CloudBridge Debuts Virtual WAN Link Aggregation

Citrix announced its "CloudBridge Virtual WAN Edition", which allows enterprises to create a virtualized WAN by bonding multiple network services such as MPLS, broadband, mobile and satellite Internet links together to maximize WAN capacity and reliability. The Citrix CloudBridge Virtual WAN constantly assesses the performance of paths within the virtualized WAN to instantaneously and automatically adapt to changing network conditions.

The solution extends the company's existing CloudBridge appliances and integrates with the company’s HDX and application acceleration technologies.

The CloudBridge Virtual WAN will be generally available as a new software edition on select CloudBridge appliances in Q2 2015. Additionally, virtual appliances and versions for third party cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, will be available in Q3 2015.

http://www.citrix.com/products/cloudbridge/overview.html

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Thoma Bravo Completes Acquisition of Riverbed

Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, and Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investor department of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, completed their previously announced acquisition of Riverbed Technology. The acquisition is valued at approximately $3.5 billion, with Riverbed stockholders receiving $21.00 per share in cash.

“With this acquisition now complete, our team can begin to move forward with the strategic initiatives that will take us to the next stage of growth,” said Jerry M. Kennelly, chairman and CEO of Riverbed. “As a private company, Riverbed is better positioned to pursue our long term goals, and has greater flexibility to develop best-of breed technologies that deliver superior application performance for our customers. This flexibility, alongside Thoma Bravo’s deep experience growing companies in the application performance space, makes us very excited about the future.”

http://www.riverbed.com

• On Friday, April 24, various sources reported a significant layoff of employees at Riverbed's HQ in San Francisco. 
• Previous networking investments by Thoma Bravo have included: Blue Coat Systems, Empirix, InfoVista, Keynote Systems, Sailpoint Technologies, and others.

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Freescale Intros White Box SDN with Advantech

Freescale Semiconductor introduced its new SDN switching platform powered by its QorIQ multicore processors and designed to bring intelligence, agility and security to the network’s edge for the secure Internet of Tomorrow.

The white box solution, which was developed in conjunction with Advantech, leverages Freescale’s 24-core, server-class QorIQ T4240 processor and VortiQa Open Network software. The platform couples the QorIQ processors with standard switch ASIC devices. The platform utilizes standards-based protocols such as OpenFlow, and supports manageability through open technologies such as OpenStack and OpenDaylight. It includes VNF support, commercial grade VortiQa SDN software supporting OpenFlow version 1.3 with extensions for Layer 4 and above protocols, and Layer 2/3 forwarding.

Freescale said its new platform enables exceptional network security for virtualized environments by supporting the integration of high performance packet processing functions such as firewalling, intrusion detection and IPSEC over VxLAN.

“In recent years, the world’s networks have undergone a dramatic transformation. Enterprises, network carriers and their equipment suppliers need a new generation of switching technology for this new era,” said Sam Fuller, head of Strategy and Solutions for Freescale’s Digital Networking group. “Freescale’s intelligent switching platform helps OEMs and their customers unleash the full value of SDN, while saving power and cost by eliminating the need for additional appliances commonly required in traditional switching implementations.”

“The Freescale network services switching platform further expands Advantech’s switching product portfolio for equipment manufacturers, integrators and service providers.” said John Muller, vice president of Sales and Marketing, Advantech Networks and Communications group. “When combined with VortiQa Open Network switch software, Enterprise IT and cloud service providers will be able to drive greater flexibility and efficiency into their software defined infrastructure to support the increasing demand for new and innovative services.”

The Freescale platform will be available from Advantech as a commercial grade product that can be customized to meet specific customer requirements in various deployment scenarios. Advantech will be offering first line hardware and software support and services on the platform to facilitate customer designs, reduce development cycles and accelerate time-to-market. The platform will be shipping to lead customers in 2H15 with initial support for IPSec VPN, Policy Based Routing and L2/L3 Ethernet Switching.

http://www.freescale.com

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Apigee Completes IPO - NASDAQ: APIC

On Friday, Apigee, a start-up based in San Jose, California, completed its initial public offering (IPO) of 5,115,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $17.00 per share. Apigee is now traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "APIC."

