INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT ON IP CABLE TELEPHONY STANDARDS
The International
Telecommunications Union (ITU), CableLabs, the SCTE (Society
for Cable Telecommunications Engineers) and ETSI (European
Telecommunications Standards Institute) reached agreement on
a set of specifications that define an end-to-end system for
IP cable telephony. The IP-based cable architecture is
referred to as "IPCablecom" and encompasses 12 documents
covering the fundamental requirements for signaling,
quality-of-service, codecs, client provisioning, billing
event message collection, PSTN interconnection, and security
interfaces. SCTE has approved the full set of IPCablecom
documents as a standard and that standard has become the
purchase specification for cable operators throughout North
and South America. The ITU-T approved the majority of the
documents in March for worldwide use. ETSI has accepted and
is continuing to develop the suite as a set of technical
specifications and is using the ITU-T J.160 Recommendation
as the framework to add European-specific requirements.
CableLabs’ PacketCable initiative has evolved into
IPCablecom.
http://www.cablelabs.com/news_room/PR/01_pr_ipcablecom_052201.html
Cable
Labs, May 22, 2001
QWEST LAUNCHES DSL NETWORK EXPANSION, DEPLOYING DSLAMS IN
REMOTE TERMINALS
Qwest Communications announced plans to
significantly expand the reach of its DSL network in 11 of
14 Western states where it provides local phone service.
The expansion will place DSL concentrators in remote
terminals closer to the subscribers, thus increasing the
availability of the service. The plan would make DSL
available to approximately 1.3 million additional homes and
businesses in these states by the end of 2001 and 1.2
million more next year, bringing the total number of
DSL-capable customers in Qwest territory to about 6 million
by the end of 2002. Through the end of June, Qwest is
offering new residential DSL customers 30 days of free
service, waived activation fees, and free DSL modems. Later
this summer, Qwest DSL service will be sold in a bundle of
services with MSN content from Microsoft for broadband and
narrowband customers.
http://www.qwest.com/about/media/pressroom/1,1720,664_archive,00.html
Qwest, May 22, 2001
- At the end of Q1, Qwest
reported more than 306,000 DSL customers. The company
hopes to have 500,000 subscribers by year’s end.
QWEST
SELECTS LUCENT’S STINGER
RT DSLAMS
Qwest Communications will deploy
Lucent Technologies’ environmentally hardened Stinger RT
Access Concentrators to expand the reach of its DSL
network. Financial terms were not disclosed. Qwest is
among the first customers in the world to deploy Lucent's
remote terminal (RT) technology. Qwest also will deploy
Lucent's Stinger FS that can support thousands of DSL
subscribers per rack in selected central offices.
http://www.lucent.com/press/0501/010522.nsa.html
Lucent Technologies, May 22, 2001
AT&T DEPLOYS CIENA'S MULTIWAVE METRO OPTICAL TRANSPORT
AT&T has begun deployment of CIENA's MultiWave Metro
optical transport system in local markets across the US.
The CIENA equipment is being used to carry up to 24
wavelengths of protected OC-48 or OC-192 capacity per
fiber. AT&T already is carrying "live" customer traffic
using CIENA systems in its Los Angeles metro network.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.ciena.com/news/archive/2001/05/05.22.2001.html
CIENNA, May 22, 2001
NEW ALCATEL OPTICAL FIBER EXTENDS CAPACITY AND REACH
WITHOUT COMPENSATION
Alcatel
introduced new TeraLight Metro and TeraLight Ultra non
zero-dispersion shifted fibers (NZ-DSF) for terrestrial
metro, long-haul and ultra long-haul networks. Alcatel's
TeraLight Metro fiber, available immediately, fully supports
high-capacity, 10 Gbps backbone rings of 80 to 200 km
without the need for any dispersion compensating devices,
which would be required with standard single-mode fibers.
TeraLight Metro can be upgraded for 40 Gbps systems and is
also ideally suited for shorter length (10-30 km) metro
systems, in the 1310 nm wavelength transmission window. The
TeraLight Ultra fiber, available in Q4, supports Raman
amplification, which significantly extends the reach of
optical transmission and reduces the costs associated with
regeneration of the optical signal. The fiber’s low
Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) rating enables operators
to bridge longer distances at 40 Gbps, or higher,
data-rates.
http://www.alcatel.com/vpr/?body=/latestnews/22052001_1uk
Alcatel, May 22, 2001
NETPLANE AND ACCELIGHT ANNOUNCE COLLABORATION ON G-MPLS
AcceLight Networks, a start-up based in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, has chosen NetPlane's MPLS software for its
PhotoniX suite of products to leverage the emerging G-MPLS
standards that will result in simplified network
provisioning, protection and restoration. NetPlane is
working to implement MPLS signaling extensions for optical
networking in AcceLight’s Label Traffic Control System (LTCS)
product.
http://www.netplane.com
NetPlane Systems, May 22, 2001
- AcceLight is developing an
optical platform that would integrate "photonic burst
switching," generalized-MPLS multi layer signaling; and a
massively scalable service optimized transport
architecture. Specific plans have not yet been announced.
