Belden to Acquire Trapeze Networks

Belden agreed to acquire Trapeze Networks, a supplier of WLAN equipment and management software, for $133 million in cash. Wireless extends the reach of Belden's physical-layer cable and connectivity products and enables the company to address the growing mobility needs of customers.


Trapeze Networks, a privately held company based in Pleasanton, California, with 2007 revenues of $56 million, sells its products into healthcare, education, manufacturing, retail, government and other enterprise verticals through OEMs and distribution channels. The Trapeze product portfolio is an end-to-end WLAN system built on a highly scalable and secure wireless operating system running on Trapeze Networks access points and controllers and features the industry's most robust management software capabilities. Trapeze claims more than 4,000 enterprise customers worldwide.http://www.belden.com/http://www.trapezenetworks.com

• Trapeze Networks was founded in March 2002 backed by original investors Accel Partners and Redpoint Ventures. Additional investors have included Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, Nortel, Oak Investment Partners, Castile Ventures, Trautman Wasserman & Co. and C.E. Unterberg Towbin.

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T-Mobile Files Suit Against Starbucks

T-Mobile has filed a lawsuit against Starbucks alleging breach of contract over their partnership to provide Wi-Fi services. According to media sources, T-Mobile's complaint centers on secret planning that Starbucks undertook with AT&T to provide free Internet service at more than 7,000 U.S. Starbucks stores. http:/www.tmobile.comhttp://www.starbucks.com

• In April 2008, AT&T started the rollout of its Wi-Fi service in Starbucks cafes across the U.S. As of May 1, qualifying AT&T high speed Internet and Wi-Fi customers have been offered complimentary Wi-Fi access at more than 7,000 Starbucks locations nationwide as they become available. AT&T customers can connect to the Internet from Wi-Fi enabled company-operated Starbucks locations nationwide by selecting "ATTWiFi" after powering up their computers.

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UK Establishes Code of Practice for ISPs

Ofcom, the official regulator for the UK telecom market, published a new Code of Practice to ensure that internet service providers (ISPs) offer greater clarity over customers' broadband line speeds. The need for such a Code of Practice arises over concern that consumers could be misled or misinformed by ISPs advertising headline speeds that are higher than users can receive in practice. Already, 37 ISPs, representing roughly 80 percent of the broadband market in the UK, have agreed to respect the code.


Ofcom's Code of Practice


Steps that fixed-line ISPs are required to take under the voluntary Code include:

• providing customers at the point of sale with an accurate estimate of the maximum speed that the line can support, whether it is in the shop, over the internet or on the phone;



• resolving technical issues to improve speed and offering customers the choice to move onto a lower speed package when estimates given are inaccurate;



• ensuring all sales and promotion staff have a proper understanding of the products they are selling so they can explain to their customers the meaning of the estimates provided at the point of sale; and



• providing consumers with information on usage limits and alerting customers when they have breached them.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2008/06/nr_20080605

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PCCW Deploys 1xEV-DO Rev. A with Huawei

PCCW, Hong Kong's incumbent telecommunication provider, has selected Huawei to help deploy its CDMA2000 1X/1xEV-DO Rev. A Network. T
Specifically, Huawei will provide its fourth generation CDMA Base Transceiver Station (BTS) solution to help PCCW construct a CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. A network. Huawei's fourth generation BTS features multi-standard convergence, high integration, All-IP, energy conservation & environmental protection. Financial terms were not disclosed.


As of March 2008, Huawei has won 84 EV-DO commercial contracts and has served leading CDMA operators such as China Unicom, Leap in North America, Reliance and TATA in India, and Telkom in Indonesia.http://www.huawei.com

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Ericsson Appoints Head of Networks Business Unit

Ericsson has appointed Johan Wibergh as Senior Vice President and head of its Networks business unit effective July 1, 2008, replacing Kurt Jofs, who has decided to step down and will leave the company at the end of the year.

