FCC Appoints Rick Kaplan as Chief of Wireless Telecom Bureau

Rick Kaplan, currently Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor to the FCC Chairman, will succeed Ms. Ruth Milkman as Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. Milkman is departing the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to serve as Special Counsel to the Chairman for Innovation in Government.


Prior to his current role in the Office of the Chairman, Mr. Kaplan previously served as Chief of Staff for
Commission Mignon Clyburn, and as deputy coordinator of the FCC DTV task force under then-Acting
Chairman Michael Copps. He practiced regulatory law and appellate litigation at Sidley Austin LLP, and
served in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives. http://www.fcc.gov

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Boingo Wireless Posts $21 Million in Quarterly Revenue

Boingo Wireless, which recently completed its IPO, reported first quarter revenue of $21.0 million, compared to $18.5 million for the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 13.7 percent. During the first quarter, the company generated $5.7 million in cash from operating activities and ended the first quarter with overall cash and investments of $33.9 million. This excludes cash received from its IPO, which was completed on May 3, 2011. http://www.boingo.com

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Optelian Appoints Stephen Loudermilk as Director of Marketing

Optelian, which develops optical transport networks, has appointed Stephen Loudermilk as Director of Marketing. Prior to joining Optelian, Mr. Loudermilk oversaw social media, marketing, analyst and public relations for Alcatel-Lucent's Services Group.
http://www.optelian.com

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Fujitsu Launches Global Cloud Service Powered by Windows Azure

Fujitsu is ready to launch a Global Cloud Platform service powered by Microsoft Windows Azure. The cloud service platform is now running in Fujitsu's datacenter in Japan and will be launched as a commercial service in August 2011.


The Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform service, FGCP/A5, is the result of the strategic partnership between Fujitsu and Microsoft on the development of a Fujitsu-branded cloud service running specifically on Fujitsu servers with scalable compute and storage powered by Windows Azure. The appliance will be operated from a Fujitsu datacenter in Japan, and will run the Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform, FGCP/A5, the first cloud service hosted in Japan to provide Windows Azure developers with a familiar and consistent application and data platform.


FGCP/A5 offers a set of application development frameworks, such as Microsoft .NET, Java and PHP, and data storage capabilities consistent with the Windows Azure platform provided by Microsoft. The basic service consists of compute, storage, Microsoft SQL Azure and Windows Azure AppFabric technologies such as Service Bus and Access Control Service, with options for interoperating services covering implementation and migration of applications, system building, systems operation and support.
http://www.fujitsu.com
http://www.microsoft.com

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AT&T Cuts Electricity Consumption by 16.6% in 2010

AT&T reduced the electricity intensity of its operations by 16.6% in 2010 by implementing a variety of programs, according to the company's newly released 2010 Sustainability Report. Significantly, A&T reduced the electricity associated with a terabyte of data from 498 kWh/terabyte of data in 2009 to 418 kWh/terabyte of data in 2010.



Some highlights of the 76 page report:

• Realized $44 million in annualized energy savings from implementing 4,200 energy- savings projects
  
  
• . AT&T's Domestic Carbon Footprint, which is company-wide greenhouse gas (GHG)
  emissions (metric tons CO2-equivalent) came in at 8,925,724, down slightly from 8,931,090 in 2009, and down from 9,066,626 in 2008.




• By year end 2010, reached total deployment of 3,487 alternative-fuel vehicles in 538 cities as part of AT&T's 2009 plan to roll out approximately 15,000 alternative fuel vehicles through 2018. This includes 2,472 CNG vehicles, 1,013 Hybrid vehicles and 2 Electric vehicles.



