U.S. Bancorp First to Deploy Lucent RPR Metro Optical Card

U.S. Bancorp will deploy Lucent Technologies' Metropolis DMX portfolio of metro optical networking products and VitalSuite Integrated Network Controller software, to create a high-capacity, fully redundant carrier grade backbone network in five cities. The project market the first deployment of Lucent's standards-based Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) card, which enables service providers to double the amount of bandwidth on their network by using both sides of rings for transporting traffic. The RPR card also supports fast restoration of packet traffic in the event of a network failure, offering exceptional reliability.



Lucent Worldwide Services will provide professional services, including engineering, network integration, testing, and program management for the project. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.lucent.com

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Tokyo Electron to Launch Silicon Valley Venture Program

Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL), a supplier of semiconductor and FPD production equipment, had formed a new subsidiary to make strategic seed and early stage investments focusing on promising technological innovations. TEL Venture Capital plans to invest up to $10 million annually and will tap into Silicon Valley venture resources.

http://www.tel.com

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NETGEAR Launches SSL VPN Concentrator

NETGEAR introduced an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) VPN solution for small- and mid-sized businesses under 100 users. The ProSafe SSL312 provides remote access to mobile users, enabling them to connect securely to the corporate network using any computer, from locations such as an authorized partner location, a home, or even a kiosk, using a standard Web browser. The SSL312, which ensures data privacy with SSLv3 and TLSv1.0 with AES-256, supports 25 concurrent SSL VPN sessions, enabling remote users to securely access resources using standard web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and Apple Safari. In addition to integrating with a broad range of user repositories, such as Microsoft Active Directory, LDAP, and RADIUS, for user authentication, the SSL312 interoperates with third party firewalls and works seamlessly with NETGEAR's ProSafe line of VPN Firewall Routers. The unit has a list price of $545. http://www.netgear.com

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Telstra's "BigPond" ADSL Breaks Million Subscriber Milestone

Telstra's "BigPond" ADSL service activated its 1,000,000th customers -- roughly doubling its subscriber base in the past year. The first 500,000 ADSL services took almost six years to achieve.

http://www.telstra.com

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Airport Authority Hong Kong Builds Huge WLAN with Cisco

The Airport Authority Hong Kong has deployed Cisco Systems' Unified Wireless Network equipment to create one of the world's largest airport WLANs in terms of coverage and number of access points.



Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), the world's busiest international cargo and fifth busiest international passenger airport, now provides WLAN coverage in all indoor areas including the passenger terminal and the baggage sortation hall, as well as all aircraft parking bays on the apron. The infrastructure now comprises over 200 Cisco 1000 Series Lightweight Access Points and eight Cisco 4100 Series Wireless LAN Controllers. By the end of this year, there will be 300 Cisco Access Points and 12 Cisco Controllers in operation.

http://www.cisco.com

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Tekelec Sells its IEX Group to NICE Systems for $200 Million

Tekelec agreed to sell its wholly owned subsidiary, IEX Corporation, a global provider of workforce management and optimization technology for contact centers, to NICE Systems for $200 million in cash.



Commenting on the sale, Frank Plastina, President and CEO of Tekelec said, "We are very pleased with this transaction because it converts a non-telecom business unit into cash at an attractive valuation and under favorable terms. IEX has been an important contributor to our financial performance for the last several years, but it was not a component of our long-term telecom systems growth strategy. This deal will significantly strengthen our balance sheet and enhance our ability to consider complementary strategic opportunities in our core business. The price and terms of this transaction confirm IEX's position as a leading solution provider in a rapidly consolidating industry. We believe that NICE Systems is best suited for the IEX acquisition, due to the clear synergies in market leadership, technology innovation, engineering expertise, and management experience."



Tekelec also noted that it has no immediate plans for the proceeds.



