Monday, November 6, 2006

Broadlogic Unveils Massively Parallel, Multi-channel Video Processor

Broadlogic, a start-up based in San Jose, California unveiled its massively parallel, multi-channel video processor to help cable operators (MSOs) reclaim over 450MHz of bandwidth and scaling access network performance to fiber-like levels.



BroadLogic said its new BL80000 TeraPIX chip is designed for a new generation of Residential Gateway installed outside or just inside a residence This allows the network to be all-digital, while subscribers continue to receive the cable-ready analog video, digital video, high speed data and voice services inside the home. A digital program uses one-tenth the space of a an analog program. Most cable operators typically deliver an 80-or-so channel lineup of the most popular broadcast and cable channels using analog. Because these channels are delivered in analog format, not digital, they take up a disproportionate amount of an operator's bandwidth (500MHz of a typical 750MHz network).



With an all-digital network and 750 MHz capacity would enable 4.5 Gbps to the home.



However, going all-digital requires subscribers to install a digital set-top box and remote for every cable-ready device in the home. This solution is both costly for operators and undesirable to many subscribers.



The BroadLogic TeraPIX video processor works by decoding bandwidth-conserving digital video signals delivered by a cable operator, and generating 80-plus high-quality channels of television. Cable operators get their extra bandwidth, and consumers get the channel lineups they're used to without having to get more set-tops, run more coax, or lose more remotes. The TeraPIX processor enables solutions that support virtually all existing analog and digital consumer devices. For example, if a subscriber has a DVR set-top from their cable operator, the digital signals are passed through TeraPIX to the DVR.



BroadLogic is sampling the TeraPix now.

http://www.broadlogic.com



























Sylantro Appoints Marco Limena President and CEO

Sylantro Systems named Marco Limena president and chief executive officer, effective immediately. Limena, former vice president of Hewlett Packard's multi-billion dollar Network and Service Provider Solution business, assumes the role from Sylantro president and CEO Pete Bonee, who now serves as Sylantro's chairman.

http://www.sylantro.com

Acme Packet Reports Revenue of $22.3 million

Acme Packet reported Q3 revenue of $22.3 million, up from $6.8 million in the same period last year. For the three month period ended September 30, 2006, net income was $6.8 million. Basic and diluted net income per share for the three month period ended September 30, 2006 was $0.14 per share and $0.12 per share, respectively.



"Our top line growth -- which continues to be fueled by the broad support by new customers and new projects launched by existing customers -- demonstrates the value that session border controllers (SBCs) play in advanced IP service creation and delivery," said Andy Ory, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acme Packet.

http://www.acmepacket.com







Nortel Reports Revenue of US$2.96 Million

Nortel reported revenues of US$2.96 billion for the third quarter of 2006 compared to US$2.52 billion for the third quarter of 2005 and US$2.74 billion for the second quarter of 2006. The company reported a net loss in the third quarter of 2006 of US$99 million, or US$0.02 per common share on a diluted basis, compared to a net loss of US$136 million, or US$0.03 per common share on a diluted basis, in the third quarter of 2005 and net earnings of US$366 million, or US$0.08 per common share on a diluted basis, in the second quarter of 2006.



"I am pleased with our overall revenue growth and, in particular, in our focus areas of next generation mobility, enterprise and related services, and metro optical. I am also pleased with the 270 basis points operating margin improvement versus the third quarter of 2005. However, we should and will be moving faster. Pricing pressures and the speed at which our revenues are shifting to next generation, early cycle products is increasing our challenge to drive profitability improvements," said Mike Zafirovski, president and chief executive officer, Nortel.



For Mobility and Converged Core Networks (MCCN), revenues were US$1,540 million, an increase of 23 percent compared with the year-ago quarter and an increase of 7 percent sequentially.



Fort Enterprise Solutions, revenues were US$609 million, an increase of 14 percent compared with the year-ago quarter and an increase of 28 percent sequentially.



For Metro Ethernet Networks, revenues were US$430 million, an increase of 18 percent compared with the year-ago quarter and a decrease of 8 percent sequentially.



Global Service revenues were US$316 million, an increase of 4 percent compared with the year-ago quarter and an increase of 2 percent sequentially.



Gross margin was 38 percent of revenue in the third quarter of 2006.

http://www.nortel.com

Tut's Video Headend Converts MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 AVC

Tut Systems' Astria content processor (CP) video headend solution can now be leveraged to convert MPEG-2 stored on-demand content to the latest MPEG-4 AVC compression. For service providers deploying services based on the bandwidth efficient MPEG-4 AVC compression technologies, a bridge is needed to convert content to the new compression standard. Cavalier Telephone is using the Tut solution for this purpose.

http://www.tutsys.com/

Level 3 Now Supporting Eight of Top Ten Sites

Level 3 will provide its High Speed IP service via multiple 10GigE ports to Photobucket, which offers a personal media sharing service. Level 3 said it is now supplying eight of the top-10 Internet destinations with network services.

http://www.level3.com/

Broadcom Wi-Fi Supports Skype

Broadcom has added support for Skype software to its Wi-Fi phone platform.



