Telecommunications (International Edition) articles from August 2001

Telecommunications (International Edition) archives from August 2001

Challenging the bear market.(Brief Article)(Column)
August 1, 2001... With headlines such as 'telecom meltdown', 'vendors in trouble', 'operators in debt', and even, 'why do you pay your customers to buy your products?' emanating from smart, wise-after-the-event journalists, I felt down. I was even thinking...

M-commerce payment architecture.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... "Choice, freedom, ease of use and convenience are the driving forces behind the development of the mobile payment architecture," says Liisa Kannianen, workgroup executive, Mobey Forum, a financial industry-driven forum which aims to encourage...

Half of mobile revenues will be pre-paid by 2003.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Almost 50 per cent of total European mobile revenues will be derived from pre-paid services by 2003 -- making up 70 per cent of operators' customer base. This is according to a new survey titled The next-generation of pre-paid services by...

KPN and Belgacom in conflict of interest.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Continuing disputes between KPN of the Netherlands and state-controlled Belgian operator Belgacom have delayed negotiation towards a possible merger. Conflict is mainly rooted in KPN's reluctance to accept Belgacom's push for a 'merger of...

Recovery not until 3Q next year say vendors.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... You don't need to be the most astute industry observer in the world to realise that the telecoms industry -- and the photonics sector in particular -- is on the back foot. Nortel, Cisco, Lucent and JDS Uniphase have all announced massive job...

G8 summit has Wind behind it.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The G8 summit, scheduled at the time of writing to take place in Genoa, Italy, at the end of last month, is not just a challenge for security staff. When the leaders from the world's eight strongest economies come to town, it is also causes a...

Equant is the name.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... France Telecom finally announced the name of its Global One/Equant joint venture last month -- it's Equant. The French operator, which holds 54 per cent in the 'new' Equant, expects the global service provider to hove revenues of more than US$3...

Isle of Man 'sees' 3G.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Despite repeated delays in the rollout of a fully operational 3G network on the Isle of Man -- the UMTS test bed for BT Wireless -- the prospect of 'live' service moved closer last month. Manx Telecom, BT Wireless' fully-owned subsidiary and...

SK Telecom selects Nortel.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Korean operator, SK Telecom, has selected Nortel Network's 10Gbps optical backbone for its high-speed broadband wireless network. Nortel says that the optical backbone solution will enable cost-effective delivery of carrier-class broadband...

KPNQwest's fibre-optic rings.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Pan-European data communications and hosting company, KPNQwest, has connected a further two OC-192 self-healing rings in its EuroRings fibre-optic network. This brings the number of completed rings to six out of seven, spanning 15,300km out of...

Colt continues expansion.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The Southern European leg of Colt's inter-city communications network is now operational. The 2,500km route connects city networks in Switzerland, Southern France and Northern Italy with most of the other molar cities in Europe via the...

AsiaSat enters Australia.(Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Asia Satellite Telecommunications -- which reportedly serves over two-thirds of the world's population with its fleet of satellites -- has extended its Asia-Pacific reach by entering into the Australian market following an agreement to provide...

Telia will not appeal.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Telia, who failed to secure a Swedish 3G licence, will not appeal against the decision made by the country administrative court in Stockholm which ruled that the allocation result by the Notional Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) should stand. This...

Keeping faith in Asia.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... WorldCom must like Asia. It has invested over US$150 bn ([euro]180 bn) in the region, but at a time when contraction rather than expansion seems to be the order of the day for many companies in the Asia Pacific region, is it money well spent?...

Have you got money to burn?(interconnect billing)
August 1, 2001... It's dauntingly complicated, usually inaccurate, and can cost an operator millions of dollars in lost revenue if not checked thoroughly. This, like it or not, is the state of interconnect billing today. Network interconnection is big...

Living up to expectations.
August 1, 2001... SLAs can help service providers win business in the ever-demanding multinational corporate (MNC) market. However, the delivery of these SLAs is the true test of a service provider's credibility. The offer of an attractive service level...

Prevention is better than cure.(fiber optic network faults)
August 1, 2001... With remote and pro-active testing of fibre-optic networks, operators can anticipate network faults before they happen. The deregulation of telephone networks around the world has led to far higher expectations from customers. We have moved...

The 'A' route for GSM QoS.(Groupe Speciale Mobile, quality of service)
August 1, 2001... Due to operation and maintenance centre (OMC) shortcomings, more and more GSM operators are turning towards A interface SS7 information to maintain and improve their QoS levels. With ever-increasing competition and network complexity,...

