Colt Acquires ThinkGrid for Cloud Hosting Tools

Colt Technology Services has acquired ThinkGrid, a start-up offering tools for enabling cloud services with turnkey management, for an undisclosed sum.

ThinkGrid's three key component offering consists of a state of the art self-service and billing platform, productized cloud services (including Hosted Virtual Desktop, Virtual Server, Unified Communications, Hosted Email) and an enablement and go-to-market program to help partners achieve success.

The tools will allow Colt's channel partners to become cloud providers in their own right.

Colt said the acquisition increases its strength in cloud-based services for the indirect channel and adds approximately 200 resellers and ISV's to its partner community in the UK. ThinkGrid's training programme to facilitate the development of resellers' cloud capabilities will be rolled out to Colt's indirect sales team and channel partners.

"The SME market for managed services is set to grow at 15% annually during the coming years. Colt is well positioned to penetrate this market through our indirect channels. The acquisition of ThinkGrid further strengthens our position with the addition of a complementary range of cloud-based services. We also gain a reseller-oriented management platform and portal which will reduce our time to market across our European markets. This acquisition allows us to extend our channel community to include skilled managed services resellers who will help us to accelerate our growth," stated François Eloy, Executive Vice President at Colt.

"Becoming part of Colt Technology Services supports ThinkGrid's vision to become the world's leading cloud services enablement platform, offering great product and market development opportunities. ThinkGrid will gain access to Colt's 20 state-of-the-art data centre facilities, extended research and development and support resources as well as an opportunity to expand into 22 European countries," said Rob Lovell, CEO of ThinkGrid.
http://www.colt.net
http://www.thinkgrid.com

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Level 3 and Time Warner Cable Sign Network Expansion Contract

Communications announced a multi-year agreement to expand Time Warner Cable's national network. The deal, which builds upon an existing relationship between the companies, also includes the delivery of additional core infrastructure services that will enhance the redundancy and reliability of the Time Warner Cable network.


Level 3 and Time Warner Cable also have agreed on terms and conditions under which they will exchange IP traffic between their respective backbone networks.


"The strength of our Network is at the center of all the services we provide our more than 15 million customers and we continue to expand the reach and capacity, as well as improve the reliability of that network to best serve our customers today and in the future," said Mike LaJoie, executive vice president and CTO for Time Warner Cable. "Through these agreements, Level 3 continues to be a valuable partner in the growth of our Network's capacity and strength."
http://www.level3.com

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Google Cuts Staff at Motorola Mobility

Google will cut headcount at Motorola Mobility, its newly acquired subsidiary, by approximately 4,000 out of a total of about 20,000 employees. Two-thirds of the job cuts will occur outside of the U.S. The layoffs are expected to hit about 700 employees in the Chicago area.



In addition, Motorola Mobility plans to close or consolidate about one-third of its 90 facilities, as well as simplify its mobile product portfolio-shifting the emphasis away from feature phones.
http://www.motorola.com http://www.google.com

• In July 2012, Motorola Mobility will relocate its headquarters in Libertyville, Illinois to downtown Chicago's Merchandise Mart in summer 2013. Motorola Mobility will become the landmark building's largest tenant and will occupy nearly 600,000 square feet on the top four floors and the rooftop.

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ONF's Technical Work Advances with New Initiatives

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF), whose mission is to advance software defined networking (SDN), has begun work on four new initiatives focused on new network orchestration interfaces, OpenFlow beyond Ethernet connections for optical networks, northbound APIs for management and billing, and future forwarding plane models. The efforts include Architecture and Framework, Northbound API, Forwarding Abstractions, and New Transport.


The ONF said these new efforts will focus on applications and behaviors of the technology areas of SDN beyond the OpenFlow protocol with the goal of accelerating the transition from legacy architectures.


The specific focus of these efforts will be:

Architecture and Framework: this new effort will look at upper layer orchestration of the network in order to expose the various interfaces and elements of SDN, how they relate to each other and legacy networking, and what ends they need to serve in a wide-variety of networks.

New Transport: this initiative will investigate how to use OpenFlow and switches not just between Ethernet ports, but between fibers, wavelengths, wireless channels and circuits. Physical transports will benefit from network virtualization and the use of OpenFlow in a variety of physical infrastructures beyond the data center in carrier, optical, and wireless networks.


