Symantec Completes Sale of stake in Huawei Symantec Joint Venture

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...

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Turkcell Files US Lawsuit Against South Africa's MTN over Iran License

Turkcell filed a lawsuit against South Africa based MTN in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Turkcell complains that MTN breached rules of international law when it obtained a private GSM license in Iran, which Turkcell had initially secured. Turkcell alleges that MTN took action to scuttle the Turkcell position in Iran in order to gain that license. http://www.turkcell.com...

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Qualcomm Builds R&D Center in Singapore

Qualcomm is planning to build an Integrated Circuit (IC) Design and Engineering R&D center in Singapore. Qualcomm also will manage certain strategic business planning and development, sourcing, procurement and distribution, as well as other marketing and administrative functions, from Singapore for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, the company's chipset division. Qualcomm has operated a chipset distribution center in Singapore since 2000. The company has also operated a test development in Singapore since 2008. "Electronics is one of the largest...

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MediaTek Combo Chip Offers 802.11ac plus Bluetooth 4.0

MediaTek introduced an 802.11ac plus Bluetooth 4.0+HS combo chip designed for mobile consumer platforms. Specifically, the MediaTek MT7650 combines the latest IEEE 802.11ac technology, Bluetooth 4.0 LE functionality, and the company's Wi-Fi/Bluetooth coexistence algorithm onto a single die. The 802.11ac enables transmissions up to 433 Mbps. This highly integrated chip supports dual band 2.4/5GHz configuration with 80 MHz channel bandwidth, 256-QAM modulation scheme for increased data transfer efficiency, receive beam forming for extended range...

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UC San Diego and TowerJazz Develop Wafer-Sized Phased Array with 16 Antennas

The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and TowerJazz have demonstrated the first wafer-scale phased array with 16 different antenna elements operating at 110 GHz frequency range. By integrating the antennas on-chip, the design eliminates the need for expensive and lossy transitions and distribution network between the phased array and the off-chip elements. The wafer-scale SiGe BiCMOS chip is 6.5x6.0mm and combines the 110 GHz source, amplifiers, distribution network, phase shifters and high-efficiency on-chip antennas. The wafer-scale...

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Fujitsu Semiconductor Intros LTE FDD TDD Transceiver

Fujitsu Semiconductor Wireless introduced an LTE FDD and TDD optimized transceiver. The Fujitsu design eliminates the need for external low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and inter-stage surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters.The new device (MB86L13A), which covers the frequency spectrum from 700 to 2700 MHz, offers multiple transmit, receive and diversity ports. The device offers the flexibility to map ports and bands for roaming requirements. The transceiver uses an open standard MIPI DigRF 4G v1.1Rev0.06 interface to the baseband. The device supports...

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Bharti Airtel Launches in Rwanda -- Greenfield Net Built in 83 Days

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....

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Global Payments Hit by Breach, Visa Outage

Global Payments Inc., a leading credit card processor, reported an unauthorized breach of its processing systems potentially impacting 1.5 million credit card numbers in North America. Card data may have been compromised. The company said it believes the problem has been contained.Visa has de-listed Global Payments as a compliant credit card processor. Separately, in what appears to be an unrelated incident on Sunday, Visa was struck by an outage in the United States that blocked credit card purchases for some for about 45 minutes. http://www.globalpaymentsinc.com...

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Telstra Launches Samsung GALAXY S II 4G LTE

Telstra launched its second LTE smartphone - the Samsung GALAXY S II 4G.SII 4G features a larger WVGA (800×480) SuperAMOLED Plus screen measuring in at 4.5-inches. Compared with the Galaxy SII it also has a more powerful 1.5GHz dual core processor onboard to support fast web browsing and easy switching between multiple apps, games and videos. It comes with an NFC chip built in for NFC tag reading.Multimedia functions include an 8 megapixel camera...

