Chorum Exits Optical Networking Business

Chorum Technologies, a start-up based in Richardson, Texas, is exiting the optical networking business and will focus its efforts on liquid crystal display technology for flat panel monitors, according to The Dallas Morning News. Chorum had been selling a line of all-optical processors and subsystems. The restructuring includes the layoff of 150 employees out of a workforce of 250.
http://www.chorumtech.com
http://www.dallasnews.com

• Chorum's Optical Harmonic Equalizer (OHE) that dynamically adjusts the gain profile of an optical amplifier to ensure that the power levels of DWDM optical signals are equalized without requiring a conversion from optical-to-electrical-to-optical. In addition, Chorum has announced three optical devices based on liquid-crystal technologies: a non-mechanical, all-optical, Fast Add/Drop switch; an optical switch designed for optical restoration, protection, test, and provisioning applications; and a voltage-controlled solid-state optical variable attenuator for broadband or single-channel applications. The company is also developing "Optical Slicers", which are ultra dense optical interleave filters for use in either long haul or metro networks. Chorum's DWDM router components, which will use the Optical Slicers, are being designed for passive optical multiplexing and demultiplexing systems that support hundreds of channels at data rates of 10 Gbps and higher.
• 
  
  Chorum filed for an Initial Public Offering in November, 2000, and withdrew its filing in March, 2001.

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Viatel Acquires UK-Based Netcom, an ISP

Viatel has acquired Netcom Internet Limited, an ISP focused on business customers in the UK. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.viatel.com

• Last week, Viatel announced its acquisition of Cybernet (Schweiz) AG, a Swiss ISP. Viatel operates a multiduct, 7,000 km fiber network linking major European cities.
• 
  
  Viatel emerged from bankruptcy protection in June 2002.

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TIA Publishes New Fiber Standard for Connectors

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) published a new "Fiber Optic Connector Intermateability" standard for simplex and duplex connectors. Intermateability standards define the minimum physical attributes of mating connector components.
http://www.tiaonline.org

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NEC Incorporates Genoa's Linear Optical Amplifier

NEC has integrated Genoa's second-generation, single-chip linear optical amplifier (LOA) into a 10 Gbps optical transponder module for long reach applications of up to 80 km. The transponder offers 20% less power consumption, 50% smaller size, and a significant cost reduction. Genoa's amplifier, which on its sub-mount is comparable in size to a grain of rice, also features a doubling in output power over first generation LOAs.
http://www.genoa.com

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MFN Presents Reorganization Plan to Bankruptcy Court

Metromedia Fiber Network (MFN) filed its plan of reorganization with a bankruptcy court in New York. MFN's post-bankruptcy business strategy includes continued operation of all its core business segments - metropolitan fiber network, data centers, IP transit and managed services. The company said its financial condition has been improving since it filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2002.
http://www.mfn.com

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WorldCom Announces $80 Billion Write-Down of Goodwill and Assets

WorldCom announced the write-off of all existing goodwill and a substantial write-down of the carrying value of its other intangible assets and property and equipment (PP&E). Specifics include:

• The value of goodwill reflected on the company's last reported balance sheet, $45 billion, is impaired and will be written off completely; and
  
• 
  The value of PP&E and other intangible assets reflected on the Company's last reported balance sheet, $39.2 billion and $5.6 billion, respectively, is impaired and will be adjusted to a value of approximately $10 billion as of 31-December-2002

WorldCom said it is continuing the internal review of its previously reported financial statements and is undergoing an audit by KPMG LLP of its financial statements from 2000 through 2002.
http://www.worldcom.com

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Network Reliability and Interoperability Council Presents Homeland Security Findings

The Network Reliability and Interoperability Council presented its finding and recommendations concerning the telecommunications needs of first responders and public safety officials from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, emergency medical services, and fire departments in the US and Canada. Best practice recommendations include:

• Priority Access: Increase awareness of priority access programs, including Telecommunications Service Priority System (TSP) and Wireless Priority Access Service (WPS) and encourage subscription, as appropriate. Key findings of a survey of emergency responders found low awareness of priority access communications services. While 67% of the survey respondents expressed that wireline applications were relied upon extensively by their agencies, they were not considered reliable enough to be their primary network. In fact, in times of crisis, commercial networks were perceived as severely impaired or grid locked.
• 
  911 Access: Provide caller location and call origination information to 911 overflow centers to ensure fast and accurate response to 911 calls -- both wireless and wireline -- during emergencies when 911 call volumes spike.
• 
  Troubleshooting: Service providers and network operators should identify, in coordination with emergency operations personnel, key facilities serving public safety and develop an emergency restoration plan prioritizing restoration of these facilities.
• 
  Network Diversity and Reliability: Secure government funding to enable network diversity.

