Vodafone and Huawei Test 2 Tbps WDM

Vodafone and Huawei have successfully tested 2 Terabit per second optical transmission over a 3,325km span on Vodafone's live network. The field trial achieved a capacity 20-times higher than current commercially deployed 100 Gbps systems.

Specifically, Huawei reported a test achieving 2 Tbps with transmission distance of 1500 km using a super-channel PDM-16QAM-based high spectral efficiency solution.

A second test achieved a transmission distance of 3325 km using a super-channel Nyquist PDM-QPSK-based ultra-long-haul solution. Both transmissions were on a link with G.652 fibers and erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) without electrical regeneration. The link used in the trial was on Vodafone's backbone network, passing through a few cities in Germany.

"We are at the forefront of global 100G deployments, and have taken the lead in delivering key breakthroughs in technologies beyond 100G. Through collaboration with Vodafone and other leading international operators and customer-centric R&D, Huawei is always ready to build advanced optical networks for customers," said Jack Wang, president of Huawei's transport network product line.

http://www.huawei.com/en/about-huawei/newsroom/press-release/hw-202114-vodafone.htm

• In July 2012, Huawei announced a prototype WDM platform capable of delivering 2 Tbps per-channel -- a 20–fold increase over the 100G channels available today. Huawei has previously demonstrated 400 Gbps technology at trade shows earlier this year.
  
• The 2 Tbps channel rate is achieved by using intelligent digital signal processing and high performance adaptive-SD FEC technologies. Huawei claims that the 2T signals with 300GHz spectral width can transmit over a distance of 1,000 km without electrical regeneration when using G.652 fiber and common EDFAs.
  
• The use of 2 Tbps channels expands the prototype WDM system capacity to 56 Tbps when utilizing wavelengths in both the C and L bands.
  
• At the time, Huawei said it was also planning to use flex transceiver technology on this prototype WDM platform. This will enable software-defined OTN, allowing a programmable network controller to configure parameters such as the number of subcarriers, subcarrier spacing, modulation codes and FEC modes, thereby achieving flexible adjustments in areas including line rates, transmission distances and transmission capacity. Huawei describes this as programmable "resilient tunnels".

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Akamai State of the Internet Report: Global Average Connection at 2.8 Mbps

The global average connection speed decreased by approximately seven percent between the second and third quarters of 2012 to 2.8 Mbps, according to Akamai's newly released Third Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report.

The Akamai report, which uses data collected from its platforms deployed worldwide, provides insight into key global statistics including connection speeds, attack traffic, and network connectivity and availability, among many others.  This edition provides additional analysis on the Operation Ababil DDoS attacks against the banking industry in the United States and an examination of mobile browser usage by network connection type.

Some highlights:

• Akamai connected with more than 680 million IPv4 addresses from 243 countries/regions during Q3 2012, up 11 percent increase year over year.
• Akamai estimates that over one billion unique web users connected to its platform during the quarter.
• China remained the single largest volume source of observed attack traffic at 33%, followed by United States at 13%, and Russia at 4.7%.
• "Operation Ababil", the DDoS attack against U.S. banks that occurred in September 2012, generated up to 65 Gbps of total attack traffic that varied in target and technique. A significant portion (nearly 23 Gbps) of the attack traffic was aimed at the Domain Name System (DNS) servers that are used for Akamai's Enhanced DNS services.
• Akamai observed global broadband (>4 Mbps) and high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption showing solid gains in the quarter. The global high broadband adoption rate grew by 8.8 percent quarter over quarter, reaching 11 percent, while the global broadband adoption rate increased 4.8 percent, growing to 41 percent.

The full report is available online.

http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/

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Procera Networks Digs Deeper with Content Intelligence

 Procera Networks is enhancing its Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology with a PacketLogic Content Intelligence solution that is capable of correlating the categories of content consumed by broadband subscribers for up to 100 million URLs.

The content categorization occurs with minimal performance impact to any of the PacketLogic Real-Time Enforcement systems.

Procera Networks said a single one of its PL20000 platforms can replace several racks of competing content categorization or filtering solutions, in addition to performing Intelligent Policy Enforcement.

PacketLogic Content Intelligence solutions are currently in trials worldwide, and will be generally available in Q2 2013.

“From the service provider perspective, Procera is delivering the final piece of the puzzle in understanding and responding to what is happening on their networks,” said Jim Brear, president and CEO for Procera Networks. “In adding content categorization intelligence to location, subscriber and application intelligence, operators now have even greater control in delivering the highest quality of experience to consumers. This adds the dimension of content to our understanding of user context which is truly differentiating.”

