Tuesday, November 2, 2010

ADVA Optical Lowers Latency with Optimized Raman Amplifier

ADVA Optical Networking is offering an latency-optimized Raman amplifier for its flagship FSP 3000 platform. The new amplifier implements counter and co-propagating Raman amplification techniques.


Whereas existing network implementations utilize higher-latency Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFAs) to boost an optical signal before it is sent, ADVA's new Raman technology overcomes gain and power-control barriers to eliminate the use of EDFA amplification in the solution. This method of allowing amplification within the transmission fiber itself significantly reduces the quantity of amplifiers that need to be deployed throughout the overall network, which also minimizes the number of intermediate sites required along a route.


ADVA said its innovation enables faster connectivity along key financial trading routes, including Chicago to New York, London to Frankfurt and New York to Toronto.


"In our trials, we have seen the new ultra low-latency Raman amplifiers reduce equipment latency by as much as 50 percent on key financial links," said Brian Quigley, director of low-latency sales and strategy at ADVA Optical Networking. "This announcement is an example of ADVA Optical Networking's continued commitment to drive latency from high-performance networks."http://www.advaoptical.com

T-Mobile USA Turns on 4G Mobile Video Chat with Qik

T-Mobile USA is launching a live video communications, sharing and messaging service to customers of its new "myTouch 4G" handset. The integrated T-Mobile Video Chat is powered by Qik, a start-up based in Redwood City, California. The service offers integration into the native Android address book with the benefit of indicating live presence. Customers can connect with friends and family through live video conversations and video messaging over T-Mobile's network and Wi-Fi.


The service also allows friends and family members to receive video messages on over 200 supported phone models, and also allows users to share moments through social networks, to stream live to the web, and to archive their important memories through a dedicated video management site at www.qik.com.
http://www.tmobile.com
http://www.qik.com

ZTE Picks Freescale DSPs for Wireless Base Stations

ZTE has selected Freescale Semiconductor's six-core digital signal processor (DSP) to power its software definable radio (SDR) base stations. Freescale's programmable DSP enables the wireless base stations to support a range of wireless standards including 3G-LTE,TD-SCDMA, WiMAX and WCDMA. This allows base station upgrades from 3G to 4G standards with a software update.


Freescale's MSC8156 DSP is based on 45-nm process technology.
http://www.freescale.com

NTT Sees Deactivation of PSTN around 2025

NTT disclosed plans to migrate remaining traffic on its PSTN to IP beginning around 2020, complete the process around 2025, and then deactivate the legacy PSTN infrastructure. Some capabilities currently provided by the PSTN will be terminated at that point, hence NTT is providing customers and regulators with advanced notice of its long term plans.


NTT noted that it is already a world leader in optical broadband coverage. Optical broadband services are currently offered to approximately 14 million households and network coverage area is at 90%. The company began providing NGN services in 2008 and will cover nearly all existing optical service areas by the end of March 2011.


Meanwhile, the number of PSTN fixed-line telephone users in Japan is declining annually by approximately 10% as a result of the shift to mobile phones and IP phones. NTT said it is difficult to estimate how many PSTN fixed-line telephone users will remain in the future, but a certain level of such users is expected. Now, the question is how to migrate these users into the optical + IP network, and then deactivate the PSTN infrastructure. Existing PSTN switches will have reached the end of their useful lives by 2025.

Many PSTN services will be fully migrated to IP, including emergency numbers (police (110), marine emergencies (118), fire (119)), time (117), weather reports (177), Directory Assistance (104), telegrams (115), caller ID
display (Number Display), anonymous call rejection, nuisance call blocking, etc. However, NTT said other PSTN services will not the transition. Examples include INS networks, centrex service, "denwaban" answering service, payphones, etc.


Presently, IP phones are still connected through the PSTN, which has many customers, and NTT East and NTT West IP networks are not connected directly with other carrier's IP networks nor are other carrier's IP networks interconnected among themselves. In the future, all these interconnections will be IP.
http://www.ntt.co.jphttp://www.ntt-east.co.jp/release_e/1011/pdf/101102a_1.pdf

Telstra Deploys NSN's Policy Control

Telstra has added a policy control capability to its Next G mobile network using a subscriber data management system from Nokia Siemens Networks. The solution is based on NSN's PCS5000 (Policy Control) and One-NDS (Subscriber Data Management) platforms.