Northbound API: this initiative will help move from a patchwork of different APIs to a standard method of interfacing between OpenFlow and the control plane. The effort will heighten the understanding and define what software layers should be above and below OpenFlow within the networking infrastructure, and in particular how the capabilities of the network match the requirements of the applications. Creators of network-control applications are eager to write for the northbound edge of an OpenFlow controller. Therefore the initiative will survey and catalog the APIs that exist, define how to characterize them, outline what they are intended to be used for, and how they interact with the network. Cataloging and characterizing the APIs will offer a clear understanding of what functions the market views as important and the common thread for application scenarios. This work will aid software developers to better program and virtualize the network, and enable network operators to translate network capabilities into lucrative services.

Forwarding Abstractions: this initiative will focus on the development of next generation forwarding plane models, with a particular interest in how to exploit and differentiate the capabilities of OpenFlow based hardware switches.

"ONF is taking on myriad opportunities inherent to the growth of the SDN marketplace," said Scott Shenker, member of the ONF Board of Directors and Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley. "With these efforts in the Foundation, member companies will be able to further refine SDN technologies and their capabilities to continue driving commercialization of the standard. Recognizing the increasingly diverse scenarios where OpenFlow-based SDN can add value for customers, ONF stays at the forefront of network innovation. Like the OpenFlow protocol itself, these efforts are evidence that ONF – designed to be agile – is evolving with the market and technology to ensure that user demands are met rapidly and efficiently."

http://www.opennetworking.org

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Qatar Plans National Fiber Network

Qatar National Broadband Network Company (Q.NBN), which was established last year by the government of Qatar, has received a 25 year license to provide fiber optic broadband throughout the country.

The license will see Q.NBN offering wholesale broadband fiber optics infrastructure services to licensed network service providers and operators. As such, Q,NBN serve as the fiber optic broadband infrastructure provider for Qatar.

"We are delighted to receive our official license to operate from ictQATAR which will mark the start of a new era of high speed communication in Qatar. Receiving this license is an acknowledgement of Q.NBN’s vision aligned with 2030 to provide Qatar with the very latest technology platform to help achieve a knowledge-based sustainable economy." stated Mohamad Al-Mannai, Q.NBN Chief Executive Officer. http://www.qnbn.qa

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ARM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Target 20nm Mobile Chips

GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM announced a multi-year agreement to jointly deliver optimized system-on-chip (SoC) solutions using GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 20-nanometer (nm) and FinFET process technologies. The new agreement also extends the long-standing collaboration to include graphics processors in mobile devices.



ARM plans to develop a full platform of ARM Artisan Physical IP, including standard cell libraries, memory compilers and POP IP solutions for a range of mobile applications, from smartphones to tablets to ultra-thin notebooks. Timelines were not disclosed.

The companies have been collaborating for several years to jointly optimize ARM Cortex-A series processors, including multiple demonstrations of performance and power-efficiency benefits on 28nm as well as a 20nm test-chip implementation currently running through GLOBALFOUNDRIES fab in Malta, N.Y.


"This early engagement promotes the rapid adoption of ARM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES technologies in future SoCs for several important markets," said Simon Segars, executive vice president and general manager, Processor and Physical IP Divisions at ARM. “Customers designing for mobile, tablet and computing applications will benefit extensively from the energy-efficient ARM processor and graphics processor included in this collaboration. By proactively working together to enable next-generation 20nm-LPM and FinFET process technologies, our mutual customers can be assured a range of implementation options that will enable two more generations of advanced semiconductor devices."
http://www.arm.com

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Huawei Employs Spreadtrum's Chip for Flagship TD-SCDMA Smartphone

Huawei is using Spreadtrum's baseband modem for its flagship TD-SCDMA smartphone, the Huawei Ascend P1 TD-SCDMA on China Mobile's network.


Huawei Ascend P1 is an Android 4.0 ICS device with a dual core 1.5GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD display, 4GB of built-in storage and an 8 megapixel BSI camera with AF.



Spreadtrum's SC8803G is a high performance and, highly integrated baseband modem implemented in 40nm CMOS and supporting TD-SCDMA, EDGE, GPRS and GSM operation . It supports TD-HSDPA at 2.8Mbps and TD-HSUPA at 2.2Mbps. http://www.spreadtrum.com
 http://www.huawei.com

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Elektrobit Demos LTE Band 14 Functionality

Elektrobit Corp. will be demonstrating LTE Band 14 functionality and other updates on the EB Specialized Device Platform, which is the company's Android-based mobile device platform that enables vertical markets such as public safety to test customized mobile devices that meet specific industry functional or performance requirements.


