Nokia wins Broadband Access Deal from China Telecom

Nokia will supply DSL equipment to four of China Telecom's subsidiaries in Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangsu provinces. The frame agreements cover the year 2003, and call for the supply of more than 100,000 DSL lines. Nokia will supply D50 and the D500 next-generation multiservice access platform and related services. Delivery and implementation have already started. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.nokia.com

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Verizon Wireless and Vodafone to Offer Laptop Datacard Service

Verizon Wireless and Vodafone will develop a dual branded ‘Verizon Vodafone' laptop data card service for business customers working and traveling between the US and Europe. The service will be based on the existing Vodafone Mobile Connect Card, which lets business customers access their e-mail, Internet and corporate applications on their laptops within Vodafone's territories. Verizon Wireless and Vodafone intend to cooperate on data card hardware, service inter-connectivity, roaming and inter-operator billing.
http://www.verizonwireless.com

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Marconi Signs Access Contract with BT, Revises Optical Agreement

BT signed a three year frame contract with Marconi for the provision of its Multi Service Access Node platform in the BT Next Generation Network project. Financial terms were not disclosed. The companies also reached agreement on revised terms of an existing optical equipment supply contract. Throughout the remainder of the contract period, Marconi will supply a minimum of 70% of BT's optical network equipment requirements.
http://www.marconi.com

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Deutsche Telekom Launches T-Com Brand for Fixed Networks Division

Deutsche Telekom's fixed network division began operating under its own "T-Com" brand name effective 01-August-2003. Services for the fixed telecommunications network, for example T-ISDN and T-DSL, will be made available under the new brand name. In taking this step, the Deutsche Telekom Group is pursuing its strategy of focusing on four market segments: Fixed network, mobile communications, Internet and systems operations. T-Com will now join the T-Mobile, T-Online and T-Systems brands. T-Com has launched a new website.
http://www.t-com.de

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NEC Reorganizes its R&D Efforts

NEC is reorganizing its research and technology development efforts into three domains:

• 1) IT network integration solutions


• 2) Semiconductor solutions


• 3) Fundamental research (such as nanotechnology and environmental material technology).

NEC plans to consolidate the eight R&D facilities it currently operates across Japan into five sites. The R&D focused on IT and network technology that was to date conducted at NEC's Central Research Laboratories, Fuchu Plant, Tamagawa Plant and its head offices will be consolidated to its Tamagawa Plant by the end of this fiscal year. Simultaneously, LSI design research currently carried out at the Central Research Laboratories will be moved to the Tamagawa Plant.
http://www.nec.co.jp

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Siemens and Pirelli Build Optical Network in Indonesia

The Indonesian telecommunications company Indosat has commissioned Pirelli and Siemens to deliver an optical backbone for the nationwide transport of both fixed network and mobile telephony data. The three subnetworks in East Java, Jakarta-Bandung and Sumatra cover a total of more than 1376 km. The contract was valued at EUR 20 million. The companies noted that Indonesia has a population of around 220 million but a fixed-line penetration coefficient of only 3%.
http://www.siemens.com

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Verizon to Launch SHDSL

Verizon plans to begin offering symmetric high bit-rate DSL (SHDSL) featuring variable bit rate, non -real time (VBRnrt) quality of service (QoS). The service will support symmetric rates up to 1.5 Mbps. Verizon's VBRnrt arrangement supports bursty data traffic with average and peak traffic parameters and allows SHDSL traffic to take precedence over unspecified bit rate (UBR) traffic in the network. Regular DSL traffic in the Verizon network is UBR. Verizon has already conducted successful SHDSL trials in Maryland and Florida. Verizon plans to offer SHDSL nationwide within the serving areas of its current footprint. SHDSL will be marketed to small and medium sized businesses, branch offices of large enterprise businesses, and as a wholesale service for other ISPs.
http://www.verizon.com

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Tellabs Outsources North American Manufacturing

Tellabs announced plans to outsource manufacturing of its North American products to Sanmina-SCI, resulting in the layoff of 325 employees. The company will close its manufacturing facility in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Tellabs said it is making the change to benefit from lower manufacturing costs and to free capital now tied up in equipment, inventory and facilities. Beginning in Q3, Tellabs will record an estimated $90 million to $110 million in charges connected with the outsourcing move.
http://www.tellabs.com

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Juniper Networks Partners with ARRIS on Cable Solutions

Juniper Networks entered into a strategic partnership with ARRIS targeting solutions for Multi-Service Operators (MSOs). The co-marketing initiative combines Juniper's IP platforms with the ARRIS cable modem termination system (CMTS). As part of this partnering strategy, Juniper Networks also announced its intention to voluntarily discontinue its G-series CMTS product line. Consequently, Junipers plans to take a one-time charge of approximately $10-15 million comprised primarily of costs associated with workforce reduction, vacating facilities, contract termination, non-inventory asset impairment charges and other related costs.
http://www.juniper.nethttp://www.arrisi.com

