Avaya Communication Manager 5.0 Support End-to-End SIP

Avaya announced a series of enhancements to its IP Telephony portfolio, including support for end-to-end, full-featured Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) delivered through the latest version of its telephony software -- Avaya Communication Manager 5.0.


Avaya Communication Manager 5.0 now features embedded SIP, allowing co-residency on a single server (initially with the Avaya S8300C Server) -- eliminating the cost and management issues associated with multiple servers. New SIP trunk alternate routing -- a key capability for redistributing voice, video and data when network congestion arises -- is also available, making communications more reliable.


New SIP firmware for Avaya endpoints provides an integral part of the end- to-end solution. Avaya's advanced one-X IP Deskphones can be SIP-enabled -- leveraging open, multimedia communications for improved productivity and mobility -- and the phones can interchange between SIP or IP environments. Avaya's SIP-enabled phones bring presence to directories to let users see the availability of colleagues. Mobility features are also SIP-enabled, such as Extension-to-Cellular, which transparently bridges a user's cell phone with their phone extension, and "SIP Visiting User", which lets users log into and access their deskphone features from any phone on the network.


A new version of the Avaya Video Telephony Solution is also now SIP- enabled, providing a more cost-effective way to deploy enterprise-class videoconferencing. Enhancements allow users to handle "ad hoc" video calls in the same way as voice calls, simply adding and forwarding both voice and video, and creating video conferences for up to six people.


Avaya said other new advancements include a new software maintenance model for its communications applications Software Support Plus Upgrades. The updated portfolio also gains a new media gateway -- the Avaya G450 -- for more flexible choices for branch offices and small campuses.http://www.avaya.com

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Deutsche Telekom plans up to 4,000 new jobs in Germany

Deutsche Telekom plans to add up to 4,000 new jobs in Germany for 2008. The company also expects to offer up to 3,800 traineeships. The areas for recruitment span information technology (IT), high-tech product development, business management as well as sales and service. In addition, another 3,800 new traineeships will be offered this year in trendy fields. Deutsche Telekom said its job offers are focusing increasingly on young university graduates. http://www.telekom.de

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Verizon Expands Availability of 7 Mbps DSL

Verizon has expanded the availability of its 7 Mbps DSL tier to additional communities in Indiana and Texas.

Prices start $39.99 a month when ordered with an annual service plan. Verizon now offers the new service in some 400 communities across the country.http://www.verizon.com

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IBM, Intel and Cisco Open High-Performance Computing Center

IBM, Intel and Cisco opened a High-Performance Computing (HPC) Center in Montpellier, France, offering mutual customers a comprehensive test-bed to simplify the set-up and operation of their high performance infrastructure. The center aims to combine the world's fastest cluster computers from IBM with the high-performance InfiniBand and Ethernet networking technology from Cisco and Intel's most advanced multi-core processors. The center will be equipped with a mix of 45nm and 65nm based Quad-Core Intel Xeon microprocessors on 32 IBM BladeCenter servers, interconnected by Cisco Infiniband and Ethernet switches. The companies plan to expand the facility as new technology becomes available to keep customers on the leading edge of cluster computing.http://www.intel.comhttp://www.cisco.com

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Bharti Airtel Awards $150 Million Services Deal to IBM

India's Bharti Airtel awarded a six-year services deal valued at US$150 million to IBM to help bring a unified customer experience across its services, including beaming television content over the Internet. Working with IBM, Bharti plans to launch IPTV and DTH (direct to home)

broadcasting offerings and penetrate into prepaid rural market segments. Through its partnership, IBM will implement IT systems that will enable it to launch differentiated services in these new thrust areas. To improve customer satisfaction and provide seamless services, IBM said it will work with Bharti Airtel in areas including LCR (Least Cost Routing), GIS, Auto Discovery, Auto Provisioning and Auto Activation. These applications will help to bring in enhanced efficiencies and cost savings, besides improving service delivery. This agreement was signed in December of 2007.http://www.ibm.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Selected for GO-1 Mediterranean Cable System

Alcatel-Lucent, along with Elettra - a Telecom Italia Group company specialized in survey, installation and maintenance of submarine cable networks - for a turnkey project with GO p.l.c. (GO), xto deploy a new submarine network between Malta and Italy on behalf of GO p.l.c. (GO), Malta's leading telecom operator.


