Digital telephony growth to skyrocket
CRTC announces transitional regime for Sasktel
Look intros two-way wireless Internet
Fairchild semiconductor unveils major power technology initiative
Lumenon reports progress with its optical chip process technology
Portugal Telecom affiliate uses Vocaltec technology
ITXC and Interoute extend ties in Europe
FTC to propose online privacy rules
J2EE-based server lowers page-delivery cost
IBM's disk drive delay trips partners
IBM adds zip to PowerPC chips
CTILS platform gets nuance voice interface

Digital telephony growth to skyrocket
Source:  Newsbytes

Two reports released May 22 by Cahners In-Stat Group, a high-tech market research firm, have a bearing on the way people will communicate during the next few years. In-Stat believes that despite a relatively slow adoption rate, worldwide revenues from cable telephony services will grow from its 1999 level of $293 million to more than $7 billion by the year 2004.

In-Stat reports in "Cable Telephony: Slowly but Surely," that the concept of competitive residential telephone services has interested cable TV operators for years. However, although reliable telephony equipment for hybrid fiber-coaxial networks has been commercially available, economic and operational barriers have limited service deployment.  In-Stat identified the causes for the slow deployment of cable telephone service as shortages of capital and personal. In addition, conflicts in the development of cable telephony standards have impeded the ability of offering voice services to cable TV subscribers, according to In-Stat. But, the report found that over the past year, voice services have increasingly been bundled with data and video services. In-Stat suggests bundling is attractive to consumers, and that cable operators are eager to expand the availability of their telephony services.

In-Stat says that it believes there is a technology migration under way that will give a long-term boost to cable telephony. In the short term, cable telephony will shift from traditional circuit- switched voice technology to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). According to In-Stat, the bulk of cable telephony growth will occur in North America, where cable telephony revenues will reach $5.4 billion by 2004. Worldwide, the number of cable telephony subscribers will increase from less than 1 million in 1999 to over 20 million in 2004.

In-Stat also believes that the number of cable telephony lines will increase substantially, reaching an installed base of almost three million cable telephone lines installed worldwide by the end of 2000.  A companion report also released today highlights what is predicted to be strong growth in the shipments of digital modems. According to In-Stat, this growth is being fueled by the reality of line sharing and the fact that it has become easier for new competition to offer residential service.

CRTC announces transitional regime for Sasktel
Source:  Angus

The CRTC has approved the rules that will apply to SaskTel when it comes under federal regulation on June 30. The Commission will deregulate most competitive services, on condition that the telco aligns its competitive terms and conditions with those of other major incumbent telcos, and local rates will not increase for 18 months.

Look intros two-way wireless internet
Source:  Angus

Look Communications has begun offering bi-directional wireless Internet service, with download speeds of up to 3 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 200 Kbps, to customers in Hamilton. The service, which costs $49.95 a month or $39.95 for Look TV subscribers, will be introduced elsewhere in Ontario and Quebec this year.

Fairchild Semiconductor International, a world-leader in Power, has unveiled a major technology initiative designed to support the power requirements of next-generation microprocessors for high performance computers. Over the next few years, microprocessor current requirements are expected to double from current 20A requirements while voltage requirements should drop even lower than the present 1.5V and 2.5V levels. Fairchild's advancements in the areas of silicon and packaging are addressing these challenges in the space- and power-constrained environments of portable devices, such as notebook computers.
    
Innovative new surface mount packages, such as the recently introduced Bottomless SO-8 and BGA, combine miniature packages with the thermal performance of much larger packages while virtually eliminating the package resistance and dramatically increasing the power density. At the same time, improvements in the thermal characteristics of small surface mount packages have been made possible by Fairchild's integration of the Schottky diode into the low-side MOSFET and Fairchild's optimization of the silicon for low-side operation.

Recent new advancements in PowerTrench silicon technology contribute to improvements in power density and switching efficiency. Power MOSFETs are now optimized for DC/DC applications, reducing or eliminating certain loss components in DC/DC synchronous rectifier buck regulators. The new trench technology drives specific RDS(ON) to new lows, allowing a lower RDS(ON) device to fit into a smaller surface mount package. The dramatic reduction of the electrical package resistance of these new packages also improves efficiency in both switching power supplies and static switch (on/off) applications.