• In November 2001, Juniper Networks agreed to acquire Pacific Broadband Communications, a start-up developing a next generation cable modem termination system (CMTS), for approximately $200 million in stock (Nov 2001 prices). Pacific Broadband, which was based in San Jose, California, developed a carrier class CMTS supporting 32 downstream channels and 128 upstream channels, enabling cable operators to support more cable modem traffic with less bandwidth. To achieve this, Pacific Broadband had designed custom ASICs capable of using 16 QAM transmissions within 3.2 MHz segments, effectively doubling or quadrupling the upstream data throughput. Prior to the acquisition, Pacific Broadband had secured a distribution agreement in North America with Scientific Atlanta.



• In July 2003, ARRIS agreed to acquire certain cable modem termination systems (CMTS) related assets of COM 21, including the stock of its Irish subsidiary, for a purchase price of approximately $2.8 million. COM 21 had earlier filed for Chapter 11.



• ARRIS' broadband division (Arris Interactive) was created from ANTEC's joint venture with Nortel Networks. In August 2001, Arris Interactive and ANTEC merged to form the new ARRIS. The company has 900 employees and is based in Duluth, Georgia.

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France's Outremer Telecom Selects Redback's SmartEdge 800 Service Gateway

Outremer Telecom, a private telecommunications operator based in France, has deployed Redback Networks' SmartEdge 800 Service Gateway platform to offer high-bandwidth services to both its business and residential broadband subscribers. The SmartEdge Service Gateway platform combines subscriber management capabilities with edge routing functions. Outremer Telecom is using the SmartEdge 800 in its POPs to deliver VPN services to its corporate customers and DSL to residences. Redback said its service gateway was selected for the deployment because it supports the necessary subscriber level features for DSL, such as PPP termination and RADIUS authentication, while also offering VPN services using a variety of methods, such as Layer 2 and Layer 3 MPLS and GRE encapsulation. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.redback.com

• In June 2003, Redback Networks announced the integration of its subscriber management systems (SMS) technology into its SmartEdge platform. The combined feature set will allow service providers to utilize the same Redback network management, policy management, user profiles and billing systems in an edge platform with dynamic policy enforcement, carrier-class IP routing, ATM mediation, MPLS VPNs, multicast and QoS capabilities. At the same time, Redback is introducing the SmartEdge 400 , a smaller version of its SmartEdge 800 platform. The new platform is designed for deployment in smaller central offices and POPs, whereas the SmartEdge 800 is positioned for larger POPs.

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Avanex Completes Acquisitions of Alcatel Optronics, Corning Assets

Avanex completed its acquisition of Alcatel Optronics France SA, a subsidiary of Alcatel that operates the optical components division of Alcatel, and the purchase of certain assets of the photonic technologies business of Corning Incorporated. Avanex said the acquisitions give it the "necessary scale and resources to be the leading supplier of optical solutions." The combined company is headquartered in Fremont, California, and includes former Alcatel facilities in France and Scotland and former Corning facilities in the U.S. and Italy.
http://www.avanex.com

• In May 2003, Avanex first announced plans to acquire Alcatel's and Corning's optical components businesses in combined transactions valued at approximately $63.5 million. The deal brings together the optical businesses of three of the industry's leading providers of optical components, modules and subsystems for fiber optic transmission networks. After the mergers, the new Avanex would offer products that address optical wavelength generation and modulation, multiplexing and demultiplexing, signal amplification, wavelength routing and dispersion compensation. Alcatel and Corning said they would assign approximately 1,400 patents to Avanex and additionally license several thousand patents to Avanex as part of the transaction. In return, Alcatel and Corning will receive as consideration 28% and 17% respectively of Avanex's outstanding common stock of the post-transaction company.


• 
  
  Alcatel will contribute its key optical component operations in France and the UK. Alcatel's optical component division had sales of EURO 7.3 million for Q1 2003. The division has 950 employees. Key products include lasers, photodetectors, optical amplifiers, transponders and key passive devices such as arrayed waveguide gratings and Fiber Bragg grating filters. As part of the deal, Alcatel would also contribute over $110 million in cash and Avanex will be designated a key supplier to Alcatel for a 3 year period.


• 
  
  Assets purchased from Corning include optical amplifier, dispersion compensation, and micro optics operations located in New York and Corning modulator operations located in Italy. These businesses have 490 employees. Key products include optical amplifiers, dispersion compensation modules, Lithium Niobate and electro-absorptive modulators, and micro optics products. Quarterly sales amounted to approximately $11 million in Q1 2003.


• 
  
  The new Avanex expects to have over $250 million in cash and 1,600 employees on the closing date.

