TelecomWeb News Digest articles from December 2007

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from December 2007

AT&T Hangs Up On Payphones.
December 3, 2007... AT&T this morning said that it is discontinuing its payphone business, ending 129 years of collecting nickels, dimes and quarters in the once- ubiquitous phones, whose numbers have been dwindling nationwide as cellular phone use soars. ...

Broadview Files For $287.5M IPO.
December 3, 2007... Broadview Networks, a specialist in managed voice and data services for the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) market in the Northeast, has filed papers for an initial public offering (IPO) of $287.5 million - cash that at least in part...

Varicent Mobilizes Its Sales Software.
December 3, 2007... Varicent Software has melded its sales performance management (SPM) and enterprise-wide incentive compensation management software, Research In Motion's Blackberry and technology from mobility expert Vaultus Mobile Technologies to craft an...

Euro MSSPs Face Major Competition, Potential Partnerships.
December 3, 2007... The growth and development of the Europe's hosted managed-security- services market has been fuelled by specialist managed-security-services providers (MSSPs) that have pushed the adoption of "e-mail hygiene services" in the region. However,...

Submit A Business Plan, Win An E-Mail Server.
December 3, 2007... N.Y.-based Zrinity, a provider of e-mail delivery server and systems, is marketing a new "Enterprise to Entrepreneurs" program along with a new set of e- mail marketing resources that include "Zpedia," which offers definitions of e-...

FCC NPRM Tackles Forbearance Reform.
December 3, 2007... Late last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) kicked off a fast-tracked initiative to examine whether there is a need for new procedures governing its review of petitions requesting forbearance from regulation. Under the...

Klausner Unleashes New 'Visual Voicemail' Patent Suits.
December 4, 2007... Klausner Technologies, the company created by personal digital assistant (PDA) inventor Judah Klausner, has filed patent infringement charges against AT&T, Apple, eBay's Skype unit, Comcast and Cablevision for allegedly trampling the same...

Bluesocket Unveils 'Virtual' Wireless LAN Architecture.
December 4, 2007... Bluesocket has released what it's calling a "Virtual Wireless LAN (vWLAN)" architecture it says unifies wireless and existing wired networks to produce an enterprise mobility solution with "integrated and optimized" networking. As part...

UM Specialist Adomo Closes New Funding Round.
December 4, 2007... Adomo, a unified-messaging for large enterprises specialist, has closed on a $15 million Series A-1 funding round. Putting the cash into Adomo were Menlo Ventures and Storm Ventures. The company, founded in 1999, has not disclosed its...

British Airways Taps CommuniGate For UC E-Mail.
December 4, 2007... CommuniGate Systems, a provider of carrier-class rich media Internet communications solutions, says British Airways has chosen its CommuniGate Pro to drive communications for the company's diverse and worldwide mobile employee base. ...

CALA 1H07 Contact-Center Shipments Lead The Pack.
December 4, 2007... Newly released research says growth in contact-center shipments for the Central America/Latin America (CALA) region were up more than 30 percent compared with the first half of 2006, making CALA the fastest-growing region in an otherwise...

NexTone, Reef Point Morph Into NextPoint.
December 4, 2007... In a move they say creates "the world's first fully integrated fixed- mobile connectivity platform," Md.-based NexTone Communications Inc., and Mass.- based Reef Point Systems Inc., are merging to form NextPointNetworks Inc., aiming to help...

Verizon Loses UNE Forbearance Battle At The Commish.
December 5, 2007... After most businesses had closed for the evening, the Federal Communications Commission yesterday released its decision to deny petitions for forbearance filed by the Verizon Telephone Companies, which sought certain relief in the Boston, New...

AT&T Buys Last Vestige Of McCaw Cellular Community.
December 5, 2007... AT&T signed a deal to buy full control of Edge Wireless, believed to be the last of the string of carriers created by former executives of industry pioneer McCaw Cellular Communications. AT&T Wireless itself, of course, was birthed of...

