Mobile Top-Level Domain Aims to Simplify Mobile Web Access

A new mobile Top Level Domain ("mobile TLD") has been proposed to help bridge the world of mobility and the Internet by identifying new Internet sites optimized for mobile usage. The proposal is backed by Microsoft, Nokia, Vodafone, 3, GSM Association, HP, Orange, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sun Microsystems. The companies said they intend to form a registry company to manage the distribution of the new mobile TLD names. The mobile TLD would be designed to enable efficient application and network services and reliability for mobile customers and service providers.



The registry company will seek participation of additional, members to ensure broad customer and industry input. http://www.microsoft.comhttp://www.nokia.com

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European Telecom Ministers Express Optimism

European telecommunications ministers expressed optimism about the recovery of the electronic communications sector based on the continuing strong growth in broadband and the imminent launch of new wireless data services. During a meeting this week in Brussels, the ministers highlighted the importance of a mobile, on-line and inclusive information society to drive growth and deliver new jobs and improved productivity across the EU.



Erkki Liikanen, the EC's Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner, said the returning confidence of the industry must be matched by a new political commitment to push forward with the eEurope plan, including "the full and effective implementation of the new regulatory framework for electronic communications in all new and existing Member States."



During the meeting, the European Commission outlined its electronic communications agenda for the first half of 2004. Key goals include:

• Defining with national regulatory authorities in the Member States the range of remedies which may be applied to ensure effective competition in electronic communications markets.



• Identifying with stakeholders in the Mobile Technology Platform research priorities and developing a debate about the interoperability priorities for the sector.



• Creating a High Level Group to look at digital rights management and a new Forum on the Digital Divide.



• Reporting in May 2004 on the Member States' national broadband strategies and in July 2004 on the challenges to 3G deployment.



• Working with partner countries and other stakeholders to pursue international action against spam and, in relation to the global information society, to actively prepare the second stage of the World Summit on the Information Society.

http://europa.eu.int

• The European Commission expects the market for Information Technology and Telecommunications (ICT) in Western Europe to grow by more than 3% in 2004, far outstripping the level of 0.8% in 2003. The worldwide ICT market is expected to grow by well in excess of four percentage points. According to the latest report by the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO), markets in France and Germany are still performing below the ICT average, while Spain is predicted to enjoy the strongest growth.



• However, the report also cautions that constraints – among them a weak economic recovery, budget restrictions, and a lack of skills and technology culture – will inhibit ICT investment.

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D-Link offers Weather-proof 802.11g Wireless Access Point

D-Link introduced a rugged business-class outdoor 802.11g access point that delivers point-to-point and multi-point connectivity up to 600 meters. D-Link also supplies a high-gain outdoor antennae to extend the range even further. The D-Link AirPremier 802.11g Outdoor Wireless Access Point features Wireless Distribution System (WDS) offering 4 operational modes -- Access Point for creating a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Wireless Repeater to extend the range of D-Link AirPremier 802.11g wireless LANs by an additional 50% of coverage, AP-to-AP Bridging for wirelessly connecting two networks, and Point-to-Multipoint Bridging for wirelessly connecting multiple networks. The access point supports IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE). Wireless security features include IEEE 802.1X user-based authentication, AES encryption, WPA support and support for the upcoming 802.11i (WPA2) security standard. MSRP is $1499. http://www.dlink.com 09-Mar-04

http://www.dlink.com

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EZchip Raises $8 Million for its High Speed Net Processors

EZchip Technologies,. a subsidiary of LanOptics, raised an additional $8.0 million of Series C funding for its high-speed network processors. Ezchip said it now has over 30 customers for NP-1c 10-Gigabit 7-Layer network processor, including four in early production. The full-duplex network processor provides fully programmable packet classification, modification, forwarding and policing at wire speed.



The first tranche of Series C funding was invested a year ago, and the additional Series C funding concludes the round. The additional funding follows the exercise of an option held by the Series C investors, which include LanOptics, Goldman Sachs, JK&B Capital, Star Ventures, and Tamar Investments. LanOptics, which will continue to be the majority shareholder of EZchip following the option exercise with 53.4% of the company, triggered the option exercise. http://www.ezchip.com

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Swisscom's Bluewin Selects TANDBERG TV

Swisscom's Bluewin is testing TANDBERG Television's Windows Media 9 Series encoding platform for an IPTV service over ADSL. Bluewin is the first carrier worldwide to conduct a commercial trial of TV services over an IP broadband network using IPTV technology from Microsoft TV and TANDBERG's EN5920 encoder. The EN5920 is based on TANDBERG's Intelligent Compression Engine (ICE), which provides a modular and upgradeable solution for Windows Media 9 Series and MPEG-4 part 10 technologies.



