CABLELABS RELEASES ELEVEN PACKETCABLE 1.0 SPECIFICATIONS
Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs) completed the PacketCable 1.0 specification for delivering multimedia services, including IP telephony, over two-way cable plant.  CableLabs publicly released eleven PacketCable interim specifications and five technical reports defining the fundamental requirements for call signaling, quality-of-service, media stream, client provisioning, billing event message collection, PSTN interconnection, and security interfaces necessary to implement a single-zone PacketCable solution for residential voice services.  CableLabs defines a "zone" as is a set of customer premises equipment that can be controlled by a single call management server or cluster of servers within the PacketCable network. A typical zone could encompass somewhere between tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Future additions to the PacketCable specifications will define the protocols necessary for the zones to interoperate across service provider boundaries, as well as define additional feature capabilities, such as PBX extension and multimedia conferencing.  The PacketCable 1.0 specifications are available online.
http://www.packetcable.com/packetcable_specs.html
CableLabs, December 7, 1999

BELL LABS ANNOUNCES "BALLISTIC NANOTRANSISTOR"
Researchers at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs announced a "ballistic nanotransistor" technology supporting a virtually unimpeded flow of current while operating at room temperature with conventional silicon.  The Bell Labs nanotransistor, which has a 40-nanometer gate and a channel length of 25 nanometers, was created using an unconventional rapid thermal oxidation process to "grow" the insulating layer, or gate oxide, on the silicon wafer.  The innovation may lead to smaller and faster silicon chips.  http://www.lucent.com/press/1299/991206.bla.html
Lucent Technologies, December 6, 1999

TRW DEVELOPS WORLD'S FAST DIGITAL CHIP (69 GHZ)
TRW Space & Electronics Group announced a frequency divider device operating at a clock frequency of 69 gigahertz (GHz) – believed to be the world's fastest digital integrated circuit.  The chip was fabricated using indium phosphide, rather than silicon or gallium arsenide.  TRW said digital processing speeds above 60 GHz will be necessary for next generation of fiber networks, especially applications such as 40 Gbps line rate chip sets and advanced frequency synthesizers.   TRW will present a paper on its 69 GHz frequency divider at the annual IEEE International Electron Devices meeting this week.  http://www.trw.com
TRW Space & Electronics, December 7, 1999

AT&T ANNOUNCES MAJOR FIBER-OPTIC NETWORK EXPANSION
AT&T announced plans to overlay current network routes between 30 major US cities with new conduits and new fiber in a bid to maintain a low-cost position in the industry while introducing the latest technology. AT&T will spend $1 billion over 2-years on the network overlay,while partnering with CapRock Communications, PF.Net and Touch America in a cost-sharing arrangement. The new network will include three east-to-west fiber-optic cable routes, as well as three north-to-south runs. Deployment of this new 16,500 route mile overlay network will enable AT&T to offer OC-192 services now and OC-768 when the technology becomes available. The network will use both Lucent's TrueWave RS cable and Corning's latest generation LEAF fiber.  http://www.att.com/press/item/0,1354,2322,00.html
AT&T, December 6, 1999

WORLDWIDE FIBER LIGHTS FIRST SPAN OF NORTH AMERICAN NETWORK
Worldwide Fiber Network Services, a next-generation greenfield carrier's carrier, activated the first phase of its North American network on a segment extending from Vancouver to Calgary.  WFI's network uses Nortel Networks' OPTera LH optical platform.  The company plans to light all of its 22,000 fiber mile North American network by year-end 2000.  WFI is also building the terabit capacity "Hibernia" trans-Atlantic cable linking Boston, Halifax, Dublin and Liverpool.  A European network is also planned which is expected to exceed, 6,000 kilometers and will be ready-for-service by the first quarter of 2001. http://www.wwfiber.com
Worldwide Fiber, December 7, 1999

JUNIPER ANNOUNCES M20 ROUTER FOR POP DEPLOYMENTS
Juniper Networks announced the M20 Internet backbone router, a new class of device for space- and power-constrained Point of Presence (POP) environments.  The M20 measures 14 inches (35.56 cm) in height and supports nearly 200 DS-3s in a single chassis and 1000 DS-3s in a standard seven-foot (2.13-m) rack.  The M20 router uses the same ASICs and operating software as Juniper Networks' existing M40 backbone routers.  Verio has ordered $7 million of the new M20 routers for network access points supporting its Web hosting and Internet services.   http://www.juniper.net/news/pressreleases/pr-991207m20.html
Juniper Networks, December 7, 1999

IAXIS TO DEPLOY CIENA'S METRO PLATFORM IN PARIS, TEST ITS CORE OPTICAL SWITCH
Iaxis will expand its deployment of Ciena's optical networking equipment to include the company's MultiWave Metro optical transport systems.  CIENA has been iaxis' exclusive provider since February 1999, when the companies signed a 3-year contract valued at US$200 million.  So far, iaxis has installed Ciena's MultiWave CoreStream platform for long-haul, inter-city links on its pan-European backbone.  In the first phase of its metropolitan network buildout, iaxis will install CIENA's metro systems throughout the Paris area by February 2000.  iaxis will begin testing CIENA's MultiWave CoreDirector intelligent optical core switch in January.   http://www.ciena.com
Ciena, December 7, 1999

WILLIAMS ADDS AVICI'S TERABIT SWITCH/ROUTER TO ITS TEST PROGRAM
Williams Communications agreed to field test Avici Systems' Terabit Switch/Router on a nearly 2,000-mile stretch of its fiber network between Houston and suburban Washington, D.C.  The test will focus on TSR's Composite Trunking capability, which is designed to add and drop bandwidth dynamically.  Interoperability with Williams' current vendors, including Nortel, Sycamore, Cisco and Lucent, will be a key focus of the trials.
http://www.williamscommunications.com/newsroom/index.html
Williams Communications, December 6, 1999

UNISPHERE SOLUTIONS ANNOUNCES IT SOFTWARE-BASED SWITCH
Unisphere Solutions, the new US-based Siemens company, announced its Service Ready Switch-3000 (SRX-3000), a next-generation software-based switch for mediating services on IP, ATM and TDM networks.  The SRX-3000, which will begin beta testing in Q1, initially is based on Sun Netra commercial servers.  The SRX-3000 performs call agent functions to MGCP clouds and H.323 gatekeeper functions in H.323 environments.  It also delivers native IP services, such as bandwidth and firewall management of LAN/WAN devices.  Unisphere said its Softswitch platform uses proven high-availability software model (99.9994%) from Siemens, and an open programmable architecture for Independent Software Vendors, with interfaces such as SS7 TCAP, LDAP, SIP, JAIN, and Parlay.  http://www.unisphere.cc/news/pr_120699_1.html
Unisphere Solutions, December 6, 1999

 TELEGLOBE SIGNS MULTICAST DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT WITH YAHOO!
Teleglobe will provide IP Transit over its multicast-enabled global Internet backbone network to deliver broadband streaming media programming from Yahoo! Broadcast to its customer base of ISPs in over 100 countries worldwide.  As part of the agreement, Teleglobe will help its ISP customers become multicast-enabled for broadcasting large-scale live events.  http://www.teleglobe.com
Teleglobe, December 7, 1999

A Daily Journal For Broadband Networking
Copyright 1999 ATM News Inc.
All Rights Reserved. ISSN 1084-2438
News sources are listed for your reference.

A Daily Journal For Broadband Networking
Copyright 1999 ATM News Inc.
All Rights Reserved. ISSN 1084-2438
News sources are listed for your reference.