SES-3 Satellite Successfully Launched

The SES-3 satellite was successfully launched on board an ILS Proton launch vehicle from Kazakhstan.


The SES-3 satellite, which is the largest was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, carries 24 C-Band transponders and 24 Ku-Band transponders (36 MHz), generates approximately five kilowatts of payload power, and features a design life of 15 years. It will replace SES' existing AMC-1 satellite at the orbital position of 103 degrees West, a highly sought after location in the Centre of the North American arc, from where it will provide coverage of North America and the Caribbean.


SES-3's C-band transponders will provide service to blue-chip U.S. television networks broadcasting to over 4,350 cable head-ends in the U.S., while its Ku-band transponders will serve a range of enterprise customers with VSAT and broadband services.


Romain Bausch, President and CEO of SES, stated: "The successful ILS Proton launch of SES-3 marks an important event for SES' North American customers, as the new satellite will provide seamless continuity to some of our key customers for the next decade and beyond. SES would like to thank ILS and Orbital for a mission delivered on time and according to specifications. Timely access to space is of utmost importance to SES, as we implement the satellite industry's most important satellite replacement and fleet expansion program. We look forward to continue working with ILS as an essential provider in the launch industry."http://www.ses.com

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Telecom NZ to Close CDMA Network on 31-July-2012

Telecom New Zealand confirmed that its CDMA mobile network will close on July 31, 2012. The carrier launched its GSM-based XT mobile network in 2009. A number of promotions are underway to help the remaining CDMA users make the conversion.
http://www.telecom-media.co.nz

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Orange Reaches Content Partnership with CANAL+

The France Telecom Group (Orange) and CANAL+ finalized a strategic partnership, which calls for CANAL+ Group's acquisition of a 33.33% minority interest in Orange Cinema Series.


The deal ensures content production continuity for the Orange Cinema Series package and broader distribution for CANAL+ content. Orange will continue to distribute its multichannel package and related interactive services to its customers; CANAL+ will offer the package to all CANALSAT subscribers; and the partnership plans to make the service available to all interested operators; a more balanced business model thanks to wider distribution of the Orange Cinema Series service.


For Stéphane Richard, "This project with the CANAL+ Group is yet another illustration of the partnership strategy for content we presented in June 2010. Our goal is to promote the content of our production partners and to offer our customers innovative packages and services that build on the experience we have acquired in recent years and, of course, on our networks. To continue to develop the Orange cinema series package, of which we can be proud and which continues to be offered in its present form to our 400,000 customers, I know that we can rely on the formidable know-how of CANAL+ in the production and marketing of premium channels."


For Bertrand Meheut, "This partnership with Orange, the ADSL market leader in France, is in line with our strategy of multiplatform distribution: making our offers as widely available as possible on all broadcast networks. This is a natural bridging of our respective know-how in technology and content production to make quality offers to all television viewers, accompanied by the most innovative services."http://www.francetelecom.com
http://www.canalplus.fr/

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Extreme Networks Announces Job Cuts, Higher Sales Forecast

Extreme Networks announced 110 job cuts -- or 16% of its worldwide workforce. The cuts are expected to lower operating costs in FY'12 by approximately $20 million with the goal of enabling the company to achieve consistent double digit operating income. The company will take a pretax restructuring charge of approximately $3.5 million in its fiscal Q4 which ended July 3, 2011.


Extreme Networks also announced that it anticipates that Fiscal Q4 2011 revenue will be above prior guidance of $80-$85 million, and will be in the range of $88 - $90 million. In addition, non-GAAP EPS for the quarter should be $0.01 to $0.02 per share, compared to prior guidance of $0.03 - $0.05 per share. EPS on a GAAP basis is anticipated to be a loss in the range of $0.02 - $0.04 per share, and includes estimated charges of approximately $1.5 million for stock-based compensation expense and $ 3.1 million for restructuring charges, net of reversals.