NRIC's Public Safety Focus Group was led by Don Dautel, vice president, global technology development group, Motorola, and Mike Roden, director -- RF engineering network operations, Cingular Wireless.


Separately, the NRIC's Cyber Security Focus Group identified more than 200 best practices the industry should consider to restore service in a timely and secure manner.


In December, the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) approved a list of 300 best practices for protecting the nation's communications infrastructure against terrorist attack or natural disaster. The list of best practices, which has been developed by the NRIC over a period of years, has been updated to cover packet switching architectures as well as more specific responses to cyber attacks. Recommendations include best policies for improving physical security, such as redundant designs for new telecom facilities and personnel background checks, to inventory management techniques that could hasten service restoration in the event of a major disruption.


With these deliverables, the NRIC now plans to move on to a new phase that focuses on implementation of its guidelines. The FCC is preparing to launch soon an education and awareness campaign.
http://www.nric.orghttp://www.fcc.gov

• The current Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) was chartered by FCC Chairman Powell in January 2002 and is headed by Richard C. Notebaert, CEO of Qwest Communications, and includes corporate representatives from the cable, wireless, satellite and ISP sectors.

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FCC Seeks to Open 2500-2690 MHz Bands for Wireless Broadband

The FCC opened a proceeding to facilitate the provision of fixed and mobile broadband services in the 2500-2690 MHz bands. This is more than double the 83 MHz that spurred the development of Wi-Fi at 2.4 GHz and roughly equal to all spectrum currently devoted to terrestrial, mobile wireless. Currently, the 190 megahertz of spectrum in the 2500-2690 MHz bands is designated for the provision of Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS), Multipoint Distribution Service (MDS) and the Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS). The FCC will consider proposals to reconfigure the 2500-2690 MHz band, for example, either a geographic licensing approach or an unlicensed approach for available ITFS spectrum might be desirable. FCC Chairman Powell said the "2.5 GHz band has labored for years under the heavy hand of command-and-control regulation. The regime has not served the American people or the Commission's licensees particularly well."http://www.fcc.gov

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FCC Issues Biennial Regulatory Review Report

The FCC issued its biennial regulatory review report for year 2002, in which
it identifies and reviews all regulations
issued under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to determine which
should be modified or withdrawn if they no longer serve the public
interest. The Commissioners
struggled with interpretations of the key phrases "meaningful economic
competition" and "necessary in the public interest." Comments from
various industry participants were also considered to determine if
certain regulation should be outside the scope of the biennial review
for one reason or another. Commissioner
Kevin Martin dissented from the majority opinion supported by the four
other commissioners.

Separate
reports were issued for each of the FCC's bureaus:

Consumer
& Government Affairs -- 34 pages 
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-131A1.pdf
 

International
Bureau -- 47 pages http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-127A1.pdf

Office
of Engineering & Technology -- 24 pages,
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-130A1.pdf

Wireline
Competition -- 104 pages, http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-232189A1.pdf

Wireless
Competition -- 18 pages + 125 pages appendix, http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-129A1.pdfhttp://www.fcc.gov

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Acterna Names New CEO

Acterna named John R. Peeler as its new CEO, replacing Ned C. Lautenbach. Peeler maintains his position as president of Acterna Corporation and president and chief executive of Acterna's communications test business, the company's largest business unit. He has served with the company for 23 years, including as president and CEO of TTC, the company that merged with Wavetek Wandel Goltermann in 2000 to form Acterna.
http://www.acterna.com

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Level 3 Announces Executive Appointments

