Interview: NSN's Sue Spradley on LightSquared's Wholesale Mobile Data Paradigm    by Sue Spradley

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View archives from other months   9/2/2008         v15n166 Deutsche Telekom selects Motorola's IPTV set-tops Runcom Raises US$10M for OFDMA Silicon UTStarcom Announces Management Changes OKI Develops Gigabit Network Processor Sumitomo Electric Develops Coaxial Laser Diode Module for Base Stations Millicom Activates 3G Services in Guatemala, Honduras and Bolivia Huawei Deploys Home Location Register for Telenor Pakistan Ericsson Lands US$450 Million Upgrade/Outsourcing Contract with Hanoi Telecom Google Set to Launch "Chrome" Web Browser Beta NTT's IP Video QoE is Adopted as an ITU Standard Deutsche Telekom selects Motorola's IPTV set-tops Deutsche Telekom will use Motorola's High Definition (HD)-ready IPTV set-tops for its "T-Home Entertain" services. The STBs will enable T-Home customers to access a variety of multimedia applications in addition to standard TV offerings. Within the scope of the contract, Motorola will provide T-Home with its VIP1616E set-top -- known to T-Home customers as Media Receiver 300 Typ A. With the device, subscribers to T-Home's Entertain service will be able to view premium sporting content in full HD. Moreover, T-Home viewers can use the device's electronic program guide to plan, record, and store what they want to watch. Financial terms were not disclosed. The HD-ready Motorola VIP1616E set-top with digital video recording (DVR) also supports standard definition high-quality digital video. Its two-way IP capability allows it to be used in multiple applications, including broadcast television, time-shifted television, multicast and video on demand. The VIP1616E is fully compliant with Microsoft Mediaroom. http://www.motorola.com 01-Sep-08 Runcom Raises US$10M for OFDMA Silicon Runcom Technologies, a start-up based in Israel, secured a US$10 million Series C investment for its OFDMA based silicon solutions for user terminals and base stations that comply with the IEEE802.16e-2005 standard for WiBro and Mobile WiMAX applications. Runcom's products include PHY and MAC communication layer silicon. In April 2008 Runcom Technologies received the WiMAX Forum Certified Seal of Approval for its products. The company said it has sold more than 250,000 units of its RNA200 ASIC for user terminals. The funding was raised by TLcom Capital LLP. This is only the second round of financing of Runcom. The previous investment round currently hold by SMAC Partners from Germany and Concord from Israel was executed in the year 2000. http://www.runcom.co.il/ 01-Sep-08 UTStarcom Announces Management Changes UTStarcom's CFO and executive vice president, Fran Barton, is retiring and has also vacated his seat on the UTStarcom board of directors. Viraj Patel, UTStarcom's vice president, corporate controller and chief accounting officer, will serve as Interim CFO until the company appoints a permanent CFO. Additionally, David King, senior vice president, international sales and marketing, has resigned from the company. Also, Craig Samuel has joined UTStarcom in the newly-created position of senior vice president, business strategy and innovation. In this visionary role, Samuel will lead company-wide product portfolio alignment and business development strategy. Prior to joining UTStarcom, Craig was worldwide VP of business innovation at Unisys Corporation. http://www.utstar.com 29-Aug-08 OKI Develops Gigabit Network Processor Oki Electric Industry Co. has developed a low power consumption gigabit high-speed network processor for the Home/SOHO router market. The ML7240 device includes a RISC-type CPU, IP protocol engine, QoS accelerator, IPsec accelerator, voice engine, Gigabit Ether MAC (2ch), and other peripherals. In addition to the LSI, OKI plans to offer the drivers necessary to configure network equipment, and other software. Sampling is underway and initial volume shipment is scheduled to start in March 2009. OKI said it is developing other products for this market too. http://www.oki.com 29-Aug-08 Sumitomo Electric Develops Coaxial Laser Diode Module for Base Stations Sumitomo Electric Industries has developed a new coaxial laser diode module capable of supporting high frequency bandwidth applications. Sumitomo Electric said that with the addition of the newly-designed model, its family of coaxial laser diode modules will be capable of supporting a broader frequency range, from 2GHz to 5GHz. The modules are used in mobile base station systems. WiMAX supports three frequency bands (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz and 5.8GHz), as is defined in the IEEE 802.16-2004 specifications. The new coaxial laser module can support both the 3.5GHz and 5.8GHz bands. One of the key features of the new module is its capability to achieve a 5GHz bandwidth. The new coaxial laser diode module will be available for sampling in Q3 2008 and for sale by the end of CY2008. http://www.sei.co.jp/index.en.html 29-Aug-08 Millicom Activates 3G Services in Guatemala, Honduras and Bolivia Millicom International Cellular S.A. announced the launch of 3G services in Guatemala (Comcel), Honduras (Celtel) and Bolivia (Telecel). Further 3 G launches are scheduled for this month in Paraguay (Telecel), El Salvador (Telemovil) and Colombia (Colombia Movil). Millicom said it is providing a full portfolio of 3G services including high speed mobile broadband, internet access for mobile customers via laptop, TV on mobile handsets, music and video downloads and video calling. http://www.millicom.com 01-Sep-08 Huawei Deploys Home Location Register for Telenor Pakistan Huawei announced the deployment of "the world' s largest next generation Home Location Register (HLR)" for Telenor Pakistan. The next generation HLR which will serve 40 million subscribers enables Telenor Pakistan to improve its network efficiency, simplify its operations, and enhance its customer' s service experience. Huawei' s HLR solution is fully-distributed and has been deployed in the country' s three major cities of Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. As a result, Telenor Pakistan is able to unify the management of subscriber information such as number resources and simplify the maintenance of its network. Financial terms were not disclosed. Huawei next generation HLR adopts carrier-grade Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) platform and a distributed architecture design.. The company claims system reliability of up to 99.9999%. The design also allows the evolution to Home Subscriber Server (HSS) and Authorization, Authentication and Accounting (AAA) capabilities. http://www.huawei.com 01-Sep-08 Ericsson Lands US$450 Million Upgrade/Outsourcing Contract with Hanoi Telecom Ericsson announced the signing of a USD 450 million contract to develop and modernize Hanoi Telecom's nationwide mobile network. The win is described as "the largest single contract in Vietnam" for networking to date. The strategic partnership, a first in Vietnam, will also see Ericsson managing and operating the network under a full-scope managed services contract. Under the three-year managed services agreement, Ericsson will be responsible for the management, operation and network design of Hanoi Telecom's mobile network, including field operations and support services. Ericsson will also provide a comprehensive range of professional services, such as network deployment and systems integration. Ericsson will be responsible for the nationwide migration of Hanoi Telecom's network from CDMA to GSM/EDGE technology, supplying radio access network equipment, optical and microwave transmission, and will be the sole supplier of the all-IP circuit and packet core network. The contract also includes solutions from Ericsson Multimedia portfolio. Deployment has started and commercial launch is set for the end of 2008. To provide technical support and network operation, Ericsson will expand its operations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and set up a new office in Danang City. http://www.ericsson.com http://www.hinet.net.vn/ 01-Sep-08 The HT Mobile network was launched in February 2005 under a business cooperation contract signed in July 2004 between the Hanoi Telecom Joint Stock Company and Hutchison Telecom Vietnam, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Telecom. In March 2008, HT Mobile obtained government approval to convert from CDMA technology to GSM. Google Set to Launch "Chrome" Web Browser Beta A beta version of Google Chrome, an open source web browser for Windows, will be released on September 2 in over 100 countries. Google said it developed the browser to better enable media-rich web applications. The browser is powered by a customized JavaScript engine. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html 01-Sep-08 NTT's IP Video QoE is Adopted as an ITU Standard Technology originally developed by NTT Service Integration Laboratories to objectively estimate a user's Quality of Experience (QoE) in IP-based video delivery services has been adopted as an international standard (ITU-T Recommendation J.247). The technology enables the quality of video delivery services to be checked and monitored. NTT said previously existing technology cannot assess the effects of diverse coding systems and bit rates as used in video delivery services nor can it assess degraded video caused by packet loss characteristic of IP networks. In response to this problem, NTT Service Integration Laboratories modeled quality degradation considering human perceptual characteristics (degradation in experienced quality due to coding and packet loss) based on a huge quality database making maximum use of NTT subjective quality assessment facilities and know-how. Then, based on this model, it developed technology to estimate QoE through the analysis of video signals. This technology enables the objective video quality assessment from the similar viewpoints of customers. NTT's assessment technology was proposed for standardization at ITU-T, and after a 5-year worldwide performance evaluation contest held by ITU-T, four systems (including the NTT algorithm) out of nine candidates from the same number of institutions were approved as formal Recommendation J.247 on August 13, 2008 and released on August 22, 2008. http://www.ntt.co.jp 25-Aug-08   See newsletter archives from other months   Search  this site     Search the Web