"Extreme Networks is progressing as planned with its strategic company transformation. In Q3 we announced a shift in our strategic focus to target select high-growth vertical markets by aligning designated sales and marketing resources to bring more focus to these market verticals. We also focused our R&D investments by aligning our efforts around a single product architecture which is expected to raise R&D productivity and drive more feature velocity," said Oscar Rodriguez, president and CEO for Extreme Networks. "Now, we are rebalancing employee levels in all organizations to drive down fixed costs, while continually working to lower variable operating costs to ensure market competitiveness. We expect these changes will allow us to drive a competitive stance by increasing R&D resources to advance product leadership and by driving more investment in field marketing and brand awareness, while allowing the company to attain consistent double-digit operating income."http://www.extremenetworks.com

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Fujitsu Leads in U.S. Optical Patents -- 111 Last Year

Fujitsu was awarded 111 optical technology patents in 2010 by the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO)-- more than double the number received by the closest competitor - marking the sixth consecutive year that Fujitsu led the field in optical innovation. Since 2006, Fujitsu's advances in optical communications have garnered the company nearly three times the number assigned to the next optical developer on the list.


"The world's largest and most forward-thinking organizations look to Fujitsu's optical communications solutions to enable next-generation services with five-nines reliability and security," said Bill Erickson, senior vice president of planning and development, Fujitsu Network Communications. "Our investment in research and development allows customers to implement advanced communications architectures that support profitable new services in a way that leverages their existing infrastructure investments and minimizes ongoing operational expenses. This commitment to optical innovation is one reason Fujitsu is the optical transport market share leader."http://us.fujitsu.com/telecom

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Taoglas Launches a LTE SMT Antenna with 70% Efficiency

Taoglas, which develops antenna solutions to the M2M market, introduced its "Viking" antenna, a LTE, septa-band, surface mount antenna (SMT). It delivers efficiency of over 70% in a design that is significantly smaller than current market wide-band antennas. This multi-band cellular antenna covers all worldwide cellular bands from 700 MHz to 960 MHz and 1710 MHz to 2170 MHz for GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, DCS, PCS, UMTS, HSDPA, GPRS, EDGE and LTE. The PA.700.A Viking is an off-the-shelf LTE antenna that is ideal for any M2M product manufacturer that wants high performance 4G/3G/2G capabilities for small devices.
http://www.taoglas.com/news/

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Level 3 Confirms Q2 Financial Expectations

Level 3 Communications confirmed the following previously issued expectations for the second quarter 2011:

• the company expects sequential growth in Core Network Service revenue to strengthen,



• low double digit percentage growth in consolidated adjusted EBITDA in 2011 vs. 2010,



• capital expenditures of approximately 12 percent of Communications revenue for the full year 2011,



• free Cash Flow roughly breakeven for the last three quarters of 2011 in aggregate.

These expectations exclude any effect from the pending Global Crossing acquisition.
http://www.level3.com

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Spotify Launches Online Music Streaming in U.S.

Spotify launched its online music service in the U.S. market, offering users the ability to stream more than 13 million tracks on demand. Spotify will be marketed both as a premium monthly subscription service and a version which is free for consumers to use, and supported by advertising.


Some key stats:


Founded: 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.

Location: Headquarters in the UK with offices in Stockholm, Paris, Oslo, Madrid, Amsterdam and New York.


Number of tracks: Over 13,000,000


Registered users: 10,000,000


Paying users: 1,000,000


The name: A combination of spot and identify.


U.S. launch partners: Coca-Cola and Sprite, Chevrolet, Motorola, Reebok, Sonos and The Daily.
http://www.spotify.com

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IBM Opens Cloud Data Center in Japan

IBM announced the opening of a Cloud Data Center in Japan along with a dedicated data center for LotusLive, its cloud collaboration service. The new IBM Cloud Data Center is located in Makuhari, Japan.


IBM said the new facilities extend its globally-integrated cloud delivery network of cloud computing centers that serve in over 50 countries around the world with centers based in Singapore, Germany, Canada, and the United States; and 13 global cloud labs, of which seven are based in Asia Pacific – China, India, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore.
http://www.ibm.com

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ESnet Appoints Policy Board: Vinton Cerf, Jagdeep Singh, David Clark...

The Department of Energy's ESnet, the Energy Sciences Network, has appointed the following distinguished leaders to serve for three-year terms on its Policy Board:


Larry Smarr, founding Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at the University of California San Diego and UC Irvine. Previously Smarr was the founding director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.


Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google. Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet.


Kristin Rauschenbach is Vice President and Department Head of the Disruptive Information Processing Technologies group at BBN Technologies and serves as the Substrate Architect for the GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovations) Project Office. She was previously co-founder & CEO of PhotonEx and Associate Division Head at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.


Jagdeep Singh is the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Infinera, where he also served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Director. He is a Member of the Advisory Council at Stanford Graduate School of Business and was previously president and general manager of CIENA Corporation's Core Switching Division.


David Clark is a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Since the mid 70s, Clark has been leading the development of the Internet.


Cees de Laat is associate professor and group leader of the System and Network Engineering Science group at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is co-founder and organizer of several of the past meetings of the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) and founding member of CineGrid.org.


David Foster is head of the Communications and Network Group at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where he is responsible for all the electronic communications of the laboratory. Educated as a physicist, he also holds an MBA and has been widely published in computer science journals and related publications.


ESnet is the high-performance research network that connects 40 DOE research sites across the country. ESnet recently announced $62 million in funding from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to build a 100 GigE prototype network. When completed in the fall of 2011, the prototype network will connect DOE's supercomputing centers at Lawrence Berkeley, Argonne and Oak Ridge national laboratories, as well as an international peering point in New York. http://www.es.net/

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Metaswitch Enhances Colibria Rich Communications Server

Metaswitch Networks released an RCS-e 1.1 compliant Instant Messaging Server for pre-IMS and IMS deployments in mobile, fixed and converged networks.


The enhanced Rich Communications Suite is a strategic initiative supported by five of the leading European operators: Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Vodafone. It delivers a simplified extension to voice and text, enabling subscribers to send instant messages, video chat and exchange files in real time. Led by the GSM Association, RCS-e will help mobile operators meet the growing demands of subscribers for advanced communications services and combat increased competition from Over-the-Top (OTT) competitors eroding minutes, revenue and subscriber mind share.


Metaswitch noted that it completed product development and extended testing with its primary channel partners just weeks after RCS-e standards were finalized.


"Nokia Siemens Networks continues to enjoy an excellent relationship with Metaswitch Networks," said Uwe Puetzschler, head of SDF Global at Nokia Siemens Networks. "Having the complete RCS-e feature set in our Munich Interoperability Testing environment makes it possible for us to proactively work with client vendors today. We are also able to demonstrate the benefits of RCS-e to leading-edge customers who are eager to prepare for an early launch of these new services." http://www.metaswitch.com

• In April, Metaswitch Networks acquired Colibria, a developer of enhanced instant messaging, presence and network address book solutions for service providers.

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NSN Supplies T-Mobile USA's HSPA+ Upgrade

Nokia Siemens Networks confirmed that it has participated in the upgrade of portions of T-Mobile USA's 4G (HSPA+) network.

"T-Mobile's 4G network is now faster than ever before and continues to deliver a faster, more reliable broadband experience in more places than any other carrier," said Neville Ray, chief technology officer, T-Mobile USA. "Nokia Siemens Networks' Single RAN has helped us to enhance our existing network through a software upgrade with minimal impact to the existing network hardware."

NSN noted that it has been working with the carrier for more than a year to drive the standardization of Long Term HSPA Evolution – the evolution of HSPA in 3GPP beyond Release 10.


The high-speed HSPA+ 42 Mbps delivered in the T-Mobile USA network is made using a more efficient 64QAM modulation rate and two 5 MHz ‘carriers' simultaneously for one data connection, based on a technically advanced Dual Cell HSDPA solution. The Dual Cell HSDPA solution runs on the existing Flexi Multiradio Base Station with a simple software upgrade with minimal impact on existing network hardware.
http://www.nsn.com

• At CTIA Wireless 2011, Nokia Siemens Networks demonstrated HSPA data rates exceeding 200 Mbps.

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Nimble Raises $25 Million for Flash + iSCSI Storage

Nimble Storage, a start-up based in San Jose, California, raised $25 million in an over-subscribed Series D round for its converged iSCSI storage, backup and disaster-recovery solution.


