Sunday, December 11, 2011

BT Openreach Expands Fibre Rollout to 178 More Exchanges

BT Openreach is expanding its fibre rollout to a further 178 exchanges -- the majority of which will be enabled in 2012 -- covering more than 1.8 million homes and businesses.



“We continue to make tremendous strides with our fibre programme. Super-fast broadband is already within reach of more than six million premises today and we are on track to pass ten million premises next year.," stated Olivia Garfield, CEO of Openreach. “Our ambitions do not stop there. We will make fibre available to two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014."http://www.btplc.com

American Tower to Buy 2,500 Towers in Mexico for $500 million

American Tower, which own and operates approximately 40,000 communications sites in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Peru and South Africa, agreed to acquire approximately 2,500 towers from Telefonica's Mexican subsidiary, Pegaso PCS, for approximately $500 million, excluding value added tax.


James Taiclet, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of American Tower, said: "We continue to strengthen our relationship with Telefonica, and this acquisition nearly doubles our portfolio in Mexico and provides us with a highly desirable network of sites in this key market. We believe that our experienced local management team will secure strong growth on these towers as our customers in Mexico deploy new spectrum and next generation wireless technologies."http://www.americantower.com

VSS Monitoring Releases Packet De-duplication for Analytic Tools

VSS Monitoring introduced a packet de-duplication feature that improves the efficiency and effectiveness of existing monitoring solutions by eliminating redundant data packets, which reduces the processing load on the tools and false event alarming.It is compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6.


VSS Monitoring's architecture optimizes and scales connectivity between network switching and the intelligence ecosystem of network analytical, inline security and WAN acceleration tools.


"To achieve unprecedented results in times when resources are constrained and business growth is imperative, enterprises and service providers must correct network inefficiencies and gather greater intelligence to optimize their growth potential," said Martin Breslin, CEO of VSS Monitoring. "Our goal is to offer new solutions that help our customers achieve a greater return on existing investments by enabling them to improve network visibility, reduce redundancies, and illuminate blind spots to heighten performance."http://www.vssmonitoring.com

Rogers Expands LTE around Toronto and Vancouver

Rogers Communications has expanded its LTE network in more cities in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding Vancouver. Rogers was first to launch a LTE network this summer in Ottawa followed by Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.


"Today more Rogers customers from the east and west can experience the future of fast as we continue to expand the gold standard wireless network technology, the Rogers LTE network to more Canadian cities surrounding Toronto and Vancouver," said John Boynton, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Rogers Communications. "We are proud to be first to offer the LTE network to more cities in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding Vancouver."http://www.rogers.com/lte

Ericsson's CTO Heads to Australia

Ericsson's CTO, HÃ¥kan Eriksson, who is currently based in Silicon Valley, will take on a new role as head of Ericsson's business in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. The company expects to appoint a new CTO shortly.


Eriksson, whose wife is Australian, said "I have spent the last 25 years in Ericsson within the research & development organization and the last nine of those as CTO. When I took the job as CTO, the debate was whether 3G would ever appeal to the mass market... Although the CTO role has always meant staying very close to our customers, I now look forward to more directly support our customers in monetizing their networks in a world where technology and networks become increasingly more complex."http://www.ericsson.com

Oracle Releases Connected Digital Lifestyle Solution

Oracle released its Connected Digital Lifestyle Solution, a unified platform for service exposure, content management and delivery, and advertising to enable new revenue streams and increase customer loyalty. Key elements include:

  • End-to-end digital content retailing platform that enables Service Providers to increase revenue and customer loyalty by deploying compelling, cross platform mobile device and web storefronts


  • Content lifecycle management system allowing CSPs to streamline content publishing processes and enable content providers to easily submit and track their content


  • In-application billing to simplify the purchasing experience and increase revenue through significantly higher conversion rates