• Avoided the purchase of more than 1 million gallons of traditional petroleum fuel because of its use of compressed natural gas vehicles in its corporate fleet



• Worked with students at Vanderbilt University to conduct an assessment of AT&T's water usage and publish the company's first ever water footprint



• Participated in the Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Climate Corps program, an initiative to help companies identify large-scale energy efficiency opportunities. AT&T and EDF identified a potential savings of 80% in lighting-related electricity usage across more than 100 million square feet of AT&T space



• Teamed with clean energy technology company Petra Solar to provide communications and information technology support for nearly 200,000 solar power generating stations atop utility poles throughout New Jersey. The units – which communicate with the power grid using AT&T's wireless network – are expected to generate 40 Megawatts of solar-driven power to communities.



• AT&T produced 2,849,896 annual kWh of solar electricity in 2010, up from 1,626,221 annual kWh in 2009.



• For 2011, AT&T has set a goal of reducing the electricity consumption across the company relative to data growth on its network by 17 percent as compared with year 2010.

http://www.att.com

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Tata Picks Cisco ASR 9000 for Carrier Ethernet Across India

Tata Communications will deploy the Cisco Aggregation Services Router 9000 Series (ASR 9000) for its next-generation Ethernet network service throughout India. Financial terms were not disclosed. The companies expect IP traffic in India to grow nine-fold from 2010 to 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 54%. IP traffic in India is expected to reach 1.2 Exabytes per month in 2015, up from 137 Petabytes per month in 2010. Also, there are expected to be one billion networked devices in India by 2015, up from 570 million in 2010.http://www.cisco.com

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Cisco Enhances ASR 9000 with 10G and 100G Interfaces

Cisco rolled out a series of enhancements for its ASR 9000 series edge and aggregation routers with a new high-capacity chassis, new 10 GigE and 100 GigE interface cards, a virtualization technology for linking edge routers into a single management plane, and a content-caching service module.



Cisco noted that is ASR 9000 series has been deployed in over 500 Service Provider networks worldwide, giving it substantial base of customers ready to upgrade their edge routers.

With this rollout, the company is introducing two new members of the ASR 9000 family: the high-capacity ASR 9922 and the compact ASR 9000V. The ASR 9922 is designed to deliver application layer services quickly and reliably.


A key design criteria for the new platform was to increase scalability, and this is achieved with the ASR 9922's 20-slot chassis and the new high-density line cards. The first of these high-density line cards supports 24 full-rate 10 GigE ports in a single slot. Transport optimized and service optimized versions of this line card will be offered. The second card offers dual 100 GigE ports. Even at full line rate with small packets, it fully protected with redundant switching fabrics.



The new ASR 9000V is an access and aggregation router for the intelligent edge. Cisco is tying these edge routers together with a new technology that it is calling Cisco Network Virtualization (nV). This enables Service Providers to manage thousands of ASR 9000vs as though they were a single device, greatly simplifying network operations. The nV technology allows the ASR 9000v to operate as a "virtual distributed line card". Cisco said this enables it to scale to tens of thousands of Gigabit Ethernet ports under a single, managed ASR 9000 system.



Cisco is also introducing a distributed content caching card for the ASR 9000 series. This module combines compute capabilities with over 3 TB of solid state storage. The idea is store video content in the edge or aggregation router itself, closer to the viewer. Apart from video caching, the integrated service module could support a new generation of applications that require responsive content caching and advanced subscriber management.http://www.cisco.com

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RSA Comments on SecureID Breach

In an open letter to customers, Art Coviello, Executive Chairman, RSA confirmed that information taken from RSA in March had been used as an element of an attempted broader attack on Lockheed Martin, who has stated that this attack was thwarted and that no data was stolen.



Coveillo said he remains confident in RSA's authentication technology and that the attack on Lockheed Martin does not reflect a new threat or vulnerability in RSA SecurID technology.



Nevertheless, RSA will expand its security remediation program and is offering to replace SecurID tokens for customers with concentrated user bases typically focused on protecting intellectual property and corporate networks.
RSA is also offering to implement risk-based authentication strategies for consumer-focused customers with a large, dispersed user base, typically focused on protecting web-based financial transactions.http://www.rsa.com/node.aspx?id=3891

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XtremIO Raises $14 Million for Solid State Storage

XtremIO, a start-up based in Tel Aviv, raised $14 million in venture funding for its storage solutions based on Solid State technology. The company specializes in Enterprise storage system solutions based on innovative architecture and storage algorithms, utilizing solid-state drives (SSDs). Product details have not yet disclosed.


