Thursday, August 9, 2007

Overbeek Appointed President of Cisco Japan

Edzard J.C. Overbeek has been appointed President of Cisco Japan, replacing Yasuki Kurosawa who is stepping down from the position for health reasons. Before taking the current position, Overbeek served as Vice President of Cisco Europe (European Markets Theater) responsible for Commercial, Strategic Planning & Operations, and he was involved in the formulation and implementation of overall strategies and various programs targeting small-medium businesses (SMB) and mid-sized corporations, overseeing growth of the business. http://www.cisco.com

EchoStar Reaches 13.585 Million Subscribers

EchoStar Communications' DISH Network service added approximately 170,000 net new subscribers during the second quarter of 2007, ending the quarter with approximately 13.585 million subscribers to become the third largest pay-TV provider in the U.S.



EchoStar reported total revenue of $2.76 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2007, an 11.9 percent increase compared with $2.47 billion for the corresponding period in 2006. Net income totaled $224 million for Q2, compared with $169 million during the corresponding period in 2006. http://www.echostar.com

Ericsson to Establish R&D Facility in The British Midlands

Ericsson will be consolidating some of its other UK sites into a new R&D facility in the British Midlands. An estimated 650 highly skilled employees will occupy the new premises, which is located on a 90-acre site called the Ansty Complex, a former Rolls- Royce plant.

http://www.thebritishmidlands.com

http://www.ericssson.com

China Mobile Awards US$394 Million in Contracts to Motorola

China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) has awarded contracts valued at US$394 million to Motorola for its GSM network expansion project. The multiple contracts were signed in the first half of 2007 and about 60% of the revenue has already been recognized. The expanded networks are now successfully deployed across 16 provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Si Chuan, Zhe Jiang, Hunan, Guangdong, Yun Nan, Fu Jian, Hu Bei, Shan Xi, Jilin, Liaoning, Jiang Xi, Anhui, Guizhou and Inner Mongolia.

http://www.motorola.com
  • As of April 2007, China Mobile counted more than 330 million wireless subscribers on its nationwide network.


  • In June 2007, Huawei Technologies Co. announced a GSM expansion contract with China Mobile, the largest mobile services provider in China, valued at approximately $700 million. The contract represents 23.6 percent of China Mobile's GSM group purchase project and is the second largest share.


  • China Mobile awarded a GSM expansion contract to Ericsson covering the supply of core and radio network equipment, along with related technical support and services. This share was valued at over US$1 billion.

Hungary's Pannon Selects Ericsson for Network Expansion

Pannon, the second largest mobile operator in Hungary and a member of the Telenor Group, selected Ericsson for the expansion of its mobile network, including deployment, integration and support services. Pannon has more than 3 million subscribers. Ericsson is sole supplier of Pannon's 3G radio access network and will support the operator in its continuing evolution towards advanced HSPA-based services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.ericsson.com

Verizon Debuts FiOS TV Interactive Media Guide in Mass

Verizon introduced its interactive media guide for FiOS TV customers in Massachusetts. The guide, which has be offered to customers in Indiana, Rhode Island and parts of New Jersey since last month, helps customers find content from TV listings, video-on-demand catalogs and digital video recorders as well as personal music and photos from the home network.



Several hundred Boston-area customers provided input on the design of the new guide at Verizon's Waltham technology labs before its national rollout.



Verizon noted that it now has 8,600 titles in its video-on-demand library.



http://www.verizon.com

Motorola Unveils New "Coaches Headset" for NFL

Motorola unveiled its new "Coaches Headset" for use by the National Football League (NFL). The new headsets are lighter, thinner and more ergonomically advanced in comparison to their predecessors. The series of headsets range from the traditional over the head style which has improvements in ear comfort, acoustic sealing and microphone performance to the new "behind head" style which allows coaches the ability to wear a variety of hats while using the headsets.



Motorola also introduced a new Sideline Communication Center to replace the old "Phone Tables" that have been used for several decades. The unit which is mounted on a durable wheeled case, provides 16 phones for use by players, coaches and field personnel to use when communicating with coaches up in the press box.

http://www.motorola.com

PacketMotion Raises $7.5 Million for Enterprise Security

PacketMotion, a start-up based in San Jose, California, secured $7.5 million in its third round of funding.



PacketMotion offers an enterprise platform for analyzing network traffic in order to ensure security and regulatory compliance. The platform analyzes and interprets application flows, just like a traditional proxy, but without the latency and risk of downtime created by an in-line proxy deployment. It then extracts the critical meta data from each conversation without having to store large amounts of extraneous data.