CosmoCom, Microsoft Meld Call-Center Expertise.
December 5, 2007... CosmoCom, a backer of Call Center Consolidation 2.0, now says it's a launch partner for Microsoft's Customer Care Framework 2008, and the solution will be pre-integrated with CosmoCom's CosmoCall Universe. Here's how CosmoCom defines...

MegaPath Expands Managed IP/Voice Service For SMBs.
December 5, 2007... MegaPath, in a nationwide deployment, says it now has expanded the availability of "Duet," its high-speed Internet and phone service bundle for the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) market from 350 central offices supporting the service...

Nortel Fields New SMB Offerings.
December 5, 2007... Nortel unveiled a string of new products it's touting as being "custom built" for the small- to medium-business (SMB) market rather than simply being re-jiggered versions of offerings first proffered for the enterprise market. The...

Multimedios Bolsters Customer-Service Ops With Combo Package.
December 5, 2007... Pa.-based C-COR Inc. is expanding its global footprint in Latin America with the region's first combined deployment of workforce management and network monitoring with Mexican operator Multimedios Redes. Multimedios Redes covers the...

HP Upgrades BladeSystem To Carrier Class; Is ATCA Dead?
December 6, 2007... HP next month will go to market with a "carrier class" version of its HP BladeSystem c-Class, a line that until now has been targeted mainly at enterprise communication needs including, most recently, unified communications (UC)...

Convergence, Open Environments Push Professional Services Take-Up.
December 6, 2007... According to the just released "InfoTrack for Enterprise Services - Professional Services Report, November 2007," convergence and IP telephony (IPT), wireless, Internet, video, instant messaging (IM), intelligent PDAs and converged...

Sprint Offers Ethernet Local-Loop Provisioning Services.
December 6, 2007... Sprint has jumped into the Ethernet local-loop market with an offering called simply "Sprint Provided Ethernet Access," which the carrier says it will market "as an alternative to limited local exchange carrier (LEC) options." The...

CommVault Launches Data Backup SaaS Program.
December 6, 2007... CommVault formalized a program for those business partners offering or planning to offer managed data-protection services to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) based on its "Simpana" software, dubbing the new program "software as a...

SIP Forum Blesses Avaya Products.
December 6, 2007... The SIP Forum has vetted Avaya's intelligent communications solutions, gaining the company "SIPconnect Compliant" certification. The SIP Forum is an independent IP communications industry association comprised of individuals and...

Mexican SMBs Ratchet ICT Spending; Vendors Take Note.
December 6, 2007... New research says small and medium businesses (SMBs, or companies with as many as 999 employees) in Mexico continue to adopt IT/telecom products and are on track to spend more than $13 billion on information and communications technologies...

Governor Promises Universal Broadband In The Empire State.
December 7, 2007... Bemoaning the fact that the United States has fallen far behind many places in the world in broadband penetration, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer yesterday created a State Council for Universal Broadband, charged with developing strategies...

AT&T Turns To VCAT For Ethernet Over Sonet.
December 7, 2007... AT&T has become one of the first major carriers in the world to use the technique of Virtual Concatenation (VCAT) on its Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) in order to dish up faster Ethernet to businesses and broadband wholesalers on its...

Bonding House Promises Businesses Affordable T1 Alternative.
December 7, 2007... A British start-up called Shareband has jumped the pond and is about to launch a managed broadband service in the U.S. that bonds ADSL and other types of broadband in order to create faster broadband service that it says can serve as a...

Fitch Unveils 2008 Carrier Financial Calls, Predicts More Prepaid.
December 7, 2007... Fitch Ratings predicts only modest revenue growth for telecom carriers next year, saying business and wireless services will be driven by increasing data demand. Partially offsetting the expected growth is intense competition for legacy...

Red Condor Lands In Tech Data's Support Program.
December 7, 2007... Calif.-based Red Condor inked a North American distribution agreement with Tech Data Corporation for its e-mail security products, including its managed e-mail security services and Message Assurance Gateway (MAG) network appliances. ...

