Telstra International Deploys Infinera's 40 Gbps DTN to Undersea Cable

Telstra International has deployed Infinera’s 40 Gbps DTN solution for its optical subsea network in Asia. The deployment spans approximately 9,000 kilometers between Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Infinera’s DTN platform enables service providers to upgrade existing submarine cables with coherent 40 Gbps waves supporting FlexCoherent. The Infinera solution is upgradable in the future to 100 Gbps FlexCoherent, including Soft Decision Forward Error Correction, which will deliver 7.3 terabits per second (Tbps) of capacity over Telstra’s Reach North Asia Loop (RNAL) fiber plant.


Infinera noted that Telstra has now become its 100th customer.


"This is an exciting announcement for us,�? said Tom Fallon, Infinera’s CEO. “We are pleased to announce Telstra International as our first named 40 Gbps customer and Infinera’s 100th customer since shipping our market leading solutions in 2004. Leading global providers, like Telstra, trust us to deliver solutions that are simple, scalable and efficient to meet the needs of their customers. For Telstra’s subsea network, Infinera’s 40 Gbps solution delivers just that."http://www.infinera.com

Read More

ADTRAN Selected for Broadband Stimulus Project in Missouri

Socket Telecom, a Missouri-based CLEC and Internet provider with the largest service area in the state, has deployed ADTRAN's Total Access 5000 broadband platform for its FTTH Broadband Stimulus project. Socket Telecom is utilizing the Total Access system to deploy high speed data services, voice and video to several underserved markets in central Missouri.
http://www.adtran.com
http://www.socket.net

• Last year, Socket was awarded $23.7 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to build a fiber-optic network in rural Callaway County and parts of Fulton, Mo. The funding consisted of a $16.6 million grant
  and a $7.1 million loan.

Read More

Orange Supplies 132-Site IP VPN for Aggreko

Orange Business Services announced a 36-month contract extension and renewal with Aggreko, the world leader in the provision of temporary power and temperature control services. Orange is providing managed IP VPN services to 132 sites in 31 countries, particularly in emerging markets – including nine South American countries, as well as China and India. Orange supports Aggreko’s core business applications, including ERP, Business Intelligence, financial and billing systems as well as new and planned telephony services such as video conferencing and IP Telephony, which will enable enhanced collaboration across Aggreko’s group-wide offices.
http://www.orange.com

Read More

IEEE Enhances 802.22 White spaces Spec

The IEEE P802.22b Amendment Project for Enhanced Broadband Services and Monitoring Applications has officially been approved. The new amendment enhances the IEEE 802.22-2011 standard to accommodate a wide variety of applications using cognitive radio technology in Television White Spaces (TVWS). These applications include long range and regional area smart grid, critical infrastructure monitoring, triple play services like providing voice, video and data, backhaul for broadband access, offloading cellular telephony traffic, regional area public safety and homeland security networks, emergency broadband services, monitoring rain forests, monitoring livestock, and border protection etc.


Additional information on this amendment PAR can be found on the IEEE 802.22 WG webpage.
http://www.ieee.orghttp://www.ieee802.org/22

• In July 2011, The IEEE published the 802.22 standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs) using the favorable transmission characteristics of the VHF and UHF TV bands. 802.22 enables broadband wireless access over a large area up to 100 km from the transmitter. The standard specifies up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with reception of existing TV broadcast stations, using the so-called white spaces between the occupied TV channels.
  
  
  IEEE 802.22 incorporates advanced cognitive radio capabilities including dynamic spectrum access, incumbent database access, accurate geolocation techniques, spectrum sensing, regulatory domain dependent policies, spectrum etiquette, and coexistence for optimal use of the available spectrum.

Read More

MTN Nigeria Picks ZTE to Build 2G/3G Networks

ZTE announced a contract with the MTN Nigeria to build GSM/UMTS networks in Nigeria. The deployment covers two of the country’s most economically developed regions (including 8 states) by providing its ZTE's SDR-based Uni-RAN solution. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.zte.com.cn

Read More

Hong Kong's PCCW Implements Huawei's 3GPP R8 Signaling Optimization

Hong Kong's PCCW mobile has adopted Huawei's 3GPP-Release-8 (3GPP-R8)-based smartphone signaling optimization solution to increase the performance of its UMTS network.