  • Service exposure and policy enforcement platform allowing CSPs to monetize unique network assets – such as location data, subscriber profiles, Quality of Service and messaging – by exposing these assets as Web 2.0 application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable the creation of innovative applications and services


  • Multi-channel advertising capabilities – including short message service (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS), mobile web, in-application and video – to stimulate content consumption


  • Location and subscriber profile targeting to increase advertising effectiveness and drive new revenue generating opportunities – such as retailer geofencing



In addition, Oracle released Communications Services Gatekeeper 5.0, an open, standards-based service exposure and policy enforcement solution that enhances a service delivery platform (SDP) to facilitate access to value-added network capabilities in a controlled, secure and automated fashion.
http://www.oracle.com

Colombia Will Have 10 Mobile Operators in 2012

The Colombian government plans to license two new mobile operators next year, bringing the number of mobile operators in the country to ten, including MVNOs, according to El Tiempo. Current operators include Comcel, Movistar, Tigo, Avantel, Uff Móvil, UNE, ETB, Virgin Mobile. Mobile penetration already exceeds 103%.http://bit.ly/s1nKP9

AT&T Evaluates Options with T-Mobile USA Bid

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom filed a court motion seeking to stay further proceedings regarding its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA until January 18, 2012, to allow the two companies time to evaluate all options. The U.S. Department of Justice joined in the filing.


“AT&T is committed to working with Deutsche Telekom to find a solution that is in the best interests of our respective customers, shareholders and employees. We are actively considering whether and how to revise our current transaction to achieve the necessary regulatory approvals so that we can deliver the capacity enhancements and improved customer service that can only be derived from combining our two companies' wireless assets.�?http://www.att.com

VimpelCom Completes USD 1 Billion Financing

VimpelCom completed a committed revolving credit facility of approximately USD 500 million for VimpelCom Amsterdam B.V. and a separate committed revolving credit facility of approximately USD 475 million for OJSC Vimpel-Communications ("OJSC VimpelCom").
http://www.vimpelcom.com

Motorola Mobility Signs Licensing Deal with VTech

Motorola Mobility has expanded its business relationship with VTech Telecommunications Ltd. regarding patent licensing, trademark licensing and technology licensing. Motorola Mobility and VTech have updated the companies' existing intellectual property licensing arrangement covering Motorola Mobility's Wi-Fi, video and cordless phone patent portfolios. The terms of the agreement are confidential.
http://www.motorola.com

BT Openreach Expands Fibre Rollout to 178 More Exchanges

BT Openreach is expanding its fibre rollout to a further 178 exchanges -- the majority of which will be enabled in 2012 -- covering more than 1.8 million homes and businesses.



“We continue to make tremendous strides with our fibre programme. Super-fast broadband is already within reach of more than six million premises today and we are on track to pass ten million premises next year.," stated Olivia Garfield, CEO of Openreach. “Our ambitions do not stop there. We will make fibre available to two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014."http://www.btplc.com

American Tower to Buy 2,500 Towers in Mexico for $500 million

American Tower, which own and operates approximately 40,000 communications sites in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Peru and South Africa, agreed to acquire approximately 2,500 towers from Telefonica's Mexican subsidiary, Pegaso PCS, for approximately $500 million, excluding value added tax.


James Taiclet, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of American Tower, said: "We continue to strengthen our relationship with Telefonica, and this acquisition nearly doubles our portfolio in Mexico and provides us with a highly desirable network of sites in this key market. We believe that our experienced local management team will secure strong growth on these towers as our customers in Mexico deploy new spectrum and next generation wireless technologies."http://www.americantower.com

VSS Monitoring Releases Packet De-duplication for Analytic Tools

VSS Monitoring introduced a packet de-duplication feature that improves the efficiency and effectiveness of existing monitoring solutions by eliminating redundant data packets, which reduces the processing load on the tools and false event alarming.It is compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6.


VSS Monitoring's architecture optimizes and scales connectivity between network switching and the intelligence ecosystem of network analytical, inline security and WAN acceleration tools.


