Wednesday, March 12, 2008

TeliaSonera to Upgrade Swedish Network with Fiber, VDSL2

TeliaSonera Sweden launched one of the largest infrastructure projects in the company's history. Over the next 5 years, TeliaSonera expects to upgrade between 1.5 to 2 million households across Sweden using either direct fiber connections for 100 Mbps services or VDSL2 copper connections for 30 ~ 70 Mbps services. The network will be upgraded selectively and based mainly on the customer structure. In some cases, Telia might collaborate with external parties, such as municipalities, building owners and housing co-operatives.


"We want to ensure high quality and a high level of service in our network and also secure future revenues. We are on our way to entering a new world. We must dare make investments and we have to start now," says Erik Hallberg, Head of Broadband Services at TeliaSonera Sweden.http://www.teliasonera.com

AudioCodes Media Gateways Deployed by Global Crossing

Global Crossing has selected the AudioCodes Mediant 3000, Mediant 2000 and Mediant 1000 digital VoIP Media Gateways and MediaPack analog VoIP Media Gateways as trunking and enterprise access gateways in Latin America.


Global Crossing is providing telephony services to enterprises and carrier peering and has deployed the Mediant 3000 and Mediant 2000 for trunking applications to connect its VoIP network with internal and peering PSTN networks. Audiocodes said its gateway platforms provide the flexibility to be controlled by a third party softswitch using MEGACO call control. In addition, Global Crossing is using the Mediant 3000 for enterprise aggregation, whereby multiple enterprises are connected via TDM trunks to the Mediant 3000, which in turn provides SIP interworking towards the IP backbone.


The Mediant 1000 and MediaPack gateways are deployed within enterprises and connect legacy PBXs via SIP trunks to the Global Crossing VoIP network. The Mediant 1000 and MediaPack gateways provide extensive interoperability with multiple vendor PBXs, making them a natural choice for this enterprise SIP trunking application.
http://www.audiocodes.comhttp://www.globalcrossing.com

Bulgaria's Spectrum Net Selects Juniper for Ethernet Services

Spectrum Net AD., one of the largest telecommunications providers in Bulgaria, is deploying Juniper Networks MX960 and MX480 Ethernet Services Routers (Ears) at the core and edge of its new high-capacity Carrier Ethernet infrastructure. Spectrum Net is building the new infrastructure to accelerate the introduction of IP/MPLS-based services for businesses throughout the country, and to maintain high-speed links with international Points of Presence (PoPs). System integration has been handled by Juniper's local partner Smartcom Bulgaria. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.juniper.net

Ericsson to Supply IPTV for Greece's OTE

Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE) has selected Ericsson to act as end-to-end IPTV systems integrator, solution provider and business consultant. The integrated IPTV solution for OTE comprises of headend systems from Tandberg Television, part of the Ericsson group, middleware application, content distribution platform and a customized and flexible consumer portal. The solution will also involve complete implementation and integration of tools for operational management. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.ericsson.comhttp://www.ote.gr/

Ericsson to Delist Shares from the London Stock Exchange

Ericsson has decided to delist its series B shares from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), where they have been traded since 1960. In recent years, trading in the company's series B shares on the LSE has corresponded to less than 1 percent of the total trade in the company's series B shares, which in Ericsson's view does not justify the costs of maintaining the listing.


Following the delisting, all trading in the Ericsson series B shares will be concentrated to OMX Nordic Exchange Stockholm and Nasdaq. The Ericsson shares have previously been delisted from the stock exchanges in Paris and Zürich as well as three German exchanges.http://www.ericsson.com

Saudi Arabia's Mobily Outsources Network Operations to Ericsson

Mobily, a Saudi Arabian mobile operator, a member of the Etisalat Group, awarded a 3-year multivendor, managed services agreement to Ericsson. Under the deal, Ericsson will be responsible for network operations, field operations and optimization as well as the spare parts management. The agreement also makes Ericsson responsible for site maintenance of Mobily's entire multi-vendor network. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.ericsson.com
  • In November 2007, Huawei announced a contract to construct Mobily's nationwide IP bearer network in Saudi Arabia.

Alcatel-Lucent Supplies Submarine Cable for Equatorial Guinea

The Government of Equatorial Guinea selected Alcatel-Lucent to roll out a new, domestic submarine cable network connecting the cities of Malabo, on the northern coast of the Bioko island, to Bata, on the African continent. This new cable network, which is scheduled for completion at the end of first quarter 2009, will span 280 km delivering an ultimate capacity of 80 Gbps. Additionally, it will interconnect with existing and future cable routes.http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Sonus Updates its IMS Core Architecture

Sonus Networks has enhanced its IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) core architecture with upgrades to its SRX Call Session Control Function and HSX Home Subscriber Server and bringing the platform into compliance with 3GPP Release 7 specifications. The SRX serves as an authentication engine that tells the network which services belong on any given session. Sonus' SRX 2.0 is built on the open-source Linux operating system and Service Availability Forum based middleware.http://www.sonusnet.com

Broadcom Sees Growth in DOCSIS Downstream Channel Bonded Services

Broadcom has shipped more than one million units of its channel bonding cable modem silicon for downstream channel bonding cable modems. Compatible with existing DOCSIS 2.0 and next generation cable modem termination system (CMTS) equipment, Broadcom cable modem silicon delivers downstream data rates of up to 150 Mbps and enables multiple service operators (MSOs) to deploy downstream channel bonding functionality immediately.


