Telehouse NYIIX Consistently Averaging 100 Gbps

TELEHOUSE America's New York International Internet Exchange (NYIIX) has consistently exceeded the 100 Gbps (gigabits per second) daily traffic volume milestone this year. NYIIX is current averaging approximately 127 Gbps, essentially doubling the traffic volume in under 18 months.


NYIIX, which is one of the largest neutral Internet exchange points on the U.S. East coast, serves about 130 active peering members from around the world.


Located in downtown New York City, NYIIX provides fully redundant equipment and fiber connections to the most popular local carrier hotels: 25 Broadway, 60 Hudson St., and 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan, 7 Teleport on Staten Island, and 85 10th Avenue located in the Chelsea District of Manhattan.


"Exceeding 100 gigabits per second of traffic is the result of our continuing ability to increase NYIIX
members along with their increasing traffic volume," says Akio Sugeno, Senior Director of Internet
Engineering and Operations Business Development. "Such an accomplishment proves that NYIIX is one
of the most important IXP's in the United States."http://www.telehouse.com/

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Clearwire Discontinues Backhaul Services from FiberTower

Clearwire has discontinued the majority of the backhaul services provided by FiberTower, effective April 30, 2011, representing approximately $434,000 in monthly service revenue. Upon termination of these services, the customer's early termination charges are expected to be approximately $1.9 million payable immediately. Approximately 16% of the services will be retained, representing approximately $80,000 in monthly revenue.


FiberTower said payment of the early termination charges of approximately $1.5 million associated with service terminated in February has been received by the company.
http://www.fibertower.com

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ZTE Counter Sues Huawei for Patent Infringement

ZTE filed a lawsuit against Huawei Technologies Co. patent infringement over its LTE technologies in China.


ZTE said it will pursue a series of legal actions globally to protect its rights on intellectual properties, ensuring its legitimate rights and interests will not be compromised.
http://www.zte.com.cn

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Equinix Posts Q1 2011 Revenues of $363.0 million

Equinix reported Q1 2011 revenues of $363.0 million, a 5% increase over the previous quarter and a 46% increase over the same quarter last year. Recurring revenues, consisting primarily of colocation, interconnection and managed services were $343.9 million for the first quarter, a 5% increase over the previous quarter and a 45% increase over the same quarter last year. Non-recurring revenues were $19.1 million in the quarter.


"We are extremely pleased with our first quarter results and are well positioned to achieve our 2011 financial objectives. Whether it's cloud computing or mobile and video traffic, Internet growth is propelling demand for Platform Equinix," said Steve Smith, president and CEO of Equinix. "Due to this momentum, we are increasing our expansion investments to provide the capacity required to support greater than $2 billion in revenues, which we expect to achieve in 2013. We have a great opportunity for disciplined investment to meet our customers' need for network-dense, global data center capacity while generating strong returns for our shareholders."http://www.equinix.com

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Russia's MegaFON Deploys HD Voice over GSM

Russia's MegaFon has deploy HD voice on its GSM and UMTS networks in Moscow and Sochi.


Nokia Siemens Networks was responsible for the HD voice implementation. Nokia Siemens Networks' HD voice is based on Adaptive Multi-Rate Wide Band technology* (AMR-WB) that provides service continuation between GSM and UMTS networks, and supports Megafon's network.


"The main advantage of HD Voice communication is the impression of a live, emotional talk between people. HD Voice users can forget about ‘robotic voice': they will hear their relatives, loved ones, friends or business partners exactly like in a live talk – with all nuances, hues and tones of speech," said Igor Akulinin, first deputy director of MegaFon-Moscow. "For MegaFon the HD Voice Project is another example of implementing innovative services which open up new, previously unavailable opportunities for our subscribers."http://www.nsn.com

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ARRIS Posts Q1 Revenues of $267.4 Million

ARRIS reported Q1 2011 revenues of 267.4 million as compared to revenues of $266.7 million for Q1 2010 and as compared to revenues of $266.2 million for Q4 2010. GAAP net income in the first quarter 2011 was $0.09 per diluted share, as compared to first quarter 2010 GAAP net income of $0.15 per diluted share and fourth quarter 2010 GAAP net income of $0.09 per diluted share.


"First quarter financial results came in within our range of guidance," said Bob Stanzione, ARRIS Chairman & CEO. "I am very pleased with the progress we are making with customers for our new higher density C4 line cards which will be shipping in the second quarter. Additionally, the recent announcement of our first customer for our new IP Home Gateway product is an indicator of our traction in the strategy to expand into the video based products market."