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Analog Devices Acquires Multigig for High-Speed Clocking

Analog Devices has acquired Multigig, a small, privately-held company specializing in high-performance clocking technology. Financial terms were not disclosed. Multigig, which is based in San Jose, California, provides next generation clock, RF synthesizer and timing ICs for the wired and wireless communications markets. Its clock synthesizer ICs break the 100 femtosecond jitter barrier. Multigig said its CMOS VCO for RF applications offer excellent...

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Orange Business Wins 5-year, $100 million Outsourcing Contract

Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has awarded a five-year, over $100 million outsourcing contract renewal to Orange Business Services. Orange provides most of JTI’s worldwide telecom infrastructure and services in more than 50 countries. http://www.orange....

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Orange Business Services Updates Livebox Pro

Orange Business Services introduced its new Livebox Pro gateway. Key features and capabilities include:It connects all devices to ADSL, VDSL and Gigabit Ethernet Fibre Optic. It features the latest-generation Ikanos processor.Business-class network security to cope with attacks and intrusions.Improved resistance from interference and electrical storms. A colour control screen for a more user-friendly display of diagnostic and settings information....

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Australia's NBN Announces its 3-Year Rollout Plan

Australia's NBN Co published detailed neighbourhood rollout maps for its nationwide fibre deployment. Over the next three years, construction of the fibre optic component of the network will be underway or completed in areas containing 3.5 million premises in 1500 communities in every state and territory in Australia – up to one third of the nation’s homes and businesses. An online database allows consumers to find rollout plans for their postcode....

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Cisco Reinforces Commitment to Skolkovo, Russia

Cisco advanced its plans to establish a physical R&D presence in the Skolkovo Technopolis, a planned high technology business area to be built near Moscow, Russia. Cisco recently received formal Skolkovo participant status, which enables the company to begin engineering activities and formally establish a physical presence. Cisco aims to focus R&D in Skolkovo on high-impact areas of the business, including video and internal start-ups,...

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Digicel to Build New Cable to Haiti

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. The earthquake in January 2010 damaged or destroyed much of Haiti’s communications infrastructure – including the country’s only other subsea cable link which, to date, has not been sufficiently reactivated and secured against risk of impact from future seismic events. Digicel Group...

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RIM's Sales Fall 25% YoY, New CEO Appointed

Research in Motion (RIM) posted quarterly revenue of $4.2 billion, down 19% from $5.2 billion in the previous quarter and down 25% from $5.6 billion in the same quarter of fiscal 2011. There was a net loss for the quarter of $125 million, or $0.24 per share diluted, compared with GAAP net income of $265 million, or $0.51 per share diluted, in the prior quarter and GAAP net income of $934 million, or $1.78 per share diluted, in the same quarter of fiscal 2011. The company named Thorsten Heins as President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Heins...

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European Union Sets Mobile Data Roaming Caps

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....

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Verizon Wireless Prices LTE Mi-Fi at $50

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. The Jetpack, which was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2012, was developed by Novatel Wireless. Up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices can be served simultaneously by the LTE connection. In addition to a multicolor LED status indicator, the Jetpack...

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Sprint Offers CDMA Home Alarm Communicator

Sprint is partnering with Uplink, a provider of security alarm solutions, to offer a new Uplink CDMA Alarm Communicator powered by Sprint in the summer of 2012. The M2M solution uses the CDMA network for primary or back-up wireless alarm communications.http://www.sprint....

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Telebras Plans Brazil-Angola Cable

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. http://www.telebras.com...

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Xilinx Ships Virtex-7 for Next Gen Systems

Xilinx announced commercial shipments of its Virtex-7 X690T FPGA, which packs high-speed serial transceivers, highest system bandwidth, and market-optimized FPGA resources. Xilinx said its Virtex-7 X690T and X1140T FPGAs provide the greatest processing capacity and bandwidth per watt of any FPGA to implement advanced Packet Processing, FEC, Quality-of-Service, Switching, and Traffic Management algorithms as well as next generation EdgeQAM implementations."Xilinx...

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ECI Names First Apollo Optimized Multi-Layer Transport Customer

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.“By deploying this technology, the IEC will contribute to a marked...

