03/15/11 ~ Converge! Network Digest

Verizon will host the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) rapid-deployment solution for enterprise customers using its flagship cloud offering, Computing as a Service.

The SAP CRM rapid-deployment solution, the first in a series of SAP solutions deployed in the cloud by Verizon, can help enhance the productivity of enterprise sales, marketing and service professionals. By accessing SAP CRM and subsequent applications in the cloud, enterprises can benefit from easier and faster deployments. The SAP rapid-deployment solution offers enterprises a ready-to-use combination of software, pre-defined services and pre-configured content at a pre-defined price that can be deployed much more quickly, sometimes in as little as eight weeks.

Additionally, enterprises can now integrate their SAP applications with Verizon's Managed Mobility platform by leveraging the Sybase Unwired Platform to mobilize applications including the Mobile Sales for SAP CRM application. http://www.verizon.com
http://www.sap.com

Cortina Systems filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock.

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined.

Cortina Systems supplies communications semiconductor solutions enabling next generation network connectivity and efficient bandwidth from the core network to the home network. The portfolio includes carrier-class semiconductor devices for next generation optical transport and passive optical network systems, as well as data center connectivity and digital home solutions.
http://www.cortina-systems.com

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications provided the following update on the effort to restore communications services (as of 16-March-2011)

NTT East landlines: 569,000 telephone subscriber lines remain out of services, 59,000 ISDN lines out of service, 148,000 FLET optical lines out of service.

Emergency messaging service remains in operation for Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi
Prefecture, Yamagata Prefecture, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture and Tokyo, Kanagawa.

NTT West: no damage and no communication restrictions.

KDDI: 42,000 lines are not available. Submarine cables have been restored or rerouted.

Softbank: about 7,000 ISDN and analog phone lines are not available

NTT DoCoMo: 1,930 base stations remain out of service.

KDDI (au): 1,110 base stations remain out of service.

Softbank Mobile: 819 base stations remain out of service.

EMobile: 109 base stations remain out of service.

Willcom: 2,500 PHS base stations remain out of service.

The carriers have also extended fee payment deadlines.
http://www.soumu.go.jp

Actelis Networks unveiled a new line of Broadband Accelerators (BBAs) for extending the rate and reach of ADSL services without the high cost of deploying remote DSLAMs.

Actelis' family of BBAs are line powered by the existing POTS infrastructure and require no additional equipment. Actelis said its fully standards-based ADSL/ADSL2/ADSL2+ loop extenders can cost effectively enable the delivery of broadband services to virtually every location throughout a carrier's footprint.

The Actelis BBA portfolio marks the company's entrée into the residential marketplace. The company is a leading develop of EFM over copper solutions based on SHDSL technology for SMBs/SMEs and municipalities.

"The recent investment in further developing Actelis' broadband solutions for the residential market is another step forward in the company's continued growth strategy," said Vivek Ragavan, president and CEO of Actelis. "By further expanding our portfolio to include ADSL-based solutions for residential broadband services, we believe that Actelis is well positioned to be the clear worldwide leader in enabling broadband services over copper plant."http://www.actelis.com

The Broadband Forum named Kevin Foster, Head of Access Platform Design at BT, as its new President. He joins Tom Starr (AT&T), who continues as Chairman, Marcin Drzymala (Telekomunikacja Polska) and Andrew Malis (Verizon
Communications) who continue as Vice Presidents, David Sinicrope (Ericsson) who continues
as Secretary and Frank Van der Putten (Alcatel-Lucent) who continues as Treasurer.

The Broadband Forum also announced the approval of three new Technical Reports and two new Marketing Reports:

TR-200, using EPON in the context of TR-101

TR-115 Corrigendum 2 - VDSL functionality test plan

TR-181 – Issue 2, Amendment 2 – IPv6 Device Data Model for TR-069

MR-244 (IPv6 tutorial)

MR-229 Next Generation Wholesale Access

http://www.broadband-forum.org

Mu Dynamics has built the world's largest depository of packet captures (pcaps) of actual network traffic that are critical to the testing of products and services.

Mu's pcapr.net is a crowd-sourced depository that now holds more than 60 million pcaps. The company said that by offering so many different types of pcaps in a single location, it has created an entirely new type of resource for testers and developers that wish to share and leverage the industry's communal knowledge to test new products and services.

Registered users are from all over the world. They include experts from Tier-1 network operators like AT&T, France Telecom and Verizon Wireless, as well as network OEMs like Cisco Systems, Ericsson-Redback, Alcatel-Lucent, F5 Networks, Huawei Technologies, Juniper Networks, McAfee and Motorola along with a number of large federal organizations.

"Since its inception in 2009, the pcapr community has grown virally to become, by far, the largest online community for testing professionals worldwide," said Simon Berman, vice president of products with Mu Dynamics. "In just the last calendar year, the growth of the community has accelerated at an increasingly rapid pace – and registered users have more than doubled."http://www.mudynamics.com http://www.pcapr.net

Malaysia-based Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Southeast Asia's largest power utility, has deployed a new IP/MPLS backbone based on Juniper Networks' MX Series Universal Edge Routers. Previously, Tenaga used a frame relay service to carry applications such as telemetering, ERP, VoIP telephony, Internet access, customer information and billing, email and video conferencing. Real-time point-to-point traffic for critical operational applications — such as teleprotection, operational voice and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) — is carried over the company's own SDH/optical fiber infrastructure. Tenaga is now using Ethernet-over-SDH as the transport for its new IP/MPLS backbone, enabling it to carry all operational and corporate traffic over its own infrastructure. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.juniper.net

Wireline voice core market revenues stabilized in 2010, falling only 1 percent last year after double digit declines the prior two years, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. During 2010, strength in newer segments focusing primarily on all-IP networks and telephony applications (namely, session border controllers (SBC) and voice application servers) failed to offset declines in softswitches and media gateways, which focus on providing services in a mixed TDM and IP environment.

"The wireline voice core market declined slightly in 2010 as consumers increasingly opted for wireless and over-the-top Internet-based services like Skype and Google Voice," said Greg Collins, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group. "There are some bright spots, however, including business VoIP services, such as hosted unified communications, hosted PBX, and SIP trunk services, that have seen strong growth and are key drivers of the impressive increase in the SBC and voice application server markets," he added.

According to the report, Acme Packet gained market share in the SBC segment during 2010, and Broadsoft gained market share in the voice application server segment.

http://www.delloro.com