Cisco to Acquire Orative for Mobile Unified Communications

Cisco Systems agreed to acquire privately-held Orative Corp., a developer of mobile communications solutions, for $31 million in cash. Orative provides an application which will allow Cisco to extend its Unified Communications portfolio to mobile devices such as cell phones and smartphones. Orative was founded in 2002 and has 33 employees based in San Jose, California.

Cisco said Orative's mobile software will extend the communications and collaboration capabilities of the Cisco Unified Communications system to business mobile phone users. With Orative Enterprise Software, mobile phone users can coordinate conversations, collaborate with colleagues, view information on Unity voicemail messages, screen unwanted telephone calls and interruptions, and securely access personal and corporate phone books.

In March 2006, Cisco announced its Unified Communications system based on Cisco's service-oriented network architecture (SONA), which enables businesses of all sizes to integrate their communications systems with their IT infrastructure, thereby creating a single communications platform. http://www.cisco.comhttp://www.orative.com/index.php

• Orative is headed by Paul Fulton, who founded the company during his Executive in Residence tenure at Mayfield. Prior to joining Mayfield, Mr. Fulton was Vice President and General Manager of 3Com's Wireless Division. Previously, Mr. Fulton was co-founder of Netcore Technology and served in key management roles at Compaq and Texas Instruments.

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Metro Ethernet Forum Launches Service Provider Certification 14 Program

The Metro Ethernet Forum launched its MEF 14 Service Provider Certification Program as a means to help enterprises feel confident that their providers' Carrier Ethernet services can support mission critical and converged applications such as ERP, VoIP, videoconferencing and business continuity.



MEF 14 (Abstract Test Suite for Traffic Management) ensures conformance to the MEF Quality of Service attributes, which provides a foundation for the implementation of Service Provider operational and performance SLA's (Service Level Agreements) supporting simultaneous real-time and data-intensive business applications.



MEF 14 completes MEF 9 (Abstract Test Suite for Ethernet Services at the UNI) by adding requirements and test procedures for Service Performance and Bandwidth Profile Service Attributes defined in MEF 10. These include three EVC Related Performance Service Attributes - Frame Delay Performance, Frame Delay Variation Performance, and Frame Loss Ratio Performance -- as well as Bandwidth Profile Service Attributes defined per Ingress UNI, per EVC, and per Class of Service.



"MEF 14 certification testing is based on our Iometrix Test Plan for Traffic Management which has a total of 170 Test Cases covering EPL, EVPL and E-LAN services" according to Bob Mandeville -- President of Iometrix testing labs. "Service Providers' Carrier Ethernet must pass no less than 414 individual test cases before being granted MEF 9 and 14 certification."http://www.metroetherntforum.org

• MEF 14 complements MEF 9 and covers two sets of MEF Service Attributes, namely "Service Performance" and "Bandwidth Profiles". The first set comprises three Service Performance attributes relating to the Ethernet Virtual Circuits (EVC): Frame delay, Frame delay variation and frame loss ratio. The second set, relating to the User Network Interface (UNI) and following the familiar example of Frame Relay, include four Bandwidth Profile attributes: CIR (Committed Information Rate), CBS (Committed Burst Size), EIR (Excess Information Rate), EBS (Excess Burst Size). Together MEF 9 and MEF 14 cover the complete set of Carrier Ethernet Service Attributes defined in the core definitional technical document MEF 10.

In April 2006, The Metro Ethernet Forum awarded certifications to seven service providers complying with its global Carrier Ethernet Service definitions. The companies receiving certification in this first round were: AT&T, Bell South, Cable Vision Lightpath (the first cable operator to apply), Met-Net, ntl:Telewest Business (the first European service provider to apply), Qwest and Verizon.



Iometrix was the company responsible for the conformance testing.



The testing involves three key stages. In the initial negotiation stage the service provider needs to prove to Iometrix that they do have a commercial Carrier Ethernet service offering that is certifiable according to any or all of Ethernet Private Line (EPL), Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) or ELAN (multipoint networking) definitions from the MEF 9 specification. This leads to the second phase, lab testing, where the service provider is required to construct a facsimile of the production network supporting their Carrier Ethernet service and then Iometrix run some 244 test cases on that system to pave the way for the third, field testing phase.

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Equinix Posts Revenue of $73.7 million, up 26%

Equinix, a provider of network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services, reported Q3 revenues of $73.7 million, a 27% increase over the same quarter last year and an 8% increase over the previous quarter. Recurring revenues, consisting primarily of colocation, interconnection and managed services, were $69.9 million, a 29% increase over the same quarter last year and a 7% increase over the previous quarter. Non-recurring revenues were $3.8 million in the quarter, consisting primarily of professional services and installation fees.