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Cisco to Acquire Clear Access for TR-069 Tools

Cisco agreed to acquire ClearAccess, a privately-held company that provides TR-069-based software to service providers for the provisioning and management of residential and mobile devices. Financial terms were not disclosed.The acquisition includes ClearAccess' software business and talent. The hardware portion of ClearAccess' business, Smart RG Gateways, will continue forward as a separate company called SmartRG, Inc.ClearAccess offers the ClearVision...

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Deutsche Telekom Tests 4x4 MIMO LTE with Huawei

Deutsche Telekom, in collaboration with Huawei, has undertaken the world's first LTE 4×4 MIMO field trial, achieving download data rates of up to 250 Mbps. The 4×4 MIMO field trial utilized Huawei's SingleRAN LTE solution. Deutsche Telekom launched its LTE network in Cologne in June 2011 using the 1.8 GHz frequency band and Huawei's SingleRAN LTE as one solution. "This is a key milestone in the LTE industry." said Ying Weimin, president of GSM&UMTS&LTE...

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ZTE Posts 23% Revenue Growth in 2011, but Profits Decline 37%

ZTE reported 2011 revenue of RMB 86.25 billion, an increase of 23.4% compared to 2010. However, net profit fell to RMB 2.06 billion, down 36.6% from 2010’s result. Basic earnings per share were RMB 0.61."In 2011, equipment investments by the telecommunications industry varied by region across the globe,�? said ZTE Chairman Mr. Hou Weigui. "During the year, ZTE adjusted its product lines to continue to provide comprehensive integrated solutions to...

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NEC to Open Mobile Network Excellence Center in Chennai

NEC Corporation will establish a Mobile Network Excellence Center (NMEC) for the offshore development of mobile communication systems in Chennai, India. This is the first such development center that the NEC Group will establish in India. The center will design and develop hardware and software for the PASOLINK series of ultra-compact microwave communication systems, which are key products for mobile backhaul in the global market.http://www.nec.co...

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NEC Joins Cryptography for Mobile Project

NEC Corporation has joined a research project on anonymous authentication technologies for smartphones.The goal is to develop a method of enabling sophisticated payment and location-based services without the risk of violating user privacy. The research explores cryptography-based, anonymous authentication technology for verifying users and terminals with IDs that can be used to track user access and behavioral history. In order to address these issues, NEC is joining a research consortium along with France Telecom, Microsoft and other enterprises,...

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eircom to Enter Court Restructuring

The Eircom Group submitted an application to the High Court in Dublin to be placed in Irish examinership with the objective of placing the company’s balance sheet on a stable financial footing for the medium to long term, with reduced debt.Eircom said operations would continue as usual during the restructuring. All existing voice, broadband and data services provided to our residential, business, Government and corporate customers will continue....

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Lantiq Samples ADSL2/2+ Gateway System-on-Chip

Lantiq unveiled its XWAY ARX300 device family for new ADSL2/2+ Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) designs. Four versions will be offered for different broadband gateway models. Key features include:Complete ADSL PHY on-chip, including line driver circuitry, compliant with ITU-T G.992 for 28 Mbps downstream and 2.7 Mbps upstream data rates supporting physical layer features such as erasure decoding and retransmission (G.998.4), directly benefiting...

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Google Data Centers Measure 2011 PUE at 1.14

Google announced that its trailing 12-month average PUE (power usage effectiveness) was approximately 1.14 -- an improvement from 1.16 in 2010. PUE is a ratio of the total power used to run a data center to the amount used to power the servers.Google said its calculation includes everything that contributes to energy consumption in its data center -- not just power for servers and cooling systems. It also includes heating/cooling for the office, system inefficiencies like transformer, cable and UPS losses and generator parasitic energy draw....

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Comcast Business Launches Cloud-based Unified Communications

Comcast Business introducing a new cloud-based voice and unified communications service aimed at small and medium-sized businesses of up to 250 users.The new Comcast Business VoiceEdge, which is delivered over either the company's HFC or fiber plants, is a hosted service that eliminates the need for a PBX on premise and delivers HD-quality voice with advanced features. Comcast is using the Broadsoft platform to enable all switching capabilities...

