IBM and Amdocs Selected by Russia's Svyazinvest

IBM and Amdocs were selected to replace Svyazinvest's existing multiple billing systems supporting more than 35 million Russian wireline telecommunications subscribers. Svyazinvest is the holding company that regrouped Russia's seven regional telecom operators and the international/domestic long-distance communications operator, Rostelecom.



As the prime contractor for Svyazinvest's billing transformation, IBM is working with a joint Amdocs and Svyazinvest implementation team to replace the carrier's 180 billing systems across seven regions with Amdocs products. The implementation will enable Svyazinvest to pursue an integrated customer management strategy, while rapidly introducing new voice and data services to subscribers in the growing Russian marketplace.
http://www.amdocs.com

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Huawei Reports 2004 Sales of US$5.58 Billion

Huawei Technologies reported global sales for 2004 reached US$5.58 billion, representing a 45% growth from a year ago, and recorded a new sales target in the company's 17-year history. Huawei cited strong growth in its international sales, which contributed 117% percent growth from US$1.05 billion in 2003 to US$2.28 billion in 2004. Sales from the domestic China market continued at an 18% increase from US$2.78 billion in 2003 to US$3.3 billion in 2004.



Huawei continues to see achievements from its international market expansion plans to increase its global presence and drive sales in overseas markets. Notably the company has expanded its presence in the Southern Africa, Europe and Latin America regions, and is maintaining its growth momentum in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.
http://www.huawei.com

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CMTS Completes Hitless CMTS Software Upgrade with Arris

Comcast successfully performed multiple hitless software upgrades of its installed base of ARRIS Cadant C4 Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTSs). The companies said a "hitless upgrade" has been an important goal within the industry for some time.
http://www.arrisi.com

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China Telecom Taps Alcatel for Optical Backbone

China Telecom awarded a multimillion dollar contract to Alcatel Shanghai Bell deploy an optical backbone network spanning 2,300 km across the southeastern part of China. The new transport infrastructure will provide connectivity for the ChinaNet2 (CN2) network.



The new optical backbone network will link seven Chinese cites and will be composed of two main transmission lines: one spanning from Shanghai to Guangzhou through Changsha and the other one connecting Shanghai to Xuzhou, via Chongming, Nantong and Lianyungang.
http://www.alcatel.com

• In September 2004, it was announced that China Telecom will deploy Nortel Networks Optical Long Haul 1600 Optical Line Systems to expand its optical backbone networks in the cities of Wuhan, Guangzhou, Changsha, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hefei, Chongqing, and Chengdu.

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Alcatel Targets FTTU at New Home Builders

Alcatel has formed an alliance with Road 9, a broadband solutions consulting company, to serve the growing FTTU market for new home construction throughout the US. Alcatel will work with Road 9 to design advanced FTTU networks which will be deployed in new homes using the Alcatel 7340 FTTU platform. Alcatel has multiple FTTU deployments in North America and has been involved in several FTTU field trials with operators in the Asia Pacific region as well.
http://www.alcatel.com/fttu

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National LambdaRail Employ's WilTel OC-192

National LambdaRail, a consortium of leading U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies, is using WilTel Communications' OC-192 Optical services to complete their nationwide network. NLR's services will support both application-level and networking-level experiments and serve diverse communities of computational scientists, distributed systems researchers and networking researchers.
http://www.wiltel.com
http://www.nlr.net

• In August 2004, WilTel was selected as one of only six vendors to provide Internet services to The Quilt, a coalition of more than 20 regional research and networking organizations that serve more than 100 member universities and research organizations. The company is also a member of Internet2, a consortium led by 207 universities that works in partnership with the telecom industry and the government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies.

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ECI Telecom Suppliers Optical Gear to Bharti

ECI Telecom announced a contract valued at $10 million for deploying hundreds of its XDM-100 optical platforms to Bharti Infotel, a unit of Bharti Tele-Ventures, one of the largest telecommunications companies in India. The optical network spans 15,000 kilometers, connecting India's major cities. The installation has been successfully completed and ECI has received Bharti's acceptance and commissioning certificate.