Net loss for the third quarter was $5.2 million, including stock-based compensation expense of $6.9 million and the restructuring charge of $1.5 million.



The company added 92 customers in the quarter, including Acer Computers, Barnes and Noble College Booksellers, Coram, Fannie Mae and Shopzilla. Based on a total cabinet capacity of approximately 30,900, the number of cabinets billing at the end of the quarter was approximately 16,200, or 52%, up from approximately 15,400 the previous quarter. On a weighted average basis, the number of cabinets billing was approximately 16,200 representing a utilization rate of 52%.



Equinix also announced that Peter Van Camp will transition from his role as chairman and CEO of Equinix to Executive Chairman once a new CEO has been appointed over the course of the next year. Until this time, Mr. Van Camp will remain fully engaged as CEO and chairman.

http://www.equinix.com

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Sourcefire Files for IPO -- Network Intrusion Prevention

Sourcefire, a developer of network intrusion prevention solutions, filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of common stock.



Sourcefire was founded in 2001 by Martin Roesch, the creator of SNORT open source technology for intrusion detection and prevention. According the company's website, there have been over 3,000,000 downloads of Snort around the world to date.



The company is based in Columbia, Maryland.

http://www.sourcefire.com

• In May, 2006 Sourcefire secured $20 million in Series D funding led by Meritech Capital Partners, a leading provider of late-stage venture capital to premier information technology companies. All previous Sourcefire venture investors: Sierra Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, Core Capital Partners, and Inflection Point Ventures also participated in the round. The company has raised over $54 million to date.

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PCCW Selects ICTV for Interactive Services

PCCW, the incumbent operator in Hong Kong, has selected ICTV's ActiveVideo Distribution Network platform to enable interactive channels via television to subscribers of its "now" TV service. ICTV, a start-up based in Los Gatos, California, provides the ability to deliver Web programming as MPEG video to any digital set-top box. Live and VOD programming can be blended seamlessly with content that is created and modified using standard Web tools and distributed via standard Web infrastructure.



PCCW's first ActiveVideo channel is an interactive "Movie Trailer Channel" that PCCW has launched in partnership with United Artists, one of the leading cinema groups in Hong Kong. The Movie Trailer Channel allows subscribers to preview movies, choose cinema locations, check program times, request seat locations, and buy tickets using just their standard remote controls. The channel is the first in a series of ActiveVideo channels and applications that will deliver more interactive services to now TV's 654,000 subscribers.



The ActiveVideo Distribution Network is a usage-based content distribution service that enables operators, programmers and advertisers to bring video programming and advertising models from the Internet to the television, including high-CPM ads that are targeted, auditable, interactive and actionable. AVDN delivers Web-driven programming and live and VOD streams - all with superior TV quality - over the existing two-way network infrastructure to any digital set-top box.

http://www.ictv.com

• As of September, PCCW's total broadband access lines in service reached approximately 998,000 by the end of June 2006, up 5 percent from 953,000 at the end of December 2005. The total number of telephone lines in service was approximately 2,579,000. The number of "now" IPTV users was 608,000. The proportion of customers paying for channels rose to 73 percent from 61 percent, and their ARPU increased to HK$118 from HK$110.

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Lockheed Martin Selects AT&T

Lockheed Martin awarded a $37 million, two-year contract extension to AT&T for a full range of integrated voice, data and IP services. AT&T's services will include end-to-end network-management support and a single point of contact to streamline all service orders and installations.



Lockheed Martin employs 140,000 people in more than 900 domestic locations and 56 countries.

http://www.att.com

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Quorum Raises $15 Million for CMOS radio frequency (RF) transceivers

Quorum Systems, a start-up based in San Diego, raised $15 million in a Series C funding, for its ultra-low-power, high-performance CMOS radio frequency (RF) transceivers.

The company recently moved into production volume of its first "Sereno" QS1000 quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE transceiver. The product family will include the QS1000, QS2000 and QS3000. The QS2000 integrates quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE capability with 802.11b/g, enabling simultaneous operation of Wi-Fi and cellular. The Sereno QS3000 combines GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 3G HSDPA into a single-chip, offering global support for dual mode HEDGE handsets.

Crescendo Ventures, a new investor to Quorum Systems, led the Series C funding, which also included existing investors Greylock Partners, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, and Enterprise Partners Venture Capital.

http://www.quorumsystems.com/

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ARRIS Posts Q3 Revenue of $228.6 million, up 14% YoY

ARRIS reported preliminary Q3 revenue of $228.6 million, up 14% as compared to $201.0 million in the third quarter 2005 and up 4% as compared to $220.0 million in the second quarter 2006. Net income in the third quarter 2006 was $26.6 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, as compared to net income of $18.8 million, or $0.18 per diluted share, in the third quarter 2005 and as compared to net income of $24.8 million or $0.23 per diluted share in the second quarter 2006.

