Thursday, April 8, 2010

Unions See Double Standard with T-Mobile USA

ver.di, the union representing workers at Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile operations in Germany, the Communications Workers of America and UNI Global Union held a press conference to denounce a double standard they see in the way the Deutsche Telekom treats its Germany and American workers. Specifically, the unions accuse T-Mobile USA of engaging in an anti-union behavior.


Lothar Schröder, an executive board member of ver.di, pointed out that "in Germany and many countries, DT complies with its Social Charter which directs the company to adhere to internationally recognized norms, directives and standards. DT also respects the human rights standards of the International Labor Organization and upholds the labor principles of the United Nations Global Compact regarding freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.


"But when it comes to U.S. operations, which employs about 40,000 workers and produces about 25 percent of DT's revenue, DT's Social Charter is no where to be found," Schroeder said.


UNI, CWA and ver.di are pressing DT for a global agreement that would protect the fundamental labour rights of the company's workers worldwide. CWA and ver.di formed TU last November.


Marcus Courtney, head of UNI Telecom, noted that "France Telecom and Telefonica have signed global agreements with UNI respecting workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively. Deutsche Telekom is failing to meet standards set by its competition."http://cwa-union.orghttp://www.t-mobileunion.org/

Level 3 to Upgrade its Vyvx Infrastructure

Level 3 Communications will significantly upgrade its Vyvx VenueNet infrastructure for broadcast delivery.


In 2010, Level 3's investment will focus on upgrading venue services in time for the start of the U.S. professional football and hockey seasons. In 2011, Level 3 expects to continue upgrading venue services in time for professional basketball and baseball seasons. Upgrades will include:

  • Support for 1080P high definition (HD) video services with native uncompressed HD-SDI customer hand-offs, and support for the next generation of 3 Gigabit per second HD services.


  • End-to-end fiber infrastructure to support future broadcast applications, including 3D transmission.


  • Uncompressed HD-ready support at venues that are directly connected with Level 3 fiber access.


  • Integrated codecs enabling high-quality video compression.


  • New and advanced support for local and remote signal verification and monitoring.


  • Seamless connectivity to the Level 3 Tier-1 IP backbone -- one of the most connected networks in the world -- for Internet access. Services will be able to run at multi-gigabit speeds to enable new digital file-based workflows for broadcasters.


  • Advanced Level 3 enterprise voice services.
http://www.Level3.com

Brite Semi Develops 100M Gate Wireless Network Chip

HiSilicon Technologies Co., Brite Semiconductor (Shanghai), Inc., and Open-Silicon, have successfully taped out a 65nm Wireless Network chip using a TSMC foundry process. The chip contains 100M gates, more than 8 cores, an 800MHz high-speed clocking system, and 3.125G high-speed interfaces.


The Brite Semiconductor design team, which organized and executed the project, included engineers from multiple Brite Semiconductor and Open-Silicon locations (Bangalore, Milpitas, CA, and Shanghai).

http://www.britesemi.com
http://www.open-silicon.com

Nokia Acquires MetaCarta, Novarra

Nokia acquired MetaCarta, a start-up specializing in geographic intelligence technology. The company is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and employs about 30 people. Financial terms were not disclosed.


MetaCarta's technology combines geosearch and geotagging capabilities, allowing users to find content about a location in internal and external data stores. This makes make data and unstructured content "location-aware" and geographically relevant for easier organization and quicker action. Nokia said MetaCarta's technology will be used in the area of local search in Location and other services.


Separately, Nokia confirmed that it has completed the acquisition of Novarra, which offers a mobile browser and services platform. This will be used by Nokia to deliver enhanced Internet experiences on Nokia Series 40 mobile phones.
http://www.nokia.comhttp://

Taiwan's National Chiao Tung University Tests TD-LTE with NSN

Taiwan's National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) will conduct a trial of the time division (TD) variant of LTE with Nokia Siemens Networks beginning next month. Nokia Siemens Networks has committed to provide all necessary TD-LTE equipment for the trial, including core network and base stations, as well as corresponding technical support to help NCTU in its research.


Chung-Yu Wu, the president of NCTU, said: "This multilateral cooperation in TD-LTE will bring forward research on cutting-edge technologies and drive the development of mobile broadband in Taiwan. This trial network is also a perfect example of how industry-university partnerships can nurture new technology. China Mobile will bring its operational experience and application support to the trial, Nokia Siemens Networks will contribute its leading technologies and products, and NCTU will take advantage of this research program to help Taiwanese companies develop LTE devices."http://www.nctu.edu.twhttp://www.nsn.com

Infonetics: Video Infrastructure Spending Holds Steady

Worldwide video infrastructure revenue held steady from 3Q09 to 4Q09 at $625 million, with all segments up but one, according to new figures released by Infonetics.