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NETGEAR Raises $98 Million in IPO

Shares of NetGear began trading on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker "NTGR." Net proceeds from the offering were approximately $98 million. NetGear offered seven million shares of its common stock at $14 per share. Trading ended on 31-July-2003 at $17.69.
http://www.netgear.com

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MCI WorldCom Barred from Future Government Contracts

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will bar MCI WorldCom from receiving new U.S. federal government contracts. Specifically, the GSA concluded that "MCI WorldCom lacks the necessary internal controls and business ethics" to be eligible to compete for new government contracts. Neither GSA, nor any other U.S. federal agency, may award a new contract while MCI WorldCom is on the excluded parties list. The GSA is a centralized federal procurement and property management agency.


In a press statement, MCI said it accepts the General Services Administration's (GSA) decision for proposed debarment, noting that the decision does not affect its ability to serve its existing federal government customers. Michael Capellas, MCI chairman and CEO, also stated that the GSA decision does not in any way affect the timing of the company's planned emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
http://www.gsa.gov

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BT's Earnings Rise on Flat Revenue Growth

BT reported strong earnings of 4.1 pence per share, up 64% compared to the period last year, despite flat quarterly revenue of £4.586 billion. The company credited financial discipline for its ability to generate free cash flow of £618 million for the quarter. Net debt has now been reduced below £9 billion, £4.4 billion less than at this time last year. Some key operating statistics:

BT Operating Statistics
	30-June 2003	31-Mar 2003	30-June 2002
BT Group exchange lines
Business, incl. wholesale	9,215,000	9,197,000	9,122,000
Consumer, incl. service provider	20, 492,000	20,448,00	20,192,000
BT Retail
BT Openworld Broadband	333,000	292,000	167
BT Broadband	203,000	137,000	-
Total ISP customer base	2,035,000	1,948,000	1,754,000
BT Wholesale
ADSL lines provided	1,058,000	800,000	277,000
network volume growth	3%	6%	3%
% UK households where available	71%	67%	66%
BT Global Services
Inter city fiber (kms)	48,000	48,000	57,000
Web hosting centers	22	22	19
Dial access ports (000s)	615,000	606,000	637,000

http://www.bt.com

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Cavium Hires Intel Executive

Cavium Networks announced appointment of Rajiv Khemani as Vice President of Marketing. Khemani joins Cavium from Intel Corp., where as a Director of Marketing in its Network Processor Division, he led the product management, technical marketing and ecosystem development for Intel's network processor product line. During his five-year tenure with Intel, he also served as general manager of its high-end network processor business unit. He joined Intel through Intel's acquisition of Netboost, a venture-backed network processor startup. Before that, he managed strategy and business development at Network Appliance.
http://www.cavium.com

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Cavium Networks Secures $18M for its Security Processors

Cavium Networks, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, raised $18 million in an oversubscribed Series C round of funding to support its rollout of security processing chips. In the two and a half years since its founding, Cavium has introduced three security processor families, with over 20 security processor and board products, targeted for IPsec, SSL, Wireless LAN and Multiservice applications. Cavium claims over 30 customers, including several tier-1 communication OEMs, who are using its security chips in VPN gateways, SSL VPNs, wireless gateways, SSL load-balancers, routers, switches, web-servers and SANs. New investors in this round include NeoCarta Ventures, NTT Leasing Co. (investment arm of NTT), China Development Industrial Bank and William Jones and Associates. Current investors Menlo Ventures, Alliance Ventures and Diamondhead Ventures also participated in the round. The closure of this round brings the total funding received by Cavium Networks to $ 41.5 Million.
http://www.cavium.com

• Earlier this week, Cavium Networks introduced its NITROX Wireless family of security macro processors for enterprise access and aggregation points. The processors support the full range of security algorithms currently used in WLAN security and the emerging 802.11i standard -- including AES, 3DES and ARC4 and the various modes of each algorithm. Additionally the Cavium NITROX Wireless processors perform protocol processing of CCMP, IPSec, IKE, MPPE and functions of TKIP. They also feature a true hardware Random Number Generator. Cavium will offer ten versions to target a range of price / performance points.


• 
  
  Aruba Wireless Networks, a start-up offering high-performance wireless network switching systems for enterprises and hot spot service providers, has adopted Cavium's NITROX Wireless security processors. The devices are also being used by several server motherboard and OEM vendors for VPN gateways, SSL VPNs, wireless gateways, server load-balancers, routers, switches, web-servers and SANs.