ARRIS said demand for CMTS products continues to be driven by the Multi System Operators' (MSOs) competitive response to the telcos' aggressive marketing programs for FTTX and advanced digital subscriber line technologies as well as the need for MSOs to offer ever higher data rates to their subscribers.



During Q3, ARRIS announced that the nation's second largest MSO, Time Warner, had signed a two-year Purchase Agreement for ARRIS C4 and C3 CMTS products. Also announced were the successful field trials of wideband data services at speeds in excess of 100 Mbps to customers of KCTV JEJU Broadcasting in South Korea using the ARRIS FlexPath wideband data solution in the ARRIS Cadant C4 CMTS and the ARRIS Touchstone WBM650B wideband modems. Ihttp://www.arrisi.com

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LSI Logic to Acquire StoreAge Networking Technologies

LSI Logic Corporation agreed to acquire StoreAge Networking Technologies, a developer of SAN storage management and multi-tiered, data protection software, for $50 million in cash.



StoreAge is based in Nesher, Israel with US offices in Irvine, California.



LSI Logic said the acquisition would enable it to offer its OEM and channel customers a richer set of products and features for enterprise storage.

http://www.lsilogic.com

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Conexant to Acquire Zarlink's Packet Switching Line

Conexant Systems agreed to acquire Zarlink Semiconductor's packet switching product line for US$5 million in cash and additional amounts based on revenue performance of the product line over the next two years.



Based in Irvine, California, Zarlink's packet switching product line has developed a range of Fast Ethernet aggregation switches for network access equipment. Zarlink's engineering team has produced six generations of packet switches and management software.



Conexant said the acquisition would complement its DSL central office silicon solutions, enabling non-blocking VDSL line card performance.

http://www.conexant.comhttp://www.zarlink.com

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BT acquires Counterpane Internet Security

BT has acquired Counterpane Internet Security Inc., a provider of managed networked security services, as part of its strategy to expand and develop its global professional services capabilities. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Counterpane, which is based in Mountain View, California, monitors some 550 networks worldwide, real-time view of, and response to, IT security threats.



Andy Green, CEO BT Global Services, said: "Counterpane is a welcome addition to BT's global professional services community. As more and more of our customers seek to exploit the opportunities of globalisation, we are finding that increasingly business critical applications are dependent upon the resilience and security of their infrastructure. "http://www.btplc.comhttp://www.counterpane.com

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EMBARQ Rolls out "Smart Connect" Business FMC Service

Embarq, the fifth largest local communications company in the U.S., introduced a "Smart Connect" service that allows calls to move seamlessly between a business' wireless and wireline networks -- without interrupting the call. EMBARQ began its tiered rollout of this new technology by launching in Las Vegas, Orlando and Charlottesville, Va.



The general capability can be enhanced further with the EMBARQ "Smart Connect Plus", which enables calls to automatically move between the EMBARQ wireless network and the on-premise Wi-Fi network, whichever is strongest, without manual transfer of the call. This helps to reduce wireless costs, and improve coverage and call quality. EMBARQ also said its smart network connection will help minimize dropped calls, allow for better management of wireless charges and provide efficient integration of mobile workers.



EMBARQ Smart Connect will work with any wireless device and network service provider.



EMBARQ Smart Connect Plus employs the Starcom Pocket PC 6700 phone allowing automatic moves between Wi-Fi and wireless networks. This handset combines Evolution Data Optimized (EVDO) and Wi-Fi data functionality.

http://www.embarq.com

• EMBARQ is using NewStep Networks' fixed-mobile convergence platform.

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Cantata Integrates Media Server with Sonus' IMS Architecture

Cantata's SnowShore IP Media Server has been integrated with Sonus' IMS-ready architecture to perform the Media Resource Function (MRF) and facilitate the seamless delivery of subscriber-focused services and applications that enrich the communication experience. The integration brings together Sonus' ASX Feature Server and IMX Multimedia Application Platform with Cantata's software-based SnowShore IP Media Server, enabling the delivery of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and VoiceXML (vXML)-based applications through scripting capabilities and multimedia processing.

http://www.cantata.comhttp://www.sonusnet.com

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Alcatel Posts Quarterly Revenue of EUR 3.335 billion, 1.4% Growth, 34% Margin

Alcatel reported Q3 revenue of EUR 3.335 billion, up 1.4% compared with EUR 3.289 billion (up 2.7% at constant EUR/USD exchange rate) in the same period last year. The gross margin was 33.6%. Operating profit amounted to EUR 258 million, a 7.7% operating margin.



