Cisco Hits Revenue of $12.4 billion -- Flat Year over Year

Cisco reported quarterly revenue of $12.4 billion, net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis of $2.2 billion or $0.43 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $2.8 billion or $0.55 per share for the period ended July 26, 2014. The earnings came in slightly ahead of market expectations.  The company also announced plans to reallocate or trim some 6,000 jobs in the coming quarters.

"We are executing well in a tough environment and delivered our best non-GAAP earnings per share quarter in our history. I'm pleased with how we are transforming our company over the past several years and that journey continues," stated John Chambers, Cisco chairman and chief executive officer. "We are focused on growth, innovation and talent, especially in the areas of security, data center, software, cloud and internet of everything. Our strategy is sound, our financials are strong, and our market leadership is secure. We have the team in place to deliver and are uniquely positioned to help our customers solve their biggest business problems."

Some highlights from the quarterly conference call:

• FY’14 revenue amounted to $47.1 billion
• U.S. orders grew 5% y/y, UK grew 6% y/y, and Germany grew 16% y/y.  However, emerging markets were weak.
• Cisco cited strong traction for its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) initiative, saying it is now shipping its APIC and has over 60 paying customers.  The Nexus Nexus 9K is doing well -- customers tripled to more than 580 since end of Q3.
• Data Center revenue grew 30% y/y.  The Cisco UCS product line now has more than 36,500 customers and has recorded 18th consecutive quarters of market share gains.
• NCS 6000 and CRS-X continued to ramp…each product crossing $100M orders for FY1

http://investor.cisco.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=148280

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Global Routing Table Crosses 512,000 Entries

The global routing table has passed the milestone of 512,000 routes.  The table reached 256k routes in 2008.

The milestone is significant because exceeding 512,000 entries could cause Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) resource exhaustion for some networking products. In a blog posting, Cisco warned network administrators to check that networking equipment is updated for handling routing tables exceeding 512,000 routes. For its portfolio, equipment that needs to be checked includes:

• Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switches
• Cisco 7600 Series Routers
• Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers configured with Trident-based line cards (typhoon-based line cards are not affected)
• Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers with 4GB (devices with 8GB or RAM or higher can scale to up to 1,000,000 routes).

http://blogs.cisco.com/sp/global-internet-routing-table-reaches-512k-milestone/

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OIF Starts 56G Electrical Interface Project

Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) is kicking off a project to define 56 Gbps generation electrical interfaces for full-sized backplane channels for long reach of up to one meter with two connectors.

The CEI-56G-LR specification will increase the data rate by a factor of two over the data rate of CEI-28G-LR.  It will provide for one or more electrical specifications for lane operation at data rates of 40 to 56 Gb/s. The reach range will be 0 to 1000mm using advanced printed circuit board materials plus two connectors.

The OIF said this Common Electrical Interface (CEI) 56G project complements the existing 400G roadmap that was started last year addressing medium reach (MR) interfaces for chip-to-chip and midrange backplane, very short reach (VSR) for chip-to-module, extra short reach (XSR) for chip to nearby optics engine and ultra short reach (USR) for 2.5D/3D applications.  LR is needed to complete this roadmap for chip-to-chip backplane applications with approximately 35 dBs of loss at 14 GHz.

“Given the lead times, development of standards for the next generation backplane electrical links needs to start now,” said David Stauffer, of Kandou Bus and the OIF Physical and Link Layer working group chair and board member.  “Feedback from our membership indicates that the industry needs the OIF to start the long reach project now so that a complete roadmap can be supported.”

http://www.oiforum.com

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Vodafone New Zealand Rolls 700 MHz LTE with Nokia

Vodafone New Zealand has selected Nokia Networks to enable the launch of its commercial 700 MHz LTE network, one of the first Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) 700 MHz networks in the world.  The APT 700 MHz digital dividend spectrum band is harmonized across several countries in the Asia Pacific region.

“Our focus this year is about expanding our 4G network to rural New Zealand with 700MHz, and Nokia Networks will play an important part in implementing this initiative. We’ll be activating 4G wherever possible on new Rural Broadband Initiative sites this year,” stated Vodafone New Zealand Director of Technology, Sandra Pickering.

http://nsn.com/news-events/press-room/press-releases/nokia-networks-vodafone-roll-out-first-commercial-700-mhz-lte-network-in-new-zealand

In 2012, Vodafone acquire dTelstraClear from Telstra Corporation for NZ$840 million (£430 million, US$664 million) in cash. The deal included TelstraClear’s voice and data-based services, network infrastructure and New Zealand customer base.

Vodafone New Zealand was already the country’s largest mobile operator with more than 2.4 million customers. TelstraClear owned New Zealand’s second largest fixed infrastructure, which includes a 6,600km fibre backbone connecting 19 of the country’s largest cities. It also includes an extensive local access network with 2,000km of fibre and 4,500km of copper as well as a cable TV and broadband access network passing 150,000 homes in Wellington and Christchurch. Its customer base includes government and large corporations, small and medium enterprises as well as consumers. 

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ADTRAN Cranks Up its Gigabit Rollouts Initiative

ADTRAN's Gigabit services architecture is gaining momentum and by the end of the year will have reached than 50 communities implementing gigabit services.  The company forecasts this number to quadruple by the end of 2015.

“Over the past year ADTRAN has worked with hundreds of service providers to introduce Gigabit services as part of our vision to help reinvent communities around the country,” said Jay Wilson, senior vice president and general manager, ADTRAN Carrier Networks Division. “ADTRAN’s Gigabit broadband platform will serve as the foundation for our partners’ community economic growth and development for years to come.”

ADTRAN is also launching a a resource site, www.GigCommunities.net, as part of its Enabling Communities, Connecting Lives program for service providers looking to deploy Gigabit services in the future.

Separately, ADTRAN announced that C Spire will deploy its technology to create a new "Silicon South" in Mississippi. The deployment enables C Spire Fiber to the Home service to deliver ultra-fast broadband.

http://www.adtran.com
http://www.GigCommunities.net

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Pioneer Cellular Picks ALU for LTE

Pioneer Cellular has selected Alcatel-Lucent to deploy a complete LTE overlay network in Oklahoma and Kansas. The deployment will eventually cover Pioneer's entire customer base covering 47 counties in Oklahoma and 14 counties in Kansas.  The initial 25 sites to be deployed will be completed by the end of 2014, with an eventual plan to cover all of Pioneer’s network.

Alcatel-Lucent is providing Pioneer Cellular with an end-to-end 4G LTE overlay solution including  LTE Radio Access Network, IP Mobile Packet Core (MME, SGW/PGW, PCRF), Subscriber Data Manager, IP Mobile Backhaul (7705 SAR) and associated deployment and integration services.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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