Deutsche Telekom Adds IBM Exec to Board

Deutsche Telekom's Supervisory Board has appointed IBM Deutschland CEO Walter Raizner to the company's Board of Management in the newly created position of Board member responsible for Broadband and Fixed-line division. Raizner has also been named to succeed Kai-Uwe Ricke as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of T-Online; Thomas Holtrop will resign from DT's Board of Management and as CEO of T-Online.



Deutsche Telekom said the moves reflect a sharpened focus on its three strategic business areas. René Obermann will be responsible for Mobile Communications while Konrad F. Reiss will be responsible for Business Customers which bundles sales to the Group's large and mid-sized customers in T-Systems and "Area Sales Germany". The three central Board responsibilities will continue to be directed by Ricke as chairman, Karl-Gerhard Eick as deputy CEO and chief financial officer and Heinz Klinkhammer responsible for the Human Resources portfolio. http://www.telekom.de

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SOFTBANK BB Chooses Motive to Enable Self-Managing Broadband Services

SOFTBANK BB has chosen to build Motive's broadband management products into Yahoo! BB broadband services. The carrier undertook an extensive trial of Motive's Broadband Manager (BBM) and Customer Service Manager (CSM) products to automate such management tasks as service activation and configuration, problem resolution and upgrades. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.motive.com

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Covad Antitrust Suit against BellSouth to Go Forward

The United States Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit declined BellSouth's request to rehear an earlier ruling that allows Covad Communications to pursue certain antitrust and tort claims against BellSouth. Covad said it intends to pursue the case.



In 2000, Covad asserted a variety of antitrust claims against BellSouth alleging that BellSouth used its monopoly power to engage in a concerted effort to thwart competition in the Internet access market. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia dismissed Covad's claims, holding that Covad's claims were barred by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In August 2002, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's ruling, reinstated Covad's antitrust claims, and remanded the case back to the district court for further proceedings.



Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling in the Trinko case, which upheld the dismissal of an antitrust case alleging a single breach of an incumbent phone company's duty under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to share its network with competitors. The Supreme Court subsequently remanded the 11th Circuit decision for further proceedings in light of the Trinko decision. In June of this year, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court ruled that the Trinko decision did not foreclose key Covad claims. http://www.covad.com

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SupportSoft Completes Core Networks Acquisition

SupportSoft completed its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Core Networks, a start-up providing software products for network monitoring, management and activation of advanced digital services for DSL and cable. The deal, which was first announced in July, was valued at $17 million in cash.



Core Networks' software products are evolving into a comprehensive portfolio of solutions for network management and monitoring, usage policy management, firmware upgrade management and remote management of home network devices.
. http://www.supportsoft.com

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Avanex and SHF Develop 40 Gbps Line Card Technology

Avanex and SHF Communication Technologies AG announced a 40 Gbps duobinary modulator-driver assembly aimed at simplifying the manufacturing of 40 Gbps line cards. The device combines an optimized SHF driver amplifier and the Avanex PowerBit 40 Gbps Intensity Modulator to enable at least five times longer transmission distances compared to the traditional intensity-modulated NRZ approach, and without dispersion compensation. The companies said the new 40 Gbps duobinary transmitter sub-assembly reduces the bandwidth requirements of electronics and modulators because of its higher spectral efficiency. http://www.avanex.com/http://www.shf.biz/

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Vodafone Awards Global Framework to Portal Software

Vodafone Group signed a new global framework agreement establishing Portal Software as a preferred strategic billing solutions provider. The companies have agreed on a global billing development program to standardize the creation and implementation of billing solutions for Vodafone Group Companies. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.portal.com/

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Marconi Completes Repayment of Restructuring Debt

Marconi completed the full repayment, within 16 months, of the $1.2 billion of debt that it assumed upon completion of its financial restructuring on 19 May 2003. This debt was originally due for repayment by 2008.



Mike Parton, Marconi's CEO, said "The re-emergence of Marconi has been completed with the repayment of the last of the debt that we took on as part of our restructuring. An anticipated annual interest charge of over $100m per annum has been eliminated through the prompt repayment of the debt."http://www.marconi.com

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SingTel Deploys Kagoor's Session Border Controllers

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has deployed Kagoor's VoiceFlow series of session border controllers to deliver its i-PhoneNet, an advanced IP Centrex service. Kagoor's session border controllers are being used to provide advanced security and Network Address Translation (NAT) features. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.kagoor.com

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Broadwing Completes Acquisition of Focal Communications

Broadwing Communications (a division of Corvis Corp.) completed its acquisition of Focal Communications , a Chicago-based CLEC. Broadwing will gain approximately 4,000 enterprise and wholesale customers in 23 Tier-One markets throughout the U.S. The company estimates cost savings in the range of $20 million to $30 million dollars, net of integration costs, over the next 12 to 18 months.



