Monday, August 1, 2011

Cavium Posts Sales of $71 million, up 13% Sequentially

Cavium reported Q2 revenue of $71.6 million, a 12.7% sequential increase from the $63.6 million reported for the first quarter of 2011 and an increase of 43.7% from the $49.9 million reported for the second quarter of last year. Net income (GAAP) was $1.9 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, compared to net income of $1.5 million, or $0.03 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2011, and a net income of $0.6 million, or $0.01 per diluted share in the second quarter of last year. Gross margins were 59.9% in the second quarter of 2011 compared to 60.9% in the first quarter of 2011 and 60.8% in the second quarter of last year.


"This was our ninth quarter of sequential sales growth, driven by strong organic growth in our core enterprise and service provider as well as our broadband and consumer business. We generated record quarterly sales, strong non-GAAP gross and operating margins, and record non-GAAP net income during the quarter. Furthermore, our multi-core and other products continue to take market share as we experience record design win momentum among Tier-1 customers across our entire family of products" said Syed Ali, president and CEO of Cavium.
http://www.cavium.com

MetroPCS Plunges 35% Following Q2 Earnings

Shares in MetroPCS fell 36% on Tuesday following the release of its Q2 financial report in which the company disclosed weaker than expected subscriber growth, higher CAPEX and the possibility of purchasing additional spectrum for its LTE network.


Consolidated service revenues were $1.1 billion for the second quarter of 2011, an increase of $191 million, or 21%, when compared to the prior year's second quarter. Income from operations increased approximately $12 million, or approximately 6%, for the second quarter of 2011 when compared to the prior year's second quarter.
Net income for the quarter was $84 million and includes approximately $6 million in charges related to the extinguishment of the Tranche B-1 Term Loans under the company's Senior Secured Credit Facility during the quarter.


"We are pleased with our solid second quarter results in this seasonally slow quarter and with our continued strong sales of Android Smartphones. Momentum for no annual contract mobile broadband wireless service continues to be strong and has resulted in 19% year over year subscriber growth. Financially, we reported the highest Adjusted EBITDA in company history of $357 million, up approximately 11% from last year's second quarter," stated said Roger D. Linquist, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MetroPCS.


Some highlights for the quarter.


MetroPCS now serves approximately 9.1 million subscribers, up 19% from a year ago. In the first 6 months of 2011, the company added 925,000 subscribers. The company has not given a breakdown of LTE subscribers vs. CDMA subscribers.


Demand for Android Smartphones and has been strong. In the first quarter, approximately 30% of all handset sales were Androids. In the second quarter, nearly 40% of all handset sales were Androids.


MetroPCS is focused on efficiently adding data capacity to its CDMA network based on growing smartphone demand, and equally important, managing data traffic where possible by compressing and optimizing throughput.


An expansion of the LTE network is ongoing.


The company hops to begin introducing VOLTE-capable handsets early next year to move voice as well as data traffic to the new LTE network.


Q2 net subscriber additions were 199,000.


Continued economic pressure on customers has led to an increase in churn, which was 3.9% for the quarter. The increase in churn was primarily driven by an increase in gross additions.


ARPU was $40.49, up $0.65 on a year-over-year basis, and up $0.07 on a sequential basis.


2011 capital expenditures are now forecast to be $900 million to $1 billion -- an increase over the guidance given on the first quarter of 2011 earnings call . The company cited additional CDMA and LTE investments, including microwave backhaul systems for the LTE buildout.


The company also danced around the question of future spectrum purchases or wholesale leases, saying only that no decision has been made.
http://www.metropcs.com

Sprint Announces Wholesale 4G

Sprint began providing wholesale access to its 4G (WiMAX) network, making it the first national scale wireless carrier in the U.S. to provide a wholesale 4G offering. Available immediately for Sprint's Wholesale customers are the Sierra Wireless 250U 3G/4G data card and HTC Detail 3G/4G handset, which has the same feature set as HTC EVO Shift 4G. http://www.sprint.com

Tekelec Appoints CTO

Tekelec appointed Douglas A. Suriano as chief technology officer (CTO). He will retain his current responsibilities as vice president of engineering, which he has held since joining Tekelec in 2003. In his eight-year tenure, he and his team have developed Tekelec's next-generation mobile broadband portfolio through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, while expanding market share of its voice and text solutions.