Broadcom said channel bonding is often cited as the most significant feature of next generation DOCSIS 3.0 products. Whereas DOCSIS2.0 products are limited to single downstream and upstream channels, next generation products will use channel bonding to combine the bandwidth of several DOCSIS channels to significantly increase data rates.
http://www.broadcom.com

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Comcast Conducts 100G Live Trial with Nortel

Comcast will conduct a test of Nortel's 100 Gbps line rate optical transmission solution at the 71st meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) conference, which it is hosting this week in Philadelphia.


The 100G solution runs over Comcast's existing fiber network. The test network is comprised of Comcast's existing Common Photonic Layer DWDM solution with 50GHz enhanced Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (eROADM) and photonic components, augmented with prototype 100G interfaces installed in Nortel's Optical Multiservice Edge 6500. The 100G cards utilize Nortel's 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine, with integrated dispersion compensation and dual-polarization Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation, the same technology used in Nortel's present 40G solution. The 100G trial runs from Philadelphia to McLean (Virginia), traversing Comcast's metro and long-haul fibers.


The companies said Comcast's network trial will be first time real traffic is run over a 100G wavelength on its existing network. The network also carrying live 10G and 40G links. The trial will run in parallel over the same optical infrastructure that supports a combination of high definition or HD video, Internet and voice traffic on Comcast's 40G national backbone network.


"Testing an interoperable multi-vendor 100G solution will help provide us with important information about how new solutions will support a next generation of high bandwidth services for the digital generation of consumers," said John Schanz, EVP National Engineering and Technical Operations for Comcast.http://www.nortel.comhttp://www.comcast.com

Force10 Appoints VP of Worldwide Systems Engineering

Force10 Networks named Frank Kilpatrick vice president of worldwide systems engineering and Andrew Stewart vice president of worldwide channel operations. Previously. Kilpatrick was vice president of U.S. enterprise systems engineering at Juniper Networks. Earlier at Extreme Networks, he served as the worldwide director of systems engineering sales. Frank also held senior level engineering and customer service management positions with Foundry Networks, Jetstream Communications and 3Com.


Prior to joining Force10, Stewart managed sales operations, field marketing and inside sales programs as vice president of worldwide operations for NeoScale Systems. Earlier, he was director of EMEA indirect channel sales at Computer Associates, where he focused on developing partner relationships in key markets. http://www.force10networks.com

Nortel Introduces 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine

Nortel introduced its 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine for enabling both 40Gbps and 100Gbps transmission over existing fiber infrastructures.


The foundation of the Nortel 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine relies on several innovations. Nortel said Dual Polarization Quadrature Phase Shift Keying modulation with coherent detection enables 40G transmission over a cost-effective 10G network design, and provides similar benefits even for 100G transmission. The solution also employs advanced digital signal processing that removes all compensation requirements from the network, along with their associated capital and operational expenditures.


Nortel said its approach allows upgrades from existing 10G networks to a 40G solution through simple plug-and-play technology components. The solution is built on Nortel's Optical Multiservice Edge 6500, which combines next-generation SDH/SONET and metro DWDM capabilities, and Nortel's Common Photonic Layer transport architecture.


Two customers - Denmark's TDC and the UK's Neos Networks - have selected the new Nortel solution and trials with other carriers are currently underway globally.
http://www.nortel.com

Hong Kong's PCCW Employs Harmonic's H.264 Encoders for HD IPTV

PCCW, the incumbent operator in Hong Kong, has deployed Harmonic's DiviCom Electra 7000 high definition (HD) MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoders to power its HD channel service. PCCW also utilizes Harmonic's standard definition (SD) encoders to deliver its full lineup of more than 150 broadcast channels, as well as Harmonic's video-on-demand (VOD) servers and software. Financial terms were not disclosed.


PCCW's IPTV service currently serves over 882,000 subscribers.


Harmonic's multi-service Electra 7000 encoder delivers up to four channels of full resolution video alongside four simultaneous low resolution outputs for applications such as picture-in-picture and multi-channel mosaics.http://www.harmonicinc.com

Veraz Announces Network-Adaptive Session Border Controllers (SBCs)

Veraz Networks announced the availability of its Network-adaptive Border Controller, a next generation Session Border Controllers (SBC) designed to provide security for multimedia sessions and network interconnections.