The trial, which begins next month, will provide 30 channels of live television, video on demand and PVR (personal video recorder) services presented through an Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) as part of a Triple Play mix of TV, telephony and high speed internet to several hundred paying customers in the German speaking part of Switzerland. http://www.tandbergtv.comhttp://www.bluewin.ch

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Equinix Grows its Multi-Network Connectivity Service

Equinix has signed more than 60 enterprises, content providers and network service providers for its "Equinix Direct" multi-network connectivity service. Equinix Direct enables buyers and sellers of Internet network connectivity to establish business relationships with each other. The service combines Equinix's multi-network environment with automated routing, billing and dynamic settlement technology. Equinix said that by leveraging a more efficient buyer-seller relationship within the same physical location, bandwidth buyers could overcome previous challenges to establishing relationships with multiple networks, such as costly and prohibitive long-term contracts and monthly usage minimums, expensive local loops with lengthy provisioning times, the installation of complex router configurations for each network service provider, and the administrative and technical requirements of establishing these relationships.



Currently, more than 30 enterprises and content companies, including Hallmark.com, Adobe, Shutterfly, Macromedia, Hotwire and ExpertCity are using Equinix Direct. The more than 20 bandwidth providers currently on the service include America Online, Level (3), Cox Communications, Global Crossing, BIG PIPE (a division of Shaw Communications), Teleglobe and WilTel. http://www.equinix.com

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Net2Phone Cites Progress in Cable VoIP in Puerto Rico

Net2Phone and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico have activated their 1,000th cable VoIP customer since activating the service in mid-December 2003. Net2Phone's back office systems integrate with Liberty Puerto Rico's network operations center, provisioning software and customer service software. Liberty Puerto Rico controls the service brand and Tier I customer and technical support, while Net2Phone supports the back office Packet Cable infrastructure, switching and transport, and Tier II+ technical support .

Net2Phone also noted that network usage averaged more than 1000 minutes of use per subscriber per month. http://www.net2phone.com

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Metalink's Latest VDSLPlus Chipsets Top 100 Mbps

Metalink announced volume production of its second generation "VDSLPlus" chipsets.



The company said its chipset delivers speeds exceeding 100 Mbps downstream and 50Mbps upstream. Furthermore, the latest wideband VDSLPlus chipsets allow smooth migration toward the ultimate symmetric 100Mbps service, matching fiber speeds. It also maintains spectrum compatibility with existing services such as ISDN, ADSL, and ADSL2+ among others.



Metalink said it has over 20 design wins for its latest VDSLPlus chipset, including from top-tier OEMs in Japan, US, Korea and Taiwan and worldwide. This brings the total number of design wins for Metalink's VDSL and VDSLPlus products to more than seventy. http://www.metalinkBB.com

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VoiceCon 2005 Sponsorships Sold Out

The recent VoiceCon 2004 conference held last week in Orlando, Florida was so successful that major sponsorship opportunities for VoiceCon 2005 sold out. VoiceCon 2004 attracted attendees from more than 45 countries. http://www.voicecon.com

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Airpath and Firetide Enter Wi-Fi Mesh Partnership

Airpath and Firetide announced a marketing and sales partnership aimed at large-scale Wi-Fi deployments in locations such as airports, hotels, shopping malls, and other large public venues. Wireless.



Airpath's WiBOSS is a hosted Web-based application that performs back-office tasks necessary to operate and manage public Internet access services, such as subscriber management, provisioning, billing (AAA), transaction processing, branding, reporting, network management, and roaming settlement for Hotspots and Hot Zones. WiBOSS is centrally hosted at Airpath's network operations center, which eliminates the need for providers to have local servers, thus saving implementation time, reducing deployment cost and facilitating management of multiple network locations.



Firetide's HotPoint wireless mesh routers use advanced routing technologies and IEEE 802.11-compliant radios to "unwire" the Ethernet backhaul and create a self-configuring, self-healing mesh network. Firetide networks scale and self-configure instantly by plugging HotPoint routers into standard AC power outlets, providing a simple and reliable alternative to standard Ethernet cable for the backhaul connection. http://www.airpath.comhttp://www.firetide.com

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Lucent Supplies DSL to ISP in Maine

Great Works Internet (GWI), an ISP serving the states of Maine and New Hampshire, is in the process of installing the Lucent Stinger DSL access concentrator equipment. Solunet, a Florida-based Lucent Business Partner, managed the deal. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.lucent.com

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NEC Announces 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)

NEC introduced its 3GPP (3rd generation Partnership Project) compliant IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem). enables new types of multimedia services on IP (packet) networks by utilizing IP and SIP. The platform could be used for SIP services such as Presence (a mechanism for sharing users' status and context information over the mobile network), PoC (Push-to Talk over Cellular - a real-time half-duplex voice service), instant messaging and group chat. A key element of the NEC IMS product strategy is the SIP gateways that allow non-SIP mobile terminals to use IMS services, providing a smoother service migration to IMS services for mobile operators.