"The enhancement of the Next G network with policy control and subscriber data management is key to the ongoing evolution of Telstra's world-class mobile network. It will also deliver efficiencies in the use of its wireless network infrastructure," said Mike Wright, executive director, Networks & Access Technologies, Telstra. "The Policy Control server provides crucial functionality by enabling Telstra to optimize traffic based on a set of business rules, while the Subscriber Data Management System allows us to manage our customer profiles in real time."http://www.nsn.com

Charter Continues to Add Video, Internet and Phone Customers in Q3

Charter, the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States, reported Q3 revenue of $1.769 billion, up 4.5% compared to the year-ago quarter, as the company continued to grow its Internet, phone, commercial and ad sales businesses. Charter reported $240 million of income from operations in the third quarter of 2010, compared to $2.591 billion of loss in the third quarter of 2009. The change in income from operations is primarily a result of the $2.854 billion impairment of franchises in 2009 that did not recur in 2010. Net loss attributable to Charter shareholders was $95 million in the third quarter of 2010, compared to a loss of $1.035 billion in the third quarter of 2009.


Some highlights for Q3:


Charter added approximately 58,700 revenue generating units (RGUs) and increased average monthly revenue per basic video customer (ARPU) 9.4% year-over-year to $126.07, driven by increased sales of The Charter Bundle and advanced services.


Digital video customers increased by approximately 41,800 and basic video customers decreased by approximately 63,800 during the third quarter. Digital customer additions for the quarter were over 80% higher than year-ago net additions due to product and service enhancements. Video ARPU was $69.10 for the third quarter of 2010, up 5.0% year-over-year as a result of increases in premium revenue and higher digital, high definition and digital video recorder (DVR) penetration.


Internet customers grew by approximately 50,800 during the third quarter of 2010, reflecting continued consumer demand for superior speeds offered by Charter. Internet ARPU of $41.97 increased approximately 0.9% compared to the year-ago quarter, reflecting increased penetration of home networking.


Third quarter 2010 net gains of phone customers were approximately 29,900. Phone penetration reached 16.0% as of September 30, 2010. Phone ARPU of $41.45 decreased approximately 4.6%.


As of September 30, 2010, Charter served approximately 5.2 million customers, and the Company's 13.0 million RGUs were comprised of 4.7 million basic video, 3.4 million digital video, 3.2 million Internet and 1.7 million phone customers.
http://www.charter.com

Mozambique's mcel Picks Ceragon for Wireless Backhaul

Ceragon Networks announced a multi-million dollar contract to supply its microwave systems to Mobile Cellular (mcel), the largest mobile telephone operator in Mozambique. Ceragon will provide a turnkey solution, with complete radio planning for the backbone network, and an on-site survey to detail all link specifications. Ceragon's solutions will form a microwave backbone link that joins the central part of Mozambique to the southern part, from the city of Beira to the capital city of Maputo. The Ceragon microwave network, which will span 1000 km (620 miles), will provide secure and reliable wireless transport, ensuring service to the operator's approximately 4 million mobile subscribers.
http://www.ceragon.com

MTS Launches HSPA + in Turkmenistan -- 21 Mbps

Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) announced the commercial launch of its 3G network in Turkmenistan. The deployment covers the center of Ashgabat, the capital city of the republic, as well as the surrounding area of the international airport. MTS Turkmenistan subscribers will be able to access Internet with download speeds of up to 21 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 11 Mbps. Further rollouts are underway.


In Russia, MTS' 3G network was launched in May 2008. Mobile broadband is now available to MTS subscribers in more than 360 cities across the country. In Ukraine, MTS' CDMA network provides data transfer rates of up to 3.1 Mbps and covers more than 200 regional centers. In Uzbekistan, MTS launched its 3G network into commercial operation in December 2008 and now provides coverage in Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Urgench and Khiva. The employed HSDPA technology delivers data transfer rates of up to 3.6 Mbps enabling innovative services such as video calling. The first VivaCell-MTS 3G network was launched in April 2009 in the three largest Armenian cities - Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor. The HSPA/UMTS technology in Armenia provides for data transfer speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps with the MTS network covering about 93% of population in 650 localities. In Yerevan, the network is based on HSPA+ for speeds of up to 21.6 Mbps.
http://www.mtsgsm.com

CenturyLink Revenue Declines on Access Line Losses

CenturyLink reported operating income of $1.75 billion compared to $1.87 billion in third quarter 2009. This anticipated revenue decline was primarily due to the impact of access line losses and lower access revenues, including the anticipated impact of wireless traffic migration, that more than offset revenue increases driven by growth in high-speed Internet customers and data transport demand from wireless providers.


Net income (GAAP) for third quarter 2010 was $231.2 million compared to $280.8 million for third quarter 2009 and, diluted earnings per share for third quarter 2010 was $.76 compared to $.94 for third quarter 2009.