Named GO-1 Mediterranean Cable System, this high-speed network will provide GO with extra capacity to further enhance the delivery of its quadruple play services to businesses and consumers. The cable is designed for an ultimate capacity of 480 Gbps and completion is expected in Q4 2008.http://www.alcatel-lucent.comhttp://www.go.com.mt

• GO's main shareholder – 60% – is Dubai Holding LLC, the parent company of Emirates International Telecommunications Malta Ltd . EIT itself is a joint venture between TECOM Investments and Dubai Investment Group. The remaining 40% lie with private shareholders and we're also listed on both the Malta and London Stock Exchange.

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iamba Networks Introduces its GPON ASICs Family

iamba Networks, a start-up based in Cupertino, California with R&D based in Israel, released its new iSN1000 family of GPON ONT ASICs. The iSN1000 family includes three SoCs for three types of ONTs: the iSN1000F for Single Family Units (SFU), the iSN1000T for small office, home offices (SOHO), and the iSN1000D for Multi Dwelling Units (MDU).


Iamba said its new silicon delivers 1 Gbps wire speed throughput, WT-156 compliant VLAN processing, QoS, security, IPTV support and a multi-core architecture that facilitates the integration of customer developed software with iamba's own powerful software packages.

The iSN1000 family of ASICs is part of the iamba GPON Eco-System (iGES) solution comprised of next generation ASICs for ONTs and for the OLT, a comprehensive set of software packages, evaluation units and production-ready reference designs.


The iSN1000 ONT ASIC architecture, which include the GPON SERDES function, is based on a multi-core processor module (iMCM) and on iamba's unique, patent pending Traffic Pump Module (iTPM), delivering wire-speed gigabit Ethernet on two ports, multiple voice lines and video channels, all supported by QoS and CoS capabilities. The iMCM architecture consists of three RISC processors delivering 540 DMIPS.


Sampling is underway.http://www.iamba.com/

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FiberTower's CEO Quits

FiberTower, which provides wireless backhaul services to mobile operators across the U.S., announced that Michael Gallagher has resigned, effective immediately, as President, CEO and Director of the company to pursue other interests. The Board of Directors has begun a search for a new CEO and has retained Heidrick & Struggles to assist in its recruiting efforts.http://www.fibertower.com/

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Malaysia's iZZinet Selects Harris Stratex for Base Station Network Roll-out

Malaysia's iZZinet has selected Harris Stratex' "Eclipse" radios for its nationwide wireless broadband network roll-out program. Formerly known as MoBif Wireless Broadband, iZZinet is in the process of adding more than 100 base stations throughout Malaysia to support its rapidly expanding iBurst wireless broadband network. Harris Stratex Networks worked with iZZinet engineers to design the network around an Eclipse all-IP core, with all radio links transporting wireless Carrier-grade Ethernet services. The Eclipse radios provide native Ethernet capabilities and the compact nodal configuration allows operators to aggregate and concentrate traffic without the need for additional equipment, reducing the complexity of network deployments. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.harrisstratex.com/http://www.izzi.com.my/company.php

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ShoreTel's Unified Communications Deployed by Big Brothers Big Sisters

Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas has deployed ShoreTel's UC system to interconnect its regional offices, presenting a unified face to the community, driving down communications costs and improving service delivery. Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas is the largest U.S. mentoring organization that provides children with support, guidance, friendship and fun by matching them to adult role models. The organization has increased the number of mentoring relationships by more than 34 percent over a two-year period, while cutting almost in half the average wait time to find a successful match. http://www.shoretel.com/

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Dune Debuts Programmable Metro Ethernet and Access Traffic Manager Devices

Dune Networks, introduced two new chips that offer enhanced Traffic Management functionality, addressing edge functionality of Metro Ethernet and Access Networks. The new FAP21V and FAP11V devices provide 20 Gbps and 10 Gbps full duplex programmable traffic management with an integrated SAND fabric interface. The devices provide one (FAP11V) or two (FAP21V) SPI4.2 interfaces to the line side, DRAMs for deep packet buffering and serial links for fabric and mesh interconnection.


