XO Launches Enterprise Cloud Communications

XO introduced an Enterprise Cloud Communications service that allows businesses to accelerate the deployment of IP and unified communications, simplify the management of their IP communications needs, and reduce the capital investments and operating costs of their enterprise-wide communications.



XO Enterprise Cloud Communications integrates IP telephony features, local and long distance calling, enterprise-wide HD voice and video, network services, and IP phone sets in a communications as a service, per-user pricing model. All of the applications reside in the cloud.



"XO Enterprise Cloud Communications represents the next evolution of our award-winning IP communications portfolio which today supports 30,000 business customers and more than one million end users," said Mike Toplisek, chief marketing officer for XO Business Services at XO Communications. "This solution is ideal for mid-market businesses and larger enterprises with distributed operations by helping them solve important business issues of controlling costs, improving employee productivity and increasing their competitiveness in the market."http://www.xo.com

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Xtera Adds 100G to its Optical Transport Platform

Xtera Communications announced 100G channel cards for its new Nu-Wave Optima optical transport platform, which features a common, integrated set of modules for long-haul, regional, and metro applications.



The Nu-Wave Optima platform leverages a toolkit of technologies that consists of all-Raman, hybrid EDFA/Raman amplifiers, 10G and 40G interfaces using a variety of modulation formats, next generation ROADMs, and line monitoring technologies.



Xtera said its new 100G optics, when combined with its Raman technology, enables a record 15 Tbps to be carried over a single fiber. The company recently demonstrated 8 x 100 Gbps transported over an extended unrepeatered span of 440km with a loss in excess of 76dB, in effect doubling the capacity that could be achieved using 10G. In addition, the interleaving of 10G signals with 100G signals on a 50GHz grid was also demonstrated, showing the feasibility of seamless upgrade to 100G on existing systems.



The 100G line cards for all applications of the Nu-Wave Optima platform will be available to the general market in June 2011.http://www.xtera.com

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Deutsche Telekom will Offer SES ASTRA's Satellite TV

SES ASTRA and Deutsche Telekom announced a partnership in Germany to combine ASTRA's broad satellite free-TV offer with Deutsche Telekom's IPTV product Entertain. The offer will include all free-to-air, TV and radio channels in Standard and High Definition (HD) on ASTRA including HD+ as well as the typical Entertain services like Video on Demand, a TV archive and an Electronic Programme Guide. Entertain Sat also comprises time shift functions and hard disk recording with 500 GB memory. Flat rate telephony and Internet will also be included. Entertain Sat will be available for households all across Germany with a DSL connection of at least 3 Mbps.



HD+ is a platform launched by SES ASTRA in Germany for access to free-TV programmes in HD. The HD+ offer currently comprises eight German private free-TV programmes in HD: RTL HD, Vox HD, RTL2 HD, ProSieben HD, Sat.1 HD, kabel eins HD, Sport1 HD and sixx HD.




SES ASTRA is the leading Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite system in Europe. The satellite fleet currently comprises 16 satellites which deliver services to more than 125 million households and transmit more than 2,600 television and radio channels. http://www.ses.com http://www.telekom.com

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Deutsche Telekom Outlines 2011 FTTH & LTE Plans

At the opening of this year's CeBIT, Deutsche Telekom outlined a number of network initiatives, including fiber optic expansion and LTE rollout in Germany.



In 2011, Deutsche Telekom expects to bring fiber connections to 160,000 households in ten German cities. The network will be capable of speeds of up to 1 Gbps downstream and 0.5 Gbps upstream in the near future. Selected districts of the cities of Braunschweig, Brühl, Hanover, Hennigsdorf, Neu-Isenburg, Kornwestheim, Mettmann, Offenburg, Potsdam and Rastatt will be wired with fiber-optic lines in 2011.



Pilot fiber optics projects were launched in Hennigsdorf and Braunschweig in 2010. In addition, VDSL is available in 50 German cities and more than 60 percent of households in Germany can surf at transmission speeds of six to 16 Mbps.



However, for a widescale rollout, Deutsche Telekom said investment-friendly regulations are required.



"Our decision to expand the fiber-optic network in Germany proves our commitment to our home market. With today's launch of the expansion programme, we are systematically executing our strategy," said Niek Jan van Damme, the member of the Board of Management at Deutsche Telekom AG responsible for business in Germany.



"We have to work together with owners on the expansion and move toward the gigabit society together. This will increase not only the living value of a property, but also its attractiveness," says Niek Jan van Damme. In particular, modern, investment-friendly regulation is needed to speed up expansion of the FTTH networks. "It must be possible to use all existing infrastructure, such as cable conduits from other grid industries or even building networks, to save costs and capture synergy potential. We also have to avoid a patchwork of local fiber-optic networks in Germany, which means the industry has to agree to mutual, open network access," says Mr. van Damme.



In wireless, Deutsche Telekom is pursing HSPA+, LTE and Wi-Fi offload initiatives.In August 2010, Telekom added the first LTE mobile base station in Germany to its network, in Kyritz in Brandenburg. In addition, in the past year, the company boosted large parts of its HSPA/UMTS network to a top speed of 21 Mbps, while increasing coverage by over ten percent, now reaching 83 percent of the population. Marketing of the matching data rates will begin in the second quarter.



In 2011, Telekom plans to upgrade its HSPA/UMTS network once again, doubling available bandwidth in the entire network to up to 42 Mbps by the end of the year.



For LTE, the company will use the 1.8 and 2.6 GHz frequency bands to eventually offer rates of up to 100 Mbps. This new technology will be provided to selected business customers in the early summer of 2011, as part of friendly-user tests. In addition, Cologne will receive near-total LTE coverage, based on the 1.8 and 2.6 GHz frequency bands, and made available to consumers.