Third Quarter Business Update:

Segment Breakdown	Third Qtr	Third Qtr	Second Qtr
In EUR million	2006	2005	2006
Revenues
Fixed Communications	1,363	1,282	1,363
Mobile Communications	994	1,092	1,007
Private Communications	1,001	928	1,034
Other & Eliminations	(23)	(13)	(20)
Total	3,335	3,289	3,384
Income from Operations
Fixed Communications	151	121	133
Mobile Communications	64	116	80
Private Communications	50	64	51
Other & Eliminations	(7)	(23)	(1)
Total	258	278	263

Serge Tchuruk, Alcatel's Chairman and CEO, stated: "The third quarter once again confirmed Alcatel's leading position in the transformation of networks toward a high bandwidth, full IP architecture providing enhanced triple play services to end users and reducing operating costs for the carriers.



"In the wireline sector, this translated into increasing traction for our IP, access, optical and applications solutions in the carrier and enterprise markets where Alcatel's revenues (excluding the seasonal submarine activity) grew by over 10%. The strong inroads of Alcatel in the IP routing market were again highlighted by a near doubling of revenues over the same period last year. Likewise, terrestrial optics as well as enterprise applications revenues grew by over 20% and 30% respectively, with Alcatel's product portfolio clearly outpacing competition.



"This strong performance was partially offset by a decline in our wireless revenues, whose annualized growth had averaged 25% in eight successive quarters, and where the evolution toward IP technologies and new video services is still at an early stage."http://www.alcatel.com

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Lucent Posts Quarterly Revenue of $2.56 billion, 5% Growth, 44% Margin

Lucent Technologies reported revenues of $2.56 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter, an increase of 25 percent sequentially and an increase of 5 percent from the year-ago quarter. Net income was $371 million or 7 cents per diluted share. These results compare with net income of $79 million or 2 cents per diluted share in the third quarter of fiscal 2006, and net income of $372 million or 7 cents per diluted share in the year-ago quarter.



"We are pleased to have ended what's been a challenging year with a strong quarter. As anticipated, we posted our highest quarterly revenue period for the year, driven primarily by mobility deployments in North America, and we recorded a gross margin of 44 percent. In addition to the rollout of our EV-DO Rev A and HSDPA solutions during the quarter, we also continued to convert IMS trials into contracts, announcing that KPN, The Netherlands' largest service provider, had selected Lucent's IP Multimedia Subsystem solution (IMS) to replace its legacy public switched-network. Lucent Worldwide Services, was also chosen as the prime integrator for the migration to KPN's All-IP network," said Lucent Technologies Chairman and CEO Patricia Russo.



Some highlights:

• Gross margin was 44 percent of revenues as compared with 41 percent in the third quarter of fiscal 2006 and 46 percent in the year-ago quarter.



• On a sequential basis, revenues in the United States increased 40 percent to $1.77 billion, and revenues outside the United States increased 1 percent to $789 million. Compared with the year-ago quarter, U.S. revenues increased by 17 percent and revenues outside the U.S. decreased by 14 percent.



• Mobility Access revenues were $1.277 billion, up 54% from Q3.



• Multimedia Network Solutions were $440 million, down 3% from Q3.



• Converged Core revenues were $157 million, up 7% from Q3.



• Service revenues were $644 million, up 11% from Q3.



• Lucent continues to expect the merger with Alcatel to close by the end of the calendar year.

http://www.lucent.com

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BellSouth Reaches 3.4 Million DSL Users

BellSouth reported Q3 revenue of $5.2 billion, up 2.9 percent compared to the same quarter of 2005. Income from continuing operations was approximately $1.1 billion, up 29.6 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations of 58 cents, up 31.8 percent compared to the third quarter of 2005. Normalized EPS from continuing operations of 65 cents increased 27.5 percent compared to the third quarter of 2005.



Some highlights from Q3 2006:

• Communications Group revenues were $4.7 billion, a 2.4 percent increase over the third quarter of 2005. Adjusting for the one-time customer credits of $44 million issued during the third quarter of 2005, revenue growth was 1.4 percent.
  
  
• Network data revenues exceeded $1.3 billion, a 12.8 percent increase over the third quarter of 2005, due to improvements in both retail and wholesale data services. Retail data revenues grew 19.5 percent year-over-year driven by retail DSL revenues, while wholesale data revenues grew 3.3 percent as growth in wireless transport more than offset declines in general transport services.
  