"CenturyLink's solid third quarter results reflect the success of our experienced and dedicated employees remaining focused on meeting the needs of our customers while continuing to make great progress with the integration of Embarq and planning for the pending Qwest merger," Glen F. Post, III, chief executive officer and president, said. "In early October we successfully completed the third of five planned Embarq customer care system conversions and the two remaining conversions are on track to be completed by the end of third quarter 2011. "http://www.centurylink.com

360networks Deploys 100G IP + Optical with Alcatel-Lucent

360networks, one of the largest facilities-based wholesalers operators in the U.S., has selected Alcatel-Lucent's Converged Backbone Transformation (CBT) solution to upgraded its network with 100 Gbps IP and optical capability. The carrier operates some 18,000 miles of network west of the Mississippi.


Specifically, 360networks is deploying the Alcatel-Lucent 1830 Photonic Service Switch, featuring 100G-capable next-generation coherent technology, and the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router with service-enabled 100G-capable Ethernet interfaces at the IP edge. The deployment supports 360networks' delivery of regional Layer 2 Ethernet over a fully redundant dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) network with very low latency and no congestion.


"The popularity of such services as high-definition video and interactive gaming are prompting consumers to expect much greater quality and speed from their service providers while enterprise customers are demanding greater reliability for applications such as tele-presence and tele-health," said Brady Adams, chief technology officer for 360networks. "Alcatel-Lucent's CBT solution and its 100G proposition help us manage traffic growth and enable us to develop the technologies and platforms that meet our customers' growing demands."http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/convergedbackbone/

Qualcomm Posts Q4 Revenue of $2.95 billion

Qualcomm reported revenue of $2.95 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter ended September 26, 2010, up 10 percent year-over-year and 9 percent sequentially. Net income was $865 million, up 8 percent y-o-y and 13 percent sequentially.


"I am very pleased with our performance this year as we delivered record earnings per share and record MSM chipset volumes," said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm. "Our outlook includes strong revenue and earnings growth in fiscal 2011. In the coming year, we expect continued strong growth in CDMA-based device shipments, including smartphones and other data-centric devices, driven by the global adoption of 3G and accelerating consumer demand for wireless data."


Some highlights from the quarter:

CDMA-based Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) shipments: approximately 111 million units, up 22 percent y-o-y and 8 percent sequentially.

Total reported device sales*: approximately $28.3 billion, up 14 percent y-o-y and 12 percent sequentially.

Estimated CDMA-based device shipments: approximately 153 to 157 million units at an estimated average selling price of approximately $179 to $185 per unit.
http://www.qualcomm.com

Monday, November 1, 2010

Kentucky's Mountain Rural Picks Occam for Fiber Access

Kentucky's Mountain Rural Telephone Cooperative Corporation (MRTC) has selected Occam Networks' BLC 6000 multiservice access platform (MSAP) for deployment across four counties in the eastern part of the state. The carrier has been awarded $78 million in first-round Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) grants and loans, The fiber-based network will reach over 15,000 businesses and residences.
http://www.occamnetworks.com

ZTE Base Stations Deployed on Mt. Everest

Eight of ZTE's 3G stations have been deployed on Mt. Everest, includes at the base camp located 5180 meters above sea level. The Ncell network will provide voice and 3G broadband services for local residents and mountaineers climbing the world's highest mountain. Ncell Nepal is wholly-owned subsidiary of TeliaSonera and the second largest mobile operator in Nepal with 40% market share.


To withstand the high altitude and extremely harsh natural environment of the Himalayas, ZTE provided a tailor-made solution for the Mt. Everest project with a strong environmentally conscious focus. The micro base-station is based on the SDR platform, which has a low power-consumption, small footprint. A one-piece ground tower and heat-insulating Diet shelter are used in the stations, which allow them to be installed quickly without the need for earthwork and foundation construction. Solar panels were also incorporated in the design to ensure that the station has power supply throughout the year and be environmentally friendly.


"Today we are very proud to announce the world's highest mobile data service as we launch 3G services in the Mount Everest area in the Khumbu valley. This achievement is as mighty as the altitude as 3G high speed internet will bring faster, more affordable telecommunication services to the people living in the Khumbu Valley, trekkers, and climbers alike", says Lars Nyberg, President and CEO of TeliaSonera, the majority owner of Ncell."


TeliaSonera also said it plans to increase its CAPEX spending in 2011 to US$100 million to ensure mobile coverage to over 90% of Nepal's population and achieve 3G coverage in all densely populated areas.
http://www.zte.com.cnhttp://www.ncell.com.np
  • In October 2007, Huawei Technologies and China Mobile announced the deployment of a GSM Base Station on Mount Everest at an elevation of 6,500m (21,325ft). The base station was intended to provide mobile network coverage for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay Team, which was scaling the summit ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.

