Sunday, January 29, 2012

Fujitsu Wins Key Domain Supplier Status with AT&T

Fujitsu Network Communications has been selected as one of AT&T's Domain Suppliers for optical and transport equipment. The multi-year selection covers equipment used to expand and maintain AT&T's metropolitan and long-haul network infrastructure. Financial terms of the supplier agreement are still being negotiated.


AT&T's Domain Supplier program, launched in September 2009, facilitates a more collaborative relationship with AT&T's equipment and software suppliers, enabling AT&T to have the best technologies in place to serve its customers. The program is also designed to ensure that the company's network technology investment accelerates AT&T's move toward a network that is well-equipped for the future.

Fujitsu Network Communications, which is headquartered in Richardson, Texas, offers packet optical networking solutions, WDM and SONET platforms manufactured in North America. It also provides multi-vendor network services as well as end-to-end solutions for design, implementation, migration, support and management of optical networks.


"After an extensive evaluation of multiple optical and transport equipment suppliers, we are pleased to extend our relationship with Fujitsu," said Tim Harden, President of AT&T's Supply Chain and Fleet Operations organization.
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/telecom/
  • In August 2011, Fujitsu introduced an Ethernet over Anything (EoX) framework that enables its FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONP) to serve as a gateway for delivering Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF)-compliant services across various transport networks. Fujitsu's EoX vision, which is initially implemented as an EoX Gateway configuration of the FLASHWAVE 9500, now extends into the company's portfolio of access products.

BT Openreach Launches Optical Spectrum Access with ADVA

Openreach, the infrastructure division of BT Group, launched a new Optical Spectrum Access (OSA) service that is built on ADVA Optical Networking's FSP 3000 DWDM platform.


The new service enables enterprises to transport enormous amounts of data throughout the U.K. with much improved latency and unparalleled encryption and security. The OSA service provides dedicated single or resilient point-to-point optical fibre links throughout the U.K. With a route distance of up to 103km, the service accommodates a range of interfaces and uses the same low-latency technology deployed extensively in many of the world’s leading financial trading networks.


“The response to the FSP 3000 introduction has been exceptional,�? said Jon Hurry, MD, Strategy, Commercial, Portfolio & Policy, Openreach. “Since the pre-launch of this service we’ve collaborated with a range of communications providers, whose customers are expecting dramatically more from their networks. Scalability and protecting their investment is at the heart of our customers’ strategy; they need to transport increasing amounts of data across greater distances more securely and faster than ever before. OSA meets those criteria. Today’s launch marks a milestone for U.K. businesses seeking to position their networks as a competitive advantage.�?


“This is an incredible time to be involved in U.K. networks,�? commented Alistair Swales, senior vice president, U.K. sales, ADVA Optical Networking. “In less than one month we’ve seen over 200 design requests from customers interested in the new OSA service.�?
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http://www.advaoptical.com
http://www.openreach.co.uk/

Stoke Appoints VP of Engineering

Stoke appointed Charles Corbalis as Vice President of Engineering. He joins from RGB Networks where he was Vice President of Engineering. He was previously co-founder of optical switch company Calient Networks and StrataCom, Inc, where he led the development of breakthrough communications industry technologies.
http://www.stoke.com

NetLogic Offers Xen Hypervisor for Multi-Core MIPS64

NetLogic Microsystems introduced an open–source Xen hypervisor for its high-performance multi-core MIPS64 processors for delivering virtualization for next-generation communications, networking and server platforms.


The Xen hypervisor enables multiple instances of the same or different operating systems on a single processor. NetLogic said this capability enables applications to run completely independently and securely on a single processor. For example, a base station can be designed to provide both 3G and LTE services with a single processor, ultimately reducing the cost and complexity of the hardware, while enhancing the flexibility and capability of the system solution.


NetLogic Microsystems’ XLP and XLP II multi-core, multi-threaded processors feature an innovative quad-issue, quad-threaded and superscalar architecture with out-of-order execution capabilities. The processors support virtualization of multiple applications and multiple operating systems on each of the high-performance cores.


