Alcatel-Lucent's Rapport Framework Re-Architects IMS

Alcatel-Lucent introduced a fully re-architected version of Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) software to provide large enterprises and service providers a new, and much more flexible way to deliver communications and collaboration services.

Alcatel-Lucent is positioning its new Rapport software as a platform for innovation, enabling the creation of new ‘contextual communications’, where fundamental services such as voice, chat, video conferencing and sharing become functions available to any application, website or connected object. These services can then be accessed by application developers using open application programming interfaces (APIs) and simple software development kits (SDKs).

“Rapport liberates large enterprises from the communications technology silos and proprietary vendor offerings that IT departments need to contend with. It also removes the barriers for service providers to offer more engaging communications services to their customers, which can be delivered seamlessly using any device and across any network,” stated Bhaskar Gorti, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Platforms business.

The basic concet is that the Rapport software will be deployed in a private cloud, into which large enterprises can plug in best-of-breed apps to help meet the needs of employees for the latest services, whether in the office or on the move. Rapport will also help enterprises better serve their customers by building communications services into applications, websites and products.

Rapport strengthens the communications business case for service providers by enabling them to support VoLTE/mobile, fixed, and WiFi services with a single, more agile cloud communications platform, significantly simplifying and reducing the cost per subscriber to deliver these services. Rapport uses a network functions virtualization (NFV) approach, and works with NFV platforms such as Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand to launch VoLTE and new services rapidly to both consumers and businesses and scale dynamically as subscriber demand dictates.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/communications-collaboration

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Telstra Completes Pacnet Acquisition, Extends its SDN Globally

Telstra has completed its previously announced acquisition of Pacnet Limited, a provider of connectivity, managed services and data centre services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments in the Asia-Pacific region.

Telstra Group Executive, Global Enterprise and Services, Brendon Riley said Pacnet would be integrated into Telstra and the Pacnet brand progressively retired. Telstra will continue the development of the joint venture in China. US assets will be integrated when regulatory approval is obtained.

Telstra also announced Asia's first Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Platform will now be available to customers globally, enabling high-performance, self-provisioned dynamic network services across 25 PEN Points of Presence worldwide.

"Pacnet’s leadership in early adoption of SDN technology has allowed us to accelerate our plans and building on Pacnet’s existing sixteen PEN Points of Presence across Asia, we’ve added nine new Telstra PEN Points of Presence to create the world’s first globally connected on-demand networking Platform.

"While software, servers and storage have all become virtualised over the past decade, networks have largely remained unchanged. Telstra’s new PEN Platform reimagines the role of traditional telecommunications and enables organisations to complement traditional network approaches with SDN technology, which allows for bandwidth to be provisioned on demand, matched to application characteristics and deployed across the specific routes our customers need.

http://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/media/media-releases/telstra-completes-acquisition-of-pacnet.xml

• In December 2014, Telstra announced plans to acquire Pacnet Limited, which owns and operates a pan-Asian submarine cable network and offers managed services and data center services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments across the region, for US$697 million acquisition is subject to completion adjustments. In addition to its submarine cables and 21 landing stations in China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, Pacnet’s core assets comprise an integrated network with 109 PoPs across 61 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, along with 29 data centers in key locations. Seven of the data centers have Tier III accreditation. In addition, Pacnet controls two of the five fibre pairs on the Unity trans-Pacific submarine cable network connecting Japan to the United States.  In the year ended December 2013, Pacnet generated revenues of US$472m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$111m. Pacnet is headquartered in both Singapore and Hong Kong with approximately 815 employees across 25 offices (including PBS China).

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Verizon Posts Q1 Revenue -- 70% of Wireless Users Now on 4G

Verizon Communications reported first-quarter 2015 revenues of $32.0 billion, a 3.8 percent increase compared with first-quarter 2014. The growth rate would have been 4.2% if excluding a business that has since been sold. The company reported $1.02 in EPS in first-quarter 2015, compared with $1.15 per share in first-quarter 2014.