Johan Wibergh is currently head of Ericsson Brazil. Previously, he was Vice President and head of sales for business unit Global Services during 2004-2005. In June, 2005, he was appointed head of Ericsson in the Nordic and Baltic region.http://www.ericsson.com

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Ciena Posts Revenue of $242 Million, up 25% YoY

Ciena reported second quarter revenue of $242.2 million, representing a 7% sequential increase from fiscal first quarter revenue of $227.4 million, and an increase of 25% over the same period a year ago when Ciena reported revenue of $193.5 million. Ciena's net income (GAAP) for the fiscal second quarter 2008 was $23.8 million, or $0.23 per diluted common share. This compares to fiscal first quarter GAAP net income of $28.8 million, or $0.28 per diluted common share, and a reported GAAP net income of $13.0 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, for the same period a year ago.


"Ciena continues to execute against a business plan and strategy that has driven faster-than-market growth while delivering solid operating margin and net income," said Gary Smith, Ciena's president and CEO. "In a highly competitive market, Ciena differentiates itself with targeted, innovative solutions and our implementation of automated, software-centric networks that power new applications and help our customers realize the economic benefits of a single, converged network infrastructure."http://www.ciena.com

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Dell'Oro: WDM Sales Surpass SONET/SDH for the First Time

Sales of WDM systems surpassed that of SONET/SDH multiplexers for the first time ever in the first quarter of this year, according to a newly published report by Dell'Oro Group. Within the $1.4 billion WDM market, the WDM Metro segment outperformed the DWDM Long Haul segment and grew 47 percent over the year-ago quarter. The report also shows that the WDM Metro market was highly fragmented in the first quarter, with seven vendors accounting for over 80 percent of the market, but with none commanding more than 15 percent revenue share. Cisco was the market leader in the first quarter, followed closely by Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel.


"With Internet traffic growing at such high rates, service providers have to build optical networks that can handle enormous traffic volumes today yet can continue to scale in the immediate future," said Shin Umeda, Vice President of Optical Transport research at Dell'Oro Group.http://www.DellOro.com

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Tiscali Expands its North American Network

Tiscali International Network (TINet), which provides wholesale IP/MPLS services, announced a major expansion of its North American network footprint, targeting new network Points of Presence (PoP) in Toronto, Seattle, Atlanta and Dallas.


The first Canadian PoP to be deployed on the TINet network is at the Switch & Data Facilities at 151 Front Street, in Toronto. Later this month, TINet will establish network presence in Dallas and then in July, Seattle and Atlanta.

http://www.tiscali.net

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Broadcom's Co-Founder Indicted on Federal Drug and Fraud Charges

Henry T. Nicholas III, the co-founder of Broadcom, was indicted on federal narcotics charges that he regularly maintained a supply of ecstasy, cocaine, methamphetamine and other controlled substances for use and distribution. Among other things, the narcotics indictment accuses Nicholas of using ecstasy to spike the drinks of industry executives and employees of Broadcom customers. According to the indictment, over a nine-year period, Nicholas maintained drug-involved premises, specifically homes in Laguna Hills and Newport Coast, a warehouse in Laguna Niguel and a condominium in Las Vegas. The indictment alleges that Nicholas used ecstasy to spike drinks at parties, and supplied prostitutes and escorts he had hired with controlled substances. The four charges in the narcotics indictment carry a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.


Nicholas and William Ruehle, the former chief financial officer of the Irvine-based technology company, also face charges of engaging in a stock-option backdating scheme that forced Broadcom to write-down $2.2 billion in profits. The indictment alleges that the fraudulent backdating of options by Nicholas and Ruehle was done to permit them to reward Broadcom employees, including Ruehle, with favorably priced options while avoiding the reporting of stock-based compensation expenses, which would have reduced Broadcom's earnings, making its stock less attractive to investors.
http://losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel08/la060508usa.htm

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Verizon Targets 20% Energy Efficiency Gain in Telco Gear Starting in 2009

Verizon has established its own series of Telecommunications Equipment Energy Efficiency Ratings for new telecommunications-related equipment with the aim of cutting its carbon footprint.

The standards will be applied to certain broadband, video, data-center, network and customer-premises equipment purchased after Jan. 1, 2009. The target provided to the manufacturers of such equipment is 20 percent greater efficiency than today's gear.