Buffalo is using the platform for a consumer device that can make calls at open Wi-Fi access points all over the world without being tied to a PC. The handset features include a high-resolution color display, speakerphone and Buffalo's AOSS easy configuration protocol. http://www.broadcom.com

UTStarcom Postpones Q3 Results, Reviews Stock Option Grants

UTStarcom announced a voluntary review of its historical equity award grant practices. As a result, the company will not announce its third quarter results until the review is completed.

http://www.utstar.com

Time Warner Telecom Sees 16% Enterprise Revenue Growth YoY

Time Warner Telecom reported $196.1 million in revenue, $71.2 million in modified EBITDA and a net loss of $11.3 million for Q3/



Some highlights for the quarter:

  • Achieved levered free cash flow(2) for the quarter of $6.1 million and $9.3 million for the first nine months of 2006


  • Grew total revenue $18.3 million year over year, an increase of 10%, and $4.8 million sequentially, an increase of 3%


  • Grew enterprise revenue $16.0 million year over year, an increase of 16%, and $3.1 million sequentially, an increase of 3%


  • Grew data and Internet revenue $12.5 million year over year, an increase of 30%, and $2.5 million sequentially, an increase of 5%.

http://www.twtelecom.com

Korea's Hanaro Reaches 800,000 Subscribers for 100Mbps Optical LAN Service

Despite the intensifying market competition in Korea, hanarotelecom said its broadband subscriber base expanded in Q3 and that it added more than 60,000 voice subscribers in the quarter.

With regard to the 100Mbps optical LAN, Hanaro's mainstay product, the cumulative number of subscribers reaching approximately 800,000. The service availability footprint has expanded to approximately 3.8 million households, which amount to about two thirds of its apartment coverage.

hanarotelecom posted a 0.5% gain in revenues to KRW 430.9 billion and a 2.3% increase in EBITDA to KRW 135.8 billion for the third quarter of 2006.
http://www.hanaro.com

KDDI Selects Lucent's Optical Cross-Connect

Japan's KDDI Corp. has selected Lucent Technologies to supply optical cross connect systems to support its international transport network. Under the agreement KDDI will deploy Lucent's LambdaUnite MultiService Switch (MSS) and Navis Optical Management System (OMS) to create an integrated, multi-service transport network to support a range of traditional voice services and new and emerging data services.



Lucent's LambdaUnite is an optical transport and cross-connect system that features a non-blocking, duplicated switch matrix architecture.

http://www.lucent.com

Tzero Announces UWB Set-Top Box and RG Wins

Tzero Technologies, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California announced a series of design wins for its Ultra wideband (UWB) silicon from leading set-top box, residential gateway and network digital video recorder manufacturers -- including Amedia , Complete Media Systems, Entone Technologies, Magnum Semiconductor, Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices and UTStarcom. Tzero is also enabling a number of major original design manufacturers to support ultra wideband solutions. The first of these are AboCom, Arcadyan Technology Corporation and Asustek Computer of Taiwan.



Tzero said its UWB technology can be used to connect a range of A/V components -- displays, set-top boxes, digital video recorders, media center PCs, residential gateways and more. Unlike proprietary offerings, Tzero's platform is based on standards from the WiMedia Alliance.



The new Siemens UWB multimedia home solution is capable of providing high-speed communications between devices either wirelessly or using existing wiring within rooms or extending across multiple rooms. The product delivers transmission speeds of up to 480 Mbps to support even the high demands of high-definition video and IPTV.


http://www.tzerotech.com





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Sunday, November 5, 2006

BridgePort Raises $13 Million for MobileVoIP Convergence

BridgePort Networks, a start-up headquartered in Chicago with an R&D facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced $13 million in nre venture financing by its current investors. The new financing brings the total capital raised by the company to $51 million.



BridgePort Networks offers a software-based Network Convergence Gateway (NCG) that enables the convergence of mobile and IP voice and data services. The company has signed a global reseller agreement with Siemens Communications.



Existing investors TD Capital Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners and BCE Capital all participated in the financing. http://www.bridgeport-networks.com

GLORIAD Research Network Deploys Force10

The Global Ring Network for Advanced Application Development (GLORIAD, a collaborative research network between Russia, China, the U.S., the Netherlands, Korea, Canada and the five Nordic countries, has deployed Force10 Networks' TeraScale E-Series switch/routers as it transitions from Gigabit to 10 Gigabit Ethernet.



The Force10 TeraScale E300 is deployed by the Joint Institute for Computational Science to provide dedicated Gigabit Ethernet services to U.S. scientists. Additionally, the TeraScale E300 is deployed in Chicago-based StarLight, one of the largest optical network exchanges for national and international research and education networks in the world, to interconnect scientists on the GLORIAD network worldwide.



The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), South Korea's national supercomputer center, also deployed the Force10 TeraScale E-Series in its grid network.

http://www.force10networks.comhttp://www.gloriad.org

Aruba Networks Outlines Enterprise FMC Roadmap

Aruba Networks outlined a five-phase plan to bring enterprise fixed-mobile convergence (E-FMC) to its enterprise mobility platform. The plan addresses both enterprise-centric and carrier-centric E-FMC architectures. Aruba said it will work with others across the E-FMC value chain, including mobile handset manufacturers, IP-PBX vendors, FMC infrastructure vendors and mobile operators.