The company said that its new Network-adaptive Border Controller overcomes the shortcomings of first generations SBCs, which provided simple interconnection and security between IP networks, required separate management interfaces, did not provide visibility to the other end of the connection, and incurred high operating and management costs. Veraz's Network-adaptive Border Controller reduces OPEX costs by providing centralized management and control of distributed SBCs so that carriers have one routing interface, one billing record, and one source of FCAPs information.


Veraz will offer different scalable hardware configurations, depending on the number of sessions required at each gateway location. Volume production shipments began in Q407, with over 100,000 sessions shipped to date.http://www.veraznetworks.com/

BigBand Appoints New CFO

BigBand Networks has appointed Maurice "Moe" Castonguay as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Previously, he spent more than 11 years as CFO of multiple publicly-traded high-tech companies, including Xylogics, Inc. (acquired by Bay Networks), Stratus Computer (acquired by Ascend Communications) and MatrixOne, which he led through an initial public offering. He has also served as CFO for a number of private technology companies, including Acopia Networks (recently acquired by F5 Networks) and video-on-demand specialist Broadbus Technologies,(acquired by Motorola,).http://www.www.bigbandnet.com

Ericsson Readies Mobile Broadband Solutions for US 700 MHz Deployments

Ericsson is ready to supply mobile broadband solutions to the winners of the FCC's ongoing auctions for 700 MHz spectrum. The company said its solutions will allow the US 700 MHz auction winners to deliver ubiquitous mobile data and enriched multimedia experiences to demanding customers at broadband speeds. The Ericsson mobile broadband solution will offer a full suite of infrastructure, device platforms, applications and services.


Ericsson's 700 MHz solutions will leverage Ericsson's existing support for HSPA and LTE. The company'sLTE chipset and software solution for 700 MHz devices is already in development and will be available in mid-2009.
http://www.ericsson.com

Motorola Invests in INVIDI for Addressable TV Advertising

Motorola Ventures has made a strategic investment in INVIDI Technologies, a start-up focused on addressable advertising solutions for the television industry. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. The companies said INVIDI's proprietary technology has the ability to accurately identify viewers' age, gender, location and other characteristics for greater personalization while maintaining privacy and confidentiality.


INVIDI Technologies was founded in 2000 and is based in Princeton, New Jersey.http://www.motorola.comhttp://www.invidi.com/

Ciena Employs EZchip's Network Processors for Carrier Ethernet Switching

EZchip Technologies is supplying its NP-2 network processors to Ciena for use in Ethernet aggregation and switching modules for its CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform family. The new CN 4200 modules utilizing NP-2, called the G10 and G10X Ethernet service modules, were announced by Ciena earlier this year.
http://www.ezchip.com

Telenor Selects Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi for IPTV in Sweden

Telenor's Bredbandsbolaget division has selected Ruckus Wireless' Smart Wi-Fi 802.11g systems for the wireless distribution of its IPTV service to subscriber homes throughout Sweden. The Ruckus MediaFlex systems are being made available to consumers in Sweden through Telenor retail outlets, and can be self-installed by subscribers.


Bredbandsbolaget is a leading provider of broadband services in Sweden with over 450,000 broadband customers. The company operates an all-IP network providing customers with LAN access of up to 100 Mbps and DSL access up to 24 Mbps. It provides a wide range of digital media services such as video on demand, IPTV, music downloads, virtual storage, security services, gaming services, etc. Telenor currently offers standard definition IPTV channels, each with a data rate of approximately 3.5 Mbps. A single Ruckus MediaFlex system can support five or more MPEG-4 standard definition multicast IPTV streams simultaneously being transmitted to different TVs within the home. The Ruckus MediaFlex 802.11g system will also support two HD (MPEG-4) IPTV streams concurrently.
http://www.ruckuswireless.com/http://www.bredbandsbolaget.se

Motorola Introduces Tri-Radio 802.11n Access Poin

Motorola's Enterprise Mobility business introduced a tri-radio 802.11n access point (AP) featuring Motorola's new adaptive AP architecture. The unique tri-radio design integrates three 802.11n radios that simultaneously support high-speed client access, mesh backhaul and dedicated dual-band intrusion protection for enabling the all-wireless enterprise. Using an expansion slot, the third radio can be field upgraded to enable 3G/4G technologies like WiMAX for primary or redundant WAN connectivity.


The AP-7131 also features advanced intrusion protection capabilities. Motorola said traditional solutions time-slice the radio for both access and intrusion protection, limiting 802.11n performance and security capabilities. The new AP-7131 with the third radio eliminates the need for time-slicing or the need for a dedicated sensor AP for security thus reducing the cost of secure and manageable deployments. The AP uses a fully Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS2)-compliant chipset, a fast MIPS network processor with hardware-accelerated encryption and dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.http://www.motorola.com/AP7131