“Verizon is off to a strong start in 2015 with another quarter of profitable growth,” said Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam. “We expanded our base of customers seeking a premium experience, and we grew revenues, earnings and cash flow during a quarter in which we also took significant steps to sharpen our strategic focus. We are confident in our ability to maintain momentum and continue to add value for customers and shareholders.”

Some operational highlights:

Wireless Operational Highlights

• Verizon Wireless had 565,000 retail postpaid net additions in first-quarter 2015, a 4.8 percent increase compared with first-quarter 2014. At the end of first-quarter 2015, the company had 108.6 million retail connections, a 5.1 percent year-over-year increase, and had 102.6 million retail postpaid connections.
• The company added 621,000 4G smartphones to its customer base in first-quarter 2015. In light of a net decline in 3G smartphones, overall smartphone growth totaled 247,000. The company also added 820,000 4G tablets and reported net declines of 385,000 basic phones and 188,000 prepaid devices in first-quarter 2015.
• 4G devices now constitute approximately 70 percent of the retail postpaid connections base, up from 49 percent a year ago – with the 4G LTE network handling about 86 percent of total wireless data traffic in first-quarter 2015.
• Growth in 4G device adoption continues to drive increased data and video usage. Within More Everything accounts, average data usage continues to rise, up 54 percent year over year.
• At 1.03 percent in first-quarter 2015, retail postpaid churn improved both sequentially and year over year. Retail postpaid smartphone customer churn was less than 0.9 percent.

Wireline Operational Highlights

• In first-quarter 2015, Verizon added 133,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 90,000 net new FiOS Video connections. Verizon had totals of 6.7 million FiOS Internet and 5.7 million FiOS Video connections at the end of the first quarter, representing year-over-year increases of 9.4 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.
• FiOS Internet penetration (subscribers as a percentage of potential subscribers) was 41.5 percent at the end of first-quarter 2015, compared with 39.7 percent at the end of first-quarter 2014. In the same periods, FiOS Video penetration was 36.0 percent, compared with 35.0 percent.
• By the end of first-quarter 2015, 62 percent of consumer FiOS Internet customers subscribed to FiOS Quantum, which provides speeds ranging from 50 to 500 megabits per second, up from 59 percent at year-end 2014. The highest rate of growth is in the 75-megabit-per-second tier, to which more than 20 percent of FiOS customers subscribe.
• Broadband connections totaled 9.2 million at the end of first-quarter 2015, a 2.4 percent year-over-year increase. Net broadband connections increased by 41,000 in first-quarter 2015, as FiOS Internet net additions more than offset declines in DSL-based High Speed Internet connections.
• In first-quarter 2015, Verizon migrated 47,000 customers who had been using copper connections, toward a full-year goal of 200,000.
• Verizon Enterprise Solutions helped clients around the globe improve customer experience, drive growth and business performance and manage risk in the first quarter. 

http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-reports-strong-balanced-results-1q-2015

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Sumitomo Electric Intros 8-Fiber QSFP-40G Splice-On Connector for 40G/100G

Sumitomo Electric Lightwave introduced an 8-fiber QSFP(Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable) -40G– SR4 MPO splice-on connector that facilitates fast and easy 40 and 100GbE data center and enterprise network connectivity. Coupled with laser optimized 0M4 8-count fiber ribbon cable, the 8-fiber MPO splice-on-connector allows real-time and on-site cable builds and permanent terminations of jumpers, trunk cables, harnesses and arrays.

Sumitomo said its 8-fiber solution optimizes not only 40/100GbE and beyond networks, but is also backward compatible with legacy networks (1G & 10G), creating a real-time, scalable, and already future-proofed network.

The transition from a 12 fiber count to 8 is already made within the ferrule of the 8-fiber MPO splice-on connector. The new connector is compatible with other QSFP-40G-SR4 connectors and 100GbE modules at 25G transmission. Insertion loss of the new connector is < 0.35dB and it is compatible with Sumitomo Electric Lightwave’s Quantum Type-M12 mass fusion splicer and other leading brands.

