ZTE Gains US$10 Billion Credit Line from Export-Import Bank of China

The Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank) has granted a US$10 billion credit line to ZTE Corporation. Under the cooperation agreement, ZTE and China Exim Bank will join together to establish a financing platform to support ZTE and its holding subsidiaries in overseas market activities including export seller's credit, export buyer's credit, import credit, preferential foreign loans, transferred loans of foreign governments and trade financing, as well as other premium financial services. ZTE agrees to deal with China Exim Bank as a principal banker and handle loans and relevant businesses through China Exim Bank.
http://wwwen.zte.com.cn

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ZTE Unveils First Symmetrical 10G EPON Prototype

Shenzhen-based ZTE Corporation unveiled a prototype symmetrical 10G EPON platform. Both upstream and downstream access rates reach 10Gbps, making it more efficient that the asymmetric 10G EPON previously shown. The IEEE 802.3av 10G EPON standard is expected to be formally published in September of this year.


ZTE has now developed a symmetrical 10G EPON board with a symmetrical 10 GEPON port that complies with the IEEE 802.3av standard. This port can support 1G EPON ONU, asymmetrical 10G EPON ONU, and symmetrical 10G EPONONU on the same ODN, providing the ideal solution for operators to smoothly evolve from EPON to 10G EPON. ZTE has also launched a symmetrical 10G EPON ONU product.


ZTE expects that 10G EPON will enter into large-scale commercial deployment within one to two years.
http://www.zte.com.cn

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Portugal Telecom Selects Huawei for FTTH

Portugal Telecom has selected Huawei Technologies for the development of the its Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network in Portugal. The carrier also has a customer base in Brazil and parts of Africa. Since 2007 Huawei, in collaboration with Portugal Telecom, has been developing laboratory tests and field trials with the objective of supplying new generation optical technology for the access network in Portugal. These tests are based on GPON. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.huawei.com

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Ericsson's CEO addresses World Business Summit on Climate Change

"A large scale offsetting of CO2 emissions will require new ways of conducting business and new ways of living, and will also require large scale investments in Information and Communication technology (ICT).

This sector could offset societal CO2 emissions by as much as 15 percent by 2020," commented Ericsson's CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg. In support of the UN Global Compact Caring for Climate initiative, Ericsson's CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg addressed UN Secretary Ban-Ki Moon at an official meeting in Copenhagen. Ericsson believes this figure of 15% to be conservative. "We must move away from dealing with emissions after they have already occurred, and focus instead on moving ideas, not people, with broadband being society's new highways."


Mr. Svanberg also spoke at the first plenary session of the World Business Summit on Climate Change, addressing industry and government leaders.
http://www.ericsson.com

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TeliaSonera Announces First Commercial 4G/LTE Site with Ericsson

Ericsson and TeliaSonera have unveiled the world's first commercial Long- Term Evolution (LTE) site in Stockholm. The site will be part of a commercial network scheduled to go live in 2010.


Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio at Ericsson, says: "The unveiling of this site shows that LTE is no longer the story of the future; it is the story of today. Ericsson, as a leader in LTE development, is proud to work with TeliaSonera to bring a commercial LTE network to life."


Erik Hallberg, Senior Vice President and Head of TeliaSonera Mobility Services in Sweden, says: "Being at the forefront of broadband evolution means our customers will be the first to benefit from this groundbreaking technology. This first LTE site is a key step towards further enhancing Sweden's fastest mobile broadband network."http://www.ericsson.com

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Asia-Pacific Gateway Cable Network Promises 4 Tbps

China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan), NTT Communications (Japan), KT (Korea), PLDT (Philippines), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) and VNPT (Vietnam) have signed a memorandum of understanding to co-develop the Asia-Pacific Gateway (APG) as an international undersea cable system within the Asia-Pacific region. Service is expected to begin in 2011.

The APG will span about 8,000km and have a minimum design capacity of four terabits per second. It will connect Japan, Korea, China Mainland, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand.

