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Unisphere
looks to make a mark with network software
Unisphere
looks to make a mark with network software To survive in the current hyper-competitive communications market, a carrier has to keep up with the latest technology and constantly offer new, improved services. To meet these needs, companies are looking to embrace a new type of communications software, often called "softswitch" technology. Firms like Siemens' Unisphere Solutions, Lucent Technologies and a number of upstart companies all hope to make a mark in this potentially lucrative market. The new technology allows companies such as Qwest Communications International to offer virtual Internet connections (VPN), for example, without having to fundamentally change network architecture. Unisphere plans to release new softswitch technology for testing in the first quarter of next year. These trials are expected to pave the way for the company to sell a sophisticated combination of network hardware and software to service providers. Separately, Lucent won a large deal with upstart Level 3 Communications earlier this year to use softswitch technology. Softswitch technology uses software as a network building block, allowing a programmer to write code for a new communications service regardless of the type of equipment the network is built on. Unisphere hopes it can play a role in networks that it may not even have equipment in by offering software technology, according to the company. Underscoring the opportunity, a standards group called the Softswitch Consortium recently was formed to create a common set of technologies for the market.
Chip giant Intel has stated it is investing $14 million in Ancor Communications, a networking technology maker. Under the terms of the agreement, Intel and the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Ancor will develop and market switches based on the InfiniBand technology. Intel has made a number of moves into the networking and communications markets in recent months. The chipmaker has said that there are huge opportunities for technology companies to provide the backbone needed to help merge the new voice and data networks. InfiniBand was formerly referred to by the working name "System I/O." It governs how devices such as network cards plug into powerful computers and how processors within those systems will communicate with each other. Ancor Communications develops switches, interface adapters and application-specific integrated circuits based on Fibre Channel, a high-speed connection method using either copper wires or fiber optic cables. The companies plan to bring the new switches based on InfiniBand in 2001.
Chip giant Intel, S3's Diamond Multimedia and Proxim are early leaders in the emerging market for technology that links PCs within a home, according to a new study. It is expected to be a booming market as the percentage of homes with multiple PCs and associated devices grows. Looking at third quarter sales this year, Intel led the pack with 54 percent of the market for home networking products based on phoneline technology, which connects PCs by plugging them into a regular phone jack. Diamond was second, with 30 percent market share, followed by Compaq, Linksys and others, according to a new study by market research firm Cahners In-Stat Group. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Proxim leads the wireless home networking market, with 77 percent market share, followed by other players, including Diamond. "It's mostly first-generation type products; plain, vanilla networking adapter cards," said Cahners In-Stat analyst Mike Wolf. "Like any industry, it's driven by a few vendors who are first to market." While Intel and Diamond came out with technology that runs at one megabit per second (mbps), other players, such as the 3Com-Microsoft alliance and Nortel Networks' NetGear, waited until last month to release faster phoneline products, which run at 10 mbps. By the end of the year, home networking kit sales are expected to reach $137 million, and will jump to $281 million by 2000. By 2003, however, Cahners In-Stat believes the market will boom to more than $1.4 billion in sales.
Chipmaker MMC Networks has signed a deal to build processors for start-up Atmosphere Networks amid a hot market for optical networking equipment. Atmosphere will use MMC Networks' processors in its optical networking equipment, or high-speed hardware that telecommunications carriers use to update their fiber-optic networks. As consumers demand more bandwidth to speed the transmission of data across networks, carriers are constantly seeking to upgrade their technology with the latest hardware. In turn, the market for optical equipment is booming, with analysts estimating a $50 billion to $100 billion opportunity for hardware firms. Chipmakers, such as MMC, Intel, IBM and others, hope to take advantage by selling chips that are used for such optic equipment. MMC marketing director Lawrence Ebringer said optical networking is the fastest growing market for its chips. Overall, the company sells half its processors for corporate networking equipment and half for Internet equipment, such as those devices that are based on fiber-optic technology. The stocks at networking start-ups specializing in optics,
such as Redback Networks and Sycamore Networks, have skyrocketed. Other firms
have been the target of takeovers that involve huge premiums. For example, Cisco
in August bought Cerent for $7 billion, while Redback Networks this week paid
$4.5 billion for Siara Systems.
