AT&T ACQUIRES NORTHPOINT’S DSL NETWORK FOR $135 MILLION
With the approval of the United States Bankruptcy Court, AT&T will acquire substantially all of the assets of NorthPoint Communications for approximately $135 million.  The sale covers all of NorthPoint's co-locations nationwide, certain network equipment, systems and support software and related assets, including two leased buildings in California.  Assets excluded from the AT&T acquisition include NorthPoint's pending claims against Verizon arising from its cancelled merger. http://www.att.com/press/item/0,1354,3726,00.html   http://www.northpointdsl.com/
AT&T, March 22, 2001

• At last count, NorthPoint had DSL in 1,686 central offices (of which 1,624 were fully operational), passing 43.8 million homes and businesses in 109 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).   The company was serving 87,300 installed DSL lines as of September 30.
• Last November, Verizon terminated its merger agreement with NorthPoint, citing the deterioration in NorthPoint's business, operations and financial condition since Aug. 7, when the two companies had agreed to merge their DSL businesses.  Under the deal, Verizon was to invest $800 million in NorthPoint, of which $450 million was to be used to fund continued network expansion and $350 million (or $2.50 per share) was to be paid to current NorthPoint shareholders.  NorthPoint shareholders also were to receive one share in the new NorthPoint for each share held as of the closing date. The deal would have made Verizon a 55% owner of the new NorthPoint, while existing NorthPoint shareholders would have held 45%.  Between the time the deal was announced and its cancellation, NorthPoint shares fell from $14.25 to $2.
• In December, NorthPoint filed a lawsuit against Verizon claiming damages of $1 billion or more. NorthPoint subsequently filed for bankruptcy in January.

E.SPIRE FILES FOR CHAPTER 11 BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION
e.spire Communications, a CLEC providing traditional local and long distance, dedicated Internet access, ATM, Frame Relay and web hosting service, filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  The company has received $85 million of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing to begin a restructuring.  http://www.espire.net
e.spire Communications, March 22, 2001

• e.spire operates a national ATM backbone network, with 46 e.spire-owned and -operated Alcatel data switches and 51 carrier-grade routers. Through network-to-network interconnections, the e.spire data network accesses nearly 400 points of presence (POPS) throughout the US. It also operates 38 local area fiber-optic networks, including six in Tier-1 markets (Atlanta, Miami/Fort Lauderdale, New York, Philadelphia, San Antonio, and Washington, DC/Northern Virginia). In total, as of December 31, 2000, e.spire’s network is comprised of 28 Class 5 voice switches, 222,555 fiber miles, and 3,900 route miles.

QWEST HOLDS REVENUE TARGETS ON TRACK
Qwest Communications' CEO Joe Nacchio said he remains comfortable with previously provided financial guidance, amidst robust growth in the company's business and wholesale markets, DSL and other segments for January and February.  In an SEC filing, Qwest said capital expenditures would remain $9.5 billion for 2001.  http://www.qwest.com/cgi-bin/ir/secFilings.cgi?script=irSECFilings
Qwest, March 22, 2001

MARCONI UNVEILS CORE BXR-48000 SWITCH ROUTER
At CeBit 2001, Marconi unveiled its BXR-48000 hybrid switch-router, featuring concurrent support of connectionless IP routing, MPLS and ATM switching.  The 480 Gbps switch router will provide congestion-aware, constraint-based routing and switching of IP, ATM, Frame Relay or private line services concurrently on a per node or even per port basis.  Marconi's BXR-48000 is slated to begin trials later this year with commercial release expected to follow shortly after.  http://www.marconi.com/html/news/worldsfastestswitchroutercutscostsupto70.htm
Marconi, March 22, 2001

• Marconi first outlined plans for the BXR-48000 last November.  Its key applications would be to serve as a packet/cell groomer for the optical core, as an IP/MPLS core switch router, as a multiservice core switch for legacy services, and as an edge switch router for aggregating broadband access networks.  The platform will offer 40 to 240 Gbps of full-duplex, non-blocking, aggregate line rate throughput in a standard rack and up to 480 Gbps in two racks.  Packet and cell interfaces will be available from OC12c/STM4c to OC192c/STM48c, as will Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.  Port densities would allow for up to 768 OC-12s, 192 OC-48s, or 48 OC-192s.  The system will also be OC-768 capable.  ASIC driven performance is rated at up to 10,000 connections per second and up to 1.5 billion packets per second.