The financing round was led by Battery Ventures, with participation from existing investors Giza Venture Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP). http://www.xtremio.com

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Hurricane Electric to Offer Premium IPv6 Tunnel Broker Service

Hurricane Electric, a leading IPv6-native Internet backbone and colocation provider, introduced its new premium IPv6 tunnel broker service to complement its free and highly popular consumer-grade tunnel broker service.


The new production-grade tunnel broker service is intended for intensive business and enterprise computing environments. Supporting throughput of up to 1 Gbps, the premium service is available via IPv4 and IPv6 and allows both protocols within the dual-stacked tunnel. Customers can provide their own network prefix, or Hurricane Electric can provide one. The service, which will cost $500 per month, requires the use of BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) as the routing protocol.


Hurricane Electric will continue to maintain its popular free tunnel broker service, which caters primarily to the consumer and small-business market.
http://www.he.net

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ChinaComm Selects Tellabs for Wireless Packet Core

ChinaComm selected the Tellabs SmartCore 9100 platform for a packet core network for broadband wireless access services in Beijing and across nine other Chinese markets for a total of 10 markets in nine provinces. Specifically, the Tellabs SmartCore 9100 will support broadband wireless access networks from various radio access manufacturers, eliminating the need to use separate access service network (ASN) gateways. Financial terms were not disclosed.



"We chose Tellabs SmartCore 9100 platform because of its interoperability with multiple broadband wireless access vendors and its ability to support future service expansion," said Mr. Zhu Shurong, Chief Technology Officer for ChinaComm. "This decision will help us simplify network operations and save operational expenses by eliminating the need to manage and maintain two separate ASN gateways."
http://www.tellabs.com

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Verizon Wireless Showcases LTE Telematics for Automotive Industry

Verizon Wireless is showcasing LTE Telematics this week at an automotive industry event in Detroit. Verizon Wireless said its LTE network enables advances in key components of Telematics, such as GPS systems, maintenance indicators, wireless Web access, hands-free connectivity and roadside assistance, along with other technologies and applications.



Some partners:



Airbiquity -- wireless applications for vehicles. Together with Airbiquity, Verizon Wireless will feature connected in-vehicle mobile applications, including weather, streaming audio, local POI search, as well as integration with V CAST Apps. http://www.airbiquity.com



Plex -- seamless digital media lifestyle. The Plex Media Center allows consumers to access and consume digital media from a wide variety of sources on one open platform. The Plex platform also enables content providers to make their content easily available across a range of devices. http://www.plexapp.com



MyAssist -- personal automotive assistance. A live-agent personal assistance and Telematics service for Automotive OEMs, Telematics Service Providers and other customer-centric organizations. MyAssist is powered by the world's leading concierge, emergency travel and medical assistance infrastructure and specializes in assisting OEMs and application developers integrate a human touch into their vehicles or applications. http://www.myassist.com



TeleCommunication Systems, Inc., (TCS) -- mobile cloud computing services providing wireless applications for navigation, hyper-local search, asset tracking, social applications and Telematics. http://www.telecomsys.com http://network4g.verizonwireless.com/www.airbiquity.com

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AppliedMicro Embeds Trusted Module Security into PacketPro

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AppliedMicro) introduced its latest PacketPro Gen2 embedded processor featuring an embedded "SLIMpro" Trusted Management Module (TMM) that enables network equipment manufacturers to hard wired, tamper-proof encryption and authentication capabilities into their devices.



