Telecommunications Americas articles from July 2004

Telecommunications Americas archives from July 2004

A look back.(Telecommunications Industry Trends)
July 1, 2004... Choosing our annual list of Hot Start-Ups is by far one of the most interesting and time-consuming tasks for the editors at Telecommunications[R] magazine. Each year, we sift through the still amazingly high number of young companies in the...

Cable's blossoming future.(For Starters)
July 1, 2004... The cable industry is smug. Based on what it sees as limitless bandwidth, the industry and its research and development arm, CableLabs (Cable Television Laboratories), predicts a future of super-high-speed data services for both residential and...

Psytechnics algorithms ensure VoIP voice quality.
July 1, 2004... All the cost savings and advanced features associated with VoIP won't be worth the ether on which they're transported if the conversations are unintelligible. With that in mind, Psytechnics, a British Telecom spin-off, has developed an...

A Pan-Asian Telecom strategy emerges.(Korea, the giant ruler in wirelesss telecommunications)
July 1, 2004... It's a world where Korean TV soap stars are mobbed by screaming fans when they arrive in Japan at Tokyo Airport. It's also a world where 90 percent of the computer and mobile games used in China and Taiwan originate in Korea. The link?...

The coolest new companies of 2004.(Cover Story)
July 1, 2004... A general feeling of cautious optimism has returned to telecom, with most sectors starting to see stability and, in some cases, even modest growth. But how has that translated to the start-up community? According to the The MoneyTree Survey by...

Demand on the increase for end-to-end session management.(Sponsored Supplement)
July 1, 2004... As service providers carry more and more telephone calls via voice-over-IP (VoIP), they are finding a need for session management that goes beyond the network edges and into the network's core. At the same time, there must also be control at...

The future of copper: rumors of DSL's obsolescence appear to be premature.(Broadband Access)(Digital subscriber line)
July 1, 2004... If you believe some pundits and industry observers, widespread deployment of FTTH (fiber to the home) is just around the corner. Some also suggest that recent FCC decisions deregulating new FTTH deployments as well as falling equipment and...

Broadband over power line comes of age: the last-mile solution may have been under our noses the whole time.(Broadband Access)(BPL Ltd.,)
July 1, 2004... Broadband over power-line carrier is emerging after a long gestation period as an important element of the solution to the last-mile problem. Within the last year, large-scale deployment of Internet access services using BPL (broadband over...

Keeping costs in check: as consumer broadband expectations grow, managing network upgrades is critical.(Broadband Access)
July 1, 2004... Homes and businesses are becoming more equipped for resource-intensive broadband services like VOD (video on demand) and VoIP. Meanwhile, cable and telco operators scramble in a highly competitive market to upgrade their existing broadband...

Mobile video's star rises: as West follows East, mobile video becomes a hot new service.(Broadband Access)
July 1, 2004... Mobile video is frequently seen as a future strategy--something that will become significant once 3G networks are widely deployed. Substantial video offers, including live video calling, are becoming available on newly deployed 3G networks in...

The Ethernet conundrum: maintaining Ethernet's strengths across the MAN/WAN cost-efficiently is a key challenge.(wide area networks, metopolitan area networks)
July 1, 2004... If only SONET/SDH networks were a bit more like screwdrivers. Screwdrivers do the job they were designed for brilliantly, but, as an unexpected bonus, they do another job they weren't designed to do equally well: prying lids from cans of paint....

Media server.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... IP Unity www.ipunity.com IP Unity is raising the bar on legacy messaging integration and carrier ease-of-use with release 2.7 of its Harmony6000 media server. Harmony6000 can now support both messaging and conferencing applications,...

Metro Optical.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Nortel Networks www.nortelnetworks.com Nortel has released a key enhancement to its Optical Metro 5100/5200 C/DWDM platforms to enable enterprises, cable providers and other traditional providers to leverage optical network technology...

Session border control.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Acme Packet www.acmepacket.com Acme Packet is beefing up its SBC (session border controller) prowess for the Tier 1 carrier market with its Net-Net PAC sets. A pack of up to nine 1U Net-Net SBCs perform as one logical session border...

Digital Optical Switch.(Product Spot)
July 1, 2004... Infinera www.infinera.com There's a dirty little secret behind the all-optical network: It's an analog network. So, if the telephone, video and wireless networks are all digital, why should the optical network have to settle for...

Multiservice router.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Tellabs www.tellabs.com As service providers shift from building the pipes, to filling them with a suite of converged services, release 3.1 of Tellabs 8800 intelligent multi-service routers can now support various services from...

Multiservice Edge.(Product Spot)
July 1, 2004... Nortel Networks www.nortelnetworks.com Watch out Juniper and Cisco, there's a new kid in the multiservice edge space, and its name is Nortel Networks. In a market the Yankee Group pegs to grow to $4.3 billion by 2008, the multiservice...

VoIP Media Gateway.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... General Bandwidth www.genband.com General Bandwidth has debuted the latest software release for its G6 VoIP Media Gateway designed to comply with CableLabs' PacketCable specifications. This latest software release of the G6 VoIP Media...

Offline.(Interview)(Interview)
July 1, 2004... Despite fears that the telecom industry created more bandwidth capacity than people would ever find a use for, plenty of bits and bytes are clogging the Internet. Does the traffic consist of music and video file sharing, VoIP phone calls or...

Postcard from SUPERCOMM.(tips for show managers)
July 1, 2004... Just flew in from SUPERCOMM 2004, and boy are my arms tired! The good news: My antiquated joke was one of only a few things to groan about at SUPERCOMM this year. The mood was elevated significantly over last year, and more than one company...