Advanced services management.(from UNI2)
August 1, 2001... Unlike incumbents, who already have management applications running in their networks, alternative carriers face the challenge of finding cost-effective, quick to deploy, flexible solutions. In Europe, most alternative carriers have to...

A testing time for the local loop.(local loop unbundling in the European Union)
August 1, 2001... Local loop unbundling is not only a challenge for national regulatory authorities, but for CLECs and ILECs wishing to maintain QoS on the copper twisted pair. Telecoms liberalisation in Europe has not led to multiple alternative access...

The wireless network economy.
August 1, 2001... Rapid technology shifts, marketplace turbulence and the onslaught of new competitive offerings have made the goal of sustainable profitability more elusive than ever for the wireless service provider (WSP). The wireless business...

Pre-paid popularity.(prepaid phone cards in Thailand)(Industry Overview)(Statistical Data Included)
August 1, 2001... The rise of pre-paid cellular services is creating a lucrative market for Thai operators. The mobile telephony market in Thailand has grown rapidly in recent years and one of the major drivers behind this growth has been the introduction...

Singapore's open market appeal.(Industry Overview)(Statistical Data Included)
August 1, 2001... The Singapore market, following liberalisation and its subsequent threat to SingTel's dominance, is fastpaced and an important telecoms hub for the region. Despite an industry slowdown (and possibly an overall downbeat mood from...

Let's see what IP can do.(Internet Protocol-based videoconferencing)
August 1, 2001... IP-based videoconferencing may be the future, but ISDN and audio conferencing still have important roles to play. At a time when most companies in the US and Europe are looking for ways to reduce costs, the videoconferencing industry could...

Beating the cdma2000 drum.(code division multiple access)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... 3G World Congress, Hong Kong (June 2001) Name change? Yes, it is the World CDMA conference in unconvincing disguise. Even so, it remains the main meeting for the CDMA community and a place where likeminded individuals can espouse their...

ASTRA.(introduced by Anristu)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
August 1, 2001... Anristu's European applied solutions centre (EASC) has introduced ASTRA, a high-speed software tool that provides automated testing of mobile phone handsets in both production and repair environments. It enables the user to test all types of...

ON-CHIP SELF-TEST AND REPAIR SOLUTION.(from Virage)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The self-test and repair (STAR) memory system self-tests and repairs embedded memories. According to Virage, the STAR memory system is an industry first that ensures lower costs and higher yielding system-on-chip (SoC) that contain embedded...

AURORADUET and AURORASONATA.(from Trend Communications)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
August 1, 2001... The AuroraDuet with QSIG can now support the additional QSIG supplementary service functions of AOC (advice on charge), MC (member company) and segmentation. In addition, for Siemens PBX systems, the AuroraDuet can now be optionally quipped...

FTB-400 UNIVERSAL TEST SYSTEM (UTS).(from EXFO)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
August 1, 2001... EXFO has launched the FTB-400 UTS for the installation and maintenance of optical networks. FTB-400 UTS represents the industry's first modular platform that can perform all the essential physical layer tests for long haul, metro and access...

MULTIMEDIA MESSAGING SERVICE.(from Tecnomen)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
August 1, 2001... Tecnomen has integrated wireless multimedia messaging into its eZONER platform. In addition to voice and data, digital images, video and audio clips can be sent and received by a range of media including hand-held devices. The new system...

RAPTELLE [TM].(from Multichannel Instruments)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
August 1, 2001... Multichannel Instruments has announced a new line of products optimised for the control of DWDM components, especially tuneable lasers. The heart of the product, called Roptelle, is a new type of optical spectrum analyser (OSA) based on a...

FAT 2700.(fast antenna tester)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... FAT (fast antenna tester) 2700 is especially designed for VSWR-tests at communication systems with an impedance of 50 ohms. All communication systems that are used now, or in the future, within the frequency range 20-2700MHz can be tested with...

SIP PROBE.(session initiation protocol, Radcom Omni-Q)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
August 1, 2001... Radcom has announced that its OmniQ [TM] voice quality management system now supports session initiation protocol (SIP) signalling technology. The new SIP probe supports adopters of SIP by enabling them to generate SIP calls and measure call...

IVEA NETSWIFT2012.(high security appliance)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
August 1, 2001... The iVEA NetSwift2012 high-security appliance is the industry's first network appliance to incorporate both WTLS protocol for WAP gateways and high-speed SSL for web servers, in a single plug-and-play security solution, claims Rainbow iVEA. It...