Vodafone Teams with Bosch on M2M

The Bosch Group and Vodafone announced a global partnership to pursue Machine to Machine (M2M) opportunities -- combining Bosch's experience in designing sensors and automated work flow processes with Vodafone's expertise in providing excellent network quality and management tools.


Under the partnership, The Bosch Group, a leading global supplier of technology and services, and Vodafone will offer global companies a joint solution aimed at making it easier to manage products with embedded SIM cards. It aims to simplify the management of workflow business processes in a variety of industrial domains in an intuitive, integrated and cost efficient way.


Examples of products that could benefit from embedded SIMs include lifts, air conditioning systems and escalators with automatic warning systems that alert maintenance staff in case of problems by sending messages over Vodafone's mobile network.


"Thanks to the rapid progress in technology, many everyday items are becoming more intelligent. Our task now is to combine the potential of web applications and cloud computing with analysis methods and miniature sensors. Bosch plans to develop and offer completely new, highly networked, products and services," said Dr. Siegfried Dais, Executive Member of Board at Bosch Group. "Global customers are set to profit from the experience of a global automotive and technology provider such as Bosch as well as from Vodafone's expertise in telecoms. This partnership shows that we are making huge progress in this segment of the future."http://www.vodafone.com

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Exar Exits 10Gb Ethernet NIC Market

Exar announced its withdrawal from the data center virtualization market. The company will stop development of 10 Gigabit Ethernet Network Interface Cards, including the X3100 and Xframe products acquired from Neterion in March 2010. This move to reduce expenses associated with the 10GbE NIC products allows Exar to focus on products with more significant market traction in the enterprise storage and communications infrastructure markets.


"We made this decision based on a combination of factors, including lack of revenue traction for our data center virtualization products, the increasing investment required for developing next generation 10GbE products, and our interest in ensuring that other better performing investments are properly funded," said Pete Rodriguez, the company's President and CEO. http://www.exar.com

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Verizon Declares Dividend - Same as Last Quarter

The Board of Directors of Verizon Communications declared a quarterly dividend of 48.75 cents per outstanding share, unchanged from the previous quarter. The dividend is payable on May 2, 2011, to Verizon Communications shareowners of record at the close of business on April 8, 2011.
http://www.verizon.com

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Molex CMOS Active Optical Cable Spans 4km at 40 Gbps

Molex introduced a Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable (QSFP+) Active Optical Cable (AOC) assembly that can achieve 40 Gbps data rates over long reaches of up to 4km (2.49 miles) using only 0.78W per cable end. The innovation reduces overall data center power consumption while supporting longer reaches.


Molex's QSFP+ AOC assemblies' use Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Photonics technology, which integrates most of the transceiver functionality onto a single chip, providing a low-cost cable that delivers a reliable, long-reach solution. With four bi-directional optical data links per end, each operating at data rates from 1.0 to 10.3125 Gbps, the Molex QSFP+ AOC assemblies are compatible with multiple protocols including InfiniBand single data rates (SDR), dual data rates (DDR) and quad data rates (QDR), Ethernet systems (10 and 40 Gbps); Fiber Channel (8 and 10 Gbps) and SAS (6 Gbps). In addition to QDR data rate products, Molex plans the release of next generation InfiniBand FDR data rate AOC products based on low power consumption Silicon Photonics 56 Gbps optical engine technology in Q3 of 2011.


Molex also noted its recent acquisition of Luxtera's AOC business in January 2011. Luxtera transferred all aspects of its existing and future AOC business to Molex including its QSFP+ 40 Gbps Ethernet and InfiniBand products and customers.
http://www.molex.com

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Sweden Raises SEK 2 Billion (EUR 233 Million) in 800 MHz Spectrum Auction

The government
of Sweden raised approximately SEK 2 billion (EUR 233 million) in the auction of 800 MHz spectrum. Three bidders prevailed in the auction, which was held online in 31 rounds over the course of five days.


The licenses are valid to and including 2035. Winning bids: HI3G Access AB, Net4Mobility HB, TeliaSonera Mobile Networks AB.


Com Hem AB and Netett Sverige AB also participated in the auction but did not win any licenses.
http://www.pts.se

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AT&T Appoints New CFO

AT&T announced the appointment of John Stephens as its new chief financial officer (CFO), effective June 1, 2011, replacing Rick Lindner, who is retiring.