Corvis acquired Focal for a total consideration of approximately $189 million, comprised of approximately $88 million in equity that was issued to Focal's existing equity holders and the assumption or payment of approximately $101 million of Focal's debt and other long-term capital lease obligations. For fiscal 2003, Focal reported approximately $320 million in revenue. http://www.corvis.com

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Taiwan's Chunghwa Implements Orca for IPTV

Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom has purchased an additional 10,000 licenses of Orca's RiGHTv IPTV middleware solution as it continues to roll out Multimedia on Demand (MOD) services to its DSL customers.



In April 2003, CHT awarded Orca the contract to provide the end-to-end solution and deploy MOD services. The services offered to the initial 20,000 subscribers included Video on Demand (VOD), Near VOD (NVOD), Karaoke-on-Demand (KOD) and live TV services. The new contract expands this number to 30,000.



Additionally, Orca has recently integrated with Widevine Technologies' Cypher) Suite optimized security solution for iTV systems to provide CHT with one of the few TV over IP deployments with secure delivery of premium content. http://www.orcainteractive.com

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Case Western Builds Visual Network with RADVISION

Case Western Reserve University is building a campus-wide group and desktop videoconferencing service that rides over its Gigabit Ethernet fiber network. During the fall semester, Case expects that 200 classrooms, meeting rooms, and student end points will be online and communicating in a live video network. By mid-2005, when the service is fully deployed, Case plans to support thousands of devices. Case also plans to offer video services to the city of Cleveland through the nationally acclaimed OneCleveland initiative.



RADVISION components chosen by Case in the deployment include its MCU v3.2 with H.264 support, its MVP (multimedia video processing) for advanced transcoding and layouts, ECS gatekeeper for easy dialing plans and management of all end points, the RADVISION viaIP IP/ISDN gateway, its DCS (Data Collaboration Server) for T.120-based real-time application and document sharing, and RADVISION's VCS for end user scheduling of calls. While the initial implementation is H.323 based, Case plans to introduce SIP in 2005http://www.radvision.comhttp://www.case.edu

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Lumera Creates High Efficiency Nano-tech Electro-Optic Polymer

Lumera Corporation has developed an electro-optic polymer that it claims has five times the efficiency of the inorganic material currently used to fabricate active optical devices.



The electro-optic polymer breakthrough resulted from a partnership between Lumera and the University of Washington. University of Washington professors, Larry Dalton and Alex Jen, have used "nano-tailoring" to increase electro- optic activity that produces substantially more efficiency than that of existing materials. For their part of the partnership, Lumera's team of scientists adapted internally developed materials to achieve electro-optic coefficients of 160 pm/V at telecom operating wavelengths, a number that is approximately 20% higher than existing materials.



Lumera said it is using the technology and materials to develop a number of new products that will allow the company to expand in, or enter new markets. For example, the company is developing modulators that have highly linear responses for cable TV (CATV) optical links and hybrid wireless/fiber optic networks. Additionally, external modulators that can operate at 10-40 GHz in metro applications, transponders, and long-haul fiber optic network build-outs are being evaluated by potential customers. http://www.lumera.com/

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Star38 Offers CallerID Spoofing Service

Star38, a privately-held company in Newport Beach, California, has begun offering a service that lets the calling party manipulate the CallerID information that is seen by the call recipient. The company claims its service lets the calling party (such as collection agencies, government officers other businesses) legally pretend to be anyone at any area code -- thereby increasing the chance that the call will be answered. http://star38.com

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Belgacom's Interactive TV Project Tests Siemens, nCube

Siemens has selected nCUBE's On Demand platform to power Video On Demand in an interactive digital television (iDTV) pilot of Siemens' SURPASS Home Entertainment turnkey solution for Belgacom. Customers will be able to access a variety of online content and services on their television sets using DSL.



The project, which is the first order for Siemens' SURPASS home entertainment solution, is expected to begin this fall.



