AT&T ENHANCES ITS MANAGED ROUTER SERVICE WITH MPLS FEATURES
AT&T enhanced its Managed Router Service (MRS) with support for IP-enabled Frame Relay and ATM using enterprise permanent virtual circuits (PVCs) and routing technology based on MPLS, which is used to provide secure "any-to-any" IP routing between sites defined in an enterprise VPN.  AT&T’s managed router service will support domestic and international enterprise PVCs (EPVCs) in two basic network topologies.  One is designed for new customers, and the second for existing customers who want to migrate to MPLS gradually, without disrupting existing Frame Relay or ATM infrastructure.  For new customers, each managed router is connected via a single PVC to the IP-enabled Frame Relay/ATM backbone.  For existing customers, a hybrid network is created by connecting managed routers both to the IP-enabled Frame Relay/ATM backbone and to the standard AT&T Frame Relay and ATM networks.  General availability expected by the end of the year.  Support for international EPVCs is targeted for Q1 2002.  AT&T’s managed router service also adds proactive service level agreements (SLAs), under which AT&T will measure, report and pay compensation for any missed SLAs for implementation, site availability and mean time to repair.  http://www.att.com/press/item/0,1354,3972,00.html
AT&T, September 10, 2001

COGENT ACQUIRES NETRAIL ASSETS FROM BANKRUPTCY COURT
In a bankruptcy proceeding, Cogent Communications acquired the major assets of Tier-1 Internet service provider NetRail for $11.7 million.  Cogent will continue to serve NetRail’s customers.  Over the next several months NetRail's service will be integrated with Cogent’s national backbone and facilities.  http://www.cogentco.com
Cogent, September 10, 2001

• Last month, Cogent agreed to acquire Allied Riser Communications for its in-building networks in large, multi-tenant commercial buildings across the US.  In July, Allied Riser announced a number of drastic cost cutting measures, including suspending retail sales of its broadband data applications and services, transitioning its current retail customer base to other service providers, reducing its workforce by approximately 290 employees or approximately 75%, and the closure of sales offices.  At the time, the company said it planned to continue providing broadband services to its customers for a period of 60 days, to help them transition to other service providers. 
• NetRail has a leased backbone of OC3 and DS3 trunks spanning 50 POPs across the US.  The network uses Lucent's CBX-500 ATM switches and Juniper Networks' M-40 routers running Packet over SONET (POS) with MPLS and multicasting.  The company provides Internet access services in eight US cities.In February, 360networks announced plans to acquire NetRail a Tier 1 wholesale IP service provider, in an all-stock transaction.  Financial terms were not disclosed.  In June, the deal collapsed with 360networks filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

ERLANG AND NEC COMPLETE TERABIT SWITCH FABRIC CHIPSET
Erlang Technology Inc., a fabless semiconductor company founded by scientists formerly of Washington University's Research Group in Telecommunications and NEC, introduced their terabit-capable switch-fabric chip architecture and their first Erlang Network Element Technology chipset.  Erlang's architecture is protocol-independent, linearly scalable, has distributed control, and is terabit-capable.  Key innovations include a multichannel switching (MCS) technology that enables increased port rates by grouping multiple ports to form higher rate links and also enables parallel processing without complicated re-sequencing of packets or cells. The first chipset, which will be implemented in NEC’s 0.18-micron ASIC process technology and will also be matched to NEC's SerDes technology, will support switching capacity from 10 to 40 Gbps.  The same architecture will apply to Erlang's next-generation chipset, which will be scalable up to 640 Gbps and will support 256 OC-48c, 64 OC-192c and 16 OC-768c channels.  http://www.erlangtech.com
Erlang, September 10, 2001

• Erlang Technology was founded in 1999 by Dr. Paul Min, along with core members of the Research Group in Telecommunications (RGIT) at Washington University in St. Louis.  Its list of partners and investors include ETRI, HANA Systems, HOLIM Technology, LGIC and NEC.