Level 3 Communications appointed Sunit S. Patel as group vice president and said it anticipates that he will succeed Sureel Choksi as CFO in May 2003. Patel was formerly CFO of Looking Glass Networks. Prior to co-founding Looking Glass, Patel was Treasurer of MCI WorldCom, WorldCom and MFS Communications from 1994 to March 2000. Sureel Choksi, Level 3 current CFO, will chair a group of senior executives charged with improving the company's ability to develop and deploy new services. Separately, Level 3 reaffirmed its previously stated financial guidance and said it was on track to achieve positive free cash flow during the second quarter of 2004.
http://www.level3.com

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DoveBid to Auction DWDM Equipment from Enron's Broadband Network

DoveBid.com is conducting an online, sealed-bid auction of Enron Broadband Services' DWDM optical equipment for its west coast high-speed, backbone network. Featured assets include Ciena Multiwave 4000 Sentry Systems, Sycamore 8000 Systems, spares, and test & measurement equipment. The auction is scheduled to end on 19-March-2003 at 2pm CST.
http://www.dovebid.com

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UTStarcom Announces Continued Strong Bookings With China Telecom

UTStarcom announced a contract with Guizhou China Telecom, valued at approximately $30 million, for new deployments of its IP-based PAS in five cities in Guizhou province. UTStarcom now expects revenues in the range of $315 million for Q1 and $1.4 billion for the full-year 2003. This compares to previous guidance of $275 million and $1.325 billion, respectively. None of the above guidance reflects the pending CommWorks acquisition, as the transaction has not yet closed.
http://www.utstar.com

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Lucent Offers SDK for Wireless Apps

Lucent Technologies released a new MiLife Intelligent Services Gateway (ISG) Software Developers Kit (SDK), a set of tools that independent software vendors and mobile operators can use to develop enriched services targeted at mobile phone users. The software toolset provides mediation capabilities using standards that include Parlay and Open Services Architecture (OSA) for 3G services. Software applications will be able to make use of information such as the location of a mobile user, the kind of mobile device they are using, subscriber data contained in the user's profile such as passwords and preferences, and billing information to handle payments for purchases of goods and services made using a mobile device. In addition, software applications such as multi-party conferencing will be able to set up telephone calls to friends and family using a simple Internet-based user interface.
http://www.lucent.com

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Alcatel to Resell fSONA's Free Space Optics Solution

Alcatel signed an OEM agreement to resell fSONA Communications' Free Space Optics (FSO) as a subsystem of the Alcatel high capacity wireless solution. Alcatel's high-capacity urban wireless systems are being integrated with FSO technology. Free space optics delivers point-to-point, fiber-like services over the air using lasers. fSONA's SONAbeam technology operates at up to 1.5 Gbps and distances up to 5km, depending on environmental conditions.
http://www.alcatel.com
http://www.fsona.comAlcatel has recently announced a series of OEM and technology partnership agreements, including:

• RADVISION, for its new viaIP gw-P20/M Gateway, which supports real time video telephony sessions between 3G-324M enabled cell phones/PDAs and multiple IP and ISDN-based videoconferencing systems. The system is based on the 3G-324M standard for real-time multimedia communications over WCDMA and CDMA2000 3G/UMTS networks. The RADVISION product will be matched with the Alcatel 5020 Softswitch acting as an H.323 gatekeeper, which manages the fixed IP videophones or PCs with an embedded Webcam and a broadband connection to the Internet (xDSL, cable modem or corporate).
• 
  
  Adjungo Networks, for its wireless LAN security & management systems, which offers several secure authentication mechanisms for WLAN users, such as SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) based and Virtual SIM authentication, which leverages the mobile network capabilities supporting 802.1x hot spots and Web-based hot spots. The offer also includes an SMS (Short Message System) based authentication feature.
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  Native Networks, for its technology for metro Ethernet over SDH in its Optical Multi-Service Nodes (OMSN) equipment. Alcatel's Optical Multi-Service Nodes aggregate multiprotocol traffic onto SDH. Although configurable as ADMs (Add-Drop-Multiplexers), OMSNs have cross-connect capability and already support point-to-point Ethernet connections. Under the new partnership, Alcatel is leveraging Native Networks' Metro Ethernet technology to introduce enhanced transport and aggregation of Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet services, along with Packet Ring functionality.
• 
  
  IP Wireless, for its TD-CDMA (TDD) mobile broadband technology. The TDD solution, which will support Alcatel's portfolio of UMTS/3G and WLAN networks and services, is aimed at mobile operators wishing to complement their GSM/GPRS and WCDMA services with enhanced TDD coverage in dense business areas.

