Sonus Announces 10% Workforce Reduction

Sonus Networks announced plans to cut its workforce by approximately 93 people, or 10% of employees worldwide. The company expects to incur restructuring charges for severance and related costs of approximately $1.4 million to $1.9 million on a pre-tax basis in the third quarter of fiscal 2009 in connection with this action and anticipates annual compensation-related cash savings of approximately $9.4 million to $10.3 million as a result of this restructuring initiative.


"This is the final phase of the restructuring initiative we began at the end of last year with the goal of re-aligning our business to market needs and opportunities," commented Richard Nottenburg, president and chief executive officer of Sonus Networks.
http://www.sonusnet.com

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Verizon Offers Security for Health Care Industry

Verizon announced two new capabilities designed to help safeguard the growing exchange of electronic patient data between hospitals, clinics, physicians, insurers and patients.


The first offering, Verizon Security Management Program-Health Care (SMP-H), enables health care organizations to proactively assess the strength of security measures and practices. It also helps organizations, through an easy-to-use online dashboard, track security efforts against federal and industry-specific security guidelines, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS).

The second new offering is a suite of IT consulting services that help health care providers design and implement safe security practices for sharing information and storing data. The new consulting capabilities include assessment, review, validation and certification services based on the Common Security Framework, a set of industry security standards developed by the Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST). The alliance is a consortium of health care, business, technology and information security organizations created to spur the electronic flow of information throughout the health care system.
http://www.verizonbusiness.com/

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Alcatel-Lucent Appoints Ken Wirth as President, 4G/LTE Wireless Networks

Alcatel-Lucent has appointed Ken Wirth as President of 4G/LTE Wireless Networks. He replaces Mary Chan who has decided to leave the company to pursue opportunities outside of the telecom network infrastructure segment.

"LTE is a cornerstone of Alcatel-Lucent's strategy and as our customers take different evolutionary paths to 4G, I'm confident that Ken's strong customer relationships as well as his management, operations and leadership experience are the right combination of skills to further strengthen our leadership in delivering comprehensive business, technical and operational solutions for our customers," said Ben Verwaayen, Alcatel-Lucent's CEO.
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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ILS Proton Successfully Launches AsiaSat 5 Satellite

A new AsiaSat 5 satellite was successfully launched into orbit on an ILS Proton from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on behalf of Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat) of Hong Kong.

Built by Space Systems/Loral, AsiaSat 5 will replace AsiaSat 2 at the orbital location of 100.5 degrees East. This new satellite with an enhanced pan Asian C-band footprint and high-power Ku-band beams over East Asia, South Asia, and an in-orbit steerable Ku beam, will provide advanced satellite services including television broadcast, telephone networks and VSAT networks for broadband multimedia services across the Asia Pacific. The satellite is based on the Space Systems/Loral 1300 platform, designed for a lifespan of 15 years. http://www.ilslaunch.com

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Dell'Oro: Ethernet Switch Market Rebounds in Q2

Growth in the Ethernet Switch market during the second quarter of this year was driven by North America, where port shipments grew by roughly 20 percent sequentially, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. The report also shows that 10 Gigabit Ethernet experienced the most robust growth during the quarter, with blade switches designed for the blade server market helping drive this segment. Vendors such as Cisco, Blade, Dell and HP all have Ethernet Switch offerings in this segment.


"Most vendors experienced robust growth in North America during the quarter," said Alan Weckel, Director of Ethernet Switch Market Research at Dell'Oro Group. "Despite significant growth over the past few years from emerging markets, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, the Ethernet Switch market is still dominated by North America that accounts for almost 40 percent of port shipments and over half of the total market revenue," Weckel added.
http://www.DellOro.com

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Hibernia Atlantic Implements Native 40 Gbps Wavelengths

Hibernia Atlantic has begun offering native, 40 Gbps wavelength (WL) capacity across the Atlantic Ocean, without the need for external equipment. The upgrade has boosted the potential capacity of the Atlantic system to 10.16Tbps.


Hibernia Atlantic's first-to-market offering is in response to its North American customers' demand for greater bandwidth capacity, stemming from the precipitous rise in deployment of next-generation services, such as streaming video, IP multimedia and web conferencing. Additionally, financial exchanges and media houses need secure and high-performance capacity to ensure they are meeting their industries' critical network requirements.
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com

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Qualcomm Disputes Japanese Fair Trade Complaint

Qualcomm has received and reviewed a full translation of the draft order from the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), which asserts that Qualcomm's Japanese licensees were forced to cross license patents to Qualcomm on a royalty-free basis and were forced to accept a provision under which licensees agreed not to assert their essential patents against each other. The draft order seeks to require Qualcomm to modify existing licenses with Japanese companies to eliminate these provisions while preserving the license of Qualcomm's patents to the Japanese companies. If Qualcomm were to eliminate these provisions as contemplated by the draft order, there is a risk that some Japanese licensees may attempt to assert their previously licensed patents against Qualcomm, its customers and its licensees.


