JDSU Acquires Arieso for Mobile Location Awareness

JDSU announced the acquisition of Arieso, a developer of location-aware software for mobile network operators, for $85 million in cash.

Arieso, which is based in Newbury, United Kingdom, offers a multi-vendor, location-aware network monitoring and optimization solution that delivers intelligence for more effective network performance engineering.  It also supplies an automated network planning technology that searches all possible configurations to deliver optimum network designs. Arieso said its proprietary algorithms provide highly rich and targeted data from mobile connection events to give mobile operators visibility into service level activity and usage patterns. Arieso’s bookings for calendar 2012 were approximately $27 million.

JDSU said the acquisition advances its mobility strategy by extending visibility all the way to the subscriber location, providing critical intelligence that allows radio access network (RAN) optimization teams to maximize return on investment by identifying ideal locations for small cells and other self-optimizing network enhancements with surgical precision, across the widest range of technologies and vendors.  JDSU will integrate Arieso’s products with complementary solutions such as PacketPortal, JDSU’s open software platform, providing end-to-end visibility across mobile networks.

“We’re excited about the complementary fit between Arieso and JDSU and the opportunity to extend the customer-centric location aware approach into the service and application domains, allowing mobile network operators to take a truly holistic approach to driving customer experience improvements,” said Shirin Dehghan, Arieso’s CEO.

http://www.jdsu.com
http://www.arieso.com

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Infonetics: Femtocell Market Starts to Take Off

Globally, the femtocell market, including 2G, 3G, and 4G femtocells, rose 66% in 4Q12 from 3Q12, according to a new report from Infonetics Research.  The firm estimates the femtocell market totaled $425 million for all of 2012, up 21% from the previous year.

“Femtocell sales are up for the third straight quarter and on a year-over-year basis, though growth to this point is modest for a market that’s still in evolution,” reports Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and carrier WiFi at Infonetics Research. “Price-per-unit is eroding and shipment volumes are rising, but both are intrinsically linked and neither has happened fast enough to drive a more rapid acceleration in adoption to date.”

Some other notes:

• Public space femtocells accounted for slightly more revenue than consumer femtocells in 2012
• 4G femtocell revenue is growing at a 165% 5-year compound annual growth rate (2012 to 2017)
• While only 3% of units shipped in 2012 were integrated femtocells—meaning femtocell technology built into broadband CPE like DSL routers/gateways—Infonetics anticipates they will be widely adopted over the long term, eventually making up about half of all units by 2017
• The top 3 femtocell market share leaders in 4Q12 and for the full year 2012 are Airvana, Samsung, and Cisco/ip.access.

http://www.infonetics.com

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Epson Launches VCXOs for Mobile Base Stations

Epson Electronics America introduced series of voltage controlled crystal oscillators (VCXO) designed for optical networking and LTE base stations.

The Epson  VG-4513CB uses a high-frequency fundamental crystal to achieve output frequencies up to 500 MHz with no spurs and very low phase noise and low jitter.

The company said its new  device is 87% smaller than existing VCXOs.  It can deliver output frequencies up to 500 MHz without using a PLL or frequency multiplier.

http://www5.epsondevice.com/en/quartz/index.html

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Infonetics: Microwave Radio Market Declines

The global microwave equipment market totaled $1.2 billion in 4Q12, down 3% from 3Q12, and down 12% from the year-ago 4th quarter (4Q11), according to a new report from Infonetics Research.  Microwave equipment spending declined 10% worldwide for the full year 2012.

"The microwave equipment market ended 2012 tamely,” reports Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and carrier WiFi at Infonetics Research. “The expected year-end boost to quarterly revenues did not materialize, as price erosion and capex conservation combined to deliver a seasonally countertrend 4th quarter dip. We expect the market trough to hang around a little while longer before renewed growth begins in late 2013,” Webb continues. “And by 2017, Infonetics forecasts the microwave equipment market to reach $5.2 billion, powered by the continuing demand for backhaul capacity at macrocell sites."

