TelecomWeb News Digest articles from September 2008

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from September 2008

Alcatel-Lucent Gets New Leadership.
September 2, 2008... Former BT Group chief Ben Verwaayen took the helm at Alcatel-Lucent today, replacing embattled CEO Pat Russo who as the CEO of Lucent's CEO co- engineered the "merger of equals" that has led the company to six quarters and $7 billion in the...

IEEE Quietly Approves Key Enterprise Wi-Fi VoIP Standard.
September 2, 2008... The IEEE, with surprisingly little public note, has approved an addition to its standards for Wi-Fi that should have a significant impact on the enterprise wireless VoIP market, potentially leading to increased hand-off compatibility between...

Verizon Goes Underground.
September 2, 2008... Commuters on their way to work via Chicago's underground trains are able to stay connected via data and voice - if they are Verizon Wireless subscribers - as of today, the first time ever a national U.S. carrier has offered such subway...

Thus Takeover Opposition Crumbles.
September 2, 2008... The board of the Thus Group PLC, facing total defeat in its attempt to keep the company independent or attract a better bid - with AT&T said to be the bidder - has thrown in the towel and withdrawn its opposition to a hostile $656 million...

2-4 Mb/s Expected For Sprint's Xohm WiMAX.
September 2, 2008... Sprint Nextel's Xohm "mobile WiMAX" service will apparently launch with downloads speeds of 2-4 Mb/s, far less than the speeds in the dozens of megabytes per second that WiMAX boosters have been prone to quoting. Still those speeds are...

Nortel Unveils Secure 'Office On A Stick'.
September 2, 2008... Nortel has gone to market with what it is calling a Secure "Office On A Stick" - essentially a system for enterprises to squirt a virtualized desktop to their employees over a virtual private network (VPN). The key to the new offering,...

Last Holdout: Samsung Sells Symbian Stake.
September 3, 2008... Samsung, with virtually no public notice, has reportedly agreed to sell its stake in Symbian, giving Nokia the last piece it needs for 100 percent ownership in order to proceed with its scheme to turn Symbian into an open source operating...

New IBM Blade First To Offer DPI.
September 3, 2008... IBM yesterday unveiled its first Blade Server designed to reduce security threats while at the same time managing network traffic, a blade with deep packet inspection (DPI) from CloudShield on board. The new blade, which will roll onto...

Intel Buys Into Data Roaming Specialist Aicent.
September 3, 2008... Intel has put $3 million into data roaming specialist Aicent, joining Qualcomm and VC's Warburg Pincus and iGlobe Partners in funding the company, which promises to link wireless data networks in order to facilitate worldwide roaming. ...

Mindspeed & Excelocity Team On VoIP Gateway Kit.
September 3, 2008... Embedded gateway solutions developer Excelocity and Mindspeed have teamed up to create a reference kit for telecommunications and enterprise equipment vendors crafting signaling and call control application development for carrier access...

Snom Phones Mate With Fonality IP PBXes.
September 3, 2008... VoIP enterprise phone maker snom Technology AG has signed up to have its phones certified as compatible with open-source phone-system provider Fonality Inc's IP PBXes. The move is the latest in a continuing stream of such by snom, as it...

Aussie Fiber-Network Bidding Reopens.
September 3, 2008... Bidding to build a massive nationwide broadband network in Australia re- opened this morning, with a new deadline of Nov. 26 for bids, pushing the start of construction of the $7.9 billion network, and the anticipated gold rush of vendors...

IBM Does Unified Communications In A 'Virtual World'.
September 4, 2008... Move over Linden Labs; IBM Research yesterday disclosed that it's working on a virtual environment that will go far beyond Second Life and its pseudo- reality and into the world of large corporate enterprises, where 'virtual world' technology...

$2B Enterprise VoWLAN Market Predicted.
September 4, 2008... The enterprise voice over wireless local area network (VoWLAN) market in North America will rapidly grow to a huge $2.15 billion annually by 2014, according to new predictions by research house Frost & Sullivan. Last year the market...