John Stephens, a 19-year company veteran, current serves as Controller. Previously, he was chief financial officer for Cingular Wireless, the joint wireless venture between SBC and BellSouth.
http://www.att.com

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Verizon Wireless Partners with Lextech on Video Surveillance

Verizon Wireless and Lextech Labs announced a business service agreement for video surveillance over 3G/4G.



Under the deal, users of Lextech Labs' iRa C3 product will be able to view live and recorded video surveillance feeds on smartphones and tablets running on the Verizon Wireless 3G and 4G networks.



"Running on Verizon Wireless' reliable network, Lextech's C3 gives our customers, such as federal, state and local authorities, the ability to look around corners through buildings and onto rooftops, by providing the access to control and view the video from an IP camera with a Verizon Wireless smartphone or tablet regardless of their physical location," said Bryan Schromsky, associate director, Federal Government Data Solutions for Verizon Wireless. "This virtual capability improves safety and knowledge of a situation in order to make decisions smarter and faster than ever before."http://www.verizonwireless.com http://www.lextechlabs.com

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Hong Kong Completes Spectrum Auction

Hong Kong's Office of the Telecommunications Authority completed an auction for a total of 20 MHz of radio spectrum in the 850 MHz and 900 MHz Bands for a total sum of spectrum utilization fee of HK$1.952 billion (about US$250 million).



The two winning bidders are SmarTone Mobile Communications Limited and Hutchison Telephone Company Limited. Five mobile network operators and one fixed network operator took part in the spectrum auction.



"The mobile telecommunications service market has continued to boom in recent years. Take mobile data as an example. Total mobile data usage has witnessed an explosive growth with a year-on-year increase of 189%, from 638 terabytes in December 2009 to 1,847 terabytes in December 2010. The assignment of the radio spectrum through the auction enables the successful bidders to make use of the newly acquired spectrum to expand their existing networks with additional network capacity to meet the market demand. This is conducive to the further healthy development of the mobile market in Hong Kong," a spokesperson of OFTA said.



Conducted on an Internet-based software platform, the auction commenced on 28 February 2011 and was completed this afternoon after a total of forty one bidding rounds over four days.http://www.ofta.gov.hk

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Russian Operators Agree to LTE Network Sharing with Yota

Yota has signed an agreement with Beeline, Megafon, MTS and Rostelekom under which these leading Russian will offer 4G services over Yota's LTE network. The deal provides each of the participants with an option to buy shares in Yota in 2014.



Prime Minister Vladimir Putin witnessed the signing of this landmark agreement on March 3.



Yota said its vision is to offer an open infrastructure to competing service providers. The company aims to roll out the LTE network to cover 180 cities with a total population of more than 70 million by 2014.

http://www.yota.ru

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Specification Released for Low-Cost 100 Gbps Interfaces

The 10x10 Multi-Source Agreement industry group released a ratified 100 Gbps module specification intended to accelerate deployment of multi-sourced, low cost 100 Gbps interfaces, such as 100 Gigabit Ethernet and OTU4.



Modules built to the 10X10 specification directly map 10 electrical lanes at 10 Gbps onto 10 lasers and operate on a conventional Single Mode Fiber (SMF) enabling reach of 2 km. With the 2 km specification complete, a new 10X10 project is extending the reach to 10 km. Another 10X10 project is focused on developing a high density form factor.



The 10X10 MSA has brought together leading network end-users with system, optical module and semiconductor companies to develop an open, inclusive forum for development of specifications. The 10X10 MSA now includes over 18 companies. These are Google, Brocade, Santur, JDSU, Huawei, Facebook, BTI Systems, AMS-IX, MRV, EXFO, Enablence, Cyoptics, AFOP, Oplink, Hitachi Cable America, Kotura, Effdon and Cortina Systems.http://wwww.10x10msa.org

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NSN and Juniper Test 100 Gbps OTN

Nokia Siemens Networks and Juniper announced 100 Gbps interoperability testing between their Optical Transport Network (OTN) equipment and the routers. The trial was conducted at Nokia Siemens Networks' ResIP Center in Munich, Germany using Nokia Siemens Networks' hiT 7300 DWDM platform and Juniper's T1600 core router using the native 100 Gbps Ethernet interface. Commercial roll-out for 100G on Nokia Siemens Networks' hiT 7300 is scheduled for mid 2011.http://www.juniper.nethttp://www.nsn.com

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Seychelles Gains European Funding for First Optical Cable

The European Investment Bank has agreed to provide a EUR 8 million loan to the Seychelles Cable Systems Company (SCS) for the installation and operation of the first submarine fibre optic cable for international connections to the Seychelles. The EUR 27 million overall project cost will be financed through 40% equity and 60% debt. Long-term debt will be co-financed equally by the European Investment Bank and African Development Bank, and equity contributions split between three shareholders, the Government of the Seychelles, Cable and Wireless Seychelles and Airtel.



