Colombia's UNE Picks Huawei for LTE

UNE, a fixed broadband operator in Colombia, has selected Huawei for an LTE rollout. Throughout this first stage of project, UNE will deploy the network in Bogotá and Medellin using Huawei's LTE leading edge solution. The contract includes the RAN, the core network and LTE devices, including the world's first LTE five-mode USB dongle –E392 and other models.
http://www.huawei.com

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Telefónica Swings to a Loss, Reaches 231.9 Million Mobile Users

Telefónica reported a 5.4% increase in revenues for the first nine months of 2011, reaching 46,672 million euros it total revenues at the end of the
third quarter, due mainly to the higher growth in revenues from mobile data services (up almost 20% in organic terms) and the sound performance of its business in Latin America, where reported revenues climbed 18%.


In organic terms, revenues rose 0.3% in the first nine months of 2011, negatively impacted by mobile termination rate cuts across all regions, which dragged 632 million euros to consolidated revenues. Excluding this impact, organic revenue growth would have reached 1.6% (+6.8% in reported terms). In organic terms, OIBDA fell by 4.6% year-on-year (-30.0% in reported terms), mainly due to the lower contribution by Telefónica España (-4.3 percentage points), not being offset by the higher contribution from Telefónica Europe (+0.2 percentage points).


Telefónica Latinoamérica dragged 0.4 percentage points from consolidated OIBDA organic growth, reflecting the negative impact of the Mexican business, lower revenues from regional initiatives with respect to 2010 and strong commercial activity.


Despite intense commercial activity and the negative impact from regulation, the organic OIBDA margin in the first nine months of the year stood at 35.8%, posting a limited erosion of 1.8 percentage points year-on-year, in line with the Company's expectations.


By region, Telefónica Latinoamérica accounted for 46% of underlying OIBDA (+4 percentage points year-on-year), rising to 65% including also the contribution by Telefónica Europe.


Some notes:


Total accesses managed by Telefónica increased by 6% in reported terms to 299.7 million at the end of September 2011.


Telefónica's mobile accesses reached 231.9 million by the end of September 2011, up 8% year-on-year in reported terms, underpinned by the sustained increase in the contract segment (+12% year-on-year), which now accounts for 32% of the total mobile access base (+1.2 percentage points year-on-year).



Mobile broadband accesses -accesses with a data rate attached and therefore active users of the service- exceeded 34 million at the end of September 2011 (+76% year-on-year). This figure represents a penetration rate of 15% of Telefónica's total mobile access base (+4
percentage points versus December 2010). Telefónica Europe reached a penetration rate of 29%, followed by Telefónica España (27%). Meanwhile, there is huge scope for increasing penetration at Telefónica Latinoamérica (9% at the end of September 2011).

Retail fixed broadband accesses reached a total of 17.8 million (+7% year-on-year).


At the end of September 2011 Telefónica managed a total of 194.9 million accesses in Latin America, with growth accelerating versus prior quarters to 9% year-on-year. Telefónica's mobile accesses rose by 10% year-on-year to 159.8 million. Telefónica managed 35.1 million fixed-line accesses in the region at the end of September 2011 (+2% year-on-year).


CapEx in the first nine months of the year stood at 6,625 million euros (-8.5% year-on-year) and includes the cost of the spectrum in Spain, Brazil and Costa Rica. In organic terms, CapEx rose by 5.0% with respect to January-September 2010.


The average number of employees at the end of September 2011 was 285,063 (20,395more than at the end of September 2010), mainly due to the larger workforce at Atento.
http://www.telefonica.com

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Colombia's UNE Picks Huawei for LTE

UNE, a fixed broadband operator in Colombia, has selected Huawei for an LTE rollout. Throughout this first stage of project, UNE will deploy the network in Bogotá and Medellin using Huawei's LTE leading edge solution. The contract includes the RAN, the core network and LTE devices, including the world's first LTE five-mode USB dongle –E392 and other models.
http://www.huawei.com

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Telefónica Swings to a Loss, Reaches 231.9 Million Mobile Users

Telefónica reported a 5.4% increase in revenues for the first nine months of 2011, reaching 46,672 million euros it total revenues at the end of the
third quarter, due mainly to the higher growth in revenues from mobile data services (up almost 20% in organic terms) and the sound performance of its business in Latin America, where reported revenues climbed 18%.


