Monday, January 10, 2011

TeliaSonera Picks Ericsson for Upgrade in Norway

TeliaSonera has selected Ericsson as the supplier of GSM/EDGE and WCDMA/HSPA for its network upgrade in Norway.


Under a 3-year contract, Ericsson will help modernize and expand the northern part of TeliaSonera's Norwegian network and roll-out 4G/LTE in the same region. Ericsson will, as part of the modernization process, replace the existing 2G and 3G radio base stations with its multi-standard RBS 6000. The contract also includes Ericsson's microwave technology MINI-LINK. Financial terms were not disclosed.


The contract expands Ericsson's engagement with TeliaSonera in Norway, which until now has been a customer within 4G/LTE.
http://www.ericsson.com

Google Chrome Adds Support for WebM and Theodora, Drop H.264

Google announced changes to Chrome's HTML5

Level 3 Plans $300 Million Notes Offering

Level 3 Communications plans to offer $300 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes (the "Senior Notes") that will mature in 2019 and will bear interest at a fixed rate in a proposed private offering to "qualified institutional buyers", as defined in Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and non-U.S. persons outside the United States under Regulation S under the Securities Act. The Senior Notes will not be guaranteed by any of the Company's subsidiaries. A portion of the net proceeds from the offering are expected to be used to redeem the Company's outstanding 5.25% Convertible Senior Notes due 2011.


Level 3 also confirmed its previously issued expectation that for the fourth quarter 2010 and continues to expect Core Network Services revenue and Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA to increase in the fourth quarter compared to the company's results in the third quarter 2010. The company also expects to be free cash flow positive for the fourth quarter 2010.
http://www.level3.com

Aruba Networks Names Ben Gibson as CMO

Aruba Networks named Ben Gibson
to the position of Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to Hitesh Sheth, Aruba's Chief Operating Officer. Gibson most recently served as vice president of data center and virtualization marketing at Cisco. Prior to that, Gibson headed Cisco's enterprise mobility solutions marketing organization. Gibson also served as vice president of marketing at both Meru Networks and Proxim Corporation prior to joining Cisco as head of marketing for the Enterprise Mobility Solutions Marketing business in 2005. He previously held a variety of executive positions at companies including Atrica, 3COM and Adaptec.http://www.arubanetworks.com

TELUS Deploys GENBAND Converged Application Server

TELUS will deploy GENBAND's A2 Converged Application Server across its Canadian network to provide business customers with the next-generation of voice, unified communications (UC) and collaboration services. These could include UC services, PC-based soft client and call control capability, customized web portal applications, integrated multimedia collaboration tools, and fixed mobile convergence features. Financial terms were not disclosed. TELUS currently utilizes GENBAND's C20 Converged Softswitch across its network.http://www.genband.com

MoSys Ships its Bandwidth Engine IC for

MoSys has begun shipping its first "Bandwidth Engine" integrated circuit (IC) devices, which integrate MoSys' 1T-SRAM high-density embedded memory with its 10.3 Gbps SerDes interface (I/O) technology and an arithmetic logic unit (ALU).
MoSys said its Bandwidth Engine enables up to four times the throughput, two to four times the density, approximately 40 percent lower system power and a system cost savings of up to 50 percent, compared with today's available alternative system memory solutions.



"In February 2010, we announced our intent to bring to market a revolutionary new networking memory chip architected for use in 40Gbps/100Gbps Gigabit Ethernet routers. In July 2010, we announced the tape-out of Bandwidth Engine, and today I am pleased to announce that we met our goal of sampling by year end 2010," said Len Perham, President and CEO of MoSys. "This key achievement is a testament to the magnificent execution of our team. Customer and partner interest in Bandwidth Engine continues to be remarkably strong, and we are very excited about the substantial opportunity for the Bandwidth Engine family of ICs to provide a strong foundation for long-term growth and value creation at MoSys."http://www.mosys.com

ZTE Claims 235 LTE Essential Patents

ZTE now holds 235 essential patents for LTE standards, representing a 7% share of the total LTE essential patents declared on the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) online database of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, as of 30th November 2010.



As of the end of 2010, ZTE had submitted more than 6800 proposals to 3GPP, of which more than 3900 proposals involved LTE/SAE technologies, and had made more than 2900 LTE-related patent applications.http://www.zte.com.cn

Ericsson: Mobile Broadband Subscriptions to Double in 2011

Ericsson is forecasting spectacular growth in mobile broadband subscription worldwide this year. During 2010, the number of mobile broadband subscribers topped the 500 million mark. The company expects this figure will double before 2011 ends. The greatest number of subscriptions, around 400 million, is expected to be concentrated in the Asia Pacific region, followed by North America and Western Europe with more than 200 million subscriptions each. By 2015, Ericsson believes mobile broadband subscriptions will top 3.8 billion.