ALCATEL DEMONSTRATES ITS 7770 ROUTING CORE PLATFORM
At CeBit 2001, Alcatel is demonstrating its next generation 7770 Routing Core Platform, an optical IP router, alongside its new CrossLight photonic cross-connect. Alcatel's 7770 RCP is designed to deliver differentiated IP services by guaranteeing network performance.  The CrossLight photonic cross-connect will feature an all-optical switching matrix to avoid optical/electric conversion. http://www.alcatel.com
Alcatel, March 22, 2001

• In November, Alcatel delivered its next generation, terabit-class 7770 IP routing platform to France Telecom R&D for testing as part of the European Commission project ATRIUM.  The Alcatel 7770 Routing Core Platform (RCP) will feature a 640 Gbps switching fabric with an ability to scale to 5 Tbps and 10 Tbps through in-service upgrades.  It will use IBM's PowerNP network processor and customized ASICs for distributed IP forwarding and wire-speed packet handling.  Intelligence capabilities will include MPLS-guided traffic engineering, multi-layer restoration and dynamic bandwidth allocation and IP trunking.  It will also use Applied Micro Circuits Corp.'s (AMCC's) framer and PHY silicon solutions. The Alcatel design will support multi-port POS interfaces at up to OC-192, as well as future OC-768, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and very short range (VSR) optical interfaces.

NEC TOPS DWDM RECORD AT 10.9 TBPS PER FIBER
NEC Corporation announced a new record for DWDM transmission capacity – 10.9 Tbps over a single fiber.  NEC successfully carried 273 channels, each modulated at 40 Gbps over 117 km.  The trial used three technologies:  S-band amplification in the 1490nm wavelength region, an optimized system design technology covering S-band plus the conventional C- and L-bands, and ultra-dense channel multiplexing.  http://www.nec.co.jp/english/today/newsrel/0103/2201.html
NEC, March 22, 2001

OPTISPHERE INTRODUCES REMOTELY CONFIGURABLE ADD/DROP MULTIPLEXER
Optisphere Networks introduced an all-optical, add/drop multiplexer (OADM) for its long-haul DWDM system that can be configured remotely via Optisphere's transport management system.  The unit can be used for optical switching with the advantage that the OADM data rates and format are transparent (e.g., SONET, Gigabit Ethernet, IP). Wavelength channels can be coupled and decoupled at the network element using signals with any data rate between 2 Mbps and 40 Gbps.  Optisphere developed the new OADM in close partnership with JDS Uniphase.
http://www.optisphere.com
Optisphere Networks, March 22, 2001

GLOBAL ONE EXPANDS VOIP SERVICES OVER ITS MPLS NET
Global One announced a major expansion of its international Voice over IP (VoIP) service via newly deployed gateways in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.  Using its MPLS-based, Global IP VPN, the carrier said it can now provide optimized VoIP "distance-free" off-net calling to over 220 countries and territories.  Global One is offering Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to cover packet loss, latency and jitter as well as mean time to deliver, mean time to restore and network service availability. Post Dial Delays (PDDs) and Voice Quality Ratings are also included with the service.   http://www.globalone.net
Global One, March 22, 2001

• Global One installed Cisco VoIP Gateways and NetCentrex VoIP VPN Gatekeeper technology at critical locations on its Global IP VPN service network. Cisco 2600 and 3600 voice gateways are used as CPEs and Cisco AS5300 voice gateways facilitate the off-net call terminations between the VoIP network and the PSTN.  The NetCentrex provides advanced routing and protocol translation for connectivity between the Global IP VPN network and the Global One switched voice network.

