of interest in our products and technology and I remain convinced that the long term fundamental growth drivers of our business remain intact." said Dr.Paramesh Gopi, President and Chief Executive Officer.
http://www.apm.com

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Telefónica Shows Grown from Latin America and Mobile Data

Telefónica reported Q2 revenues of 30,886 million euros in the first half of 2011 thanks to the sharp rise at Telefónica Latinoamérica (+18.4% year-on-year) and the significant increase of mobile data revenue (+18.5% year-on-year). Consolidated OIBDA advanced 3.7% to 11,304 million euros thanks to the high level of
operating efficiency, leaving an OIBDA margin of 36.6% .


Some highlights from the financial report:


Telefónica Latinoamérica and Telefónica Europa accounted for 71% of consolidated
revenue and 64% of Group OIBDA


Total accesses grew 6% year-on-year in both organic and reported terms to 295.0 million at the end of June 2011. By region, Telefónica Latinoamérica and Telefónica Europe, with year-on-year organic growth of 8% and 5%
respectively, were the main contributors to the growth in Telefónica's customer base.


Telefónica's mobile accesses totalled 227.3 million by the end of the first half of 2011, up 8% year-on-year in both organic and reported terms, underpinned by the sustained increase in the contract segment (+13% year-on-year in organic terms), which now accounts for 32% of the total mobile access base (+1.4 percentage points year-on-year in organic terms).


Mobile broadband accesses reached 29.8 million at the end of June 2011. This figure represents a penetration rate of 13% of Telefónica's mobile access base. Telefónica Europa reached a penetration rate of 28%, followed by Telefónica España (23%), while there is huge scope to increase penetration at Telefónica Latinoamérica (7% in June 2011).


Retail fixed broadband accesses reached 17.6 million, up 8% year-on-year. Bundles of voice, broadband, and television services remain key to this strategy and especially to churn control. Both in Spain and Latin America, close to 90% of retail fixed broadband accesses are bundled as part of either a dual or triple service package.
Pay TV accesses stood at 3.1 million at the end of the first half (+16% year-on-year), representing a pick-up in the growth rate thanks to the success of the commercial repositioning of the service in Latin America and the inclusion of TVA's customers in Brazil from June.


Finally, fixed telephony accesses totaled 40.7 million (-3% year-on-year).
http://www.telefonica.com

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U.S. Wireless Carriers Ask President Obama to Clear Government Spectrum Bands Below 3 GHz

The heads of major U.S. wireless operators, including Ralph de la Vega (AT&T), Patrick Riordan (Cellcom), Dan Hesse (Sprint), Philipp Humm (T-Mobile USA), Mary Dillon (U.S. Cellular) and Dan Mead (Verizon Wireless), published an open letter to President Obama asking him to clear unused and underutilized government spectrum bands below 3 gigahertz (GHz).


Specifically, the carriers are asking for the President to direct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to identify and work to clear broad, paired, internationally-harmonized bands below 3 gigahertz.

The companies said access to spectrum in these critical bands will greatly enhance efforts to realize the important goals set forth in the FCC's National Broadband Plan.


"The U.S. wireless industry wants to remain the envy of the world by continuing to offer our customers the best and most innovative products and services. In order to meet current and projected demands for wireless technology, we must get more spectrum. By allowing our members to purchase the spectrum at auction, the U.S. Treasury will generate billions of dollars of revenue and in turn, we will continue to invest in America and Americans," said Steve Largent, president and CEO of CTIA.

.http://files.ctia.org/pdf/CTIA_Letter_28July2011.pdfIn February 2011, President Barack Obama outlined plans for a National Wireless Initiative to make high-speed wireless services available to at least 98 percent of Americans within five years, freeing up spectrum through incentive auctions, spurring innovation, and creating a nationwide, interoperable wireless network for public safety. The initiative envisions spending over $15 billion on achieving these goals, while also reducing the deficit by $9.6 billion. Money for the program would come from spectrum licensing, which is expected to raise over $27 billion over the next decade.


Key elements of the plan include the following.


* Nearly Double Wireless Spectrum Available for Mobile Broadband -- The President's initiative has set the goal of freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum. New financial-compensation tools will be put in place to enable government agencies to use spectrum more efficiently. The government will encourage "voluntary incentive auctions" that enable current spectrum holders to realize a portion of auction revenues if they choose to participate.


* The majority of the freed up spectrum would be auctioned for licensed mobile broadband, raising a projected $27.8 billion over the next decade, and a remainder would be for unlicensed use.


* Expand 4G to 98% of Americans -- the privately-owned 4G rollouts currently underway will bring access to much of the U.S.. President Obama believes that absent additional government investment, millions of Americans will not be able to participate in the 4G revolution. To that end, the President's Budget supports the 4G buildout in rural areas through a one-time $5 billion investment. This investment, to be managed by the FCC, will help catalyze universal service reform to provide access to higher-speed wireless and wired broadband, dovetail with the need for public safety to have a wireless network available in rural areas, and extend access from the almost 95% of Americans who have 3G wireless services today to at least 98% of all Americans gaining access to state-of-the-art 4G high-speed wireless services within five years.


* A Wireless Innovation (WIN) Fund to Help Drive Innovation. This $3 billion fund will support basic research, experimentation and testbeds, and applied development in a number of areas, including public safety, education, energy, health, transportation, and economic development.


* Develop and Deploy A Nationwide, Interoperable Wireless Network For Public Safety -- President Obama is calling for an investment of $10.7 billion for public safety networking: $3.2 billion to reallocate the "D Block" (which is a band of spectrum that would be reserved and prioritized for public safety and not auctioned as called for under existing law); $7 billion to support the deployment of this network; and $500 million from the WIN Fund for R&D and technological development to tailor the network to meet public safety requirements.


* Cut the deficit by $9.6 billion over the next decade -- Auctions of spectrum freed up from the government and voluntarily relinquished by current commercial users, is estimated to raise $27.8 billion. This total is above-and-beyond the auction proceeds that are used to provide an incentive for private and government users as well as the auction proceeds that are expected even absent the President's proposal. After the cost of the investments proposed by the President, the initiative would reduce the deficit by $9.6 billion over the next decade.

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France Telecom's 1H11 Revenue Rose 0.3% to 22.569 B Euros

Despite crises affecting operations in Egypt and Côte d'Ivoire and an unfavourable VAT increase in its home market, France Telecom's first half 2011 revenues rose 0.3% to 22.569 billion euros, excluding the impact of regulatory measures. Restated EBITDA was 7.613 billion euros with margin erosion limited to -1.5 percentage points.


Some highlights of the financial report:


The Group had 217.3 million customers at 30 June 2011 (excluding MVNOs), a 7.0% increase year on year on a
comparable basis with close to 14 million net additions in one year generated by mobile services, primarily in
Africa and the Middle East.