  
• BellSouth added 176,000 new DSL customers, reaching a total of more than 3.4 million.
  
  
• BellSouth added 118,000 long distance subscribers, giving it 7.6 million long distance customers representing approximately 63 percent of its mass-market customer base.
  
  
• Nearly 65,000 customers added DIRECTV service to their bundle, resulting in a total of 756,000 customers.
  
  
• As of Sept. 30, 2006, total access lines were 19.0 million down 6.9 percent year-over-year.
  
  
• For the quarter, total access lines declined 301,000. Retail residential access lines declined 135,000 reflecting losses to wireless substitution and cable telephony service. Retail small business access line gains were 20,000, offset by a decline in retail large business access lines of 13,000 lines. Wholesale lines declined 174,000 compared to June 30, 2006.

http://www.bellsouth.com

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VeriSign Provides ENUM Services for AOL Wireless Messages

AOL will use VeriSign's ENUM Data Access Service for the delivery of messaging traffic to wireless devices within North America. ENUM is the emerging standard that uses the domain name system (DNS) to map telephone numbers to Web addresses or uniform resource locators (URLs).



"AOL's use of the VeriSign ENUM Data Access service is a strong statement of the power of ENUM in action and VeriSign's ability to deliver on new technologies for the convergence of all types of communications," said Bill Wolfe Senior Vice President of Communications at VeriSign.



Delivery of messages from IP devices to mobile devices requires a comprehensive directory service to map each telephone number to the service provider owner or subscriber. In addition to telephone number mapping, the service also requires a real-time check to determine if the number has been ported to another service provider.

http://www.verisign.com

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Nortel Demonstrates Uplink Collaborative MIMO

Nortel demonstrated wireless transmission using Uplink Collaborative MIMO, a technique that could enable operators to serve up to double the number of mobile broadband subscribers supported in a cell site as current wireless technologies allow. Developed by Nortel, Collaborative MIMO is part of the WiMAX industry standard and is also being proposed for 3GPP WCDMA Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and 3GPP2 CDMA EV-DO Rev-C standards.



"Uplink Collaborative MIMO creates a technological disruption that offers revolutionary improvement in wireless network capacity and provides a clear path to 4G Mobile Broadband - of which WiMAX is the first technology," said John Hoadley, chief technology officer, Mobility and Converged Core Networks, Nortel.



The demonstration at Nortel's Advanced Wireless Lab in Ottawa, combined Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) antennas at both the cell site and on 4G devices with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission technology. Nortel said the combination of these two technologies offers the ability to deliver the highest network bandwidth and greatest spectral efficiency capabilities at the lowest cost.



With OFDM, a single channel within a spectrum band is divided into multiple, smaller sub-carriers that transmit information simultaneously without interference.



MIMO allows multiple data streams to be transmitted at the same time and on the same sub-carriers through interference-free MIMO spatial channels. Due to unique spatial channels that result for each antenna path, interference between data streams is reduced. As a result, OFDM-MIMO substantially increases the bandwidth and spectral efficiency.



Nortel describes Uplink Collaborative MIMO as a further enhancement that enables the use of the same channel sub-carriers by multiple devices and subscribers - effectively allowing them to share the same sub-carrier without interference. Without Collaborative MIMO, the traffic being carried on a single sub-carrier would not be maximized across multiple subscribers. The result would be that the traffic would be severely limited, preventing users from having a true broadband experience and limiting VoIP capacity such that conversations would be unintelligible.

http://www.nortel.com

• In March 2005, Nortel was the first company to demonstrate OFDM-MIMO at 37 Mbps peak data rates in 5 MHz of spectrum in the downlink, with the transfer of a 128 MB file in just 30 seconds.

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Avaya's Quarterly Revenue Rises 5%

Avaya's fourth fiscal quarter 2006 revenues increased five percent to $1.364 billion compared to $1.296 billion in the same period last year. Net income was $48 million or 10 cents per diluted share.



Year-over-year revenues increased in both the company's products and services segments, as well as across all geographic regions. Worldwide product sales rose nine percent compared to the same period last year, with IP line shipments increasing in the high 20 percent range.



"We finished fiscal 2006 with a strong quarter," said Lou D'Ambrosio, president and CEO, Avaya. "The transition by enterprises to IP telephony and Intelligent Communications continued to drive growth in product sales and IP line shipments."http://www.avaya.com

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D-Link Ships 200Mbps PowerLine Network Kit

D-Link began shipping 200Mbps PowerLine Network Kit that lets users build a home network using existing electrical wiring in their homes. The kit contains two PowerLine adapters, Ethernet cabling and an installation disk. The suggested retail price is $219.99. http://www.dlink.com

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