Symantec completed the previously announced sale of its 49 percent stake in Huawei Symantec Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Symantec) to Huawei for USD $530 million. The completion of the sale liquidates Symantec’s ownership interest in the joint venture and gives Huawei sole proprietorship over all elements of the joint venture entity.
Huawei Symantec was a Hong Kong-based joint venture established by Huawei and Symantec in 2008.
Symantec said its decision to sell its stake in the joint venture in November 2011 as made after several rounds of discussion and negotiations over the future of the joint venture. The company also noted that it achieved a "good return on its investment" and that it remains committed to China, where its own business has grown 46 percent over the last three fiscal years.
http://www.symantec.com
Huawei Symantec was a Hong Kong-based joint venture established by Huawei and Symantec in 2008.
Symantec said its decision to sell its stake in the joint venture in November 2011 as made after several rounds of discussion and negotiations over the future of the joint venture. The company also noted that it achieved a "good return on its investment" and that it remains committed to China, where its own business has grown 46 percent over the last three fiscal years.
http://www.symantec.com
India's Bharti Airtel has launched operations in its 17th African country -- Rwanda. Airtel has already said that it will invest over USD 100 million in its operations over the next three years and generate direct and indirect employment opportunities. Mobile penetration in the country was at 38.4 per cent as of July 2011. Airtel was awarded the license by the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) last year to operate 2G and 3G GSM mobile services. 
Orange Business Services introduced its new Livebox Pro gateway. Key features and capabilities include:
Australia's NBN Co published detailed neighbourhood rollout maps for its nationwide fibre deployment.
Digicel, in conjunction with Columbus Networks, announced a US$16m 200km undersea cable to Haiti. Alcatel-Lucent has been named technology supplier for the project.
Tariffs for international mobile data roaming across the European Union will drop significantly in the next few years under a tentative deal reached this week by Members of the European Parliament and the Danish Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Currently, mobile data roaming services charged to consumers do not have a price ceiling, and the existing legislation capping roaming charges for phone calls, SMS messaging expires on 30 June 2012. 
Verizon Wireless will begin selling its Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot- MiFi 4620L starting April 12 for $49.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. 
Brazil and Angola announced plans for the joint construction of a 6,000km submarine cable across the Atlantic linking Fortaleza and Luanda. Survey work began in November 2011. Telebras is playing a key role. 
The Israeli Electric Corporation (IEC) has selected ECI Telecom's new Apollo family of Optimized Multi-Layer Transport (OMLT) platforms, part of ECI’s 1Net packet-optical transport solutions, for its network connectivity needs. As part of this deployment, the IEC ran a successful pilot of the platform’s 100G capabilities. This marks ECI's first announced customer for the Apollo OMLT.
The GreenTouch Consortium, a global research initiative dedicated to dramatically improving network energy efficiency, introduced a major breakthrough for optical access -- Bit-Interleaved Passive Optical Network (Bi-PON) technology. GreenTouch estimates Bi-PON ultimately could deliver power reduction of 30 times over current technologies while improving performance and reducing cost.
Vantage Data Centers has been awarded LEED Platinum certification for its second Santa Clara data center (V2). LEED certification is offered by U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) as a tool aimed at achieving high performance design and construction of buildings in areas such as human and environmental health. This includes sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. LEED Platinum certification is the highest tier of LEED certification offered by USGBC.
Telstra International has deployed Infinera’s 40 Gbps DTN solution for its optical subsea network in Asia. The deployment spans approximately 9,000 kilometers between Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Socket Telecom, a Missouri-based CLEC and Internet provider with the largest service area in the state, has deployed ADTRAN's Total Access 5000 broadband platform for its FTTH Broadband Stimulus project. Socket Telecom is utilizing the Total Access system to deploy high speed data services, voice and video to several underserved markets in central Missouri. 
The IEEE P802.22b Amendment Project for Enhanced Broadband Services and Monitoring Applications has officially been approved. The new amendment enhances the IEEE 802.22-2011 standard to accommodate a wide variety of applications using cognitive radio technology in Television White Spaces (TVWS). These applications include long range and regional area smart grid, critical infrastructure monitoring, triple play services like providing voice, video and data, backhaul for broadband access, offloading cellular telephony traffic, regional area public safety and homeland security networks, emergency broadband services, monitoring rain forests, monitoring livestock, and border protection etc.
In an effort to deter copper theft, BT has been testing a tracking technology that can detect when a cable has been cut or damaged, accurately pin-pointing an incident to a road or street. 
http://www.btplc.com
Level 3 Communications will deliver bandwidth connectivity to FXCM, a global online provider of foreign exchange trading and related services. Level 3 said it was selected to optimize the security, reliability and performance of FXCM's trading applications. Level 3's Ethernet private line (EPL) service will interconnect FXCM's headquarters in New York with remote data centers to ensure efficient, redundant access to its trading applications. Additionally, FXCM will use Level 3's MPLS service for global data center connectivity and high speed Internet protocol (HSIP) service to improve online efficiency for its global customer base. 
AT&T will begin offering the Nokia Lumia 900 LTE Windows Phone on April 8 for $99.99 with a new 2-yr wireless agreement with voice (min $39.99/mo) and min monthly data plan ($20/mo).
Oclaro and Opnext agreed to a merger, creating a leader in key components for core optical networking for long-haul, regional and metro DWDM, and positioned to become a leader in data communications for enterprises and 
CenturyLink announced a corporate restructuring under which it will consolidate its organizations focused on its business and government customer segments into two organizations. National and international Business Markets Group (BMG) customers, all Savvis customers and federal government customers will now be served by the Enterprise Markets Group (EMG). In-region large business customers and state and local government customers will be served by the existing Regional Markets Group (RMG). The Wholesale Markets Group (WMG) will remain in its current form. 
http://www.ntt.co.jp
Orange outlined plans to rollout LTE in its home market of France. An upgrade to HSPA+ has been undertaken in recent months.
Led by rapid adoption of 3G and continued strong growth in fixed-line broadband, China Unicom reported 2011 annual revenue of RMB209.15 billion (US$33.17 billion), an increase of 22.2% compared with last year. Service revenue was RMB185.87 billion, an increase of 13.4% compared with last year. EBITDA was RMB63.40 billion, an increase of 6.7% compared with last year. Net profit was RMB4.21 billion, an increase of 20.0% compared with last year. Basic earnings per share was RMB0.179 (including deferred fixed-line upfront connection fee). 
Japan's SOFTBANK MOBILE has selected Ericsson to deploy an Evolved HSPA radio access network for recently allocated spectrum in the 900MHz band. The deployment will use Ericsson's latest RBS 6000 multi-standard radio base stations in Japan's biggest cities: Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Under the contract, Ericsson will also be responsible for a range of professional services such as network design, consulting systems integration and network deployment. Financial terms were not disclosed. 
NEC agreed to acquire Convergys' Information Management (IM) business, which supplies Business Support Systems (BSS) to service providers, for US$449 million. The deal covers all of IM's business, including Smart Suite Products, across different verticals including communications, utilities and logistics.
In 2011, the world experienced remarkable civil and cultural uprisings (Arab Spring, Occupy movement, etc) as well as rising hacktivism in the online world. 
Telstra introduced a battery-powered Mobile Wi-Fi that runs on its LTE network (now available to business customers). Up to five Wi-Fi devices can be connected simultaneously to the device. Telstra collaborated with Sierra Wireless to develop the device.