Qualcomm said it disputes the notion that any provisions in its license agreements with Japanese companies were forced upon them. The company will submit a written response opposing the draft order within the next two weeks.
http://www.qualcomm.com

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Nortel's 40G Tested on Southern Cross Submarine Cable

Nortel's 40G optical transmission technology has been tested on the ultra-long haul Southern Cross Cable systems. The Southern Cross network provides the major link for Internet traffic from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji to the US, as well as linking Hawaii to the US mainland. Nortel said the trial paves the way for a more cost-effective means for upgrading submarine networks around the world.


The first trial was conducted over a 4,200km submarine segment between California and Hawaii. The second even more demanding trial was conducted over Southern Cross' longest route, 8000km between Auckland, New Zealand and Hawaii. On both the trials Nortel equipment was simply added to both ends of the third-party submarine cable, with Nortel able to demonstrate the ability to provide over four times the bandwidth capacity without the need to replace or upgrade the submarine cable or undersea repeaters.


For shorter networks up to 450km, Nortel is working with  MPB Communications to enable carriers to upgrade their networks to 40G speeds without the need to deploy costly optical signal amplifiers - also called repeaters - along the sea floor. Unrepeatered submarine solutions are built without undersea amplification, which effectively eliminates the cost of repeaters and electrical power. Extending the reach and capacity of unrepeatered solutions provides network operators with significant CAPEX and OPEX savings.  Using powerful amplification equipment from MPB Communications paired with Nortel's  40G Adaptive Optical Engine , service providers can now deploy these "unrepeatered" undersea links at a fraction of the cost of traditional submarine networks that use powered underwater equipment.


In instances where a submarine link is required for longer distances, Nortel's 40G solution can be used with underwater repeaters. Since 2008, Nortel's existing 40G coherent solution with Dual Polarization Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (DP QPSK) modulation has been deployed over underwater distances of 4,000km. Ultra-long distance connections of 9,000km are now possible through Nortel's recent development of a 40G Ultra Long Haul solution which employs coherent Dual Polarization Binary Phase Shift Keying (DP BPSK) technology that can more than double the distance that 40G traffic can travel.


Nortel also noted that it now has 49 wins to date for its 40G solution.
http://www.nortel.com
http://www.southerncrosscables.com

• In 2008, Southern Cross upgraded its terrestrial optical network across the US West Coast with Nortel's 40G technology.

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EZchip Samples NPA Network Processors for Carrier Access

EZchip Semiconductor has begun sampling its new NPA family of network processors targeting Ethernet access applications. Several models of the NPA network processors are offered with combinations of 1-Gigabit and 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports, at an aggregate throughput of 10-Gigabits, with power dissipation ranging from 6 to 10 Watts and at varying price points starting at under $100.

The NPA is a scaled-down of EZchip's high-speed network processors (NPUs) and is designed for Carrier Ethernet access applications.

It is software compatible with EZchip's high-speed network processors, ensuring a common architecture and an easy path to reuse designs across edge, metro and access systems. To complement the NPA, EZchip will soon make available to its customers production-level code for a variety of applications, which will help them expedite their products' time-to-market and simplify their development efforts.
Http://www.ezchip.com/p_npa.htm

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Alloptic Signs Distribution Deal with TVC Communications

Alloptic, which supplies RFoG (RF over Glass) and passive optical networking (PON) solutions, announced a distribution deal with TVC Communications, a value added distributor serving the broadband telecommunications and cable industries. Under the agreement TVC will provide Alloptic equipment to cable and broadband customers in the US and Canada. The agreement encompasses the entire Alloptic product portfolio, including EPON/GEPON systems along with its industry-leading RFoG products.


http://www.alloptic.com
http://www.tvcinc.com

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DISH Network Announces $1 Billion Debt Offering

DISH Network Corporation plans to offer approximately $1 billion aggregate principal amount of debt securities. The net proceeds of the offering are intended to be used for general corporate purposes.
http://www.dishnetwork.com

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Google Joins National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) Board

Google has joined the National Cyber Security Alliance's (NCSA) board of directors. Eric Davis, head of anti-malvertising, will hold Google's board of director seat.
The NCSA is a nonprofit public private partnership that brings together government, corporate, nonprofit and academic organizations to conduct public education and awareness efforts to empower a digital citizenry to use the Internet safely and securely by protecting the computers and networks they use.

