America's Network articles from September 15 2001

America's Network archives from September 15 2001

What I did on vacation.
September 15, 2001... Other residents of our nation's capital spend their summer vacations at the beaches of North Carolina and Delaware, lazing away the days with a good novel and a cold beer. As I sat on the airplane waiting to take off for two weeks in Russia,...

Globally impaired.(telecommunications)
September 15, 2001... The invisible hands of telecom have been running roughshod in global markets lately. Haven't you seen them? One carries the scent of power and influence and the other has the grip of a cash-starved gambler. Together they have reached...

Mixed MESSAGES : The US embrace of free markets is put to the test inside its own borders.
September 15, 2001... Foreign telecom operators who hope to enter the world's largest economy recognize multiple hazards, but perhaps the challenge that causes the greatest unease is having to learn the game of Washington politics. Foreign telco executives...

TOUGH PROVING GROUND : Asia seems poised for massive telecom growth. Yet European carriers that have moved in are already plotting their exit strategies.
September 15, 2001... As growth tails off in Europe and North America, telecom carriers are turning their eyes to the great unwired prospects of Asia and Latin America. For would-be investors in Asia, the attraction is the spread of deregulation in the last...

POLYGLOT : Although open and easy to enter, Europe remains a collection of quite different markets with quite different ways of doing things.
September 15, 2001... The European telecom industry is struggling to make sense of eight years of telecom deregulation, having gone in the space of a few months from joys of unbridled investment bonanza to the troughs of bear market despair. Telcos, service...

Perilous Crossing : Economics and politics block passage to telecom's Promised Land of globalization.
September 15, 2001... Globalization is a rather loaded buzz word. Everyone wants to be worldly and wise, and the telecom industry is no exception. But what about when nationalism is a factor? And let's not forget the importance of profitability. It's a...

Mockingbird sings Murray's new tune.(Ken Murray is new CEO of Mockingbird Networks)
September 15, 2001... Mockingbird Networks welcomes Ken Murray as its new president and CEO. Murray brings more than 25 years of industry experience to the company, including senior management roles in VoIP application services technology. "Ken's experience...

Carrier's Adit 600.(Carrier Access Corp.)
September 15, 2001... The Adit 600 platform has remote management capabilities and router service card features. This enables carriers to offer customers voice, video and high-speed data services using broadband access over wireline and wireless networks. ...

ZettaCom Inc.(ZRS-1)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 15, 2001... The ZRS-1 reference system offers a hardware and software environment for embedded designs using ZettaCom products such as the ZEST hybrid terabit switch fabric and ZEN service processor. ZRS-1 helps shorten system vendors' time-to-market by...

Data Comm.(EtherPoll EPL-1)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 15, 2001... The EtherPoll EPL-1 Ethernet multi-drop modem is an RS-232 supervisory control and data acquisition modem/server that acts as an interface between any asynchronous serial device -- such as a host controller or an RTU -- and Ethernet. Because...

Agilent Technologies.(81560A, 81561A, 81566A, and 81567A modular attenuators)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 15, 2001... The Agilent 81560A, 81561A, 81566A and 81567A modular attenuators add signal-conditioning capabilities to Agilent's modular instrument platform, which combines stimulus, response and signal conditioning. These devices reduce footprint and...

Decibel Products.(894H65VTR-SX antennas)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 15, 2001... The 894H65VTR-SX is a VariTilt version for the company's DB894 series of ultra-flat panel antennas. This antenna provides a top fed connector with field selectable down tilting up to 10[degrees]. The antenna is 2.8 inches deep and it can be...

Lucent Technologies.(ClientCare Call Center Deluxe Edition)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 15, 2001... The ClientCare Call Center Deluxe Edition lets service providers transform telephone systems at small and medium-sized business customers into contact management centers. The software lets business customers manage their customer contacts to...

GETTING in sync with the future : Four global carriers dominate the Latin American wireless market. Each hopes that 2.5G upgrades will harmonize its hodge-podge of holdings.
September 15, 2001... Latin America's mobile industry has been undergoing pan-regional consolidation for several years, and it is conceivable that only a handful of operators with pan-Latin coverage will remain once the dust settles. The most prominent of...

Land of the free? Service providers should beware as copyright problems loom.
September 15, 2001... Few in the telco or Internet services business paid attention when the FBI popped a Russian computer programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, at Def Con 9 in Las Vegas this July. The common perception is that Def Con is known as a gathering of security...

Telecom's new role model: Nike -- Inevitably, North American telecom vendors will move more of their production to the developing world, but this trend has its own risks.
September 15, 2001... One of today's zeitgeist books, "No Logo" by Naomi Klein is essentially an anti-globalization treatise, focusing on companies such as Nike who have created "hip" brands in the West while using low-cost third-world labor for manufacturing. ...

Rollerblade retailing : Shop at home redefined.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Public wireless access points that support data connectivity based on the 802.11 wireless LAN standard are gaining momentum, as our story on page 44 explains. One early adopter is French retailer Printemps. Visitors to that company's Web site...

The unwired Coke machine.
September 15, 2001... Life tastes good for Japan's cell-phone toting, i-Mode-savvy youth who will be able to purchase a Coke and access the Internet through an intelligent vending machine launched in a 17-week trial this month in Tokyo. The brainchild of the...

Cell phone symphony.
September 15, 2001... Many of us can't stand the sound of a cell phone ringing during a concert. But at press time, contrarians were getting set to attend Dialtones: A Telesymphony, a half-hour show consisting of nothing but cell phone sounds scheduled for Sept. 2...

