Douglas L Ross: RBOCs

Surveillance

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:59:13 GMT

Ingram spies potential in surveillance. The giant distributor of information-technology products steps into the surveillance market, in a move to provide one-stop shopping for its resellers and customers. [CNET News.com]

UNE-P Rules From FCC

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:18:49 GMT

The FCC released it's 576 page order on UNE-P yesterday. It's hard to tell whether there are any surprises in such a massive thing, but it doesn't appear so.

This is the link to the order [ http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0821/FCC-03-36A1.pdf] And this is Chairman Powell's comment [http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0821/FCC-03-36A2.pdf]

F.C.C. Discloses New Rules for Telecom Industry. The rules elaborate on an F.C.C. decision that local telephone companies must share older equipment but not newer technology dedicated to high-speed data. By Jennifer Lee. [New York Times: Technology]

SBC WiFi Deal With Wayport

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 16:52:00 GMT

Reacting to Verizon's previous wifi announcements, SBC is now getting into the act.

SBC, Wayport sign hot spot deal. The telecommunications giant becomes the latest major company to ink an agreement that will let its customers use Wayport's 650 Wi-Fi hot spots across the nation. [CNET News.com]

RBOC Broadband Plans

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 16:24:27 GMT

Some Bet the Broadband Belongs to Regional Bells, Not Cable. Spurred by an onslaught from cable operators and buoyed by a recent regulatory ruling, the regional phone companies are aggressively expanding their broadband services. By Bernard Simon. [New York Times: Technology]

Alloptic Patents

Tue, 08 Jul 2003 20:47:21 GMT

Alloptic announced today that they have been awarded U.S. Patent 6,470,032 for "transporting legacy time division multiplexing (TDM) services over Ethernet-based passive optical networks (EPON)."

VONAGE

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:35:51 GMT

Vonage is claiming the first "direct-to-consumer" deal for VoIP telephony with a cable MSO.

Telecom Industry Launches DSLHome Initiative

Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:15:08 GMT

DSL Forum launched a new initiative at Supercom to challenge the cable industry for dominance of the Home Network. It's called "DSLHome" and is described in there press release as follows:

"DSLHome has two components: technical innovation and support, as well as market awareness and promotion. This two-tiered approach in tandem with DSL Forum's drive toward fully interoperable equipment will create a real broadband DSL mass market with low consumer prices and simple setup of high-speed broadband powered home networks. As part of this program, the DSL Forum has initiated new technical work to address some key areas:

LAN side DSL customer premise equipment (CPE) configuration specifications
Dual port router requirements
WAN-side DSL CPE management specifications
Interface & System configuration for ADSL on customer premises
Privacy and Protection Security

In addition to this technical work, the DSL Forum will be launching programs to improve users’ knowledge of DSL powered home networks, and equip these users to make educated home network decisions and broadband choices. The first outcome of this effort is a pair of home networking user guides, currently under development and scheduled to be released in 4Q03. "

DSL Growth

Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:08:47 GMT

The DSL Forum announced that broadband DSL experienced its largest quarterly increase ever, adding 5.5 million new DSL subscribers worldwide in Q1- 2003. They estimate that there are now 41.3 million DSL subscribers worldwide [residential and business] and they are projecting this to grow to 200 million by 2005.

RBOCs FTTH RFP

Thu, 29 May 2003 20:11:11 GMT

Bell South, Verizon and SBC put out press releases today announcing a "joint RFP" for FTTH equipment. Here are the three versions of this announcement:

Verizon http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=80434

SBC http://www.sbc.com/press_room/1,5932,31,00.html?query=20507

Bell South http://bellsouthcorp.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=43087

Cisco Announces TWC VoIP Win

Wed, 28 May 2003 13:59:27 GMT

Cisco announced today that Time Warner Cable "is now delivering the first Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) cable primary-line residential telephone service, Digital Phone, to customers in Portland, Maine. Using the industry-leading Cisco® Internet Protocol (IP) voice solution"

Here's the article in telephony online about this announcement. http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_time_warner_cable/index.htm

Alcatel acquires ImagicTV

Fri, 16 May 2003 20:51:08 GMT

ImagicTV has a TV software platform that is deployed mainly in DSL platforms. Alcatel is acquiring them as part of their effort to complete the "triple-play" with DSL.

Ananex acquiring Alcatel and Corning Optical Units

Fri, 16 May 2003 20:41:13 GMT

Avanex is acquiring the optical businesses of Corning and Alcatel for stock representing about 45% of Avanex's value or $65 million. They are acquiring optical components, modules and subsystems for fiber optic transmission networks that should enable Avanex to offer one of the broadest lines of optical and intelligent photonic solutions for enhancing speed and capacity of optical communications systems. Avanex products will now include optical wavelength generation and modulation, multiplexing and demultiplexing, signal amplification, wavelength routing and dispersion compensation.