The company's Apigee Edge API platform helps enterprises to build mobile and digital initiatives using APIs, apps and data. Apigee Insights delivers big data predictive analytics. Apigee says that when used together, its APIs and predictive analytics can create an adaptive cycle of continuous improvement – and the faster an enterprise goes through this cycle, the faster it can innovate, adapt and accelerate its digital business.

http://apigee.com/

• In April 2014, Apigee announced $60 million in new venture financing for its API platform for enabling predictive analytics in digital interactions. Pine River Capital Management and Wellington Management Company participated as new investors in this round, along with current Apigee investors Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Bay Partners, Third Point LLC, SAP Ventures, funds managed by BlackRock, Focus Ventures, and Accenture. This brought Apigee's total funding to $171 as of April 2014. 

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ZTE Reports Rise in Q1 Profits

ZTE reported first-quarter 2015 net profit RMB 883 million (US$142 million), up 41.9% year over year. Basic earnings per share climbed to RMB 0.24, while revenue rose 10.2% to RMB 21 billion.

Operating revenue from telecommunications software systems, services and other products increased by 23.4% in the first quarter, as ZTE recorded strong growth from video and network terminal products, in addition to services.

Revenue from Carriers’ Networks increased by 8.9%, as compared to the same period last year, driven by growth in sales of products such as wireless communication systems, wireline switch and access systems, routers and router switches. Operating revenue from handset terminals increased by 7%, as compared to the same period last year, reflecting mainly higher sales of 4G

ZTE said its strategy is capture the growth in demand for solutions in cloud computing, big Data, Smart City and high-performance routers.

Looking ahead, ZTE will continue to focus on its three main operations of Carrier Networks, Enterprise Business and Mobile Devices. In Carriers’ Networks, ZTE will be committed to developing solutions for smarter networks to support carriers in their transformation into information-based operations. In Enterprise Business, ZTE will actively drive the transformation of various industries towards “Industry 4.0” or “Industrial Internet” with enhancement of corporate customers’ operational efficiency.

http://www.zte.com.cn

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Windstream Completes Spinout of Network Assets Division into REIT

Windstream completed its previously-announced, tax-free spinoff of select telecommunications network assets into a new company, Communications Sales and Leasing (Nasdaq:CSAL), an independent publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT).

In addition, Windstream also announced the near completion of a one-for-six reverse stock split of Windstream's shares.

"Today's successful spinoff will significantly advance our commitment to deliver value for shareholders," said Tony Thomas, president and chief executive officer of Windstream. "This innovative transaction has made Windstream a stronger company with less debt and increased capacity to invest in our network to provide advanced communication
services to customers. I'm also excited about the growth prospects of CS&L."

In connection with the spinoff, Windstream repaid debt in an aggregate amount equal to $2.4 billion under its outstanding credit agreement. Windstream also received cash proceeds of $1.035 billion, which is anticipated to be used to retire additional debt over the next 30 days.

http://www.windstream.com


In July 2014, Windstream announced a bold plans to spin off its fiber and copper network, along with certain other assets, into an independent, publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT).  The network operations business would then lease back the physical assets to Windstream through a long-term triple-net exclusive lease with an initial estimated rent payment of $650 million per year.

The company said the separation of its physical network from its services business will enable it to become a more nimble competitor, while accelerating network investments, and maximizing shareholder value. The new REIT would be open to diversify its assets through acquisitions.

"This transaction will make Windstream a more nimble competitor in today’s increasingly dynamic communications marketplace and accelerate our deployment of advanced communications services," said Jeff Gardner, president and CEO of Windstream. "Additionally, the REIT will have geographically diverse, high-quality assets and sustainable cash flows with the ability to grow and diversify over time."