INTERNET MACHINES UNVEILS ITS 10 GBPS NETWORK PROCESSOR, TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT AND SWITCH FABRIC SOLUTION
Internet Machines, a start-up based in Fremont, California, revealed details of its network processing and switching solution for OC-192c and 10 Gbps networking equipment.  The chipset consists of a network processing engine, a traffic management co-processor, a switch element and a related software development kit.  The chips will be implemented in a 0.13-micron process.  Internet Machines’ network processing engine features a massively parallel network processor based on RISC microcores.  It offers fully software-programmable fast path packet processing while maintaining wire-speed OC-192c throughput at all packet sizes in both ingress and egress directions concurrently.  The protocol independent switch element provides 200 Gbps full duplex switching throughput and is scalable to terabit speeds.  The device uses sixty-four embedded serializer-deserializer (SERDES) transceivers.  The traffic management co-processor chip leverages a Parallel Channel Architecture to perform buffer and queue management functions, traffic scheduling, flow control across a switch fabric, congestion management, and statistics for multiprotocol traffic at OC-192c line rates.  SiberCore and Internet Machines will jointly develop a reference design.  http://www.internetmachines.com 
Internet Machines, September 10, 2001

• In July, Internet Machines secured $41million in Series C financing for its development of 10 Gbps packet processing silicon.  Strategic investors included Exar, a provider of high-bandwidth analog and mixed-signal silicon solutions based on CMOS.
• Internet Machines is led by Chris Hoogenboom, who formerly directed the engineering development of next generation Ethernet and ATM switching products for Xylan Corporation (acquired by Alcatel).  The company was also co-founded by John Wallner, previously development manager for Xylan Corporation's ASIC team, and Frank Knuettel, previously chief financial and operating officer for Viking Systems.

AMCC ANNOUNCES OC-768 SIGE MODULATOR
AMCC announced an OC-768 silicon germanium (SiGe) modulator driver for use in short-reach and long-reach SONET-based fiber optic data link applications within the MAN and WAN marketplace.  The device is a key building block for electroabsorption modulators (EAM) and differential lithium niobate (LiN) modulators. http://www.amcc.com/Compinfo/PressReleases/S76803.htm
AMCC, September 10, 2001

TELCORDIA SOFTSWITCH NOW AVAILABLE WITH SIP SUPPORT
Telcordia Technologies introduced SIP (session initiation protocol) APIs for its Telcordia Call Agent, a Class 5 softswitch that provides voice services over IP and ATM networks.  The enhanced Telcordia Call Agent will initially support SIP-based applications for emerging PC to PSTN and PSTN to PC applications. The release supports third-party call control applications for PC control of telephone features such as directory features, calling name delivery and call initiation.  In addition, third party call control can be initiated from Internet servers for Click-to-Dial applications and from wireless PDAs.  Future releases of SIP-enabled softswitches will include support for SIP-T to enable softswitch-to-softswitch handoffs and support for SIP-enabled Application Servers. http://www.telcordia.com/newsroom/pressreleases/09102001.html
Telcordia, September 10, 2001

AVAYA INTRODUCES ITS 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET LAN MODULES
Avaya announced 10 Gigabit Ethernet LAN modules for its P580 and P882 multiservice switch platforms.  The Avaya 10GbE technology is compliant with the draft of IEEE 802.3ae specification, the 802.1Q Virtual LAN standard and is compatible with 802.1p priority tagging.  It will also support Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching, DiffServ marking as well as other Avaya multiservice switch features.  Upon initial release, three different transceivers will be supported: 850-nanometer for use with multimode fiber with distances up to 300 meters, the 1310-nanometer that will support single mode fiber and a distance of up to 10 km, and finally the 1550-nanometer, which also supports single mode fiber and a distance of up to 40 km.  Depending on the transceiver configuration, pricing will range between $19,995 and $59,995.  Availability is expected in January.   http://www.avaya.com
Avaya, September 10, 2001

AVAYA WIRELESS ACCESS POINT OFFERS MIGRATION TO 802.11A
Avaya introduced a Wireless Access Point featuring a twin 32-bit CardBus slot architecture that accepts either 11 Mbps 802.11b radios available today or 54 Mbps 802.11a radios as they become available.  Avaya’s access point also supports the new 802.1.x network security standard, which provides user based-authentication and automatically creates and distributes new encryption keys on a regular basis.  End users with 802.1x functionality (like Windows XP clients) can be authenticated by a RADIUS server and supplied with a WEP security key.  http://www.avaya.com/
Avaya, September 10, 2001