“ As the first company to have introduced the MPO splice-on connector, we are pleased to offer our customers further innovations in MPO and optical ribbon fiber technology,” comments Joshua Seawell, director of Lightwave Network Products at Sumitomo Electric Lightwave. “Our continued leadership in providing continuous innovations for the data center ensures that our customers stay ahead of today’s rapid technology curve in order to deploy the most advanced and cost efficient solutions possible.“

http://www.sumitomoelectric.com

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Broadcom Posts Better than Expected Q1

Broadcom reported net revenue for the first quarter of 2015 was $2.06 billion. This represents a decrease of 4.0% compared with the $2.14 billion reported for the fourth quarter of 2014 and an increase of 3.7% compared with the $1.98 billion reported for the first quarter of 2014. Net income (GAAP) for the first quarter of 2015 was $209 million, or $0.34 per share (diluted), compared with GAAP net income of $390 million, or $0.64 per share (diluted), for the fourth quarter of 2014 and GAAP net income of $165 million, or $0.28 per share (diluted), for the first quarter of 2014.

"Broadcom delivered better-than-expected results in the March quarter driven by strength in the high-end smartphone and broadband access markets," said Scott McGregor, Broadcom's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Looking to the June quarter, we see operating performance continuing to strengthen on tight operating expense discipline and strong margins, consistent with our objective of driving profitable growth."

http://investor.broadcom.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=907767

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Cavium's LiquidSecurity Targets Cryto-as-a-Service

Cavium introduced its "LiquidSecurity" Hardware Security Module (HSM) Family that provides a FIPS 140-2 level 2 and 3 partitioned, centralized and elastic key management solution with the highest transaction/sec performance.

Cavium's LiquidSecurity Solution, which is available as a PCIe adapter family as well as an appliance, addresses the high performance security requirements for private key management and administration while also addressing elastic performance per virtual / network domain for the virtualized cloud environment. Major applications for this product family include Key Management as-a-Service, Database as-a-Service, Crypto as-a-service, Secure DNS, SaaS Applications, Virtual Private Clouds in the Public Cloud and Payment systems.

Feature Highlights

• SSL handshake offloads for 32 domains – LiquidSecurity family has 32 FIPS 140-2 Level 3 Partitions.  Each partition functions as an independent and fully secure HSM.  
• Dual FIPS boundary - With the appliance version of the family a dual FIPS 140-2 boundary is also available that provides an added layer of security.
• Storage for up to 1M keys is supported with multiple appliances in a scalable manner.
• Tens of Thousands of 2048 bit RSA Ops/sec – LiquidSecurity HSM family provides market leading performance to meet the needs of multiple domains or virtual appliances.  This performance is at least 10 times higher than any other solution on the HSM market today.  This product family also supports 10 Gbps bulk encryption. In addition, multiple LiquidSecurity HSM modules can be pooled together to offer highest performance for mega data centers.
• Hardware support for 2048 bit RSA key pair generation –robust key generation within the FIPS boundary is a critical component of the overall security this product family provides.
• Scalability – For the most demanding applications up to 20 LiquidSecurity HSM appliances can be seamlessly connected through the native 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

http://www.cavium.com/newsevents-Cavium-Introduces-LiquidSecurity.html

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Infinera Hits Q1 Revenue of $186.9 million

Infinera reported first quarter 2015 revenue of $186.9 million compared to $186.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2014 and $142.8 million in the first quarter of 2014. GAAP net income for the quarter was $12.4 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, compared to net income of $8.4 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2014, and a net loss of $4.4 million, or $0.04 per share, in the first quarter of 2014.

“Our excellent first quarter performance reflects a continuation of the momentum we have built over the past few years. We continue to grow profitability as our broad customer base experiences the value of our differentiated products and superior service,” said Tom Fallon, Infinera’s Chief Executive Officer. “I believe we are in an optimal position with customers that are building the largest networks the fastest. In 2015 and beyond, we intend to continue growing our business profitably, as we expand our total available market across optical transport.”

http://www.infinera.com

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