In organic terms, revenues rose 0.3% in the first nine months of 2011, negatively impacted by mobile termination rate cuts across all regions, which dragged 632 million euros to consolidated revenues. Excluding this impact, organic revenue growth would have reached 1.6% (+6.8% in reported terms). In organic terms, OIBDA fell by 4.6% year-on-year (-30.0% in reported terms), mainly due to the lower contribution by Telefónica España (-4.3 percentage points), not being offset by the higher contribution from Telefónica Europe (+0.2 percentage points).


Telefónica Latinoamérica dragged 0.4 percentage points from consolidated OIBDA organic growth, reflecting the negative impact of the Mexican business, lower revenues from regional initiatives with respect to 2010 and strong commercial activity.


Despite intense commercial activity and the negative impact from regulation, the organic OIBDA margin in the first nine months of the year stood at 35.8%, posting a limited erosion of 1.8 percentage points year-on-year, in line with the Company's expectations.


By region, Telefónica Latinoamérica accounted for 46% of underlying OIBDA (+4 percentage points year-on-year), rising to 65% including also the contribution by Telefónica Europe.


Some notes:


Total accesses managed by Telefónica increased by 6% in reported terms to 299.7 million at the end of September 2011.


Telefónica's mobile accesses reached 231.9 million by the end of September 2011, up 8% year-on-year in reported terms, underpinned by the sustained increase in the contract segment (+12% year-on-year), which now accounts for 32% of the total mobile access base (+1.2 percentage points year-on-year).



Mobile broadband accesses -accesses with a data rate attached and therefore active users of the service- exceeded 34 million at the end of September 2011 (+76% year-on-year). This figure represents a penetration rate of 15% of Telefónica's total mobile access base (+4
percentage points versus December 2010). Telefónica Europe reached a penetration rate of 29%, followed by Telefónica España (27%). Meanwhile, there is huge scope for increasing penetration at Telefónica Latinoamérica (9% at the end of September 2011).

Retail fixed broadband accesses reached a total of 17.8 million (+7% year-on-year).


At the end of September 2011 Telefónica managed a total of 194.9 million accesses in Latin America, with growth accelerating versus prior quarters to 9% year-on-year. Telefónica's mobile accesses rose by 10% year-on-year to 159.8 million. Telefónica managed 35.1 million fixed-line accesses in the region at the end of September 2011 (+2% year-on-year).


CapEx in the first nine months of the year stood at 6,625 million euros (-8.5% year-on-year) and includes the cost of the spectrum in Spain, Brazil and Costa Rica. In organic terms, CapEx rose by 5.0% with respect to January-September 2010.


The average number of employees at the end of September 2011 was 285,063 (20,395more than at the end of September 2010), mainly due to the larger workforce at Atento.
http://www.telefonica.com

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Broadcom Develops Wi-Fi subsystem for New Class of Connected Devices

Broadcom introduced a self-contained Wi-Fi subsystem with embedded processor aimed at a new class of connected appliances, smart energy systems and cloud-based health and home management services. The idea is to provide a "self-hosted" Wi-Fi and networking software stack that eliminates any impact on host processor to manage connectivity in resource-constrained devices.


The new Wi-Fi module, featuring the Broadcom BCM4319 wireless LAN MAC/baseband/radio, includes an embedded processor and unique "self-hosted" Wi-Fi networking library and software application stack, allowing manufacturers to integrate wireless connectivity into any MCU based consumer product. WICED-based modules enable the addition of secure, interoperable Wi-Fi functionality via a simple serial port using a basic command set that does not require any significant changes in product micro-controller architectures. http://www.broadcom.com

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MSF Releases Voice over LTE White Paper

The MultiService Forum (MSF) has published a whitepaper on its recent VoLTE (Voice over Long Term Evolution) Interoperability Event held with Vodafone and China Mobile.


Over 65 network elements from 19 participating vendors were tested by 60 test engineers using 200 pages of test plans during this three-week event. The test scenarios included 89 test cases and 561 scheduled tests based on different vendor combinations.


VoLTE calls and MMTel services were successfully completed within each host site and between host sites to demonstrate network inter-connect. LTE Roaming between host sites was successfully demonstrated with Diameter Routing Agents (DRA), enabling dynamic policy control between home and visited networks. Multi-vendor testing of UE, eNodeB, SeGW, EPC, IMS/MMTEL, DRA and PCC technology was conducted at each site.