In mobile services, the Group had a total of 158.4 million customers at 30 June 2011 (excluding MVNOs), with
year-on-year growth of 10.1% on a comparable basis and 14.1 million net additions. This growth was largely in
Africa and the Middle East, which together accounted for 67 million customers at 30 June 2011, a 23.5%
increase on a comparable basis with 11.9 million net additions.


The Group had a total of 14.0 million fixed broadband services customers at 30 June 2011, representing a 5.0% year
on year increase with 664,000 net additions, including 382,000 in France, 148,000 in the other European countries
(Spain, Poland and Belgium) and 134,000 in Africa and the Middle East (Egypt, Jordan, Senegal and Tunisia).
Digital TV (IPTV and satellite) grew strongly to 4.6 million subscribers in Europe at 30 June 2011, a 27.3% increase with 977,000 net additions, mostly in France and Poland.


Mobile services performed well in France (+6.2%) and Spain (+7.3%), and emerging markets grew rapidly, rising 7.8%.


In France, the Group stabilised its mobile market share at 41% and had an estimated market share of ADSL net new additions of 22% in the second quarter.


CAPEX was equal to 10.9% of revenues, representing 2.469 billion euros in investments, an increase on the first half of 2010.


In France, mobile revenues rose 6.2%, even though the VAT increase was only partially passed through to
customers, led by the success of the strategy of segmented offers with Origami and growth in smartphones.
At the same time, the fixed broadband customer base rose 4.2% year on year as of 30 June 2011, with a
market share of ADSL new net additions of about 22%, in line with that of the first quarter;


In Spain, strong growth continued in mobile, up 7.3% in the first half of 2011, while fixed services rose 3.2%
on ADSL growth;


In Poland, mobile revenues rose 3.9%, driven by the increase in the customer base. The ADSL customer base
also rose, up 2.3% year on year at 30 June 2011;


In the Rest of World segment, excluding Egypt and Côte d'Ivoire, growth was buoyant in Africa and the Middle
East, rising 7.8%, led in particular by Cameroon, Mali and new operations.


Europe reported a 0.8% increase, with growth in the majority of countries (particularly Belgium) partly offset by the downturn in Romania. http://www.francetelecom.com

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OIF Approves OTN-capable E-NNI Routing

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) approved the External Network-Network Interface (E-NNI) OSPFv2-based (Open Shortest Path First, version 2) Routing – 2.0 (Intra-Carrier) Implementation Agreement.


The new IA supports routing for digital connections using ITU-T Optical Transport Networking (OTN) standards and incorporates updates and extensions to the E-NNI Routing 1.0 IA (2007), including:

• formats and encoding for routing of OTN ODUj connections



• Ethernet layer routing information designed for supporting future multilayer control plane integration.



• guidelines for topology abstraction for scalability in carrier deployments.



• extensions supporting inter-domain ASON routing that are a product of joint OIF, ITU-T and IETF efforts.

Further control plane work on new OTN features is in progress under a separate OIF project titled UNI Signaling and E-NNI Signaling/Routing IA – G.709 edition 3 amendment. This project will update OIF Signaling and Routing IAs to support new OTN features defined in ITU-T G.709 edition 3 and G.709amd2, such as ODUflex and ODUflex hitless resizing.


"The completion of this IA is important to the industry as networks move towards an OTN routing capable control plane," said Remi Theillaud of Marben Products and the OIF's Networking & Operations Working Group chair. "OIF's E-NNI Signaling 2.0 and E-NNI Routing 2.0 IAs now provide a complete inter-domain control plane solution for OTN."


In a separate item, OIF members voted to merge the Architecture and Signaling Working Group with the OAM&P Working Group and renamed it the Networking & Operations Working Group. Remi Theillaud of Marben Products has been elected as the group's new chair. http://www.oiforum.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Sees Fastest Growth in IP/MPLS Router Business

Alcatel-Lucent's Q2 revenue increased 2.4% year-over-year and increased 4.4% sequentially to Euro 3.903 billion. At constant currency exchange rates and perimeter, revenue increased 10.4% year-over-year and increased 7.6% sequentially. Reported net income (group share) was Euro 43 million or Euro 0.02 per share.


"We are on track for the year. In the second quarter, our next-generation product sales increased sharply, delivering market share gains in IP and optics, driven by the need for capacity and all-IP network transformation. From a geographic standpoint, we enjoyed significant growth in North and Latin America as well as in Asia Pacific. We have strengthened our focus on innovation by realigning our management team and sharpening our strategy further. We have accelerated actions on fixed costs and reduced internal complexity. Free cash flow improved by more than Euro 300 million in the first half of the year compared to the year ago period and throughout the company we are actively driving better working capital management for the remainder of the year.


"We are reaffirming our full-year outlook to grow faster than our addressable market with an adjusted operating margin above 5% of our 2011 sales," stated Ben Verwaayen, CEO.


Some highlights from the company's Q2 report.


Networks


Revenues for the Networks segment were Euro 2.475 billion, an increase of 7.4% compared to Euro 2.304 billion in the year-ago quarter and an increase of 2.4% compared to Euro 2.418 billion in the first quarter 2011. At constant currency exchange rates, Networks revenues increased 14.1% year-over-year and increased 5.8% sequentially.


The IP division registered its third consecutive quarter of growth in excess of 25% in the second quarter, with an increase of 27.7% from the year-ago quarter to Euro 406 million. Within the division, growth was once again driven by the IP/MPLS service router business, where revenue growth continued at last quarter's near-40% pace. Growth in the Americas region remained strong and was joined this quarter by very strong growth in the Asia Pacific region.


Revenues for the Optics division were Euro 645 million, an increase of 3.7% from the year-ago quarter that was driven by double-digit growth in the submarine business and by continued growth in WDM and wireless (microwave) transmission segments.


Revenues in the Wireless division increased 5.7% from the year-ago quarter to Euro 1.079 billion. At constant currency exchange rates, wireless revenue increased 14.8% year-over-year. Gains were led by CDMA EV-DO business in the Americas, by our 2G and 3G businesses in the Asia Pacific region and by our 4G LTE business.


Revenues in the Wireline division slipped 2.5% below their year-ago level, to Euro 357 million, but they increased 3.6% at constant currency exchange rates. Growth was strong in the Asia Pacific region, led by fiber access business. The IP-DSLAM business was stable, and the legacy TDM switching and legacy DSL businesses declined.


APPLICATIONS


Revenues for the Applications segment were Euro 486 million, a decrease of 0.6% from Euro 489 million in the year-ago quarter and an increase of 7.8% compared to Euro 451 million in the first quarter 2011. At constant currency exchange rates, Applications revenues increased 4.7% year-over-year and increased 10.2% sequentially.


Network applications revenues of Euro 200 million increased 6.4% from the year-ago quarter in the second quarter, marking a fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. The increase was led by strong growth in Digital Media & Advertising, Messaging and the Motive solution (remote customer management).