T-Mobile Claims "America's Largest 4G Network" with HSPA+

T-Mobile expanded the availability of its HSPA+ network to six additional metropolitan areas, including Chicago, Ill.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Ft. Wayne, Ind.; Louisville, Ky.; and Raleigh-Durham and Wilmington, N.C. T-Mobile's HSPA+ coverage now reaches 75 metropolitan areas across the country.


T-Mobile said its HSPA+ service delivers 4G-like speeds and is capable of exceeding the performance of the WiMAX and early-LTE competitors entering the market. Its network is capable of theoretical speeds up to 21Mbps and T-Mobile reports average download speeds approaching 5 Mbps on its myTouch 4G phone in some cities with peak speeds of nearly 12 Mbps.


To drive this point, T-Mobile USA is launching a national TV and digital advertising campaign calling itself "America's Largest 4G Network." The ads have begun airing on major TV networks and cable TV stations, including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and TNT.
http://www.t-mobile.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KmfXupi9cg

The CENX Carrier Ethernet Exchange Reaches 15M Possible End Points

CENX reports that its Carrier Ethernet Exchanges now reach 15 million Ethernet Service Locations (ESL). This represents the reachable number of end-points via the multiple Ethernet service providers connected via the exchanges. The milestone was achieved just 4 months after announcing attainment of 10 million ESLs and less than a year since the opening of CENX's first exchanges.


"We are seeing a sea change in the industry; carriers are rapidly moving away from incurring the expense and resources pursuing direct Ethernet connections. Our growing family of members and geographic expansion are becoming the obvious choice for executing interconnection," said Nan Chen, President of CENX. "There is no longer any reason for providers to labor through frustrating one-by-one service connectivity when CENX has made interconnection so easy by managing both the technical and process integration while providing standards--based, off-net monitoring unavailable from any provider."http://www.cenx.com

CENX Hires Former Level 3 Executive

CENX announced the appointment of Russell Shriver as its Senior Vice President, Marketing and Product Management.
Shriver spent the past 15 years within the telecom industry in leadership positions at both XO Communications and Level 3 Communications. Russell has been linked to Ethernet throughout much of his career, launching one of the first commercially available metro Ethernet services while at Nextlink (now XO) in the mid-to-late 90's and more recently he ran Level 3's multi-year Ethernet Expansion initiative.
http://www.cenx.com

Avago Demos 28-Gbps Performance with 40-nm SerDes

Avago Technologies has demonstrated 28-Gbps Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) performance in 40-nm CMOS process technology. The company notes that this performance equates to higher bandwidth Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) that integrate the SerDes Intellectual Property (IP), increasing the speed of data communication for servers, routers and other networking, computing and storage applications.
http://www.avagotech.com

Overture Debuts 10 Gig Carrier Ethernet Edge Platform

Overture Networks introduced its ISG 4800 modular 10 Gigabit Carrier Ethernet edge platform. The company cited three differentiators:


* Richness of the feature set -- the ISG 4800 offers support for thousands of service flows, fine-grained quality-of-service, Ethernet protection rings, and industry standard performance monitoring and fault management.


* Operational flexibility -- the ISG 4800 is built on a modular architecture supporting combinations of up to six 10GigE and up to sixteen 1GigE interfaces with a wide selection of pluggable optics, including SFP, SFP+ and XFP.


* Carrier class performance -- The compact, temperature-hardened ISG 4800 is designed for the demanding environments of the telco central office, outside plant cabinet, datacenter or enterprise wiring closet. In addition, the ISG 4800 provides the resiliency and monitoring features required for high-performance financial services and data center applications.
http://www.overturenetworks.com

LGS Innovations and Wavesat Partner on 4G Mobile Devices

LGS Innovations, an independent U.S. subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent dedicated to serving the U.S. Federal Government, is collaborating with Wavesat on the development of 4G mobile device equipment and technology for private and public network applications. Wavesat will provide LGS with its Odyssey 9000 4G silicon, software, reference designs and support for all User Equipment (UE) for LTE developed and implemented during the period of this collaboration. The Wavesat architecture allows the Odyssey series of chipsets to support multiple 4G technologies, including LTE and WiMAX, on the same silicon chip. http://www.lgsinnovations.com
http://www.wavesat.com

Researchers Target Stanford's OpenFlow Protocol Tech.

NEC is providing its ProgrammableFlow multilayer switches at this week's 9th GENI Engineering Conference (GEC9) in Washington, D.C. to build networks based on the OpenFlow protocol, which was developed at Stanford University.


OpenFlow is an open standard that enables a new generation of network control software. It allows network applications and controllers running on external servers to define packet handing within each switching element in a network.


NEC said its ProgrammableFlow switches have been deployed in over 20 research organizations worldwide such as Stanford, Raytheon BBN, and Georgia Tech.
http://www.nec.com
http://www.openflowswitch.org/