Outsmart Secures $17 Million for Fixed-Mobile Convergence

Outsmart, a start-up based in Tel Aviv, secured $17 million in venture funding for its Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) and Intelligent Networks (IN) based solutions. Outsmart's technology enables mobile and fixed operators to leverage their existing mobile infrastructure and back office systems to include fixed telephony across mobile, DSL, cable and WiFi networks. Services such as pre-paid, SMS, multi-media messaging services (MMS), instant messaging (IM), virtual private network (VPN) and ring-back-tones (RBT) could be extended across wireless and wireline networks. The company cites recent deployments by several major European operators.

The new funding included Accel Partners, Gemini Israel Funds and Magnum Communications fund.
http://www.outsmarttelecom.com

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Alcatel Supplies IP Service Routing for China Telecom

Guangdong Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom, has selected the Alcatel 7750 Service Router (SR) to broaden its IP-based data service portfolio and to support a triple play offering. The contract, which was won through Alcatel Shanghai Bell, covers deployment in in seven major cities (Dongguan, Foshan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Shantou). Upon completion of the project in June 2005, residential customers of Guangdong Telecom will be able to enjoy new user centric services such as triple play and advanced Internet access. Enterprise users will also have access to SLA-based services, such as Layer 2 VPLS and Layer 3 VPNs. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.alcatel.com

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CLECs File Petition Opposing Verizon + MCI Merger

A group of competitive telecommunications carriers and members of the Alliance for Competition in Telecommunications (ACTel) a petition urging the FCC to deny the proposed merger of Verizon and MCI.


The group, which includes Cbeyond Communications, Conversent Communications, Eschelon Telecom, NuVox Comunications, TDS Metrocom and XO Communications, raised the specter of continued telecom industry concentration driving reduced choices, slower innovation and higher costs for businesses and consumers -- and of even stronger monopolies bent on controlling the market. The group argues that that in the nine years since passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Verizon has repeatedly violated the law and ignored the conditions barring anticompetitive practices in its own prior merger accords.

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T-Online Selects Macrovision for VOD Content Protection

T-Online has activated Macrovision's content protection for delivery of its "Vision on TV" VOD Service in Germany. Together with its partners Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Samsung and Bose, T-Online is installing VOD capable digital set-top boxes. Macrovision's technology is designed to inhibit unauthorized copying of VOD movies on VCRs, DVD recorders, digital video recorders (DVRs) and PC/Media Centres. Macrovision's technology can also be used to permit secure storage and movement of VOD movies to DVRs, PC/Media Centres and portable media players.
http://www.macrovision.com

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InfiniRoute Names Tauss as CEO

InfiniRoute Networks, which provides managed VoIP peering network services to carriers, named Gary Tauss as its new CEO. Prior to InfiniRoute, Tauss was CEO for LongBoard, a VoIP services, SIP based application solution provider for fixed-mobile carriers. Previous to LongBoard, Gary was President and CEO of Tollbridge Technologies, a voice over broadband systems for cable and DSL networks. Tauss was also VP and General Manager of Ramp Networks, which was acquired by Nokia.
http://www.infiniroute.com

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Cox Adds 177K Cable Modem and 111K Telephony Customers in Q1

Cox Communications reported strong gains in digital video, high-speed Internet, and VoIP services for Q1 2005, including:

• Added 94,499 Cox Digital Cable customers, ending the quarter with over 2.5 million digital cable customers, representing year-over-year customer growth of 13%. Cox Digital Cable is now available to 99% of the homes in Cox's service areas with 40% penetration of our basic video customer base.



• Added 177,413 high-speed Internet customers, ending the quarter with over 2.7 million high-speed Internet customers, representing year-over-year customer growth of 28%.



• Added 111,522 Cox Digital Telephone customers, the most Cox Digital Telephone customers ever added in a quarter. Cox ended the quarter with over 1.4 million telephone customers, representing year-over-year customer growth of 33%.