Increased spending was noted for video on-demand (VOD) and streaming content servers, video encoders, IPTV middleware/content delivery platforms, edge QAMs, digital cable middleware, and satellite video middleware. Meanwhile, spending on video content protection software was down.


For the full year 2009, video infrastructure revenue decreased 11% to $2.5 billion. Worldwide video on-demand and streaming content server revenue increased 60% from 2008 to 2009, and is expected to increase rapidly over the next four quarters.


There were 417 million cable video subscribers worldwide in 2009; that number is expected to hold steady through at least 2014 as standard cable video subscribers switch over to digital cable video.


"In the ongoing battle between cable and telco IPTV operators, both continue to spend furiously to add video-on-demand and streaming content server capacity to support the rollout of on-demand HD content and provide start-over and remote storage-digital video recorder services, all of which require the delivery of unicast streams to set-top boxes. This aggressive move to full unicast models for video delivery is driving strong growth in video-on-demand and streaming content servers. While telco, cable, and satellite operators all saw sustained video subscriber growth in 2009, it certainly was not at the growth rates of years past, so operators held off on more significant infrastructure investments, resulting in a down year for video infrastructure overall outside of VOD servers and edge QAMs," notes Jeff Heynen, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for broadband and video.
http://www.infonetics.com

Orange Switzerland to Merge with Sunrise

France Telecom and TDC signed a final agreement to combine their respective subsidiaries in Switzerland, Orange Suisse and Sunrise Communications. The combined company will be a strong alternative operator to Swisscom.


The completion of this transaction is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2010, once approvals have been obtained from the Swiss competition and relevant regulatory authorities.
http://www.orange.comhttp://tdc.dk/

Germany Begins LTE Spectrum Auction

Germany's official telecoms regulator, Bundesnetzagenturhas initiated an auction for spectrum in the ranges 800 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz and 2.6 GHz for wireless network access for the provision of telecommunication services.

A total of four applicants are enrolled in the auction:

  • Erste MVV Mobilfunk Vermögensverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH (E-Plus)

  • Telefónica O2 Germany GmbH & Co. OHG

  • T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH

  • Vodafone D2 GmbH


One applicant withdrew its application for admission to the bidding procedure. Another applicant did not meet the requirements for admission to the bidding procedure; therefore the application had to be rejected.
http://www.bundesnetzagentur.de

Two Minute Video: Network Convergence with OTN



This text will be replaced






Presented by Mark Orthodoxou, PMC-Sierrahttp://www.pmc-sierra.com

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Microsoft to Demo Silverlight for the Living Room

At next week's 2010 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas, will showcase how its Silverlight platform can be used to power set-top boxes, connected TVs, Blu-ray Disc players and other consumer devices. Microsoft also unveiled details about Internet Information Services (IIS) Media Services 4 and announced the upcoming release of Silverlight Media Framework 2.0.


Microsoft is working with system-on-chip (SOC) partners Intel and Broadcom to deliver support for reference designs with native Silverlight support.


This includes capabilities such as adaptive bitrate streaming over standard Internet connections, DVR-like capabilities, and support for Microsoft PlayReady digital rights management.


Microsoft also unveiled plans for the next version of IIS Media Services, an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform built on Microsoft Windows Server that enables customers to cost-effectively deliver, monitor and monetize live and on-demand media content across enterprise, consumer and broadcast scenarios.



http://www.microsoft.com/silverlighthttp://www.silverlight.com

AT&T to Sell Wayport's European Assets to Swisscom

AT&T will sell Wayport Holdings A/S, the European subsidiary of Wayport, to Hospitality Services Plus SA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Swisscom, for an undisclosed sum.


AT&T will continue to own and operate the former Wayport assets in the United States. Since the acquisition of Wayport in December 2008, AT&T has integrated Wayport into its Wi-Fi network, which now encompasses more than 20,000 hot spots.
http://www.att.com

Last Month's CTIA WIRELESS Attracted 39,000

Last month's International CTIA WIRELESS 2010 in Las Vegas attracted 39,000 attendees from 125 countries.


