Telecommunications Americas articles from February 2003

Telecommunications Americas archives from February 2003

Small, yet mighty. (Commentary).(Editorial)(Column)
February 1, 2003... There's no escaping the wonders of technology, even on vacation. Or should I say, especially on vacation. I happen to be in Orlando, Fla., as I write this commentary, and by far the coolest thing I've seen thus far is the combo DSL/Wi-Fi...

MPLS? Not now, says Savvis. (For Starters).(MultiProtocol Label Switching)
February 1, 2003... MPLS is putatively acknowledged as a technology that a majority of service providers will adopt sooner or later. But put Robert McCormick, chairman and CEO of Savvis Communications, on the side of the skeptics. Savvis is instead using a...

Ethernet and MPLS: marriage made in heaven? (For Starters).
February 1, 2003... The Metro Ethernet Forum and the MPLS Forum have agreed to work together more closely, and among the early benefits of this are expected to be agreements that create a symbiotic relationship between Ethernet networks and MPLS backbones....

AT&T launches RPR optical Ethernet service. (For Starters).
February 1, 2003... Is optical Ethernet scaling new heights? Well, AT&T seems to think so. Soon New York business customers will be able to string their multiple LAN locations in ring formation as AT&T launches its own RPR (resilient packet ring)-based optical...

Global aspirations. (For Starters).(international telecommunications)
February 1, 2003... The U.S. isn't an especially attractive market to be in right now--or is it? While international carriers Telia and Cable & Wireless have scaled back or pulled out altogether from the U.S. market, other international providers--such as Deutsche...

Second time around. (For Starters).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Forget clothing and those 5-cent bottles and cans. The newest fad in charitable giving is donating old cell phones. But what do organizations such as Easter Seals and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence do with your 1997 model flip...

Can the last-mile problem be solved? (Business).
February 1, 2003... A solution for the last-mile problem remains elusive--just when it seems at hand it slips away. The Telecom Act and DSL technology generated great hope, but most of it has faded. The Telecom Act failed to create new access competition and give...

What bandwidth glut? (Industry).(Industry Overview)
February 1, 2003... Industry pundits have been pontificating on the concept of bandwidth as a commodity for the past two decades. The sacred catechism of communication anywhere, anytime, on any media, with any bandwidth, for any application, with a guaranteed QoS...

Reel TV: video over DSL inches closer to reality, but deployments still thin.
February 1, 2003... Relatively speaking, global deployment of DSL is puny-- about 30.6 million lines as of Q3 2002, according to a recent estimate by London-based industry analyst group PointTop. The FCC pegged the deployment of ADSL lines in the United States at...

High hopes: who will win the next-gen Class 5 race?
February 1, 2003... If EARLIER CLASSES OF NEXT-GEN voice solutions were all hype and no substance the class of 2003 hopes to have something that goes beyond a mere VoIP science experiment. While next-voice switching was initially focused on PRI offload replicating...

OSS: a new way of thinking.(adopting a manufacturing mindset for developing telecommunications services)
February 1, 2003... Under the best of circumstances, a service provider's road to success is littered with obstacles. Technologies are constantly evolving. Service offerings are broadening and becoming increasingly complex, often requiring the cooperation of many...

Maximizing your broadband bucks: revenue assurance helps carriers get the most from their broadband networks. (Spotlight: The New OSS).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... It's hard to keep track of who's partnering with whom these days. Traditional software companies have aligned with telecom carriers, surviving dot-com companies have affiliations with access providers and the mergers, acquisitions and...

United we stand: common-payment platforms unify prepaid, postpaid services. (Spotlight: The New OSS).
February 1, 2003... During the past few years, the mobile industry has seen an exponential growth in prepaid as a preferred method of payment. This has driven mobile penetration rates to saturation levels. However, it has also diminished ARPU (average revenue per...

Thinking outside the network: an increasingly seamless OSS, BSS, asset management and CRM world view is continuing to emerge. (Spotlight: The New OSS).
February 1, 2003... A transformation is occurring in the definition and understanding of OSS today. In the aftermath of failed OSS implementations and severe and ongoing budget constraints, service providers are approaching OSS differently than they did just three...

GigE goldmine? Gigabit Ethernet over copper offers old technology new--and potentially lucrative--potential. (Broadband Access).
February 1, 2003... Two strands of networking--IP and Ethernet--are coming together and continuing a relentless march to become the unifying communications technology for the 21st century. IP has become the dominant WAN networking protocol, and IP...