Revenues in the Enterprise applications business decreased 6.6% from the year-ago quarter, to Euro 285 million in the second quarter 2011.


SERVICES


Revenues for the Services segment were Euro 871 million, a decrease of 1.4% compared to Euro 883 million in the year-ago quarter and an increase of 7.7% compared to Euro 809 million in the first quarter 2011.


Growth picked up in the Managed and Outsourcing Solutions business in the second quarter with revenues increasing more than 20% from the year-ago quarter.


Revenues in the Network and Systems Integration (NSI) business increased at a single-digit rate in the second quarter, with continued strong growth in network transformation projects. Growth was particularly strong in the Americas.


Revenues fell at a double-digit rate in the second quarter in the Network Build & Implementation (NBI) business (which is focused on civil works) reflecting the continued impact of political unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as project closeouts.


Revenues in the Maintenance business also fell in the second quarter, with declines in both "product-attached" maintenance (the maintenance of Alcatel-Lucent products) and in multi-vendor maintenance. The decline in product-attached maintenance was due to weakness in the EMEA region, which offset gains in the Americas and the Asia Pacific regions. Lower multi-vendor revenues reflect a strategic repositioning within certain projects. http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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NTT America Deploys Bloom Energy Servers in SJ Data Center

NTT America has deployed five Bloom Energy Servers at its Lundy Data Center in San Jose, California. The fuel cells at this data center will use biogas supplied via a pipeline from a California dairy farm to generate electricity on-site.


The five Bloom Energy Servers offer a total capacity of 500kW (kilowatts), or approximately the baseline required to power 500 average homes or five 30,000 square-foot office buildings. These will produce over 4.2 million kilowatt-hours annually, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.6 million pounds, the equivalent to planting approximately 4,000 trees each year.


NTT America said the use of fuel cells helps reduce the dependency on the public electric grid and minimize its carbon footprint by using renewable fuels. Additional energy efficiency initiatives include hot aisle/cold aisle server rack design, aisle containment solutions, high efficiency computer room air conditioner (CRAC) cooling systems, distributed electricity generation and dynamic temperature sensor/control technology.


"As one of the major data center operators in the world, we recognize the importance of energy efficiency and the need for distributed generation and use of clean fuels. Equally important is our enterprise customers' interest in, and support of, energy efficiency both from the environmental and cost reduction avenues. As a key driver for the future of the data center, NTT America will continue to evaluate, support and deploy technologies that can be environmentally sound and cost effective for our customers," said Kazuhiro Gomi, president and CEO of NTT America. http://www.us.ntt.com http://www.Bloomenergy.com

• Earlier this month, AT&T announced plans to deploy Bloom Energy Servers at eleven sites in California to power their operations. The Bloom Boxes leverage solid oxide fuel cell technology to deliver clean, reliable, affordable onsite power from either natural gas or biogas. Deployment sites include facilities in Corona, Fontana, Hayward, Pasadena, Redwood City, Rialto, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Jose, and San Ramon.
  
  
  The installations will provide 7.5 megawatts (MW) of power while reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 50% compared to the grid and virtually eliminates all SOx, NOx, and other harmful smog forming particulate emissions. Once fully operational these Bloom Boxes are expected to produce over 62 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy annually.

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Sprint Sees Q2 Improvements, But Loss Widens

Citing higher postpaid ARPU, growth in the number of net prepaid subscribers and higher wireless equipment revenues, Sprint reported consolidated net operating revenues of $8.3 billion for Q2, 4 percent higher than in the second quarter of 2010 and remained relatively flat as compared to the first quarter of 2011. Adjusted OIBDA was $1.3 billion for the quarter, including the estimated incremental impact of $120 million from customer acquisition and retention expenditures to remain competitive in the marketplace and $73 million related to disputes and settlements, including Clearwire, and ongoing Network Vision expenses. The company reported a net loss of $847 million and a diluted loss per share of 28 cents for the quarter, which includes $588 million in equity losses of unconsolidated investments and other ($.20 per share net of tax, which includes the effect of increased valuation allowance of $209 million) and a $52 million charge ($.02 per share, which includes approximately $19 million of related increase in valuation allowance) to tax expenses.


However, gains were partially offset by net losses of postpaid subscribers and lower wireline revenues.

"Sprint's second quarter results, including our fourteenth consecutive quarter of improved customer care satisfaction, our best ever postpaid churn, more than 1 million net wireless subscriber additions and wireless service revenue growth, validate that our focus on providing simplicity, value and an unmatched customer experience is working," said Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO.


Some highlights for Q2:


Wireline revenues of $1.1 billion for the quarter declined 14 percent year-over-year primarily as a result of an annual intercompany rate reduction based on market prices for voice and IP, the scheduled migration of wholesale cable VoIP customers off of Sprint's IP platform, and lower voice volume. Sequentially, second quarter wireline revenues declined almost 3 percent primarily as a result of continued migration of wholesale cable VoIP customers off of Sprint's IP platform.


The company served over 52 million customers at the end of the second quarter of 2011. This includes 32.9 million postpaid subscribers (27.7 million via the Sprint brand on CDMA, 5 million on iDEN, and 268,000 Nextel PowerSource users who utilize both networks), 13.8 million prepaid subscribers (11.1 million on CDMA and 2.7 million on iDEN) and approximately 5.4 million wholesale and affiliate subscribers, all of whom utilize our CDMA network.


For the quarter, Sprint added nearly 1.1 million net wireless customers, including net additions of 573,000 retail subscribers and net additions of 519,000 wholesale and affiliate subscribers as a result of growth in prepaid MVNOs and M2M solutions.


Sprint lost approximately 101,000 net postpaid subscribers during the quarter, a net improvement of 127,000, or 56 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2010.


The CDMA network added approximately 226,000 net postpaid customers during the quarter, which includes net losses of 49,000 Nextel PowerSource customers. Excluding Nextel PowerSource customer losses, the Sprint brand added 275,000 net postpaid wireless subscribers. The iDEN network lost 327,000 net postpaid customers in the quarter.


The company added 674,000 net prepaid subscribers during the quarter, which includes net additions of 1.1 million prepaid CDMA customers, offset by losses of 475,000 net prepaid iDEN customers.


The credit quality of Sprint's end-of-period postpaid customers was approximately 83 percent prime.


Postpaid churn was 1.75 percent, compared to 1.85 percent for the year-ago period and 1.81 percent for the first quarter of 2011. Quarterly postpaid churn improved year-over-year and sequentially primarily as a result of a larger base of customers on fixed rate bundled plans or 4G handsets.


Approximately 9 percent of postpaid customers upgraded their handsets during the second quarter, reflecting strong demand for Sprint's handset portfolio and continued strength in contract renewals.


Prepaid churn for the second quarter of 2011 was 4.14 percent, compared to 5.61 percent for the year-ago period and 4.36 percent for the first quarter of 2011.