Separately, NICE Systems also signed a definitive agreement to acquire Performix, a pioneer of contact center performance management, for $13.2 million in cash.

http://www.tekelec.comhttp://www.nice.com

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Quake Surpasses 300,000th 10 Gigabit PHY Shipment

Quake Technologies has shipped more than 300,000 10 Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layer ICs (PHYs) to date. The company first entered the 10GE PHY market in 2001 with a serial-to-XAUI device. Quake supports all PMDs covered by the IEEE 802.3ae and IEEE 802.3ak standards. Its products are used both within pluggable modules as well as directly on system cards. http://www.quaketech.com

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Deutsche Telekom Selects Cisco IP NGN for IPTV Service

Deutsche Telekom's T-Com and T-Online divisions selected Cisco Systems' IP NGN architecture and its IP set-top boxes for the "T-Home" broadband service. Specifically, T-Com's video delivery network is based on the Cisco IP NGN architecture and incorporates Cisco 12000 Series routers at the provider edge, Cisco 10008 Series routers as Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS) platforms and Cisco Catalyst 6509 Series switches.



"T-Home" is delivered through a Cisco STB from the KiSS series called the T-Home X 300T Media Receiver which supports Microsoft IPTV Edition. The T-Home X 300T Media Receiver enables high-definition (HD) IPTV and features personal video recorder (PVR) functionality. Its 80-gigabyte hard disk stores up to 70 hours of programming with "time shifting" capabilities that enable users to record preset programs, and even interrupt running programs and continue them later. The T-Home X 300T supports the Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard and features a dual DVB-T tuner as well as and can be controlled remotely over the Internet. It is HD-capable via an HDMI interface and offers Ethernet and SCART ports for additional connectivity and functionality.

http://www.cisco.com

• Cisco acquired KiSS Technology in September 2005.



• In April, Juniper Networks announced that T-Com, the fixed network division of Deutsche Telekom AG, is deploying Juniper Networks' E-series Broadband Services Routers and T-series core routing platforms to expand and scale its IP network to support its advanced service offerings over VDSL. The Juniper Networks routing platforms will be added to T-Com's existing installed base of Juniper Networks E-, M- and T-series routing platforms, and will provide the scalability and advanced service management capabilities necessary to deliver IP-based video services to a large number of subscribers. Financial terms were not disclosed.



• T-Com is upgrading its network to VDSL2 (Very Fast Digital Subscriber Line), with the first stage of deployment covering 10 cities throughout Germany.



• In March, Alcatel announced that Deutsche Telekom's T-Com division is deploying its IP/MPLS-based portfolio to support its launch of IPTV and interactive consumer services in 10 major German cities including Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, and Stuttgart. Specifically, Deutsche Telekom will deploy the Alcatel 7750 Service Router to provide DSL/IP aggregation network for the 10 cities.

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Ikanos Makes Management Appointments

Ikanos Communications named Dean Westman as General Manager and Rakinder Grover as Vice President of Business Development. Prior to joining Ikanos, Mr. Westman served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Mathstar, where he was responsible for creating and executing a global product strategy. Previously, Mr. Westman served as Vice President of Marketing at C-Cube Microsystems, where he managed the product roadmap of the Broadband Networks Division.



Prior to joining Ikanos as Vice President of Business Development, Mr. Grover had been a business development consultant at the company and was instrumental in Ikanos' acquisition of the broadband product lines from Analog Devices. Previously Mr. Grover was a General Partner at the venture capital firm of Walden International, where he invested in telecom, semiconductor and IT infrastructure startups. http://www.ikanos.com

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U.S. General Services Administration Buys VoIP

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Technology Service has made VoIP available to federal agencies under the MCI Contract. Federal customers subscribing to the MCI's VoIP service can now place voice calls over their data network using a new or existing MCI provided data circuit.



GSA is the centralized, federal procurement, property management, policy development and information provision agency.

http://www.gsa.gov

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Nortel Files 2005 Financial Statements

Nortel Networks reported Q4 2005 revenues of US$3.0 billion and a net loss of US$2.3 billion, including a US$2.5 billion expense to settle shareholder class action litigation.