• Ended the quarter with over 6.3 million basic video customers, up 0.2% from March 31, 2004.



• Ended the quarter with over 6.7 million total customer relationships, up 1.3% from March 31, 2004.



• Ended the quarter with approximately 13.0 million total RGUs, up 11% from March 31, 2004, driven by 23% year-over-year growth in advanced-service RGUs.



• Total revenues for the first quarter of 2005 were $1.7 billion, an increase of 11% over the first quarter of 2004. Operating income increased 25% to $219.4 million for the first quarter of 2005, and operating cash flow increased 15% to $653.6 million, compared to the same period in the 2004.

http://www.cox.com

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ST and Octasic Team on Voice-over-Packet Silicon

STMicroelectronics and Octasic are working together to deliver a family of voice-over-packet (VoP) ICs. The solutions will be based on ST's 0.13-µm and 90-nm semiconductor process technology and Octasic's designs for VoP and Voice Quality Enhancement (VQE), which includes technology for line and acoustic echo cancellation, noise reduction capabilities, vocoding and packetization. The first product is slated for availability this quarter and a second product is expected shortly after. The companies also agreed to cooperate on future system-on-chip (SoC) VoP devices which will be implemented in 90-nm and below process technologies.


Target applications for Voice-over-Packet silicon includes telecom infrastructure (central office) and enterprise equipment, IP-PBX gateways, OLTs in PONs, and Media Gateways in WANs.


Octasic's processors are optimized to perform key voice functions such as carrier-grade echo cancellation, packetization, and compression.





Octasic's VQE/Echo Cancellation devices offer capacities from 32 to 672 channels. The devices deliver G.169 automatic level control and acoustic echo cancellation, as well as additional features such as advanced noise reduction, advanced signaling tone detection (DTMF, R1,...), announcement playout, full way conferencing and ADPCM. Octasic also uses an optimized physical design methodology that extends down to gate-level, significantly reducing die area, net lengths and power while boosting performance. Octasic said this gives its design much more processing power (2-4x) per die area.


Octasic has tested its design with BT Exact Labs, which found the echo canceller "comfortably above the acceptability threshold for inclusion in carrier class networks."http://www.octasic.com
http://www.st.com

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WiDeFi Selects Atmel for SiGe 802.11 Repeater Chipsets

WiDeFi, a start-up based in Melbourne, Florida, selected Atmel as its foundry partner for its Xtender family of 802.11 repeater chipsets. WiDeFi's devices will be produced using Atmel's advanced silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor (Bi-CMOS) technology. The companies describe WiDeFi's new WLAN Xtender as a new fundamental wireless network element that doubles the range of WLAN networks with twice the throughput and lower cost than the top competing solutions.
http://www.widefi.com
http://www.atmel.com

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Fujitsu Partners with Terawave on Next Gen PON

Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Ltd and Terawave announced a strategic partnership to develop and bring to market next generation PON access solutions. The agreement will combine Fujitsu's market leadership in broadband access technology with Terawave's PON technology to create a new range of fully integrated and managed next generation GPON access solutions.


Commenting for Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe, General Manager Andy Stevenson said: "Fujitsu is taking a strategic market lead, bringing together appropriate technologies in strategic partnerships to create a new breed of integrated end-to-end next generation solutions. This agreement with Terawave reflects our commitment to provide our carrier customers with broader, more comprehensive systems, based on established relationships and genuinely integrated technologies reflecting the carriers' clear requirement to work more closely with a smaller number of vendors in their networks."http://uk.fujitsu.com
http://www.terawave.com

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Juniper Launches Eight New Security Platforms

Juniper Networks released two new firewall/VPN systems six new appliances and a software upgrade for its Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) product line.


The new Juniper Networks ISG 2000 firewall/VPN with integrated IDP is designed to protect enterprise, carrier and data center environments against worms, Trojans, spyware and other emerging threats. It delivers up to 2Gbps of intrusion prevention throughput via a high-performance architecture that brings dedicated firewall/VPN and application level processing power unmatched by any competitive offering.