Wireless retail service revenues of $6.7 billion for the quarter represent an increase of almost 5 percent compared to the second quarter of 2010 and almost 1 percent compared to the first quarter of 2011.


Wireless postpaid ARPU increased year-over-year from $55 to $57, the largest year-over-year postpaid ARPU growth in over seven years. Year-over-year, ARPU benefited from higher monthly recurring revenues as a result of premium data add-on charges for smartphones and the greater popularity of fixed-rate bundle plans, partially offset by lower overage, casual data and text revenues. Sequentially, ARPU increased from $56 to $57, primarily as a result of growth in premium data add-on revenues.


Prepaid ARPU of $28 for the quarter declined slightly year-over-year and sequentially as a result of a greater mix of Assurance Wireless customers who on average have lower ARPU than the remainder of our prepaid subscriber base.


Capital expenditures, excluding capitalized interest of $102 million, were $640 million in the quarter, compared to $437 million in the second quarter of 2010 and $555 million in the first quarter of 2011.


Wireless capital expenditures were $546 million in the second quarter of 2011, compared to $319 million in the second quarter of 2010 and $449 million in the first quarter of 2011. During the quarter, the company invested primarily in data capacity as a result of increased data usage to maintain a competitive position in data service and overall network quality.


Wireline capital expenditures were $35 million in the second quarter of 2011, compared to $49 million in the second quarter of 2010 and $53 million in the first quarter of 2011. http://www.sprint.com

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Sprint and LightSquared Sign $13 Billion LTE + Satellite Deal

Sprint and LightSquared announced a 15-year agreement that includes spectrum hosting and network services, 4G wholesale, and 3G roaming. The deal gives Sprint $9 billion in cash to build out its 4G network and provides LightSquared with a Tier-One partner for bringing its wholesale-only, nationwide LTE + L-Band broadband satellite service to market, should the FCC approve its GPS terrestrial interference mitigation proposals.


Specifically, LightSquared will pay Sprint to deploy and operate a nationwide LTE network that hosts L-Band spectrum licensed to or available to LightSquared. As a wholesale-only carrier with separate core network operations, LightSquared can sell its 4G broadband capacity produced through this spectrum hosting relationship to Sprint, other wireless carriers, and retail partners.


Highlights of the Sprint/LightSquared Spectrum hosting agreement:

• During an 11-year period, LightSquared will pay $9 billion in cash to Sprint



• $4.5 billion in LTE and satellite purchase credits to Sprint, if Sprint chooses to resell capacity



• Sprint can purchase up to 50 percent of LightSquared's expected L-Band 4G capacity



• LightSquared gets a 3G nationwide roaming agreement with Sprint



• The deal is subject to LightSquared's obtaining resolution and FCC approval of certain interference issues involving terrestrial use of the L-Band spectrum.



• Sprint expects positive adjusted OIBDA and margin impact over 11 year period



• Sprint expects a free cash flow benefit



• Sprint will outline its full 4G network strategy on October 7th.

"This spectrum hosting agreement with LightSquared allows Sprint to more efficiently use its Network Vision platform," said Steve Elfman, president of Network Operations and Wholesale for Sprint. "In addition to improving our cash flow, it provides additional options and flexibility in how we meet our customers' future capacity needs."


"This agreement gives LightSquared a rapid and cost-effective radio access network build," said LightSquared Chairman and CEO Sanjiv Ahuja. "With our next generation satellite already operational and our independent core network build underway, LightSquared is now well positioned to meet the fast-growing market demand for wireless broadband services with its wholesale-only integrated 4G-LTE and satellite network." http://www.sprint.com http://www.lightsquared.com

• Earlier this week, Sprint and Crown Castle announced a new agreement to enable the delivery of the next-generation networks through Sprint’s Network Vision plan. The agreement impacts more than 10,000 of Sprint’s nationwide cell sites.



• In December 2010, Sprint unveiled its "Network Vision" for consolidating its infrastructure and spectrum into a single, more cost-effective and flexible network. Sprint also announced the selection of Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Samsung as key partners to enable this transformation.
  
  
  The key idea behind Sprint's "Network Vision" is to operate a single network. Sprint currently uses separate equipment to deploy services on 800 MHz spectrum, 1.9 GHz spectrum and, through its relationship with Clearwire, 2.5 GHz spectrum. The New Vision blueprint calls for the deployment of multimode base stations for delivering 3G/4G services across all of these bands. New remote radio heads at the cell sites would be connected with fiber rather than coaxial risers. The consolidated cell site would be significantly more energy-efficient.
  
  
  Sprint intends to repurpose some of its 800MHz spectrum for CDMA service, thereby enhancing coverage, particularly the in-building experience for customers. Augmenting its 1.9GHz footprint with 800MHz, Sprint expects its CDMA coverage density will increase throughout the country.
  
  
  Regarding its iDEN network and push-to-talk, Sprint expects to launch the next-generation of PTT services in 2011 on the CDMA network, offering customers sub-second call set-up time along with robust data capabilities. There are no immediate plans to force migrate iDEN customers to the CDMA network, but Sprint expects its PTT device/app portfolio on the CDMA network will continue to evolve to include high-bandwidth data services.
  
  
  "Network Vision builds on our legacy of wireless innovation and represents the next step in the evolution of our networks to best meet unprecedented growth in mobility services. We are well- positioned to take advantage of new technology, chipsets, devices and applications. Working with these three partners, we expect to deliver to our customers the most cutting-edge network capabilities available today and in the future."
  
  
  The financial impact of the Network Vision plan includes a total, estimated incremental cost over the deployment period to be between $4 billion and $5 billion. Sprint estimates the total net financial benefit over a seven-year period will be between $10 billion and $11 billion.
  
  
  The vendor contracts with Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Samsung includes purchases of hardware, software and services. These contracts are divided geographically:
  
  
  Alcatel-Lucent: New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C./Baltimore and Los Angeles
  
  
  Ericsson: Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Kansas City and Dallas
  
  
  Samsung: Chicago, Denver, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle.

.

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Gig.U Seeks to Spur FTTH for University Communities

A coalition of 28 leading academic institutions across the U.S. have formed Gig.U: The University Community Next Generation Innovation Project. The goal is to accelerate the offering of ultra high-speed network services to their communities. Organizers said this initiative is needed because current service providers in the United States do not have any plans to offer ultra high-speed services for university communities.

Within the next 90 days. Gig.U expects to issue a Request for Information to current and potential service providers regarding new approaches for launching such networks. Gig.U noted that the Google Fiber Project prompted over 1,100 communities across the United States, including nearly all the University communities involved in Gig.U, to organize themselves to improve the business case for potential suppliers. Gig.U will build on those organizational efforts.