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Space Systems/Loral Resumes Construction of WildBlue Ka-Band Satellite

Space Systems/Loral resumed construction of WildBlue-1, all-Ka-band, multiple spot-beam broadband satellite. WildBlue Communications recently announced that INTELSAT, Liberty Satellite & Technology, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and David Drucker, WildBlue's chairman, agreed to invest $156 million in the company. The WildBlue-1 satellite will cover North America with 41 overlapping Ka-band spot beams. Eight tracking antennas on board the satellite provide precision pointing of the beams over the contiguous US. The satellite will provide two-way wireless Internet access using a mini-dish antenna.
http://www.wildblue.com
http://www.loral.com

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Riverstone Cites Deployments of its Hitless Protection System

Riverstone Networks said its Hitless Protection System, which enables its switches and routers to continue functioning during software upgrades and system restarts with no impact on live traffic, is gaining traction on large corporate networks that require carrier-class reliability. Riverstone's HPS is currently used in the carrier networks of KT (formerly Korea Telecom), Telefónica de España, Cox Communications and China Netcom. It is also being deployed in large educational networks including the University of Arizona Telemedicine Program, the Dartmouth and Medfield school districts in the United States, the Urasoe school district in Japan and the Anhui province in China. Additionally, the Pentagon is using HPS for networks serving 26,000 military and civilian employees and 3,000 non-defense support personnel.
http://www.riverstonenet.com

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Siemens Introduces 80-Channel, Tunable Laser Card

Siemens IC Networks introduced a tunable laser card for its DWDM platform aimed at regional to ultra-long haul networks. The new card supports 80 channels and could be used for network expansion projects or for sparing. Apart from the new transponder card, Siemens has expanded its optical portfolio to include a new type of optical add-drop multiplexer that allows up to 100% of the transmitted wavelengths to be added and dropped on an all-optical basis. The design eliminates costly electrical regeneration and also facilitates flexible traffic planning. The integrated automatic analysis and control of optical signals in the DWDM network area also allows additional channels to be added on a plug-and-play basis, providing a further reduction in operating costs.
http://www.siemens.com

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Marconi Previews Data-Optimized SDH Multiplexers

Marconi detailed plans for the roll-out of its SMA16-64 family of data-optimized SDH multiplexers. Marconi's SMA 16-64 will support a wide range of multiple traffic types from STM-1 through STM-64, PDH interfaces at 1.5 Mbps, 2 Mbps, 34 Mbps, 45 Mbps, as well as support for 10/100 Mbps and GigE Ethernet services with L2 switching. The platform will be offered in a number of physical configurations, the largest of which will have 16 multi-port traffic slots. The SMA16-64 could be used in a number of network applications, from a hubbing node to a full connectivity VC-12 cross-connect, as well as its more conventional applications in SDH add/drop rings and meshes.
http://www.marconi.com

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Cisco Introduces New SDH Multiservice Products

Cisco Systems introduced several new SDH optical networking products, including the Cisco ONS 15302 and ONS 15305 multiservice access platforms for the customer premises. Both support data services and existing voice traffic over SDH networks. The Cisco ONS 15302 offers 12 E1 ports, four 10/100BASE-T ports and STM-1 Optical Uplink. The Cisco ONS 15305 delivers a low-cost access or aggregation solution with support for 63 E1 ports, six E3 ports, eight 10/100BASE-T ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and scalability for STM-1, STM-4 and STM-16 Optical Uplinks. Both platforms support Layer 2 data capabilities and are managed by the Cisco Transport Manager. Additionally, enhancements to the Cisco ONS 15454 SDH Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) and Cisco Transport Manager element management system support extended optical reach, application diversity, and flexible multiservice configurations. Service providers deploying a Cisco ONS 15454 in the aggregation site can terminate up to 40 ONS 15302 or ONS 15305 access rings per shelf.


In a related announcement, Cisco stated that Acantho, an Italian metro Ethernet service provider, has selected the Cisco ONS 15454 SDH MSPP and ONS 15302.
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/servpro/solutions/optical/

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