- AcceLight Networks was
co-founded by Dr. Hyong Kim, who previously founded
Scalable Networks (acquired by FORE Systems in 1996), Dr.
Alberto Leon-Garcia, a noted researcher at the Canadian
Institute of Telecommunications Research and at the
Ontario Information Technology Research Centre, and Dr.
Paul Chow, a researcher with Stanford University and a
researcher and professor with the University of Toronto
specializing in ASICs.
- In April 2000, AcceLight
raised $18 million in first-round funding from Menlo
Ventures and Venrock Associates.
FUJITSU ANNOUNCES TRIPLE-MODE
2.5 GBPS, 1.25 GBPS AND 622 MBPS
TRANSCEIVER
Fujitsu
Microelectronics announced a new triple-mode physical I/O
transceiver interface for use in complex system-on-chip
(SOC) ASIC designs for high-end networking applications.
The new transceiver provides data transfer rates of 2.5
Gbps, 1.25 Gbps and 622 Mbps, which can be selected based on
system requirements. Applications could include add-drop
multiplexers, broadband cross-connects, fiber optic
terminators and test equipment, and systems equipment built
using WDM.
http://www.fmi.fujitsu.com/asic/asicMain01.asp
Fujitsu Microelectronics, May 22, 2001
AOL TO INCREASE PRICE OF ITS UNLIMITED PLAN BY $1.95
STARTING IN JULY
America Online will increase the price by $1.95 to
$23.90 beginning in the July billing cycle. AOL’s last
price increase occurred three years ago. AOL justified the
price increase by noting the $3.5 billion in upgrades it has
made to its network, the new features it has introduced over
the time period and the 50% increase in daily time usage by
its members (now at 70 minutes per day).
http://media.aoltimewarner.com/media/press_view.cfm?release_num=55251948
AOL, May 22,
2001
CISCO ANNOUNCES NEW GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCHES, MARKETING
ALLIANCE WITH INTEL
Cisco Systems
announced a series of new 1000BaseT switching products aimed
at mid-sized companies. Cisco also entered into a marketing
agreement with Intel to accelerate the adoption of
Gigabit
Ethernet in company
backbones, wiring closets and server farms. The company
said the most significant changes driving the need for
corporate Gigabit Ethernet are the unpredictable network
traffic patterns that result from the combination of
intranet traffic, fewer centralized campus server locations,
and the increasing use of multicast applications.
http://www.cisco.com
Cisco Systems, May 22, 2001
HIGH CAPACITY FIBER CABLE LANDS ALONG WESTERN COAST OF
AFRICA
A new 20 Gbps
SAT-3/WASC WDM Submarine Cable System originating in
Portugal was landed in Senegal. When completed later this
year, SAT-3/WASC will link up Portugal, Spain, Canary
Islands, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria,
Cameroon, Gabon, Angola and the Republic of South Africa.
This network consists of a core backbone with various
diversions radiating out to other countries. The branching
units allow either a fiber pair or the required number of
wavelengths to be diverted, depending on the capacity
requested by the end destination. Alcatel is managing the
project end-to-end. The project was initiated by Telkom
from South Africa.
http://www.alcatel.com/vpr/?body=/latestnews/22052001uk
Alcatel, May 22, 2001
TERABURST UNVEILS ITS OPTICAL CORE SWITCHING SOLUTION
TeraBurst, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California,
announced its Optical Management System for switching
wavelengths at line rates from OC-3 to OC-192. TeraBurst's
bit-rate and protocol transparent switch technology, which
could scale up to OC-768 (40 Gbps), uses a hybrid OMO
(optical-millimeter wave-optical) technology that combines
digital and photonic qualities. The company will offer two
models: one with 640 Gbps system capacity and a smaller
version with 200 Gbps capacity.
http://www.teraburst.com
TeraBurst, May 22, 2001
- TeraBurst has developed a
patented waveform switching technology that combines OEO
and OOO switching technologies. This optical-millimeter
wave-optical (OMO) technology uses a compact switch matrix
architecture that is non-blocking and allows scaling up to
higher port counts. The system provides wavelength
conversion, 3R regeneration (retransmit, reshape and
retime) and SONET performance monitoring for signal
quality.
- TeraBurst is led by
Ashok Jain, who
previously was the founder and CEO of
Internet Devices Inc., a developer of high-performance,
data policy management systems, now a division of Alcatel.
- In March, TeraBurst raised
$32.4 million in third round funding, bringing total
financing to $51.4 million since it was founded in January
2000. Investors include Tyco Ventures, Raza Ventures,
Merrill Lynch Ventures LLC, Labrador Ventures and Satwik
Fund.
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