Mike Quigley Steps Down as Head of Australia's NBN

Mike Quigley is stepping down as CEO of Australia's National Broadband Network. Quigley said he will continue to serve as CEO until the Board appoints a successor.  He plans to retire from corporate life after four years leading NBNCo. "My job was to lay the foundations for the NBN for the next 30 years. That job is largely complete. NBN Co is now a well-established wholesale telecommunications company with a nationwide workforce, delivery...

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Oceus Floats LTE Base Station in High-Altitude Balloon

Oceus Networks, a start-up based in Reston, Virginia, demonstrated the deployment of an LTE base station in a high-altitude balloon.  The idea to create an easily deployable emergency network that could cover a wide geographic area within the first 72 hours of a natural disaster. Last week, Oceus and Space Data launched an airborne 4G LTE cellular network near Boulder, Colorado.  The payload traveled nearly 200 miles and reached an altitude...

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IEEE Targets Super-Efficiency, Super-Dense WLANs

A new IEEE 802.11 study group has been set up to define the scope of a new standard for high-efficiency, high-performance wireless local area networks(WLANs). The new IEEE 802.11 High Efficiency WLAN (HEW) Study Group will consider use cases, including dense network environments with large numbers of access points and stations. IEEE said it has received interest from more than 300 individuals from equipment and silicon suppliers, service providers,...

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Sprint Extends its Unlimited Plans

One day after its acquisition by Softbank, Sprint launched an "Unlimited Guarantee" initiative that offers unlimited talk (calls to any wireline or mobile phone), text and data while on the Sprint network, for the life of the line of service. This guarantee is applicable to both new and existing customers who sign up for Sprint’s new Unlimited, My Way plan or My All-in plan. "Sprint continues to lead the industry in providing customers with simplicity...

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EMC to Acquire ScaleIO for Flash, Aveska for Identity Mgt

EMC agreed to acquire privately-held ScaleIO, which develops server-side storage software. Financial terms were not disclosed. ScaleIO creates a virtual pool of server-based storage by logically combining SSDs, PCIe Flash cards, HDDs—or any combination of these devices. It supports both virtualized and non-virtualized environments and scales from tens to thousands of servers.  ScaleIO is based in Santa Clara, California. EMC will combine ScaleIO's...

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UK Proposes Lower Wholesale Line Prices

Ofcom is proposing lower prices that Openreach, BT’s network access division, can charge other telecoms providers for some of its main wholesale services. Ofcom regulates these prices because of the significant market power that BT holds in this sector. The proposal covers wholesale charges for telephone and standard broadband services delivered to homes and businesses over BT’s copper network.  Ofcom said the new prices would be linked to...

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European Commission Conducts Antitrust Raids

The European Commission initiated unannounced inspections at the premises of a number of telecommunications companies, saying it has concerns that the companies may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant market position. Various news reports said the raids included Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Telefonica in response to a complaint by U.S.-based Cogent Communications. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-1...

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Ciena Supplies Packet-Optical in Philippines

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) has deployed Ciena’s 5410 Packet-Optical Reconfigurable Switch System (RSS) and OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane software across its global network. PLDT is building a global mesh that interconnects points of presence worldwide into a highly resilient, intelligent switching network. Ciena’s 5410 RSS will link PLDT’s global points of presence to provide efficient aggregation, grooming and...

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Talari Networks Appoints Kevin Gavin as CMO

Talari Networks appointed Kevin Gavin as Chief Marketing Officer. Gavin joins Talari from ShoreTel, where he was CMO since 2007. Talari Networks' solutions aggregate multiple diverse networks into a virtual WAN for improving reliability and application performance. The company is based in San Jose, California. http://www.talari.c...

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