The new ISG 1000 firewall/VPN delivers 1 Gbps firewall and 1 Gbps VPN throughput for any packet size through the use of Juniper's fourth-generation ASIC, which also powers the ISG 2000. The ISG 1000 is suited for securing enterprise, carrier and data center environments where advanced applications, such as VoIP and streaming media, dictate consistent, scalable performance.


The six new IDP standalone hardware platforms, the IDP 50, 200, 600C, 600F, 1100C and 1100F, deliver protection against Trojans, worms, spyware and other network-based attacks at performance levels ranging from 50 Mbps to 1 Gbps.


Juniper Networks is also announcing new threat mitigation capabilities to secure voice traffic and increase attack detection accuracy. New SIP protocol anomaly detection delivers VoIP application level protection to complement existing network level VoIP protection. New multi-level attack scanning allows for the IDP platform to help minimize false positives by performing second-level investigation based on certain triggers, such as suspiciously large protocol elements or secondary pattern matches.


For IDP customers, Juniper Networks' dedicated Security Team also began delivering new spyware protection signatures. The new spyware signatures delivered to IDP customers are designed to stop spyware from "phoning home" and sending confidential company and personal information to third-parties.
http://www.juniper.net

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Wayport Expands Roaming with Acquisition of NetPoint A/S

Wayport acquired NetPoint A/S, one of the largest providers of high-speed Internet access for the hospitality industry in Europe and the Middle East. The NetPoint acquisition brings with it more than 120 premium hotel properties across 24 countries including hotels from chains such as Accor/Sofitel, Mercure, Ibis, First, Hilton, Park Inn, Radisson SAS, Remmen, Scandic and Zleep -- as well as a number of privately held hotel properties. NetPoint is based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Wayport supplies Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) wireless and wired Internet access in more than 9,000 locations, including nearly 900 major hotels, 6 major airports; 16 Laptop Lane airport business centers; McDonald's and Hertz locations; and other retail brands nationwide.
http://www.wayport.net

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Entrisphere Raises $75 Million in Third Round Financing

Entrisphere, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, raised $75 million in Series C financing for its network access equipment.


The new funding was led by VantagePoint Venture Partners and included all of Entrisphere's existing investment group-Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, CDP Capital, Crosspoint Venture Partners, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, El Dorado Ventures, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, and STAR Ventures.


Entrisphere also announced that Cynthia Ringo, managing director at VantagePoint Venture Partners, has joined the Entrisphere Board of Directors.


http://www.entrisphere.com

• Earlier this month, Entrisphere introduced an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) designed to interoperate with its Broadband Loop Multiplexer or other standards-compliant Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) for delivering PON-based triple play services to subscriber homes.



• In March 2005, Entrisphere introduced its Broadband Loop Multiplexer (BLM) 1500, which is designed to integrate all major access network service and transport functions on a single platform, including PON OLT, NGDLC/DSLAM, packet voice gateway, as well as IP and analog video support along with SONET and IP transport. Based on an 18-slot, fully hardened 14RU chassis, the BLM 1500 can deliver any service from any slot through a variety of Entrisphere solutions for Video services, High Speed Data service, Packet Voice services, Ethernet, and Transparent LAN service, all with a unified management interface. Specific applications include FTTP, FTTC, Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN), IGMP-based switched digital video or IPTV, RF video, VoIP and packet voice (H.248), ADSL and ADSL2+, Gigabit Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, OC-48, T1 (HiCap), DS3, and POTS.



• Entrisphere is headed by Mark Floyd, who previously was a founder of Efficient Networks (acquired by Siemens). The company is based in Santa Clara, California with an office in Plano, Texas.