NEC said its IMS and SIP solutions are now trialing with a number of mobile operators. http://www.nec.com

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Andy Mattes Named President & CEO of Siemens ICN USA

Andy Mattes was named president and CEO of Siemens Information and Communication Networks (ICN), the U.S. arm of Siemens' fixed-line networks business. He replaces George C. Nolen, who became president and CEO of Siemens Corporation in the U.S. in January 2004. Thomas Ganswindt remains president and CEO of Siemens ICN globally. Mattes joined Siemens in 1985 and has held a variety of sales and management positions. From 1999 to 2000, Mattes served as president of the Enterprise Networks division at Siemens ICN and was responsible for driving the global product development, strategy and vision for the HiPath product family. From 1997 through 1998, Mattes was responsible for international sales at Siemens Private Communications Networks. From 1987 to 1991, Mattes held a number of management posts in the United States. http://www.usa.siemens.com 09-Mar-04

http://www.usa.siemens.com

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Texas Instruments Boosts Q1 Business Outlook

Citing continuing strong demand across a broad range of its semiconductors, Texas Instruments increased its expected revenue and earnings ranges for Q1 2004. The company now expects between $2.835 billion and $2.950 billion in quarterly revenue, compared with the prior range of $2.720 billion to $2.950 billion. http://www.ti.com

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Corvis to Acquire Focal Communications, a National CLEC

Corvis Corporation agreed to acquire Chicago-based competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) Focal Communications for $210 million. The deal is comprised of approximately $101 million in equity to be issued to Focal's existing equity holders and the assumption of about $109 million of Focal's existing debt and other obligations.



Focal Communications, which operates in 23 Tier 1 markets across the U.S., claims 4,000 enterprise and wholesale/carrier customers for its CLEC services. Focal also has its own metro fiber footprint in nine Tier 1 national markets. Focal expects to report annual revenues of approximately $320.0 million for fiscal 2003. As of December 31, 2003, Focal had cash and cash equivalents of $24.9 million.



Corvis owns Broadwing Communications, which operates an ultra-long haul, all-optical network and national IP backbone. The Focal acquisition is expected to expand the reach of Broadwing's 18,500-mile nationwide all-optical network into targeted local markets. http://www.corvis.com

• In March 2003, Focal Communications, a CLEC serving 23 top U.S. markets, filed an amended reorganization plan with the U.S. bankruptcy court. The company emerged from Chapter 11 in July, having eliminated approximately $375 million of debt.



• Focal Communications is headed by Kathleen A. Perone, who joined the company in June 2002. She previously served with Level 3 Communications, MFS Communications and LighTrade.

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Telefonica to Acquire BellSouth's Latin American Networks

Telefonica Moviles agreed to acquire BellSouth's interests in 10 Latin American networks for $5.85 billion. The deal includes wireless companies in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela serving a total of 10.5 million mobile customers. Telefonica already has operations in seven Latin American countries: Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile, El Salvador and Guatemala.



BellSouth will receive after tax cash proceeds of approximately $4.2 billion and reduce consolidated debt by $1.5 billion. http://www.bellsouth.com

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Verizon Begins Offering DIRECTV, Increasing it Consumer Bundle

Verizon Communications began offering residential service bundles that include DIRECTV satellite service. Verizon estimates that its bundled price for unlimited calling, Internet access and entertainment with one TV set will beat by $5 to $20 the prices of the major cable companies that provide voice, Internet and video services. In addition, DIRECTV is offering a new promotional discount of an additional $10 off programming packages purchased with Verizon packages through July 17. New customers also receive a three-room installation by DIRECTV at no charge. http://www.verizon.com

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RADVISION Enhances ECS Gatekeeper

RADVISION announced significant new features for its Enhanced Communications Server (ECS), which enables both point-to-point and multipoint IP voice and video conferencing. The platform provides high-capacity call control supporting up to 500 concurrent calls and 3000 registrations. It also features a firewall proxy solution. Key enhancements and benefits of version 3.5 include:

• Enhanced multi zone bandwidth control and management



• Advanced call completion and bridging for IP and ISDN networks with flexible fallback policies



• Support for H.350 standard used in authentication and standardized directory services



• Open APIs for service creation, integration with existing databases, and features such as pre-paid billing, call control and management



• Secure IP address dialing control



• Group management for easy administration



• Radius (AAA support)



• Multi-level user login access and provisioning

http://www.radvision.com

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iBasis Establishes VoIP Interconnection in Cambodia

iBasis has established a direct VoIP interconnection with AZ Communications, an emerging IP-based communications service provider in Cambodia. iBasis noted significant market share in Asia voice traffic through its relationships with leading carriers and PTTs, including China Unicom, China Mobile, China Netcom, CAT Telecom (Thailand), Data Access (India), KDDI, Telstra, and others. http://www.ibasis.net

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Seattle-based WCI Deploys Telica's Softswitch

Seattle-based WCI has deployed Telica's Plexus 9000 softswitch platform to deliver Class 4 and Class 5 voice services to its growing customer base. The deployment marks a change for WCI to facilities-based competition. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://www.telica.com

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