Telekom will also be expanding its public Wi-Fi HotSpots, which are currently available at nearly 8,000 locations in Germany. Among other advances, Telekom will equip additional ICE trains from Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa aircraft with WLAN technology, providing a seamless high-speed network on many travel routes to business customers in particular.http://www.telekom.com

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Vitesse to List on NASDAQ

Vitesse Semiconductor announced that its common shares have been approved for listing on the NASDAQ Global Market and will commence trading on March 2, 2011 under the symbol "VTSS." http://www.vitesse.com

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Cortina Announces Quad 10G EDC Device

Cortina Systems
introduced its CS4317 Electronic Dispersion Compensation (EDC) PHY -- quad 10G device. It integrated MAC layer security, IEEE 1588 v2, and support for 10G SFP+ and IEEE 802.3ba 40G and 100G interfaces. The device is offered in a 17 mm × 17 mm package, which is the smallest in the industry.



The device supports a variety of 10G and 40G (4 × 10G) line-side optical modules, as well as both passive and active copper interconnects. The CS4317 Quad EDC PHY provides Electronic Dispersion Compensation capability on the receive SFI interface that exceeds the requirements of IEEE 802.3aq 10GBase-LRM, SFF8431 linear interface, 10GBase-ZR, and IEEE 802.3ba nPPI specifications.

The device supports 10G/8G/4G/2G/1G FC data rates and Fibre channel rate negotiation. The device also supports the CR4 and CR10 auto negotiation and training as specified by IEEE 802.3ba. The device is fully autonomous and does not require external processors to control the initial convergence or the dynamic adaption of the dispersion compensation. The CS4317 supports both serial XFI and RXAUI host interfaces, and is compliant to the IEEE 802.3ba nAUI specifications.



Sampling is underway.



"The 10G market is ramping, and the 40G and 100G market growth demands support for the IEEE 802.3ba specification," said Scott Feller, product line director at Cortina. "To enable next generation 10G, 40G, and 100G networks from routers to NIC cards to storage boxes, Cortina has integrated features such as MAC Security and IEEE 1588 v2, and support for RXAUI, XFI, and nAUI host interfaces, as well as all line-side optical and copper interface types into the CS4317 device."http://www.cortina-systems.com

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Intel Completes McAfee Acquisition

Intel completed its previously announced acquisition of McAfee. The deal was first announced in August 2010.



Intel said this acquisition provides it with the means of tackling security and the pervasive nature of computing threats in an entirely new way. The first fruits of this deal will come to market later this year.



McAfee will continue developing and selling security products and services under its own brand.



As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, McAfee reports into Intel's Software and Services Group. The group is managed by Renée James, Intel senior vice president, and general manager. McAfee's president, Dave DeWalt, will report to James.



http://www.intel.com

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Level 3 and Saudi Telecom Announce CDN Alliance

Level 3 Communications announced a strategic long-term agreement with Saudi Telecom (STC) to enable international IP and content distribution services in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East. The agreement will provide US and European CDN with access to a new broadband market in the Middle East across both STC's and Level 3's international networks.



In addition, Level 3 is providing STC with increased IP connectivity in the form of multiple 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) ports at various points of presence (PoPs) across Europe.http://www.Level3.com

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ADVA's Agile Core Express Integrates 100G, ROADMs, GMPLS

ADVA Optical Networking introduced Agile Core Express functionality for its FSP 3000 platform, enabling service providers to use their optical transport network more flexibility and on-demand while supporting 100 Gbps transmission speeds. The agility is created by allowing the IP/MPLS layer to communicate with the optical transport layer.



ADVA's Agile Core Express is defined by three elements:

• 100 Gbps coherent transmission technology. ADVA is adding 100Gbps with coherent intradyne detection, eliminating the need for dispersion compensation up to 2,500km. Hybrid Raman/EDFA amplification maximizes OSNR performance. The new 100 Gbps "pipes" are not only bigger, but smarter as well, as the service manager has full control over the links.



• ROADM technology. ADVA's multidegree Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) solution is based on modular building blocks that support colorless, directionless, contentionless and gridless configurations. Customers can opt to deliver any transport service on any port, over any wavelength, to any direction in a network. Integrated amplification provides lowest nodal loss and highest transmission performance. Like the 100 Gbps technology, the ROADM is fully integrated into the control plane, allowing the service manager to dynamically alter paths as needed.



• End-to-end GMPLS Control Plane. ADVA Optical Networking has fully integrated the 100Gbps and ROADM technologies with a powerful control plane that provides full visibility at the routing layer and full control of the transport layer. This enables end-to-end provisioning as well as fast and dynamic reaction to bandwidth requirements originating from the IP/MPLS layer.

"Networks have become a critical element to life and business, for end users, enterprises and those service providers delivering the capacity," explained Christoph Glingener, chief technology officer of ADVA Optical Networking. "We have one of the most mature control plane implementations in the industry, an extremely flexible ROADM architecture and have introduced new state-of-the-art 100G transmission technologies – the right ingredients to provide efficiency, scalability and automation in the core of the network. We are proud to deliver agile core transport functionality with our FSP 3000 platform, addressing critical needs in the backbone networks of our customers."



The solution is expected to be commercially available in Q3 2011.http://www.advaoptical.com

• ADVA's FSP 3000 is a multi-service metro and regional transport platform supporting optical access, backhaul and wavelength services. It is also used for private enterprise networks over dark fiber. As a WDM system, it offers up to 80 protected wavelength carried over various topologies.

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