Gross margin for the first quarter 2011 was 36.3%, which compares to the first quarter 2010 gross margin of 42.2% and the fourth quarter 2010 gross margin of 36.2%.


Order backlog at the end of the first quarter 2011 was $177.5 million as compared to $195.1 million and $140.4 million at the end of the first quarter 2010 and the fourth quarter 2010, respectively. The Company's book-to-bill ratio in the first quarter 2011 was 1.14 as compared to the first quarter 2010 of 1.19 and the fourth quarter 2010 of 1.08.
http://www.arrisi.com

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ARRIS C4 CMTS Software Upgrades Enables 343 Mbps Subscriber Rates

ARRIS has begun early deployments of its Release 7.4 eXtended Downstream Cable Access Module (XD CAM) field upgrade, effectively doubling the downstream density of the DOCSIS 3.0 C4 CMTS from 16D to 32D without the need for any wiring or hardware changes.


This enables eight-channel bonding and gives cable operators the ability to deliver more bandwidth per subscriber -- up to 343 Mbps for North American DOCSIS (Annex B) and 445 Mbps for European DOCSIS (Annex A).


Specifically, the C4 Release 7.4 software enables operators to upgrade all existing, deployed 16D CAMs to XD CAMs with the purchase of a software license — without removing the module from the chassis. This software-only upgrade process is far less onerous and costly than that of requiring customers to replace current modules with new hardware to achieve similar downstream densities.


Also available in Release 7.4 is support for IPv6 as well as DOCSIS 3.0 multicast traffic. North American cable MSO Comcast recently completed successful testing of a live application of native dual stack (IPv4 and IPv6) CPE support for its customers in the Denver area using the C4 CMTS. Operators will be able to deploy IPv6 with confidence and, by combining Multicast IP Video with DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding, will be able to deliver IP Video in the most efficient way possible.


ARRIS said this keyed feature field upgrade is available for purchase to the entire installed base of C4 DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS' worldwide.


"Each time we upgrade a C4's capacity and density, we lower its total cost of ownership," said ARRIS Broadband Communications Systems President Bruce McClelland. "The XD CAM is a highly cost effective way to double downstream capacity by simply loading new software, without significant service disruption or configuration changes, and noticeably improves the customer's broadband user experience."http://www.arrisi.com/get/XDCAM

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Alcatel-Lucent Releases OpenPlug App Development Tools Free-for-All

Alcatel-Lucent released its OpenPlug Studio (formerly OpenPlug ELIPS Studio) as a free resource to application developers. OpenPlug Studio is a development toolkit that allows developers to efficiently create native applications for smart phones, tablets and other web-connected devices from a single code base using well-known web development technologies such as JavaScript, ActionScript and XML.


Alcatel-Lucent also launched a Certified OpenPlug Solutions Provider Program focused on application development and developer training. Initial members include Exuvis, Nexworld and On3. They will teach developers how to use the OpenPlug tools, while also building mobile applications for businesses that run on any platform or device and leverage service providers' network-based APIs (application programming interfaces).


"One of the things we set out to do when we created the Open API Platform was address the entire API and app ecosystem," said Laura Merling, senior vice president of Alcatel-Lucent's Application Enablement Strategy and Platform. "Making OpenPlug Studio free puts one of the industry's most powerful tools into the hands of more developers. And building a formal partner program further supports the need across all industries to provide the education and tools to meet the demands of the connected business."http://www.alcatel-lucent.comhttp://developer.openplug.com

• In September 2010, Alcatel-Lucent acquired OpenPlug, a software developer specializing in tools for mobile applications, for an undisclosed sum. The deal extends Alcatel-Lucent's Application Enablement strategy, which is focused on combining the trusted and secure network capabilities of service providers with the speed and innovation of the Web to provide a richer end-user experience. By building a robust application-enablement system, Alcatel-Lucent said it is aiming to transform service provider infrastructure by unlocking network resources and functionality and thereby creating new revenue share models. OpenPlug, which is based in Sophia Antipolis, France, provides tools for converting application code into software that runs natively on any leading mobile device operating system, including Apple's iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Linux. The company's ELIPS Studio is essentially an open software environment that lets developers create an application once and then deploy to multiple mobile phone OSes.