Gig.U is headed by Blair Levin, who currently is a Communications & Society Fellow with the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program. Previously, he served as the Executive Director of the FCC's Omnibus Broadband Initiative, where he oversaw the development of a National Broadband Plan. http://www.fcc.gov

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USDA Announces $192 million in Loans for Broadband Projects

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced $192 million in loans for broadband projects by rural telecom carriers in eight states.


Administered by USDA Rural Development's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), this financing is part of the $690 million investment during fiscal year 2011 and is in addition to the $3.5 billion in broadband funding RUS awarded for projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.


Award recipients include:


Iowa

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company: $18,205,000


Iowa and Missouri

IAMO Telephone Company: $14,972,000


Kansas

Wilson Telephone Company, Inc.: $14,312,000


Montana

3 Rivers Telephone Cooperative, Inc.: $70,000,000


Oregon

Molalla Telephone Company: $22,500,000


Texas

Coleman County Telephone Cooperative, Inc.: $22,540,000


Washington

Western Wahkiakum County Telephone Company: $12,708,000


Wisconsin

Baldwin Telecom, Inc.: $16,716,000http://www.usda.gov

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Frontier Expands in Former VZ Territory with ADTRAN

Frontier Communications has selected ADTRAN for its build out of broadband services in new markets in 14 states acquired by Frontier in July 2010. Frontier's goal is to extend High-Speed Internet to at least 85 percent of this customer base by 2013. ADTRAN's extensive broadband portfolio, professional services and network management solutions are being utilized to enable delivery of enhanced broadband and new bundled services to customers across this expanded geographic footprint. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Michael Golob, senior vice president, Engineering and Technology for Frontier stated, "ADTRAN was a major part of our 180-day roll out last July and performed exceptionally well. The breadth of its solutions is enabling us to meet our footprint coverage goals and positions us perfectly for future business and premium residential services."
http://www.adtran.com
http://www.frontier.com

• In July 2010, Frontier completed its acquisition of Verizon Communications' (local wireline operations in 14 states. The combined operations will provide voice, High-Speed Internet, wireless Internet data access, satellite video, FiOS and other services to more than 4.0 million residential and business customers in 27 states using the Frontier Communications brand. The transaction positioned Frontier as the largest pure rural telecommunications carrier in the United States.

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Equinix Growth Continues: Revenues up, New Data Centers

Equinix recorded Q2 revenues of $394.9 million, a 9% increase over the previous quarter and a 33% increase over the same quarter last year. Reported adjusted EBITDA of $181.3 million, an 8% increase over the previous quarter and a 37% increase over the same quarter last year. This quarter included the results from the acquisition of an indirect, controlling equity interest in ALOG Data Centers do Brasil S.A. from April 25, 2011, which is referred to as the ALOG acquisition.


"With outstanding first-half results, Equinix is on target to surpass its original financial objectives for 2011. Solid market fundamentals such as the growth of IP, mobile, video, cloud and electronic trading combined with our global leadership position set us up well for the long term," said Steve Smith, president and CEO of Equinix. "Our investments are paying off and we will continue to carefully allocate capital to support our growth, while generating attractive returns for our shareholders."

Equinix also announced plans to build a tenth International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Washington, D.C. (DC10) as well as the opening of its Business Continuity Services facility in Milan, Italy. DC10 will provide approximately 77,000 square feet of customer floor space, built out in multiple phases. Targeted to open in early 2012, the first phase is expected to cost $34 million in expansion capital, which is already reflected in the company's guidance.
http://www.equinix.com

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Global Crossing Sees Q2 Revenues Rise 10% YoY

Global Crossing reported revenue of $692 million in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 5 percent sequentially and 10 percent year over year. The company's strategic "invest and grow" services generated revenue of $622 million in the second quarter, an increase of 6 percent sequentially and 12 percent year over year. Global Crossing reported $96 million of OIBDA in the second quarter, compared with $84 million in the first quarter of 2011 and $93 million in the second quarter of 2010.


"Strong demand and continued enterprise-wide focus on customer experience drove solid progress toward the achievement of our annual guidance," said John Legere, chief executive officer of Global Crossing. "We are building strong operating momentum as we prepare for our strategic combination with Level 3."http://www.globalcrossing.com

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ARRIS' Q2 Revenue Slips to $266 Million

ARRIS reported Q2 revenue of $265.8 million as compared to second quarter 2010 revenues of $280.4 million and as compared to first quarter 2011 revenues of $267.4 million. Through the first half of 2011 and 2010, revenues were $533.2 million and $547.1 million, respectively.


GAAP net income in the second quarter 2011 was $0.13 per diluted share, as compared to second quarter 2010 GAAP net income of $0.15 per diluted share and first quarter 2011 GAAP net income of $0.09 per diluted share.


Gross margin for the second quarter 2011 was 40.2%, which compares to the second quarter 2010 gross margin of 40.4% and the first quarter 2011 gross margin of 36.3%.


"I am pleased with our second quarter financial results," said Bob Stanzione, ARRIS Chairman & CEO. "I am particularly gratified by the high level of customer acceptance of our new higher density C4 CMTS line cards and software upgrades and the increasing interest and demand for our Home Media Gateway. The strong level of interest and traction with these and other new ARRIS products bodes well for the remainder of 2011."http://www.arrisi.com

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Level 3 Posts Revenue of $932 Million -- Flat

Level 3 Communications reported consolidated revenue of $932 million for the second quarter 2011, a slight increase compared to consolidated revenue of $929 million for the first quarter 2011 and $908 million for the second quarter 2010. The net loss for the second quarter 2011 was $181 million, or $0.11 per share, which included a $0.02 per share charge of $23 million on the extinguishment of debt and $14 million in costs associated with Global Crossing.


"Our track record around execution in the business, combined with our continued focus on the customer experience, has proven to be successful in winning new business, contributing to positive revenue growth," said James Q. Crowe, CEO of Level 3. "We are pleased with the progress we have made in growing Core Network Service revenue over the last year."


"In the second quarter 2011 we saw Core Network Services revenue increase 1.7 percent sequentially on a constant currency basis, demonstrating continued improvement in our overall rate of Core Network Services growth," said Sunit Patel, executive vice president and CFO of Level 3. "We saw particular strength from wireless, content, financial services and Government customers during the quarter. Additionally, gross margin grew from $557 million in the first quarter 2011 to $566 million in the second quarter 2011."http://www.level3.com

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Meru Posts Q2 Revenue of $23.2 Million, up 11% YoY

Meru Networks reported record quarterly revenues of $23.2 million, an increase of 11% year-over-year. Net loss GAAP) was $9.8 million for the second quarter of 2011, or a net loss of $0.56 per basic and diluted share, compared to net income of $901,000, or $0.05 per diluted share, for the same period of 2010.


Products revenues grew 24% year-over-year and 23% from the previous quarter. The company's customer count is now over 5,000 worldwide, an increase in the installed base of approximately 9% from the end of the prior quarter.