2005 revenues were US$10.5 billion and there was a net loss for the year of US$2.6 billion.



The company's financial restatements have also been completed. Revisions to the Company's previously reported 2003 and 2004 financial results reflect negative impacts on revenue of US$261 million and US$312 million and on net earnings/loss of US$141 million and US$156 million, respectively, as well as revisions to the Company's previously reported 2005 nine month results reflecting negative impacts on revenue of US$520 million and on net earnings/loss of US$164 million in the aggregate. With respect to financial results prior to 2003, the revisions reflect negative impacts on revenue of US$384 million and on net earnings/loss of US$70 million in the aggregate. These revenue adjustments resulted in the deferral to later periods of revenue that was previously recognized in prior periods.

http://www.nortel.com

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France Telecom Reaches 8.1 million ADSL customers in Europe

As of 31-March-2006, France Telecom was serving 8.1 million ADSL customers in Europe, representing an increase of 10% since 31-Dec-2005. This includes 4.9 million ADSL customers in France, representing a consumer ADSL market share of 49.8% in France.



The number of ADSL TV subscribers reached 229,000 at quarter's end, up from 102,000 a year earlier.



France Telecom also reached 1.2 million VoIP customers in France, up by 377,000 for the quarter.



The number of LiveBox gateways marketed in Europe surged to 2.4 million (2.1 million in France), up from 489,000 a year earlier.



Revenues for consumer services in France were down 1.0% due to a decline in the price of phone calls primarily to mobile phones.



The total number of France Telecom Group customers reached 147 million, up 16.8% year over year (+8.5% on a comparable basis).



CAPEX in Q1 was EUR 1.390 billion, up 12% from the previous year on a comparable basis.

http://www.francetelecom.com

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Comcast Adds 437,000 Internet and 211,000 VoIP Customers in Q1

Comcast added nearly 1 million revenue generating units (RGUs) in Q1 -- its highest growth rate yet -- driving revenue in its Cable business to $5.6 billion. Some highlights for the quarter:

• Video revenue increased 6% to $3.6 billion in Q1, reflecting a 1.3 million or 14% increase in the number of digital customers from the first quarter of 2005. Comcast Cable ended the quarter with 10.1 million digital cable subscribers, a 47% penetration rate of the Company's 21.5 million basic cable subscribers.



• Growth in video revenue and digital cable subscribers also reflects increasing consumer demand for new digital features including ON DEMAND, digital video recorders (DVR) and HDTV programming. Driven by ON DEMAND movie and event purchases, pay-per-view revenues increased 29% from the first quarter of 2005. Pay-per-view revenue has shown strong growth with the rollout of ON DEMAND, increasing more than 20% on average over the past two years. Further contributing to video revenue growth, 28% of digital customers subscribed to DVR and/or HDTV services as of March 31, 2006 compared to 17% in the prior year.



• Added 437,000 high-speed Internet subscribers during Q1, which high-speed Internet revenues increased 22% to $1.1 billion, reflecting a 1.5 million or 21% increase in subscribers from the prior year and stable average monthly revenue per subscriber of $43.14.



• Comcast ended Q1 with 9.0 million cable modem subscribers or 22% penetration of available homes.



• Voice: 211,000 Comcast Digital Voice (CDV) customers were added during Q1 -- than in all of 2005. The service is now marketed to 19 million homes or 45% of Comcast's footprint. Phone revenue increased 9% to $191 million reflecting a $37 million increase in CDV revenues as a result of the significant increase in CDV subscribers, offset by a $21 million or 12% decline in circuit-switched phone revenues as Comcast transitions to marketing CDV.



• Comcast Cable ended the first quarter of 2006 with 416,000 CDV customers. On a net basis, Comcast Cable reported 141,000 net new phone customer additions in the first quarter of 2006 compared to 4,000 in 2005. By the end of 2006, CDV service will be marketed to 32 million homes or approximately 80% of Comcast's footprint.