Saving spectrum: ad-hoc frequency planning a must as wireless operators move to 3G. (Wireless).
February 1, 2003... Wireless operators currently offer services via the 850 MHz band of cellular spectrum and the 1900 MHz band of PCS. The amount of spectrum an operator can own in a market is regulated to 45 MHz; therefore, operators can own only one of the A/B...

Microsens: flexible, stackable CWDM-to-DWDM transport. (Product of the Month).
February 1, 2003... www.microsens.com The very large capacities provided by finely spacing channels in DWDM systems make them an expensive overkill in metro access or enterprise markets, where demand for wavelength services are being driven largely by data...

Enhanced softswitch. (New Products).(Syndeo's Syion switching software)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Syndeo www.syndeocorp.com Syndeo wants to lead the way with enhancements to the MSO industry's move to PacketCable with the latest version of its Syion softswitch platform. And with CableLabs moving ahead in its certification process...

Ethernet-based DSLAM. (New Products).(Ericsson develops Digital Subscriber Line Multiplexer)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Ericsson www.ericsson.com Known for its dominance in the wireless market for wireless handsets, Ericsson is adopting its knowledge of small form factors with its new Ethernet-based DSLAM. Slightly larger than a mobile handset,...

Cross-band coverage. (Product Spot).(Littlefeet SPICE)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Littlefeet www.littlefeet.com Littlefeet claims filling capacity gaps in a GSM network just got easier with its SPICE (Small Profile Intelligent Coverage Element). SPICE is now commercially available for in-band GSM 1800 MHz or 1900...

Next-gen CMTS. (New Products).(Arris Cadant C4 3.0 cable modem termination system)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... ARRIS www.arrisi.com ARRIS has launched Release 3.0 of its Cadant C4 CMTS for voice and data over HFC networks. As a DOCSIS 1.1-and PacketCable-compliant CMTS, the latest version includes enhanced scalability, hardware-based...

Multi-channel VoIP. (New Products).(Oki Network Technologies BV7000 and BV7050)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Oki Network Technologies www.oki.com Oki Network Technologies has released two SIP- and H.323-compliant, multi-channel IP voice gateways --the BV7000 and the BV7050. Deployed in either service provider or large enterprise networks, the...

Unlicensed wireless. (New Products).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Stratex Networks www.stratexnet.com Leveraging its muscle in the licensed millimeter wave wireless world, Stratex Networks is taking a stab at the unlicensed band, namely the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands, with its Velox LE platform. The...

Core router. (Product Spot).(Alcatel 7770 OBX)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Alcatel www.alcatel.com The buzzwords for core routers are scalability and carrier class, and Alcatel claims to have come through on both counts with the release of the 7770 OBX (optical broadband exchange). Unlike the earlier 7770...

Metro/edge testing. (New Products).(Agilent Technologies RouterTester)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Agilent Technologies www.agilent.com What good are metro/edge services if QoS can't be maintained? Agilent has a solution with its RouterTester for metro/edge IP services. With the RouterTester, service providers can test lower-speed...

Souped-up edge. (New Products).(Laurel Networks upgrades its ST200T service edge router )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Laurel Networks www.laurelnetworks.com Laurel Networks has upgraded its 80-Gbps ST200T service edge router to ensure that the device can quickly restore Layer 2 and Layer 3 services in the event that a link or an adjacent node fails....

Next-gen class 5. (New Products).(Lucent Technologies 5E-XC)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Lucent Technologies www.lucent.com Lucent Technologies is giving operators with existing 5ESS deployments a reason to believe in the circuit-to-packet evolution with the 5E-XC switch. As an enhancement of the 5ESS platform, the 5E-XC...

Off-line.(Gregg Kamper)(Interview)
February 1, 2003... The telecom market may still be shrinking, but facilities-based wholesale provider Dominion Telecom says it is continuing to expand its network in 2003. Yes, expand. For one thing, distressed assets are cheap, notes Gregg Kamper, senior vice...

It's e-business. And it's helping telecoms deliver new services to customers faster and for a lot less.
February 1, 2003... e-business has moved to the center of telecommunications. It's helping telecoms meet customer demands by dramatically reducing development time for new services. Why? Because it's how they keep their customers happy. Which is how they keep...