The preponderance of smartphones with "heartbeat" applications, which frequently transmit small data packets, along with smartphones' frequent changes from active to idle mode create high signaling traffic.


A joint effort between Huawei and PCCW mobile during the past few months has delivered a solution that optimizes smartphone signaling behavior. Huawei said live network statistics have shown that the solution reduces by over 25% of redundant signaling load from PCCW mobile's 3GPP-R8 smartphone signaling process while significantly enhancing network performance and improving mobile broadband connectivity.


Mr. Adam Wong, Head of Engineering, Wireless Business of HKT, said, "We really appreciate Huawei's solution. Signaling traffic produced by smartphones brings real pressure to networks. With this smartphone signaling optimization solution, networks can bring customers a much better experience."


Mr. Ying Weimin, President of GSM&UMTS<E wireless networks, Huawei, said, "It took several months for Huawei and PCCW mobile to finish the testing of our signaling solution on existing networks. The high performance of this solution shows that Huawei is capable of innovation to help customers succeed."http://www.huawei.com

Read More

BT Tests Cable Tracking Technology to Deter Thieves

In an effort to deter copper theft, BT has been testing a tracking technology that can detect when a cable has been cut or damaged, accurately pin-pointing an incident to a road or street.


RABIT (Rapid Assessment Bt Incident Tracker), which was trialled in December 2011, alerts BT’s Security Control Centre and Police response teams when a cut is detected. The system has already forced cable thieves to flee the scene of the crime in Essex.


BT noted that the numbers of arrests related to cable theft are continuing to rise, with the average number of arrests per month up nearly eight per cent on last year. In the last 11 months the number of arrests has reached more than 480, already more than the 446 arrests in 2010. It is estimated that around 80% of BT’s cable theft is carried out by organised crime gangs. BT recovered 240 tonnes of stolen metal in the past eleven months, as a result of visits to scrap metal dealers and working with Police forces on targeted operations and national metal theft days of action. http://www.btplc.com

• In 2010, BT's Openreach division introduced an invisible, "SmartWater" forensic ink in its cabling across the UK as a deterrence to metal thieves. BT's Metal Theft Taskforce is using the SmartWater as a means to tag anyone tampering with its lines. SmartWater is a forensic marking liquid that is unique to a particular location. It will be used to mark the outer shell and inner core of Openreach cable, along with tools and other equipment. This will allow police to irrefutably identify where any stolen items have come from. Any thieves who target Openreach property face being sprayed with the liquid.
  
  
  BT and the British Transport Police the system, which is also interconnected with GPS, will be used in hot-spot areas to capture criminals red-handed.

Read More

Level 3 Provides Low-Latency for FXCM Currency Trading

Level 3 Communications will deliver bandwidth connectivity to FXCM, a global online provider of foreign exchange trading and related services. Level 3 said it was selected to optimize the security, reliability and performance of FXCM's trading applications. Level 3's Ethernet private line (EPL) service will interconnect FXCM's headquarters in New York with remote data centers to ensure efficient, redundant access to its trading applications. Additionally, FXCM will use Level 3's MPLS service for global data center connectivity and high speed Internet protocol (HSIP) service to improve online efficiency for its global customer base.
http://www.level3.com

Read More

AT&T Offers Nokia Lumia 900 LTE SmartPhone for $99 + Contract

AT&T will begin offering the Nokia Lumia 900 LTE Windows Phone on April 8 for $99.99 with a new 2-yr wireless agreement with voice (min $39.99/mo) and min monthly data plan ($20/mo).


The Nokia Lumia 900 boasts a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display and is powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8055 + MDM9200. It runs Windows Phone Release 7.5 – Mango Commercial Release 2 (Mango + LTE). Its 8 megapixel camera includes Nokia's exclusive Carl Zeiss optics, with large aperture (F2.2) and wide angle focal length (28mm).


This will be AT&T's first LTE-enabled Windows Phone.
http://www.att.com

Read More

Oclaro and Opnext Merger Brings Great Consolidation to Optical Components

Oclaro and Opnext agreed to a merger, creating a leader in key components for core optical networking for long-haul, regional and metro DWDM, and positioned to become a leader in data communications for enterprises and
data centers, as well as industrial and consumer laser diodes market. The merger brings trans formative consolidation to the optical components market.


The deal is structured as a stock-for-stock tax-free exchange at fixed exchange ratio of 0.42x, with an implied pro forma ownership of 42% for Opnext and 58% for Oclaro.