Investors include Intel Capital, ONSET Ventures, and MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures. The company has raised a total of $34.5 million in three rounds of funding. http://www.packetmotion.com
  • PacketMotion is headed by Paul Smith, who previously was Chairman and CEO of Tasman Networks, which was acquired by Nortel in February 2006. Prior to Tasman, Smith was VP & GM of the Telecom Division of New Focus.

Google Offers Paid Storage Upgrades

Google began selling additional storage for its Gmail and Picasa web photo album services. Gmail currently offers 2.8 GB of free storage to all users. Similarly, Picasa Web Albums gives users 1 GB of storage just for Picasa Web Albums images. The new storage upgrade can be shared across Google services. Annual prices for additional storage range from $20 for 6 GB to $500 to 250 GB.

http://www.google.com

MOTORAZR(2)Ready for U.S. Launch

Major U.S wireless carriers, including Alltel, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, US Cellular, and Verizon Wireless, began announcing pricing and availability dates for the new MOTORAZR(2). Compared to the original RAZR, the new device features a larger internal screen for full HTML web browsing and an external screen that enables viewing media, music and/or messaging without opening the flip.



Consumers will also receive touch feedback on the external screen through "haptic" key technology. The product also features Motorola "CrystalTalk" for better voice quality, up to 2GB of on-board memory, real-time point-to-point video and improved menu navigation.

http://www.motorola.com

Nielsen Completes Acquisition of Telephia, Inc.

The Nielsen Company completed its acquisition of San Francisco-based Telephia, a provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets.



Nielsen said the deal puts it at the forefront of independent measurement and analysis of media and data content on mobile devices worldwide. It also accelerates Nielsen's strategy of providing clients with measurement and analysis of consumer behavior and media use across all platforms.

http://www.nielsen.com

http://www.nielsenmedia.com

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

One Minute Video: What is a Multi-Service Edge Router?








One Minute Video: What is a Multi-Service Edge Router?


Presented by Steve Murray


Redback Networks

Deutsche Telekom Chases International Growth

Deutsche Telekom reported significant revenue growth in its international markets during the first half of 2007 and said that cost cutting measures within Germany are taking effect. Deutsche Telekom now generates over half of its revenue outside Germany. Some highlights:



  • Overall, net revenue increased by 3.5 percent year-on-year to EUR 31 billion in the first six months of the year. At EUR 2.3 billion, free cash flow in the first half of the year was around 5 percent higher than in the prior-year period.


  • For the full financial year, Deutsche Telekom expects moderate growth in net revenue, adjusted EBITDA of approximately EUR 19 billion and free cash flow, including real estate sales, of around six billion euros.


  • In the Broadband/Fixed-Network segment -- largely influenced by domestic business -- adjusted EBITDA increased slightly over the first quarter to EUR 1.9 billion, despite a decline in revenue. In addition, the share of new customers in the retail broadband market was 42 percent in the second quarter -- and thus within the target corridor of 40 to 45 percent.


  • The company added 945,000 net broadband retail customers in the first half of the year.


  • Deutsche Telekom now serves 13.0 million DSL lines in all its markets, up from 9.8 million a year ago. Of these, 11.5 million DSL lines were in Germany, up from 10.28 million at the end of December 2006.


  • The number of domestic narrowband lines dropped 5.9 percent to 37.7 million, compared to 40.0 million a year earlier.


  • T-Mobile consolidated its position as the German mobile communications market leader with 34.3 million customers.


  • T-Mobile now has 111.8 million customers, up from 101.1 million a year earlier.


  • International revenue rose by 14.6 percent in the first half of the year to EUR 15.6 billion. The buoyant growth can mainly be attributed to a sharp increase in customer numbers just under 2.4 million in the international mobile business, where revenue increased by 15.2 percent year-on-year in the first half of the year.


  • Working hours for 50,000 employees in Germany have been increased from 34 to 38 hours per week without further compensation.


"The key message that we want to communicate for the first half of 2007 is that we are right on track to achieve our 2007 financial targets," stated CEO René Obermann.

http://www.telekom.de

T-Systems Invests in LiteScape for Unified Communications

T-Systems Venture Fund has invested in LiteScape Technologies, a developer of Unified Communications applications.



LiteScape's flagship product, OnCast, provides voice, conferencing, broadcasting, collaboration capabilities between IP phones, PCs and mobile devices. It integrates IP telephony systems with business applications from leading vendors including Cisco, WebEx, Asterisk, Avaya, IBM/Lotus, Microsoft, Polycom and Salesforce.com.



The funding round was led by Vedanta Capital. LiteScape's existing investors - Softbank Capital, TeleSoft Partners, and Blumberg Capital - also participated in the round.