"To achieve unprecedented results in times when resources are constrained and business growth is imperative, enterprises and service providers must correct network inefficiencies and gather greater intelligence to optimize their growth potential," said Martin Breslin, CEO of VSS Monitoring. "Our goal is to offer new solutions that help our customers achieve a greater return on existing investments by enabling them to improve network visibility, reduce redundancies, and illuminate blind spots to heighten performance."http://www.vssmonitoring.com

Rogers Expands LTE around Toronto and Vancouver

Rogers Communications has expanded its LTE network in more cities in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding Vancouver. Rogers was first to launch a LTE network this summer in Ottawa followed by Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.


"Today more Rogers customers from the east and west can experience the future of fast as we continue to expand the gold standard wireless network technology, the Rogers LTE network to more Canadian cities surrounding Toronto and Vancouver," said John Boynton, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Rogers Communications. "We are proud to be first to offer the LTE network to more cities in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding Vancouver."http://www.rogers.com/lte

Ericsson's CTO Heads to Australia

Ericsson's CTO, HÃ¥kan Eriksson, who is currently based in Silicon Valley, will take on a new role as head of Ericsson's business in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. The company expects to appoint a new CTO shortly.


Eriksson, whose wife is Australian, said "I have spent the last 25 years in Ericsson within the research & development organization and the last nine of those as CTO. When I took the job as CTO, the debate was whether 3G would ever appeal to the mass market... Although the CTO role has always meant staying very close to our customers, I now look forward to more directly support our customers in monetizing their networks in a world where technology and networks become increasingly more complex."http://www.ericsson.com

Oracle Releases Connected Digital Lifestyle Solution

Oracle released its Connected Digital Lifestyle Solution, a unified platform for service exposure, content management and delivery, and advertising to enable new revenue streams and increase customer loyalty. Key elements include:

  • End-to-end digital content retailing platform that enables Service Providers to increase revenue and customer loyalty by deploying compelling, cross platform mobile device and web storefronts


  • Content lifecycle management system allowing CSPs to streamline content publishing processes and enable content providers to easily submit and track their content


  • In-application billing to simplify the purchasing experience and increase revenue through significantly higher conversion rates


  • Service exposure and policy enforcement platform allowing CSPs to monetize unique network assets – such as location data, subscriber profiles, Quality of Service and messaging – by exposing these assets as Web 2.0 application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable the creation of innovative applications and services


  • Multi-channel advertising capabilities – including short message service (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS), mobile web, in-application and video – to stimulate content consumption


  • Location and subscriber profile targeting to increase advertising effectiveness and drive new revenue generating opportunities – such as retailer geofencing



In addition, Oracle released Communications Services Gatekeeper 5.0, an open, standards-based service exposure and policy enforcement solution that enhances a service delivery platform (SDP) to facilitate access to value-added network capabilities in a controlled, secure and automated fashion.
http://www.oracle.com

AT&T Evaluates Options with T-Mobile USA Bid

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom filed a court motion seeking to stay further proceedings regarding its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA until January 18, 2012, to allow the two companies time to evaluate all options. The U.S. Department of Justice joined in the filing.


“AT&T is committed to working with Deutsche Telekom to find a solution that is in the best interests of our respective customers, shareholders and employees. We are actively considering whether and how to revise our current transaction to achieve the necessary regulatory approvals so that we can deliver the capacity enhancements and improved customer service that can only be derived from combining our two companies' wireless assets.�?http://www.att.com

VimpelCom Completes USD 1 Billion Financing

VimpelCom completed a committed revolving credit facility of approximately USD 500 million for VimpelCom Amsterdam B.V. and a separate committed revolving credit facility of approximately USD 475 million for OJSC Vimpel-Communications ("OJSC VimpelCom").
http://www.vimpelcom.com