The Trusted Management Module resides in a secure on-chip cryptographic boundary region designed to replace multi-chip solutions which are vulnerable to attack. AppliedMicro said its SLIMpro TMM not only hides cryptographic keys, passwords and digital certifications, but also makes its possible to include a Secure Boot capability in networking gear. The embedded TMM decrypts and authenticates software used during reboots, or to decrypt and authenticate secure firmware updates or new software images. This effectively prevented "cloned" equipment appearing in the network, or unauthorized software patches and reboots of networking equipment under attack by hackers.



The new "Keelback" APM86791 PacketPro Gen2 embedded processor features a single-core, 1.0-GHz PowerPC 465 processor with floating point unit, 32KB L1 I-cache, 32KB D-cache and 256 KB L2 cache with hardware I/O coherency and DDR3 memory controller with optional ECC. The Trusted Management Module is part of a set of advanced features enabled by SLIMpro in AppliedMicro's PacketPro Gen 2 family. Other features available through SLIMpro include intelligent power management, asymmetric multiprocessing, queue and traffic management, and offload acceleration features. The APM86791 has four 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports (RGMII & SGMII), two PCI-Express Gen1/2 ports, two USB 2.0 hosts with integrated PHY/Serdes and one SATA 2.0 port.



"With network connectivity becoming even more pervasive, mainstream, embedded systems are faced with security threats ranging from intellectual property theft and network intrusions to system hacking," said Majid Bemanian, senior director of marketing for AppliedMicro. "AppliedMicro offers a customizable approach with its Trusted Management Module as a tamper-proof hardware platform that is impervious to software and hardware attacks, providing developers with the most advanced security for embedded systems."



Samples of AppliedMicro APM86791 are expected in the third quarter. http://www.apm.com

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Infineta Tackles Hyper-scale Data Center to Data Center Traffic

Infineta Systems, a start-up based in San Jose, California, has begun shipping its Data Mobility Switch (DMS) designed for optimizing and accelerating "Hyper-Scale" WAN links, such as data center to data center high-bandwidth connections.



Unlike existing WAN optimization platforms, Infineta has developed a customized "Velocity Dedupe Engine" in programmable logic (FPGAs), providing high throughput while incurring extremely low latencies and maintaining very high data reduction efficiency. The company measures a 5-10x bandwidth capacity gains, IP traffic acceleration, and critical application prioritization and assurance over multi-gigabit WAN links. This would mean a 1 Gbps link would perform like a 5 Gbps link, thanks to the data de-dupe and the other acceleration techniques. The DMS can be configured to guarantee minimum data rates for individual classes of service, enabling customers to carve out "protected circuits" for their bandwidth intensive, latency sensitive applications over their existing WAN links. Similarly, an OC12 (622Mbps) circuit can be turned into a 3 Gbps link, and an OC48 (2.54Gbps) circuit into a 10Gbps link.



Whereas branch WAN optimization tackles the ‘north/south' traffic between data centers and remote offices, Infineta said its platform scales for the "east/west" between clouds in geographically divergent locations. The DMS switch accepts inputs up to 10 Gbps. The box is initially configured for lower speed inputs (2 Gbps), but the full performance can be unlocked via license upgrades.



"Both emerging and established companies are evolving their network infrastructures as part of the transition over to a cloud era so that they can tap into the significant cost and performance benefits afforded by resource pooling, network convergence, and the simplification of IT services," states Raj Kanaya, co-founder/CEO, Infineta Systems. "The premium in the next decade of IT will be the simplified and accelerated movement of massive amounts of data that underpins scale-out big data processing (compute), cross-site virtualization (server), and large volume data replication (storage). Infineta's DMS makes this critical traffic move faster for significantly less cost."



Separately, Infineta announced $15 million in a Series B funding round. The new funding came from Silicon Valley-based Rembrandt Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors, Alloy Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners. This brings Infineta's total to-date funding to $30 million.http://www.infineta.com

• Infineta was co-founded by Raj Kanaya (CEO) and Dr. K.V.S. Ramarao (CTO). Kanaya previously was VP of product strategy and alliances for the Application Networking Group at Citrix Systems. He joined Citrix though its acquisition of NetScaler where he served as VP of product management. Dr. Ramarao previously served as Chief Platform Architect for the Application Oriented Networking BU at Cisco Systems. Before that, he was founder and CTO of both Conformative Systems (acquired by Intel) and Sariga Networks.