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Marvell Trims Guidance

Marvell Technology announced preliminary financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2016, saying it now expects revenue to be below the company's previous outlook. Marvell now expects first quarter of fiscal 2016 revenue to be in the range of $710 million to $740 million, compared to the previous expectation of $810 million to $830 million.

The cited weaker than previously expected PC and storage markets and lower than expected emerging market demand.

http://www.marvell.com

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Pica8 Enables Label BGP on White Box Switches

Pica8 announced support for Labeled BGP on bare-metal, white box switches -- a new network overlay solution with applications for service providers and cloud data center operators.

Pica8 said the approach will appeal to many large enterprises who are pursuing a VXLAN / VMware model for multi-tenant services, workload mobility and overlay networking within their data centers.

The new capability, which is part of Pica8’s latest SDN release (PicOS 2.6), is similar to MPLS in that it uses labels to establish service tunnels across the network. Label BGP adds the
dynamic programmability of SDN. BGP is a signaling mechanism carriers can use to create MPLS paths; but today this function is only available in expensive edge routers from the likes of Cisco and Juniper. This capability in Pica8’s OS, coupled with white box economics, gives carriers a far more cost-effective alternative to deploying this technology.

“We are seeing a real debate in the “how” of offering end-to-end services inside and between data centers,” said Olivier Vautrin, head of product management at Pica8. “The need is real if you want to deploy hybrid cloud services and to accomplish that, you need a flexible and proven encapsulation technology. We believe MPLS and Labeled BGP offers that opportunity and the experience in the market is there. Once MPLS is used in the data center, complex stitching technologies between data center and WAN encapsulations are not needed anymore. This is disrupting traditional data center edge devices by adding this functionality into our hardware-agnostic white box switching OS.”

http://www.pica8.com/company/press-releases/pica8-disrupts-data-center-economics-by-offering-service-providers-overlay-choice.php

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Google Project Fi Aims for Seamless Connections Between Networks

Google announced Project Fi -- its effort to define "the future of communications" by building a virtual mobile network service leveraging Wi-Fi the cellular infrastructure of carrier partners. For its U.S. launch, Google has confirmed T-Mobile and Sprint as partners.

Key points:

• No contracts.
• User phone numbers live in the cloud, enabling talk and text with your number on just about any phone, tablet or laptop. 
• Talk, text, Wi-Fi tethering and international coverage in 120+ countries for $20 a month 
• 1GB of mobile data is $10/month, 2GB is $20/month, 3GB is $30/month, and so on. 
• Credits are applied for unused data each month
• The Nexus 6 will the first smartphone to support the Project Fi SIM card
• Interested customers can request an invite to test the service.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/project-fi.html

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Equinix Commits to 100% Clean and Renewal Data Center Energy

Equinix committed to a long-term goal to use 100% clean and renewable energy to power its global platform, which now includes data centers in over 33 markets on five continents. Equinix aims to deliver carbon-neutral data center and interconnection services.

In 2014, Equinix consumed over 2,200 gigawatt hours of energy across its global data center platform.

In a blog posting, David Rinard is Senior Director of Global Sustainability & Procurement at Equinix, describes the company's newly adopted set of Renewable Energy Principles.

https://blog.equinix.com/2015/04/living-by-our-principles-and-a-commitment-to-100-renewable-energy-use/

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Procera to be Acquired by Private Equity Firm for $240 Million

Procera Networks has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by private funds managed by Francisco Partners Management, a technology-focused private equity firm, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $240 million. Under the deal, Francisco Partners will acquire all outstanding shares of Procera’s common stock for $11.50 per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 21% over the closing price of Procera’s common stock on April 21, 2015, and a premium of approximately 32% over the unaffected closing price on January 22, 2015, the last day prior to an article reporting the potential sale of the company.