Lumenon reports progress with its optical chip process technology
Source: Converge

Lumenon Innovative Lightwave Technology, a developer of integrated optical components, reported progress in implementing its proprietary PHASIC process technology toward volume production of optical devices.  PHASIC is Lumenon's process technology for integrating design, fabrication, packaging and testing of planar lightwave circuit components.  Lumenon will leverage Hybrid Sol-Gel Glass (HSGG) technology to create hybrid glass circuits directly on silicon chips using its low-temperature PHASIC process.  The technology is used to provide a fast, direct photolithographic method for depositing waveguides on integrated optics devices at low temperatures (under 200° C).  Construction of a new manufacturing facility supporting PHASIC is on schedule. The company hopes to be able to supply large volume of optical chips by early next year.  Lumenon also announced its intention to extend its passive component portfolio to include splitters, couplers, filters, interferometers, add/drops, and combinations of these.

Marconi Comunicacoes Internacionais, a Portugal Telecom affiliate, has launched an IP telephony service based on technology from VocalTec. The VoIP equipment infrastructure uses Signalling System 7 (SS7) to interconnect with carriers. Marconi Comunicacoes is already offering customers IP calling between France and Portugal, calling card service and plans to expand into domestic service in the third quarter. The company is the international carrier of the Portugal Telecom Group offering tailor-made solutions for specific clients.

Pan-European carrier, Interoute, is extending its Internet telephony relationship with ITXC into Europe. Interoute's Denmark subsidiary is installing ITXC-owned and operated equipment on its premises to connect the Danish switch directly to ITXC.net.

The deal follows Interoute's decision in January to choose ITXC as an international carrier for its IP traffic. Interoute is already connected to ITXC.net at its hub in New York City. Interoute operates in 11 countries throughout Europe as well as in North America. The group offers a range of communications services to business customers, residential users and other carriers. Its network is now within reach of more than 80% of Western Europe - or 310m people.

FTC to propose online privacy rules
Source: msnbc

The Federal Trade Commission is poised to recommend new regulations to protect the privacy of consumers online, reversing a long-standing position favoring industry self-regulation, sources familiar with the new initiative said. The recommendations, which are scheduled to be officially released on May 22nd  in a report to Congress, will reportedly include a request that lawmakers pass legislation that will strengthen the FTC’s hand in regulating the companies that make up the “new economy.” Sources familiar with the FTC’s decision-making process said that part of the justification for the new recommendations came from the latest version of regular online surveys conducted by the commission, which found that although many more Web sites post privacy policies than ever before, those policies do not adequately protect privacy.
     
The legislation would allow the FTC to implement and enforce “fair information principles” that it had originally developed as guidelines for industry self-regulation that parallel the rules of fair-credit reporting. Those principles include providing notice to consumers about the kinds of privacy policies followed by each Web site, the ability of consumers to have a degree of access to the information that companies keep about them, and a measure of access to that information in order to be able to make changes when necessary.

J2EE-based server lowers page-delivery cost
Source: teledotcom

E-businesses are eagerly embracing technologies that personalize Web sites' content and format Web pages to fit each site visitor's needs. Trouble is, personalization software's complex analysis and site customization processes can zap site performance.

E-ISV Open Market's Satellite Server addresses site performance, enabling delivery of personalized, dynamic Web content at top speed. Developed in conjunction with major global e-marketers, including Akamai Technologies Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) in the United States and Fairfax Interactive Network in Australia, Satellite Server was unveiled on May 18.

Based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition, Satellite Server enables businesses to spread their personalized page intelligence to distributed, lower-cost appliance servers to cache and serve personalized information faster. At low cost, Satellite Server forms an intelligent caching network of dynamic information, sitting in front of a business' centralized, "head-in" content serving system, Krishna said. Open Market's Content Server templates are called into play here, enabling Satellite Server to break complex pages into smaller components that can be stored in a cache. The two programs are tightly integrated to facilitate user session storage and retrieval.

Fairfax, publisher of several major Australian newspapers, uses Satellite Server to reduce the cost of serving up dynamic pages to millions of readers. Akamai is putting it to use in bringing scalability and performance to the delivery of streaming media and Internet content.

IBM's tardiness in releasing its faster disk drives has negatively affected at least two major storage partners. Compaq Computer Corp. and EMC Corp. have turned to other suppliers for 10,000-rpm disk drives for their respective enterprise storage subsystems and servers rather than wait for IBM's high-end UltraStar drives.

As a result, IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., could be delayed by up to a year in getting the new drives into end users' hands. The faster spindle speed that a 10,000-rpm drive offers enables applications to move data much more quickly -- an extremely important function for Web-based applications, where time is money.