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U.S. Court Issues $4.26B Judgment to Motorola in Telsim Case

A U.S. District Court issued a $4.26 billion judgment against the Uzan family of Turkey, ruling that the Uzans perpetrated massive fraud against Motorola. The court ruled that the Uzans fraudulently induced Motorola to loan $1.8 billion to Telsim Mobil Telekomunikasyon Hizmetleri A.S. ("Telsim"), a telecommunications entity owned and controlled by the Uzan family. Members of the Uzan family and the companies they control have been ordered by the court to pay Motorola $2.13 billion in compensatory damages and another $2.13 in punitive damages. Nokia plans to use the court ruling to pursue its own legal case against the Uzans.
http://www.motorola.com

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net.com and Digiquant Enter Alliance

Network Equipment Technologies (net.com) and Digiquant entered into a product and marketing alliance focused on carrier-class VoIP solutions. The alliance combines net.com's SHOUTIP programmable packet telephony platform with Digiquant's Internet Management System (IMS), a software solution that authorizes and bills for network usage. Together the products deliver a fault-tolerant, distributed system that allows service providers to offer and precisely bill for services such as calling cards, toll bypass, and wholesale voice offerings.
http://www.net.com
http://www.digiquant.com

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Comcast Increases Subscriber Forecasts, Network Integration Proceeding Well

Comcast increased its 2003 guidance for subscriber growth and financial performance following significant gains during Q2, which normally is a seasonally slow quarter. Pro forma Comcast Cable revenue for the quarter was $4.379 billion (not including QVC), representing a 9.2% increase over the $4.009 billion in the second quarter of 2002. QVC's consolidated revenues for the quarter were $1.101 billion, an increase of 11.3%. Last month, Comcast agreed to sell its 57% stake in QVC to Liberty Media for $7.9 billion. Some highlights for the quarter:

• Comcast added 12,100 basic subscribers, which the company described as a "remarkable turnaround" from the loss of 133,300 subscribers in the same quarter last year. In Q1, Comcast added 56,900 basic subscribers. The company feels it has reversed the previous losses to DBS TV providers. For the second time this year, Comcast is increasing guidance for basic subscribers to 125,000 to 150,000 net additions. Previous guidance was for 75,000 to 100,000 net additions.


• 
  
  The digital cable customer base grew by 19.4% year-over-year to 6.950 million subscribers. Comcast said it is focusing heavily on the profitability of digital services rather than fast subscriber growth.


• 
  
  VOD is now available to 20% of subscribers and is expected to increase to 50% by the end of this year as Comcast accelerates the VOD deployment into new markets during the second half of 2003.


• 
  
  HDTV is available to 54% of the customer base at the end of Q2 and is expected to increase to 65% by year end.


• 
  
  The company added 350,900 cable modem users, a pro forma increase in net additions of 32.8% over the same period one year ago, to finish Q2 with nearly 4.4 million subscribers, representing a penetration rate of 13.7%. Cable modem ARPU is now $43.34, up 3.6% compared to a year ago. More than 81% of the homes in Comcast's footprint, or 32.1 million homes, are now eligible for cable modem service. Growth in the second half of 2003 is expected to be driven by continuing expansion of the service's footprint, to 34 million homes, expanded retail distribution through more than 3,800 retail outlets and a new "Instant Install" marketing initiative. Comcast expects to add 1.6 million cable modem users for all of 2003.


• 
  
  Comcast does not plan to reduce cable modem pricing, saying the current level is "fair" especially compared to AOL dial-ups users with a second home phone line. The company is looking to retail channels and partners to increase subscriber numbers. Comcast is also looking to increase average cable modem downlink speeds from 1.5Mbps to 3.0 Mbps in its major markets. Comcast believes it can increase these speeds without bearing a major cost.


• 
  
  Comcast had under 1.4 million cable telephony customers at the end of Q2, down by 52,000 compared to the previous quarter. Comcast lost 20,000 cable telephony subscribers in Q1. The company said it is focusing on profitability of its cable telephony operations by eliminating bad debt customers. Comcast believes it will lose a total of 150,000 cable telephony customers for all of 2003.


• 
  
  CAPEX for Q2 was $1.05 billion as Comcast Cable completed the upgrade of nearly 16,000 miles of plant to end the quarter with more than 89% of its footprint upgraded to provide two-way digital and high-speed Internet services.


• 
  
  Newly-acquired AT&T Broadband systems are now 85% upgraded to deliver two-way digital cable and high-speed Internet service, up from 80% at the end of Q1. The company said the integration is ahead of its expectations in every metric.


• 
  
  Cable cash flow margin was 36.5% for Q2 and annualized cable operating cash flow per subscriber was nearly $300.

http://www.comcast.com

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AT&T and Oracle Collaborate on Managed Hosting, Outsourcing Contract

Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy management firm based in Pittsburgh, awarded a three-year, multi-million dollar managed hosting and application management outsourcing contract to AT&T and Oracle. Oracle will manage Baker's applications with its E-Business Suite Outsourcing services; AT&T will provide managed hosting services from one of its Internet Data Centers that support 24x7 monitoring and maintenance and includes performance-based SLAs.
http://www.att.com
http://www.oracle.com

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