Intel Ups The Ante In Open Source IP PBX Maker.
September 4, 2008... Open source IP PBX maker Fonality has landed another $12 million in venture capital, with Intel making its second investment in the fast-growing startup, bringing the total investment in the company to more than $24 million. The lastest...

Irish Telco Interconnect House Buys NY Cousin.
September 4, 2008... Dublin-based telecoms carrier software and services vendor Prime Carrier Ltd. has bought New York-based F-Line Technologies, in a deal that gives Prime a far firmer footing in the U.S. to serve its North American customers - a group that...

Nortel Bringing 40 Gb/s Northward To Alaska.
September 4, 2008... Nortel has scored a pair of major North American showcase wins for its 40 Gb/s technology, bringing 40 Gb/s to Alaska for the very first time and linking Canada's biggest cities with the United States. The first win is at Alaska...

WildBlue Finances Its Financing Program.
September 4, 2008... Satellite broadband provider WildBlue Communications has landed $50 million in new equity financing, cash it needed in order to fund the equipment leasing offer it made last month. Liberty Media, Intelsat, the National Rural...

Comcast Launches Court Challenge To FCC 'Net Neutrality' Rules.
September 5, 2008... Comcast has gone to court in an attempt to win a ruling that the FCC has no legal right to enforce its notions of net neutrality. In a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Washington, Comcast said that the FCC had...

Ciena Warns Of Carrier Spending Slowdown.
September 5, 2008... In what may go down as "Black Thursday" in Ciena history the company reported a 59 percent plunge in quarterly profits despite a 24 percent increase in sales, mainly due to one time charges, but the big news was that spending by the...

Cablevision Rolls Out Nation's Largest Wi-Fi Net.
September 5, 2008... Cablevision Systems Corp. said yesterday that it has completed the first phase of its planned massive $350 million rollout of a Wi-Fi network that will blanket its service footprint in the New York metropolitan region - and dish up free...

"eBay For Spectrum" Opens Its Doors.
September 5, 2008... Start-up Spectrum Bridge this morning went live with its promised on-line trading market for wireless spectrum, creating a sort of eBay for owners of spectrum they're not currently using. Spectrum Bridge has launched with an initial...

'Reborn' Company Promises 10 Terabit Ethernet Switch.
September 5, 2008... CeCors Inc., a little-noticed company that failed in a years-long attempt to develop a web-based collaborative workspace system before turning its attention to Ethernet, this morning announced what its touting as the "world's first" 10...

Protus Tunes Up Its New IP PBX.
September 5, 2008... Protus has spiffed up its virtual IP PBX service, adding a series of features based on customer feedback from the first three months its been on the market. The Ottawa-based company, which markets the PBX service throughout the United...

Despite Poor Financials, Sycamore Has Rainy-Day Money.
September 8, 2008... Embattled Sycamore reported yet another terrible quarter, losing $14.1 million on sales of just $15.1 million - barely half of the $38 million it reported in the quarter a year ago due to cutbacks by Sprint Nextel. But fear not: With lots of...

Spacenet Adds EV-DO To Its Hybrid Network.
September 8, 2008... Satellite broadband provider Spacenet has begun offering wireless as a last-mile option for its enterprise subscribers, choosing to use Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) technology. The wireless option joins DSL, cable, frame relay and...

Telecom Argentina Chooses Ciena For Network Upgrade.
September 8, 2008... In a major showcase win, Ciena says Telecom Argentina has deployed its CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform as part of an "extensive" network upgrade and expansion, at the same time embarking on further upgrades as it moves to an...

Survey Sez: Economy Won't Affect TMT Jobs.
September 8, 2008... Though they expect the overall U.S. economy to worsen during the next six to 12 months, telecommunications, media and technology (TMT) workers say they are optimistic their industries will perform better. When asked about the immediate...