Citrix EasyCall Recipe Wins Cisco 'Bake-Off' Recognition.
December 7, 2007... The Cisco IP Telecommunications Users Group (CIPTUG) named Citrix Systems' "EasyCall" as a recipient of two "Application Bake-Off" awards at the CIPTUG Annual Conference, including "Best Application Suite" and "Best Finance Application." ...

Cisco Nails Down Router Win At AT&T.
December 10, 2007... Cisco has triumphed at AT&T, picking up the contract to provide routers that will become the core platform of AT&T's IP/MPLS backbone network. AT&T had been without a named router supplier since Avici Systems, then the Number Three...

Nortel Scores VoIP Deal At Verizon.
December 10, 2007... Starting in January 2008, Verizon Business is going to begin offering a managed VoIP PBX service to its large business and government customers using Nortel hardware and software as its platform. For the past five years, Verizon's...

Juniper Invites Third-Party Router Applications.
December 10, 2007... Juniper has opened up its operating system software a bit, setting up a program in which what looks like carefully chosen outsiders will, for the first time, be able to write applications that integrate tightly with Juniper's JUNOS operating...

3 Taps Seven For U.K. Mobile E-Mail Solutions.
December 10, 2007... Push e-mail software provider Seven says it will be pre-loading its mobile e-mail solutions on an array of mobile phones for 3 in the U.K. 3 has 4.1 million customers in the U.K. and Ireland. The first device to include Seven's solution is...

Linksys Intro's Wireless Surveillance Gear.
December 10, 2007... Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc., now is selling the Wireless-G Business Internet Video Camera with Audio (Model WVC2300), its latest small- business-oriented surveillance product that's been combined with the recently released...

ProfitLine Helps Enterprises Manage Mobile Users, Expenses.
December 10, 2007... San Diego-based ProfitLine, a provider of outsourced telecom expense management (TEM) and wireless support solutions, continues to ink contracts for the company's turnkey individual liable (IL) to corporate liable (CL) wireless migration...

Avaya Tops LucaTel, Challenges Cisco In Enterprise Voice.
December 11, 2007... Avaya has dislodged Alcatel-Lucent from its Number One market-share spot for enterprise voice equipment in Western Europe, and it's threatening to do the same to Cisco in North America, according to research reports from both sides of the...

Smith Micro Snags PCTEL's Mobility Solutions Group.
December 11, 2007... Wireless solutions house PCTEL inked a definitive agreement to sell its Mobility Solutions Group (MSG) to Smith Micro Software. The divestiture leaves PCTEL focused exclusively on wireless communications propagation-and- optimization products...

Avistar Recruits Desktop Video VARs.
December 11, 2007... Avistar Communications Corporation has launched a channel-partner program for its desktop video-conferencing/unified-communications (UC) offerings, and it's completed agreements with four value-added resellers (VARs), three in North America...

Don't Wait; Deploy Backup Disaster-Recovery Networks Now.
December 11, 2007... New Edge Networks, the business communications unit of ISP EarthLink Inc., says more businesses are installing backup disaster-recovery networks with cost savings from switching to wide area networks based on new, lower-cost technology. ...

Survey Sez: U.K. Staffers Could Be Data's Worst Enemies.
December 11, 2007... A survey of more than 100 U.K. office workers reveals employees are "hugely reliant" on access to network data to do their jobs, yet they show an "alarming apathy" regarding the value of that data. The survey was performed by secure...

SDR, Cognitive Radio Could Push Nationwide Broadband Buildouts.
December 11, 2007... With the rest of the industry counting the days until next month's auction, the Software Defined Radio (SDR) Forum has issued a report identifying how SDR and cognitive radio technology can facilitate a nationwide interoperable broadband...

Not On Your Holiday Wish List: VoIP Vulnerabilities.
December 12, 2007... Enterprise VoIP security house Sipera Systems, in a year-end roundup sure to give network communications managers nightmares during the holiday season, today released its list of the "Top 5 VoIP Vulnerabilities" gathered during the past year...