Among the new products and services announced at the show were: The HTC EVO 4G phone for Sprint; LG's Remarq eco-friendly phone; the Motorola i1 - the first push-to-talk Android phone; the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone; Clearwire's WiMAX-enabled netbook; expanded markets for the Clearwire/Sprint WiMAX service; and the availability of Skype Mobile for Verizon Wireless 3G handsets.

http://www.ctiawireless.comhttp://

VoIP Calling Enhanced in Apple's iPhone OS 4

Apple's forthcoming iPhone OS 4 software includes over 1,500 new Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and over 100 new features, including multitasking for third party apps; folders to better organize and access apps; improved Mail with a unified inbox, fast inbox switching and threaded messages; enhanced Enterprise support with even better data protection, mobile device management, wireless app distribution and more; Apple's new iAd mobile advertising platform; and iBooks, online bookstore recently debuted on the iPad.


iPhone OS 4's new multitasking will enable VoIP apps to receive a VoIP call even when the iPhone is asleep or the user is running other apps. The iPhone OS 4 Unified Inbox allows users to see messages from all their email accounts displayed together.


New enterprise features in iPhone OS 4 include improvements in security, scalability and compatibility. The new Mobile Device Management service can be integrated with third party servers to wirelessly configure, query and even wipe or lock managed iPhones, and iPhone OS 4 enables enterprises to securely host and wirelessly distribute their own in-house developed apps to employees. The new Data Protection feature uses a user's passcode as an encryption key to protect mail messages and attachments stored on the iPhone. iPhone OS 4 will also provide the option to set a longer, more complex passcodes. It also allows IT managers to set up multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts, is compatible with Exchange Server 2010 and includes support for forthcoming SSL VPN applications from Juniper Networks and Cisco.
http://www.apple.com

NTT Electronics Develops FPGA Decoder

NTT Electronics has developed an FPGA version of a multi-standard single chip LSI for both H.264/AVC 4:2:2 10-bit (including AVC -Intra 100/50) and MPEG-2 4:2:2 decoding.


NTT Electronics' new chip supports H.264/AVC 4:2:2 10-bit decoding, including AVC-Intra 100/50, helping to improve efficiency in the transmission and editing of high-quality video. The chip also supports 10-bit and 8-bit H.264/AVC 4:2:2 and 4:2:0, as well as MPEG-2 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 8-bit specifications, thereby covering most of the formats currently used to send video. Therefore, by using this chip in equipment on the receiving side, video can be received without concern about which format is used on the sending side.


The company said it intends to develop over 10 next-generation H.264/AVC encoder/decoder LSIs by 2012, enabling broadcast content to be transmitted, edited, and delivered with the highest possible quality."http://www.ntt-electronics.com/pr-dev

Intelsat's Galaxy 15 Satellite Reports Anomaly

Intelsat's Galaxy 15 satellite (G-15), which provides transmission capacity for cable programmers in North America, experienced an anomaly on 5 April 2010 at 09:48 UTC.


Intelsat said there have been no immediate service interruption to customers, and based on current technical information, no service interruption is expected for the media customers on this satellite. All media traffic on this satellite is planned to be transitioned to Intelsat's Galaxy 12 satellite, which is the designated in-orbit spare for the North American region.


Launched in 2005, G-15 is an Orbital Star satellite. A technical investigation with respect to the anomaly is underway. Galaxy 15 has 24 C-band transponders and was designed to be operational through 2022.
http://www.intelsat.com

Mindspeed Debuts 288x288 Crosspoint Switch for Optical and Broadcast

Mindspeed Technologies announced the world's first 288x288 asynchronous non-blocking crosspoint switch, providing 82,944 unique switching paths in a single, monolithic integrated circuit (IC). Applications include serial data switches for broadcast video and optical transport networks.

Mindspeed's M21170 chip is a 288x288 non-blocking matrix for a router's switching core, replacing four cascaded 144x144 crosspoints required to achieve the same number of inputs and outputs. Mindspeed said this method significantly reduces the size, cost and complexity of today's largest switchers. Each switching path in the M21170 can operate independently at any data rate of up to 3.2 Gbps, allowing for multi-rate routing and switching in a single device. The crosspoint also uses Mindspeed's proven signal-conditioning technology to compensate for signal losses that typically accumulate across the extended trace lengths of very large systems.


"This is a major milestone for the video broadcast industry, on the road to significantly larger, more capable multi-format SD and HD switchers," said Kurt Busch, senior vice president and general manager of Mindspeed's high-performance analog business unit. "A few years ago, a 256x256 routing switcher was considered very large; now, 512x512 and 576x576 switchers are in hot demand, and broadcasters are asking for even larger switches. The size of these large routers is limited only by the size of the switching core, and now manufacturers can replace up to four cascaded 144x144 crosspoints with a single 288x288 solution."