Equipment to be tested and rated includes optical and video transport systems, switches and routers, DSLAM high-speed internet equipment and optical line termination gear, as well as switching power systems, data center servers and power adapters that operate customer equipment.


Verizon said its new requirements incorporate new applications of existing methodologies as outlined in SPECpower_ssj2008TM and the Energy Star programs combined with some innovative Verizon-led concepts and methods of measurement. The concepts and measurement methods have been submitted for consideration by appropriate standards bodies, such as ATIS' Network Interface, Power and Protection Committee (NIPP).


Verizon's new Energy Efficiency Requirements for Telecommunications Equipment are posted online.http://www.verizonnebs.com/

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Verizon FiOS TV to Carry 150 HD Channels

Verizon plans to add more than 60 new channels to its FiOS TV lineup,

including high-definition (HD), sports and multicultural content. Included in the new content will be more than 25 high-definition channels, bringing the total number of HD channels to between 52 and 65, depending on the customer's location.


By year's end, Verizon expects to offer up to 150 HD channels, which will include all available major HD programming. Other Verizon HD choices include hundreds of video-on-demand (VOD) titles per month, with 1,000 HD VOD titles by the end of the year.http://www.verizon.com

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Verizon Wireless to Acquire Alltel for $28.1 billion

Verizon Wireless agreed to acquire Alltel Corporation for $5.9 billion. Based on Alltel's projected net debt at closing of $22.2 billion, the aggregate value of the transaction is $28.1 billion. Both carrier operate CDMA networks and plan future LTE migration. Together, the companies serve over 80 million wireless subscribers.


Alltel serves more than 13 million customers in markets in 34 states. This includes 57 primarily rural markets that Verizon Wireless does not serve. Alltel is currently owned by Atlantis Holdings LLC, an affiliate of private investment firm TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners.


Verizon Wireless expects to realize synergies with a net present value, after integration costs, of more than $9 billion driven by reduced capital and operating expense savings. Synergies are expected to generate incremental cost savings of $1 billion in the second year after closing.


"This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services," said Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and chief executive officer.http://www.alltel.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Enhances Triple Play Architecture with Intelligence, Control, Lots of Queues

Alcatel-Lucent has enhanced its Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (TPSDA) with more capacity, better control and higher scalability for mass-market multimedia services. New capabilities are aimed at providing distributed, fine-grain policy enforcement with centralized policy control to deliver multiple services to subscribers, including managed services such as IPTV and voice as well as unmanaged services such as High Speed Internet (HSI). The goal is to enable per-subscriber, per-service and per-application control in the network for millions of users. The new capabilities being announced promise massive queue scaling -- the equivalent of 19.2M queues per rack! (20k subscribers with 8 queues each per HS-MDA).


With its recent announcement of terabit performance upgrades for the 7450 Ethernet Service Switch and 7750 Service Router, Alcatel-Lucent is extending TPSDA by supporting 2.5 times the capacity in the same footprint without any change to the existing common control modules.


In addition, an expanded portfolio of managed on-line broadband content services can be enabled by fine-grain application assurance, based on Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology and fully integrated within the TPSDA subscriber management system.


Finally, targeted software enhancements, including support for PPPoE termination, provide a smooth, staged migration of legacy HSI services and revenue onto a carrier's strategic triple play consumer broadband network, thereby enabling operators to cap investment in their legacy Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS).


The hardware and software enhancements to the Alcatel-Lucent Service Router Portfolio include:

• IOM3-XP, which provides a 2.5 increase in capacity and density



• Application Assurance-Integrated Services Adaptor (AA-ISA), which enables fine-grain application policy enforcement with per-subscriber resolution



• High-Scale Media Dependent Adaptor (HS-MDA), which sets a new industry benchmark in granular queuing and traffic management -- the equivalent of 19.2 million queues per telecom rack, enabling specific policy and control for each service delivered to a subscriber. More granular queuing enables more fine-grain service control to ensure each service is delivered with the appropriate Quality of Experience (QoE) and uses network resources in the most efficient manner



• Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) tunnel termination, which facilitates the smooth migration of legacy HSI transport networks and their present mode of operation to next-generation TPSDA networks