Some other notes:

• Ericsson, Huawei, and NEC held steady at the top of the microwave equipment revenue leaderboard in 4Q12, though #4 Alcatel-Lucent closed the gap on NEC significantly, pulling to within a hair’s breadth
  
• Aviat Networks leapfrogged Ceragon to move into the #5 spot in 4Q12, cracking the top 5 for the 1st time
  
• Alcatel-Lucent continues to lead the all-packet segment, accounting for half of all revenue.

http://www.infonetics.com

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AT&T's Latest Labor Contract Provides 2-3% Annual Wage Increase

The latest labor agreement reached between AT&T Mobility and the Communications Workers of America on Feb 22 includes general wage increases in each year of the four year contract -- 2 percent the first year, 2.5 percent the second year, 2.25 percent the third year, and 3 percent the fourth year.  It maintains pensions for all employees, plus retirement savings plans, with no changes.

The four-year agreement covers approximately 20,000 Mobility employees in CWA Districts 1, 2/13, 4, 7, and 9 – generally in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Mountain States and West Coast. It will be submitted to the CWA's membership for a ratification vote in coming days.

http://www.att.com

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Deutsche Telekom Fills Out its Cloud Portfolio

Deutsche Telekom is pushing ahead into cloud services and highlighting the value of partnerships with other cloud solution providers.

The Deutsche Telekom Business Marketplace, which was launched in the summer of 2012, has now registered over 10,000 users have registered. As this year's CeBIT starts, over 40 applications from more than 20 partners are available, including applications to facilitate collaboration, manage projects and customers, and save data securely online. This is in addition to Telekom offers that are custom-tailored to the needs of SMEs - including videoconferencing applications from the cloud such as iMeet and TelePresence, dynamic IT resources from the private cloud such as managed IT services, a mobile device management solution to help manage mobile devices and their applications, and DeutschlandLAN, the cloud-based, TÜV-certified, end-to-end package for fixed-network, mobile and PC communications.

"Products and services from the cloud for large companies, SMEs and consumers are a major part of Telekom's future strategy," says Dirk Backofen, who is responsible for cloud business at Deutsche Telekom. "We use the cloud to connect people, both in their personal lives and at work. We don't only supply the applications, but also give customers all cloud-related services from a single source: bandwidth, storage and computing capacity, applications, partner expertise, independence of a specific operating system, and high security. No other market player can make such an offer."

Telekom's subsidiary T-Systems plans to achieve revenues of roughly one billion euros, or one seventh of its total revenue, with cloud business in 2015. Multi-year cloud orders worth two billion euros were received alone in 2012.

On the cybersecurity front, Deutsche Telekom is now offering a dashboard for tracking the rising number of attacks.  The website has a digital map of the world which shows the origin of cyber attacks recorded around the clock by more than 90 honeypot sensors around the world.

The portal was developed in association with BITKOM and Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

http://www.telekom.com

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Hurricane Electric Now Connecting 2,000 IPv6 Backbones

Silicon Valley-based Hurricane Electric is the first Internet backbone to connect to over 2,000 IPv6 networks, doubling in less than three years.

Having first deployed IPv6 in 2001, Hurricane Electric offers IPv6 as a core service; every customer is provided IPv6 connectivity as well as classic IPv4 connectivity. Hurricane Electric also provides tunnel broker and DNS services, plus a free IPv6 certification program.

"Our early investment in IPv6 is paying off not only for Hurricane Electric, but also for our customers around the world," said Mike Leber, President of Hurricane Electric. "Given the depletion of the IPv4 address space, we expect continued strong growth in demand for IPv6 connectivity and services."

Hurricane Electric has no less than four redundant paths crossing North America, two separate paths between the U.S. and Europe, and rings in Europe and Asia.


http://www.he.net

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MetroPCS Picks Ericsson for LTE Core

 MetroPCS Communications has selected Ericsson as the supplier of equipment and services to transform its distributed nationwide Evolved Packet Core network. The network deployment will enhance key services including high-speed data, voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Rich Communication Services for MetroPCS customers across the United States.

Specifically, Ericsson will serve as the project's prime integrator with responsibility for design, installation and commissioning, and post-launch customer support.

The LTE core transformation will be deployed by implementing Ericsson's end-to-end solution, which includes:

• Evolved Packet Gateway (EPG) on the SSR 8000 family of Smart Service Routers - a highly scalable IP service-delivery platform that enables deployment of critical IP-edge applications, addressing the stability of LTE networks via scalability in the data and control planes
  
• Mobility Management Entity (MME) on the Ericsson Blade System, MkVIII platform - offering superior scalability and extending capabilities to meet aggressive growth predictions in terms of the number of connected devices
• 
  
• Integrated multi-technology operations support systems - allowing mobile operators to enhance network performance to support real-time operations, while lowering total cost of ownership with lower power consumption and a reduced footprint.