Ericsson notes that it has now signed commercial LTE (core and/or access) contracts with 11 operators worldwide.
http://www.ericsson.com

Extreme Networks Demos Data Center Bridging for iSCSI-Based Storage

Extreme Networks has added support for Data Center Bridging (DCB) protocols in multi-vendor environments into existing BlackDiamond and Summit switching products.



The company recently participated in the Enterprise iSCSI Interoperability Test Event at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), which demonstrated the continued power of Ethernet and recent extensions to the standard, such as Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), to support high performance storage. Extreme Networks was one of many networking and storage vendors to participate and demonstrate the power of open data center architectures for converged data and storage networks. IEEE standards, including CEE and Data Center Bridging (DCBX), enable the lossless transport of Ethernet-based storage traffic and deliver the reliability and lossless characteristics required for demanding SAN applications.http://www.extremenetworks.com

CipherOptics Raises $21 Million for Scalable Network Encryption

CipherOptics, a start-up based in Raleigh, North Carolina, raised $21 million for its scalable network encryption.



CipherOptics offers policy and key management solutions along with wire-speed encryption appliances for securing networks without changing the underlying infrastructure or application performance.



The new funding round was led by existing investor Adams Capital Management and included new investors Blue Heron Capital, Intuitive Venture Partners, Next Stage Capital, Kestrel Asset Management and other individuals joining Origin Partners and Axiom Venture Partners as investors.
http://www.cipheroptics.com

Verizon Wireless Begins Selling iPhone 4 on Feb 10

Verizon Wireless made its long-anticipated announcement to begin selling Apple's iPhone 4 on February 10. Apple will supply the CDMA version of the iPhone 4 under a multiyear, non-exclusive agreement. Pricing is set at $199.99 for the 16GB model and $299.99 for the 32GB model with a new two year customer agreement.



Due to CDMA characteristics, users will not be able to use voice and data connections simultaneously.



The iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless will also include new Personal Hotspot capabilities allowing customers to use iPhone 4 to connect up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices.



Data packages and pricing will be announced at a later date. The companies did not comment on future LTE capabilities, although Apple said using first generation LTE silicon would have required unacceptable design changes.http://www.verizonwireless.com http://www.apple.com

Tata Communications to Acquire BitGravity CDN

Tata Communications agreed to acquire BitGravity, a start-up based in Burlingame, California that operates a content delivery network (CDN). Financial terms were not disclosed.



BitGravity's network and products accelerate the delivery of media assets to end-users and enables scalable, real-time video communications over the Internet. The company operates nodes in over 25 locations around the globe.



"Tata Communications bet on BitGravity's vision and people to provide innovative video services. We are ecstatic that this will be a positive outcome for all the stakeholders; we are equally excited about what this means for BitGravity and its products going forward," said Perry Wu, CEO and co-founder of BitGravity. "As a combined entity, we can propel our position in the market, and the opportunity to accelerate our vision on a significantly larger scale was one we couldn't pass up."http://www.bitgravity.com http://www.tatacommunications.com In 2008, Tata Communications entered into a strategic alliance with BitGravity that included the licensing BitGravity’s CDN technology and the federation of BitGravity’s and Tata Communications’ delivery networks. The company also made a strategic investment of $11.5mn in BitGravity.

BitGravity was founded in mid-2006. The company is headed by Perry Wu, who previously was involved in the creation of Xilinx, Mpath, eWorld, Sitesmith, Alibris, and more recently Cloudshield, Enkata, Persist, and WireCache. He has been an investment professional at Accel Partners, Bedrock Capital, and most recently as a General Partner at ComVentures.

Qwest Launches Ethernet over MPLS/DWDM (E-Line)

Qwest launched a new "iQ" E-Line service that provides enterprise customers with a low-latency, private line solution suitable for media transport and other mission-critical applications.



Qwest's E-Line service leverages its DWDM and dedicated MPLS network technologies to combine the benefits of intelligent routing with the advantages of full bandwidth utilization. The fully managed service offers bandwidth in increments from 5 Mbps up to 1 Gbps. When combined with multiplexing, the solution allows for hub-and-spoke multi-site connections within or between any of E-Line's 16 markets currently for long-haul and metro applications: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Mo., Los Angeles, New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sunnyvale, Calif., Tampa, Fla., and Washington, D.C.



Qwest said its E-line service may be rapidly provisioned. Hibernia Media, which provides managed video transport services, is a lead customer.



"By leveraging the latest technology to reduce our costs, Qwest has rolled out a feature-rich service that drives applications and is simple to integrate with customers' existing networks. It will be hard for other private line technologies to match the high performance and high reliability at E-Line's price point. Customers like Hibernia Media will enjoy lower latency, along with better predictability and control over their applications," stated Eric Bozich, vice president of Qwest National Network Services.http://www.qwest.com