A patent dispute that had held up the development of a potentially powerful new wireless technology has finally wound to an acrimonious close. For the past two years, a small Alabama company called Time Domain and Lawrence Livermore Labs in California have been fighting over ownership of a technology called "ultra-wideband wireless." The close of the patent dispute removes one of the last barriers in the path toward commercial development of the high-speed technology. The technology has the potential to radically change wireless systems and how they are used. Yet since ultra-wideband is still quite new, analysts say its direct effect on today's wireless phone industry is unclear. Moreover, it may be some time before ultra-wideband technology makes a significant mark, as it still faces a number of technological and regulatory hurdles. Both Time Domain executives and lab officials are claiming a sort of victory in the patent dispute. Livermore, which was challenged in its rights to the ultra-wideband patent, gets to retain use of the patent limited to its radar applications. Time Domain is now free to commercialize its communications-related systems based on ultra-wideband technology. Aside from its obvious uses for high-speed wireless data communications, ultra-wideband has been touted as possibly an effective way to link PCs and televisions in a home. Even more ambitious uses are being formulated. The military already uses an early version of the system in a device that can pinpoint troops in the field, much like a global positioning system (GPS). Additionally, ultra-wideband is being tested for use as a radar system, to possibly allow firefighters to "see" behind doors to locate victims during a fire. Traditional wireless communications, like cell phones, use just a small piece of the wireless frequency available to send voice or data transmissions. That stream of information is sent like a laser beam to its destination, a constant stream of information that is tightly focused. By contrast, ultra-wideband technology sends signals across a huge swath of wireless frequency, similar to light that radiates from a light bulb, rather than a focused laser beam. Additionally, instead of a constant stream of information, ultra-wideband sends tiny pulses of data in a way that proves much more efficient than transmissions from a traditional mobile phone. But because the technology bleeds into areas of the airwaves that federal regulators use for safety and air-traffic control functions, ultra-wideband is largely illegal for use on a commercial basis.
AudioCodes has introduced MP-200, a MGCP controlled quad trunk digital media gateway OEM platform. The MP-200 is a stand-alone media gateway incorporating 1, 2 or 4 E1 or T1 interfaces for connections to PSTN telephone trunks or an enterprise PBX. It provides optimized packet streaming and silence suppression for up to four E1/T1 digital trunks in a compact 19`` 1U enclosure and can support up to 120 voice/fax calls. Units based in branch or departmental offices are connected to local key systems or phones and provide central call processing and management. Calls are routed by the MP-200 and MP-100 gateways among a company's branch offices over corporate IP data networks. The PSTN interfaces support various ISDN PRI protocols and numerous variants of CAS protocols. The MP-200 also incorporates the ITU T.38 (internet fax) and is provisioned for future standards upgrade.
Canadian cable operator, Videotron is said to be in the final stages of preparation to launch its IP telephony service, with technology developed in partnership with Cisco and Telcordia. In a letter sent to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the federal body in charge of regulating the industry, the company stated that it now complies with all the requirements to attain competitive local exchange carrier status. Videotron Communications sucessfully tested Ip telephony technology in July 1999 with a group of 200 users. The company confirmed that it has also established the necessary infrastructure throughout the Greater Montreal area and successfully carried out interconnections with Bell. This infrastructure encompasses nearly one million homes that could already have access to Videotron's IP telephony service. Also, telephone number portability is guaranteed, which means IP telephony subscribers will keep the same number when switching carriers.
Call Technologies launches SS7-compliant platform Source: iLocus Call Technologies announced the latest addition to its data convergence efforts. The integration of SS7 protocol onto its personal communications management platform, utilizes ADC's NewNet Connect7, a host-independent embedded-board solution with SS7 functionality. The SS7 protocol is the bridging technology for companies attempting to bring voice and data networks together, particularly companies attempting to span both the IP and PSTN networks to offer customers an integrated VoIP solution. By adding this protocol onto its platform, Call Technologies can provide its suite of personal communications management tools to companies attempting to get the savings and speed benefits provided by VoIP technology. For Call Technologies, the integration of SS7 and IP networks onto its platform allows the company to deliver to its customers integrated applications that will work on virtually any network. These integrated applications will provide end users with greater communications capabilities, allowing them to communicate where and how they like, independent of the network or the device they are using.
