Friday, January 8, 2016

Videotron Acquires Fibrenoire

Videotron has acquired Fibrenoire, which provides fibre-optic connectivity services for businesses in Québec and Ontario. Fibrenoire deploys and operates its own 4,500-km+ fibre-optic network in the Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal and Québec City metropolitan areas. The purchase price was $125 million.
"We are very pleased to welcome Fibrenoire's talented team to our ranks," said Manon Brouillette, President and CEO of Videotron. "This transaction will strengthen Videotron's leadership in the business telecom market. Combining our expertise and our distinct but complementary facilities will equip us to continue our growth in the Québec business market."

Videotron, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quebecor Media Inc., is an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, Internet access, cable telephone and mobile telephone services. Videotron serves 1,745,900 cable television customers, including 1,564,600 Digital TV subscribers. Videotron is also the Québec leader in high-speed Internet access, with 1,559,500 subscribers to its cable service as of September 30, 2015. As of the same date, Videotron had 742,500 subscriber connections to its mobile telephone service and was providing cable telephone service to  1,329,500 Québec households and organizations.

http://www.videotron.com/
https://www.fibrenoire.ca/

Spirent Delivers First 2.5GbE and 5GbE BASE-T Test Solution

Spirent Communications introduced the first 2.5G and 5G BASE-T Ethernet test solution.
The Spirent DX2 2.5G and 5G BASE-T Ethernet test solution is a high-density 16-port test module supporting line rate Layer 2-3 test traffic and analysis for 100M / 1GbE / 2.5GbE / 5GbE / 10GbE interfaces. This series of modules has single-slot blades compatible with Spirent N11U and N4U modular chassis and its other Ethernet and Wi-Fi products.


“A 1Gbps wired Ethernet link between access points and switches is no longer adequate.  The new access points require higher speeds like 2.5/5G over existing Cat5e and Cat6 copper cable infrastructures in order to address bandwidth constraints in enterprise, campus, and data center networks. With Spirent’s new multi-speed 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10G Ethernet test module, testing for today and tomorrow’s enterprise access speeds has never been easier,” stated Abhitesh Kastuar, general manager of Spirent Communications.

Spirent is a member of the NBASE-T Alliance.

http://www.spirent.com/

Cox Launches Gigabit Internet Service in OK

Cox Communications launched its gigabit Internet service for residential customers in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Cox is deploying residential gigabit Internet speeds to new developments across Oklahoma City and Tulsa and in Cox locations across the country. The company has already launched G1GABLAST service in 10 states and will have gigabit speeds in all of its markets by the end of 2016. Cox has offered gigabit speeds to businesses for more than 10 years.

"We are excited to deliver the choice of gigabit speeds to our customers," said Cox Communications President Pat Esser. "Coupled with our 1,800 employees in Oklahoma and more than 24,000 nationwide, our latest investments and the deployment of the fastest speeds available are powering economic growth and development for businesses and residents of the communities we serve."

http://www.coxmedia.com

Tektronix and TE SubCom Partner on Optical Modulation Analysis

Tektronix and TE SubCom will be deploying the industry's first commercially available 70 GHz oscilloscopes using Tektronix patented Asynchronous Time Interleaving (ATI) technology in a coherent optical evaluation program designed to increase throughput of the world's fastest optical submarine network systems.

The new DPO70000SX low-profile oscilloscopes from Tektronix provide a scalable multi-unit configuration for ultra-high frequency signal fidelity needed in optical submarine network designs.  The oscilloscopes leverage the latest IBM 9HP SiGe process combined with ATI technology.

"The race to deploy faster optical communications systems starts with companies like TE SubCom," said Brian Reich, general manager, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. "With our new oscilloscopes and ATI technology, Tektronix is happy to help move the industry forward with such a solid partner."

http://www.SubCom.com
http://www.TE.com

Brocade Supplies VCS Data Center Fabric for Korea's Dong-Eui University

Dong-Eui University, a leading private university in South Korea, is using Brocade's VCS Fabric technology to virtualize its data center.

The scalable network infrastructure is capable of supporting the high-bandwidth requirements of multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) running on VMware ESXi hosts.

The BROCADE VDX 6740 SWITCHES support up to 64 wire-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports, with the units being deployed with an initial 24 active ports and the option to activate more in eight-port increments under Brocade's pay-as-you grow Ports on Demand (PoD) licensing model. Thanks to the embedded VCS Fabric technology, any additional switches connected to the network are auto-configured to become part of the Ethernet fabric, which acts as a single intelligent switch.

In addition to the Brocade VDX 6740 switches, the university has also deployed BROCADE 6510 SAN SWITCHES to support its virtualization program. While these switches provide Gen 5 Fibre Channel (16 Gigabits per second) ports rather than 10 GbE, they mirror the Brocade VDX switches in many respects, offering pay-as-you-grow scalability along with self-learning, self-healing fabric configuration.

http://www.brocade.com

ShoreTel Acquires Corvisa for UC Cloud

ShoreTel has acquired Corvisa LLC, a provider of cloud-based communications solutions.

"The close of this acquisition represents another milestone in the acceleration phase of our strategic plan. The addition of Corvisa's standards-based APIs, SIP trunking and standalone contact center expands our cloud-based offering while providing new sources of hosted revenue," said Don Joos, president and CEO of ShoreTel. "We are excited to have Corvisa's leadership team and approximately 95 technically skilled and customer-facing employees join ShoreTel to further enhance our development roadmap and go-to-market actions."

http://www.shoretel.com