NetLogic's flagship XLP processor family in 40nm operates at up to 2GHz and delivers cache-coherent scalability of up to 128 NXCPUs, while the next-generation XLP II processor family is designed for up to 2.5GHz and scalability up to 640 NXCPUs in the state-of-the-art 28nm process.
http://www.netlogic.com
  • In September 2011, NetLogic Microsystems unveiled its next generation of XLP II family of processors based on 28nm process technology, packing up to 80 high-performance NXCPUs per chip, and promising 5-7x performance enhancement over the existing XLP processors. Target applications for the new multi-core devices include next-generation LTE mobile infrastructure, data center, enterprise networking, storage and security platforms. NetLogic said its XLP II processor family is designed to deliver over 100 Gbps of network processing performance per device and over 800 Gbps in a clustered, fully-coherent system. The devices integrate up to 80 high-performance NXCPUs per chip, featuring an enhanced quad-issue, quad-threaded, superscalar out-of-order processor architecture capable of operating at up to 2.5 GHz to provide unmatched control and data plane processing and low-power profile.


  • In September 2011, Broadcom announced plans to acquire NetLogic Microsystems in a deal valued at $3.7 billion ($50 per share) net of cash assumed.


    NetLogic Microsystems, which is based in Santa Clara, California, adds a number of critical new product lines and technologies to Broadcom's portfolio, including knowledge-based processors, multi-core embedded processors, and digital front-end processors.

MTN Renews Managed Services Deal with Ericsson

MTN has extended its managed services agreement with Ericsson in Ghana. With 49% market share and 10 million subscribers, MTN is the premier operator in Ghana which is one of Africa's fastest growing markets with an 18% growth rate in 2011. This announcement marks the extension of the first managed services contract between Ericsson and MTN, originally signed in 2009 in connection to the rollout of MTN's 3G network in Ghana. Under the extension, Ericsson is responsible for network operations, field maintenance and optimization.
http://www.ericsson.com

MetroPCS Picks Ericsson for Microwave Backhaul

MetroPCS Communications has selected Ericsson to served as primary vendor for microwave backhaul equipment under a new four-year contract. Ericsson is already a key infrastructure provider for the company's networks, including its LTE network. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Ericsson's customized microwave backhaul solution for MetroPCS will include:


MINI-LINK TN - a unique microwave transmission node, capable of handling single hops and access sites as well as advanced hub sites for large networks, optimized for traffic aggregation and capacity savings


MINI-LINK PT - a new all-outdoor MINI-LINK product optimized for packet networks, using native Ethernet over microwave


MINI-LINK SP - a multi-access aggregation platform providing a seamless migration path to the next-generation packet-switched networks.
http://www.ericsson.com

TI Introduces Advanced Signal Conditioners

Texas Instruments introduced 10 signal conditioners designed to drive high-speed interface standards such as 10G/40G/100G Ethernet, 10G-KR (802.3ap), InfiniBand, Fibre Channel and CPRI.


The new integrated circuits (ICs), which use high-performance BiCMOS SiGe process technology, expand TI's existing family of repeaters and retimers that combat signal impairments caused by insertion loss, jitter, reflections and crosstalk in high-speed enterprise servers, routers and switches. v

TI said the new signal conditioners are capable of extending reach to exceed 50+ inches of FR-4 backplane or 20 meters of 26-AWG copper cable.
http://www.ti.com

Motorola Solutions Increases Stock Buy Backs

Motorola Solutions' Board of Directors authorized up to $1.0 billion in additional funds for use in the existing stock repurchase program through the end of 2012. The new funds are in addition to the up to $2.0 billion announced in July 2011, raising the total authorization to up to $3.0 billion. After stock repurchases of approximately $1.1 billion through Dec. 31, 2011, Motorola Solutions will have up to approximately $1.9 billion for its stock repurchase program in 2012.
http://www.motorola.com

Tilera Releases its 36 and 16-core TILE-Gx Processors

Tilera, a start-up based in San Jose, California, released its "TILE-Gx" low-power, high-performance 64-bit processors – TILE-Gx36 and TILE-Gx16 in 40nm – as well as companion evaluation systems.


These processors are aimed at networking, cloud computing and multimedia. For networking systems, the company calculates that a single TILE-Gx36 can deliver more than 40 Gbps of L2/L3 packet forwarding performance across small and large packet sizes using less than 25 watts of power. In cloud, a single TILE-Gx36-based server can provide better performance than a Xeon-based system at one-fifth the power and one-eighth the space.


In addition, Tilera’s former CEO and Tilera co-founder Devesh Garg has returned as CEO of the company.
http://www.tilera.com

AT&T Announces Executive Line-up Reshuffle

AT&T announced the following key executives, reporting to Randall Stephenson, its Chairman and CEO:


John Stankey has been named to the newly created position of Group President & Chief Strategy Officer, where he will be responsible for developing the roadmap to maximize future growth opportunities, including corporate development, addressing long-term wireless-capacity needs, capital allocation strategies and identifying the best strategic paths for low-growth and non-strategic assets. He has been with the company for 27 years.