ECI's XDM converges intelligent optical networking capabilities with advanced data functionality including Ethernet Layer 2, SDH/SONET, CWDM and DWDM.
http://www.ecitele.com
http://www.bhartiteleventures.com

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Covad Tests Line-Powered Voice Access from Zhone, Nokia

Covad Communications will begin testing line-powered DSLAMs from Nokia and Zhone Technologies. The Nokia and Zhone DSLAMs and line cards enable line-powered voice access by taking the analog voice signal from a customer's basic telephone and converting it into digital form at the Covad central office where the DSLAM is located. The digital signal is then transported over Covad's nationwide facilities-based broadband network and connected to any telephone on a VoIP network or the PSTN. Covad said that unlike DSL broadband service, line-powered voice access is not distance sensitive. That means Covad's nationwide network will, in the future, be able to serve 40% more customers with basic voice services in the current Covad footprint.
http://www.covad.com

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Skype Signs Marketing Deal in Japan with Buffalo

Skype Technologies signed a marketing agreement in Japan with Buffalo Inc. The companies will co-brand Skype's Internet telephony software in Japanese as Buffalo-Skype, and to market a series of headsets and microphone products optimized for Skype.
Buffalo is a Japanese networking and peripheral company.
http://www.skype.com

• In October 2004, TOM Online launched a co-branded TOM-Skype service in China. TOM Online operates one of the most successful Internet portals in China. The company provides a range of services such as SMS, MMS and WAP, and is the largest player of wireless interactive voice response services (IVR services).

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Softbank BB Adopts Cisco Catalyst 6500 in its POPs

Softbank BB is deploying Cisco Systems' Catalyst 6500 intelligent multilayer modular switches to support the deployment of new services in Japan offered under the "Yahoo! BB" brand. The Catalyst 6500 switch with the Supervisor 720 was installed at Softbank's PoPs to enable Ethernet access aggregation and advanced network services such as multicasting. The switches offer 10GbE aggregation and scalable hardware services, including multicast.



This follows an earlier announcement in December 2004 that Softbank BB will deploy the Cisco CRS-1 Carrier Routing System into its backbone.
http://www.cisco.com
http://www.softbankbb.co.jp

• In December, Cisco Systems announced that Softbank BB is deploying its CRS-1 Carrier Routing System into its backbone.



• As of the end of November 2004, the number of Yahoo! BB lines installed was 4.6 million. The number of BB phone users was 4.35 million. The company had 3,937 central offices wired for service.

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Samsung Partners with Sonus

Samsung Electronics will resell and support Sonus Networks' equipment to mobile operators worldwide under a non-exclusive, strategic partnership announced by the firms. The relationship is expected to expand Sonus' reach into the global wireless market and enhance Samsung's VoIP strategy including providing a migration path to an all-IP wireless network.
http://www.sonusnet.com

• Earlier this month, Sonus announced that in December 2004, service providers globally reported that they are now carrying an estimated 10 billion minutes of customer traffic per month on their Sonus-based VoIP networks. This compares with the estimated 6 billion minutes per month in December 2003.

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Alcatel's Genesys Teams with Microsoft on "Istanbul"

Under an agreement with Microsoft's Real-Time Collaboration Group, Alcatel's Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories will offer an integrated communications solution supporting Microsoft's next generation communications client, "Istanbul." This will allow the integration of common desktop applications with existing PBXs and IP-PBXs. Products resulting from the agreement will take advantage of presence capabilities to provide users with an instant view of whether contacts are online or on the phone, while delivering point-and-click capabilities for placing and transferring calls and scheduling instant conferences from their Microsoft desktop.
http://www.genesyslab.com/

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BellSouth and Birch Telecom Sign Long-Term Wholesale Agreement

BellSouth and Birch Telecom signed a commercial agreement for the provisioning of wholesale local phone services throughout the nine-state BellSouth region in the Southeast. BellSouth has now reached 28 long-term commercial agreements with its wholesale customers.
http://www.bellsouth.com
http://www.birch.com/

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Level 3 Announces Work Force Reduction

Level 3 Communications announced a layoff of approximately 500 to 600 employees, resulting in an expected operational savings to the company of approximately $60 million to $70 million per year. The cuts will take place before the end of January 2005.


Level 3 noted that contract activity for consumer-oriented Voice-over-IP services has been strong, but that it remained difficult to predict whether its wholesale service provider customers would gain traction in sales to end users.


"We remain pleased with the volume of sales we've seen in recent quarters related to IP, transport, voice and other strategic services, and we continue to invest in areas where we see growing opportunities," said James Q. Crowe, Level 3's chief executive officer. "We expect to meet or exceed our previously issued guidance for communications revenue for the fourth quarter of 2004, and we are focused on converting new sales to revenue and on maximizing our ability to scale in response to market demand."http://www.level3.com/

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SBC and HP Announce Strategic Alliance

SBC Communications and HP announced a strategic alliance to develop, deliver and market a portfolio of highly adaptable packaged services that integrate telecom and IT to provide end-to-end managed solutions for enterprise businesses.


For enterprise customers, the alliance aims to provide enterprises with the ability to consolidate ongoing management of the most common IT infrastructure needs: voice and data networks; equipment such as servers, PCs and printers; and desktop software. The integrated solutions are designed to help companies increase productivity and minimize total cost of ownership, particularly when facing key challenges such as implementing new convergence solutions or integrating branch office operations into corporate networks.