• Revenue generating units (RGU) represent the sum of basic and digital video subscribers, high-speed Internet and phone subscribers. Comcast added a record level of 965,000 RGUs in the first quarter of 2006, a 64% increase from the same period in 2005. Comcast ended the first quarter of 2006 with 42 million RGUs, an increase of 3 million units from the prior year.



• Advertising revenue increased 4% to $309 million in the first quarter of 2006 when compared to 2005, reflecting general weakness in the regional and national advertising marketplace.

http://www.comcast.com

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Orb Networks Offers Internet Radio and Podcasts from PCs to Mobile Phones

Orb Networks, a developer of software for providing access to digital content, announced support for playing and recording Internet radio and for enjoying podcasts from any mobile device with a streaming Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, 3GP player, or Macromedia Flash Player on any carrier network and Wi-Fi.



The free Orb software enables the user to play and record Internet radio and enjoy podcasts from the native Web browser and streaming media player of their mobile phones and PDAs. The Orb software on a user's always-connected Windows XP PC acts as the user's personal "mycast" server, serving up content streams in the media format and bitrate appropriate to the user's mobile device.



"The whole point of Orb is to empower our users to instantly 'mycast' all their favorite content to themselves wherever they are," said Ian McCarthy, Vice President of Product Marketing for Orb Networks."http://www.orb.com

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ECI Reports 11% Rise in Q1 Revenue

ECI Telecom reported Q1 revenue of $162 million, an 11% increase from the $145 million recorded in the first quarter of 2005 and compared with $169 million for the fourth quarter of 2005. Net income (GAAP) reached $3.1 million, or $0.03 per share on a fully diluted basis.



Some highlights:

• Revenues for the Optical Networks Division totaled $89 million for the first quarter of 2006, up 17% from the year ago period and up $2 million from the preceding quarter.



• Revenues for the Broadband Access Division totaled $62 million for the first quarter of 2006, down 1% from the year ago period and $6 million less than in the previous quarter. The decline in the division's revenues resulted entirely from the conclusion of deliveries under the contract with Chungwha Telecom in Taiwan.



• Revenues for the Data Networking Division (formerly Laurel Networks) totaled $2.1 million for the first quarter of 2006, up slightly from the previous quarter, while the operating loss was $9.5 million, compared to $8.7 million in the previous quarter, reflecting the still relatively low revenues and continued intensive R&D efforts currently underway in the division.

Rafi Maor, ECI Telecom President and CEO stated, "The demand for ECI products continues to be strong and order intake for the quarter enabled us to record year-over-year revenue growth and further build our backlog. This growth is driven primarily by the continued deployment of advanced triple play networks by our major customers and by continued strong demand for our leading cellular backhaul solutions, especially in emerging markets, where the growth of the cellular industry continues to be strong."http://www.ecitele.com

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mDisney Launches Cross-Carrier, Real-Time Multiplayer Mobile Game

mDisney, a mobile publishing unit of the Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG), introduced Pirates of the Caribbean Multiplayer, a cross-carrier, real-time multiplayer game for mobile phones. The game, one of the first action adventure mobile multiplayer games, is slated to launch this summer, in conjunction with the theatrical release of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest worldwide on July 7, 2006.



The game will permit up to 16 players to engage in individual game sessions. Players will be able to chat with other players, make friends and form guilds of hundreds of players on the game's server, which can accommodate tens of thousands of simultaneous players.



mDisney is collaborating with mobile games developer Floodgate Entertainment to create the Pirates of the Caribbean Multiplayer game.

http://www.piratesmobilemultiplayer.comhttp://www.floodg.com

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Network Processing Forum Merges with Optical Internetworking Forum

The Network Processing Forum (NPF) will merge its activities with those of The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF).



The mission of the OIF is to accelerate the deployment of interoperable, cost-effective and robust optical networks and their associated technologies.



The Network Processing Forum's mission to accelerate the adoption of network processing technologies through the development and implementation of network processing standards and benchmarks. By establishing standard interfaces and benchmarks, the NPF helps semiconductor manufacturers, software developers, services companies and system OEM's lower development costs, shorten design cycles, reduce product time-to-market while increasing time-in-market.