JetBlue Debuts Free ATG Messaging.
December 12, 2007... JetBlue Airways, in partnership with Yahoo!, Research In Motion (RIM) and LiveTV, says it's now the first U.S. domestic carrier to provide complimentary in-flight e-mail and instant messaging services, starting with "BetaBlue," the airline's...

Singapore Opens Bidding Battle For 1Gb/s NGN.
December 12, 2007... Singapore, after more than a year of preparation since first announcing its plan to bring 1 Gb/s broadband to every business and resident of the island nation (TelecomWeb news break, March 6, 2006), has opened bidding for the contract to...

Huawei Hits The Waves With Global Marine.
December 12, 2007... China's Huawei Technologies Co. is getting into the submarine optical cable business in a joint venture with undersea market giant Global Marine Systems. The new operation, to be called Huawei Submarine Networks Ltd (Huawei Submarine),...

MAXRoam SIM Complements Lower EU Roaming Rates For Cheaper Calls.
December 12, 2007... Wireless subscribers in the U.K. and Ireland will be the first to take advantage of MAXRoam, a new roaming product that reportedly allows anyone to reduce mobile-phone bills by as much as 80 percent while traveling abroad. The service...

Avaya Touts Telecommuter App, VPNs, T1 Interfaces, Wireless Handsets.
December 12, 2007... Small companies that need to make sure business doesn't stop when employees can't physically make it into the office now can use a "new, inexpensive and easy-to-use telecommuter application" from Avaya. Informe Limited, a communications...

Will Microsoft Convert RIM Enterprise Smartphone, Datacard Users?
December 13, 2007... Even though smartphone penetration at the enterprise level hasn't topped 10 percent yet, a recent poll of enterprise wireless subscribers found 84 percent of respondents saying they use a smartphone, with BlackBerry the Number One choice,...

Nextlink Lets NextPhase Use Some Of Its Spectrum.
December 13, 2007... XO Holdings subsidiary Nextlink Wireless has leased chunks of spectrum in four major markets to NextPhase Wireless, which has ambitious plans to build out a U.S. wireless broadband network that covers the full lower 48 states. So far...

NewStep Tunes Up Its Fixed-Mobile Convergence Platform.
December 13, 2007... NewStep Networks has beefed up the fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) and presence capabilities of its flagship Converged Services Node (CSN) unified communications (UC) platform. The new software version, CSN 3.5, is designed for...

GE Fanuc Releases VME Rugged Gigabit Ethernet Switches.
December 13, 2007... GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has gone to market with a pair of VME form factor Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switches aimed at rugged military and industrial environments. GE Faunc's two new switches, the NETernity GBX24 and VXS24, both...

LAM Helps Wireless Carriers Meet FCC E911 Mandates.
December 13, 2007... TechnoCom Corp. says its Location Assurance Manager (LAM) enables wireless carriers to meet the new FCC mandate regarding Enhanced 911 (E911) location accuracy measurement and reporting requirements cost-effectively. The background: The...

Survey Sez: Wireless Biz E-Mail Revenues Top $9B In 2012.
December 13, 2007... Recent research says wireless e-mail is one of the largest segments in the mobile enterprise application market, and its installed base continues to grow as new customers deploy the solution and those with deployments expand their footprint....

Microsoft Named In New Opera Browser Monopoly Suit.
December 14, 2007... Norway's Opera Software ASA, which says it's the only company that can put the Web on any device and for free, filed a complaint with the European Commission (EC) aimed at giving consumers "a genuine choice of Web browsers." Of course,...

Dutch OT2006 Taps Mitel For Next-Gen IP Apps.
December 14, 2007... Mitel, which is emerging as a force in unified-communications applications and solutions, won a six-year contract to supply 96 institutions of the Dutch government with "future-proof" IP communications solutions. The large-scale IP...