"From the launch of our first LTE network and now our new core transformation project, Ericsson has long been a key strategic partner. We value the strength of Ericsson's product and service offerings, as well as its ability to provide fast and reliable rollouts of leading-edge technology," stated  Roger D. Linquist, CEO and Chairman of the Board of MetroPCS.

http://www.ericsson.com/news/1683638

• In January 2012, MetroPCS has selected Ericsson as primary vendor for microwave backhaul equipment under a new four-year contract. Ericsson is also a key infrastructure provider for the company's networks, including its LTE network. 

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America Connects to Europe (ACE) Plans 100G Bridge

The America Connects to Europe project (ACE), managed by Indiana University, is planning to implement 100G links across the Atlantic to support the scientific research community.  A Prior Information Notice has been issued to vendors to participate in the project.

The America Connects to Europe Project (ACE) is a collaboration of Indiana University (IU) as the lead institution in cooperative partnership with DANTE, NYSERNet, and Internet2.

DANTE is the organization that operates GÉANT, the data communications network support many research projects in Europe.
DANTE noted that 100G is presently being rolled out across the GÉANT infrastructure. Between them GÉANT and ACE already offer over 80Gbps of transatlantic connectivity, however this is comprised of multiple 10G links and will lead to bottlenecks in the future for those 100G users. For that reason, DANTE aims to replace these over time with multiple 100G links, ensuring that partners in large research projects in areas such as radio astronomy, global earth observation, medical research and particle physics continue to benefit from the best available connectivity.

http://www.geant.net/Media_Centre/News/Pages/worlds-first-100G-transatlantic-network.aspx
http://internationalnetworking.iu.edu/ACE

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James Q. Crowe to Step Down as CEO of Level 3

James Q. Crowe will step down as CEO of Level 3 Communications by the end of 2013.

"It has been a privilege to lead Level 3's incredibly talented people through times of great challenge and great opportunity," said Crowe. "I am extraordinarily proud of what we have accomplished together. For some time, the Board and I have been considering CEO succession. Given the company's financial and operational strength, we have concluded that it is an appropriate time to begin the transition to new leadership with new perspectives. "

http://www.level3.com

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Ciena Posts Solid Q1 with Sales of $453 Million

Ciena reported solid results for its first quarter of fiscal 2013, ended January 31, 2013, with revenue of $453.1 million.  There was a GAAP net loss for the fiscal first quarter 2013  of $(47.3) million, or $(0.47) per common share, which compares to a GAAP net loss of $(47.7) million, or $(0.49) per common share, for the fiscal first quarter 2012.

"Our strong first quarter performance reflects a solid start to our fiscal year," said Gary Smith, president and CEO of Ciena. “We have positioned Ciena to take advantage of the underlying market dynamics, which are increasingly aligned with our strategy and competitive strengths. We believe the combination of our technology and market share leadership as well as our strategic customer relationships will enable us to continue growing faster than the market."

Sales of the 6500 platform reached $206 million for the quarter.

http://www.ciena.com

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Ixia Tests Microsoft Lync App Reliability on Wi-Fi

Ixia will serve as the official test house to qualify Microsoft's Lync application against Wi-Fi networking and client devices.  Ixia will work directly with potential Microsoft partners to test and qualify technology used with the Microsoft Lync UC system.

"With tablets and smartphones embedded in our everyday lives, Wi-Fi access to collaboration tools has become an integral part of today's enterprises; however, poor quality over Wi-Fi has slowed that adoption. Microsoft is dedicated to ensuring our customers' success, and qualifying the devices in the Lync Wi-Fi ecosystem is a major driver to enabling needed enterprise collaboration," said B.J. Haberkorn, director of Lync Product Marketing at Microsoft. "Collaborating with Ixia to provide comprehensive, real-world Wi-Fi testing ensures that the power of Lync can be securely and reliably delivered to our customers."

http://www.ixiacom.com

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Pertino Raises $20 Million for Cloud Networking Service

Pertino, a start-up based in Los Gatos, California,  raised $20 million in Series B funding for its cloud networking service.

