LightSquared Raises Additional $265 Million

LightSquared has raised an additional $265 million in funding for building its wholesale-only, nationwide LTE + broadband satellite network. The new funding came from both existing investors as well as new, unnamed investors. Over the last 12 months LightSquared has raised over $2.3 billion.


"This latest round of financing signals another endorsement by the financial markets of our business model, and LightSquared's intent to use private capital to build out a new network to meet the growing demand across this entire nation for wireless broadband access," said Sanjiv Ahuja, chairman and chief executive officer of LightSquared.
http://www.LightSquared.com

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HP Expands its Telecom Consulting Practice

HP Enterprise Services is building its telecom consulting practice with the two new offerings aimed at communications service providers (CSPs): HP Solutions Consulting Services (HP SCS) and HP Operations Support Systems Transformation solutions for network and service management.


HP's mission is to provide expertise and tools for successful business transformation, including strategic and financial advisory, operational analysis, transformation management, and a full portfolio of operations support systems (OSS) software and integration services.


"CSPs can plan and execute transformation strategies with HP Solutions Consulting Services and HP OSS Transformation solutions," said David Sliter, vice president and general manager, Communications and Media Solutions, HP Enterprise Services. "To grow, CSPs need to enhance the customer experience, and that means fact-based transformation strategies, tight governance and automated solutions."
http://www.hp.com

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EarthLink Launches Carrier Division

EarthLink introduced its new carrier division -- EarthLink Carrier -- formed by the combination of Deltacom's Interstate FiberNet, Inc., New Edge Networks' wholesale segment, and the recent acquisition of One Communications carrier business. The new division will offer carrier and wholesale customers a range of services, including fiber-based transport, a growing set of voice and data services to end users, and a variety of switched services.
http://www.earthlinkcarrier.com.

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XO Expands MPLS Internationally

XO Communications is expanding its international network services capabilities to include European IP/MPLS IP-VPN nodes, plus access to 48 countries throughout Europe, Asia/Pacific, North America, and South America as well as the U.S. territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This will enable the company to offer Dedicated Internet Access, Ethernet, MPLS IP-VPN and Private Line services to more locations around the world.


"This global expansion of our network services capabilities will enable us to deliver seamless international connectivity and wide area network solutions for our customers," said Randy Nicklas, chief technology officer at XO Communications.
http://www.xo.com

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NSN Wins Mobile Upgrade Dual-Cell HSPA+ Contract in Sweden

3GIS AB, which provides the shared 3G network for Telenor Sweden AB and Hi3G Access AB, has selected Nokia Siemens Networks to upgrade its infrastructure.


Under the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks is modernizing high traffic areas of the network with its Flexi Multiradio Base Stations in addition to expanding the capacity for a majority of the network. The modernization introduces Dual-Cell functionality, enabling the operator to offer 42Mbps HSPA+ data capability. NSN is also providing implementation, planning as well as optimization services which is based on its network management system, NetAct.


Nokia Siemens Networks operates the 3GIS network under a managed services contract. In addition, the company provides full spare part management as well as other care services for 3GIS.
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

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Extending Rural Broadband

Presented by Gary Gilmer, President, Southwest Texas Telephonehttp://www.convergedigest.com

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FTTH Council: Preserve High-Cost Universal Fund

The Fiber-to-the-Home Council is urging the FCC to maintain the High-Cost universal service fund. Failure to do so will threaten the nation's broadband universal service goals are achieved, according to a statement filed with the FCC.


In its filing, the Council said that continuing the High-Cost funding, which many rural telecommunications providers use to upgrade their broadband capabilities, will "maximize deployments of high-performance networks" in rural areas, while the fund's elimination would result in millions of rural residents not having enough bandwidth to access applications that will soon be standard in urban and suburban areas.


An estimated 8-10 million people live in areas where broadband providers are receiving support from the High-Cost fund.


The Commission is considering severely reducing the High-Cost portion of the Universal Service Fund that supports rural carriers who currently provide broadband services in high-cost areas. It would be replaced with a Connect America Fund (CAF), the aim of which would be to bring broadband to only unserved areas at a level of bandwidth that is generally below what is available in most urban and suburban communities - with a standard of about 4 Mbps for download and 1 Mbps for uploading.


The Council also cautioned that the possibility of ending the High-Cost fund has resulted in a number of private sector carriers already feeling the pinch from their lenders, who consider the continuation of the fund a critical factor in determining whether to make new loans for facilities upgrades.


"By enabling these wireline service providers to continue accessing the High-Cost fund, the Commission will ensure that many more users will have access to high-performance broadband services" as they continue to secure lending to upgrade their services and offer more bandwidth to rural customers, the Council said.
http://www.ftthcouncil.org

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IP Infusion Opens R&D Center in India

IP Infusion opened an Engineering Development Center of Excellence in Bangalore, India. The new facility complements IP Infusion's development center in Sunnyvale, California. The company said the new facility aligns with its plans to make India a hub for the design, development and innovation of next-generation networking technologies. In addition to R&D, The India Engineering Development Center of Excellence will provide technical support and business development to help IP Infusion expand its solutions to support the explosive growth in private, public, and hybrid cloud services.


"The IP Infusion India team has already played a pivotal role in the development of products based on advanced technologies such as data center virtualization, GMPLS, MPLS-TP and software-defined networking," said Ravi Mittal, managing director, IP Infusion Software India Pvt. Ltd. "Additionally, the team will develop innovative and advanced networking solutions for our customers, reducing their product development effort and time."http://www.ipinfusion.com

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SkyCross Raises $11 Million for LTE Antennas

SkyCross has closed on $11 million in financing, the first tranche of Series E funding, to support its 4G MIMO antenna solutions. The company intends to close the second tranche of the round, up to $15 million, by the end of June. The capital raised will be used to support the company's rapidly increasing business in Asia and the United States.



