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AT&T Canada completes fiber
rings AT&T Canada completes fiber rings AT&T Canada has completed and activated two fiber optic rings connecting Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Toronto. The new segments add 4,146 kilometers to AT&T's OC-192 network, which is now more than 17,000 kilometers in length. Sycamore and Enron ink data delivery deal Source: Cnet Sycamore Networks announced a three-year technology deal with network operator Enron Broadband Services that could be worth as much as $200 million to the networking equipment upstart. Under terms of the deal, Sycamore's fiber-optic based switching devices will be used in the construction of Enron's long-haul and metropolitan network routes. Adding Enron as a potential customer is Sycamore's latest gambit in a high-stakes race among entrenched equipment providers and upstart firms to supply communications companies with cutting-edge networking technology. The deal is particularly important for Sycamore, because the firm listed only one customer--Williams Communications--when it went public last fall. Enron has been active in developing relationships with technology specialists recently, purchasing $350 million worth of systems equipment from Sun Microsystems and continuing tests with routing technology start-up Avici Systems. Enron is one of several new entrants into the communications industry building new high-speed networks based on fiber-optic technology. Others include Williams Communications, Level 3 Communications and NextLink Communications, among others.
Broadcasters win battle against iCraveTV.com The legal fight is one of the first signs of what is likely to be an ongoing struggle between traditional programmers and online companies as the Web increasingly becomes a video medium. Many sites have already begun offering original programming of their own--but the attraction of providing proven draws such as sports games, news or network television shows is irresistible. In the United States, a coalition of broadcasters, cable and movie companies has already asked Congress to block Web firms from gaining rights to their content. But iCraveTV has now forced broadcasters' hands, even complicating the issue by applying conflicting national laws to a Net company that operates across borders. The Canadian company argues that Canada's laws give it the right to retransmit broadcast television signals, in the same way that cable companies and satellite companies do. As long as the company doesn't cut or insert its own commercials into the programming, and ultimately pays copyright holders for their work, iCraveTV's action is completely legal, chief executive Bill Craig says. InterWave raises $110.5 million in IPO Source: Cnet InterWave Communications International, which makes compact wireless systems for voice and data communications, soared on January 25th as it joined other initial public offerings hitting Wall Street. Shares of the Bermuda-based company rose $23.88, or about 184 percent, to $36.88 by market close on the Nasdaq after its $13 a share IPO raised $110.5 million through lead underwriter Salomon Smith Barney. The deal represented a 19 percent stake in the company. It had initially planned on offering 7.5 million shares in a range of $8 to $10. "The wireless communications industry is hot, others have done extremely well," said John Fitzgibbon of Redherring.com. "The company seems to be pretty solid. There is a lot of demand for the stock." According to International Data Corp., the worldwide wireless market is expected to grow from 303 million users in 1998 to approximately 1.1 billion by 2003. InterWave has an alliance with Nortel Networks, which is a principal shareholder. Competitors include Ericsson, Lucent Technologies and Siemens. The company's system, or "network in a box," is positioned as an option to traditional telephone networks for companies with multiple locations. It is also effective for reaching employees "in the field," according to Irv DeGraw, research director at WorldFinanceNet.com. 724 Solutions more than doubles in IPO Source: Cnet 724 Solutions, which allows banks to offer wireless services to customers via digital mobile phones and pagers, cashed in today as its shares more than doubled in its stock market debut after an initial public offering raised twice as much as initially expected. Amid investor enthusiasm for wireless access, shares of 724 Solutions were up $45.81, or more than 176 percent, to close at $71.81 on the Nasdaq stock market after an IPO at $26 a share. The company initially expected to raise $78 million, but strong demand for the shares helped it raise $156 million. The company provides infrastructure software that enables financial institutions to provide online banking over digital mobile phones and computers. The Toronto-based company offered 6 million shares, or a 17 percent stake in the company, which is backed by some of the biggest players in the banking industry. International Data Corp. expects that the number of users banking online in the United States will increase from 8 million in 1998 to about 40 million by the end of 2003. It expects the number of online brokerage accounts to continue to grow rapidly, from 6 million in 1998 to 24 million in 2002. Citigroup, the biggest U.S. financial services company, has a 21.8 percent stake in 724 Solutions. Bank of Montreal holds 11.7 percent and Bank of America, the No. 2 U.S. bank holding company, has 10.9 percent. AT&T makes new Net hosting bid Source: Cnet AT&T launched a new campaign on January 27th aimed at becoming the network infrastructure of choice for the nascent "rent-an-application" industry. Bell is aiming to partner with smaller application service providers (ASPs) in hopes of capturing the lion's share of their network traffic and boosting use of its own network services. The company said it would spend $250 million on infrastructure supporting the new companies. The ASP model is aimed at allowing customers to download software on demand, or to access it over a network, instead of keeping applications on individual computers' hard drives. While the market is still in its infancy, analysts predict it will take off quickly as high-speed Internet connections become more widely used. Market research firm Dataquest recently forecast that the ASP market would be worth nearly $23 billion by 2003. That's music to AT&T, which sees dollar signs in this kind of radically increased use of network capacity.