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UnitedGlobalCom to Acquire ntl Ireland

UnitedGlobalCom purchased NTL's broadband operations located in the Republic of Ireland. The acquisition, which was accomplished through MS Irish Cable Holdings B.V., an affiliate of Morgan Stanley and UnitedGlobalCom, was for approximately EUR 325 million excluding an adjustment for cash in the business at closing, plus a EUR 4 million arrangement fee and reimbursement of certain expenses and costs for Morgan Stanley.


NTL Ireland is the largest cable operator in the Republic of Ireland, offering cable television and broadband services to residential customers and managed network services to corporate customers. At December 31, 2004, NTL Ireland had approximately 355,300 revenue generating units ("RGUs") including 347,800 digital and analog video RGUs and 7,500 broadband Internet RGUs.


UGC is a leading international provider of video, voice, and broadband Internet services with operations in 16 countries, including 13 countries in Europe. Based on the Company's operating statistics at December 31, 2004, UGC's networks reached approximately 16.0 million homes passed and served over 11.6 million RGUs, including approximately 9.4 million video subscribers, 1.4 million broadband Internet subscribers, and 803,500 telephone subscribers.
http://www.unitedglobal.com

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Google Goes Offline Due to DNS Issue

Google went offline for approximately 15 minutes on Saturday due to a DNS issue. Traffic to Google was briefly directed to another site. Google serves an estimated 200 million searches per day and increasingly offers other online services, including its popular Gmail service.
http://www.gigaom.com/2005/05/07/google-hacked/

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Korea's SK Telecom Grows Market Share

SK Telecom, South Korea's leading mobile carrier, expanded its market share from 42.6% to 54.5% in 2003, according to figures from the Korea Information Strategy Development Institute (KISDI). A report from The Korea Times states that SK Telecom continues to hold a greater than 50% market share despinte efforts from the Korean government to dilute its market dominance, including a restriction that only SK Telecom users were allowed to switch their carriers without having to change their numbers during the first six months of 2004. The duopoly of SK Telecom and KTF, a wireless affiliate of predominant fixed-line firm KT, accounts from an estimated 85% of the overall mobile market in Korea.http://times.hankooki.com/

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Vonage Raises Additional $200 Million

Vonage plans to raise $200 million through the private sale of securities. The new funding will bring total equity in the company to about $400 million.
http://www.vonage.com

• In March 2005, Vonage crossed the 500,000 subscriber line milestone.



• In August 2004, Vonage closed $105 million in fourth round venture funding, bring total investment at the time $208 million. That round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and included the participation of 3i, Meritech Capital Partners and existing investors.

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Marconi Announces Corporate Restructuring

Marconi announced a major corporate restructuring around four different product groupings and geographic centres of excellence. Marconi will continue to market its full product range on a global basis. The four new business groups are:

• SoftSwitch (Northern Europe)


• Wireless (Central Europe)


• Optical & Access Networks (Southern Europe)


• Data Networks (North America)

Each of these groups will continue to provide its customers with Network Integration and Installation, Commissioning and Maintenance Services.


Marconi expects it will have to cut up to 800 jobs in the UK and has initiated discussions with its trade union. The restructuring will dismantle much of the company's current UK-based central Operations organisation. The company plans to provide a financial update on on 17-May-05.
http://www.marconi.com

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U.S. Court of AppealsThrows Out FCC's Broadcast Flag

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit ruled against the FCC in a case involving its requirement for electronic devices to support "broadcast flag" anti-piracy protection measures for digital broadcast television. The broadcast flag is a digital code embedded in a digital broadcast stream, which prevents digital television reception equipment from redistributing the content. The ruling is expected to have broad implications on the distribution of digital content.


The court found that Congress had never given the FCC the authority "to regulate apparatus that can receive television broadcasts when those apparatus are not engaged in the process of receiving a broadcast transmission." The broadcast flag affects receiver devices only after a broadcast transmission is complete.


The court noted that in the seven decades of its existence, the FCC has never before asserted such sweeping authority.