Motorola Mobility Signs Licensing Deal with VTech

Motorola Mobility has expanded its business relationship with VTech Telecommunications Ltd. regarding patent licensing, trademark licensing and technology licensing. Motorola Mobility and VTech have updated the companies' existing intellectual property licensing arrangement covering Motorola Mobility's Wi-Fi, video and cordless phone patent portfolios. The terms of the agreement are confidential.
http://www.motorola.com

ip.access Secures $15 Million for Small Cells

ip.access, a privately-held company based in Cambridge, UK, raised $15 million in new funding from its current investors and from a major new backer.


ip.access is the leading supplier of picocells. Its nanoGSM and nano3G picocell solutions provide 2G and 3G coverage and capacity for offices, shops and (using satellite backhaul) passenger aircraft, ships and remote rural areas. nanoGSM is currently deployed in live installations in more than 50 networks around the world. The company has recently outlined its vision for femtocells and picocells in private and public consumer, small office and enterprise applications, and is actively expanding its product portfolio to give operators the widest possible choice of small cell solutions.


The company’s existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Cisco, Intel Capital, Qualcomm, Rothschild & Cie Gestion, Scottish Equity Partners and TE Connectivity all participated in the funding and re-affirmed their commitment to the small cell market. http://www.ipaccess.com

ADTRAN to Acquire Nokia Siemens Networks Fixed Line Broadband Access Business

ADTRAN will acquire Nokia Siemens Networks' fixed line Broadband Access business (BBA), and associated professional services and network management solutions, for an undisclosed sum. Approximately 400 people, including engineering, R&D, sales and professional services employees, are expected to transfer to ADTRAN globally. ADTRAN expects the acquired business will be neutral to diluted earnings per share for the first full year and accretive thereafter.


The BBA product set includes IP DSLAMs designed for the international market as well as next generation optical access. The biggest customer is Deutsche Telekom and others include Bezeq, Sunrise Telecom, etc.


The agreement also includes provisions which would allow ADTRAN solutions to be incorporated by Nokia Siemens Networks into its customer propositions, broadening ADTRAN’s business opportunities.


ADTRAN said the deal will accelerate its sales outside of the U.S. Revenues from the acquired business are expected to be in the range of $140-180 million for the first full year following closure of the deal. The deal is expected to close in April 2012. Some manufacturing is likely to shift from Germany to the U.S.


"Nokia Siemens Networks’ long standing customer relationships, combined with ADTRAN’s long term focus and financial strength, make this a very favorable outcome for customers, employees and shareholders. With this planned acquisition, ADTRAN will combine its success with the strength of Nokia Siemens Networks' Broadband Access business to deliver a full portfolio of solutions to meet customer needs on a global scale," said ADTRAN CEO Tom Stanton.


"We believe that this planned divestment would provide our existing fixed broadband access customers with a continuous high-quality service from a company focused on their needs," said Marc Rouanne, head of Mobile Broadband at Nokia Siemens Networks. "The planned sale is in line with our new strategy to increase our focus on the mobile broadband and services market." http://www.adtran.com http://www.nsn.com

  • Nokia Siemens Networks has announced the sale of two groups, so far, as part of its strategic restructuring:


    NewNet Communication Technologies, LLC, a Skyview Capital, LLC portfolio company, will acquire NSN's WiMAX business for an undisclosed sum. This business unit was originally part of the Motorola Solutions' assets that Nokia Siemens Networks acquired earlier this year. The deal includes he complete WiMAX product portfolio, the related employees and assets, as well as active customer and supplier contracts. Approximately 300 Nokia Siemens Networks employees would transfer to NewNet. Many of these employees are based in suburban Chicago, USA and Hangzhou, China.


    DragonWave will acquire NSN's microwave transport business in a transaction potentially worth up to EUR 110 million. The deal provides DragonWave with an existing microwave transport business serving many top carriers worldwide, a more extensive product portfolio, an on-going agreement under which its will become the preferred, strategic supplier to Nokia Siemens Networks of packet microwave and related products, and joint R&D work with NSN.