The traffic landscape on the Internet is dramatically changing, with streaming video driving usage, social networks dominating consumer on-line activities, and traffic often secured using SSL.

http://www.proceranetworks.com/recent-press-releases/1101-procera-networks-launches-content-intelligence-solution.html

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UK's 4G Spectrum Auction Gets Underway

Bidding has begun in the UK's 4G mobile spectrum auction. 

Bidders are competing for spectrum in two separate bands – 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz.

The following companies were qualified for the auction:

Everything Everywhere Limited (UK)

HKT (UK) Company Limited (a subsidiary of PCCW Limited)

Hutchison 3G UK Limited

MLL Telecom Ltd

Niche Spectrum Ventures Limited (a subsidiary of BT Group plc)

Telefónica UK Limited

Vodafone Limited

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2013/01/bidding-in-4g-auction-under-way/

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Cisco to Acquire Intucell for Self-Optimizing Network (SON) Software

Cisco agreed to acquire Intucell, a developer of self-optimizing network (SON) software for mobile operators, for approximately $475 million in cash and retention-based incentives.

Intucell, which is based in Ra'anana, Israel,  offers a multi-technology and multi-vendor SON solution that provides real time RF visibility of the entire Radio Access Network, using OSS data to automatically manage and synchronize the network elements centrally.  The platform uses a "Virtual Drive Test" to automatically tune the network to actual conditions as they develop and change.

"The mobile network of the future must be able to scale intelligently to address growing and often unpredictable traffic patterns, while also enabling carriers to generate incremental revenue streams," said Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Service Provider Mobility Group. "Through the addition of Intucell's industry-leading SON technology, Cisco's service provider mobility portfolio provides operators with unparalleled network intelligence and the unique ability to not only accommodate exploding network traffic, but to profit from it."

http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1129887

• Investors in Intucell include Bessemer Partners.
  
• Intucell is headed by co-founder Rani Wellingstein (CEO), who previously was a founder and vice president of Celltick Technologies, a developer of mobile broadcast. Prior to that he was the general manager and a founding member of NKO, a pioneer in IP telephony, and led its sale to ECI Telecom in 1998.

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SiTime Adds +125C MEMS Oscillators High Reliability

SiTime introduced a MEMS oscillator offering a wide temperature range of-55°C to +125°C for industrial and high reliability applications.

Due to its unique silicon MEMS and analog architecture, the new SiT8920 outperforms quartz oscillators in every major performance category. It consumes half the power of quartz oscillators, is twice as stable, 20 times more reliable and 30 times more robust to shock and vibration.

SiTime also noted that its MEMS oscillators incorporate unique features that are  not available from quartz products, such as a unique "SoftEdgeT" rise/fall time control that reduces system EMI without additional components, expensive shielding or PCB re-design.

SiTime is also introducing two additional devices that are well suited for replacing quartz oscillators and crystal resonators.

SiT1618 – a fixed-frequency oscillator that operates over -40°C to +125°C

SiT8918 – a programmable oscillator that operates over the same temperature range and supports any frequency between 1 and 110 MHz as well as 1.8V and 2.5 to 3.3V operation

All three of the new MEMS oscillators are sampling now with mass production scheduled for April 2013.

"SiTime’s MEMS and analog expertise allows us to deliver unique, leadership products with performance that is far beyond what is available in the market today,” said Piyush Sevalia, executive vice president of marketing at SiTime. “The SiT8920 is a win-win for customers developing industrial and high-reliability applications. They benefit from dramatically better robustness and reliability, while simultaneously improving system performance.

http://www.sitime.com

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Equinix Provides London Hosting for NASDAQ OMX NL

NASDAQ OMX NL has selected Equinix’s London, Slough LD4/LD5 International Business Exchange data center campus to host short-term and long-term interest rate euro- and sterling-based listed derivative products, pending Financial Services Authority approval.

Equinix said its Slough data center campus puts NLX next to over 170 interconnected financial services customers, including a significant proportion of prospective trading participants.

Internationally, Equinix also provides access to an ecosystem of more than 700 trading venues, market participants, specialized networks and technology service providers operating in the world’s top 16 financial markets.

http://www.equinix.com

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Goto Tops 400 Orders for Aircraft Ku-band Satellite

Gogo confirmed that so far it has been selected to outfit more than 400 aircraft with its Ku-band satellite connectivity services across several major airlines operating in the U.S. and internationally.