Recently, Pertino launched a limited release of a cloud-based "network engine" for small-to-medium businesses. The idea is to use cloud programmability to instantly create secure networks using existing gear.  The Pertino service allows customers to build a free network for up to three members with three devices each, and then pay only $10 per member per month as they grow.

The funding round was led by new investor Jafco Ventures with participation from existing investors, including Norwest Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.  This latest round of funding brings Pertino’s total amount raised to $28.85 million.

http://pertino.com/

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U.K.'s PEER 1 Upgrades Data Center with Juniper

PEER 1, a global Web hosting provider, has deployed Juniper's integrated routing, switching and security technology in its U.K. data center. Juniper said its solution helps PEER 1 to reduce its downtime in its flagship green data center in Portsmouth by approximately 33 percent compared to previous legacy systems. All Juniper solutions in the PEER 1 network run the same Junos operating system.

PEER 1's data center deployment uses Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switches with Virtual Chassis technology as distribution devices beneath the core level handling most of its routing changes. The Virtual Chassis technology enables multiple interconnected switches to operate as a single, logical device resulting in simplified management by reducing the number of switches needed.

Juniper Networks MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers interconnect to PEER 1's FastFiber Network and to the London Internet Exchange (LINX) for high-speed Internet access. The MX Series routers have been used at PEER 1's edge and core levels terminating transport links and learning global routing tables.

The company's Internet-facing services are protected by Juniper Networks SRX Series Services Gateways, ensuring the services are operational and secure without degrading the end customers' Internet experience.

The deployment has been implemented by Juniper Networks' local partner, Calyx Managed Services.

http://www.juniper.net

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Rackspace Builds Out is Private Cloud Software

Rackspace Hosting announced new features for its free and open source Rackspace Private Cloud Software, which powered by OpenStack, including  a single interface for deploying, configuring and operating clouds at scale in an enterprise data center.

New features of Rackspace Private Cloud Software include:

• OpenCenter – Drawing from experience of operating The Rackspace Open Cloud, OpenCenter provides a centralized graphical user interface and API that simplifies and automates the operational activities associated with deploying, managing and maintaining Private Clouds.
  
• High Availability – OpenCenter provides API or point-and-click deployment and management of high availability environments for the OpenStack controller nodes, improving up-time and reducing business risk.
  
• Host Operating System Choice – Customers can now select from Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS for the host operating system in Rackspace Private Cloud deployments.
  
• Rackspace Private Cloud Software is a combination of stable OpenStack community 'trunk' code and proven Rackspace tools, packaging and configuration. Rackspace engineers have validated and certified products from over nine major industry partners for the private cloud software through its Technology Alliance Program. 

"Rackspace Private Cloud’s powerful new OpenCenter platform is a user interface and orchestration tool built to deploy, operate and scale on-premise private clouds. This paves the way for Rackspace to bring its continuous integration and deployment expertise from the public cloud arena into private enterprise data centers,” said Jim Curry, SVP and GM of Rackspace Private Cloud. “We are taking our own solid technology practices forward into private open cloud backed by Fanatical Support."

"Through the operation of The Rackspace Open Cloud, built on OpenStack, we have already seen over 1590 code releases pushed live to open cloud without customer disruption. This joins 465 million API requests for Cloud Servers and a total of over 8400 unit tests have been run before each code release, so it has been a busy and dynamic period," Curry said.

http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/private

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Atrato Orders Multiple 100GEs from Hibernia

Atrato Communications has selected Hibernia Networks to provide multiple 100 Gigabit Ethernet circuits to bolster its global IP backbone.  The deployment is Atrato’s first native 100 Gigabit Ethernet deployment within Europe. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Atrato operates a Global Network (AS5580) with both MPLS and IP services on its core backbone.

"Atrato built its network with the latest in technology and is directly connected to key Internet exchanges to ensure we can deliver the most resilient and low latency network routes,” states Michiel Muhlenbaumer, CEO for Atrato Communications. “Our new multiple 100 Gigabit Ethernet agreement with Hibernia Networks further prepares Atrato for the extreme growth we’ve been experiencing across the global IP market."