The American Library Association filed the challenge to the FCC's broadcast flag rule.http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200505/04-1037b.pdf

• In November 2003, the FCC adopted its "broadcast flag" anti-piracy protection measure for digital broadcast television, saying that consumers' ability to make digital copies will not be affected. Under the order, the FCC permitted use of the flag at the discretion of the broadcaster. Equipment capable of receiving DTV signals over-the-air were required to support the broadcast flag requirements by July 1, 2005. Other products such as digital VCRs, DVD players and personal computers that are not built with digital tuners installed are not required to comply with the new rule. In addition, the FCC explained that existing televisions, VCRs, DVD players and related equipment would remain fully functional under the new broadcast flag system.

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Time Warner Selects Scientific-Atlanta / Tropic Networks ROADMs

Scientific-Atlanta and Tropic Networks were selected to provide Time Warner Cable's Portland, Maine division with reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) transport nodes for its core DWDM network and related support services. ROADMS enable the operator to quickly and remotely modify network topology to optimize bandwidth use. Time Warner Cable expects to rollout its first fully managed and fully reconfigurable network in Portland during Q2. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Time Warner Cable Portland will be using Tropic's WT-24000 optical transport platform, TROPX software suite and Wavelength Tracker, advanced optical layer management technology. The managed ROADM solution will provide Time Warner with dual homing master head-end protection for a protected VOD network designed to deliver uninterrupted service to its customers. In addition, the new architecture will support Time Warner's existing commercial services. The WT-24000's flexible architecture further provides Time Warner with the ability to create a fully converged network infrastructure as new services can be deployed onto this platform as they become available.
http://www.tropicnetworks.com
http://www.scientificatlanta.com

• Last month, Tropic Networks announced a partnership under which Scientific-Atlanta will resell and support its intelligent wavelength transport platform to cable operators. Under the terms of the OEM agreement, Scientific-Atlanta will have sales, distribution and support rights for the Tropic-developed family of intelligent optical transport products for the MSO market.



• Tropic Networks, which is based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, developed a Reconfigurable OADM (ROADM) that enables service providers to remotely reconfigure add and drop capacity at each node. Tropic's system features an advanced optical layer management technology called "Wavelength Tracker".



• In July 2004, Alcatel made an equity investment in Tropic Networks, a start-up offering metro-area optical networking gear. In addition to the financial investment, Alcatel also entered into a global agreement to market and distribute Tropic Networks products and technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.



• Tropic Networks was founded in May 2000 by Kevin Rankin, formerly co-founder of the Broadband Copper Access division at Newbridge Networks; Dr. Dan Oprea, former senior architect at Nortel Networks and Mitel; Dave Coomber, former assistant VP of xDSL at Newbridge Networks; and Ben Bacque, co-founder of the Broadband Copper Access division at Newbridge Networks.

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FCC Denies SBC's Petition on IP Services

The FCC denied a petition from SBC Communications requesting that Title II common carrier regulations not be applied to IP services. The petition was denied on procedural grounds rather than as a matter of policy.


In February 2004, SBC filed a petition asking the FCC to forbear from applying Title II common carrier regulation to IP Platform Services, which it defined as "those services that enable any customer to send or receive communications in IP format over an IP platform, and the IP platforms on which those services are provided."


In this ruling, the FCC reasoned that it would be inappropriate to grant SBC's petition because it asks the FCC to forbear from enforcing requirements that may not even apply to the facilities and services in question. The FCC has not yet decided the extent to which IP-enabled services are covered by Title II and its implementing rules. Therefore, the FCC cannot "forbear" from applying rules have not yet been defined.


In a statement, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said the issues presented by this petition are important ones that require the Commission's attention. "Accordingly, in order to accomplish what will be one of the Commission's core priorities -- promoting the deployment of new packetized networks throughout the nation -- we should move forward to address the creation of a level-playing field for the provision of advanced services by similarly situated service providers. The removal of legacy regulations should spur investment and the deployment of new packetized networks and facilities that will bring new broadband services to all Americans throughout the nation."http://www.fcc.gov

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