“As part of Francisco Partners’ portfolio of companies, Procera will have the resources and financial expertise needed to attain the next level of growth and to strengthen our competitive market position,” said James Brear, President and CEO of Procera. “I believe this transaction delivers compelling value to our stockholders, and we remain firmly committed to establishing Procera as the leader in improving the customer broadband experience for carriers and operators.”

Procera also announced preliminary results for Q1 2015, saying revenue is expected to be in the range of $19.5 million to $20.5 million. The ratio of bookings to revenue for the first quarter was below one. The company expects the gross margin percentage to be approximately 60% and to incur a net operating loss on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis for the first quarter of 2015. The company is not revising its previously announced guidance for the full year.

http://www.proceranetworks.com/press-releases/procera-networks-to-be-acquired-by-francisco-partners

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F5 Names Manny Rivelo as New CEO

F5 Networks appointed Manny Rivelo as its new President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of F5’s Board of Directors effective July 1, 2015. He succeeds longtime CEO, John McAdam, who will become Chairman of the Board of Directors upon his retirement on July 1st. Al Higginson, who has been on the F5 Board of Directors since 1996, and has served as Board Chairman since 2004, will remain on F5’s Board as Lead Independent Director.

Previously, Rivelo served as F5’s Executive Vice President of Strategic Solutions. Before joining F5 in October 2011, Rivelo was Senior Vice President of Engineering Systems and Operations for Cisco Systems.  He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology.


Separately, F5 Networks announced revenue of $472.1 million, up 2 percent from $462.8 million in the prior quarter and 12 percent from $420.0 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014. GAAP net income was $85.7 million ($1.18 per diluted share), compared to $89.1 million ($1.21 per diluted share) in the prior quarter and $69.6 million ($0.91 per diluted share) in the second quarter a year ago.

 “Revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2015 reflected solid sequential and year-over-year growth in sales to U.S. service providers and enterprise customers,” said John McAdam, F5 President and Chief Executive Officer. “The region’s strong performance was underpinned by a rebound in both the number and total dollar amount of deals greater than $1 million. In contrast, sales growth in EMEA and APAC came in below our expectations. Our solid earnings results reflect continued strength in our operating margins and were also supported by a lower than anticipated effective tax rate for the quarter. Earnings growth and a 23 percent year-over-year increase in deferred revenue contributed to exceptionally strong cash flow from operations during the quarter.

http://www.f5.com

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ARRIS to Acquire Pace for $2.1 Billion

ARRIS Group agree to acquire Pace plc., a supplier of networking equipment for cable operators, for US$2.1 billion (£1.4 billion) is stock and cash.

Under the agreed upon terms, Pace shareholders will receive £1.325 of cash and a fixed exchange ratio of 0.1455 New ARRIS shares for each Pace share, reflecting aggregate consideration as of April 21, 2015 of £4.265 per share, representing a 28% premium to the Pace closing share price as of April 21, 2015.

The transaction will result in the formation of New ARRIS, which will be incorporated in the U.K., and its operational and worldwide headquarters will be in Suwanee, GA USA. New ARRIS is expected to be listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker ARRS. In connection with the formation of New ARRIS each current share of ARRIS will be exchanged for one share in New ARRIS.

"This transaction is another example of ARRIS's ongoing strategy of investing in the right opportunities to position our company for growth. Adding Pace's talent, products and diverse customer base will provide ARRIS with a large scale entry into the satellite segment, broaden our portfolio and expand our global presence. We expect this merger will enable ARRIS to increase its speed of innovation. We believe this is a tremendous opportunity for ARRIS and our customers, employees, shareholders and partners around the world as we collaborate to invent the future," said Bob Stanzione. "We look forward to working with the talented and accomplished team at Pace."