In addition to nCUBE, Siemens is working with a number of partners for its SURPASS home entertainment solution including Myrio for the middleware to enable the application, Verimatrix for content protection system, and Tandberg Television for the video broadcast equipment. http://www.ncube.com

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Chile's Smartcom Deploys CDMA 1xEV-DO with Nortel

Smartcom has deployed CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology from Nortel Networks to boost its wireless network capacity and expand its service offerings in Santiago, Chile. Smartcom's network can provide speeds bursting in excess of 2 Mbps and 1xEV-DO users can expect more than 600 kbps average throughput - equivalent to and in some cases better than fixed broadband. http://www.nortelnetworks.com

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White Rock Ships Small-Office DCS Plus Ethernet in SONET Box

White Rock Networks began shipping a newly enhanced VLX2020 OC-48/192 SONET Transport Platform that provides both a small-office DCS (Digital Cross-Connect System) and an edge Ethernet aggregation platform in a single package. The platform can now pre-groom both packet and TDM broadband and wideband traffic "at the edge" reducing backhaul bandwidth and the port costs associated with large centralized DCS systems, as well as providing an integrated SONET transport and DCS system for smaller central offices. It offers a non-blocking broadband STS-n matrix and optional wideband (VT1.5) matrices together with integrated Ethernet Layer 2 aggregation plus support for multiple subtended UPSR and BLSR rings.



The VLX2020 also allows multiple remote Ethernet-based data-streams to be aggregated into a single GbE "pipe.



White Rock noted that its VLX2020 supports SONET-compliant alarms, performance monitoring, and loop backs, as well as capabilities typically only found in major DCS systems, such as PRBS pattern generation and BER calculation. http://www.whiterock.com

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NEC and Borland Collaborate on SIP

NEC and Borland Software have formed a partnership aimed at Web-based applications with SIP-based multimedia capabilities. The companies are jointly developing software to enable voice and video communications such as IP telephony and IP video conferencing over online applications, including portal sites and Intranets. The relationship combines NEC's IT/Network integrated solutions using SIP technology with Borland's distributed object technology. NEC plans to launch adaptor software based on this collaboration by the end of this year to the Japanese market, targeting carriers, ISPs, application service providers, enterprises and government bodies. http://www.nec.comhttp://www.borland.com

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Flextronics to Acquire FutureSoft

Flextronics has agreed to acquire FutureSoft, a supplier of communication software for network equipment OEMs, for an undisclosed sum. FutureSoft's product portfolio includes a range of protocol stacks, including LAN, WAN, IP, Internetworking, ATM, Telecom Signaling and Network Management software suites. FutureSoft employs 524 software engineers and is expected to generate about $23 million in revenues for its fiscal year ending March 2005.



FutureSoft is headquartered in Chennai (Madras), India with subsidiaries in the U.S. and the U.K. http://www.futsoft.comhttp://www.flextronics.com

• In June 2004, Flextronics agreed to acquire Hughes Network Systems' entire ownership stake of fifty-five percent (55%) in Hughes Software Systems (HSS), a leading provider of software products and services to telecom infrastructure companies, for a total cash consideration of approximately US$226 million (Rs547 per share). HSS, which is based in India, provides convergent software solutions for fixed and mobile networks for both voice and data. Its products and services span a variety of domains, such as optical networks, wireless networks, satellite networks, switching systems, convergent networks and broadband networks. HSS' product portfolio includes protocol stacks and value-added frameworks and are comprised of licensable technologies focused on Voice over Packet (VoP), SS7, broadband and wireless (GPRS/UMTS) products that provide customers with open architecture solutions.

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Swedish R&D Institute Tests Mintera's 40 Gbps Wavelengths

Acreo, a leading Swedish research and development institute operating the National Broadband Test-bed, is using Mintera's platform to integrate 40 Gbps wavelengths on a 2.5 Gbps line system over 820 km of installed standard single-mode fiber.



The technology trial utilized a fiber link running from Kista in Stockholm to Hudiksvall, north of Stockholm, and back to Kista. Mintera's 40 Gbps terminal plugged into a commercial 2.5/10 Gbps system and simultaneously ran 40 Gbps traffic along with 2.5 Gbps traffic without any modifications to the existing in-line amplifiers, dispersion compensation or optical MUX/DMUX infrastructure. Mintera said a 40 Gbps wavelength was up and running in less than an hour, and error-free performance with 9 dB of margin was measured over the one-week trial period. http://www.mintera.com

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Incumbent Carrier in India Selects Veraz

An incumbent carrier in India has selected Veraz Networks' carrier-class voice compression systems for deployment across domestic and international links. The equipment will be provided with partners HTL Ltd., United Telecoms Limited (UTL) and Priyaraj Electronics Ltd. Veraz's solution includes its own DSP technology, which tailors bandwidth-optimizing features within stringent carrier requirements in any type of network environment.



Veraz recently announced the opening of a Center in Pune, which will further assist with its carrier customer and systems integrator relationships. Further, Veraz is one of the few NGN vendors with a carrier-class packet telephony solution awarded certification from the Indian government's Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC). http://www.veraznetworks.com

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