The merged group will retain the OIF name.



"A combined group will cast a wider net for participation in the creation and adoption of Implementation Agreements," said Chuck Sannipoli of IP Infusion and chairman of the NPF. "The synergy amongst component and system vendors and network providers will be much stronger as a result."http://www.oiforum.comhttp://www.npforum.org

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Nakina Systems Names Former Nortel Exec as Chairman

Nakina Systems, a start-up developing multi-vendor security and element management solutions for network operators, announced that Marco Pagani, former President of Nortel Networks' Metro Optical and Optical Ethernet divisions, has been appointed Chairman of Nakina's Board of Directors.



Marco Pagani has recently served as Chairman of the Board of Directors at a number of telecom high-tech companies, including Nimcat Networks, where he helped steer the company towards its eventual acquisition by Avaya in 2005. His most recent position at Nortel was President of Optical Ethernet and Storage Solutions. Previously he held various senior positions, including President - Metro Optical Division, President - Core Networks, and General Manager - Carrier Data Networks.



Nakina Systems provides network operators with one platform to discover, manage and secure their multi-vendor networks worldwide. The company is based in Ottawa.

http://www.nakinasystems.com

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Sprint Offers end-to-end MPLS VPN Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Sprint introduced a standard end-to-end MPLS VPN Service Level Agreements (SLAs) on its wholly owned global network. The new performance guarantees, which are provided at no additional charge to customers, extend SLA coverage and reporting beyond the backbone network and now include the local loop, covering service from customer router to customer router. The service level guarantees include an enhanced network availability SLA of up to 100%, standard end-to-end packet loss and jitter SLAs, and a standard end-to-end delay methodology applicable across Sprint's entire global backbone.



Sprint is also simplifying and bundling its Managed Services portfolio to help customers migrate to new technologies. Options range from performance-reporting tools to complete management of the customer's converged network, including managed migration from legacy data services to an MPLS VPN that can support emerging application needs.



As part of its ongoing global MPLS expansion, Sprint said it is working with regional and global service providers to augment its wholly owned capabilities through network-to-network interface (NNI) partnerships. This strategy integrates partner capabilities with Sprint's to provide seamless connectivity and maintain traffic prioritization settings across the entire network.



The first such NNI agreement was struck with Rogers Communications in Canada through its business division, Rogers Business Solutions. Under the agreement, Rogers' MPLS nodes will connect with the Sprint IP/MPLS backbone so customers can experience congestion-free connectivity with security, redundancy and quality of service. Later this year, Sprint will forge similar MPLS NNI partnerships throughout Europe, Asia and South America.



Currently, Sprint provides access to MPLS and IP-based services in 115 countries through a combination of Sprint-owned nodes and partner facilities. Through its MPLS NNI partners strategy, Sprint plans to expand coverage to 163 countries by the end of 2006.

http://www.sprint.com

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aduno Introduces its Web 2.0 Conferencing Service

aduno, a start-up based in Paris, introduced its "Rich Meeting" next generation audioweb conferencing services. The company said its Web 2.0 - programming approach will make online, reservationless conferencing available to a much wider audience.

Key attributes of aduno include:

• Provides personal portals for the organizer and participants, to make the audio and web connections simultaneous, immediate and totally secure; no code or number to dial, the access is instantaneous,



• Offers native integration of audio and web, allowing for piloting, i.e. access to audio and web functionalities in the same PC window, by simply clicking on the participant icons,



• Control screen allows for preparation, programming (invitations and reminders with synchronized Outlook and Notes), follow-up and filing of the conferences, in the same application,



• Sharing applications without plug-in on dedicated server, therefore available with full security from any PC connected to the Internet; no prior downloading, all invited participants can connect



• Allows installation on dedicated servers of documents, conferences, data, etc. of the user company, while respecting its security constraints.

http://www.aduno.fr

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