China Mobile Tops 726 Million Mobile Lines as ARPU Falls

As of 31-March-2013, China Mobile was serving 726.31 million customers, up by about 16 million customers over the past three months.  However, ARPU fell to RMB 63 (US$10.19) compared to RMB 71 during the preceding quarter. The number of 3G customers reached 114 million. The carrier said it continues to observe and increasing trend of "one customer with multiple SIM cards."   The company reported Q1 2013 revenue of RMB134.7 billion (US$21.6...

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Xtera Introduces Next Gen Optical Repeater for Undersea Cables

Xtera Communications introduced a next-generation optical repeater for extending high-capacity reach on subsea cable systems. Xtera is leveraging a modular optical design to allow the amplifiers to be tailored to different system requirements, with variants covering both short regional systems and very long transoceanic systems.  One variant offers an optical bandwidth extending well beyond the normal EDFA C-band. Xtera said its new repeater...

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CommScope Simplifies Distributed Antenna System (DAS)

CommScope introduced a version of its ION platform aimed at reducing the complexity out of integrating a distributed antenna system (DAS) into a macro wireless network. The new ION-U guides the design, planning, installation, setup, commissioning and optimization of a DAS. The platform offers built-in monitoring for measuring network quality, monitoring interference and passive intermodulation (PIM) and conducting detailed uplink/downlink spectrum...

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GlobeNet Boosts Bermuda Undersea Cable

GlobeNet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oi (formerly Brasil Telecom), completed construction on its new high capacity subsea cable system (Segment 5), which connects Bermuda to New Jersey.  The new subsea cable system has a total design capacity of 30 Tbps.  It is designed to support 150 wavelengths per fiber-pair at 100 Gbps per wavelength. As an integral part of GlobeNet’s dual-ring subsea cable system, Segment 5 has the largest cross-sectional...

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Ixia Upgrades its Anue Net Tool Optimizer for 100GbE

Ixia introduced an upgraded version of its Anue Net Tool Optimizer for providing network visibility into physical and virtual networks. The upgrade enables large enterprises and mobile carriers to monitor the increasing number of 100GbE network ports with existing 1, 10 and 40GbE monitoring tools.   Up to four of the new 100GbE interface modules can be supported on one high-density Anue NTO device, or may be combined with 1, 10 or 40GbE...

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OFS Debuts Single-Mode Fiber for 100G with 12,000km Reach

OFS introduced a new single-mode fiber designed for 100 Gbps coherent transport in submarine systems for distances up to 12,000 km. The new TeraWave ULA Ocean Fiber boasts the industry’s largest effective area, excellent cabling performance, and significantly reduced attenuation for reliable coherent transmission at 100 Gbps over trans-oceanic distances. OFS said its fiber’s very large effective area (153 µm2) reduces nonlinearities, enabling the...

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NASA Launches Lowest Cost PhoneSats

NASA has successfully launched a trio of "PhoneSats" to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone can be used as the main flight avionics of a capable, yet very inexpensive, satellite. NASA's PhoneSats are currently in orbit and successfully transmitting information about their health to multiple ground stations on Earth.  The satellites, which are expected to remain in orbit for as long as two weeks, are being monitored by a team at...

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