"We are pleased with our performance this quarter. We achieved record revenues, surpassed 5,000 customers, and expanded our international footprint, further strengthening our competitive position," said Ihab Abu-Hakima, president and chief executive officer of Meru Networks. "We believe the demand for our platforms further validates our ability to meet the challenges of density, diversity and cost for environments where uncompromising wireless services are essential. We are well positioned to capitalize on what we believe will be inevitable shifts as organizations strive to support the onslaught of wireless devices and meet the expectation of ubiquitous WiFi access by mobile users." http://www.merunetworks.com/

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U.K. Arrests LulzSec's Spokesman -- Topiary

The U.K.'s Metropolitan Police Service arrested a 19-year-old man in the Shetland Islands who is believed to be "Topiary." a spokesman for the hacktivist groups Anonymous and LulzSec. Another 17-year-old male is being interviewed under caution in connection with the inquiry. He has not been arrested.


Earlier on Wednesday, LulzSec issued a communiqué blasting PayPal, as well as the FBI, while claiming that the group's activity is not comparable to malicious botnets and should not be considered a cyber crime.http://bit.ly/mUVhpq

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Polaris Wireless Offers Software-based Mass Location Tools for Law Enforcement

Polaris Wireless introduced its "Altus" suite of applications for law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide. The new software-based surveillance tools, which are powered by Polaris Wireless Location Signatures (Polaris WLS) technology, enable accurate mass location – providing law enforcement with the ability to simultaneously locate all subscribers in a wireless network in real time and on a historical basis.


Polaris Wireless said its unique capabilities enable functions, such as target identification, tracking via geo-fence, and post-event analytics, which are vital to the anti-crime and anti-terrorism surveillance efforts of Polaris Wireless customers in the Middle East/Africa, and Asia-Pacific regions.


"Altus enables government agencies to take a major leap forward in their efforts to locate and track known and suspected criminals and terrorists," said Mahesh Patel, senior vice president of surveillance applications at Polaris Wireless. "The Altus application suite offers high-availability and high-reliability carrier-grade infrastructure to meet the mission-critical needs of law enforcement and intelligence agencies."


Using the basic Altus application, customers can create a custom geo-fenced area and locate all subscribers in it, as well as receive alerts when designated targets enter or exit the geo-fence. The geo-fenced area can be identified in real time or at a specified time in the past, enabling government agencies to perform critical post-event analytics to discover, for example, which subscribers were in the vicinity of a busy downtown intersection during the hours before a terrorist event occurred.


Altus now offers an enhanced graphical user interface (GUI), including advanced geographic mapping capabilities powered by Esri's GIS (geographic information systems) mapping software. The enhanced GUI introduces multi-color display and animated icons, providing a more intuitive and productive user experience. Altus also includes standardized APIs to enable easy integration with other surveillance solutions and lawful intercept systems. Polaris Wireless plans to expand the Altus application suite with the ability to assess risks based on multiple inputs, including user identity, call logs, and social data. http://www.polariswireless.com

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Sprint Inks New Cell Site Agreement with Crown Castle

Sprint and Crown Castle announced a new agreement to enable the delivery of the next-generation networks through Sprint's Network Vision plan. The agreement impacts more than 10,000 of Sprint's nationwide cell sites.


The new deal agreement:

• Establishes uniform rates for deploying all Network Vision sites rather than negotiating tower contracts on a site-by-site basis. This provides a high degree of cost predictability to Sprint as its network evolves and grows.



• Provides Sprint with the flexibility it needs to deploy next-generation technologies and to affect its future migration from iDEN.


Could enable a quicker deployment of Network Vision by allowing Sprint to operate existing equipment simultaneously with the new Network Vision equipment for a period of time to ensure a smooth transition for customers.

"We are pleased to reach this agreement with Crown Castle as we evolve our networks to meet the needs of our growing customer base," said John Harrison, Sprint vice president, network supplier performance management. "We look forward to a continued relationship as we roll out Network Vision sites nationwide."

Sprint said it is working with its vendors to plan, test and begin site preparations for Network Vision. In the lab, calls have successfully been completed on 800 MHz 1x voice, 1x data and SMS. Nineteen hundred calls on MHz 1x voice, 1x data, SMS and EVDO have also been completed. Work has begun on thousands of sites and renegotiation of existing contracts with tower companies is an important step in launching these sites later this year.


Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 22,000 and approximately 1,600 wireless communication sites in the US and Australia, respectively. http://www.sprint.com http://www.crowncastle.com

• In December 2010, Sprint unveiled its "Network Vision" for consolidating its infrastructure and spectrum into a single, more cost-effective and flexible network. Sprint also announced the selection of Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Samsung as key partners to enable this transformation.
  
  
  The key idea behind Sprint's "Network Vision" is to operate a single network. Sprint currently uses separate equipment to deploy services on 800 MHz spectrum, 1.9 GHz spectrum and, through its relationship with Clearwire, 2.5 GHz spectrum. The New Vision blueprint calls for the deployment of multimode base stations for delivering 3G/4G services across all of these bands. New remote radio heads at the cell sites would be connected with fiber rather than coaxial risers. The consolidated cell site would be significantly more energy-efficient.
  
  
  Sprint intends to repurpose some of its 800MHz spectrum for CDMA service, thereby enhancing coverage, particularly the in-building experience for customers. Augmenting its 1.9GHz footprint with 800MHz, Sprint expects its CDMA coverage density will increase throughout the country.
  
  
  Regarding its iDEN network and push-to-talk, Sprint expects to launch the next-generation of PTT services in 2011 on the CDMA network, offering customers sub-second call set-up time along with robust data capabilities. There are no immediate plans to force migrate iDEN customers to the CDMA network, but Sprint expects its PTT device/app portfolio on the CDMA network will continue to evolve to include high-bandwidth data services.
  
  
  "Network Vision builds on our legacy of wireless innovation and represents the next step in the evolution of our networks to best meet unprecedented growth in mobility services. We are well- positioned to take advantage of new technology, chipsets, devices and applications. Working with these three partners, we expect to deliver to our customers the most cutting-edge network capabilities available today and in the future."
  
  
  The financial impact of the Network Vision plan includes a total, estimated incremental cost over the deployment period to be between $4 billion and $5 billion. Sprint estimates the total net financial benefit over a seven-year period will be between $10 billion and $11 billion.
  
  
  The vendor contracts with Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Samsung includes purchases of hardware, software and services. These contracts are divided geographically:
  
  
  Alcatel-Lucent: New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C./Baltimore and Los Angeles
  
  
  Ericsson: Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Kansas City and Dallas
  
  
  Samsung: Chicago, Denver, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle.

