ALCATEL DWDM CARRIES 128 CHANNELS AT 40 GBPS FOR 5.12 TBPS CAPACITY
Alcatel announced a new record for unidirectional optical transmission over a single fiber:  128 channels each modulated at 40 Gbps, yielding a total throughput of 5.12 Tbps over 300 km.  The test ran over the company's TeraLight NZ-DSF optical fiber.  The company said its demonstration paves the way towards 10 Tbps transmission on a single optical fiber.
http://www.alcatel.com/vpr/?body=/latestnews/07092000uk
Alcatel, September 7, 2000

GENUITY SECURES ADDITIONAL $2 BILLION IN CREDIT TO FUND NETWORK BUILD-OUT
A consortium of global banks agreed to provide Genuity with a $2 billion line of credit for five years to fund a network expansion plan.  The new funds are in addition to $1.9 billion of IPO proceeds that Genuity raised in June.  Lenders include Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney, Credit Suisse First Boston and Deutsche Bank.  http://www.genuity.com
Genuity, September 7, 2000

• Genuity is the new name for the GTE Internetworking unit (the former BBN Planet network), which was spun-off into an independent company as a condition for the approval of the merger between GTE and Bell Atlantic.  BBN Planet was purchased by GTE in 1997 for $616 million in cash.

EQUANT ACTIVATES MPLS IN ITS GLOBAL IP BACKBONE
Equant announced the implementation of Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) across the core of its global IP network.  The company expects its business customers will migrate to MPLS-based IP VPNs.  http://www.equant.com/home.html
Equant, September 7, 2000

BLAZE NETWORK PRODUCTS DEVELOPS 10 GBPS ETHERNET TRANSCEIVER
Blaze Network Products, a start-up based in Dublin, California, announced a 10 Gbps Ethernet transceiver based on inexpensive vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs).  The transceiver, which is designed for local area and metro access networks, will support the next generation of short-distance protocols for optical networking, including 10-Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gbps Fibre Channel and OC-192 VSR (very short reach) optical links.  Blaze expects to begin sampling in Q1 2001.  Pricing is forecast at $200 each in volume.  http://www.blazenp.com/
Blaze Network Products, September 7, 2000

• Blaze has previously disclosed plans for a passive optical network (PON) system designed for last mile access.  Blaze's "Spitfire" PON transmits eight optical signals at speeds up to 155 Mbps to a centralized distribution point using a single multimode fiber from the service provider's central office, headend, or POP.  The company received $10 million in venture capital funding last fall from Wasserstein Adelson Ventures, Dynafund, Intel and Vanguard Venture Partners.

LUCENT INTRODUCES SMALLER STINGER DSLAMs
Lucent Technologies introduced smaller versions of its Stinger DSL access concentrator for deployment in smaller central offices, as well as directly in large hotels, apartments and office buildings.  The new Stinger LS access concentrators, which retain the base features and functions of the existing Stinger platforms, will offer either five line interface module (LIM) slots for up to 240 ports capacity or seven LIM slots for up to 336 ports capacity.
http://www.lucent.com/press/0900/000907.nsa.html
Lucent Technologies, September 7, 2000

• Lucent claims to have shipped more than 10,000 Stinger systems to date to 70 service providers in 15 countries.

LUCENT SIGNS DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT WITH PACKETVIDEO FOR WIRELESS MPEG-4
Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group agreed to optimize PacketVideo's wireless media software solution for Lucent's General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services (UMTS)/Enhanced Data for Global Evolution chipset solutions, including its StarCore digital signal processor (DSP)-based platform.  PacketVideo's software provides encoding, transmission and decoding capabilities based on MPEG-4.  http://www.lucent.com/press/0900/000907.mea.html
http://www.packetvideo.com/
Lucent, September 7, 2000

LUXXON RAISES $20 MILLION FOR ITS WIRELESS MULTIMEDIA STREAMING
Luxxon Corporation, a start-up based in San Jose, California, secured $21 million in a second round of financing to support its vision of multimedia streaming technologies to both the wireline and wireless devices.  The company is developing video gateways that dynamically adapting content bandwidth and formats (e.g., MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4) in real-time depending on changing network conditions and terminal device characteristics.  The company is also working on a highly integrated, low-power network video processor for rich-media cell phones, wireless communicators/PDAs, and web appliances.  Investors include Allen & Company, Cisco Systems, the Ignite Group, Luxmi Ventures, MKS Ventures, Sony Corporation of America, Viventures and Zodiac Ventures.  http://www.luxxon.com
Luxxon Corporation, September 7, 2000

• Luxxon's video gateways will use a unique, transcoding technology to transform input streams into different formats in real time, based on the identified characteristics of the receiving device and communication channel. The process also includes resolution down-sampling, frame rate and color depth optimization, as well as contrast/brightness and bandwidth adaptation.
  
• LuxN is a different start-up (based in Sunnyvale, California) that is developing a metro optical access platform for Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel.  http://www.luxn.com
  
• LuxPath Networks is a newly formed spin-off from Applied Innovation dedicated to developing optical Ethernet transmission products. LuxPath is based in Dublin, Ohio.  http://www.luxpath.com/  
  
• LuxCore is another start-up pursuing all optical switching/routing. LuxCore is located in Atlanta, Georgia.  http://www.luxcore.com/

WIND RIVER INVESTS IN ZAFFIRE
Wind River, a provider of embedded real time operating systems, disclosed a strategic equity investment in Zaffire, a start-up developing a next-generation optical services platform.  Financial terms were not provided.  The investment was made during Zaffire's third round of venture financing in June, which raised a total of $85 million.  Zaffire is using Wind River's Tornado integrated development environment and VxWorks real-time operating system in its Z3000 metro DWDM platform. http://www.windriver.com
Wind River, September 7, 2000

• In June, Wind River committed an initial $25 million to a new Wind River Ventures fund, with future plans to allocate an additional $25 million for follow-on funding.  The fund targets early-stage companies focusing on wireless communications, data and optical networking, semiconductors, and communications software.  http://www.windriver.com/ventures/index.html
  
• Zaffire's Z3000 platform for metro hub aggregation provides transparent and opaque wavelength transport services to existing equipment, including SONET, SDH and Gigabit Ethernet at speeds from 155 Mbps to 10 Gbps.  Zaffire's architecture leverages a Fractional Wavelength technology to multiplex diverse traffic types (IP, ATM, Frame Relay, Gigabit Ethernet, Voice and TDM) within a single wavelength.  At the same time, traffic can be packed efficiently across wavelengths and appear as a single trunk to the network.  MPLS is used to maintain QoS.  The platform scales to 256 wavelengths (up to 2.5 Tbps) on a fiber pair using 50 GHz channel spacing.  Zaffire uses a digital wrapper monitoring technology to provide non-intrusive performance monitoring of end-to-end wavelength quality.