Commish Gives As Good As It Gets During Broadband Hearing.
December 14, 2007... The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee grilled the full panel of the current sitting Federal Communications Commission yesterday, and the proliferation of broadband in this country was a key issue, bringing into question...

Startup Zayo Bandwidth Doubles Down.(Company overview)
December 14, 2007... Business bandwidth startup Zayo Bandwidth, finishing its first year in business, is buying itself a holiday present that will double its metro and regional fiber route miles: Tulsa-based Citynet Fiber Network (CFN). The acquisition is...

Zeugma Lands Product-Launch Funding.
December 14, 2007... Stealth startup Zeugma has nailed down $22.5 million in second-round venture financing, cash it says will fund the launch of its still-secret planned products. However, the company finally confirmed will be "a telecommunications system...

Synygy Beefs Up SaaS Stable With New Portal.
December 14, 2007... Sales performance-management specialist Synygy says it successfully rolled out "Synygy Portal," the latest of a series of on-demand, software-as-a- service (SaaS) solutions for large sales organizations. Synygy Portal is a Web-native...

Startup Claims Creation Of A New Web Telephony Paradigm.
December 17, 2007... Silicon Valley software startup Ribbit, until now a stealth operation, this morning came out of hiding with a telephony applications kit that it claims will revolutionize the industry - a claim of course heard from startups many times...

Nortel Serves Vonage With Patent Countersuit.
December 17, 2007... Nortel has joined the "lets sue Vonage" club, alleging that the industry- leading "pure play" VoIP house has trampled on nine of its patents, including key patents covering 911 calls - and of course if Vonage can't dish up 911 calls it's out...

Done Deal: Arris Buys C-COR.
December 17, 2007... Shareholders of both Arris and C-COR have overwhelmingly approved Arris' acquisition of C-COR, and Arris has immediately bought C-COR for $731 million in cash and stock, creating a $1.2 billion behemoth that can deliver nearly end-to- end...

XO Snags Tech Data To Resell Its Converged Services.
December 17, 2007... Distribution giant Tech Data Corporation has taken on board XO Communications' converged IP voice and data services - built on a Cisco platform and targeted at the small- to medium-sized (SMB) market - in a deal that gives an immediate...

Online Broker Scottrade Orders 'Self-Healing' Network From Qwest.
December 17, 2007... Qwest Communications International said that Scottrade, which claims honors as having more branch offices than any other on-line stockbroker, has ordered Qwest's Self-Healing Network Service (SHNS) as a multi-million dollar upgrade to the...

Managed Services House Peak 10 Expands North.
December 17, 2007... Fast-growing regional managed services provider and data center operator Peak 10 said that it has decided to expand into the Cincinnati region - its third expansion in a year and its most northern excursion so far - with a 22,000-square-foot...

Sprint Gets New CEO; But Wherefore WiMAX?(Company overview)
December 18, 2007... Sprint Nextel has lured industry veteran Daniel Hesse away from his post as chairman, president and CEO of Embarq, the erstwhile Sprint landline division, to take over the post of President and CEO left vacant when Gary Forsee was ousted in...

France Telecom Faces New Rival As SFR Romances Neuf Cegetel.
December 18, 2007... Number two French wireless carrier SFR, controlled by Vivendi with a 56 percent stake and Vodafone holding the rest, is in talks to buy a controlling interest in landline phone and broadband house Neuf Cegetel, in a $7.2 billion deal that...

Cisco's WebEx Targets SMBs Via Jamcracker.
December 18, 2007... WebEx, Cisco's $3.2 billion trophy acquisition earlier this year in the burgeoning online-meeting market - or social networking as its increasingly being called - has signed up with Jamcracker to deliver the WebEx WebOffice through the...

Turin to Buy Carrier Access: End-To-End Carrier Ethernet Promised.
December 18, 2007... Carrier Access Corporation, an expert in wireless backhaul and converged access products, has agreed to be acquired by Turin Networks, in a combination that will extend Turin's iConnect suite of metro transport and switching solutions to the...