Other updates to the EB Specialized Device Platform include the OMAP 4460 dual-core chipset application processor, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich integration and more robust support for 2G, 3G and up to five LTE frequency bands, including the public safety-specific Band 14.


"Over the past several years we have seen an increasing change in the direction from which technology innovations previously occurred, and now more than ever, consumer technology has a significant influence on the way government and public safety officials use and consume this technology in the field," said Jani Lyrintzis, vice president and general manager, EB. "With the EB Specialized Device Platform, EB provides specialized markets with a unique solution that already has most of the features necessary to build a multipurpose product that meets their needs and also complies with government and public safety requirements."
http://www.elektrobit.com

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Vertical Systems Group: Mid-2012 U.S. Business Ethernet LEADERBOARD

Vertical Systems Group's Mid-2012 results for the U.S. Business Ethernet Leaderboard are as follows (in rank order based on port share): AT&T, Verizon, tw telecom, CenturyLink, Cox, XO, Time Warner Cable, and Level 3.


The ranking is based on billable enterprise port installations.


Other providers selling Ethernet services in the U.S. are segmented into two tiers as measured by share of ports installed. The first or "Challenge" tier for Mid-2012 includes the following seven Ethernet Service Providers (in alphabetical order): Charter Business, Cogent, Comcast Business, Optimum Lightpath, Reliance Globalcom, Windstream (includes Paetec), and Zayo Group (includes AboveNet).


The second or "Market Player" tier covers all other providers offering U.S. Ethernet services. The Market Player tier includes the following companies (in alphabetical order): Alpheus Communications, American Telesis, Bright House Networks, Canby, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications (includes Surewest), Expedient, FiberLight, Frontier, Integra, IP Networks, Lightower, Litecast, LS Networks, Masergy, Megapath, Met-Net, NTT America, Orange Business, Sidera Networks, Spirit, Sprint, SuddenLink, US Signal, Virtela and others.


Market shares for the Mid-2012 U.S. Ethernet Leaderboard were calculated using Vertical's base of enterprise installations, plus direct input and other data from surveys of Ethernet Service Providers.


"New value-added service enhancements and improved network quality fueled the solid growth many Ethernet providers experienced in the first half of this year," said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. "Additionally, our research clearly indicates rising demand for Ethernet access focused on connectivity to private Clouds for data center hosting. We expect to see increased deployments of these configurations, which could have an impact on Ethernet share results as early as year-end 2012."
http://www.verticalsystems.com

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Huawei Offers UMTS Small Data Packet Storm Solution

Huawei introduced a UMTS Small Data Packet Storm solution that can double the number of mobile broadband users with smartphones that can access the network simultaneously.


Huawei calculates that 80% of UMTS usage lasts less than 10 seconds and 60% require less than 1kbit.
However, the use of smartphones is creating "small data packet storms", which are different than traditional voice services and high data rate downloads. When a smartphone user frequently refreshes pages on a site being browsed, the total amount of consumed traffic is very low. In scenarios where smartphone penetration is high, with many simultaneously connected users, air interface efficiency decreases greatly leading to decreases in capacity, user experience and total connected number of users. This is a "small data packet storm."

Huawei said its Small Data Packet Storm solution has been deployed commercially in Canada, Europe, Hong Kong and other regions.

http://www.huawei.com

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Mavenir Enables MetroPCS' Pace Setting VoLTE

Mavenir Systems confirmed that its mOne Convergence Platform is powering MetroPCS' new Voice over LTE (VoLTE) service, which was announced last week.


"We are excited to be part of this historic moment by providing a superior solution to MetroPCS that enables a sustainable business model on mobile broadband, both as a vendor partner and systems integrator," said Pardeep Kohli, president & chief executive officer of Mavenir Systems. "The mOne™ Convergence Platform is designed to simplify carriers' network transformations to support LTE and rapidly roll out VoLTE services."
"VoLTE provides MetroPCS and our customers a foundation for the future and we are glad to have Mavenir as a key partner in achieving this significant milestone," said Ed Chao, senior vice president of corporate engineering & network operations. "This initial launch allows us to achieve feature parity with our circuit-switched network thus further enabling the migration of our CDMA base to our more spectrally efficient 4G LTE network."

http://www.mavenir.com

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Dialogic Appoints Kevin Cook as President and CEO

Dialogic has appointed current President and COO Kevin Cook as President and CEO, replacing Nick Jensen who resigned last week but remains as a member of the Dialogic Board and will assume the role of non-executive Vice Chairman.