Crosspoint switches are also used to implement circuit switched backplanes with hundreds of high speed serial links such as those found in OTN/DWDM systems.
http://www.mindspeed.com

ZTE Reports 2009 Revenue of US$8.8 Billion, up 36% YoY

ZTE Corporation reported 2009 revenue of approximately US$8.821 billion, representing an increase of 36.08% against 2008. Net profit was USD359.7 million, representing an increase of 48.06% against 2008. Basic earnings per share were USD0.21. In 2009, net cash flow from operating activities per share was US$0.28.


ZTE's Board of Directors recommended payment of a final dividend for the year ended 2009: the creation of 5 shares for every 10 shares and a cash dividend of USD0.44 for every 10 shares (including tax).


During the year, the Group's revenue from domestic operations amounted to US$4.45 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 74.04%. 3G network construction in China was a primary factor, as ZTE emerged to become China's largest supplier of 3G network equipment for the three leading carriers.


ZTE's international operations grew to US$4.371 billion, 11.34% more year-on-year, and accounted for49.56% of the total revenue of the Group.


"In 2009, our Group attained significant breakthroughs and growth in the mainstream product of carriers' network. In the mainstream market, we topped the overall ranking for the PRC 3G market during the reporting period, while revenue from Europe and America was growing fast as a percentage of the Group's sales revenue from international markets. We succeeded in making major breakthroughs in the mainstream market on the back of our strengths in research and development as well as our ability in swift network delivery, winning contracts to build commercial networks in major cities around the world for mainstream carriers such as CSL, KPN and Telenor," stated Mr. Hou Weigui, Chairman of ZTE.


ZTE noted a rapid growth in wireless terminals for 2009. The company shipped 60 million wireless terminals including more than 40 million handsets and 20 million data cards in 2009. More than 70% of all ZTE shipments in 2009 were to international markets. This represents a 33% growth over 2008.
http://www.zte.com.cnhttp://

FCC Sets Broadband Plan Agenda

In follow-up to the release of its National Broadband Plan last month, the FCC published its action plan for implementing the key recommendations. This agenda explains the purpose and timing of more
than 60 rulemakings and other notice-and-comment proceedings the Plan recommends for FCC
action. Most of the items will be implemented through a series of open, participatory notice-and-comment proceedings.


FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the court ruling earlier this week vacating its 2008 order on Net Neutrality would not deter or delay the National Broadband Plant.



The 2010 Broadband Action Agenda focuses on four key goals:


1. Promote World-Leading Mobile Broadband Infrastructure and Innovation

  • Seek to make an additional 500 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum available for mobile
    broadband within the next ten years.

  • · Increase opportunities for unlicensed devices and innovative spectrum access models.

  • Expand incentives and mechanisms to reallocate or repurpose spectrum to higher-valued
    uses.

  • Improve the transparency of spectrum allocation and utilization.


2. Accelerate Universal Broadband Access and Adoption, and Advance National Purposes Such as Education and Health Care


  • Carry out a once-in-a-generation transformation of the Universal Service Fund over the next
    ten years to support broadband service. This will be achieved by converting existing subsidy
    mechanisms over time from "POTS" (plain old telephone service) to broadband, without
    increasing the size of the fund over the current baseline projection.


  • Upgrade the E-rate program, which has successfully connected public libraries and K-12
    classrooms, to benefit students and others across the country by making broadband more
    accessible.


  • Reform and upgrade the Rural Health Care Program to connect more public health facilities
    to high-speed Internet facilities and to foster telemedicine applications and services. Create a
    Health Care Infrastructure Fund to support deployment of dedicated health care networks to
    underserved areas.


  • Create a Connect America Fund to extend broadband service to unserved areas of the nation
    and to ensure affordable broadband service in high-cost areas where support is necessary.


  • Create a Mobility Fund to bring all states to a baseline level of "3G" (or better) wireless
    coverage.


3. Foster Competition and Maximize Consumer Benefits Across the Broadband Ecosystem


  • Enhance broadband and marketplace choices for small businesses and mobile providers by
    establishing consistent policy frameworks for special access and wholesale wireline
    competition.


  • Improve consumer disclosures and FCC data collection to better monitor and promote
    broadband competition.


  • Fulfill mandate from Congress to ensure that video navigation devices, such as smart video
    devices, are available to consumers in the marketplace, spurring innovation in home video
    devices and driving increased broadband adoption and utilization.