"Pace plc is a great company with a strong track record of pioneering innovation and excellent customer service. Through a combination of organic development and acquisitions, Pace has grown to be a leading technology solutions provider to the PayTV and Broadband industries serving cable, satellite and telco customers across the globe. Over the last three years, Mike Pulli and the wider Pace team have successfully executed against our strategic plan to develop Pace into a more distinctive, profitable and cash generative company, creating significant value for shareholders.

http://www.pace.com/global/#
http://www.arris.com/

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IBM Opens 2nd Softlayer Data Center in the Netherlands

IBM SoftLayer has opened a second cloud data center in the Netherlands, located in Almere, just outside of Amsterdam. The new data center is securely connected by private network to all SoftLayer data centers around the world.

The new facility helps meet the rapid growth of IBM Cloud by doubling its SoftLayer capacity in the region, and provides even more options in the country and region for redundant data storage and geographically isolated services, ideal for creating secure and comprehensive backup and recovery strategies.

“This new facility demonstrates the demand and success IBM Cloud is having at delivering high-value services right to the doorstep of our clients,” said James Comfort, IBM General Manager of Cloud Services. “We’re reaching customers in a way that takes all the guess work out of moving to the cloud. They can build and scale applications, run the toughest big data workloads, have the level of security they need, all in country and connected to a truly global platform.”

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/46699.wss

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Ixia Demos Native 100GbE Interface Security Test

Ixia demonstrated its "PerfectStorm" 100GbE - an application and security testing platform that supports 100GbE native interfaces.

A demo at this week's 2015 RSA Conference uses the new hardware for Juniper Networks' SRX5800 Services Gateway to demonstrate carrier-grade, next-generation firewall technology scaling to Two Terabits per second (2 Tbps) of workloads.

Ixia said its PerfectStorm scales to nearly a terabit of application traffic in a single system and generates stateful applications and malicious traffic that simulate millions of real-world end-users to validate next generation infrastructure devices.

“The threat landscape continues to evolve and service providers and data center operators need to secure their 100GbE core networks,” said Denise Shiffman, corporate vice president of product management, Juniper Networks.

“Companies are forced to not only meet greater and unpredictable demands for bandwidth on their network but also ensure they have efficient, fast and scalable protection in place. Ixia and its PerfectStorm solution are instrumental in enabling us to validate and test our new hardware for the SRX5800 Services Gateway at massive scale.”



http://www.ixiacom.com/

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Alcatel-Lucent's Rapport Framework Re-Architects IMS

Alcatel-Lucent introduced a fully re-architected version of Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) software to provide large enterprises and service providers a new, and much more flexible way to deliver communications and collaboration services.

Alcatel-Lucent is positioning its new Rapport software as a platform for innovation, enabling the creation of new ‘contextual communications’, where fundamental services such as voice, chat, video conferencing and sharing become functions available to any application, website or connected object. These services can then be accessed by application developers using open application programming interfaces (APIs) and simple software development kits (SDKs).

“Rapport liberates large enterprises from the communications technology silos and proprietary vendor offerings that IT departments need to contend with. It also removes the barriers for service providers to offer more engaging communications services to their customers, which can be delivered seamlessly using any device and across any network,” stated Bhaskar Gorti, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Platforms business.

The basic concet is that the Rapport software will be deployed in a private cloud, into which large enterprises can plug in best-of-breed apps to help meet the needs of employees for the latest services, whether in the office or on the move. Rapport will also help enterprises better serve their customers by building communications services into applications, websites and products.

Rapport strengthens the communications business case for service providers by enabling them to support VoLTE/mobile, fixed, and WiFi services with a single, more agile cloud communications platform, significantly simplifying and reducing the cost per subscriber to deliver these services. Rapport uses a network functions virtualization (NFV) approach, and works with NFV platforms such as Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand to launch VoLTE and new services rapidly to both consumers and businesses and scale dynamically as subscriber demand dictates.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/communications-collaboration

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Telstra Completes Pacnet Acquisition, Extends its SDN Globally

Telstra has completed its previously announced acquisition of Pacnet Limited, a provider of connectivity, managed services and data centre services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments in the Asia-Pacific region.