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PMC-Sierra Introduces Quad-Port EPON OLT Chip

PMC-Sierra introduced a quad-port EPON OLT System-on-Chip (SoC) family featuring integrated traffic management and packet processing, advanced power save modes that allow remote power down of customer premises equipment, in-band optical fiber testing and support for mobile backhaul.



The PAS5400 devices integrate four 1 Gbps EPON MACs and are scalable to enable high-density OLT equipment. The new EPON OLT family includes three SoCs that comply with IEEE 802.3ah and China carrier specifications for EPON networks: PAS5404 with 'lite' traffic management, PAS5414 with fully featured traffic management, and PAS5424 with fully featured traffic management and a cascading option that eliminates the need for an aggregation switch on the OLT line card.



PMC-Sierra's EPON devices also features in-band Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR), which enables carriers to test the outdoor fiber-optics line while in service. If errors are found, the tool can locate the problem within a few meters. Today, carriers must take down the line and use specialized test equipment to find these problems. In-band OTDR keeps uptime and offers major savings in carrier OPEX and CAPEX.



The PON devices also implement a sophisticated algorithm for ONU remote power-down at idle periods and recovery of full operation without losing data. The company calculates that the use of PAS5400, together with PMC's PAS6500 EPON ONU SoC, can reduce ONU power consumption by up to 80 percent while maintaining connectivity and Quality of Service (QoS).



"Carriers are looking for ways to deliver new services and higher bandwidth to a growing base of subscribers, while improving network reliability and reducing operational cost," said Raphael Sankar, vice president and co-general manager of PMC's FTTH division. "PMC is the only provider that can deliver this level of innovation across a complete portfolio of solutions for EPON, GPON and 10G PON with maximum software reuse, and this solidifies our leadership in the optical fiber access market segment."
http://www.pmc-sierra.com http://www.pmc-sierra.com/ftth-pon

• In March, PMC-Sierra expanded its FTTH portfolio with a new line of 10G-EPON OLT devices in 40nm featuring traffic management, packet processing, on-chip redundancy and advanced optical diagnostic capabilities built-in. PMC-Sierra also introduced three new EPON devices for low-cost, low-power ONUs.
  
  
  
  PMC-Sierra's 10G-EPON OLT family, which complies with IEEE 802.3av specifications and China carrier specifications for both asymmetric and symmetric 10G-EPON modes, feature an in-band Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) and Upstream Signal Analyzer for in-service diagnostics. On-chip fiber Automatic Protection Switching (APS) enables a rapid switch-over in cases of failure in the optical distribution network (ODN). Four versions with asymmetric, symmetric and traffic management options.

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NEC and Juniper Deployed in Kiwi Research Network

The Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) is being extended to more points of presence across New Zealand (a total of 23). KAREN provides reliable, high speed, high capacity connectivity across New Zealand through 23 points of presence. As an Elite Juniper partner, NEC will provide fourteen Juniper Networks(R) MX80 3D Universal Edge Routers to support the growth of the network, which links KAREN members to over 200 million advanced network users worldwide.

http://www.juniper.net

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Apple's iCloud to Drive Bandwidth Usage

Apple's newly unveiled iCloud, along with wireless updates for untethered iOS devices, promise significant convenience for users and potentially huge amounts of new traffic for service providers.



iCloud offers 5 GB of free storage for music, photos, apps, calendars, documents, etc. The automated service effortlessly collects content from the user, stores it and then pushes a copy to all devices associated with the account. With over 25 million iPads and more than 100 million iPhones and iTouch devices already in customer hands, the amount of data traversing the network will be huge. In addition, music, books and apps purchased through iTunes does not count toward the 5GB limit.



iCloud Backup automatically and securely backs up iOS devices to iCloud daily over Wi-Fi when you charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. This includes home screens, text and MMS messages, and ringtones.



iTunes in iCloud automatically pushes all songs, whether purchased or ripped, to all iPads, iPhones, iPod touches, Macs, and/or PCs associated with the account.