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ADTRAN Adds Session Border Control Capability to Enterprise Gateways

ADTRAN has added Session Border Control (SBC) software functionality to its NetVanta 3430 and 6000 series, as well as Total Access 900e IP Business Gateways. The SBC capability gives service providers a new demarcation device to handle normalization, security and monitoring for their SIP trunking services. Specifically, the NetVanta and Total Access devices with the SBC features will handle NAT/firewall traversal, VoIP protocol interworking, transcoding,...

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Ciena Teams with SafeNet on Low-latency Ethernet Link Encryption

Ciena and SafeNet agreed to jointly sell high-speed, low-latency Ethernet link encryption services for commercial and government networks. Ciena’s Carrier Ethernet and Packet-Optical platforms, and SafeNet’s Ethernet Encryptor solutions, have been extensively tested for interoperability and provide assured, optimized and secure Layer 2 encryption services at speeds of up to 10 Gbps. http://www.ciena....

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Vodafone Hungary Deploys Tellabs for Mobile Backhaul

Vodafone Hungary has selected to upgrade its mobile backhaul network to IP/Ethernet. The cornerstone of the upgraded network is the new Tellabs 8609 Access Switch, which can be deployed in various network locations, enabling HSPA and LTE-enabled networks. Previously, Vodafone Hungary had deployed the Tellabs 8600 Managed Edge System and the Tellabs 8000 Intelligent Network Manager into its mobile backhaul network in 2005. http://www.tellabs.com http://www.vodafone....

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TIM Brasil Selects Amdocs' Customer Experience System

TIM Brasil, the second largest mobile service provider in Brazil, has selected the Amdocs CES (Customer Experience Systems) product portfolio and a range of Amdocs consulting, integration and implementation services for its new TIM Fiber residential broadband service. Specifically, Amdocs will provide the business support systems (BSS) and operational support systems (OSS) required to deliver TIM Fiber broadband services.TIM's new broadband offering...

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NTIA Spectrum Report Proposes Sharing 1755-1850 MHz Band

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued its long-awaited report on reallocating spectrum currently occupied by the federal government for commercial purposes.The "Assessment of the Viability of Accommodating Wireless Broadband in the 1755 – 1850 MHz Band" finds that 95 megahertz (MHz) of prime spectrum could be repurposed for wireless broadband use. Over 20 federal agencies currently hold more than 3,100 individual...

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GreenTouch Achieves Major Gains in Energy Efficiency for Optical Access

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.In a webcast, researchers from Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs, France's...

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Vantage Data Centers Awarded LEED Platinum Certification

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...

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Telstra International Deploys Infinera's 40 Gbps DTN to Undersea Cable

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.Infinera’s DTN platform enables service providers to upgrade existing submarine cables with coherent 40 Gbps waves supporting FlexCoherent. The Infinera solution is upgradable in the future to 100 Gbps FlexCoherent,...

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ADTRAN Selected for Broadband Stimulus Project in Missouri

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. http://www.adtran.com http://www.socket.netLast year, Socket was awarded $23.7 million by...

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Orange Supplies 132-Site IP VPN for Aggreko

Orange Business Services announced a 36-month contract extension and renewal with Aggreko, the world leader in the provision of temporary power and temperature control services. Orange is providing managed IP VPN services to 132 sites in 31 countries, particularly in emerging markets – including nine South American countries, as well as China and India. Orange supports Aggreko’s core business applications, including ERP, Business Intelligence, financial and billing systems as well as new and planned telephony services such as video conferencing...

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IEEE Enhances 802.22 White spaces Spec

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...

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MTN Nigeria Picks ZTE to Build 2G/3G Networks

ZTE announced a contract with the MTN Nigeria to build GSM/UMTS networks in Nigeria. The deployment covers two of the country’s most economically developed regions (including 8 states) by providing its ZTE's SDR-based Uni-RAN solution. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.zte.com...