4. Advance Robust and Secure Public Safety Communications Networks


  • Facilitate the creation of a nationwide interoperable public safety wireless broadband
    network.


  • Promote cybersecurity and protect critical communications infrastructure.

  • Aid the transition to next-generation 911 and alerting systems.
http://www.fcc.govhttp://www.broadband.gov/plan/broadband-action-agenda-items.html

Juniper to Acquire Ankeena for CDN Capabilities

Juniper Networks agreed to acquire Ankeena Networks, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, for its online media delivery technology. The companies have been collaborating for several months and Juniper plans to leverage Ankeena software to offer high-performance content delivery networking and "3 Screen" media delivery solutions for the mobile and fixed service providers. The solution allows network operators to provide highly-optimized video delivery services using their own infrastructure.


Juniper said the financial impact of this transaction is expected to be immaterial with consideration at closing of less than $100 million. Additional terms of the transaction were not disclosed.


At this year's Mobile World Congress, Juniper Networks introduced its Media Flow, a caching solution developed by Ankeena Networks that optimizes mobile and fixed networks for fast, efficient video and rich media delivery. Media Flow software enables smooth adaptive bit streaming at the service edge of the networks. Expected to be available in Q2 2010, Media Flow will include a Juniper VXA Series content delivery engine and Ankeena software to provide video and content delivery up to 10Gbps per engine.


Ankeena's systems combines media storage optimization, multi-tier caching and rate based delivery mechanisms to deliver large number of concurrent media streams at different data rates with an extremely high aggregate bandwidth. Ankeena's Media Flow Director ensures that users receive a smooth-viewing experience regardless of the viewing device and varying network conditions. Ankeena's supports various adaptive streaming technologies. The company calculates that its Media Optimized multi-tier caching technology provides up to a 10-to-1 reduction in the number of servers needed to deliver the same amount of media, with a similar reduction in transit network and media delivery costs.
http://www.juniper.nethttp://www.ankeena.com
  • Ankeena is headed by Rajan Raghavan (CEO and co-founder), who previously co-founded Xambala, where he developed the company's vision for the XML, security and financial industries. Prior to Xambala, Raghavan founded and served as CEO of RealChip Communications, where he established the company's fabless ASIC and VOIP segment strategies.


  • Ankeena's other co-founders include Prabakar Sundarrajan (CTO), who was previously at Citrix Systems, NetScaler and Exodus Communications; Jaspal Kohli (Chief Architect), who was previously served as Principal Architect at Yahoo; and Kumar Narayanan (VP of Engineering), who was previously served as Director, Engineering in the Data Center Switching and Security Technology Group at Cisco Systems.


  • Ankeena was incubated by Clearstone ventures and backed by investors including Trinity Ventures and Mayfield Fund.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Vodafone to Offer Opera Browser on Low-Cost Mobile Phones

In an effort to bring low-cost, mobile data service to more people, Vodafone announced plans to a offer a customized version of the Opera Mini browser running on low-cost handsets over 2G networks. Specifically, Vodafone and Opera Software have developed an enhanced version of the Opera Mini 5 for lower- to mid-tier handsets.


Since the Opera Mini 5 browser can compress data by up to 90 percent, it requires less processing power on the handset and uses less network capacity, resulting in a richer internet experience in more challenging conditions. The on-screen experience will feature step-by-step, simple instructions in local languages, with a strong emphasis on the use of intuitive icons to help those with lower levels of literacy.


The Opera Mini 5 browser has been embedded in a range of 20 devices as well as being downloadable to over 250 GPRS supported handsets in Vodafone's customer base.


Vodafone said it will offer highly affordable data tariffs to match this announcement.


A range of Vodafone applications is also in development, most of them designed to deliver the most social benefits to users such as email, finding a job, buying and selling services and products, learning foreign languages, as well as getting access to global applications. The initiative is initially being rolled out in India, South Africa, Turkey, Tanzania and Egypt with other markets expected to follow.


"With this product, we can transform even basic handsets into very capable internet browsing devices, enabling millions of people to enjoy the social and economic aspects of the internet that many already take for granted," said Jonathan Bill, Vodafone Internet Services Head of Emerging Markets.


In February, Vodafone launched the world's cheapest voice and text handset: the Vodafone 150, which retails at under US$15. The handset, along with the $20 Vodafone 250 handset, will be available in the first instance in India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Turkey, Mozambique, Qatar, South Africa and Tanzania.
http://www.vodafone.comhttp://