Ralph de la Vega has been named President and CEO of AT&T Mobility, where he continues to lead AT&T’s largest growth engine. de la Vega will focus on expanding the company’s smartphone position.


Andy Geisse has been named Senior Executive Vice President-AT&T Business and Home Solutions. Geisse, an executive with 32-years of experience in AT&T’s business and consumer segments, will be responsible for serving the business segment – from global enterprise customers to small businesses. Additionally, Geisse will lead the Home Solutions team focused on U-verse, broadband and voice services for AT&T’s 22-state local wireline operations.


John Donovan has been named Senior Executive Vice President-AT&T Technology and Network Operations, where he will be responsible for AT&T’s technology and network operations, including its mobile broadband network.
http://www.att.com

ActionPacked Offers Free Visualization Tool for NetFlow and Cisco Medianet

ActionPacked! Networks announced that, for a limited time, it will be giving away permanent licenses for its newest LiveAction Version 2.31 software with in-depth, real-time traffic flow visualizations plus the company’s newest Medianet capabilities. As a flow monitoring tool, the free version of LiveAction tracks and graphically displays NetFlow, J-Flow and sFlow paths and characteristics over a live network topology view that the software generates automatically. Users can click on devices and interfaces for more detailed information. As a tool for Cisco Medianet, the software also collects and displays detailed Medianet performance monitoring information and provides the industry’s first live topology presentation of Mediatrace for Cisco devices.

ActionPacked! is currently offering the free, three-device special edition of LiveAction through March 31, 2012 to qualified IT departments in the United States and Canada. The software works with most devices that support NetFlow, JFlow and s-Flow. To use LiveAction’s Medianet capabilities, the Cisco devices must also be Medianet-capable and have IOS version 15.1 (3) T installed.http://actionpacked.com

Video: Super-Channels

What's beyond 100G? Inexorable bandwidth growth requires the next leap in optical transmission. Super-Channels allow rapid deployment of massive bandwidth in chunks of 500 Gigabits per second or even 1 Terabit per second and will be shipping in 2012. Infinera's super-channels aggregate up to 10 carriers or 100 Gbps using a photonic integrated circuit.


Presented by Mike Capuano, Vinay Rathore and Dave Welsh.




This text will be replaced


http://www.infinera.com

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Wi-Fi Alliance Sees Confusion in Labeling White Spaces as 'Super Wi-Fi"

The Wi-Fi Alliance is expressing concern over the growing use of the terms “Super Wi-Fi�? or “Next Generation Wi-Fi�? to describe wireless broadband access over the unlicensed spectrum known as Television White Spaces.


The Wi-Fi Alliance cautions that recently-announced deployments using terms like “Super Wi-Fi�? are not in fact Wi-Fi, as the technology does not interoperate with the billions of Wi-Fi devices in use today. In a press release, the Wi-Fi Alliance notes that Wi-Fi is its registered trademark and that the term “Super Wi-Fi�? is not an authorized extension of the bran.
http://www.wi-fi.org

Clearwire Completes $300 Million Bond Sale

Clearwire completed a sale of $300.0 million aggregate principal amount of 14.75% first-priority senior secured notes due 2016 at an issue price of 100% (the “Notes�?). The funds will be used for the deployment of mobile 4G LTE technology alongside the mobile 4G WiMAX technology currently on its network and for the operation and maintenance of its networks and for general corporate purposes.
http://www.clearwire.com

Tekelec's Privatization is Complete

A consortium led by Siris Capital Group completed its acquisition of Tekelec for approximately $780 million, or $11.00 per share in cash.



“Our new ownership structure will enable us to continue our rapid expansion into the mobile data business and capitalize on our leadership in the voice and text signaling business and to rapidly expand our mobile data business,�? said Ron de Lange, president and CEO of Tekelec. “Going forward, our customers can expect the same dedication to innovation, customer service and support that define our company.�?http://www.tekelec.comTekelec's integrated Home Subscriber Server (HSS) address resolution database and its LTE Diameter Signaling Router (DSR) have been deployed by a tier-one North American Service Provider. This allows the service provider to scale LTE services by routing Diameter messages to the appropriate HSS in the network.


Tekelec's LTE products include:


Home Subscriber Server which serves as the central authentication and mobility management point in LTE Evolved Packet Core and IMS networks, and supports the latest 3GPP standards, including Idle-Mode Signaling Reduction. The HSS is an application on Tekelec's Subscriber Data Server, which also includes the Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR), the Equipment Identity Register (EIR), the next-generation Home Location Register (ngHLR) and an HLR-proxy to ensure seamless 3G/LTE services and device management.