Now that the dust kicked up by IP telephony’s debut is beginning to settle, at least one thing has become clear: The PSTN is not going to disappear overnight. The "legacy infrastructure" (class 4 and class 5 switches, the SS7 signaling network, and already in-place IN applications) offers an extensive set of services — from CO voicemail to ISDN EKTS to local number portability to basic caller ID and call forwarding — services that customers are using (and will continue to demand), and that the present generation of applications requires. Because the "old network" isn’t going to vanish, the next big challenge of convergence entails implementing signaling technology to mediate between VoIP network elements and legacy PSTN architecture, including the advanced intelligent network. This will permit delivery of familiar low-level service packages and application options (e.g., network voicemail) to convergent service customers; help higher-level applications work transparently across divergent networks; and of course, extend the useful life of legacy systems. How will we manage this? The answer overwhelmingly put forward in the past year is based on a new kind of switch that lets service providers, both young and old, mediate existing services and create new ones. These next-gen switches, variously termed "media gateways," "service mediation switches," and "class 4/5 replacements," have garnered a great deal of attention lately, including a feature in the New York Times business section (August 6, 1999) that highlighted startup company Tachion Networks. Typically, a next-gen switch is built in two parts. One holds the physical ports, line cards, and actual switching fabric; the other acts as a signaling gateway, and provides interfaces to both the SS7 network and its own databases and applications servers, where subscriber profiles are stored and new services are implemented. The latter component, often referred to as a "softswitch," uses the evolving media gateway control protocol (MGCP) and SIP to communicate with the core chassis. The various names used to identify this product category can
create a fair amount of confusion as to what the primary function of this type
of switch actually is, and where it would most likely be located in a
carrier’s network. The answer, of course, is multifold — it depends on your
application. Cisco's Java client for CTI desktop applications Cisco Systems' ultra-thin client has browser-based deployment of agent desktop functions, such as screen-pop and soft phone, across PC operating systems, letting customers implement an IP-based contact center architecture while preserving their existing investments. Java lets application developers write a single program that can be run on multiple platforms, including Unix, Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, IBM OS/2 and browser-based desktops. The Cisco Java client has been written in "pure Java" for implementation with no vendor-specific Java extensions. Desktop applications written with the Cisco Java client are supported on any operating system or browser that supports version 1.1.5+ of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). This lets Cisco ICM users use the software's network-to-desktop CTI functionality throughout the enterprise as an applet on a browser-enabled desktop or as an executable in a non-browser environment. Cisco ICM software manages voice and data distribution across the enterprise. The product has an integrated suite of contact management capabilities that supports customer interaction via phone, Web, fax, and e-mail across a network of automatic call distributor (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), database, and desktop applications. The Cisco platform also lets an organization use a complete network-to-desktop CTI strategy through call-event and customer-profile information that is targeted to an agent's desktop. Teltran completes move to ITXC network Source: iLocus Teltran has completed the transition of its customer base from the MCI/Interline platform to the ITXC worldwide VoIP network. The ITXC network will continue to provide Teltran customers with the same phone service as MCI/Interline. However, Teltran's customers will now benefit from many additional ITXC worldwide termination points, which make up the largest global Internet telephony termination footprint of all VoIP carriers. According to Mitchell Hershkowitz, Teltran's