Nimble's solution is based on a patent-pending Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) architecture. This enables fast inline data compression, intelligent data optimization leveraging flash memory and high-capacity disk, instant optimized backups, and WAN-efficient replication in a single device. The company says its approach dramatically lowers equipment costs, reduces backup and restore time from hours to seconds, and streamlines storage management.


The new funding was led by Artis Capital Management, the largest shareholder of Data Domain, which was purchased by EMC for $2.1 billion. Nimble Storage's existing investors Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital also contributed to the round. http://www.nimblestorage.com

• Nimble Storage was founded by former Data Domain and NetApp executives Varun Mehta and Umesh Maheshwari.

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Apica Offers Cloud & Mobile Load Testing

Apica, a start-up based in Stockholm, raised $2 million in Series B funding to bring its load testing and performance-monitoring services for cloud and mobile applications to the U.S. market. The company has opened an office in Palo Alto, California.


The company recently unveiled Apica Watch, a new cloud service with full support for Selenium, giving customers the ability to monitor their websites from a true end-user perspective. Apica also launched the Apica iPhone application, providing users a rich performance monitoring solution 24/7 from anywhere. In addition, the company inked strategic partnerships with leading cloud players, RightScale and Rackspace.


Industrifonden led the investment. KTH Chalmers Capital also participated by reinvesting in the company, and ALMI Invest joined as a new investor. http://www.apicasystem.com

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Telekomunikacja Polska Deploys Cisco CRS-3 and ASR 9000

Telekomunikacja Polska (TP), Poland's leading telecommunications provider, has selected Cisco Carrier Ethernet solutions for its IP next generation network. Specifically, TP will deploy the Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System and Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers for enhanced capacity, high resiliency and robust IPv6 support. Financial terms were not disclosed.


France Telecom is a major shareholder of the Telekomunikacja Polska group.
http://www.cisco.com

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U.S. Department of Defense Outlines Cyberspace Strategy

The United States must be prepared to respond to hostile acts in cyberspace, said Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn, III, speaking at the National Defense University, Washington, D.C., and "reserves the right, under the laws of armed conflict, to respond to serious cyber attacks with a proportional and justified military response at the time and place of our choosing."


Lynn confirmed that in a single intrusion this March, cyber attackers stole 24,000 military files, including data on aircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite communications systems, and network security protocols. He said the cyber exploitation being perpetrated against the defense industry cuts across a wide swath of crucial military hardware, extending from missile tracking systems and satellite navigation devices to UAVs and the Joint Strike Fighter.


Lynn outlined the DoD's first ever Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace centered around the goal of denying or at least minimizing the benefit of an cyber attack. The five pillars of this strategy include:


1. The Defense Department is treating cyberspace as an operational domain, like land, air, sea, and space.


2. DoD networks will implement active cyber defenses. These active defenses use sensors, software, and signatures to detect and stop malicious code before it affects operations.


3. The DoD will recognize the interconnectedness of cyberspace and the diversity of uses to which it is put, by individuals, in our economies, and across nations. The third pillar specifically recognizes that a number of non-military networks support important military functions -- including the power grid, transportation system, and financial sector. The DoD will work with the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector to protect the nation's critical infrastructure.


4. The logic of interconnectedness will be extended to allies and international partners. Our goal with them is to build collective cyber defenses. Collective cyber defenses will help expand our awareness of malicious activity and speed our ability to defend against ongoing attacks.


5. The DoD will aim to shift the technological landscape of cyber security to reduce the advantages the attacker presently enjoys relative to the defender on the Internet.


Over the past year, the DoD has committed half a billion dollars in R&D funds to accelerate research on advanced defensive technologies.


"The cyber threats we face are urgent, sometimes uncertain and potentially devastating as adversaries constantly search for vulnerabilities," said Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III. "Our infrastructure, logistics network and business systems are heavily computerized. With 15,000 networks and more than seven million computing devices, DoD continues to be a target in cyberspace for malicious activity."


"Strong partnerships with other U.S. government departments and agencies, the private sector and foreign nations are crucial," said Lynn. "Our success in cyberspace depends on a robust public/private partnership. The defense of the military will matter little unless our civilian critical infrastructure is also able to withstand attacks." http://www.defense.govhttp://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1593

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