The companies said their product sets are highly complementary with minimal overlap, and as a result there should be minimal changes to the existing portfolio.


Oclaro was formed in 2009 through the merger of Bookham and Avanex Corporation, both suppliers of optical networking components. Its product set includes tunable lasers, modulators, dispersion compensation components, wavelength selective switches, modules and sub-systems. In mid-2009, the company acquired the Newport Spectra Physics high power laser diodes business.


Opnext was established in September 2000 from the spinoff of Hitachi's Fiber Optic Components Business Unit. The new company was funded by the Clarity Group and Marubeni Group. The Opnext product line includes transceivers, pluggable modules (XENPAK, X2/XPAK, XFP, SFP+, SFP), TOSA/ROSA, and communications laser diodes and photodiodes; 40G muxponders, transponders, regenerators, tunable dispersion compensators, PMD compensators, and shelf controllers; and red laser diodes and infrared laser diodes.


Financially, the merger is expected to have a positive impact on gross margins and on operating margin. Both companies have been moving to an outsourcing model. Oclaro recently signed a definitive agreement to transition its internal assembly and test to Venture in Malaysia. On a non-flood basis, about 30% to 35% of Oclaro’s, and about 40% to 45% of Opnext’s assembly and test are with Fabrinet.


"This merger clearly will be a unique and transformational opportunity for both Oclaro and Opnext," said Alain Couder, chairman and CEO, Oclaro. "Our respective customers want to work with fewer, more strategic suppliers who can deliver the breadth of technologies they need. Through this merger, the companies' complementary and vertically-integrated product portfolios, scale, and heritage of technology innovation will put the merged company in that valued strategic partner and leadership role. By doing so, and at the same time saving significant costs, we also expect to generate substantially more long-term value for shareholders than either company could deliver alone."


Upon closing, the combined company will be led by Alain Couder, who will serve as chairman and CEO, and Harry Bosco will join the board of directors.
http://www.oclaro.com
http://www.opnext.com

Read More

Australia's NBN Awards A$300 Million for Tasmanian Construction

Visionstream Australia, part of the Leighton Holdings Limited group of companies, has been awarded a contract valued at up to A$300 million over four years by Australia's National Broadband Network. Under the contract, Visionstream will replace copper telephone lines with fibre optic lines in cities, towns and suburbs covering around 200,000 homes and businesses across Tasmania. The contract is expected to see the creation of up to 800 new jobs at the peak of the rollout


Plans have already been announced to roll the NBN out to 91,300 Tasmanian homes and businesses. Of these, the NBN is currently being rolled out to an area covering 11,300 premises in the state. The network is already up and running in an area covering 4000 premises in Smithton, Scottsdale and Midway Point of which close to 700 are using NBN services.
http://www.nbnco.com.au

Read More

Australia's NBN Bars Huawei

Australia’s National Broadband Network reportedly has barred Huawei Technologies from bidding on elements of the project on national security grounds. The Australian and other news sources reported cited government concerns about cyber attacks emanating from the China.
http://www.nbnco.com.au

Read More

Nokia Siemens Networks Announces Agreement with Union

Nokia Siemens Networks announced an agreement with IG Metall Trade Union under which the company would remain a major employer in Munich. The agreement, proposed by IG Metall, call for approximately 2,000 jobs to remain in Munich, while the St.-Martin-Strasse site, which currently hosts 3,600 employees, would be closed as initially planned.


Nokia Siemens Networks is prepared to accept the IG Metall proposal if a significant majority of the approximately 1,600 positions planned to be reduced in Munich agree to join an interim employment company before the end of April 2012.
http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

• In November 2011, Nokia Siemens Networks announced a worldwide restructuring plan involving a reduction of 17,000 positions.



• In late January 2012, Nokia Siemens Networks made known its intention to cut approximately 2,900 of its then approximately 9,100 jobs in Germany.

Read More

CenturyLink to Adopt New Operating Group Structure

CenturyLink announced a corporate restructuring under which it will consolidate its organizations focused on its business and government customer segments into two organizations. National and international Business Markets Group (BMG) customers, all Savvis customers and federal government customers will now be served by the Enterprise Markets Group (EMG). In-region large business customers and state and local government customers will be served by the existing Regional Markets Group (RMG). The Wholesale Markets Group (WMG) will remain in its current form.
http://www.centurylink.com

Read More

FCC and ISPs Adopt Three Cyber Security Recommendations

The FCC and the nation's largest ISPs agreed to voluntarily adopt recommendations that address three top cyber-security concerns: attacks on the Domain Name System (DNS), and Internet route
hijacking.