NTT Com said the market expansion of Southeast Asia and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region has raised the demand for high bandwidth global communication, including the Internet and enterprise network services. Such services require both high reliability and redundant routes to secure continuous communications and minimize the potential impact of cables being damaged by accidents such as undersea earthquakes.
http://www.ntt.com/index-e.html

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NTT Com to Add Burstable Option for Ethernet Services

NTT Com is introducing an Ethernet burstable option that enables corporate users of its e-VLAN, Arcstar IP-VPN and Business OCN services in Japan to flexibly and economically configure their networks to handle sudden, temporary bursts of data traffic.


Network data traffic has risen dramatically due to the increasing use of e-mail, browsing, groupware applications, data management for control and security, and network-based computing applications such software as a service (SaaS). Moreover, traffic volume can vary widely within one day or longer, placing a heavy burden on network resources. For many companies, however, the cost of adding sufficient bandwidth to deal with these data bursts can be quite high.


NTT Com's "Burst Ether Access" is designed to provide a cost-effective option for sudden traffic spikes. Two menus will be available: "Burst 10" will provide committed bandwidth of 1 Mbps and the capacity to burst up to 10 Mbps, while "Burst 100" will provide committed 10 Mbps , burstable to 100 Mbps. The monthly charge will be from 84,000 yen (including tax) in the case of Burst 10 for customers using the e-VLAN "zone plan" (access within a defined geographic zone).
http://www.ntt.com/index-e.html

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NTT Com to Acquire Terabit Class Pacific Crossing Undersea Cable

NTT Com, the international and long distance service arm of NTT Corporation, will acquire 100% of Pacific Crossing's outstanding common shares. The largest of PCL's shareholders are funds managed by Strategic Value Partners.


Pacific Crossing's PC-1 network is the second-largest trans-Pacific subsea cable system, spanning 21,000 km and connecting the U.S. and Japan. The system has landings at Harbour Pointe, Washington (near Seattle); Grover Beach, California (between San Francisco and Los Angeles); Ajigaura, Japan (near Tokyo); and Shima, Japan (near Osaka and Nagoya). The network offers extensive backhaul into major U.S. and Japanese cities.




Pacific Crossing recently added Gigabit Ethernet access support for its carrier and ISP customers. Pacific Crossing's new service allows customers to access the PC-1 network using a standard Gigabit Ethernet interface at the company's four Points-of- Presences in the U.S. and cable landing stations in both the U.S. and Japan. For customers in Japan, Pacific Crossing also has the ability to offer access directly to a customer's premise through a domestic partner network.


NTT Com said it will combine its premier network assets in Japan and globally with the PC-1 network to provide enhanced connectivity between the United States, Japan and Asia NTT Com also plans to retain the Pacific Crossing management team, led by CEO Mark Simpson.


The Blackstone Group L.P. acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Pacific Crossing on the transaction, and Latham & Watkins LLP served as Pacific Crossing's legal advisor. Houlihan Lokey acted as the financial advisor to NTT Com and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP served as NTT Com's legal advisor. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://ww.ntt.co.jphttp://www.pc1.com

• In March 2008, Fujitsu and Pacific Crossing completed an upgrade project that more than doubles the capacity of the 21,000-kilometer PC-1 trans-Pacific fiber optic submarine cable network. The project, which began in September 2007, involved the installation of Fujitsu's FLASHWAVE S650 submarine wavelength divisional multiplexer equipment in Pacific Crossing's cable landing stations, and the upgrade of the overall capacity to 1.98Tbps, of which 1.01Tbps is available on the two Trans-Pacific segments. The six-month contract was completed without any disruption to existing network traffic.



• In January 2007, Pacific Crossing raised $50 million in new financing to pay off its remaining debt and finance new projects. The company also announced the appointment of Robert Boss as CEO and Robert Annunziata as Chairman. Boss previously was president of Japan Telecom America. Annunziata has served in a numerous executive positions throughout the telecom industry, including as CEO of Global Crossing during most of 1999.