Telstra Group Executive, Global Enterprise and Services, Brendon Riley said Pacnet would be integrated into Telstra and the Pacnet brand progressively retired. Telstra will continue the development of the joint venture in China. US assets will be integrated when regulatory approval is obtained.

Telstra also announced Asia's first Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Platform will now be available to customers globally, enabling high-performance, self-provisioned dynamic network services across 25 PEN Points of Presence worldwide.

"Pacnet’s leadership in early adoption of SDN technology has allowed us to accelerate our plans and building on Pacnet’s existing sixteen PEN Points of Presence across Asia, we’ve added nine new Telstra PEN Points of Presence to create the world’s first globally connected on-demand networking Platform.

"While software, servers and storage have all become virtualised over the past decade, networks have largely remained unchanged. Telstra’s new PEN Platform reimagines the role of traditional telecommunications and enables organisations to complement traditional network approaches with SDN technology, which allows for bandwidth to be provisioned on demand, matched to application characteristics and deployed across the specific routes our customers need.

http://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/media/media-releases/telstra-completes-acquisition-of-pacnet.xml

• In December 2014, Telstra announced plans to acquire Pacnet Limited, which owns and operates a pan-Asian submarine cable network and offers managed services and data center services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments across the region, for US$697 million acquisition is subject to completion adjustments. In addition to its submarine cables and 21 landing stations in China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, Pacnet’s core assets comprise an integrated network with 109 PoPs across 61 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, along with 29 data centers in key locations. Seven of the data centers have Tier III accreditation. In addition, Pacnet controls two of the five fibre pairs on the Unity trans-Pacific submarine cable network connecting Japan to the United States.  In the year ended December 2013, Pacnet generated revenues of US$472m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$111m. Pacnet is headquartered in both Singapore and Hong Kong with approximately 815 employees across 25 offices (including PBS China).

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Verizon Posts Q1 Revenue -- 70% of Wireless Users Now on 4G

Verizon Communications reported first-quarter 2015 revenues of $32.0 billion, a 3.8 percent increase compared with first-quarter 2014. The growth rate would have been 4.2% if excluding a business that has since been sold. The company reported $1.02 in EPS in first-quarter 2015, compared with $1.15 per share in first-quarter 2014.

“Verizon is off to a strong start in 2015 with another quarter of profitable growth,” said Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam. “We expanded our base of customers seeking a premium experience, and we grew revenues, earnings and cash flow during a quarter in which we also took significant steps to sharpen our strategic focus. We are confident in our ability to maintain momentum and continue to add value for customers and shareholders.”

Some operational highlights:

Wireless Operational Highlights

• Verizon Wireless had 565,000 retail postpaid net additions in first-quarter 2015, a 4.8 percent increase compared with first-quarter 2014. At the end of first-quarter 2015, the company had 108.6 million retail connections, a 5.1 percent year-over-year increase, and had 102.6 million retail postpaid connections.
• The company added 621,000 4G smartphones to its customer base in first-quarter 2015. In light of a net decline in 3G smartphones, overall smartphone growth totaled 247,000. The company also added 820,000 4G tablets and reported net declines of 385,000 basic phones and 188,000 prepaid devices in first-quarter 2015.
• 4G devices now constitute approximately 70 percent of the retail postpaid connections base, up from 49 percent a year ago – with the 4G LTE network handling about 86 percent of total wireless data traffic in first-quarter 2015.
• Growth in 4G device adoption continues to drive increased data and video usage. Within More Everything accounts, average data usage continues to rise, up 54 percent year over year.
• At 1.03 percent in first-quarter 2015, retail postpaid churn improved both sequentially and year over year. Retail postpaid smartphone customer churn was less than 0.9 percent.