This will fund a 1,930km cable from the main island of Mahé to the existing Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System in Tanzania and is expected to be operational by the second half of 2012.http://www.eib.org/

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Glue Networks Secures $4.5 Million for Cloud Networking Service

Glue Networks, a start-up based in Sacramento, California, raised $4.5 million in Series A funding for its enterprise-grade cloud networking service.


The "Glue Virtual Office" extends corporate networks to remote offices and teleworkers at low cost over the cloud.


Investors in Glue Networks include Keiretsu Forum, San Joaquin Angels, Sierra Angels, Sacramento Angels, Sand Hill Angels and Harvard Angels.



http://www.gluenetworks.com

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Motorola Mobility Invests in Moblyng

Motorola Mobility Ventures has made an equity investment in Moblyng, a developer and publisher of cross-platform, HTML5-based games for mobile devices and social networks. Moblyng games have been published for Android, Facebook, iOS and WebOS platforms and have been downloaded more than 9 million times.


Motorola Mobility Ventures joins Mohr Davidow Ventures and Deep Fork Capital in this round of financing.
http://www.moblyng.com

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Duke Energy Connects Smart Meters over Verizon's LTE

Duke Energy has selected Verizon Wireless to connect the digital meters, signs and media players that will be used in project Envision: Charlotte.



Using Verizon Wireless' LTE network, Duke Energy will gather and aggregate energy usage data from about 70 participating buildings in Charlotte's 1.94 square mile I-277 inner-belt loop. The information will then be streamed to large interactive lobby-level screens provided by Cisco.



Building tenants will see the nearly real-time commercial energy consumption data for the community and suggested actions they can take to reduce their personal energy usage in the office.



"We are pleased that Verizon Wireless has joined along with Cisco in making this very important initiative possible," said Vincent Davis, Duke Energy's director of smart energy community projects. "Having near real-time energy usage information – that's not available today with analog technology – is the first step toward awareness and proactive human engagement to reduce the amount of energy that's wasted in commercial buildings."



Envision: Charlotte aims to reduce energy use by up to 20 percent and avoid approximately 220,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases by 2016.http:// www.duke-energy.com http://www.envisioncharlotte.com/

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Juniper's Converged Supercore Packs MPLS Switching + Optical

Juniper Networks introduced two Converged Supercore platforms for packet optical transport.



Juniper's new architecture calls for a single network management system for the entire transport network -- Junos -- for both the optical layer and the packet layer.



The aim is to combine the efficiency of MPLS, the simplicity of switching and integrated optics to deliver network scale with fewer network elements.



By collapsing the packet and transport network layers, the Converged Supercore would help carriers save money in network management and operations, whike taking uncertainty and cost out of core network provisioning. Juniper is forecasting network CAPEX cost savings of 40 to 65 percent compared to traditional architectures and a 35 percent savings versus a pure IP routing solution.



The new Converged Supercore switches are based on a new Junos Express chipset that is optimized for high capacity transport and features the on-chip traffic engineering, full delay bandwidth buffers, algorithms optimized for packet transport and embedded error detection required to support differentiated traffic types and patterns without disruption. Junos Express is built in 40 nanometer technology with 3.55 billion transistors. It represent an R&D investment of $40 million. Junos Express is the second chipset in the Junos One family of processors, which the company developed in-house.



Some highlights of the products:

• PTX5000 scales to 384 10 GE interfaces, 64 100 GE interfaces and 192 40GE interfaces in a single chassis. The architecture delivers 480 Gbps per slot and is designed to scale up to 2 Tbps per slot. Packet processing is rated at f 720 Mpps per slot. The PTX5000 features fully redundant, High Availability hardware (cooling, power supply, routing engines, control board and SIB). In addition, the PTX supports 50 ms redundancy switchover under load.