The NCSA board of directors also includes executives from Cisco, McAfee, Microsoft, EMC, SAIC and Symantec.


In addition, the NCSA has launched a Web portal to encourage broad-based participation in its education and awareness activities this year.
"The theme of National Cyber Security Awareness Month this year is "Our Shared Responsibility," said Michael Kaiser, executive director of the NCSA. "We can only secure cyber space if everyone gets involved in making sure that all computer users engage in safe and secure practices to protect the computers and networks they use. October is a rallying point for everyone to get involved in educating their employees, customers, students, neighbors, friends, and family."
http://www.staysafeonline.orghttp://www.google.com

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Motorola Takes its LTE Tour to Sweden

Motorola has taken its "LTE drive tour" to Kista, Sweden, where it is demonstrating the next generation wireless broadband technology to operators from across Scandinavia. During the drive tour, visitors will witness mobile broadband performance as well as rich media experiences on the move in an urban environment via an LTE-enabled van. The demonstration will also include hand-over between sectors and a number of demanding, bandwidth hungry video applications running over LTE - including for the first time live TV over LTE. The LTE network, which includes two Motorola LTE eNodeBs running on commercial hardware, is operating at 2.6GHz and is integrated with Motorola's backhaul and evolved packet core (EPC) products. It was deployed and optimized in just 10 days.
http://www.motorola.com/experiencelte

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ShoreTel Posts 5% Annual Growth

ShoreTel reported quarterly revenue of $32.4 million, an increase of 4 percent over the previous quarter. GAAP gross margin was 63.3 percent and the GAAP net loss was $(0.7) million, or $(0.02) per share.


For its fiscal year 2009, Shoretel's revenue reached a company record at $134.8 million, an increase of 5 percent compared to fiscal year 2008 revenue of $128.7 million. GAAP net loss for the fiscal year was $(11.8) million, or $(0.27) per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $2.6 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, in fiscal year 2008.


The company added nearly 3,000 customers during the year, including AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, and the Verizon Center, home of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals. The company has now sold to nearly 11,000 customers worldwide and has granted user licenses to more than 1 million end users.


"Very few technology companies have been able to grow revenue during what is arguably the worst economy since the Great Depression. Our annual revenue growth of 5 percent clearly demonstrates ShoreTel's ability to sustain growth despite the weak economic environment," said John W. Combs, chief executive officer of ShoreTel. "Other positive indicators in the fourth quarter included a substantial increase in order volume, our newly announced agreement with IBM, our ability to achieve the highest levels of customer satisfaction in ShoreTel's history while at the same time efficiently cutting cost out of our business, and most importantly, the expansion of our distribution channel with the addition of two new telecommunications carriers. With these new additions, ShoreTel products and services are now being sold by all of the top three U.S. wireline telecommunications providers."http://www.shoretel.com

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Verizon's FiOS TV Adds Remote DVR Features

Verizon is making two advanced FiOS TV Home Media DVR features available at no additional charge to all FiOS TV DVR users who also subscribe to FiOS Internet. One of the features, FiOS Media Manager, gives DVR users advanced PC-to-TV features that allow them to play on their big-screen entertainment systems personal videos, photos or music stored on a computer. Specifically, Media Manager lets users wirelessly stream personal photos, music and videos from their computer to their TV screens, plus search and enjoy online videos from blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh on their TV.

A second feature lets DVR subscribers use any Internet-enabled cell phone to remotely manage their recorders, including reviewing, changing or adding recording requests; deleting recorded programs; browsing and searching TV and video-on-demand listings; setting parental controls; etc.
http://www.verizon.com

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Hutchison Telecom Releases Q2 Performance Indicators

Hutchison Telecommunications International reported key performance indicators for the second quarter of 2009. The Group's total customer base increased 36.5% to approximately 11.6 million on a like-for-like basis compared with last year, with the net gain mostly contributed by its Indonesian operation.


In Indonesia, the customer base grew to 6.4 million with a record 1.1 million net additions during the quarter. The network now has over 7,300 sites and is on track to reach 9,000 base stations on-air with a population coverage of over 75% by the end of 2009.


The Israeli operation maintained its 3G customer growth momentum which drove the 3G customer base to over 1.1 million.


Hutchinson's operation in Vietnam successfully launched GSM service under the brand name Vietnamobile and started the second quarter with customer acquisitions of approximately 624,000.


The Vietnamese operation increased the number of base stations on-air to approximately 1,500 and is on track to take it to 3,000 by the end of the year. The operation acquired approximately 624,000 customers mostly in the prepaid segment. ARPU was at VND68,000 and MOU were initially high at 221 minutes due to short term promotions that allowed a high volume of on-net minutes. To date, over 1,800 base stations are on-air with 65% population coverage.