Wireline Operational Highlights

• In first-quarter 2015, Verizon added 133,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 90,000 net new FiOS Video connections. Verizon had totals of 6.7 million FiOS Internet and 5.7 million FiOS Video connections at the end of the first quarter, representing year-over-year increases of 9.4 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.
• FiOS Internet penetration (subscribers as a percentage of potential subscribers) was 41.5 percent at the end of first-quarter 2015, compared with 39.7 percent at the end of first-quarter 2014. In the same periods, FiOS Video penetration was 36.0 percent, compared with 35.0 percent.
• By the end of first-quarter 2015, 62 percent of consumer FiOS Internet customers subscribed to FiOS Quantum, which provides speeds ranging from 50 to 500 megabits per second, up from 59 percent at year-end 2014. The highest rate of growth is in the 75-megabit-per-second tier, to which more than 20 percent of FiOS customers subscribe.
• Broadband connections totaled 9.2 million at the end of first-quarter 2015, a 2.4 percent year-over-year increase. Net broadband connections increased by 41,000 in first-quarter 2015, as FiOS Internet net additions more than offset declines in DSL-based High Speed Internet connections.
• In first-quarter 2015, Verizon migrated 47,000 customers who had been using copper connections, toward a full-year goal of 200,000.
• Verizon Enterprise Solutions helped clients around the globe improve customer experience, drive growth and business performance and manage risk in the first quarter. 

http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-reports-strong-balanced-results-1q-2015

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Sumitomo Electric Intros 8-Fiber QSFP-40G Splice-On Connector for 40G/100G

Sumitomo Electric Lightwave introduced an 8-fiber QSFP(Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable) -40G– SR4 MPO splice-on connector that facilitates fast and easy 40 and 100GbE data center and enterprise network connectivity. Coupled with laser optimized 0M4 8-count fiber ribbon cable, the 8-fiber MPO splice-on-connector allows real-time and on-site cable builds and permanent terminations of jumpers, trunk cables, harnesses and arrays.

Sumitomo said its 8-fiber solution optimizes not only 40/100GbE and beyond networks, but is also backward compatible with legacy networks (1G & 10G), creating a real-time, scalable, and already future-proofed network.

The transition from a 12 fiber count to 8 is already made within the ferrule of the 8-fiber MPO splice-on connector. The new connector is compatible with other QSFP-40G-SR4 connectors and 100GbE modules at 25G transmission. Insertion loss of the new connector is < 0.35dB and it is compatible with Sumitomo Electric Lightwave’s Quantum Type-M12 mass fusion splicer and other leading brands.

“ As the first company to have introduced the MPO splice-on connector, we are pleased to offer our customers further innovations in MPO and optical ribbon fiber technology,” comments Joshua Seawell, director of Lightwave Network Products at Sumitomo Electric Lightwave. “Our continued leadership in providing continuous innovations for the data center ensures that our customers stay ahead of today’s rapid technology curve in order to deploy the most advanced and cost efficient solutions possible.“

http://www.sumitomoelectric.com

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Broadcom Posts Better than Expected Q1

Broadcom reported net revenue for the first quarter of 2015 was $2.06 billion. This represents a decrease of 4.0% compared with the $2.14 billion reported for the fourth quarter of 2014 and an increase of 3.7% compared with the $1.98 billion reported for the first quarter of 2014. Net income (GAAP) for the first quarter of 2015 was $209 million, or $0.34 per share (diluted), compared with GAAP net income of $390 million, or $0.64 per share (diluted), for the fourth quarter of 2014 and GAAP net income of $165 million, or $0.28 per share (diluted), for the first quarter of 2014.

"Broadcom delivered better-than-expected results in the March quarter driven by strength in the high-end smartphone and broadband access markets," said Scott McGregor, Broadcom's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Looking to the June quarter, we see operating performance continuing to strengthen on tight operating expense discipline and strong margins, consistent with our objective of driving profitable growth."

http://investor.broadcom.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=907767

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