• 5670 Reporting and Analysis Manager (RAM), which provides extensive tools and capabilities to warehouse, aggregate and process detailed, application-level statistics per-subscriber.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/ipnews

• In March 2008, Alcatel-Lucent unveiled extensive enhancements to its IP service routing portfolio that leverage a new high-performance chipset for packet processing and traffic management. The new silicon boosts performance of the company's 7750 Service Router (SR) and 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS) to terabit performance levels, enabling more speed for mass-market video-based services and applications; more services, including secure IPSec VPNs, Ethernet VPNs and MPLS-based IP VPNs; and more availability, including support for non-stop routing, non-stop services and In-Service Software Upgrades (ISSU).
  
  
  Alcatel-Lucent said its new custom FP2 chipset, which took three years to develop, is capable of sophisticated and optimized network processing and traffic management at speeds up to 100 Gbps. The upgrades to the current products include more than double the density of Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports as well as supporting up to 10 times the number of services per router. The FP2 chipset also provides a path to 100 Gigabit Ethernet. It also enables densities of up to 1,200 Gigabit Ethernet ports per rack, while delivering sophisticated services to each port at line rate.
  
  
  The following enhancements to the Alcatel-Lucent IP/MPLS service router portfolio will be available in Q3 2008:
  
  
  Next Generation Silicon
  
  
  
  • the 100 Gbps FP2 chipset integrates 112 array cores for 95,000 MIPs performance and is implemented in 90nm process technology. The silicon was developed in house.
  
  
  7750 Service Router Platform
  
  
  
  • Up to 1 Tb/s capacity
  
  
  • 50Gb/s (full-duplex) Input/Output Module3-XP (IOM3-XP)
  
  
  • 20-port Gigabit Ethernet MDA-XP (SFP-Fiber)
  
  
  • 20-Port 10/100/1000 Ethernet MDA-XP (Copper)
  
  
  • 2-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet MDA-XP (XFP)
  
  
  • 4-Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet MDA-XP (XFP)
  
  
  • Application Assurance Integrated Services Adaptor (AA-ISA) with DPI technology
  
  
  • IPSec Integrated Services Adaptor (IPSec-ISA)
  
  
  
  7450 Ethernet Service Switch Platform
  
  
  
  • Up to 1 Tb/s capacity
  
  
  • 50Gb/s (full-duplex) IOM3-XP
  
  
  • 20-port Gigabit Ethernet MDA-XP (SFP-Fiber)
  
  
  • 20-Port 10/100/1000 Ethernet MDA-XP (Copper)
  
  
  • 2-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet MDA-XP (XFP)
  
  
  • 4-Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet MDA-XP (XFP)
  
  
  • Application Assurance Integrated Services Adaptor (AA-ISA) with DPI technology
  
  
  Alcatel-Lucent noted that it has shipped more than 20,000 IP/MPLS systems since 2004.

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ECI Telecom and Ceragon Partner on Wireless Backhaul

ECI Telecom and Ceragon Networks announced a partnership to provide a multi-service transport radio solution for carriers. The joint multi-service transport radio combines ECI's XDM and Broad-Gate Multi-Service Provisioning Platforms (MSPP) with Ceragon's FibeAir IP & SDH microwave technology.


The partnership, which strengthens the long-term cooperation between the two market-leading companies, addresses the demand for an end-to-end integrated wireline and wireless backhaul solution, and offers reduced time-to-market, improved manageability and lower integration costs.


The companies said their integrated multi-service transport radio solution provides a complete wireless backhaul solution for today's 2G/3G networks, while allowing for a smooth migration to next-generation all-IP Radio Access Network (RAN) and wireless Ethernet. This migration is supported by Ceragon's Adaptive Modulation and native Ethernet capabilities, and by ECI's Integrated TDM, ATM and IP/MPLS capabilities.http://www.ceragon.comhttp://www.ecitele.com

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ADC Raises 2008 Annual Guidance

adc reported quarterly sales of $403 million up 16% from Q2 2007 and 19% from Q1 2008. Gross margin improved to 36.3% in the quarter compared to 34.5% a year earlier.