In Sri Lanka, operations were severely hampered by adverse economic conditions and fierce competition. Customers declined significantly and the operation turned from EBITDA positive in the same period last year into a loss of HK$39 million for the first six months of 2009. The operation's customer base at the end of the quarter stood at 536,000 and will continue its network expansion to reach 800 sites and population coverage to 65% by the end of 2009.


In Thailand, Hutchinson remains in discussion about a potential exit for its Thailand operation with CAT Telecom Public Company Limited and has decided to exclude the KPIs of its Thailand operation in the quarterly announcement starting from this quarter.


The Group successfully spun off its Hong Kong and Macau operations in May 2009 to release value for shareholders. The combined share price of the two listed companies was over 50% higher than that of the share price of Hutchison Telecom on the day of the spin-off announcement.
http://www.htil.com

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Hutchison Telecom to Sell its Stake in Israel's Partner Comm.

Hutchison Telecommunications will sell its entire 51.3% equity interest in Partner Communications, a mobile operator in Israel operating under the Orange brand, to Scailex Corporation Ltd., an Israeli company listed in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, for approximately US$1,381 million or HK$10,706 million. The purchase price is comprised of cash of approximately US$1,081 million or HK$8,381 million and a secured debt instrument of US$300 million (approximately HK$2,325 million).

Canning Fok, Chairman of Hutchison Telecom said: "This transaction brings to realization the significant value that we have created in Israel. We are proud to have built Partner into a respected and valuable company and we believe this is the right time to monetize the gain from our investment for the benefit of the Company and its shareholders. I thank the management team and all the staff at Partner for their dedication and hard work throughout."

Going forward, Hutchison Telecom said it will pursue a strategy of becoming a leading mobile operator in emerging markets and focusing on developing its existing operations in Indonesia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.
http://www.htil.com

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ECI Telecom Ships XDM-3000 Core MSPP

ECI Telecom has begun commercial shipments of its new XDM-3000, an MSPP platform featuring 240 Gbps capacity that can be used as a Multi-ADM-16/64 and DXC. The new platform, which doubles the capacity of the widely-deploy XDM-1000, could be used to relieve traffic bottlenecks in congested nodes of existing networks.


The XDM-3000 offers a fan-out with 24 slots for service cards and combines TDM and carrier class Ethernet services. It offers full switching capability at the VC-12 level, along with advanced MPLS and ASON/GMPLS capabilities. It could be deployed in mesh, ring, multi-ring, star, and point-to-point topologies.

Synterra, a carrier's carrier, is upgrading its core backbone infrastructure nodes in several cities across Russia using the new XDM-3000. The company estimates that the new multi-service equipment will allow Synterra to optimize its network, and realize savings of more than 30% in the modernization of its network.
http://www.ecitele.com
http://www.synterra.ru

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Cable&Wireless Announces Roadmap for Global Ethernet Services

Cable&Wireless Worldwide announced the extension of its suite of Ethernet Services across 31 sites in Asia, India, Europe and the US. Its first global Ethernet service will be an International Ethernet Private Line (IEPL) offering for enterprises and carrier customers. The service will deliver point to point Ethernet connectivity, at speeds up to 1Gbps, enabling businesses to connect disparate computing environments globally, through transparent connections between LANs.

Cable&Wireless said it plans to extend its Ethernet Wireline and Ethernet VPN services globally over the next few months to further enhance the network services it delivers over its next-generation multi-service platform (MSP). The company has invested more than US$200 million across Asia in the last two years and now offers a range of managed network services to enterprises including managed video conferencing, managed IP-voice services, and application performance management services.

Cable&Wireless operates a fully meshed global Core Director Transmission network - based on a Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) backbone. The Core Director network is a self-healing transport infrastructure linking major cities in Europe, US, Asia and Africa, providing speeds of up to 1Gbps.
http://www.cw.com

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Teranetics Announces New CEO

Teranetics, a start-up offering 10GBASE-T physical layer solutions enabling higher speed Ethernet over-copper, named Dr. Nersi Nazari as President and CEO.

Dr. Nazari served in R&D positions at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Seagate Technology, prior to joining GEC Plessey Semiconductor as Chief Technologist in 1994. He joined Marvell Semiconductor in 1997 as the founding VP of Signal Processing Technology. At Marvell, he introduced the company's first Trellis Coded Modulation-based read channel chip, the first SOC solution as well as the industry's first sub-two Watt 1000Base-T Gigabit Ethernet chip.


Teranetics was founded in 2003 and develops 10GBASE-T Phys for structured-copper-cabling environments. The company is based in San Jose, California.
http://www.teranetics.com

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