The FCC's Communications, Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), which unanimously approved the recommendations, includes AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile, Verizon, among others.


Specifically, the advisory committee endorsed industry-based recommendations in each of
these three areas,


Anti-Bot Code of Conduct -- To reduce the threat of botnets in residential networks, CSRIC recommended a voluntary U.S. Anti-Bot Code of Conduct for Internet Service Providers (Anti-Bot Code). Under the Anti-Bot Code, ISPs agree to educate consumers about the botnet threat, take steps to detect botnet activity on their networks, make consumers aware of botnet infections on their computers, offer assistance to consumers whose computers are infected and collaborate with other service providers that have also adopted the Anti-Bot Code.


DNS Best Practices -- CSRIC recommended that ISPs implement best practices to better secure the Domain Name System by using DNSSEC, a set of secure protocol extensions that prevent such fraudulent activity. This recommendation is a significant first step toward full DNSSEC implementation by ISPs and will allow users, with software applications like browsers, to validate that the destination they are trying to reach is authentic and not a spoofed website.


IP Route Hijacking Industry Framework -- CSRIC recommended an industry framework to prevent Internet route hijacking, which is the erroneous routing of Internet traffic through potentially untrustworthy networks. CSRIC recommended that ISPs work to implement new technologies and practices to reduce the number of these events, thereby ensuring that users in the U.S. can be more confident that their Internet traffic will not be exposed to scrutiny by other networks, foreign or domestic, through misrouting.
http://www.fcc.gov

Read More

EXFO Cites Momentum for Its FTB-880 NetBlazer

EXFO announced today that since the launch of the FTB-880 NetBlazer eight months ago, 10 of the world's 15 largest operators have chosen this modular multiservice tester for their deployments. The flagship FTB-880 is a portable multiservice test module designed for all DSn/PDH, SONET/SDH and Ethernet packet-based services transmitted at various rates, from low speeds up to 10G. http://www.exfo.com

Read More

NTT DOCOMO Tops 2 Million LTE Subscribers

NTT DOCOMO has passed the 2 million subscriber milestone for its Xi (pronounced "crossy") LTE mobile service.


Xi launched on December 24, 2010 and reached one million subscribers one year later on December 25, 2011. Since then, subscriptions have doubled to two million in just three months, propelled by the introduction of the first Xi-compatible smartphones in November 2011.

In the coming months, DOCOMO plans to introduce additional Xi-compatible smartphones, tablets and data-communication devices and mobile Wi-Fi routers, as well as beneficial services, such as Xi Talk 24, which enables free, unlimited voice calls between DOCOMO users of Xi-compatible smartphones.


http://www.ntt.co.jp

Read More

AT&T Links T-Mobile USA Layoffs to Failed Merger Bid

AT&T issued a statement linking T-Mobile USA's recent decision to close seven call centers to the regulatory policy that blocked its proposed acquisition of the carrier.


“Yesterday, T-Mobile made the sad announcement that it would be closing seven call centers, laying off thousands of workers, and that more layoff announcements may follow. Normally, we’d not comment on something like this. But I feel this is an exception for one big reason– only a few months ago AT&T promised to preserve these very same call centers and jobs if our merger was approved. We also predicted that if the merger failed, T-Mobile would be forced into major layoffs.


“At that time, the current FCC not only rejected our pledges and predictions, they also questioned our credibility. The FCC argued that the merger would cost jobs, not preserve them, and that rejecting it would save jobs. In short, the FCC said they were right, we were wrong, and did so in an aggressive and adamant way.

“Rarely are a regulatory agency’s predictive judgments proven so wrong so fast. But for the government’s decision, centers now being closed would be staying open, workers now facing layoffs would have job guarantees, and communities facing turmoil would have security. Only a few months later, the truth of who was right is sadly obvious..." stated Jim Cicconi, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External and Legislative Affairs.http://attpublicpolicy.com

Read More

Orange Charts its 4G Rollout

Orange outlined plans to rollout LTE in its home market of France. An upgrade to HSPA+ has been undertaken in recent months.