"We are very pleased with our second quarter results where we again exceeded our financial and operating targets. The momentum and success we achieved in 2007 has not slowed in the first half of 2008," said Robert E. Switz, president and CEO of ADC. "Our results demonstrate the successful execution of our strategy to position ADC in the high growth segments of fiber-based and wireless communications networks where our customers are investing in the infrastructure that delivers broadband services to business, residential and mobile subscribers."


ADC also raised its financial guidance. The company currently expects its 2008 sales to be in the range of $1.520-$1.540 billion, an increase of 15%-16% compared to 2007. Previous sales guidance was in the range of $1.480-$1.505 billion. Both the current and previous sales guidance include the results of the LGC Wireless and Century Man acquisitions that closed in the first quarter of 2008.http://www.adc.com

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Helio Deploys Foundry's 10GbE MPLS Metro Router

Helio, the U.S. mobile operator backed by SK Telecom,

has selected Foundry Networks' 10GbE NetIron MLX-16 MPLS metro routers and FastIron GS Power over Ethernet (PoE)-ready Layer 2/3 edge switches to power their mobile service over a nationwide high-speed 3G network. Foundry's NetIron MLX-16 routers and FastIron GS switches are being used to deliver and manage the mobile multimedia content that Helio members create, consume and share. Financial terms were not disclosed.http://www.foundrynet.com

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NTT Joins Mobile WiMAX Trial for Taiwan's High-Speed Rail

NTT will join a mobile WiMAX trial serving Taiwan's new High Speed Rail, which has served over 24 million since launching a year ago. The mobile WiMAX trial, which is backed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan.


NTT's specific technical contributions to this project include:

• Design wireless area for intra-car communication so as to provide WLAN access service


• Study inter-car communication and conduct network planning for the cars



• Design the WiMAX connection between high speed THSR trains running at 300 km/h



• Evaluate the radio propagation and communication quality, and investigate improvement methods for the quality while traveling at high speed.

NTT Broadband Platform (NTTBP) has been providing WLAN service aboard Japan's "Tsukuba Express" since 2005.
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http://www.ntt.co.jp

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BroadLight Awarded Key GPON Patent

BroadLight was awarded U.S. patent number 7,370,127,

which enables high-speed interconnect communication in a GPON design. The patent describes internal bus architecture capable of providing high speed inter-connection and inter-communication between modules connected in an integrated circuit. The company said its concept enables non-blocking with virtually unlimited capacity of data traffic between peripherals and processing elements without the penalty of complex backend flow in SoC design.http://www.broadlight.com

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MEF Launches Global Services Directory

The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) has launched an on-line Global Service Directory (GSD) with data on service coverage and availability across the globe.

The Global Service Directory allows enterprise users to pinpoint which service providers are providing what Carrier Ethernet services in locations around the world. The launch phase features 16 of the MEF's 46 service provider members covering Europe, Middle East, Asia-Pacific and the Americas -- with almost a thousand locations where Carrier Ethernet connections are available.http://www.metroethernetforum.org/gsd

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Atheros Provides 802.11n for New AMD Turion X2 Ultra Notebook Platform

Atheros Communications' most compact and power-efficient, single-chip XSPAN 802.11n solutions

are featured in the next-generation AMD notebook platform featuring AMD Turion X2 Ultra Processors. Atheros XSPAN designs will provide wireless connectivity to new notebooks based on this platform. Atheros said its AR9280 dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) 2x2 MIMO and AR9281 single-band (2.4GHz) 1x2 MIMO PCI Express (PCIe) designs integrate the radio, baseband/MAC and host PCIe interface into the industry's smallest 802.11n footprint. Reference designs are available for both PCIe half-Mini Card and full-Mini Card form factors.


The AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile processor includes top enhancements including AMD Independent Dynamic Core Technology, a new mobile-optimized memory controller, and power-optimized HyperTransport 3.0. The new mobile AMD 7-series chipset, AMD M780G and AMD SB700, features integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics and delivers support for Microsoft DirectX 10. The integrated graphics deliver up to three times the 3D graphics performance of comparable competitor graphics, according to AMD.http://www.atheros.com

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