• The PTX9000 switch, is double the capacity of PTX5000, and is the foundation of the converged supercore delivering statistical multiplexing, high capacity MPLS switching and Multilayer packet-transport manageability.



• Juniper will be offering a suite of 10/40/100GE short-reach and ultra long-haul DWDM interfaces.



• The PTX Series will be available for beta trials in the third quarter of 2011.

http://www.juniper.net

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AT&T Calculates its 2010 Energy Efficiency Project Savings

During, AT&T launched a comprehensive online energy management training program for AT&T corporate real estate managers, and as a result implemented 4,200 energy efficiency projects. These efforts yielded $44 million in annualized energy savings.



AT&T is using an Energy Scorecard to grade its own efficiency at each of its top 500 energy-consuming facilities.



AT&T cited several examples of energy efficiency projects in 2010:

• Replaced tower light controllers and incandescent bulbs with LEDs at over 1,100 cell sites.



• As part of ongoing network upgrades, removed switches at 11 central office sites in 2010, thus cutting power consumption across the network by more than 300,000 kilowatt hours.



• Deployed desktop power management software on 169,000 computers generating a total estimated annualized savings of $614,000.

In 2008, AT&T established an energy intensity metric based on kWh per terabyte of data carried on their network and set a goal for 2009 to reduce that intensity by 15 percent. In 2009, AT&T achieved a 23.8 percent decrease in energy intensity using 498 kWh per terabyte of data carried on their network. For 2010, AT&T set a goal to further reduce energy intensity by an additional 15 percent as compared with 2009's KWh per terabyte of data figure.http://www.att.com

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Marvell Posts Revenue of $901 Million, Down 6% Sequentially

Marvell Technology Group reported revenue for the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2011 of $901 million, a 7 percent increase from $843 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, ended January 30, 2010, and a 6 percent sequential decrease from $959 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2011, ended October 30, 2010.



For the fiscal year ended January 29, 2011, revenue was $3.61 billion, an increase of 29 percent over revenue of $2.81 billion for the fiscal year ended January 30, 2010.



GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 was $223 million, or $0.33 per share (diluted), compared with GAAP net income of $205 million, or $0.31 per share (diluted) for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010. GAAP net income in the third quarter of fiscal 2011 was $256 million, or $0.38 per share (diluted).



"We had a strong fiscal year for 2011 with revenues up 29% from the previous year, and free cash flow of nearly $1.1 billion or $1.60 per share. This is amongst the best in our industry and the highest free cash flow generation in the history of Marvell," said Dr. Sehat Sutardja, Marvell's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "While the results for our fourth quarter continue to be affected by seasonal declines in our mobile and wireless end markets, we are well positioned with competitive products to take advantage of the trends in the coming years."http://www.marvell.com

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Free Mobile (Iliad) and Orange Sign Roaming Deal

Free Mobile (Iliad) and Orange announced a national roaming agreement covering their respective 2G and 3G networks in France. This agreement will take effect once Free Mobile has deployed a network that offers coverage for 25% of the French population. Under the terms of its license, Free Mobile has taken a clear commitment to deploy a network that offers coverage to at least 90% of the population by 2018http://www.iliad.fr

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J.D. Power and Associates Ranks Verizon Wireless Highest in Wireless Call Quality

Verizon Wireless won the highest rating in wireless call quality performance according to a newly released J.D. Power and Associates U.S. 2011 Wireless Call Quality Performance Study.



The semiannual study measures wireless call quality based on seven problem areas that impact overall carrier performance: dropped calls; static/interference; failed call connection on the first try; voice distortion; echoes; no immediate voicemail notification; and no immediate text message notification. Call quality issues are measured as problems per 100 (PP100) calls, where a lower score reflects fewer problems and higher call quality.



J.D. Power and Associates also found that the percentage of wireless calls made indoors has increased considerably during the past eight years—to an average of 56 percent in 2011 from 40 percent in 2003, and that among wireless calls made outside of buildings, the greatest decrease has occurred among calls made in vehicles, which has declined to 20 percent in 2011 from 37 percent in 2003. Typically, wireless calls placed indoors result in slightly more problems, on average, than calls placed outdoors, and the study concludes that this factor contributes to an overall decline in call quality.

More online.http://businesscenter.jdpower.com/news/pressrelease.aspx?ID=2011023

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