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Crown Castle Raises 2011 Outlook

Crown Castle International Corp.'s Q2 revenue increased 10% to $500 million from $456 million in the same period in 2010. Site rental revenue for the second quarter of 2011 increased $47 million, or 12%, to $457 million from $410 million for the same period in the prior year. Site rental gross margin, defined as site rental revenue less site rental cost of operations, increased $42 million, or 14%, to $336 million in the second quarter of 2011 from $294 million in the same period in 2010. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2011 increased $40 million, or 14%,to $320 million from $280 million in the same period in 2010.


"We had an excellent second quarter, exceeding the high-end of our Outlook for site rental revenue, site rental gross margin, Adjusted EBITDA and recurring cash flow," stated Ben Moreland, President and Chief Executive Officer. "As reflected in our results, we enjoyed solid growth in our core business, driven largely by the evolution to 4G networks and the continued growth in mobile Internet use. This growth in our core business resulted primarily from amendment activity from existing tenants. Further, the contribution from our services business exceeded our expectations. Based on our strong second quarter results and our expectations for the remainder of 2011, we have raised our full year 2011 Outlook."


Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 22,000 and approximately 1,600 wireless communication sites in the US and Australia, respectively. http://www.crowncastle.com/

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New Pluggable Transceiver Module Multi-Source Agreement for 40 Gbps

Leading optical chip manufacturers, including Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, OKI SEMICONDUCTOR, Opnext, Renesas Electronics, and Sumitomo Electric Industries, announced a transmitter optical sub-assembly (TOSA) and receiver optical sub-assembly (ROSA) Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) for 40 Gbps pluggable transceiver modules.


The new TOSA/ROSA MSA defines both the laser transmitter devices and the PIN Photodiode - Trans-impedance amplifier (PIN-TIA) receiver devices that comply with 40 Gbps interface standards. The MSA targets transmission modules for more than 10 km applications.


"The TOSA/ROSA agreement will leverage the 40 Gbps market to achieve compact, low-power-consumption pluggable modules, which will provide advanced 40 Gbps serial solutions to high capacity network and storage systems," said an MSA Committee spokesperson. In the future, the MSA will continue to define specifications that consider future advanced technologies, such as 1310 nm light source devices and direct modulation lasers. http://www.cfp-msa.org/http://www.xlmdmsa.org/

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Verizon Partners with Dept. of Energy

Verizon will collaborate with the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory to develop new ways to reduce energy use in the information and communications technology industry. Specifically, Verizon will work with the laboratory on a possible blueprint for reducing energy use throughout the information and communications technology industry.


The collaboration targets several areas:


Energy efficiency and energy management at Verizon's buildings and facilities, including data centers.


Advancement of smart grid technologies and best practices, including energy and communication technologies in homes and buildings.


"Innovation and application of energy-saving technologies in a way that makes sense in the marketplace are vital to improving the nation's economy and environment," said Dan Arvizu, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "NREL's collaboration with Verizon offers a variety of possibilities for using clean energy and improving energy efficiency in a large and meaningful way." http://www.verizon.com http://www.nrel.gov

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IEEE 802.22 Whitespaces Spec Supports 22 Mbps up to 100km

The IEEE published the 802.22 standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs) using the favorable transmission characteristics of the VHF and UHF TV bands. 802.22 enables broadband wireless access over a large area up to 100 km from the transmitter. The standard specifies up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with reception of existing TV broadcast stations, using the so-called white spaces between the occupied TV channels.


IEEE 802.22 incorporates advanced cognitive radio capabilities including dynamic spectrum access, incumbent database access, accurate geolocation techniques, spectrum sensing, regulatory domain dependent policies, spectrum etiquette, and coexistence for optimal use of the available spectrum. Some key characteristics:

• It operates generally in the 54-862 MHz range. For the United States, it specifies the following VHF / UHF Bands54 – 60, 76 – 88, 174 – 216, 470 - 608 and 614 –698 MHz => Total of 282 MHz or 47 Channels.



• Network Topology – Point-to-Multipoint (PMP)



• Max EIRP and Cell Radius – Fixed BS and Fixed Subscribers using 4W EIRP, Cell Radius 10 – 100 km. Portable Subscribers Station Supported. (Higher power BS allowed in other countries)



• Tx / Rx antenna – BS uses sectorized or omni-directional antenna. At the subscriber Tx /Rx antenna is directional with 14 dB of front-to-back lobe suppression



• Sensing antenna - Requires horizontal and vertical polarization sensitivities to sense TV and microphone signals respectively, with omni-directional pattern.



• Geo-location - GPS based geo-location is mandatory, but terrestrial geo-location (triangulation) is supported.



• PHY Transport - 802.22 uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) as transport mechanism. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) is used in the UL.



• Modulation - QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM supported.



• QoS – Various types of QoS services are supported (See below). ARQ supported. Uni-cast, Multi-cast and broadcast services are supported.

The IEEE expects 802.22 to be most suitable for less densely populated areas, such as rural areas, and developing countries where most vacant TV channels can be found.


Additional information on the standard can be found at the IEEE 802.22 WG page. http://www.ieee802.org/22/

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Artelis Deploys ADVA's FSP 3000

artelis, an alternative communications provider in Luxembourg and Saarland, Germany, has deployed the ADVA FSP 3000 in a new backbone infrastructure that effectively unites its separate networks onto one flexible core. Built on over 30 ADVA FSP 3000 units, artelis' new core network primarily consists of two high-availability ring structures and a redundant interconnection to an Internet peering point in Frankfurt, Germany. Each FSP 3000 unit features 40 channels transporting 10Gbit/s per wavelength. These channels will be upgraded to 100Gbit/s as customer demand requires. Each node on the network includes ROADM technology that enables artelis to seamlessly switch wavelengths without manual intervention, ensuring that OPEX costs are kept low. In addition to ROADMs, the new core network also features RAMAN amplification along the fiber routes between Saarland and Frankfurt, Germany. The network integrator for the project was Nokia Siemens Networks. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Founded in 2006, with the merger of Cegecom S.A. in Luxembourg and VSE NET GmbH in Saarlad, artelis has a broad range of enterprise customers, including banks, government institutions and healthcare organizations. Many of these customers need to transport mission-critical data and require network solutions capable of responding to strict security demands. Additionally, artleis also works with a number of regional network operators. By combining its separate networks onto one core infrastructure, artelis now has the network capacity and flexibility to provision new services and scale to meet future bandwidth growth. http://www.advaoptical.com

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Dell'Oro: $11 Billion Market for Optical Transport DWDM by 2015

Total worldwide Optical DWDM equipment revenue is forecast to grow at a 12% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next 5 years, reaching $11 billion, according to a newly released Optical Transport forecast report by Dell'Oro Group. Demand for high capacity wavelengths will drive up 40/100 Gbps DWDM shipments to an average annual growth rate of 50%.