Suriano joined Tekelec from dynamicsoft, Inc., where he was vice president of engineering, overseeing development of SIP products for service providers in the early adoption phase of advanced IP-based services. Prior to dynamicsoft, he served as chief information officer for QAD Inc., an enterprise resource planning software developer, responsible for the company's global IT infrastructure, business systems and development support. Mr. Suriano began his technology career as a director of information systems for the United States Marine Corps. http://www.tekelec.com

NeoPhotonics Samples Extended Reach OLT Transceivers

NeoPhotonics has begun sampling its first extended reach "XG PON1" transceiver module for 10G PON applications in an XFP form factor. The new pluggable transceiver increases the link budget from 29 dB (ITU-T G987.2 Class N1) to 31 dB (ITU-T G987.2 Class N2), and is designed to support network overlay of 10G XG-PON1 over existing Class B+ GPON networks (28dB link budget).


The company also today announced that it has tripled capacity for its current OLT transceivers over the last year to help satisfy FTTH deployments in Asia and North America. http://www.neophotonics.com

Cavium Ships 10-Core OCTEON II Processors

Cavium has begun the first shipments of its 10-core OCTEON II CN66XX processors to multiple OEM customers. The Cavium OCTEON II CN66XX integrates up to 10 MIPS64 cores and hardware acceleration for networking, mobile infrastructure, control-plane and data-center applications.

"With the CN66XX, we now offer 2.5x the number of full 64-bit CPU cores and 2x the GHz versus alternatives within an extremely compact and power-efficient form-factor," said YJ Kim, General Manager of Cavium's Infrastructure Processor Group.

Cavium said its CN66XX processors have already been selected by 3 tier-1 mobile infrastructure equipment providers. http://www.cavium.com

Michigan's CTS Telecom Selects ADTRAN

CTS Telecom, an ILEC and CLEC serving southwestern Michigan, has selected the industry's fastest growing access platform, the Total Access® 5000, for a network upgrade. The upgrade will allow CTS to address higher-speed data demands and evolve the network to support VoIP to its new softswitch. ADTRAN will also provide the core technology for a major fiber roll-out funded in part by a Broadband Stimulus award. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.adtran.com http://www.ctstelecom.com/

Industry Consortium Pursues Smart Energy

A new Consortium for SEP 2 Interoperability has been formed by the HomePlug Alliance, Wi-Fi Alliance, HomeGrid Forum and ZigBee Alliance with the goal of implementing a consistent testing plan for interoperable SEP 2 devices across an IP network. A joint certification and test program will be used to certify wireless and wired devices that support IP-based smart energy applications and end-user devices such as thermostats, appliances and gateways. It will address devices operating on one or more of a variety of underlying connectivity technologies and provide the smart energy ecosystem �– including utilities, product vendors and consumers – assurances of application and device interoperability.


SEP 2 was selected in 2009 by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as a standard profile for smart energy management in home devices. The profile is suitable for operation on a variety of IP-based technologies. This consortium establishes a communications technology-agnostic forum to unify and accelerate the realization of interoperable SEP 2 products through a joint test and certification program. The consortium intends to utilize the processes and best practices recommended by the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) for smart grid testing and certification programs.


"HomeGrid Forum, which is responsible for certifying and promoting G.hn technology, is excited to be working with other leading industry organizations to help accelerate the adoption of the Smart Grid throughout the world," said Matt Theall, president of HomeGrid Forum. "We believe SEP 2 will be an important factor in ensuring that wired and wireless technologies combine together to deliver Smart Grid and other services inside and outside the home and we are committed to using our expertise to help drive industry adoption." http://www.homeplug.orghttp:www.homegridforum.org

The Next Step for Wi-Fi: Low-latency, Gigabit 802.11ac

The next big step for Wi-Fi is to make the leap to gigabit capacity with 802.11ac. As part of its Wi-Fi Day celebrations (08/02/11), Qualcomm Atheros hosted a press event in Silicon Valley to discuss how this future Wi-Fi will develop. The next rev of Wi-Fi technology, expected later this year, promises this performance boost along with new multi-user, multi-simultaneous stream capabilities.