Currently, Gogo has its Air to Ground (ATG) solution installed on more than 1,700 aircraft and its next generation ATG technology – ATG-4 – installed on more than 100 aircraft, bringing its total number of installed aircraft to more than 1,800 across nine major airlines.

http://www.gogoair.com

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Japan Tests 802.22 TV White Space Network

Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corp. are testing a TV White Space Network based on the IEEE 802.22 standard operating at 470 MHz - 710 MHz.

The prototypes TV White Space base station (BS) and consumer premise equipment (CPE) were developed by NICT and Hitachi Kokusai Electric.

The PHY part, which was provided by Hitachi Kokusai Electric, allows the devices to use vacant TV bands over the frequency range from 470-710MHz.  The MAC layer part, which was provided by NICT, ensures point-to-multipoint access with various QoS levels.  It also offers interference estimation, geo-location and white space data base (WSDB) access over the IP.  ISB Corporation provided the white spaces database to avoid interference with incumbent TV broadcasters.

The organizations are optimistic that these prototypes could provide broadband wireless access to underserved and unserved regional areas around the world as well as bringing reliable backup broadband communications in an emergency.

http://whitespacetech.isbcorp.com
http://www.nict.go.jp/en/press/2012/06/07en-1.html

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Ciena's WAN Decision Tree -- Build or Buy

Ciena published a WAN infrastructure decision tree to help enterprises choose what type of network they need either for interconnecting data centers or connecting corporate sites.

The infographic helps decide between private infrastructure and a telco service. The decision tree paths lead to (1) OTN mesh, (2) Traditional leased line (OTN, SONET/SDH, DWDM), (3) Layer 2 point-to-point VPN or, (4) Layer 3 VPN.


http://www.ciena.com/connect/blog/Infographic-The-WAN-infrastructure-decision-tree.html

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JDSU Offers Cloud Management Tool for Field Testers

JDSU introduced a cloud-based system to provide network operators with a centralized way to manage and analyze data from thousands of deployed JDSU test instruments in the field.

The new StrataSync application consolidates data from individual test instruments for improved network and workforce visibility.  It provides automated tracking, management and reporting of test instruments.  It also provides network technicians with access to critical data to help them pinpoint and resolve any issues to optimize network performance.

StrataSync will be available in March 2013 and will initially support several JDSU test instruments that include the DSAM, DSAM-6300, HST-3000, T-BERD/MTS-2000, T-BERD/MTS-5800, T-BERD/MTS-6000/6000A and the MTS-8000 products. Future phases of StrataSync support an even broader range of network test instruments and will offer more customizable features.

http://www.jdsu.com/go/stratasync

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LSI's Revenues Hit $600 Million, Up 15% YoY

LSI reported Q4 2012 revenues from continuing operations of $600 million, compared to $523 million generated from continuing operations in the fourth quarter of 2011, and compared to $624 million generated from continuing operations in the third quarter of 2012. GAAP income from continuing operations for Q4 was $29 million or $0.05 per diluted share, compared to fourth quarter 2011 GAAP income from continuing operations of $11 million or $0.02 per diluted share.


"2012 was a year of exciting progress for LSI as we delivered 23% revenue growth, strong expansion in operating margin and earnings per share from continuing operations, and record design wins. We introduced several important new products, and customers are increasingly looking to new LSI solutions for mega datacenters, mobile networks and flash," said Abhi Talwalkar, LSI's president and CEO. "LSI's intelligent silicon offers proven solutions as businesses turn to the cloud and look for new ways to accelerate their ability to quickly analyze, store, share and protect data. While there is uncertainty in the macro environment and softness in some end markets, we are centered in dynamic new growth cycles that are expected to drive long-term growth in our flash, server and networking businesses."

http://www.lsi.com

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Symmetricom Sales Drop 15% on Lower Wireline Spending

Citing lower U.S. government spending and lower communications service provider spending on wireline-related equipment, Symmetricom reported revenue of $49.2 million for its second quarter of fiscal 2013, down $9.1 million, or 15.6%, compared to the $58.3 million reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2012.  Symmetricom reported a net loss of $1.8 million, or $0.04 per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2013, compared to net income of $2.4 million, or $0.06 per share, in the second quarter of fiscal 2012.

Symmetricom also announced 20 job cuts as a means of controlling its costs.  The company will also reduce the size of its facility in Santa Rosa, California.

www.symmetricom.com

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AT&T to Acquire Alltel for $780 million

AT&T will acquire Alltel, the mobile operator owned by Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (ATNI), for $780 million in cash.

The deal includes wireless licenses, wireless properties, network assets, retail stores and approximately 585,000 subscribers.  This business generated revenues for the first nine months of 2012 of approximately $350 million.