SkyCross supplies RF technology for products such as tablets, smartphones, and multiband USB modems. The company specializes in multiple antenna designs, creative 3D and manufacturing techniques, and 4G MIMO functionality for LTE. It has regional design centers in China, Taiwan, Korea, and the United States. Proceeds from the current funding round will help accelerate rollout of 4G/LTE technology in consumer electronics devices.



Significantly, the round includes new equity from DOCOMO Capital as a strategic investor. DOCOMO Capital is a corporate venture arm of NTT DOCOMO, the world's leading mobile operator. Existing investors including TL Ventures, Investor Growth Capital, Gabriel Venture Partners, Intel Capital, and a group of long standing individual investors also participated in the round.http://www.skycross.com

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Telstar 14R/Estrela do Sul 2 Successfully Launched

The new Telstar 14R/Estrela do Sul 2 satellite was successfully launched into orbit on an ILS Proton from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.





Telesat's Telstar 14R/Estrela do Sul 2, which weighs approximately 5 metric tons, was built by Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) on the SS/L 1300 platform. It replaces Telstar 14/Estrela do Sul at the orbital location of 63 degrees West. Telstar 14R will provide long term service for Brazil, the Continental United States (including the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Caribbean), the Southern Cone of South America, the Andean region (including Central America and Southern Caribbean), and the North and Mid-Atlantic Ocean. The satellite's Atlantic beam will expand on the Atlantic Ocean Region capacity now provided by Telstar 14 and Telstar 11N, and secure Telesat's position as a leader in mobile broadband for maritime and aeronautical customers operating in the Atlantic.http://www.ilslaunch.com http://www.khrunichev.com

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PAETEC Plans 13 New U.S. Data Centers

PAETEC announced plans to add 13 data centers across the U.S. by the end of 2012. The company currently operates seven data centers in Andover, Mass., Bethlehem and Conshohocken, Pa., Richmond, Va., Milwaukee, Wis., Houston, Tex., and Phoenix, Ariz.



PAETEC also released new cloud-based services, including:

• Virtual Server -- computing and associated storage on a per-logical server basis for a monthly fee.



• Dedicated Server -- turn-key implementations that reside in PAETEC's enterprise-class data centers. PAETEC's service enables customers the option to make the transition to virtualization and cloud computing at their own pace, without the burden of new infrastructure deployment or specialized design to support virtualization.



• Managed Storage -- offering an advanced, multi-tenant storage platform with the ability to purchase storage on demand and on a granular basis as required.



• Hosted Exchange -- allowing a business to access the power and simplicity of a Microsoft Exchange E-Mail server with PAETEC technicians and engineers available for support.

http://www.paetec.com

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Infineon Develops Security Microcontroller for NFC

Infineon Technologies is launching its latest security microcontroller for NFC applications: the embedded Secure Element. The new device, which is compatible with all common mobile phone operating systems, provides security for NFC applications such as mobile payment, ticketing and access control.



As a long-standing member of the NFC Forum, Infineon has played a part in shaping NFC. The company provides several chips supporting the security functions for contactless NFC connectivity technology in mobile devices: via an NFC security microcontroller for the SIM card, via the embedded Secure Element hardwired to the mobile phone electronics, and via a Secure Element which can be incorporated in a microSD card. http://www.infineon.com

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Karlsruhe Institute Achieves 26 Tbps Single-Line Rate

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) reported a new transmission record over fiber -- 26 Terabits per second (Tbps) on a single laser beam over a distance of 50 km. The experiment transferred the equivalent of 700 DVDs in one second. The rate significantly exceeds the current 100 Gbps, 400 Gbps and 1 Tbps channel rates that are commercially available or even under discussion.



The researchers attributed the record channel rate performance to a new opto-electric decoding method that starts with purely optical calculations at the highest data rates and then breaks down the high data rate to smaller bit rates that can then be processed electrically. The initial optical reduction of the bit rates is required, as no electronic processing methods are available for a data rate of 26 terabits per second. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) was applied. The key innovation was an optical implementation of the mathematical routine. This optical fast Fourier transformation scheme proved to be highly-efficient.



"Our result shows that physical limits are not yet exceeded even at extremely high data rates", said Professor Leuthold, who heads the Institutes of Photonics and Quantum Electronics and Microstructure Technology at KIT.
"A few years ago, data rates of 26 terabits per second were deemed utopian even for systems with many lasers and there would not have been any applications. With 26 terabits per second, it would have been possible to transmit up to 400 million telephone calls at the same time. Nobody needed this at that time. Today, the situation is different."



Participants in the research include members of the staff of Agilent and Micram Deutschland, Time-Bandwidth Switzerland, Finisar Israel, and the University of Southampton in Great Britain.



The results were reported in the journal "Nature Photonics".http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2011_6977.phphttp://www.nature.com/nphoton/index.html

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Online Sports Gaming Company Orders a 10G Wavelength Service

Betfair, one of the world's largest online sports gaming companies, has ordered a 10 Gigabit Wavelength service from Hibernia Atlantic to secure connect its London office to its Dublin data center.



Betfair's Gaming Exchange allows gamblers to place bets without the need for a traditional bookmaker. The company processes over five million transactions a day for its over 3 million users around the globe. http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com http://www.betfair.com

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