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Nokia Transfers Symbian to Accenture, Cuts Jobs

Nokia will outsource its Symbian software activities to Accenture. The decision will also transfer about 3,000 employees to Accenture. At the same time, Accenture would provide mobility software services to Nokia for future smartphones.


Under the deal, Accenture will provide Symbian-based software development and support services. Transitioning employees, located in China, Finland, India, United Kingdom and the United States, will initially work on Symbian software activities for Nokia. Over time, Accenture and Nokia will seek opportunities to retrain and redeploy transitioned employees.


This collaboration also includes plans for Accenture to provide mobility software, business and operational services around the Windows Phone platform to Nokia and other ecosystem participants.


In addition to the Symbian employee transfer to Accenture, Nokia announced further steps to reduce its Devices & Services expenses. Nokia plans to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 employees by the end of 2012, with the majority of reductions in Denmark, Finland and the UK. The company will consolidate its research and product development sites so that each site has a clear role and mission. Nokia expects the expansion of some sites and the contraction or closure of others.


"At Nokia, we have new clarity around our path forward, which is focused on our leadership across smart devices, mobile phones and future disruptions," said Stephen Elop, Nokia president and CEO. "However, with this new focus, we also will face reductions in our workforce. This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia."http://www.nokia.com
http://www.accenture.com

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Verizon Wireless Suffers National LTE Outage

Verizon Wireless experienced a widespread disruption on its national LTE network. The problem was widely noted by Twitter users, who complained that their Thunderbolt handsets had defaulted to 1x speed. Voice service continued as normal of the CDMA network.


As of 4pm ET on Wednesday afternoon, Verizon Wireless stated that it had determined the cause of the problem and that is was working with major vendors to restore connections.

http://twitter.com/#!/VerizonWireless

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Ericsson Posts Strong Q1 Driven by Base Station Sales

Ericsson's overall sales in Q1 2011 rose to SEK 53.0 billion, up 17% year-over-year and down -16% sequentially. Sales for comparable units, adjusted for currency exchange rate effects and hedging, increased 25% year-over-year.


"Group sales in the quarter increased by 17% year-over-year driven by continued strong demand for mobile broadband and especially for the multi-standard radio base station RBS 6000," says Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson.


The increase in Group sales was driven by segment Networks where revenues grew 35% year-over-year with an EBITA margin of 20%. The strong demand for mobile broadband resulted in five out of ten regions showing growth year-over-year. Countries with especially strong growth were the US, India, Japan, Korea and Russia. China had continued good momentum for 2G.


Global Services sales decreased -4% year-over-year primarily due to currency exchange rate effects. In local currencies Professional Services grew 3%. EBITA margin decreased to 7% in the quarter mainly due to lower profitability in Network Rollout. Managed Services was flat compared to the first quarter 2010, but grew 11% year-over-year in local currencies driven by a number of new smaller contracts.


Segment Multimedia sales were flat year-over-year while EBITA margin dropped to -7%, mainly due to product mix. Our joint ventures showed mixed performance. Sony Ericsson contributed with a profit before tax of SEK 0.1 b. while ST-Ericsson's loss amounted to SEK -0.6 b.
http://www.ericsson.com

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Stoke Partners with Zhilabs on Mobile Data Offload

Stoke has collaborated with Zhilabs to create an integrated mobile data offload and traffic optimization solution that provides operators with the ability to manage explosive demand for mobile data. The combined capability delivers fine-grained visibility and control of traffic, enabling operators to apply management policies to reduce costs, improve use of network resources and a greatly improved customer experience.



Zhilabs is a start-up offering a "FlowSight" product that is able to collect massive data at wirespeed, directly from the packet data network and from any OSS/BSS source, correlate it, apply advanced analytics in real-time. The company has offices in Barcelona and Shanghai.



The companies said their solution enables operators to resolve specific traffic conditions and make optimization, offload and traffic re-direction decisions using the control point created by the Iu-PS breakout and management capabilities of Stoke's 3GPP-standard Mobile Data Offload gateway.



"Stoke's enhanced Mobile Data Offload solution provides subscriber RAN location information through an API to adjacent management and optimization applications," said Michael Homeier, VP of Product Management at Stoke.