"We're projecting a very strong market for both 40 and 100 gigabit DWDM," said Jimmy Yu, Sr. Director of Optical Transport research at Dell'Oro Group. "In fact, we have raised our forecast of both 40 and 100 gigabit because the demand for high-speed interconnects continues to exceed our expectations. The adoption of 100 gigabit is occurring faster than that of 40 gigabit, driving revenues to nearly $1 billion by 2013 and $2 billion by 2015. We believe 40 gigabit will also maintain its momentum through the forecast period since it's likely to sustain a competitive price advantage in ultra long haul spans," added Mr. Yu. http://www.delloro.com

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ECI Telecom Offers Packet Radio Backhaul for 4G/LTE

ECI Telecom is expanding its BG-Wave family of carrier-grade microwave radio with a new ​all-outdoor packet offering designed to support LTE in small-sized and high-capacity cell sites. The new offering includes:


BGW-OE, utilizing the conventional microwave spectrum (6 to 38 GHz), is a compact outdoor enclosure for the BG-Wave series of packet and All-Native multiservice radio nodes (MRANs). This enclosure is best suited for sites where putting an indoor unit would be physically impossible or cost-prohibitive. The BGW-OE provides full networking and multiservice capabilities including MPLS-TP and CES (Circuit Emulation) and includes advanced features like XPIC (Cross Polarized Interference Cancellation) to support high capacity links.


AR (All-Outdoor Radio) series, which utilizes the E-band spectrum (71-76/81-86 GHz). The AR series is highly compact and lightweight, and features low power consumption, allowing power over Ethernet (PoE). It supports full Layer 2 networking capabilities while utilizing a zero footprint architecture all the way to the last mile of wireless backhauling. The AR series use the economical and less congested E-band spectrum to deliver
up to 1 Gbps. It is the first cost and performance-optimized E-band offering for last-mile backhaul applications, leading to significant reductions in total cost-of-ownership.


These new offerings complement ECI's 1Net Wireless Backhaul Solution for a complete and cost-effective migration to next-generation networks, while addressing operators' day-to-day and strategic challenges. ​​​


"ECI's new offerings address specific pain points of our customers today, namely how to deploy effective wireless backhauling in new small, high-capacity cell sites. With this all-outdoor packet radio solution, we are expanding our toolkit offering to cope with the new backhaul paradigm imposed by the significant growth in the number of new small cell sites. These new offerings complement our 1Net Wireless Backhaul Solution, which delivers any service over any medium – be it copper, fiber or wireless," stated Alon Moshes, Head of Radio Line of Business, ECI Telecom​​.
http://www.ecitele.com

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OneCommunity Selects Fujitsu FLASHWAVE for Fiber Project

OneCommunity, which is launching a "Transforming Northeast Ohio: From Rust Belt to Tech Powerhouse" project, has selected Fujitsu's FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONP) for integrating Ethernet, ROADM and SONET/SDH.


Backed by a $44.8 million grant from the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), the project will deploy 1,000 miles of fiber across northern Ohio.


While the FLASHWAVE 9500 supplies the majority of OneCommunity's transport capabilities, the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 7120 is a significant complement. The FLASHWAVE 7120 extends the reach and capacity of the OneCommunity optical network. The platform combines multiplexing, amplification, signal conditioning and performance monitoring, delivering managed services and wavelengths at the network edge.


"This project will have a significant impact on the region's opportunities for economic development and quality-of-life standards," said Scot Rourke, president and CEO, OneCommunity. "We chose to work with Fujitsu Network Communications because they demonstrated not only technology leadership, but also a commitment to our vision. Fujitsu technology will be benefitting Northern Ohio for decades to come."http://www.fujitsu.com/us/news/pr/fnc_20110726.htmlhttp://www.onecommunity.org/ccigroundbreaking

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Sen. Al Franken Opposes AT&T + T-Mobile Deal

Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) announced his opposition to AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA.


In filings with the DOJ and FCC, Franken argues that the merger would be a bad deal for consumers and that it would further stifle competition in an already-concentrated wireless market.
http://franken.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1662

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Tellabs Post Q2 Sales Decline, Announces Job Cuts

Tellabs reported Q2 revenue of $334 million, down 21% from $423 million in the year-ago quarter. North America revenue fell 46%, while international revenue rose 70%, compared with the year-ago quarter.


On a GAAP basis, Tellabs recorded a net loss of $20 million or 6 cents per share (basic and diluted) in
the second quarter of 2011, compared with net earnings of $64 million or 17 cents per basic share and 16
cents per diluted share in the second quarter of 2010.


Broadband segment revenue was $163 million, down 29% from the yearago quarter. Transport segment revenue was $114 million, down 14%. Services segment revenue was $57 million, down 6%.


"While we're never satisfied with a loss, we're making progress in improving Tellabs' performance. In the
second quarter, international revenue grew 70% year-over-year, growth products generated a record 61%
of revenue, and the Tellabs 7100 system had its best quarter ever. Compared with the first quarter, we
reduced operating expenses and improved cash flow from operations," said Rob Pullen, Tellabs president
and chief executive officer. "Going forward, we will cut $50 million from expenses and costs over the next
year, better aligning our expenses with revenue expectations."


The job cuts affect about 330 or 10% of Tellabs employees.
http://www.tellabs.com

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Juniper Posts Q2 revenue of $1.1 B, up 15% YoY and up 2% from Q1

Juniper Networks reported Q2 revenue of $1,120.5 million, up 15% from Q2'10 and up 2% from the preceding quarter. GAAP net income was $115.6 million, or $0.21 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income of $167.2 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2011.


Juniper's operating margin for the second quarter of 2011 decreased to 15.3% on a GAAP basis from 16.1% in the first quarter of 2011, and from 18.9% in the prior year second quarter.


"Juniper's results reflect momentum in our routing business and a return to solid performance in switching. A number of factors, however, including mixed signals in the macro economy, impacted our performance this quarter," said Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer at Juniper Networks. "We are confident that our investment in innovation is generating a wave of great products that positions us well to deliver on our multi-year growth agenda."


Looking ahead, Juniper said its outlook for the September quarter "reflects some near-term market weakness due primarily to the timing of certain Service Provider deployments. Our overall pipeline is strong and we anticipate many of our recent design wins will begin translating to revenue late in 2011."


Juniper estimates revenue for the third quarter ending September 30, 2011, to be in the range of $1.070 billion to $1.120 billion.
http://www.juniper.net

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NTT Communications Launches Global Virtual Link Ethernet

NTT Communications announced the worldwide launch of its Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) service, called Global Virtual Link. First introduced in the US through NTT America in 2006, the service is now available in France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Spain, the Netherlands and the U.K., through NTT Com's Tier-1 Global IP Network, one of the world's largest IP backbones.


The service allows dedicated bandwidth from 100 Mbps to 10Gbps, leveraging the reach and reliability of the NTT Com Global Tier-1 IP Network. Customers can choose from fixed or burstable, pay-as-you-go billings to meet their needshttp://www.ntt.com
http://www.us.ntt.com

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