Streaming pioneer Mark Cuban calls on 'abused' industry to fight back against 'unfair' royalty regulations. Calling the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, "No. 1 on my bad guy list" Cuban claimed the Act has made streaming media providers the "poster children of abuse by the music industry." The 1998 Act requires that Webcasters negotiate with the Recording Industry Association of America to determine a licensing fee for streaming content. If they can't agree, an arbitration panel sets the rates. Cuban claims the Act unjustly imposes royalty fees upon music streamed over the Internet and on portable devices that are significantly higher than the fees paid by traditional media. His solution? "Move your servers to Canada."
Cuban advocated the move as a way to avoid the fees imposed by
the Copyright Act. Cuban said Canada's friendly attitude towards the Internet
industry, including a promise not to impose Internet taxes, has made moving
servers something Yahoo! is "examining very closely."
Microsoft announced yesterday it will support the use of Bluetooth wireless communications technology. Along with Lucent Technologies, Motorola, and 3Com, Microsoft plans to use the technology to allow computers and other electronic devices to talk with each other and with the Internet. Microsoft's endorsement gives the technology a boost because of the company's leading position in the computer industry. Bluetooth, invented by Ericsson, enables electronic products to make connections to other products at distances of 10 meters to 100 meters. About 1,200 companies worldwide are members of the Bluetooth consortium, including Nokia, Phillips, and Toshiba.
The Pegasus project, which aims to create new technologies to ensure that the Internet can support its rapidly rising usage, has received $7.5 million in funding from the federal government. The project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the past two years, includes researchers from Bell Atlantic, Lucent, Drexel University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, City College of New York, and MCP Hahnemann University. The project aims to ensure that the government's Next Generation Internet is 1,000 times faster, more reliable, and more capable of supporting sophisticated applications than the current Internet. The federal government announced the Next Generation Internet project two years ago, not long after a group of universities announced the Internet2 project. The Next Generation Internet "focuses on creating new technologies to build networks of the future," says Drexel's Stewart Patrick, who will manage Pegasus. Pegasus will address architecture, optical networking, and applications. Researchers will examine issues such as whether current Internet protocols will support future multimedia applications. For its part, Lucent plans to create a packet switch that can process 100 times more information per second than today's switches.
If Bell Labs' Microstructure Physics Research Department is successful in developing the optical switch, transmission capacities could expand by 1,000 times current rates. Since optical fiber can offer almost limitless bandwidth, plans for fiber-to-the-home may eclipse broadband cable strategies if the technology turns out to be economical. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are critical to Bell Labs' strategy because they eliminate the need for costly, power-intensive laser transmitters in every residence. An optical switch could eliminate the bottlenecks that may occur with electronic switches, leading to speeds as high as one Pbps. MEMS is the most favorable strategy for developing an optical switch because of its size, cost, speed, and power, according to Dave Bishop, head of the Microstructure Physics Research Department.
Qtera
Corporation, a
start-up based in Boca Raton, Florida, said its all-optical, long haul photonic
transport platform has successfully completed a 30-day field trial in Qwest's
network. The
Qtera platform carried 10 Gbps signals 2,400 km (or 1,440 miles) without any
opto-electronic regeneration.
Qtera's long-haul platform also provides the ability to add/drop
wavelengths at any node.
A protection switching design enables traffic signals to be restored
within 10 milliseconds, faster than SONET's 50 millisecond standard across far
shorter distances.
Qtera expects to begin beta tests soon using live commercial traffic.
Qtera is led by Fahri Diner, formerly with Siemens Information and
Communications Networks.
The company received financing from Battery Ventures, Mayfield Fund and
Oak Investment Partners, among others. |
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