Cook became President and COO of Dialogic in December 2011. In this capacity, he has directed global operations for more than 700 employees in 30 countries. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations from 2010 until 2011, responsible for sales, marketing, services and our global go-to-market strategy. Cook joined Dialogic as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Support in 2008.

http://www.dialogic.com

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Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE Now Covers 90% of Florida’s Population

Verizon Wireless is activating 4G LTE services this month to new communities in Naples, Orlando and throughout Central Florida. This brings the LTE network to all of Florida’s major markets and 90 percent of state residents.


In just over 18 months, Verizon Wireless has rolled out LTE to nearly three-fourths of the U.S. population in more than 350 markets.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/lte

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Fire Strikes France Telecom-Orange's Cable Ship

The crew of France Telecom-Orange's cable-ship, the Chamarel, was forced to abandon ship off the coast of Namibia following a fire. All 56 crew members were safely recovered by a Namibian fishing vessel without injury or incident.


The ship had recently completed a repair operation on the Sat3-Safe cable in the Atlantic. http://www.orange.com

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China Mobile Shangdong Picks Huawei's GPON for WLAN Backhaul

China Mobile Shangdong has selected Huawei's FTTW (Wi-Fi backhaul) solution for a WLAN mobile backhaul network in 17 cities.

The solution uses GPON access technology to backhaul WLAN data streams. The service provides 54 Mbps Internet access for 50,000 WLAN hotspots in schools, offices, transport hubs, hotels, leisure places, downtown areas, and residential areas.

http://www.huawei.com

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Deutsche Telekom Maintains Free Cash Flows as Revenues, Subscribers and CAPEX Decline

Deutsche Telekom reported a solid growth trend in free cash flow in the second quarter of 2012 and the company confirmed its earnings and dividend guidance for the full year 2012.

For Q2, EBITDA remained unchanged year-on-year at EUR 4.7 billion. Revenue declined 0.7 percent to EUR 14.4 billion. Free cash flow in the second quarter came in at EUR 1.7 billion, a year-on-year decrease of around 5.6 percent.

For Q2, CAPEX was EUR 1.626 billion, down 13.5% from a year earlier. For the first half of the year, the Group invested EUR 3.8 billion in CAPEX, 5.1 percent less in terms of cash capex than in the prior-year period.

"We are keeping our word and providing a good deal of reliability to the market with very solid figures," said René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. "We do of course continue to face a number of challenges, but we are performing very respectably compared with our competitors."

Some highlights:

• In Germany, the company now has 1.8 million Entertain TV customers, up 40.7 percent over the prior-year period. Over 100,000 new customers signed up for this television service in Q2.
• In Germany, the mobile contract customer base grew by 464,000 customers in the past quarter. Most of these new customers were added in the reseller segment, which generates lower average revenues per user.
• In Germany, the number of line losses fell to a record low once again, dropping to 236,000 between April and June. This represents a year-on-year decrease of 20 percent.
• Growth in mobile data revenues continued unabated, with a 19-percent increase to EUR 484 million in the second quarter.
• Twenty-nine percent of the average revenue per user now comes from mobile data compared with 24 percent one year ago.
• In Greece, DT credited successful cost cutting measures with improving the efficiency of OTE, where adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 2.2 percentage points year-on-year to 36.4 percent in the second quarter of 2012.
• Cutting costs also had a positive impact on profitability in the Netherlands. T-Mobile Netherlands achieved an adjusted EBITDA margin of 31.7 percent compared with 29.4 percent the previous year.
• The number of mobile contract customers across all European companies increased by around 1.0 million to 27.6 million in the space of a year (including T-Systems' customers in Hungary).
• Smartphones now account for 60 percent of all devices sold, up from 43 percent one year ago. The more widespread use of smartphones also impacted mobile data revenues, which grew by 21.2 percent year-on-year in Europe, or as much as 24.5 percent when adjusted for exchange rate effects.
• T-Mobile USA significantly improved its profitability. The adjusted EBITDA margin rose 2.3 percentage points year-on-year to 27.7 percent, as revenue increased 8.7 percent to EUR 3.8 billion. Measured in dollars, there was a slight decline of 3.1 percent in revenue for the second quarter of 2012 and an increase of 5.7 percent in adjusted EBITDA compared with the prior-year period.
• T-Mobile USA had an overall loss of 205,000 customers in the second quarter. There were 557,000 net losses of branded contract customers. By contrast, the number of branded prepaid customers rose by 227,000, following a loss of 71,000 customers in the second quarter of 2011.
• Average data revenue per customer for branded contract customers rose by 15 percent year-on-year in the past quarter to USD 19.16.
• T-Systems saw new orders increase by 8.2 percent year-on-year to EUR 2.2 billion, but total revenue for the second quarter declined by 1.3 percent year-on-year to EUR 2.2 billion, with external revenues decreasing by 1.5 percent.