Cell Phones Top Landlines In Small Business Poll.
December 18, 2007... Small businesses now rely on mobile phones more than they do on cell phones, according to a survey released today by RingCentral, a specialist in providing "virtual PBX" service to the small business and professional market. And the only...

Siemens Enterprise HiPath Softswitch Gets UC Upgrade.
December 18, 2007... Siemens, in a major feature release for its HiPath 8000 SIP Softswitch, has added more than 40 new Unified Communications (UC) Foundation features including UC interworking with both IBM and Microsoft systems. The upgrade comes at the...

Massive Mob Files Spectrum Auction Bid Papers.
December 19, 2007... A large crowd of 266 potential bidders filed notice of intention with the FCC to bid in next month's highly anticipated 700 MHz spectrum auction. Surprisingly, according to FCC notices posted yesterday afternoon only 96 of the applications...

Intel Ditches More Telecom Products.
December 19, 2007... Intel has sold off the telecom-related portion of its Optical Platform Division - primarily tuneable lasers - to telecommunications component and subsystem supplier Emcore Corp for $85 million. It's also put other pieces of its shrinking...

Mobile WiMAX Certification Tests Launched.
December 19, 2007... The WiMAX Forum today began its first Mobile WiMAX certification testing and evaluation, at a laboratory in Spain - a launch that highlights the fact that all claims to date of "Mobile WiMAX" products have been self-proclaimed by...

Lucatel Leaves The Fiber Business.
December 19, 2007... Alcatel-Lucent is getting out of the fiber business, selling off its 49.9 percent share in Draka Comteq B.V. to its partner Draka Holding N.V. for $301 million. Draka Comteq B.V., a major player in the field of optical fiber and optical...

Verizon Offers Big Business A 'Green' Bill.
December 19, 2007... Verizon Business is launching a desktop application for large businesses and government agencies that it says can collapse their telecom bills - often delivered in boxes filled with a thousand or more pages - into a few screens of relevant...

CommuniGate Adds Over-The-Air Data Synch To Its UC Kit.
December 19, 2007... CommuniGate Systems has added mobile over-the-air data synchronization to its CommuniGate Pro Unified Communications (UC) platform. The new capability, which uses Microsoft's AirSync (ActiveSync OTA) technology from Exchange, is showing...

SaaS Fever: Netsuite IPO's At Twice The Price.
December 20, 2007... In a stunning object lesson in just how hot Software as a Service (SaaS) has suddenly gotten, Netsuite last night priced its initial public offering at (IPO) $26 per share, about twice what it had said the price would be just two weeks ago....

Vivendi Squeezes The Orange: Neuf Cegetel Takeover Bid Formalized.
December 20, 2007... Vivendi said this morning that its majority owned wireless subsidiary SFR has hammered out a deal to take control of Neuf Cegetel, as expected (TelecomWeb news break, Dec. 18). The deal will create the largest non-incumbent telecom carrier...

LTE Hits 160 Mb/s In Nokia-Siemens Tests.
December 20, 2007... Long Term Evolution/System Architecture Evolution (LTE/SAE) - the 4G mobile broadband technology planned to be used by both AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless - has passed another critical test, dishing up peak data rates of 160 Mb/s in what...

Emissions Technology Giant Signs AT&T For Worldwide Managed Services.
December 20, 2007... AT&T has landed a five-year contract from emission technology industry giant EMCON Technologies to connect EMCON operations in 19 countries with managed voice and data services. Under the terms of the agreement, whose value was not...

Cisco Makes Its Mobile WiMAX Play.
December 20, 2007... Cisco yesterday said that it has closed on its acquisition of Mobile WIMAX house Navini Networks, managing to do the $330 million deal before the year was out. It hadn't been expected to be completed until January at the earliest. The...

DOE Taps Qwest For VoIP Transition.
December 20, 2007... Qwest Communications International has won a relatively small but high profile order from Energy Enterprise Solutions (EES) to upgrade the voice network at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), transitioning its current Time Division...