"Zhilabs is able to leverage this data to view network conditions from end-to-end. This allows operators to invoke extremely precise control measures to relieve pressure on network elements, including breaking out selected sessions before the core and re-directing to nearby content sources, optimization services, or to the Internet."http://www.stoke.com http://www.zhilabs.com

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ZTE Sees 50% Boost in HSUPA Uplink Interference Cancellation

ZTE believes it can deliver a 50% increase in uplink capacity with a new generation of dual-mode SDR (Software Defined Radio) products that leverage HSUPA-based uplink interference cancellation technology. The company said this technology also provides a significant increase of both the number of voice users and average cell throughput, with users benefiting across various radio conditions. The upgraded SDR product solution is expected to be commercially available later in 2011.




ZTE's SDR technology is used in Indoor Macro, Outdoor Macro, Distributed Outdoor Micro base stations, radio controllers and unified-management systems.



"Consumers are increasingly using mobile data services to upload content such as photos and videos to the cloud. This can create challenges for operators in maintaining uplink capacity and a good user experience for their subscribers," said Zhang Jianguo, General Manager of ZTE's UMTS products. "By using uplink interference cancellation, the SDR product can mitigate signal interference and increase operators' cell uplink capacity by up to 50%, which enables them to use their spectrum resources much more efficiently."http://www.zte.com.cn

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Applied Micro Posts Revenue of $58.6 Million

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation reported quarterly net revenues of $58.6 million, down 6.1% sequentially and up 1.7% year over year. GAAP net loss was $4.0 million or $0.06 per share.



"We executed to plan and continue to build upon our leadership position in the OTN market. With our increased pace of product introductions, we are confident of expanding our market share in all our key focus markets," said Dr. Paramesh Gopi, President and Chief Executive Officer.



Bob Gargus, Chief Financial Officer commented, "Lead times continue to be challenging and going forward are further challenged by the supply chain issues from the Japan earthquake. Overall we did a good job of meeting our revenue estimates and managing inventories to better serve our customers. Looking forward it appears that overall market demand, for the next 2 or so quarters, is consistent with our expectations."
http://www.apm.com

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Equinix Plans Data Center Expansion in NY, Chicago, Frankfurt

Citing strong market demand for data center service, Equinix announced plans to open its eighth International Business Exchange data center in the New York metropolitan area and expand its data centers in Chicago, Ill., and Frankfurt, Germany.



Equinix is investing approximately $140 million in its newest New York metro area IBX data center. The new facility is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2012 and will primarily support the growth of Equinix's extensive financial ecosystem. The first phase will add approximately 156,000 gross square feet of space and 2,200 cabinet equivalents to Platform Equinix in the New York area, with room for additional expansions that would bring the total capacity to approximately 380,000 gross square feet of space and 7,100 cabinet equivalents.



The company is also investing approximately $30 million to expand its Chicago-3 IBX (CH3) and approximately $70 million to further expand its Frankfurt-2 IBX (FR2). The CH3 expansion will add approximately 19,000 square feet of colocation space and 600 cabinet equivalents, and is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2011. The FR2 expansion, which is the third phase of expansions in this data center, will add approximately 102,000 gross square feet of space and 1,900 cabinet equivalents when completed in 2012. The initial build-out of this expansion, which will add approximately 480 cabinets, is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2011.http://www.equinix.com

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CenturyLink to Acquire SAVVIS for Data Center Business

CenturyLink will acquire Savvis in a cash and stock merger valued at $40 per share, or a total of approximately $2.5 billion, plus net debt of approximately $0.7 billion which will be assumed or refinanced at close.


SAVVIS, which is based in St. Louis, provides managed services, colocation and network services for enterprise customers. It has 2,500 global clients, most under long term contract. Its managed hosting business is growing at around 25% per year. The company has 2,450 employees and 31 data centers.

CenturyLink said the deal gives it greater scale for delivering managed hosting and colocation services. Together, CenturyLink and Savvis will operate 48 data centers located in North America, Europe, and Asia with more than 1.9 million square feet of gross floor space; a national 207,000 route mile fiber network; a 190,000 mile global access network; and have a customer list that includes a majority of the Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies.

"The transaction creates a premier managed hosting and colocation provider with global scale in a high growth sector, and is expected to be accretive to revenue growth and cash flow per share," said Glen F. Post, III, CenturyLink chief executive officer and president. "Today, businesses are shifting the way they manage their information technology services and infrastructure, and this transaction helps us meet these needs by offering Savvis' leading products and services coupled with CenturyLink's network.