The Wi-Fi standards have moved all the way through the alphabet from 802.11a, 802.11b, g, n, etc., and now use a double letter designation.


"802.11ac is the next big deal" said Bill McFarland, VP of Technology for Qualcomm Atheros, because it upgrades both the PHY and MAC layers for a greater than a 2x boost in rate-at-range of HD video streaming and will see widespread deployment in consumer electronics fairly quickly as it displaces 802.11n silicon.


Some key attributes of 802.11ac:



  • Unlike 802.11n, 802.11ac is exclusive to 5 GHz spectrum because this band offers more non-overlapping channels and has fewer interferers.


  • 802.11ac client silicon will support a fall-back to 802.11n when 802.11ac is not available. 802.11ac base stations will support concurrent 802.11n and 802.11ac clients.


  • 802.11ac gets its performance boost by using wider channels


  • The latency of 802.11ac is improved over 802.11n


  • Beamforming was promised in 802.11n but not really implemented in practice unless the same vendor's silicon was in both the client and access point. This problem has been fixed in 802.11ac with the industry agreeing to one beamforming methodology.


  • 802.11ac will offer better support for more significantly more clients on wireless networks.


  • Performance-to-power has been improved. Faster downloads means the radios can return to low-power standby modes faster.


  • The range of 802.11ac and 802.11n are similar.


McFarland also provided an update on the 60 GHz .11ad standard, which leverages even wider channels for in-room connectivity at up to 7 Gbps. The 60 GHz Wi-Fi would offer a true network connection, differing from other high-speed cabling option, such as Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 which are not IP-based. McFarland believes 802.11ac and 802.11ad will be complementary. In May, Qualcomm Atheros introduced the industry's first tri-band Wi-Fi chipset that integrates the multi-gigabit performance of in-room 60 GHz band with seamless handoff to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band Wi-Fi. The chipset was developed in partnership with Wilocity, a developer of 60 GHz multi-gigabit wireless chipsets.


McFarland expects chips for 802.11ac to begin sampling later this year. Chips for 60 GHz 802.11ad may sample a bit earlier, but he expects these will have a longer product design cycle, so 802.11ac products will probably appear on the market first and have a faster adoption curve. http://www.qualcomm-atheros.com

10X10 MSA Releases 10Km and 40Km 100Gbps Standards

The 10x10 MSA has released 10Km and 40Km specifications for longer reach applications.


The 10Km reach specification builds on already existing 2Km specifications to ensure backward compatibility and interoperability with the existing 10X10-2Km standard.


The 40Km specification leverages existing 10Gbps DWDM network specifications to enable seamless upgrade of existing 10Gbps metro links to 100Gbps over up to 40Km single-mode fiber without the need for regeneration or amplification.


"We are very pleased with the widespread adoption of 10X10 optical modules. The new 10X10-40Km standard enables up to 800 Gbps of data to transmit over a single fiber – that's the speed the industry needs." – Scott Kipp, Chair of 10X10 MSA and Senior Technologist at Brocade. http://www.10X10msa.org

NTT Boosts Transpacific Network to 500 Gbps

NTT Communications' Global IP Network has reached 500 Gbps of capacity on its transpacific network.


After reaching 400 Gbps of capacity in late 2010, the growth of NTT Communications' transpacific network suffered setbacks as a result of the Japanese earthquake in March 2011. The company said its network was able to quickly rebound as a result of concerted and dedicated efforts from the company's skilled engineers. http://www.ntt.co.jp

Edpnet Builds 6/4 Tbps DWDM from St. Petersburg to Stockholm

Russia's Edpnet has deployed a DWDM system with 6.4 Tbps of capacity between St. Petersburg and Stockholm. The network uses the Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Transport Platform (MSTP), enabling Edpnet to offer communications channels with a bandwidth of 10 Gbps (STM-64, OC-192c, 10 gigabit Ethernet WAN PHY, 10 gigabit Ethernet LAN PHY) and 40 Gbps. The system is also ready for 100 Gbps channels. The equipment was delivered by Perfect, a Cisco premier certified partner in Russia. http://www.cisco.com