The White Paper discusses the results of the VoLTE IOT event and identifies specific interoperability issues. All issues related to standards specifications were communicated to relevant organizations. It is important to identify and understand the factors that limit interoperability with commercially available equipment, from both a vendor and operator perspective. Vendors benefit from improved commercial viability of products and operators increase awareness of any interoperability issues relevant to vendor selection and deployment strategy.


“The MSF's event has demonstrated the growing degree of compliance with VoLTE definitions and the extent to which interoperability of implementations across the vendor community has progressed,�? said Dan Warren, Senior Director of Technology at the GSMA. “Not only was the testing itself a success, but the feedback from the event can be used to improve the specification of VoLTE and make sure that the level of interoperability in future products is even better than that demonstrated at this event.�?



The MSF will be partnering with ETSI and GSMA for a second VoLTE IOT event in 2012. The MSF also intends to focus on Rich Communication Suite and EPC conformance testing during the forthcoming year.

The 60-page whitepaper is available online. http://www.msforum.org/interoperability/VoLTE.shtml

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NetScout Builds Momentum in Next Gen Service Assurance

NetScout Systems has added an additional 18 service providers deployments this year for its nGenius Service Assurance Solution, giving it an installed base of 148 service provider production networks across 46 countries. Of these 18 service providers, ten are mobile operators, four are wireline operators, three are cable operators and one is a satellite operator.


The nGenius Service Assurance Solution captures, correlates and analyzes both data plane and control plane IP traffic to enable a granular understanding of the subscriber experience. The solution can be used to manage multi-generation IP networks ranging from 2.5G to 3G and LTE to IMS and VoIP from a single unified platform.


“The nGenius Service Assurance Solution helps operators increase subscriber value through a better user experience and enables them to make better business decisions and improve the profitability of services delivered,�? said Steven Shalita, vice president of marketing, NetScout. http://www.netscout.com

• Earlier this year, NetScout Systems acquired privately held Psytechnics, which offers performance management technology for unified communications services. Financial terms were not disclosed. Psytechnics, which is based in Ipswich, United Kingdom, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, developed a range of active and passive software solutions for both Enterprises and Service Providers markets. These software solutions are used to demonstrably improve the performance of real-time communications, including the most advanced unified communications applications and networks designs. Its Experience Manager is a software suite that delivers user QoE-based service management for IP voice, video conferencing and Telepresence services. Real-time, objective call analysis details the actual user experience and streamlines both pro-active and reactive processes to remediate. The company claims more than 300 equipment and service provider customers worldwide for its active test solutions. Psytechnics was backed by DFJ Esprit, Gimv and New Venture Partners.

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IBM Teams with Juniper for Hosted Mobile Device Security Management Service

IBM launched a new Hosted Mobile Device Security Management service that extends the company's existing mobility portfolio to include a security application for smartphones and tablets, along with managed services including policy management and user compliance monitoring. IBM said it is working with Juniper Networks on this mobile security service for the underlying protection and device management technology for leading platforms such as Apple iOS, Google Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile through the Juniper Networks Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite.


Capabilities in the new mobile device security management service include:

• Configuring employee devices to comply with security policies and actively monitoring to help ensure compliance over time


• Securing data in the event that a device is lost or stolen


• Helping to find a lost or stolen device - wherever it is


• Protecting against spyware and viruses


• Detecting and removing malicious and unapproved applications


• Monitoring and tracking user activity


• Enabling more secure connectivity

http://www.ibm.com http://www.ibm.com/security

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Deutsche Telekom Sees Lower Revenue, Higher Profits

Deutsche Telekom reported Q3 2011 revenue of EUR 11.0 billion, down by 4.1 percent in the quarter compared to last year. However, cost cutting led to an increase in EBITDA margin of 0.5 percentage points while net profit rose 14.6 percent to EUR 1.1 billion.


The company confirmed its financial targets for the full year 2011 saying it remains on target despite the uncertain macroeconomic climate. The Group continues to expect adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations of around EUR 14.9 billion. Adjusted EBITDA of around USD 5.5 billion is anticipated from business in the United States. Free cash flow of the Group is expected to total at least EUR 6.5 billion.


"We have once again demonstrated that we can stand our ground in a difficult environment," said René Obermann, Chairman of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom. "We cannot afford to be complacent in our efforts as the challenges will continue to intensify."