Diameter Signaling Router, which scales and manages services and applications in LTE core networks for hundreds of millions of subscribers. The DSR centralizes routing, traffic management and load-balancing tasks associated with Diameter traffic.


Policy Server, a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) that integrates with the HSS and acts as the brain for policy coordination, dynamic bandwidth control, charging, consumption and other factors for a subscriber's entire data session.


Performance Intelligence Center (PIC), a performance management system that converts network traffic information into useful business intelligence for service providers to improve the customer experience. The PIC integrates with the DSR to eliminate the need for additional probes and network elements to analyze how subscribers are using IP-enabled devices and applications. In addition, Tekelec added the PIC troubleshooting features to the core DSR platform to continuously monitor the DSR's performance.


Each of these products runs on Tekelec's EAGLE XG middleware platform, built to meet the core network scalability needs of the world's largest networks.

Marvell Cuts its Financial Guidance Citing Thai Flood

Marvell cut its financial outlook for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, ending January 28, 2012. The company now expects net revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 to be in the range of $735 million to $745 million, compared with prior outlook of between $775 million to $825 million.


"The supply of disk drives started to recover in our fourth fiscal quarter, but later than we had originally anticipated. Our SSD revenues grew more than expected but not enough to offset the impact of the Thailand floods on our HDD volumes," said Dr. Sehat Sutardja, Marvell's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "In addition, we experienced year-end demand softness at our mobile and wireless customers, particularly in China. We believe these effects are near term only, and should not impact our results in the new fiscal year."http://http://investor.marvell.com/

NTT DOCOMO Extends LTE Introductory Discounts

NTT DOCOMO announced a set of discounts for subscribers to its "Xi" LTE s from May 1 to September 30, 2012. Subscribers to selected packet flat-rate and data service plans will automatically receive a ¥1,050 (including tax) discount on their basic monthly charges. At present, Xi subscribers are scheduled to receive monthly discounts of ¥1,575 (including tax) through April 30, so the new campaign means they will continue to enjoy special discounts until the end of September.


In addition, NTT DOCOMO announced plans to throttle users who exceed 7GB of data per month, unless they choose to pay an additional ¥2,625 per month for each additional 2GB increment. This plan goes into effect on October 1.
http://www.nttdocomo.com

NSN Renews EUR 1.3 Billion Loan

Nokia Siemens Networks signed forward starting term and multicurrency revolving facilities agreement valued at €1.305bn with 15 international banks. The loan will replace Nokia Siemens Networks’ existing revolving credit facility when it matures in June 2012.
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

NTT Docomo Reports LTE Progress

As of December 31, 2011, NTT Docomo had 1.14 million LTE subscribers -- its first full year of operating a commercial LTE network.


Docomo currently has four LTE handsets, 2 LTE-enabled tablets, and three LTE modems/routers on offer.


Docomo's LTE network now covers all prefectural capital-sized cities across Japan, covering about 24% of the population. This footprint consists of approximately 5,000 LTE base stations in operation. By the end of March 2012, Docomo aims to have approximately LTE 7,000 base stations in operation.


In November, NTT Docomo introduced a "Xi Talk 24" service that provides LTE customers with unlimited voice calling to all other Docomo subscribers (including 3G users) for a flat rate of 1,480 yen per month. Already 80% of LTE handsets are on this plan.


Overall, NTT Docomo had 59.62 million subscribers across Japan, up slightly by 2.41 million users over a year earlier.


On the financial side, during the quarter ending Dec. 31, NTT Docomo generated revenue of ¥3,174 billion, down ¥35.0 billion from the same period last year due a decline in voice ARPU, which was partially offset by a rise in packet data revenue. Operating expenses declined by ¥20.3 billion yen in the quarter due to a more efficient use of CAPEX, yielding an operating income of ¥743 billion for the quarter, which is a decrease of ¥14.7 billion from a year earlier.
http://www.nttdocomo.com

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Verizon Expands Network in Africa and the Middle East

Verizon announced the expansion of its Private IP service to the following locations: Gabon on Africa's western coast; Djibouti and Ethiopia on the Horn of Africa; Malawi and Zimbabwe in Eastern Africa; and Swaziland in the southern region. The expansion brings to 21 the number of African countries where Verizon's Private IP is now available. In addition, the network has been expanded to Bahrain and Qatar in the Middle East. Services were already available in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi and Dubai).
http://www.verizon.com