Internet icon imagines IP-centric future.(Interview)(Interview)
July 1, 2004... Internet pioneer and technology icon Vint Cerf, senior vice president-technology strategy, MCI, sat down with Telecommunications[R] at SUPERCOMM to discuss his focus today and his goals of moving MCI beyond being just a telecom transport...

Backhaul interference.(methods to avoid it)
July 1, 2004... By 2009, says wireless research firm ON World, 700,000 Wi-Fi hot spots will be deployed worldwide. Those hot spots won't be just for handhelds, tablet PCs or laptops, either. ON World also forecasts that 850 million cell phones will be shipped...

Latest version of IP holds promise and a threat.(For Starters)
July 1, 2004... The latest iteration of Internet Protocol, IPv6, brings more speed, more security and improved QoS to data and voice networks. It also heightens the risk that the United States, already a second-tier Internet player, will be bypassed by...

Disorder in the ranks?(Voice over Internet Protocol )
July 1, 2004... Suppose you're on SBC's voice network and I'm on Verizon's network. Does that mean we can never talk? If that were the case, public telephony might never have gotten out of Alexander Graham Bell's workshop. Unfortunately, something like that...

The new faces of local access.(Business Networks)
July 1, 2004... Until six months ago, the likely direction and shape of local access networks seemed reasonably clear and none too exciting. That is no longer the case. It appeared that cable TV operators and incumbent telephone companies would continue to...

Setting sail: as wireless becomes more critical to operators' strategies, MVNO may be the best way in.(mobile virtual network operator)(Cover Story)
July 1, 2004... AFTER THE ACQUISITION of its wireless arm by Cingular, AT&T effectively found itself without a wireless play. Instead of going through the rigors of building or buying a network, however, Ma Bell is becoming an MVNO (mobile virtual network...

ATM to MPLS interworking: signaling among administrative domains proves critical.(Network Core)(automated teller machines)(multiprotocol label switching)
July 1, 2004... Although carriers have been operating ATM over MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) for a while, they still cannot signal or share routing information between the ATM and MPLS administrative domains. Operators have danced around this limitation...

VoIP: the ace in the hole for MSOs: VoIP puts cable operators on an equal footing with the telcos.(Broadband Access)(Voice over Internet Protocol)(Maintenance Stores Office )
July 1, 2004... Unless you've spent the past year in a sensory deprivation tank, you've probably heard more than a little about VoIP. The story lines range from "VoIP is your ticket to untold riches" to "VoIP will sweep today's giants into the dustbin of...

Identity management transforms web services.(Industry Forum)
July 1, 2004... With the advent of faster mobile networks and more powerful mobile devices, it is no surprise that mobile operators plan to offer richer services to their customers. A great number of these services will take the form of access to traditionally...

ADVA's FSP 150: Ethernet for the masses.(Product of the Month)(ADVA Optical Networking)
July 1, 2004... www.advaoptical.com Even though some enterprises have taken on the deployment of their own Ethernet transport networks, it's clear the enterprise market would rather outsource this function to a carrier. Despite this demand, carriers have...

Digital DWDM system.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Harmonic Inc. www.harmonicinc.com Looking to give service providers a solution that provides not only raw capacity, but also network flexibility and manageability as they roll out video-on-demand services, Harmonic Inc. has introduced...

Add/drop multiplexer.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Movaz Networks www.movaz.com Looking to help operators simplify network operations by reducing the need for multiple transport layers, Movaz Networks has introduced RAYROADM, an integrated, fully managed, carrier-class ROADM...

Next-Gen Class 5.(Product Spot)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... MetaSwitch www.metaswitch.com MetaSwitch is turbo-charging the capabilities of its VP3500 Class 5 softswitch line with the release of the MetaSwitch VP3510. As part of this new release, the company has introduced a number of...

Optical access.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... White Rock Networks www.whiterock.com Keeping its hand in the SONET game while recognizing Ethernet services as the future area for carrier growth, White Rock Networks has added a multiservice optical access platform to its transport...

Optical router.(Pannaway Technologies)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Pannaway Technologies www.pannaway.com Looking to provide a solution to allow local exchange carriers to deliver a wider array of broadband services over an IP connection, Pannaway Technologies has released its BAR (broadband...

Ethernet Service Platform.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Fujitsu Network Communications www.fujitsu.com Fujitsu has introduced the FLASH-WAVE 4020 Ethernet Service Platform, which simultaneously delivers Ethernet and DS1 services directly to customer premises. Intended for small or mid-size...

Service Edge Router.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Laurel Networks www.laurelnetworks.com Laurel Networks has expanded its ST-series with the introduction of the ST50 Service Edge Router, which packs all the multiservice functionally of the high-capacity ST200 Service Edge Router in a...

Digital cross-connect.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Tellabs www.tellabs.com To help network operators find new ways to take costs out of business T-1 lines and wireless transport networks, Tellabs has added two new capabilities to the Tellabs 5320L and Tellabs 5320LS digital...

VDSL backhaul.(New Products)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Telco Systems www.telco.com Looking to give operators a way to lower their wireless backhaul costs, Telco Systems has introduced its secure Wi-Fi VDSL Internet access solution, which provides broadband backhaul Ethernet connectivity...

Intelligent Ethernet.(Covaro Networks)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Covaro Networks www.covaro.com Are Ethernet services as profitable as they could be? Start-up Covaro Networks doesn't think so. It has launched a family of products based on its Etherjack technology that allows the delivery of...

Offline.(Jeff Storey )(Interview)
July 1, 2004... A CEO is a company's No. 1 salesperson, if nothing else, and WilTel Communications' Jeff Storey is no exception. As a provider of voice, data and video services to carriers large and small, in the United States and overseas, Tulsa, Okla.-based...