VP Operations, ``the ITXC network represents a significant upgrade in the service that we are providing to our customers. We will now be able to offer VoIP in new territories covered by ITXC at the same time as we continue to expand Teltran's footprint of countries offered within our own network.'' Active Voice in interoperability agreement with Cisco Source: iLocus Active Voice has signed an agreement with Cisco to ensure multi-year interoperability between Active Voice's Unity solution and Cisco CallManager and related products that fit within Cisco AVVID. Under terms of the agreement, the two companies will cooperate to ensure that Unity, Active Voice's IP-telephony ready, unified messaging solution, and Cisco CallManager, call processing software and related Cisco AVVID solutions, will continue to deliver an integrated communications solution to their respective customers. The agreement also establishes a business relationship that provides for cross training and other mutually beneficial sales, support, and marketing activities. Unity gives users the ability to manage their e- mail, voice mail, and fax messages from a desktop PC, through a touchtone telephone, or over the Internet. Lucent introduces IP phone for remote customer care Source: iLocus Lucent unveiled on January 25th an IP "softphone" that gives customer care agents the tools to work from any remote location. Called CentreVu IP Agent, the phone gives organizations the flexibility to deploy agents remotely. At the same time, the softphone uses IP connections to help organizations get more use from their data networks. CentreVu IP Agent delivers call signaling and phone features to the agent's PC through an IP connection. The voice portion of the call is carried through managed circuit switched telephone lines into the agent's phone to ensure a toll quality connection. Through an organization's LAN, CentreVu IP Agent connects agents to their corporate Lucent DEFINITY Enterprise Communications Server. The DEFINITY's automatic call distribution software, in
conjunction with Lucent call routing solutions delivers calls to appropriate
remote agents based on the company's business rules and agent skills, just as it
would to agents at a centralized contact center location. In addition the solution enables features such as integrated
phone directories, last numbered dialed and "screen pops" with
relevant customer data to enable more personalized service. CentreVu IP Agent requires a DEFINITY ECS 8.2 release. It will
be available worldwide in the first quarter of 2000 at $550.00 per seat. Levin said the Psion-Motorola partnership should change this reality soon, perhaps within a year. The first products from this collaboration should begin appearing in 2001, he said. A joint team is working on pocket Internet terminals, which will be based on next-generation Symbian technology. Psion said the project was progressing well.
ATM finds a home at the network's edge Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network is ATM based. Newly introduced adaptations of ATM, including ATM Adaption Layer 2, have established ATM as a favorable technology for placing voice lines on a slender access pipe. While ATM provides better QOS and bandwidth efficiencies than IP-based tools, many people believe IP is gaining ground. Net goes magnetic
Sun to intro New Solaris OS with IP address support Starting with this release, Sun will no longer charge an end-user license fee for the right to use the runtime software on systems with eight or fewer processors. Instead of charging for lines of code, Sun is rolling out a set of Solaris 8 service and support programs, delivered through Sun's System Administrators Portal. While the software and other bundled applications are free, Sun is charging $75 for the shrink-wrapped version, which includes the Solaris 8 Operating Environment in 10 languages and supporting applications. Solaris 8 is scheduled to ship in early March.
Microsoft postpones 'Mars' Last Monday Microsoft sent an e-mail to beta testers
awaiting its next Internet Explorer (IE) beta, currently referred to as “Mars”,
notifying them that the
Mars beta has been postponed. Microsoft officials told testers that the company
is “rethinking some of our most basic assumptions” regarding the future of
IE, according to testers who received the e-mail and requested anonymity. |
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