NTT: Restoration Surpasses 90%

NTT provided the following update on its efforts to restore services following the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011.

• Over 10,000 employees are making an all-out effort to restore damaged facilities



• More than 90 percent of the affected exchange offices and mobile base station equipment have been restored and services are gradually recovering. There are 307 disrupted base stations (excluding near the Fukushima nuclear power plant), which have not yet been restored due to destroyed or damaged buildings.



• Going forward, NTT Group is planning to have its exchange offices and base stations almost completely restored (except for certain areas where restoration is physically difficult, such as areas surrounding the nuclear power
  plant and areas with physically damaged roads, tunnels, etc.) by the end of April through, among
  others, renewal of power supplies and equipment and re-installing relay transmission lines, repair of
  relay transmission lines to mobile base stations, and area remedies for mobile phones using large zone
  schemes where a single station covers multiple stations.



• With regards to the remaining areas, NTT Group will endeavor to prioritize the restoration of services
  in particular areas, such as municipalities and evacuation shelters, and improve the communication
  environment by, among other things, providing even more satellite mobile phones and other
  communication means.



• Regarding corporate data communication services, approximately 90 percent have been restored to
  date.



• Submarine cables connecting Japan with the United States and other parts of Asia have been partially damaged, but NTT Group has been using various backup cable routes to maintain uninterrupted services, and there is currently no impact on its overseas communication services.



• To support the affected people of the disaster, NTT Group is, among other efforts, providing its
  communication services free of charge, safety confirmation information of those affected, and
  company residences as living space for those impacted by the earthquake.



• NTT Group is working to gather donations from its customers and has decided to donate one billion yen. NTT Group will devote its full strength to support the victims of this disaster and the recovery of the stricken areas.



• The company deployed about 30 mobile base station trucks, 870 free satellite mobile phones ,1,440 mobile phones and 180 tablet PCs.



• There are 9 fixed-line service buildings and 68 mobile base stations that have not been restored near the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Following the earthquake and tsunami, facilities were damaged and commercial power supply was disrupted at
exchange offices. This impacted approximately 1.5 million fixed line circuits, approximately 6,700 mobile base stations, approximately 15,000 corporate data circuits.
http://www.ntt.co.jp

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Infonetics: Femtocell Market Start to Take Off

Worldwide revenue from 2G and 3G femtocells sold for use in CDMA, W-CDMA/HSPA, and CDMA2000/EV-DO networks grew 121.5% and the number of units sold for revenue grew 204% in 2010 over 2009 from a small base, according to a recently released report from Infonetics Research.



"Traction is coming to the femtocell market, but slowly: with over 1.37 million units shipped in 2010 for revenue (not including non-revenue shipments for trials and soft launches), the market is now underway, but through 2011 there will still be too few operators active in this space to drive rapid acceleration. We expect this to come in 2012, when femtocell shipments should exceed 5 million worldwide, driven by a diversification from the consumer and enterprise segments to rural and public spaces," predicts Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, microwave, and mobile devices at Infonetics Research.



Some additional highlights:

• The number of femtocell units sold doubled between 4Q09 and 4Q10
  
  
• Quarter-over-quarter, the number of femtocell units sold increased 21% and revenue grew just 1% in 4Q10 over 3Q10, reflecting the decline in unit prices.



• Samsung took the #1 spot in femtocell revenue market share in 4Q10, followed closely by Alcatel-Lucent and NEC.



• As the femtocell market evolves and more operators launch services, strong fluctuations in market share and leaderboard positions are expected.



• Femtocell average revenue per unit (ARPU) will continue to erode, with the industry focused on the magic number of US$100, expected to be reached in 2011 (some vendors have already achieved this).



• As of early 2011, no next-generation 4G (WiMAX or LTE) femtocell services have been deployed, but tier 1 mobile operators have expressed the view that LTE and subsequent high-capacity air interfaces are most likely to be deployed through hierarchical cell structures, including femtocells.

Infonetics' quarterly 2G/3G/4G Femtocell Equipment report provides worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts, and analysis for revenue, units, and ARPU of 2G femtocells (CDMA) and 3G femtocells (W-CDMA/HSPA and CDMA2000/EV-DO), and will include 4G femtocells when commercially available. http://www.infonetics.com

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Google Picks Kansas City for Fiber Rollout

Google has picked Kansas City, Kansas for its gigabit speed fiber build-out project, which was first announced in February 2010.



Nearly 1,100 communities across the country expressed interest in participating in the Google project and nearly 200,000 individuals submitted comments.



Google has signed a development agreement with Kansas City and will be working with local organizations, businesses and universities, including Kauffman Foundation, KCNext and the University of Kansas Medical Center to help develop the gigabit applications of the future. Google will provide free access to schools and city facilities.



Pricing for the gigabit speed home service has not been disclosed, but Google said it would be "competitive."



Construction is expected to start later this year and the first services are expected to come online in 2012.



"This project represents the future of how we connect to the web, and we want it to start in Kansas City," said Milo Medin, Vice President for Access Services at Google.




http://googleblog.blogspot.com/http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascityks/index.html

• In December 2010, Google appointed Milo Medin as Vice President, Access Services.
  Google also said that it has delayed the selection of its first fiber community. Nearly 1,100 communities across the country have sought to participate in the Google fiber project, and the company said it needs more time to make its selection. Milo Medin previously served as co-founder of Chief Technology Officer of Excite@Home, a pioneer in residential broadband service, and later at M2Z Networks.

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Verizon: Ready to Roll with 100G

A discussion about the deployment of 100G technology with Verizon's Glenn Wellbrock, Director, Optical Transport Network Architecture & Design.http://www.verizon.com

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Verizon Ready to Roll with 100G on U.S. Network

Verizon plans to deploy 100G on selected segments of its U.S. backbone network by the end of the second quarter of 2011, including key routes from Chicago-to-New York, Sacramento-to-Los Angeles and Minneapolis-to-Kansas City.



Verizon's rollout of 100G in the U.S. will use Juniper Networks routers and Ciena's 100G coherent optical transport solution. Verizon also used Juniper and Ciena equipment for its 100G deployment in Europe earlier this year.



Verizon said the move to 100G enables its to increase bandwidth efficiency on its existing fiber infrastructure. By installing new equipment on the network while retaining use of the current fiber system, the company can carry up to 10 times the amount of network traffic carried on a standard route. Optical efficiencies also are gained from carrying traffic on a single 100G wavelength as opposed to 10 wavelengths at 10 Gbps.



"We've already successfully deployed 100G on a portion of our European network, and now we're preparing to expand this technology to our U.S. network," said Ihab Tarazi, vice president of network planning at Verizon. "Advancing to 100G is a significant step in strengthening our global IP network to handle the bandwidth demands of our customers - whether it's large enterprises or the average consumer. Besides greater scalability and network efficiencies, we also expect 100G deployment to improve latency on a route-by-route basis."





A discussion about the deployment of 100G technology with Verizon's Glenn Wellbrock, Director, Optical Transport Network Architecture & Design.http://www.verizon.com

• Earlier this month, Verizon activated a 100 Gigabit Ethernet link for an IP backbone on a portion of its European long-haul network between Paris and Frankfurt, a distance of 893 km. The deployment uses Juniper Networks' routers and Ciena's 100G Ethernet coherent optical transport solution.

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