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Hong Kong's PCCW Implements Huawei's 3GPP R8 Signaling Optimization

Hong Kong's PCCW mobile has adopted Huawei's 3GPP-Release-8 (3GPP-R8)-based smartphone signaling optimization solution to increase the performance of its UMTS network. The preponderance of smartphones with "heartbeat" applications, which frequently transmit small data packets, along with smartphones' frequent changes from active to idle mode create high signaling traffic. A joint effort between Huawei and PCCW mobile during the past few months...

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BT Tests Cable Tracking Technology to Deter Thieves

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. RABIT (Rapid Assessment Bt Incident Tracker), which was trialled in December 2011, alerts BT’s Security Control Centre and Police response teams when a cut is detected. The system has already forced cable thieves to flee the scene of the crime in Essex. BT noted...

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Level 3 Provides Low-Latency for FXCM Currency Trading

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,...

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AT&T Offers Nokia Lumia 900 LTE SmartPhone for $99 + Contract

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).The Nokia Lumia 900 boasts a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display and is powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8055 + MDM9200. It runs Windows Phone Release 7.5 – Mango Commercial Release 2 (Mango + LTE). Its 8 megapixel camera includes Nokia's exclusive Carl Zeiss...

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Oclaro and Opnext Merger Brings Great Consolidation to Optical Components

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 data centers, as well as industrial and consumer laser diodes market. The merger brings trans formative consolidation to the optical components market. The deal is structured as a stock-for-stock tax-free exchange at fixed exchange...

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Australia's NBN Awards A$300 Million for Tasmanian Construction

Visionstream Australia, part of the Leighton Holdings Limited group of companies, has been awarded a contract valued at up to A$300 million over four years by Australia's National Broadband Network. Under the contract, Visionstream will replace copper telephone lines with fibre optic lines in cities, towns and suburbs covering around 200,000 homes and businesses across Tasmania. The contract is expected to see the creation of up to 800 new jobs...

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Australia's NBN Bars Huawei

Australia’s National Broadband Network reportedly has barred Huawei Technologies from bidding on elements of the project on national security grounds. The Australian and other news sources reported cited government concerns about cyber attacks emanating from the China. http://www.nbnco.com...

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Nokia Siemens Networks Announces Agreement with Union

Nokia Siemens Networks announced an agreement with IG Metall Trade Union under which the company would remain a major employer in Munich. The agreement, proposed by IG Metall, call for approximately 2,000 jobs to remain in Munich, while the St.-Martin-Strasse site, which currently hosts 3,600 employees, would be closed as initially planned.Nokia Siemens Networks is prepared to accept the IG Metall proposal if a significant majority of the approximately...

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CenturyLink to Adopt New Operating Group Structure

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...

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FCC and ISPs Adopt Three Cyber Security Recommendations

The FCC and the nation's largest ISPs agreed to voluntarily adopt recommendations that address three top cyber-security concerns: attacks on the Domain Name System (DNS), and Internet route hijacking.The FCC's Communications, Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), which unanimously approved the recommendations, includes AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile, Verizon, among others.Specifically,...

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EXFO Cites Momentum for Its FTB-880 NetBlazer

EXFO announced today that since the launch of the FTB-880 NetBlazer eight months ago, 10 of the world's 15 largest operators have chosen this modular multiservice tester for their deployments. The flagship FTB-880 is a portable multiservice test module designed for all DSn/PDH, SONET/SDH and Ethernet packet-based services transmitted at various rates, from low speeds up to 10G. http://www.exfo....

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NTT DOCOMO Tops 2 Million LTE Subscribers

NTT DOCOMO has passed the 2 million subscriber milestone for its Xi (pronounced "crossy") LTE mobile service. Xi launched on December 24, 2010 and reached one million subscribers one year later on December 25, 2011. Since then, subscriptions have doubled to two million in just three months, propelled by the introduction of the first Xi-compatible smartphones in November 2011.In the coming months, DOCOMO plans to introduce additional Xi-compatible...