• In January 2006, Pacific Crossing Ltd, Inc., a former subsidiary of Global Crossing and of the former Asia Global Crossing (now Asia Netcom), emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Over $650 million of existing debt was converted into equity and $25 million in secured debt.

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Etisalat and Saudi Telecom Select Dilithium for Range of Video Services

Etisalat, one of the world's leading telecommunications companies, has selected Dilithium's end-to-end video solutions for deployment in UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Specifically, Mobily (Etisalat subsidiary in KSA) has already deployed an advanced 3G Live TV and Video on Demand Portal powered by the Dilithium ViVAS solution. Etisalat's additional new multimedia services will vary by region and include Video Portal, VCCV (Video Call Completion to Voice), Video Blogging, Video Push and Video Karaoke. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Separately, Dilithium announced that Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the largest telecom provider in the Middle East, has selected Dilithium to provide mobile video solutions to its customer base. STC will provide new services to its customers using the latest interactive technologies such as 3G video and web communications, while at the same time integrating mobile communication through cell phones and Flash based internet and PC applications. New video value added services will include Video Portal and Video Conferencing.
http://www.dilithiumnetworks.com
http://www.etisalat.ae

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Huawei Launches its Next-Gen Mobile Softswitch

Huawei Technologies announced its latest Mobile Softswitch Solution (MSS) with enhanced capabilities in network security, maintenance and operating expenses reduction. The platform is based on industry-standard blade technology and can scale to support up to 10 million subscribers. Compared with Huawei' s previous mobile softswitch, the new design reduces the physical space requirement by up to 70 percent and energy consumption by up to 75 percent. The system provides real-time monitoring and can automatically locate and recover from faults. compared with Huawei' s previous solution for mobile softswitch.


In addition, the cluster-distributed computing network architecture of the new MSS allows operators to share network resources rapidly and upgrade the overall network capacity by 30 percent without any additional investment. Functions such as real-time user data backup and automatic service recovery also raise the reliability rate significantly. Huawei claims up to 99.9999% reliability for the whole system. http://www.huawei.com

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Ericsson and Zain Back U.N. Telecom Project in Nigeria

Ericsson and Zain have joined the Millennium Villages Project, which is run by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The project has deployed communications services to fight poverty in a largely rural area of Nigeria, pushing some of the poorest regions of the country towards achieving the nationally endorsed UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).


The installation of mobile technology is part of the Millennium Villages Project which is a community-based initiative designed to empower the people of Pampaida in Ikara Local Government Area of Kaduna State of Nigeria. It is helping to improve agricultural production, a foundation of the region's economy, thus reducing poverty. Additional benefits include improving access to health, education and infrastructure, all under the umbrella of achieving the MDGs by 2015.


With the aim of bridging the digital divide and breaking the isolation that hampers development in rural Africa, the Millennium Village Project has a set objective of bringing mobile communication and the internet service to more than half a million people in select villages in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
http://www.ericsson.com

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Limelight Acquires Kiptronic for Mobility and Monetization Expertise

Limelight Networks has acquired Kiptronic, a privately-held provider of dynamic solutions for device-optimized content delivery and monetization.
Kiptronic's services enable content publishers to deliver content and dynamic advertisements tailored to the mobile or connected device without making changes to their existing publishing, hosting, trafficking, or reporting platforms. Kiptronic's web-based tools help advertisers dynamically detect and serve dynamic video ads to connected devices with the same ease and functionality as when they are served to web browsers. Kiptronic's open-platform approach includes integration with DoubleClick DART for Publishers and Microsoft Atlas AdManager, part of the Atlas Publisher Suite. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.kiptronic.com.
http://www.limelightnetworks.com

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Verizon Business Offers Emergency Response Mobile Communications Service

Verizon Business introduced a n new service for enterprise and government customers that uses specially equipped vehicles to deliver satellite links to Verizon's Global IP Network from anywhere in North America. The new Emergency Response Mobile Communications Service (ERMCS) aims to quickly restore critical communications in the event of a disaster.