Soft-ex Intros TEM In The U.K.
September 8, 2008... BT has been named by Dublin-based Soft-ex as the preferred partner for the European launch of its Optimiser Telecom Expense Management (TEM) service, and the company hints "several leading U.K." enterprises already have deployed the product....

eFMC Mobility Router Delivers VoWLAN Connectivity.
September 8, 2008... Enterprise mobility provider Agito Networks Inc. calls its just-released RoamAnywhere Mobility Router "the industry's most powerful enterprise fixed mobile convergence (eFMC) product, purpose-built for enterprises to help them increase...

Google-Backed Satellite Startup Promises Global Broadband.
September 9, 2008... In partnership with three industry titans, O3b Networks Ltd. this morning unveiled an ambitious $707 million plan to ring the Earth with 16 Ka-band satellites dishing up broadband to what it estimates are three billion people who now have...

Cisco Virtual Office Features 'Zero-Touch' Setup.
September 9, 2008... It looks like Cisco Virtual Office is the newest part of the company's "Human Network," offering a solution Cisco says allows businesses to extend their enterprises -- and their productivity -- by "bringing the office" to road- warrior...

Vodafone CEO Cleans House; Is Verizon Wireless In Play?
September 9, 2008... Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao, who took over in July from Arun Sarin, has flexed his muscles for the first time, turning the executive suite upside down, recruiting a new chief for European operations, splitting its emerging markets unit in...

Consultant Backs Market-Based Broadband Policy.
September 9, 2008... Scott Cleland, president of McLean, Va.-based consulting group Precursor LLC, is warning the telecom industry of "the dangers and unintended consequences of a more government-centric broadband policy." In a paper released earlier today,...

Verizon WLAN Managed Services Go Global.
September 9, 2008... Verizon Business, in a major expansion of the managed wireless local area network (MWLAN) service it launched two years ago, has added support for Cisco to its existing service portfolio and is taking the service global. Verizon had been...

vDesk Virtualization App Comes In Four Flavors.
September 9, 2008... Managed virtual-workspace provider RingCube Technologies is marketing "vDesk," an enterprise desktop-virtualization solution it says delivers employees, contractors and customers "anytime, anywhere" access to a personalized desktop...

Siemens Promises Contact-Center Savings With IVR.
September 10, 2008... Siemens has added shared interactive voice response (IVR) and service management to its OpenScape Contact Center portfolio, partnering with call- center management specialist Contact Solutions Inc. (CSI) for the new hosted offering. The...

Alcatel-Lucent Unveils LBS Services Kit.
September 10, 2008... Alcatel-Lucent this morning released details of a geographic messaging service platform, invoking the mystic name of "Bell Labs" as progenitor of the algorithms it says are driving an offering that solves many of the issues that have slowed...

Senator Asks Wireless Brass For IM Pricing Answers.
September 10, 2008... Citing a 100-percent increase in the subscriber cost of text messaging since 2005, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, is asking the presidents and CEOs of the four largest U.S. wireless carriers to...

Touchscreen Sales Ramp As Component Prices Drop.
September 10, 2008... Last year, shipments of touchscreen-based mobile devices increased 91 percent compared with 2006, and ABI Research forecasts revenue from the global touchscreen market for mobile phones and other handheld devices will reach $5 billion...

SMBs Offered Customized SIP-Based Paging.
September 10, 2008... Paging isn't dead! It just looks a little different. Objectworld Communications Corp., with help from CyberData Corporation, is adding new paging-server capabilities to its Objectworld Unified Communication (UC) Server software, saying small...

Supercomm Makes A Comeback.
September 10, 2008... Supercomm, once the nation's premiere telecom trade show, has risen from the ashes just as we predicted it would (TelecomWeb news break, June 20), following the disappointing turnout at this year's NXTComm event in Las Vegas. Years ago,...