Some highlights:


The carrier has brought the cost base down by EUR 3.9 billion in total since 2010.


A decline in revenues from mobile communications business is primarily attributable to weaker handset revenues and the reduction in MTRs.


With growth of 26 percent to EUR 410 million, mobile data revenues remained the key driver of mobile communications business in Germany.


Smartphones now account for 64 percent of all devices sold, a strong increase compared to 53 percent in the prior year.


In the fixed network, Deutsche Telekom maintained its market share of broadband customers of over 45 percent.


The carrier lost 1,330,000 fixed lines in Germany during Q3, ending with 23.6 million fixed lines still in service in Germany.


Regarding its OTE subsidiary, revenue in Greece declined by 5.0 percent in the third quarter to EUR 0.9 billion, while adjusted EBITDA fell 7.2 percent in the same period to EUR 0.35 billion. A reduction in working hours and a corresponding drop in pay have since been agreed on with the trade unions.


Order entry at Systems Solutions developed encouragingly in the third quarter, climbing 18.5 percent year-on-year to EUR 1.9 billion. The higher order volume was a result of big deals such as with Daimler, as well as numerous smaller contracts for cloud services. From January to September 2011, order entry increased by 8 percent year-on-year to EUR 6.6 billion.


Key indicators for T-Mobile USA


T-Mobile USA served 33.7 million customers at the end of third quarter of 2011, compared to 33.6 million customers at the end of second quarter 2011 and 33.8 million customers at the end of third quarter 2010.


Service revenues of $4.67 billion in the third quarter of 2011, up 1.0% from the second quarter of 2011 but down 0.9% from the third quarter of 2010.


Net customer additions of 126,000 related to Value plan and unlimited Monthly 4G prepaid growth, compared to a net customer loss in the second quarter of 2011 of 50,000 and 137,000 net customer additions in the third quarter of 2010.


Contract ARPU of $53 in the third quarter of 2011, consistent with $53 in the second quarter of 2011 and up from $52 in the third quarter of 2010 attributed in part to data ARPU growth.


Data ARPU of $14.00 in the third quarter of 2011, up 13% from $12.40 in the third quarter of 2010.


Blended churn, reflecting both contract and prepaid customers, increased to 3.5% in the third quarter of 2011, up from 3.3% in the second quarter of 2011 and 3.4% in the third quarter of 2010. The sequential and year-on-year increase in blended churn was primarily driven by higher churn from MVNO customers.


Data service revenues were $1.4 billion in the third quarter of 2011, up 12% from the third quarter of 2010. Data service revenues in the third quarter of 2011 represented 30% of blended ARPU, or $14.00 per customer, compared to 30% of blended ARPU, or $13.60 per customer in the second quarter of 2011, and 27% of blended ARPU, or $12.40 per customer in the third quarter of 2010.



10.1 million customers were using smartphones. 3G/4G smartphone customers now account for 30% of total customers, up from 29% in the second quarter of 2011 and 21% in the third quarter of 2010.


CAPEX was SU$741 million in the third quarter of 2011, compared to $688 million in the second quarter of 2011 and $643 million in the third quarter of 2010.

http://www.telekom.com

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Ford Showcases Cloud-Connected Capabilities of Evos Concept Car

Ford is planning to showcase cloud-connected capabilities in its Evos Concept car at the upcoming 2012 International CES in Las Vegas in January.


The Evos car promises to integrated on-board data about driver preferences with cloud-based information such as work schedules, music and weather conditions, and local data delivered through vehicle-to-vehicle communications.


Ford said it is also seeking to use the power of the cloud to understand driver behavior and travel patterns in order to make predictions about destinations and to adjust the control strategies for the state-of-the-art lithium-ion plug-in-hybrid powertrain. Through understanding where the driver is likely to go, Evos can intelligently switch between running on battery or engine power in order to use the least amount of energy for any situation.


"Today, drivers have to adapt to the features and capabilities of their car," said Paul Mascarenas, Ford chief technical officer and leader of the company's global Research and Innovation team. "The Evos Concept changes the paradigm of how you interact with your car. Our vision is that the car should seamlessly adapt to the driver taking the driving experience to a whole new level of personalization and convenience." http://www.ford.com

• The Evos is based on a lithium-ion plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain. It was first shown at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor show in September.

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