Each self-sufficient vehicle is equipped with wired VoIP telephones and wired and wireless Ethernet access for laptops. Several vehicle configurations are available, including 40-foot and 53-foot vehicles that offer up to 24 individual work stations, each with its own telephone jack, Ethernet port and electrical outlet. These vehicles provide local, long-distance and international calling, along with Internet access and fax service.


"Obviously, the faster a company can overcome an unplanned communication disruption, the faster it can get back to business," said Diane McCarthy, senior vice president, network field operations. "But to be most effective, ERMCS needs to be incorporated into a larger business continuity plan. We can help on that score as well by providing professional consulting services that can include developing, assessing and testing response plans."


The vehicles were used during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, in New York City following the September 11, 2001, attacks and during the 2003 and 2007 Southern California wildfires. The vehicles also have been deployed to provide communication services to thousands of U.S. soldiers.
http://www.verizon.com

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Motorola Launches New EMEA Channel Program

Motorola introduced a new channel program focused on video solutions, as well as wireline and wireless broadband solutions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The Motorola Home & Networks Mobility EMEA Channel Program will enable resellers and distributors to deliver differentiated solutions for a wide range of businesses including Internet Service Providers (ISPs), alternative carriers and regional service providers. It will use a selective distribution model, including value-added distributors; partners; premier partners and authorized resellers. Each tier offers increasing levels of access to Motorola products, tools and training.http://www.motorola.com/emea/hnmchannelportal

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3G Rollouts in China Drive WCDMA and CDMA Growth

The worldwide mobile infrastructure market revenue contracted 9 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2009 despite a record number of 3G base station shipments, according to a recently published report by Dell'Oro Group. The GSM market experienced its largest year-over-year decline as Chinese mobile operators focused on 3G network deployments.


"The three Chinese mobile operators plan to spend over $20 billion this year on rolling out the initial phases of their 3G deployments," stated Scott Siegler, Senior Analyst at Dell'Oro Group. "China Unicom's WCDMA deployment is shaping up to be the single largest 3G deployment in history and was the primary contributor to the most ever -- 100 thousand -- Node B shipments in the quarter. With the CDMA market declining elsewhere around the world, China Telecom's spending resulted in the most CDMA base station shipments in over four years. As the two GSM operators, China Mobile and China Telecom focused their spending on the rapid deployment of their 3G networks, spending on their GSM networks significantly declined. We expect this spending to accelerate in the second half of the year," finished Siegler.


During the quarter, Huawei and ZTE experienced the greatest rate of growth, almost doubling their combined share of the total infrastructure market to over 20 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
http://www.delloro.com

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Telecommunications Industry Association Predicts First Ever Decline in Overall ICT in 2009

For the first time in its 23 years of forecasting for the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is projecting a 3.1 percent decline in revenue for the overall global ICT market in 2009 due to global economic conditions. In the U.S., revenue will suffer a 5.5 percent decline in 2009.


The TIA forecast is calling for continued weak conditions in 2010, with a modest 1.2 percent increase. However, the longer-term outlook is much brighter. Globally, TIA projects a strong rebound for the ICT industry after 2010, citing a 6.4 percent revenue growth in 2011 and a 7.9 percent increase in 2012.


For the U.S., telecommunications revenue is expected to decrease by 6.4 percent in the next two years, but rebound by 14.4 percent during 2011-12. The effects of the current Stimulus Package, which carves out investment dollars for broadband, will enable growth throughout the ICT industry and beyond.


"Broadband will be a driver for recovery in all areas, from healthcare IT to smart grid technology, public safety networks to education, as well as for businesses and consumers," said Grant Seiffert, TIA President. "While TIA was instrumental in obtaining the $7.2 billion for broadband, other funding for energy, health IT and R&D will also spur recovery, especially in reviving some of the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost recently. The sum of increased productivity and revenue amongst all other industry segments whose growth broadband deployment contributes to is often underrated and perhaps immeasurable."