Specifically, the companies plan to jointly market a portfolio of managed solutions that utilizes HP's expertise in IT and carrier-grade technologies with SBC's network. The solutions will address IT and telecom convergence technologies, mobile data services, WANs, network and infrastructure security, business continuity and availability services, and branch office operations and integration.


Both companies plan to begin jointly marketing each company's services in the first quarter of 2005, and currently plan to develop additional joint offerings, including services designed for smaller businesses, later in the year.
http://www.sbc.com
http://www.hp.com

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Verizon Wireless and Novatel Debut New 3G EV-DO Card

Novatel Wireless began offering a new PC adapter card for use on its 3G Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) network. The new card uses dual band EV-DO and 1xRTT technologies to give business customers access to both BroadbandAccess and NationalAccess, based on 1xRTT technology, for national data coverage. It is the first PC card from Verizon Wireless to include a built-in dual band diversity antenna to enhance performance by maximizing data throughput. The card is supplied by Novatel Wireless.


Verizon Wireless's BroadbandAccess service is currently available in 32 major metropolitan markets across the U.S. The service provides typical download speeds of 300 - 500 kbps and bursts up to 2.4 Mbps.
http://www.verizonwireless.com

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Zhone Announces FiberSLAM

Zhone Technologies unveiled its new "FiberSLAM" Optical Line Terminal, enabling carriers to deliver voice, data, video and entertainment services to their subscribers over fiber access lines.
The new PON product, which builds on Zhone's Single Line Multi-Service (SLMS) architecture, is designed for central office (CO), remote terminal (RT), outdoor cabinet or basement deployment. The FiberSLAM delivers both traditional and next generation applications including legacy voice, high speed data and analog or digital video and interactive applications.


Zhone also offers a PON Residential Gateway that serves as the ONT/ONU for connections directly to residential subscribers. The Zhone Residential Gateway (ZRG) combines the functions of a modem, router and Integrated Access Device in a single unit that resides either indoors at the customer premises or outdoors at the subscriber demarc. From a single fiber input, the Zhone ZRG delivers POTS voice, fast Ethernet and either IP or RF video over the subscribers existing home wiring.
http://www.zhone.com

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InfiniRoute Launches VoIP Peering Service for Wireless Carriers

InfiniRoute Networks began offering a VoIP peering service for Wireless Carriers. The company, which has been offering a carrier-neutral Managed VoIP Peering (MVP) service since last year, now provides mobile carriers with the ability to terminate and receive international traffic using VoIP.
http://www.infiniroute.comInfiniRoute Networks Inc. was established in 2004 as the result of the merger between two private companies, IP Deliver and Proficient Networks. Established in 2001, Proficient Networks provided a platform that measures end-to-end IP network performance, responds quickly to automatically fix problems and prevents network congestion. Established in 2002, IP Deliver provided comprehensive VoIP network management services. IP Deliver's Global VoIP connectivity product will continue to be offered as part of the company's overall solution.

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Andrew Corp Acquires Xenicom for Wireless Management

Andrew Corporation has acquired Xenicom Ltd., a privately-held UK-based provider of software solutions that help telecommunications operators plan, launch, and manage wireless networks. Specifically, Xenicom's solutions help to manage 2G, 2.5G, and 3G wireless networks.


Andrew paid approximately $11.5 million cash, with additional cash consideration possible if certain financial performance goals are reached over a two-year period. Xenicom generated approximately $11 million in sales during the 12 months ending September 2004. Its customers include several major European mobile operators.
http://www.andrew.com/http://www.xenicom.com/

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Intel and ZTE Collaborate on WiMax

Intel and ZTE announced plans to jointly deliver global broadband wireless solutions using WiMAX technology. The companies agreed to cooperate in developing and promoting standards and specifications for 802.16-based networks. The companies will also work jointly with regulatory agencies in key global markets for securing adequate radio spectrum for broadband services based on WiMAX technology.


As part of this agreement, ZTE will develop and deploy infrastructure and customer premises equipment using Intel's silicon for WiMAX solutions based on IEEE 802.16-2004 (previously known as IEEE 802.16REVd), and the upcoming IEEE 802.16e standards for mobile networks. "Rosedale" is Intel's first "system-on-a-chip" solution for cost-effective customer premise equipment (CPE) supporting 802.16-2004.


The companies said they have been working together for more than 18 months for the development of standards and architecture for 802.16-based networks.


ZTE plans to begin initial deployments of networks based on 802.16-2004 later this year with carriers in China, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. ZTE plans to conduct field trials of 802.16e networks beginning in mid-2006.
http://www.intel.com
http://www.zte.com.cn

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