Aruba's five-phase plan includes:

  • Vo-Fi Awareness (December 2005): The first phase of the plan, bringing voice-aware WLAN features to Aruba mobility controllers, was completed in December 2005. These features were enabled by the Aruba mobility controller's integrated stateful firewall and application-aware adaptive radio management.


  • Vo-Fi Scalability (November 2006): Phase two brings new capabilities for scalability, performance and reliability features based on the IEEE 802.11e standard. The new features include WMM, TSpec, WMM-PS, and additional enhancements. Aruba is providing full
    support for the TSpec protocol, allow increased control over the number of active voice calls on an access point (AP) at any given time, assuring bandwidth availability and better call quality, even as voice clients roam between APs. Aruba has implemented an algorithm that enables completely accurate call counts to prevent near-simultaneous call attempts from overloading an AP.



    Aruba is also introducing "Opportunistic Key Caching" (OKC) for WPA2, as well as WPA, that saves considerable authentication time and reduces call interruption when a client roams or hands over from one AP to a neighboring AP. Clients implementing these features have shown
    consistent handoff times of less than 8 milliseconds on the Aruba infrastructure.


  • Enterprise Integration (1st half 2007): In the third phase, Aruba will add the WLAN/cellular network call handover function to its existing mobility controllers. The company said this function will be explicitly designed to augment and scale the handover function being planned by IP-PBX vendors, and an open application programming interface (API) will provide the integration hooks necessary for easy integration. The API will also deliver greater visibility into VoIP calls made over the mobile LAN, enabling IP-PBX vendors to inject mobile LAN awareness into their existing VoIP management systems. Phase three will also include the release of a client behavior specification designed to help mobile handset manufacturers deliver faster handoffs both within the WLAN and between cellular and Wi-Fi.


  • Carrier Integration (2nd half 2007): Phase four will augment carrier FMC architectures based on the Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) standard with managed WLAN and security services.


  • Seamless Networks (2008): The fifth phase will focus on delivering seamless interworking across enterprise-based IP multimedia services and carrier-based IP multimedia services and will rely on IMS architecture being standardized in the 3GPP standards body.


http://www.arubanetworks.com

Australia's Telstra Selects Amdocs

Telstra has awarded a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract to Amdocs and Cramer -- now part of Amdocs -- to provide software and services for its IT Transformation Program.



Amdocs' new Service Management Suite will be used to help Telstra improve the management and fulfillment of services to its customers through the integration of its operational and business support systems (BSS). At the heart of the suite is the innovative Business and Operational Support System Manager product or B/OSS Manager -- the only offering on the market that spans both BSS and OSS.

http://www.amdocs.com

AT&T Adds FOX News to U-verse Line-up

AT&T announced a carriage agreement to distribute the FOX News Channel as part of the AT&T U-verse TV channel lineup. Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

http://www.att.com

Alcatel Announces $300 Million Partnership with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Alcatel announced a multi-year agreement valued at $300 million to lead an IP network transformation project with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).

Alcatel and UPMC will also establish a joint venture to develop advanced communications technologies and applications focused on the health care industry.

The IP network transformation project, which will commence at the beginning of 2007, includes the upgrade of UPMC's wired and wireless data infrastructure, enterprise telephony system, and contact center platforms and applications to a new converged IP infrastructure.



Under the joint venture, Alcatel and UPMC will each invest USD 25 million to develop applications, technologies and solutions for the health care industry. http://www.alcatel.comhttp://www.upmc.com/The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is also working with dbMotion, a provider of Web-based data-sharing and integration technology, to create one of the largest models of health care data interoperability. dbMotion's technology will provide a flexible platform for UPMC's clinicians to securely access integrated patient information across its 19 hospitals and 400 outpatient sites and doctors' offices, without replacing existing systems.

Tektronix to Acquire Minacom for Network Test Probes

Tektronix agreed to acquire Minacom, a privately-held provider of active probe test solutions, for approximately US$27 million.



Minacom's test solutions provide active troubleshooting, provisioning, and automated service quality monitoring for VoIP, voice, video, Internet, Fax, and Fax-over-IP.

Minacom's 35 employees will become part of Tektronix and the business will continue to be located in Montreal.

http://www.tektronix.com

TI Sees Future Transcoding Supporting Multiple Video Formats

Texas Instruments is predicting the next stage of the video revolution will solve the challenge of seamlessly moving multi-format video content between all types of video devices. The company believes transcoding technology will be key to address this challenge.



"Transcoding is a life-or-death issue facing manufacturers and service providers as they try to realize the explosive growth in video entertainment," predicts Gene Frantz, TI's Principal Fellow. "Consumers have an insatiable appetite for immersion in entertainment, and transcoding among multiple formats will be mandatory for all future video products to be successful. Digital signal processing technology will be an essential piece in laying the foundation for transcoding among multiple consumer devices."http://www.ti.com