Alltel operates a CDMA network covering approximately 4.6 million people in primarily rural areas across six states — Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina.

Once the network is upgraded to 4G, AT&T said the Alltel assets will be complementary to its own network.  Alltel's spectrum is in the 700 MHz, 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands.

"We are pleased that AT&T recognizes the value of our U.S. wireless retail operations and is acquiring these assets," said Michael T. Prior, Chief Executive Officer. "Alltel's customers will benefit from access to a nationwide 4G network, a larger device selection, additional retail locations and a broader range of product offerings. Additionally, many of our employees should benefit from new career opportunities within AT&T. We will work closely with AT&T to close the transaction and to ensure a smooth transition for our customers and employees."

http://www.atni.com/
http://www.alltelwireless.com/
http://www.att.com

• The current Alltel brand, which is owned by Atlantic Tele-Network, was formed in early 2010 following ATNI's acquisition of wireless properties, licenses and network assets from Verizon Wireless, which was required by the FCC to sell these coverage areas.
• In January 2009, Verizon Communications acquired the original Alltel Corporation for approximately $5.9 billion. The FCC and the Department of Justice required Verizon to divest assets in 100 areas in 22 states to win approval for the deal.
• The original Alltel traced its heritage back to the foundation of  the Allied Telephone Company in Arkansas in 1943.

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Verizon: 2012 Revenues Up 4.5% YoY, Charges for Q4

Verizon Communications reported strong customer and revenue growth in Verizon Wireless and Verizon FiOS services in Q4 2012, however there was a loss of $1.48 in EPS in Q4 2012, due to non-operational charges, including impacts from Superstorm Sandy (38 cents per share) and pension/benefit costs.  Verizon Wireless service revenues were up 8.5% in the quarter, while FiOS revenues were up 15.7 percent and strategic enterprise services were up 5.3%.

For full-year 2012, Verizon’s revenues totaled $115.8 billion, up by 4.5 percent, or $5.0 billion, compared with 2011.   CAPEX was $16.2 billion in 2012, including $135 million in companywide capital related to Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts -- downabout $70 million less than in 2011.

Some highlights from the quarterly report:

Verizon Wireless

• Q4 revenues were $20.0 billion, up 9.5 percent year over year.  Service revenues in the quarter totaled $16.4 billion, up 8.5 percent year over year.  Retail service revenues grew 8.4 percent year over year, to $15.8 billion.
• Retail postpaid ARPA (average revenue per account) grew 6.6 percent over fourth-quarter 2011, to $146.80 per month.
• Added 2.2 million net retail connections in Q4, including a record-high 2.1 million retail postpaid net connections.  Verizon Wireless added 5.0 million net retail postpaid connections in 2012, the most in four years.
• At the end of 2012, the company had 98.2 million retail connections, a 6.6 percent increase year over year -- including 92.5 million retail postpaid connections.
• At year-end 2012, smartphones accounted for more than 58 percent of the Verizon Wireless retail postpaid customer phone base, up from 53 percent at the end of third-quarter 2012.

Wireline

• FiOS customer growth in fourth-quarter 2012 was greater than in the prior two quarters, despite the disruption caused by Superstorm Sandy. Verizon added 144,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 134,000 net new FiOS Video connections in fourth-quarter 2012.  Verizon had a total of 5.4 million FiOS Internet and 4.7 million FiOS Video connections at the end of the quarter, representing year-over-year increases of 12.6 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively.
• In 2012, Verizon migrated 223,000 homes to fiber, which contributed to an 11 percent improvement in trouble reports across Verizon’s entire copper network for the year.  The company has a target of 300,000 additional migrations within FiOS markets in 2013.
• Q4 operating revenues were $10.0 billion, a decline of 1.5 percent compared with fourth-quarter 2011.  Consumer revenues grew 4.1 percent compared with fourth-quarter 2011.
• Consumer ARPU for wireline services increased to $105.63 in fourth-quarter 2012, up 9.5 percent compared with Q4 2011.
• ARPU for FiOS customers continues to be more than $150.  FiOS services produced about 68 percent of consumer wireline revenues in fourth-quarter 2012.  About two-thirds of FiOS consumer customers have purchased a “triple play” of phone, Internet and video services.
• Global enterprise revenues totaled $3.8 billion in the quarter, down 2.1 percent compared with fourth-quarter 2011.  Sales of strategic services increased 5.3 percent compared with fourth-quarter 2011 and represented 54 percent of global enterprise revenues.  Strategic services include Verizon Terremark cloud and data center services, security and IT solutions, advanced communications, and strategic networking.

http://www.verizon.com
http://www22.verizon.com/investor/app_resources/htmls/investor_home.htm

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Verizon Enterprise Looks to Cloud Computing, Security, Managed Services

During Q4 2012, Verizon Enterprise recorded $2.1 billion in revenue for strategic services to $2.1 billion, up 5.3% compared with fourth-quarter 2011. Strategic services now represent 54% of the company's global enterprise revenues.