  • Earlier this year, NS outlined plans to introduce a Next Generation Optical Access (NGOA) technology that uses a single optical fiber to bring broadband to up to 1000 homes at speeds of 1 Gbps per household, for both uploading and downloading at distances of up to 100 km from the central exchange. The system is expected to leverage Ultradense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (UDWDM) to split the optical signal at the OLT into much finer chunks of spectrum. The UDWDM approach reduces the backhaul fiber count and creates a PON-like topology. Nokia Siemens Networks said it is working in conjunction with the Open Lambda Initiative (OLI) to push for open standards.

SandForce Develops SSD Processor for Clouds

SandForce introduced an SSD Processor optimized for cloud computing environments. The SF-2481 SSD Processor features a number of innovations including increasing the endurance of SSDs built with standard MLC flash by incorporating nearly twice the normal error correction strength. SandForce also adds Predictive Failure Analysis capabilities including a new Media Health Test to ensure the highest reliability over the life of the storage solution. The specs include balanced sequential read and write speeds of up to 500 Megabytes/sec and balanced random read and write speeds of up to 60,000 I/Os per second.

http://www.sandforce.com

  • In October, LSI agreed to acquire SandForce, a start-up based in Milpitas, California, for $322 million in cash, net of cash assumed, and assume approximately $48 million of unvested stock options and restricted shares held by SandForce employees.


    SandForce is a leading provider of flash storage processors for enterprise and client flash solutions and solid state drives (SSDs). Flash storage processors provide the intelligence required to deliver the performance and low-latency benefits of flash storage in enterprise and client applications. With market-proven, differentiated DuraClass™ technology, SandForce flash storage processors improve the reliability, endurance and power efficiency of flash-based storage solutions.

SOASTA Raises $12 Million for Cloud-based Testing

SOASTA, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, raised $12 million for its cloud-based performance testing.


SOASTA’s CloudTest Platform is designed for testing the performance of web and mobile applications at scale. The platform leverages the resources of the cloud for load and performance testing. It simulates traffic hitting a website or application from outside or inside the firewall, testing both lab and production environments.


The round was led by The Entrepreneurs’ Fund, with participation from prior investors Canaan Partners, Formative Ventures, and Pelion Venture Partners.


http://www.soasta.com

ZTE Wins 50% of China Telecom's Metro and Aggregation Project

ZTE confirmed that it has won 50 percent of China Telecom’s 2011 Comprehensive Metro Aggregation and Access Network Project, which will aggregate traffic from CDMA base stations, deliver customer services and provide softswitching in multiple cities. ZTE will build 6 local networks in six core cities: Guangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Shanghai, Quanzhou and Wenzhou. Financial terms were not disclosed.


ZTE is supplying IP RAN (IP/MPLS) solutions, which are based on the company’s ZXCTN 9000/6000 series products.


ZTE noted that it also won three consecutive contracts with China Mobile to supply PTN solutions based on its ZXCTN 9000/6000 series products.
http://www.zte.com.cn

Sea Fibre Networks to Build CeltixConnect Cable Linking Ireland-UK

Sea Fibre Networks is commencing construction of a new CeltixConnect linking Ireland and UK. The company said its $15 million project is the first new fiber along this route for the past eleven years,


By choosing the most direct route, the cable is expected to reduce latency. CeltixConnect will uniquely land directly in the heart of Dublin’s business district at East Point Business Park and the Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC), connecting from there to the T50, Dublin’s major metropolitan network that links key business districts, data centres and business parks.


Irish Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Mr. Pat Rabbitte T.D. said: "Ireland's continued success in attracting digital services foreign direct investment is dependent on its ability to deliver on the fundamentals of high capacity communications infrastructure - the most critical of which is a modern sub-sea cable capable of transporting content and data in and out of the country securely and at the highest speeds." http://www.seafibre.com/