Grounded for good? PanAmSat's Net-36 tumbles back to earth.
September 15, 2001... A funny thing happened to PanAmSat on the way to becoming king of satellite-driven content delivery services. The global satellite provider chased after a perceived pot of gold by launching a satellite-to-edge network called Net-36 late last...

Ultra long-reach DSL : A whole new crop of companies aims to boost DSL performance.
September 15, 2001... DSL has a problem -- OK, a myriad of problems -- but one stands out. Many still can't get it in the US, and they may not be able to get it for a long time, if ever. According to the DSL Forum's recent "DSL Anywhere" report, about 50% of...

Thank you, Sony : A variety of industry players stand to gain from movie studios' VOD offering.
September 15, 2001... Just when we were wondering how we'd ever use all the bandwidth that network operators have deployed, along came Sony Pictures and four other movie studios with an Internet-based video-on-demand initiative. Although the proposed offering is a...

CORPORATE PALMISTRY.
September 15, 2001... Many have questioned the demand for wireless data offerings based on the primitive Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP) standard, arguing that such services will not take off until the higher bandwidth of 2.5G and 3G systems is available. But...

Where are the blockbuster deals? The industry takes a break before heading into more activity.
September 15, 2001... Analysts and investors have little trouble agreeing that consolidation will define the next phase of telecom's not-so-excellent adventure. Hefty incumbents will gobble the assets of small-fry operators. Bankruptcies will trigger bidding wars...

Nokia buys Amber Networks for $421M.
September 15, 2001... Nokia has agreed to acquire Amber Networks for $421 million in a stock-for-stock transaction. The deal, expected to close at the end of August, will be paid with Nokia's stock and options in exchange for all Amber's outstanding shares. Amber...

AOL buys eVoice.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... AOL Time Warner has acquired eVoice, an Internet-based voice application service provider. Details of the acquisition, which will allow AOL Time Warner to enter the voice messaging market, were not disclosed.

BJK to acquire Colo.com for $54M.(BJK Investments)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... BJK Investments plans to acquire bankrupt co-location facilities provider Colo.com for $54 million in a combination of cash and debt assumption. After raising $500 million in funding, Colo.com filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May.

Cirrus acquires ShareWave.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... DSP chip applications provider Cirrus Logic has signed an agreement to acquire ShareWave, a developer of semiconductor technology for wireless home networks, for about $92 million in a stock-for-stock transaction. As a result of the deal,...

TranSwitch pays $75M.(for Onex Communications)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Semiconductor product developer TranSwitch has agreed to acquire Onex Communications, which develops integrated circuits for network routing. The acquisition will enable TranSwitch to offer products and solutions aimed at the metropolitan...

Global Metro Networks slices work force.(by 70%)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Fiber-optic networks builder Global Metro Networks has begun a reduction of its 45-person work force by 70%. The company expects to keep 12 executives in its operations division. The company has refocused on expanding its network and on being...

IPOptical shuts down.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Multipetabit optical-routing maker IPOptical has shut down its operations and is looking for another buyer, after failing to close a $30 million Series B funding round. Hyperchip, a Canadian provider of petabit routing technology, has hired...

OpNext nets $321M.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Former Hitachi division OpNext has raised $321 million in funding from Clarity Group, a partnership between Clarity Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity investment firm, and Marubeni Group, a major Japan-based trading house. The...

Avian raises $22M.(Avian Communications)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Mobile data infrastructure equipment manufacturer Avian Communications has raised $22 million in series B funding from Argo Global Capital, Clarity Capital, Nokia Venture Partners, St. Paul Venture Capital, Wasserstein Ventures and YankeeTek...

Azonic receives $24.7M round.(Azonic Networks)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Wireless network provider Azonic Networks has secured CAD$38 million in Series A financing from a group of investors, including Bank of Montreal Capital, B.E.S.T. Discoveries Fund, National Bank Financial and Sprott Securities. The proceeds...

BroadJump receives $22M in financing.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Software and broadband service provider BroadJump has closed a Series C round of funding with $22 million. The company plans to use the funds to expand in Latin America and Europe. SBC led the round. BellSouth and Nortel also participated.

Futureway secures $40M.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Competitive local exchange carrier Futureway Communications has secured $40 million in senior debt financing from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The funds will be used to continue its network expansion in Toronto.

Integral closes a $45M round.(Integral Access)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Packet-based access systems provider Integral Access closes a $45 million round of financing. Ascent Ventures Partners, BankBoston Ventures, Canaan Ventures, Coral Ventures, Prism Venture Partners and St. Paul Venture Capital participated....

Maple raises $40M.(Maple Optical)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Multiservice optical-switch developer Maple Optical plat has raised $40 million in Series C funding. Amerindo Investment Advisors, Aurora Networks, Charter Ventures, Firsthand Capital, Leapfrog Ventures, McQuillan Ventures, Raza Foundries,...

Metro-Optix raises $50M.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Optical networking system provider Metro-Optix has raised $50 million in its latest round of financing. J.& W. Seligman, BlueStream Ventures, Essex Investment Management, Wasatch Advisors, Deutsche Banc Alex Brown, Weiss Peck & Greer Venture...

Velio secures $45M round.(Velio Communications)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... High-bandwidth semiconductor maker Velio Communications closes a $45 million round of financing. Capital Research Group, Global Catalyst Partners, HarbourVest Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Sequoia Capital...

Storm closes $35M.(Storm Telecommunications)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2001... Optical-switch provider Storm Telecommunications has closed $35 million in its latest round of financing. Merrill Lynch Ventures, Soros Private Equity Partners and other undisclosed investors provided the funding. The money raised will be...