On its earning's call on Tuesday, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said the company is looking to drive growth in its enterprise strategic services in 2013, specifically in the areas of cloud computing, security, and managed services.

Verizon Enterprise Solutions completed agreements with multinational and U.S. corporations including The Coca-Cola Company, Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Ltd., Bridgestone Americas, CME Group and Shred-It for advanced business technology solutions. The company also launched a comprehensive cloud and data center infrastructure portfolio specifically designed to help the health care industry meet the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements for safeguarding electronic protected health information.

Verizon Enterprise Solutions also saw one of its most significant M2M customer engagements during the final quarter of 2012, offered new solutions focused on solving customer problems in the areas of healthcare and security, and won recognition for its solutions around the globe.

http://www.verizonbusiness.com/go/Q4

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AT&T and China Telecom Implement Network to Network Interconnect

AT&T and China Telecom have implemented an NNI (Network to Network Interconnect) in New York and San Jose.

The interconnect enables China Telecom to expand its Ethernet and MPLS service coverage into the U.S. and other parts of the world to serve a growing number of Chinese enterprises. AT&T is working closely with China Telecom to automate inter-carrier processes needed to provision and support customer services.

AT&T is also turning up its network solutions for global companies looking to expand operations in China.

http://www.att.com

• In November 2011, AT&T and China Telecom signed a strategic framework agreement covering a range of business services, including Virtual Private Network (VPN), Ethernet and unified communication solutions. 

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Amazon Web Services Adds High Memory Instances

Amazon Web Services has begun offering High Memory Cluster Eight Extra Large (cr1.8xlarge) instances for Amazon EC2.

Amazon said its new EC2 instance type is ideal for applications that benefit from a high level of memory capacity, computational power and network bandwidth.

High Memory Cluster instances provide customers with 2 Intel Xeon E5-2670 8-core processors, 244 GiB of RAM, 240 GB of SSD-based instance storage, and high bandwidth networking with support for cluster placement group.

http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/01/21/announcing-high-mem-cluster-instances-for-amazon-ec2/

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Nimbus Ships One Petabyte of Flash Memory Arrays Last Month

Nimbus Data Systems shipped over one petabyte (1,024 terabytes) of flash memory in its last month, mostly for its latest Gemini flash memory array designed for server virtualization, databases, and web-scale applications.

The record shipment represents a 415% sales increase for the company in 2012 compared to the prior year. The bulk of the shipment total includes Nimbus Data's

"Shipping over a petabyte of flash memory in the past month demonstrates flash memory's rise as the torch-bearer for next-generation primary storage and Nimbus' technology leadership and operational maturity. We foresee continued rapid adoption of Nimbus Data solutions as the storage industry goes through perhaps its greatest paradigm shift in decades," stated Thomas Isakovich, CEO and founder of Nimbus Data.

http://www.nimbusdata.com

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ACN & Flash Wireless Select Devicescape's Wi-Fi Offload Service

Flash Wireless, a U.S.-based mobile virtual network operator, will integrate Devicescape's Wi-Fi offload service, giving users  automatic access to more than 11 million high quality Wi-Fi hotspots in the Devicescape Curated Virtual Network (CVN).

Flash Wireless is a partner of  ACN, which is a direct seller of telecommunications and essential services for residential and business customers.

Devicescape said its service offers policy and quality control management options that dynamically integrate amenity-based public Wi-Fi networks, encourage home and personal network use, all while ensuring a transparent user experience.  The company's carrier-grade Curated Virtual Network tests and re-tests tens of millions of newly discovered and existing hotspots before automatically and seamlessly connecting participating mobile devices as they come into range. 

"From the start, ACN has sought to provide our customers with high value digital services that are both economical and easy to use," said Michael Whitt, Vice President of ACN. "Devicescape's service is a perfect fit; with Flash Wireless, our end-users will experience automatic access to high quality mobile data, while the utilization of Devicescape's virtual network of Wi-Fi hotspots will allow us to decrease our operational costs and still maximize savings for subscribers."

http://www.devicescape.com

http://myacn.com

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