“We have seen extraordinary growth in global data traffic, in large part due to the adoption and use of cloud, video and interactive applications,” states Fergus Innes, Vice President of Sales, EMEA for Hibernia Networks. “As a result, Hibernia’s expert team has been helping companies like Atrato leverage its high capacity routes and customizable solutions so clients can quickly scale and reliably accommodate surges in traffic today and tomorrow.”

http://www.hibernianetworks.com
http://www.atrato.com

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AT&T Project Velocity Earmarks $600-800M for Kentucky

As part of its national Project Velocity IP initiative announced in November 2012, AT&T expects to invest between $600 and $800 million during 2013 to 2015 in the state of Kentucky.

AT&T said theis investment will include:

4G LTE Expansion.  AT&T plans to expand its 4G LTE network to cover the majority of people in Kentucky.  Currently AT&T 4G LTE has been launched in Louisville, Lexington and Bowling Green.

Densification & Small Cell Technology. As part of Project VIP, AT&T will increase the density of its wireless network, which is expected to further improve network quality and increase spectrum efficiency.

AT&T plans to expand U-verse (TV, Internet, VoIP).  Upgrade U-verse Internet service to speeds ranging from up to 75Mbps to up to 100Mbps.

AT&T plans to proactively expand its fiber network to reach business locations in Kentucky.

http://www.att.com

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Mellanox's 56 Gbp/s Infiniband Delivers Blazing Performance

Mellanox Technologies confirmed that its FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand adapters and switches accelerate Microsoft’s new SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse appliance.

Mellanox said tests show that the new appliance enables completion of a warehouse query of over 1,000 Terabytes of data in less than two seconds, compared to the previous generation’s completion time of two minutes with just 100 Terabytes of data.

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) is a scalable data warehouse appliance that delivers performance and scalability through massively parallel processing connected by a single high-speed 56Gb/s InfiniBand interconnect. PDW takes advantage of Windows Servers 2012 SMB Direct protocol to support storage access over native RDMA, and can use Mellanox interconnect solutions to accelerate access to storage by 10X.

“Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse is an enterprise class appliance that was built for integration with Big Data and that can handle the most demanding data requiring very high scalability and performance,” said Mark Jewett, Director, Server and Tools Marketing, at Microsoft. “By taking advantage of storage innovations in Windows Server 2012, Mellanox benchmarks demonstrate that their RDMA interconnect solutions can help increase network speed significantly for data warehouse queries.”

http://www.mellanox.com

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LSI and NetApp Collaborate on Server-based Flash Acceleration

LSI's Nytro WarpDrive family of application acceleration PCIe flash cards has been validated for use with NetApp Flash Accel software. The combined server flash caching solution can be used to speed application performance by converting server-based flash into "hot" data cache for critical business applications.

Specifically, the LSI and NetApp solution delivers automated and intelligent caching of hot data to PCIe flash storage. The LSI Nytro WarpDrive cards deployed in conjunction with Flash Accel software intelligently place the most frequently accessed or "hot" data on ultra-low latency, high-performance PCIe flash storage. The companies said test results have shown a reduction in application and server latency by up to 90 percent while increasing throughput by up to 80 percent. By allowing infrequently accessed data to remain on HDD storage, organizations can deploy an economical mix of flash and hard-disk storage, optimizing both cost per IOPS and cost per gigabyte of storage capacity.

"Flash memory adoption in the enterprise is a powerful complement to hard-disk-based network storage," said Tim Russell, vice president, Data Lifecycle Ecosystem Group, NetApp. "Deploying flash as a high-speed cache in the server is a simple and cost-effective way to significantly reduce latency and I/O bottlenecks, while providing enterprise-level data protection and manageability for the entire infrastructure. Working with our server cache partners, we're able to offer customers a complete end-to-end, high-speed solution."

http://www.lsi.com/acceleration
http://www.netapp.com

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ViaSat-1 Satellite Hits 200K "Exede" Internet Subscribers

Since introducing its "Exede" Internet satellite service in January 2012, ViaSat has signed more than 200,000 customers.

The company announced that the ViaSat-1 satellite that powers the Exede service has earned a Guinness World Records title as the highest-capacity communications satellite. At the time of its launch in October 2011, ViaSat-1 had more capacity than all of the other communication satellites covering North America combined.

The record confirms that ViaSat-1 provides the most total throughput capacity over the U.S. and Canada – 100 times the capacity of a typical Ku-band satellite and 10 times the throughput of any Ka-band satellite launched prior to ViaSat-1.

http://www.viasat.com

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