Savvis stockholders will receive $30 per share in cash and $10 in shares of CenturyLink common stock, representing an 11% premium over Savvis' closing stock price as of the close of trading on April 26, 2011 and a premium of 53% compared to Savvis' stock price at the beginning of the year.

At the closing of the transaction, CenturyLink will employ approximately 50,000 people based on the total number of CenturyLink and Savvis employees as of April 26, 2011.http://www.centurylink.com http://www.savvis.net

• In 2004, Savvis acquired the assets of Cable & Wireless USA, which included 3,000 enterprise customers, 15 data centers, and significant consulting experience from Exodus Communications, a Tier 1 backbone.


• In 2005, to reflect Savvis' expansion from network services to global IT services, the name was changed from Savvis Communications to Savvis, Inc.


• In 2007, Savvis opened a new data center opened in Singapore.
  
• In 2008, Savvis opened a new data center in London.
  
• In 2010, Savvis acquired Canadian managed IT and colocation provider Fusepoint Inc. which included three data centers in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

Recent Data Center Consolidation Deals
April 2011	CenturyLink to Acquire SAVVIS
April 2011	Equinix Acquires ALOG Data Centers of Brazil
Feb 2011	Time Warner Cable Acquires NaviSite and its 10 Data Centers
Jan 2011	Verizon Acquires Terremark
Oct 2010	Neutral Tandem Acquires Tinet
Nov 2010	Windstream Acquires Hosted Solutions
June 2010	Cincinnati Bell Acquires CyrusOne Data Centers for $525 Million
May 2010	Equinix Acquires Switch and Data

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Corning's Telecom Sales Up 30% YOY

Corning reported overall Q1 20011 sales of $1.9 billion, increasing 9% sequentially and 24% year over year.
Earnings per share were $0.47, a 2% sequential increase, but a 10% decline year over year.



Telecommunications segment sales were $474 million, a 7% sequential increase and 30% year-over-year improvement. Sequential sales for the quarter increased across most of the segment's major product areas with significant demand for the company's fiber-to-the-home solutions. Corning noted that its optical fiber volume in March was higher than any other month in its history.http://www.corning.com

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Wi-Fi Alliance See Growth in New Consumer Connectivity

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced a milestone in its certification program -- the 10,000th device to gain Wi-Fi certification is an LED-LCD TV with Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi Protected Setup capabilities. The certification program was introduced in 2000. While it took eight years to reach the 5,000-certification milestone, more than 2,000 certifications were given in 2010 alone.



"We are incredibly proud of the real impact and value of our Wi-Fi CERTIFIED program," said Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance. "Wi-Fi technology was in its infancy just ten years ago. Today Wi-Fi is increasingly enabling new products, new applications and new markets that extend our connectivity and enrich our experience. Wi-Fi certification will remain a fundamental part of our connected experience since we continue to develop numerous new capabilities and applications for Wi-Fi."http://www.wi-fi.org

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Sony Apologizes for PlayStation Network Intrusion

Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation, formally apologized for the hacker intrusion on the Sony Playstation Network last month, including the compromise of credit card data from tens of millions of subscribers.

"This criminal act against our network had a significant impact not only on our consumers, but our entire industry. These illegal attacks obviously highlight the widespread problem with cyber-security. We take the security of our consumers' information very seriously and are committed to helping our consumers protect their personal data. In addition, the organization has worked around the clock to bring these services back online, and are doing so only after we had verified increased levels of security across our networks."



The company enumerated the following steps that it has taken since the cyber-attack on its data center in San Diego: SNEI turned off the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, engaged multiple expert information security firms over the course of several days and conducted an audit of the system. Since then, SNEI and its third-party consultants have conducted security tests and implemented additional layers of data encryption. The company is also creating the position of Chief Information Security Officer, directly reporting to Shinji Hasejima, Chief Information Officer of Sony Corporation.http://www.sony.com

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CloudPassage Raises Funding for Cloud Security

CloudPassage, a start-up based in San Francisco, completed a Series A round of financing for is cloud server security and compliance solution.



CloudPassage said its key innovation is its Halo architecture, which automates multiple server security functions and transparently handles the highly fluid and scalable characteristics of public IaaS environments. The technology automatically secures cloud servers when they burst or are cloned. Halo combines an ultra-lightweight guest VM software component with an elastic compute grid optimized for security operations, an architecture that has opened up significant new security capabilities to companies leveraging IaaS.



The funding round was led by Benchmark Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.CloudPassage.com

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