Dune Networks said its new FAP devices can interconnect and communicate via its SAND fabric or a mesh, thereby providing distributed TM functionality across a switching system. Furthermore, they may be used as standard stand-alone ingress and/or egress traffic management devices. A FAP11/21V device provides fully programmable traffic management services, addressing the standards and implementation agreements of the MEF, IETF DiffServ, DSL Forum TR-059/TR-101. Sampling is now underway.http://www.dunenetworks.com

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Texas' Grande Communications Explores Strategic Alternatives

Grande Communications, which has been building deep fiber networks in communities across Texas, has engaged Waller Capital to assist the company in exploring strategic alternatives. The Board of Directors will work with the Company's management team and its legal and financial advisors to evaluate the company's available alternatives.http://www.grandecom.com

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Caltech Selects Ciena for Dynamic Lightpath Provisioning

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has selected Ciena's CoreDirector Multiservice Optical Switch for use in its multi-national research networking efforts. Caltech is the driving force behind the U.S. Large Hadron Collider Network (U.S. LHCNet).


The U.S. LHCNet network interconnects the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland with key access points in Amsterdam, New York (32 Avenue of the Americas) and Chicago, Illinois (Starlight). Onward connections to research facilities throughout the U.S. involve the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)'s Science Data Network, the Internet2 network and National Lambda Rail (NLR).
Caltech can use Ciena's CoreDirector platform to dynamically set up and seamlessly manage the transfer of multiple terabytes of data from CERN to the Fermilab and Brookhaven DOE laboratories.


Ciena's CoreDirector offers the ability to rapidly deliver end-to-end optical services and efficiently transport GbE and 10 GbE services over highly-reliable SONET/SDH infrastructure, utilizing Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), Virtual Concatenation (VCAT) and Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme (LCAS), with advanced Layer 2 switching functionality and MEF-based Ethernet traffic management.http://www.ciena.com

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Cisco to Invest Up to $1.6 Billion in United Arab Emirates

Cisco plans to invest up to AED 5.8 billion (USD $1.59 billion) on information and communications technology (ICT) in the United Arab Emirates over the next five years. As part of this investment, which is expected to create up to 650 new jobs at Cisco by December 2010, Cisco will open a new regional headquarters office in Dubai in April 2008. The regional office will host one of Cisco's most advanced customer briefing centers allowing Cisco to showcase the latest innovations in Internet Protocol (IP) networking technology, such as Cisco TelePresence. The company will also open an office in Abu Dhabi in June 2008 to serve the growing customer base in the capital.


Cisco CEO John Chambers said the investment would support the 2015 vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai.

http://www.cisco.com

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California Broadband Task Force Seeks Action

California must construct next-generation broadband infrastructure in order to position itself as a global economic leader in a knowledge-based economy, according to a newly issued report from The California Broadband Task Force (CBTF), which was commissioned by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in November 2006 to recommend means to remove barriers to broadband access, identify opportunities for increased broadband adoption, and enable the creation and deployment of new advanced communication technologies."


The Task Force determined that California is better positioned than most states on broadband availability and adoption,
yet the state lags behind key foreign competitors. For instance, the average advertised download speed available
in Japan is almost 95 Mbps, while the average in the United States is just under 9 Mbps. In California, available broadband speeds differ considerably be region. Ninety-five percent of Los Angeles and Orange County residents can subscribe to speeds of 10 Mbps or higher, while only 6 percent of Bay Area households are able to do so.


Other findings include:

• 96% of California residences have access to broadband.


• 1.4 million mostly rural Californians lack broadband access at any speed.


• Barely more than half of Californians have adopted broadband at home.


• Only half of Californians have access to broadband at speeds greater than 10 Mbps, (including both upstream and downstream speeds).


• Broadband infrastructure is deployed unevenly throughout the state, from state-of--the-art to nonexistent.

The CBTF recommends seven key actions:


1. Build out high speed broadband infrastructure to all Californians -- advancing new incentives for deployment and improving existing programs will create a world-class broadband infrastructure in California.


2. Develop model permitting standards and encourage collaboration among providers -- developing a public-private partnership between local governments and broadband providers to endorse permitting standards will improve the speed with which broadband is deployed.


3. Increase the use and adoption of broadband and computer technology -- expanding the opportunities for Californians to access, use, and learn broadband, at home and in the community, will provide the foundation for a digitally literate society that is able to fully benefit from broadband technology.