GLOBAL CROSSING EXPANDS DATA SERVICES PORTFOLIO IN EUROPE
Global Crossing expanded its portfolio of ATM, Frame Relay and dedicated Internet access services in eight additional countries across Europe.  Data transport speeds up to STM-4 (622Mbps), are now available in 18 additional cities in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the UK.  Dedicated Internet access at up to Gigabit speeds is available in the carrier's global MPLS-based network.  Later this year, ATM, Frame Relay and DIA services will also be available in Ireland, Norway, Spain, and Sweden as well as additional regions of the world including Australia, Latin America and the Caribbean.  http://www.globalcrossing.com
Global Crossing, March 22, 2001

FOCAL COMMUNICATIONS TURNS ON COPPERCOM'S VODSL
Focal Communications, a facilities based CLEC, introduced a Voice over Digital Subscriber Line (VoDSL) service in Chicago.  The deployment uses CopperCom's VoDSL Gateways, which can support up to 16 phone lines simultaneously over a single copper loop.  http://www.coppercom.com/press/press_full.asp?sysId=125
CopperCom, March 22, 2001

• Focal is using integrated access devices from Efficient Networks.

ALCATEL ANNOUNCES CHINA TELECOM DSL AGREEMENT, TWO NEW SHDSL MODEMS
Alcatel will supply China Telecom with its 7300 DSLAM and DSL Speed Touch modems.  The agreement is expected to become the blue print for China Telecom to work with Alcatel for nationwide deployment.  China Telcom controls 99% of the fixed telephone infrastructure in China, currently accounting for some 130 million lines.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Separately, Alcatel introduced a Speed Touch 520s (Secure SHDSL Router) with firewall protection and a Speed Touch 591s (SHDSL Private Line Network Termination) router.

SHDSL is capable of delivering symmetric service up to 2.3 Mbps when uploading and downloading data over a single-pair copper telephone line, or up to 4.6 Mbps on a dual-pair. The technology allows the use of repeaters, enabling service providers to reach subscribers up to 24,000 feet (7800 m) from the service node.  http://www.alcatel.com
Alcatel, March 22, 2001

MARCONI INTRODUCES DSL ACCESS HUB WITH ATM SWITCHING
Marconi introduced a single-shelf Access Hub that can aggregate up to 512 broadband copper xDSL lines.  The Access Hub also integrates ATM switching, IP protocol intelligence and service management functionality.  http://www.marconi.com/html/news/marconilowersoperatingcostsattheaccesshub.htm
Marconi, March 22, 2001

SKYBRIDGE TO LAUNCH SATELLITE SERVICES IN 2001 WITH LEASED CAPACITY
SkyBridge, the broadband satellite venture led by Alcatel, will begin offering wholesale broadband IP services via satellite to service providers this year using leased geostationary satellite capacity.  The announcement expands the operational scope of the company, which had previously been focused solely on launching its own satellites.  SkyBridge itself will invest in the ground infrastructure and delivery platform for access services, a portfolio of content distribution services as well as value-added services such as e-learning.  The company said it remains 100% committed to its own Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellite constellation.  http://www.skybridgesatellite.com
SkyBridge, March 22, 2001

• SkyBridge is backed by Alcatel and supported by Loral Space & Communication, EMS Technologies, COM DEV of Canada, Thompson, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp, Toshiba and others.  SkyBridge has previously disclosed plans to deploy a "constellation" of 80 satellites operating in the Ku-band (10-18 GHz) and orbiting at an altitude of 913 miles (1,469 km). The low-earth-orbit would allow for short signal propagation time of 30 milliseconds.  The satellites would provide "bent pipe" connections, meaning no onboard processing or switching would occur.  Over 140 gateway stations worldwide will relay traffic from the satellites to terrestrial fiber networks. Localized traffic processing will occur within the gateway

RIVERSTONE BEATS ESTIMATES WITH 31% SEQUENTIAL REVENUE GAIN
Riverstone Networks reported quarterly revenue of $35.1 million, a 175% increase compared with revenues of $12.8 million for the same period last year, and a 31% increase over the preceding quarter.  Prior to one-time charges, Riverstone reported a loss of $5.5 million or $0.06 per share.  The company said it continues to see investment in metro area networking from tier one carriers and new entrants alike.  http://www.riverstonenet.com/news/press/20010322.shtml
Riverstone Networks, March 22, 2001