Ericsson Lands C&W Convergence Contract.
September 11, 2008... Ericsson snagged a major contract to provide Cable & Wireless with a "complete" GSM mobile network that, apparently using picocell/femtocell technology, will provide enterprises with on-premises GSM coverage carried as VoIP over the C&W...

IBM Licenses Avistar Technology For Lotus UC.
September 11, 2008... Avistar Communications Corporation, in an SEC filing yesterday, disclosed IBM has licensed its bandwidth-management technology, paying $3 million in cash upfront, another $3 million over time and, even more significantly, 2 percent of the...

Qualcomm Taps Seven For BREW Messaging Component.
September 11, 2008... Mobile e-mail and messaging software provider Seven has plans to offer a complete set of integrated messaging components for Qualcomm's BREW Mobile Platform. In addition to push e-mail for business e-mail synchronization, Seven's new...

Increased Network Threats Make LatAm Telcos Ripe For MSS.
September 11, 2008... With North America and Western Europe experiencing decreasing growth rates, managed security services (MSS) vendors are starting to focus on the Latin American MSS market, with its increased threat levels and its need to foolproof network...

Singapore Hatches SaaS Incubator.
September 11, 2008... One of the first Software as a Service (SaaS) incubators in the Pacific region has opened in Singapore, with backing from HP and Microsoft as well as from the Singapore government and favorite son SingTel. The incubator, called the...

Level 3 Unveils Improved Enterprise VPN Offering.
September 11, 2008... Level 3 Communications' Business Markets Group says it's rebuilt its enterprise data network architecture, re-launching a multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)-based wide area network (WAN) platform it claims enables "true converged service...

BlackBerry The Battleground in Microsoft/Google War.
September 12, 2008... Research in Motion (RIM) and Microsoft inked a deal to put Microsoft's Live Search service on BlackBerry devices, unveiling it fewer than 24 hours after Google released a massively upgraded version of its search package for BlackBerry users....

Teens, Not Road Warriors, May Determine Future Wireless Apps.
September 12, 2008... The results of a Harris Interactive survey released today by CTIA - The Wireless Association says always-mobile teens are redefining what mobility will be for all of us. The online study of more than 2,000 U.S. teenagers delved into how...

FCC Turns On DIRS In Hurricane Ike Preparation.
September 12, 2008... The FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB) has activated the Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) in response to Hurricane Ike, expected to make landfall along the Texas coast later this evening. According to...

Nortel Beefs Up Network Security Kit.
September 12, 2008... Nortel has strengthened its secure network access (SNA) offering, adding new enforcement modes to enable enterprises to implement and manage network access control (NAC) across a range of VoIP, unified communications (UC) and data...

Partners Team For IP PBX SIP Voice Mail.
September 12, 2008... T3 Telecom Software says its SIP telephony voice-mail application has been integrated into Tadiran's IP PBX products. Tadiran distributes IP communications solutions to large companies in 41 countries through authorized business partners....

South Korea Attempts WiMAX/WiBRO Salvage Job.
September 12, 2008... The South Korean government, in a desperation move to salvage its "WiBRO" home-grown implementation of IEEE 802.16-based mobile broadband, is laying the groundwork to allow the technology to be used for voice calls. The WiMAX Forum these...

Juniper Unveils New Architecture Powering New Gateways.
September 15, 2008... Juniper Networks today released its "Dynamic Services Architecture (DSA)," modestly calling it an architecture that "changes the game in networking" and initially releasing a pair of service gateways using DSA it claims can dish up firewall...

Nokia Siemens Takes Over Embarq Network Management.
September 15, 2008... Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) this morning said it's completed its previously announced takeover of Embarq's network operations, disclosing plans to use the facilities for an even broader thrust into U.S. managed services. Under terms of...

Citrix Tackles Cloud Computing With 'C3' Suite.
September 15, 2008... Citrix Systems Inc. is getting into the cloud-computing arena, announcing the new Citrix Cloud Center (C3) product family it says integrates "cloud proven" virtualization and networking products that power many of the largest Internet and...