4. Engage and reward broadband innovation and research -- promoting innovative uses of broadband technology and encouraging wider e-government use will result in quality-of-life improvements, while increasing demand for a robust broadband infrastructure.


5. Create a statewide e-health network -- implementing a sustainable statewide e-health network will improve quality of care across the state and simultaneously increase demand for broadband services.


6. Leverage educational opportunities to increase broadband use -- ensuring high-capacity broadband connections coupled with a robust technology support system, relevant curriculum, literacy standards, and off-campus educational partnerships will provide California's students with the skills they need to compete in a 21st century economy.


7. Continue state-level and statewide leadership -- continuing the California Broadband Initiative and supporting the creation of Community Broadband Leadership Councils will strengthen the statewide leadership necessary to drive broadband access and adoption across
California.


The 84-page report is posted online.http://www.calink.ca.gov/taskforcereport/

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Alcatel-Lucent names Andy Williams to Head Services Business

Alcatel-Lucent named Andy Williams to become President of the company's Services Business, replacing John Meyer who is leaving the company to become the CEO and President of Acxiom Corporation. Andy Williams currently heads the Network Operations business globally for Alcatel-Lucent's Services group. Previously, he headed the former Lucent Technologies European business. He joined the company in 2005 from IBM, where he worked for 25 years and held a number of senior leadership positions.http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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FairPoint Selects Occam for Network Upgrade in New England

FairPoint Communications has selected Occam Networks as the lead access equipment provider for a major broadband upgrade of its network in northern New England once the proposed acquisition of Verizon's wireline business in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine is closed. The first phase of the upgrade will include building 10Gig redundant Ethernet rings to over 200 Central Offices throughout the three-state region. Phase two will add over 50,000 DSL lines to rural areas that previously did not have broadband service. A key equipment supplier of Occam's is Laconia, New Hampshire-based Wilcom, which has been manufacturing telephone line test equipment and transmission products in New England since 1967. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.occamnetworks.comhttp://www.fairpoint.com

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The Cloud Acquires Germany's GlobalAirNet

The Cloud has acquired GlobalAirNet AG (Ganag), which provides Wi-Fi services to four and five star hotels in Germany. Financial terms were not disclosed.




Ganag, based in Munich Germany, has over 5,300 Wi-Fi access points located in over 300 hotels, including Marriott, Swiss Hotel and Crowne Plaza, with further expansion contracted in the hotel sector.


The Cloud is Europe's leading independent mobile wireless broadband service provider with over 12,000 network locations and over 20,000 access points in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands.http://www.thecloud.net

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NEC and Sumitomo to Supply Microwave Communication Systems to Italy's Wind

Italian mobile phone operator Wind

has selected NEC and Sumitomo for the supply of advanced point-to-point wireless access systems based on the PASOLINK NEO platform. Italy has a prime mobile phone market, boasting a total of 80.3 million mobile customers, with market penetration of 136%. Wind serves more than 15 million mobile customers and holds more than 18% market share. NEC said one of the advantageous features of its PASOLINK NEO, as compared with other wireless access systems, is its ability to handle different transmission speeds and interfaces with the same platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.nec.comhttp://www.sumitomo.co.jp

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Canada's MTS Allstream Selects Alcatel-Lucent for IPTV

MTS Allstream, a wholly owned subsidiary of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. selected Alcatel-Lucent for its upcoming IPTV deployment. The service will be based on Alcatel-Lucent's Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (TPSDA) and Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV and multimedia platform. MTS Allstream currently has the largest installed base of telco digital TV subscribers in Canada and was one of the first providers in the world to launch this type of service. This next-generation deployment will support an increased subscriber base and will allow MTS Allstream to launch into new markets.


Under the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will provide its TPSDA architecture and will be the end-to-end network integrator. The solution includes an IP/MPLS network based on the 7750 Service Router (SR) and a broadband access network based on the 7330 Intelligent Services Access Manager Fiber-to-the- Node (ISAM FTTN). Also included is the Alcatel-Lucent 5750 Subscriber Services Controller, a flexible, modular and pre-integrated subscriber and policy management, the 5620 Service Aware Manager, a single management platform offering element, network and service management and the 5526 Access Management System for element management.http://www.alcatel-lucent.comhttp://www.mtsallstream.com

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