LiteScape secured approximately $14 million in Series B funding. In addition, former AT&T executive and co-founder of Vedanta Capital, Alessandro Piol, has joined LiteScape's Board of Directors.

http://www.litescape.com

http://www.t-venture.de/
  • LiteScape Technologies is based in Redwood Shores, California.

DirecTV US Reaches 16.3 Million, ARPU at $76.43

The DIRECTV Group reported Q2 revenue of $4.14 billion, up 17% year over year, operating profit of $740 million, and net income of $448 million. Earnings per share were $0.37 compared with $0.36 in the same period last year. Some highlights:

  • There was nearly 7% increase in ARPU to $76.43 due in large part to approximately 50% more high definition (HD) and digital video recorder (DVR) customers in the quarter.


  • Gross subscriber additions were 900,000 and net subscriber additions were 128,000 for DIRECTV U.S.


  • The monthly churn rate for DIRECTV U.S. was 1.58%


  • The total number of DIRECTV U.S. subscribers as of June 30, 2007 to 16.32 million, an increase of 5% over the 15.51 million subscribers reported on June 30, 2006.


  • DIRECTV Latin America achieved net subscriber additions of 141,000 propelled by higher gross additions of 260,000 and a lower monthly churn of 1.38%.


  • The total number of DIRECTV subscribers in Latin America as of June 30, 2007 increased to 2.94 million compared to 1.73 million as of June 30, 2006 due to the 869,000 subscribers added as a result of the merger with Sky Brazil in the third quarter of 2006 as well as the new subscribers added throughout the region over the past year.


"In light of the rapidly growing demand for advanced services in the United States, it is particularly exciting to look ahead a couple of months when we leapfrog the competition by offering up to 100 national HD channels," said Chase Carey, president and CEO of The DIRECTV Group. http://www.directv.com

Limelight Posts Q2, Stock Tumbles

Limelight Networks, a leading content delivery network, reported GAAP revenue of $21.2 million and non-GAAP revenue of $24.7 million, representing growth of 43% and 67%, respectively, over the $14.8 million of revenue the company reported in second quarter of 2006.



The company reported a second quarter GAAP loss per diluted share of $(0.23) and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $0.00.



Limelight note that it has increased total network egress to a capacity of approximately 1.4 terabits per second.



On Thursday, shares in Limelight fell $5.81 (39.26%) to close at $8.99.

http://www.llnw.com
  • In June, Limelight raised over $200 million in growth capital in an IPO.

Vodafone Joins the WiMAX Forum

Vodafone has become a principal member of the WiMAX Forum.



"Our membership of the WiMAX Forum will complement our existing memberships of other key industry bodies such as the GSMA, 3GPP and the Next Generation Mobile Network initiative," said Steve Pusey, Global Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone.

http://www.wimaxforum.org


RCN to Use deltathree's Hosted Consumer VoIP

deltathree announced a contract to provide RCN with a private-label consumer VoIP solution, enabling RCN to significantly expand its phone service beyond RCN's current serviceable areas within New York, Boston, Chicago, Eastern Pennsylvania and metro Washington, D.C.

Specifically, RCN will offer a VoIP phone service implemented via deltathree's Hosted Consumer VoIP solution to supplement its current high-quality, switched-based domestic and international phone services. In addition to providing RCN customers with a comprehensive array of service features, deltathree's Hosted Consumer VoIP solution will provide RCN with platform components such as web development, billing, reporting, eCommerce, fraud management, soft-switch applications, Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) configuration and network management.

http://www.deltathree.com

http://www.rcn.com

Global Crossing Records Q2 Revenue of $547 million, up 19% YoY

Global Crossing reported $547 million of consolidated revenue, $266 million of adjusted gross margin and $8 million of adjusted cash EBITDA for the second quarter.



"Through continued sales success and management's actions in the second quarter, our business is gaining momentum, as reflected in our improved financial performance worldwide," said John Legere, Global Crossing's chief executive officer. "The acquisitions of Impsat and Fibernet contributed as we anticipated during the quarter, giving us a glimpse into the full-blown synergies we'll reap from these key parts of our business as we approach full integration."http://www.globalcrossing.com

Intune Raises US$17.75 Million

Intune Networks, a start-up based in Dublin, Ireland, raised US$17.75 million. The company designs, develops and manufactures networking equipment for the global telecommunications industry. Intune has been shipping products based on its core tunable laser technology since 1999 into a variety of industries.



The new funding from a consortium of international investors consisting of Amadeus Capital Partners, Balderton Capital (formerly known as Benchmark Capital Europe) and Spark Capital. http://www.intunenetworks.com/