Apple's new Photo Stream, which also does not count toward the 5 GB limit, will use iCloud to automatically share any new photos with all other devices on the account. Apple will let users keep a rolling stream of their 1,000 latest photos constantly updated for free via Photo Stream. Photo Stream is built into the photo apps on all iOS devices, iPhoto on Macs, and saved to the Pictures folder on a PC.



Apple's iWork apps will be automatically backed-up and distributed in iCloud.



Apple is providing APIs for other mobile and Lion OS apps to automatically use iCloud as a background service.



Wireless updating for iOS 5 -- iPhones and iPads no longer need to be associated with a Mac or PC to register or to get OS updates. The updates can be delivered over Wi-Fi or via 3G, potentially moving gigabytes of OS updates for hundreds of millions of devices onto mobile networks.



OS X Lion will be delivered exclusively via the Mac App Store. At 4 GB in size, traffic is expected to spike when Lion is released sometime in July.

http://www.apple.com

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Clearwire, Comcast, and Sprint Expand 4G in PA

Clearwire, Comcast and Sprint announced a significant expansion of the Clearwire 4G network in the greater Pittsburgh metro area. The regional CLEAR, XFINITY®Internet 2go and Sprint 4G service area has added coverage for an additional 10,591 people. This expansion represents new coverage since Clearwire's initial launch on September 30, 2010. http://www.clearwire.com

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GSA: Mobile HD Voice Now Launched on 20 Carrier Networks

Mobile HD Voice services are now launched on 20 carrier networks worldwide, according to the GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association). Europe is taking the lead role with mobile HD Voice.


Mobile HD Voice uses Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband technology (W-AMR) standardized by 3GPP, and enables high-quality voice calls in mobile networks and an improved user experience. It provides significantly higher voice quality for calls between mobile phones supporting the feature, and can be implemented in GSM and WCDMA (UMTS) networks.


There are now 33 mobile phone models supporting HD Voice, mostly from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung.


GSA's Mobile HD Voice: Global Update report, published June 3, 2011, confirms that 40% of countries in the European Union have commercially launched mobile HD Voice services, or are engaged in trials and tests ahead of planned commercial introduction. Furthermore, operator investments in mobile HD Voice extend far beyond Europe.


The first commercial mobile HD Voice service was introduced in September 2009. HD Voice services are now launched on 20 mobile networks in 18 countries and territories – Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, La Réunion, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the UK.


Trials and network deployments of HD Voice ahead of planned commercial introduction are also progressing in Australia, Austria, the Dominican Republic, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, UAE and the USA.


A total of 33 HD Voice-capable phones are available from leading manufacturers including Alcatel, HTC, LG, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. Many of the latest products are shipping with the HD Voice capability activated as default.
http://www.gsacom.com

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Verizon Cites Green Efforts in California

Verizon cited a number of conservation initiatives it has undertaken in California, including:

• the removal and recycling of more than 5 million feet of unused cable, including 2 million feet of old lead cable in 2010.



• the recycling of 2,895 mobile phones and accessories in California, via Verizon Wireless' HopeLine® program, which resulted in keeping electronic waste and batteries out of landfills.



• a contract to convert 300 gasoline-powered Ford E-250 cargo vans to CNG (compressed natural gas), a move that will reduce vehicle carbon emissions by 480 tons per year. Used by the company in Southern California, the CNG engines emit 23 percent less carbon dioxide than comparable gasoline-powered vans.

"We're an essential part of the technology ecosystem, and as demand for our high-IQ networks continues to increase we will grow our business responsibly," said Tim McCallion, Verizon West region president. "Verizon continues to find ways to partner with our employees, customers and vendors to find opportunities to reduce the environmental impact of our business."http://www.verizon.com

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