Because the testing is so rigorous, major storage systems manufacturers generally qualify components for high-end systems only once a year. If a component isn't ready to be tested at the right time in the systems maker's product cycle, the component typically doesn't make it into products for a year. That could be the case with IBM's 10,000-rpm drive, according to observers. Houston-based Compaq said production of the faster drives hasn't met demand, so earlier this month it initiated an across-the-board price cut on 7,200-rpm drives to placate customers waiting for the faster drives. While Compaq is waiting for IBM to ramp up production of the 10,000-rpm drives, the company continues to sell similar drives from Seagate Technology Inc.

IBM adds zip to PowerPC chips
Source: zdnet

IBM is ready to enter production with a new performance-enhancing microprocessor technology, called "silicon-on-insulator," the company announced May 21. IBM  claims the addition of silicon-on-insulator, or SOI, can increase a processor's performance by between 20 and 30 percent.

For the past five years IBM has been developing SOI technology, which adds a layer of insulation underneath a transistor inside of the processor. The resulting manufacturing technique embeds an insulating layer of oxide between the transistor and the silicon bed on which it rests.

This insulator "reduces the drag of the substrate on transistor performance" said IBM Fellow Russ Lange, chief technologist of IBM's Microelectronics Division. By reducing this drag -- known to chip designers as parasitic capacitance -- SOI also increases transistor performance. It does this by limiting the amount of electrical current absorbed by the silicon substrate as the current passes from one transistor to another inside the chip. Thus the chip pushes greater amounts of current, an important improvement because, Lange said, "The more current you put into the next stage of a computation, the faster it will move."

The first product to utilize SOI will be IBM's AS400 processor, a server chip based on its PowerPC design. IBM's first production SOI chips will ship in the new AS/400e server, announced on Monday, and slated to ship in August. IBM will also ship SOI chips in its RS/6000 servers later in the year.

SOI technology holds significant promise for consumers. IBM plans to use the technology in PowerPC chips embedded in consumer devices. IBM, for example, plans to incorporate the technology into desktop PowerPC processors, like those used by Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) IBM will also use SOI in new low-power processors for personal devices, such as cellular phones, and is also looking to apply SOI to its network processors for use in network infrastructure equipment.

SOI can be used in one of two ways. It can be used to create low-power chips. In this case, by keeping clock speed the same, SOI would reduce the power consumption of a chip by two to three times. And SOI can also work to increase clock speed frequency while maintaining the same level of power consumption, Lange said.

IBM officials said they believe that its copper interconnect technology, combined with SOI, give it a two-year lead over competitors, such as Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) This is because SOI chips, in the past, in the have been notoriously difficult to manufacturer in a cost-effective way.

CTILS platform gets nuance voice interface
Source: newsbytes

Hong Kong-based customer interaction and e-business solution provider Continuous Technologies International Limited (CTIL) has formed a technology partnership with Nuance, provider of natural voice interface software, to enhance the functionality of eTransaction, CTIL's scalable electronic service delivery platform. eTransaction enables companies to provide online services through multiple-access media, including the Internet, interactive voice, interactive fax and wireless devices.

By integrating Nuance's speech-recognition and voice-authentication software into the eTransaction platform, companies implementing eTransaction will be able to offer their customers a more convenient means of access to their services from any telephone. Nuance software has speech-recognition capabilities for more than 15 languages including Cantonese, Mandarin and both US and British English.

Natural language interaction means that customers no longer need to navigate a host of complicated voice options via an IVR system, they can get direct access to the desired option by simply speaking. This reduces the interaction time and provides improvement to customer services. CTIL has already integrated the voice-recognition software into its eTransaction platform, which is ready for deployment now.

Nuance has provided CTIL with open, reusable and customizable application components called SpeechObjects. These standards-based application building blocks enable the rapid, easy and cost-effective development of high-quality speech systems. SpeechObjects includes everything required to perform specific recognition verification tasks including the grammar, system prompts and dialogue.

eTransaction is based on a three-tier architecture. The first tier manages the access media, which can be over fixed telephone, Internet or mobile phone networks. The second tier manages the transaction logic, routing and validation of messages. The third tier manages the integration of the back-end supporting systems. To handle the characteristics of the different access media, eTransaction has multiple gateways equipped with the necessary interface and protocol handler. Moreover, the media access gateway can be configured to operate as a fully functional speech-recognition, interactive voice and fax response system.

eTransaction provides a comprehensive set of Windows-based tools to enable information systems managers to monitor the system. All administration and monitoring functions are based on a client-server architecture with a centralized management server to track each component of the system.