http://www.telekom.de 06-Aug-12

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Ciena Provides Optical Upgrade in the Carolinas for Spirit

Spirit Communications, a CLEC serving business customers in North and South Carolina has selected Ciena's 5430 Packet-Optical Reconfigurable Switching System (RSS) and OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane software to upgrade its transport network.

Ciena’s 5430 RSS will link Spirit’s major point-of-presence (POP) locations across the Carolinas. The upgraded network will support an increase in switching capacity at each location to serve existing TDM traffic migrated from legacy systems, as well as advanced Optical Transport Network (OTN) and Carrier Ethernet protocols, for increasing demands today and in the future. Additionally, by combining Ciena’s 5430 switching system with OneConnect, both key elements of the Ciena’s OPn architecture for programmable networks, Spirit is able to differentiate its service offering with mesh restoration, improved network resiliency and service availability, beyond what would be possible with a competitive platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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Huawei Targets LTE Broadcasts -- eMBMS Innovation Center Opens

Huawei has just opened an enhanced Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) innovation center in Shenzhen in order to develop end-to-end eMBMS solutions and LTE applications.

eMBMS is a 3GPP R9 standard for mobile video that enables a higher transfer capacity over typical MBMS technologies.

Huawei said its new facility aims to foster and eMBMS industry ecosystem of chipsets, devices, and network equipment. The innovation center will also serve as an experience center for operators. Video, mobile TV, and advertisements will be showcased via mobile smart devices employing Huawei's eMBMS solution. Global operators from Europe, Asia, the South Pacific and other regions have already visited the center to experience its LTE demonstrations. http://www.huawei.com 06-Aug-12

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Sprint Selects Samsung from its Small Cell Deployments

Samsung Telecommunications America confirmed that it has been selected to help develop Small Cell Network Infrastructure for Sprint’s Network Vision Program.

"Our ongoing work with Sprint’s Network Vision demonstrates Samsung’s commitment to developing custom solutions with our leading carrier customers. This new award will allow Sprint to meet increasing demand for coverage and capacity while consolidating multiple legacy networks and spectrum bands in a single platform,” said Dale Sohn, president of Samsung Mobile. “The deployment of our small cell technology will enhance Sprint’s network and demonstrates the strength of Samsung's infrastructure offering."

"Network Vision is all about improving the network experience for our customers,” said Bob Azzi, senior vice president of network operations for Sprint. “We are excited to expand our relationship with Samsung with their inclusion in the small cell program and provide customers with the cutting edge network they need to keep up with the cutting edge phones Sprint offers." http://www.sprint.com http://www.samsung.com 
06-Aug-12

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Telstra's CAPEX to Sales Ratio at 14.2%

Telstra's revenue for full fiscal year 2012 increased by 1.1%, or AUS $275 million, to $25,368 million. EBITDA increased by 0.8% or $83 million to $10,234 million.

"We have seen two years of significant customer growth as our strategy continues to bear fruit. This has translated into strong financial results despite tough domestic and international economic conditions," Chief Executive Officer David Thodey said today.

Some highlights for the full year:

• The CAPEX to sales ratio was 14.2%, with capital expenditure of $3,591 million
• added 1.6 million domestic mobile customers, to a total of 13.8 million;
• added 203,000 retail fixed broadband customers, to a total of 2.6 million;
• added 336,000 customers on bundled plans, to a total of 1.4 million;
• added 475,000 Hong Kong mobile customers, to a total of 3.5 million.
• Telstra’s 4G network build accelerated during the year and now covers approximately 40% of Australia’s population. Customers have activated more than 375,000 4G devices since launch.
• Telstra’s domestic mobile business generated more than one third of revenue. Telstra has added more than three million new mobile customers over the past two years. Mobile revenue growth of 8.5% was achieved while margins increased by three percentage points to 36%.
• Growth in retail broadband partly offset declines in wholesale revenues, which included the impact of regulatory access determinations. Fixed line revenue decline was steady at 6.1%.

http://www.telstra.com 06-Aug-12

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