In September 2011, ARCEP, the office telecoms regulator in France, awarded LTE licences to four operators to use the 2.6 GHz frequency band. Orange France won a duplex frequency block of 20 MHz, for which the company bid the sum of €287,118,501. The company also holds 800 MHz spectrum. Orange said this position will enable it to deliver rates of up to 150 Mbps downlink.


Marseille has been selected as the first Orange 4G pilot city. After the experimental deployment of 4G in a number of areas of the city, other cities will follow. Orange will be deploying its H+ technology and testing its 4G network in Marseille and the surrounding region with Alcatel-Lucent.


Meanwhile, Orange has tripled the speed of its 3G+ network by upgrading HSPA+ for downlinks of up to 42 Mbps.
More than 50 % of the population has been covered by this new technology since 24 November 2011, including 40 major urban centres such as Paris, Chambéry, Clermont Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Lens, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Nice, Saint-Etienne, Toulon, Marseille, Montpellier and Perpignan.


By end 2012, Orange HSPA+ coverage this coverage is exptected to reach 60% of the population with the addition of cities such as Bordeaux, Nancy, Metz, Strasbourg, Toulouse and Angoulême.
http://www.orange.com

Read More

Video: Future, Flexible Hybrid Wireless/Optical Networks

The wireless and optical domains are being driven closer together, especially as cell sizes get smaller and coordinated transmission techniques become possible. In this interview, Dr. Leonid Kazovsky, Professor (Research) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, discusses future network architecture and the integration between optical and wireless technology.


Some key topics covered in this interview:

0:00 Work underway on hybrid wireless/optical architecture at Stanford's Photonics and Networking Research Laboratory

4:00 Coordinated multi-point transmission schemes

4:50 Intelligence in the network or the base station?

7:20 Orchestrating users and capacity

08:59 Network Design and the Moving Target

12:00 Software-defined networking (SDN) and the hybrid wireless/optical challenge

13:32 Opportunities to improve energy efficiency in the network


Prof. Leonid G. Kazovsky joined Stanford University in 1990. He founded Photonics and Networking Research Laboratory (PNRL) at Stanford University and leads PNRL since establishing it in 1990. PNRL team includes some fifteen researchers focused on green (energy efficient) optical/wireless access and in-building networks.

Prior to joining Stanford, Prof. Kazovsky was with Bellcore doing research on coherent, WDM, high-speed and other advanced optical fiber communication systems (later, Bellcore changed its name to Telcordia, and was acquired by Ericsson). Prof. Kazovsky's research of coherent optical systems at that time resulted in what is widely considered key foundations of modern coherent systems.

While on Bellcore assignments or Stanford sabbaticals, Prof. Kazovsky worked at the Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, Germany; Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories, Bristol, England; Technical University of Eindhoven, Eindhoven, the Netherland; Scuola Superiore St. Anne, Pisa, Italy; Danish Technical University, Copenhagen, Denmark; and Acreo, Stockholm, Sweden.

Through research contracts, consulting engagements, and other arrangements, Prof. Kazovsky worked with many industrial companies and U.S. Government agencies including Corning, Alcatel-Lucent, Sprint, DT, Huawei, DEC, GTE, AT&T, IVP, Lucent, Hitachi, KDD, Furukawa, Fujitsu, Optivision, and Perimeter on the industrial side; and NSF, DARPA, Air Force, Navy, Army, and BMDO on the government side. He also worked extensively with many leading VCs and intellectual property law firms.

Prof. Kazovsky serves or served on Editorial Boards of leading journals (IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Wireless Networks) and on Program Committees of leading conferences (OFC, CLEO, LEOS, SPIE, and GLOBECOM). He also served as a reviewer for various IEEE and IEE Transactions, Proceedings, and Journals; funding agencies (NSF, OFC, ERC, NRC, etc.) and publishers (Wiley, MacMillan, etc.). Recently, Prof. Kazovsky organized several workshops on hybrid optical/wireless networks at OFC and WCNC; he also co-edited a Special Issue of the IEEE Network Magazine on Next Generation Optical Access Networks.

Prof. Kazovsky authored or co-authored three books, three book chapters, fifty five invited journal papers and invited conference talks, some 200 journal technical papers, and some 300 conference papers. His latest book, Broadband Optical Access Networks, was published by John Wiley & Sons in 2011.

Prof. Kazovsky is a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of OSA.

Read More