Tadiran Strengthens 'Coral' Family Of IP Products.
September 15, 2008... The Coral Sea Softswitch 3.0, the newest and perhaps most colorful product from Israel's Tadiran Telecom, delivers unified communications (UC) in conjunction with multimedia over IP. The new softswitch is available today in the European,...

Tandberg Previews HD PC Video-Conferencing.
September 15, 2008... At the recent Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Tandberg demonstrated business-quality conference calls at 720p30 resolution (30 frames per second) using a Tandberg PrecisionHD camera and a high-performance Intel Mobile Core 2 Quad...

Exalt Intros 'Industry's Fastest' Backhaul Radios.
September 15, 2008... Exalt Communications is marketing a gigabit Ethernet radio family with a massive 440 Mb/s throughput, claiming they're the industry's fastest-ever 5 GHz microwave backhaul products. The new Ex-r GigE series is aimed at wireless carriers,...

HP Plans Huge RIF As It Digests EDS.
September 16, 2008... Hewlett Packard will slash its worldwide staff by an unexpectedly huge 24,600 as a result of its recent purchase of EDS, aiming to save $1.8 billion per year in operating costs. Some layoffs had been expected when HP inked its pact to buy...

Aussie Carrier Feels The Need For SMS Speed.
September 16, 2008... Corporate SMS provider Red Oxygen Mobile inked a deal with messaging operator TynTec that has TynTec providing guaranteed, 15-second, high-quality message delivery of bulk SMS, e-mail-to-SMS and Microsoft Outlook SMS. Established in...

Cisco, SAP Founding Members Of Internat'l 'Smart Objects' Group.
September 16, 2008... A group of well-known technology vendors and users have formed the IP for Smart Objects (IPSO) Alliance, whose goal is promoting IP as the networking technology best-suited for connecting sensor- and actuator-equipped (also known as "smart"...

Genband Buying Spree Nets FMC Player NextPoint.
September 16, 2008... Genband, in yet another in its seemingly endless string of acquisitions and divestitures, is buying new-kid-on-the-block, fixed-mobile-convergence (FMC) specialist NextPoint Networks. NextPoint Networks was created barely six months ago...

Bluesocket, Ortronics Team For WLAN AP Upgrade.
September 16, 2008... Bluesocket and Ortronics/Legrand signed a pact to integrate Bluesocket's access point software with the Ortronics Wi-Jack Duo access point. This deal creates an enterprise wireless broadband offering the two say will be "the only...

Aastra Telecom Bolsters SMB Phone, Software Offerings.
September 16, 2008... SIP phone and IP PBX provider Aastra Telecom is using this week's Internet Telephony Conference and Expo to unveil some new phones, software and free hosted services. New to market is the Aastra MBU 400, a DECT cordless system offering...

Nortel CEO Details Down Revenues, Layoffs, 'Crown Jewels' Sale.
September 17, 2008... Nortel Networks - hardly for the first time - now admits sales are coming up short, more layoffs are imminent and its vaunted Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) division is on the block, thus creating a selling stampede as investors halved the...

Global Unions Plan Alcatel-Lucent 'Golden Parachute' Protest.
September 17, 2008... According to the U.S.-based Communications Workers of America, in countries around the world where Alcatel-Lucent workers have an organized voice, thousands are telling CEO Patricia Russo and Serge Tchuruk to forego huge golden-parachute...

Survey Sez: UC Tech Will Boost Professional Services Demand.
September 17, 2008... According to a recently released report from InfoTech, a division of T3i Group, the immediate professional-services opportunities stemming from unified communications (UC) technology include security and network assessments, and design and...

Multi-Terabit Trans-Pacific Fiber Lights Up.
September 17, 2008... Verizon this morning began marketing capacity on the multi-terabit Trans- Pacific Express (TPE) next-gen undersea cable to multinational enterprises, marking the formal start of commercial service for the 11,000-mile route. The TPE cable,...