Growing demand for high-volume data applications is driving all segments, say the independent, unbiased analysts at Wilkofsky Gruen Associates who help to develop the Market Review & Forecast. Despite the recession, TIA predicts that wireless and business data revenue will grow by 73 percent during the next four years to $110 billion in 2012 from $64 billion in 2008.


Further analysis shows that economic recovery during 2011-12 will be driven by pent-up demand for equipment upgrades. Growth in data traffic will strain network capacity and stimulate investment; availability of financing will fuel investment; and broadband growth will expand the platform for VoIP and IPTV.


A webcast is archived online.
http://www.tiaonline.org

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Two Minute Video - Co-Creating the Wireless Revolution

Presented by Keith Higgins, Vice President, Marketing, Aricent.

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VZ Business Launches Cloud-Based Network Management, Monitoring and Reporting

Verizon Business introduced several new "cloud-based" capabilities for global enterprises. The new capabilities are:


Asset Assurance -- a new suite of fault management and monitoring tools and reporting capabilities that provide a cost-effective solution for global network device management. The service is available immediately to Verizon Private IP customers in the U.S., with plans to expand availability to a number of countries around the world by the end of 2009.


Asset Assurance is powered by CA Spectrum Infrastructure Manager, which is a SaaS-based service that employs a combination of device monitoring, alarming, fault isolation, root-cause analysis, service-level reporting and IT service management to pinpoint the cause of incidents. This new cloud-based capability is offered to Verizon Business customers via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and is offered with the Verizon Private IP -- Layer 2 and Layer 3 network services.


An enhanced Internet Security Assessment service, available globally, to provide expert analysis of potentially harmful traffic that could undermine the network connecting an extended enterprise.


The Internet Security Assessment includes Virtual Discovery & Classification and External Risk Assessment, supported by professional services. Virtual Discovery & Classification helps enterprises understand emerging threat activity and other related network issues. This service combines Verizon Business' security intelligence with data captured through Verizon's expansive backbone to provide customers with an unparalleled view of their network security.


The External Risk Assessment service, a component of Verizon's proprietary Security Management Program, utilizes intelligent vulnerability scanning and identifies potential threats to a network's health such as historically vulnerable software, unnecessary services and unusual use, as well as devices that have atypical characteristics that may indicate risks.


New managed security capabilities for Verizon Secure Gateway-Firewall -- also available globally, aimed at protecting customer networks from harmful traffic as enterprises move data, voice and video traffic between public and private networks. Specifically, Private IP customers can now take advantage of a fully managed offering that enables them to offload the management and administration of the network-based firewall.
http://www.verizonbusiness.com

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Huawei Deploy WiMAX 802.16e in Italy for Retelit Group

Retelit S.p.A has selected Huawei to deploy its commercial WiMAX 802.16e network covering north and central parts of Italy where it owns a BWA 3.5 Ghz frequency license. Under this agreement, Huawei will provide an end-to-end WiMAX 802.16e mobile solution including Base Station, Access Service Network (ASN) Gateway, Hybrid TDM-IP Microwave equipment and Network Management Systems. Huawei has also delivered the first batches of its WiMAX terminals, which are already in use in the areas where the network has been activated.
http://www.huawei.com

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Huawei Builds Optical-Layer ASON Network for VietNam's VNPT

Huawei Technologies has deployed an optical-layer Automatic Switch Optical Network (ASON) network for Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT), covering Hanoi and the northern provinces. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Huawei describes the project as the largest of its kind in the world, involving installation of hundreds of Huawei ASON products across Northern Vietnam. The network is able to ensure high carrier-class reliability of services even in the case of multi-point failures. The service level agreement (SLA) is also supported, which enables VNPT to define different service reliability levels and priority levels for different customers. In addition, the ROADM and tunable OTU technologies realize the fast provisioning of services and the decrease of maintenance difficulty and maintenance cost.
http://www.huawei.com

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