Broadband High Speed Data Prices Falling

Mon, 05 May 2003 15:35:20 GMT

Verizon announced that it would use promotions to lower pricing and attract new subscribers to its bundled Telephone & DSL services. Verizon's standard DSL pricing is $49.95 per month.

Promotion includes:

New subscriber promotional rate for DSL of $29.95 for the first 6 months. The promotion expires on 5/20/03.
Bundled subscribers [those who take DSL + any level of local telephony] get a discount of $15 per month from the regular DSL rate [effectively pricing DSL at $34.95 for DSL].
Bundled subscribers that take Verizon's premium $59.95 per month Veriation Freedom package (full featured plan with unlimited local and long-distance telephone) + DSL get an extra $5 per month discount on DSL reducing the DSL price to $29.95 per month.

The Work Foundation iSociety Project Research

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 14:34:41 GMT

Cost 'barrier' to future phones. A study of how real people interact with their mobiles reveals that third generation phones might not take off as the operators hope. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

SBC Rumored To Be Out Of DirecTV Bidding

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 14:24:59 GMT

Siting sources close to the negotiations a number of news organizations are reporting today that SBC has dropped out of the bidding for DirecTV.

SBC Drops Out of Bidding for Hughes and DirecTV. SBC Communications dropped out of bidding for Hughes Electronics and its DirecTV satellite television operation. By Andrew Ross Sorkin. [New York Times: Technology]

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/5539187.htm [San Jose Mercury News]

VoIP Over WiFi

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:27:53 GMT

Two interesting players in the VoIP space [Calypso Wireless Inc. and VoiceTech Communications Corp. USA] announced a licensing agreement related to technology for delivering WiFi wireless VoIP services to cellular handsets. Calypso had also previously announced a large project in China ( http://www.nasdaq.com//asp/quotes_news.asp?pageName=Company%20News&;selected=CLYW&consumer=NDQ&StoryTargetFrame=_top&market=Other%20OTC&coname=CALYPSO%20WIRELESS%20INC&symbol=CLYW&cpath=20030206%5C200302060815CTXBIZ34330565.htm)

DSL Conference Says xDSL "Video Is Ready"

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:21:42 GMT

A premsis of this Pulver.com "Fast Net" conference is that DSL is "ready" for video.

DirecTV Bidders Now Include Cablevision

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 14:52:42 GMT

According to this article in Forbes, the bidders for DirecTV now include Cablevision, News Corp. Liberty and SBC, http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2003/03/27/rtr922735.html

AOL Voicemail

Thu, 27 Mar 2003 14:41:23 GMT

AOL(r) Voicemail is a new premium service that enables AOL members to listen to their home voice messages online and their AOL e-mails over the telephone. It is accomplished using the Telco's caller ID and call forwarding features along with AOL servers to digitize and serve up voice messages as on-line files.

Verizon To Expand Broadband Services

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 19:59:37 GMT

Verizon announced that it intends to increase it's Broadband DSL coverage by 10 million homes [up 28%] from 36 million homes to 46 million by the end of 2003, giving it Broadband coverage of ~80% of homes in its service area. They also announced that

"The company will put DSL equipment in more than 3,000 neighborhood terminals that are connected to the Verizon network with fiber-optic cables, and it will put DSL equipment in approximately 1,000 additional neighborhood switching centers."
"Verizon is exploring ways to advance its broadband deployment in 2004, including deploying fiber into neighborhoods and even bringing fiber to the premises of an initial set of customers."

FTTH Penetration Study

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:18:27 GMT

A FTTH Council press release today announced the results of a study on FTTH by Render Vanderslice & Associates. Here's an exerpt...

WASHINGTON – March 18, 2003 – The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council has updated its running list of “U.S. Optical Fiber Communities” with 20 new communities, bringing the current total to 70 communities in 20 states. The list, which was prepared by Render, Vanderslice and Associates of Tulsa, Okla. and first released in August 2002, tracks communities nationwide that are meeting growing consumer demand for broadband through FTTH solutions.

Municipal Broadband Systems

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 13:13:42 GMT

Cities Deliver Broadband for Less. Following a recent FCC decision that could limit competition among broadband providers, publicly owned high-speed access networks may prove a more popular alternative to private ISPs. By Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]

IBM VoIP

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 15:08:08 GMT

Report at Network World Fusion that IBM is moving its employee base to VoIP

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0303ibmvoip.html

Spectrum Auctions or Spectrum Commons

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:59:46 GMT

Spectrum allocation draws intense debate [InfoWorld: Top News]

SBC Response to FCC Action

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 19:13:43 GMT

Here's an exerpt from SBC's response to recent FCC decision on local competition rules...

"The FCC faced clear alternatives in developing local competition rules and it chose the path of political expediency, said SBC Communications President William Daley. "It is a decision that harms consumers by threatening real competition, investment, jobs, and the viability of the nation's telephone networks," he said."