BT Offers 'Work Anywhere' Enterprise Mobility Service.
September 17, 2008... BT is hawking what it calls a "holistic" suite of mobility solutions and professional services, targeting first the U.S. enterprise market but with plans for rollout in the U.K. and the rest of Europe later this year. The suite, which BT...

HUD 3 Enhances Worker, Call-Center UC Experience.
September 17, 2008... Next month, UC enterprise-services provider Fonality will be marketing "HUD 3," what it says is a "major upgrade" to its "HUD" UC platform. According to the company, HUD ties presence management and detection into a single interface used...

Microsoft Grows Its Response Point Ecosystem.
September 18, 2008... In a major growth spurt for Microsoft's Response Point IP PBX for the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) market, two test houses received the software giant's blessing, two more business VoIP providers support the offering and a clutch of...

Despite The Economy, Network-Mgm't Spending Will Continue.
September 18, 2008... In light of today's shaky financial situation, there are varying opinions as to where IT spending will go in 2009. A survey of Interop New York attendees this week found an "overwhelming majority" saying spending on network-management...

GlassHouse Unveils Virtualization Managed Services.
September 18, 2008... IT infrastructure-consulting-and-services firm GlassHouse Technologies launched a suite of managed services for virtual environments, bragging the offering is a "pioneering" service in a new market nearly devoid of managed services and...

T-Mobile USA Details 3G Rollout Plans.
September 18, 2008... T-Mobile USA, trailing other U.S. carriers in its deployment of 3G wireless broadband, has set a schedule to expand availability of its High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) to 27 markets by the end of the year. It's also disclosed a...

How To Get Your Voice Mail In Flight.
September 18, 2008... SpinVox claims it's come up with a plan that allows wireless subscribers to keep up with their voice mail in the air, even though such calls still are banned by global airlines. SpinVox, a developer of voice-to-content messaging, says...

Got WISPs? ERF Wants WISPs.
September 18, 2008... Texas-based ERF Wireless is pushing its shopping cart around the country, saying it's "significantly increasing its WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) acquisition activities." Right now, the provider of enterprise-class wireless...

$100M Loan Staves Off NextWave Implosion.
September 19, 2008... One time would-be WiMAX carrier NextWave Wireless apparently has derailed total financial disaster with an eleventh-hour, $100 million loan commitment. It's also put its infrastructure divisions on the block and has warned of more layoffs as...

EC Asks Regs For Comment On NGA Broadband.
September 19, 2008... The European Commission (EC) wants regulators to ponder some proposed regulatory principles EU member states should apply to next-generation access (NGA) broadband networks. The EC says NGA deployment is "indispensable" when it comes to...

Nortel, DT Clear More Real-Life LTE Hurdles.
September 19, 2008... Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology has passed another critical milestone, with the first carrier-based "real life" demonstrations of handoff between cells. Nortel this week said it's looking for some way to exit its development of LTE,...

Jabber Gets New Ownership.
September 19, 2008... Cisco is buying privately held instant messaging specialist Jabber Inc., the company that's backed and commercialized the open-source Jabber.org project that resulted in everything from the secure IM used by the U.S. Department of Defense...

BlueZone Mobile Includes IBM Host Access.
September 19, 2008... BlueZone Software now is marketing BlueZone Mobile, a Windows Mobile 3270/5250 terminal emulator that further expands BlueZone's line of mobile solutions. BlueZone Mobile, a client of the BlueZone Access Server, provides IBM host access...

TeliaSonera Taps Heavy Hitters For Mobile Device Mgm't.
September 19, 2008... F-Secure and Nokia are teaming to bring their solutions to carrier TeliaSonera, facilitating mobile device management for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). TeliaSonera provides telecom services in the Nordic and Baltic countries;...