FOUNDRY ADDS ETHERNET LAYER 2 VPN SUPPORT FOR MPLS
Foundry Networks announced Layer 2 VPN services over MPLS backbones based on the IETF’s Draft-Martini specification.  Foundry Networks said extending MPLS support for native Ethernet services allows existing and emerging MAN service providers (MSPs) to develop scalable, controllable, fault-tolerant Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (VPN) services over their existing Gigabit Ethernet and SONET-based MPLS backbones.  Foundry’s MPLS solution also features 150 km Gigabit Ethernet fiber links, IEEE 802.1w and Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) support (for fast convergence in case of link, port or switch failures), spanning Tree per VLAN-group as defined by IEEE 802.1s (which allows metro service providers to organize their VLANs into 2 to 16 VLAN groups and run one STP instance per group), IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation, Layer 2 Packet over SONET/SDH and other capabilities.  Separately, Foundry Networks announced new interface modules for BigIron Layer 3 switches to provide high density 10/100 Mbps connectivity over single mode optical fiber. These new interface modules provide 24 Fast Ethernet ports that extend the reach to 40 kilometers using single mode optical fiber. http://www.foundrynet.com/
Foundry Networks, September 10, 2001

CIRCADIANT SYSTEMS SECURES $10 MILLION FOR OPTICAL TESTING
Circadiant Systems, a start-up based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, secured $10 million in second round funding for its development of a new class of optical testing equipment.  The company is developing a single-box, automated and intelligent testing platform designed for optical component and optical system vendors.  Circadiant’s tester will soon begin beta testing and is expected to be available in Q4.  Investors include TL Ventures, EnerTech Capital Partners, PA Early Stage and all of the first round investors, including Anthelion Capital and angel investor Kal Shastri.  http://www.circadiant.com 
Circadiant Systems, September 10, 2001

• Circadiant Systems was founded in August 2000 by Dr. John French, who previously was chief architect and co-founder of the transponder business unit in Agere Systems (Lucent), and Dr. Joseph Thompson, who was the lead designer of Lucent’s DWDM and 10 Gbps receivers.

AIRPRIME RAISES $40 MILLION FOR 3G CDMA DATA AND VOICE PRODUCTS
AirPrime, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, raised US $40 million in series C equity financing for its development of high-speed CDMA wireless data and voice products.  Working under a CDMA subscriber license from QUALCOMM, AirPrime is developing a 3G upgradeable wireless voice and data product for use on the Sprint PCS network.  The Sprint PCS Wireless Web Digital Link for the Handspring Visor will be available through Sprint later this month.  In addition, the company has recently been awarded contracts from leading device manufactures for next-generation 3G CDMA solutions.  The new round of equity investment, led by RBC Capital Partners Telecom Fund (a division of Royal Bank of Canada), includes investments from QUALCOMM, GE Equity, LibertyView Equity Partners, NB Capital Venture Partners, Omninet Capital, DRW Venture Partners and others.  Joining these new investors are existing strategic investors 3Com, Xircom (part of Intel), LSI Logic, TechHarvest Group and Ideal Partners.  http://www.airprime.com/html/index.html 
AirPrime, September 10, 2001

• Based on Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT) CDMA2000 1X chipsets and system software, AirPrimes’ modules are designed to support dual-band frequency operation to address global CDMA networks (800 MHz and 1900 MHz) as well as global positioning services (GPS) (1575 MHz).

LEVEL 3 OFFERS TO BUY BACK $1.8 BILLION IN DEBT USING AVAILABLE CASH
Level 3 Communications commenced a "Modified Dutch Auction" tender to purchase up to $1.8 billion of its senior debt and convertible debt securities using its available cash.  http://www.level3.com/us/news/newsreleases/1,1345,2001Sep10-5589,00.html
Level 3, September 10, 2001

QWEST TRIMS FINANCIAL FORECAST, WORKFORCE AND CAPEX PLANS
Citing deteriorating economic conditions both nationally and within the 14 Western states in which it provides local communications services, Qwest Communications cut its financial guidance for the second half of 2001 and for 2002.  For 2001, Qwest expects total revenue of approximately $20.5 billion and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of approximately $8.0 billion.  For 2002, Qwest expects revenue growth in the high single digits and EBITDA growth to be slightly better than revenue growth.  Qwest will cut its capital expenditures for 2001 from approximately $8.8 billion to approximately $8.5 billion. In 2002, Qwest’s capital budget will be reduced from approximately $7.5 billion to approximately $5.5 billion.  As a result, Qwest expects to be free cash flow positive in the second quarter of 2002, two quarters sooner than previously announced.  The company will also reduce its workforce by 4,000 jobs, from 66,000 to 62,000 employees, by the end of the first quarter of 2002.  http://www.qwest.com/about/media/pressroom/1,1720,778_archive,00.html
Qwest, September 10, 2001

Daily Journal For Broadband Networking
Copyright 2001 Converge! Media Ventures Inc.
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