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AT&T Links T-Mobile USA Layoffs to Failed Merger Bid

AT&T issued a statement linking T-Mobile USA's recent decision to close seven call centers to the regulatory policy that blocked its proposed acquisition of the carrier.“Yesterday, T-Mobile made the sad announcement that it would be closing seven call centers, laying off thousands of workers, and that more layoff announcements may follow. Normally, we’d not comment on something like this. But I feel this is an exception for one big reason– only a few months ago AT&T promised to preserve these very same call centers and jobs if our merger...

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Orange Charts its 4G Rollout

Orange outlined plans to rollout LTE in its home market of France. An upgrade to HSPA+ has been undertaken in recent months.In September 2011, ARCEP, the office telecoms regulator in France, awarded LTE licences to four operators to use the 2.6 GHz frequency band. Orange France won a duplex frequency block of 20 MHz, for which the company bid the sum of €287,118,501. The company also holds 800 MHz spectrum. Orange said this position will enable...

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Video: Future, Flexible Hybrid Wireless/Optical Networks

The wireless and optical domains are being driven closer together, especially as cell sizes get smaller and coordinated transmission techniques become possible. In this interview, Dr. Leonid Kazovsky, Professor (Research) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, discusses future network architecture and the integration between optical and wireless technology. Some key topics covered in this interview: 0:00 Work underway on hybrid wireless/optical architecture at Stanford's Photonics and Networking Research Laboratory 4:00 Coordinated...

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China Unicom Outpaces its Peers in 2011

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...

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Symantec Acquires Nukona for BYOD Management

Symantec agreed to acquire Nukona, a privately-held provider of mobile application management (MAM), for an undisclosed sum. Nukona, which is based in Solana Beach, California, offers an enterprise-grade mobile management solution with a consumer-like app store for employees. The platform provides management, control and security capabilities to support data loss prevention and compliance on both personal and corporate devices.Symantec said the...

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Ericsson Boosts Stake in LG-Ericsson to 75%

Ericsson has boosted its stake in LG-Ericsson from 50% to 75%. LG-Ericsson is a joint venture between LG Electronics and Ericsson in which Ericsson acquired Nortel's part of the company in July 2010. The company provides customized solutions for operators and enterprises with a portfolio of mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband, voice and data network solutions for enterprises. http://www.ericsson....

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SOFTBANK MOBILE Deploys Ericsson for 900MHz Evolved HSPA

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....

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Tata Global Network Completes Eurasia Cable

A new Tata Global Network – Eurasia (TGN-EA) cable has been commercially activated. The 9,280 km TGN-EA system, which links Europe and India, via Egypt and the Mediterranean, offer RTD latency of around 92 msec. Customer speeds are available from 2 Mbps to 10 Gbps. The round-the-world ring also offers city-to-city connections in contrast to more traditional networks which only link cable landing stations. The completion of the final TGN-EA link...

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NEC to Acquire Convergys' BSS for $449 Million

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.The acquisition will build on NEC's NetCracker division, a supplier of Operations Support Systems (OSS), which NEC acquired in 2008. Following...

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Verizon: Hacktivists and Cyber-Criminals Run Amok

In 2011, the world experienced remarkable civil and cultural uprisings (Arab Spring, Occupy movement, etc) as well as rising hacktivism in the online world. Verizon's newly released "2012 Data Breach Investigations report traces the sharp rise in hactivism as a major threat to governments and businesses, as well as increasingly sophisticated attacks by mainline cybercriminals who continue to refine their methods in penetrating specific economic...

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Telstra Offers Mobile Wi-Fi 4G Hotspot

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.Telstra Mobile Wi-Fi 4G in 4G coverage areas (capital city CBDs, associated airports and more than 80 regional and metropolitan locations) promises typical download speeds ranging from 2Mbps to...

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Blue Jeans Debuts its "MCU-Killer in the Cloud"

Blue Jeans Network, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, announced new pricing plans aimed at eliminating traditional on-premise bridging hardware (commonly known as multipoint control units, or MCUs). Blue Jeans' new offering allows customers to license a variable number of concurrent connections (known as “virtual ports�?) from its cloud.Blue Jeans offers video conferencing interoperability with room-based systems, desktops, and mobile...

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